and that there were particular concerns about eastern libya. mr. westmoreland: did you read the piece that was libya -- >> you can continue to watch hillary clinton's testimony on c-span3, c-span.org or listen to c-span radio. your phone calls, facebook, are welcome. ts the entire hearing will reair tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. here on c-span the house is about to begin its legislative day and preliminary debate on a budget deficit reduction bill containing language that repeals the health care laws' individual mandate and defunds planned parenthood for a year. live coverage of the house. the speaker: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by ur guest chaplain reverend rod cannon, new vision worship center, florida. >> we are thankful for you and

the government that was built on your foundation. we thank you for our representatives who are charged with focusing on their districts they represent and our nation as a whole. bless them, father, let the burden that they have for their communities be shared by the people they represent. i pray for unity in their hearts. may they share one focus and may that focus be pleasing to you. lord, open our eyes to see wonder rouse things and grant a strong desire for your wisdom and the commitment to never return. let our nation be a land pleasing and prosperous in your sight and our military and law enforcement who lay their lives on the line every day on our behalf in jesus name we pray. amen. the speaker: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands

allegiance dge of will be led by the gentleman from nebraska. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. the speaker: without objection, the gentleman from florida, mr. rooney, is recognized for one minute. mr. rooney: notwithstanding you, mr. speaker. i -- thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to recognize the reverend rod cannon of florida. this afternoon he offered the opening prayer as the guest chaplain for the house of representatives. i would like to thank reverend cannon for traveling to washington for this honor and house chaplain father conroy for providing this opportunity to a pastor from the 17th district of florida. reverend rod cannon is the senior pastor at new vision

worship center in florida. he comes from a family of devoted to the church of god where both his father and son have been influential pastors in that community. reverend cannon has been a leader in his church and the community since he arrived at the new vision worship center in 2009. he's offered prayers across the state of florida and i'm happy he can add the house of representatives to his extensive ministry. i commend reverend cannon's commitment to his ministry and wish to thank him for offering the opening prayer today. it was my honor to invite him to washington as guest chaplain w that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain up to 15 further requests for one minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from indiana seek recognition? without objection, the gentlewoman from is recognized for one minute. mrs. walorski: the e.p.a. is at

it again. a few weeks ago this run away agency released its most expensive regulation in history. the new ozone rule joins a number of other costly, expansive, and crippling regulations put out by the e.p.a. during the obama administration. according to the e.p.a.'s own estimates, this new regulation will be one of the most crippling in history at a cost of $1.4 billion a year. while no one disagrees that the protection of air quality is an essential responsibility, hoosiers have a proven track record of being good stewards of the environment and the economy. yet the e.p.a. continues to issue rules that overwhelm hoosier companies and threaten job creation. we should focus on policies that grow the economy, protect our environment, and not burying job creators under red tape and mandates. it's time to end the e.p.a.'s assault on business. that's why today i'm introducing a resolution of disapproval that would block this harmful regulation. i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution

and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? mr. higgins: unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. higgins: i recently joined my colleagues on the great lakes task force to ask the white house to support funding for the great lakes restoration initiative next year. it is the world's largest system of fresh water. it supports 1.5 million american jobs, and $62 billion in wages. keeping new york, the lake clean for recreation and p fishing is sustainable to sustain be economic growth. it's also been instrumental in the next days the of buffaloer front renaissance. $30 million in funding to clean up the rever has leveraged $20 million in private investment. now the river that the federal government declared biologically dead in 1968 will

be swimmable and fishable in five years much the great lakes restoration initiative is creating jobs and improving environmental quality in my community. it's producing returns for the national economy. so i encourage my colleagues to support the great lakes restoration initiative funding in the upcoming budget negotiations and support the passage of the great lakes restoration act which would authorize this program through 2020. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from washington eek recognition? mrs. mcmorris rodgers: permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. mrs. mcmorris rodgers: defending the american people is the chief responsibility of our government. it's a constitutional obligation that the house and senate take seriously. this week congress puts the national defense authorization act on the president's desk. it's an important example of how congress should work together to get the job done for the american people. this is bipartisan.

we do it every year to fund our military. for 53 years congresses have passed, presidents have signed this legislation. later today president obama will veto. my district is home to fair child air force base. and i know firsthand the importance of our defense funding. the national defense authorization act funds vital military operations and equipment. military families rely on it for salaries, medical care, and transitional resources. our nation was built on service before self. we have an obligation and the commander in chief has an obligation to ensure military and defense remains our top priority. mr. speaker, the president must act. stop playing politics. support our troops. keep america safe. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from nebraska seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to

address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute.ntleman is recognized fo minute. mr. ashford: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to oppose any potential default on our nation's fiscal obligations. treasury secretary lieu stated we must act before december 3 to avoid a default. if we default we can't pay our obligations at home and that means our veterans and seniors go without the benefits they have earned. there is no doubt that we must rein in spending and we must work together and i know we can to do so. at the same time, we must keep the promises that we have made to our veterans, to our seniors, and to our nation's bondholders. president ronald reagan agreed that sacrificing our credit rating in the name of fiscal responsibility is not responsibility at all. set up a potential default, brinksmanship threatens those who rely on social security, instability would occur, and

financial markets and the ederal deficit would soar. let's find a bipartisan pathway which i know we can do that will control our spending and prevent the devastating effects of default on our economy and our veterans. thank you, 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 georgia seek recognition? >> unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today in support of h.r. 3762, the restoring americans health care freedom reconciliation act. over the past 10 months the house has passed a budget, acted to defund planned parenthood, and other abortion providers, and repealed obamacare. mr. carter: yet these actions by the house have been stonewalled in the senate by its failure to garner the 60 votes necessary to deliver these important pieces of legislation to the president's desk. now is our chance. this bill provides an avenue for the senate to pass what the

house has already done. this bill prohibits federal nding to entities like planned parenthood that engages in the practice of elective abortions. in turn, it provides funding to community health centers for improving women's health care. it repeals the individual and employer mandates in obamacare. it repeals the medical device tax and excise tax on high cost health insurance plans and achieves all of this and more while saving almost $79 billion in taxpayer dollars. this bill finally provides a pathway to the president's desk for reforms that we in the house have long fought for. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield the well. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek wreck nix? -- recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise to recognize a remarkable family of american heroes. men and women who since world

war ii have served in our armed forces to keep all of us and our way of life safe and secure. the story begins with mr. ortiz and his wife who migrated to the united states from mexico in 1912. and in 1915, moved to the valley. mr. rue i: in the heart of our southern california desert, they put down roots, resilient roots, mind you, and raised their children to val ute american dream. it was those teachings that inspired and drove their sons pete and overtone list in the u.s. armed services and defend our nation. ever since world war ii, every generation of the ortiz family totaling over 50 family members, have drambly served in america's armed forces, putting their lives on the line to protect our freedoms. for their selfless and honorable service, i am proud to recognize the valor and sacrifice of the ortiz family.

thank you for your service. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> seek unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to recognize the accomplishments of one of the longest serving trustees of the university of south florida. mrs. debbie simbler. for 12 years she served on the board of trustees and 10 years she served as chair of the exam pus board of st. petersburg. mr. jolly: as her service ends, i pay beauty to her many accomplishments. not just for students in the tampa bay area but for students across the state of florida and around the world. when she became a trustee in 2003, u.s.s. st. pete was just earning a reputation as a research institution. today it has over 7,000 students and 37 under glad watt and graduate programs.

as a trustee she has led you u.s.f. st. pete through this growth. ensuring the system is recognized today as one of our nation's leading higher education institutions. mr. speaker, i urge my colleagues to join me in congratulating and thanking debbie for her hard work and dedication to u.s.f. for her commitment to higher education. and most importantly for her passion for student success. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yield back. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> 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. speaker, i rise today to recognize real fool

gardens, an organization that works in over elementary schools in my district, building gardens that engage the curiosity of students through stem education. as a member of the house, science, space, and technology committee i'm proud of the work that real school gardens has done in creating a pipeline, a stem pipeline in texas that increases hands on learning for alt students, including more than 100,000 students as of this year. additionally, real school gardens has become a great equalizer for many struents in the grand prairie, dallas, arlington school districts who have limited access to learning resources. on november 14, 2015, rural school gardens will break ground to create its 100th garden in partnership with sprouts supermarket. i congratulate them on this achievement and work in engaging the minds of our youngest members in the community. mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the the gentlewoman from north carolina seek recognition? ms. foxx: i ask unanimous consent to address the house

for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. mitts fox: thank you, mr. speaker. each year since 1960, the third week in october has been proclaimed national forest products week. it's a week in which we celebrate all of the ways that paper and wood products enhance our daily lives. this industry is particularly important to the economic success of north carolina where nearly 60% of the total land area is forest, and more than 18 million acres are dedicated to growing timber. with nearly 250 manufacturing facilities, the state's forest products industry employs more than 40,000 men and women at a payroll of approximately $2 billion per year. . the value of the products is more than $10 billion. american forests keep our air and water clean and renewing wildlife habitat and they are an economic generator in the

nation's rural communities delivering the paper and manufactured products we rely on every day. we are grateful for this industry in north carolina. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to permission to address the house for one minute. and revise and one extend. mr. barton: the white house fellows association is honoring the 50th affers established by resident johnson back in 1964. since its inception there have been 738 young men and young women who have served the president and vice president of the united states and the cabinet officers in various capacities in all the federal agencies. i was honored in 1981 to be selected in the first class of

president reagan's white house fellows program. i served with the former governor of south carolina, the secretary of energy in the department of energy. mr. speaker, this is an excellent program opened to all young americans early in their careers who want to spend some time in washington and then go back to their former careers with a better understanding of how our federal government works. i have introduced house congressional resolution 82 to recognize the white house fellows and their many contributions to our country. i would urge my members to support this resolution if and when it comes to the floor. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana seek recognition. > ask unanimous consent to revizz and extend my remarks. >> i rise today to congratulate and honor two southern indiana schools of their distinguished

success. farmersville elementary school and north elementary school were recently selected as 2015 national blue ribbon schools by the u.s. department of education for their academic excellence. each school will be honored in november along with 133 other schools across the country at a ceremony here in washington, d.c. they were recognized as high-performing schools which is without a doubt due to the hard work of dedicated teachers, faculty and committed stunesdz. congratulations to farmersville and north elementary schools, this is a well deserved national recognition. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. >> mr. speaker, on tuesday

night, right after dark, officer randolve holder heard on his radio, shots fired. mr. poe: he rushed toward the gunfire in east harlem and arrived and was gunned down by an outlaw. he was assassinated in the head. just 33 years old, randolph holder was an immigrant. according to his aunt, his job was the first in his life and cherished the opportunity to become a policeman in america. he was a third generation police officer following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather who served as peace officers in guyana and he was the first to serve in that capacity in america. his killer was a hard violent criminal who shouldn't have been on the streets. 31 officers have been killed in the line of duty just this year.

the badge represents safety for most is a target for some. those in blue do a job that many of us would never do, so we owe them all like officer holder, our extreme appreciation for taking care of the rest of us. and that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from missouri seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> i rise today with a simple request. every day across the globe men and women of the united states armed forces making grave sack -- sacrifices. from the iranian regime pursuing a nuclear weapon from the islamic state to russia looking to expand its influence in a world where american leadership is on the decline. we rely on the men and women in

uniform to keep us safe. mrs. wagner: in congress, we are promoting legislation to give them the tools they need and providing for their families. the house and senate fulfill these responsibilities by passing the national defense authorization defense act in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion ensuring our military that as they protect us, we will support them. it is totally irresponsible for the president to veto this bill while our troops are in harm's way and i call on all members of congress to join together to override the bill. there is nothing political or partisan about the support for our military and it is outrageous that the president would take this action. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to

evise and extend my remarks. today i want to give special recognition to a special individual. the leming: jason spradley eagle scout designation. he is a senior at a high school in louisiana and hopes to pursue law and become a j.a.g. officer. while he is 17 years old, he has worked over a decade to reach eagle scout status and must earn 21 merits. he earned almost 40. these young men earn merits by proving their skills in camping, first aid and many more, but more than learning how to fish or start a fire, boy scouts learn about serving their community. obedience, loyalty and many

other characteristics make up what we know to be a true leader. the boy scouts' motto is be prepared. i would say jason and these young men have built a solid foundation in their lives. i wish him the rest of the members in troop 105 in louisiana and the many other young men across the country who have attained eagle scout, the very best. i know that they all have a bright future ahead. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from montana seek recognition? mr. zinke: permission to address the house for one minute. this week we celebrate the national forest products week and i rise to recognize the importance and contributions of our wood products across montana and the country. in my home state we have 20 million acres of timber. we have 12 saw mills that

employs thousands of the people of montana. and yet, we can't cut a tree in montana. a number of lumber products has gone down because we can't figure it out in this body how to cut a tree without a lawsuit. there's a bipartisan bill in the senate, the federal forest resilient act that passed out of this body bipartisan and the senate is not picking it up. we rnts going to hear about forest fires from now until the end of winter, but they are there and it's time to act. when a bipartisan bill comes out of this house and the senate refuses to pick it up, it has nsequences on montana and on hardworking families. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time.

for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina seek recognition? >> permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> mr. speaker, last sunday, the president's iranian nuclear deal, a tragic mistake, went into effect. mr. wilson: instead of making the world safer, american families have become less safe. the orted in charleston, iranian regime tested a ballistic missile that could reach israel indirect violation of the u.n. resolutions. after the test of the missile, the iranian defense minister said we don't ask permission from anyone. this does not come as a surprise. we know there is iranian regime cannot be trusted. sadly, it is shocking that the president has dismissed the iranian regime's flage grant disregard of international rules and still insist that iran will uphold their part of the deal.

the eft is overwhelming that they will break the agreement with billions of dollars for new attacks. the legacy puts american families at risk and a rogue regime. in conclusion, god bless our troops and by the president of his actions never forget september 11. tomorrow is the 32nd anniversary of the murder of 241 americans at the marine barracks in beirut . our sympathy to their families. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thompson: this weekend, i will be joining countless advocates for a buddy walk hosted by the national down syndrome society.

these walks have been held across the nation for the past 20 years raising awareness and promoting self-advocacy. in spite of extra challenges, many people with down sin dome, attend school, work and contribute to society. in order to provide those living with down syndrome and other disabilities, i was happy to co-sponsor along with my colleagues in the house, achieving a better experience in life. this law allows people with disabilities and their families to help save for medical and dental care, employment training, housing and transportation. in my home state of pennsylvania, state legislation that will allow deductions of account contributions from taxable income has been introduced in the commonwealth's house and senate. i urge passage to complete the work the federal government has started. thank you. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> ask unanimous consent to permission to address the house for one minute. and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. bilirakis: this month, we recognize down syndrome awareness month. as we celebrate the abilities of more than 400,000 americans living with down syndrome, it is important that we address some of their problems these individuals and their families face. families and patients who are affected by down syndrome face many related health issues. i had the privilege of meeting an inspire patient during the energy and commerce's work on 21 century cures legislation. madison, a young girl, diagnosed with down syndrome had four major open heart surgeries all before her third birthday. 50% of children born with down syndrome have some form of heart

detect, yet her surgeries are fairly new in the medical world. our cures legislation encourages additional research for medications and procedures that could benefit children like madison. we must continue our work to promote a better quality of life for all patients across the nation. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does does the gentleman from illinois seek recognition? >> permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker, i rise today to recognize the international day of the girl and the girl-up movement. their mission is to raise awareness to the neglect and devaluation of girls around the world and advance girls' lives and opportunities. . speaker, in a refugee camp in ethiopia, girls comprise about 30% of the population. due to the lack of resources,

many families of the tribe have stopped educating their girls. this leaves young women more vulnerable to be victims of sexual violence and limits their lives and opportunities. girl-up a local campaign in illinois 10th congressional district is working to combat the global crisis. young women like celia are working with their high schools to provide resources like school uniforms and backpacks and safe spaces. i'm proud to work with them and recognize the international day of the girl to bring awareness to the complex challenges facing young women around the globe. i yield back. . the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk

following message from the secretary of the senate on october 22, 2015, at 10:47 a.m. that the senate passed with amendments h.r. 208. that the senate passed without amendment h.r. 774. with best wishes i am, signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition? mr. woodall: by direction of the committee on rules, i call up house resolution 483 and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: who is calendar number 68, house resolution 483. resolved, that upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the house the bill, h.r. 3762, to provide for reconciliation pursuant to section 2002, of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2016. all points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. the amendment printed in the

report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution shall be considered as adopted. the bill as amended shall be considered as read. all points of order against provisions in the bill as amended are waived. the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill as amended and on any further amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except, one, two hours of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on the budget or their respective designees. and two, one motion to recommit with or without instructions. section 2, the requirement of clause 6-a of rule 13 for a 2/3 vote to consider a report from the committee on rules on the same day it is presented to the house is waived with respect to any resolution reported through the legislative day of october 23, 2025. section 3, it shall be in order at any time on the legislative day of october 22, 2015, or

october 23, 2015, where the for the speaker to entertain motion that the house suspend the rules as though under clause 1 of rule 1. the speaker or his designee shall consult with the minority leader or her designee on the designation of any matter for consideration pursuant to this section. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for one hour. mr. woodall: thank you, mr. speaker. during consideration of this resolution all time is yielded for the purpose of debate only. i'd like to yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend from new york, ms. slaughter, pending which i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. woodall: i'd also like to ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. woodall: i want to start with the end of what our reading clerk read before i get to the excitement at the beginning. at the end what you heard was

some blanket authority to consider what i'll call housekeeping measures here in the house and not because republicans say so, not because democrats say so, but because republicans and democrats come together, consult with one another, and try to find those issues on which we agree to bring forward. i sit on the rules committee, mr. speaker. the best thing that happens in this institution is when a bill comes through the rules committee because my colleague miss daughter and i always make it better. we always make it bert, but we include authority to avoid the rules committee for some of these issues that are going to come to the floor fast and furious. here we are at the end of the cycle, leadership change here in the house, you don't know what might happen and what the rules committee did last night was to create a pathway to allow the house to continue its business at a moment's notice. i'm glad that we included that provision in here. we also included same day consideration authority, mr. speaker. one of the things that happened when the big freshman class that i was elected with in 2010

came, as we said for pete's sakes we need time to read the bills. we need to follow the rules and make sure that all members have a chance to get deep into the information and legislation. that persists still today. we have a process today that allows members to get involved in that legislation. but we still have those emergency times here in this chamber where something has to happen in a hurry. whether we are talking about borrowing authority, spending authority. whether we are talking about something for our troops, something for our veterans, things still happen on a moment's notice. what we have included in here is the ability to bring things re quickly to the floor here in the next short period of time. that's important from a housekeeping perspective, mr. speaker, but that's not what's important about this rule today. what's important about this rule today is that 4 1/2 years ago the people of the great state of georgia, 7th distrirkts sent me to congress

-- district sent me to congress, and i was placed on the budget committee in this congress. the budget committee, the committee that writes the framework by which the entire $3.5 trillion federal government is funded. we got together and worked hard here in the house, mr. speaker, and we produced the budget but the senate did nothing. i came back that second year, 2012, we worked hard here in the house, together we produced a budget, but the senate did nothing. came back again, 2013, worked hard here in the house, produced a budget, but the senate produced nothing. mr. speaker, what we are here today to do, what we are here today to do is made possible for one reason and one reason only and that is because for the first time since 2001 republicans and democrats came together in the house, republican and democratsing came together in the senate. we passed a budget. they passed a budget. we concernsed a -- conferenced a budget and america has a banced budget under which it lives under for the first time.

in 15 years. for the first te in 15 years. what does that mean? it's not all that eiting to read the budget, mr. speaker. i recommend it to you if you haven't gotten in the details, recommend it to anybody who hasn't gotten into the details. that's not what's exciting. it's not the numbers, what's excite something because we came together, not because we had our ideas and they had their ideas, but because we came together we triggered a process called reconciliation. now, i'm saddened that reconciliation is now in the lecon of the american people. it's not an importa word that folks need to know except for the fact that it gives us access to do things on their behalf that we wouldn't be able to do before. i'm so pleased that the secretary of the senate sent that message over right before we got up to say that the nate has just acted on two pieces of houseegislation. one of those enacted with no amendments, that's going to b on the way to the president's desk. one done with amendments, 'll have to consider that again.

but so often we do such good work, the 435 of us together in this chamber, and it does not get past a senate filibuster. mr. speaker, the filibuster is designed to protect the rights of the minority, republicans use it when they are in the minority. democrats use it when they are in the minority. people's ents the business from moving forward. not so today. not so today. because we got together in the house with a budget and the senate in the budget, we brought a budget together, we are now in the process of reconciliation which allows us to have the people's will be done. 51 ves in the senate now will move legislation forward as it relates to balancing the budget. you remember admiral mullen, he said, mr. speaker, the greatest threat to american national security wasn't a military threat, he said it was our federal budget deficit. we have done such an amazing job collaboratively in this chamber working on the 1/3 of the budget pie called

discretionary spending. that's the spending we have to work on here every year. what we have failed to do together is work on the 2/3 of the pie called mandatory spending. where the real growth in those budget programs occurs. but that failure ends today. with the passage of this rule, we will move to consider the first reconciliation package that has come to congress in the 4 1/2 years that i have been here. made possible by the first balanced budget agreement that congress has come to since 2001. mr. speaker, this is why, this is why i came to congress and we are doing this together here today. let me tell you what's in this bill. i have seen it described in the press as a complete and total repeal of the president's health care bill. that's nonsense. i would support such an effort if we could bring such an effort to the floor. but that's not what this bill is today. what this bill is today is a group of commonsense budget saving spending reprioritizing measures. give you an example.

there's a medical excise tax the president's health care law put into effect. it's 2.3%. it's an excise tax. a gross receipts tax on all medical innovation in this country as it relates to devicings. -- devices. we all know the power to tax is the power to destroy. there is not one member this this chamber who votes to destroy medical innovation, not one. not one. but back at the time when the congressional budget office said the president's health care bill was going to cost $1 trillion, the president said i'm not going to spend a penny more than $1 trillion. i'm going to make sure it's paid for. turns out medical innovation was a place we could look. we see now in retrospect was a terrible idea. much like the other nine bills theyed passed in the house, they passed in the senate the senate signed of the law to repeal various parts of the health care law. this is another. we can do this together here today made possible by this first budget agreement we have had since 2001.

the cadillac tax it's called, mr. speaker. another provision this bill will repeal. it's a cadillac tax, mr. speaker. as we all know cadillac is a fine american automobile. you get in the cadillac, you feel good. we call the cadillac tax because it's on health care plans that are too good, too good, turns out, mr. speaker, there are some labor unions in this country that are taking too good a care of their members. turns out there are some businesses in this country that are looking after their health care needs of their employees too much. we want to keep that down. the last thing we want in this contry, apparently, are folks having health care that's too good. i tell people all the time, mr. speaker, i can make everybody in this country poor. i can't pass law to make everybody rich. we are so good at dumbing down the system for everybody. that's what this cadillac tax was designed to do. the labor unions don't like it. employers don't like it. we all know it's not the right thing to do. in a bipartisan way we have

introduced legislation to repeal it. this bill, this rule gives us an opportunity to actually send that to the president's desk. mr. speaker, i won't go on and on about all the good things in this bill. i'm sure my colleague from new york is going to highlight a lot of those herself. i don't want to steal all the thunder. but we are here because 435 of us came together here. 100 came together there. and america is operating under a conferenced budget. not just a budget, but a balanced budget. for the first time since 2001. a lot of disappointments come out of washington, d.c., mr. speaker, but we are here on the floor today talking about one of those things we get to celebrate. one of those successes on behalf of the families back home that we have done together. with that i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentlewoman from new york. ms. slaughter: thank you very much, mr. speaker. good morning -- good afternoon.

i thank my good friend for yielding me the time. i really enjoy serving with him on the rules committee because he's always so cheerful. and puts such a good face on everything. and heaven knows we can use that in the world. but the truth is, mr. speaker, and my colleague knows it, that by taking away the funding for the health care act, you are killing the health care act. and that means that people would go back to not having pre-existing conditions covered. that means that women in eight states and the district of columbia would face the fact that their insurance companies consider domestic violence to be a pre-existing condition, which translates out if you are beaten up once, maybe she'll cover you. second time it's obviously your fault. you have that propensity. we can't go back to that. rising costs of health care with so many americans using the most expensive kind of

health care in the world, the emergency room. this -- we are told that if this were to pass that 13 million americans would lose their health care, but the fact of the matter, mr. chairman, this is not going to pass. we know that. as a matter of fact, i find myself saying over and over again the very same things. i remember saying the 35th vote. the 40th vote. this, mr. speaker, is the 61st vote using tax money and wasting time to take health care away from people. now, i have asked many, many times in the rules committee, what is this great urge to prohibit people from having access to health care? the best i can come up with it -- with is they don't care about those people, but they want to do something to upset the president.

there was a good deal of talk yesterday that if we could add a few amendments on here it would really cause him grief. it's not going to cause him any grief if this should pass, the senate should pass it, which is in control of the republicans, if you complain about them not passing a bill, take it up with them, but what we are going to be doing is the president will veto it, and you know very good and well that we don't have the votes here to override. so we are wasting time. . money, millions of dollars that has been spent for these 61 bills. but let's throw something else, defund planned parent hood for one year. why? i don't know. three committees in the house of representatives are studying planned parenthood and we have to look to a select committee which will go over the same thing over and over again and

come up with a conclusion that congressman chaffetz came up after they grilled the president of planned parenthood that there was nothing there, that they broke no law. i don't know why the american public is outraged that none of their business is taken care of but over and over and over again we talk about taking health care away from people. one in five american women and men have used planned parenthood and do today and add to that 13 million people that will lose their health care should this become law, three million of them children. now what should we shall doing? how about the export-import bank. it puts money back into the treasury and allows small companies in the united states to be able to export their goods to other countries. and the loss of that bank has already received from both general electric and boeing,

that they are going to take jobs out of the united states because we don't have it. there is no reason not to have it. it doesn't cost us anything. it makes us money, but just for some members of congress, they just don't like it. now this is the same majority that has produced no highway bill. we are on the road to nowhere. first time i was in congress, highway bill was always bipartisan. but we have roads and bridges crumbling, no high-speed rail, the airports are overcrowded but we are working on something to do about the health care bill and planned parenthood. this is the same majority that brought us seven legislative days risking the full faith and credit of the united states and what that means is that we are refusing or the majority is to bring up a bill here to pay the debt that they have already

incurred. it is the congress that spends the money. and now they decided they don't want to pay for it and putting that off. we have heard talk that tomorrow we are supposed to have a bill, but we all know because we all hear what's going on, there are only 170 votes for that bill. so we may not see it. so what we are going to do today is give everybody in the house of representatives an opportunity to protect the full faith and credit of the united states and not risk another shutdown, downgrade, rather, of our credit rating. to downgrade the credit rating of the united states was something that all previous congresseses felt it was an impossible thing for them to allow. while this is festering out there and nothing being done about it, we are hurling toward another shutdown in id-december.

now according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, the reconciliation bill before us would take health care away from 16 million, three million children, most of them don't have any health care at all before the a.c.a. was passed and it will defund planned parent hood and endanger the health of men and women all over the country. if we have haven't seen that enough, this defunds planned parenthood. three weeks ago, we stood on the floor that they threatened to

shut down the government over the funding of the planned parenthood. the american public gave a message to congress, don't do it. in fact nearly seven in 10 americans oppose a government shutdown over planned parenthood funding according to a poll. now with this 61st vote to dismantle the a.c.a., it doesn't say we are going to kill this thing but take the money away from it. you know if you take the money away, you will have killed that bill. we understand that. as the majority continues to beat their head up against the brick wall, the american people get the head ache. this reconciliation bill takes health care away from 16 million americans and second, attacks women's health by defunding planned parenthood. i believe that governing in this

body is a serious job with serious consequences. to rinksmanship is danger our economy and unsettling to our nation. the last time the majority shut down the government over the debt limit, it took $24 billion out of this economy. and the consequences of this kind of brinksmanship are real and not imagined. we have been through it once. why in the world would we self-inflict that wound on ourselves again? we should not be pushed to the edge over and over again. we should be planning what we need to do, follow regular order. my dear colleague, mr. woodal, talked about how well democrats and republicans work together. i don't know where that is. i know the chair of the benghazi talked about seven members, but

there are 12 on there, the five democrats on there do not signify with them. we need to focus on the urgent needs of the nation and not manufacture crises that they are insisting on creating. to address the real issue, we got to plan to allow us to pay the bills that this congress has incurred and protect the full faith and credit of the united states. we always call for this -- we do something called the previous question, and this today, what we are doing, when the previous question on this rule vote is called, i hope that every member who wants to do something about the debt limit and the full faith and credit of the united states will vote no so our side can bring this up and give everybody the opportunity to go home for a weekend. by the time we get back here next week, there will be fewer legislative days to deal with

it. our troops, national security, the whole federal government and most of the people in the united states are very much concerned with what will happen if it shuts down. let's relieve us of that burden and vote today to deal with the debt limit. i invite all members to vote for the democrats' clean, simple bill. it doesn't do anything about taking away regulations from the government. it deals with the most important matter at hand at this point, and that is the full faith and credit of the united states. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady reserves. the gentleman from georgia. mr. woodall: i yield myself such time as i may consume. i confess, i was going through my papers and i thought i would come down here on the wrong bill hearing my friend describe it. if you listen to that description and believe it, you ought to vote no, but it's just not true. it's just not true. i'll go line by line a little

bit. you won't find a c.b.o. document over there that says it is going to take health care away from 16 million. you won't found a document the underlying bill is going to take health care away because such a document does not exist. c.b.o. said that it would provide health care for 16 million americans and the president has joined with this house and that senate nine times to repeal errant provisions of that health care bill and that's what we are going to do in this legislation today. you won't find any language that suggests that house resolution 483 is going to deal with pre-existing conditions whatsoever, nor will you find any paper that suggests the underlying h.r. 1162 is going to set back the pre-existing conditions. the president led on the issue of pre-existing conditions much

like a great georgia of this house, newt gingrich and bill clinton did in 1996. they outlawed pre-existing conditions for federally-regulated plans. the president said if states haven't done it on their own, we are going to do it. the president president won that debate and i think that's a success for families with pre-existing diseases and something else we ought to be celebrating and not holding our heads low about. mr. speaker, when the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff tells you that the debatest threat to america's national security is our budget deficit and at the time that i arrived here in congress in 2010, america was running its largest budget deficits in american history, three times the size that they are today, i tell you a bill like this that goes after those deficit numbers is a critically important bill.

it is the business that my constituents back home sent me to be about in this institution. in the 4 1/2 years that the folks in my district, we have brought budget deficits down each and every year. each and every year, year after year after year after year. but that's been primarilyly on that discretionary one-third of the pie we talked about. there is so much more work to be done and reconciliation is the tool we use to get around the filibuster and allow the people's will to be done with simple majorities on both sides of the hill. good news, if you don't believe what is in the underlying bill is good for america, you can vote no. if 1% of your colleagues agree, this bill will not go forward. this is good news. when it goes over to the senate, if the senate does not believe

this is good policy for america and 51 senators vote against it, this bill will not go to the president's desk. but that's not going to happen because there is good policy in the underlying bill and this will go to the president's desk. if the president is contemplating vetoing the national defense authorization act and that may be happening as we are standing here now, that bill that provides funding for all of our troops, i can't possible apply predict what he will do when this bill arrives on his desk. what my friend from new york fails to mention, when she mentions 61 times in this house we have dealt with trying to clean up the messes that the affordable care act has created, nine of those times, the president goode with us. it is critically important, mr. speaker. we get wrapped around the rtisan axle in ways that are

discouraging to me. it's not just a proposition about us, about us, 320 million of us. and nine times so far, mr. speaker, just in the short time that i have been in congress, the house, the senate and the president have gotten together have said the affordable care act is broken and together we can begin to fix it. i believe this is one of those opportunities as well. it will be a tremendous vote on passing this rule and begin debate on passing the legislation. with that, i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentlelady from new york. ms. slaughter: let me yield 30 seconds and say once again, no, they don't say we are going to take away pre-existing conditions but the funding for the bill. when the funding goes away, it dice. most americans understand that. and i yield 3 1/2 minutes to the

gentleman from michigan, the distinguished ranking member member of the judiciary committee. mr. conyers. mr. conyers: mr. speaker, we are here today to discuss the rule for reconciliation, which i believe we are wasting on a doomed attempt to repeal obamacare for the 61st time that we are doing this again for the 61st time is a problem. but that we are wasting our one shot at budget reconciliation on this is a tremendous shame. and we should use -- be using this opportunity to avoid the senate filibuster to actually make law, not make a point to our bases. and the way to do this is by focusing on a bipartisan issue,

cancelling the sequester. the sequester is a unique problem in american public policy, a program that is intentionally designed to be a bad idea. cripples the programs that made progress andury of weakens the greatest military. it's bad for us at home and bad for us overseas. is a blundering approach to deficit reduction and what supposed to push this congress to compromise. unfortunately, we have not otten there because of a few that refuse to give up this hostage. it isn't this body that is paying the ransome but the american people of all walks of life. it is the millions of workers,

businesses, public servants and soldiers who are facing uncertainty and inadequate support. . canceling the sequester is something both sides could actually agree on. and so i urge my colleagues, please, bring this theater to a close and to return to something we can all support. let's use reconciliation to cancel the sequester once and for all. i thank the gentlelady and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlemanields. the gentleman from georgia. mr. woodall: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. if i could just say to my friend from michigan, i think there's a lot of wisdom in what he had to say. my friend has been here, mr. speaker, since 1965, i believe.

i can't believe elected in 1964, started in 1965, seen a lot of failures and a lot of success in this institution. and reconciliation does the really hard things that we can't get done in other times. i would say to my friend, mr. speaker, that the vote has been cast on reconciliation for 2015. we are going to come back and get a conferenced balanced budget next year. i hear that drumat beginning around this institution. what is it we can get done together? i hope we can get this done, make no mistake. i believe this is good underlying legislation, but the past -- well, three decades now, since 1980, as i think of the big reconciliation measures that have gone through have been things that have changed america for the better forever. and i am grateful to the gentleman for reminding us all

the power of this. mr. speaker, 61 times we had a vote on the president's health care bill, that's true, but it's because there are real problems there. again, nine times of which the president has agreed with us about those real problems. the folks who crafted the president's health care bill were smart. i don't have any of the concerns about the funding that my friend from new york has, mr. speaker, because the bill is -- has funding buried in it in such a way we don't have any access to this from this institution. that's why we passed 4 1/2 years of legislation here without getting our arms around that funding. but we're talking about here, mr. speaker, are budget deficits. what we're talking about here is opportunity to move the needle on mandatory spending. what we're talking about here is about $81 billion in static scored money, closer to $140

billion in dynamically scored money, moving the needle on the udget that admiral mullin, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said. i don't know where the vote will be. we started it in the budget committee. we conferced it with the senate. we then sent those reconciliation instructions out to the energy and commerce committee, the ed and labor committee, the ways a means committee, sent that work back to the budget committee. we then brought all that legislation together meerks -- -- together, mr. speaker. if you have a textbook case of how it's supposed to be done it's it. as a gentleman that's been disappointed in 4 1/2 years,o those that believe you get what you want every day of the week, it's not. the collective wisdom of the

body, the collective wisdom from our committee structures and this bill does i there's only way to get to this bill, though, mr. speaker. that's to pass this rule today, house resolution 483, and i encourage my colleagues to do that. with that i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentlelady from new york. ms. slaughter: mr. speaker, i'm pleased to yield three minutes to the gentleman from connecticut, mr. courtney. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. courtney: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill. and i do so as somebody who comes from a state which unlike maybe the gentleman from georgia actually embraced this law. the governor set up an exchange right away and we have had what "forbes" magazine describes the highest functioning exchange in the country. our uninlshurd rate went down from 8% to 4%. we have more insurers in the marketplace today than we had before the a.c.a. was passed. labor day i was picnic with some friends, and there was a

gentleman there the headf h.r. for the second largest employer in this counity i was at. -- s about 300 employee employers there. th were concerned about the definition of full time and part time. f two years his rates have went down. and he yelled from the pool playing around with his friends and said, tell president obama thank you for the affordable care act because our rates he gone down for the 275 people that worked there. then, the question is, well, what does this ll do? and the fact of the matter is, by eliminating the individual mandate, by basically destroying the financing of tax subsidies, which is ecisely the way that you broaden the insurance markets so you can implement an eliminatioof pre-existing conditions, you in fact are totally capsizing the market. i know that because the state of connecticut insurance department and the exchange have lookedt what this bill is going to do to the invidual mandate and that's

precisely what the outcome would be, it would send rates through the roof for all -- and basically shatter the success th our state ha accomplished. what's so ironic about this, the design of this bill with an individual mandate and tax subsidies for insurance came from the heritage foundation. stewart butler was the -- stuart butler was the chair in the 1990's. i remember vividly that was the heritage foundation, the conservative point. that's not mentioned very much by the majority as we, again, you know, debate this ad nauseam. you know, what's sad is two weeks ago we passed a bill, h.r. 1624, sponsored by my good friend, mr. guthrie from kentucky, which amended the affordable care act. it changed the definition of small ployer, and it was done a bipartisan basis. completely unanimous.

it sailed through the house. president obama sign it. and why did that work? surgically, did it because brett was smart eugh to understand if you want to get it done you don't load it up with poison pills, that you actually present an idea with focus and with logic behind it. and guess what will happen? you'll actually get biptisan support. the complete opposite of the bill we have before us today. now, i would want to point out, though, there are some signs of intelligent life in this reconciliation bill. section 305 -- could i get anther -- ms. slaughter: i'd be happy to yield gentleman another minute or two. mr. courtney: section 305 does the exeyes test on high cost -- excise tax on high cost plans. it was the house members that pushed hard with the administration and we delayed thatax for five years. and h.r.050, which im the

lead sponsor and proud to say we have 166 bipartisan co-sponsors, is verbatim the language incorporated into the recociliation bill. so i point that ou because i do think it will in fact will basically sharply increase people's out--pocket deductibles because that's what actuaries telus that's the only way to respond to that kind of tax. it's true that 83 organizations, including organized labor, business groups, small business groups have said this is not a workable plan. and i mention that he, which is that, you know, there's an opportunity here to do what congressman guthrie did which is to take an individual component, an idea and not lo up with a l of othe baggagehich is going to capsize the insurance market which we know is going to happen if other provisis of the reconciliation bill are passed that we can actually get it done. you are giving the white house a perfect excuse to veto this bill and robbing us to actually address this real problem which section 305 does recognize and

h.r. 2050 is out there and is on standby for us to move forward on. so let's get rid of the blunt instruments, th baseball bats, the butering of this law and les focus on bipartisan surgical fixes to real problems. i yield backhe balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from georgia. mr. woodall: thank you, mr. chairman -- mr. speaker. i yield myselsuch time as i may consume. i'd say to my friend from connecticut that the point he made was made ery well by the gentleman from oklahoma last night while we were in the ules committee. you do. you on get to use this procedure once. you get to use it three times, bufor a variety of different reasons is only going to come together for us once this year. and you have to choose how to do that. i' thrilled, thrilled that the story the gentleman from connecticut tells is a success for h constituents back home in connecticut. i think that's fabulous. i think that's fabulous. don't get to tell as many of

those stories. i tell stories of folks who had plans that they liked and those plans were outlawed b tir government. i tell stories abt folks who have doctors that they had relationships wi for decades who were promised if they like their doctor they could keep their doctor who lost access to their doctors because their government told them no more for you. i tell stories of the small businesses in the district that we're doing thright ing, providing heah care for their employees w' now been priced out of that marketplace. they're not required by law to do it. res have gone up so much they can't do it by themsees. not becausofur efforts to provide health care to people but because of our efforts to tell peoe what kind of health care is good for them and what kind isn't. mr. speaker, you may not know the chairman of the budget committee is georgia congressman dr. tom price.

dr. tom price, h.r. 3200 has a replacent plan. dr. tom price wants to see pre-existing conditions out of the marketpla. dr. tom price and h.r. 3200 want to see individuals able to move their policies from busine to business, om place to place. mr. spear, it's a ctor-patient relationship. it's not a federal government-patient relationship. it's not a federal h.h.s., heth and human rvices-patient relationship. it not an insurance company-doctor relationship. it's about me and my physiian. you and your physician. our families a our family physician, 320illion americans at a me. i believe i misspoke. it's h.r. 2300, not200 that dr. tom price has. we have it rightere in this institution. we have replacement options right here. do not let it be said that in

he name of prying to bring sanity to our federal spending, in the name of trying to fix the errors that were created in the affordable ca act, do not let it be said that any meer want trample on theealth care opportunitieshat famili have back home. r goal is to expand those opportities. not to contract the i celebate what's happened connectit. i only wish that fks in connecticut and new york and elsewhere would support us i georgia with the challenges that we're having and help us get back to that very personal door-patientelionship that we believe is the right of every member. with that i reserve the balance f my time. thepeaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time ms. slauger. spker, might i iuire if the gentleman hs any speakers. if not i ampared to close. mr. woodall: mr. speaker, i am prepared to close. ms slaughter: mr. speaker, the

budget reconciliation bill avoids the real problems before us, ining the debt limit, the export-import bank, the hiway bill, looming shutdown and more. since instead of addressing urgent needs of the nation, the bill doubles down on attacking women's health and marks the 61st time that the house majority has voted to repeal, to defund or to undermine the affordable care act. mr. speaker, let's try to salvage something from the money we spent on this hour here and a time we've literally wasted, again, for the 61st time, let's salvage something from it by voting no on the previous question. we can actually accomplish something then. if the previous question is defeated, we will be able to vote to take care of the issue of debt limit. the full faith and credit of the united states of america. a simple vote no allows us to bring that up, vote for that, go home this weekend not having

to be chewing everybody's nails and everybody in the country wonders what the heck is going on here. why don't we change on this day, on this thursday, do something positive, do something that needs doing, doing something we know sooner or later we will do, do it today on a clean bill, no additives of any kind, just to do it? it's an opportunity that i certainly hope that people will take advantage of. i urge them to do that. and mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. slaughter: and mr. speaker, i urge my colleagues to vote no so we can vote yes on a vote to deal with the debt limit issue and a no vote on the rule and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back.

the gentleman is recognized. mr. woodall: mr. speaker, i firmly believe there is more that units us than divides us not just in this chamber but in this nation as my colleague talk about the priorities. she is spot on. i'm missing votes in the transportation committee right now where we are moving that long-term transportation bill so i can be done here on the floor to move this reconciliation. there is a lot of rust in the gears. since the 1990's that congress, house and senate combined, have sent all the appropriation bills to the president before the end of the fiscal year. newt gingrich ran this institution and bill clinton was in the white house. there is a lot of the rust in the gears that has accumulated under both leadership in this place. but this year we passed more

appropriation bills earlier in the fiscal year than at any point since 1974. this year, we're moving the first long-term highway bill that we have seen in almost a decade. and this year, we have conferenced a balanced budget for america for the first time in a decade and a half. at's not just a notch to put on the belt of america to say that this is what we have done. this is an opportunity to move this budget reconciliation bill. mr. speaker, i do. i'm saddened that reconciliation is a word that folks have to go and look up and learn, but it is the only way, the only way in divided government that the people's voice can be heard. there is no other procedure in the united states congress that allows 51% of america to

prevail. there is no other ability in the united states congress for the majority of americans, who have lent their power to washington to express their views and change the law of the land, save this one. mr. speaker, budget deficits have gone down each and every year since speaker john boehner stood right there where you are standing there today and nancy .elosi handed him and we have an opportunity today to do more. i have heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about those things that we can do together and i agree. i agree. i heard my colleagues on the other side talk about their priorities in terms of raising the debt limit and not seeing the government shut down.

i agree. we voted a government shut down two weeks ago and i got a note, and it said thank you for not letting the american museum history close down while my family was in washington. there are real impacts. the reason we are having the conversation is not because the people want to shut the government down, they want to borrow more money. we are going to go back and make t $19 trillion or $19.50 trillion. we aren't talking about a debt limit that came around today but in the spring and the government has been borrowing and borrowing beyond that debt limit and they are borrowing because we are spending too much. look at the tax rolls. as we are standing here today not only is america collecting more in constant dollars, not

static dollars, but we are collecting more money than at any time in american history. any time. per capita in this country, americans are paying more in taxes than they have ever paid in the history of the republic. not in inflated 2015 dollars, but in constant dollars adjusted for inflation. the real impact on american families greater today in taxes than ever before, mr. speaker. the problem isn't that we don't raise enough money, the problem is that we spend too much money. i can't count the number of good pieces of legislation that have gone to the senate and failed not on their merits, but because a democratic filibuster would not even allow the bill to be debated. with this rule and with this nderlying bill, we allow the

people's voice to be heard. we allow the american majority's voice to be heard. and we have an opportunity to put a bill that will make a difference for american families on the president's desk for the very first time. i encourage all of my colleagues strong support of the rule and upon passage of that rule, mr. speaker, i encourage their strong support for the underlying reconciliation measure. we have an opportunity today together to make a difference. with that, i yield back. and move the previous question. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on ordering the previous question on the resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. ms. slaughter: request the yeas and nays, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered pursuant to clause 8,

rule 20, further questions on this will be postponed.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado seek recognition? mr. lamborn: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to include extraneous material on the bill. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. pursuant to house resolution 481 and rule 18, the chair declares the house in the committee of the whole house in the state of the union for consideration of h.r. 1937. the chair apoints the gentleman from texas, 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 consideration of house resolution 1937, which the clerk will now report the title. the clerk: a bill to require the secretary of the interior and the secretary of agriculture to more efficiently develop domestic sources of the minerals and mineral materials of strategic and critical importance to economic and national security and manufacturing competitiveness. the chair: pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the first time. general debate shall not exceed one hour equally divided by the chair and ranking minority committee member on the committee of natural resources. the gentleman from colorado, mr. lamborn and the gentleman from california, mr. lowenthal, will each control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from colorado. mr. lamborn: i yield myself such

time as i may consume. i rise in strong support of h.r. 1937, the national strategic and critical minerals production act of 2015. this bill was introduced by my good friend and colleague, representative mark amodei of nevada and myself as the first co-sponsor. not a day goes by that americans don't use a product that is made from critical minerals. life as we know it would not be possible without these minerals. there would be no computers, no blackberries, iphones, m.r.i.'s c.t. scans, wind or solar panels. the list is exhaustive that depend on strategic and critical minerals. rare earth elements, a special subset are core components of these products in the 21st century. yet despite the tremendous need,

the united states has allowed itself to become almost entirely dependent on china and other attorney nations for these resources. america has roadblocks to these critical materials has resulted in china producing producing 97% of the world's supply. that is 97%. our current policies are handing china a monopoly on these elements creating a dependence that has serious implications for american jobs, for our economy and for our national security. burdensome red tape, duplicative reviews, frivolous lawsuits and onerous regulations can hold up mining in 10 years. these delays cost american jobs as we become more and more dependent on foreign countries such as china, for these raw materials. the lack of produced strategic

and critical minerals is how the u.s. has regulated itself into a 100% dependency on at least 19 critical and unique minerals and earned the united states the unique and unfortunate distinction dead last when it comes to permitting mining projects. the 2014 ranking of countries for mining investment out of 25 major mining countries found that the seven to 10-year permitting delays are the most significant risk to mining projects in the u.s. we are dead last in that ranking. i can't speak for the other countries, but the reason the u.s. is so slow to issue mining permits is very simple. government bureaucracy. h.r. 1937 introduced by my colleague from nevada will help us end foreign dependence that are blocks u.s. critical and strategic mineral production.

instead of waiting decades, this bill sets a goal for the total review process for permitting at 30 months. 2 1/2 years. this isn't a hard deadline, mr. chairman. it can be extended, but it is a goal to push the bureaucrats into action on these important infrastructure projects. it shouldn't take a decade to get a project built for minerals we need in our every day lives and national security. no company can reasonably forecast the price of minerals 10 years in advance. finally above all, this is a jobs bill. the positive economic impact of this bill will extend beyond just the mining industry. for every good paying metal mining job created, an estimated 2.3 additional jobs are generated. and for every nonmetal mining job created, another 1.6 jobs are created. this legislation gives the

opportunity for american manufacturers, small businesses, technology companies and construction firms to use american resources to help make the products that are essential to our every day lives. as china continues to tighten global supplies of rare earth elements, we should respond with a u.s. mining renaissance that will bring mining and manufacturing jobs back. the national strategic and critical minerals production act is important to our jobs and to our economy. we must act now to cut the government red tape that is stopping american domestic production and furthering our dependence on foreign countries for our mineral needs. with that, i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado reserves. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. lowenthal: thank you, mr. chair. and i yield myself such -- as much time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. lowenthal: mr. chairman,

this bill takes us in the wrong direction. it not only fails to make a meaningful reform to our system of mining in this country, it proposes to make them worse. we have a mining system that was put together in the 18 70's when our number one goal of president grant at that time was to get people to settle in the west. well, i'm here to tell you, mr. chair, the west has been settled. this makes it easy as possible for miners. we have a law that doesn't require any royalties to be paid on hard rock minerals on public lands. let's be clear. if you drill for if you drill for mine coal or

sewed ar ash or potash or a number of other minerals, what do you do? you pay a royalty to the american taxpayer. not a few mine, copper or silver or platinum or gold or other valueables. you get to mine royalty-free. you know, when the mining act or the mining law of 1872 was enacted, there were no such things as environmental safeguards, there was no concept of the multiple use of public lands to ensure that mining could coexist with grazing, with recreation or conservation. there were no requirements for miners to clean up after themselves when they were done ining. simply mine as long as it's profitable, pick up and leave and don't worry about it. except that the people who live anywhere near the half million

abandon mines in this country, they need to worry about it. communities located near the tens of thousands of miles of polluted rivers, with toxic acid mine waste, they need to and certainly the united states congress needs to worry about it. but instead of tackling this problem, what does this bill do? it declares that the biggest problem we have with mining in this country is we're not doing it fast enough. so this bill proposes to undermine one of our bedrock environmental laws, the national environmental policy act, and makes land managers reviewing mine plans prioritize mineral production over every other potential use of the land that threatens hunting, fishing, grazing and conservation. mr. chair, it would be one thing if the data showed that a

large number of mines were being delayed for no good reason, but in fact, according to the data from the bureau of land management, mines are getting approved much faster. we just heard that it takes a decade, but let's be clear what the data says. between 2005 and 2008, on average 54% of the mines were approved in less than three years. 2009 to 2014, 69 of the plants were approved in less than three years. so in reality, rather than taking a decade, we are seeing that the obama administration is permitting mines at a much faster rate than the bush administration. now, i have an amendment that would address one of the key problems in this bill. this bill has an incredibly broad definition of what is a

strategic and critical mineral. i've yesterday to hear anyone -- and we asked in -- i've yet to hear anyone -- and we asked in committee, what mineral doesn't qualify as strategic and critical under this bill? certainly none of the witnesses we had at our natural resources committee could, and the majority hasn't suggested anything. now, we're talking about we're going to expedite the process for sand and gravel, crushed stones, gold, silver, diamonds, all of these are now going to be considered strategic and critical by the keff anything in this bill -- definition in this bill and all get an exat the dieded process -- expedited process for permitting and they have weaken environmental reviews. but even if this bill is limited to the definition for critical minerals that the rest of the world goes by, basically that those minerals be important, they be unique and most importantly we're defining them as strategic and critical minerals because they are

subject to a supply risk. it's clear that this bill does not help, because if we had one rare earth element mine start up in this country a few years ago and the rare element -- the rare earth elements are ones that are truly critical and two months ago that mine stopped operating because prices were too low, that's what's happened. that one mine was already permitted, already built and already operating, and it had to be shut down because of economics. i don't think changes changing the environmental laws in any way -- i don't think changing the environmental laws in any way solves the economic problems. it would certainly help international mining conglomerates, companies based in canada or australia. it's going to help them grease the skids when they want to open their next giant copper mine or gold mine or uranium mine right next to a national

park or a sensitive watershed. mr. chair, this bill is bad policy. the outcomes here won't be any different than the outcomes of the past two congresses. this bill is dead on arrival in the senate, and the administration has already expressed its strong opposition. what should we be doing? we should be here today discussing how to fix our outdated and antiquated mining laws, how to make mining companies pay their fair share, how to clean up the half million abandon mines that litter our landscape from coast to coast. we shouldn't be here talking about a bill that is only going to make things worse. i urge my colleagues to oppose h.r. 1937, and i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the baffle his time. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i want to point out that the national research council study has said, quote, all minerals and mineral products could be or could become critical to some degree depending on their importance and availability. mr. lamborn: so you have to look at the total circumstances surrounding the current supply of a mineral and what that mineral is, and they all literally could fit that definition, according to the national research council. ok, at this point i'd like to yield three minutes to a colleague of mine from the great state of wyoming, cynthia aluminum miss, who is also the vice chairman of the full committee on natural resources. the chair: the gentlelady from wyoming is recognized for three minutes. r. -- mrs. lummis: i want to thank mr. lamborn and representative amodei for their very important work on this legislation. now, let me start by addressing why strategic minerals matter

and why we ought to have a piece of legislation like this. my home state of wyoming is the headquarters for our nation's nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile force. now, these missiles ensure that those who would do us harm are deterred from using nuclear weapons. these weapons are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, but they need regular maintenance and replacement components. rare earth elements are an important part of these components. from batteries to computer chips to display screens and engines, and these components and components vital to our technological edge would require elements that can be difficult to procure. now, china controls nearly 80% of rare earth production. as we know, china has used this leverage to bully our allies, limit exports at a time,

especially recently, of a dispute with japan over control of violence in the south china sea. the u.s. navy plans to conduct operations in the area to remind china of the importance of respecting maritime boundaries and the freedom of navigation, but china is using its 80% share of rare earth minerals to leverage our allies. they can do it anytime they want because they have such massive control of this resource. now, the bill that mr. amodei is sponsoring, the national strategic and critical minerals production act, would simply the permitting process for domestic mines that will provide resources used in components vital to our national security. so that's why we need to do it. now, here's an example of the problem existing. in my home state of wyoming, the bear lodge critical project has been going through the

current process since 2011. it will be the only large-scale production facility in the u.s. for some rare earth elements designated as critical by the u.s. department of energy. they have to coordinate their permit application between the forest service, the nuclear regulatory commission, the army corps of engineers and the department of energy. now, under mr. amodei's legislation, one federal agency would become the lead agency and set project timelines for permit applications and decisions. the total review process would not be authorized to exceed 30 months unless extended by all parties involved. these parties would include state and local governments and local stakeholders. so this ensures that local voices will be heard. mr. speaker, i cannot emphasize enough how important i think this legislation is. i'm a co-sponsor of the legislation. it passed the house in previous congresses on a bipartisan basis. i urge my colleagues to vote

yes on h.r. 1937, thank mr. amodei for his thoughtful consideration of this bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. lowenthal: yeah. i would just like to point out, mr. chair, that the proponents of the bill have said that the -- i believe it was the national research council has said that all minerals and products could or could become critical to some degree. that's really what they said. but let's be clear what this bill says and what really the national research council's definition says. and that's really what we're talking about and we're going to discuss that later on. just what is the definition? in the bill that we see before us, in terms of strategic and critical minerals, the term strategic and critical means

minerals that are necessary for national defense and national security requirements. there are certainly some of those. for the nation's energy infrastructure, including pipelines, refining capacity, electrical power generation and transmission and renewable energy projects. to support domestic manufacturing any mineral. agriculture, housing, telecommunications, health care, transportation, infrastructure or for the make's economic security and trade. for that reason they're saying let's shorten the process, eviscerate nepa, the national environmental protection act and let's expedite this process. i ask you, what mineral is not included in this definition? they are including everything. let's see what the -- what really in actality what the national research council

actually said. they published the report in 2008. it was called "minerals, critical minerals and the u.s. economy," and it defined what should be our definition of critical and strategic minerals and it states, i quote, to be critical, a mineral must be essential in use. we agree with -- they talk about strategic. but it also goes -- and the -- those proponents talk about essential minerals. but the national research council also says to be considered critical and strategic, it must be subject to supply restriction. we do not see anything in this bill about supply restriction, so, therefore, what it is is a blank check for mining companies to mine anywhere, to have an expedited process, not to protect communities and i think that's a great mistake and takes us in the wrong way and is exactly the opposite of what the national research

council has called for. thank you and i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. lamborn: mr. chairman, i now yield two minutes to the gentleman from arizona, representative paul gosar, who is also a member of the natural resources committee. the chair: the gentleman from arizona is recognized for two minutes. mr. gosar: thank you, mr. speaker. and i thank the gentleman for yielding. i rise in support of h.r. 1937, the national strategic and critical minerals production act. this commonsense legislation will streamline the permitting process and allow for better coordination among the relevant state and federal agencies in order to foster economic growth, read jobs and to ensure robust domestic supply of strategic and critical minerals. people have been digging in arizona for precious metals for centuries. in the 1850's, nearly one in every four people in arizona were miners. without a doubt, mining fueled the growth that makes arizona the state it is today. in fact, it's part of the five

c's that built arizona was copper. today, arizona's mining industry is alive. minerals such as copper, coal, gold, uranium, lime and potash are still mined throughout my district but not at the levels they used to be. these projects employ hundreds of my constituents with high-paying jobs, jobs that pay over $50,000 to $60,000 a year plus benefits. and in rural arizona, these types of jobs are few and far between. the message is clear, we could do better. the complexity of the permitting process is discouraging investors. the folks on the ground tell me because of excessive regulatory overreach and the permitting process that can take as long as 10 years, it is a bad business decision to get a new u.s. mine off the ground despite supply of

plentiful resources. rare earth and other critical minerals have been discovered have been the main economic driver in communities that probably wouldn't make at all. these are resources or country needs for cell phones, batteries. dependence si on china and we need to get american miners back to work. imagine our slogan, made in the u.s.a. with materials mined in the u.s.a. i applaud mr. amodei on his leadership and i urge my lleagues to vote yes on h.r. 1837. mr. lowenthal: i yield two minutes to my time, mr. johnson. the chair: the gentleman is

recognized for two minutes. mr. johnson: thank you, mr. speaker. and this -- today we are debating yet another republican bill restricting access to the courts to only those with deem pockets. h.r. 1937 continues the alarming trend of republican-sponsored legislation that proposes to limit the average americans access to the courts so businesses that line the pockets of these politicians with campaign contributions can continue to profit. misleadingly disguised as a bill stimulating the mining of strategic minerals, this legislation is about shielding the mining industry's poor environmental practices from accountability to victims while at the same time disenfranchising mining-impacted

communities. it allows them to exempt mining projects from the equal access to justice act. eaja allows americans access to legal representation to protect their communities. without that, impacted communities cannot afford lawyers much less the litany of scientific and technical experts to mount a serious challenge to a mining company. this cripples the ability of those concerned with environmental protection to seek representation and redress in the courts. and for that reason, i would urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill and preserve justice for all and with that, i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman is recognized. mr. lamborn: i yield two minutes to a senior member of the natural resources committee, representative young.

the chair: the gentleman from alaska is recognized. mr. young: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. i'm very proud of this bill and sponsor of this bill and no one is lining my pockets. i resent that comment. i'm thinking of the united states of america and how we're importing these minerals, 31 known minerals and the process we have to go through to mine our own natural resources in our debate nation. it impedes our capability to be secure regardless of one might say. you just don't do this overnight. you have to have time to develop, especially the rare earth. and the rest of the minerals we are using outside countries and we have people in this congress and across this nation -- we don't need it. we have to follow the example. and if a mining company tries to develop a mine, you have to go through so many different permits and when you get done.

we have the lawyers from the big, big environmental organizations like sierra club and friends of the earth, have filed suit that impedes the progress for this nation. we cannot continue to import all with which we need to have this today. a lot of that side of the aisle insist upon. this is a good bill. how do we retain the security and how we keep jobs within the united states. his comment, the comment about made in the united states by resources, mined in the united states. that's what we should be looking at as this congress instead of following i call it the blind piper. we don't need to drill our oil. we'll bring it from abroad. we don't need to mine it here. we'll ship our jobs overseas and further in debt $18 trillion. we need our resources, that's

what made this nation great. everything in this room, everything in this room, this body came from the earth. it was mined. it was cut, it was manufactured from the earth. and why should we buy it from abroad. let's be american. mine for our resources and cut our trees for resources and build our resources as it says right up there. let us use our resources that god has given for the benefit of mankind. if we don't do that, we are abusing our job here. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. lowenthal: i would like to discuss in more detail the idea that the permitting process is so onerous, it takes so long to 2012, to indicate that in 2013, 2014, let's talk about the last three years of permitting

of mines, plants of operation pfment how long -- what really is the data? i will tell you that all the plans of operation that were pproved in 2012, 93% of them were done in three years or less. 2013, 79% were done in three years or less. and last year, in 2014, 68%. in summary, in the last three years, close to 80% of all plans of operation were permitted in less than three years. so we're not talking about an onerous time. also, let us remember that this same bill was twice introduced last year and was once introduced in the session before or in the last session, twice was introduced and also introduced once in the 112th

congress. never got taken up in the senate. but this bill, if it ever gets through, let's see what the administration says. i read to you a statement of administration policy. the administration strongly opposes h.r. 1937, which would undermine existing environmental safeguards for at a minimum, almost all types of hardrock mines on federal lands. specifically h.r. 1937 would undermine sound federal decision making by eliminating the appropriate reviews under the national environmental policy act. it also would circumvent public. it would bypass the formation of alternatives to proposals among other things. the administration also opposes the legislation severe restrictions on judicial review. although the legislation

purports to limit litigation, it's extremely short statute of limitations and restraints on the scope of perspective relief that a court may issue, are likely to have the opposite effect. the administration strongly supports the development of rare earth elements and other critical minerals, but rejects the notion that their development is incompatible with existing safeguards regarding the use of public lands, environmental protections and public involvement in agency decision making. if we're really concerned about updating this old law, let's work together and come up with a better definition of what is critical and strategic mineral and let us not aadvice rate the environmental protections and the public participation that we afford people. thank you and i reserve.

the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. lamborn: i include in the record an exchange of letters between chairman bishop and chairman goodlatte of the judiciary committee on this bill. at this point, i yield three minutes to the chairman of the natural resources committee, the gentleman from utah. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. bishop: apparently i write good letters, too. they once asked the famous put er gaylord perry if he a substance on the ball. we used to only import a handful of the rare earth minerals in this country, but today we are importing dozens of them because we have with this administration a policy of trying to stockpile these resources. hopefully when we get through them we will find another country to help us resupply

those resources like in "the streetcar named desire" that we depend on the kindness of strangers. wouldn't it be consistent to have a work force that is developing on a regular basis these rare earth minerals we can have for our use and help our economy and could give us the security we desperately need. we don't need to keep importing stuff into this country. we import the expos from montreal here to washington. that should be enough. i read an article about mining the rare earth minerals in the congo where rare minerals necessary for samsung galaxy phones were being produced. ey filter out their -- the ergets. if they use their hands to find the minerals, how do you handle

the environmental protections and reclaim these projects? we need to use 21st century technology and pay our labor force 21st century wages to produce the minerals that are necessary for our way of life and not be dependent on other countries and not take advantage of their miners. this is a no-brainer. let's do the right thing. home plate, don't move. we know what we are doing. pass this bill. it's a good bill. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. the chair: the chair notes a disturbance in the gallery in contravention of the law and rules of the house. the sergeant at articles will remove those persons responsible for the disturbance and restore the order to the gallery.

the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. lowenthal: i reserve. the chair: the gentleman from colorado. mr. lamborn: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from michigan, mr. been check. mr. benishek: i rise in strong support of h.r. 1937, nat strategic and critical minerals production act. over the past several decades our nation has lagged far behind much of the world in the development and extraction of domestic mineral resources. falling behind on this front has made our nation dependent on foreign sources on vital resources that our economy and national defense need to continue functioning. falling behind has led to the loss of good-paying jobs. we have seen this in my district and the mines that have shut down and mines not being permitted. the mines in the western part of

my district have spent 10 years in the permitting process and still are not opening. these jobs are critically neaded in my district. the mines of the u.p. have served our country in times of need providing the raw minerals that we have needed for national defense. the resources we have beneath our feet, they would have to go through a significant permitting process that will likely take 20 years. while i support making sure we behave in an environmentally responsible manner, it is ridiculous that overly burdensome regulations are keeping us from being competitive in the world economy. this will cut through some of the bureaucratic red tape holding our economy back leading to a nation that is less dependent for vital natural resources and creating jobs. i urge my colleagues to support the development of our domestic natural resources and vote in this commonsense and long overdue legislation. i yield back.

the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. lowenthal: i reserve. the chair: the gentleman from colorado. mr. lamborn: i yield five minutes to the author of this bill, the gentleman from silver state, nevada, representative mark amodei, a former member of the committee on natural resources. the chair: the gentleman from nevada is recognized for five minutes. mr. amodei: thank you, mr. chairman. god forbid we replace bedrock american issues ahead of the political cliche. it's nice to be informed of what the stat tuesday is from people in the towns that end in the name of beach. i find it incredibly up interesting we have heard on several occasions that the administration's average for the supermajority of applications is 36 months or less. and how we need to work together

on things when the legislation on the floor right now calls for 30-month time frame, which is with the consent of both parties. let's say put this for 36 months and put it on the suspension calendar, we are subjected to, this is bad and it disenfranchises the public and all that. when you got the facts you argue the facts, when you got the law you argue the law and when you don't have either you just argue. so here we are because everybody in the room knows, depending on what side of the issue you're on, the big tool in this thing is if we cannot wait, the capital will go elsewhere. and guess what the folks who believe in that are winning. so when we talk about those bedrock american issues, things like jobs, things like public participation, you know, 30 months, that's longer than we get to hack out here after the people of our district give us their voting card.

that's longer -- used to be, than somebody would take to try to talk to you for voting for them for governor. 2 1/2 years, extendable by stipulation, of forcing the public to saint their hands. jobs, participation of the public, balance a trade, that's not important. i mean, why should we be concerned about balancing trade and exporting the minerals that this country is wealthy with? you want to talk about abandon mines? in my state, those folks happen to be doing a great job if you want to talk about the culture of the 1870's, yeah, but it's come a long way. and god forbid when we talk about paying your fair share in my state, the industry pays north of $80,000 a year. those people pay federal income taxes, they buy goods and services that are federally taxed, gasoline, tires, all that stuff. but, no, let's send those jobs overseas where none of that happens. none of that happens. that is smart policy.

i simply disagree. god forbid we talk about commercial supplies, national security, strategic supplies. other speakers have talked about that. this is not some dream job for the minerals extraction industry. oh, and by the way, let's not ook at the folks down on the paul meadow state who might need materials to rebuild their state. god forbid we talk about sand nd gravel and they need to build things called freeways little bittedy split. this is not about sand for your sandbox, gravel for your subdivision. this is about talking about issues that are mineral related. you know what, nobody has called this place, regardless ho's running it, nimble. so when one of these issues comes up, god forbid you give them, that's right, folks, hang on to your hats, 30 months to try to get the permission from

the federal government to extract minerals on that. so with all due respect, what this is all about is you continue to let folks who are opposed to things try to starve them out, you know, and wait and wait and wait until the capital goes elsewhere, or do you take the fact in the administration's word, nice job, takes you 36 months, you want to change it to 33 months and put it on the suspension calendar, i'll do it. but short of that, me think thou doth protest too much. i'm looking for your earnest support. i am looking forward to the senate debating this bill. the chair: the gentleman from california. mr. lowenthal: i reserve the balance. the chair: the gentleman continues to reserve his time. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. lamborn: mr. chairman, i'm prepared to close. the chair: the gentleman from

california. mr. lowenthal: yeah, i would just like to close. we heard in this discussion that we should have a sweeping definition. every mineral should be under the definition of a critical mineral, and that we should not be beholden to foreign source ifs we don't do that, well, i agree in many ways. but this bill doesn't really deal with that issue, because if the authors were really concerned about restrictions to the supply, they would make the definition of critical and strategic minerals much narrower. we would not give up our environmental protections. we would not give up our public participation. we would not give up our legal protections. when in fact there is no -- there is no danger to the nation's supply of this mineral. so the problems are really that we are now broadly including

everything under this definition and even the bill in the senate i think under senator murkowski has a much more limited definition of what is a strategic and critical mineral. i urge, i urge the authors here, the proponents to really amend this bill so that we could all work together on this to really restrict -- to very specific occasions of when we would enable a change in the protections that we already have under nepa. right now everything is included. this is -- eviscerates all of our protections. i urge a no vote and i thank you, mr. chairman. the chair: the gentleman from california yields back his time. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. lamborn: mr. chairman, in closing, much has been debated here on the floor about what is strategic and what is not strategic. let me suggest to ways that you could define strategic minerals. you could define it by making a definition so narrow that

legislation picks winners and losers or you could write law that says certain conditions that require certain elements will be the driver of what is strategic and critical. that means the marketplace will decide what is strategic and critical. i think that's a much better approach when i talk about this because i recall hearing that in the late 1890's, the u.s. patent office issued a statement -- i think i have this correct here -- saying we ought to close down the u.s. patent office because everything that has been invented has been invented. that was in the 1890's. that was before airplanes. that was before cars were commercially available. that was before most telecommunications. this means all the minerals that go into these things weren't even thought of at that time. so what we do in this bill is just very straightforward. we say the strategic and critical minerals will meet any of the following criteria -- and by the way, you can find

this on page 5, section 3 under definitions. the following for criteria. a, for national defense and national security. that is so evident it hardly needs to be debated. b, for the nation's energy infrastructure, including pipelines and refining. that's because the importance of energy. that certainly should not be debated because we have to have a good energy source if we're going to have a growing economy. also, c, to support domestic manufacturing. and that includes obviously agriculture and housing as well. in other words, to support our economy. doesn't that make good sense to have a source of strategic and critical minerals for that? and finally, d, for the nation's economic security and balance of frayed. that makes such good sense because we are seriously out of balance now with china. so this approach is more of a long-term solution because 25 years from now there will be a

mineral that somebody will find that will be used for new technology. but if we've defined it so narrowly as the other side would suggest that we don't know what that technology is we have in fact been picking winners and losers and that's the wrong approach. the right approach is what's embodied in this bill to say these four conditions will be the ones that define strategic and critical minerals. finally, let me close on this. some people may fun of sand and gravel as being strategic. i guarantee you after a major earthquake in northern or southern california, when the freeways collapse, i can tell you that cement and sand and gravel will absolutely fit that definition. in this bill, strategic and critical minerals are not defined as some have suggested as all minerals all the time. instead, h.r. 1937 allows any mineral to be deemed strategic and critical at a given time

when the appropriate situation warrants it. this is vital to protecting our economy, our jobs and our way of life. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado yields back his time. all time for general debate has expired. pursuant to the rule, the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be considered as read. no amendment to this bill is in order except for those printed in house report 114-301. each such amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report by a member designated in the report and shall be considered read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent and shall not be subject to amendment and shall not be subject for demand for division of the question.

it is now time and it is in order to consider amendment number 1 printed in house report 114-301. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? mr. lowenthal: mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 1 printed in house report 114-301 offered by mr. lowenthal of california. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 481, the gentleman from california, mr. lowenthal, and a member opposed, each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. lone lone thank you, mr. chair -- mr. lowenthal: thank you, mr. chair, and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. lowenthal: mr. chairman, my amendment would fix a critical problem with this bill. namely, that the name of the bill doesn't match the substance of the bill. when you read the title you would think this bill has something to do with critical

and strategic minerals, but in fact, as currently written, the bill would define practically every mined substance -- and that is every mined substance in the united states as being strategic and critical. sand, gravel, gold, copper, clay, all of these are strategic and critical under this bill, and i think that is going too far. in fact, i'm still waiting for someone to explain to me what mineral wouldn't fall under the definition of this bill. certainly none of the witnesses at our june natural resources committee could name one. the national research council published a 2008 report called "minerals, critical minerals and the u.s. economy," and it states, i quote, to be critical , a mineral must be both essential in use and subject to

supply restriction. they go on to point out that some specific examples of minerals that are essential but not critical, such as copper, iron ore and construction aggregates such as sand and gravel. except that this bill would completely ignore the national research council and many other organizations that know what critcalt means and define -- criticality means and define all of these, copper, sand, gravel and more as strategic and critical minerals. there's no doubt these minerals are essential, but they are widely produced in the united states, and there is no danger of a break in the supply chain. let me state that again. there is no danger of a break in the supply chain. let's talk about the sand and gravel that was just mentioned before. sand re roughly 6,500

and gravel queries in the united states. we are not going to run out of gravel by not permitting one more gravel mine. it is important, sand and gravel, but no one from the national research council or the department of energy or any organization that knows the real definition of critical minerals would consider sand and gravel to fall in that category, period, end of discussion. my amendment would ensure that the scientifically vetted definition, determined by the n.r.c., is what the secretary interior uses to assess the criticality of minerals to be assigned under this bill. it would make sure that the bill actually addresses the intent that is suggested by its own title, critical minerals, and it puts no time limits on the identification of these minerals. so as conditions change over

time, the secretary would be able to add or remove items from the list of critical minerals as necessary. republicans in the senate understand this. senator murkowski, the chair of the energy and natural resources committee, which oversees mining, has introduced a bill that requires a methodology for determining which minerals would qualify as critical. and that methodology is to be based on an assessment of, quote -- i quote in her bill, whether the materials are subject to potential supply restrictions and also important in use, end of quote. i may not agree everything that's in senator murkowski's bill, but i believe that she at least understands the definition of a critical mineral and is making a serious attempt to expand the production of minerals that are actually critically important

and strategic. without my am this bill is just a guise for mining interests to loosen public review, judicial review, and environmental protections for all hard rock mining. i urge my colleagues to support my amendment and i reserve the balance of my time. secretary clinton: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado rise. mr. lamborn: i rise in opposition to this am. secretary clinton: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. lamborn: in response, i just have to say one word -- earthquake. during the 2008 great southern california shakeout, which studied and analyzed the potential effects of a major earthquake, the u.s.g.s. discovered there would be a shortfall of building materials, namely sand and gravel, if there was a major earthquake, god foreed bid, causing significant damage in the l.a. basin and surrounding areas.

this amendment, if we accept it, would preclude that sand and gravel would be defined as critical, hindering expedited development of these resources. furthermore, by explicitly excluding sand, gravel, or clay, this amendment is at fundamental odds with the national research council study, i quoted it earlier, which stated all mineral and mineral products could or could become critical to some degree depending upon their importance and availability, end quote. the california geological survey recently released information forecasting a continuing shortage in california of permitted aggregate resources so as to meet only 1/3 of demand over the next 50 years. in the state of california. so we have a shortage coming whether people like it or not. that's without a major earthquake. once again, god forbid.

so the bill is currently structured does allow the market and the nation's needs to define a mineral as critical, thereby allowing the flexibility necessary for carrying out the provisions of the act. however, this amendment would hinder the efficiency and flue bidity this bill seeks to inject into the permitting process for critical and strategic minerals by imposing an extra bureaucratic demplings to be made by the secretary -- determination to be made by the secretary of interior. it also picks winners and losers in the mining industryment for those reasons, mr. chairman, i urge opposition to this amendment and i yield back the balance of my time. secretary clinton: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. mr. lowenthal: i would just like to say in conclusion that we are talking about a definition of critical and strategic minerals that is -- comes from the n.r.c., or the

national resource council, that really talks about things that are essential, but it also says that to be declared critical it must have a danger of disruption in the supply chain. we must have a limit. to where we can access other materials. it was just pointed out what happens if there is a -- an earthquake in southern california, god help us, let's hope there is not going to be an earthquake in southern crarks, and there is a limitation on -- in southern california, and there is a limitation -- secretary clinton: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. lowenthal: i would like to urge us to say the secretary has the ability to change that -- change what's on that list or not under my amendment. i urge support of my amendment. secretary clinton: the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from california. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair,

the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to. the gentleman from california. mr. lowenthal: mr. chair, i ask for the yeas and nays. secretary clinton: gentleman asks for a recorded vote. all those in favor of a ecorded vote please stand. it pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from california will e postponed. it's now in order to consider amendment number 2 printed in house report 114-301. for what purpose does the gentlelady from michigan seek recognition? mrs. dingell: mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. secretary clinton: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 2, printed had house report number 114-301, offered by mrs. dingell of michigan. secretary clinton: pursuant to house resolution 481, the gentlewoman from michigan, mrs. dingell, and a member opposed, will each control five minutes.

the chair recognizes the the gentlewoman from michigan. mrs. dingell: thank you, mr. chairman. i yield myself such time as i may consume. secretary clinton: the gentlelady is recognized. mrs. dingell: there are several troubling provisions in this legislation, many of which my other colleagues have already addressed this afternoon. but i am particularly concerned with how h.r. 1937 treats the national environmental policy act, or nepa as it has become known. if this bill were to become law, public comment would be severely limited and in some instances a proper environmental review may not be conducted at all. the underlying bill ploys a functional equivalent standard which would permit the lead agency to circumvent a nepa review if other agencies have performed reviews that are determined to be equivalent. and there are several problems with this approach.

first, it is not clear that the six factors listed in the bill compromise all that a nepa document would explore. so if functional equivalent was applied, the public may not have the complete story about the environmental impacts of a specific project. second, case law demonstrates that functional equivalent has historically not been extended to other agencies beyond the e.p.a. because they're simply not equipped to do that find of work. that -- kind of work. that is why the committee heard testimony earlier this year that this provision ignores congress' choices in nepa, as well as the judiciary struggle with functional equivalence. my amendment strikes the functional equivalence provision and replaces it with the language that makes it clear that all mine explorations or mine permits

are major federal actions and would require an environmental impact statement under nepa. it is well-known that hard rock mining can have adverse health impacts and these projects deserve a formal environmental review. nepa has a simple premise, look before you leap. this landmark law gives us -- gives the public an opportunity to review and comment on actions opposed by the government, adding to the evaluation process, unique perfect specsives -- perspectives that highly specialized mission-driven agencies might otherwise ignore. we should be preserving and protecting this important tool for the public participation rather than undermining it. i urge my colleagues to support the dingell amendment and yield back the balance of my time -- reserve the balance of my time. secretary clinton: the gentlelady reserves her time. the gentleman from colorado, for what purpose does do you rise? mr. lamborn: i rise in

opposition to this am. secretary clinton: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. lamborn: i would urge rejection of this amendment because it would make the permitting process for critical and strategic minerals even worse than it currently is. it's already seven, 10, or more years. it's dead last in the 25 major mineral producing countries in the world according to that recent study we cited earlier. this amendment would strike several key sections of the bill, including the nepa provisions, the expedited schedule provision, the time limit provision, and the applicable of this law to existing permit application provision. first this amendment seeks to remove the nepa provisions. our provision does not sidestep or avoid the nepa process in any way. rather it codifies a judicial determination for nepa known as the functional equivalence doctrine. this doctrine provides that when an agency action, whether state or federal, has addressed the substantive requirements of nepa, such action may be

substituted as sufficient rather than having to prepare an entirely new and duplicative environmental study. this amendment rejects the functional equivalence doctrine and mandates the issuance of any mineral exploration or mine permit constitutes a major federal action, quote-unquote. thereby requiring the development of costly and time consuming environmental impact statements regardless of a proposed project's size. furthermore, this amendment strikes the provisions of the bill that requires the authorizing agency to develop a schedule for the permit process and it removes the 30-month time constraints that would be put on said authorizing agency. in other words, it restores the current seven to 10-year permit process that plagues the mining industry and the production of jobs and the growth of our economy. let me mention one thing about automobile manufacturing in particular.

an automobile contains rare earths for magnets, copper, aluminum, platinum, and many other critical minerals and elements. according to rare earth technology alliance, the average hybrid car contains 61 pounds of rare earth metals. so it's important that we pass this bill, this amendment, unfortunately, guts the bill. i would urge opposition to it. mr. chairman, i reserve the balance of my time. secretary clinton: the gentleman reserves his time. gentlelady from michigan is recognized. mrs. dingell: i want to quickly respond to some of the points made by my friend from the other side of the aisle. and do i recognize the importance of those metals in the auto production. it's important to me. but this bill isn't going to impact them. and to be frank, i think this bill's a solution in search of a problem. nepa is often a scapegoat for permitting delays, but this does not hold up when you

closely examine the facts. in fact, since 2008, the approval time for hard rock mines has decreased, last year the average time it took to approve a plan of operation for a hard rock mine was 17 months. 17 months. not 10 years. i want jobs as much as my colleagues do on the other side of the aisle. but i want to protect people. project complexity, local opposition, and lack of funding are almost always the cowl pritts for a project being delayed -- culprits for a project being delayed that everybody wants to plame nepa unfairly. hard rock mines could pose significant threats to public health, water, and the environment. we must ensure that every mining application is properly reviewed under nepa as my amendment proposes. i urge my colleagues to support this amendment and yield back the balance of my time. secretary clinton: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. lamborn: thank you, mr.

chairman. i just want to remind us all that america has a plentiful supply of rare earth elements, but there are roadblocks to developing them such that china produces 97% of the world's supply. and there are at least 19 unique minerals that the u.s. has zero supply of. so if we continue the current regime of seven to 10 years to permit a mine project, and that's what will happen if we don't pass this bill, then we are going to be dependent on other countries. and all kinds of manufacturing. automobile and all kinds of manufacturing will be affected. the 2014 ranking of countries for mining investment out of the 25 major mining companies, found that the delays that we have in this country are the worst in the world. and yet we have such tremendous resources if we were only to use them so i think this bill

is a good faith and reasonable effort to make the -- to strike the balance between proper environmental protection by keeping functional equivalence, and yet producing the minerals that will give us the jobs we need. with that, mr. chairman, i urge rejection of this amendment and i yield back the balance of my time. secretary clinton: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from michigan. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to. mrs. dingell: i ask for a recorded vote. secretary clinton: the gentlelady asks for a recorded vote. pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlelady from michigan will be postponed. it is now in order to consider amendment number 3 printed in house report 114-301. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition?

mr. cartwright: mr. speaker, i have an amendment at the desk. secretary clinton: the clerk will designate the chair: the clerk will designate. the clerk: amendment number 3, printed in house report number 114-301, offered by mr. cart wright of pennsylvania. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 481, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. cartwright, and a member opposed, each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. . mr. cartwright: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. cartwright: mr. speaker, just off the floor of the house of representatives, steps outside the door, we have a magnificent statue of one of our founding fathers, thomas jefferson. thomas jefferson said, i consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

the amendment i offer today, mr. speaker, ensures that an important right of the american people is preserved, the right to hold the government accountable for their actions, the right of ordinary americans to go into court and hold the government accountable. the right to challenge the government in court should not be limited to large groups that are well-funded and have the financial ability to pay for a lawyer, and that's exactly what this bill would do. this right should be extended to every american citizen, every small business, every nonprofit organization regardless of the size and scope of their wall etc. now, as a lifetime courtroom lawyer, i know the importance of being able to access the court system. for many years, i fought to make sure that ordinary americans could have their day in court and hold wrongdoers accountable. access to the courts is a key

right envisioned by not only thomas jefferson but all of the founding fathers, protected by the equal access to justice act, the eaja, which allows eligible individuals to recover fees and expenses from the government if they win their day in court. as a congressman and former trial attorney, i cannot and will not stand by silently and watch this bill chip away at this american right without standing up and speaking out. by exempting exploration and mining permits from the equal access to justice act, this bill prevents valid claims from reaching the courts by prohibiting the government from reimbursing legal expenses to parties that win in court. this overturns 30 years of legal precedent aimed at opening the court's doors to the public. what i cannot understand is why any of my colleagues across the

aisle would want to limit review of the government and the government's actions given fairly consistent message we hear, that government has gotten too big and continues to come up with unnecessary rules and rulings. eaja allows average citizens to challenge this kind of thing in court, challenge the very kind of supposed overreach that majority always likes to talk about. we've heard time and time again from the majority that blocking access to the courts is necessary to halt frivolous and unnecessary litigation as if judges are incapable or lack the intellectual rigor to be able to figure out for themselves, but it is this bill that is frivolous and unnecessary. the congressional budget office proves it. the congressional budget office , the c.b.o. estimates that this bill, 1937, would reduce direct spending by less than

$50,000 a year. we're throwing up a barrier to access to the courts for a paltry $50,000 a year, but the larger point is, this is money that's awarded to successful claimants against the government. why would you want to punish the successful claimants in the name of cutting down on frivolous litigation? affirmative liss litigation by definition are claims -- frivolous litigation by definition are claims that will not win. it further solidify's free pass to mine on public lands. first, this bill limits public consideration by waiving the national environmental policy act, nepa, and setting unrealistic time limits. and it puts the nail on the coffin but limiting the public's opportunity to review a mine's permit by challenging it in open court.

my amendment today would strike all of title 2, including the aja exemption, in order to keep the time-honored right to challenge the government's decisions in court. i urge the adoption of this amendment, and i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from colorado, for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado rise? mr. lamborn: i rise in opposition to this amendment. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. lamborn: it strikes title 2 of the bill which relates to exploration and mine permits. this title is designed to address one of the primary contributors to the long permitting timelines and delays we've been talking about this afternoon. relentless litigation brought by environmental organizations. regulatory agencies routinely try to craft a lawsuit-proof nepa document. however, that's impossible. they're going to get sued no matter what. so title 2 seeks to provide

some certainty in the litigation process. so rather than prohibit or block litigation, it does several reasonable things. it exat the indicts the judicial process by requiring timely filings no later than 0 days after a final agency action. it just keeps the ball rolling. that's entirely reasonable. it requires the court to proceed expeditiously on reaching a determination in the case. that also is entirely reasonable. furthermore, title 2 provides the project proponent a guaranteed right to intervening. if a project has invested millions or billions of dollars in a project, they deserve an opportunity to go to court on something that could adversely impact their investment. that, too, is entirely reasonable. and also title 2 limits certain perspective attorneys' fees under the equal access to justice act.

this provision affects all parties to the lawsuit, including permitholders and has, as its purpose, dissueding frivolous suits that would harm the nation's ability to provide these vital resources. that, too, is entirnle reasonable. for these reasons -- entirely reasonable. for these reasons i say, let's reject this amendment. let's keep title 2 in the bill. it's essential to have a predictable and reasonable permitting timeline so we can explore and develop these resources to make our economy stronger. i urge a no vote on this amendment, and i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves his time. the gentleman from pennsylvania has 30 seconds and is recognized. mr. cartwright: thank you, mr. speaker. i acknowledge my colleague from colorado. however, his silence on the point i was making is deafening. the point i made is cutting out eaja from this act means that you are attacking successful

claims. if your point is to attack frivolous lawsuits, you don't cut out reimbursing legal fees and costs for successful claims. what are we really up to by doing that? and i yield back the balance of my time, mr. speaker. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. mr. lamborn: mr. chairman, how much time does our side have? the chair: the gentleman has three minutes. mr. lamborn: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from new mexico, representative steve pearce. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. pearce: thank you, mr. chair. just in answer to the gentleman's question, would point out that there is a -- what happens right now is that the eaja act is gamed. the people can put in 15 or 20 frivolous claims, but if they have a finding on one substantial thing, and always those lawsuits are -- have a multitude of claims, but then one thing will be tucked in

that is simply procedural that the agency forgot a deadline, they didn't have a meeting and if the judge finds on one, then all are paid for. and so they're allowed to bring frivolous actions with one substantiating claim and it is those frivolous things that tie up and hold up development. no one objects to the fact that sometimes the agencies are wrong. people do object to the fact that frivolous lawsuits come under the cover of one thing that is just almost in the whole discussion. so i yield back to the gentleman. mr. lamborn: i would yield 15 seconds. mr. cartwright: simple question. name one federal judge who has granted all of the attorneys' fees, whether there are 15 frivolous claims and one successful one? never heard such a thing. mr. pearce: i would be happy to provide to the documentation to the gentleman afterwards. we see things in new mexico.

mr. lamborn: reclaiming my time. i would just conclude, mr. chairman, by saying that this amendment is not a good amendment for the bill because it guts title 2. we need some predictability in the litigation process as well as in the government bureaucratic process. this allows parties to go to court. it prevents the abuse of eeja. it's not the legitimate use of that law that we're after. it's ate buice of that particular law. that's yts addressed in this bill. i urge a no vote and yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from colorado yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from pennsylvania has no time remaining. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from pennsylvania. hose in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to. mr. cartwright: i ask for a recorded vote. the chair: pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from pennsylvania will be postponed.

it is now in order to consider amendment number 4 printed in house report 114-301. for what purpose does the gentleman from new mexico seek recognition? mr. pearce: i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 4 printed in house report 114-301 offered by mr. pearce of new mexico. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 481, the gentleman from new mexico, mr. pearce, and a member opposed, will each control five minutes. the gentleman from new mexico is recognized for five minutes. mr. pearce: i thank the gentleman. the permian basin where the second district of new mexico falls just in the corner of that, two or three counties have tremendous assets. it's home of some of the most forms of d purest potash which is used for fertilizer and then has

significant oil and gas. when i was elected to congress in 2002, one of the first things that next year we began to discover is the oil and gas and potash industries had approximately 50-year running battle against each other. we worked with the agency, the interior department and over the next 10 approximately years worked out an agreement with the secretary of interior and the two different industries on how both get along in the same area. that was a significant undertaking. it was a significant finding by the interior department and, again, took almost 10 years of very delicate negotiations. and so my amendment in this -- for this bill 1937 is simply to clarify that nothing in the bill overturns that agreement that has been reached. again, this agreement came

under the obama administration but dated back through the bush administration, and so it's been pretty well looked at by both sides, both parties and is -- has been functioning very well. so it is my desire to simply get the clarifying language that nothing in the bill is going to change that secretarial order and, likewise, the amendment does nothing to change the language in the bill. just clarifying that this is what we're going to do. now, it's extremely important for new mexico but also for the nation because the potash provides the fertilizer for food sources across the nation but also the oil and gas industry is providing much of the oil and gas that's coming into america's supply right now and driving down the price. the discoveries in that particular region will produce more oil and gas in one county than has been produced in the entire state for its entire history. so it's not as if these

questions are insignificant. so, again, our amendment is very straightforward. just seeks to clarify that nothing is going to affect that secretarial order, and i reserve the balance of my time. mr. lamborn: if the gentleman will yield? mr. pearce: yes. mr. lamborn: we support the amendment and commend the author and would yield back. mr. pearce: i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from new mexico reserves the balance of his time. who seeks recognition in opposition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to claim the time that is allotted to the opposition to this amendment although do i not intend to oppose it. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. cartwright: mr. chairman, i think it's interesting that this amendment is coming up, as it has in the past, because it simply proves the point we have been trying to make. the larger point is that this bill is simply too broad. it covers every possible mineral you could mine, including potash.

i think the gentleman from new mexico would agree that potash s not a strategic and critical mineral. it does not need environmental review waivers that this bill would provide. what many of my colleagues and i are saying is that potash is no different from many other minerals. . the kerp for southeastern new mexico that potash development and oil and gas drilling be able to occur without conflict, and this bill would threaten that. we want to make sure that mineral development doesn't conflict with other things as well throughout the country like hunting, fishing, camping, grazing, recreating, conserving, and other legitimate uses. unfortunately, this bill threatens that. and we are likely not going to grant exemptions for these purposes like we are for the oil and gas industry.

i would certainly like it if sportsmen were protected from hastily adopted and permitted sand and gravel core reads. the same way you want your oil and gas drillers to be protected from hastily permitted potash mines. interestingly, potash is a mineral where we import over 80% of our supply. we are entirely self-sufficient in sand and gravel. by that standard you'd say that potash is more critical and strategic that sand and gravel, but the majority will allow this amendment to be adopted because it benefits oil and gas producers. mr. speaker, meanwhile, the lowenthal amendment, which takes sand and gravel out of this bill, for the benefit of everyone else in this country, is likely to get voted down. and i, i think that's

unfortunate. it mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from new mexico is recognized. mr. pearce: i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from new mexico reserves his time. >> mr. speaker, i urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from pennsylvania yield back the balance of his time. the jam new mexico is recognized. mr. pearce: mr. chairman -- the gentleman from new mexico is recognized. mr. pearce: mr. chairman, this bill does not change the underlying language of the bill. simply seeks to clarify that to all parties that no change was intended and no change will occur to the existing order from the secretary. with that i would urge everyone to support the amendment and the underlying bill. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. mr. pearce: i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the

gentleman from new mexico. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. agreed to. t is it's now in order to consider amendment number 5 printed in house report 114-301. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? mr. hastings: mr. chairman, i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 5, printed in house report number 114-301, offered by mr. hastings of florida. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 481, the gentleman from florida, mr. hastings, and a member opposed, each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida for five minutes. mr. hastings: thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, when i saw h.r. 1937 as submitted, i agreed with the minority on the energy and mineral resources subcommittee that it was in

need of a significant amendment , in particular in the definition of strategic and critical minerals. the amendment submitted by congressman lowenthal is also a good basis and would correct the bill, however, as this has been rejected in the past, i took a less stringent approach that i believe would be a basis that would at least eliminate the most egregious aspects of the definition. this bill addresses a real problem which is that long permitting delays for mining projects in the united states, especially in remote or environmentally sensitive areas, can reach seven to 10 years in some cases. this represents a significant project risk for potential investors which makes them his o torquically more likely to develop projects outside of the

united states when there are opportunities to produce the same mineral products. increasing international government scrutiny on environmental issues for mining projects outside of the united states along with civil instability in many mineral resource-rich countries, has prompted project proponents to as a the united states safer alternative. given that projects can be developed in a reasonable time frame. that said, the majority's claims of mining permit delays for all kinds of mining projects that prompted this bill are unfounded. last year the average time it took to approve a plan of operations for a hard rock mine was 17 months. and since 2008, the approval time has actually decreased. as of last year the obama

administration had approved 69% of hard rock mines within three years. rather than addressing the problem directly with the responsible agencies as president obama did in his presidential order improving performance of federal permitting and review of infrastructure projects, dated arch 22, 2012, this bill is an end run around the permitting process and the authority of the permitting agencies and the courts. h.r. 1937 includes a very broad definition of strategic and critical minerals that does not take into account whether these minerals are actually in short supply in the united states. under the definition as written, cement and wall board, as well as gold and diamonds, would qualify.

it makes one wonder if there is a strategic and critical shortage of jewelry in the united states. the authors of this bill say that they do not wish to identify which mineral products are strategic and critical. since this may change over time , with changes in national priorities. therefore this amendment adds a simple test. this amendment requires proposed strategic and critical minerals projects to demonstrate that domestic capacity to produce strategic and critical minerals is less than 80% of domestic requirements. this will eliminate mineral products such as sand and gravel which the authors claim the bill was never meant to encompass. the amendment also requires that unless or until the domestic capacity for strategy -- strategic and critical mineral product exceeds 80% of domestic requirements, the

public will be notified of the intent to transport or sell any final or intermediate strategic and critical mineral products outside of the united states. i urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my amendment. i reserve the balance of my ime. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from -- who seeks time in opposition? mr. lamborn: i stand in opposition to this amendment. the chair: the gentleman from colorado is recognized for five minutes. mr. lamborn: mr. chairman, i'm having a little trouble understanding where this amendment is headed and what it's really trying to do. if i understand correctly it proposes to limit export of strategic and critical minerals at the supply of those mineral is greater than 80% of domestic demand. as i'm trying to figure that out, one thing that jumps out at me is why is 80% a significant milestone?

it seems sort of plucked out of thin air. it seems arbitrary. and how you would measure and find that 80% of something that's used in many ways around the country i'm not sure how that would be done by advertising the national newspapers or something-dirnl' just a little unsure. also the amendment appears to be internally inconsistent. on the one hand the amendment seeks to prevent the use of the bill's provisions if the supply is greater than 80% of domestic demand. on the other hand, the amendment says that the project proponent cannot show that production exceeds 80% of domestic demand, the project proponent must advertise that fact. in a national newspaper trade publications or a website. i'm just a little confused as to what this amendment is really trying to get at, but it does seem to be in the final analysis a continuation of the

overregulation that's produced this problem in the first place. we have so many regulatory obstacles to producing minerals that it does take seven to 10 years. now, if you take a certain slice out of that process, it may sound like a smaller period of time, but when you add in litigation and everything else that accompanies the process, it is literally seven to 10 years, especially for hard rock mine projects. that produces rare earth minerals and things like that. there might be a few exceptions for clay or other items that are of less concern, but for hard rock mining, there is no way to avoid the seven to 10 years, unfortunately, in our country today. this would be another example of the kind of regulation that just gums up the whole process. so i would urge the rejection of this amendment and i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his

time. the gentleman from florida is recognized. r. hastings: i am at this time prepared to yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from colorado. mr. lam bohn: i yield back the balance of my time. urge a no vote. the chair: the gentleman has yielded his time. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from florida. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to. mr. hastings: i ask for a recorded vote. the chair: pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from florida had been postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado rise? mr. lamborn: i move that the committee now rise. the chair: the question is on the motion that the committee rise. so many as are in favor say aye . those opposed, no.

the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the committee rises. the speaker pro tempore: mr. chairman. the chair: the committee of the whole house on the state of the union having had under consideration h.r. 1937 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. 1937, and has come to no resolution thereon. pursuant to clause 12-tafment of rule 1, the chair declares the -- 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until approximately 3:30 p.m. today. and expertise to

add to it. and there was a recommendation that benghazi be continued through 2012 as part of the continuing evaluation of whether or what we wanted to have on a more permanent basis in benghazi. >> and do you recall, were you in those discussions? were you specifically in those meetings? you've shared that you didn't do a lot by e-mail, that you had more meetings than briefings. were you in those meetings about extending benghazi through the end of the year? >> there were certainly meetings in which i was advised about the process being undertaken as to

determine whether benghazi should be extended. so, yes, i was aware of the process that was ongoing, and i was kept up to date about it. >> and were there any minutes or any briefings -- >> the gentle lady's time has expired. >> way over. >> the chair would recognize . >> ambassador stevens had access to you. >> yes, he did. >> i don't have the name in front of me, but ambassador in russia said that, you know, he always had access to you, always had constant communication with you, never had your e-mail address. >> that's right. >> i would hope that ambassadors would have more direct and immediate lines of communication, and ambassador stevens certainly did -- >> correyes. >> -- correct? and did ambassador stevens ever advocate either leaving libya or

abandoning benghazi? >> could the contrary, congressman, he was a very strong advocate for staying in libya, including benghazi. >> i think what we've learned here is, well, nothing frankly. that we didn't know already. the security situation in libya was dangerous. >> right. >> without question. would you say that ambassador stevens was unaware of any aspect of that? >> no, i would not. i think he was very aware. >> so, he knew the security situation in libya quite well. >> that's right. >> and yet -- again, i want to be clear on this. in his communications with you, when he had many, even if he didn't have your e-mail address, did he ever say, you know, did he raise the security issue directly with you? >> no, he did not. >> and, you know, obviously he chose to go to benghazi. he, as you have described earlier, as, gosh, all across the world today, diplomats are weighing the risks and the benefits in a lot of dangerous

places. and he had to do that -- >> yes. >> -- and he chose to go to benghazi. >> he did. and congressman, ambassadors in the countries they are representing the united states in do not as a practice ask permission from the state department to travel in the country where they are stationed. >> right. as well they should not. they need to be in charge of their country. also point out, you know, on the question of e-mails and which ones you received and haven't received, unfortunately the state department, which has been spending an enormous amount of time producing documents for this commitf ffcommittee, canno thousands of e-mails at the drop of the hat the committee chose to prioritize your e-mails and cheryl mills' e-mails and cindy blumenthal's e-mails to you and they chose to prioritize those

e-mails over the others. the state department is trying to get those e-mails but it is a the priority of the committee. the other point i want to make, and i won't take the full ten minutes here. a lot of accusations have been made back and forth about things that were said that were or were not true. i think the one thing that was said in this hearing that is clearly the farthest from the truth is that this is not a prosecution. if you listen to the other side, this is unquestionably exactly that, a prosecution. i mean, i ask viewers to just go back and listen to chairman gowdy's questioning of you before the first break and tell me that that's not a prosecution. and i think, again, i don't know if shame, embarrassment, whatever word you wish to choose, it shouldn't be a prosecution, you know, we have the, you know, former secretary of state here. we should be genuinely trying to inquire about how we can gather more information. now, the only interesting facts that seem to be brought up are always referenced back to the arb, which just points up the

fact that the information that we need and, again, i really want to emphasize this was a serious, serious matter for the united states. a loss of four americans is something we need to take incredibly seriously and investigate and we did. and the information that we found out, as you pointed out, was not always flattering. there was no question that mistakes were made. and we hopefully learned from them. but that was investigated. so, what is the purpose of this committee? and, you know, when you look at the e. mails they request and you look at the questioning, the purpose of this committee is to prosecute you. there will be time enough for that in the next year and, you know, people will do it. we don't need to spend $4.7 million and 17 months to simply prosecute you. and all the questions about, look, the security situation was well known in libya. the security situation in pakistan is well known. i visited the embassy in yemen

in 2009 about a month after someone had shot a rocket-propelled grenade through the front door. the security situation there is incredibly serious as well as it is in a whole lot of other places, and those are difficult decisions. but the effort here today seems to be that somehow you personally decided not to do your job in libya. okay? you were apparently the advocate of the policy in libya, apparently passionate about it, but not passionate enough to care about the security situation in libya and, you know, chris stevens incredibly passionate about libya. wanted to make that country work. now, it has proven very, very difficult. we want to go back to moammar gadhafi in charge, i don't think so, to make a policy point as long as i have a few minutes. it's interesting to juxtapose libya with syria. because just as many of my republican colleagues are ripping apart the obama administration and all those involved for choosing to remove

gadhafi, they are ripping apart the obama administration, all the current officials, for choosing not to get involved in syria. what that points up, frankly, is the difficulty of the job that you had. and i thank you for taking it. i'm not sure i would be so bold. it is a very, very dangerous world. bad things are going to happen. and what we are witnessing today is if bad things happen, you know, you will be dragged out over months and months and months in this partisan atmosphere and that is very, very unfortunate. it needed to be investigated, you know, 9/11, we didn't investigate 9/11, you know, 9/11/2001 just to specify, with the length and depth that we have chose to investigate this. so, again, i come back to the central point of the central problem with this committee. it is a prosecution. it is a partisan exercise.

it is not trying to investigate and find out the truth. and, again, we are now the math here, five hours into it, count the break, maybe four hours into it. we have learned nothing substantively new about what happened in benghazi. very serious things happened. they were investigated. they were reported. mistakes were made. they were reported. but this committee and all that time and effort has unearthed nothing. instead they want to prosecute you. and you rip apart your every word, your every e-mail. two staffers five levels down from you that said something bad about you? i mean, my goodness, i hope i don't ever have to undergo that kind of scrutiny. i would not survive it. and i don't think many would. so, you know, i hope in the hours that we have left to do this that we will try to circle back to learning something new, to figuring out how we can best strike that balance that you described of being present in

the world but also trying to keep our people safe throughout the history of the country, my aunt was actually a foreign service officer way back when, and, you know, you know, we have lost many diplomats and she tells me about it all the time. and, you know, it's a difficult balance. if we can get back to that, if we can learn something new about what happened in benghazi, i think that might be helpful. but right now this committee is not doing a service to the four people who died or their families or to preventing any of these future incidents from happening. so, i thank you for your testimony. i thank you for your leadership and your willingness to do a very, very difficult job and with that i yield the remaining of my time. >> madam secretary, maybe an hour or so ago we were talking about the diplomatic security folks on the night of the incident, and it appeared that you wanted to say a little bit more about that and what they -- speaking of that -- the

incident, would you like to elaborate? >> well, thank you, congressman. you know, i don't want anything that is said to me or about me to take away from the heroic efforts that the diplomatic security officers exhibited. the five men who were with chris and shawn smith risked their lives repeatedly. and were themselves under grave threat. i wanted to point out that even when we try to get it right, which we do try, sometimes there are unintended consequences. and there is an example out of this tragedy. coming out of previous assessments of attacks on facilities, we now have safe

havens, safe rooms in facilities particularly residences. the diplomatic security officers were able to get both chris and shawn into that safe room. of course, the idea behind the safe room, why security experts advocated for them, was to protect our civilians, our d diplomats from attacks like the one that was occurring. the attackers used diesel fuel to set the compound on fire. and the safe room was anything but safe. i'm sure the committee members know that neither chris stevens nor shawn smith died from injuries directly inflicted by the attackers. they both died of smoke inhalation.

and one of the recommendations in this arb report is that when we have safe havens, we need to have equipment that will enable people that are safe within them to withstand what happened in benghazi. the lead diplomatic security officer who was with both the ambassador and shawn smith endeavored to lead them to safety through a wall of black smoke. he wanted to get them out of the compound, interior up to the roof, where they could be out of the fire and also out of the attackers' assault. he himself nearly died of smoke inhalation. when he looked around to make sure that both shawn and chris were with him, he couldn't find them.

rather than proceeding and saving himself, which would be a natural human instinct, he turned back into that black diesel smoke desperately trying to find chris and shawn. he did find shawn, and shawn had succumbed to smoke inhalation, and the diplomatic security officer managed to take shawn out of the building. he could not find chris stevens. one of the horrors of the hours after the attack was our failure to be able to find where the ambassador was. we hoped against hope that he had somehow gotten himself out of the compound and he was alive somewhere maybe in the back.

and additional efforts by the diplomatic security officers and then eventually by the cia reinforcements that arrived to find his body or to find him hopefully were unsuccessful. and they had to withdraw because of the continuing attack back to the cia annex before we knew what had happened to the ambassador. we were desperate. and we were trying to call everybody we knew in benghazi, in libya, get additional help. what appears to have happened at some point later is that libyans found ambassador stevens, and they carried him to the hospital in benghazi. and libyan doctors labored nearly two hours to try to resuscitate him.

and i mention all of this because i want not just the committee members but any viewers in the public to understand that this was the fog of war. that the diplomatic security officers and later the cia officers responded with heroism, professionalism as they had been trained to do. we thought things would be safe once they took refuge in the cia annex. and as we know even though that was a highly fortified, much more secure facility than our diplomatic compound and one that we had nothing to do with in the state department, it turned out also to be a target for the militants, which is where the two cia contractors, mr. woods and mr. doherty, died.

but in looking at all of the information, the accountability review board and particularly admiral mullen who was focused on what happened, what the security personnel did that night, came out agreeing that they were heroic and they did all they could do to try to save their colleagues' lives. >> the gentleman yields back. madam secretary, i apprec yate you go iing through their heroi. it infuriates me to hear folks to my left who don't raise a single whistle per about spending $50 million to train 5 isis fighters but god forbid we spend one-tenth of that to give some answers to the family members sitting on the first row. so, i appreciate you discussing their heroism while some of my colleagues discuss money.

with that, mr. pompeo. >> i think mr. smith gave a soliloquy. i think it was eloquent, but it was representative of the democrats on this panel since may of 2014. not one question for a witness. they say they want to get to the matter of the truth but the truth of the matter is they spend most of the time today attacking members of this committee and this process and i regret that i think that's a violation of their duty to the country and most importantly their duty to the families. i want to go back to a couple things i talked to you about a bit before, madam secretary. ambassador stevens didn't have your e-mail, correct? your personal e-mail? >> i'm sorry, what did you ask me? >> ambassador stevens didn't have your personal e-mail, we've established that. >> that's right. >> did he have your cell phone number? >> no, but he had the 24-hour number in the state department

that can reach me 24/7. >> yes, ma'am. did he have the fax number? >> he had the fax number of the state department in. >> did he have usual home address? >> no, i don't think any ambassador has ever asked me for that. >> did he ever stop by your house? >> no, he did not, congressman. >> mr. blumenthal had each of those and did each of those things. this man who provided you so much information on libya had access to you in ways that were very different than the access that a very senior diplomat had to your -- to you and your person. i'd ask -- i had a picture up here a bit ago of a man that you said you didn't recognize who he was. were you ever briefed that he was present at the compound the night that ambassador stevens was killed? >> we are trying to track down the basis of your question, congressman. we have no information at this time. >> my question is a yes-or-no question, it's pretty simple. >> i don't have any information i can provide to you yes or no

because i know nothing about this question. >> the answer to the question is were you briefed and the answer is? >> we don't know anything about it so how could i have been briefed about something we know nothing about? >> great, thank you. are all arbs created equal? >> well, there have been 19, including the one that we impaneled after benghazi. they've all been led by distinguished americans. they've all been set up in accordance with the laws and rules that the congress established when they created the legislation to establish arbs. so, i assume in those respects they are created equal. >> yes, ma'am. i'm asking a pretty simple yes-or-no question i guess. i'm happy to let you expand and i'm happy to bring breakfast in. but when i ask a yes-or-no question it sure would be helpful if we could get to the

answer. are the recommendations of each arb worthy of equal treatment? >> well, they are certainly worthy of follow-up by the department and i believe that they have been. >> there was an arb -- please, if you would put up the poster, please. there was an arb in 1998, you said this before in your testimony, 200 folks were killed. here's what its recommendation said, special mission security posture that was inadequate for benghazi -- this is from the most recent one. i want to know if you agree with this. inadequate for benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place. do you agree with the statement from the current arb? >> i accepted the recommendations of the current arb. >> my question is if you agree with it. >> i don't think that's a relevant question, congressman. i think the question is, i accepted their recommendations, and obviously their recommendations were based on their very thorough investigation and analysis. so, clearly i endorsed the

entire board's work. >> in january 2014 senator feinstein noted conservative said, quote, in her report, the incidents at the tmf and cia were likely preventable end of quote. do you agree with that statement from senator feinstein's report? >> well, i would like to think that anything of that magnitude and the loss of life could have in some way been preventable. i think that what the arb recommended were steps to try to enhance our ability to prevent future attacks. >> let's go back -- i want to go back now i have the right poster up. in 1998 here's what the arb said. it said, quote, the secretary of state should personally review the security situation of embassy, and other official premises closing those which are highly vulnerable and threatened, end of quote. you've told us all day today that you don't think you should have been involved, quoting again from the arb, personally

reviewing security. how do you square that? >> well, there are a couple of important points to make about this, congressman. first, i made a number of decisions to close embassy and other official premises based on security. i closed the embassy in tripoli. i had to evacuate all of the americans out of libya. we had to, you know, lease ferries that came from malta. we closed embassies and other facilities when we had a strong consensus recommendation that it was necessary to do. so, that is -- that is a statement of secretarial responsibility. now, with respect to looking at every security request, how high should the wall be, whether there should be barricades ba s placed on the east or the west side, that is handled by the security professionals. so, clearly, i closed embassies. i recommended that embassies and other facilities be closed.

so i understand what that point is. >> madam secretary, this is a yes-or-no question, do you think you complied with the arb in 1998 said and personally reviewed the security at benghazi? >> well, that's -- that is not what my understanding of the 1998 arb. >> it's just words, madam secretary, they're there. >> and i just answered. i personally reviewed other official facilities that were recommended because they were highly vulnerable and threatened to be closed and we closed some. some we were able to reopen, which is kind of part of the process. with respect to the 1998 arb recommendations, by the time i became secretary, having succeeded two secretaries who served during very dangerous and threatening times, there was an assessment made that i certainly was briefed into that we had to

look at how best to professionalize the security and the expert advice that we were receiving. that was exactly what i did, and i went further than that. i created a new position, a deputy secretary for resources and management. i also had recommended after our arb the deputy assistant secretary for high threats. so, this was a constant discussion about how to make us secure. but not whether or not the secretary of state should decide on the height of the barricades. i think that's where we may not be fully understanding one another, congressman. >> i think we understand each other perfectly. >> of course, specific questions about closing embassies and other official premises that were vulnerable and threatened, of course, they came to me. i had to make the decision.

deciding whether the wall would be 10 feet, 12 feet, whether there would be three security agents or five, that was the province, as it should have been, of the professionals. >> here's another one from the 1998 arb, first and foremost the secretary should take a personal and active role in carrying out the responsibility ensuring the security of the u.s. diplomatic personnel abroad. do you believe you complied with that requirement from the 1998 arb? >> yes, i do. i believe that i had established a process, and i -- you know, i said earlier today state department and our security professionals have to be 100% right, and i think that, you know, what happened in benghazi was a tragedy and something that, you know, we all want to prevent from ever happening again. but there were many, many situations, many security issues that we had to deal with during

the four years that i was secretary of state. and i did leave what i hope will be a very important additional position, namely the deputy for high threat posts, that now will focus solely on what are considered the highest threat places in the -- in the world for our personnel. >> madam secretary, i hope you can understand the difference between creating a deputy under assistant secretary and america's senior diplomat getting involved in personal security. the amount of resources can be moved, the speed at which they will move rested only in your hands. i've led organizations myself. >> well, i respectfully disagree with that, congressman. it's been my experience that you want to find people who are dedicated 100% to security. you don't want a secretary or anyone dipping in and out, maybe making decisions based on factors other than what the professionals decide, at least that is my very strong opinion. >> yes, ma'am, leaders lead.

i want to -- i've just got a few seconds. in all the materials that have been produced to us today, i have not yet found the document that was prepared at your request for post-gadhafi planning. did you have such a document prepared prior to the time that mr. gadhafi was removed? >> we had a number of documents. we had a long list of areas that we were working on and the process for following up on those areas. i don't know if it was one document or a dozen documents, but we had a lot of work that was ongoing. both at the state department and at usaid. >> and did you ask for those documents to be prepared? do you know if you had a team working on that or if it was something that was happening of its own accord? >> we had a number of people that were working on it. as i said, i sent both of my deputies out to libya to meet with the libyans. you know, we can do all the planning we want in washington, but it's very important to did the libyans both what they want and what they expect from us.

and so we had an ongoing dialogue that lasted over many months. >> yes, ma'am, i agree with that. we'll get a chance to talk about that in a bit. i yield back. >> the chair will now recognize the gentle lady from illinois, miss duckworth. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary clinton, i apologize. my line of questioning will probably be a little bit boring because i'm going to get into some details that actually have to deal with security and how we can better safeguard america's diplomats now and onwards. from, you know -- i have to say that the arb conducted by admiral mullen, a man of great military pedigree and long service to this nation, quite honorable, brave service, as well as ambassador pickering i thought was well conducted and well thought out. and, in fact, don't just take my word for it. i'm a pretty low-ranking member of the house, but the republican chairman, longtime republican chairman of the house armed services committee, also, you know, and never once in our

committee hearing did i hear him malign the work that was done in that arb as we on our committee also looked at what happened. so, i want to look at some of the findings from the arb. and i want to examine the failures of the blue mountain libya security guards and the february 13 militia on that exact day, september 11, 2012. my understanding is benghazi neither the host country's militia forces nor the state department's private local guards were capable of defending our personnel. these poorly trained forces either did not show up, they retreated in the face of danger or simply lacked the necessary tools to fight back effectively. i want to learn the lessons in benghazi and hold everyone accountable, not just the state department, but every agency involved as well as congress, ourselves. and this committee itself. for implementing significant comprehensive reforms that will prevent future tragedies. so, you know, looking at the work that i've done on armed

services committee and on oversight government reform i've been consistently concerned with the cost and consequences of federal contract mismanagement. costs american taxpayers a lot of dollars, so i want to look at the state department's policy of awarding local guard contracts using a very inflexible contract vehicle known as the lowest price technically acceptable or lpta vehicle. i think that should have raised red flags here in congress. when life and limb are at risk, such as when buying body armor for our troops overseas or barriers for our embassies, i don't know that lowest price technically acceptable is the right vehicle. so, can you discuss a little bit, why is it that the state department appears to have awarded local guard contracts in libya using this contracting method? >> congresswoman, i think that's another very important question. i think the state department, like much of the rest of the government, often feels under

pressure to go to lowest price, whether or not that lowest price is the best contract. and we had a lot of challenges, not just in libya, but in many places around the world, trying to work to find the right contractors to provide static security for a lot of our posts and facilities, to find more kinetic contractors who could be the front line of defense since we -- as we discussed earlier, we're stationed in so many places where there were not american military that could be called and quickly respond. so i would like very much, and perhaps there could be a working group with armed services and foreign affairs and others to look to see whether we couldn't get a little more flexibility into this decision making. because the february 17th militia was viewed by the cia,

which had vetted it as well as by our diplomats, as a reliable source for kinetic support. sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. and the static support proved to be not very useful at all on that night. so, i think you're really raising an important issue about how to get more flexibility into the contracting, because we're not going to be able to bring american military forces to every place where we are in a high-threat post either because the military can't afford to do that for us or because the host country won't invite us in. and the other problem, as you pointed out, is that if the host country doesn't have any real resources, it's hard to know how much they can produce. that night i was calling the president of libya and demanding that he find any friendly militia, any friendly anybody, to show up and to support us.

when our reinforcements, the security reinforcements from tripoli landed, a militia showed up and, in fact, kept them there until they had a big enough group to accompany them to the cia annex. so, it's a very unpredictable and even erratic process. and it starts with in many instances the lowest price. and i don't think that's always the best way to get a contract for security. >> i happen to agree with you, and i think actually the lpta that i'm talking about that actually sets very inflexible standards for specifically the department of state is actually a law passed by congress in 1990. so, when you talk about maybe some sort of a working group, congress needs to do our part and maybe amend a 35-year-old law that actually forced the state department to go with the lowest price. secretary clinton, can you address what actions congress can fix problems that have to do with host country instituted

stringent policies given the use of private security guards? my understanding is that the country of libya, the host nation in this case, did not allow your security contractors to carry firearms. the blue mountain guards. i think the blue mountain guards were not allowed to carry firearms, is that right? >> yeah, blue mountain was not. certainly our diplomatic security officers were. the militia members who were supposed to be providing kinetic help for us were. so, it was only the static guards that were not. now, i will say that, you know, some of those guards did stand their ground. bin order.asically run over. >> continue to watch the benghazi committee on c-span3 or c-span.org. tethe iofo fth consideraton of h.r. 1937. willhe genem fm illinois , kindly take the chair.

the chair: the house of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for further consideration of house resolution 1937, which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: a bill to require the secretary of the interior and the secretary of agriculture to more efficiently develop domestic sources of minerals of strategic and critical importance of the national security and manufacturing competitiveness. the chair: when the committee of the whole arose earlier today a request for roll call vote on amendment number 5 printed in house report 114-301, offered by the gentleman from florida, mr. astings, had been postponed.

pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, proceedings will now resume on those amendments printed in the house report 114-301 on which further proceedings were postponed in the following order. mendment number 1 by mr. lowenthal of california, amendment number 2 by mrs. dingell of michigan, amendment number 3 by mr. cartwright of pennsylvania, amendment number 5 by mr. hastings of florida. the chair will reduce to two minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote after the first vote in this series. the unfinished business is the request for a recorded vote on amendment number 1 printed in house report 114-301 by the gentleman from california, mr.

lowenthal. on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes prevailed by a voice vote. the clerk will rekezzig nate the amendment. -- redesignate the amendment. kelly: amendment number one printed -- the clerk: amendment number one printed in house requested by mr. lowenthal of california. 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 risen a recorded vote is 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 chair: on this vote the yeas are 171, the nays are 251.

the chair: on this vote the yeas are 176, the nays are 253.

he amendment is not adopted. the unfinished business is the request for a recorded vote on amendment number 2 printed in by the e report 114-301 gentlewoman from michigan, mrs. dingell, on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes prevailed by voice vote. the clerk will redesignate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 2 printed in house report 114-301 offered by mrs. dingell of michigan. the chair: a recorded vote has been requested. those in support of the request for a recorded vote will rise nd 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.

[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 .s. house of representatives.]

the chair: on this vote the yeas are 181, the nays are 248. he amendment is not adopted. the unfinished business is the request for a recorded vote on amendment number 3 printed in house report 114-301 by the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. cartwright, on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the nays prevailed by voice vote. the clerk will redesignate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 3

printed in house report 114-301 offered by mr. cartwright of pennsylvania. 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 will be a two-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 .s. house of representatives.]

the chair: on this vote the

yeas are 181. the nays are 242.

the chair: on this vote the yeas are 184. the nays are 245. he amendment is not adopted. the unfinished business is the request for a recorded vote on amendment number 5 printed in the report 114-301 by

gentleman from florida, mr. hastings, on which further proceedings were postponed and on which the nays prevailed by voice vote. the clerk will redesignate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 5 printed in house report 114-301 offered by mr. hastings of florida. 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. [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 chair: on this vote the

yeas are 183. the nays, 246. the amendment is not adopted. there being no further amendments, under the rule the committee rises. the chair: the chair of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports that the committee has under consideration house resolution 1937 and pursuant to house resolution 481 reports the bill back to the house with an amendment adopted in the ommittee of the whole.

the speaker pro tempore: the chairman of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports that the committee had under consideration h.r. 1937 and pursuant to the house resolution 481 reports the bill back to the house with an amendment adopted in the committee of the whole. under the rule the previous question is ordered. the question is on adoption of the amendment. 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 require the secretary of the interior and the secretary of agriculture to more efficiently develop domestic sources of the minerals and mineral materials of strategic and critical importance to united states economic and national security manufacturing

competitiveness. the speaker pro tempore: the ouse will be in order. the house will come to order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. members will take their seats, remove their conversations off the floor.

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i have a motion to recommit at the desk. the speaker pro tempore: is the gentleman opposed to the bill? >> i am in its current form. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman qualifies. the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: mr. peters of california moves to recommit the bill h.r. 1937 to the committee on natural resources with instructions to report the same back to the house forthwith with the following amendment -- add at the end the following -- the speaker pro tempore: is there objection? the house will be in order. without objection, the reading is dismissed.

and the gentleman from california is recognized for five minutes. mr. peters: thank you, mr. speaker. this is the final amendment to the bill which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. if adopted, the bill will move immediately to passage, as amended. i've been a clear proponent for reducing regulatory burdens and streamlining the environmental review process in ways that make sense. before i entered public service, i practiced environmental law for 15 years in large firms in a government office and in my own firm and through that experience i learned firsthand of the frustration that many businesses and local governments face when they try to navigate an overly complex and underresponsive permit process. i also know from experience that time is money. often a business seeking a ermit is holding a building -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. the house will be in order. the house will proceed when the house is in order.

the gentleman from california may proceed. mr. peters: often a business seeking a permit is holding a property or service alone while it waits for that permit to be issued, and that's why i've often said for applicants no is the second best answer. tell us no or tell us how but don't string us alone. the approach the bill undertakes is not to streamline the process for analyzing the significant impact of bedrock mining, which i might support, it just eliminates the review process altogether. mr. speaker, my amendment won't solve that problem but would make an important clarification. as these critical mineral mining projects undergo environmental review, agencies should be able to assess how the project may contribute to climate change. recently, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, or noaa, reported that the

first seven months of this year had been the hottest such period on record. globally, average surface temperatures have increased substantially in the last century, and nearly twice as fast in the last 50 years alone. the vast majority of climate scientists, including leading academic organizations across the world, agree that the planet is warming due to human activities. now, how many national academies reject global warming? none. between november, 2012, and december, 2013, there were 9,137 peer reviewed papers written on climate change. of those 9,137 papers, how many did not agree that climate change is happening because of human activity? one. that's right. only one out of more than 9,000. so it seems to me when scientific organizations, including the american association for the advancement of science, the american chemistry society, the american geophysical union, the american

meterological society, the geological society of america, the national academy of sciences, the intergovernmental panel on climate change, all agree that climate change is happening because of human activity, we ought to be listening. if 99 doctors told you that you had diabetes and one said he wasn't sure, wouldn't you still do something? now, for too long we heard we have to choose between a prosperous economy and a clean environment, and san diegoans and people around the country know that's a false choice. we can and we must provide economic opportunity and clean air and water for future generations. given the high stakes associated with carbon emissions and climate change on coastal property, energy, defense, our food supply and our quality of life, shouldn't we at least understand the long-term costs associated with the project? by allowing agencies to take a full environmental consideration of a project, including its potential contributions to climate change, my amendment rejects the false choice between a

prosperous economy and a healthy climate. we can and we must have both. i urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and i yield back the balance of my time. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california ields back his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado seek recognition? mr. lamborn: mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to the motion to recommit. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. lamborn: mr. speaker, this motion to recommit is a procedural motion designed to slow down consideration of this important jobs bill. it is a purely procedural motion, not a substantive motion. i urge us to reject the motion. it is important to pass this bill. right now it takes seven to 10 years to support a mining project in the u.s. this is dead last among mining countries. the critical and strategic minerals we mine in this country go into vital infrastructure and manufacturing to improve our way of life. when we use american resources to create american jobs, we reduce our dependency on

foreign countries, like china. this bill will reduce bureaucratic red tape, speed up the legal and permitting process and create certainty so that mining projects will stay here in america. i urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and support h.r. 1937, to use american resources for american jobs. mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. without objection, the previous question is ordered. the question is whether to recommit. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the noes have it. the gentleman. >> i request a recorded vote. thank you. 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 record vote is ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. pursuant to clause 8 and clause

9 of rule 20, this five-minute vote on the motion to recommit will be followed by five-minute votes on passage of the bill if ordered, ordering the previous question on house resolution 483, and adoption of house resolution 483 if ordered, and 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 .s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on

this vote the yeas are 183 -- the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 184, the nays are 246, the motion is not adopted. the question is on passage of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the gentleman from california. >> mr. speaker, i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are 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, the yeas and nays are ordered.

members will record their votes by electronic device. 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 254, the nays are 177, the bill is passed. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the vote on ordering the previous question on house resolution 483 on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house calendar number 68, house resolution 483, resolution providing for consideration of the bill h.r. 3762, to provide for reconciliation pursuant to

section 2002 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2016, waiving a requirement of clause 6-a of rule 13 with respect to consideration of certain resolutions reported from the committee on rules and providing for consideration of motions to suspend the rules. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on ordering the previous question. members will record their votes by electronic device. 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 244.

the nays are 185. the previous question is ordered. the question is on adoption of the resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. ms. slaughter: mr. speaker, on that i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. 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 240. the nays are 187. the resolution is adopted. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the chair will receive a message. the messenger: mr. speaker, a message from the president of the united states. the secretary: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: mr. secretary. the secretary: i am directed by the president of the united states to deliver to the house of representatives a message in writing.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota seek recognition?

>> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one inute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to remember fallen deputy steven sandberg who was shot and killed in the line of duty this past sunday in st. cloud, minnesota. mr. emmer: deputy sandberg's death was both senseless and tragic, but we must remember him for the heroic way he chose to live his life. deputy sandberg was an honorable man who served the community for 24 years. he began working for the aiken county sheriff's office in 1991, and worked as an investigator for the past 20 years. every day for more than two decades, deputy sandberg put his life on the line to protect others, and we will be forever grateful for his service. our community has suffered a major loss, and we will never

forget what this exceptional man has done for us. our thoughts and prayers are with steven's wife christy and daughter cassie as well as his many friends and colleagues during this difficult time. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota seek recognition? mr. nolan: permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. nolan: mr. speaker, members of the house, minnesota suffered a terrible tragedy when we lost deputy sheriff stephen sandberg in the line of duty last weekend. a 20-year veteran of the sheriff's office was loved and cherished by his family, by all who knew him and the entire

region. his daughter recently said and i quote. i want everyone to know that my dad was so proud to do his job and to serve the entire community. cassie we are proud, too. we are proud to have your dad's debate service in our community. his bravery, his service, will never be forgotten. today i ask my colleagues to please keep his wife and daughter in your thoughts and in your prayers. and please remember to thank and to honor all the law enforcement officers who put themselves in harm's way every day to keep us safe. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida seek recognition? >> permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. ros-lehtinen: i rise to honor coral gables native major greg truitt from the miami-dade police department. starting off as a rookie police officer, greg has held many roles throughout his 40 years in law enforcement before retiring as a commander of the village of palmetto bays policing unit. they are here in d.c. here today to honor his years of service the in me in wishing him best. his profound leadership and commitment to south florida have allowed him to shape the lives of countless individuals throughout his impressive career. greg has shown there is no greater reward than the satisfaction of serving once fellow neighbor and for having embraced this most noble of endeavors with lofty principles.

i thank him so very much. not one to rest on his laurels, he serves our community through his church, the boy scouts of america and as a police reserve officer with the miami-dade police department. god speed. hank you, mr. speaker. >> permission to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> mr. speaker, the term dynasty gets turned around but with , the hampionships minnesota lynx won the title with a hard fought victory in game five. they overcame injuries, fatigue

to clinch the top seed in the west during the season. mr. speaker, as the wnba continues to grow, the players are called upon to do more than just play basketball. ambassadors endous to the community and numerous girls. i would like to congratulate the players and coaches on yet another wnba title. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? you, mr. a: thank speaker. today, i visited with visited with national guard units here from different states to learn about the ways they are keeping us safe in cyber space. i appreciate their efforts and service. the house has passed several measures and the house is working to do the same.

there is a clear consensus that more needs to be done from hackers and those who want to inflict harm on the american people. several data breaches included the office of data management that puts them at risk. must act now to protect our cybersecurity before an attract occurs. cooperation is needed to be on the same page for the cybersecurity americans expect of us in government and are promised. i fear we are falling short. we must be prepared better than we are. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does gentleman seek recognition? >> permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection.

>> i ask all members of our the to join me in pregnancy discrimation amendment act. this important piece of legislation expands upon existing law toll help protect pregnant women from workplace discrimation and i'm proud to be a co-sponsor. women account for nearly half of the work force in our country so it's hard to believe that women are still denied jobs or lose their jobs because they're pregnant. every time this happens to a mom, it hurts her, it hurts her family and it hurts our economy. we must ensure that hard-working moms and moms-to-be are protected from unfair employment decisions. we should encourage toll support all workers and ensure that moms

and dads physically and financially healthy and secure as they approach parenthood as a single father who has raised his son, i know how important it is to have a support system. that is a supportive work environment where parents are not worried about being fired or overlooked for jobs or promotions because they decided to have children. thank you, mr. speaker. yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a message. the clerk: to the house of representatives, i'm returning here without my approval h.r. 1375, the national defense authorization act for 2016. there are provisions in this bill that i support including the codification of key interrogation-related reforms and positive changes to the

military retirement system. the bill would among other things constrain the ability of the department of defense to conduct multi year defense planning and force structure with our national defense strategy and impede the closure of guantanamo bay and prevent the implementation of the central defense reforms. this bill fails to authorize funding in a fiscally responsible manner and underfunds our base budget and relies on a gimmick that has been criticized by members of both parties. specifically, the bill's use of $38 billion in the funding which was meant to fund wars and is not subject to budget gaps does not provide the stable budget upon which sound defense planning depends. because this bill authorizes base budget funding at the sequestration levels, it threatens the readiness and capabilities of our military and fails to support our men and

women in uniform. the decision reflected in this bill to circumvent rat further harms our national security by locking in unacceptable funding cuts for national security activities carried out by non-defense agencies. i have called upon the congress to work with my administration to close the detention facility at guantanamo bay, cuba, and explain why it is imperative that we do so. as i have noted, 9 continued operation of this facility weakens our facilities, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners and emboldening violent extremists. in failing to remove unwarranted restrictions on the transfer of detainees, this bill seeks to impose more onerous ones. the executive branch must have the flexibility with regard to those detainees who remain at guantanamo to determine when and where to prosecute them based on

the facts and circumstances of each case and our national security interests and when and where to transfer them consistent with our national security and our humane treatment policy. rather than taking steps to bring this chapter of our history to a close as i have called upon the congress to do so, this bill aims to extend it. the bill fails to adopt many central defense reforms including force structure, weapon systems and military health care. our defense strategy. my administration's proposals will accomplish this through critical reforms that divest needed force structure, slow growth in compensation and reduce wasteful overhead. the restrictions in the bill would require the department of defense to maintain unnecessary force structure and weapons system that we cannot afford in today's fiscal environment contributing to a military that will be less capable to responding to future challenges.

because of the manner in which this bill would undermine our national security, i must veto it. signed barack obama, the white 2, se house, signed october 2 2015. the speaker pro tempore: the veto measures in the bill will be printed as a house document. pursuant to order of the house of october 21, 2015, further consideration of the veto message are postponed until the legislative day of thursday, november 5, 2015 and that on that legislative day, the house shall proceed to the constitutional question of reconsideration and dispose of such question without ntervening motion. the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leaves of absence requested for ms. kelly of illinois from october 20 through

october 23. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the request is granted. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2015, the ntlewoman from ohio, ms. kaptur is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mrs. capito: thank you so much, mr. speaker -- ms. kaptur: i rise today as the syrian displacement crisis has consumed seven nations including lebanon, jordan, syria itself. and has spawned the largest refugee crisis europe has faced since world war ii. the scope of the damage is incredible. this protracted conflict has decimated syria infrastructure and already taken the lives of

over 250,000 civilians displaced over four million people and subjected tens upon thousands of children in that nation to assad's horrific barrel bombs. most everyone who remains in syria endures power in water, the threat of shelling, gallupping inflation and rampant speculation about what will happen next. who will help us, the innocents. with roads often subject to ambushed, freedom to travel has been curtailed. checkpoints and concrete barriers have been adornments of daily life. institutions such as schools, hospitals, offices, remain open in government-held others, though many cools have been

homes to the homeless. truly, it is grim. classes often are held in double shifts to make room for the extra students. this is everyday life in syria. five years into the conflict that has ravaged this once modern nation, more than half of the syrian population is displaced with over four million refugees in neighboring countries and tens of thousands moving towards europe. we see this on television every evening. my hometown of toledo has taken in eight syrian families, refugees who have found hope in america. but fewer than 2,000 syrians come do the united states, though the war has displaced more than 12 million since 2011. the free world simply cannot allow this savage slaughter and

dislocation to continue. we ask ourselves, where is the leadership for resolution? now in addition to daily air strikes against civilians by the civilian government violating international and humanitarian law, russian war planes are striking residential areas in non-i isil he areas where rebel forces are trying to overthrow the regime while russia claims it is eliminating isil targets. i brought a map that shows most of syria, who holds it. and if one looks at these red dots here, the russian planes are mainly bombing in the rebel-held areas, not in the isil-held areas. so we see a complex situation that is developed on the ground.

ever. . it tells us that in the future, there will be more slaughter with what remains if those moderate forces are not allowed to survive. since russia began air strikes at the end of september, at least 127 civilians, including 36 children and 34 women have been killed by russian air strikes, according to the opposition syrian observatory for human rights. for the sake of liberty in syria, in europe and around the world, america, nato, the trans-atlantic alliance and our allies in the middle east must lead the region to peaceful settlement. i happen to represent a region in america where syrian americans have lived for over a century. i can't even explain to you how

they feel about the total destruction of their homeland, its artifacts, its history. i'm not even able to contain it in words here. they came to see me last week, and they asked if i would read some of their words into the record, which i promised i would do this evening. they want the american people and the world to know that the biggest killer of civilians in syria is the assad regime's use of barrel bombs packed with t.n.t. and shrapnel, these dumb bombs have no target and are just dropped from helicopters on civilian neighborhoods. these bombs cause massive destruction and casualties. thousands upon thousands of children have been killed and injured by these helicopter flights. and they said to me, congresswoman, if you can say one thing to the congress and to those in washington who can

make a difference, please tell them to disrupt and stop these helicopter flyovers so the barrel bombs aren't coming out of the f-16's, obviously, flying over syria but they're coming from helicopters that the assad regime is dispatching across that country. the most important step that can be done to save lives would be the imposition of a no-fly zone. a no-fly zone would turn the tide of war and bring down the regime of terror and force assad to negotiate his exit. we know there's resistance to that, but the world community must meet this latest test in order to secure a better life for the people that remain in syria, those who may wish to return and obviously the millions that have fled and are in refugee camps throughout that region and now as far as western europe. i would urge the president of our country to consider the

appointment of a special envoy without portfolio for syrian peace. to work full time to bring all relevant nations together to resolve this unfolding tragedy and aim at a civil military strategy for transition and settlement. probably one of the most respected thinkers on this -- and i ask unanimous consent to place his writings in the record, anthony. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. kaptur: i thank the speaker. ends a very significant analysis of the situation in syria and greater europe with this admonition. he tells america, we face a moment of facing up to honesty, transparency and realism. and he tells us, one cannot ignore trees any more than one

can ignore the forest, related to syria. the failure of u.s. policy and military efforts, russian and iranian support of assad and major russian military intervention and the conflicting ways in which other states intervene will all make matters worse in syria. the impact of religious warfare and extremism and failed syrian secularism are even more serious problems. it is time, he says, to stop focusing on either isis or assad, to pretend that syrian moderates are strong enough to either affect the security situation or negotiate for serious real fighters and act as if a shattered nation could be united by some top-down negotiation between groups that hate each other and not dealing with the government challenges syria now faces. the first step in solving a problem is to honestly assess it.

no negotiation can work that does not deal with the grim realities and divisions readed by years of fighting. and he advises, no amount of u.s. and russian intervention and argument can bring security or stability. no u.n. effort at a conventional negotiation can survive in counter with reality and no effort of any kind that does not address the sheer scale of syrian recovery and reconstruction can work. i commend his writings to my colleagues and the major studies that are done by -- that have been done this year by the center for strategic and international studies as providing a glimmer of the road that we must walk toward. and i wanted to just thank my colleagues for the opportunity to place this on the record tonight, and i want to thank the syrian americans that live in northern ohio for their patriotic citizenship and their

deep concern about what more the united states of america could do to bring resolution to this deeply troubling conflict precipitated un rest not just there but in greater europe. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2015, the gentlewoman from missouri, mrs. hartzler, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mrs. hartzler: thank you, 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 subject of my special order. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mrs. hartzler: 53 years ago is a long time. in 1962, john f. kennedy was president. gas was 28 cents a gallon. the first wal-mart opened. the u.s. navy seals were created. and the cuban missile crisis

was on everyone's minds. we've gone through a lot as a nation since then, but one thing has remained constant. the u.s. congress and the president of the united states have fulfilled one of its primary obligations, according to the constitution, of providing for the common defense by passing a national defense authorization act. you may say that congress hasn't always passed legislation as needed but on the national defense authorization act, we've gotten it right. for 53 years in a row now, our nation's national security needs have been taken care of. sadly, that may not be the case this year. the reason, not because of representatives of the people did not do their work. it's because the commander in chief has chosen to use the military as political pawns to advance his domestic agenda by choosing to veto the ndaa. never before in our nation's

history has a president vetoed the national defense authorization act in order to leverage concessions on other areas of government spending. let me say that again. president obama's veto stems not from defense policy but rather from his desire for more domestic spending unrelated to national defense. this is unprecedented. four times during the past 53 years, presidents have vetoed the ndaa, but it was over specific defense-related provisions in the ndaa itself. differences were able to be worked out with congress and concerns quickly addressed so the bill could move forward and our men and women in uniform would have the tools, equipment and resources they need to keep us safe. not this year. just minutes ago, our president vetoed our nation's most important bill, which provides for full funding for our military. let me share with you what

provisions are in this bill and why it's so important. it provides a 1.3% pay raise for our troops, retirement benefits for the 83% of our troops who currently see none. the authority for commanders to allow soldiers to carry guns on base to defend themselves, their colleagues in arms and their families. vital resources and new tools to combat cyberattacks on our critical infrastructure. restrictions on guantanamo detainee transfers to address the potential illegality of the president's previous unilateral transfers. 12 new f-18 superhornets to be build in my home state of missouri. $300 million of assistance and aid so the people of ukraine can defend themselves. $330 million in funding for the iron dome missile defense system for israel, and it directs the deployment of a new advanced ballistic missile defense system to defend against a threat of an iranian

intercontinental ballistic missile. in short, at home and abroad, the ndaa ensures our military has funding for national defense and overseas operations. these are the selfless individuals who rely upon our safe -- we rely on our safety and freedom we are talking about, and in a strongly bipartisan fashion congress has authorized that funding at the exact level that the president requested. in this unprecedented move, the commander in chief is using the very troops he commands as pawns in a very dangerous political game. it is wrong to add to the uncertainty our men and women in uniform face as they stand on the front lines of an increasingly uncertain world. let us remember the president recently made a decision to keep almost 10,000 of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in afghanistan. on the heels of such a serious decision, asking them to leave their families and lives on hold for another year or more,

how could he justify not signing the bill that provides the pay and benefits for our troops? i'm thankful for my colleagues who stand with me here today to tell you why this is such a critical piece of legislation and why this veto cannot stand. we are here to make sure the men and women who put themselves in harm's way for our freedom are a priority to our nation and not held hostage to political games. and with that i would like to recognize my friend, navy veteran and currently lieutenant commander in the united states navy reserve, the gentleman from oklahoma, mr. bridenstine. mr. bridenstine: well, i'd like to thank the gentlewoman from missouri, mrs. hartzler, for all your hard work on all these issues. just as a point of maybe disagreement, i'm no longer in the navy reserve. i joined the oklahoma national guard. and i'll be -- i'll be flying with the oklahoma air national

guard. but thank you for hosting this special order. and i would like folks to understand really what my friend from missouri just said. the president of the united states vetoed the defense authorization because he wants more spending for other domestic programs. this is unprecedented and quite frankly, it is scary for this country. i am still dumbfounded by it, that you're going to hold defense hostage for a domestic agenda. we don't do that in the united states of america. this president somehow doesn't understand that you don't take the defense of this country hostage for a domestic agenda, and yet that's what he has just done. i want to share with my colleagues why we do an authorization every year because the world changes. things get more dangerous year after year after year. we -- as a navy pilot and now as a national guard pilot, we

utilize space. i'm on the strategic forces subcommittee on the armed services committee. we hear all kinds of things about space, and i can tell you as somebody who used it, we use space for over-the-horizon communications with our space-based communication architecture. we use it for weather so we can make sure we can get to the target on time. we use it for intelligence. we use it for missile warning. we use it for a whole host -- position, navigation, timing, our g.p.s. satellites, for actually hitting our targets. space is critical, and yet something has changed drastically in the last few years. the russians have been launching various things that were not registered with the international telecommunications organization or union, the i.t.u. and what are we discovering that these objects are doing? well, they're doing very sophisticated co-orbital maneuvers, demonstrating they can do proximity and rendezvous operations which means, guess what, ultimately that be could

be an anti-satellite capability. friends, if we lose our satellites, we could have even more risk. imagine your a.t.m. not working. imagine the food in the grocery store not being there when you go shopping. national security in this country is critically important, and the president is holding it hostage for a different domestic agenda that has absolutely nothing to do with national security. what did we do. we plus up on space protection which is important and not only plus-up, but authority, critical necessary authorities so the department of defense can actually protect this country in ways it hasn't had the opportunity to do before. we are doing pathfinder programs and purchasing communications in space in ways we have never done it before. why in because we need to distribute the architecture. we are not doing this because it

is fun or we like it but it is critical for national security. when the president of the united states vetoes it, it puts all of us in jeopardy. this is about the troops. but when we are talking about someone's a.t.m. working, this is about the security of the united states of america and the president is holding it hostage for a domestic agenda. when it comes to the troops, we talk about the authorities in the ndaa. those of us who have served understand there are special pay that we receive, combat pay, hazardous duty pay, flight pay for those of us who fly. there are pays that are going to be at jeopardy now that otherwise wouldn't be at jeopardy. and these are for people who are serving this country overseas. do we not understand that, mr. president? i should say, mr. speaker.

the president should understand that. nd this is a monumental day in american history and not for gm reasons. and i would like to thank my colleague for hosting this special order and giving me and others to make sure that america understands what is at stake here. your leadership on these issues is critical. and america is in jeopardy. and we need to understand what happened today is not the norm. it must not be the norman future presidents must never hold hostage american national security for a domestic agenda. mrs. hartzler: thank you for your service to our nation and your perspective of how vital this is and what a tragic day in our nation that our commander in chief would do this. thank you for sharing. now i would like to turn to another friend and hero to our

nation who served both in the army and marine corps, the gentleman from colorado, mr. coffman. mr. coffman: i thank you for your leadership on the armed services committee and on this critical issue. i rise in strong support of the national defense authorization act and i urge my colleagues to override president obama's veto. this bipartisan bill provides essential pay and benefits to the men and women serving in our military today. expanded retirement options for our troops, greater protections against sexual assault in the military and increased cybersecurity, defense funding is some of the most important authorizations included in the ndaa. for my district, it contains provisions and language that helps my air force base.

it not only plays a critical role in our nation's defense, but it is the largest employer in my district. the ndaa includes language to prevent a transfer of guantanamo detainees to u.s. soil. a delegation from the administration surveyed potential locations for gitmo detainees in colorado. i remain adamantly a opposed to this move and strongly support the language in the ndaa. there is no reason to close the detention camp, only to finance the incarceration of enemy combatants in the united states. this legislation is too important to our nation and to colorado to become the subject white tical games by the house. once again, this bill must become law and i urge my colleagues in the house to

override the president's veto. i yield back. mrs. hartzler: thank you, gentleman. excellent points, not only the importance to colorado and certainly to our nation and you raised a very important point that hasn't brought up yet and how it prevents the transfer of the prisoners at guantanamo bay from coming to our soil. and that's what the administration wants to do is put them in our back yards and our prisons and we do not support that. so thank you for bringing up that point. excellent. i would like to turn to another friend and colleague from the armed services committee and he is quite a hero to his nation in many ways but certainly having four sons who have served in the military, one of his major contributions. we are so proud of him. i turn it over to you.

mr. wilson: thank you for your leadership and thank you for referencing my four sons and i give credit to my wife. she did a great job raising four sons who truly know how important it is know how important service is to our country. president obama has vetoed the ndaa and allocates the same amount of funding as the department of defense request that he made himself. the president does not support the bipartisan ndaa because it utilizes wartime funds. the accepted this fabrication to eto the ndaa and put our americans at risk. the "washington post" said quote, refusing to sign this bill would make history but not in a good way. mr. obama, it should become law, end of quote.

i believe the veto underscores the president's legacy of weakness. this is leading to instability. it's leading to aggression, mass murders and leading to citizens fleeing the violence causing children to drown at sea. this year's ndaa provides for our service members and equips our troops to fight serious threats like the murderous islamic state. it supports our aleyes like ukraine and israel to defend themselves. the ndaa establishes meaningful reforms so the department of defense acquisition process and improvements to the military retirement system. it supports cyber command which i appreciate to protect american families. american families deserve peace through strength. the national defense authorization act gives our

military critical resources to defend us as we constantly face new threats. it is sad that the president uses a weaker situation on these reforms and funds and puts american families at risk. fellow members, i strongly urge you to override the president's veto. as the appreciative son of a world war ii flying tiger veteran and veteran of the army myself and grateful father of four sons serving in the military, i know your bipartisan vote serve our troops, veterans and all american families by ensuring peace through strength. mrs. hartzler: thank you, so much, mr.âwilson from south carolina and i appreciate your service to this nation, a 31-year veteran and serving as committee, -- on the

thank you for sharing your insights. i would like to recognize another member of the armed services committee. he is a decorated navy seal and i look forward to hearing his thoughts on this very important moment in our nation's history. i turn to the gentleman from montana mr. zinke. mr. zinke: i ask my colleagues to override the president's veto. i come before this body not only as a great representative from the state of montana but acting commander of special naval warfare efforts in the petitioner and gulf. the job of the commander in chief is bound by the constitution to support the troops, to be the leader and yet this president vetos a

ipartisan bill to defend our country. i talk not only as a former commander, but also a father. my daughter is a navy diver and my son-in-law is a active duty navy seal. my wife watched her daughter, husband and son-in-law all deployed. i have seen the consequences of war. i'm probably the last individual that would advocate for war. i have seen the consequences and the pain. but when we go to war, the commander in chief is obligated to make sure we go to war to win. make sure that our troops have the right training, the right equipment, the right leadership to win decisively on the field of battle. and before this commander in chief sends them into harm's way it is his duty and obligation to

know we know the conditions to bring them home. his actions today are a deer lick shon of his duty. it affects every soldier, sailor, airman and marine. a veto and subsequent continuing resolution causes harm to our troops. call garrisonning where our troops don't train. our fleet can't go in and receive the maintenance necessary. and above all, it gives a message to the troops in harm's way that their commander in chief does not have their back. this isn't a republican or democrat issue. this is an american issue because it is americans' sons and daughters that we put in

harm's way and it is the obligation of a great nation to make sure that when we do that we give them everything they need to come home safely. with that, i yield the remaining balance of my time. mrs. hartzler: thank you, mr. zinke. i don't know of a more articulate way to say how important and imperative it is to override this veto. thank you for sharing your real and heartfelt and expert thoughts on this issue. now, i have a friend who is going to share, who is passionate about lots of things and competent on many issues, but i tell you, serving on armed services committee with the lady from indiana, i can tell you her main passion is for the men and women in uniform and national defense. so i yield to you.

mrs. walorski: i thank the distinguished gentlelady and friend of mine from missouri. the ndaa is the largest single authorization bill that congress considers and one of this body's most significant pieces of legislation. this legislation is critical to our national security and it continues to fund the entire national defense of this country. for 54 years, republicans and democrats in both houses in this body has passed this defense bill. this is no different. today, though, the president vetoed this defense budget in order to gain leverage for additional increased spending, his demands for spending, a process of a budgetary procedure that is unrelated to this bill. this defense bill helps our men and women by adjusting pay and retirement benefits and removes barriers and prevents access to urgent medical care for members of the armed services while

expanding employment opportunities. it helps us retain our most experienced service members. it makes the individuals safer by enhancing and improving military training and modernizing our programs. lastly, this bill provides very real authorities such as the ability to protect americans by keeping terrorists secured in the detention facility known as guantanamo bay. 54 years, this bill has transcended party lines. as a candidate, president obama promised to do the same. but with his veto, he has threatened to end this staple of bipartisanship in this chamber. our servicemen and women put their lives on the line every day and the least we can do is offer them the security of knowing they can provide for their families and plan for their own futures. thank you. and i yield back. mrs. hartzler: thank you very much, gentlelady. we appreciate that.

next we have another member of the armed services who is a decorated army commander who led soldiers in iraq and whose unit is responsible for finding saddam hussein. to share his thoughts on this day when the president has vetoed the ndaa and why it is important that we override the veto. i turn it over to representative russell. plusle: thank you, and -- mr. russell: i was deployed to kosovo, afghanistan and iraq. as a combat infantry veteran, i know firsthand the hardships and dangers that our warriors face. the question that we have to ask is, why has the president

increased the hardship and danger to our troops? has he forgotten that we have troops in the field that are still fighting? has he forgotten that he has committed to contingency operations that created new hardships, new deployments, unscheduled training, unscheduled maintenance and now after asking them to turn everything on their heads, he's not even going to support it? a presidential veto blocks needed funds for our ongoing combat operations and for our emergency operations in contingencies. the president claims that we need to do this right, yet, he has created the foreign policy mess that has required our troops to deploy on contingencies and then has asked this body to get additional congressional authorization for those

efforts. and now he adds to their burden. the veto eliminates crucial planning time just for normal peace time operations in training from three to six months, forcing the military to waste millions of dollars as they play a catch-up game, usually in the spring, by having to deal with such efforts to try to make up for loss time. the veto reduces certainty and our overall national security posture. the veto also blocks a revised retirement program benefiting 83% of our warriors that are not currently covered, and it denies expanded access to health care and blocks access to needed drugs. and it continues to leave our warriors defenseless at recruiting stations, camps, posts and bases by denying their ability to carry firearms in their defense against terror threats. the veto also blocks a mediocre pay raise that president himself already reduced by 1%

and now they will not even get that pathetic 1% pay raise of 1.3%. mr. speaker, a president -- presidential veto makes one thing crystal clear. nothing is too good for our troops and nothing is what he is going to give them. and that is why we will fight to overturn this veto so that he can hear the people of the united states and our constitutional requirement to defend this republic. we will overturn this veto, and we ask, mr. speaker, that the nation join us in this fight. i thank the gentlelady from missouri and thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. mrs. hartzler: i couldn't agree more, gentleman. thank you for your leadership, service to our country and your call for the american people to join us and come alongside us as we fight for the defense of our nation and for the men and women in uniform. you know, the thing that i feel

is so important tonight is that the american people and everyone here in the house is having an opportunity to hear from people who not only care about their nation, who are today's patriots, but many of them who have either served themselves on the front line and who've experienced danger and to put themselves into harm's way because of it or they have family members they are supporting in that line of duty. and our next speaker i want to turn to is certainly one of those, not only a colleague on the armed services committee but a father who has three sons who is serving in the military and he knows firsthand the dangers, the sacrifice and how important this ndaa is to our nation. so i turn to the gentleman from florida, rich nugent. mr. nugent: congresswoman hartzler, i really want to appreciate you taking the time to do this today on the floor. mr. speaker, it's an outrage that the president would veto as the commander in chief of

our military in general. think about this. i have three sons that have served in the military that currently serve in the united states army, that have served in iraq and afghanistan, that have done trips to hate to help during reconstruction as related to an earthquake. the president of the united states has made them political pawns. you know, one of the things that my wife and i felt when they were deployed to iraq or afghanistan was that they were the best equipped, best led, best trained troops on the face of the earth. and by vetoing the national defense authorization act, we're putting a dagger in the heart of what we're supposed to be holding up. the constitution of the united states says this congress has the obligation to stand up an

army, to stand up a navy, to support the president of the united states and the actions that we must take to protect this nation. and the actions today are strictly a political action when you do a press conference to hold up the fact that he vetoed the national defense authorization act. you've heard so many members here today talk about the things that this act did or does. and so i call upon all of our friends across the aisle, democrats to unite with us to overturn this veto because we live in the most dangerous of times. i can't think of a time -- i don't know if you can where it's been more dangerous in regards to a resurgent russia, to china, to iran, to north korea, to all of the nonstate actors out there that are threatening this nation and our friends and allies around the

world. this is not the time to play political brinksmanship with our military. this is the time to hold them up, lift them up and let them do their job and know that their commander in chief has their back. and with that, i truly do appreciate, mrs. hartzler, you doing this. mrs. hartzler: thank you, mr. nugent. i just thought it was so important what you shared as a parent, and i've heard you say this before in committee that as a parent it's vital for you and your wife to know that you're sending the best equipped, best trained force possible over into harm's way. so when you send your son -- your sons, you know they're going to be able to come back. mr. nugent: people actually forget there are flesh and blood, parents of those young men and women serving this country. they forget there are real people behind these uniforms. that's why this is so important. mrs. hartzler: what message is

it sending to them right now? mr. nugent: thank you so very much. mrs. hartzler: i want to yield to doug lamborn, the gentleman from colorado, who does such a great job representing the most military intense areas of the country. i got to visit the air force academy. appreciate your leadership on this issue. i recognize you for whatever you'd like to share. mr. lamborn: i thank the gentlelady from missouri for her leadership. mr. speaker, today's veto from the president breaks dangerous new ground for disregard for our men and women in uniform. while he worked so hard to make sure that the iranian military had the funding they needed via his disastrous nuclear deal, today he chose to willfully disregard the needs of our own military to make a political point with his veto. the president has sunk to a new low today. for the first time in history an american president has vetoed a defense bill because of issues that the bill itself

cannot possibly address. most of us here in congress agree that defending our nation is the first and most important priority, a sacred constitutional duty we have, to protect the american people and to keep us safe in an increasingly dangerous world. tragically, president obama is willing to hold defense hostage to try to get more money for agencies like the i.r.s. and the e.p.a. all of this while we remain at war with extremist groups like al qaeda and isis that want to attack america, all this while we still are having troops killed overseas, including some from colorado. this is pretty simple, really. this administration wants to cut our military and increase spending almost everywhere else. our troops have already endured massive cuts, similar in size to the clinton drawdown in the 1990's, although this time global threats are rising, not falling. on top of all this, the

president wants to send guantanamo detainees to u.s. soil, including to my own district in colorado, and is also issuing his veto for this reason. look, terrorists will find a reason to hate us no matter what happens in guantanamo. i ask my colleagues, are we willing to let this happen on our watch? to my fellow republicans who are rightly concerned about out-of-control federal spending and an out-of-control federal debt, please hear me when i say we are working on real reform and real accountability for the large defense budget, but please also hear me when i say that defense is simply not the driver of our debt, especially over the long term. defense spending ensures and protects our way of life. i strongly urge my colleagues to do the right thing for our military and the right thing for america, override president obama's reckless and truly dangerous veto. and mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. mrs. hartzler: thank you so much, gentleman, because you

raise a very good point as far as spending goes in that this bill, the ndaa, provides the exact amount of funding for our defense that the president requested. mr. lamborn: down to the penny. mrs. hartzler: we made sure our troops had the funding they need, and yet he is the commander in chief. he requested $612 billion. we gave him $612 billion in this bill. and then he vetoes it. mr. lamborn: it makes no sense. it's dangerous and he's doing it for political reasons that can't be solved in this bill. hearts hearts yeah. you're -- mrs. hartzler: thank you. thank you for your comments. mr. lamborn: thank you. mrs. hartzler: i have a friend to serve alongside agriculture committee and armed services and i believes he's one of the most hardworking men on armed services. if you are his constituent, i want you to know he is at every hearing. he does his home work and i appreciate you coming out

tonight to share your thoughts on the ndaa. so austin scott from georgia. mr. scott: i want to thank you, mrs. hartzler, for what you've done here, and, mr. speaker, i want to thank you for the opportunity to discuss what's happened here today. as we talked earlier today, i honestly thought there was a chance that we wouldn't be here speak being this. i thought that maybe this one time that our commander in chief would do what was right. i hope you'll take an opportunity to look at the news. i'm looking at it right now. obama to hold photo op to veto defense bill. obama plans to hold a photo op in the oval office when he uses his veto pen on the national defense authorization act, according to his public schedule. ladies and gentlemen, you know, when i'm around the district, i hear a lot of complaints. why can't congress just work together? why can't you get along?

the national defense authorization act came out of the armed services committee 60-2. 60-2. there was one democrat and one republican that voted against the bill. 60-2. it came through the house, a significant majority voted for the national defense authorization bill on the floor. it passed out of the senate with over 70 votes, and when i'm talking to americans, i have used this as an example of how not everything you see in the press is true, that there are issues like national security that the democrats and the republicans in washington, d.c., absolutely take very seriouslies. and when it comes to the well-being of our men and women that serve the country and their families and making sure they have the training and the equipment that they need that this is an example of how we're able to put partisanship aside and work in the best interest of everybody in the country, most especially those that serve so honorably. and the president held a veto

-- held a photo op to veto the bill. i want to thank my fellow colleagues, both democrats and republicans, for their work on this bill. certainly i supported it. i continue to support it. and i think one of the things that continues to be mentioned and needs to be mentioned over and over and over again is the president got the total of what he asked for with regard to the authorization of the funds for carrying out the fight against isil, for the operations of the military. there were a couple of things that he didn't like. one of them was the transfer of terrorists out of guantanamo bay. now, i would just ask -- i would just ask that you think about the fact that since the first ndaa 50 years ago, it's only been vetoed four times. in each instance, there was an

agreement effectively prior to the veto on how to resolve it. but not this guy. not this guy. holds a photo op, holds a photo op so he can show off while he vetoes the national defense authorization act. i hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would join us as we work to override the president's veto. i hope the members of the senate who vote for the national defense authorization act will vote for it again when they have the opportunity to do so after we send the bill over there, after we have overwritten the president's veto on this piece of legislation in the house. ladies and gentlemen, i'd like to apologize. if the president won't do it, i want to do it. what happened today i think will long be looked upon as one of

the worst moments of american leadership. with that, mrs. hartzler, i thank you again for what you've done for the men and women who serve and your service in this house and i yield the remainder of my time. mrs. hartzler: thank you so much. i think it is so important to remember that national defense is not a partisan issue. it is a constitutional duty. it is a constitutional privilege that we have as elected officials in this country to provide for the common defense and the bill did pass overwhelmingly with bipartisan support in the house and the committee and over in the senate and i am hopeful as well that we'll be able to continue to join together and override this veto and you know, my friend also made the comment and the sad news about the photo op.

where's our concern for -- wrths the photo op with the pilots going into harm's way? for the e photo op families. i stand with those fighting to keep us safe. i have another friend who is a champion of this who is a decorated army commander and proudly serves on the armed services committee. that's my friend the gentleman from new york, chris gibson. what would you like to share tonight? mr. gibson: thank you. i want to express my fwrattude to the gentlelady, thank you for leading tonight, putting this together and i want to thank my

colleagues who came out to share their views and experiences. mr. speaker, very critical topic we're talking about here today. the first function of government is to protect its people. and mr. speaker, every single -- service rvices chiefs are on record, under oath, saying if they don't get the additional resources that are provided in parts of this bill that they will not be able to execute the national security trategy. we've got issues with iran, we're dealing with a very aggressive putin, we've got a quixotic lead for the north korea. now is not the time to be taking

a knee on our national security strategy. now is not the time to be breaking our military. i want to make sure it's clear how partisan the president's actions are. the american people need to know how partisan this action is. this process, our national security mollcy bill, is collaborative. in our committee, in the house armed services committee, we hold hearings. it is fully collaborative. both sides, republicans and democrats, get to come together, work on the issues, bring forward the questions, collaborate in that whole process of the hearing. then we have markup. we have markup at the committee level. this markup lasts for, in some cases, over 12 hours. every single person in that committee, regardless of party, is able to bring forward their ideas to speak for their people, to offer their amendments, to have debate.

to have vote on those amendments. and as mr. scott mentioned, at the culmination of that process in the house armed services committee, the vote in our ommittee was 60-2. a strong vote. bipartisan vote. representatives of the people of the united states voting to support our service men and women and their families. the vote that was taken here on the floor of the house, strong, bipartisan vote. our colleagues over in the senate, as was mentioned, the vote on the conference, was 70-27. and three individuals running for president of the united states who are not president expressed support for it. almost three quartest of the united states senate representing the will of those respective states they are here to represent. strong bipartisan vote. we have super majorities

supporting this bill for our service men and women and their families. the president of the united states, despite all that, vetoed this bill. every is so clear that single one of our service chiefs said they need every single one of these resources or we won't be able to achieve the national security strategy. this is personal for me. i enlisted at the age of 17 as a private in the infantry back in 1981. in my early years in the military, i was part of an effort to increase readiness of our armed forces. i saw those efforts working. i saw us continuing to build capability throughout the 1980's. and standing on the principle of peace through strength, we won the cold war. without a major conflict. and we put ourselveses in a position when we had conflict in 1990 in the persian gulf war that we had a military with overmatch.

so that we were able to prevail in that conflict with as few casualties as was possible. and mr. speaker, other time in the 29 years that i served in the military, the other important facet of peace through strength is it forged trust with those who were willing to come forward and defend this nation. trust that their leaders here in washington, d.c. regardless of party would always have their back. would ensure that the resources necessary so that they can be fully equipped and trained would be there for them. and that their pay and benefits would always be there for them. and that when they deployed forward, that the programs would be here to support their families. mr. speaker, that trust was really called into question today by our president. ho in a very partisan manner

vetoed an overwhelmingly bipartisan piece of legislation. i can't even begin to tell you how disappointed i am. mr. speaker, we will fight this. we are working now with our colleagues. we feel like we're in a strong position in the senate to override this. we have more work to do here in the united states house. that work is ongoing. we need to enact this bill. let me just end where i began and thank the gentlelady. thank you for your laidership. thank you for coming forward today to organize this, to inspire us to come together to express so that the american people can know what happened today and how their representatives in a bipartisan way will rise to this challenge and make sure we get this important national scommurt policy bill into law. with that, i yield back. mrs. hartzler: thank you, gentleman, for your service and for sharing how important it is, how vital it is, that we

override this veto. and do what's right for our troops and for america. thank you. last speaker is a gentleman from california who is newly elected, and i have really enjoyed getting to know and privileged to serve with him on armed services committee, the gentleman, mr. steve knight. mr. knight: thank you very much. i want to thank congresswoman hartzler for her leadership in this role. this is of vital importance. i want to start this discussion with a little bit of reference. when i got elected nine months ago, everyone said, you know, you've got to go to congress, get some things done, got to work across the aisles and you've got to build some friendships and you've got to do these things. i think in the one committee i sit on, armed services, we do that we talk about the military, we talk about what is best for it, what is best for america,

what is best for the read iness and the projects and what are we're going to do to make sure our men and women are the best prepared to go into battle if called upon. but today i think we saw a little bit of politics. maybe we've seen that for the last week or more. but political football shouldn't happen around the military. we should be able to hammer these things out. as you heard from some of the speakers before, this has been vetoed four times and every time it's been an issue that's then been worked out. we've come back, taken care of that issue and it's gone forward system of for 53 year the ndaa has worked like it's supposed to. put the military first, america first, and move forward through the disagreements. but as you've heard, and we heard this in discussion with part of the ndaa; that this was going to be vetoed, that the president was forecasting maybe he would veto this. this wasn't a secret operation that we were doing. the ndaa was out in the open.

i don't know of a chairman other than -- that is better than the chairman of armed services at working across the aisle, working on the issues, trying to get everything done before we get to a problem like this. including working with the white house. that's exactly what happened. but i would disagree with some of the speakers that came before me when they said that the president came out, brought his pen and did a photo op. this was forecasted that it was going to be done today. today. is there something that's happening today that's going to take up all the news? that's going to be in all the papers tomorrow? that's going to be on twitter? that's right, the benghazi hearing is happening right now. it's been happening for hours. during this veto, the benghazi hearing was happening. i just went on twitter. there are 200 times more twitter feeds on benghazi than the ndaa veto.

in politics, we would call that cover. we would call that, you know what, i've got to do something bad so i better do it when they're not looking at me. that's exactly what happened today. et's talk about the ndaa a little bit. we've had some disagreements and we figured them out 60-2 in the house. how do you get something done when you get such a bipartisan vote? well, you sit there for 20 hours and you work through a chairman and you get the issues worked out. $612 billion was asked for. $612 billion was given. a 1.3% pay raise from the president's budget, 1.3% pay raise to our military. that was done. in july, we lost four marines to a tragic incident in tennessee. when i went homemark people said, what are you going to do about this? can you change something? shouldn't they be armed?

shouldn't something happen? that's in the ndaa. now we give post commanders the appropriate ability to give -- to arm our recruiting and reserve centers. but let's go further. this allows our friends and enemies to know what's happening in america. now today, they say, is something happening in america that's weak? because for 53 years, it's been the military first, america first, we're going to be strong. and today, i've got to believe that our friends and enemies might be scratching their head and saying, what is happening in america? that's not something we ever want. we want our friends to know that we will be shoulder to shoulder with them and we want our enemies to know we are as strong as we possibly can be. i'm going to finish thanking the gentlelady from missouri. we have a kin shitch. in my district we tested and

built every b-2. in her district she houses the b- 2 spirit that sends -- the b-2 spirit and sends them off to do difficult missions. i'm proud of what the b-2 does and i'm proud of every man and woman in the military and every mission they complete. if we're going to stand with the military, let's stand with the military. if we're going to turn our back and say this is not what we believe, that's not what i want to be part of. i think we should work as hard as we possibly can to override this veto. that is the mission, that is the vision. i thank you. mrs. hartzler: thank you, gentleman. i share that vision and look forward to working alongside you to do the right thing for the american people. i think you brought up many good points, but certainly the situation now that under this command for the chief we have a situation where our allies don't trust us and our enemies don't fear us. and this action today can't help

but contribute further to that thinking. we've got to reverse this. america is strong when it is safe and it is safe because it is strong. we've heard this evening, mr. speaker from many people who are experts in this issue, not only do they care about it passionately, but they themselveses have put on the uniform and made the sacrifices. they've left families to serb their country. and they know what it's like, what our troops are facing, and what potential dangers we can be in by jeopardizing their security by not providing for them and passing a national defense authorization act. we've heard we've heard from other colleagues here who are parents and who have children who have answered the call and put -- signed up to serve their country. and gone into harm's way. and some of them who are there right now. and we've heard how distressing

it is for our troops to hear today, no matter where they are, whether they're in afghanistan, iraq, whether they're in the pacific or they're in the jungles of with things about ukraine and the president, while monitoring intelligence around the world, cyberthreats, tishe attacks, had they -- cyberattack, when they turn on their tv tonight to find out that their commander in chief has vetoed the bill that will provide for the resources that they need to carry out that i -- to carry out their mission. and to find outs that not done because of some specific provisions in the bill, unlike a few times in the past, the past 53 years, where we have passed this, but because the president wants to advance a domestic agenda that has nothing to do with providing for our common defense. it is wrong and it's disheartening.

just a reminder of the things in this bill, the reasons it is so important, provides $612 billion for national defense. the exact amount of money that the president requested. a pay raise for our hardworking troops. retirement benefits for those that don't have it now. the authority of commanders like representative knight shared, to be able to make a policy to allow the soldiers on their installation to be able to defend themselves and carry guns. so hopefully we won't see the senseless tragedy again. to restrict allowing guantanamo bay detainees, terrorists, basically, to be brought here to america and put into our jails in our backyard. and to support our allies, where it be the iron dome, for israel, that has been so helpful in saving countless, thousands of lives in israel the last few years. but also to provide funding for

those fighting for freedom in the ukraine. allowing them to protect themselves. other speakers talked about space protections, protections against sexual assault in the military, preventing the transfer, support to ally, -- allies, those things i've said, acquisition reform. we did everything we could in this bill to help make it more -- make the pentagon more efficient, more effective, to save money. and we will continue to do that. but we also heard about the dangers and how this is -- with the president's veto, it's going to eliminate critical training time. parents are going to be able to question whether their child is going to be safe when they send them to war. we can't allow this veto to stand. and if the commander in chief is going to for sake his most fundamental -- forsake his most fundamental duties, then the people of the house, the representatives of the people of america, will. and we are going to do

everything possible to override this veto. and to make sure that those in harm's way have what they need, that we don't jeopardize our national defense, and that we continue to have our priorities right as a nation. so i thank you, mr. speaker, to be able to come on the house floor tonight, and to share about this very, very important issue, and this very historic day. and to also lay the groundwork for november 5, when we will vote for an override over this veto. i ask all my colleagues to support that and i look forward to a positive vote. so with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: members are reminded not to engage in personalities toward the president. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir. pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk

received the following message from the secretary of the senate on october 22, 2015, at 3:09 p.m. that the senate passed senate 799. signed, sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house an enrolled bill. the clerk: senate 1362, an act to amend title 11 of the social security act, to clarify waiver authority regarding programs of all inclusive care for the elderly, the pace program. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i move that the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.

prepared to gain billions under the president's nuclear deal. congress should not allow this veto to stand. elsewhere on capitol hill, hillary clinton spent the day testifying before the house benghazi committee, which is investigating the 2012 terrorist attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi, libya. the headline in the business insider, hillary clinton sits silently as the benghazi committee erupts into a shouting match. that story talking about an exchange during the hearing between the chairman, congressman trey gowdy, and the ranking member, congressman elijah cummings. here's that exchange.

mr. cummings: mr. chairman, you've made several inaccurate statements over the past month as you have tried to defend against multiple republican admissions that the select committee has been wasting millions of tax dollars to damage secretary clinton's bid for president. on sunday you made another inaccurate statement during your appearance on "face -- face the nation." here's what you said. there are other folks who may have equities in her emails and there may be other entities who are evaluating her emails. but my interests, my interests in them is solely making sure that i get everything i'm entitled to. so that i can do my job. the rest of it, classification, foundation, you name it, i have zero interest in it. which is why you haven't seen me send a subpoena related to

it or interview a single person other than one man, because i need to know that the record is complete. i'm going back to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. mr. gowdy: i'm waiting on you. mr. cummings: let me finish. just wait. mr. gowdy: i'm waiting on the inaccurate statement. mr. cummings: i'm getting there. mr. gowdy: we have to take a break. mr. cummings: it's not going to take long. you took four minutes over. let me have three. mr. gowdy: i've let everybody go over, including you. mr. cummings: thank you very much. you issued a subpoena to sydney blumenthal on may 19, 2015, compelling him to appear for a deposition on june 16, 2015. you issued this subpoena unilaterally, without giving the select committee members the opportunity to debate or vote on it. you sent two armed marshals to serve the subpoena on mr. blumenthal's wife, at their home, without having ever sent him a request to participate voluntarily, which he would have done. then, mr. chairman, you personally attended mr.

blumenthal's deposition, you personally asked him about the clinton foundation and you personally directed your staff to ask questions about clinton, the clinton foundation, which they did more than 50 times. now, these facts directly contradict the statements you made on national television that -- mr. gowdy: no, sir. with all due respect, they do not. we just heard email after email after email about libya and benghazi that sydney blumenthal sent to the secretary of state. i don't care if he sent it by morse code, carrier pigeon, smoke signals, the fact that he happened to send it by email is irrelevant. what is relevant is that he was sending information to the secretary of state. that is what's rel vanlt. now, with respect to the subpoena, if he'd bothered to answer the telephone calls of our committee, he wouldn't have needed a subpoena. mr. cummings: would the gentleman yield? mr. gowdy: i'll be happy to but you need to make sure the entire record is correct. mr. cummings: that's exactly

what i want to do. i move that we put into the record the entire transcript of sydney blumenthal. we're going to release the emails. let's do the transcript. that way the world can see it. mr. gowdy: we didn't -- mr. cummings: the motion has been seconded. mr. gowdy: we're not going to take that up at a hearing. mr. cummings: i've consulted with the marl mentarian and they have informed us that we have a right to a recordeded vote on that motion. i asked for the twuth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. that's what we want to have. mr. gowdy: why is it that you only want mr. blumenthal's transcript released? the survivors, even their names? you want that released? mr. cummings: let me tell youing is. right now -- mr. gowdy: the only one you've asked for is blumenthal. that's the only one you've asked for. if you want to ask for facts -- mr. cummings: recorded vote -- you said from the beginning we want the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. why don't we just put the

entire transcript out there and let the world see it? hat do you have to hide? mr. gowdy: in the interest of complete record, if you're going to release this email, release his transcript, where he has a chance to give the context of those emails. mr. gowdy: the only reason we have blumenthal emails is because he emailed the secretary of state. those are her emails. they're not blumenthal he's emails and she wanted all of her emails released. she's been saying since march, i want the entire world to see my emails. well, sydney blumenthal's emails are part of that. here's what i'll do. i'll be happy to talk to the parliamentarian because the parliamentarian told me that your motion would not be in order for a hearing. but at the latest we'll take a vote. the first week we are back after this week, we'll have a business meeting, we can take up mr. blumenthal's transcript,

we can take up whatever other transcripts you want and while we're there, we can also take up the 20-some-odd outstanding discovery requests we have to different discovery branch equities. why don't we take it all up snen [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> we'll have all of hillary clinton's testimony from today at 8:00 p.m. eastern time tonight on the c-span networks. and all of friday's "washington journal." will be devoted to reaction to today's house benghazi hearing. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. the president had a full day in washington today. in addition to vetoing the defense programs bill, he met with the prime minister of pakistan and he participated in a conversation on criminal justice reform. yesterday president obama was in charleston, west virginia, participating in a discussion on prescription drug abuse. it's about an hour and a half.

president obama: thank you, thank you so much. thank you, everybody. [cheers and applause] thank you. everybody, please have a seat. have a seat. thank you so much. ello, west virginia. [cheers] go, mountain ears. [cheers and applause] it is great to be back in what is clearly one of the most beautiful states in the united states of america. one of these days i'm going to finally try two doors business kit. [laughter] i want to begin by thanking jords for sharing his extraordinary store -- thanking jordan for sharing his extraordinary story with us. jordan is living proof that

when it comes to substance abuse, treatment and recovery, those things are possible if we work together. and if we care about each other. that's what we're here to talk about today. we have some outstanding leaders who care deeply about this issue. i want to thank your governor for being here. [applause] our two fine senators. [applause] and charleston mayor danny jones. [applause] also outstanding member of my administration who are here. first and foremost, our proud doctor of west virginia, h.h.s. secretary burwell. [applause] we have the director of national drug control policy,

michael. and we have the head of the drug enforcement administration . [applause] he's around here somewhere. and what i want to do is to have a conversation with the panelists here today, take some questions, because this ising s that is not a top-down solution. it's going to have to be everybody working together and we've got to understand what families are going through, what law enforcement's going through. what our health systems are going through in order for us to wrap our arms around this problem. so instead of giving a long speech, i just want to offer some initial thoughts to frame our discussion. when i came into office, i started studying this issue. of what's called opiates. and i was stunned by theistics.

more americans now die -- the statistics. more americans now die every year from drug overdoses than they do from motor vehicle crashes. more than they do from car accidents. he majority of those overdoses involve legal prescription drugs. in 2013 alone, overdoses from prescription pain medications killed more than 16,000 americans. one year. i don't have to tell you, this is a terrible toll. the numbers are big, but behind those numbers are incredible pain for families. and west virginia understands this better than anybody. because this state is home to the highest rate of overdose deaths in the nation.

now, addiction is not new. but since 1999, sales of powerful prescription pain edications have skyrocketed by 300%. in 2012 259 million prescriptions were written for these drugs which is more than enough to give every american adult their own bottle of pills. and as their use has increased, so has the misuse. some folks are prescribing these medications for good -- prescribed these medications for good reason but they become addicted because they're so powerful. statement we've seen a dramatic rise -- at the same time we've seen a dramatic rise in the use of heroin which belongs to the same class of drugs as painkillers. this class of drugs known as opiates.

in fact, four in five heroin ers, new heroin users, started out by misusing prescription drugs. then they switched to heroin. so this really is a gateway drug, prescription drugs become a gateway to heroin. as a consequence, between 2002 and 2013, the number of heroin-related deaths in america nearly quadrupled. oolt number of heroin -- although the number of heroin-related overdoses is still far exceeded by the number of legal prescription drug overdoses. so this crisis is taking lives, it's destroying families, it's shattering communities all across the country. and that's the thing about substance abuse. it doesn't discriminate. it touches everybody. from celebrities to college students to soccer moms to inner city kids.

white, black, hispanic, young, old, rich, poor. urban, suburban. men and women. it can happen to a coal miner, it can happen to a construction worker, a cop who has taken a painkiller for work-related injury. it could happen to the doctor who writes him the prescription. one of the problems we have is too many families suffer in silence. feeling like they were the only ones struggling to help a loved one. an let's face it, there's still fear and shame and stigma that too often surrounds substance abuse. people from ents seeking the help that they deserve. because, you know, when people loosely throw around words like junkie, you know, nobody wants to be labeled in that way. and part of our goal here, i think, today is to replace hose words with words like

father or daughter or son or friends or sister. because then you understand there's a human element behind this. this could happen to any of us, in any of our families. what if we replace a word like junkie with recovery coaches and specialists like jordan. we can't fight this epidemic without eliminating stigma. that's one of the reasons why i'm so proud of michael, who is the first person in the job of dealing with drugs in america, who actually knows what it's like to recover from addiction. he shares his own story as way to encourage others to get the help that they need before it's too late. i'm proud that there are some elected officials in this state who have told their stories. about what's happened in their family and to themselves.

in order for us to start lowering those attitudes that keep people from getting help. i made this a priority for my administration. we're not new to this. in 2010 we released our first national drug control strategy. we followed that up in 2011 with a prescription drug abuse prevention plan. we're implementing those plans, we're partnering with communities to prevent drug use, reduce overdose deaths, help people get treatment. and under the affordable care act, more health plans have to cover substance abuse disorders. the budget that i sent congress would invest in things like state overdose prevention programs. preparing more first responders to save more lives and expanding medication assisted treatment programs, so we have to make those investments. rather than spending billions of dollars, taxpayer dollars, on long prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, we

could save money and get better outcomes by getting treatment to those who need it. [applause] and we can use some of the savings to make sure that law enforcement has the resources to go after the hardened criminals who are bringing hard drugs like heroin into our country. so, with no other disease do we expect people to wait until they're a danger to themselves or others to self-diagnose and seek treatment. every other disease, you got a broken leg, you got diabetes, you got some sort of sickness, we understand that we have to get you help. and we also understand when it comes to other diseases that if we don't give you help and let you suffer by yourself, then other people could get sick. this is an illness. and we have to treat it as

such. we have to change our mind set. [applause] this is one of the reasons that the d.e.a. declared a national prescription drug takeback day. a day when americans can safely and conveniently dispose of expired and unwanted prescription drugs in their communities. because most young people who begin misusing prescription some on't buy them in dark alley, they get them from mom or dad's medicine cabinet. and today we're also announcing some new actions. first, we're ensuring that federal agencies train federal health care providers who pry opiates -- prescribe opiates. it's a commonsense idea that you're already implementing here in west virginia. congress should follow that lead and make this a national priority and we look forward to working with governors in the medical community as well. second, we're talking -- joe and i were talking on the flight over here, there is evidence that shows that

medicaid -- medicaided assisted treatment if done properly in addition with behavioral therapy and other support and counseling and 12-step programs an things like that, can work, it can be an effective strategy to support recovery. but it can't just be replacing one drug with another. it's got to be particulate of a package -- part of a package, so we're going to identify any barriers to -- that still exist, that are keeping us from creating more of these treatment facilities. and incorporating them into our federal programs. private sector partners are helping out, to help fight this epidemic as well. i want to give them some credit. more than 40 medical groups from the american medical association to the american dental association are committing to concrete actions. we need to obviously work with the medical community, because they're the front lines on prescribing this stuff.

and so there's got to be a sense of responsibility and ownership and accountability there. we've got to expand prescriber training, increasing the use of -- i want to make sure i was pronouncing that right. so i talked to the expert. this is something that, if first responders have it, can often save quickly the lives of somebody who is having an overdose. so we want to make sure first responders have a supply of this. we want to make sure that we're getting more physicians certified to provide medication assisted treatment. we then have broadcasters like cbs that are providing air time for education and awareness. and groups like the nba have committed to running public service announcements about drug abuse. so that's just an example of some of the private sector partnerships that we're forging here. the point is, and i'm going to end with this, we've all got a role to play.

because young people like , these they remind us are our kids. not somebody else's kids. our kids. not somebody else's neighborhood. it's our neighborhood. and they deserve every chance. we've got to make sure that we're doing right by them. we're taking this seriously. and the goal today is to shine a spotlight on this and then make sure that we walk out of here, all of us, committed to doinging is about -- to doing something about it, whether we have a faith leader, whether we're an elected official, we're we're -- -- whether we're in law enforcement or a private sten, a business, we all have a role to play. we want to make sure the whole country understands how urgent this problem is. so, with that, i'm going to .urn it over to our moderator [applause]

michael: good afternoon, everybody. thank you for being here today. i too want to thank jordan for his really stirring comments. i think it really exemplifies for us the challenges that we have, but also the success and hope that comes with recovery. it's really astounding. we're here in west virginia today to highlight the issue not just because of the impact it's had on west virginia but the impact it's had across the country. but also west virginia's working together to implement strategies to really deal with this addiction and we're proud to be here to help support that . the president always gives me a lot of credit for talking openly and honestly about my recovery, but candidly i'm one of millions of americans who are in recovery today. my story's not unique. maybe this part's a little bit unique. [laughter] but i'm one of millions of americans who have been restored by getting good care and treatment. and i know the president wants what jordan and i got. and that is a second chance to be restored to productive

members of our communities and to give back with what we have so freely been given. so thank you, sir. with that today, we have a great panel of people who are really going to help provide us with information and their insights about what more we can do on that level. i'm really proud to be a colleague of secretary sylvia burwell. and secretary, i'm going to start, you can feel free to say anything would you like, however. i know, you know, we're here in your home state of west virginia. i know we have talked, you've been personaly impacted by this. but you've also made this a key priority for all of your h.h.s. agencies. so, maybe you could talk a little bit about your experience and what h.h.s. is doing to deal with this issue. ms. burwell: absolutely. first i'll say i always love coming home. it's great to be home and it's great to welcome the president to the great state of west virginia. and when i became secretary, this was a priority because it ising is that i have personally experienced. everybody i'm sure in this room knows people personally. friends that lost to the addiction and what happens in

terms of their children and in terms of their family and the community. and once you experience this personally, i think that is what energizes you to act. at the department what we focused on over the last year, figuring out an evidence-based strategy, because we want to get results, we want to change the kinds of things that people have experienced personally, and three things. number one is changing prescribing practices. the president said that 259 million -- that can't be right. so, how do we work on what? second is working on medication assisted treatment. getting people the access that we've talked about today, being so important to people. and third is that access to that drug. i look at our colleagues in law enforcement because they're usually the front lines. making sure that when something does go wrong in terms of that overdose, that we can prevent those deaths. those deaths that are so dramatically impacted. those are the three things. i'm going to stop because we're here to listen today. thank you.

michael: teri, you're a mom of a son who is struggling, in treatment now, unfortunately in prison. for that. but you've turned your struggles into advocacy and action. you provide support for many, many parents here and around the country. for loved ones who are dealing with this. what has your experience been? what advice do you give parents? what advice should you give us as federal folks, about how we can support parents in this battle? teri: well, i think initially i want to thank president obama for coming here today, to support this cause for our community. substance abuse has -- it's become an epidemic in our community. i thank you for coming here, first and foremost. and i want to share, just briefly, i've been charged with being a representative for families around our area and actually around the nation who

struggle with this. so if i can just share some comments that we, families, have in common. and then i will -- president obama: you can take your time. we want to hear from you. teri: thank you. i spoke this morning to a good friend of mine who was just calling me to wish me well today. and to say, you know, encourage me, in this endeavor. and this friend of mine lost her daughter 2 1/2 years ago to drugs. and so i don't take this charge of being here lightly. i realize that i'm here to represent families and i'm grateful for that opportunity. i do want to say that as i'm speaking to you, i'm sharing my story, but i'm sharing the stories of so many other family members that are in this community and in the nation, that have this issue. that also, it's important to know, you know, for the sake of

time, i've really tried to make this concise. but this is the tip of the iceberg of what families experience and endure when they love someone and care so much about someone with an addiction. we raise our children in loving homes, we teach them morals and values. we teach them the difference between right and wrong. we wonder what is happening when the grades start slipping, when things that used to be enjoyable for our loved ones no longer interest them. we're confused as to the cause of the personality changes that we see in our loved ones. we're shocked when we hear of that first d.u.i. and we're fearful when our loved ones are taken to jail for the first time. we're embarrassed with holidays approach and family members are coming in from out of town and our loved ones can't interact because they're under the influence of drugs. we dread the next phone call. we can't sleep because we

haven't received a phone call. we don't take vacations for fear of the next crisis. we come back from vacation because there's a crisis. we're sad and angry when valuable but most importantly sentimental items are missing from our home. only to find out that they're at a pawn shop ot that they're in the hands of drug dealers. we're relieved when our loved ones acknowledge that they have a serious problem and understand that they need help. and then we're devastated when we help them seek treatment only to find out that there's a month-long waiting list, or that there's no insurance coverage or that there's a big requirement for money up front for treatment. we are sad and uncomfortable when acquaintances ask us about our loved ones. and we're even more sad when they ask us about every other member of our family and don't mention our loved ones.

we glect our marriages, neglect other children in our home. who are thriving. because all of our attention is focused on addiction and substance abuse. we disagree endlessly about the right way to handle this problem and after experiencing years of turmoil, we rest better at night when our loved ones are incarcerated. because the place that you never dreamed that your loved one would ever even see, a jail or a prison, is safer than them being on the street, interacting with drug dealers or pushing a needle into their arm. the ones of us who are fortunate, we lay awake at night and we plan our loved one's funeral in our mind. he ones of us who aren't fortunate actually do plan the funerals. and this is where addiction has taken us. this is where substance abuse has taken us.

now, all that being said, there is hope and that's probably the most important thing to remember here. we're so grateful to recovery point and people in recovery that are helping others. we're grateful to our mayor, the mayor of huntington, steve williams, who has so tirelessly and endlessly spear headed programs to help our community recover. don purdue, who has made it possible for people to receive treatment in our community. i think education is important and i was fortunate enough to find a group called the loved ones group, developed by a man named ed hughs, it's a seven-week series that helps provide education and information and support for family members or those who care about someone with an addiction. the final week of this program, we get to speak to people in

recovery. they come and speak to our group of people there. and it inspires us because we know that recovery is possible and that it can happen. you know, for too long we've been silent. and i think this is going to answer your question. as parents and family members, because of the stigma of this disease and the shame that we feel, we've been silent. and i think that is holding us back. we need to open our voices so that people don't feel ashamed. this is a disease, it is a sickness. but education, educating ourselves as much as we can as family members and speaking out to raise awareness is, i think, critical in helping this situation. i'm almost finished. people in 12-step recovery groups and different groups we lie on a higher power. i'm a person of faith and my family has -- faith has helped me navigate this journey that we've been on.

and i just want to share with you a verse that i hold dear for my own family member who is sick. but also offer it to others. jeremiah 29:11. i know the plans i have for you, declares the lord. plans to prosper you and not to harm you. plans to give you host: and a future. and i believe -- to give you hope and a future. i believe every person in the throes of addiction, in the disease of substance abuse, needs hope in the -- hope in the future. i believe this for their families as well. thank you so much. [applause] michael: thanks so much for share your story. it obviously touched everybody here in terms of not only your struggles but articulating the hope that's on the other side. we will continue to work with parents as we deal together

ith this epidemic. doctor, you have been involved in this work for many years. you're here at the local level. love to hear your experience and share what you think are some successes and challenges in dealing with this issue. dr. michael: certainly. thank you very much. welcome to west virginia, mr. president. welcome home, secretary burwell. i've been on the job actually only 79 days here in charleston. i came back home after being 29 years away and i knew whafse coming into when i came home -- what i was coming into when i came home. i knew there was a heroin and opiate abuse epidemic in this statement i now we had the highest rates of hepatitis b and the second highest rates of hepatitis c in the nation, largely due to needle sharing among addicts. but i also knew that coming home, that mountaineers would take this kind of challenge head-on. that's the kind of people that there are in the state of west virginia. i wanted to be part of the solution here in the state and

i knew it would require patience, persistence and people, lots of good people here. with the help of so many community partners, my good friend and colleague over at a health department, we've been able to get some programs off the ground, working together. and i think we're moving in the right direction. in about six weers weeks we're going to begin our own harm reduction program here in charleston. we're going to have syringe exchange as part of that. we'll be testing for hip teets b and c, h.i.v. we don't want to become another scott county, indiana, where they had an outbreak of hisk, almost 200 cases in a small rural community there. we'd also like to offer contraceptive services to women of reproductive age who are addicted to drugs, to prevent neonatal be a city nance syndrome -- abc nance syndrome as well -- be a city nance syndrome as well.

[applause] more than anything else, i think what we'd like to do is to treat people who come through the doors with dignity and respect and the kind of love that they deserve. the ultimate disease underlying every addiction, in my -- from my perspective, is disconnection and alienation from themselves and from everybody else around them. two weekends ago i began working with west virginia university researchers on a program of mindfulness-based relapse prevention. with opiate addicts in recovery. this is based off of pioneering work done at university of wag. -- washington. one of the more pleasant surprises i've seen is the close connection between public health and public safety. our law enforcement community has been outstanding and we've been really privileged to work with them. finally i was able to also sit dr. chris to sponsor legislation, he's going make sor legislation to

an over the counter medication. the way it is in 14 other states. [applause] and as you said, mr. president, this is a multifaceted issue. it requires a lot of different people to come together to fix this. it's not a quick fix. it requires a collaborative multiagency approach. with public health, mental health, primary care, schools and school nurses, law enforcement, our own judiciary committee. finally, i'd be remiss if i left out our business and industry. jobs provide not only an income, they provide a sense of purpose and meaning in the lives of people. and so i'm hoping that by the end of your visit today, mr. president, that you'll be impressed with some of the things that are going on and how much west virginia's a -- west virginians are really digging in to try to address this issue. thank you. [applause] michael: thank you, doctor.

you have the perfect lead-in and segue and talked about the importance of public health and public safety collaboration. would love to hear your thoughts and what you're doing here. keith: sure. first of all, i'd like to again thank the president of the united states for making this a focus. coming to charleston, west virginia, and also providing me an opportunity to represent charleston and all of law enforcement effectively. i think this is where most people probably look at the person in uniform and they probably say, ok, this is the guy that's now going to tell us we need to build more jails and make tougher laws. and that's not me. we don't -- this is such an epidemic and we cannot arrest our way out of this mess. i think the president touched on it briefly. [applause] what the president said earlier is true. because we want to arrest the violent drug dealers that are creating havoc in our communities. we have our share of violent crime. and we're very fortunately, our

drug task force, we have a others.rtnership with they fund so many of our efforts. the bad guy gets arrested. we made a significant seizure yesterday. we feel in law enforcement, as i'm sure our counterparts do, we really attack the supply side of this issue. very well. sooned we're not going to back down from that -- and so we're not going to back down there from there and -- that and we're going to keep trying to remove people who are dangerous from society. but what's nice about this and what i want to talk about, though, is the attacking, as a strategy, the demand side. and that's what i think is very nice about this panel and this gathering. because we've got a lot of things we can really talk about. we basically have a community of zombies for lack of a better word walking around. they need treatment very badly. and they're coming up to our officers, they actually are -- some don't want help yet, but at some point they do want help. we want to get them help. a couple of the strategies we've worked on that we want to