mr. defazio: mr. speaker, i would yield four minutes to my colleague from oregon, representative schrader. the chair: the gentleman from oregon is recognized for four minutes. mr. schrader: thank you, mr. speaker. and i'd like to thank the chairman and ranking member for bringing a bipartisan, actual job-creating piece of legislation to the chamber in these highly divisive times. this is the type of legislation we should be talking about. rural counties across america, not just in my home state of oregon, are dying. unemployment is still in the double digits. as you've heard. schools are closing. infrastructure is deteriorating and crime is increasing. there is really no recovery in rural oregon. rural america. the dwindling amount of county funding has left local governments unable to afford even the basic services that every american should have. they're making our communities unhealthy and unsafe. and oregon -- in oregon we currently have two counties going bankrupt while we stand idly by. the stat

mr. defazio. mr. defazio: i thank the gentleman. great name, really good at particularly messaging around here. particularly on the republican side. great name, national stratenalic and critical minerals production act of threen. now, we heard just earlier this is about things that are in critical short supply, vital for our national security and for emergencies. none of those things are true. they could be a minuscule part of this, but what this bill does is say that any mining project anywhere on any public land in the united states of america does not constitute a significant federal action. no matter how large, no matter how sensitive, no matter how approximate to say the grand canyon and national treasures, how approximate the yellowstone or how approximate to some critical watershed, that's not a major federal action so it's exempt from nepa. that's one very big problem with this legislation. i think there's a lot of members of the public even living in very conservative areas of the country who would find that a little bit of

mr. defazio: the president has come to congress, as he should, to ask authority for a military action and discretionary military action. the sad fact is he doesn't have to because of a defective law passed by congress in reaction to nixon's bombing of cambodia in 1973. the bill that congress passed is a shadow of our constitutional authority regarding war and peace. and this president has come to us. that's good. the result is not yet known. it's already resulted, perhaps, in a diplomatic breakthrough. that is also good. in the future we need to make certain that each and every president comes to us when it's not -- against imminent or real attack, our troops or our citizens. i'll be reintroducing legislation to fix war powers and require that the president come to the congress before launching a discretionary military action. we must fix this law. this is a good president. let's make this the law of the united states of america. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speak

mr. defazio: i thank my colleague for giving me the time. here we are, about to get into massive fight over whether or not we are going to increase the debt limit or default on our obligations, which involves many trillions of dollars, and today we're going to give away a taxpayer asset that will -- that is worth billions of dollars. we are going to give it away. we are going to get some pretty land in exchange. pretty land in exchange. that's valuable. that's nice. but you know, for many billions of dollars, we could probably buy a lot more land if we wanted it or we could have a little debt reduction. i had a simple amendment. my amendment would have said that we would charge an 8% royalty, 8% of the value of the copper coming from these publicly owned lands would be paid to the treasury of the united states of america. guess what. the americans didn't allow the amendment. what are they afraid of? maybe some of their tea party guys over there might vote for it, want to run government like a business, don't give away assets. that's what we'

mr. holt, to ranking member defazio and senator markey and our members in the senate. this is a good bipartisan piece of legislation done in a bicameral manner and take pride in the fact that congress can get things done when we put our minds to it. while i had some reservations regarding the initial house bill due to some potential issues of -- potential contract violations, this bill before us, h.r. 527 fairly addresses those concerns and i try to address those concerns in the previous bill. and i thank my colleagues for their strong support that effort. but passing this legislation will ensure continued access to the nation's helium supply for america's businesses and researchers. if no action is taken before october 1, the bureau of land management will be forced to shut the helium federal reserve putting at risk thousands of jobs particularly those in the manufacturing sector. a steady supply is absolutely essential in manufacturing, such as m.r.i.'s, fiber optic cables and we need to make sure we can continue in those pursuits. it is important to many refiners. t