mr. huizenga, two minutes. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. huizenga: i rise in support of h.r. 4315, and i appreciate my colleague from urban northern virginia on his insight onto the endangered species act. those of us from more rural areas understand the challenges that are presented in this law as it currently stands beg for reform. this bill contains important reforms to the act, and it's been authored by chairman hastings, congresswoman aluminum miss, congressman nugebure and myself and within that is a provision that i had authored which is commonsense legislation that makes the endangered species act consistent with current law. it reforms the e.s.a. litigation process which while enhancing wildlife preservation, improving government efficiency and protecting taxpayers dollars -- and i know it's something that our friends on the other side expressed -- while for too long litigating attorneys raked in millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded money. in many e.s.a. cases, lawyers' fees climb as high as $300, $400 or $500 per hour with hardwo

mr. huizenga: thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate this opportunity and my friend from new york was pointing out that at some point we're going to move on from the i.r.s. but i want to point out that this section is specifically about the enforcement of what the i.r.s. has been doing. and we know that last year the i.r.s. has been targeting american taxpayers, as we've learned, for their political beliefs, for the last four or five years. during this period a culture of shading the truth was fostered and developed by directors and administrators throughout the i.r.s. now this culture within the i.r.s. has grown to one of stonewalling, double talk and mistrust. it's up to congress to use the power of the purse, mr. chairman, to rein in the i.r.s. and force them to conduct their analysis in an unbiased manner. this is our constitutional tool. the i.r.s. has proven itself to be unable to do so, which is why i'm introducing this amendment that cuts more than $788 million from the i.r.s. budget. with a combined cuts in the und

mr. huizenga: just to put that in perspective, it's like the united states lose 3,600. that's the impact it has had with our friends in the netherlands. this attack on innocent civilians can only be described, i believe, as an act of terror as it was flying over ukrainian airspace. we are rising today jointly in a bipartisan fashion to express our condolences to our friends in the netherlands and the netherlands was the first nation to ever recognize our nation, the united states of america, officially back during the revolutionary war and they ave been stall -- stalwart partners and stalwart friends throughout the history of our country. with that i'd like to yield to my friend from maryland. vonvon i thank my friend and colleague and i'm honored to stand with him and all of us in solidarity with the people of the netherlands and the families and loved ones of all e victims of that act of terror. mr. van hollen: we look forward to working together to make sure that this situation is resolved as quickly as possible and the perpetrators are held accountable, and i know w

mr. huizenga: thank you. i thank my colleague from california for working with me on this and i'm glad to hear the elevation that this issue is getting. in fact, on monday i met with a shipping company in my district about this issue, among other things, about great lakes shipping. i can tell you though that it seems to me, as we pass the wrrda bill just a short seven weeks ago, i was willing to compromise on that glide path. what i don't see currently is that demride path to the direction. we are as -- glide path to that direction. we are $5 million below what was laid out in that bill. and my -- the chairman from idaho, who has a very difficult job balancing all of this, has pointed out that the nuclear energy program is the way that we are going to offset this. i will point out though that it is appropriated for $899 million this year, a level that is $36 million above the president's budget request, $10 million above the fiscal year 2014 enacted level, and $243 million above the level proposed by the hous