Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the Pelican State, Congressman Scalise from New Orleans, a member of the committee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry), who represents Omaha, Nebraska, the home of the College World Series.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would like to recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Congressman Frank Wolf, for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, could I ask how much time. You said it a minute ago, but I was not listening.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 1 minute to the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), one of the strong pro-life leaders in the U.S. Congress, a combat veteran of Vietnam, and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis), who represents the entire State.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 1 minute to the honorable gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), a cancer survivor.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I recognize one of my ranking subcommittee members, Mr. Radanovich, who represents Fresno, California, for 1 minute.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 1 minute to the sixth Frelinghuysen to represent a district from the Garden State of New Jersey, the Honorable Rodney Frelinghuysen. (Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I see that we have changed from the Jets and the Giants to the Green Bay Packers in the chair. I would like to yield 1 minute to a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech, a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. We respect the ruling and the admonition about members of the gallery, but is it acceptable under the rules for the Members of Congress to show approval or disapproval of a speech on the floor?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Missouri, who represents the hometown of Rush Limbaugh, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a member of the committee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus). (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chair, would it not be parliamentarily correct to now call for the yeas and nays on that vote since we requested it?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chair.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Further parliamentary inquiry, so I will have to ask for that when we come back into the Whole House?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the podium.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The merged bill that's before us gives States the right, if they want to do things that are more strict or different than in the pending bill, they have the right to do that. The Federal Government, which normally in a bill of this sort there would be a Federal preemption standard that would preempt States from doing things differently than the Federal standard, this bill sets a floor but does not set a ceiling on what the States can do. So the amendment that we have before us, Mr. Chair, does create the traditional Federal preemption in these areas. There are three sections in today's bill that allow State, local, or tribal governments to enact more stringent laws and regulations from chemical, drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities. This is not only a new standard for chemical security legislation. It is a new standard, and I think a troubling standard, for comprehensive security legislation. Where did this come from? Like many other provisions in this legislation, the standard is borrowed directly from Federal environmental law, the Clean Air Act, the Solid Waste Disposal Act and the Superfund law, to name a few. This so-called new stringency standard appears only once in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. In there, it relates to information protection, not to security operations. Allowing State, local, or tribal governments to be more stringent in the context of national security, in my opinion, is problematic because it means that there will be no certainty associated with the Federal standard. Why have a Federal standard, Mr. Chair, if any State, local, or tribal government can supersede it? Proving my point, other national security laws, including nuclear, hazmat, aviation and port security make the Federal Government the dominant regulator with clear Federal preemption standards. In the 111th Congress, the Democrat majority specifically included Federal preemption provisions in both the TSA Authorization Act and the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010. These were both security-related legislative vehicles. Mr. Chair, we should not import environmental provisions into security law. Local pollution control is obviously much different than terrorism protection and prevention. Unlike local pollution problems, security at chemical and water facilities does require national coordination. The principle is simple: national problems should have national solutions. This is why Federal preemption has always been the norm in aviation security, nuclear security, hazardous materials transportation security, and port security. My amendment is very simple. It would replace the State's stringency standard with provisions allowing the Federal Government to preempt State and local law that ``hinder, pose obstacles to, or frustrate the purpose of the Federal program.'' This would allow the Federal Government to operate a truly national network to fight terror in the same way the Armed Forces are coordinated through a central command. Mr. Chair, I have several other written comments that I will submit for the Record, but my amendment is straightforward. It sets a Federal preemption standard as opposed to the State-by-State or local stringency standard under the current bill. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the manager's amendment.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, normally, you do not object, even in the minority, to a manager's amendment that supposedly is a technical manager's amendment, technical in nature, so it is unusual for myself as the ranking minority member of the Energy and Commerce Committee to rise in opposition to this particular amendment. But I am doing so for one reason: It is not a technical amendment. Now, here is the manager's amendment; and, if you could read it, for the first two to three pages, it is very technical. It is just changing one word here or there, or putting a sentence here, or a semicolon, or something like that. But then you get down to the bottom the third page, and I am going to read this so that the distinguished chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, the gentleman from Mississippi, understands exactly what the opposition is. ``Page 48, strike lines 3 through 17 and insert the following:'' So we are getting away from a technical amendment and you are actually putting substantive policy into the manager's amendment. ``Exclusions. Notwithstanding paragraph 1, the term `protected information' does not include (A) information, other than a security vulnerability assessment or site security plan, that the Secretary has determined by regulation to be (i) appropriate to describe the facility compliance with the requirements of this title and the Secretary's implementation of such requirements; and (ii) not detrimental to the chemical facility security if disclosed; or,'' and this is where it gets really interesting, ``(B) information, whether or not contained in the security vulnerability assessment, site security plan, or in a document, record, order, notice, or letter, or portion thereof, described in subparagraph (B) or (C) of paragraph (1), that is obtained from another source.'' So what we are doing here, Mr. Chairman, is saying, as the distinguished chairman said, we don't want to try to give the Department of Homeland Security the ability to prevent information that has already been publicly disclosed by somebody we regulate as part of the site security plan. But then they are creating this new loophole, that if a group that is not controlled by Homeland Security somehow gets information, they can publish it. They can put it on their Web site, and they're not liable. They are not subject to the penalties. That's wrong, Mr. Chair. That's just wrong. It does it in not only one place. These are three different bills that were merged. It goes on in other parts of the manager's amendment and makes those same changes in two to three other places. That's not a technical manager's amendment. That's a substantive policy change that's detrimental to the security, in my opinion, of the United States of America. So while it is somewhat unusual to object to the manager's amendment that's portrayed as a technical amendment, this is not a technical amendment--or at least those portions of it. So I am very strongly in opposition to this. I think on a day on which we have another reported shooting in Orlando, Florida, which may or may not be of a terrorist nature, and a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, yesterday which was, we think, possibly of a terrorist nature, that if we're going to have a terrorist security bill on the floor for chemical plants and water facilities, it ought to be a real terrorist security bill. But the underlying bill is not about more guards and more physical security and more computer protections, as we said in the general debate yesterday. The underlying bill is about enforcing this new standard of IST, or inherently safer technology. In my opinion, it is a radical environmental bill masquerading as a security bill. So I am strongly opposed to Mr. Thompson's manager's amendment because it is a substantive policy amendment, in my opinion, that fundamentally weakens the ostensible purpose of the bill. With that, Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent), a distinguished minority member of the Homeland Security Committee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, I will let Mr. Thompson close. In the remaining 30 seconds, let me simply say that I agree with what Mr. Markey said, but I will also say to the gentleman from Massachusetts that this bill doesn't do any of that. I wish we were debating a true safety bill, a true antiterrorism bill, but inherently safer technology deals with processes and chemical manufacturing. It doesn't deal with real security. In Chairman Thompson's manager's amendment, some of which is technical, the part that I oppose is a glaring creation of a loophole to give environmental groups and other outside groups the ability to put information on their Web sites that's not subject to the penalties of this bill. So I would oppose the manager's amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.