Earl Blumenauer

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, did my friend from California not completely exhaust the time allotted?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment here that would deal with a study on the cost-effectiveness of the W80-4 Life Extension Program. We have been having these debates over the years before the committee on this issue of nuclear weapons. I am deeply troubled that we really haven't done a deep dive on the floor of the House in terms of the path we have been on. I have settled, in the past, for trying to have some studies to determine whether or not what we are doing going forward is actually cost-effective. In this case, the father of this device, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, has argued that there is scant justification for spending tens of billions of dollars on new weapons. General Mattis has stated numerous times that he is not sold on the LRSO. I simply want to make sure that we know what we are getting into, what the costs are, in terms of some of the increases that are going forward. We need to do a better job of our oversight, our debate. These weapons have not been used, as the gentleman said, since the end of World War II. It is not at all clear that we needed to have the volume of weapons we had, the number of delivery systems. In fact, there is strong argument that we could have done a better job, or just as good a job, of deterrence with less. And there have been a whole host of problems in the past in terms of mismanagement, accident that we have narrowly avoided disaster. I think this is a small step forward, and I would respectfully request that the study be approved. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith), the distinguished chairman of the committee.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, let me just make three points. First and foremost, anybody who thinks that we are standing still and defenseless is not in the real world. We are spending billions of dollars on nuclear weapons and delivery systems. And, in fact, we are relying on a delivery system from the Kennedy-era with the B-52. So I say to the gentleman, don't tell me that we cannot move these items forward. Second, the gentleman does not have a good fix in terms of what is happening with the cost increases. This study is required to be able to have the additional money. If we can do the appropriate study and it makes sense, the money is there. But this is a step towards accountability and it is long, long overdue, and I hope we can start now approving this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, this has been a very important week in the evolution of the Federal policy to end the failed policy of prohibition on cannabis. Yesterday, the House overwhelmingly approved my amendment that would prohibit the Department of Justice from interfering with any State- legal cannabis activities. We had also approved an amendment that granted the same protections to the Tribes. This is remarkable progress that we have seen, but it is just an effort by Congress to catch up to where the rest of the American public is. For the last 23 years, American voters have changed the policies that are outmoded and dangerous. Most recently, we have seen a wave of activity dealing not just with medical marijuana but dealing with adult use. The public, by a two-thirds margin, supports this. And, when we talk about medical marijuana, it is like the Fourth of July. Ninety percent of the American public believes that we ought to have access to medical marijuana. I have been working in this Congress to extend the same opportunities to our veterans, who, if anything, need medical marijuana more than any other category of our citizens. We lost 7,000 people to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we have lost over 100,000 veterans to suicides and opioid overdoses. The VA, I am afraid, has not been as helpful as it should be. They prescribe opioids for our veterans at a rate 50 percent higher than others. Our veterans are twice as likely to die from overdose. I am deeply concerned about that. That is why I have repeatedly advanced this amendment. Two sessions ago, it passed the House, it passed the Senate, and it was in the final version of the bill, only to be stripped out by the Republican leadership. An illustration of how far we have evolved: The House leadership that stripped this provision out was headed by Speaker Boehner, who is now a spokesperson for the cannabis industry, having described that he has evolved on this issue and thinks it is a good idea. We haven't evolved, in this Congress, in providing protections for the VA. Even though this amendment has passed repeatedly, all of a sudden, the VA has decided, well, they would be putting their doctors at risk. It never came up before. If we had known about it, we could work around it. And I think we can and should work to fix this. It is outrageous. And if you talk to people like the Veterans Cannabis Coalition, or talk to veterans in your own district, they will tell you that their lives have been transformed by access to medical cannabis and they don't want highly addictive, dangerous opioids. We need to do right by them. I am going to, reluctantly, withdraw this amendment, this amendment that has passed repeatedly on the floor of the House and is so badly needed. And I hope that we will be able to work together to fix this little quirk, to make sure that VA doctors can do what doctors everywhere do in States where medical cannabis is legal and be able to work with their patients. The VA ought to give their patients, our veterans, the same consideration to have them be able to have these conversations with the doctors that know them best. As I say, Madam Chair, I will reluctantly withdraw it, confident that we can work together to solve it and, ultimately, give our veterans the access that they deserve and need. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time, and I withdraw the amendment.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, and I appreciate his leadership on this. Sadly, invoking the memory of Teddy Roosevelt is not exactly the best symbol of conservation. He was one of the people that slaughtered thousands of buffalo and had trophy hunting around the world. What is different today is that the scale is much greater, the populations we want to protect are dwindling. At one point, we thought there was an inexhaustible supply of wild animals to kill. Even Teddy Roosevelt ended up supporting legislation to be able to protect endangered species, which he did in terms of the slaughter of wild birds. We have seen these populations drop dramatically. What trophy hunters do, they kill the strongest, the most magnificent animals, that if they are left in the population, would promote stronger herds of elephants and lions. We are working against ourselves. For a while here, the Federal Government took steps to limit the issuance of these permits, which as my friend Mr. Buchanan points out, even Donald Trump says is a horror show. Now, I have been in Tanzania recently and looked at what happened on the ground. If you talk to those people there, their future is not slaughtering wildlife, it is protecting it. The photo expeditions where they take the pictures and they don't kill them, that they reuse over and over and over again, is far more valuable and doesn't hurt the species. Mr. Chair, I would respectfully request that we approve the gentleman's amendment, that we stop this barbaric practice, that we not undermine the protection of these species, and do everything we can to reverse the horrific condition they have faced over the course of the last 20 years.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes. This amendment is simple. It would restrict the subsidization of logging roads in the Tongass wilderness. There are currently more than 5,000 miles of road that are used for logging. They are not accessible to the public. These roads are subsidized simply because the timber industry in the Tongass cannot sustain itself. It could not exist other than the fact that we build logging roads for them. It is a problem on several levels. First and foremost, there is a long-term liability associated with them. Currently, there is some $90 million worth of deferred maintenance, and if you do not adequately maintain these logging roads, they become an environmental liability. But more fundamentally, it is undermining this great resource. The true value of the Tongass that makes it unique and the true economic driver of the region is tourism and fishing, which is sustainable. Alaska has been damaged by climate change more than any other State. The temperature has risen twice what we see in the rest of the country. The Tongass is part of the effort to be able to reduce climate change by providing a carbon sink. This amendment is supported by many environmental and taxpayer advocate groups: Alaska Wilderness Action, Earthjustice, the Sierra Club. But because it is a profligate waste of tax dollars, we have Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste that have supported this amendment, which has passed Congress in the past on a bipartisan basis. I urge my colleagues to look hard at this unnecessary subsidization of the destruction of this precious resource making climate change worse while undermining the values that make the Tongass so valuable. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego).

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time each side has remaining.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, first and foremost, my friend from Alaska--who is my friend, and I respect, and have enjoyed our give-and- take over the years--misses the point. What I am talking about is Federal subsidization of logging roads. I mentioned that there is a deferred backlog that is expensive, that the logging operations that we have do not recover enough money to fully fund the operations and the deferred maintenance. I referenced the fact that we have an opportunity to be able to focus our attention on things that really do make a difference. I haven't spent time in the Tongass; I have spent time in Alaska. But the principle applies in Oregon and other States in terms of heavily subsidized logging roads. Logging roads don't make forests safer. They don't prevent forest fires. And as a matter of fact, when we look at logging operations, they are often less sustainable. In fact, logging sometimes causes forest fires and puts people in these areas who cause fires. Now, I would just respectfully suggest that what I said about Alaska being threatened more by climate change than any other, I am happy to provide my good friend from Alaska the references in terms of verifying the statistics and facts that I have used, but the fact remains this is something we shouldn't do, we don't need, and I strongly urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, I am pleased to be here today to be able to deal with the first significant piece of legislation on the floor of the House this Congress dealing with the legalization of cannabis. There has been a sea change in this country over the course of the last 25 years as we have seen 47 States legalize some form of cannabis. But there is an area that is deeply troubling, and this relates to Tribes. Tribes have an interest in being able to conduct activities that deal with cannabis, but currently the strictures that the Federal Government has dealing with its being illegal and the manifold connections that Tribes have with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and so forth make it something that they just don't feel comfortable doing. There are Tribes that are moving forward. They want to be in this area. It is a multibillion dollar growth industry. It provides opportunities for health, economic development, and recreational activities. The States have been granted a certain amount of latitude moving into this space, but the Tribes have been denied. This amendment is very simple. It just says that the Department of Justice will not interfere with Tribal decisions dealing with cannabis. It is ironic. This is a substance that has been used by Tribes for healing going back millennia, and there is an opportunity for them to be able to be part of an economic opportunity that is taking place across the country. We need to grant them that authority. Approval of this amendment says: Department of Justice, leave them alone. It is similar to what we have enacted since 2014 dealing with medical marijuana in the States. It is something that continues as Federal policy, and we will be talking about that in another amendment. I hope that there is a recognition that Tribes deserve this latitude and this empowerment and that we vote in favor of it to allow them to proceed as has taken place in States around the country. Madam Chair, I respectfully request that the body supports this amendment. It will make a great deal of difference for Native Americans and be a step towards normalizing this relationship. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, one of the areas that has been most gratifying for me has been watching what has happened in a revolution in cannabis policy. Starting in 1996 with the State of California, we have watched States across the country have their voters step up to make legalization with medical marijuana and more recently with adult use. Additionally, there have been States that have taken action dealing with medical marijuana in a specialized form for children with extreme seizure disorders. So, in total, we now have 47 States that have some form of cannabis that is legal. We are watching the growth of this industry--a multibillion dollar industry. We are watching State after State move forward. Every one of us on the floor of the House who are here now represent areas that have taken action. We have had embedded in our legislation protections for medical marijuana, and this would simply extend that same protection to prevent the Department of Justice from interfering with adult use. I strongly urge that we build on the legacy that we have had in the past and that we move this forward to allow the Federal Government to start catching up with where the rest of the States are. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.