Earl Blumenauer

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. We just heard from the gentlewoman from California, a State that has proven to be an international leader. Its economy is going great guns. It is reducing its carbon footprint, its carbon use. People confuse the price of energy with the cost of energy, and what has happened in States like California, which have been creative in terms of energy conservation and in pricing it properly, is that use goes down. Some of the people with the lowest rates waste the most energy. They actually spend more. Part of what we did with climate legislation, as the gentleman from New Jersey well knows, actually would have reduced the cost for most people. We don't want to be on the wrong side of history on this because it will have a devastating effect. The administration's modest proposal ought to be supported. We ought not to pretend that we can shatter it and piecemeal it out for the States to undercut it. We ought not to pretend that this is not a real problem that deserves our attention going forward. To waste time today with something that would turn the clock back and that won't pass the Senate--if it did, it would be vetoed--is sad. We ought to be working together on a low carbon future to be able to make it work right for each and every community.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, today I will vote against H.R. 2596, the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY2016, because this bill continues the expansion of our intelligence community and includes harmful policy riders that will only serve to make America less safe, not more. While large portions of the intelligence budget are classified, publicly available estimates are as high as $80 billion a year. That's in addition to the more than $580 billion we're set to spend on defense in the next 12 months. If today's bill moves forward, funding will again rise by nearly $6 billion. Worse, it would do so by sidestepping Congressionally-imposed budget caps, while continuing to enforce these arbitrary rules for critical domestic programs, from education to medical research. Efforts by the majority to undercut our president's ability to conduct foreign policy are nothing new, but for the first time this bill would put in place additional barriers to finally closing Guantanamo Bay, a recruiting tool available to terrorists so long as its doors remain open. It would also limit the types of information our intelligence community can share with our allies, a level of discretion best left to the President himself. There are over 4.5 million federal employees and contractors with access to secret information, which is larger than the entire population of Los Angeles. I am concerned that the amount of information being reviewed by the intelligence community and number of people involved may actually be making us less safe. Today's bill is a missed opportunity to reevaluate methods of domestic surveillance, the growing size of the intelligence bureaucracy, and ending programs, like Guantanamo Bay, that only harm our national security, not help it.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, there is a tremendous crisis facing America, but it is not one you hear much about on Capitol Hill. It is killing hundreds of people a year, injuring thousands more. It is crippling America's global standing, as we have fallen in the world ranking from number 1 down to 27 and falling further. It is having a profound effect on our global economic competitiveness, while costing American families hundreds of dollars a year in extra expenses. Of course, it is complicating the lives of American business and families by losing millions of hours that otherwise could be put to productive work, at exercise, or with their families, and on the job. If it were any other subject, there would be cries of outrage and alarm and calls for action. You would see a flurry of action here on Capitol Hill. Sadly, this decline, this cost, this damage is the result of our very real infrastructure crisis, a crisis to which Congress has been indifferent at best and negligent at worse. Despite countless examples of the crying need for infrastructure investment, Congress has been paralyzed, trying to pay for 2015 costs of infrastructure with 1993 dollars. Congress has not taken any systematic action since 1993, and the time has long since passed for action. Thirty-three short-term extensions of transportation finance is not a substitute for action. No nation became great building its infrastructure 9 months at a time. To be fair, there are people on Capitol Hill who do care about this and have proposed action: My friend and colleague Peter DeFazio, the ranking member on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has proposed a barrel tax on petroleum. He has proposed a financial fee on transactions, both of which would go a long way toward solving this problem. My Ways and Means colleagues Jim Renacci and Bill Pascrell have proposed a mechanism that would be a failsafe, that if Congress didn't act to fund infrastructure, the gas tax would be indexed and increased. Our Maryland colleague John Delaney has identified vast sums of corporate money parked overseas that could be made available for infrastructure investment in the United States if it were returned for that purpose. And I have proposed, along with two dozen of my colleagues, that we simply bite the bullet and do what Ronald Reagan did in 1992--raise the gas tax for the 1st time in 22 years. When I introduced this proposal in this Congress, it was supported by the widest array of groups on any major contested issue on Capitol Hill. It was supported by the top echelons of business, of organized labor, of the building trades, construction companies, local government, transit, bicycles, truckers, AAA, all in alignment that Congress should step up and remedy this situation. There are solutions. There are people who think about it. We need to have the same level of courage and urgency that has been shown by people at the State and local level where they don't have the luxury of living in a Capitol Hill bubble. They have to deal with the consequences, and they have stepped up, 19 States since 2012--in fact, 6 States already this year. Idaho, Utah, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Georgia, deep red States, have all raised the gas tax in 2015. I am pleased that tomorrow the Ways and Means Committee will have its first hearing on transportation finance in the 56 months since my Republican colleagues took over. It is no substitute for Congress rolling up its sleeves and acting, but it is an important start. And I hope it will signify a full-court press in that committee to finally get down to cases and solve this problem.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the strange kaleidoscope of this congressional session began with the proposed shutdown of Homeland Security but moved on to the bipartisan action to fix the vexing SGR- Medicare funding formula, the so-called ``doc fix'' to prevent dramatic cuts to providers. Yes, it is still hard to overcome deep divisions, philosophical difference, and some real serious politics. The heated rhetoric and convoluted voting on the recent trade package is the latest example. Wouldn't it be great if we could take a step back and find ways to unite us to solve a major problem? Well, we have got a major problem that is staring us in the face right now. We are in the midst of the 33rd short-term transportation funding extension that is a result of our inability to pay for 2015 infrastructure with 1993 dollars. That is because of our inability to raise the gas tax since 1993. The demands for transportation solutions grow, and the harm inflicted on families occurs every day. It costs them over $300 a year just in damage to their cars from road maintenance that has fallen apart. We are paying a $125-billion-a-year penalty for congestion. Americans, make no mistake, are paying the price for this dysfunction, and the people who are partners at the State and local level and in the private sector are having great difficulty doing their part without the certainty of the Federal partnership that has been the bedrock, that has been the foundation of national transportation policy since President Eisenhower. Now, there is a little hint of sunshine here because this week, on Wednesday, we will be having the first hearing on transportation finance since my Republican friends took control of Congress 56 months ago. What if we took advantage of that daylight to expand the scope of the discussion? What if we were able to have at the same witness table the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, and the president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, who don't much agree on anything, but they are united in their firm belief that raising the gas tax, getting the transportation funding to rebuild and renew America, is absolutely essential? We could be joined by people who understand that hundreds of thousands of family-wage jobs would be possible if we met our transportation obligations. We could have representatives from State and local government, transit agencies, the environmental community, safety advocates all joined at the same table. We could have the eloquence of Governor Bill Graves, who is currently president of the American Trucking Association, but he was Republican Governor of Kansas, who raised the gas tax not once, but twice. He could be joined by the American Automobile Association, which has come out strongly in favor of a gas tax to be able to meet the needs of the motoring public. Why wouldn't we want those people there? We could invite State legislators from six very red Republican States--Idaho, Utah, Georgia, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa--that all raised the gas tax this year. They didn't just talk about it; they acted. Six red States raising the gas tax already in 2015. I am optimistic that we can capitalize on the glimmers of life we are seeing. If we can just listen to the people at the State and local level, the private sector, organized labor, people who build, maintain, and use our transportation system, they could be part of that deliberative process. I am confident that we, in Congress, could develop a united front on an issue that has been controversial in the past but is no longer. When people step up, when they accept responsibility and work cooperatively, we can do what was done in Idaho, Georgia, Utah, Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Congress can do that. And after all the acrimony and bad feeling and partisan division that has lingered, wouldn't this be the right time to do so?

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, today, joined by 16 original cosponsors, I am pleased to introduce legislation to reauthorize the Superfund taxes on polluting industries. The Superfund Reinvestment Act will provide much needed funding to clean up toxic waste sites throughout the United States and relieve the financial burden currently shouldered by the American taxpayers who currently pay for this cleanup. Across the country there are more than 1,100 severely polluted Superfund sites. Approximately 49 million Americans live within three miles of a Superfund site. These contaminated sites threaten humans with exposure to toxins such as arsenic, benzene, PCBs, mercury and a wide range of solvents, resulting in health problems such as infertility, low birth weight, birth defects, leukemia and respiratory difficulties. This contamination also threatens the economic and social vitality of the communities that play host to these dirty sites. The Superfund program was originally created in 1980 to cleanup these contaminated sites and free residents of the health risks and fears that come from living close to toxic waste. In most cases, the EPA works with responsible parties to compel them to pay for cleanup. At approximately 30 percent of Superfund sites, however, those responsible for the pollution cannot be found or do not have the ability to pay, so the federal government pays for the cleanup. Historically, the Superfund Trust Fund, financed by taxes on petroleum products, chemicals and corporate income, was used for this purpose. Because Congress has not reauthorized the Superfund taxes since 1995, the Trust Fund has been depleted and the funding for the cleanup of orphan sites has shifted primarily to general funds. The Superfund Reinvestment Act restores the ``polluter pays'' taxes and updates these taxes for inflation, returning fairness to the process and once again making those responsible for pollution pay for the cleanup. The bill includes excise taxes of $.163 per barrel on crude oil or refined oil products and taxes ranging from $.51 to $11.35 per ton on certain chemicals. The bill reinstates a corporate environmental income tax of .12% on a corporation's modified alternative minimum taxable income that exceeds $3.735 million. This legislation expands the definition of oil to include unconventional crude oil sources, such as tar sands and oil shale. This legislation also includes language to guarantee that money from the Trust Fund is only spent on Superfund cleanups. I urge my colleagues to join me in working to strengthen the Superfund program by ensuring that polluters continue to pay. Restoring the Superfund taxes will go a long way towards making certain that funds are available to cleanup America's most toxic waste sites and to help keep our communities and our families safe, healthy and economically secure.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, Democrats just left a very powerful presentation from the President of the United States to our Members, who simply ask that our Members play it straight: vote for things they believe in. For instance, 125 Democrats voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance to help workers displaced because of things in the global economy. We have a provision before us today that is actually stronger than what 125 of us voted for before; yet there are some that are thinking, well, they may not vote for it. I have had ads run against me for cutting Medicare; yet I am going to ask to enter into the Record a letter from the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, American Health Care Association, and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice that point out there were no cuts to Medicare because of the changes that we are involved with making. Now, this is part of the problem we are having dealing with how to consider trade promotion authority. This is something that all of us should embrace. It sets the rules for the administration to negotiate and how we will evaluate it. It will guarantee, as my friend from Nebraska just pointed out, everybody in America will have almost 5 full months to look at it before it is ever voted on. It contains the strongest environmental and labor provisions of any trade provisions in history. That is what people talked to me about when they wanted NAFTA fixed. Trade promotion authority that we have here will do it. It is very important. I have not stopped working to improve this package. I have got things I want to change, work with the Senate, work in conference committee. If we ever get an agreement, then I will evaluate the TPP based on what is in it, not speculation, innuendo, and reckless charges. June 11, 2015. Hon. John Boehner, Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi: On behalf of our members, who include a broad spectrum of Medicare providers, we are writing to share with you our appreciation for addressing the cuts to Medicare that had been included in trade legislation but will now be removed. We support the provisions in H.R. 1295, the ``Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015,'' that remove this Medicare cut. This week, the House is considering several trade bills. Section 603 of H.R. 1295, which was passed by the House earlier today, would eliminate the Medicare sequester extension for the last six months in 2024, which would have cut $700 million from Medicare according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. This provision also would have resulted in a net effect of increasing the sequester in 2024 beyond the 2 percent in the Budget Control Act. With the protection of Section 603, coupled with expeditious passage by the Senate of H.R. 1295 as amended, we would no longer view a vote in favor of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) legislation as a vote to cut Medicare. Hospitals, physicians, nursing homes and home health and hospice providers have already absorbed hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the Medicare program in recent years. We believe that it is an unwise precedent to use Medicare cuts to pay for non-Medicare related legislation. We are grateful this is addressed favorably in Section 603. Sincerely, American Hospital Association; American Medical Association; American Health Care Association; National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I am frustrated to be on the floor today unable to vote for H.R. 644. This bill should be about helping American businesses export more, with greater efficiency, cutting red tape at the border, and enhancing our ability to hold foreign tax cheats accountable. Instead, this bill cuts corners on what matters to America's exporters and those undercut by bad actors abroad and gives special attention to the paranoia of the Republican caucus. The Senate passed a perfectly good, bipartisan customs bill which had a couple of strong provisions that I have authored in it. That legislation is not what we are considering. Instead, today's bill contains ill-advised language on immigration, climate change. It shorts efforts to deal with human trafficking and currency, and it reverses longstanding American policy towards Israel and settlements. It is not so much the fact that there were these vote-buying tactics that were used to lard this up with inappropriate items that's concerning, because most will fall off in conference. I am frustrated that provisions that would strengthen the bill and get bipartisan support have been left out. The Green 301 provisions, to help American businesses working abroad who are put at a competitive disadvantage by operating at or above local environmental laws while native companies get a free pass when it comes to following what is on the books. It is not fair, and there should be an avenue of redress. The Green 301 would have done that. And no one benefits from a trade agreement which can't be enforced. I had the STRONGER Act, a trade enforcement and capacity building provision that I have offered up, that we have attempted to get through here. It is in the Senate bill--and should be in the House bill. I will be fighting in conference to make sure that these provisions-- Green 301 and STRONGER--are protected in the Senate, that we have a customs bill that is worthy of support and some of the goofy stuff gets stripped away. I will vote for TPA, but I am really frustrated that we don't have a customs bill that we all can support.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that after 55 months in control, my Republican friends have scheduled their first hearing on transportation and finance. This is a very important, very welcome development, as welcome as it is long overdue. I appreciate my friend, Paul Ryan, the chairman of the committee, keeping his word that we would actually have a hearing. Now, the question is whether this is going to be one that is more or less perfunctory, sort of a plain vanilla, or whether it is going to be the start of a critical dialogue involving not just ideologues, but the people who do more than just study the issue, hear from the vast army of people who plan, build, maintain, and use our transportation infrastructure. Theirs is a unique, shared, forceful vision. Congress should spend the time not just to listen to those stakeholders, but to understand how they got to where they are and what we need to do. We shouldn't settle for half steps to just get past the next transportation deadline, which is looming next month, which would be the 34th short-term extension. Just as bad or worse, we would fail to give the country the bold transportation investment that is so sorely needed. The next hearings are even more important following next Wednesday's effort. That is the time to actually follow regular order, to debate real options. I have introduced a path. After 20 years of working on transportation funding, it is still the simplest, the best, and the most widely supported. It is the widest coalition, in fact, of any major issue confronting people on Capitol Hill. It includes the AFL-CIO, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, contractors, transit, local government, bicyclists, engineers. It includes the AAA, representing automobile users, and the American Trucking Association. They all support, for the first time in 22 years, raising the Federal gas tax. We are in the problem we are in now because we are paying for 2015 transportation needs with 1993 dollars. It doesn't work. My approach would not just raise the gas tax, index the gas tax, but work to abolish the gas tax because it is no longer a sustainable long- term solution. We can, in fact, replace it with a much more viable, effective, fair system based on road user charges, which we are experimenting with in Oregon, and States around the country are looking at. In the meantime, we ought to step up and do our job on the gas tax. It is interesting that six red States have already raised the gas tax this year. If it was good enough for Eisenhower, if it was good enough for Ronald Reagan, who used his Thanksgiving Day speech in 1982 to summon Congress back to more than double the gas tax, which he and Tip O'Neill did, it ought to be good enough for us today. Let's discuss, examine, and understand all the viable solutions, the health of our infrastructure, our economy, and the impacts on the people we serve. Whatever solution we come up with must meet three tests: It must raise enough to do the job of giving America its first 6-year transportation bill since 1998; it must be dedicated to allow the certainty to be able to build a transportation vision for the future; and it must be sustainable so that we don't end up back in the same place in a year or 2 or 4 or even 5. My legislation would provide 210 additional billion dollars, enough for the transportation committee to fashion that vision for the future. It is ironclad dedicated over the next 6 years, but it is sustainable because, if Congress hasn't moved to abolish the gas tax by then, at least we don't fall off a cliff. There was a time when America had the best infrastructure in the world. Sadly, that time has passed. There was a time when infrastructure used to be bipartisan. I am hopeful that if we step up to the plate, approach it in a bipartisan fashion, we can do the job so that we start repairing infrastructure that is now rated 25th or 27th in the world, and going down. We no longer have the finest infrastructure, but we can be bipartisan and thoughtful. We can reverse this 20-year slide. We can put hundreds of thousands of people to work across America at family-wage jobs this year and rebuild and renew America so our families are safer, healthier, and more economically secure.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and his leadership. It was my intention to engage in a colloquy with the chairman in a few minutes, but I wanted to make a couple of observations, if I could, about the subject at hand. As Mr. Rangel knows from his years of effort, one of our responsibilities in terms of promoting free and fair trade is to be able to focus attention on some of the poorest countries around the world. I appreciate your work, what the committee is doing--in the past and moving forward--to be able to deal with some of the anomalies where some of the worst, heaviest tariff burdens are on some of the poorest of countries, and our being able to extend to less-developed countries opportunities to earn their own way, to have some modicum of tariff relief, to be able to promote their indigenous activities. Trade is cheaper than aid, and it helps them strengthen their economies, strengthen their societies, and I really appreciate tireless efforts to extend those opportunities to others. I think we have got a long way to go in terms of being able to deal with some of the poorest of countries. We have got trade promotion authority we may be talking about with a dozen countries. But there are other poor countries around the world that we need to work with to be able to pull into opportunities for them to grow their economies, for them to be able to trade with us, to be able to strengthen civil society, and partnerships. So I wanted to thank you for your years of effort in this. I wanted to express my appreciation for the underlying bill. I look forward to chatting a little further with the chairman when one of our partners surfaces.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the chairman's courtesy, as I have appreciated the opportunity to be working with you on the package that is coming forward. I know we are not quite there yet. I look forward to continuing this effort. But I would like to engage in an issue that is critical to Mr. Reichert, my colleague from the Northwest, to our consumers, and to important jobs in our district. Today, Mr. Speaker, the innovative footwear industry must face an unreasonable reality at our borders. Two identical looking running shoes are imported. One must pay a significantly higher tariff for a single reason: it contains a waterproof liner. Waterproof means a lot in the Pacific Northwest, for Mr. Reichert and I. This bill puts an end to an outmoded tariff code that charges extremely high tariffs for no good reason. I appreciate the chairman and the staff working with my team, with Mr. Reichert to try to get this right for tariff relief for outdoor enthusiasts and business around the country, but there is another issue at work here. Mr. Reichert and I have been lead sponsors of the U.S. OUTDOOR Act that defines and creates tariff classification unique and specific to recreational performance outerwear and eliminates import duties on those apparel products. The Preference bill achieves one of these goals of the OUTDOOR Act by creating new definitions and tariff classifications for recreational performance outerwear. Again, I appreciate your efforts, Mr. Chairman, and those of your staff to include the provision. It provides recognition that these are distinct, unique products that will help the industry better track the imports of recreational performance outerwear and sets the stage for tariff relief. However, due to a drafting error, I understand that the duty rates assigned are incorrect and, in most cases, will raise the tariffs on those products and, as a result, on small- and medium-sized outdoor businesses, if they are not corrected. In addition, I understand the agreed-to language on the definitions of recreational performance outerwear and the list of tariff lines should be included. Mr. Chairman, I understand that there is a commitment from you and your staff to apply the correct duty rates and make the necessary changes to the definition in the conference report on the Customs reauthorization bill. I further understand that there is a very tight window here that we both know to get this done. The new classifications will come into effect in 15 days, after the Preference bill is signed into law. I would appreciate your acknowledgement that I understand the commitment correctly and that we will be able to get it done within this timeframe.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate that very much. And I hope that there is one area that we might be able to engage in some activity in the future. According to a 2007 report by the ITC, there is no commercially viable production of recreational performance outerwear in the United States, yet these products still face tariffs averaging 14 percent, and some go up to almost 30 percent. So I look forward to continuing to work with you to achieve the next goal of the OUTDOOR Act, which would be duty elimination. As was discussed before, there is no viable domestic production, very high rates. There are not many opportunities to pursue tariff relief anymore because we have been moving in that direction, and I think that is important. But I look forward to working with you to find the appropriate offset, to deal with revenue neutrality, and enact tariff relief on those products as soon as we can.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, House action is expected on trade provisions this week. A vote on a package that establishes the rules for how the next major trade agreement will be handled, the trade promotion authority, may be voted on, this Friday. It has been fascinating for me to hear the arguments at home and in Washington, D.C., of those who are opposed to trade promotion authority and have already decided against the Trans-Pacific Partnership before the agreement is even finished. The critics often cite concerns about the environment, but what I hear from some of my friends on the other side of this question at home stands in stark contrast to what I think reality is. The dreaded ``secret negotiations'' are somehow raised as a negative. To the best of my knowledge, all major serious agreements are negotiated in private like all labor union contracts. It is after they are negotiated that the Members have them and look at whether or not it is worthy of their support. There are concerns about various corporate advisers whispering in the Trade Representative's ear and having access to confidential information tilting the playing field. Last week, I met with two of those sinister advisers who happen to be respected environmental leaders. Yes, the advisory panels include environmental leaders and, in fact, union leaders as well. There was an interesting point that came forward in my conversation with environmentalists that the only way to stop, slow, and reverse the rape of the oceans is by an international trade agreement, and this one is actually shaping up to be pretty strong. Oceans are threatened by overfishing, having fishery stocks collapse; yet the countries in the 12 countries that are negotiating this agreement have, on average, a 20 percent subsidy to encourage more fishing, overfishing, paying their fishermen to catch the very last fish. The only way to deal with this is by having a multinational agreement that is enforceable to reduce this destructive policy. Along with the oceans, there is deep concern about what is going on with deforestation, the exploitation of endangered species in the forested areas. Since 2000, we have lost an area ten times the size of Great Britain to deforestation just in the Amazon basin alone. That is why, in the last round of trade negotiations, I fought hard to have provisions against illegal logging in Peru and for them to raise their standards. We are struggling to make sure that they are fully enforced, but nobody that I have talked to seriously thinks that we wouldn't be better off without an agreement. It gives us leverage, and things are improving. Well, likewise, we are seeing thugs illegally harvesting endangered species like elephants and rhinos. They are taking illegally harvested exotic timber and disrupting indigenous people. No nation can prevent the exploitation by themselves, but many nations, armed with an enforceable agreement that we can use trade sanctions to be able to put teeth in it, can make a difference now and raise the bar for future agreements. The package moving forward has faced some changes that I find troubling. All major legislation that I have seen in my career in Congress is a mixed bag. They had some good things; they had some bad things; and some things that are hard to figure out. That is going to be our job this week and beyond, to make that evaluation; but on balance, while we are trying to figure out whether we are better off with or without it, it is important that that decision be made on a factual basis, not hypothetical scare tactics.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. We have been involved with a long struggle in this Congress and Congresses before, dating back some 13 years, and even before that, about country of origin labeling. Do people have the right to know where their food comes from? As the gentleman from Massachusetts pointed out, the American public supports this. We have had a ruling from the WTO that does not prohibit country of origin labeling. To the contrary, the case upheld the country's right to require food labeling when it serves a broad public interest that does not lead to treatment of a foreign product in a less favorable way than a domestic one. We are rushing in a repeal that goes beyond just the disputed elements, adding poultry, and raising questions, I think, about our commitment to being able to give consumers what they want. There are those that would attach cost to this, but it also is in terms of what people want. And I think, we ought to take a deep breath. There is not going to be any retaliatory tariffs that are going to be actually inflicted quickly. This is a process that is going to take months. The Brazilian cotton subsidies, about which I personally think Brazil was right--we had inappropriate cotton subsidies, and we are paying Brazilian cotton interests now because of our refusal to make our own cotton policies WTO-compliant. That is another scandal, in my judgment, that we are giving $148 million to Brazilian cotton farmers, because we are giving inappropriate subsidies to American cotton farmers when we have other priorities. But in this case, we have plenty of time in this Congress to follow regular order, to be able to carve out specific provisions that speak to the weakness in what the United States did. Because the United States, in enacting this for meat products, it was pretty convoluted, and the American Government had been told before that it would not be WTO compliant. So this isn't a surprise. It is not an emergency. It is a responsibility we have to try to make these adjustments. I don't want to have our other industries penalized with retaliatory tariffs, and they won't be, but we don't have to pass this bill. We ought to deal with the underlying problems, be narrow, be specific, and uphold the right of American consumers to have as much information as we can give them. So I would strongly recommend that we reject the rule and the underlying bill. Let's have this conversation. Let's do it right. And let's make sure that we defend our right under WTO to have appropriate food labeling.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. Mr. Chairman, this is where reality comes into play. We talked about this earlier. Having a fund that is set up does not evade the responsibility of providing the long-term funding. All of these things in the Department of Defense are priorities, and our friends on the Appropriations Committee have the difficult job of trying to balance these priorities and have the big picture available to them. I think they have done exactly the right thing. I think this needs to be subsumed within the overall budget. There is no magic money. Having something that subverts the hard work that we ask the Appropriations Committee to do, I think, is the wrong thing to do. It is not easy to stand up and make this argument, but I appreciate what they have done. They did it last year, and it was appropriate. They have done it this year, and it is appropriate. We have to be able to deal with this in a comprehensive way and not use sleight of hand. I appreciate what the chair and ranking member have done.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. I appreciate him referencing the Coast Starlight. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Congress has created a difficult situation for Amtrak, consistently shortchanging maintenance and capital. As my good friend from North Carolina points out, all modes of transportation in this country are subsidized by the public. Amtrak is no exception. It provides a variety of services for people. We are watching on the West Coast ridership increase. It provides an important opportunity for businesspeople. If you talk to businesspeople in Seattle, in Portland, they would say they would like the Federal Government to invest more. It has made a big difference for how they conduct business. Part of the strength is having a network. Make no mistake, we are, in fact, going to have a passenger rail network in the United States, despite consistent efforts to chop away and minimize it. China, 6 years ago, had no high-speed rail. Today, they are moving more passengers than the entire air fleet in the United States. We will have higher speed rail, but the question is whether we are going to build on what we have got--American built, American managed--or we will wait until it deteriorates, gets so bad that we end up with a design- build to China, paying more, shipping the profits and the work overseas. I would suggest it is far better to protect what we have now, build on the progress, not undo the network, and most certainly reject this amendment.

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

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, my heart goes out to the chairman and ranking member for the task that they have been given. People have appropriately condemned and opposed many of the provisions. As people dig into the bill, the more they see, the worse it looks: slashing TIGER grant funding, no funding for high-speed rail, cutting Amtrak, and overall reductions. No wonder it has drawn a veto threat. But it is definitely not the fault of the committee. They have been given an impossible task. They have been requested to finance the Federal Government's transportation responsibilities in 2015 with 1993 dollars. Our country is falling apart while we are falling behind the rest of the world. We are of a generation when some of us can remember the United States having the finest infrastructure in the world. We had rail passenger service, airlines, superb highways and transit. Those days have long since passed. We are watching the deterioration of transit. The squabbling here over Amtrak is really dealing with a failing system because it is a symptom of our inability to invest in the future--just one, but a very glaring symbol. Sadly, Mr. Chairman, in the 55 months that my Republican friends have taken over Congress, we have not had a single hearing in the Ways and Means Committee, on which I serve, for our responsibility for funding transportation. We have not increased the gas tax in 22 years. Mr. Chairman, in the last 6 months, six Republican States have raised the gas tax, and we can't even have a hearing on a proposal that is supported by the U.S. Chamber, by the AFL-CIO, by the AAA, the truckers, contractors, transit, bicyclists, and everybody in between. As a result, we continue to limp along. What did we do late last month? We extended the transportation funding for the 33rd time on a short-term basis. What country ever became great building its infrastructure 6 months at a time? We will be dealing with this in another 2 months. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that we deal with this bill as best we do, because it is not adequate. I am going to oppose it. But the bill is a symptom of the failure of my Republican colleagues to face what other entities have done, including red Republican States. Why don't we come back next week and put the Ways and Means Committee to work for a week, inviting in the people who build, maintain, and use our infrastructure, listen to them, let the committee do its work, and come up with a proposal that will adequately fund our infrastructure? Then we can have the authorizing committee not mess around with a couple of months' extension but get down to work to fashion a 6-year, comprehensive transportation bill that will put hundreds of thousands of people to work in communities all across the country, making them more livable, making our families safer, healthier, and more economically secure. We shouldn't be caught in this trap of our own making. Let's step up, invest in the future, and do our job. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this week, we started the 33rd extension of the highway spending program. The 33rd time that we failed to deal meaningfully with the crisis in funding our transportation system. It is a symbol of Congress' failure to deal with a country that is falling apart and falling behind. No country became great building its infrastructure 7 months at a time. It prompts silly ideas. One recently, an op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal, talks about ``Taxing for Highways, Paying for Bike Lanes'' as the problem. Well, as is pointed out in letters to the editor today, it is not spending on bike paths which Dr. Pete Ruane, head of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, pointed out is about 1 percent of the total Federal transportation highway budget, if you include sidewalks as well. No, the problem is that we are paying for 2015 infrastructure with 1993 dollars. We have not raised the gas tax in 22 years. Now, I would suggest that what we ought to do is to look at the broad coalition that is represented by the authors on that page from the roadbuilders and the cyclists--they are representative of the broadest coalition on any issue in American politics today--from the AFL-CIO to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the truckers--represented eloquently by Governor Bill Graves, who is not just president of the American Trucking Associations, he was the Republican Governor of Kansas who raised the gas tax not once, but twice. There is an opportunity for us to break the logjam. I would suggest that maybe the House Ways and Means Committee could, for the first time in the 55 months that the Republicans have been in charge, actually meet to discuss transportation funding. That is our job. Let's dedicate an entire week to solving this problem. Let's invite in representatives of that broad coalition: people who build, maintain, and use our transportation system. Let's hear from the six Republican States that already this year have raised the gas tax, red Republican States: Utah; Georgia; South Dakota; Idaho; Iowa; and, most recently, Nebraska, where the legislature overrode the Governor's veto to raise their gas tax. It is time for Congress to do its job and to be in partnership with those States who expect us to maintain the Federal responsibility. Let's hear from the broad array of people and then allow the Ways and Means Committee to follow regular order. There is more support for raising the gas tax. The public is already paying the price. The bill I have, which would provide 210 billion additional dollars over the next decade, would cost the average motorist just about $90 a year. At a time of declining gas prices, that is not that great, but motorists are now paying $350 a year on average in damage to their cars. The country paid $125 billion in the cost of congestion. Let's stop beating around the bush. Let's pass the first 6-year transportation reauthorization, the first since 1998. The first step is for the Ways and Means Committee to do its job, bring these people in, work together on a bipartisan basis, raise the gas tax, index the gas tax, then abolish the gas tax, replace it with something that is sustainable. In the meantime, let's rebuild and renew America and put hundreds of thousands of people to work at family-wage jobs while we strengthen communities from coast to coast.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and I appreciate his leadership, focused like a laser on something that is not like marijuana. For generations, Americans have used hemp. It has just been recently that it has been compromised. So we have to import hemp from overseas to make perfectly legal hemp products that you can buy in any American city. This is an important step forward to be able to allow Kentucky and Oregon farmers to do something that they have done for generations. It is about economic development. It is about being rational. And it is about being able to focus on things that are important. I deeply appreciate the gentleman's focus and patience keeping us on message here to be able to make sure that we are not having Federal interference for something that is State supervised and where States around the country want to allow this for their farmers and their ranchers. I think it is an important step forward, and I appreciate his leadership in permitting me to speak on it.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

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

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chair, that is a rather imposing title to deal with a relatively simple concept. We have a national epidemic dealing with opioid painkillers. Prescription drug overdoses are a serious problem. We find people who become addicted. We are finding that, in a routine matter of course, this drug dependence often leads to heroin, and we are watching a chain of events. In Oregon, we found that 15 percent of young Oregonians between 18 and 25 abused prescription pain relievers last year. I mentioned that chain of causality. We are finding that people in this sequence often use heroin as a substitute when the pills get too expensive or the high is no longer high enough. It is easy to switch to heroin. It is not just a problem in Oregon. We have seen the CDC chart heroin deaths doubling between 2010 and 2012 in 28 States. Opioid addiction can be devastating, but there is a drug that can be used to safely and effectively treat this addiction. For more than 12 years, buprenorphine has been a critical weapon in our fight against opioid addiction. It can be taken on an outpatient basis. It is easy to administer. But we have seen artificial barriers to treatment. In fact, we have made it harder for doctors to prescribe these schedule III addiction treatment drugs even though it is comparatively easy to prescribe the schedule II drugs that cause addiction in the first place, such as Vicodin and OxyContin. And the schedule III drugs, we are finding that there are audits that are taking place by DEA. Doctors who complete the 8-hour certification process have been approached by DEA agents in my community before they even write a single prescription. They report hostile and intimidating behavior from agents who demand inspections of their prescription records at random, unscheduled intervals. As I say, these are doctors who can simply write a prescription for powerful narcotics without having to worry about random DEA inspections. We need to allow doctors to treat their patients with compassion and with the care they deem appropriate. They shouldn't have to worry about DEA agents having a super overlay of attention. We need to encourage opportunities to make sure that doctors can treat patients and be able to withdraw them from the symptoms. And I would respectfully suggest that the DEA should focus their efforts on chasing criminals, the pill mills, and the drug dealers, not doctors who have worked hard to be part of the solution. This amendment solves the problem by ensuring no funds are available to DEA to enforce inspections of the physicians who prescribe buprenorphine and allow them to proceed with the treatment of patients without fear of getting into trouble with the Federal Government while helping hundreds of at-risk patients who want to beat their addiction in a healthy, effective way. The irony is the powerful addictive drugs don't have as much interference and oversight. The opportunity to have drugs at schedule III--not schedule II--that can be used to treat it is much more difficult and intrusive for medical professionals. That is not right. I would respectfully suggest that we adopt this amendment to correct the situation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, in our fast-changing world, the global economy looms large. America has long been the leader in promoting freer and fairer trade, promoting the economy at home while strengthening ties overseas. The current issue that is before us now deals with a trade promotion authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement with 12 countries, representing almost 40 percent of the global economy. After the recent bipartisan vote in the Senate on the trade promotion authority and related package, attention now shifts to the House where we are likely to be voting on this in the next couple of weeks. Many confuse support for the trade promotion authority with the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. They are two distinct items. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is an ongoing series of negotiations which has yet to be concluded. Indeed, one of the reasons we are looking at trade promotion authority now, establishing the rules of the game and how Congress will evaluate and process it, is to make sure that we get into the final stages. Trade promotion authority historically, something we have done repeatedly in the past, provides for Congress to vote on an up-or-down basis on a trade agreement once it is finalized. This is what happens in negotiations routinely in the United States, an up-or-down vote. I find it somewhat ironic that some of my friends in organized labor think that it somehow should be negotiated in Congress, that it ought to be subject to amendment in Congress. Yet there is no labor union that I am aware of that has its contracts voted piecemeal. Members aren't allowed to amend. It is up or down, and that is what is necessary to be able to reach a conclusion with these negotiations. Some are demanding that Members of Congress oppose an agreement that is not yet completed. Well, I, for one, am not going to support or oppose an agreement until I can see what is in it and until the agreement is finalized. Until it is finished, I am going to continue to work to make it as strong as possible. I have been working on provisions to strengthen enforcement, establishing a trust fund to make sure that provisions in trade agreements have the resources to make sure that they are, in fact, enforced, such as having provisions known as the Green 301 that has greater strength to be able to enforce environmental provisions. This makes a difference for my community. Oregon's small- and medium-sized businesses, family farmers, winemakers, bike manufacturers say that enhanced trade authority is critical to creating more jobs at home and increased value for customers. That is something that gets lost in this debate because, as a result of our policies promoting freer trade between countries, Americans have seen their standard of living increase. Americans today are paying less for clothing, less for food, less for electronics as a result of the benefits of these agreements. Some estimates say it is about $8,000 per family. Well, we will see what the current trade agreement looks like when it is completed. As I mentioned, the trade promotion authority is necessary to reach the final stages. Thanks to the efforts of my friend and my constituent Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, this trade promotion authority that we will be dealing with makes it mandatory that everybody in the country will be able to look at the final agreement for 60 days before the President even signs it, and then it will be public for another 90 days--5 months, essentially--before Congress will vote up or down on whether or not it is worthy of our support. Well, I will do what I have done in trade agreements in the past. I will consider each element with the same principles: Is this package good for the people I represent in Oregon? Does it align with our values? Will it be a net positive for areas that I care about, like labor and the environment? More fundamentally, are we going to be better off with an agreement or with none?

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer).

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

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Sadly, the funding in this bill for NOAA's climate research is shamefully inadequate and puts at risk efforts to mitigate and respond to the impacts of climate change. It cuts NOAA's climate research by $30 million relative to the current fiscal year's inadequate level and is $61 million below the President's request. I am offering an amendment to restore the funding to the President's level. All across America, we are dealing with the impacts of climate change. Extreme weather events, whether it is the recent floods in Texas, or the persistent 4-year drought in California, are regular events. They claim lives and cost billions of dollars each year. Floods, droughts, superstorms, wildfires, heat waves, and sea level rise are all made worse as a result of climate change. We are no longer talking just about preparing for the future. It is happening now. And the evidence is clear as we go from one extreme weather event to another that it is getting worse. NOAA climate research funds atmospheric and oceanic research, cooperative institutes, universities, climate research laboratories, and others that will advance climate science and enable better decisionmaking and better policies to make our communities more resilient. It makes no sense to defund programs to help us prepare for extreme weather events; mitigate the impacts of such events; prevent the loss of human life, infrastructure, and property; and better predict these occurrences. Choosing to deny climate change does not stop it from happening, and failing to study and authorize these programs will not make the problem go away. In fact, it will only make us more vulnerable and hurt our ability to prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change. I reserve the balance of my time.