Earl Blumenauer

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of rhetoric one hears in the House about what the American public wants or what the American public thinks. Well, this week survey research came out commissioned by the Public Broadcasting System and conducted by a bipartisan survey research team from Hart Research and American Viewpoint that is powerful evidence that while Americans are concerned about the budget and budget deficits, public broadcasting is a higher priority. Support for public broadcasting transcends party affiliation. More than two-thirds of all voters oppose elimination of Federal funding for public broadcasting as approved by my Republican friends. What is most interesting, nearly eight in 10 voters believe that PBS should receive the same amount of government funding or more than it currently receives. It's not just Democrats. Ninety-two percent favor the same amount or more. It's not just Independents. Seventy-five percent favor the same amount or more. Two-thirds of Republicans favor the same or more money for public broadcasting. There's still time to climb off the ledge. The Senate should stand tall and the House should reverse itself.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to language in H.R. 1 that would prevent the Department of Housing and Urban Development from spending money on the Sustainable Communities Initiative. The language in the bill is short-sighted and represents a missed opportunity for communities around the country. Not only will it end a very successful HUD program that has helped communities large and small plan for growth and coordinate economic development investments, but it could halt a very successful partnership between HUD, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency that promotes interagency coordination. Despite the obvious connections between housing, transportation, and land use, these three agencies have not always worked well together in the past. But Secretaries Donovan, LaHood, and Administrator Jackson and their agencies have spent the last year cutting down red tape and coordinating investments to meet multiple economic, environmental, and community objectives. These efforts not only save money, but they make government more efficient and ensure that the federal government is a better partner to local communities. As we reduce federal investments and watch our communities struggle, this seems like something all members of the House can get behind. The Sustainable Communities Initiative at HUD provides resources to help communities realize their own visions for more economically competitive communities that generate more jobs, lower housing and transportation costs, and use limited public funds more wisely. Another important function of the Sustainable Communities Initiative at HUD is to provide competitive grant funding. Working with the DOT and EPA, the Initiative offers grants to communities to integrate transportation, housing, land use and energy planning using state of the art data and tools. These grants go to communities all around the country, large and small, urban and rural. The interest in these has been extraordinary. In 2010, when HUD announced the challenge grants, a total of 630 communities requested $1.2 billion in funding. HUD was only able to award 61 grants worth $69 million. HUD's sustainable communities regional planning grants were as popular: 225 regions applied for $450 million, and HUD was able to award 45 regions a total of $98 million. This funding is helping to create jobs, drive economic development, provide housing and transportation choices, increase walkability, and improve quality of life. Eliminating the Sustainable Communities Initiative will deprive the communities who weren't awarded funding in the last round from the opportunity to have their projects funded next time. Because the bill also rescinds unobligated funds, projects that were awarded grants and are already in the pipeline could be cancelled. Even though the grants have been awarded, many of the final contracts have not been signed. I'd like to highlight a number of the 2010 Community Challenge Planning Grant projects that could be threatened as a result of the bill we have on the Floor today. The City of Augusta, GA, Augusta State University, and other partners will be awarded $1.8 million for the Augusta Sustainable Development Implementation Program, which will help plan the redevelopment of the Priority Development Corridor, a 4.5 mile north-south ``spine'' in the core of Augusta. The project will include a multi-modal transportation corridor; a revision of current codes to facilitate a vibrant, mixed- use, mixed-income development; and a plan for green, affordable housing in Georgia's second-largest city. The City of Covington, KY, will be awarded $359,000 to create a Downtown Action Plan with the active involvement of citizens and stakeholders. Among other things, the plan will increase the number of workers who live downtown near jobs, decreasing traffic and pollution. Partners in the project include the National Development Council, Northern Kentucky University Center for Economic Analysis and Development, Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky, Ohio Kentucky Indiana Regional Council of Governments, Northern Kentucky Area Planning Council and the Covington Business Council. The City of Flint, MI will be awarded $1.5 million to replace its existing city master plan with an integrated plan for sustainable development. The outreach process will include neighborhood-level discussion about residents' vision for the plan. Among others, project partners include the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce, University of Michigan-Flint, Hurley Medical Center, and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. If this language passes, Grand Traverse County, MI could lose a $400,000 grant to create a Housing Inventory and Assessment, a County Master Plan, neighborhood revitalization, and affordable housing. The City of Hattiesburg, MS could lose $150,000 for a plan to lay the foundation for a commercial and residential mixed-use, mixed-income housing district. The City of Claremont, NH could lose $58,000 to undertake a comprehensive zoning analysis that will identify tools to maintain its historic cityscape, encourage development to maximize use of existing infrastructure, drive private investment and economic development to downtown, and improve the quantity and quality of housing. Oklahoma City could lose $500,000 to develop a plan that provides an inventory and analysis of existing land availability, identify additional lands that may be designated for industrial use, assess infrastructure needs of that land, set priorities to help guide investment, and facilitate new industrial development. Many more communities, which I don't have time to list now, have received funding and assistance from the Sustainable Communities Initiatives. Keep in mind that this is a voluntary grant program. These communities have approached HUD to seek funding to support their own visions for economic revitalization. The grant applications are created from the ground up by local governments in partnership with community and business organizations. An important aspect of each of these projects is citizen outreach and public engagement. I hope my colleagues will join me in rejecting this short-sighted proposal.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. It is a tremendous opportunity for the Klamath River Basin. It's a tremendous opportunity for the Native Americans, for agriculture, for sportspeople and to avoid the litigation and the political squirrel cage that we are in. If you go down there and visit the Klamath Basin, you would find, as I know my good friend from California has, it's a tremendous opportunity. This amendment really would be a mistake.

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

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. He is absolutely correct. What is being dealt with in the Klamath Basin is an unraveling of a serious problem all because the Federal Government has promised more than Mother Nature can deliver. And part of what is being considered-- is being supported broadly by Native Americans and business interests. We have been working with utilities----

Mr. BLUMENAUER. A broad range of people in the community. This is something that needs to be seriously studied and done right. There is a very strong likelihood that if it isn't done properly, there may well be something that happens in the Klamath River Basin where circumstances move ahead and it's not done in the way that I think most people would like. So I appreciate----

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, as I appreciate his leadership. Because this is a process that he has been stewarding, being a key congressional partner. I appreciate his referencing what has happened here, dating back to August 2009. This has been scrutinized. We are friendly rivals in the Pacific Northwest. And it's a rare, rare, rare, rare occasion that any Federal activity ever leaves the Evergreen State and ends up in Oregon, as my good friend, the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, can attest because working with Senator Magnuson, he helped vacuum functions into the State of Oregon. So you can bet that this was flyspecked to the extreme, but the advantages are overwhelming. The proximity, the technical effort, the local investment has been amazing. So we've been pilloried on this. It's been under a microscope, and we've reached the point now that it's really past the point of no return. If this ill-advised--but I'm sure well-intended--amendment would be adopted by my friend from Washington, the Federal Government would be on the hook for more money; it would be disruptive for NOAA; and, frankly, it would be a disservice to the people who played fair, who went all along the way playing by the rules, making the case. I strongly urge rejection of this amendment.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, no serious effort to reduce the Federal Government is complete without addressing agricultural subsidies. Even in time of record high farm prices and profits, we still gave $16 billion in subsidies last year. There are no meaningful limits. They are easily evaded, doubled if you are married. They don't cover loan deficiency payments or marketing loans. This amendment would establish a hard limit of $250,000 per entity. In 2009, almost 1,500 entities got $250,000 or more. Something called Fidelity National Insurance Titles, probably not a family farm, raked in more than $4 million in 2009. For the past 15 years, Riceland Foods in Arkansas has collected a half-billion dollars from the taxpayers. I strongly urge that you join with me, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Environmental Working Group, Humane USA, a wide variety of groups and organizations, to establish this limit, save $100 million this year and more in the future, and start us on a path of reform that we can realize in the upcoming farm bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the ranking agriculture appropriations member, a champion of agriculture reform and of agriculture, Congressman Farr.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my friend and colleague, Congressman Kind, who has been a tireless champion of agricultural reform, coming as he does from farm country in the upper Midwest. (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, who has the right to close on this amendment?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Well, I have listened to the language about damaging the farm safety net. There is a massive farm safety net in place. We're just reducing the safety net to a mere quarter million dollars a year. My friend, Mr. Kind, is absolutely right. Tomorrow never comes here. I've been on the floor of the House when the House instructed the conferees to accept this exact limit. We were rolled by the Ag Committee and ignored. This is an opportunity for us to not deal with the savings that you're taking away from nutrition and from the environmental titles. Talk about the safety net. What about your cuts to WIC? For heaven's sakes. A hundred million dollars savings to the taxpayer. Get started on reform now and join in a bipartisan effort. I've been pleased to work with Congressman Flake, Congressman Kind, Congressman Ryan. Year after year we have brought these issues to the floor and been rolled. Now is the time to start by adopting it and changing the system.

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

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate that. My friends on the other side of the aisle talk about the need for listening to the American public. Well, I have been back home in my district meeting with providers, people in the insurance industry, hospitals, nurses, doctors and they are dealing with this plan moving forward. Many are excited about the opportunities to take advantage of it. The protections that are under way in the law right now are popular with the public because they are important to the public. My friends talk about listening to the American citizens. The Associated Press pointed out in a poll last month that the overwhelming majority opposed the notion of trying to defund health care. In fact, in that same poll, 43 percent thought the protection should be expanded. We are in a situation now where we can make a profound difference in improving the quality of health care in this country while we reduce deficits. Putting sand in the health care gears, arguing, trying to create confusion is not moving us forward. Work with our hospitals, work with our doctors, work with our citizens. Make health reform work for America.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this underappreciated subject. He is raising an issue that I think is sensitive and frankly deserves far more consideration than it has been given by Congress. There is great debate, frankly, about the science of artificial beach construction. Part of the concern about the cycle of the Federal Government routinely bailing people out is, in fact some locational decisions in the first place. The cost allocation can be quite variable. There have been real questions about some of the projects that have been dictated. In fact, in one instance actually a Corps of Engineers item on artificial beach replacement embedded in a reauthorization was one of the biggest public works projects over the course of 50 years, and really didn't get appropriate scrutiny. Now, whether you think extreme weather events are part of climate change caused by humans or whether it's part of a natural cycle of weather, the gentleman is spotlighting a very significant long-term area of Federal responsibility.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. And if we're not careful, the taxpayer could be on the hook for a great deal more money. There are some cases that the beaches in question aren't even available to the public. And the concern about some of the artificial beach construction techniques, of fortification and putting additional sand, actually deflects the problems further up along the coast. This can create more problems in other places and make them more severe. So I appreciate the gentleman putting the spotlight on this question. I think it is important that every Member of Congress look at the history of these projects, the long-term obligations, and look for ways that we might be able to do this in a way that's more fiscally responsible and environmentally sensitive. And I thank him for the time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I appreciate Speaker Boehner and my Republican colleagues providing for an open discussion on this legislation, and I appreciate the Speaker's request that we be respectful of the process. I think that is important. But I think it is also important to come to the floor at this point to make a couple of observations that are critical to the people I represent. We are ready to move forward to actually deal with cutting the budget. We have already seen today a significant amendment adopted dealing with defense. There are opportunities for us to accelerate health care savings in Medicare. And from the beginning of my coming to this body, I have been working on a bipartisan basis to deal with reductions in unnecessary and wasteful agricultural subsidies. There are several items that we are dealing with in the continuing resolution that have nothing to do with saving money. Indeed, they are actually going to cost money in economic impact in my community and around the country. I note, for instance, the policy rider that would prevent the EPA and the Corps of Engineers from clarifying provisions of the Clean Water Act. As a result, millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams will lose Clean Water Act protections. Because these affect so much of the headwater streams supply to public surface drinking water in my State, it could end up threatening drinking water quality for almost 2 million people. The cut to the State revolving funds are extraordinarily imprudent. This money leverages a great deal of activity and helps us deal with the massive infrastructure deficit with water quality. The American Society of Civil Engineers backs this up. We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars we need to be investing in the next 20 years. Cutting the revolving fund is a dramatic step backward. In the area of air quality, there is a rider that attempts to prevent EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Now I will tell you, on its merits, dealing with greenhouse gases, that this will look foolish for the people who are proposing it to their children and grandchildren. They will wonder, What were you thinking? But put aside for a moment the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon pollution. The language will have far-reaching--and I hope unintended--consequences. It would hinder EPA's ability to relax requirements on biomass plants that matter, for example, to my friend from Idaho and others in the Northwest. Very important to us. In addition, because of the way it was drafted, to prevent the issuance of permits, the language would impose a de facto construction ban on new sources in many States, including Oregon. This could block not only new or expanding power plants but refineries and large manufacturing plants. With unemployment rates high in my State and around the country, this construction moratorium hardly seems to make sense. The budget decimates the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This was a program that represented a commitment to offset some of the destructive effects of oil and gas production by preserving many of America's high- quality recreational opportunities and vital wildlife habitat. This is violating a commitment that this body has made to finally allow these funds to flow. Unfortunately, future investments are going to be at risk if this CR passes with the existing funding level, missing opportunities to complete landscapes and protect watersheds and actually preventing agencies from meeting commitments already in place. My final concern at this point deals with the assault on energy investments. The United States invests approximately 0.5 percent of the trillion-dollar energy sector. If anything, we should be ramping this up. We are losing our competitive edge around the world. We are losing economic opportunities and opportunities to preserve the environment. Mr. Chairman, I have other concerns. There are other people who have things to say. But I hope that we can reject these provisions in the CR that actually make no difference in terms of reducing the budget and violate commitments that we have made. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I'm sad to have to offer this amendment this evening. It's more unfortunate that if we're going to be subject to a strict interpretation of the House rules, I have a list of provisions already in this young session where time after time the majority has chosen to waive the rules since they were first adopted, when it served their purpose. If our colleagues are serious about cutting the deficit, they will not just allow the amendment to be debated, but they will vote upon it and pass it. Mr. Chairman, the public doesn't care whether the deficit is reduced by closing a tax loophole or reducing spending. I'll bet it would rather stop another giveaway to large oil companies rather than cutting programs that are important to them. For that matter, I think the voters like public broadcasting a lot more than they like Congress. These funds for public broadcasting are absolutely essential to protect. It helps serve 170 million Americans every month. Especially important are the innovative programs for education, culture, and public affairs. Make no mistake, the reduction of the funds that are contemplated by my colleagues in 2 years, eliminating public broadcasting support altogether, will damage all the stations, and, indeed, I think all of us listen to these stations ourselves. But it would particularly hurt the stations in rural and small town America. First, small town stations rely more heavily on public funds than the stations in big cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, and even Portland, Oregon. Second, not only do these smaller communities rely more heavily on the stations that are located there, but in rural and small town America, the circumstance is that it is much more expensive to broadcast to them. Taking an example in a region familiar to the Chairman, in our Pacific Northwest, for Oregon public broadcasting, which serves both our districts, it costs 11 times as much to broadcast to remote Burns, Oregon, than it does in the metropolitan area. Public broadcasting is also the source of innovative journalism that you're not going to find anyplace else. At a time when large corporate newsrooms are cutting back on foreign affairs, for instance, public broadcasting, because of the generous support of viewers and support from the country itself, is being able to expand its foreign coverage. I'll bet most of us in this Chamber today relied on NPR first thing in the morning as we were getting ready to go to work to be aware of the recent events, for example, in Egypt. It is particularly important for our children. Public broadcasting is the only source of programming that is geared to educate our children, not try to sell something to them. Pulling out this vital public funding stream is going to undermine that mission of educating our children. And at a time when I would think that we would want to support public-private partnerships, taking away the essential contributions that the Federal Government has provided since 1967 undermines that public-private partnership where we see six, seven times the funding leveraged as a result of that public contribution. Mr. Chairman, we've seen this movie before. The Republicans, when they came into power before, tried to shut down public broadcasting, and we have seen the American public push back. Just this last week, tens of thousands of people have called our offices entreating us to allow the funding to continue. I would strongly urge that there not be selective application of the rules to this amendment but waive, as the majority has done time and time again for their purposes, to enable this provision to go forward. I yield back the balance of my time. Point of Order

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, the next few days on the floor of the House will be critical for the future of public broadcasting. With the new Republican majority, people here are hoping for saving less than one cent per day on this ideological assault--on what?-- public broadcasting, for 170 million Americans, their Voice of America and their window to the world. In an era when local papers and radio stations are being gobbled up by large conglomerates, public broadcasting's 1,300 stations around the country are increasingly the only source of locally owned, locally controlled content. Now, there is a lot of attention appropriately given to the major stations in America's large cities. We've all seen and heard programming from stations in Boston and San Francisco, New York, even in Portland, Oregon, as Oregon Public Broadcasting is recognized as one of these national leaders. For much of America outside the major metropolitan areas, public broadcasting actually plays an even more important role. In the Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, rural areas, and the upper Midwest, often public broadcasting is not just the best local source. It is the only source of information that relates directly to their communities. The big stations in the large communities are going to be harmed by this assault on public broadcasting. My own public broadcasting in Oregon will lose $2.4 million. It will really harm the quality of their effort. But it is in rural and small town America that the greatest damage will be done. For example, in eastern Oregon, it costs 11 times as much to get a signal to Burns as it does in the more populist Willamette Valley, and there simply isn't the base of population to make up for the difference with local contributions. It's ironic that these partisans are attacking one of America's best public-private partnerships. It's not uncommon for the public investment to leverage $6 or more of private investment to make this high quality programming possible. Now, there are some who claim that in an era of 500 cable and satellite stations that we don't need another source of information. Well, those people fail to grasp the power of noncommercial, public broadcasting, how it is unique today. There are countless shows that are directed towards America's kids, but public broadcasting provides the only children's programming that is trying to educate and entertain our children, not sell them something. The public supports public broadcasting, not just in opinion polls, but with tens of millions of dollars of voluntary contributions that they make every year to provide the quality programming. I fear that this reckless partisan assault on public broadcasting is actually going to hurt our long-term efforts to tame the budget deficit. Trading a savings of less than one-half cent per day per American won't offset the damage to public confidence by eliminating what so many people believe in and count upon. More important, it will be a loss of a valuable tool to educate and inform the public from a respected nonpartisan source, exactly how we're going to need to get information to Americans to deal with this massive deficit problem that we face. For those of us working to meet America's challenges, public broadcasting is an essential ally; but I will say that with the tremendous outpouring of support that we are now seeing, people calling and writing Members of Congress, stopping them on the street, I think there is a good chance that those 1,300 public broadcasting stations will still be here in the future helping inform the debates of today, if all of us do our job, listen to the public, and do what is in the best long-term interests of this country.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I rise in opposition to the amendment. I strongly support the comments from the gentlemen from New Jersey and the State of Washington. In fact, they understated the case. Mr. Chairman, the United States Department of Defense is the largest consumer of energy in the world. These, I think, ill-advised efforts to undercut important research areas have significant implications, first and foremost, for the operational activities of the Department of Defense. The Iraq war was four times more energy intense than the first gulf war given what has happened in terms of changing tactics; and, frankly, the danger to our troops was understated. Those tankers might as well have great big bull's-eyes painted on them because they were targets for terrorists, and they put our soldiers at risk; and all of us represent States that lost people because of that vulnerability. It costs over $100 a gallon to deliver this fuel to the front. I seriously hope that people take a deep breath and listen to the counsel of the people from the committee. This is a long-term threat to our men and women in the field. It is also a long-term threat to the budget of the Department of Defense. If you plot what their energy costs have been over time, it probably rivals only the cost of health care for our troops. I would hope that we understand the opportunities here. As my friend from the State of Washington pointed out, it is research that isn't going to happen from the private sector. This is the sort of investment that government needs to make up front. It's the same thing that led to the development of the Internet. It will have important economic benefits going forward because this will not be exclusively the province of the Department of Defense. The extent to which these technologies work and can be brought to scale, they will be developed by private companies. It will make a difference as to how we as Americans live, because, after all, we as a country waste more energy than anybody in the world. This is a very serious point. I deeply appreciate the wise counsel of the committee leadership, and I strongly urge that this amendment be rejected. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Yes. This is the first time there has been a bipartisan effort, apparently. We've had efforts before. When our Republican friends took over, there were assaults on public broadcasting, but there was ultimately strong bipartisan support that beat it back. At home, these 170 million Americans, they aren't just Democrats or Republicans or Independents. It is a broad spectrum of Americans which relies on information that isn't pre-filtered for them. There are opposing views. We've all heard things on public broadcasting that we don't know we agree with or we've heard things that we never would have listened to in other venues. I don't want us to close without turning back to our counsel and our volunteer and our spouse of a public broadcasting member.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you. I appreciate that. Any other final words?