Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chair, they once asked the famous spitball pitcher Gaylord Perry if he put a foreign substance on the ball, and he calmly answered: No. Vaseline is 100 percent American product. We used to only have to import a handful of rare earth minerals in this country, like eight. Today, we are importing dozens of them because we have, with this administration, a policy of trying to stockpile these resources. Hopefully, when we get through them, we will be able to find some other country that can help us to resupply those resources, kind of like Blanche in ``A Streetcar Named Desire,'' where we are dependent on the kindness of strangers at all times. Would it not be wiser for us simply to have a consistent policy where we actually have a workforce that is developing, on a regular basis, these rare earth minerals that we can have for our use so that we can have the jobs from them, it can help our economy, and it could give us the security we desperately need? We don't need to keep importing stuff into this country. I mean, we imported the Expos from Montreal to here in Washington. That should be sufficient. That is enough. I read an article the other day about mining rare earth minerals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where rare minerals, necessary for iPhones and the Samsung Galaxy phones, were being produced. Miners used their bare hands to filter out the minerals in order to earn a whopping $5 a day. If the miners use their hands to find the rare minerals, how do you think they handled environment protections and how do you think they reclaimed these projects? What we need desperately is to use 21st century technology and pay our labor force 21st century wages to produce the strategic and critical minerals that are necessary for our way of life and not be dependent on other countries for these minerals and not take advantage of their miners. This is a no-brainer. Let's do the right thing. As Satchel Paige said: Just throw strikes. Home plate don't move. We know what we are doing. Pass this bill. It is a good bill. Announcement by the Chair

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I am pleased to support this rule because of the underlying bill that is there. Normally, the 10th Amendment says that education is delegated to the States. So I would be opposing anything this body does on education, except the Constitution also grants Congress the jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. When there is a program that is a success--and this has been a success--a study by the Department of Education concluded that this D.C. Opportunity Scholarship significantly improves students' chances of graduating from high school. I spent 28 years as a high school teacher. In that time, I saw all sorts of wonder programs being mandated from the Federal level and the State level. The most common expression of all teachers is ``This too shall pass.'' But the one thing that was never mandated to us was the concept of freedom, allowing teachers to teach their specialties, allowing parents the ability of having a choice on where they sent their kids. Choice is a powerful tool. When I was in the State legislature, I had a bill that dealt with compulsory attendance. I had a PTA mother that came up to me once and said, ``I hate you and I hate your bill because, when my 17-year-old doesn't want to go to school in the morning, I want to be able to look at him and say, `You have to go to school. It is the law.' '' And I thought: Thanks a lot. That is the exact attitude I want to have from a high school junior in my class when he shows up. You see, when kids are forced to be where they choose not to be, they are unsatisfied jerks. But kids, knowing they had a choice, they would now attend in a positive attitude, even if it was the same school. That is what this bill tries to do. We trust choice in all sorts of behaviors. We give people choices in food, in our homes, in our energy, and all the necessities of life. So why do we limit freedom and choice in something as important as education? Ronald Reagan once said: ``Our leaders must remember that education doesn't begin with some isolated bureaucrat in Washington. It doesn't even begin with State or local officials. Education begins in the home, where it's a parental right and responsibility. Both our public and our private schools exist to aid our families in the instruction of our children, and it's time some people back in Washington stopped acting as if family wishes were only getting in the way.'' I applaud Speaker Boehner for this bill. Speaker Boehner, when it comes to kids, clearly gets it, and he has been an advocate on their behalf. Kids belong to the parents, not to an educator, not to a legislator, not to a special interest group. It is time we start trusting parents and individuals, which is why I urge support of this rule that will bring this bill, a good bill, to the floor for us to support as well.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 557, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman from Alaska yielding. There are some Native American tribes that do not rely on gaming alone for their source of revenue. They can't. It is amazing how often we hear, dealing with North American Native tribes, all of a sudden give lipservice that we would like to empower them, until they actually have a chance to do so; and then, all of a sudden, we change. We are talking about a lot of tribes who have a great deal of land but very little employment. This bill, in fact, is based on recommendations that come from Indian Country. By that, I don't mean the Bureau of Indian Affairs, because they, shamefully, oppose this bill. I do mean groups like Southern Utah Utes, the Confederated Tribes of Colville, the National Congress of American Indians, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, and community groups like the Chamber of Commerce. All of those people are realizing the importance of this particular bill in empowering Native Americans in this Nation. I hope we do not turn this into a partisan affair by saying, by voting ``no'' on this bill, you might get three Democrat callers on C- SPAN to support your vote. But it still does not make that right. We need to do something differently. In these areas in which the potential employment is based on agriculture, mining, and energy, we don't need more regulations on the Native Americans than there are on everybody else. We don't need duplicative regulations on them more than anybody else. Instead, we need to streamline that so they can be successful in charting their own destiny and making their own choices. Far too often we have too many people, unfortunately, with titles around this place that still have a paternalistic attitude toward Native Americans. That attitude has to change. This is what this bill does. It is amazing. Sometimes when this administration says, well, if it deals with marijuana, they are a Native tribe, they are a sovereign country, let them do what they want to; but if it deals with agriculture and mining, well, not so fast. That is public lands. We still need to have some kind of control over that. That is the problem: pot, yes; energy, no. That doesn't work. We need these people to be able to make decisions for themselves. I appreciate the chairman of the subcommittee mentioning that he does have an amendment on NEPA which does solve those problems. This is not a NEPA issue. This is an issue on whether we truly believe in empowering Native Americans so they can make decisions for themselves and help their own people. I had a chairman of a tribe who sat in my room and wisely said: I don't care what game we play. I just want to know what the ball looks like. This bill gives them a chance to see the ball. It gives the Native Americans a chance to approve the design of the ball. More importantly, it gives them a chance to win. So, Lucy, please, just before contact, don't pull the ball away. Let the Native Americans win. This bill gives them an opportunity to win and chart their own destiny. That is why they support it, and that is why we should vote for it.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, the other day, Topper Shutt in his broadcast, said, ``Today is going to be a glorious day.'' He obviously was talking about the sunshine outside, which means we should have done this bill yesterday so I could be on my deck right now, but that is beside the point. This is, though, a glorious day because we are finally doing a solution that helps people. Instead of just kicking the can down the road again for another year, we are going to find a solution to this problem, this problem of a drought that is affecting the entire West to such a degree that one would think that Nostradamus' quatrains have come true. But what we are doing here is finding a solution. Many of the opponents of this bill would simply say let's pass more rain dances and hope something happens. What we are doing here is taking the advice of our pioneer forefathers and saying what we have, save. Do it as storage. And not just for California, but for the entire West. That is the purpose behind this particular bill. There are some concerns about environmental issues that may or may not have been wise to do in the past. That is not the concern of this bill. We are not stopping any of that. What we are doing is finding a creative way to provide for that, but also provide a way of getting water to people where they need it. In the middle of the last century, we did water projects and hydropower projects that helped us win the war. Now is the time to do water projects and hydropower projects to help us feed people in this Nation and in the entire world and to help out areas that have up to 50 percent unemployment. I have been down there and I have seen those particular communities, many of them first- and second-generation Americans, minorities who only want to provide a decent living for themselves and for their families and to work. What we need to do is actually solve this problem so we can put people to work to provide food for this country and to provide jobs for people and to help people. That is what this bill is about: finally helping people with creative solutions. If the Romans could build an aqueduct system to move water, we can build a system to move water that actually helps people. This is about people. Pass this bill. Let's move it on. Let's solve the problem.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the motion.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, this is a procedural motion. Obviously, if it were a serious one, we could have considered it anytime in committee or on the floor in the amendment process, but it is a procedural motion that is also somewhat flawed. In this particular one, it mentions that nothing will happen until the Secretary shall ensure that something happens. Unfortunately, in this provision of the bill, they don't define Secretary, so I am not really sure which Secretary would have to define something. It could be the secretary of my office if you really wanted it that way. It provides that we are going to have water for drinking and for wildfires. Now, some of you may remember that, last week, we actually had a forest bill in here which provided for wildfires. We gave them money; we gave them authority; we gave them the tools. It passed with a bipartisan vote, but some of our friends who are not voting for this one weren't voting for that one either. We solved the wildfire issue already, scratched that one off. If you really want drinking water, that is what the base bill does. The entire purpose of this bill is to emphasize the fact that, in this drought, we are trying to help people. The goal is to get water to people so they can work. In an area that has a 50 percent unemployment rate, they can provide food for people. It is important to all of us. It is not as important for me as it used to be, but it is still important for all of us. We actually provide jobs for people in these areas where they desperately need that work. We are doing it. This is about people. This is moving water so people can actually be helped, and that is what the underlying bill has to do, and the procedural issues that we are trying to hold up this process, they don't actually help people. They may help the process, but they don't actually help people. We need a policy more than the opponents of this bill have, which is: Let's pray for rain and hope something happens. We need to do what our pioneer ancestors told us to do and take the water we have and save it and store it, and that is what the underlying bill does, not just for California, but for the rest of the West, for all of us, where we have these same types of situations. You can vote for the underlying bill, realizing you are helping people. Good grief, 2008, we found water on Mars; we can actually find water for people here in the West. Vote ``no'' on the motion to recommit; support the underlying bill. Let's get this bill going through the system so we can actually do something good for the people of this country. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, in the engrossment of H.R. 2898, the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, and cross-references, and to make such other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to reflect the actions of the House in amending the bill, including striking the instruction ``line 20'' and inserting ``after line 19'' in amendment No. 7.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Natural Resources be authorized to file a supplemental report on the bill H.R. 2898.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Lands, who has helped shepherd this bill through the committee process.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity of being here, talking about this significant bill that is going to increase and improve our status quo. I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), to begin our portion of this debate, who is the chief sponsor of this particular bill, who has a personal background, actually, having earned a degree in forestry even from the State of Arkansas.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), the sponsor of the bill.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chair, as we finish the last amendment to this very good bill, the gentleman from Washington full well knows how devastating it could be to his community if we do not pass this particular bill and wildfires actually attack his constituents and his area. That is why it is extremely important--as we take this last opportunity to speak towards this bill and this particular amendment-- to recognize that this is a bipartisan bill, bipartisan sponsorship, passed by a bipartisan vote in our committee, passed in a bipartisan vote in the Committee on Agriculture. This is a good bill that will move us forward, and it is essential to move forward. I appreciate all the support we have had from both sides of the aisle moving this particular piece of legislation forward. I urge support of the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I appreciate the opportunity to present this bill. I also thank all the many people who have worked from three different committees on this: Chairman Shuster of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Chairman Conaway of the Agriculture Committee, as well as those who work on the Natural Resources Committee. I am very grateful for the Democrats, Mr. Schrader and Mr. DeFazio, who have spoken here already in defense of this bill, and for their help and assistance in this. As the former Chief of the Forest Service said, we don't have a fire problem in our Nation's forests. We have a land management problem, and it needs to be addressed quickly. That is exactly what the Westerman bill does. It addresses that problem. The status quo, flat out, is not working. The Forest Service has recommended or recognized that we have at least 58 million acres that are in dire need of assistance right now but can easily be burned in this next fire season. That is bigger than my home State of Utah, which is still the 11th largest State in the Nation. If you add the higher-end estimates, then you add more acreage into that, which means you would add the State of Utah and Michigan. One- third of the entire forests we have are in danger of being destroyed if we do not do something immediately. The Forest Service right now can only address the problem in 3 million acres; 58 is the minimum. That simply means it would take them over 20 years to address the problem. That is more than my lifetime is left here to try and solve this problem. I realize that I was probably born at a greater distance from the apocalypse than most of the people here; but at the same time, in my lifetime, you can't solve the problem if we keep on with the status quo. That is why this bill is essential, and that is why I appreciate all the speakers who have gone on today saying why this is the perfect first step. What is so good about it is, as soon as the President signs this thing, the Forest Service can immediately implement everything. These are practices and processes that they have at their disposal. They are ready to move forward with it. All we have to do is give them the tools to immediately do that. Now, we realize some of the issues that are there. Funding is a significant issue. Funding alone will not solve our problem, but we have addressed that; and I appreciate, once again, Chairman Shuster and subcommittee Chairman Barletta, who have come up with--from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee--come up with a good funding mechanism so that we can address that issue and move us forward. That, by itself, does not solve our problems. We have a land management issue at the same time. We have a problem with litigation, which basically stops the efforts of the Forest Service to do their job in their tracks. As soon as they become sued, they have to stop moving forward on their program; they have to spend money to defend themselves in a lawsuit, or they have to try and go through efforts to try and cover themselves so they don't get sued in the first place. It does not work. We have heard a lot of comments about the inability of being able to sue, as a poor private citizen doesn't have the right to sue if we pass our bill. That is ridiculous. This only deals with areas that have been collaboratively worked on-- that means where citizens actually got together and came up with a plan of action on their forest and, as they move forward to that, some special interests groups with a whole lot of deep pockets on their side stops them in their tracks by a lawsuit. Those are the kinds of groups that are going to have to put up the bond. Those are the kind of groups who can no longer say: We are going to sue you on 25 different issues. We realize only three of them are going to be realistic, but we want you to take the time and effort to spend your Federal moneys to try and defend all those 25. What we are saying is: Look, if you are going to sue on something, sue on something that is realistic. Don't put the entire world on there, and make sure that you are willing to cede on those particular issues, in those particular areas. We also have in title I in there that simply says: You can still sue, but you can't get an injunction to stop our work while we go through frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit. In the last two administrations, not counting this one, but two prior administrations, we have over 11,000 lawsuits that took place simply to stop the Forest Service from going forward. That has to be addressed. It has to be addressed. The Forest Service recognizes that, and that is why former Forest Service employees--as well as the current ones-- realize, if we don't have some kind of litigation reform, we will not solve our problems with forest health. We also have to give them the tools so they can move quickly on what they need to do. Categorical exclusion is not something that is evil; it is actually something that is essential to move forward. They recognize that they need that tool. That is why I said, as soon as this bill is signed by the President, they can implement what they already know to do. What we are asking them is to do an environmental review, but you don't have to do review after review after review. If you have done the review the first time, it is sufficient, and they have the wisdom and the ability to do that. Will that destroy our forests? Heavens, no. What this will do is have the potential of actually saving our forests, being able to allow the Federal forest land to be as resilient, to be as well managed as the State and tribal forest lands are because, in State and tribal forest lands, they don't have to deal with a lot of the issues that stop them from actually solving their problems, but we do on the Federal forest system, unless we move forward. That is why I appreciate all those who have spoken so far on the need of moving forward on this particular bill. We are in the beginning of a fire season that could be catastrophic. We have witnessed the results of wildfires in the past. We need to do something now, and we have to move forward. This is a bill that is common sense. It was wonderful to have our hearings, listening to the group of people who are experts in this area, being excited about the opportunity of having the tools the Forest Service needs to do their job, having the funding the Forest Service needs to do their job, and also have the protection from frivolous lawsuits the Forest Service needs to do their job. We must give our Forest Service personnel the tools they need to be successful. If we don't pass this bill because we want something perfect from on high to come down--first, if we don't pass this bill, we are going to have a devastating situation coming in our forest lands and in our Nation this coming year. This is an essential step forward. Is it perfect? No. There is a whole lot more that we need to do, and we will still look forward to those issues; we will move forward on these issues, but what this does is move us forward in a significant way. Does this bill destroy our bedrock environmental laws? Of course not--the last time I heard people talking about bedrock was talking about Wilma and Fred and Barney. I am sorry; those laws didn't save their pet dinosaurs back in those days, either. We are not going to change anything; we are not going to move forward; we are not going to destroy what we have gained in the past, but what we are going to do is allow the Forest Service to do their job, something they are stopped from doing now because of procedural practices, because of litigation, because of lack of funding. All three of those are addressed in this particular piece of legislation. It is a great piece of legislation, and it needs to go forward. I urge everyone in here to realize how we must make steps to move forward and pass this bill and get it over to the Senate and onto the President's desk so our Forest Service can do their jobs. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chance to actually hear from the gentleman from California as well as from the gentleman from Montana. You see, what happens and what has failed to be discussed here is this section only applies to whether it has been a collaborative process. So real people, citizens, will spend years working together to develop a collaborative project. And then too frequently outside fringe groups that don't live in the area, but that do have big pockets, wait for those projects to be announced. Then they start to litigate, which has a chilling effect on any kind of collaborative work, and it makes the hundreds of hours that those citizens worked to come up with their projects simply moot. That has happened in California. I have been there to see those projects that were stopped by frivolous lawsuits. It is the same thing that happens in Montana and in northern Idaho. In that particular district, of all of those lawsuits he mentioned, over 70 percent of those were stopped because of frivolous lawsuits. Now, we are not stopping anyone from suing. What we are saying is you put up a bond if you are serious about it and you don't use this as a way of simply stopping a process that has been worked out by the citizens and the Forest Service at the same time. That is what this means, and that is what is going to be taken away. That is why this is so essential and why this part has to be part of this bill. It has to move forward or our Forest Service does not have the tools it needs to preserve our forests and to protect our people and to protect our landscape. This amendment cannot pass. It would destroy every effort of the Forest Service to actually move forward into the future. We oppose it. We oppose it vigorously and in all due respect. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), a former member of our committee, but someone whose district clearly knows the significance and impact of forestlands and how they should be maintained.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I may not be in opposition to this particular bill.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the gentlewoman from New Mexico, as this bill works its way through the process of ultimately being signed and implemented, if she would be willing to work with us to make sure this contracting authority in the future has no unintended consequences. I yield to the gentlewoman for a response.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?