Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days with which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am ready to close whenever you are.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

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

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be with you here today. It seems as if only a few hours ago we were all here together-- because it was only a few hours ago. Mr. Speaker, this resolution before us today provides a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 4681, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015, and it makes in order a number of amendments for consideration. In addition, this combined resolution provides for an open rule for the consideration of H.R. 4745, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2015. This resolution provides for 1 hour of general debate on each of these bills equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the appropriate committees of jurisdiction. The intention of the Rules Committee was to provide ample opportunity to debate issues related to our intelligence community. The intelligence community has done very good bipartisan work on this bill, which is being brought forward under regular order. And while the committee was able to work with some Members to modify their amendments so they would comply with House rules and be made in order, some amendments were still subject to a point of order or were already debated and voted on last week during the USA FREEDOM Act. Some amendments were simply not possible to debate on the floor in open session due to the national security implications. The net result is that this rule makes in order a total of 11 amendments to the intelligence bill, four Republican, six Democrat, and one bipartisan amendment. So the process is inclusive, the rule is fair, and will provide a wide ranging debate on a topic of interest to all Americans. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida. The underlying defense authorization bill is a good bill. This is a good rule with maybe one caveat that there are too many amendments that are in here. Henry Clay, as the first Speaker of the House who went from the Senate over here and was elected Speaker on the first day and served as Speaker every day he served in the House, he is given credit for starting the standing committee process where people with expertise discuss all these issues before they actually come to the floor. Some of these amendments we have had have not gone through that process and will be given 10 minutes of debate time on the floor, which is rather small when you compare it to the process of each subcommittee on the Armed Services Committee: having established their bill, going to the full committee, with a full day of debate on the bill before it comes here. There is, for example, one amendment that is made in order, has a great sponsor, a wonderful Member of this body, but it has untold side consequences that probably need that experience of being explored. Let me give you a simple example. It starts with the words ``notwithstanding any other provision of law.'' That should be something that scares someone. It means this bill, except for section B, which it exempts, takes precedent over everything else that already exists in law, and not only for the military issue, but also in every element of Federal Government. I am only going to talk about the military side because that is the only expertise I actually have. The one part that is not exempt deals with the concept known as ``inherent governmental functions.'' Unfortunately, the reference this makes is to title 31. Most of the military stuff, especially dealing with our depots, is in title X. There is a reason those are in different titles--because they have a different substance and a different purpose. At the end of this reference, there is also the provision put in there--actually, it is in the first of this reference--that what is an inherent governmental function can be changed by any official of OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which simply means, I assume, that is one of the reasons the Defense Department is opposed to this particular amendment, because it removes decisions from the Defense Department over to the President through OMB. That is not the way we wish to go. When it deals with programs, weapons, and systems that we have, there is an acquisition side and a sustainment side. On the acquisition side, often competition is extremely important to driving down cost. When it comes to sustainment, the maintenance of those provisions, sometimes that saving has a detrimental effect that is an unintended consequence because the maintenance is directly tied to the readiness issue, which is why we define in title X what is a core workload, which would be overturned by the very first phrase in this particular piece of legislation, this particular amendment. Core workload by law has to be brought into the depots for work once every 4 years, or at least at one time in the initial 4 years of operating capability. Prior to that time, maintenance is usually done by the contractor.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. But after that, it goes into what is known as an endangered mission readiness that is determined by the military, and should be determined by the military. What it simply means is we have military depots for a military reason. There is a direct extension, or these depots are a direct extension, of the soldier on the field. Civilian workers at these depots cannot go on strike, they cannot undertake a work stoppage. Sometimes, especially in times of war, Federal civilian employees have been ordered to work around-the-clock or do other kinds of dangers. All of these things which have been worked out traditionally in title X are overturned by the first phrase in this amendment: A wonderful amendment in its purpose and goal, has a wonderful sponsor, but it has unintended consequences. As we go through this bill, as we go through these amendments, we should consider what those unintended consequences may or may not be. It is one of the reasons why the Committee process was so wisely established by Henry Clay back in the 1800s and should be respected today.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, this chart--for those with keen eyesight--kind of puts this in perspective. The blue is what we spend on the civilian workforce. The green is what has been spent over the last decade on military personnel. The yellow is on contract services. And the white is the rest of it. The premise of this amendment is that the blue is too big. There are times when competition, especially on acquisition, is extremely helpful. There are also times where competition on sustainment or maintenance has a habit of unintentionally hurting our readiness, at least that was the result of the GAO study in 2010. So the committee has wisely tried to strike a balance between those two, making sure that there is competition when it makes sense, all of which is defined in title X of our code, which demands a core workload be established by the military of what our needs are and what is most cost-effective. Unfortunately, the first line of the amendment which says that ``notwithstanding any other provision of law'' simply turns all of that on its head. This takes precedence over the entire code, which I am assuming is the reason DOD communicated the Defense Department does not want this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, again, I am pleased to join my friend from Colorado on this particular issue. When you have a partner, which is Russia, who is already engaged in a cyberattack against Estonia, they have invaded and declared independent the two northern provinces of Georgia, and they also have done everything we know about in the Ukraine right now, and, in addition, have violated the existing INF Treaty--and we can talk about that classified material because it was quoted on the front page of The New York Times; they have violated that--it is in the best interest of the United States to wait until we have a more profitable, reliable partner before launching into another endeavor. With that, I actually support this amendment. I think it is well- timed, well-placed.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentleman for giving me his time, which I would be happy to talk about the bill that is actually before us and will be here because it is a wonderful bill.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I, again, appreciate the gentleman from Colorado giving me the opportunity to speak about the issue that is at hand. I would even be happy if he would give me the opportunity to speak about a good immigration bill, which is mine, but since that is not the case, let me go, once more, to the issue that is at hand.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I have not.

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

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am actually prepared to close and will reserve the balance of my time until that time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, this resolution provides for a structured rule for the consideration of H.R. 1459, Ensuring Public Involvement in the Creation of National Monuments Act. It provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources. The rule makes in order three amendments, two of which are Democrat amendments, in addition to a manager's amendment. The rule also wisely provides for same-day authority for the legislative day of Thursday to consider the so-called ``doc fix'' bipartisan proposal, which may come forward for our consideration, as well as for the consideration of measures aimed at supporting the people of Ukraine against Russian aggression and expansionism. So this is an important rule. Therefore, it deserves our strong support. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand before the House today in support of the rule as well as of the underlying legislation primarily because it is my bill. I appreciate the hard work and support of the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), in forwarding this important bill to the floor of the House for our consideration. I have to admit, Mr. Speaker--perhaps because the underlying bill is my bill--that I have had a closer consideration of the discussion, of the comments, that have been made about it, and I have taken some of them rather personally. To be honest, I am, quite frankly, amazed at some of the inaccuracies and the misinformation that has taken place by some outside groups in blogs, in Internet descriptions by special interests groups, and, actually, even by some Members of the floor. When I originally saw some of the reports that said this bill would stop the creation of any more national parks, nothing could be further from the truth, because actually the President can't create national parks; only Congress can. It has nothing to do with national parks. Eventually, they changed it to say this will stop creation of national monuments. Again, that charge is simply ridiculous. The essence of this bill is very simple. What it says is the President should be treated like everyone else. Congress, if they are going to make any kind of land decisions, must have an open process where they have hearings and markups and bring things for an open vote. If an agency of the government is going to make some sort of land designation, they have to go through NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, the process which provides for input--public discussion and public advice--about it. The only one who cannot do that is the President. When the administration testified about this bill in committee, I was amazed, because they said the President should not have to go through the open process of obtaining public input on his decisions because even though the entire Federal branch has to, he is only the head of the Federal branch, he is not the Federal branch. That just does not make sense to me. The idea is that everyone, including the President, should ask for public input. One of the groups, the National Resources Defense Council, wrote on their blog that NEPA was the Magna Carta of environmental laws. They wrote: Much like the Magna Carta protected people from dangers of monarchical rule, NEPA protects people by providing transparency in Federal projects. Both the Magna Carta and NEPA espouse the ideas of public participation in democracy by giving citizens a voice in government decisions. Yesterday, in a different bill in a different committee, the administration testified against the bill, saying it would stop public comments about this particular issue. I am sorry, but that is why I get so confused about the rhetoric about this particular bill. What we are asking is that before the President uses this authority, it go through NEPA to provide for public comment and concepts. If NEPA is the Magna Carta and it provides for citizen voices in democratic decisions, how can you then say that this bill, which provides for NEPA and that kind of policy, would eviscerate one of America's bedrock conservation laws? This is simply intellectual gymnastics at the highest level. Either getting public input is good, in which case we should pass this bill, or getting public input is bad, in which case there are a lot of things that we should change around here. I happen to think that getting public input is good. Because it does one thing: it solves problems before they develop. In our State, we have had a National Monument that has been designated by Presidential proclamation for almost 20 years now. We are still dealing with issues of what kind of grazing rights were or were not included in that proclamation, what kind of roads were or were not open. Even though we tried to solve the problem, because the President had no concept of what School Trust Lands were in that area, and we have tried to exchange those out, not all of those exchanges have yet to be consummated. Another of the monuments that the President recently proposed, they have already come to us and said there are problems within the boundaries of that monument. We have found private property we didn't know existed. We don't know whether there are provisions in there to allow duck hunting to go on, but we are not quite sure how you accomplish that. We are really not quite sure which land agency is responsible for the administration. Those issues are all the issues that could be settled before you make the designation. And if, indeed, the NEPA process was required, those would become the issues that would be brought up, they would be understood, and they would be dealt with before you make the initiative. So I have had people tell me that this is actually the ``No More National Monuments'' bill. It would stop national monuments. It is patently false. It is a false premise. It is a scare tactic, not an argument. And it is incredibly wrong. With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 524 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. May I ask an inquiry? Was that for a vote on Tule Springs or something else? Apparently, it was something else.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In all due respect, I have been called very sarcastic in the past, and I probably am. So as I speak to you now, Mr. Speaker, I don't want to be considered flippant in anything I say, but in all due respect, the speaker was not just divining what I was thinking at the time. I clearly said at the very beginning of what my purpose was and for what I would yield, and you did that very well. The continuous requests for unanimous consent were for immediate consideration of a bill which, in my humble opinion, I think is a poorly written bill. There are better bills out there. I have one of those. In fact, a couple of years ago, I had one of those that I would have liked the support of the other side, as well. Perhaps if we had talked about some of those that I think actually go to the point of the issue and are properly written, it may have been somewhat different. But, instead, I am going to come back to the issue that is at hand which deals with the Antiquities Act and how the Antiquities Act has been abused. Congress has recognized that in the past. It is kind of ironic, and I don't think many people realize this, but not every State allows the Antiquities Act to be used in their State. Congress, in 1944, withdrew the use of the Antiquities Act in the State of Wyoming. Responding to an abuse later on, the State of Alaska was withdrawn from that consideration. Even the ranking member of our committee has introduced legislation and voted for it, and it passed this House, which would limit the use of the Antiquities Act in his district. So people are recognizing that there is a reason--a reason--that the use of the Antiquities Act has changed over the years, and not necessarily for the better. The best way of solving that problem is not necessarily taking that act away or that power away, but simply making sure that the President of the United States gets public input before he actually pulls the trigger. Now, you may ask why I consider this such a significant issue. Well, to be honest, it is for two reasons: one, I am from the West; and number two, I am a schoolteacher. You see, when the Antiquities Act is used without public input, it has the potential--and has in the past and could in the future and I think will in the future--to destroy economic patterns that take place, especially in rural counties. When that happens and that disruption takes place, then the ability of raising revenue for local needs becomes significant. And it is more difficult in the West than it is in the rest of the Nation. Let me try to illustrate why. The States that are in red are the States that are considered public land States. Those are the ones that have the greatest potential of having abuse of the Antiquities Act foisted upon them. The States that are in yellow have very little public lands. In fact, two-thirds of everything the Federal Government owns is found in the red States. What I am holding up here is the ability of these States to generate funds for their education system. As you can look over the past two decades, those States in the eastern portion of this country--the yellow States--have increased their education funding at twice the rate of those of us who live in the West. And the simple question has to be: Why do you think this takes place? There is a distinct correlation to the amount of Federal land and the inability of States who have all that Federal land to raise money for their education systems. That is one of the continuous complaints that we have. When monuments are made without getting the input of local citizens, the chance of making this even worse is a reality. It has happened in the past, and it will happen in the future. So I am not saying do away with the act altogether. What I am simply saying is make sure that the people who live in these red States who have a more difficult time funding their education system have the ability of making a statement before final action takes place, before simply a pen is signed to a proclamation that can change the dynamics of everything. It has happened in the past. So that is why this is not simply a procedural bill for me. This is a bill that impacts my kids. It impacts my profession. It impacts the future of education in the West and should not be dismissed as insignificant. That is why this issue becomes so vital to those of us who live in the West because it has a direct impact on the way we live. The gentleman from Colorado did say one thing in which I agree. He said that at some time we should all play by the same rules. That is the purpose of the underlying bill. The President should play by the same rules Congress has to use and as every agency of the Federal Government has to use, which is simply to come up with the concept that before decisions are made you get public input. And that is why all the discussion I have seen in blogs and from special interest groups are so confusing to me, because at one time we say, yes, it is important that we get public input, except for this particular bill in which public input is bad. That does not make sense. That is mental gymnastics of the worst variety. If this bill were to pass, it would not change the Antiquities Act, it would not prohibit the President from making national monuments, and it would not prohibit Congress from establishing national parks. All it would do is simply say you have got to go through the NEPA process which requires public input, especially from those who are going to be directly impacted. And we have seen that if you mandate that ahead of time, you solve problems before they develop. We have practice, we have proof, and we have examples of where the monument was created without getting the input and problems developed which still have not been solved. Don't do that. Do it the right way. We can do that, and we can make this effort happen. And, once again, of all the concepts of how to deal with the Antiquities Act and the problems it presents for those of us who live in the West, this is easily the most moderate approach, a simple approach which simply says, look, before you do it, listen to us. Let us have the chance to say something. That is the way it ought to be and the way it should be. This bill is actually a vast improvement on a 100-plus-year-old bill that has outlived its usefulness and has changed not necessarily for the better over that course of time. So, with that, Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the comments that had been made. I would have appreciated it if people would also recognize the significance of this bill to those of us who live in the West. I wish they would also look at the bill as it is written. It is a very positive approach. It is something which we can all support, and it is a very good bill. I am biased because it is my bill, but it still is a very, very good bill. Mr. Speaker, I wish to close to reiterate the fairness of not only the bill but also of the rule, the other parts of the rule, the appropriateness of the underlying pieces of legislation, the potential of putting up other issues that are significant that must be addressed this particular week.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate my earlier announcement that all time is yielded for the purpose of debate only. I am not prepared to yield for any other purpose.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which they may revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I am still having a difficult time trying to grasp the concept that my good friend, the gentleman from West Virginia, would be opposed to such a brilliant bill in its current form in the first place; but with that, I appreciate his efforts and his concept dealing with this MTR. I just want to remind of you of one element. If you pass this motion, you don't raise the minimum wage, and you don't bring about any of the consequences CBO or other organizations talked about, that concept. All this amendment does is delay the bill. It doesn't raise anything. It simply delays the bill. This bill, the underlying bill, tries to take an act that is 108 years old and modernize it, so that the American people are given the right to be heard before the President takes his pen and signs his name to a piece of paper and a proclamation. This bill simply says let Americans have the chance to talk about this before the President acts, like every other element of government has to do. With that, I urge your rejection of this MTR. I urge you to favorably vote for passage. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, what I was trying to say was, this is a damn good bill. And there is a reason why it is a good bill: because it simply requires the President to have public information and get the input of people. If there is an emergency situation, it allows for them to create something under 5,000 acres on an emergency basis without doing NEPA, it is just that Congress has to respond within 3 years to validate it, otherwise it reverts back. Anything that he wants to do with NEPA, he can do it regardless of the size. It is the appropriate thing to do. This bill moves us forward and takes a bill that may have been appropriate in 1906--but we are certainly living in a different time and a different era, and we need to make sure that a President, before he puts his pen to a paper, has actually talked to local people, and it has not always happened.