Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I have only myself as the final speaker we have over here. I was wondering if there are any other speakers from the minority side.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4606) to authorize the issuance of right-of-way permits for natural gas pipelines in Glacier National Park, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me also as we begin this debate I would yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Montana whose bill this is that will talk about a power company decision that in 1962 was allowed and then in 1990 the Park Service determined they couldn't do what they already had done and now it has to be fixed. So, Mr. Speaker, I would yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rehberg).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, in closing on this, this is a piece of legislation that is just common sense and blindingly necessary. At risk, if it is not passed, are 25,000 people, citizens of Montana, who would be without this kind of natural gas service, as well as Glacier National Park that would be without this kind of service. It's something that needs to be done, it should have been done a long time ago, and it needs to be changed to allow the Park Service to be doing what it naturally should be doing. I urge all my colleagues to support this particular bill. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, this is another bill that is noncontroversial. It solves a problem that should have been solved a long time ago, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3193) to make technical corrections to the legal description of certain land to be held in trust for the Barona Band of Mission Indians, and for other purposes.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield myself such time as I may consume. This particular bill corrects an error that was made in 2004 under an act of Congress under which land that was intended to be placed in trust for the Barona Band of Mission Indians in California. That law that was improperly written--amazing--gave a written legal description of the trust land that contained several mistakes. The unfortunate result was to put Congress on record as declaring that non-Indian private property is to be held in trust rather than the tribe's property. This action placed a cloud on the title of the non-Indians' property and frustrated the tribe's effort to use the lands that Congress intended to place in trust for its benefit. However, this lagan attached to a buoy is able to be retrieved at this time and fixed in this particular piece of legislation. Senate bill 3193 corrects this error, clearing the title to the non- Indians' property and affirming the trust status of the correct lands. The subcommittee on the Interior and Alaskan Native Affairs held a legislative hearing on the bill, which the director of the BIA and the Barona Band affirmed that this bill does, indeed, solve these issues; and we have heard no objections in the course of this bill to this particular bill. I want to commend the efforts of the gentleman from California, Congressman Duncan Hunter. Mr. Hunter has been instrumental in working with the tribe, the surrounding community, the sponsor, and the Natural Resources Committee to bring this bill to the final legislative step before sending it to the President for signing. I also want to thank him for allowing a Senate bill to be part of the solution so that they can actually do something over there. This is a noncontroversial bill, I urge my colleagues to pass it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I also ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Once again, I'm the only speaker we have over here, and I'm prepared to close when the gentleman from the Northern Mariana Islands is.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, schoolteachers are an overworked and undercompensated group, but the good ones are always appreciated for the time and effort and commitment they make to kids. So I stand today to honor one of the best examples of a dedicated teacher, Margaret Obray, who was a government and history teacher at Mountain Crest High School in Hyrum, Utah. Mrs. Obray has dedicated the past three decades of her life to encouraging her students, both in and out of the school. She has worked tirelessly to open their minds to guide them towards a productive and meaningful life. Mrs. Obray has decided to retire at the end of this school year, having changed the lives of literally thousands of students who had the opportunity of being taught by such an outstanding educator. I have watched Mrs. Obray for many years and can verify that she is the epitome of what a good educator should be, and she will be sorely missed. So, Mrs. Obray, we want to thank you for what you have done, for the impact you've had on students you have taught in the past, the ones you are teaching currently, and we have pity for all those kids in the future who will never have that experience.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In our discussion of this particular rule today, we have, as oftentimes is the case, wandered far and wide. I would point out to one of the speakers who was just up there saying that we should stay here doing the sequestration act, dealing with the sequestration issue, the House did. On May 10, we passed the Sequestration Replacement Act. Once again, it's sitting over in the Senate. To wait here until we do the middle class tax cuts, we did that in August. It's waiting over on the Senate to do something. We have issues that are significant in the two that are before us. If we're talking about welfare in some particular way, whether the rule that was made coming out of the executive branch was appropriate or not, we could go back and say why it was done. It is true the President, in 1997 and once again in 1998, said he would not have supported the legislation that created the system that we have. It's also true that in The Washington Post editorial, they made comments that said the Obama administration is waiving the Federal requirement that ensures a portion of able-bodied TANF recipients must engage in work activities. If this is not getting welfare reform, it's difficult to imagine what would be. But even if the substance of that was inaccurate, the fact that it was done by regulation, by rulemaking coming from the administrative branch, puts us in suspect category. Rules should not be establishing what is our priority; it should be laws made on this body. If you want to change it, if you want to do waivers, it should be coming from this particular body. The other half of it deals with coal. This is a Nation with the largest coal reserves in the world. We have 500 years of potential electricity at cheap rates coming from coal. A coal plant today is as much as 99 percent cleaner than one built 40 years ago, and yet rules and regulations that have been promulgated or are being threatened to promulgate are one of those that impede the ability of building new plants. There is no valid reason why the American coal industry should be suffering at the hands of overzealous Washington regulators or why workers are being laid off in the Midwest, in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and other places; although, today, it was again announced that there will be 1,200 coal mining jobs that will be eliminated across central Appalachia by a company, one company. And once again, there is the kind of unfair regulations that are taking place. It is true that H.R. 3409 is cobbled together with other bills that have passed this body, but I would remind you that each of those four that have already passed this body were passed on a bipartisan vote, with anywhere between 16 and 37 Democrats, depending on the bill, joining with Republicans to pass those. And, when put together in a package with H.R. 3409, presents a good package to make sure that we are in favor of cheap energy, energy that will drive and build our economy and provide jobs for those who need those particular jobs. I went historically in a while earlier because I wanted to say that we have faced these types of situations in the past, where the question was: Should the President make the rules or regulations or should Congress actually pass legislation? The President to whom I referred ended his tenure in a somewhat bitter way, refusing to work with Congress, instead, trying to go around Congress, which produced, at that time, a historic deadlock between the Presidency and the Congress. This is a Nation of laws. Laws are made here. It's not a Nation of rules. And if the rules and regulations are going to have the effect on the future and are going to have an effect on the American people, they should not be done by executive fiat. Whether you like them or not, they should not be done in that manner. It should be done here legislatively. That's the purpose of both of these issues that are tied together in this rule; that's the thread that comes together--whether or not we actually believe Congress should be doing the job of creating the standards and the rules, or we're willing to simply abrogate our responsibility, our power, our options to some other body. And I would hope that as Congress we would be very careful and considerate about what our responsibility is, and we would take very seriously any encroachment on the role of law that is given to us by the Constitution. It was the vision of the Founding Fathers that this should be the body that makes those decisions, not the executive branch. This is a good bill, these are good bills, and this is a fair rule. We haven't even talked about the amendments that were made in order, but they do cover, in fact, we did have one statement about the amendment that was not made in order, and I half wish--the Member is no longer here, but his issue of concern is covered in another amendment that is made in order and will be discussed on this floor. So it is a fair rule. It will have a vigorous debate. And there are two good bills that would be brought before this body that I hope sincerely pass. I do urge their adoption, and I sincerely urge the adoption of this rule that will move us forward.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Science Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall).

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

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I actually don't think I have any other speakers. I may be surprised in the next few minutes, as will be the case.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. With gratitude for the last speech, which was such a stirring support of fracking, which has made gas so plentiful and useful in this country, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I hope you will forgive me if I try to limit myself to what is actually in the resolutions and the bills that we are presenting today as far as the Rules Committee is concerned. There is, though, a common thread that runs through the two resolutions that happen to be here and deals with the definition of what is administrative and what is legislative. Even if the current administration seems to have a problem in making that definition of what is administrative, we in Congress need to clearly understand what is our legislative responsibility. Our good friend, Louie Gohmert of Texas, always says that he who learns the lessons of history will find some other way to screw it up. That's probably true. I don't want to sound like an old history teacher, but I am. I do want to say that there are some things that we in Congress should be doing to learn from our past history. John Page, in 1771, a Congressman from Virginia, was on the House floor when it was determined while the House was debating whether they stuck around to actually determine where postal routes should be. People wanted to go, and, more importantly, the people trusted the President. The question was, Why don't we just let the President do it all? It was John Page who stood up and said, and I move to adjourn and leave all objects of legislation to his, the President's, sole consideration and direction. He shamed Congress into doing their job of writing the legislation and not allowing the executive branch, the administration, simply to do everything by fiat. We sometimes have forgotten that. In the TARP language, we put in language like, the Secretary of the Treasury will be able to purchase troubled assets on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary; or authorize any purchase on which the Secretary determines, promotes financial market stability; or the Secretary is authorized to take such action as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out all authorities in this particular act. That is legislative authority that we passed on to the executive branch. That was a tragic mistake. We should not incorporate that tragic mistake, wider now, by simply allowing the executive branch to take on responsibilities and authorities of their own free will and volition. We have this same situation once again in the history of this country. We had a President of the United States who wrote a book about Congress without ever visiting Congress itself, who said what the Founding Fathers realized, in which their effort to have vertical separation of power between State and national government--what we call federalism--and horizontal separation of powers between the three branches, which we call the separation of powers--and every public school student is taught that--they were put in there so that individual liberty, which I always consider to be individual choices and options in running their lives, would be protected against the concentration of power in one branch or another. Now, this former President of the United States called this separation of powers political witchcraft. He said it was wrong to try and separate powers perplexingly subdivided and distributed to be hunted down in out-of-the-way corners. An earlier President than him thought, you know, the President of the United States is elected by everybody, Congress by a few people, the courts by none. Therefore, ignore the courts, which has some appeal, but at the same time the President should speak for the government. This other President, coming back later, built upon that so he increased the role and power of the executive branch under the concept the President is the President of the whole people and, therefore, he has the ability to transcend separation of powers. His effort to improve democracy was to eliminate democracy and instead ensure that the decisions were not made by the people or the voice or representatives of the people, but by experts, experts who were serving in the administrative branches. We, if you like that concept, call it the administrative state. If you don't, we call it ``nanny government.'' Nonetheless, that was the concept. One of the other Presidents that came shortly before him said there will be little permanent good that can be done by any party if we fail to regard the States as anything other than a convenient unit for local government. He said there is no harm by concentrating power in the hands of one individual. He also said that he would not be content with keeping his talents undamaged in a napkin. That's perhaps why the Speaker of the House at the time said he had no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license. The bottom line of what happened in the history is that all of a sudden we found that the Founding Fathers who believed in people and believed in the legislative branch, listening to John Locke, who said you cannot transfer the power of the legislature to another branch, those type of people decided at that time that the people should not be running their own affairs, that government experts should be making that policy. To be honest, when we're talking about the first resolution that deals with TANF, the welfare issue, I don't care if the waiver is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it is still extra-constitutional and it should not be used and Congress should not allow it to take away what is the role of Congress, and only Congress, to establish these issues and set these boundaries. In the other bill that we're talking about, we're talking about prohibiting future actions by entities, in this case, specifically the EPA, which would destroy jobs, increase the cost of our utilities that would cause greater costs of lighting homes and heating homes, especially for those who have the least ability to do so. Congressmen and Congresswomen must stand up and insist that Congress create these standards and create these options, not being made by executive fiat. That is the very purpose of why we are here. The first President, to whom I referred, ended up with a legacy of many programs implemented which we still today find controversial. He was labeled by historians as an arrogant President at that time who refused to talk to Congress. Because of that, he lost some of his last, most precious programs in an effort to try and go around Congress rather than working with Congress. Now, Mr. Speaker, that's why this resolution is before us and why these two separate bills are here. Both of them attempt to set the record straight and show that it is Congress' responsibility to set the rules and the guidelines. It is not an administrative prerogative. And we as Congress need to step forward and say we are the ones who do this. We should not allow it to be done by anyone else, regardless of why it's being done or the merits of why it's being done. It's our job. We should learn from history. We should be more like John Page and try and make sure the Congress does these types of issues and makes these types of decisions and less like Presidents later on who thought the President speaks for everybody and the President has every right to transcend separation of powers and do it for himself. That's the basis of these two bills. That's the important issue. We should learn the lesson of history. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. This resolution provides for a closed rule for the consideration of H.J. Res. 118, the congressional disapproval waiver of work requirements, and provides 1 hour of general debate, with 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means and 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. This rule also provides for a structured debate for consideration of H.R. 3409, the Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act, and provides for 1 hour of general debate, with 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Finally, this rule makes in order a number of important amendments on both sides of the aisle. If staff doesn't change my mind, I believe there are 13--7 Republican and 6 Democrat--amendments which is as close as you can get with an uneven number to a fair rule. So it is a fair rule. Mr. Speaker, now speaking towards the merits of this particular resolution, I would like to make special mention of Congressman Johnson, who is the base sponsor of H.R. 3409, the Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act. He definitely has been one of the leaders in this entire area of the issue of coal as it is used in energy. Not only is it important to his constituents, but this is an important issue for the entire country. And I want to recognize Mr. Johnson as having been tireless in committee, asking questions that go to the core of this particular issue, providing amendments, and then finally culminating with his bill which deals with how we actually can use coal to further our energy needs in this particular country. Representative Johnson is a freshman who has learned fast and is a true champion for inexpensive energy that will expand our economy and create jobs for American citizens. With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. It happens, yes.

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

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

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the interruption, but let me finish here. And probably not. Let's get on with the issue at hand here. The point of order basically, Mr. Speaker, is still specious. It is in order to allow the House to continue its scheduled business for the day because the issue of the point of order is the unfunded mandate, not the other merits towards the legislation. So I do urge Members to vote ``yes'' on the question of consideration. We will have an additional hour to discuss anything you wish to on the rule debate, as well as a whole lot of time on the merits of the bill when we debate the bill itself. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter), 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. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days during which they may revise and extend their remarks.