Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentleman again, and I would just like to reiterate a couple of things that he has said and build on those points that are there. It is extremely important to realize that we are about the people's business, and we are doing the constitutionally required things that a Congress ought to do. You know, we all say that it is significant, that we do have a problem with our budget. Which is true. We all recognize that. But there are certain core constitutional responsibilities that were given by the Founding Fathers to Congress to make sure that we maintained those responsibilities in those areas. The Constitution tells us that we have the responsibility to promote general welfare, which is nice. We probably don't understand what they meant by general welfare anymore, but we are to promote it. But we have the obligation to provide for the common defense. And that verb differentiation was not done by accident by those who wrote the Constitution. It is the mandate that this Congress has to provide for the common defense, not simply because it's a fun thing to do, but because it defends this country, and it provides our ability to do foreign policy in the future as well as providing some jobs for people who are necessary to make sure that this happens. I reiterate what we said earlier. This sequestration is not a simple decrease or cut to the military. It would be the third major cut to the military. Remember, we cut, number one, $600 billion, at which time the Secretary of Defense said you cannot go much more than that. And then this administration put another cut, number two, of $400 billion. And now if sequestration were to go through, were the President to follow through on his threat to veto any legislation that would stop the sequestration, it would be cut number three of an additional $600 billion. And that is what everybody who works with the system says would destroy and hollow out our military, and we would be in violation of our constitutional obligations to provide for the common defense. Now, I am actually fairly proud of the House. We have on several occasions sent legislation over to the Senate that would stop this process and make sure that this core constitutional responsibility we have is actually fulfilled by Congress and we do not let this cut number three, sequestration, go into effect. Right now, they are sitting on Senator Reid's desk. He needs to take up the responsibility of putting those to a vote and passing that legislation and putting this on the desk of the President, who needs to take up his responsibility as Commander in Chief and pass those bills and make sure that these devastating cuts, which as the gentleman from Texas quite correctly said, would hollow out our military, would be devastating to our military posture, not just for today, but for decades to come; make sure that those do not go into effect and those are properly signed by the President and properly passed by Congress. The House has done our share. The House has done our responsibility. I need to call upon the Senate now to pick up the mantle and do their part of this effort to make sure that we defend this country, as we ought to.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 726 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. This resolution provides for a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 4402, which is the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act, and provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, and makes in order seven specific amendments out of ten which were filed at the Rules Committee. Five of the seven are Democratic amendments and two are Republican. So this is a fair and generous rule and will provide for a balanced and open debate on the merits of this important piece of legislation. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand before the House today in support of this rule, and especially the underlying legislation, which is H.R. 4402, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act of 2012. I appreciate the hard work of the bill's chief sponsor, the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Amodei), who understands this situation very well and has put a great deal of time and effort into coming up with a rational and legitimate solution to a problem which we face. Mr. Amodei, as well as the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), are to be commended in forwarding this bill to the full House for our consideration today. Our Nation has been blessed with tremendous natural resources, and over the last century these abundant resources are one of the key reasons that has allowed our Nation to emerge as a leading world economic and industrial power. In many aspects, we have only scratched the surface with regard to the development of these abundant natural resources, whether it be in energy, such as coal or oil shale or natural gas deposits, or whether it be in various natural minerals. One of the cornerstones of manufacturing in the United States includes the access to a stable and steady supply of these types of resources. Unfortunately, in recent decades, much of the development and mining of these domestic mineral resources has been hampered or shut down entirely by a combination of special-interest politics by certain self-appointed environmental groups and by bureaucratic red tape here in Washington. Often these two factors seem to go hand in hand, particularly under the current administration. We have all felt the pain of seeing what these failed policies have done to energy production in our country. We are more dependent than ever on foreign sources, increasing our trade imbalance, sending our dollars overseas, often to areas of the world that do not have our best interests at heart. It has led to escalating gas prices and escalating price spikes for energy and other commodities, and has made our economy more vulnerable to external international forces largely beyond our immediate control. These failed policies have also led to job losses in the United States in the energy and mining sector, which historically and ironically have been some of the highest paying jobs that middle class work has available. The bureaucratic delays and regulations regarding the mining of strategic and critical minerals is the exact same thing. By their very nature, these minerals are absolutely essential to manufacturing in electronics, metal alloys, ceramics, glass, magnets, and catalysts used in countless commercial and, especially, defense applications. Procurement of certain strategic and critical minerals is so crucial that the Department of Defense and the Defense Logistics Agency manage stockpiles of such materials which are deemed so critical that an adequate supply must be maintained at all times to ensure national military preparedness and readiness. More and more, we have seen that these materials are unfortunately being purchased from overseas and not from U.S. producers, making us wholly dependent upon other countries to ensure our own national security. Critical weapons visions, such as night vision equipment, advanced lasers, avionics, fighter jet canopies, missile guidance systems, and many, many others could not be built without these rare Earth minerals. The primary duty of Congress under the Constitution is to provide for the common defense. This bill takes us in the right direction for helping to restore U.S. domestic production of critical and strategic minerals by facilitating a more timely permitting process review for mineral exploration projects and to ensure that such essential mineral mining projects are not delayed unnecessarily by frivolous litigation. Let me be clear, this bill does not predetermine the outcome of agency review of such permit applications. It merely brings clarity to the process and ensures that the appropriate agencies will not unreasonably delay consideration but will, at the conclusion of 30 months, issue either a ``yes'' or ``no'' decision based on the merits of each individual application. This bill will also help cut the flow of frivolous lawsuits, which are often filed simply as delay tactics. It's a good bill. It's a fair rule and a good underlying bill, and I urge its adoption. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, for the purposes 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. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. And as someone with whiter hair than you have, I understand what you're talking about. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), who does indeed have some of these industries in his district and understands full well what this bill is actually attempting to accomplish.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Could I inquire of the gentleman from Colorado how many additional speakers he has.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the sponsor of this particular piece of legislation, who will do a couple of things, I hope, as he gets up there. One, he will remind us all that no environmental laws are waived by this process; it's about timing. And, number two, he will clarify that when I said 30 days, I meant 30 months. That's why I don't talk well without a script in front of me. I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Amodei), who has clearly understood this issue and put it together.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman would stay here a second, I understand from the Congressional Quarterly that it is your birthday today. In which case, to the gentleman from Massachusetts, I wish you a happy birthday. I appreciate the visual that you had. Unfortunately, as you tried to spin it, we realized it didn't work. So hopefully that is for your birthday party because nothing else works. But I appreciate and I wish you a happy birthday. I yield the gentleman from Massachusetts 30 seconds.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Then, Madam Speaker, let me yield myself just 1 minute. To try and put things in parameter of what we're actually doing in this bill, in the sixties to the eighties, the United States was actually the leader in the production of most of these minerals. Today, 97 percent of the rare Earth oil, or 97 percent of the rare Earth oxide, 89 percent of the rare Earth alloy, 75 percent of--I can't pronounce the words--and 60 percent of the small cobalt magnets all come from China. We have lost that to them. The reason for doing that is actually part of bureaucratic delay. Once again, unlike a lot of comments that have been made about this bill, it doesn't pick winners or losers. It doesn't even change the process. All it does is tell the bureaucracy in Washington to do it, to do it within 30 days, making sure that we have now sped up the process so that we now can do something. Instead of in 7 years, in 4 years, does not help reality. That's the point of this bill. It has nothing to do with other issues. It's only trying to get the process to be sped up so decisions are made in a timely fashion. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce), who understands this issue very directly with his experience both on the Resources Committee as well as in his home State of New Mexico.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Great bill, fair rule. I urge adoption. I yield back the balance of my time and move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I ask that all Members have 5 legislative days during which they may revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, if, indeed this will be the 31st time we will vote to repeal what is commonly called ObamaCare, that number signifies also the number of job-creating bills this House has passed and sent over to the Senate. It would be nice if the Senate would actually deal on any of those issues to move us forward on all of these concerns. I do want to speak for just 1 minute here, though, about the concept of the 10th amendment, one of the task forces on which I serve. Everything that we are talking about, there's nothing wrong with helping people provide for themselves. The issue always is where should that decision be made. There's nothing wrong about that at all, but where should it be made. The brilliance of our Founding Fathers in coming up with federalism was simply the idea of choices should be made by people in the areas in which they can affect themselves. Massachusetts appears to have a health care system they imposed upon themselves. They like it. That's fine. It won't work in the State of Utah because we are different. We have far more kids than Massachusetts has. We have a higher percentage of small business. Our solution is not their solution. The brilliance of federalism is that the people who live in the States and the leaders of the States, they care as much as we do. They also can decide for themselves as much as we do. The other brilliance of federalism is that States can decide to be wrong if they want to without impacting the entire Nation. There are some States that may want to have a robust government involvement and tax themselves to do it. Allow them to do so. There are other areas that want to have a less robust government and tax themselves less. Allow them to do it. Only the States have the ability of becoming efficient, creating justice and creativity in their approaches. My State of Utah came up with a legislative exchange program that better meets the needs of my State, of the demographics of my State. It is, in my opinion, still a better way of going, but unfortunately, it is stopped by ObamaCare. That is not what we should be doing. Not all great decisions have to emanate from this particular body. Now, the Supreme Court has said this is a tax. Fine. It must be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service, and we need to realize that there will be 12,000 to 17,000 new employees of the Internal Revenue Service to enforce this provision. Will they be outsourced, as the IRS has done in the past--and does that present problems for it--or will they be funded in-house, which will cost us again?

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding me a few moments here. Truly, this is a unique day. And I'm happy to join my colleagues in talking about this particular issue. You know, the old cliche is simply, a Supreme Court decision should not be confused with constitutional principles. Today we had one case brought by States to the Supreme Court. And the administration has always said, This ObamaCare is not a tax. It is not a tax. Well, the Court said, on five of the nine decisions, Yes, it is a tax. And I guess it's legal if you call it a tax. Four of the nine said not even that's good enough; but, nonetheless, it's a tax. It's appropriate that we talk about that power of taxing because the most famous of all cases, McCulloch v. Maryland, which was one the major decisions actually made in this particular building, simply said the power to tax is the power to destroy. And we have that in front of us right now. I don't think we should've expected judges to do what the legislative branch--in this case, Congress--ought do. And I think it's positive that we move forward in this effort to make sure that this program does not go into effect and we take concerns for our constituents and maybe even learn something from it. The idea of judicial review didn't exist for the first decade and a half of this country. Marbury v. Madison didn't happen until almost 15 years into the country. Washington, in the Constitutional Convention, also thought the veto should be what determined constitutionality, kind of executive review, and Jefferson always said there should be legislative review. So I think perhaps our Founding Fathers thought all branches should be involved in that kind of concept. And I think there should be a fourth one added to it, which is the States at the same time, who started this process of going to the courts. But we don't come on this floor often and quote anti-Federalists because they lost. However, I want to today, because even though they were wrong on the Constitution, every once in a while they were right on some of the concepts. So in the ``17th Letter from a Federalist Farmer,'' written either by Melancthon Smith or one of the Lees of Virginia--no one really knows who actually did it--he talked about this idea that the States, if we have the concept of federalism, should have some power to do some real things. He simply said: I have often heard it observed that our people are well informed and will not submit to oppressive governments, that the State governments will be ready advocates. But of what avail will these circumstances be if the State governments, thus allowed to be guardians of the people, possess no kind of power to stop the laws of Congress injurious to the people? One of the things they quickly said is States really don't have the concept or the power to actually involve themselves in this particular issue. There are some concepts that are out there. The repeal amendment, which is proposed by some legal scholars and has been proposed by some State organizations, would actually give a tool for States to be involved in this discussion because it impacts those States. Right now, they simply have to accept what takes place here in the rarified air by the Potomac River. But, indeed, if we gave the States a tool so if enough States were to ban together to say, No, we disagree with this rule, we disagree with this regulation, we disagree with this law, we even disagree with this Supreme Court decision, the States would have the ability to add a new check and a new balance to make sure that the common people of this country have some kind of voice in these decisions. I think one of the things we should learn from today's decision is that we desperately need another check and balance in our process to make federalism a realistic and real term, and that means to involve the States in giving them some powers to have real decisions, not so they have to come to us as they have so far, begging, but so they can actually have a say. I think we would be better off as a Nation if we did it. This decision today, if nothing more, should add a resolve for us to solve a political problem politically, to do it here in the Halls of Congress, but maybe add another player in this process--the States--so they also have a say in this power to tax, which is the power to destroy. I realize we're coming close to time. I want to give my good friend from Georgia the chance of giving the final word on this particular issue, and I appreciate his efforts to organize this opportunity to talk about what has happened today.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee. I guess I, as well as others, are here today to plead the 10th Amendment. You see, texting while driving is dangerous, and it should be stopped. Careless driving of any form is dangerous, and it should be stopped. We should be grateful for every effort to educate our drivers as to the significance of this particular effort, but the question has to be: Are the efforts only to be done in this particular body? A driver's license is a State certificate. Driving is a State privilege. And even though Congress has, in the past, overstepped our responsibility in involving ourselves in these areas--and that was wrong--that is certainly not justification for continuing that practice ever forward. The Commerce Clause does not necessarily expand to this area. The Senators, in their wisdom, have included a provision in there dealing with this issue. It's a noble concept. It's a worthy goal. The approval or disapproval of texting while driving is not the issue. The issue is not should it happen; the issue is who, at which level, should decide if it happens and what the consequences should be. The issue is, are we the only ones who have the opportunity of breathing the air of the Potomac River, the only ones smart enough to be involved in this issue, the only ones compassionate enough to be involved in this issue. I would contend to you that those who are in our States are equally competent to handle this issue. It's been mentioned, 39 States already outlaw texting. Ten outlaw any kind of a handheld communication while driving. Thirty-two States ban all sorts of these efforts with novice drivers. My State of Utah has moved forward in this particular area. And yet the Senate has now put in $79 million to incentivize States to do what they're already doing. We tried to pass a balanced budget amendment on this floor. It failed and I felt sad about that; but I realized also we can accomplish the exact same goals if we respect federalism, which, of course, was reinforced in the 10th Amendment. Federalism simply would require the Federal Government to concentrate on the core constitutional responsibilities given to us in that document and allow the States the flexibility to solve the other problems. States do not have the kind of restrictions established in the Constitution that we have. States can be far more creative than a one- size-fits-all program from Washington. States can be much more effective in the way they run their programs. States can actually apply justice to unique circumstances within their State borders. That can never be accomplished by Washington. Our only ability is to make sure that everything is uniform. We can accomplish the same goal if we respect the authority of States. $79 million is a high price to pay for the arrogance that only we here in Washington can do things well. The States are doing it. Not everything has to be ordained, funded, and controlled by those who sit on this floor. The States have every competence, every ability. We should support the 10th Amendment and recognize the States should do this. They will do a better job than we.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to another member of the Resources Committee here who understands this issue very well, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Coffman).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield the gentlewoman 1 minute.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. No; I think I'm it.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, Chairman Hall, who has probably heard many of these arguments before.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Griffin).