Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am ready to close if you're ready to yield back.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. We have no other speakers. I'd ask if there are other speakers on your side.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1038) to authorize the conveyance of two small parcels of land within the boundaries of the Coconino National Forest containing private improvements that were developed based upon the reliance of the landowners in an erroneous survey conducted in May 1960, 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. And for some obvious reasons, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), the sponsor of this bill that solves some real problems, for the introduction of this particular bill.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. This is another good bill that solves a problem that should have been solved at another level, and to introduce it I would yield such time as he may consume to the sponsor, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2157) to facilitate a land exchange involving certain National Forest System lands in the Inyo National Forest, and for other purposes.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico, and, once again, I do agree with you. I enjoy your image of the world much better than this particular administration. It reminds me of ``Back to the Future'' when they had the two movies, what happened if Biff got the sports sheets and what happened if he didn't? It's almost what we're doing here. There are two actual visions of what the future of this America will be; and, I'm sorry, this administration keeps taking us down the road in which Biff actually does have the sports sheets and he is able to win all those bets and get control of everything. I just want to add one other thing to what the gentlelady from Wyoming also said here. When we talk about the Federal Government and what the Federal Government does on public lands, I just want you to realize it is not only related to public lands itself. We find that this administration is not satisfied with just living within the boundaries of public lands, but is coming up with policies that impact private property that is next to those public lands. When this administration took over, in the State of Utah there were 77 oil leases that had gone through a 7-year review. They had all the public hearings, they did everything, they were ready to be let for sale to try and develop those resources in the eastern part of my State. The very first thing this administration did was recall those 77 leases. It didn't matter that the process had gone through, they had done the work. They recalled them for the purpose of special interest groups for their satisfaction. What happened in the eastern part of my State is the unemployment rate simply skyrocketed not only for these 77 leases that were on public land; but the private sector that was there ready to invest saw the handwriting on the wall, and they pulled out of that particular area. They were not ready to go through the kind of harassment as well as the regulation that they could see taking place. And the unemployment skyrocketed; the investment in that area went. Only now is it starting gradually and gradually to come back in. Here is the problem that we have with this administration's policies: Not only do they inhibit energy production and jobs that can be generated on public lands; their efforts of increased regulation and efforts to inhibit that kind of development take away jobs on private property where they see that there is not a future there and they don't want to go through the regulatory hassle. So what could have been developed in my State basically went to North Dakota on private lands, and there they found their ability to make lots of money and to increase the energy production here because they simply did not have to deal with this administration. Unfortunately, it's not just about energy jobs. This administration on public lands is doing the same thing for recreation jobs. With the number of roads that have been closed on the forest and BLM lands, stopping the ability of people to hunt and fish and do other forms of regulation, even the kinds of regulation on outfitters that tells them what kind of coffee they have to serve when they're on Park Service property, that is an impediment to the development of our recreation community and recreation jobs at the same time. One of the things we have to realize is that this administration's effort to try and control everything is producing nothing that is helping us create jobs for our kids to keep them at home. I appreciate Mr. Pearce for actually starting this process and talking about this issue because it needs desperately to be addressed.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from New Mexico's introduction, which is far more fluent than my presentation will be. I share what the gentleman from New Mexico, as well as the gentlelady from Wyoming, have said on this particular issue, that we in the West seem to have a unique situation in which there is an effort to try and stifle--hopefully by simple incompetence and not out of planning--but stifle the economic growth that we need so desperately in the West for our kids and for our future. There are two things that were said today that I read in the paper that come from this administration, which tells us that we're obviously in a campaign season and that the words are simply being used in a unique and different way. The President once said that the party to which I belong is currently engaged in a war on the poor, which I find unique because, to be honest, when you have overriding and ever-increasing energy costs, that--as the gentlelady from Wyoming said--is the real war on the poor. Somebody who is in the bottom portion of our economic sphere, our economic stratus, will pay three times as high a percentage of their income for increased energy prices as those who are in the top will. If you have a nice urban job, you may have an inconvenience as energy prices go up. But if you're one of those struggling working families trying to make ends meet, this becomes a unique situation. When gas prices go up to $4 or more, climbing towards $5, they may dip down again, but they will certainly rise one more time. It hurts the poor far worse than it does any other sector of our country. They are the ones who have the least likely chance of actually having some kind of fuel efficient automobile, and yet they probably have the greatest chance of needing desperately that car simply to go to work, and have no other options whatsoever. They are the ones who will have the most difficult time trying to heat their homes in the middle of winter with the increased cost of fuel. They are the ones who will recognize, first of all, that whenever the cost of gasoline goes up, the cost of food will also go up, simply because it takes money to send that food to market so that you can buy it. All of that hits those who are in the lowest sector of our economy harder than those who are in the upper sector of our economy. One of the estimates we used a couple of years ago said that for every $420 a family has to pay in increased energy costs, it will equate to 6,000 jobs that will be lost in the economy. That's one of the problems that we simply find ourselves in. The sad part about that is we don't have to do it. This is not an energy-poor country. In fact, it is an energy-rich country. We should be using the resources that we have here in the country to enrich ourselves and to help each other to have a better lifestyle, not getting worse. And the competition for energy is going to increase as time goes on. There are 6\1/2\ billion people in the world; 2 billion of those 6\1/2\ billion have no electricity today. They're going to want that in the future, which means our energy needs will be increasing, not diminishing. It doesn't matter what kind of efforts you put in there, our energy needs worldwide will be increasing. We have to be able to plan for that. I have a good friend who is one of the CEOs of an energy company today who said when he was in college back in 1973, the word went out there that we were in an energy crisis, we were running out of oil, and we had to come up with a way of solving that problem. That was still the Shah's era, and so we did. In 1977, we came up with a national energy plan. It was a colossal failure. It was an effort to do centralized planning here in Washington to come up with a way of solving our problem in the future, and it failed miserably. Thirty years later, we have people in the bureaucracies of this administration who want to try and reinvent a very bad wheel that didn't work back in the 1970s. Someone has to tell this administration and this city that back in 1988, the Berlin Wall fell down and the idea of centralized planning was discredited throughout the entire world, not only in government, but also in industry. Everyone learned that lesson except the bureaucracies here in Washington, where a solution of this administration and far too much that takes place in this city is still the same idea: let's get a Big Government plan and let the government control everything. We want energy security, but we don't want to drill anywhere. We don't like $4 a gallon gasoline prices, but we're not ready to increase any refineries anywhere. We don't necessarily want more coal or hydro or nuclear, but we're not ready to come up with any kind of alternative. We actually do want to have more gas coming in here, but we're not ready to put any pipelines in place to try and make sure that actually happens. The end result is we lose. The Western Energy Alliance made the prediction that because of our lack of energy development on public lands in the West, we have lost 16,000 jobs and almost $4 billion of infrastructure investment that comes in there. The Secretary of Interior made a speech today where he called a lot of things we talk about here in Congress the ``imagined energy world.'' I think this administration believes in that imagined energy world. It's very easy for this administration to list all of their alternative energy projects by name, because they have very few of them. They're not moving ahead with solar power. They're not moving ahead with wind power. They're not moving ahead with anything else, and they're not moving ahead with alternative forms either. And this hits us in the West specifically. Mr. Pearce, I don't want to consume too much time. You may want to go in another direction. But I'm an old school teacher, and this is one of the areas that is of concern to me. This map is obviously the United States. Everything in red is what is controlled by the Federal Government. You notice that we in the West have the unique opportunity of having one half of everything in the West controlled by the Federal Government. The Federal Government controls one out of every 3 acres in the Nation, and in some of our States it's like 90 percent, 70 percent, 60 percent of all the land is still controlled by the Nation. Now, one of the things that you may say is, Well, is that bad? I want to contend to some of my good friends who live in other parts of the Nation that they have an interest in all of this red stuff over there because my good friends who live in the East are shelling out $8 billion to $9 billion a year in order to control the West, to pay for all this land. Every year, in their efforts to make sure this map stays the same, that's $8 billion to $9 billion that comes out of their pockets. What do they get for that investment? They get this map. The States that are in red are the States that have the hardest time funding their education systems over the last several decades. Now, notice once again the States in red. The area in red is the Federal Government's own land. The States in red are the ones that have a hard time funding. You notice there is kind of a correlation simply between the two? This is what the United States is getting for its $9 billion investment to control the West. We are harming our schools. Now, even in this land that's in the West, we have a huge backlog in maintenance issues. Our National Park Service is hundreds of millions behind in their maintenance system. There are some States like mine that simply said, you know, this is ridiculous. Our kids are being harmed in their education funding. We can't generate the money we need for our own infrastructure. Why don't you just let us take control of the land, and we will save those pristine areas that need to be saved. We will ensure there is access for recreation and multiple use, and we will develop those resources. The Secretary of the Interior today said, simply, that concept defies common sense. The idea that only the Federal Government has the ability and the intelligence to control this kind of land and that people who live in the States obviously can't do it defies common sense. What this means is the Federal Government that wants to spend more money for land acquisition, that cannot maintain its own land right now, that harms kids in the West with their education funding, that underfunds all the projects that are there right now and simply wants more and more, that's the common sense. If that, indeed, is the future, then we have a long, long way to go. We in the West simply have a simple situation. We can do it just as well, if not better, and my argument to you is we can actually do it better. That's what should be common sense. Our kids are being harmed by this system. We are not producing jobs for our kids because of this system. What I think we need to do in the West is realize this is a country that has energy potential, energy ability, job potential, job ability, and we have kids that definitely need that. We in the West pay more taxes than they do in the East when you add everything up. We put a higher percentage of our State budgets into education than they do in the East. We actually have higher class sizes than those in the East. We have more kids than those in the East. We need to have the ability of actually meeting our particular needs. Part of that is for this administration to simply realize you've got to help develop the resources that we can. We can control it. We can fund it. We can do it if you give us the opportunity just to move forward. This administration says that we are producing more oil now than ever before because it's all being produced on private property where they can't control it, try as they might to. If they simply unleash the potential in all this red area, this country would move forward in a growth spurt that is almost impossible to imagine. That's the commonsense plan. I am very happy to be a part of this issue because I'm excited about what my colleagues are saying in a much more refined way than I have been able to do that, and I'm excited about hearing some more of my westerners who realize, hey, listen, there is a war on western jobs and it needs to stop. We need to have help in creating western jobs, not hindrance in stopping western jobs.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I also yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This legislation would authorize the transfer of a parcel of land known as the Crest of Montezuma from the Bureau of Land Management to the Forest Service. The Crest of Montezuma is remote from the current BLM-managed areas. It can be better managed by the Forest Service as part of the Cibola National Forest. Both agencies agree and support this legislation. I urge the adoption of this measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I have no other speakers. Do you have anyone else on this issue?

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

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. H.R. 2240, introduced by the gentlelady from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas), will authorize a land exchange between the Lowell National Historical Park and the city of Lowell, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or the University of Massachusetts Building Authority. This will allow the transfer of the visitor center parking lot in exchange for an equal number of parking spaces in a new garage to be built by the city. The Park Service property, where the current lot is located, is needed for the community development, and the stakeholders have concluded that this is a more beneficial use to the community and the park visitors. I urge the adoption of H.R. 2240, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. 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. Once again, we have a problem that should easily be corrected and a bill that does that. Mr. Speaker, I wish to yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Cravaack) to explain his particular piece of legislation.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2947) to provide for the release of the reversionary interest held by the United States in certain land conveyed by the United States in 1950 for the establishment of an airport in Cook County, Minnesota.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2050) to authorize the continued use of certain water diversions located on National Forest System land in the Frank Church- River of No Return Wilderness and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in the State of Idaho, and for other purposes.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, again we have a bill that does a great job in solving a problem that should have been solved a long time ago, especially if the Senate would ever listen to it. To introduce his bill, I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the sponsor of the bill, the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Again, this is an issue that has been recognized and is a solution that Mr. Simpson has presented, and I urge its adoption. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. 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

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

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, once again, I wish to remind the body that we are dealing with a procedural issue. We've heard a great deal of policy debate here, but what we are dealing with is a procedural issue. The policy of the debate has been debated on this floor and will be debated in the future as well under two criteria: one, either allowing our committees to move forward with its authorization, appropriations, and reconciliation efforts, in which case certain procedural techniques must take place; or, two, actually allowing the Senate to do their work and pass a budget, going to a conference, and then moving forward in that manner. One way or the other, the procedure must go forward. This is not policy we're debating here, it's procedure. There is precedence for what we are doing. Indeed, in the last Congress, H.R. 1500, the opposition party, the minority party, also deemed resolutions and brought them forward--actually, it's happened six times in our history. The only difference between the deeming that we have here and the deeming that happened in the last session of Congress is that this particular budget--which will be debated again--actually went through a committee and had a vote on the floor. Unfortunately, when the Democrat Party did that a couple years ago, they had not gone through a committee, they did not have a debate on the floor or in committee or a vote on anything. Actually, the numbers that were deemed at that time were less than 1-day's notice before they were actually voted on the floor. And everyone who has spoken against this procedure voted for that particular deeming a couple of years ago in the last Congress. There is precedence for this, and the precedence is solely a procedural issue. This is not the time to talk about the policy. There was a time before, and there will be time in the future. This is a procedural precedent, and we can only move forward in doing the work of this Congress--and I appreciate the other side for at least admitting that the Republicans are trying to move forward in the work of this Congress--if we have certain procedural issues done in advance. That's what we are attempting to do. So, in order to allow the House to continue its scheduled business of this day, I urge Members to vote ``yes'' on the question of the consideration of this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate that. And reclaiming the time very briefly because I know you're the next speaker and you're going to go over this issue one more time, yeah, that's exactly what--there has to be a procedure to go forward. But, once again, unlike what happened in 2010, we're not pulling the numbers out of thin air. You actually had the chance to debate that earlier in your Budget Committee and will have the chance to debate that again on the floor as well as in the committee. That's process; it's a process. If you want to, again, go across the rotunda and talk to your friends over on the other side, maybe we wouldn't have to do that. But until they're willing to do something, we have a procedural problem here. With that, I reserve the balance of my time and look forward to hearing the gentleman.