Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Actually some of them we did, but the one especially about renewable energy products, the 380 renewable energy products that have not been allowed to go forward, which would be another quarter of a million jobs and $500 billion in economic input, that was done by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That actually happens to be nationwide; not just in the West.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman expressing I think the frustration that many of us in Congress are feeling in the direction in which this country is going, and that we can look at concept after concept of either outrageous spending, poor policy that deals with tax policy, poor regulatory policy, poor energy development policy, put those all together, and it still spells a lack of jobs. And what was supposed to be a time period where we were going to be creating all sorts of jobs is simply one where we have lost jobs. Unfortunately, what we are also finding unique about this recession is people who have lost their job are staying unemployed longer or taking part-time jobs instead. The length of the joblessness is unusually long in this type of recession. And I think part of that goes back to the policies that this country is pushing forward that do not encourage investment in our economy and do not multiply our economy impact, when we have historical evidence of how that could easily happen. We are ignoring that.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Before you actually put that chart down, I think you understated that sentiment. It's not just people who understand business are not comfortable with that. I don't understand business and I look at that chart and I'm not comfortable with that. Any normal American would look at that and say something is desperately wrong with what we are doing.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. And I appreciate that. I think if you keep--I don't know if they can keep the cameras on that particular chart, but it is a telling chart. And it's one of the things that I think you are trying to say, that we have yet to learn lessons from history. It is very clear that we are trying with the stimulus bill, a few of the other bills, right now, creating jobs by having tax-funded jobs being created. Unfortunately, that's a sector that's growing, but that's not a sector that will continue and build and has a multiplier effect in the economy. To do that, you have to have the private sector involved. I hate to say this, but when we went into the Great Depression, there was the history. We'd already learned after the end of World War I how lowering tax rates actually increased the amount of revenue and spurred the economy. Same thing you mentioned also that took place in the 1960s that President Kennedy clearly understood, and it's happened several other times in the history of this country. But at the beginning of the Depression, there were many people within the business community who had money to invest in business that could have spurred the economy, created jobs, and grown our economy out of the Depression. But they did not invest that money, primarily because they were afraid of what the tax and regulatory policies of the government would do, and, therefore, they simply sat on it. That's what happened as part of the problems we had in the Depression. People with investment opportunities did not do so. Unfortunately, I think we find ourselves in that same situation. The future tax policies, and you just mentioned we don't know what will happen at the end of this year, but it could be catastrophic in raising taxes. But in addition to the regulatory policies that we have placed in effect, the effort of the continuous deficit spending that we have done, all of those have added to a portion of unrest within the business community and it simply says, ``I'm going to wait to see where I'm going to invest to see what actually happens eventually.'' That is why the government doesn't actually create jobs, but the government policies can destroy the ability for those jobs to be created at the same time. So I appreciate what my good colleagues have been saying, because it is true. Our regulatory policies and our tax policies have created so much nervousness within the system, we are not doing that which could encourage a multiplier effect within our economy, and that is exactly what we need at this particular time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Let me throw a couple more statistics at you, and then I want to do some dialoguing here because the numbers are good, but we have to put them in context eventually. This administration is always big about saying, well, we need to have alternative energy sources to help our economy grow. I think we need to have all kinds of energy sources. But the Chamber of Commerce has identified 380 renewable energy projects that have been blocked or stalled over the past 4 years. The total cost of those stalled projects is $560 billion in lost economic activity and approximately a quarter of a million jobs that were not allowed simply because--it doesn't matter whether we're talking about fossil fuels or wind power or solar power or nuclear power--we're not doing anything to develop new energy sources. Western Energy Alliance did a survey to find out what would be taking place in the West, these areas that I'm saying have been heavily hit. Seventy-four percent of the respondents to the survey by the Western Energy Alliance said their companies are downsizing capital investment in the Rocky Mountain area. That's $1.1 billion of investment that has been shifted from the Rocky Mountains to other parts, simply because of the inability of the government to try and help us to develop energy sources. That is $2.8 billion in infrastructure that would have come into the West and has not. And it has a ripple effect. If you stop an oil lease or a gas lease or a wind power project or a solar power project in the West, you also stop projects that are on private lands abutting that area, and you stop the need of having truckers bring the equipment in and bring people in. And then you lose the mechanics jobs, and you lose the jobs from the hotel industry where they are surfaced. Ninety percent of the respondents say that their company will continue to divert investment in the Rockies until there is a change in the regulatory process. We don't have to have this joblessness. This government is creating it by policies that are not intended to build jobs but actually prevent jobs from being created. I yield back.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Well, we'll all join in the battalion because we are all faced with the results of these decisions. Let me just check off a couple of things that have happened in the West that have destroyed jobs in the West. Obviously, in my State, the first thing this administration did is cancel 77 oil and gas leases in the State of Utah, but what we don't know is they have also halted scheduled oil and gas lease sales in Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Wyoming, because of the climate of this administration, only is able to lease about 5 percent of the leases that are put on bid because of what we are doing here. This administration banned uranium mining permits in the State of Arizona. They put multiple restrictions on oil shale development causes. In California, they blocked water that goes to ranchers in the central valleys there. So, in some communities in California, up to 40 percent of those agricultural communities are now faced with unemployment. This administration tried to provide $400 million in stimulus to that area. Well, it's sad. They didn't need to do that. All they needed to do was to turn the water on, and it's free. Unfortunately, much of that stimulus money went to districts that voted to keep the water turned off, which created the unemployment in the first place. I spoke to the economic development director from the State of Utah, who is in charge of tourism and movies. The West is a great set for lots of movies, but one of the problems the movie industry is facing in the West is, when you go on government lands, the permitting process to just go on there and do this clean energy of companies is taking so long that we basically don't have the situation taking place.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 412, had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 422 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, we are here on a bill that allegedly provides supplemental funding for our troops, yet within the bowels of this House amendment are provisions that have implications for our border security, provisions in violation of our rules but nonetheless provide a permanent authority to transfer money from border patrol to the Department of the Interior with absolutely no limit--$50 million this time, but then unlimited after that. So to have the situation of Congress appropriating money we think is going to border patrol, but then border patrol will have to give that money to the Department of the Interior for alleged mitigation issues, such concepts and projects as, in the past: hiring three employees of the Interior to monitor prong-horned antelope or having a biologist watch the erection of 15-foot towers to verify that no animal was crushed; or having Fish and Wildlife, for one acre of possible habitat loss, insisting border patrol buy 55 acres somewhere else to give to them. We will have the outrageous situation of Interior and Forest Service regulations blocking the border patrol from their patrols and doing their job, and yet the same provision, the border patrol has to pay DOI, with no oversight from the legislature, no internal rules for caution of spending, no limitation, just to do their job. Even Secretary Napolitano last year sent us a letter in which she said the Border Patrol stops the drug cartels, the human traffickers, the potential terrorists, and that is a value in and of itself to the environment and should count as mitigation. Yet, in the provisions within this particular bill, that does not take place. This provision was a dumb idea in the wrong bill. It diverts dollars from the Border Patrol and makes our border less secure.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I could reclaim the time, and I appreciate that comment. And once again, the fact we're throwing out different numbers of what it will cost to send Americans up there is simply because NASA doesn't know what it will cost, and that's why they're budgeting very high. Who knows if that is the actual number. Because once again the Russians realize, when they have a monopoly, they can charge what they want to charge. Let's deal with another phrase that we often hear from this administration. They are about to commercialize space. I want to try and put that one to rest, if we could. There is no such thing as privatizing or commercializing what we are doing in space. The Constellation program is being built by private enterprise. There were contracts let by this government that were done on a competitive bid process and won by private sectors, by the private sector, by commercial companies, which means when we cut Constellation, we're not cutting a government program. We're cutting 30,000 jobs in the private sector to build a contract that comes from here. What the President and the NASA leaders were talking about when they say, well, we're going to commercialize the future of space is not really changing the philosophy of what we're doing. All they're doing is they're going to take the contracts from those who have them now, building Constellation, fire those people, and then we will give some of that extra NASA money that we are going to be appropriating to other companies in the private sector who are going to be winners in the values that this administration places on those particular companies. In fact, the companies that are talking about the so-called commercialization of space already are under contract with NASA. They are already being subsidized by NASA. They are already behind in their programs with NASA, and they are asking for more Federal dollars for NASA. So, once again, I oftentimes hear, well, this is an administration that wants to totally change the way we deal with space and they want to try and commercialize everything. That's a cute word, but the reality is you're simply having some people in the private sector who will lose their jobs so the administration can pick other people in the private sector to have jobs, and not necessarily on a one-to-one ratio. There is no such thing as commercialization of space or these programs, and we are not trying to come up with a free enterprise approach to the future of space. This is simply the government picking winners and losers among a lot of people who are out there in the private sector. The 30,000 jobs that are going to be lost are not government jobs. Those are private sector jobs.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the opportunity of being here this morning on one of the days when obviously our time management skills are not perhaps the greatest, but it still is nonetheless an opportunity to speak on this floor before you, Mr. Speaker, on a couple of issues that are significant. I appreciate also that I will be joined by my good friend from Texas, who just spoke so eloquently about one of those who has given his all for all of us and how grateful we are for this family and this particular individual. I think we're going to be hitting several different themes this evening as we talk about the future of this country, especially as it deals with space. And here, once again, I'm grateful the gentleman from Texas is here because Mr. Olson has indeed been a leader in this particular issue in charting the future of America as far as space policy will be. It is very easy in this environment to try and focus, first of all, on jobs. I think we will. Because, indeed, as this particular administration is going to begin their summer of recovery tour in which they will be touting the kinds of jobs that will be created to try and change the economic future this country is currently in, it seems almost ironic that administrative policies, especially with NASA, are going to create a vast amount of unemployed individuals--up to 30,000 individuals who will receive their pink slips and be unemployed specifically because of policies initiated by this administration and the current leadership in NASA. It's at least ironic, but we will be talking about that. However, we want to go beyond that because if you're dealing with simply jobs, that can be a very parochial issue. We're also dealing with the future of space and the importance of space. And, clearly, if indeed this administration and the leaders of NASA today seem to be de-emphasizing the role of space in our future, other nations are not. The Russians, the Chinese, even the Indian government and the Japanese government have a unique interest in taking our position in the leadership role of space exploration. That's another issue I think we will be talking about. I also want to make sure that we illustrate how sometimes there are unintended consequences in our actions. This administration and, once again, NASA's leadership did not take into effect the consequences of their program changes and the consequences that would have specifically related to our military preparedness, for indeed one of the things we have to realize is that the component pieces that go into the missiles that shoot somebody to the Moon are the same component pieces that go into missiles that shoot down rockets from our adversaries Iran or North Korea, and that if you harm the industrial base that creates one program, you harm the industrial base that creates the other program, and that gives us some pause to think what we're doing on the defense side of this country, which is clearly one of the few roles specifically given to Congress in the Constitution. Finally, I think I'd like to talk some about a communique that came out from the administration today as to their future in space, and say that some of the platitudes that are very nicely written in this communique are contradictory to the actions that indeed take place. So with that, Mr. Speaker, I think if the gentleman from Texas is prepared to lead off, I would like to turn over as much time to Mr. Olson from Texas, who, as I said, has for quite a while been the organizer and the leader of this effort to try and explore what this administration is doing, and maybe make some corrections, as is the role and responsibility of Congress dealing with space. Then I will be happy to make some remarks after the gentleman from Texas has completed.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas, if I could reclaim the time briefly. Changing from just the concept of jobs and, indeed, the future of space and especially to put the emphasis on the fact that, what are we going to do to inspire people to go into science and math and become the engineers of the future. Let's face it, if you only build one new plane for our military once every 40 years or if we're only doing one new adventure into space once every 30 years, that doesn't inspire somebody. In fact, supposedly one of NASA's new goals is to try to encourage education into space. And I think, as the gentleman from Texas clearly cited, kids are not dumb; and they're realizing, if you are at a whim firing 30,000 engineers and scientists, that doesn't give you a whole lot of encouragement to try to move into that particular area. One of the issues especially is because Constellation is the cutting edge of science. It was granted last year by Time magazine as one of the 50 best inventions of the year. In fact, it was number one of the 50 best inventions of last year, and it shows that what we are doing is right. This is the right approach, and this is the approach that is being threatened by the policies of this administration and the current NASA leadership. The space shuttle had a couple of very sad disasters. In the last one, there was a study made on how to avoid that in the future, and they said, The most important thing we can do--and I think every astronaut understands this, which is maybe why so many of them signed that particular letter from which the gentleman from Texas read--is two goals: NASA will never be effective if, number one, the safety of our astronauts isn't in the most primary and utmost position; and, number two, you have a clear, understandable and stated goal--what we are going to accomplish. It is true that during the Bush administration, we decided to halt the space shuttle program. It had run its course. We have been very successful in going to the space station and back, but there were some issues that we needed to go beyond simply space shuttle. So the effort was made to try to put our best minds together and see where we could go into the future that would meet those two goals: a clear statement of purpose and safety. And the reality of that was Constellation. This is the safety concept. This Constellation program is designed to be safer than the space shuttle by a factor of 10. It was recognized that if you want to try and stop some of the catastrophes we've had today, you separate the cargo from the passengers. That's what Orion does in that process, allows a safety valve for the safety of the passengers, in this case, the astronauts. And in addition, we clearly realized that we needed to go with solid rocket propellants because it is much safer than liquid propellant, perhaps not as powerful, but certainly much more controllable. And, once again, the concept of safety is important. This is the future, if you really care about astronauts. And the second one was the goal is very clear. The design was for a specific goal. The intent was for a specific goal. And I don't want to be disparaging to this administration, but the apparent goal of this administration with spaceflight is some day, maybe perhaps at some time, we might land on some asteroid somewhere. That's not a specific goal. That's not even a dream. That's not even a reality that we can deal with. That may be almost cartoonish in the approaches to deal with it. And unfortunately, if we start scaling back, other countries are not. The Russians are still involved. The Chinese are stepping up their involvement in space exploration. As I said earlier, even the Indian Government and the Japanese Government have stated that they have a plan in mind to try and become involved in this concept. What becomes so bizarre is the United States, that won the space race, is now forfeiting the space future to other countries. We had a plan between the actual startup of Constellation, which is both the Aries rocket and the Orion space capsule, and the end of the space shuttle in which the Russians would have to do some of the taxi service for us. They would charge us somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 to $35 million per ride. That's a large amount of money. But, however, our good friends in Russia, after they left communism, have found capitalism to their liking, and they realize what a monopoly gives them the power to do. In the 2011 budget, NASA wants to budget $75 million per astronaut ride from Earth up to the space station and back. Now, that's the kind of cost that's coming to the taxpayers of the United States. And I would, once again, maybe be willing to accept it if that was moving America forward. But simply subsidizing the Russian space program instead of building our own program is not what I call smart use of moving us into the future. In fact, we simply have said that this summer of recovery should be the summer of the Russian and Chinese recovery. We will be subsidizing their missile program, their space exploration program, at the tune of $75 million every time we send an American astronaut into space on Russian technology to help their program out, to keep their jobs going. And, well, I'm sorry. That just does not make sense as to where our future should be.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your time and efforts. We yield back.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas, the points that he made and especially the poignant letter that came out and illustrating how the overwhelming majority--in fact, I would say almost all but one--of our retired astronaut core feels very strongly that Constellation was the right approach for this country to do and that we should continue on with that particular approach. I would like to go back to a couple of points. I hope I am not redundant, but I think they are significant enough that even if we say them a second time, it's important. And I would hope the gentleman from Texas would stay here and try to fill in the blanks where I miss those, if we could. There was quick mention, once again, as I said, on the jobs that we are talking about here. The Vice President recently sent out a press release, announcing that he was going on his summer tour to tout the ``Summer of Recovery.'' Now, amongst the bullet points that they put in that press release was that this administration would be proposing programs to build up to 30,000 miles of new roads, up to 2,000 new water programs, up to 80,000 homes that might be weatherized, 800 jobs here, some there, asking this country to add a nongermane issue to the military supplemental to try to protect government worker jobs. And I just find that so ironic, as was mentioned, that at the same time we were doing that, the policies of this administration with regard to NASA contract jobs would take between 20,000 and 30,000 people who are part of the private sector, who are doing these jobs well--many of them being scientists and engineers--and they're basically giving them the pink slip at the same time we talk about how we're trying to build jobs in some other way. It simply does not compute that that is the way we're doing it. I readily admit, some of these jobs that have been threatened and have been lost are personal friends and neighbors of mine. I shared a picture with General Bolden, who is the head of NASA, at one of our committee hearings of a personal friend who has spent 26 years dealing with procurement issues at one of the companies, who is just in his mid-fifties and was just released simply because this is the policy of this particular administration. And I would love to be able to go to him and say, Ray, the reason that your job was terminated was because the government decided to try to save money. The problem is, none of these jobs that are going to be eliminated save the government a dime. In fact, it is true that this administration is asking for a $6 billion increase in the NASA budget even though they are going to be stopping the manned space program and throwing up to 30,000 high-paying jobs, employees who have proven their worth for years and years, throwing them out. There are some people who said, Well, the new programs would create new jobs within the NASA-private sector relationship. Yet the most they're talking about there is maybe up to 10,000 jobs to be offset by the 30,000 that we're losing? That's a three-to-one loss in the process that is there. For a fraction of that $6 billion of new additional money above and beyond what we're already spending to be focused directly on Constellation, we could continue this program to a successful conclusion. And once again, jobs, I recognize, are parochial. I am part of that situation. But it seems ironic that in an era in which we're talking about jobs and job creation and more jobs and job creation and realizing that we're never going to get out of these economic doldrums that we're in until we actually do have jobs, we, as a government, are having a policy to try to throw out 30,000 workers who have proven their net, who have proven their worth and are moving this country forward. It just flat out does not make sense.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Yes, I will be happy to yield.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I could reclaim my time very briefly here again, and once again I appreciate you making those points, because they are spot-on accurate. Congress made its voice very clear last year when we specifically told NASA, Constellation is our program of record, and you will not cut funding to Constellation. It's very clear that Congress has never changed that position. Well, this is speculation, but nor do I think we would, given our own choice of what to do. But as the gentleman from Texas clearly illustrated, there are some things that NASA is doing right now that appear--I don't want to try and ascribe motives--but they appear clearly to try and force the issue so that by the time Congress goes through its process of coming up with a budget and appropriations process and language directing what the bureaucracies will do, in this case NASA, that this will be a fait accompli. So the idea of withholding the derivatives was not a reduction of their contracts, but it had the same effect. The idea of taking the Constellation manager and reassigning him had a specific effect. And then, as you alluded to, the idea of telling companies that they are going to have to hold out closing costs, which has never been done in NASA before, in fact there was only one time where Congress did tell them in some way, shape, or form that they needed to close a program, but that's when Congress told them to close a program down, not when they were trying to close it down before Congress has a chance to react to it. But what that would do is simply force them to fire people now so the industrial base is gone before anything takes place. And that is a strange approach for any kind of executive branch of government to do when the legislative branch has yet to give them any clear direction that's what we want to do, or has spoken. In fact, everything we have said so far is the exact contrary to that. So I appreciate that. If I could just put one last thing in, and then I will yield to the gentleman from Texas again. The government apparently put out the National Space Policy of the United States today. It's an interesting document. It says that we should have a robust and competitive commercial space sector, which is good. But I promise you, if you take all the jobs away from those who are doing Constellation, there will not be a robust or competitive space program. They say that we should strengthen U.S. leadership in space-related science. Now, once again we have said over and over again if indeed you stop Constellation, you are ceding leadership in space-related science. We're not creating leadership. They say we should retain skilled space professionals. Once again, what is happening today is the exact opposite of this effort or this directive. They say we should reinvigorate U.S. leadership. You don't reinvigorate something if you destroy the program that is our program of record that will move us towards a leadership position. I find this document unusual. Now, I haven't had a chance to read everything that is in it, but certainly certain things come glaring out in the process of just skimming through it, saying that what we are doing is not necessarily what our words are. If our words here were indeed what our policy is, I would be very happy and content. But what I see happening is not what this policy statement says that we should be doing. Sometimes I wonder if we really do understand what we are doing in space. And we need to recognize the significance of it, the importance of it, and the importance it has in other aspects of the government, and to our citizens, and to the future to inspiring kids. I yield back.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I could just reclaim for just one particular second right here. Once again, and I appreciate you bringing that point out, I think the pushback or the outrage in Congress has been a bipartisan pushback and outrage. Republicans and Democrats alike have said the approach this administration is taking is not necessarily the right approach. Because indeed, Constellation is a safer, better system than the space shuttle. It is the new way forward. It shows what is the best and the brightest that this country has to offer. It is something that makes us good and makes us noble. It is the direction we should go into the future. And for us to back off now for some program that is not clear, is not understandable, has no discernible goals, that's just not the way a country moves forward. It is indeed the way a country moves backwards, and this country should not be moving backwards. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas's leadership on this particular issue, everything that he has been doing in organizing our review, our reports, some of our complaints, too, as we try and say what we need to do is do that which moves the country forward and ennobles us as a people. Constellation does that. A clear space mission does that. A mission emphasizing safety for astronauts does that. That's what we need to continue on. And I'm sorry, but what NASA is asking us to do right now does not meet those goals. I yield back for any concluding statements the gentleman has.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate that. And reclaiming the time once again, I'm glad we're talking about the fact that these are real people in the job market that we're going to be harming. I'm glad we're talking about the overall purpose of our space exploration program and what it means to them. I'm glad the gentleman ticked off a bunch of areas. I mean, let's face it. When my kids were growing up, the fact that I could put their shoes on with Velcro was a major advantage than trying to tie their shoes. We have those examples in our life. I'm glad that we're talking about the fact that the Constellation is the future. It is the best science that we have. It is the safest way of going forward. And I'm glad we're talking about the fact that we're not, this entire idea that we're going to privatize our space program which has caught the fancy of some of our colleagues who aren't really perhaps deeply involved in the Science Committee, as the gentleman from Texas is, to realize that's not what we're talking about here. All we're talking about is, once again, government picking winners and losers amongst the private sector to go on with programs that will still be subsidized by the taxpayers. And in some respects, perhaps this is the right approach to do it. If I could take us into one other direction just for a minute as well, and perhaps this comes back to one of my areas of interest, because I'm on the Armed Services Committee. One of the things that this particular administration failed to do when they announced their new program of canceling Constellation for whatever new goal that they want to have in the future is they failed to communicate with other members of the administration and with other policies and programs within government to see what the impact would have in other government areas. And once again, I'm specifically talking about our military defense system. As I said in the very beginning, we forget that the people who build rockets and have the component parts to put a man to the moon are the same people who build the component parts and build rockets that shoot down incoming missiles from other countries. If, indeed, we are going--and once again, as was mentioned earlier, the industrial base that creates these jobs is not something you can turn on and off like a spigot on a water fountain. You can't just decide today we're going to have these scientists; tomorrow we'll fire them and turn it off, and then the next day we'll just open it up and they'll be there again. What we are doing, if we decimate Constellation, is we're decimating the industrial base that builds our Defense Department missiles at the same time. The House authorization bill has intent language that tries to quantify what this is because, to be honest, as we started our hearings this year on authorization bills, both for NASA as well as for the Defense Department, we simply asked the question that if, indeed, Constellation is taken out, what impact will it have on the military. And it was clear that the military had never been broached. They had never talked about this. They had not anticipated it. However, reports going over a year now, going back to Congress simply said that there would be devastating circumstances and harmful consequences if, indeed, Constellation was stopped for the military side. Now, in the language that will be presented in the House authorization bill, it simply says that the best estimate we have right now is the cost of military defense on everything that deals with the missile, any kind of propulsion system, is between a 40 to 100 percent increase in the cost to the defense side of our Nation if, indeed, we stop Constellation and you fire those 30,000 workers who are part of that industrial base. That simply means that anything that needs a solid rocket motor, an ICBM, the Navy missile system, double the cost of what it will take just to replace those motors to replace the work and to keep that system functioning. Any kind of strategic missile that has propulsion as part of it, and I hate to say that, but that's every kind of missile that we have, the cost will increase 40 to 100 percent simply because we are losing the expertise and the industrial base. And, indeed, oftentimes those propulsion concepts have a fixed cost to them, so if, indeed, you have to have propulsion in there, there's a fixed cost. If you have less of that, the military will be picking up what is now being shared as far as the cost with NASA at the same time. Our land-based missile system, our kinetic energy system, even the fact that some of our laser systems in the future will have a negative impact simply because the industrial base that builds those missiles for our military is the same industrial base that builds missiles, the component part, the labor, the propulsion system for NASA for Constellation. You hurt one, we will hurt the other. And that was a factor that was never considered by the administration or NASA when they came up with their quick decision to try and stop Constellation for something else, some nebulous policy in the future. Defense of this country is the role of Congress. It's a legitimate question. This administration should have asked those questions ahead of time before they announced the policy. They should have understood what the costs would be and how they planned to handle that cost. As it was, it kind of snuck up on everybody. And now people are trying to play catchup. And the best way of solving that problem is simply go with the winning program, which is Constellation, and continue on with the goal that is safe and has a clear, concise goal message to it. Don't lose the jobs, don't lose the industrial base, don't increase the costs for our military. And let us move forward in an organized, rational approach rather than this helter-skelter idea that takes place at some particular time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the way the gentleman from Texas has put this. Let's face it: two concepts this administration kept throwing at it: we're going to save money in this and we're going to privatize it, both of those concepts are flat out false. As has been said, this administration expects to spend $6 billion more on NASA than they are right now without doing any kind of manned space flight, $6 billion more for satellites to do climate control and feeding the hungry in the world. And in addition to that, the money that will now go to these new companies, these startup business companies, this is not free enterprise. The Constellation went out on a bid that was won by free enterprise companies. The people building right now are free market sector companies. What this administration wants to do is to take the money away from those who are already building Constellation, scrap the program, and then turn over to any other group to come up with a new plan, a new goal. We don't have a new plan or a new goal, but they're going to give it to new companies. This government is basically saying these private sector companies are now going to be the losers; our friends in this private sector group are now going to be the winners. But as the gentleman from Texas said, this group is not just simply a business free enterprise group. They're already being subsidized by NASA to the point of millions of dollars and have already told NASA they need more. This has nothing to do with free enterprise. This has everything to do with this administration picking winners and losers among the free enterprise and elements. So those who have the contracts now are going to lose them and lose their jobs, and that money is going to transfer over to another group that is also being subsidized by NASA. It's not free enterprise, this bit, and this is not saving the taxpayers money. This is simply mind-boggling that we are now going to simply say we have no plan for space.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentleman from Texas. Let me start, if I could, for just a second about jobs, because we are talking both inside these Halls and outside about jobs. The President and the Vice President are going on, it's called his recovery summer tour in which he's going to talk about the creation of jobs. In the talking points sent out from the White House, they are talking about the 30,000 miles of new transportation, 80,000 new homes that will be weatherized, 800 programs in parks that are being increased, 2,000 drinking water projects, all in the name of creating jobs. The President's also asking Congress for $20 billion in additional stimulus money to protect government jobs, in addition to the $135 billion we did in the original stimulus bill to do that. And for only $2 billion--now think of that, less than a tenth of what the President wants in a new stimulus bill to create and protect jobs; a rounding error in either the TARP or the TARP 2 or Son of TARP or Stimulus I or Stimulus II--this administration could protect 25,000 to 30,000 jobs in the private sector. These are scientists and engineers, and these are the jobs that this administration's policy with NASA are going to let go and give their pink slips. But early on in the Bush administration, it was decided the space shuttle era had ended. After the problems and the catastrophes with Challenger and Columbia, a Presidential commission came through and decided we wanted to come up with a newer, safer way to go to the Moon, space station and beyond; and the result of that was Constellation. Constellation is a program that is designed to be safer than the space shuttle by a factor of 10. It's using solid rocket motors because those are the safest type of vehicles. It separates the cargo from the passengers so, if there is a problem, they can be safer. Time magazine called this the best invention of last year. This is the science that we have to come up with the best way of going into the future, and it's built by a free enterprise company. It consists of the Orion capsule where the passengers would be, as well as the Aries rocket that will power it at the same time. If this White House, if the administration, if NASA gets their way and decides to cancel this greatest invention of the last couple of years, there is no Constellation, there will, as has been said, still be astronauts who need to go up to the space station. As has been said, they will be going up on Russian craft, and in the next year's budget, this administration has already penciled in $75 million per astronaut visit. As has been mentioned by the good gentleman from Texas, Russians have learned the lessons of capitalism, and they realize when they have a monopoly they can play that game. But $75 million per astronaut trip so that we can subsidize the Russian rocket industry. So that, indeed, as we are looking at the future and we're coming up with this, this summer of recovery is not necessarily going to be about American jobs. The summer of recovery is how we will be spending American taxpayers' money to make sure that the Russian technicians are on the line building Russian missiles. Perhaps the Chinese are on the line starting to build new Chinese missiles so that we can keep their jobs and we will rely on Russian technology because we know how effective that has been in the past, Russian technology for our astronaut visits. We sometimes ask the question, where are the jobs? Well, in Russian, you also ask it. In their version of where are the jobs, with this policy of this administration, NASA, jobs aren't going to be here. Jobs are going to be in Russia. Jobs are going to be in China, eventually in India; and even Japan's getting in on the trick. That's where those jobs are going to go. We are firing 30,000 American citizens who have good jobs in science and engineering to build the Constellation program and for what? To lose our leadership in space? To subsidize the Russians and the Chinese industry? To put more Americans out of work in this summer of recovery? It simply does not make sense. I'd like to enter into an interchange with the gentleman. We've got a lot of things to talk about how this interfaces with our military commitment and what this administration is doing that is totally unusual in trying to push this program forward to destroy--we're not losing the space race this time. We're forfeiting the game.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I have only one last insight to give, and I appreciate, once again, the gentleman from Texas taking this time to point out how significant this issue is that, indeed, the Constellation program was the way forward into the future. It was to replace the space shuttle. It went through the science. It is our future. It is being built by the private sector. Yet, we are deciding to cancel it with no other goal in mind. We don't have a plan. We don't have a program. We don't even have a name. We don't have an idea for what the future may bring. There was a study that was done after the last space shuttle catastrophe, and it said there are two things that will destroy manned spaceflight, the mission to manned spaceflight and NASA. Those are, number one, not to consider human safety, as the gentleman has said. Then number two is not to have an organized plan. I just have, in a note of irony, a flyer that went to all of our offices that came from NASA that tomorrow, in the Rayburn foyer, there will be the new era of innovation and discovery, which means that there will be an interactive, all-day event highlighting NASA's robust Earth and space science portion, cutting-edge aeronautics, and continued leadership in human flight. I am so grateful that there will be an interactive game that we in Congress can play about spaceflight, because, if the decisions of NASA and of this administration are allowed, there won't be a real manned spaceflight for us to see. At least we'll have a game so that we will remember what we used to do and what might have been. I yield back.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentleman from Texas again as both he and Mr. Hall were very eloquent in pointing out the problems that we are facing with the cancellation of the Constellation program by NASA. I'd like to take one small detour from here to try and point out once again that the decision by this administration to cancel Constellation, by NASA, was done arbitrarily, capriciously, and actually without foresight of what the implications would be and their unintended consequences on our military side. For what this administration did not realize is that the people--the industrial base that builds the rockets to send a man to the moon--are the same people who build the rockets to shoot down North Korean and Iranian missiles that are coming at us. This industrial base is there with the expertise, and if you fire 20,000 to 30,000 of that base, this is not a spigot you can turn on and off and add them back, if indeed by some miraculous idea you think you need to change direction and start over again. That is what we have found--that the impact on NASA has a unique, specific, and dangerous impact on the defense of this country because if we are having a missile defense system, the fact that we are going to fire 25,000 to 30,000 people in this industrial base means that those people will not be working on our missile defense system. The Defense Authorization Act that passed this House and is now over in the Senate, in the report language it concluded that if indeed Constellation is canceled, the cost to our military for our missile defense program will increase 40 percent to 100 percent, that the increased cost to anything that is propulsion, any of our technical missiles--the HARM missile, the Sidewinder missile, anything that has that propulsion--it will increase the cost for us to build those 40 percent to 100 percent. The Minuteman III cost will double. The Navy's missile program cost will double, and it's at a time when Secretary Gates over at Defense has said that they want the administration to find roughly $100 billion in cuts for next year's budget. Now, did we ever take the time to figure out the implications of this program? Not only are we firing 30,000 of our best and brightest, our scientists and engineers, not only are we ceding space to the Chinese and the Russians and eventually the Indians and the Japanese, no longer are we forfeiting the game, no longer are we no longer taking a part, we are putting our missile defense system at risk at the very same time. This administration has naively lurched into this program without considering the unintended consequences. If I could also say one thing in conclusion before I yield back to the gentleman from Texas. There are three things that NASA has done in trying to push this program of cutting Constellation that violate the obvious intent of Congress. Number one, Congress passed in the omnibus appropriations bill language that said the Constellation would not be cut until Congress approves those cuts. Nonetheless, first of all, they deferred the Constellation contracts, didn't terminate them--it was cute--they just deferred them so the money would not flow. Number two, they then moved the Constellation manager--didn't fire him, they just moved him--to disrupt the program. And number three, and a very novel, unique way--in fact, the spokesman said, well, these are unique circumstances--for the first time ever, ever in the history of NASA, they have said termination costs, the liability of termination costs must come from existing contracts. NASA has never done that when it terminated a program. When Congress told it to terminate a program on solid rocket motors, they always appropriated money for the closing costs. What this means is that the premarket private sector companies that are building Constellation right now have got to, from their current contracts, take money out to terminate, which means they fire their employees and they turn to their subcontractors and they break those contacts so they fire their employees. This is all a concentrated effort on the part of NASA and this administration to destroy this program before Congress has a chance to finalize our work and say whether we want it destroyed or not. I think it's very clear that this Congress has never at any time given the indication to NASA that we think Constellation should stop. But this is a program being done by the administration in violation of clearly the intent of Congress and, as the gentleman said, maybe even under the specifics of the rule of law of Congress, to force us into a fait accompli where Congress does not want to go and this Nation should not go. This is a sad situation, this is sad, this is unprecedented on the part of NASA, and it is not good for the country. I appreciate being able to be a part of this evening tonight because Constellation is very, very important to this country. This is our future. We should not lose that. I yield back to the gentleman from Texas and thank you for allowing me to be a part of this.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlelady from North Carolina yielding me the time. We are here today to talk about a rule that would qualify certain amendments to solve a procedural problem, a mistake that the majority party made here. But why not use this rule as an opportunity to something really more, to help solve and resolve ongoing problems. One could look at the far map that I have of the United States over there. Everything that is in red is land and property owned by the Federal Government. Ronald Reagan looked at that and said, You never see something like that this side of the old Soviet Union. Think about that. One out of every three acres of this country is owned and controlled by the Federal Government. And I hate to say this, but in 2007, OMB did a study and said that, of that, $18 billion worth of that property is excess. It is useless. It is needless. This year, Peter Orszag updated that report and said there are 14,000 buildings that the Federal Government owns that are excess, and 55,000 buildings that are underutilized and not necessary. When I first came here, The Washington Post did an editorial that said, Until the District of Columbia can get hold of all the excess land and buildings owned by the Federal Government and put those to economic use, the economy of Washington, D.C., would never grow. Those of us in the West have been saying that for a long time. In fact, this year, I introduced two land transfer bills. In each bill, both the Forest Service and the BLM as well as the Army Corps of Engineers owned land that they did not use, they did not need, they didn't even know about it. One parcel of land was sold to the Federal Government in the 1940s for $1, and the Forest Service did not know they had that land. The local officials understood that this land is useless, and these buildings are useless, and thus, they are put to some kind of profitable need. The D.C. bureaucrats, though, said their policy is no net loss of land or real estate. In fact, the only way they will give up something is if they get more in return. That is pure insanity. Use this rule to go against the excesses of land and the excess buildings that we have so that we can send a true message to the business community and the money lenders who have money to invest in this economy that we really are serious about the debt by taking all of the excess and using it to pay down the debt, that we are serious about building a business climate here that will encourage people to invest in this company, and do that first by saying, We will retire our excess property and use it to build down and take down this debt.