Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa offering me this opportunity to tell you flat-out that I don't know what they have done or where they are going. I do know that what we have found is for the United States to be effective, we had to be strong and secure and make sure that our self interests could be protected. I just finished a book about the Civil War and about Lincoln as the Commander in Chief and his approach to it. He was much more intellectual about his view of the war than we are. He understood that time and resources are weapons just as much as individuals are or soldiers are in using war. And to be honest, the problem he had with the Union generals through most of the war was they didn't catch the concept of time and resources as an integral part in making decisions. He got it. And he was very much vilified at the time because he insisted on an approach which ultimately said the only way we can win is if we are forceful and strong and insist on this. If Lincoln had simply backed off and said, What we're going to do is we're going to negotiate a peace with the South, there would have been a lot of people that would have said, Yeah, I am tired of the war; let's negotiate a peace with the South. And a lot of people in the North would have said, Yeah, let them go; we don't want to be part of them anyway. But what Lincoln clearly understood from the geography of the situation and the future is that the Civil War would have been the first war between the States, not the only war. It would have been the first of many wars in the States as the North and South then battled over economic issues, transportation in the Ohio Valley, use of the Port of New Orleans, frontier land in the West. He clearly got what the future would be. I think President Reagan, when he decided to stand tough and he was highly criticized for it, got what the future would be. He did not want to see a world where there was nuclear proliferation, but he understood that America had to be tough in order to get to that point. I worry that we have somehow lost those lessons of history, and we don't realize that for the United States to move forward, we have to ensure that we are perfectly capable of defending ourselves. That's why I'm worried. The decision that we made to take the missiles, not implement the missiles in Poland and the radar system in Czechoslovakia, does not make us more secure. The idea of trying to cut our ground-based missile defense does not make us more secure. And where is this overall vision that we are trying to go? Where is this concept that we have to have security first before we can therefore start to negotiate other items around the world? I'm concerned with our enemies, especially Venezuela, who are clearly malevolent in their approach to us, spreading that document throughout the rest of Latin South America. At the same time, the Iranians are very bellicose, to say the least. And North Korea, who knows what you want to do with him. Those are the concerns. Those are concerns. I appreciate the opportunity of speaking with the gentleman from Iowa. I know when we had the chance of going to Germany, he was very forceful in presenting an American approach, and he was willing to ask the tough and difficult questions when the rest of us were trying to be reticent here, not in an obnoxious way, by any means, but in a way of saying somebody's got to play the devil's advocate and say, What does this really mean, and where will we go in the long term? And I appreciate his efforts in that. And I know, if you'll excuse me at this time, that he will also go through that in this period of time that he has on the floor. And, Mr. Speaker, he will do what he always does. He asks the right questions in a way that you can't avoid trying to find a good answer to those questions.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa spending some time talking. We had the opportunity earlier this year of traveling to Germany together to meet with the chancellor, the foreign minister, the economics minister, the interior minister, several of those to talk about it. I recognize that I'm not putting myself here as an expert in this particular area because sometimes it is a matter of perspective. I know at one time when I was over in Germany meeting with our fellow parliamentarians, who are members of the Bundestag, that I was amazed as we started talking about the impact of the Helsinki Accords on the ultimate destruction of the Soviet Union and the falling of the Communist empire. They seemed to have a greater emphasis on the significance of the Helsinki Accords than I have ever heard any political scientist in the United States putting on it. So sometimes there is that perspective that is somewhat different. But in dealing specifically with how we should resolve and go forward, specifically with Russia which is rejuvenated, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. I'm not sure quite how you play with them all, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. The first one to keep in mind is, the Russians have not played nice with their neighbors who used to be part of the empire. So the Ukranians, they clearly cut the oil and gas and threatened the economic security and independence of the Ukrainians at a time when it was not the most convenient, and it created more political instability in the Ukraine, as if that was a part of an overall goal. Shortly after that, there was the invasion of Georgia, another former republic of the USSR that is now an independent nation. Certainly, the consequences of that have yet to be actually played out in the international arena. But what the Russians did cannot be considered as a nice neighborly approach to any type of situation. I would also put into that milieu of understanding some concepts of what is going on internally in Russia. The Russians have traditionally liked having scapegoats for internal problems. One of the problems that the Russians are facing right now is one of demographics. They are losing population. They have a massive amount of land to control without a population that is growing or an economy that is growing to handle that. And one of the elements that historically has happened within the Russian mind-set is to try to find some scapegoat for that particular approach. I think we have got to keep that in the back of our minds as we are dealing with how we actually move forward in relation to the Russians and everywhere else. It is, indeed, correct, as the gentleman from Iowa said, that if the Russians had been helping us to pressure the Iranians in a nonviolent embargo approach, that we would be further along in that effort to try to pressure the Iranians to use only a peaceful nuclear program, rather than what we, I think justifiably, suspect for all kinds of concepts that would be going there. We would not have Mr. Morgenthau from New York City, who can never be considered a right-wing radical Republican, talking in newspaper and magazine articles about the interconnect between Iran and Venezuela and how some of the money that was supposed to be stopped in the embargo has been able to be laundered through Venezuela and the connection between this. Eight times Chavez has visited Iran. Iran is now putting money into Chavez' efforts. So I see the future of the problem when we look at the Iranians on the east, Venezuela on the south of our country, the North Koreans on our west coast and realize that we are living in some very perilous times. I happened to be in Germany when Ronald Reagan was talking about putting the missiles in Germany. It was heavily contested at the time. The Soviet Union was violently opposed to it, and there were a lot of pacifists within Europe who said that putting missiles in there was the worst thing we could possibly do; it will escalate the conflicts; it will escalate the violence. And what we found out in looking at history is it did just the opposite. It worked in actually bringing about a longer term peace as well as, ultimately, the end of a reign of terror of communism and allowed people who had never been free to finally become free. That is why I am so worried about our decision, after our Polish and Czech allies went out on a limb politically to allow us to have some kind of missile defense system that would protect Europe and the eastern coast of the United States before the Iranians could develop anything offensively, to stop that prior to that, saying that we will now come up with a program that won't work until 5 years after the Iranians would probably be effective. I worry about what the result is, and I worry that we, as a country, have not learned the lessons from history, from the past, because we seem to be making what I consider to be mistakes as we deal with these rogue nations. And mistakes as we deal with our allies in Europe, insulting them, putting them in difficult positions, and then yanking the rug out from under them, as well as putting ourselves at some kind of military disadvantage as to the defense of this country against other countries that significantly are malevolent in their attitudes towards the United States, it's a very cumbersome and difficult situation as we look at how that chess game is being played. I think the demographics of what is taking place in Russia should not be overlooked. They have decisions that have to be made, and they don't have a lot of very good choices before them right now. They will be looking for choices which kind of deflect the inability of their interior policy that is not working.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Well, we were talking about cutting back on all of these missile defense programs, not in Europe, but also with our ground-based kinetic energy to save $1.8 billion. If we look at what we have been throwing around for stimulus money, for other types of programs, even Cash for Clunkers, it kind of is very small in relationship to the impact it is having on research and development. What does it actually cost to try to defend this country? I appreciate the historical context some of you have been putting into it. The fact that the decision in Europe was announced 70 years to the day, let's face it, if you want to go to some other irony, the time that Secretary Gates was saying that he was going to stop the production of more than 30 ground-based missiles in the KEI was the exact same day the North Koreans were shooting a missile that was threatening Japan going over it. He was holding a press conference, reassuring the State of Hawaii that we had enough missile defense system to protect everybody on the date of their second shot. I think one of the things we need to do in America is quit holding press conferences about our missile defense and making decisions, because something bad always happens on those particular days. But it is undisputable, the fact that every program that is started has glitches in them that have to be worked out. That's why you want an experienced work base to try to be there who have gone through that program, who have worked through it, who know what works and know what doesn't work so you don't have to keep reinventing the wheel. As you said, even if we were going to save $1.8 billion by not doing this, if at some point we realize along the line that 30 missiles is not enough to defend this entire country, it is going to cost significantly more than that to rebuild it. We, for example, on the ICBM rocket motor program wanted to keep a warm line in the industrial base so that we could churn out a minimum number of missile motors so that we could refurbish those ICBMs that we are going to keep. Well, we didn't put enough money in the budget to do that. What it meant was that there were people who were laid off because the private sector could not keep that warm line functioning. Even though the military knew they insisted they were going to have to have a warm line, what it meant in the long term was instead of putting about $10 million or $20 million in the line, they are going to have to put four times that much money to start the warm line project again. What I am trying to say is here--and we are throwing around a lot of numbers, let me try to make this easier--it is cheaper for us in the long run to keep an industrial base of experts so that we can maintain what we have and try to find the research and development to improve what we have. If we start and stop, it is expensive to restart, to reboot that program. It does not save us money in the long run. It does not give us better defense in the long run. It does not help with research, and it doesn't help people who lose their jobs, gain their jobs and lose their jobs and uproot their families when we don't benefit from it in the long run. I appreciate you bringing that particular issue up.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

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

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. In its current form.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think a couple of the speakers have given what is one of the crux problems, not of this, the Santa Cruz Heritage Area, but of the overall issue itself. The gentleman from Arizona, who does a good job in representing his constituents, did say there are 49 heritage areas that have been heritage areas for the last 25 years, and therein is the problem. When Mo Udall was chairman of that committee and Bruce Vento was the subcommittee chairman, that is the first time this concept of a heritage area was introduced. The concept was going to be that this was start-up money, and then the heritage areas would be on their own. Bruce Vento did say, 10 years and we are out of there. This was never supposed to be a 25-year program for any of these areas. The problem is that when the 10 years are up, we keep extending the time limit on these areas and we keep extending the life and giving more and more money to these areas. In fact, it has become such a part that there is a cottage industry that has developed going out to areas to train them on how they can become and stay a heritage area to get more and more funding. It violates the very concept of why heritage areas were there in the first place. This year alone we have added nine new heritage areas. This bill itself has $15 million, which is a 50 percent increase on what the majority of heritage areas do receive. The problem is very simple: This heritage area is to try to expand its tourism and other elements, and other areas pay for it. So if you are in tourist area A, you are now being taxed and your money will go to promote tourism in area B. And if that was simply a start-up fund, simply to get them started, none of us really have objections to that. But it isn't. It is becoming perpetual as we extend and extend and spend and spend more and more on these elements. This particular heritage area in front of us covers 3,300 square miles, private and public land. When Republicans were in charge of this committee, as a standard we always included language in heritage area legislation that gave property owners the ability to opt out of boundaries. It was a compromise. It was weak, but at least it was there. What we are trying to say in that is that people should have a voice in what is done to them. People should be given choices and options. And we should not refrain from doing that. We should not have the government setting what the standard is, what the boundary is, what the requirement is. And there are instances when outside groups have tried to pressure local zoning entities because of these boundaries. It is not right that people should be locked inside a boundary, oftentimes with little prior knowledge of what is actually happening, because boundaries do have consequences. Otherwise, why have these boundaries? If these heritage areas are so innocuous, there is no reason to lock an owner in. Give them the opportunity for full information so they can make decisions and, again, give them the choices of what they wish to do. That is how we should be treating individuals and property owners. This area is one that is heavily traveled with narcotic trafficking, human trafficking, and now I appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Arizona and the Rules Committee in a self-executing rule did give some modicum of protection on these areas. As late as last July we attempted in committee to try and put language similar to this to give some protection in these areas. Rejected--not on a partisan vote, because several of the opposition side actually did vote with us, but nonetheless rejected in committee. I am proud of Representative Grijalva for now including this language in this bill, but it could be better, and that is the issue before us. Less than a week ago, the GAO revealed that secure border initiatives are behind schedule, are years behind schedule, because of environmental delays. That simply means there are people out there within the National Park Service that blame the Border Patrol for environmental damage. The Park Service's own admission is that it takes 6 months to complete documents necessary to place critical border protection technologies, like observation towers. There was one tower stopped on the border areas until they could prove in some kind of scientific study that the Sonoran pronghorn deer would leave that area of their own volition and would not be scared by these towers. I am sorry, that is ridiculous, but that is the reality of why we are here and the reality of what is happening. So there are some concerns with this area. The majority did put language in there to try and protect border security and the border areas, and I am thankful for that and I applaud you for doing that, but you could have taken a big step further. In this bill you did put some language in there to try and protect personal property, but you could have gone further just simply to say people should have the choice and the option of what they are doing. And once again we have a problem of heritage areas, supposed to be temporary, supposed to be start-up, staying year after year after year, getting fund after fund after fund of public money from point A to fund the exact thing that is happening in point B in competition with point A. We have to rethink this thing, which is indeed what the Park Service asked us to do several years ago, to not produce anymore of these heritage areas until we come up with a comprehensive plan of how we are going to function with these heritage areas. With that, Mr. Speaker, once again, the Republic will not falter if this bill passes, but it could have been much, much better, and it could have done much more to protect not only our border security but also the rights of individuals than what we are doing here. There are some good steps forward, I admit, but we have a long, long way to go. Once again, we still have the problem of what to do with heritage areas that are supposed to be temporary and simply will not go away. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from Arizona if he has any more speakers?

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity. As I said, this bill could definitely be improved, and we are presenting some amendments in here that take the bill and make it a much better, stronger, significant bill. I said in the original remarks that of course we have problems with heritage areas that simply will not go away. Even though they were supposed to be around for only 10 years, they keep living and living and consuming more and more funds. Having said that, I could still be supportive of this amendment if there were some specific guarantees placed in there for those specific issues that we have addressed in the past that actually could be a way we can move forward with other bills of a similar ilk. Specifically in there, it deals with the idea of property rights. The gentleman from Arizona did sponsor legislation that dealt with the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area. This was an area created in the year 2000 and, according to the Arizona Farm Bureau, was much larger than local farmers were expecting. Further exacerbating the problem, local zoning bureaucrats began to use the heritage area boundaries in planning. The problem is, once established, those entities had no recourse as private property owners to exempt themselves unless you came to Congress and had Congress adjust the boundaries. The gentleman from Arizona did that. We passed a law that shrunk the size of those areas down. That is a cumbersome and silly process to go through when all we need to do is give people the opportunity of being informed and make decisions for themselves so they can remove themselves when they wish to. That is what this amendment does. It asks the properties owners, before being included, to give their consent to be included in this new entity. Now some will say, well, that's burdensome and difficult. It's hard to find all the property owners in an area. Yet when tax time comes, the government entities have an easy time finding all the property owners in an area. We could do the same thing, because the matter is not how efficient it is or how easy it is. The matter should be that private property rights are not a burden to government, and they should be respected in every way that is possible, especially in these areas where the National Park Service, who will be administering this, does not have a celebrated history of respecting private property rights and finding unique ways of having willing sellers. This language that we are proposing should become the standard template for all legislation that deals with heritage areas and how we handle private property rights within those. This bill draws boundaries on a map. It covers and surrounds private property owners and then gives them no real recourse to remove themselves from those boundaries. Even if it says they don't have to participate, that is not the same thing, and it does have consequences. When it comes to border security, this bill is a perfect effort for us to move forward in some specific way. Now, as I said, I commend the gentleman for actually adding some language that we have been trying to add to these types of bills in committee. But the language here is not necessarily enough. The sad situation that we find--not because of this bill, nor will it be solved because of this bill unless we add this particular language--is that the Border Patrol finds itself in a position of subservience to the National Park Service. I don't think Americans really know that when a Border Patrol agent crosses into a national park, he has to get out of his car, park it and walk. I don't think they realize that the Border Patrol has to consult with the National Park Service before they can put up an antenna on that border. Their amendment gets some language in there to try to not impede or prohibit. But what we also put in this amendment is language that says that nothing will happen that will hinder or restrict our homeland security on border areas. This is a perfect opportunity to do so. It is there. This amendment, for the first time, says that when those land use plans--and the bulk of the border in which the drug traffic and human traffic is coming are on public lands--it says that Homeland Security must be consulted in coming up with the land use plans. So they are an equal partner because this is significant. Right now they are not. This amendment is going to move us forward so that Homeland Security will not be impeded in their element. They will not have to wait to put up surveillance to see if a particular sheep will, on its own volition, move or not move. That is ridiculous, but that is what we are trying to do with this amendment. Once again, this amendment takes the bill and improves it, which is why I'm proud of this amendment. This amendment clearly states what property rights are and which property owners may be in a heritage area which, as we have noted, does not go away in 10 years but tends to last on and on and on. This amendment clearly gives Homeland Security, for the first time, a right to be an equal player in the decision of how to handle these lands, and this also gives us the right to make sure that nothing hinders or restricts what we do on the border. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 722, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Well, this, unfortunately, was in my committee as well in which amendments were made to try to put a limitation on the abortion funding, as you can see the language that is up there. And once again, that was defeated. What it tells us is that what is in the bill is not necessarily the same thing as what will happen 5 and 10 and 20 years down the road, because oftentimes what we're doing is not necessarily starting a program now but we are opening up the door. I'm mixing metaphors here. You're opening up a door that's going to take us down a path, and the question is where will that path end. Not today but where will it end in the future? And that's why sometimes people can have a difference of opinion, on not necessarily what is in the bill but what this bill provides the opportunity to do in the future. That is not in the status quo. We have, in this bill, many kinds of provisions in there that may not necessarily start a program now, but it gives the opportunity. We may have a program that right now is voluntary and it's established, but it easily could become fully funded and then mandatory.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I could just add one philosophical problem, and once again this is one of the reasons why I think this debate is becoming so partisan and bitter, is because it is philosophical. That has happened repeatedly in the history of this country. Progressive era, great growth in the size of government. In the twenties, there was retrenchment on the side of individuals. New Deal: Government. Eisenhower, Kennedy: Individuals. Great society: Big Government. Reagan: Individuals. We are now in that time where this administration wants to move us to again grow the size of government. It is a philosophical debate more than just taking the original chart you had and moving this agency here and trying to do kind of those practical things that lend themselves to bipartisanship. It is a structure on whether we try to help people make choices for themselves or have government come up with a government plan, government standard that comes in here. This is once again where I believe the Founding Fathers, who had the idea of federalism, play a significant role. My State has a plan recently instituted for those who are truly uninsurable, but it is dedicated and devoted to the demographics of my State. Once we do what you are talking about of giving people options so they can form their own pools, buy across State lines, buy their own products pretax, you will shrink the number down so it can be affordable. The advantage of federalism is simply this: you can have greater creativity and greater justice applying to circumstances. And more importantly if a State fails, a program fails, you don't screw up the entire Nation, which will happen. That is what we need to do if we really are going to find better solutions. So I appreciate that, and I appreciate once again bringing to the floor that the idea presented by the Speaker and the President is not the only idea out there. There are other ideas and other options that have a different purpose, and that purpose is to empower and ennoble the individual.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I just wanted to give a simple illustration of what the gentleman is talking about in today's medical market. If you still want to get a nose job, plastic surgery, the cost is decreasing every year. Because there is no middleman and no insurance, you go and negotiate with the doctor. Lasik surgery does the same thing. That is why I would like the gentleman to talk about what could happen. There is a large pool of people who have a difficult time getting insurance. They are the so-called uninsurable. But what would happen to that pool of individuals out there who can't get insurance right now if, indeed, you allowed them to buy insurance with pretax dollars, not post-tax dollars, you allowed them to go across State lines to look for insurance, and you allowed them pooling opportunities to do that. What would happen to that pool of uninsurables which might then be able to be handled by 50 different States with coming up with programs to meet the demographics of those States. And once again we try to do this thing of simply empowering people to meet their own needs and solve their own problems. What would be the result of that?

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. He has one. Mr. Gohmert has a bill. And all of them are based on a different premise, and the premise is that what government should be doing is not telling people what they do and telling people what their choices may be but to try to open up the system so that people have options so that they can choose what they wish. And I think that's one of the things that is a fundamental difference in what we are talking about. And if we really want a bipartisan bill, those bills must be brought to the floor and allowed to be debated and voted on so we have a discussion on the philosophy of how we're going to solve this problem and if we truly desire to empower people or truly desire to empower the government. I yield back.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I could make just one more statement to the gentleman from Missouri because I know we are joined here by one of the most creative thinkers I think we have here on the floor, the gentleman from Arizona. And I think if I could add a segue here in some particular way, I agree with you. This presents all the warning clouds out there if we insist that the only solution is a government- controlled, government-mandated solution. And what I think I would like to do in the few moments that I have is to make it very clear that this is not the only plan that is out there. There are other bills. The gentleman from Arizona has a bill. The gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) has a bill. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price) has a bill. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) has a bill.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Missouri for yielding. Actually, if you would maybe get that next one, the chart you have on the back there about abortion, because I think it relates to the same issue. We oftentimes have a great deal of debate and discussion over what is or what is not in the bill. That's probably because there is not one bill. There are several bills floating out. What is in some places are there and what is not in some places are there. But I think one of the things to remember, because this is basically the same issue, the language the gentleman from Missouri just gave on Medicare and what it does as far as the practicing of medicine is something that was supposed to be in the Medicare bill when that was first produced 40 years ago. It doesn't quite work that way because when you start down a road, you often find out you end up in a different situation than when you started down that path. When I was still teaching school, I often showed my students about the construction of the Berlin Wall. I was so amazed at the Berlin Wall as to, in fact, why the United States did nothing to stop the construction of the Berlin Wall. They had a great interview of Dean Rusk, who was Secretary of State at that time, who said that if you know at the end of the day you're not going to go down that path, you don't take the first step down that path. Many of the issues like the issue of will this actually fund abortion or not, will this actually deal with illegal immigrants or not----

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I am ready to use my final minute if I might, Mr. Speaker. I don't want to be cantankerous about this. We are talking about a decent bill from a decent program with a decent sponsor, but we are not in the system of sending out messages. We are a legislative body that is supposed to review and that is supposed to budget, and in that way, we should not be abrogating our responsibilities over to the appropriators. It's an authorizing concept. It's what authorizers ought to do. It's what we should be doing. NEPA is renewed. Endangered Species is renewed, as is the Clean Water Act. In fact, the only thing we have not renewed--and it's on a permanent basis--is the Nautical Charting Act that was started in the 1700s by Thomas Jefferson. So what we are talking about is doing what is the norm and doing what is rational and doing this bill the right way and actually--I hate to say this--but once again, to try and not limit what we are doing as a body. Health care is what we should be talking about. The bill that Pelosi has put on the floor is not the only idea. There are better bills out there that think outside of the box, but unless we put the Price bill, the Shadegg bill, the Ryan bill, and the Gohmert bill on the floor to be discussed and debated, we will not have all of the options open to us. That is also why I am arguing that we should have a permanent review, a review every 5 years, of this program. It is what Congress does, and we should do it and do it the right way. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity of presenting this particular amendment, not because we have any antipathy towards the Chesapeake Bay or the recreational purposes that may be there, and I appreciate the fact that you enjoyed the first speech, but because it's about time we do it right way. Surely we can bully through this any way we want to, but we need to do it the right way, the way it was done the first time and the second time and the way it should be done this particular time. When this bill last year came out of the Resources Committee, it was compiled with six other bills, all of which had 5-year reauthorizations. Some of the bills that Resources has sent out here have not had those type of reauthorizations. However, they had another factor which put a cap on the kind of appropriations that could be there, and that's why a 5-year reauthorization process is the perfect kind of compromise. It's a position between the National Park Service which last year said there should be technical assistance, but was opposed to any kind of grant process going through this because they said this program had matured to the point it no longer needed to be supported by the Federal Government, or the sponsor's approach, which simply says, take off limit and continue on with what has been now close to $9 million of earmarks for this program. It's not a problem. The appropriations is not a problem. What is the problem is we are now giving up our rights to review these types of programs, which is not what an authorizing committee ought to do. There is, in past experience, not here but in past experience, where sites that no longer have to be renewed by Congress do become lethargic and no longer have that desire for innovation to produce results. That's not necessarily to say it will happen here, but that has been the process that we have learned through history. The purpose of an authorizing committee is to authorize and then review those authorizations, which is why it has been tradition for committees to put in an authorization period for those particular reviews. And it is not wise for Congress to abrogate our congressional responsibility for those purposes. What we're talking about is simply saying, look, what we need, as a Congress, are the options to review this in the future and not take the options off the table. That's the one thing all Americans are talking about more than anything else is the idea of options. Like my family just gave me an Ipod. And I don't know how to download stuff, but they can put music on there. When I was growing up, if I wanted a song and, Mr. Speaker, you're probably in the same situation I was, I had to buy the entire record to get the song. I don't need to do that. I now have more options. If I want to go and buy cereal, I look at an entire store and there is an entire wall of potential cereals up there which I can buy. I am given options. If I want to order vanilla ice cream, I can still go to a store that offers me 31 flavors. There are 59 different kinds of Eggo waffles. Our entire life is provided by options. And yet, as a Congress, we decide and seem to have this tendency to take options off the table so we don't have them for the future. That, to me, is just a mind-boggling approach to it. It's the same thing that we're talking about in health care, which is the topic on the minds of the American people which we should be talking about today on this floor, rather than reauthorizing a bill we all like and support. But in that, the issue once again, is options for the American people. There are myriad types of proposals being put out there by some of my Republican colleagues, all which deal with the concept of giving options to the American people: options to buy their own health care, options to get HSAs, options to have new association pools, option in which they can buy across lines, options in which we can have tort reform. All those things should be on the table, and that's what we should be doing. In like manner to this particular bill, we are, once again, limiting our options, which is the exact opposite thing government should be doing. Now, that's what's important, and that's where we should be going. Like I said, a year ago we had this particular bill, this particular amendment again, which would have made it better and probably then had helped the Senate to actually include it in their list of bills to be passed. If we do this particular amendment, to do what we have traditionally done with other bills, what we are doing is simply providing Congress with the options Congress should accept, and make sure that we are always reviewing the programs we have to see what they are doing, and a 5-year period is the norm. It is traditional. This simply would say we're going to do this bill and we're going to do it the right way, do it totally the right way, so once again it might be passed unanimously, as it was the first time when they had a review in there and the second time when they had a review in there, and was not passed the third time when they decided not to put a review in this particular piece of legislation. We've got options. We should be doing it. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, this will be a debate on a bill of complete congeniality, because I don't think any of us are really opposed to a lot of what is attempted in this underlying bill. I certainly am not, Mr. Speaker, one who likes to say ``I told you so,'' but I told you so. You see, it was said in the history of this particular bill, the first time it was passed it was passed with a 5- year reauthorization and it passed unanimously in both houses. The second time it was reauthorized 5 years and it passed unanimously in both houses. Last year you decided to take the reauthorization away, not impose the 5-year limit, and we said on the floor if you actually put that back in there it would have a significant enhancement of its ability to pass the Senate, and you didn't do it. It didn't pass the Senate, so we are back here a year later doing the same thing again. So I don't want to say I told you so, but to quote that great philosopher Yogi Berra, this is like deja vu all over again. For, indeed, a year ago, last year, instead of talking about energy issues, which were primarily on the minds of the American people, we brought up this particular bill and apparently did the same thing we are doing this year when health care is primarily on the minds of most people. This is a particular bill which, in fact, is the only bill we are going to debate this week under a rule. I appreciate the majority leader being here and his statements on this particular bill. I don't know if I appreciate flying back for 4 hours just to do this bill this week. But, nonetheless, it is still the only one we are going to have here, even though there are significant issues we should be discussing, that the American people want us to discuss. The majority leader was slightly in error in what he said though. Everything he said about the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay was accurate. But this is not a cleanup bill. This is not an environmental protection bill. This is not an EPA bill. This is a recreation bill. I don't oppose that, but it is clear this is a recreation bill. And the National Park Service has made several suggestions, because once again there are no Federal waters or Federal assets associated in this particular area, the National Park Service did say that we should give technical assistance to this area, but they did not recommend fully funding on a nonrenewable basis other types of grant programs to this particular area. Indeed, the Obama budget does not have money in it for this particular bill. So one of the things we need to talk about is if we are going to abrogate our oversight responsibilities, and if we decide not to abrogate our oversight responsibilities and treat this bill as other bills from the Resource Committee have been treated, we will probably have a better chance of actually passing the bill this year in both Houses of Congress and not coming back for a third try next time around.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 3293, Labor, Health and Education Appropriations Bill of 2010. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3293 Account: Elementary & Secondary Education (includes FIE) Legal name and address of requesting entity: Ogden City School District, located at 1950 Monroe Blvd., Ogden, UT 84401 Description of project: $250,000 for a teacher training initiative, including purchasing of equipment. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3293 Account: Higher Education (includes FIPSE) Legal name and address of requesting entity: Western Governors University located at 4001 South 700 East, Suite 700, SLC, UT 84107 Description of project: $100,000 for curriculum development. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3293 Account: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Health Legal name and address of requesting entity: McKay-Dee Hospital Center located at 4401 Harrison Blvd., Ogden, UT 84403 Description of project: $150,000 for facilities and equipment. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3293 Account: Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Health Legal name and address of requesting entity: Weber State University located at 4018 University Circle, Ogden, UT 84408 Description of project: $350,000 for expansion of nursing programs, including purchase of equipment.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, we all know that to maintain air superiority, which we have had since the Korean War, requires two elements: one is the technological ability, which we know the F-22 provides, but the other is the numerical superiority that we have to have, which is why, when this program was originally started, it was supposed to be 750 planes. Even as late as last year, the military was telling us 381 maintains the status quo and 243 is the absolute minimum, a number still maintained by Air Combat Command, by the Air National Guard, by 30 of the military studies over the last 15 years. Even the Chief of Staff admitted the 243 is what they needed. The only person that said 187 is the Secretary of Defense. There is no study to verify that number. That number is a political number, not a military number. As we go into the future where the Russians are building a new generation fighter with 200 to 300 extra planes to sell to countries like Iran and Venezuela, when we then couple that by cutting 250 legacy planes already in the Air Force and stopping the F-22 and having an F- 35 which will not be available under the best of circumstances until 2014, maybe even 2016 as we are talking about it, what we are doing is putting ourselves in danger 10 and 15 years out of being on the wrong side of history. We cannot do that. This amendment mirrors what the House voted on the Defense authorization bill by putting back procurement money for 12 F-22s and adding $100 million for military personnel to help the anticipated shortfall in the upgrade in what we are doing in Afghanistan. This is the right thing to do. This is what the military needs. We should not simply make a political decision, because I hate to say this in this crass of a way, but when we can authorize $5 billion for groups like ACORN but $2 billion to keep 18,000 jobs going and provide planes for another year that this country needs, we have something to do to look at our priorities. The $2 billion is for the defense of this country into the future. The military needs this plane.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the difficulty we're in; but once again, to have air superiority requires two things: technical superiority, which the F-22 provides, as well as numerical superiority, which was why originally we were going to build 750. Up until last year, 381 was the minimum. Everyone from Air Combat Command, to Air National Guard, to every study says 243 is the number. There is no data that says 187 is the correct number, other than the Secretary. If the Russians are going to build a new generation and sell 200 to 300 at the same time we cut 250 legacy planes from our Air Force, at the same time we stop the F-22, at the same time the F-35 is not going to be available until 2014 at the earliest and still has problems, we may find ourselves on the wrong side of history if we do not stand up for the F-22. If we can spend $5 billion on ACORN but complain about $2 billion for 18,000 jobs to continue on a plane that we need, there is something in our prioritization that needs to be reviewed. I appreciate the position of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, but here is the time we need to make a statement that the future is essential.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I believe it's so. But I will tell the gentleman from Missouri that at least when they are interfering with your doctor, they will do it in a linguistically appropriate way.