Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. That gives me confidence.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. This is one of the few times I am here without charts, and I feel totally naked on the floor. I apologize for that. But I also appreciate the chart that was here and any effort that you can get to maybe publicize that because it speaks to the problem that we have if, indeed, this kind of expansion of the government takes place. That chart is the reason why the Federal code of our laws cover 35 volumes, one-sixth of which is about the Federal regulations and bureaucracy, but the Federal regulations is a 200-volume document, and why it has grown from John F. Kennedy's time of 15,000 words to 77,000 words; why Kennedy was able to appoint within 2 months about 300 officials that ran the bureaucracy. For George W. Bush, it took him almost a year because he had to do 3,300 officials appointed, having been subjected to advice and consent from the Senate. We are expanding this thing enormously. And in this particular project, because my committee, unfortunately, spent 20 hours going through the organizational part, most of the questions that our side had of how this plan worked was, we will have to work that out. Somehow, the new commissioner will solve that problem. Let me just give you one example, and you can play with this one. In this plan is supposedly a position of a new national ombudsman whose job is to meet with individuals to help them work through their health options. However, the law says that this ombudsman must speak in a linguistically appropriate manner. Now, my problem was, what is a linguistically appropriate manner? It's not defined anywhere in the pages that are in that bill. It's someone's poetic idea of being politically correct. But when you don't have definitions, it opens us up to lawsuits galore. And, once again if we, as Congress, don't take the time and the ability to solve these problems and answer these questions, some bureaucrat, in this case the commissioner, is going to be able to make more and more regulations. And that's why the bureaucracy is sometimes called the unelected faceless people in Washington because there is no interface between people and the bureaucracy.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. The Obama administration and Secretary Gates have gone to great lengths to say that they want to stop the production of the F-22 for the Air Force. I have made a mistake. I have to admit, I have been reading some of the blogs on the comment board, and I am amazed at some of the shallow analysis of this particular decision. So since tomorrow we are going to be debating and discussing the Defense appropriations bill, I would like to take just a few moments today and simply talk about this issue, the F-22 and the Air Force, along four areas. One is the military necessity for this plane; two and three are the ways we keep our air superiority, both by technology and the number of planes we have; and then finally, the priorities and what it says about this particular Nation. Two years ago the military was unanimous when they came before our committees and said that we need 381 F-22s and that 250 put us at a moderate risk. Now today Secretary Gates will tell us we only need 187, not the 381 planes. One has to ask, what has changed? Has the threat this Nation faces changed? Or is it simply the political climate that may have changed? In the last 15 years, there have been 30 independent separate studies, all of which say the same thing: 243 is the minimum number of F-22s we need; and at that, our air superiority faces a moderate risk. Air Combat Command General Corley has written a letter saying he needs at least 243 planes, F-22s, and that his command was not consulted when the decision to cap at 187 was actually made. The Air National Guard General Wyatt has also written a letter to our colleagues in the Senate, saying he needs at least 243 to 250 F-22s. General Schwartz, Chief of the Air Force, has already publicly stated that 243 is the minimum we need; and when asked in front of our committee, Is 187, that particular number, a military decision of what we need or is it the political decision of what we can afford?, he simply said, It is what we think we can afford. The bottom line is that nowhere has there been any study conducted to say that 187 is the correct number. In fact, that number has been contradicted. General Corley of Air Combat Command clearly said that with 187, the Air Combat Command could not fulfill its air force function. Is this a military decision? Does the military still want the F-22? And the answer is clearly, yes. Secretary Gates does not want the F-22. The 187 F-22s is a political, not a military, number; and the House, who has already voted to maintain the higher number should not back off in relationship to what the Senate has particularly done. Let me go also to this concept of air superiority. The United States has had air superiority since the Korean War, and there are two aspects of that: technology as well as the numbers that we have. I hate to say this, but before I came to Congress, there were air games that the United States engaged in with the Air Force of India. We used F-15s. We didn't use everything at our disposal; but the only reason we won those air games is because of the ability of our pilots, not because we have the technology to do it. The technology level of the United States, as good as the 15 and the 16 airplanes are--which are 30 years old--is that we still have the same technology advantage as a third-world Air Force. The F-22 moves us forward in that technology debate. However, just having the technology doesn't work if you don't have the numbers. The Russians are already building their fifth generation, and they are scheduled to build about 600 of their next-generation fighters. They will only keep about 350 for themselves. You have to ask the logical question, What will they do with the others? They will sell them. And where will they go? The bidders right now are countries like Venezuela and Iran, countries that are not necessarily friends of ours, but countries that could become a problem with this new generation of fighter that they buy from the Russians. We have been told that the F-35 is enough for what we need. However, the F-35 is not a replacement for the F-22. And the problem is, we won't even get an F-35 under the best of circumstances before the year 2014, and there is some indication that it may be the year 2016 before that takes place. We are in a situation where this administration clearly puts $5 billion in programs like ACORN but doesn't want to put $2 billion to continue the production of the F-22, vital to the defense of this particular country. Is this plane expensive? Yes. Is this plane militarily required? Yes. Is it useless? No. Is it a Cold War element? Well, actually, almost everything we have is a Cold War element. We just simply try to improve them as time goes on. What we are dealing with now, Mr. Speaker, is simply the concept that we are dealing with what we need in the next 15 to 20 years. And in that particular situation, the F-22 is what we need for the future defense of this country.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Florida for yielding me time and also the entire committee. Putting this particular budget together is not an easy task, and I'm very proud of most of the things that are in this particular budget. I, too, though, have a couple of concerns, as was originally indicated by the ranking member as well as the ranking member of the full committee, that deal with air superiority. I'm just an old history teacher, but I realize in the 1930s this country decided to save money by cutting back on the P-35 construction. When World War II began, our bombers taking bomber runs were suffering casualty rates well over 20 percent. It was to the point we actually suspended some of those runs until we could go into an emergency production to build enough fighters to accommodate the bombers that we had. The bottom line is we were unprepared for a future we had not anticipated. We don't have the luxury anymore to be in that type of a situation, which is why the air superiority which we've had since the Korean War is such an essential element of our defense structure and our defense posture. And there are two elements that are essential for our air superiority. One is technical advancement. The other is production. The numbers that we have is as important as the technology. We cannot afford to find ourselves on the wrong side of history again. The world moves much too rapidly for that. I have a great deal of gratitude for the long hours that were put in for this budget, and with a couple of exceptions in there where I have great concerns, I applaud the efforts and would like us to look seriously at that particular element of air superiority one more time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, last week the President accused doctors of performing unneeded treatment just for money. I received a call today from Dr. Mobley. He is the ear, nose and throat residency director at the University of Utah who oversees the training of doctors, and he was disappointed at the President's remarks. He appropriately thought the President should apologize for two reasons: Number one, his baseless accusations against the profession; but also the second reason is because of the underlying message of the statement. And I don't know why the President decided to become involved in kids' tonsils; but for some reason, he thought it was within his jurisdiction. His statement implies a time will come when the government bureaucracy will deem it in their realm of power to decide what a doctor and a patient may or may not do. A government big enough to provide for our basic needs has historically found themselves increasingly comfortable in regulating other behaviors regulated to that health care need. In other countries they've told one how to exercise, how and when to eat, to sleep, what kinds of cars to buy. What we need is a system that allows the patient and the doctor to make decisions, not a Washington bureaucrat.

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 eight earmarks I received as part of H.R 3326, the Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. I certify that neither I, nor my spouse, have any financial interest in these requests, and certify that, to the best of my knowledge, these requests are (1) not directed to an entity or program named or that will be named after a sitting Member of Congress; (2) are not intended for a ``front'' or ``pass-through'' entity; and (3) meet or exceed statutory requirements for matching funds (where applicable). Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01) Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Project: Small Responsive Spacecraft at Low-Cost (SRSL) Project Amount: $3 million Account: RDT&E, Air Force Requesting Entity: Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory Address: 1695 North Research Park Way, North Logan, UT 84341. - Project Description and Justification: Funding would continue previous years' efforts in conjunction with Air Force Research Labs to develop and demonstrate technologies for new, low-cost space systems that have military utility. Current space-based reconnaissance assets are cost-prohibitive and too massive to be used in a quick-reaction tactical environment. This effort could lead to providing local field commanders a dedicated space asset for tactical actionable intelligence applications in a highly modular and customizable design to meet military needs under the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) construct. Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01) Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Project: Optimizing Natural Language Processing of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) Project Amount: $1.5 million Account: RDT&E, Army Requesting Entity: Attensity, Inc. Address: 90 South 400 West, Suite 600, Salt Lake City, UT 84101. - Project Description and Justification: Military intelligence collection methods must adapt to the highly-evolving and dynamic IT based sources. Project would fund an ``all-source'' fusion tool for collecting data from open sources such as the web, blog, social networking sites, and RRS feeds, in cooperative effort with the State University of New York at Buffalo to provide more effective intelligence analysis and decision-making tools for the Army in asymmetric warfare situations. Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01) Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Project: Laser Phalanx Project Amount: $1.5 million Account: RDT&D, Navy Requesting Entity: Colmek Systems Engineering, Address: 2001 South 3480 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84104. Project Description and Justification: Phalanx is a combat-proven ship defense system that is effective against a variety of threats. Spiral development and integration of a laser into existing Phalanx system will significantly increase its defensive capabilities. Funding would enable new technology integration to fill emerging gaps, while also reducing acquisition and ownership costs. Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01) Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Project: Internal Auxillary Fuel Tank System Project Amount: $5 million Account: Aircraft Procurement, Army Requesting Entity: Robertson Aviation, Inc. Address: 14668 Heritage Way, Bluffdale, Utah 84065. Project Description and Justification: Would purchase crash-resistant internal auxillary fuel tanks for installation on National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, including the Utah National Guard. Existing fuel tanks are not crash-resistant and pose threats to life and safety of military personnel when operating the helicopters. Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01) Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Project: TranSim Driver Training Project Amount: $3.5 million Account: Other Procurement, Army Requesting Entity: MPRI, Inc. Address: 2961 West California Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah 84104. Project Description and Justification: Funding would continue efforts begun last year to offer high-tech simulator training for troops scheduled to be deployed overseas in the proper operations of Army tactical wheeled vehicles, such as the up-armored HMVEES. Such vehicles have challenging and particular handling characteristics for the drivers. Prior to this training, there were a number of deadly and tragic roll-over accidents in theatre that could likely have been avoided if this training had been offered earlier. It has already been proven to reduce accidents. Troops come from a variety of urban and rural backgrounds and life-experiences, and to simply put them behind the wheel of a large and cumbersome vehicle is not intuitive but requires a modicum of training. It is almost inconceivable that the military wouldn't fund this on their own accord, but instead, is another example of the Congress having to step in and fund essential programs for the health, safety and welfare of our troops. Project would continue training in a mobile configuration so that it could be moved around the CONUS where needed. Avoidance of even 1 accident could more than pay for the program, not to mention the lives saved. Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01) Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Project: Portable Armored Wall System Project Amount: $1 million Account: Procurement, Marine Corps Requesting Entity: Dynamic Defense Materials (DDM), Inc. Address: 100 Sharp Road, Marlton, NJ, 08053. Project Description and Justification: Would fund purchase of additional combat-proven modular armor wall systems for the Marine Corps that can be rapidly deployed and configured for a variety of applications to provide high levels of protection against most threats found in theater from IEDs to small arms fire and RPGs. Replaces antiquated and cumbersome sandbag method. International Armoring Corporation in Ogden, Utah is supplier to DDM. Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01) Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Project: Electric Actuation Systems Project Amount: $1 million Account: RDT&E, Navy Requesting Entity: Moog, Inc. Address: 2268 South 3270 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84119. Project Description and Justification: Project would fund development and demonstration of shipboard qualified electric actuators that could lead to replacement of antiquated hydraulic systems which are heavy and have environmental hazards associated with hydraulic fluids. Would also reduce repair and maintenance costs over legacy hydraulic systems for Navy. Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01) Bill Number: H.R. 3326--Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Project: Under Vehicle Inspection System Project Amount: $3 million Account: RDT&E, Defense Wide Requesting Entity: Kachemark Research Development, Inc. (KRD) Address: 59584 East End, Homer, Alaska 99603. Project Description and Justification: Funds research and development on modifying existing auto scanning equipment used at military bases to provide real-time quick inspections of delivery vehicles, to mobile versions, making the technology more accessible to different locations and situations, and reducing risks to military inspection personnel. Matching Funds and Spending Plan: Not applicable

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. 3288, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3288 Account: Capitol Investment Grants Legal name and address of requesting entity: Utah Transit Authority, 3600 South 700 West, SLC, UT 84130 Description of project: $80,000,000 to build a 44 mile long commuter rail line running from downtown SLC to Weber County via the cities of Woods Cross, Farmington, Layton, Clearfield, Roy, Ogden, and Pleasant View. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3288 Account: Airport Improvement Program Legal name and address of requesting entity: Ogden-Hinckley Airport, 2549 Washington Blvd., Ogden, UT 84401 Description of project: $500,000 will be used for utilities infrastructure, construction of a maintenance hangar, and runway repairs. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3288 Account: Alternatives Analysis Legal name and address of requesting entity: Salt Lake City, 451 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 Description of project: $360,000 to fund an alternative analysis under USC 49 section 5339 on a corridor from SLC to Centerville. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3288 Account: Buses and Bus Facilities Legal name and address of requesting entity: Cache Valley Transit District, 754 West 600 North, Logan, UT 84321 Description of project: $500,000 to expand the maintenance facility, storage areas, parking facility, administration building and transit hub.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Would the gentleman yield for one moment?

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. This is truly a tragedy that you have mentioned that is taking place in your home district. As I was out there in the community of Quincy, I was noticing that the concept that they said is that if they could thin those forests, they could minimize the risk of forest fire as well as using the resources that would be pulled out to create jobs at the same time. Could this fire have at least been mitigated if we had gone through these practices of thinning the forest under proper procedures that would help the forest as well as help the economy at the same time?

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. To the gentleman from California, I thank him for joining us here. I know that we all send our sympathy to the community and especially the family at this time of their particular loss in a heroic effort to try and help and save others. Part of the problem that the gentleman from California is talking about is because of the land that is owned by the Federal Government. On this particular chart, everything that is in red is owned by the Federal Government. You will notice that it has a preponderance in the West. And where Mr. McClintock is talking is that area in California surrounded by red. Let's face it. If you live in that area that is surrounded by red, you really don't have a whole lot of options. The Federal Government controls what opportunities you do or do not have. Let me give you just one example in my State of a different area. And I want to introduce you to a young man by the name of Mr. Pitchforth. Mr. Pitchforth is a young and exciting school teacher who got 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds excited by geography and history, which by itself should give him some kind of hero's medal. This September, though, he is not going to be teaching school. He is not going to be teaching school because the district in which he lives is one of those red areas in which this administration unilaterally and arbitrarily decided to take 77 oil and gas leases and suspend them, take them off the market, making them unusable. And in so doing, took neighboring and abutting pieces of property owned by the school trust lands and make them also sterile for this time period. The schools lost money. And in so doing, their reaction was to fire the first teacher hired. Mr. Pitchforth is not there anymore. You see, this doesn't deal with just people who are working in oil and gas. There's collateral damage from every one of our decisions that the government makes. Mr. Pitchforth isn't working because of a choice he made, but because of a choice some bureaucrat back here in Washington made. And it's not fair. It's not fair for him. It's not fair for his family. There's other collateral damage that takes place in this area where the Secretary of the Interior decides to pull these leases and suspend these leases for the rationale that the Bush administration did them too quickly. Actually, the Bush administration took 7 years to go through the process. I guess 7 years was not enough time to decide whether we were doing the right thing or not, at least that is what the Secretary said. Let me read to you a letter from, once again, somebody who is not directly employed but who is in the transportation business that does the shipping of materials both to and from those potential sites. As he wrote the county commission where he lives, Let me applaud your efforts in trying to get the message to our Interior Department that their actions have caused great harm to the economy of our area and to individuals living there. At the end of 2008, we employed over 230 truck drivers and leased 204 trucks. Our payroll was $12 million a year. But since the first of the year, we have laid off 36 trucks and 47 drivers. There are now 47 families without income nor payroll benefits associated with them. Our overall payroll is down 29 percent, projected now to be down to $9 million by the end of this calendar year. On a personal note, my son who has worked in the oil fields for the past 8 years has never been unable to find employment until now. He has been off now for 3 months and is getting very discouraged. My daughter is a single mother of two growing boys. She has been struggling to make ends meet with the economy the way it is now and seems she has lost hope of ever finding employment elsewhere. To Brett who is the field manager who was laid off on July 1, July 13 he and his wife had a baby. To Jody and Jeff, two truck operators, Jody lost his truck because he couldn't make payments after he was laid off because of the decision made by the Secretary here in Washington. Curtis was a craftsman and a cabinetmaker who lost his job due to the cancelled contracts once they realized these leases were taken off the table. Travis, a construction worker, husband, father of two children, laid off, once again, as soon as a bureaucratic decision here in Washington was made that had unintended consequences far beyond what was anticipated when a bureaucrat in Washington decided to make decisions on what should take place on the ground out there and took the opportunity of solving our problems and creating problems and taking jobs away from people. We talk about the numbers unemployed. Each of those unemployed numbers is a face and a real person with a real family and a real issue. I would like to yield some time to the gentleman from Georgia to try and put this in perspective. And then we will be joined by two other members of the Western Caucus.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate Representative Broun from Georgia for joining us. He provides a unique element to the Western Caucus of giving a Southern input, which we find so similar to the problems that we're facing, as well as a medical background. Part of the problems he's talking about is the reason that the policies we have been creating as a government is part of the problem why we have 14.7 million unemployed right now. I'd like to go to the Eastern part of the country, if I could, and yield some time to Representative Thompson from the State of Pennsylvania, who also has a similar problem, similar situation, with a similar heavyhanded result of bureaucratic Washington decisions, and it has direct impact, so that these unemployed are not just faces, they're real people. Then, we will be happy to be joined by Representative Lummis from Wyoming, who has the same things in her home State as well. Representative Thompson.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentlewoman from Wyoming who has so clearly pointed out how small decisions that we make here still have enormous impacts. We have seen what this administration has done in an effort, for whatever reason, to harm the creation of jobs when it deals with land policy. This week the Secretary of the Interior decided to have a time-out on new leases of uranium mining, which will lose at least 1,100 jobs. He earlier decided to put a halt on the development of oil shale projects. That could be up to 1 million jobs. It is estimated at 160,000 jobs that will be lost from the delay on Outer Continental Shelf development. An effort to stop the timber harvest in western Oregon immediately costs another 5,000 jobs. Mr. Speaker, as we look at what we're doing here, it is very clear that small business and families are struggling today. Republicans have put forth thoughtful, serious alternatives which have been ignored and not even discussed. It's also clear that the President's economic decisions have not produced jobs, not produced prosperity, and simply have not worked. It doesn't mean that we're out of options. We can still have a real recovery. If we emphasize and create an environment that empowers small business and empowers Americans and we focus on job creation, we stop the attack on the West and other areas of public lands and the people who live there and allow them to develop the resources that we have been given to create real jobs in this country, we can do that. That is still an option that we have. But we have to do it, and we have to do it together. There are a lot of other examples that I would like to go into, Mr. Speaker, but time does not allow that--maybe at some other time--where decisions by this administration have actually harmed families and their creation of jobs. Once again, we have to change directions. That has to stop. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. This clearly shows we are desperate to create jobs and yet we have an Interior and an Agricultural Department whose decisions are killing jobs and the ripple effect those jobs have. I'd like one other illustration of how this is happening. My good friend, Representative Lummis from Wyoming, one of my favorite elements about Wyoming is that fact I'm an old schoolteacher. And this chart clearly shows that the blue line is what Wyoming pays their schoolteachers. The red line is what Montana pays their schoolteachers. And the only difference between those two States is Wyoming clearly realizes what can happen and how much good you can do when you develop the resources that are there in that particular State. I yield to the gentlelady from Wyoming.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, today, 134 Republicans came here to the floor and spoke for 1 minute each about the issue of jobs and where they had been, for, indeed, we were promised that there would be jobs that would be created and saved if we simply passed a stimulus bill and didn't take the time to read it like a couple of others we did. Unfortunately, the reality has not been quite the same. In fact, this is basically the report card that we came up with. This administration said that if we quickly pass that huge stimulus bill, there would be some unemployment but it would only be 8 percent. In fact, the dark blue line here is what they said would be the recovery path of our economy. They said if we didn't do that, we would follow a trajectory of the light blue line and actually have 9\1/2\ percent unemployment. That is a difference of 3 million workers being out of a job if we took the time to actually read the bill and think about it. The sad part is, though, after 5\1/2\ months, the trajectory line is actually the red dots there, which means we are far exceeding anything that was projected whether we did the stimulus or didn't do the stimulus. In fact, you can arguably say that we might have been better off not doing anything at all. The Vice President was correct when he said that this administration totally misread the economy. Nonetheless, Speaker Pelosi and President Obama have teamed together to put up the largest budget, and we're still in the process of voting for it. We are on track now, Mr. Speaker, of actually spending $4 trillion in this year's Congress. We are spending money like it was Monopoly money with the possible exception that you can't pass go and you don't get $200 every time you do it. To put this kind of concept in place, at $4 trillion, we would be spending $1 billion every 2.2 hours. To put it in perspective again, if you tried to pay off $4 trillion, that means every single household in America would have to cough up 35 grand to cover it. And the problem that we have with that is simply we don't have that kind of money lying around, whether we spent it or not. In fact, we will be predicted to be in a deficit. CBO scores this year's deficit at $1.85 trillion. That's the amount of money we'll spend that we have absolutely no funds for. Now, you can see on this chart, back there at the turn of this century, we actually had a surplus. You can notice when 9/11 hit we went into deficits. Those grey lanes are the deficits run up by the big-spending George W. Bush--at least, he was accused of that. What we have over here is what we have been spending ever since. The light red lines are the estimates of the Obama administration. The dark red lines are the estimates of our Congressional Budget Office, and they predict that this year it's $1.85 trillion that we will overspend. Now, this isn't perhaps the best view. This is only a 1-year shot of what we are doing as far as our finances. If we actually took a bigger view of it and tried to find all of the things we still owe, we are actually at about $11.6 trillion in total debt. And if you add things like the bailouts and the bank rescues and the auto recovery loans we have, we're about $23 trillion in debt, which is difficult when our total gross domestic product is about $14 trillion. Let me put that in a kind of perspective for you. When we went to the Moon, if you put the money we spent on that effort to go to the Moon in today's dollars, we would have spent around $200 billion. Everything FDR did in the New Deal to try to get us out of the old original Depression in today's dollars would be about $500 billion. If you took everything we spent on World War II, that's about $4 trillion. Today, we are spending, in real dollars, $4 trillion and a deficit of almost $2 trillion and a total deficit of $23 trillion of everything combined. That was not the change that we were promised. And the proponents of the stimulus package, quite frankly, view its failure in the fact that we didn't put enough money into it and that perhaps we should have another stimulus package to spend more money. The Democrats' solution, quite frankly, is we need to spend more money. The bottom line, though, is spending money is not the same thing as creating jobs. There are other alternatives that are out there. The Republican Party has introduced almost a thousand bills of alternatives that have never been allowed to be discussed on this floor. We had one called the no-cost stimulus bill. It was estimated that it would grow our gross domestic product by $10 trillion and create 2 million jobs and would cost the taxpayers exactly nothing and has still yet to be allowed to be discussed on this particular floor. Now, we come here today as part of a Western Caucus with the understanding that much of what we do in the West is a catalyst for us solving this particular problem in moving our economy ahead. Unfortunately, this administration, which misdiagnosed what the stimulus would do, has also misdiagnosed the opportunity that so much of our public lands have offered to us. It is not an effort to try to destroy the environment, but there are enough resources we have in this country that we could create an energy policy that would indeed build real jobs. Unfortunately, this administration looks at the gift that it has at its disposal and instead goes in the opposite direction. It creates an environmental policy that is aimed at benefiting special interest groups so that instead of our using our resources to create jobs, we actually are sacrificing jobs to a false ideology. In this opportunity today, we are going to be talking about some of the things this administration is doing which actually harms this country and loses jobs when we have a great opportunity to try and grow jobs if we'd just use the resources that we have wisely. I am joined and will be talking with Representative McClintock of California. He has a unique area that deals with the forest area that has a chance of actually bringing people together for a benefit that could grow jobs, help the economy, help the environment, and for some reason, we simply are not doing it. We will be joined later by Representative Thompson of Pennsylvania; not necessarily the West, but he has the same situation with a forest in Pennsylvania and, once again, the administration's misuse of land policy is costing people jobs and should not be there. I'm joined by my good friend Representative Broun from Georgia. He's going to try to put all this into some kind of perspective at the same time as we deal with this issue and other issues, all of which have the same problem of costing us jobs. And hopefully there will be a few more Members who will join us before this hour has concluded. And I'd also like to talk about a couple of policies that this administration has started which, in reality, costs American jobs when we should be producing jobs with the resources that we have. But, Mr. Speaker, with that said, I would like, first of all, to yield some time to Representative McClintock of California, who has a wonderful opportunity of creating jobs in California, desperately needing the jobs, desperately needing the income, but is faced with a unique barrier that's going to be extremely difficult to overcome.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I want to introduce you to Mr. Pitchford. He is a young and exciting teacher who gets 12-, 13- and 14- year-olds to enjoy geography and history. But this September, he is not going to be back in the classroom because his district relies upon resource jobs and royalties and development to fund schools. And this administration, through the arbitrary and unilateral decisions of the Secretary of the Interior, has cut this funding. This is the administration that stopped new uranium development for 2 years, has postponed offshore drilling decisions, and has postponed oil shale development projects. And for Mr. Pitchford, has taken 77 oil and gas leases and suspended them because they don't think 7 years of study was enough time. If we do not develop the resources on our public lands, jobs are lost. If we don't have cheap forms of affordable energy, jobs are lost. And those jobs aren't simply a number. They are a face of a real person like Mr. Pitchford, who is no longer a teacher not because of his choice, but because of government decisions. And the collateral damage of these government decisions are the 13- and 14-year-olds in his classroom. Where are the jobs? They're not in Mr. Pitchford's classroom.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. A goal in statute may be an element and a door opening for lawsuits that will be used against this element. I mean, this is the most dangerous of language when it is so vague that no one has defined it, no one has considered it, but it may be used against us, and especially when the Secretary of the Interior is one of the few people in Washington that has the power of condemnation. Not even the President of the United States has the ability of going in and condemning lands. The Secretary of the Interior does, and we are now empowering that Secretary with a vague undefined term of having a goal of finding enough land, public or private, the size of the State of West Virginia. May I state one other thing. The chairwoman of the Rules Committee is from New York. The person that was representing this bill from the Rules Committee was from Massachusetts. The good gentleman is from West Virginia. Last year when we talked about this bill, there were gentlemen from West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio speaking towards this issue. With all due respect, there are only 10 States that are impacted by wild horses and wild burros. Those States I have just mentioned have absolutely zero wild horses on their property. If they would take these wild horses and provide a habitat for them, I would be ecstatic. But until that time happens, we are the ones that are bearing the burden, and we understand the issues. And the land managers are asking, free their hands so they can solve this problem, and Congress does not have the wisdom to listen to the experts to do what they know is right to solve this particular problem. This is a conundrum that we should not be talking about. We should be talking about how we can make life better for Americans with more jobs and a better lifestyle.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the gentleman. I guess one of the problems I have is that I have actually read this bill and some of the amendments that are going to be proposed here. It seems that we are in a situation where we are more concerned--or at least the leaders of this Congress are more concerned--about homes for horses than we are homes for Americans or jobs for Americans. And from the very few people that still have jobs, we are now going to take $700 million, at the minimum, from their pockets to try to create a solution to a problem this Congress has solved. In years past, the land managers in this country have pled with this Congress not to take away the management tool; yet year after year in proposal after proposal, we in Congress have, indeed, micromanaged those individuals. We have stopped the ability of a sale from these horses even though the contract for the sale prohibited resale for slaughtering purposes. That no longer is a tool that they have. We have tried to reduce the ability that they have of running an adoption program until today. It is no longer effective because of our efforts on this floor to micromanage. There is an effort--even the administration complained about a provision that will be in the bill and that will remain in this bill about the process of taking a horse that has died of natural causes to a rendering factory that could be construed as a felony. The administration complained about that, and we have done nothing to take out that micromanagement element to it. In years past the Secretary of the Interior did have the right to euthanize old, sick or lame horses; but we have also narrowed that down to the point that that could only happen with a terminally ill horse as a means of a mercy approach. In addition to that, other elements that this House passed in the agriculture bill and in finance bills have totally eliminated the abilities of those in the private sector who have horses to do anything else except what is left to them, dump these on the Federal range, which means that the count the people have been talking about by the States--and it is only 10 of them that are impacted with the wild horses and wild burros--recognize that there is a significant undercount of this problem and this situation. We already have dedicated solely to wild horses and wild burros an amount of land that is owned by the public that is the size of the State of New York. And even with that much land dedicated solely to the purpose of horse range, our micromanagement in taking tools away from the land manager who went and complained about that has caused us to have an overabundance of horses on that land until, indeed, 35,000 horses, we have to find other activities for them; and Mr. Speaker, it is important to know that by the laws of this country they cannot be slaughtered. There is no slaughter of horses. We have banned the practice. We have banned the transportation. No one is talking about the slaughtering of horses. The closest this bill comes to slaughter is the Rules chairman who limited all the amendments that were possible under this particular bill. And unfortunately because of how we have micromanaged this land, the appropriations for our Horse and Burro Program, which will run close to $60 million in next year's budget, 75 percent has to be done to the excess that we have that has been caused by decisions that we have made on this floor. Now the solution being presented today is simply not trying to give the land managers the tools that they ask. It is to expand the amount of land by a size equal to the State of West Virginia for more area at a cost of $700 million, according to CBO. However, the agency itself said this will be well over $1 billion when we are finished with this solution. We have found that we have a problem in this country where stimulus bills don't create the jobs we expected, our bloated budgets don't create the jobs we expected, our tax increases don't create the jobs we expected. So instead of tackling that issue, which would be a perfectly legitimate subject today, we're talking about horses, horses roaming an area the size of the State of New York. We may be willing to ration health care for humans but not health care for horses. We have more concern with the habitat for horses than homes for humans, and I have a big problem--and I will speak to the amendment now so I will not come back--with the concept of the change the gentleman from West Virginia is offering. By changing this bill from mandating that the size of West Virginia be found somewhere to setting it only as a goal makes it a much more pernicious issue. A goal is not a legal requirement, but a goal is not defined anywhere in terms in law, which means a goal may actually be an incentive to force them to reprioritize in a way that the BLM does not want to reprioritize.

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. 3183, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 3183 Account: Water and Related Resources Legal name and address of requesting entity: Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, 2837 East Highway 193, Layton, UT 84040. Description of project: $1,000,000 to conduct a feasibility study to enlarge the Arthur V. Watkins Dam.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, consistent with the Republican Leadership's policy on earmarks, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information regarding project funding I had requested and which was included within the legislation H.R. 3082, as reported. To the best of my knowledge, funding for this project: (1) is not directed to an entity or program that will be named after a sitting Member of Congress; (2) is not intended to be used by an entity to secure funds for other entities unless the use of funding is consistent with the specified purpose of the earmark; and (3) meets or exceeds all statutory requirements for matching funds. I further certify that neither my spouse, nor I, have any personal financial interests in this request. Project Title: PCC Apron NW End Taxiway A Amount: $5.1 million Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT) Bill Number: H.R. 3082 Account: Air Force Military Construction Address of Requesting Entity: Hill Air Force Base, Utah Location: 75th Air Base Wing, 7285 4th Street, Hill AFB, UT 84056. Matching Funds: Not Applicable Detailed Spending Plan: Not Applicable. Description and Justification: Project funding is needed to construct additional taxiway space for the flight preparation of fighter aircraft using the Utah Test and Training Range, to increase flight efficiency and safety by accommodating additional aircraft at the same time on the ramp which will also reduce jet fuel costs.

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. 2996, the Interior-Environment Appropriations Act, 2010. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 2996 Account: Land Acquisition Legal name and address of requesting entity: Western Rivers Conservancy, located at 302 N. Last Chance Gulch, Ste. 404, Helena, MT 59601 Description of project: $500,000 to purchase a 700-acre property to add to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 2996 Account: Save America's Treasures Legal name and address of requesting entity: Salt Lake City Mayor's Office, 451 South State St., SLC, UT 84114 Description of project: $150,000 to restore the Albert Fisher Mansion and re-landscape the grounds surrounding the building. Requesting Member: Rob Bishop Bill number: H.R. 2996 Account: STAG Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Project Legal name and address of requesting entity: Weber County, Utah, located at 2380 Washington Blvd, Ogden, Utah 84401 Description of project: $500,000 to assist in providing detention basins, improved canal development and maintenance, and culvert replacements to better handle capacity problems.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I need to stand and congratulate our Rules Committee for all the hard work they are doing in creating precedent around here. Until last year, in the history of this House the ability to limit speaking rights and amendments was always done by a unanimous consent agreement. So the Rules Committee must indeed be working overtime to establish which issues will never be discussed on this floor. When the ranking member of the Resources Committee, the ranking member of two of the subcommittees can go 0-9 in proposed amendments, it must be truly an effort on the part of the Rules Committee to guard free speech on this floor--as long as the topic is something on which they agree should be discussed. For, indeed, we are not simply debating about dollars here. We are debating about dollars to create national security, for dollars have consequences to them. There was one proposed amendment, which I proposed in there obviously, that dealt with the border security and border guards. Our border guards right now are concentrating their efforts on urban areas. Their efforts are working. But what that is doing is funneling the traffic of illegal immigrants into this country through side lands that are all owned by the Department of Interior and the Forest Service, which constitutes 41 percent of our borders. Madam Speaker, 80 percent of all drugs smuggled are going through those lands. The foot traffic is destroying those wilderness areas. In 2002 alone, eight major wildfires were established by the foot traffic in that area. The Goldwater training range was shut down because of illegal immigrants trespassing upon that land. Some of those areas are controlled by drug cartels. Some are subject to violence. And one of the problems that we face is, the Border Patrol actually has to pay money to the Interior Department to have access to some of those lands. One of the Border Patrol agents was threatened with lawsuits and even arrests by a Federal land manager for attempting simply to enter a wilderness area and land a helicopter to pick up a wounded victim. The Border Patrol has to notify land managers if they ever change procedure, even if they are in hot pursuit of an individual. All those issues should be addressed in this particular area. This device, which I have right here, is one of the listening devices that the Border Patrol needs to communicate with each other. It is placed in jeopardy simply because the Department of Interior now wants it to have limitations. A threat of a lawsuit by an environment group indicated that a memorandum of understanding has to be used to put restrictions on this even though this technology is important and even though environmental assessments said this has no impact. It is temporary. It is mobile. It does not leave a footprint. And if any of these areas were to be created as wilderness, this would have to be, by the memo of understanding, moved. This picture is of a cactus illegally cut down. It's a crime scene. The illegals who cut this cactus down used this to stop a passenger, then to rob and beat him and then leave him on the scene. The irony is, by the laws we have, if the Border Patrol were to try to move this, that violates the Endangered Species Act if this was one of the endangered species. If it is protected, to take it at all becomes a Federal crime. Now those are the issues that are at hand. Those are the issues that should be discussed. Those are the issues that are important to America, and those are the issues the Rules Committee decided are not worthy of being discussed on this floor. Good job.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for this bipartisan bill and the wonderful bipartisan amendment the saves our Air Force and moves us forward. I rise this evening to support the bill H.R. 2647. I commend my friends on both sides of the aisle on the House Armed Services Committee for continuing the tradition of working in a bi-partisan manner to provide for the common defense of this country, and for the dedicated men and women of the armed forces. However, I do have reservations. It is readily apparent that the Administration has taken a haphazard approach to cutting defense programs, such as missile defense, and the F-22 fighter, as budget drills. There are no studies by any qualified source, including military analysis, that support these reductions as a means of meeting the needs of the military. When asked in committee, for example, if 187 F-22s were what the Air Force needs or merely what the Air Force can afford, the answer was quick and direct; It was what the Air Force was ``told'' it could afford, and the basis of the decision was political and budgetary, not based on national security. When the F-22 program requirement was first established, it was based on procurement of 750 aircraft. We on the committee have repeatedly requested that the Department provide us with analysis upon which this budget decision of only 187 planes was based. That analysis still has not been provided, leaving a strong indication that it is a budget drill, pure and simple. I am pleased that a majority of committee members supported an amendment to restore F-22 long-lead procurement funding for 12 additional aircraft in FY10. There were strong indications during markup that many members, a good majority on both sides of the political aisle, would like to have supported full F-22 production of 12 to 20 aircraft in FY10, and not just long lead procurement items. One of the most disturbing recent developments on the F-22 is the release of a letter signed by Air Force Combat Commander General John D. W. Corley, wherein he verifies in writing that there are NO studies which support the Administration's decision to end the F-22 production at 187 aircraft, and he further maintains that 250 aircraft are necessary to ensure a ``moderate risk'' level. A copy of his letter was included in the House Committee report to accompany this bill. I urge all of my colleagues to read it. General Corley also states that the Administration developed its F-22 termination plan without even consulting with Air Combat Command. That's very disturbing. The very command with the technical expertise in charge of fighter operations was not even consulted by the Office of the Secretary of Defense? This alone raises very serious questions about the soundness of the Administration's decision. This decision on F-22 will have profound implications on our nation's strength and air dominance 15 and 20 years from now. We cannot afford to go ``high risk'' at only 187 aircraft. Not with Russia, China and other nations fielding advanced fighter aircraft in the next two years. It is also ironic that, at a time when the Administration is spending hundreds of billions in tax dollars to create jobs, that it would be so intent upon cutting the F-22, which is responsible for 25,000 direct and 70,000 indirect jobs. Why are good defense jobs any less valuable than those that the Administration claims to have created in the $800 billion Stimulus package? These are good jobs that are producing a vital defense weapon system to protect our homeland, which will be lost unless funding is restored. The F-22 and F-35 are not duplicative aircraft. They are not interchangeable. They were designed for different, but complimentary roles. We need both, but we also need adequate numbers of both. I also oppose the cuts proposed by the Administration to missile defense programs such as Ground Midcourse Defense (GMD) and Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI). It seems that the ``savings'' from these cuts, at $1.8 billion, are rather small in comparison to the lost opportunities for further research and development in improving our defense of the homeland against emerging and future missile threats. These cuts also have devastating impacts on the defense industrial base, especially large defense solid rocket booster production. If allowed to stand, every program associated with large-scale defense solid booster production will be decimated. Someone must pay more attention to the cumulative impact of these different programmatic budget decisions on the solid rocket booster industrial base as a whole. It also seems wasteful that DoD and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) will not proceed with a planned booster test firing in September of this year with the KEI program when the booster has already been produced and delivered to the test site at Vandenberg AFB. The MDA should move forward with this test that has already been bought and paid for by U.S. taxpayer investment since 2004, and which could result in a significant harvest of scientific data for use on future defense projects. It is highly ironic that the Administration's announcement to end the Ground Based Interceptors at 30 land-based missiles occurred on the very same day that North Korea conducted its long-range missile test threatening Japan and possibly parts of the United States. Just this past week, with renewed missile threats from North Korea against Hawaii, the Secretary of Defense touted our ground-based interceptors as providing protection, even as the Administration continues to advocate a halt to their production! This is no way to protect the homeland. Secretary Gates has said his recommendation for GMD is ``not a forever decision.'' That's fine, but one cannot quickly restart a production line in the future. And we may not have the luxury of time in the future. Were any of our 30 interceptors to be fired, there would be no replacements. It is also highly likely that two or more interceptors would be fired at any incoming threat. So potentially one rogue missile threatening Hawaii, or the western U.S. would require the use of two, three or more of our ground based interceptors. The Administration's termination of GMD allows for no replacements and worse--no defense industrial base capability to easily or quickly restart production of land based interceptors. Again, this is a short-sighted budget decision which endangers our long-term national security. In conclusion, I urge that the cuts in missile defense be restored in order to adequately defend our homeland now and into the future. There is nothing more fundamental to the very survival of America than the United States military. Everything else is a corollary to that fundamental principle. It is my profound hope that we can work together over the next 3 to 4 years to build the additional F-22s until we reach the 240 to 250 numbers that Air Force planners have repeatedly stated are absolutely necessary.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, consistent with the Republican Leadership's policy on earmarks, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information regarding project funding I had requested and which was included within the legislation H.R. 2647, as reported. To the best of my knowledge, funding for this project: (1) is not directed to an entity or program that will be named after a sitting Member of Congress; (2) is not intended to be used by an entity to secure funds for other entities unless the use of funding is consistent with the specified purpose of the earmark; and (3) meets or exceeds all statutory requirements for matching funds. I further certify that neither my spouse, nor I, have any personal financial interests in this request. Project Title: Senior Center, Brigham City, Utah Amount: $250,000 Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT) Bill Number: H.R. 2892 Account: FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation Address of Requesting Entity: Brigham City Corporation Location: Brigham City Corp., 20 North Main, Brigham City, UT 84302 Matching Funds: $125,000 Detailed Spending Plan: FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation project grants require a minimum local cost share of 25% or the total project cost. This project is estimated as costing $500,000. Under regular FEMA guidelines, Brigham City would be required to expend $125,000 as the local cost-share. Request for federal share was for $375,000. However, the committee decided only to fund $250,000 of the regular federal portion, which may require up to an additional $100,000 local cost share for a total of $225,000 local cost share to fully complete the project. Funds will be used to perform seismic upgrades to existing senior center facilities, such as strengthening the roof system, and the wall structures. Minor bracing will be used on existing walls, doors and windows. Description and Justification of Funding: Project would strengthen an existing Senior Citizen Center facility in Brigham City, Utah, against future seismic threats. Brigham City is located along the Wasatch Fault and according to the U.S. Geological Survey, there is a 25% chance of a 6.5 to 7.0 earthquake along this fault within the next 100 years. This Senior Center services thousands of local residents as well as senior populations in outlying areas in a large geographical region. Located less than one mile downhill from the Wasatch Fault, there is a significant chance that liquefaction of the subsurface would occur during a major seismic event, and that the center could sustain severe damage or, at worst, collapse outright resulting in numerous fatalities and serious injuries.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, consistent with the Republican Leadership's policy on earmarks, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure information regarding project funding I had requested and which was included within the legislation H.R. 2647, as reported. To the best of my knowledge, none of these six requests: (1) are directed to an entity or program that will be named after a sitting Member of Congress; (2) are not intended to be used by an entity to secure funds for other entities unless the use of funding is consistent with the specified purpose of the earmark; and (3) meet or exceed all statutory requirements for matching funds where applicable. I further certify that neither my spouse, nor I, have any personal financial interests in these requests. Project Title: Optimizing Natural Language Processing of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Amount: $1.5 million Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT) Bill Number: H.R. 2647 Account: Research and Development, Army Address of Requesting Entity: Attensity, Inc., 90 South 400 West, Suite 600, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 Matching Funds: None Detailed Spending Plan: Not applicable Description and Justification of Funding: Project, in conjunction with the University of New York at Buffalo, would fund research and development of an ``all-source'' fusion tool for collecting open-source data from the web, blogs, social networking sites, and RRS feeds, to provide more effective defense intelligence analysis and improving military decision making in asymmetric warfare situations Project Title: PCC Apron NW End Taxiway A Amount: $5.1 million Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT) Bill Number: H.R. 2647 Account: Military Construction, Air Force Address of Requesting Entity: Hill AFB, Utah. 75th Air Base Wing, Hill AFB, Utah 84056 Matching Funds: None Detailed Spending Plan: Not applicable Description and Justification of Funding: Project would correct runway deficiencies and allow for more aircraft to be prepared for flight at the same time that airstrip landing and take-off operations are being conducted, increasing military readiness, safety, and reducing jet fuel costs Project Title: Propellant Conversion to Fertilizer Program for Tooele Army Depot Amount: $3.4 million Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT) Bill Number: H.R. 2647 Account: Research and Development, Army Address of Requesting Entity: Archtech, Inc., 14100 Park Meadow Drive, Chantilly, VA 20151 Matching Funds: None Detailed Spending Plan: Not applicable Description and Justification of Funding: Project would fund new conventional ammunition demilitarization method at Tooele Army Depot, Utah, as an environmentally-responsible alternative to the Army's current ``open-pit, open-burn'' method of disposal Project Title: Repair Technology Insertion Program (RepTIP) Amount: $5.2 million Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT) Bill Number: H.R. 2647 Account: Research and Development, Air Force Address of Requesting Entity: General Atomics Inc., 16969 Mesamint Street, San Diego, CA 92127 Matching Funds: None Detailed Spending Plan: Not applicable Description and Justification of Funding: Project would fund the development of repair and overhaul technologies that increase productivity and reduce the cost of sustaining weapons systems in military depots, and incorporates Level II roller bearing refurbishment, heat tolerant tube fabrication, inside-diameter protective coatings to metals, heat-treat, and foundry process improvements for the 309th Maintenance Wing, Ogden Air Logistics Center, at Hill AFB, Utah Project Title: Small Responsive Spacecraft at Low-Cost (SRSL) Amount: $4.5 million Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT) Bill Number: H.R. 2647 Account: Research and Development, Air Force Address of Requesting Entity: Space Dynamics Laboratory, Utah State University, 1695 North Research Park Way, North Logan, Utah 84341 Matching Funds: None Detailed Spending Plan: Not applicable Description and Justification of Funding: Project would continue previous-years' efforts in conjunction with the Air Force Research Labs to develop and demonstrate technologies for new, low-cost space systems with military utility. Current space-based reconnaissance assets are cost-prohibitive and too massive to be used in a quick-reaction tactical environment. This effort could lead to providing local field commanders a dedicated space asset for tactical actionable intelligence under the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) construct Project Title: UAV Sensor and Maintenance Development Center Amount: $5.5 million Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT) Bill Number: H.R. 2647 Account: Research and Development, Air Force Address of Requesting Entity: Space Dynamics Laboratory, Utah State University, 1695 North Research Park Way, North Logan, Utah 84341 Matching Funds: None Detailed Spending Plan: Not applicable Description and Justification of Funding: Project would provide technical assistance to the Ogden Air Logistics Center at Hill AFB, Utah, in the areas of developing, calibrating, and integrating sensors and other payloads onto Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which will facilitate future development of UAV capability within the military

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.