Ed Case

Mr. CASE

Mr. CASE. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici), my colleague.

Mr. CASE. Madam Chair, again, these en bloc amendments are critical additions and positive additions to a critical bill. These amendments address major issues related to the harmful impacts of climate change and other man-made effects on our oceans, our coastlines, and our lakes. For example, they single out the destruction that is being wrought, as we speak, on our coral reefs throughout our entire country, our coral reefs throughout the Gulf Coast, throughout Florida, and throughout the West Coast, in Hawaii and beyond: the acidification that has led to bleaching of these coral reefs. And as we all know, or at least I hope we all know, as go the coral reefs, so go our oceans. These amendments would strengthen Federal programs that address the health of our coral reefs. These amendments go to harmful algal blooms, which are a problem throughout our country, as well. What can we and should we do about it as a Federal coordinated effort? Of course, we should do something about that. These amendments would strengthen this bill. These amendments would forward a Federal-State partnership, a community partnership, to address another harmful consequence which is killing our oceans. These amendments would address coastal resiliency. How do we prevent our coastlines from eroding? In my own home State of Hawaii, we have seen significant erosion. And that is true of all of the other coasts: significant increases in sea level over a very, very recent period of time that has caused major erosion. How can we adopt better overall programs that adapt to a changing ocean and do not worsen the problem of coastal erosion? How do we do that? These amendments get at these issues. These are good, solid, and positive additions that our colleagues have come up with to strengthen a good, solid, and positive bipartisan bill. Madam Chair, I support these amendments, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, for our majority colleagues, I deeply appreciate my colleague's comments in support of his amendment and his appreciation and understanding of the communities that he represents, in terms of the impacts of climate change and other man-made causes not only on our oceans, because we tend to focus on our oceans, but on our lakes, to include our Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are currently experiencing nearly record high water levels, causing widespread erosion of beaches and property and costing people their lives. In fact, there have been over 50 percent more deaths in the Great Lakes in 2019 because of these dangerous conditions compared to 2018. These high lake levels are forecast to continue for 2020 and, in all likelihood, beyond. Just this month, 12 Michigan State lawmakers asked Governor Whitmer to declare a state of emergency for the Lake Michigan shoreline because of water levels. Resilient, living shorelines are one of the best options for the Great Lakes communities dealing with the impacts of high lake levels, as they are for other communities in the body of this bill. Our majority does support my colleague's amendment to be sure that this money does find its way to where it is most needed. I support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate my colleague's efforts on this particular amendment, which, as he points out, is a truly bipartisan amendment joined in by Members from the New York delegation on a bipartisan basis. I think this illustrates a couple of different things. First of all, this bill and these amendments need not be partisan. In fact, they offer one of the best avenues forward for true bipartisanship as we confront the crisis of climate change. Second, they illustrate that when we talk about our marine resources and climate change, and in this bill, we focus on our oceans and tend to think that our coastal States are those that are affected. Clearly, it is not only our coastal States that are affected. Many States throughout our country are directly affected by the impacts of climate change, including New York State, in conjunction with the Great Lakes. So this is an amendment that we can support. Every year, we seem to hear about another toxic algal bloom in the Great Lakes closing beaches or fisheries. It is important that the fishery research reauthorization in this bill include researching the impacts of harmful algal blooms because there is a lot that is unknown about the causes of these toxic blooms and the long-term effects in fish populations. When we speak of fish populations in the Great Lakes, we speak not only of the benefits of the fish populations through our natural ecosystems in the Great Lakes and not only of recreational fisheries, but we speak in the range of some 75,000 jobs that can be directly attributed to the health of our fisheries in our Great Lakes. So I am pleased to urge adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chairman, again, this is a very positive, bipartisan amendment by the Members from New York and indicates that we can, in fact, proceed in a bipartisan way on these critical issues. As already noted earlier in my remarks, the Great Lakes have experienced record or near-record high levels of water this year and are projected to continue to have high levels next year and well beyond. Many coastal communities and property owners in the Great Lakes are suffering from accelerated land loss and erosion. This amendment rightfully ensures that water level regulating practices can be a part of coastal resilience planning. I only regret that when it comes to our world's oceans, we don't have the luxury of regulating sea levels in accordance with water level regulating practices. We support this amendment and the intent of this amendment, but I must indicate a caution for the Record, and that is that if this amendment leads to the uncontrolled, indiscriminate construction of dams throughout our country, we need to be careful because dams are double-edged swords. They can be a tremendous boon to water regulating practices and electricity, energy, sports and fishing, and many other concerns, but they can have unintended environmental consequences. I would simply caution that as we go forward with the implementation of this amendment, I hope that we pay very close attention to the sound science behind water level regulating practices. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, I applaud the sponsor of this amendment, my colleague from the beautiful and critical Virginia coast. Everything she said in her remarks could easily have applied to many, many of our military installations across the country. Of course, Hampton Roads is critical to our Nation's defense, and so is Joint Base Pearl Harbor, the home of our Air Force and our Navy in the Indo-Pacific, as is Marine Corps Base Kaneohe, the home of our marines in the Indo-Pacific. My colleague, as a member of the Committee on Armed Services, knows full well that our military has actually taken the lead in assessing the realistic consequences of climate change on our military installations across the country. They deserve credit for that. They also need help with that. My colleagues' amendment would provide them that help and will create the partnership that we need to guarantee the continued security and operation of our Nation's key military installations and the family communities that depend on them.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, this amendment is not a coastal resilience amendment. This amendment has nothing to do with the underlying bill; in fact, it was a miracle that it was ruled germane. This amendment instead is simply an unneeded handout to oil and gas companies that takes us in exactly the wrong direction, not only on climate change, but on the very survival of our oceans. We all know, and I remind everybody, that this language is the exact language that in past Congresses was included in the other side's ocean drilling package that would have paved the way for faster permitting of seismic testing and ocean drilling. Why? Because our oceans marine mammals get in the way of that. Congress first enacted the Marine Mammal Protection Act over 40 years ago to protect all marine mammals in response to declines caused by human activities, and it has worked successfully for almost all of those years. The Marine Mammal Protection Act ensures that activities that may result in incidental harm or take of marine mammals are thoroughly reviewed, rather than permitted through the expedited and inadequate process proposed by this bill. Activities such as seismic air gun testing used for oil and gas exploration, offshore drilling, sonar, and geophysical surveys can all affect marine mammals. And while I sometimes hear the other side falsely claim that these activities have not killed any marine mammals, the best available science for decades has demonstrated that, in fact, there are significant long-term negative impacts on several marine mammal species that do, in fact, cause their death. This amendment would undermine critical protections under the Marine Mammal Protection Act by striking the conditions required for permitted activities. It would allow for unmitigated incidental harm, that is without the current safeguards that would allow for the, ``least practicable impact on such species or stocks,'' among other things. Is it too much to ask that we require the least practicable impact on such species or stock? It would further limit mitigation for any incidental losses and requirements for monitoring. These legislative changes would allow industry to continue their activities with oversight of their impacts only if it was, ``efficient and practical.'' Efficient and practical? Let's just give them carte blanche to gut this bill, literally and figuratively. Lastly, this amendment would waive requirements for take and consultation under the Endangered Species Act, another decades-long cornerstone of our protection of our natural species for any threatened or endangered marine mammals. The ESA has been critical to the recovery of several populations of marine mammals and is needed to protect other species from extinction. Let's keep the focus where we can focus on a bipartisan solution to climate change as it affects our oceans, our coastlines and our lakes. Let's keep the focus on coastal resilience, on assisting communities, on fostering Federal-State organization partnerships, on living in the present and the future and not in the past on the effects of climate change. Let's keep that focus there, rather than use this bill, this amendment, to provide a desired handout to an industry that does not or has not demonstrated a true understanding of its impacts on our oceans, an industry that does need to continue to be regulated through strong positive time-tested legislation, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close after the gentleman closes, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, we understand that for some industries interested in the exploitation of our oceans that the Marine Mammal Protection Act is inconvenient. We understand that we ask for limitations on the activities of those industries, which would otherwise not demonstrate any discernible concern for our oceans. And we reject the basic premise that that regulation is not necessary for our oceans. Our marine mammals deserve our protection, and we have protected them, and we have worked through the give-and-take of legitimate activities in the oceans where they can and should be balanced with impacts on our marine mammals. So, again, I respectfully submit that this particular proposal, which has been--as the ranking member points out--thoroughly vetted in prior Congresses, although not brought to the floor, can in fact yield a good, solid debate. But we simply reject the position taken. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE

Mr. CASE. Madam Speaker, can anyone seriously dispute that our Federal fiscal house is seriously out of order? Our national debt stands at $23 trillion, doubling in just the last decade alone. No end is in sight, as we just registered $1 trillion annual deficit in the last fiscal year, and this fiscal year looks the same or worse. Interest payments alone will exceed defense spending by 2025. We need look no further than into the mirror for the root cause. It is our collective inability to face the music of fiscal responsibility and sustainability. We clearly need help. H.R. 5211, the Sustainable Budget Act, cointroduced today with my colleague from Arkansas, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Womack, would follow the models of Simpson-Bowles and other such independent commissions charged with focusing on our debt and recommending a sustainable path forward for an up-or-down vote by Congress. In that, our bill is similar to other measures I have also cointroduced: H.R. 4907, the TRUST Act, with Representatives Gallagher and McAdams; and H.R. 5178, the RAFT Act, with Representative Burchett. Together, they offer a far better way forward to tackling our debt crisis, and I urge their prompt consideration and passage.

Mr. CASE

Mr. CASE. Madam Speaker, I deeply appreciate my friend and colleague from New Mexico leading this Special Hour and yielding me time to join in recognizing November as Native American Heritage Month, a time for us to reflect on and celebrate the rich histories and diverse cultures of our Nation's indigenous peoples. It is said that cultural heritage is the sum total of the unique ways of living of a culture handed down from generation to generation, be they customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions, language, and values, all amounting to a distinct identity and integrity as a people. By that measure, most Americans have some familiarity with the rich cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples of the continental United States and Alaska. It is indeed gratifying to listen to my colleagues speak of the rich diversity within our continental United States, from New Mexico to Florida to Washington and Wisconsin. As we celebrate the heritage, identity, and integrity of these great peoples this month, I want to highlight that of another indigenous peoples of our country, the Native Hawaiians. Because of Hawaii's geographical distance from the U.S. mainland and our unique history with the United States, most Americans are not aware of the almost 600,000 among us who identify, in whole or in part, as Native Hawaiian. Some 50 percent still live in my home State of Hawaii, and I am deeply humbled to represent a native group with such a deep and rich heritage all its own. Today's Kanaka Maoli are descendants of the original voyagers who made the incredible journey from Kahiki, today's Tahiti and the Marquesas, somewhere around 1,500 years ago, a full 1,000 years before the universally recognized indigenous peoples of New Zealand, the Maori, arrived in Aotearoa. By the arrival of the West through Captain Cook in 1778, Native Hawaiians had already long developed, practiced, and handed down a truly unique cultural heritage, from their own language, dance, and music to customs and practices, values, and religion. They were truly their own people, in every sense of the word. However, like virtually all other indigenous peoples throughout our country and world, the Kanaka Maoli endured cultural marginalization and discrimination to the point that, by the middle of the 20th century, their cultural heritage was at risk for extinction, as has happened with most other indigenous cultures throughout our history. Beginning in the mid-1960s, though, a renewed interest in traditional Hawaiian arts and culture began to emerge, driving deep cultural pride and resurgence. The ranks of prominent Native Hawaiians include figures such as George Na'ope, a kumu hula who, with others, brought back the study and practice of ancient hula. I had the honor of presenting ``Uncle George'' as a 2006 National Heritage Fellow here, our Nation's highest honor in folk and traditional arts. The Hawaiian language itself had virtually disappeared after statehood. But in 1982, a small group of Hawaiian language educators came together and formed the Punana Leo preschools, which focused on nurturing a new generation of Native Hawaiian speakers through education in the Native Hawaiian language, the Olelo. The first school was established in 1984 in Kekaha, Kauai. Today, there are many such schools and thousands of Native Hawaiian language speakers. Another ancient practice prominent in the Hawaii renaissance was the art of Polynesian voyaging. Hundreds of years had passed since the last voyage, and the ancient ways of navigating had been lost. But in 1975, the Polynesian Voyaging Society built the Hokule'a, a traditional outrigger canoe first captained by Elia Kawika David Ku'ualoha, whose mission was to follow in the footsteps of Native Hawaiians and sail unaided across Polynesia. Today's voyaging canoes sail freely across the Pacific and even around the world in the ancient ways, an amazing symbol of cultural recovery. These kanaka are just a few of the tens of thousands of Native Hawaiians and others who simply decided that the rich cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples of Hawaii would not die but would be carried forward into generations to come. Their stories, and the story of all Native Hawaiians, should not be left unrecognized by this Congress, either today or in the laws of our country focused on indigenous peoples. I am honored to recognize them and their special contributions and legacy to our great country and to join all of my colleagues who advocate so forcefully for our indigenous peoples. Madam Speaker, again, ``mahalo nui loa,'' thank you very much, to the gentlewoman from New Mexico for bringing us together to celebrate Native American Heritage Month. May all Americans reflect on the diverse cultural legacy gifted to all of us by all indigenous peoples of our Nation.

Mr. CASE

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to confirm that Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives are included for the purposes and considerations of the U.S. Export Finance Agency's new Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. I am very proud to be joined in offering this amendment by my friend and colleague, the dean of this House, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young). In reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank of the United States, H.R. 4863 would create an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion for the new U.S. Export Finance Agency. This office would be responsible for engaging with minority-owned and women-owned businesses in the program, contracts and activities of the agency. This includes outreach to those businesses to ensure their awareness of the export assistance provided by the agency. The laudable policy goal of this office is to increase access to export assistance and foster overall business for underrepresented communities. However, H.R. 4863 currently uses references to section 1204(c) of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989, which defines ``minority'' as ``any Black American, Native American, Hispanic American, or Asian American.'' Because of the unique statuses that Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives have and the complexities of Federal law, the term ``Native American'' is not always understood to include Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives. My amendment is a simple clarification that for the purposes of the agency and its Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, those groups are included, as they are for many other comparable Federal programs. Adopting this amendment ensures that Native Hawaiian-owned and Alaska Native-owned businesses will be part of the agency's outreach efforts and have greater opportunity to benefit from the agency's export assistance. In my home State of Hawaii, Native Hawaiian-owned businesses are an essential part of our economy, but this is also true in countless other communities throughout our country. According to the 2012 Survey of Business Owners, there are almost 26,000 Native Hawaiian-owned businesses in the United States, employing over 20,000 people. Improving outreach to Native Hawaiian-owned businesses by the agency provides these businesses the chance to grow and expand opportunities for the families and communities they support, not just in Hawaii, but across the country. Native Hawaiian-owned businesses contribute to the economies of every single State and the District of Columbia. Nearly half of those businesses operate outside of Hawaii. These statistics demonstrate the involvement of Native Hawaiian businesses in our business communities, but they also do not adequately give voice to the extent to which their businesses contribute to the overall empowerment of Native Hawaiian communities, nor do such numbers tell the story of the countless lives that have been improved and the communities strengthened as a result of their innovation and entrepreneurship. Everything that I have said here today applies equally to Alaska Natives, as I am sure Mr. Young would be quick to point out. This amendment will ensure that the reauthorized agency will help Native Hawaiian-owned and Alaska Native-owned businesses pursue new business opportunities, support American jobs across the country, and sustain and enrich the communities they support, as will be the case for other minority- and women-owned businesses. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate very much that, in the middle of the remarks of my colleague, I certainly heard and detected support for this amendment. I appreciate my colleague in the minority recognizing the importance of minority- and women-owned businesses throughout our country and their contributions to our export community. This is certainly consistent with my colleagues' earlier comments that they fully support the provisions of this bill that do, in fact, recognize that disadvantaged communities throughout our country often need extra assistance. As I said earlier, this is consistent very much with other Federal programs. I would certainly, to the gentleman's comments about China, Russia, and other countries, emphasize that, in this particular area, the more American businesses that can participate in export-related activities throughout the world, the better we will all be in this country with respect to our relations with these other countries. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASE

Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize October as Filipino American History Month, a time for all Americans to remember and celebrate the incredible past, present, and future of our fellow citizens whose heritage lies in the great country of the Philippines. I am especially humbled to do so as the proud Representative of Hawaii's First Congressional District, where live more Filipino Americans--close to 200,000--than in any of our 440 districts throughout our country. And with Hawaii's Second Congressional District number two, at about 175,000, our Fil-Am community in Hawaii stands at about 375,000, one-quarter of all Hawaii residents and, by far, the largest percentage of any State or territory. We observe Filipino American History Month in October because the first recorded arrival of Filipinos in the continental United States took place in 1587, when the Luzones Indios came ashore from the Manila-built galleon Nuestra Senora de Esperanza in Morro Bay, California. And in 1906, 113 years ago, the first 15 sakada, or contract laborers, arrived in Honolulu from the Philippines aboard the SS Doric, marking the first sustained immigration into our country and the humble beginnings of Fil-Ams in Hawaii. Today, our Fil-Am community numbers some 4 million throughout our country, now the second largest of our Asian American groups. The story of Filipino Americans is the story of America. From very humble beginnings, they have risen through hard work, sacrifice, commitment to advancing the next generations, and mutual support to achieve so much already. Hawaii Fil-Ams, in particular, have been trailblazers: Peter Aduja became the first Fil-Am elected to public office in the United States when he was elected to the Hawaii territorial House of Representatives in 1954. Benjamin Menor became the first Fil-Am higher court judge as associate justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court. Ben Cayetano was the first Filipino American Governor of a U.S. State. Major General Antonio Taguba was the second Filipino American promoted to general officer rank in our Army. Eddie Flores, Jr., bought the first L&L Drive-In on Liliha Street in Honolulu in 1976, turning it into a national franchise. Carolina Dizon Wong was the first Filipino American woman to obtain an M.D. degree. Ines Cayaban was the first Filipino American graduate of the school of public health, nursing, and social work at the University of Hawaii. She received the prestigious Jefferson Award in 1986 for her service. Francisco Flores ``Corky'' Trinidad, Jr., of Honolulu was an award- winning editorial cartoonist of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, who became the first Asian editorial cartoonist syndicated in the United States. And a loyal veteran of the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment that fought alongside our troops in the Philippines during World War II, Domingo Los Banos was Hawaii's first Filipino American school principal. I was recently honored to join the promotion ceremony in Honolulu of Roy Macareg from colonel to brigadier general in the Hawaii Army National Guard, the first Fil-Am to become a general officer in the history of Hawaii's citizen soldier ranks. In Hawaii, we also regularly honor the over 250,000 Filipinos who answered the call to protect and defend the United States and the Philippines in the Pacific theater. In 2016, President Obama signed into law the Filipino Veterans of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act to bestow Congress' highest honor upon these worthy veterans. We also, of course, celebrate, right here in Congress, our proud Fil- Ams who serve our country here, my colleagues Bobby Scott of Virginia and TJ Cox of California. Each and all of these lives of achievement are but a very small sampling of a broader community that has achieved so much and contributed so much to the rich fabric of our country. And the story of Filipino Americans is still in its early chapters. Why are Filipino Americans among our most successful communities? General Macareg spoke to some of that at his promotion ceremony when he credited his own success to the hard work and sacrifice for him and his five siblings of his father, a laborer, and mother, a teacher, to the values they instilled, and to the constant nurturing and support of his broader community. That well describes Filipino Americans overall, that and a full and constant embrace of the values, responsibilities, and opportunities of America, while honoring and treasuring the rich heritage of their ancestral homeland. All of this is why I recently joined Congressman Cox in introducing H. Res. 621, a resolution to express support for the permanent designation of October as Filipino American History Month. We urge our colleagues' support to promote an ongoing appreciation of the contributions of Filipino Americans to our country and to the rich diversity of our Nation. To Fil-Ams everywhere: ``Thank you very much and God bless''-- ``maraming salamat po and dios ti agngina''--and congratulations. I truly look forward to partnering with you on your next proud chapters.

Mr. CASE

Mr. CASE. Madam Speaker, today I have introduced H.R. 4547, the Safe and Quiet Skies Act, to ensure that commercial air tour flights are adequately regulated to ensure safety and address current widespread community disruption. I extend a special thanks to my colleague, Congressman Brad Sherman of California, for cointroducing this necessary measure. The national problem of inadequately regulated commercial air tour flights has been highlighted in my own state of Hawai'i in just the last few months. We have seen three dead in the crash of a commercial air tour helicopter into a residential neighborhood and eleven more dead in the crash of a commercial skydiving plane. These tragedies occurred amidst a rapid increase in commercial helicopter and small plane overflights of all parts of my state including residential, commercial and industrial neighborhoods, cemeteries and memorials, land and marine parks and other recreation areas, and sensitive military installations. These have disrupted whole communities with excessive noise and other impacts, destroyed the peace and sanctity of special places, increased risk to not only passengers but those on the ground, and weakened security and management of defense operations. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) currently has virtually exclusive jurisdiction over these aircraft operations. Following both of these recent tragedies, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is responsible for investigating accidents but not for direct safety regulation, strongly recommended to the FAA that safety- related regulation of commercial tour helicopters and small aircraft skydiving operations is generally insufficient. Regarding ground disruption and risk, the FAA takes the position that its responsibility is strictly operational safety and national airspace efficiency and does not extend to ground disruption and other negative impacts. As a result, the operators, aside from strict takeoff and approach, avoidance of established flight paths and other limited circumstances, are virtually free to fly wherever, whenever and as often as they want. And they do, with little to no self-regulation. This situation is unacceptable for both safety and community impact concerns. It is also not limited to Hawai'i, with growing concerns in other areas with high commercial tour usage, more dense populations, valuable natural resources, significant defense installations and other factors. This bill would first require the FAA to implement the NTSB's recommended enhanced safety regulations. It would also prohibit flights over federal property that requires privacy, dignity and respect, to include military installations, national cemeteries and national parks, wildlife refuges and wilderness. It would further require the use of standard equipment to monitor the location of flights, apply the ``sterile cockpit rule'' to tour flights (meaning in part that the pilot could not also be the tour guide), prohibit flights lower than 1,500 feet over actual ground, and limit decibel levels to those commonly applied to operations in residential areas. Additionally, the bill would allow states, localities, and tribes to impose stricter regulations on tour flights in their jurisdictions with required public engagement. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this bill into law.

Mr. CASE

Mr. CASE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. CASE. Madam Speaker, I rise as a proud member of the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition. For a quarter century, the Blue Dogs in Congress have focused on three missions: fiscal responsibility for our country, a strong national defense, and commonsense solutions to practical problems. We are 27 proud Democrats with democratic values. Our individual views and votes on the broad range of issues that come before this Congress run the gamut from progressive to moderate, centrist, and beyond; but together, we believe that the best way forward for our country on all of these issues is an underlying focus on fiscal responsibility, a strong national defense, and commonsense solutions wherever they may be found to practical problems. Today, I wish to focus on fiscal responsibility. I do so as co-chair with my colleague from Utah, Mr. McAdams, of the Blue Dog Task Force on Fiscal Responsibility and Government Reform. Let me start by saying, unfortunately, and very directly that it is very arguable that at no point in our entire history have we operated our Federal Government in as fiscally irresponsible a manner as we are operating it today. There are lots of indicia of this out there, but nowhere does this show up more directly and stare us straight in the face than our national debt. Let me say what that is. Our national debt is exactly what it sounds like. It is the amount that our Federal Government--you--owe to everyone who has loaned us money to pay for government. Why do we have to do that? Because we are not bringing into government the revenues that are sufficient to match and pay for what we are paying for out of expenses. We are now operating with a chronic and exploding deficit, and we are borrowing with abandon to make up the difference. This particular chart is taken from the Congressional Budget Office. You will not find a more nonpartisan, objective, and professional group anywhere studying our fiscal responsibilities, our fiscal status, and our budgets than the Congressional Budget Office. I encourage everybody to take a look at their materials at cbo.org. This is just one of their many publications, and it is a wealth of information: CBO The Budget and Economic Outlook Fiscal Years 2019 to 2049. They are not only responsible for what has happened today; they are responsible for taking a look at the long-term, as any one of us would want to do with our own budgets. What this chart shows is outlays, or spending, on the top line and revenues on the bottom line. In this particular chart, we are matching outlays over time, and the timeframe here is about 15 years, against gross domestic product, the percentage of gross domestic product. Why is that important? It is important because one could have outlays and revenues coming in, but the only way to match it up is, how much is the strength of your economy overall? It is kind of like asking yourself: Well, in my own household budget, what is my level of spending, what is my level of borrowing, what is my level of income as opposed to my overall financial situation? So here we have the percentage of gross domestic product over on the left in the vertical axis, and down here, time. We can clearly see here that as we look out over a long, long period of time, that if we continued on the way we are today, we would see massive continuing spread of the two lines between expenses on the top and revenues at the bottom. To amplify the situation, when we take a look at where we are currently, 2019, that dotted line right over here, that is about $1 trillion, that gap, $1 trillion in 1 year of a deficit. So as we can see very obviously, not only are we in a very difficult situation today, but if we do nothing about it, it will spread over time. Now, what actually finances that difference? Debt. We go out and borrow it. It doesn't just arrive in the middle of the night in an unmarked bag. It didn't just grow on the tree outside. We are operating at a chronic and exploding deficit and borrowing to make up this difference. I am a returnee to Congress. I served in Congress from 2002 to 2007, so I tend to match up my experiences then versus now. I had a 12-year absence in between, half a generation if you want to think about it. When I left Congress in early 2007, our national debt stood at $9 trillion. Today, our national debt stands at $22 trillion. By the way, if you want to have a harrowing view of something, take a look at usdebtclock.org and watch the numbers turn over about as rapidly as anything you can see. What you can see from studying the debt over time is an incredible increase over here on the right side of this chart. But $22.5 trillion today. Let's just think about that. That is $68,300 for each and every citizen of this country, $183,000 for each and every taxpayer. Really? 230 years in our country's history to get to a national debt of $9 trillion, but just 12 years later, increasing by 250 percent to $22.5 trillion? Again, we can't just look at the absolute numbers, because they don't tell the full story. After all, if we had a thriving economy that was producing an incredible amount of money, some of these figures wouldn't make as much sense. So let's, again, take the total debt against the total gross domestic product, again, just like any house or business would do. We can see here that if we chart total debt against GDP--again, on the far left side on the vertical axis, we have GDP--as a percent of GDP, and down here, we have a period that starts at the origins of our country and concludes in 2049, from the start of our country to 2049, you can see the peaks right here. Obviously, our country was in bad shape at the beginning in the Revolutionary War and thereafter. We were just starting out as a country. And you can see, for example, the Civil War, this peak. Wars are times when we have to borrow money. Wars are times that are very, very difficult for economies, and obviously our expenses are up and people have needs, and during that period, we borrow money. We always try, or have always tried, to pay it back down because we don't know when the next emergency will come along. We can see another peak here, World War I. We see the Great Depression right here, the Great Depression and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which was financed with borrowing. And then, of course, the tragedy of World War II, the absolute peak of our debt versus our gross domestic product, right there. And why not? Our world was at war. Our economy was in a shambles. We had to finance that war. Not only did we finance that war, we financed the entire recovery of the world, the Marshall Plan, in so many ways. We rebuilt our cities. We rebuilt the national highway system. We incurred that largely through debt. This was the highest point of our debt to date. We see, again, some peaks that were related to great recessions and downturns in our economy where we had to borrow for a little while, then we came back down. And then we came to the last 15 to 20 years. Up until this point, we operated fairly responsibly. By 15 to 20 years, we abandoned fiscal responsibility and started down a road of accelerating debt, for the most part unrelated to wars, other than for Iraq and Afghanistan, which definitely had a consequence for our national debt, but mostly a result of a failure in this body and the administration to balance budgets as we went along. Here we are in 2017, 2018, and 2019. What is scarier than anything else is the CBO's projection of where it is going over time: out the roof, straight up. We can see that this is not a partisan issue. In this particular graph, the percent of GDP is over on the left axis, and the bottom vertical axis is over time. In more recent history, the postwar period by Presidencies, we have Democrats in blue and Republicans in red. We see over here President Truman in the late 1940s had a high threshold of debt-to-GDP, a little over 100 percent. Then, of course, it came down after that as we recovered. It went up in the era of some of our Great Recessions and, of course, our wars. Then, we had the period when we did the best, which was an evolution from President Clinton into President Bush, which was the last time we balanced our budget. Then, there is that spike starting with President Bush through the last Presidency and, especially, off the current Presidency into an ascending column, which is a projection from the Congressional Budget Office. These are scary projections because the CBO projects that if we do nothing, we will see our debt climb to around 144 percent of GDP within a couple of decades. Where does that rank us in the world? After all, we have had other governments that have had high debt. We have had other governments that have collapsed. We have had other governments for which their budget problems have caught up with them. Let's take a look at that. This chart shows the period projected from the current year out only 5 years. It asks the question: What is the growth in our debt-to-GDP as compared to the rest of the world? How fast are we growing in our debt versus the rest of the world? Unfortunately, the line on the right is us. We project that our debt- to-GDP will grow 11 percent over the next couple of years. The next line is Italy. We have Korea and Japan, but the rest of the world seems to be getting their growth under control. Some of these countries are recovering from recessions, but some of these countries just have sound economic practices. The embarrassing thing about this chart, the scary thing about this chart, is that we are not the world's leader. We are the world's loser, in terms of controlling our national debt. Why should we care about all of this? One of the questions asked sometimes is: Why does debt matter? I think the first and foremost obvious answer is that debt costs something. It is not free. If we borrow money, we pay interest. That is what everybody who loans us money expects. They expect to be paid some interest. These interest payments accelerate rapidly in times of accelerating debt. We see here a projection, again based on figures from the Congressional Budget Office, of interest spending over time, the next 10 years, in this particular case. We see that, today, we have interest of somewhere around $400 billion a year but accelerating at a very rapid rate over the next decade, up to close to $1 trillion a year. The red line is a scenario that is very likely if we do not make some tough decisions. That gets us even higher. This is the actual trend that we are looking at. That is a lot of money to be paying just for interest. To make matters worse, try to compare that level of interest spending against some of our other spending. In this particular chart, we see this line is our interest spending, kept relatively modest until recently but then accelerating very rapidly, as was indicated in my prior chart, to the levels out to 2029 that are truly scary. That is not the scary part, if that is not scary enough. This line is our total spending on our children. What do we do to take care of the children of our country? That is our spending line. Interest is just crossing it right now. This is our total defense spending projected out over time with interest crossing over. What this shows is that we are about to pay, in a very short period of time, if we don't do anything, far more money in basic interest on our national debt than we are spending on our children and our defense. That is an inexcusable situation for us to be in. The first basic problem is that we crowd out spending for other Federal purposes, which forces us, by the way, to borrow more, which forces us to have higher debt, which forces us to pay more interest. Everybody who has been in a business or a personal situation knows this. The second basic problem with that is why should we care about debt-- national security. Where does this money come from? Who is lending us this money? Two-fifths of our interest payments go overseas, two-fifths of the people in this world who are loaning us money. Two-fifths of our total debt is loaned to us, basically, by other countries. Other countries, 26 percent. This is the line that is scary: China, up to 7 percent now and growing. Japan, okay, fine, we welcome Japan loaning money to us. But on balance, I would rather the blue be the blue rather than owing the money to other countries because who knows what is going to happen over the next 10 or 20 years or generations. This is, obviously, not just an issue of our own fiscal stability, but it is a question of national security. Another question of national security is that we need this money in case we get into other situations in the world, hopefully not, but prepare for the situation where we may have to have massive increases in defense spending over the next generation. These are areas where we have traditionally tried to pay down our debt so that we can borrow back up to finance these additional expenditures without destroying our economy. Yet, when we borrow in good times to finance even larger Federal spending, then we have very little safety net to be able to borrow in bad times. That is not just a matter of budgetary stability. That is a matter of national security. Finally, why should it matter? Economic damage. There is a school out there that is trying to justify more debt, which is largely not agreed to by most economists. Most economists agree that, over time, large levels of debt, large levels of interest payments, drive up basic interest rates. They drive up basic interest rates, and that is bad for the economy. They drive up inflation, and that is bad for the economy. They lead to a situation where the markets out there--the people who are loaning us money, the people who are relying on the United States for its full faith and credit--start to doubt our basic fiscal solvency. They start to not only loan us money, but they start to charge us more interest, and that causes an economic problem. Finally, it is just bad budgetary practice to skate too closely on thin ice. This is why we should care: because our interest payments are crowding out spending; because it is a national security issue; and because, over time, it is an economic issue. How did we get into this mess? Well, obviously, we are spending more than we are taking in. Our long-term deficit buildup and short-term tax reduction and spending increases are really the issue. This chart is an illustration, again based on CBO information, of where our deficits are coming from today. When we are talking about the total amount of deficits closing in on $1 trillion, we see that absent recent legislation--we are talking about just the last 5 years or so-- we had a chronic deficit of close to $400 billion a year. That is pretty bad since, if we take $400 billion and times it by 5 years, all of a sudden, we are at $2 trillion of debt. But, then, we made major mistakes from a fiscal responsibility perspective in the last few years. First of all, we had tax extenders that were not paid for. We will get into that. We had tax credits, tax reductions, and tax rates that were extended without accounting on the other side for the spending. We had a major tax bill, which is still debated in this Chamber as to whether it was the right idea or not. What is indisputable about that tax bill was that it drove incredibly increasing deficits and incredibly and rapidly increasing debt. Then, finally, we had a budget agreement, last year, to raise the amount of spending. There is nothing wrong with raising the amount of spending, per se, if it is a public judgment and a policy judgment that that is the best thing for our country. What is wrong is to pretend that there is no consequence to our deficit, debt, and national fiscal policy. What do we do about it? By the way, I want to go back to that point for a second. We are not debating here whether our government should be bigger or smaller. We are not debating here whether taxes should be higher or lower. We can have that debate. It has been going on, after all, for 250 years and even before that back to the Colonies. We have always talked about how big government should or shouldn't be, how much we should or shouldn't spend through government. We just had that debate here on this floor today. We have always talked about the overall level of taxes. Should they be higher? Should they be lower? Should we have high taxes to pay for spending? Should they be lower to generate economic growth? Those are good, solid policy decisions to be made. That is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about here is the fiscal result when we don't balance spending and revenues, the result when we don't balance spending and revenues. We can choose to have high spending, but if we don't generate the revenue for that, then we are going to end up with incredible deficits and debt. We can choose to have lower taxes, but if we don't adjust the spending at the same time, we are going to end up with high deficits and debt. It just makes perfect sense. That is all that we are talking about here. We are willing and able to have the debate over the size of government and taxes. Again, within our Blue Dog Caucus, we have disagreements on that. But where we have centralization of agreement is in managing the consequence of that debate and having it be an honest debate, not a debate that pulls the wool over our fellow citizens' eyes on the consequences. What do we do about it? Well, I think, first of all, we start talking about it again. It is really hard. Twenty years ago, in the great times when we actually did balance the budget in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, public sentiment was high on deficits and debt. People cared about this. People understood the risk. Then, all of a sudden, politicians stopped talking about it. They did, on both sides of the aisle, what many of us do when faced with a major issue: We deny it. We don't want to acknowledge it. It is too much trouble. We don't want to say that when we cut taxes and don't adjust spending, there is a consequence for our deficit and the debt. We don't want to say the reverse of that. We want to tell everybody that everything is okay. After all, we can have our cake and eat it, too. I don't want to go back to my district and say, well, I can't vote for a tax reduction because it is going to blow our deficit and debt. This is an insidious situation. The consequences of deficits and debt are not apparent right up front. They don't catch up with us for a long time. But I think we all know, deep down, that we have a problem and that is not true. And the second thing we have to do, at some point, is simply make a plan and implement it. And that is what our Democratic Blue Dog Coalition has done and will try to do going forward. We have tried to come up with a blueprint for fiscal responsibility, which today, we endorsed and released. And these are a series of points that we believe need to be pursued in order to have some chance at fiscal responsibility and sustainability over time. From that perspective, I am very pleased that I am joined today by my colleague from Utah (Mr. McAdams), my co-chair of the Blue Dog Task Force on Fiscal Responsibility and Government Reform, to share his views and to outline some of our agenda items. I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. McAdams).

Mr. CASE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much, and I am privileged to be his co-chair. Would the gentleman engage me in a colloquy on a few of the issues that he touched on?

Mr. CASE. I yield to the gentleman from Utah.

Mr. CASE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Let's talk about his proposed balanced budget amendment, by the way, of which I am a proud cosponsor. Some people criticized the balanced budget amendment which would have to be ratified throughout our country, as an overly restrictive mechanism, especially in times of national emergency. As the gentleman's balanced budget amendment is crafted, is there flexibility to borrow money and to deficit spend in times of genuine national need? I yield to the gentleman from Utah.