Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we know the President doesn't like to read, but I think perhaps his acting chief of staff did. There was something called the Maginot Line the French built between World War I and World War II, an impenetrable defense against the German invasion. Unfortunately, the Germans went around it. Here we are in the 21st century. The President wants $5.7 billion to build a wall along part of the Mexican border. Now, his own acting chief of staff, when he was a Member of Congress and perhaps speaking more freely, said: You go under, you go around, you go through. What they need is more manpower and more technology. That is Mick Mulvaney, well, saying something different now, I guess, because he wants to keep his job. But the point is, he had an honest opinion then, and that is the way it will work. Here are a few things: You can go over walls and fences--oh, by the way, we just had a demonstration today that the steel slats the President now wants can be cut with a handsaw. Tunnels, drugs come through that way and people are smuggled in that way. Oh, they are using the squad copters. You can buy those pretty cheap--oh, and then some more primitive device over here. But, actually, the flood of drugs coming into the United States comes in right here, legal border crossings. A couple of problems with that right now: First off, the people who are manning the border crossings aren't getting paid. Secondly, they don't have enough technology or the capability of inspecting more than 10 percent of the vehicles that come through. So for the cartels: ``Hey, what the heck. We just lost a semi.'' What do they care? Pocket change. ``Couple of hundred thousand bucks, million bucks--whatever. We don't care.'' They just try all the time. And we don't have the defenses we need. We could invest there, but, no, the President wants the wall. Now, there is another way that drugs are coming into this country. Last year, the Coast Guard intercepted $5.6 billion--sound familiar? $5.6 billion, almost as much as the President wants for the wall--worth of illegal drugs being shipped via the ocean into the United States. The Commandant of the Coast Guard testified 2 years ago, they are only intercepting 20 percent of the known shipments because their medium endurance cutters are half a century old. They don't have enough helicopters. They don't have enough air support. They don't have enough fast-pursuit boats. But, no, we are going to invest in a stupid static way. They can go around it in the oceans. They can go around it in the desert. They can go under it. They can go over it. And the people who are really doing the job, like the Coast Guard, guess what. They are not getting paid either. The first line of defense, Customs and Border Protection--not being paid. The Coast Guard--not being paid. There is a very long list of Federal employees who are critical to national security who are not being paid today and don't have the tools they need. But the President wants to invest in a stupid static wall because they promised one. And, oh, by the way, Mexico is going to pay for it, which, of course, they aren't. You know, yesterday the tip sheet from the Coast Guard support group, the Trump administration, had helpful tips for coasties: you could hold a garage sale; you could perhaps dog walk; you could register as a mystery shopper. They actually posted this for people who are the first line of defense in the United States of America, instead of saying: ``Put them back to work and pay them, pay them for defending America.'' Now, the President says he can relate to this. He understands. Yes, when he was in business, he stiffed a whole lot of people, and he is stiffing 800,000 Federal employees right now.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, on January 8 and 9, 2019, I missed the following votes due to a medical appointment. Had I been present I would have voted: on Roll Call Vote 13, on passage of H.R. 269, I would have voted Aye; on Roll Call Vote 14, on passage of H.R. 251, I would have voted Aye; on Roll Call Vote 15, on approving the Journal, I would have voted Aye; on Roll Call Vote 16, on Ordering the Previous Question to H. Res. 28, I would have voted Yes; on Roll Call Vote 17, on agreeing to H. Res. 28, I would have voted Aye; and on Roll Call Vote 18, on passage of H.R. 226, I would have voted Aye.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I will vote in support of H.R. 2, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also known as the Farm bill. The bill contains many of my priorities. As the author of the 1990 Organic Food Production Act and co-chair of the House Organic Caucus, I am pleased the conference report includes robust funding to help conventional producers transition to organic farming, strong research funding, and new authority for organic producers to be eligible for conservation programs when previously the programs were only available to conventional farmers. The bill also maintains current SNAP benefit levels, increases funding for food bank programs, including The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and keeps separate funding streams for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program. However, the bill maintains the current agricultural subsidy programs, which I strongly oppose. The subsidies are only supposed to go to those ``actively engaged in farming.'' Yet under the bill, the nearly $900 billion in subsidies continue to be skewed towards wealthy individuals and mega-farms at the expense of small and medium-sized farms. In fact, the Environmental Working Group found that 18,000 Americans living in urban areas received more than $63 million in subsidies in 2015 and 2016. Not only do the subsidy loopholes from previous Farm bills remain, they are made even worse in this newest Farm bill, which expands the definition of ``actively engaged in farming'' to nieces, nephews and cousins--even if they have never set foot on the farm. Real farmers, especially small- and medium-sized family farms, are in the middle of one of the worst economic downturns in decades, and they need and deserve our help before they are forced to sell their farms and lose their way of life. While the Farm bill contained many improvements to previous bills, the lack of reform and the expansion of subsidy program eligibility is outrageous. I will continue working to reform agricultural subsidy programs to ensure that the benefits go to small- and medium-sized farms, and only to those that actually work the land.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to honor Mr. Craig LaMountain for his dedication and accomplishments in establishing the Vietnam War Foundation and Museum for the purpose of memorializing those who fought in Vietnam as well as to educate succeeding generations concerning these veterans' experiences, sacrifices, service, and devotion to duty. Mr. LaMountain is a Vietnam veteran, drafted into the U.S. Army in October 1966 and coming home in August 1968. Mr. LaMountain began collecting memorabilia and visiting schools in New York after his brother, LT Vetal Charles LaMountain, a Naval aviator crashed while on a mission during the Vietnam War and whose remains were never recovered. When Mr. LaMountain's close cousin, Mickey Addy, died of cancer from Agent Orange, the collection was expanded to further present to schools the opportunity for veterans to share their experiences. Like so many Vietnam veterans, Mr. LaMountain continues to sacrifice to this day in fighting his own battle against the effects of Agent Orange. Upon retirement, Mr. LaMountain incorporated his collection as the Vietnam War Foundation (VWF), a non-profit 501(c)(3) public education foundation. The VWF provides schoolchildren and the general public the opportunity to learn about the military legacy of the 1960s in a ``hands-on'', free of charge environment, hear its Vietnam veterans share their stories, and see and touch restored, historic military aircraft and vehicles. No other known educational foundation in the U.S. is totally dedicated to preserving this unique Vietnam era equipment and memorabilia for future generations of schoolchildren and the general public to experience. Mr. LaMountain has devoted himself to this mission for over 30 years. It is my privilege to honor Mr. Craig LaMountain today, and my sincere hope that you'll join me in recognizing him for his extraordinary effort to present the Vietnam era story and experiences to schools, veterans and their families, historians and the general public.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank Dave Jansen for his hard work and again congratulate the chairman on his last bill passing on the floor. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), who is the ranking member.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in full support of S. 140, legislation that we have been somewhat patiently waiting for the Senate to move on for over a year. This legislation incorporates three different bills passed and reported by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last year: H.R. 2518, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2017; H.R. 1726, the Coast Guard Improvement and Reform Act; and H.R. 2593, the Federal Maritime Commission Authorization Act. This is going to provide both positive improvements in maritime policy, help with the competitiveness of the U.S. maritime industry, and it is going to be of substantial assistance to the Coast Guard. There are issues where we had some disagreement. It is not a perfect bill, but I am pleased to support it, and I urge all Members to support it. I am particularly pleased with the 2-year authorized funding levels for the Coast Guard. It has been hurt over a number of years. Their budget has been too thin, and cuts imposed by the Budget Control Act have been harmful. So this is a reasonable--not optimal--funding level, but it will meet both the acquisition and operational needs, and the Appropriations Committee will have the capability of meeting the targets we have set. It would have a rigorous new process before the Coast Guard can permanently close any air facility it operates. In my home State of Oregon there was a rather sudden announcement of a closure of an air facility in the mid-coast, Newport, in Representative Schrader's district. The waters of the Pacific are extraordinarily cold year- round. Survival times are not long, and we were putting mariners--both recreational, commercial, and others--at risk. So we have now imposed a new process. There will have to be an extensive public review justification, and then Congress will also have time to review, evaluate, and, if necessary, reject future proposed closures. I also support a provision in the bill that will allow certificates of documentation to be renewed on a multiyear basis. The Coast Guard has had a backlog forever on certificates of documentation, and they are annual. The rationale has been, well, we need to know your home port every year. We are going to have a process where you can get a 5- year certificate, and then if you change your home port, you have to report it within a certain number of days to the Coast Guard. That solves that issue. There was a long-discussed provision that was very controversial on the Senate side on the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act. We came up with a compromise. Again, I don't know that it is optimal, but we can live with it. It sets strict technological standards for vessel discharges under the Clean Water Act to protect local waters, minimizing the introduction and spread of aquatic invasive species to where it was becoming an incredibly expensive and difficult problem. We don't need to spread anymore. It establishes a uniform national standard for ballast water treatment that will be developed both by the EPA and the Coast Guard to aid commercial carriers in movement of goods by providing regulatory certainty throughout the United States. It retains a significant role for individual States and citizens to protect their local waters, which has been a critical sticking point in prior efforts to pass this measure. So under this proposal, States are guaranteed the ability to co- enforce and oversee implementation of the vessel discharge program, petition the EPA and Coast Guard to strengthen ballast discharge standard, should technologies that are more stringent become commercially available, and call for the establishment of no discharge zones in important and sensitive State waters, similar to those currently available for marine sewage. That, again, was not necessarily optimal, but I think it is workable and protects the interests of the State and our precious resources. I want to acknowledge the chairman and thank him. This will be the last bill he manages on the floor. He has imposed regular order on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with the water resources development bills, the first long-term FAA bill in three decades, and now an excellent Coast Guard authorization in addition to other products. I would like to also thank my ranking member--soon, perhaps, depending on where he decides to go--chairman of this subcommittee for his contributions. This is the third time that John Garamendi has worked with the Republicans to deliver a good Coast Guard bill during his tenure. So, all in all, this is a strangely productive day for the House of Representatives, and I am proud to be here. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, these people want to unbalance it and delist the entire lower 48. They want to defy good science. And, oh, by the way, what they are doing is so indefensible, but, well, we can't go to court because, actually, we are not following the law. So this bill does a number of things that are really short-term bad. By the way, it is going nowhere in the Senate. We are hearing messaging today that we could be doing a farm bill, and we could be doing affordable college education. There are a lot of things we could do--a budget for the United States Government. But, no, we are here on a talking point for a few idiots.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I have a few wolves in my district, not enough. I don't know that I will take Mr. Peterson's wolves, but we are breeding our own. OR-7 made an incredible journey from way up in northeastern Oregon all the way down to the California border. He went down to California looking for a mate. He finally found one, and those were his first progeny. Guess what? We are not having catastrophic predation on cattle in southern Oregon. We could accommodate more wolves. Now, there are reasons why cattle die. My colleague from Oregon might show up, and he has a picture--it is kind of ugly--of a calf that was killed by wolves. It was sad that that calf didn't get to grow up and go to the slaughterhouse. Here are the real facts. Seventy-four percent of loss is due to health issues; that is, good husbandry. Eight percent almost, 7.8, is due to weather; 2.7 is due to coyotes, cougars, bear, and dogs-- predators. Oh, here we are. Look, that is the problem. Wait a minute. We have new numbers, 0.2 percent--0.2 percent--is due to wolf predation. Now, I doubt that my colleagues on the other side have gone to Yellowstone to see the phenomenal recovery of the ecosystems in Yellowstone. We will hear that, oh, it is bad for hunters, elk. Well, actually, the elk population is doing very well, but they don't browse all the way down into the streams anymore. So now fish have come back, and other species have come back, because the elk are worried about the wolves, so they stick to the forested areas where they should be. So having apex predators is incredibly important to a balanced environment. To say that we have to go out and slaughter those--Fish and Wildlife or Animal Damage Control, whatever the heck we call those jerks these days. The Federal Government has been subsidizing for years the indiscriminate slaughter of predator species, ostensibly to help out the ranchers. Now, when I was a county commissioner, we were kind of broke, and we went through a list of everything we were doing. I said, what are we doing, giving this money there? They said that is our match to the Federal Government to come and kill coyotes. I said, why? What is that about? They said, oh, sheep predation, horrible, horrible. We were broke. We cut out that. We said, no, we don't want these people here anymore. We are not going to subsidize it. Guess what happened? Nothing. We did not have horrible sheep predation in my county. So a lot of this is based on some kind of gut-level, historic fear or hatred of predators that has been passed down from generation to generation. We can have a healthy wolf population, and you can still do good husbandry with cattle. So they want to delist the wolf in all the lower 48. We have maybe 8, 12, 10-- we don't even know--in my district, which is historic habitat. In other parts of the State that have been previously occupied, there are no wolves. A couple of our wolves have wandered down to California, the first ones there since we were on this campaign to eliminate them all. The other thing is science. When you kill the apex predators, then the coyotes depredate on the cattle. Then you have overpopulation of elk, and they browse riparian. A balanced environment is good for everybody.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I will vote in support of the Conference Report for H.R. 6157, the Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act of 2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2019. The legislation includes several provisions that I strongly support, including giving servicemen and women a well-deserved raise of 2.6 percent. Those who serve in uniform have made extraordinary sacrifices for our country and have earned and deserve a pay raise. The legislation also prohibits the use of funds in Syria and Iraq in contravention of the War Powers Resolution. As a co-equal branch of the federal government, the president must come to Congress to seek authorization for the use of military force. It also includes funding for Ukraine and Eastern Europe security initiatives to counter Russia's heightened military provocations and annexation of Crimea. Despite these vital provisions, I have concerns with a number of provisions included in the Conference Report. This legislation authorizes more than $606.5 billion for the Department of Defense, including $67.8 billion to the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, an account which is not counted in the budget and is not paid for. It adds to the deficit and is used as a slush fund by the Pentagon. Unlike every other federal agency, the Department of Defense (DOD) has yet to complete a financial audit; taxpayers deserve to know how the biggest bureaucracy in the federal government spends their money. Additionally, the bill prohibits the closing of Guantanamo Bay, which costs more than $100 million each year to house 41 prisoners and has been used as a top recruiting tool by terrorists. The bottom line is that the prison has been a black eye for the United States, has eroded relationships with our allies, undermined U.S. missions abroad, and put U.S. citizens and our troops at risk of retaliation

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am going to talk quickly because I have got a lot of people who want to talk, and there are a lot of important things in this bill. I want to thank the chairman--he has done an extraordinary job here-- and Chairman LoBiondo, both retiring, and we will miss them. I also want to thank my colleague Mr. Larsen. Now, there are many provisions that are very important. I won't get to all of them here. But flight attendants, thanks to Michael Capuano of Massachusetts, are going to get a 10-hour minimum rest period. They are safety-critical professionals. In the current rules, sometimes they are only getting 4 or 5 hours a night on certain routes. That is not right. That is long overdue. We have to see whether or not we can actually meet the standard of evacuating a plane in 90 seconds as budget carriers and others cram more and more seats in that are narrower and narrower, less and less pitch. Can we still meet those standards? We are going to find out whether we can or not. A provision later in the bill inserted by another of my colleagues, Steve Cohen, will require the FAA, particularly if instructed by this study, to set minimum pitch width and length requirements for passenger seats. The drones--we have 100 reports of drone sightings by pilots in controlled airspace being illegally operated every month. Sooner or later, one of those things is going to take down a jetliner with passengers on board. Until now, Congress has prohibited the FAA from regulating these drones because the model aircraft people think they are going to all be grounded. They are not going to be grounded. The FAA isn't going to go after responsible operators. You are going have to register. You are going to have to show that you understand the rules. But the model aircraft people already do. Many of these toy people, like the one who stopped firefighting in my district in August, are breaking the law; and we are going to know and be able to identify them, find them, fine them, jail them, whatever is necessary to stop these dangerous activities. So that is an incredibly important part of the bill. There are certification reforms. Our manufacturers have been waiting for years. We need to maintain our lead in aerospace. We are finally getting certification reform to make their production of new equipment, modern, state-of-the-art stuff, much easier. We are also going to require the FAA to facilitate and defend their approvals overseas. No more Chinese aviation authority blackmailing our manufacturers into giving them proprietary information so they can sell their product in China. That has got to stop. We are going to make the FAA help our manufacturers over there. We are going to have some passenger rights here. As I already talked about, Steve Cohen with the seat pitch. There are also consumer protections. We are going to have better identification of what is going to happen. They are going to have to post online, with mass cancelations, what they are going to do with people; permanent prohibition of cellphones in flight. It did not, unfortunately, include a provision that Chairman LoBiondo, Drew Ferguson, and I authored to help the airline industry-- or defend the airline industry--from following the cruise line model where all the crews are going to be foreign and not subject to U.S. law with flags of convenience. That is something that yet needs to be addressed. It does not allow an increase in the passenger facility charge, which hasn't been updated in about 20 years, and yet airports do not have sufficient bonding capacity to make the improvements we need to make the airports flow more quickly and a better experience for passengers. The airlines should join me in that instead of opposing that. It also has disaster recovery reform in there. We are going to do more investment in predisaster mitigation, which will save massive amounts of money for taxpayers. We are going to require stronger building codes as we rebuild. It also has some important things for the State of Oregon that relate to earthquake early warning and mitigation regarding forest fires. Finally, we are going to take money that is being stolen from passengers. Now we have a big fight over a passenger facility charge, yet the airlines did not raise a stink when the Republican Congress diverted--raised, twice--the passenger security fee and diverted the money to nonpassenger security issues, which is delaying the deployment of new, more efficient equipment by the TSA. We are going to finally end that practice, not soon enough, but perhaps we can amend that later. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from New York an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), ranking member on the Small Business Committee.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I already thanked my colleagues, but I also want to thank some staff, particularly some of the staff on my side of the aisle. The staff on both sides worked hard: Alex Burkett; Rachel Carr; Kathy Dedrick; Janet Erickson; David Napoliello; Luke Strimer; Mike Tien; in Rick Larsen's office, Alexandra Menardy; and special thanks, because they don't get thanked enough around here, to the people who put together legislation that actually works and do yeoman's work behind the scenes, legislative counsel Karen Anderson, Rosemary Gallagher, and Stephen Hagenbuch. Again, this is a good bill. It shows what we can do here when we drop our partisan cloaks and work together for the good of the American people, both the flying public and the businesses that are dependent upon the aviation industry, and, also, the work we did in here on disaster mitigation, things that should have been done earlier, couldn't get done earlier. But in a must-pass bill like this, we were able to come to consensus. This is a good day for the House of Representatives--unfortunately, a somewhat rare day. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the remaining time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), my friend and ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), a key appropriator on these issues.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), a member of the committee.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), an esteemed member of the committee.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.