Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We have been down this path somewhat exhaustively, except we haven't held exhaustive hearings to bring in the stakeholders, poke at this idea, see if there are alternatives and other ways to make the FAA into a more efficient agency. Actually, the Canadians are not launching a satellite. They are putting a module on a satellite, and they are allowing people to actually license in or lease in with them, which the FAA could do. That is not the critical part of the infrastructure we need here in the U.S. That satellite-based system will not be able to improve the ground-based system that we have here in terms of our very, very busy airports. We land more planes in a day at LaGuardia than Canada lands in--I don't know how many days. So the issue of our system and more efficiency in our system depends on many things, including one thing which is a glaring omission in both the House and Senate bills: runways, aprons, terminals. Guess what. Both the House bill and the Senate bill stiff the airports. We haven't allowed them to assess a reasonable increase in the passenger facility charge in many, many, many years. So even if this system becomes more efficient, one way or another, at some point, you can't get more planes into LaGuardia without building another runway. That is not going to happen. So we can't even talk about that. There are other places where we could improve efficiency with another runway, where you could improve efficiency with more terminal space, more gates, more apron. Yet, the airports are not being allowed to assess a user fee to get there. I actually was an original advocate for the passenger facility charge many years ago when I saw the unfairness of the previous system. I live in Springfield, Oregon, across the river from Eugene. Eugene has the airport on their property. They had to build a new airport, and they could only assess the fees in taxes against the people of Eugene. Yet, people from Corvallis, people from Springfield, people from Roseburg, all use that airport. So I thought it would be only fair to assess a passenger facility charge for those sorts of improvements, which I probably enjoy more than most people, flying more than most people. But we haven't allowed an increase in that, and certainly the costs of construction have not gotten any cheaper. Many of the airports are bonded out. They don't have the capability of issuing more bonds without more revenue flow, but we seem to be ignoring that. So if you want to look at the system to increase efficiency as a whole and to help the passenger experience, you have got to look at the system as a whole, and I am afraid we are a little bit short there. Back to the corporate model, we don't know what the user fees will be, which, again, is why business aviation, general aviation, the Nation's largest airline and the regional airlines, which fly 62 percent of the airplanes every day, are all opposed to this black hole. Suddenly we are going to have a private corporation that assesses some sort of user fee, which is raising more than $10 billion a year to pay for itself, and then the gentleman says that safety will remain with the FAA. It will, with no funding. So it is a crisis that every once in a while, you know, idiots take over, and we shut down the government, and that messes up air traffic control, and then we go into sequestration. But it is okay if they shut down every inspector in the FAA and everything else that goes into safety in the FAA and everything that goes into certification at the FAA because that will all remain with the vestigial agency over in the general fund with no funding source, because the assumption is all of the existing excise taxes are going to be repealed and replaced by new, unknown user fees by the private entity. So what is that new system and how and where is the money going to come from for safety, for certification and all the other critical functions of the FAA? That is left to the total discretion of Congress, with no funding source. At least today you can look at that and say: Well, we are paying for 93 percent of it through taxes that are being raised, that are dedicated; all we have got to do is come up with 7 percent. But now it will be: Wow, we have got to come up with 100 percent to fund those inspectors and those certifiers and all those people over there. Wow, this is great; let's bifurcate the agency. Plus the communications problem. And, by the way, the certifiers will have to certify the new systems that the private corporation is proposing to put in place, so the certifiers are now laid off because of a dumb government shutdown but, hey, they can move ahead over here. Well, no, they can't move ahead. They can't deploy any new systems because they are user fee-based, and these people over here are general fund-based. So I do not believe this solves the problem. I think it would be better to say, if you want to do this, do it the way President Clinton did propose, which is a government corporation. He did not propose privatization. Virtually the vast majority of the countries in the world have gone with government corporations. If you do that, you don't have some of the bizarre problems that they are trying to work around here with the Constitution, which prohibits giving regulatory authority to a private entity. Well, they work around that by saying everything the corporation wants to do has to be approved by the Secretary, who, by the way, will have a giant new office of experts to advise him or her on whether or not to approve the new fee structure, whether or not to approve the new routes, whether or not to approve this or that or anything that is regulatory in nature. That all still has to go back to the Secretary, who, by the way, is subject to Congress and the appropriations process and political appointment. We aren't solving the problem. If this goes forward, you are not solving the problem. I posit that you are creating more. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Here we are in the first or second short-term extension of the FAA, hopefully the last. The Senate has introduced a bill and I have had an opportunity to review the Senate bill. If you put the bills side by side, you will find very substantial agreement. In fact, there is very substantial agreement in the House over many of the critical provisions of the bill that relate to safety, to the future regulation of drones, to flight attendant risk, and numerous other provisions that were agreed upon during the markup. The one major disagreement between the House and the Senate bills is the same disagreement that exists here in the House, which is over the privatization of the air traffic operations in this country. I am not going to regurgitate the entire debate again here on the floor. The point is, with both bills being so similar, absent privatization, we could move well within the temporary extension. In fact, we could probably have a bill done--well, we are not here very much. Congress is having, I think, a record few number of legislative days this year--but whenever we are going to be around again. I think there is a week in April and maybe a couple of days in May when we are going to be here and we could get this done. That seems to me to be the more prudent course. The chairman and I do agree on what needs to be addressed at the FAA. First off, the biggest problem the FAA has is the United States Congress--the stupid shutdowns, sequestration, and other things which have interrupted critical work, including procurement, and which have certainly interrupted the orderly operation of the air traffic control system. How do we protect the FAA from Congress and idiots who want to shut down the government? That is a tough one. I propose mandatory spending. The FAA is virtually self-funding. With the current tax structure and without adopting a controversial new private fee structure that would be put through by the nonprofit corporation, the existing tax structure can pay for virtually 100 percent of the FAA, as it is, on an ongoing basis. If we adopted some efficiencies with a couple of other reforms, it would be in very, very robust shape and we would no longer have to rebut the idiocy of government shutdowns. Now, there are certainly other parts of the government I care about that shouldn't be shut down, but at least mandatory spending here, like with Social Security checks and veterans' benefits, would say no, this is critical; it will continue even if, for some reason, Congress is so dysfunctional as to shut down funding for the government. Secondly, procurement. Congress has been trying to reform procurement at the FAA since 1996. Unfortunately, back then, Congress didn't mandate procurement reforms. They merely gave the FAA license to depart from Federal procurement procedures if they so wished. In the end, unfortunately, either through the initiative of the FAA's or perhaps of some of the people down at the Office of Management and Budget, the procurement reforms were not done. In fact, they ended up with a system that is pretty much the same as the other, which is perhaps even less functional than those of other Federal agencies. Finally, personnel. Again, in 1996--20 years ago--Congress, in recognizing this problem, gave the FAA the opportunity, the discretion, to adopt different personnel procedures, particularly as it relates to the mid-level bureaucratic bulge in the agency which does lead to some analysis, paralysis, and other problems that slow down needed measures or actions by the FAA. I offered a very simple amendment that addressed those three things. It shouldn't be controversial. It says let the FAA fund itself with the existing tax structure and make that mandatory spending so we never shut them down again. Let's have procurement reforms and personnel reforms that are mandatory. Unfortunately, that amendment failed and, instead, this privatization proposal prevailed. But that now has brought us to this point where, what is the path forward? Okay. We are now going to extend this agency temporarily until just before the longest summer break in history for Congress. Well, I guess back in the 1940s and 1950s they used to take the summers off. But at least since the invention and installation of air-conditioning, it is the longest summer break in history. So we have to get it done before then. Otherwise, Congress won't be back until sometime in September for a couple of days when it is not likely to do any major legislation. The stability and the predictability that we need with the FAA, the reforms we need--not just the ones I mentioned, but the reforms in drones, the reforms to give flight attendants the same mandatory rest hours and many, many other provisions--that are in agreement between the House and the Senate should not have to wait. So I would hope that we won't drag this out until just before Congress adjourns and, instead, that we move forward with all dispatch after the Senate acts this week, if the Senate acts this week--you never can predict the Senate--and begin to correlate the few differences that I see between the bills. Then, at some point, I think it will be time to give up on the privatization proposal and move forward and put this bill into place. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, well, let's just set the record straight. Only two countries have privatized. That is Canada and Great Britain. In the case of Great Britain, the government and the taxpayers had to come in and bail out the corporation. In the case of Canada, it was a very prolonged transition, 7 or 8 years, which would set back NextGen for a generation. So those were not without their problems. There is a MITRE report, which looks at all of the other conversions around the world which were government corporations, not private corporations. So there are only two that have gone to private corporations. All the other countries that have changed over have gone to government corporations, and they also had transition issues. I mean, it is very instructive. We haven't held hearings on the MITRE report or the recent GAO report that point to the potential for disruption and seeing that this proposal won't cause the sorts of disruptions that happened in other countries. On the issue of mandatory spending, we would still, as the authorizers, have the authority to direct that agency much more so than we will have if we give it to a private corporation. According to the most recent CBO report, they deem that this corporation will be mandatory spending and it will be a private corporation which will have the authority to tax. So we are giving authority to a private corporation to establish some sort of a fee or tax structure--they can't tax; so it will be fees of some sort--a fee for the amount of space that you take up in an airplane when you are flying over the country--who knows what those fees will be--we don't know--which would be potentially disruptive and potentially disadvantage other users of the system, which is why you have all the regional airlines that fly 62 percent of the flights every day opposed to this bill. You have Delta Air Lines, the largest airline, opposed to bill. You have the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association opposed to this bill. You have business aviation opposed to this proposal because they don't know what this fee structure will be and how it might or might not discriminate against them. So what I propose is that you keep the existing structure, which everybody can live with. Now, the airlines don't like it because every time I buy an airline ticket and I pay the excise tax, the airlines say that is their money. I say no. That is actually a tax that is levied on me, as a passenger, which goes to the government. It is not their money. But they think they can create a system where it won't be taking money out of their pocket, which they say the excise taxes do. But I don't know where the $10 billion or so a year is going to come to. Then, of course, the Office of Management and Budget also in this report found last week that, with mandatory spending by this private corporation, there will be a $19.848 billion deficit over a 10-year period. Let me repeat that. Mandatory spending by a private corporation assessing some sort of new fee structure on users of the system, including passengers, and the OMB says that that would increase the Federal deficit by $19.848 billion. Of course, the majority is always free to waive the rules and they can ignore that. I mean, the rules have been waived numerous times to create more deficit around here, just by the discussion on the other side that they want to address the deficit whenever we eliminate taxes, waive the rules, and pretend that actually eliminating taxes will raise money or it is budget-neutral. I guess, in this case, they could waive the rules and say the mandatory spending by the private corporation that will lead to additional deficit doesn't matter and it doesn't exist. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, the ranking member of the subcommittee, for yielding, and I thank him for his excellent work on this bill, as I do the subcommittee chair and the full committee chairman. This is a bill very much in the tradition of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure where, in fact, we have come together and put together a bipartisan proposal to reauthorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a critical, critical agency, as you have heard from some of the previous speakers. In particular, in the West, we have some issues regarding wildfires. We had the worst wildfire season on record last year: 10 million acres burned; half the Forest Service budget went to fighting these wildfires. The perversity of that is that, when astounding amounts of money like that are required from the Forest Service, the Forest Service has to reduce other budgets, including preventative activities, particularly fuel reduction and other activities that would prevent future fires. So we are on this endless cycle that should end. Unfortunately, this bill doesn't end that. I hope that happens later in the Congress. There is legislation pending in both the House and the Senate that we have come close to moving that would deal with declaring that catastrophic fires are disasters, just like tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, et cetera. In this bill, we did make some progress. It makes State and private lands eligible for hazard mitigation assistance after wildfires. It is a commonsense solution to save on future disaster costs and losses. The bill also encourages States to direct the funds to the areas that experienced the wildfire. I thank our colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Ruiz), for his extraordinary leadership on this issue. You have a fire, and particularly in California and elsewhere you have potential for catastrophic mudslides, future catastrophes, putting the public at risk. Hazard mitigation assistance on wildfires on State and private lands, encouraging wildfire mitigation, such as reducing hazardous fuels, and reseeding ground cover will help reduce the costs of future disasters. Further, there are other provisions in this legislation that deal with the potential for catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. The Cascadia subduction zone off the coast of Oregon, northern California has generated at least 12 major, great earthquakes, magnitude 8 to 9, yet we are woefully unprepared in terms of any sorts of early detection. We have just begun the rudiments with some Federal assistance of a land-based early detection system. We need an ocean-based early detection system, such as the Japanese have deployed. Early warning of quakes and tsunamis will save many lives on the coast of Oregon, Washington, and northern California. It will also save tremendous amounts in terms of infrastructure in the inland and more distant areas where they would have ample warning to shut down transit systems, get people off bridges, stop elevators in high-rise buildings, and otherwise accommodate the public, preventing more loss of life and also more catastrophic problems. Again, Japan is far, far ahead of us. They can and have stopped their high-speed rail trains when they have distant warning of a coming tremor. Even though the tremors move quickly through the Earth, there is enough time to slow or stop those trains. They have had time to evacuate the coastal areas. Although, unfortunately, in the last quake, when they reestimated the size of the tsunami, they found out communications were down. Now they have taken care of this. Now they have moved to a cellular-based network to notify people the tsunami is coming and to get them to high ground. So we can and should do a lot more there. This bill opens the door to those sorts of programs here in the United States of America. Finally, it gives assurances--well, two more points--to State and local governments they will be reimbursed up to a certain amount for costs incurred during disaster recovery. This will encourage local governments to undertake new mitigation projects, which is a good deal for both the Federal Government and for taxpayers. Mitigation saves $3 to $4 for every dollar invested. Finally, we have a power play by a minor Federal agency attempting to make FEMA become the national land use planning agency of the United States, trying to force FEMA to deny flood insurance to States that don't follow the directives of the National Marine Fisheries Service. This is not authorized by law. They are way out of line, unfortunately. I talked to the woman who is head of that agency. She disagrees. Her regional representative is hell-bent to become the land use planning agency for Oregon, although, of course, it already has comprehensive land use planning, unlike his home State of Washington, which was not subjected to these dramatic changes in law. We are making it clear that that is not the authority of FEMA in this bill. That is a reasonable position. It is a bipartisan position. I thank my colleague and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for their help.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, that was extraordinary. We are here to protect the Endangered Species Act by preempting litigation for violations of the Endangered Species Act. That is pretty extraordinary. I mean, we are not only having Groundhog Day here--because this bill has passed three times before and failed to receive any consideration in the Senate and the same thing will happen yet again with this bill-- but now we are wandering into Alice in Wonderland. That is extraordinary. Yes, the Fish and Wildlife Service did delist in the States the gentleman mentioned, but they required that each of those States adopt scientifically based management plans. Well, the scientifically based management plan in Wyoming is open season on wolves. Let's try and exterminate them again. There has also been a tremendous loss of population in a number of the other States that the gentleman referred to. So a judge has found that they violated the Endangered Species Act because they didn't adopt scientifically based management plans. You know, these are horrible predators, as you can see here. They are very, very fierce. They are, of course, responsible for huge, huge, unbelievable--big, as Donald Trump would say, really big--depredation on cattle. Let's look at the causes for loss of cattle. Well, let's see. Seventy-four percent died because of health issues--perhaps we need a little education on husbandry for some of our ranchers--7.8 percent died due to weather--well, we are not having climate change; so, there is nothing we can do about the weather. We don't want to mess with that--2.7 percent is due to other predators, mostly coyotes. Animal damage control, now renamed very aptly Wildlife Services, has killed well over a million coyotes. And guess what. There are more coyotes now, more distributed than when they started trying to exterminate them. The wolves are in a much more fragile place. They are responsible for 0.9 percent of the depredation, and they are at critical population levels. They were required to keep 10 breeding pairs in Wyoming. Boy, that is a lot of wolves in a State the size of Wyoming, 10 breeding pairs. Well, they violated that, and that is why the judge made this ruling. Now we are being told we are here to protect the Endangered Species Act.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, actually, I think wolves are part of wildlife. I heard a mention of Montana Yellowstone. Actually, in Yellowstone, the rivers were in horrible, horrible condition because all of the browse that was being done by elk and other critters right down into the streams. Fish populations were crashing. The water was too hot and lost all of the riparian cover. Now you find we have restored balance because there are wolves there and the elk and others stay in herds and they stay in the forest. They don't go down and stomp around in the streams. Natural balance is sometimes problematic. The gentlewoman showed a picture of a moose under attack. Fairly natural. I don't believe that that is the total cause for the problems with the moose population. In fact, those moose are still hunted. So I guess we need to save the moose from the wolves so the hunters can hunt the moose. So I am on the side of the wolves on this one. I think most American people would like to see this iconic predator restore balance. Coyotes are three times the predators on cattle. If you want to protect cattle, guess what. Wolves kill coyotes. But when you don't have wolves, the coyotes spread and take over. The gentlewoman showed Russia and China and then Canada and a few other areas on a map. Those aren't gray wolf populations in many of those areas. I don't know what Siberian wolves look like, but I don't think that-- since the land bridge went away, whenever that was, they haven't been coming to the United States. And I don't know about Chinese wolves. I don't know anything at all about Chinese wolves. I do know that wolves here are in a fragile state of recovery. If you hunt them back to extinction, which is what basically is going on in Wyoming, or you hunt below the levels for sustainable populations, as some of these other States are doing with trophy hunting and that, then we are going to be back where we started with the wolves being extinguished in the lower 48 and more coyotes. Maybe you will have some more moose. Maybe the elk can go back in the streams in Yellowstone. They probably miss thrashing around in there and eating all the riparian cover. I think that this amendment, to substitute political science for sound science and for Congress to preempt litigation with this, is somewhat unprecedented, to say the least.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4188, the ``Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2015'', as amended by the Senate. This legislation is virtually the same bill that the House passed last December by voice vote. I urge Members from both sides of the aisle to again support this important maritime legislation. As I noted when the bill passed the House late last year, this legislation reflects a sensible compromise negotiated with the other body that, most importantly, would provide increased authorized funding levels and budget stability for the Coast Guard for the next two years. Combined with the matching increases in FY 2016 appropriations contained in the recently-enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act, we will have provided a solid foundation to build from in the coming fiscal year. Additionally, the legislation includes provisions to improve Coast Guard mission effectiveness, continue efforts to recapitalize the Service's aging vessels and other assets--especially the need for new polar icebreakers--and enhance maritime security and safety policy. Importantly, the bill extends the existing statutory prohibition preventing the Coast Guard from closing its air facility, or AIRFAC, located in Newport, Oregon. Due to budget cuts, in 2014, the Coast Guard threatened to close the Newport AIRFAC--which handles one-half of the emergency search and rescue response calls on the Central Oregon Coast. In fact, only last week a 40-foot crabbing vessel capsized a mile from the entrance to Coos Bay, throwing four fishermen into the frigid and perilous waters of the North Pacific Ocean. This incident again demonstrates that calamity can strike at anytime off the Oregon Coast. It underscores the importance of keeping a strong AIRFAC presence along the Oregon coastline, to ensure the safety of Oregon's fishing industry, and the people who live, recreate, or work along the coast. This legislation extends the existing statutory prohibition for an additional two years, and likely longer, depending on whether the Coast Guard completes some necessary planning to address the looming need to recapitalize its two helicopter fleets. Moreover, after the prohibition expires, this legislation authorizes a rigorous administrative process that the Coast Guard must follow before it can close any AIRFAC. In the future, the Coast Guard must promptly notify Members of Congress representing affected areas and convene public meetings in communities within the area of responsibility of the AIRFAC to gather information on how the closure would affect residents and visitors. In its totality, this provision will ensure that any future proposal to close an AIRFAC will be vetted extensively through a transparent, public process; a process that will ensure that the Coast Guard's search and rescue capabilities are the absolute last place any one should consider cutting in the Coast Guard's budget. I want to thank the Chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Congressman Bill Shuster, for his leadership on this legislation. I also want to express my appreciation for the very constructive and bipartisan working relationship we have developed to advance the agenda of the Committee this Congress. This legislation is a great start to 2016. I also want to thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, Congressman Duncan Hunter, and Ranking Member John Garamendi, for their support for this provision, and for their close cooperation and contributions throughout negotiations with the other body. In closing, Mr. Speaker, the final legislation before the House is a sensible, bipartisan product that supports our Nation's Coast Guard. And while admittedly not perfect, this legislation is something that Members on both sides of the aisle should readily support. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this critical legislation.-

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman just made an excellent point. It is absolutely unbelievably stupid and absurd that that ditch should have held up a needed project in an urban area, but that is because of the Bush rule, the rule that today we are saying should be in place indefinitely or perhaps forever. That ditch is specifically exempt under the newly adopted rule, which has been suspended by litigation. If the gentleman wants to deal with the ditch problem, it has been dealt with. Unfortunately, the courts have put a stay on it. But now the gentleman wants to throw out the new rule, which would exempt ditches like that, and go back to the Bush era rule, which is what caused that problem--cause and effect. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, the chairman and I have established a good record of working together. I would love to get a commitment here to work together, to go through a full reauthorization of the Clean Water Act and clarify these many issues, what we want to protect and what we want to be excluded from the jurisdiction. The Congress has the authority to do that. I think we should undertake that. It would be very difficult. To say that repealing this rule, which does have some clarifications of the Bush rule--that would return us to the Bush-era regulations, a hodgepodge of ad hoc and inconsistent jurisdictional theories that are resulting in an increase in delays caused to the public at large, doesn't seem like a good result. So unless we choose to act and clarify the law, that is what we are going to be stuck with. Under this resolution, absent another specific action by Congress, they can't use any of the work that went into developing this rule or the data. It can't be substantially the same. We would have to further authorize them to begin a new rulemaking. There was unprecedented public comment, 207 days of public comment. There were 1 million comments received. There were 400 public meetings. There was a special consultation process for the States and local officials. Now, my State and the State of Pennsylvania apparently were pretty satisfied with that. There are other States that weren't, but maybe they didn't go to the meetings. I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Napolitano).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, I think this is the fifth time we have debated this issue on the floor, clearly, subject to widely disparate interpretation in terms of where we are and how we best move forward. I am not going to regurgitate the arguments. They have all been made. Not everybody has said it, but they have all been made. But, again, I think that the best way forward--I mean, first off, this resolution is going to be vetoed. It will go back to the Senate first because it is a Senate bill, and the Senate showed clearly that they are far, far short of a veto override. So that will be the end of it, unless we want to take it up for the sixth time in the House and pretend that somehow, by overriding a veto in the House, if that could happen, that we are going to compel the Senate to re-re-reconsider its failure to override the veto. Hopefully we won't go through that charade. We don't have very many legislative days this year. I think that time would be better spent, perhaps, on initiating hearings and looking toward, in the next Congress, Congress exerting its constitutional authority to revisit the Clean Water Act, which hasn't been revisited in 27 years. We have learned a lot about waters of the United States in the last 27 years, what needs to be protected and what can be exempted. We have certainly learned a lot since the Bush era when a rule was written that indiscriminately covers ditches, and other features of farms and roadwork. That was a mistake. So we could, I believe, probably, like we did with the WRRDA bill in the last Congress, or the surface transportation bill in this Congress, have a pretty vigorous debate, but come up with a decent way forward, because nobody disagrees over the need for clean water in this country. It is a precious, precious commodity. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, we want to expedite this, but just really, I mean, we should deal with reality on the floor. Rule text 230.3(S)(2)(iv)(B): ``The following are not `waters of the United States' . . . ''--to go to this--``artificial, constructed lakes and ponds created in dry land such as farm and stock watering ponds . . . '' There had been language in the original rule which said that they would have to be used exclusively for farm purposes. This rule said they can be used for farm purposes or any other beneficial purposes. So ponds are not regulated. How many times do we have to say it? There are questions and interpretations and problems and, again, Congress should act. Congress should have hearings and write legislation to reauthorize the Clean Water Act for the first time in 28 years. Otherwise, we are going to be waiting 2 years for the courts to make a decision and, in the interim, we are stuck with the Bush rule. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to refer back to the chairman's trip down memory lane. If he recalls the circumstance, we had not yet seen the revised rule. The initial rule, many of us had objected to, and we hadn't seen the revised rule. The majority wanted to stop the revised rule, again, sticking us with the Bush-era guidance. I guess they are in love with the Bush-era guidance, which everybody from the Farm Bureau to Natural Resources Defense Council hates and says doesn't work. The gentleman from Louisiana just referenced that. In the interim, we will be under these really contradictory and unworkable rules of the Bush era. Congress should act to update the Clean Water Act, and then we can have a vigorous debate over what areas we want to cover and what areas we don't want to cover and perhaps get a little more clarity. Today we are here because they have promulgated a rule. It is substantially different from the draft rule, and they made clear that many of the things that were discussed in the interim--it is going to regulate my bird bath, my pond on my farm, the puddles on my farm, the ditches on my farm; it is going to preempt land use--all of those things are specifically addressed in the final rule, which we want to override, and they are exempt. It does not change exemptions for agriculture. It doesn't regulate erosional features. I am not going to read all the specific language, but it is all right here. The ditch issue in the urban area we heard about earlier is solved under this, but it is still a problem today under the Bush-era rule, which is still the law of the land because the new rule was stayed by the courts. And now we want to kill it. So we don't want to fix the ditch issue, I guess, and live forever under the Bush-era rule. It doesn't regulate land use. If it did the things the people on the other side were saying, I think you would find 85, 90 percent of the Members of this House would be voting for this resolution of disapproval. The fact is it doesn't do those things and we have very specific references to demonstrate that. And then, on this issue of the illegal actions, again, I was getting emails and phone calls from people saying, my bird bath; my pond; my puddles; my roadside ditches. The forest industry is saying our roadside ditches. Well, those things are all exempt now. But these things were out there, and the EPA was trying to educate people and say: Here is what is in. Here is what is out. And they find the weeniest of little, stupid violations. This isn't like lawbreaking. They used Thunderclap to actually tell people a few things about this rule. They forgot to put on a disclaimer. Oh, someone should go to jail for that. The right-wing nuts occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and Cliven Bundy violating Federal law, owing us a million dollars and not paying for grazing like other people, they shouldn't be prosecuted. In fact, the chairman referenced those nuts earlier. I find it offensive and insulting to say that there is some sort of protest that relates to this discussion on the floor of the House by right-wing extremists who have taken over illegally and are destroying Federal property in my State. And then, secondly, they had another violation beyond using Thunderclap. They had a link that went to someone else's site. And on that someone else's site, they were advocating for the rule. Wow. These are lawbreakers. These are the lawbreakers we want to go after. This administration doesn't go after any lawbreakers, from Wall Street criminals under the collapse or these right-wing extremists in the West. I discussed that earlier in a 1-minute speech on the floor. But the point here is that we have much better clarification now. The courts are going to rule whether this is adequate or inadequate, whether Congress needs to act further, whether the rule needs to be revised. We should let that process go forward. That would give us some direction because we don't seem to be able to initiate on our own a reauthorization of the Clean Water Act and have a fair debate over what we want to cover and not cover. But the default action--repealing this rule, doing nothing--binds us to the Bush-era rule indefinitely. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman.

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It would be interesting if the gentleman invited the EPA to come out and look at that farmer's land. I think they would find that he is exempt and he isn't down to 18 acres. There are misunderstandings. And, also, the gentleman did say something about the courts have already ruled. The courts haven't ruled. That is the problem. It is going to be 2 years before they get to the merits on this rule. And so they essentially have stayed the new rule from going into effect. So we don't have ditch exemptions. It would be interesting to contrast the existing Bush rules--which will be in place for at least another 2 years--to the new rules and have someone come out and consult with that farmer and say: Actually, you are kind of screwed here because of the Bush rules. But if we had these new rules, we could just tell you to go ahead and farm on those 100 acres. On previously converted cropland, ditches are exempt. You have the agricultural exemptions. But sorry, you are stuck with something written in the Bush era. That is the effect of Congress not acting. And I would agree with the gentleman. The fact is we should act and we could act. The gentleman has jurisdiction over the committee which could reauthorize the Clean Water Act. It has not been reauthorized since 1987, which is why we are squabbling over administration interpretation of the Bush administration--I hate to have to be talking about George Bush--and the Obama administration as opposed to Congress having at some point done its job to reauthorize and clarify the Clean Water Act in those intervening 28 years. I am not aware of any plans. The chairman has told me the agenda for the coming year, but rewriting the Clean Water Act and debating the merits and demerits of certain protections is not on that agenda, to the best of my knowledge. So the effects of what the courts have done is to stick us with the Bush-era rules for 2 more years, and the effect of what we are doing here would actually stick us with the Bush-era rules indefinitely. Pick your poison. The bottom line is we are doing a disservice to the country by not getting these commonsense exemptions in place as soon as possible. I have a number of letters from groups too numerous to reference that I will include in the Record. Being co-chair of the House Craft Brewers Caucus, there is a very strong representation by the craft brewing industry because of their concerns about the need for clean water to make good beer. American Sustainable Business Council, Washington, DC, January 11, 2016. Dear Representative: On behalf of the 250,000 businesses, and more than 325,000 entrepreneurs, executives, managers and investors we represent, the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC) urges you to vote against the Congressional Review Act (S.J. Res. 22) overturning the EPA's Clean Water Rule. Clean water is good for business, and companies like the ones we represent know it. They need it for their operations and for the overall health of their communities. Repealing this rule would not protect economic growth; it would put it at risk. The EPA's rule comes out of a broad desire among all stakeholders, following the Supreme Court's rulings in 2001 and 2006, to clarify what the EPA's jurisdiction is under the Clean Water Act. This ruling is based on sound science, and does not expand the agency's power under the Clean Water Act, only clarifying of what bodies of water it protects. Of greatest concern to us, however, is the argument that this rule will jeopardize economic growth. From our experience, the real risk to our economy comes when clean water protections no longer exist, and businesses lose control over a crucial input in food and beverage production, tourism, manufacturing, and any number of industries. The EPA's rule gives the business community more confidence that clean water sources, including streams and rivers, are protected, and removes uncertainty surrounding the agency's authority to protect our waterways. This is good for the economy, and vital for businesses that rely on clean water for their success. The business community was given ample opportunity to share its concerns and inform the EPA of the rule's potential impact during the months-long comment period--as evidenced by the more than 1 million comments submitted during that time-- and the EPA had abundant time to take any concerns into account and use them to improve the rule. Clean water remains a necessity for so many American industries, from agriculture to manufacturing to tourism to food and drink production. And it's what businesses across the political spectrum want--national, scientific polling from the American Sustainable Business Council found 80% of small business owners favored rules protecting upstream headwaters, as the EPA's rule would do, and 71% said that clean water protections are necessary to ensure economic growth. Congress needs to let this rule stand, not create more uncertainty for American businesses. We urge you to vote against Congressional Review Act (S.J. Res. 22). American businesses are relying on you to keep this rule intact and ensure they can rely on this most crucial resource. Sincerely, Richard Eidlin, Vice President of Policy and Campaigns.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We are ultimately here because of a failure by the United States Congress to act. The last time Congress revisited the Clean Water Act was in 1987. There are very few Members here today who were elected at that time. The reason we have the Clean Water Act is that--I remember a time when I was young when the Cuyahoga River caught fire because of industrial waste and when the Willamette River in my State was an open sewer because it was a convenient place to dump your municipal human waste. It was a disaster for our country, and we decided to deal with that problem under Republican leadership, which we did quite successfully. But now we realize it is a little more complicated than just keeping out the point source pollution from industrial waste and/or municipal waste. There are other threats to our clean water, one of the most precious things we have. Read the CIA documents or the planning by the Pentagon. Wars will be fought over water. We can't sully this precious resource, and I think there is pretty substantial agreement on that. The question is: What, where, and how do we protect the waters of the United States? This is incredibly confusing. We have a split Supreme Court, with contradictory decisions out of the Supreme Court, and we are now, today, living under Bush-era guidance regarding the Clean Water Act. That unfortunately is described by people from the extremes of the debate--from the American Farm Bureau Federation to the Natural Resources Defense Council--as totally unworkable, inconsistent, incomprehensible, and it provides no certainty to farmers or to conservationists or to developers or to anybody else. That is what we are living under. We are living under those rules today. Here is a quote from the American Farm Bureau: A hodgepodge of ad hoc and inconsistent jurisdictional theories, which, ultimately, will result--and is resulting-- in increased delays and costs to the public at large. That is what we are living under because this new rule, which the House today will act to overturn, is not in effect. What is in effect today is Bush-era guidance. If this legislation were to pass and become law, which it won't because the Senate has already failed to muster a veto-proof majority over there on this issue--so this is all kind of a show--the provisions of this resolution or disapproval are so broad that all of the work that went into constructing this new rule could not be replicated in any manner. Essentially, we would be stuck forever unless we change the law, and Congress hasn't acted on the Clean Water Act for 30 years. Unless we change the law, we would be stuck forever with an ad hoc, inconsistent hodgepodge of jurisdictional theories, which are resulting in increased delays and costs to the public at large. That is the ultimate result, were this to pass and become law. Now, I will admit that the administration caused a good deal of the problem here today. The rule, as initially promulgated by the EPA, was, I would say, turgid at best, and it caused incredible confusion. It seemed to have jurisdictional theories, et cetera, et cetera, very much like the Bush rule. There was an uproar from Members of Congress, farmers, developers, and conservationists. Everybody had concerns about their initial rule. So what did they do? They went out and they listened. They had a massive number of comments to which they meaningfully responded, and then they found a few areas where they did make major improvements. Do I think it is a perfect rule? No. But the courts will decide where it is adequate or inadequate, and then that would give direction to a future Congress to actually act and do its job on the Clean Water Act. That would be desirable. It does deal with roadside ditches. There are huge concerns about roadside ditches. A good change. It has the explicit exemption of municipal separate storm sewers from the Clean Water Act. Again, that was the confusing part of their first rule. It permanently exempts groundwater and water-filled depressions related to fill or gravel mining activities. There is a huge concern with gravel extraction activities in my State. Also, a litany of erosional features, artificial ponds, and artificially irrigated areas were exempted from the Clean Water Act, which very explicitly and clearly benefit farmers and developers. In fact, this subject came up at our joint hearing on this issue. Senator Inhofe brought this up. This was subjected to the Clean Water Act regulatory process. They wanted to turn this into a warehouse facility to develop the land. It is very marginal at best as farmland. Army Assistant Secretary Darcy confirmed, upon a question from me, that, in fact, under her new rule and guidance, this property would be exempt; but under the Bush rule, it isn't. So they can't develop it under the Bush rule, but they could develop it under the new rule, which we seek today to overturn. So this new rule is an improvement. Is it perfect, no. In fact, I think the courts might find it wanting in a number of ways, which would require further action by Congress. To merely say we reject it, we want to live under the Bush rule--which everybody hates and says doesn't work--forever doesn't make a lot of sense. Also, acting here today, when the Senate has already made it clear that they don't have a veto- proof majority, shows that we are wasting time. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, the lights and the heat are on at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, illegally occupied by ultra rightwing, antigovernment extremists. But you have to wonder if the lights are on or anybody is home down there at the Justice Department. Hello? I don't think there is anybody there. I believe that this illegal occupation, this destruction of Federal property, was directly emboldened by the fact that the father of the two leaders, Cliven Bundy, stood down the government 2 years ago when he owed $1 million. Other ranchers pay their grazing fees, and he refuses to do it. He was grazing in areas that were prohibited. He stood down the government at the point of a gun, and he is still illegally grazing. Nobody--nobody--at the Justice Department has seen fit to lift a finger against him. There is no ongoing prosecution. They haven't put a lien on his cattle. He celebrated the anniversary of the takeover and said: This is how it is done. Now his sons are replicating that in my State of Oregon, where we abide by the laws. Yes, we disagree over a lot of Federal policies, but we abide by the laws. It is time for the Justice Department to take some action. Wake up down there.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I was absent on December 11, 2015 due to recovery from eye surgery and missed the following votes. Had I been present I would have voted: On vote 690, On Ordering the Previous Question for consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 644, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, and for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 2250, I would have voted ``no.'' On vote 691, On Agreeing to the Resolution providing for the consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 644 and for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 2250, I would have voted ``no.'' On vote 692, On the Motion to Recommit Conference Report with Instructions of H.R. 644, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, I would have voted ``aye.'' On vote 693, On Agreeing to the Conference Report to H.R. 644, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, I would have voted ``no.'' personal explanation

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the subcommittee for yielding. He has already explained in detail what is important about this legislation: the first reauthorization since the creation of the agency, the streamlining of rate dispute processes, the potential of arbitration in the future, and enlarging the Board so they can be more facile in terms of making decisions without violating public meetings laws. All those things are very important. I am just going to add a little bit of what this means to me kind of stuff for anybody who might be interested. When I was a relatively junior Member of Congress--I think I am probably the only Member of Congress who has testified twice before the Surface Transportation Board--we had a huge crisis in the West--I think it was after the UP-SP merger--where my Christmas tree growers couldn't get railcars. So I famously made the ``How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' presentation to the Surface Transportation Board. We did, not too long thereafter, get some railcars delivered and got those trees to families all across the Western United States. That was important to an important little industry that we have in Oregon. More importantly, I went to the Surface Transportation Board again. We had something called RailAmerica, which was an accumulation of many, many short line railroads across the country. It was bought by and being managed by one of those wonderful Wall Street hedge funds, who were driving both our rail line and other rail lines into the ground. They didn't have the slightest bit of interest in being in the rail business. They were just trying to drain what money they could out of those railroads. One bright, sunny day, they decided to abandon the Coos Bay Railroad. It runs from the Willamette Valley all the way down to Coos Bay, Oregon, and back up to Coquille. It covers about 150 miles. It was the only rail to the coast and to a major port in Oregon, the Port of Coos Bay, North Bend. They managed to get their equipment back, but they stranded railcars full of lumber and other goods by saying: ``Sorry, it is done. We are done.'' They didn't notify anybody. No proper procedures were filed. ``We are abandoning the line, and we are going to rip it up, and we are going to sell the rails to the Chinese for scrap.'' Well, that didn't come to pass. I got together with the then-Governor and we brought some legal clout to the table. We partnered with the Port of Coos Bay, North Bend, and said what if we can get Federal and State money and buy this railroad? The hedge fund said they weren't interested. They thought they could make more money by ripping it up, selling the right-of-way, and selling the scrap steel to China. So I went to the Surface Transportation Board. The Surface Transportation Board made the hedge fund sell the railroad as a railroad. As decrepit as it was, it was an incredibly critical piece of infrastructure. I took one of those horrible earmarks that we don't do around here anymore that I had gotten to improve the rail bridge over the harbor and got that converted in a technical correction to money to help purchase the railroad from this rotten hedge fund. The State partnered. The port became the operator. Last year, the Coos Bay Rail Link got the Short Line Operator of the Year award. It is providing a tremendous economic benefit and future for the south coast of my district. And absent the regulators--we all want to carry on about how bad regulators are, but when you have abusers out there like hedge funds that buy up critical infrastructure and couldn't give a damn about them--we need people like the Surface Transportation Board to preserve critical assets for our communities. So I am thrilled to be here today to reauthorize, for the first time, the Surface Transportation Board, streamline them, and enhance their capabilities so that in the future, other aggrieved communities or business sectors can go to the STB and get a quick judgment when they need and deserve it.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to congratulate Chairman Hunter, Ranking Member Garamendi, and talk just briefly about how important this legislation is. The Coast Guard, first off, is now going to get 2 years of budget certainty. That has been a real problem. It is pretty hard to run a military organization that large on something that creates short-term uncertainty with your budget, particularly when they have to begin to plan for acquiring more major assets with larger ships. In particular, we have just been talking about the icebreakers. I went up to Seattle to visit the Polar Sea in its decrepitude. But the interesting thing I found is that it is an absolutely unique hull design. The ice band contains materials that are no longer manufactured. They are superior to current technologies. There is substantial thought that this ship could be renovated using the existing hull with a modern ship, modern engines, and electronics. The ship has now been hulled. The hull is being evaluated, and we are going to do a cost-benefit analysis. If we were to go down that path--and I believe it will prove to be the best path--then that would provide additional spare parts for its sister ship, which is the only one we have got working, and then would set a template for rehabilitating that ship later. The Russians have about two dozen icebreakers. Five, I believe, are nuclear powered. The Chinese are building two large icebreakers. The United States of America is down to one 45-year-old heavy icebreaker, which has an Antarctic mission, which means, for the next 6 months after it comes back, it is in dry dock and being repaired. We do not have any longer the capability of deploying north and south with heavy icebreakers, despite the fact that the Northwest Passage long dreamed of is about to open. So for the United States of America maritime power to not have at least two heavy icebreakers, if not a half a dozen, is absolutely absurd, penny-wise, pound-foolish stupidity, on the part of former Congresses. I am glad that this Congress has seen the light and we are beginning to move forward to re-institute that program. The gentleman from California has been particularly persistent and outspoken about the LORAN-C system. I believe it is absolutely critical that we maintain this infrastructure until we know what alternatives we are going to have. I think it is a critical national security asset. And then, finally, to the more everyday national security-oriented duties of the Coast Guard in this bill, there is a particular provision that is incredibly important to the State of Oregon and the State of South Carolina and to hundreds of people who make their living on the ocean out of those two ports. The Port of Newport, mid-coast Oregon, has an air rescue facility. They do half the rescues in the mid-coast. Oregon has extremely cold water year-round. We have some of the roughest bar entrances in the United States, and rescue time is critical in terms of saving lives. The Coast Guard has been underfunded by Congress, and we are beginning to rectify that. But in a budget-cutting mode last year, with no discussion with anyone, they proposed to close Newport and close Charleston. Last year, in the omnibus bill at the end of the year, we put in place a 1-year prohibition on the closure. This bill extends the statutory prohibition on closing either of those two stations for 2 years and then puts in place a very different and meaningful process, should they ever wish to think about closing critical air rescue stations in the future. First, it requires them to develop a program to manage their airframes and learn about and figure about how we are going to replace our helicopter fleets, which are about at the same point as these icebreakers. So they need that plan. They have to develop that. Then, if they wish to close an individual station, the Secretary of Homeland Security will have to make a number of findings, that it wouldn't jeopardize life and safety and degrade rescue capabilities, a pretty long list. Then, if the Secretary makes that determination, the Secretary would have to go forward in a public process to take input from those communities. Then, if the Secretary further decided, after going through that, that this was necessary and prudent and wouldn't jeopardize lives and safety at sea, that future Secretary would have to submit the proposal to the Congress. So we have effectively safeguarded the Newport and the Charleston stations in this legislation, and I believe we have safeguarded them for all time. I believe, also, Congress should give the Coast Guard adequate funding so they can replenish and rebuild their air fleet and they don't have to struggle and close stations that they know could potentially lead to loss of life. So there are many, many things to recommend in this legislation. I would expect Congress to nearly, if not totally, unanimously improve it on this side. And then, hopefully, we can get the Senate to finally act because we need this done by January 1.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).