Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. I think it's a very simple answer. It's the company that made the request. But that doesn't mean that when there is a competition that this funding is going to necessarily go to that company. But if you want the people to certify that they don't have a financial interest, you've got to put down the name of the company that made the request.

Mr. DICKS. We might want to change that language to ``will compete for the project.''

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition.

Mr. DICKS. I reserve my time.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I reserved my time and I will answer this on my own time.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment offered by Mr. Flake. In addressing my colleagues, I want to begin by clarifying what the funds designated for Enhanced Navy Shore Readiness Integration are directed to. Several years ago the Navy adopted a significantly different approach to managing all of its installations on U.S. soil. The commander of Navy Installations Command operates an $8 billion enterprise for the Nation. Now, you can imagine that when making changes in such a vast enterprise, its leaders want to explore innovative options; but they need to carefully evaluate ideas to find the best ones. They also need to test out an idea as a pilot project, and that's exactly what happened here. The Concurrent Technologies Corporation is a nonprofit. In fact, they just had a competitive bid which they won a few months ago. They do great work for the United States Navy. The Navy often matches the money that Congress puts up because the work is of such high quality. And this company is located in Bremerton, Washington, one of its branch offices. They do great work for Navy Region Northwest. I don't have anything named after me. My family has no interest in this in any way, shape, or form. This is a good, solid program; and this company this year has no one representing it. It doesn't have a lobbying firm. Well, the gentleman wants to make various insinuations, but I still funded it because it was quality work. It was work that was meritorious. And Congress has the right to do this. Congress also has the right to review national programs. National programs should be considered by Congress. We can either increase the funding for them or decrease the funding for them. We have the right to do that. Congress has the power of the purse, and we can't give it away because it's in the Constitution. And this is an important issue. Now, all I can tell my colleagues here is that this is a good operation in Bremerton. They're doing fine work for the United States Navy, and I urge a ``no'' vote. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. The gentleman obviously hasn't read the bill because it's in the bill that you have to compete these projects if it is done by a for-profit company. Congress has passed a law saying you have to compete these. So the gentleman is wrong in so many ways, but on this one you are really wrong.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. I appreciate the gentleman yielding me time. I want to congratulate Chairman Murtha and Mr. Young, who has been our chairmen in the past, for the excellent work they have done in crafting this Defense Appropriations bill. I have been on this committee for 31 years, and I am Vice Chairman, and I think we have a great staff that works collaboratively on this bill. In discussing this process issue, I think the one thing that we do want the American people to understand is that in every one of our 12 subcommittees, the ranking member, the Republican, and the Democratic chairman are working together very effectively. They are involved in the entire process. I feel that this is an indication that there is a bipartisan collaboration on these bills. At the full committee, there is no limit on amendments. The minority was able to offer as many amendments as they wished on each of these twelve bills.

Mr. DICKS. Yes, if you will yield me an additional minute.

Mr. DICKS. We got through these 12 bills, and what I am saying here today is the American people want us to get our work done. Now, when you are faced with the reality of the minority offering 600 amendments--600 amendments--that would take us days to go through 600 amendments, we have got other issues that have to be dealt with. I am not going to yield at this point until I finish. The first year that I was chairman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, we went back and looked at it. The year before, when we were in the minority, it took about 8 hours to finish the bill, to go through the entire bill. The first year we were in the majority, it was 22 hours, and there was no limit to the amount of amendments that could be offered. So I think we had to do this. This was the responsible thing to do, was to limit the number of amendments, let the people like Mr. Flake, Mr. Campbell, who want to pick out some of the earmarks that they are against, let them have their moment to address those issues and deal with any other major substantive matters. But in order to get our work done, we could not let this thing be open-ended when one side just wants to abuse the process, unfortunately. Now, if we could have gotten an agreement, and I am told our leadership went over and met with Mr. Boehner, Mr. Hoyer, Mr. Obey and Mr. Lewis and tried to work out something. The way you would work this out--and the gentleman from California and I are good friends and we worked together on many important trade issues over the years and I have great respect for him--well, the way to work this thing out is for the two sides to get together before we go to the floor and limit the number of amendments, limit the number of amendments, and then have a unanimous consent agreement, if both sides can control their Members.

Mr. DICKS. I will yield on that point.

Mr. DICKS. But there is a lack of trust here, because if we can't get an agreement which the leadership on both sides embrace, then there is no reason, not to restrict the number of amendments, because there is an element within the gentleman's party that wants to offer unlimited amendments.

Mr. DICKS. Again, all I am saying is we got our work done. All 12 of these bills will have been enacted before the August recess. This hasn't happened in years. I wish that we could have had an open process, but when the minority is talking about 600 amendments, on the defense bill there is no choice but to limit the number of amendments. We had to limit it in order to get our work done.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. The gentleman's amendment represents a misguided view on the subject of climate change and global warming. As the United States finally faces up to its responsibility to adapt to climate change, the gentleman wants to hobble our efforts for some illogical reason. I, for one, am very comforted by the fact that Carol Browner is serving President Obama on energy and climate change issues and our response to them. We need all of the expertise that we can muster as we figure out how to adapt and mitigate climate change. My friend Carol Browner brings her respected experience as the former head of EPA to this job. The President, as well as the entire country, could not be better served in this important battle. Also, the gentleman appears to want to defund the Council on Environmental Quality. The CEQ, under Nancy Sutley, is probably one of the best repositories of environmental expertise, and the United States is well served by them. NEPA was created in 1969 and Richard Nixon signed it into law. As the chairman of the Interior and Environmental Appropriations Committee, I'm proud of the fact that we have dramatically increased funding for climate change science and wildlife adaptation over the last few years. But as my good friend Mike Simpson, who is the ranking member on the Interior Subcommittee, repeatedly has said, we must make sure that the increased spending to combat climate change is spent properly. And I think that Carol Browner can also provide that kind of oversight at the White House. Why anyone would want to refuse her work is beyond me. I urge a ``no'' vote on this very, very mischievous amendment.

Mr. DICKS. Will the gentleman yield on that point?

Mr. DICKS. I will just say this. We had at least 50 oversight hearings on this deal. Mr. Simpson and I----

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Madam Speaker, as the chairman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee and someone who shares the concern of many in this House about the need to protect and restore threatened and endangered species, I wish to bring to the attention of my colleagues a report recently released by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service on the effects of the long-term operation of California's Central Valley Project and State Water Project. The Central Valley Project is a Federal Bureau of Reclamation water project which supplies irrigation and municipal water to inland California from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The Sacramento River, along with the American River, was once among the top salmon spawning rivers on the West Coast, behind only the Columbia and Snake Rivers. The Sacramento was the only river in the West with four salmon runs, with returning fish numbered in the millions. Now one run is gone, and two are endangered, and the fourth could be listed soon. The scientists concluded in this most recent biological opinion that without wild salmon from the Sacramento and American Rivers, the killer whales known so-well throughout the Puget Sound would likely face extinction. These findings only stress the interconnectedness of our biosphere and the need to find a balance between the demands of irrigation and agriculture with those required by the species that once thrived in these rivers. In Washington State, we have worked very hard to find compromises between agriculture, power generation, and salmon restoration. While there is still work to be done, we have made great strides in implementing a mark selective fishery, one of the best tools for restoring wild salmon runs. I look forward to working with my colleagues in California, Oregon, and Washington, in establishing a comprehensive plan to ensure the recovery and survival of our legendary wild salmon and killer whales. In closing, Madam Speaker, I am submitting for the record an article recently published by McClatchy Newspapers, which provides an excellent overview of the biological opinion, the history of wild salmon in California, and the recent decline of the killer whales. [From McClatchy Newspapers, July 5, 2009] California Water Plan Aims To Save Puget Sound Orcas (By Les Blumenthal) Washington.--A plan to restore salmon runs on California's Sacramento River also could help revive killer whale populations 700 miles to the north in Puget Sound, as federal scientists struggle to protect endangered species in a complex ecosystem that stretches along the Pacific coast from California to Alaska. Without wild salmon from the Sacramento and American rivers as part of their diet, the killer whales might face extinction, scientists concluded in a biological opinion that could result in even more severe water restrictions for farmers in the drought-stricken, 400-mile-long Central Valley of California. The valley is the nation's most productive farm region. The plan has faced heated criticism from agricultural interests and politicians in California, but environmentalists said it represented a welcome departure by the Obama administration from its predecessor in dealing with Endangered Species Act issues. The Sacramento plan, they add, is in sharp contrast to the plan for restoring wild salmon populations on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Washington state and Idaho. That plan, written by the Bush administration, essentially concluded that the long-term decline in those federally protected runs didn't jeopardize the killer whales' existence because hatchery fish could make up the difference. The 85 orcas of the southern resident killer whale population travel in three separate pods, spending much of their time roaming the inland waters of Washington state from the San Juan Islands to south Puget Sound. During the winter they've been found offshore, ranging as far south as Monterey Bay in California and as far north as British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands. Each orca has distinctive markings, which allows them to be tracked. In the mid-1990s, there were nearly 100 orcas in the three southern resident pods. The population fell to fewer than 80 in 2001. In 2005, they were granted federal protection as an endangered species. They've been studied closely for only 30 years or so, but historically there may have been up to 200 southern resident orcas. Researchers think that the decline has resulted from pollution--which could cause immune- or reproductive-system dysfunction--and from oil spills, noise and other vessel disturbances, along with a reduced quantity and quality of prey. With the largest 27 feet long and weighing 10,000 pounds, orcas are constantly on the prowl for food. They've been known to hunt in packs. Their meal of choice: salmon, particularly chinook salmon. By some estimates, the orcas eat about 500,000 salmon a year. ``We are trying to figure out how killer whales fit in,'' said Bradley Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Services in Seattle who studies orcas. ``We don't have a lot of information on the movement of southern resident whales down the coast. We don't have a lot of information on adult salmon movements off the coast.'' Before 2000, Hanson said, no one was quite sure where the killer whales went when they went to sea. It was a surprise when they showed up near Monterey Bay, he said. The Sacramento and American river systems combined were once among the top salmon-spawning rivers on the West Coast, trailing only the Columbia and Snake rivers. Prompted by lawsuits, the National Marine Fisheries Service last month published its latest plan for the Sacramento and American rivers' winter and fall chinook salmon runs. Without further curtailments of water for the federal Central Valley Project--a several-hundred-mile network of dams, canals and pumping plants--and the California State Water Project--the nation's largest state-built water and power development and conveyance system, which supplies water for 23 million Californians--the two runs are in jeopardy of extinction, the plan said. Without changes, the southern resident killer whales, a run of steelhead and a population of North American green sturgeon almost certainly would disappear, according to the plan. The killer whale population is extremely fragile, and scientists said the loss or serious injury to just one could appreciably reduce the odds that the southern resident pods would recover or survive. The scientists who wrote the Sacramento plan also said that hatchery-raised salmon couldn't be counted on to sustain the killer whales' survival. ``Healthy wild salmon populations are important to the long-term maintenance of prey populations available to southern residents, because it is uncertain whether a hatchery-only stock could be sustained indefinitely,'' the scientists said. Not only are there concerns about long-term funding for the hatcheries, but scientists also have questions about whether hatchery fish are as genetically strong and healthy as wild ones. Though changes to the hatcheries could improve the fish they produce, there's no agreement on what needs to be done and no guarantees that the changes would work. The latest plan for the Columbia-Snake wild salmon runs concluded that continued operation of the federal hydroelectric dams on the two rivers was ``not likely to adversely affect'' the killer whales. Earlier, federal scientists found that ``perhaps the single greatest change in food availability for resident killer whales since the late 1800s has been the decline of salmon from the Columbia River basin.'' Despite the decline in wild runs, the scientists who worked on the Columbia plan concluded that hatchery fish would be able to make up any deficit in the orcas' diet. Though the Columbia-Snake salmon plan acknowledges the potential problems with hatchery fish, it dismisses, at least for now, their impact on killer whale food supplies. Lynne Barre, a National Marine Fisheries Service scientist in Seattle who helped write both plans, downplays any differences. ``I think we say the same thing in both opinions,'' Barre said, adding that both plans recognize that hatchery fish could be a short-term substitute for wild fish but that there were concerns about whether hatchery fish could be a long- term food source for orcas. ``The general principles are similar.'' Environmentalists, however, say that the differences couldn't be more obvious. ``The contrasts are striking,'' said Todd True, a lawyer for the Seattle office of Earthjustice, which has challenged the Columbia-Snake plan in a lawsuit in federal court in Portland, Ore. True said the Sacramento salmon plan was a ``candid piece of work that had a strong independent review and the absence of political interference.'' As for the Columbia-Snake plan, True said that it ``pretends there isn't a problem.'' The judge in the Portland case has given the Obama administration until Aug. 15 to indicate whether it'll stick with the Columbia-Snake salmon plan written during the Bush administration or offer a new one. True said he'd raise the orca issue again. Other environmentalists said that Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the fisheries service, must be aware of the differences in how the two salmon plans addressed killer whales. Lubchenco is a marine biologist who taught at Oregon State University. ``They need to decide which of the contradictory statements are correct,'' said Pat Ford of Save Our Wild Salmon.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Objection.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DICKS. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. DICKS. I just want to commend everyone for their hard work and staying last night to work on this very important bill. I want to thank Mr. Simpson, his staff and all the members of the committee. I think this is one of the best Interior appropriation bills that I can ever remember. I want to thank Mr. Campbell for being so cooperative. I think we ought to move ahead here and get to final passage, but again, thank you and I hope you will all vote for and support this bill.