Sam Farr

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. We don't have any further speakers.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, let me explain that not a drop of this money, a cent of it, can be spent on a teacher's salary. This is not, ``We are going to spend it on food or a teacher's salary.'' This is only for food, and the Federal Government takes sole responsibility for that. If States want to add something they can. But it is a Federal program, one of the only solid Federal programs in K-12 education. I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I respect the gentleman's desire to cut, squeeze, and trim and be a deficit hawk, but I think you are really cutting the wrong area. There are a lot of statistical departments in the Department of Agriculture because it is involved with a lot of different issues, sort of the whole rural economics of America, all the trade issues. You have got two departments. You have got one that does the big data and one that does the small data. You are a doctor of medicine, and it would be like comparing an MRI to a thermometer. They both are diagnostic tools but they don't do the same things. And neither does ERS or NAS. You stated they seem like they duplicate. No, they are both involved in economic research, and I don't know how to explain it all, but it is the underlying data that drives everything, drives all the markets, drives decisionmaking. The growers are private sector capitalists, if you will, having to borrow from a banking system. They all have to have good data in order to make decisions. I think, if you squeeze and trim these economic data collectors, you are really hurting the underlying economy of agriculture in the United States, so I would oppose your amendment. We need crop data. We need market data. We need nutritional data. We need rural economy data, and these are the agencies, particularly the ERS that you are cutting, that collects that, so I oppose the amendment.

Mr. FARR. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. FARR. Well, I am not sure that I understand the gentleman's question, but there are different kinds of data, and there are different places that you collect that data, as there is in everything we do in government and the private sector. I think what you are doing, I mean, you are taking a program--if you just kind of open the book and look at government and find all these areas where you think there is duplication, I think that the next step is to go and find out exactly where there is waste. Everybody is against--and we do trim waste because we are always looking for money, but this is not the place. There is no trim there. It doesn't get you anything. In fact, it hurts the users of that data, not being able to have it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, let's be very practical about this. I think you have to put it in the context of what has happened. We passed the Dodd-Frank bill because of an incredible financial disaster in this country, and what we found out is that the regulators weren't regulating. We found out they couldn't regulate because they didn't even have regulations or any provisions about all of these derivatives swaps. They were inventing new things that weren't even in law. The Federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission is right at the heart of all these new instruments and all these derivatives swaps and so on. In fact, we learned from Director Gensler--who came before our committee and pointed out the massive amount of trading that goes on, $300 trillion dollars. We couldn't even figure out in the committee how to explain how many millions trillions were. It is so much, and it is scary. We have got to have people on the job to do this and the technology to do it. Now, just to make sure that people are carrying out the law, you have got to have people review that process. In fact, because the industry doesn't want to be regulated, they go to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and say: cut this, don't give them the tools to implement it, don't allow them to be the referees they have to be by law. We approved, last year, $315 million, and we criticized that. The President came back for $280 million this year, and we have cut that. Even when he went along with knowing that he wouldn't be able to get all the things he asked for, we cut it again, so this bill fences off part of that. It seems to me a reasonable amendment to adopt, and I urge the adoption of it. I yield to the gentlewoman from California, Maxine Waters, the ranking member of the committee.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of my colleague from Santa Barbara and of this resolution. My heart goes out to the community of Isla Vista, the victims and their families. As a father and grandfather, my heart breaks for the families of the young lives that ended too soon: Christopher Michaels-Martinez, Veronika Weiss, Katie Cooper, Cheng-Yuan Hong, George Chen, Weihan Wang. And I am angry that we're in this situation yet again. Mr. Speaker, this resolution states that the House of Representatives remains committed to working to help prevent tragedies like this from happening ever again. Some may say that today is not the day to talk about guns, or violence. Others may say that weapons are not the problem, and we should focus our efforts on mental health care. I say we need to talk about both. The shooter was a mentally ill young man who had better access to firearms than he did sufficient mental health care. We also need to talk about misogyny and its impact on domestic violence. These are hard conversations, with no easy answers. But we owe it to the victims and their families of this and other tragedies to have these important conversations. We must speak on behalf of those who can no longer speak. We must not be afraid to take action.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment as a coauthor of it and to point out this is six Democrats and six Republicans that are authoring this. There are 33 States, three of which have just passed laws and the Governors have indicated they will sign them. This is essentially saying, look, if you are following State law, you are a legal resident doing your business under State law, the Feds just can't come in and bust you and bust the doctors and bust the patient. It is more than half the States. So you don't have to have any opinion about the value of marijuana. This doesn't change any laws. This doesn't affect one law, just lists the States that have already legalized it only for medical purposes, only medical purposes, and says, Federal Government, in those States, in those places, you can't bust people. It seems to me a practical, reasonable amendment in this time and age.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this. I was around when this National Ocean Policy was before Congress and was heard in the committee. In fact, the commission that created it was created by Congress, and the members were appointed by President George Bush, and those members included members of the oil and gas industry. They came up with recommendations that we need to do the conflicts of sea resolution, and that is what the National Ocean Policy does. It gets all of the Federal agencies together, and because they are together and can talk about what they each do when they are in conflict, the priorities it supports are consistent with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, which is supported by Governor Perry and the Gulf State Governors. It supports activities at Texas A&M, as they have signed a letter opposing any legislation that would undermine the National Ocean Policy. It affects the Texas coastal programs based in Houston, and they have also signed a letter in opposition to this amendment. A local example of National Ocean Policy work is with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Navy, NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and NASA. They have all worked on sensitive shorelines just north and south of Houston, which are key destinations for birders and beachgoers. They were able to resolve the critical conflicts between these agencies. Also, it would have an impact on the Port of Houston. So there are reasons you want to avoid a conflict of interest. This is a great one with which to do it. We do it in law enforcement, we do it in firefighting, and we ought to do it with our conflicts in the oceans. Oppose this amendment.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Chair, I rise in general debate to talk about NOAA. But I first also want to echo everything that has been said about our great colleague from Virginia, Frank Wolf. Frank is one of the few Members of Congress who has visited my district. He actually went onto my property in Big Sur and ended up coming back and saying: Now I understand why you are so passionate about the oceans. It is an interesting committee that both Ranking Member Fattah and Chairman Wolf head because it is a committee that has all of the Department of Commerce; it has all of the Department of Justice; and it has the science programs, NASA, NSF, and the Office of Science and Technology. Essentially, the science of America is in your hands. And this bill has a lot of it in there. Particularly, I would like to talk about NOAA. NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And what has been happening is that, as we have gotten interested in the weather and as we have gotten interested in sort of the sky, we are putting a lot more money into it and sucking funds away from the oceans. And yet what is happening in the oceans is that they are dying; and if the ocean dies, planet Earth dies. So while there is money in this to look at the moons and oceans of other planets, we are going to do it at the peril of our own ocean. Our coastal economies support 81 percent of all U.S. employment in the United States, over 100 million jobs. Coastal economies contribute to 84 percent of the U.S. GDP. Ocean tourism is an $89.25 billion industry. It relies on healthy marine mammal populations, healthy coral reefs, and healthy clean waters and beaches. Just think of all of the people who recreate on beaches. If those were polluted, they wouldn't be able to do so. The United States plays a big role in the world. We are, in fact, hosting the international oceans conference next month. And one of the topics is going to be the blue economy: What does it mean to all the countries of the world and to the United States? So as we go through this bill, I just want to emphasize that the wet side needs as much attention as the sky side. Again, I thank the gentleman from Virginia, Frank Wolf, for the great job that he has done.

Mr. FARR. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FARR. Madam Chair, I rise in support of the gentleman from New Jersey, Dr. Rush Holt, who is probably the smartest scientist we have ever had in the United States Congress. He gave us a warning that we need to pay attention to climate research. It is not weather research. Weather, we have just put a lot more money into. We are worried about prediction. We are worried about what is going to happen. They want to know in the next few days whether there is going to be a tornado or a hurricane. But climate is what tells us what is going to happen in the long-term future, whether we are going to have a sustained drought, whether we are going to have fire danger because of winds and droughts, whether we will have rainfall patterns--that it falls in one part of the country and not in the other--that will affect agriculture and water resources. I live on the coast. And although a lot of people deny that there is global warming and, therefore, ice melting and, therefore, the oceans rising, I can tell you that it is actually asked in all the zoning matters and building permits. Now in California, if you are going to build along the coastline, what is that coastline going to look like 10 years out? What does the climate forecast--climate, not weather forecast--tell us about these rising oceans that will not allow your house to be built exactly where you want it to be built? So this is really important information to have. We have understood how important ports are to the United States' trade. We can't live without goods going out of this country and goods coming in, and they come through our ports. And if the oceans are going to rise and destroy our docks and our facilities, that is going to have a huge impact on our national economy. Ocean chemistry, the next amendment is going to talk about ocean acidification. I am going to rise on that as well, which is very important to our fisheries. So I think that an amendment like this is really important to invest in. We cannot really understand weather unless we understand the patterns of climate. Climate change will impact trade. Climate change will impact food security. Climate change will impact national security. Climate change will impact human health. It is imperative that we robustly fund NOAA climate research in order to be prepared for and adapt to the changing weather and changing climate. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FARR. Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment and this concept. I want to thank the gentlewoman from the Northwest, Congresswoman Bonamici, for introducing this amendment. Look, this is a science bill, and there is a lot of discussion tonight on science, and a lot of it is on weather and climate. What generates the climate of this planet is the ocean, and we sometimes often overlook the importance that the ocean plays. Now, if we are killing the ocean, which some people think we are doing, because if you think about it, we have dumped everything we don't want on the mainland into the ocean, including nuclear waste and all kinds of other waste, we have caught everything that is in the ocean that is edible, and we have never found the balance. There is one industry that has, and that is the shellfish industry, which doesn't have to go out and just collect wild shellfish anymore. It is the fish farming industry, and it is a $270 million industry on the west coast. Guess what is happening to that industry? The seawater that they use that is necessary has become acidic, and therefore the shells can't form. It is sort of like, remember what we were doing with DDT and you had eggshells from birds, pelicans, that couldn't get hard? And we eliminated the DDT. We got sensible about that. Well, we have to get sensible about what we are going to do about ocean acidification. Don Young, our colleague from Alaska, and I are working on a bill, on a substantive bill, for the policy of ocean acidification. But that policy can't be implemented unless the Department carries it out, which the amendment that the gentlewoman has introduced will allow it to do. I don't know how to put this in any clearer terms, but if our water that we were trying to drink was getting so bad that it was killing people, we did something about it in Congress. We passed a national Clean Water Act that says that you can't do bad things to water that we use for beneficial purposes. When air was getting so bad that people were getting harmed by air, Congress enacted a national air pollution act--the Clean Air Act--and said we have to clean up the air. It certainly was a big impact in California with all the smog in southern California, and we tackled it. We invested money into it, we invested politics into it, and we cleaned up the air in the southern California basin--not perfectly, but it is certainly a lot better than it used to be. So the point of it here is, look, if we don't pay attention to the ocean and what is happening to the chemistry of the ocean, in the long run our concerns about deficits, war, and pestilence around the world mean nothing because if that ocean gets so toxic, it kills us all, it kills all living things on Earth. Seventy-three percent of the planet is ocean. So let's begin doing what we have done well in paying attention to clean air and clean water and start thinking about, what is it going to take to pay attention to clean oceans or do no harm or stop dumping into the oceans? Let's not kill one of Earth's life forms that is so important. And particularly, since we get so much sustenance from the oceans in the shellfish industry, let's not kill a private sector business that is managing itself well because we are not paying attention to acidification of our oceans. So please adopt this amendment. If you are going to withdraw it, I hope we can work something out in conference to pay attention to this very important issue. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and thank Leslie R. White for his lifetime of service to the public transportation industry, including the last 17 years as General Manager of the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District, called ``METRO.'' Les took the helm at METRO, which provides bus service to the very transit-dependent communities of Santa Cruz County, CA, at a time of turmoil and molded the agency into a national model. He transformed virtually every aspect of METRO's operations, from replacing an aging diesel fleet with clean fuels buses to adding routes and making existing routes more efficient to improving paratransit service delivery. Under his leadership, METRO has grown to provide a level of service that makes public transportation in Santa Cruz County a viable alternative to automobile travel. Students from the University of California at Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College are loyal METRO riders, as are the scores of Santa Cruz residents commuting to and from jobs in Silicon Valley on the popular Highway 17 Express. My first interactions with Les involved working together on the development of MetroBase, the agency's centralized operations and maintenance facility. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed much of METRO's infrastructure and left the system without any adequate facilities. After dealing with the delicate task of finding a suitable site for the new facilities in Santa Cruz, Les worked tirelessly to corral federal, state, and local resources for the MetroBase project that has resulted in long-term savings for the agency. In addition, I was pleased to have worked closely with Les on the creation of the Small Transit Intensive Cities (STIC) program in the 2005 surface transportation reauthorization law known as SAFETEA-LU. Years earlier, Les came to me with an idea to rectify an imbalance in the way that federal transit funding was allocated to smaller urbanized areas such as Santa Cruz. Now, the STIC program provides additional formula funding to communities with a strong local commitment to public transit, and over 160 communities in 45 states have benefitted from the program since its inception. Les has dedicated his life to public transportation, and had a long history of achievement prior to his arrival in Santa Cruz. He started his career as a bus driver in his home state of Michigan and rose to lead transit agencies in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Vancouver, Washington. Joining him every step of the way was his wife and best friend Phyllis, who passed away in December 2012. In 1996, he reached a pinnacle of his profession when he was elected by his peers as Chairman of the American Public Transportation Association, where he also helped develop the popular Leadership APTA program, which helps groom transit professionals for leadership positions in the industry. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Les for his service to Santa Cruz and congratulate him on his well-deserved retirement.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of Representative Gus Bilirakis, my co-chair of the Congressional Travel and Tourism Caucus, and our caucus members Representatives Madeleine Bordallo, G.K. Butterfield, Tony Cardenas, Donna Christensen, Blake Farenthold, Lois Frankel, Tulsi Gabbard, Alan Grayson, Janice Hahn, Colleen Hanabusa, Joe Heck, Ruben Hinojosa, Michael Honda, Jared Huffman, William Keating, Ann Kirkpatrick, Billy Long, Cynthia Lummis, Kristi Noem, Steve Pearce, Pedro R. Pierluisi, Scott Peters, Bill Posey, Dave Reichert, Bobby Rush, Gregorio Sablan, Loretta Sanchez, Steve Stivers, Pat Tiberi, Dina Titus, Juan Vargas, and Frederica Wilson, we offer our support in celebrating this year's National Travel and Tourism Week. The week of May 3 through 11, 2014 is designated as National Travel and Tourism Week in the United States. This commemorative week reminds us that travel is a major driver of U.S. economic growth and prosperity as well as an important business tool that promotes efficiency and productivity. America's travel industry accounted for $2.1 billion in economic output in 2013, supported nearly 15 million U.S. jobs and generated nearly $134 billion in local, state and federal tax revenue. Travel and tourism account for 2.7 percent of U.S. GDP and travel is America's No. 1 U.S. industry export. Travel is a pillar of economic growth. One out of every nine jobs in America depends on travel and tourism. Travel is among the top 10 industries in 49 states, the U.S. Territories, and the District of Columbia in terms of employment. Travel is currently creating jobs at a 17 percent faster rate than other economic sectors. 84 percent of companies in the travel industry are classified as small businesses. When U.S. travelers spend money in other countries, their purchases are counted as imports. When international travelers visit the United States, the goods and services they purchase here are counted as exports. U.S. travel exports totaled $181 billion in 2013, generating a positive balance of trade of more than $57 billion. Travel, in the context of business meetings, events and incentive travel, constitutes a core business function that helps companies strengthen business performance, educate employees and customers and reward business accomplishments. Business travel yields a return on investment of $9.50 in increased revenue for every dollar spent. The majority of all trips taken to and within the United States involve leisure travel, which benefits every state and territory in the country, and was valued at $621.4 billion in 2013, and generated $91.9 billion in tax revenue. Leisure travel can be educational, increase historical and cultural awareness of our country and the world, stimulate creativity and productivity, and enhance longevity by allowing us to recharge our batteries and improve our health and wellness. We strongly support National Travel and Tourism Week as an opportunity to express to the Nation the importance of travel in creating economic growth and opportunity, and enhancing the quality of life in the United States.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Seaside, California. Over the course of the last half century, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church has become a community pillar of the Monterey Peninsula. Service and love are the hallmarks of its congregants and leadership. I can say with unshakeable confidence that the people of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church will continue to be a beacon of service, compassion, and faith in God for another sixty years and beyond. In 1954, several leaders from Seaside and surrounding communities came together to found a new church. They included Mrs. William Irving, Amy Robinson, Lenora Bean, members of the Felix family, the late Reverend G.E. Ellis, the late Reverend W.F. Bailey, and the Reverend J.W. Harris. The late Reverend G.E. Ellis offered prayer and the group selected the name for the new church that had been suggested the late Sister Edna Felix. In April 1954, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church services commenced under the leadership of its first Pastor, the Reverend J.W. Harris, at its first Seaside location at 1251 Broadway. The late Reverend J.W. Paige then assumed helm of the Church and helped it grow its congregation and acquire property for a permanent location. Two additional pastors followed in quick succession. The Reverend A.E. Johnson and the Reverend Elroy Day each brought their own particular gift to the Church community, including helping the Church move to 390 Elm Avenue, Seaside, the location that it still calls home today. In 1961, the Reverend H.H. Lusk, Sr. assumed the pastoral duties of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church. The Church community was still small at that time, just 60 members. Under his spiritual and temporal leadership, the Bethel family found many new members. It quickly outgrew its facilities and in 1975, under Reverend Lusk's leadership, the old sanctuary was demolished and replaced with the current sanctuary and classrooms. Mr. Speaker, the story of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church is a great American story of a family of faith growing from humble beginnings to become a pillar of the community. I know I speak for the whole House in congratulating Reverend H.H. Lusk, Sr. and the whole Bethel Missionary Baptist Church family on 60 years of success and I look forward to many more.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chair, thank you very much, Ranking Member Bishop and Chairman Culberson. I rise as the longest serving member on this subcommittee, and I want to commend you both, the chairman and the ranking member, for your hard work in ensuring that this bill is another significant step in fulfilling our promise to our country that has made these commitments to our veterans that we will leave none of them behind. This committee has a strong history of working in a bipartisan way to produce a bill that supports our Active Duty servicemembers, our veterans, and their families, and I think this bill is no exception to that. For example, the VA has taken steps to rectify the deplorable backlog of benefit claims as everyone has mentioned so far. We owe it to our veterans to exercise our constitutional oversight responsibilities to ensure that the VA is actually fixing that backlog. I am pleased the bill before us today includes language I requested with many of my colleagues that continues additional oversight requirements for the Veterans Benefits Administration and requires regular updates from the VA to Congress on the status of the backlog. Through regular updates from the VA, we will be able to ensure accountability that will ultimately end the backlog. Additionally, I am pleased to see the bill recognize that the VA must be able to employ enough mental health providers. For example, as it currently stands, 95 percent of the marriage and family therapists in California, licensed in California, are barred from VA employment under current VA standards, which require a degree from only one specified national accreditation program. I authored language in the report of the bill, accompanying the bill, to ensure that the VA explore expanding the accreditation requirements by looking at those that are recognized by the Department of Education so that more marriage and family therapists can get to work helping our veterans. As a final note, I would like to point out that this bill is $1.8 billion below last year's enacted level, but it is only $0.4 billion less than what the President requested.

Mr. FARR. Thank you. I am glad to see this bill has been protected from senseless budget cuts. I strongly encourage this Congress to honor the balanced approach that this bill shows in the bipartisan Budget Control Act that we adopted last year.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I couldn't disagree more with my respected chairman. This is really a medical issue that ought to be in the hands of medical doctors. It does not allow them to prescribe marijuana. They can prescribe Oxycontin. What this amendment does, it says if your State has legalized for medical purposes, as a doctor in a VA facility, you can have a discussion with a vet seeking medical advice on whether you ought to have access to--he can't write out the prescription, he doesn't have authority to do that. It is a conversation. It is a discussion. It is a medical conversation. I don't care whether you are for or against marijuana. That is not the issue here. The issue is--and Mr. Chairman, you know this issue from Eric Seastrand in our California State Legislature who happened to be a Republican assemblyman dying of cancer, he got up and made the most impassioned plea I have ever heard in my life on a legislative floor, saying members--and he was a pretty conservative guy. He said: you know, when you are dying, don't deny us access to hope. The issue was about getting access to a prescription drug that hadn't yet been licensed. So I think we are in this debate now in this country whether we like it or not. The voters of California overwhelmingly passed--and I think it is pretty much a senior citizen issue--that if we are having chronic pain and if we think medical marijuana can help alleviate that pain, don't deny us access to it. All this amendment says is that if you are in a VA clinic and you want to have a discussion with your doctor about relieving pain or other things, you can have that conversation. As a medical adviser, I think they want to have that authority. They can't do it in every State, they can't do it in every VA building, only in those States where the dialogue is going to be on the streets anyway; but they are not going to be professional dialogues unless you allow doctors to do this. This is a very simple amendment. Let doctors be doctors. Let them advise patients accordingly. Pass this amendment, regardless of how you feel about marijuana.

Mr. FARR. I yield to the gentleman.