Sam Farr

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the long and distinguished public service career of our friend, Mr. Mike Roos. I had the great honor of working with Mike as colleagues in the California State Assembly along with several other current and former members of this House. I count myself fortunate to call him a good friend. In 1999, Mike founded Mike Roos and Company, a public affairs firm that Mike shaped specializes in government relations, corporate issues management, media relations, and ballot measure campaigns. Prior to establishing Mike Roos and Company, Mike served as President and CEO of the Los Angeles Alliance for Restructuring Now, a coalition of business and civic leaders from the Los Angeles Area dedicated to implementing systemic reform and restructuring within the Los Angeles Unified School District. His significant efforts in this capacity have undoubtedly changed countless lives of children in the Los Angeles area for the better. Mike's distinguished Assembly career began in 1977. He earned the love and respect of both his Democratic and Republican colleagues. His own caucus chose him Majority Floor Leader in his second term, a position he held until his 1987 election as Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore. He had the reputation as a genuine legislator--someone who used the power of lawmaking to make the lives of the People of California better. Perhaps his most well known achievement is the Mello Roos Community Facilities Act of 1982 and the Roberti-Roos Weapons Control Act of 1989. Mike authored the strictest laws to date protecting the confidentiality of HIV patients, as well as the law creating the Alternative Test Sites Program, which established centers where individuals could receive free, anonymous testing for the AIDS antibody. He consistently fought for a better education for all, authoring legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in California's educational institutions. Prior to his election to the State Assembly, Mike served as the Executive Director of the Coro Foundation, a leadership training program for future leaders in public service. Thanks to his substantial experience and insight, he continues to be a valuable consultant to civic and educational organizations, speaking on topics ranging from education reform to the legislative process in California politics. Mr. Speaker, I know I speak for the whole House in thanking Mike for his years of service on behalf of the people of California. I know he looks forward to spending time with his family, including his four daughters Shelby, Melissa, Catherine, and Caroline. I wish him nothing but success and happiness.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the long and distinguished public service career of our friend, Mr. Mike Roos. I had the great honor of working with Mike as colleagues in the California State Assembly along with several other current and former members of this House. I count myself fortunate to call him a good friend. After many years of public service, Mike is retiring from Mike Roos and Company, the public affairs firm that he founded in 1999, and turning to the next chapter of his life. The firm that Mike shaped specializes in government relations, corporate issues management, media relations, and ballot measure campaigns. Prior to establishing Mike Roos and Company, Mike served as President and CEO of the Los Angeles Alliance for Restructuring Now, a coalition of business and civic leaders from the Los Angeles Area dedicated to implementing systemic reform and restructuring within the Los Angeles Unified School District. His significant efforts in this capacity have undoubtedly changed countless lives of children in the Los Angeles area for the better. Mike's distinguished Assembly career began in 1977. He earned the love and respect of both his Democratic and Republican colleagues. His own caucus chose him Majority Floor Leader in his second term, a position he held until his 1987 election as Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore. He had the reputation as a genuine legislator--someone who used the power of lawmaking to make the lives of the People of California better. Perhaps his most well known achievement is the Mello Roos Community Facilities Act of 1982 and the Roberti-Roos Weapons Control Act of 1989. Mike authored the finest and strictest laws to date protecting the confidentiality of HIV patients, as well as the law creating the Alternative Test Sites Program, which established centers where individuals could receive free, anonymous testing for the AIDS antibody. He consistently fought for a better education for all, authoring legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in California's educational institutions. Prior to his election to the State Assembly, Mike served as the Executive Director of the Coro Foundation, a leadership training program for future leaders in public service. Thanks to his substantial experience and insight, he continues to be a valuable consultant to civic and educational organizations, speaking on topics ranging from education reform to the legislative process in California politics. Mr. Speaker, I know I speak for the whole House in thanking Mike for his years of service on behalf of the people of California. I know he looks forward to spending more time with his family in this next chapter of his life, including his four daughters Shelby, Melissa, Catherine, and Caroline. I wish him nothing but success and happiness.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the agricultural and public service career of a great American. Mr. Hugo Tottino is being honored this month by the Grower Shipper Association of Central California with the E.E. Gene Harden Award for Lifetime Achievement in Central Coast Agriculture. Known to many as the ``Artichoke King'' and to his friends and family at Ocean Mist Farms as simply Hugo, he is one of the pioneers of modern agriculture on the Central Coast. So while you may have never heard of him, I can guarantee that every member of this House has eaten something grown by Hugo and his family. Hugo's lifelong love and passion for farming undoubtedly began while working closely with his father on the family farm while growing up. Upon graduation from Salinas High in 1944, Hugo gave up a Saint Mary's College football scholarship to enlist in the Navy. After returning home to Castroville in 1946, Hugo joined California Artichoke and Vegetable Growers Corporation now known as Ocean Mist Farms. Once at work, Hugo turned his boundless energy toward helping to grow this family owned business into the dynamic industry leader that it is today. His signature work ethic is well known. He still drives to the office six days a week. And his leadership has extended beyond Ocean Mist Farms to the broader agricultural community. Hugo has been instrumental in championing the development of the Castroville Seawater Intrusion Project, helping to slow the rate of sea water intrusion into fresh water aquifers. He helped rally support to utilize alternative sources of water to save thousands of crop acres, and has been actively involved in the efforts of soil conservation and water reclamation. Hugo also turned his passion towards family and community. In 1951, Hugo married the love of his life, Doris Bei from Santa Cruz. Together they raised five children: Michele, Les, Karen, Cathy, David and are the loving grandparents of Amy, Brian, Katie, Jeff, Kevin, Sarah, Lisa, Glen, and Mary. He and Doris have also been active leaders or contributors to numerous community endeavors, including Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, the Monterey County Food Bank, Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church, the Ausonio Library, and North Monterey County High School, to name just a few. Mr. Speaker, I know I speak on behalf of the entire House in thanking Mr. Tottino for his decades of service to this nation and its agriculture industry. I wish him nothing but success wherever this next chapter of life takes him, and we are proud that he calls Castroville and California's Central Coast his home.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the remarkable public service career of Keith Israel, who is retiring as the General Manager of the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency (MRWPCA), after 27 years. Under Mr. Israel's leadership, the MRWPCA has grown to serve 250,000 people and treat 18.5 million gallons each day. After obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in both Environmental Engineering and Business Administration, Mr. Israel worked for five years as General Manager of the Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation District. In 1988, Mr. Israel came to the Monterey Peninsula and immediately began to revolutionize the work of the MRWPCA. In the 1990's, MRWPCA constructed the Regional Treatment Plant (RTP) near Marina under his leadership. The efficiency and new treatment plans spearheaded by Mr. Israel and brought about by the RTP's development led to increased economic opportunity and business and housing development in the Monterey region. Also in the 1990's, Mr. Israel began collaborating with the Monterey County Water Resources Agency to begin a project to reduce groundwater withdrawal and allow for the use of recycled water for 12,000 acres of farmland in the Salinas Valley. Throughout his tenure at the MRWPCA, Mr. Israel has served as a visionary, coordinating the Salinas River Diversion Project and Pure Water Monterey Project, all while working tirelessly to facilitate collaboration between local leaders to advocate for sustainable water resources. Because of Mr. Israel's dedication to reducing the MRWPCA's carbon footprint, the agency has made great strides in the implementation of environmentally progressive processes, leading to recognition such as the Breathe California Central Coast Clean-Air Award and a partnership with ENERGY STAR. Mr. Israel has also built a personal reputation of excellence in the industry; throughout his career, he has served on the Boards of American Water Works Association and WateReuse Association and maintained leadership positions in the California Association of Sanitation Agencies. Mr. Speaker, I know that I speak for the whole House in sharing our gratitude to Keith for a job well done and extend our best wishes to him and his family this next chapter of life. I know that even in retirement, he will still find himself involved in the community and continue to better the Monterey Peninsula just as he has done through his work at the MRWPCA these last 27 years.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, today, I rise to offer an amendment which strengthens the process for granting security clearances to those working in the intelligence community through a continuous evaluation process. This amendment directs the National Intelligence Director to provide the intelligence and defense committees a report on the status of its current efforts for continuous evaluation of security clearance holders, including a timeline for its rollout. The report will also provide a cost-benefit analysis of DNI's efforts to similar efforts that are being carried on in the Department of Defense. We learned, after the tragic shooting in the Navy Yard in September 2013, the DOD should continuously evaluate these personnel, rather than do it every once every 5 years. Clearance starts by an initial vetting that determines a person's suitability and eligibility to have access to classified material by examining the person's past and making a judgment on future reliability. Now, once cleared, a continuous evaluation process is designed to examine a person's behavior to ensure its continued reliability. Congress directed the DOD to create a process that would be a governmentwide solution for continuous personnel security evaluations. This solution is called ACES, Automated Continuous Evaluation System. Now, the Director of National Intelligence is also seeking its own capability for continuous evaluation. While I support the intelligence community's requirement, their efforts may be redundant. DOD's system already has measurable successes. Their system is also flexible enough to be tailored to meet any specific requirements that the intelligence community may need. My amendment simply assures that the DNI does not work towards a continuous evaluation system in a vacuum. By working together to share lessons learned or build a common evaluation system, the DNI and the DOD can build a better program that ensures our national security and uses taxpayer dollars effectively. As we have all seen recently, the insider threat to our national security is real. We must continue to ensure that we remain secure by only granting security clearances to those who are suitable and reliable. I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff), my colleague, the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, this is the bill, and the language that we are trying to strike out reads: ``None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to facilitate new scheduled air transportation originating from the United States if such flights would land on, or pass through, property confiscated by the Cuban Government, including property in which a minority interest was confiscated, as the terms confiscated, the Cuban Government, and property are defined in'' the paragraphs below. This is just a job killer for Americans. We have a hundred thousand Americans who are visiting Cuba illegally. You know how they get there? They go to Mexico. Who gets the business? Mexican airlines. They go to Canada. Who gets the business? Canadian airlines. Or, any other country in the world that has normal travel relationships with Cuba. You are just cutting off the ability for American enterprise to get access to Cuba, where everybody wants to go, because there are family feuds going on here, because it is including property which has a minority interest. How are the airlines, how are the people going to decide what property has been confiscated, who is the ownership title? Those are big legalistic problems in the United States when we confiscate property to build freeways or railways. This amendment really screws up the ability for America to be involved in a business that Americans want to do. They want to travel. Censorship of American travel--this is just ridiculous in these days. What is the message to the world? Do we prohibit our citizens from going to countries that are communist countries? You can go to Vietnam, China, and Russia, but you can't go to Cuba because there is a lot of feuding going on in Florida. In fact, Florida is going to benefit from this because where are the airports that these scheduled airlines are going to leave from? They are Tampa, they are Miami, the businesses in your State. So if you want to give American jobs to Americans, and you want commerce to occur, and you don't want to continue this censorship of Cuba, then vote for this amendment.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am referring the remarks to the Madam Chair. Look, deleting this ability for the National Ocean Policy--by the way, we haven't appropriated money. No money is being spent on it. But we are smart about getting 70 or 80 Federal agencies together to have one stop to figure out how we can get all these permits. That is why the fishermen support it. I live in a coastal community. The author of this does not. We make our living off the ocean. And, by God, we want all the regulatory agencies to be in sync. And one of the policies here is, let's have a healthy ocean. What is wrong with that?

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriation bill and, therefore, violates clause 2 of rule XXI. That rule states in pertinent part: ``An amendment to a general appropriation bill shall not be in order if changing existing law'' One of the provisions is that it ``requires a new determination.'' I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. FARR. Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding. What selective memory you have. You say that the President is abusing his authority. Do you know who first asked for this? President Bush. He is the one that created the Commission and asked for those recommendations. And guess what? Five Republicans authored that bill--Republicans Greenwood, Bilbray, Gilchrest, Horn, and Franks. That was in 2000 and 2004 they introduced it. The bill went to committee, and the committee never heard the bill. So don't say that Congress never had a chance to enact this thing. Congress refused, just like Congress refuses to respond to the President's ask that we ought to decide whether we ought to go to war in the Middle East. You are very selective. You say, Don't let the President make these executive orders, and then when he does you want to sue him because it is about immigration or issues like that. You criticize this President because Congress fails to take action, even after Presidents-- Republican and Democratic Presidents--have asked Congress to take action, and we refused. And now you get up and say, Well, because we refused, you took executive action, therefore, we ought to not allow it to be implemented.

Mr. FARR. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition.

Mr. FARR. Madam Chair, what is broken that needs fixing? These are laws that have been in place for 100 years. In fact, they are laws that have been implemented because the United States has signed treaties with other countries that share our migratory fowl, countries like Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia. These are treaties that require that we be responsible for the wildlife that flies over our air space and lands in our soil. Migratory birds are integrated into a healthy, natural system. In many ways, they affect the predators, the prey, the seed dispensers, and the pollinators. They are really actively appreciated by millions of people. We have a society in America called the National Audubon Society. We make an awful lot of money in my district off watchable wildlife. Why would we want to stop the laws that protect that wildlife? I think this is all about responsible management; but to have an amendment that says that none of the funds may be available to prosecute or hold liable any persons who have violated the law, you are dismantling law enforcement's ability to enforce the law where people have violated it--violated it. I think the public of this country does appreciate their watchable wildlife, whether they are hunting it or whether they are viewing it, and a lot of people make money off of it. I don't think this amendment is at all constructive. You are upsetting 100 years of law and international responsibility that we have as a country in this hemisphere. I oppose the amendment and ask people to vote against it. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. Well, with all due respect, that is not what your law says. It says: None of the funds made available by this act may be used to prosecute or hold liable any person or corporation for a violation of the provision of law found in section 703(a) of title 16 of the United States Code. There is no language in here about working anything out. There is no language about being responsible managers of the land or flyways. Yes, we have a lot of new equipment up in our energy business, our wind energy and our solar energy. Those things, obviously way before you build them, you are supposed to take into account whether they are being built right in a flyway. We have condors in our area that we have obviously spent a lot of money trying to revive. People actually spend money to come to very expensive hotels so that they can come see a condor. These are things that you want to protect. To say that none of the funds can be made available to hold liable people that are violating the law seems to me just a reckless act to upset 100 years of wildlife management. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chair, in closing, to say that the law says that those who are in violation of law--I mean, how many golden eagles do you have to kill and tell the law enforcement you can't do anything about it? This isn't about accidental death. This is people violating the law with an intent. You have to have an intent to do wrong. I think this is a reckless amendment. I hope we defeat it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR. I reserve a point of order on this issue.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to across-the-board cuts.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I respect the gentleman's presentation, but I think we ought to put it in full context. We do have an across-the- board cut. It is a huge cut. It is called sequestration. Although Admiral Mullen did admonish the Congress for the fact that we were running a deficit and it was a threat to our national security, he also opposed sequestration, across-the-board cuts. I think the problem is--and this bill certainly is an across-the- board cut from what we used to spend, with the exception of the protection of one program, but I oppose this. We are on the Committee on Appropriations. We try to go through these things with a fine-tooth comb to figure out how to adjust the spending of the United States of America. The worst thing you can do is just do an across-the-board cut because that harms good programs, and you aren't necessarily cutting enough to really make a big dent in the national debt. Frankly, the spending of America has come down quite dramatically, and the economy has improved, and our national debt is, in the recent years, at an all-time low. I think, frankly, we in Congress talk about this debt but don't put it into context. I like to put it in the context that I talk to my constituents about that what we have at the national level, just like you have at the local level and your own personal life, you have sort of two debts. You have a short-term debt, which is that credit card, you spent too much that one month, so you are going to pay it slowly off in the next couple months. That is the annual deficit. The long-term debt is that big mortgage that we have on our houses. We don't panic because of a mortgage. We made an agreement over a period of time--15, 30 years--that we are going to pay off this mortgage, and we know what those payments will be. Wall Street doesn't worry about a deficit when we have a plan to pay it off. Wall Street worries about when we take a meat-ax approach to not running the government efficiently, not having enough people to process people when they need permits and they need access to licenses and things like that. So I wish Congress would get off this sort of let's just use a meat- ax approach to solving these problems because we won't spend the time to get into the weeds. And although I respect the gentleman and his approach, I just don't think this is the proper way to do it, and I would oppose the across-the-board cut.

Mr. FARR. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, Congress needs to represent the States that they were elected in. It is time that we represent them here in the United States Congress to allow medical marijuana laws in those States that have been approved by the voters and approved by their legislatures--39 States, the District of Columbia, and Guam. That is 41 total, the majority of the American population. It is a states' rights issue. Support this amendment.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk to strike section 540.

Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I am serving my 22nd year in the United States Congress, and I have never seen a provision in an appropriations bill like this. This amendment in there could be labeled the ``family feud.'' There is only one Member of Congress who is related to anybody in the leadership and in the military in Cuba, and he is the person who put this amendment in. What it does is it prohibits businesses from doing business in Cuba because it makes it almost impossible for any business to get a license. That is why the United States Chamber of Commerce; the National Foreign Trade Council; the Emergency Committee for American Trade; USA Engage, which is a trade group; and CubaNow, which is Florida's Cuban Americans, are all opposed to this provision of the bill and support my amendment to strike it. Mr. Chairman, I submit for the Record letters from CubaNow which are in support of my amendment. Dear Congressman Farr: We urge that House Members vote to strip Section 540 from H.R. 2578, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016. This provision would turn back the strategic effort to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba, harming advancements to increased commerce with Cuba. Majorities of Americans, Cuban-Americans, and Cubans support normalizing relations and ending the unilateral trade embargo. Bipartisan support exists in both the House and Senate and throughout the business community and the majority of civil society groups focused on Cuba. The question of Cuba policy should be approached deliberatively in the full context of hemispheric relations. Please support the Farr amendment to strip Section 540 from

Mr. FARR. Almost every country in this hemisphere and almost every country in the world has normal trade relations with Cuba. We are trying to open those up so that businesses in America, particularly our agriculture and our other trading goods, can take advantage of the market in Cuba--not a big one, but an important one--because it is so close to shore. What this amendment does is it stops all of that. It targets the Cuban military by saying that anything related to the Cuban military and what they own, which is a lot of businesses in Cuba, may not be used to facilitate, permit, license, or promote exports to the Cuban military or intelligence services or the immediate families thereof. This is what is really so damaging. The term ``immediate family,'' as described in the bill, means a spouse, sibling, son, daughter, parent, grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew. Now, how does a businessperson in the United States know if any of those people are working for any of the agencies that this bill restricts from? It hurts American businesses, and it hurts Cubans. Let's stop living in the past. Let's strike this provision in the bill and support my amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. I wish the chairman was accepting this amendment because the faults that we hear are that we have limited resources. We have limited resources, but it is a priority where you give them. This ocean acidification is a serious problem. It is the most serious problem of mankind that we can do something about. When the ocean is starting to melt all the shellfish, the lobster industry, the crab industry, the oyster industry, and the clam industry, all of these industries have a huge effect on not only where they are farming, but where the tourism that is attracted to them. Mr. Chairman, we can do something about it. We need more money. The President asked for $30 million in this program. The committee cut it to $8.4 million, says he is funding it. However, the President asked for the same amount of money for the exploration of the moon of Jupiter called Europa. The committee decided to give them $110 million more than the President asked for. So don't tell me that there isn't money available. It is just the priority where you give it. Are you going to save this planet or put all the money into the moon of Jupiter? I think it is more important that we research ocean acidification, and that is why Don Young and I are introducing a bill to tackle this problem more than just this amendment in this moment. Mr. Chairman, we have to get serious about this. The planet is melting, and the ocean acidification is melting the organisms in the ocean; and when they die, we die.