Blake Farenthold

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Joyce Hunsaker, a 17-year-old from Corpus Christi, who recently won a bronze medal in the International Bunker Trap at the World Shotgun Championship in Moscow. Joyce has been named a member of the elite 4-person Texas State National 4-H shotgun team. In June of last year, her teammates and her competed in the National Championships in Grand Island, Nebraska, where they took home first place in team skeet shooting and sporting clays, third in trap, and earned the title of National Champions for 2017. Joyce also competed and won the Junior Women's gold medal in the 2017 State Junior Olympics international bunker trap competition last year. Joyce then advanced to the 2017 National Junior Olympic Championships in Colorado Springs, where she took home a bronze medal in the Junior Women's International Bunker Trap event and was selected to represent the United States as a member of the 2017 Junior World Cup Team. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Joyce on all her hard work and success that she is enjoying as a result of it. Keep up the good work.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, my office is now accepting artwork for the 2018 Congressional Art Competition. Each spring, the Congressional Institute sponsors a nationwide high school visual arts competition to recognize artistic talent in the Nation and in each congressional district. In 2017, the winning entry was drawn by Drew Scott from Rockport- Fulton High School. Her piece, ``Complementary Calico,'' along with the other 2017 winning entries from other congressional districts, currently hang in the Cannon tunnel, the walkway that connects the U.S. Capitol to the House office buildings. The Congressional Art Competition is a great way to encourage artistic abilities and reward talented students for their efforts and gives them an opportunity to compete. Since the competition began in 1982, more than 6,500 high school students have participated. Students from the district I represent, the 27th District of Texas, who wish to participate in this competition may submit up to two pieces of artwork to my office by Friday, April 6, 2018, in order to be considered. I wish all the talented high schoolers of the 27th District of Texas the best of luck. Recognizing Joyce Hunsaker

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to remember the life of a great constituent and family friend, Joe Fulton, who passed away recently at the age of 83. Joe not only lived in Corpus Christi, but he helped shape the city's skylines. His projects, as a general contractor, include the Art Museum of South Texas; Texas State Aquarium; the Bayfront Omni Hotel; Frost Bank Tower; the Nueces County Courthouse; the Hayden Head Terminal at the Corpus Christi International Airport; and Whataburger Field, home of the Corpus Christi Hooks, just to name a few. Fulton's work received national attention, when, in 1993, the Engineering News-Record named his company, Fulton Construction, one of the top contractors in the United States. In addition to his work as a contractor, Joe was a member of the Port of Corpus Christi Commission from 1985 to 1998 and fought for the widening and deepening of the port. He served as chairman of the Port of Corpus Christi Commission from 1991 to 1996. He was also a board member of the Cullen/Frost Bank, trustee and chairman of the Driscoll Foundation, director of the Texas State Historical Association, chairman of the Greater Corpus Christi Business Alliance, and president of the Corpus Christi Tourist Bureau. Joe's impact on our community will live on for a long time. We will miss you, Joe.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I suspect we all know Senator John McCain, but we should also know World War II veteran John McCain from Wharton, Texas, who just turned 100 years old. Mr. McCain was born in Texas on February 15, 1918. When he was just 7 years old, he joined the workforce going door to door with his Shetland pony circulating fliers for local businesses. In the years leading up to World War II, he traveled to Los Angeles to learn to be a diesel mechanic and then promptly enlisted in the Texas National Guard, 36th Tank Company, as a diesel mechanic. On January 16, 1941, he was deployed to Fort Benning. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, McCain was deployed to Hawaii. After we defeated the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway, McCain's unit was moved to Fort Chaffee before being deployed to Europe where he and his unit swept through southern Germany and eventually met the Russian Army in Czechoslovakia in 1945. After the war, McCain worked for a natural gas pipeline company in Liberty, Texas, for 35 years. After retiring, he moved back to his hometown of Wharton. During his retirement, he has traveled by RV to all 48 continental States and nine provinces in Canada. He has also traveled the world, visiting 42 countries. He often says: When you are 100 years old, you just go wherever the wind blows you. Mr. McCain, thank you for your service to our country and to your community. I hope you had a great 100th birthday. Remembering Joe Fulton

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I applaud President Trump on including $13 million for widening and deepening the project at the Port of Corpus Christi in its fiscal year 2019 budget. Widening and deepening the port is critical not only to the local economy in Corpus Christi, but to the entire Nation. While getting the funding in the President's budget is a huge victory, it is still just an early step in a lengthy process. Congress still needs to approve and appropriate the funds for this project over multiple years. I encourage my colleagues in the House and Senate to support this appropriation and grow the Port of Corpus Christi and our Nation's energy sector. Corpus Christi is the Nation's largest port for energy exports, shipping out crude oil, petroleum products, and LNG. Widening the ship channel will allow for two-way barge traffic, and deepening it to 54 feet will allow for larger ships to enter and exit the port, creating more economic growth and good jobs for American workers. This project has been one of my top priorities since coming to Congress in 2010 and will continue to be a priority as long as I am here. Mr. Speaker, please join me in supporting this widening and deepening project. Celebrating 100th Birthday of John McCain

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to remember the life of a great constituent, Mr. Don Kaspar, who passed away, recently, at 88. Don was born on November 24, 1928, in Shiner, Texas, where he graduated from Shiner High School in 1945. He served as the president of his class at Texas A&M, where he graduated in 1949 with a degree in agricultural administration. He worked part-time factory jobs throughout school and served as a junior executive at Kaspar Wire Works, a company founded in 1898 by his grandfather. During the Korean war, Don served in the United States Army as a second lieutenant and then as a first lieutenant, receiving a Combat Infantry Badge and a Bronze Star. He then returned to Kaspar Wire Works, now Kaspar Companies, where he became CEO, and it grew from a small company with 18 employees to a multinational enterprise with nearly 1,000 employees. I was fortunate enough to tour the company a couple of years ago with Don and learned about the success of his ventures. Despite his busy job, Don always had time to give back to the community. He was president of the Shiner Rotary Club, director of the Shiner Hospital Foundation, the first chairman of Shiner Youth Baseball, chairman of the Shiner United Way Fund, a local scoutmaster, chairman of the board at his local church, and more. A pillar of the Shiner community, Don was married to the late Jean Welhausen Kaspar for 52 years and leaves behind 4 sons, their wives, 10 grandchildren, and 6 great-grandchildren. Don, we miss you.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to remember Robert ``Bob'' Agrifoglio, who passed away recently at the age of 73. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Bob enlisted in the U.S. Air Force on his 17th birthday and headed to basic training in San Antonio, Texas. From there, he was deployed to Japan, Colorado Springs, and many other places. He went on to train as an aircraft loadmaster, where he flew Presidential support missions, performed airdrops, and flew missions all over the world, including South Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Bob received orders to go to Vietnam, where he flew in numerous missions before his plane crashed, tragically, killing his fellow crew members. Despite an aggressive push to return to the skies, Bob's injuries from that crash permanently removed him from flight service. After 17\1/2\ years on Active Duty, he went on to work at the Department of Defense safety offices for the next 17 years, before he finally retired in 1996. Bob never stopped serving the community, helping with veterans events, volunteering to help veterans with their healthcare issues, and helping to run a weekly Tuesday veterans' coffee service with Dotson Lewis and many other veterans in the Corpus Christi area. Thank you, Bob, for your years of service not only to our country, but to the Corpus Christi community and all of your friends and fellow veterans worldwide. You will be missed. Remembering Don Kaspar

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, recently, my office faced a tragedy when we received word that my former field representative Collin Kennedy had passed away due to injuries he had suffered in an accident. A Manassas, Virginia, native and a West Virginia University graduate, politics ran in Collin's blood. He had worked on numerous campaigns for the Republican National Committee and interned on Capitol Hill before beginning work in my office in 2015, where he worked until last September. Collin, who was 27, served as my field representative in Victoria, Bastrop, Lavaca, Caldwell, and Gonzales Counties, where he was known for his boundless enthusiasm, positive outlook, and passion for life. Since his death, dozens of people have left notes and messages about the strong relationship that they have shared with Collin and the lasting impact he left on our communities. They spoke of his kindness, his great attitude, and his constant willingness to lend a hand. They shared their fond memories of him attending ribbon cuttings, banquets, community meetings, and more. One of my current staff wrote a touching tribute that described Collin as ``the gold standard of what it means to be a friend and colleague,'' and I couldn't agree more. Collin's outsized personality and exuberance were well known, and his ability to reach people and connect with them was extraordinary. I have to admit, I was a little worried hiring a West Virginian to work in Texas. He was going to be my eyes and ears. But Collin was amazing at how easily he made friends and fit in as a transplant Texan. I was blessed to have Collin as a staff member, and my family and I were blessed to have him as a friend. Our prayers are with his parents, Jeffrey and Susan; his brother, Zachary; the rest of his family; and countless friends. Collin, thank you for your years of great work. You will be missed. Remembering Robert ``Bob'' Agrifoglio

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida; he has definitely been a leader on this issue. I have got to tell you that I, too, am happy the Intelligence Committee has agreed to release the memo. When I was back home in Texas last week, it was the number one issue people were talking to me about. I want to take a minute and step back and do a little bit of a history lesson. The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution arose from some of the abusive practices that were going on in the Colonies. The King of England would send his troops to rifle through people's effects without a warrant. Our Fourth Amendment said we are not going to let that happen in these new United States of America. We are going to require the government to get a warrant before they go through people's papers. We are protected from illegal searches. I have been worried since the first day I got here in Congress, but in our effort to protect ourselves--and perhaps out of fear, some of it, perhaps, warranted--we are eroding those rights. So, as this memo comes out, regardless of what is in it, we need to be looking at the process: how we went to a secret court to get permission to get this information, how that information was gathered, what that information was, who vetted it, how thoroughly it was vetted, how the judges reacted, and, eventually, what came out and determined whether we need to reform that process to protect Americans' rights. Yes, we all have a right to know what is going on with our government. Yes, I am worried about career bureaucrats or elected officials abusing the power of the government to get information on their political enemies, like the King was doing back in the days of the Revolutionary War. This is our opportunity to make sure that doesn't happen in these United States. Let's not lose sight of what the issue is here, and that is protecting the people not only from foreigners who look to do us harm, but also from an oppressive government that abuses its power to spy on American citizens. I am glad this memo is going to come out. I urge President Trump to promptly release it and, in fact, go beyond that: look at some of the sources of the material in it, determine that we can reveal some of those sources without jeopardizing our ability to gather intelligence, and release the source materials so we know what people knew when they made the decision to pursue the material covered in this memo. I think this is a great time for this country. I think this is our opportunity to remind ourselves that we do have a right to be safe and secure in our persons and papers from a government that may be trying to do more than protect us. Maybe some of these folks in the government have shifted from what we need to protect America, such as, well, the best way to protect America is to protect ourselves and our jobs and our political agenda. That is not what the job of our law enforcement and intelligence community is. It is to protect us from those who want to do us harm, especially foreigners. I want to give them the power to do that, the ability to do that, but I do not want to give them the ability to affect elections, to go after their political enemies, to spy on any one of us because they can. Human nature is such that, if we give the government too much power, there are those who will abuse it. So we in Congress have got to keep our eye on the ball at all times and protect the constitutional rights that our forefathers and our Founding Fathers gave us and that our men and women in uniform fight for every day that they are in service to this country.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4712, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, as have many of my colleagues. I find it interesting to hear from the party that brought us the Affordable Care Act about the government interfering with healthcare decisions. But that isn't what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the horrendous practice of sitting and watching a child that was born alive die and not providing them care. The Born- Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 says every infant who is born alive, at any stage of development, is a human being. However, there is no law right now that criminalizes the act of abortionists who deny care to babies who survive abortions. These fragile young lives need care immediately once they are born, which is why I strongly support this legislation. It not only requires appropriate care for children who survive abortions, but it also establishes strong criminal penalties for those who violate the law, including punishing those who intentionally kill a child born alive. Again, I think that is a violation of the Federal murder laws. You are intentionally letting a child die, and you could help. You are a doctor. You are trained. As a strong supporter of life, it is important that we hold those who kill innocent children accountable for what they do. I believe this law will do that. Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to please join me in supporting this important legislation to protect the lives of our newborn babies.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a Navy veteran and retiring Executive Director of the USS Lexington Museum on the Bay, Captain F.W. ``Rocco'' Montesano. Following his graduation from the Naval Academy, Rocco served the U.S. Navy in numerous positions over his 30-year career, completing more than 5,500 flight hours and 900 carrier landings. From serving as commanding officer in aircraft squadrons to manpower director for the Chief of Naval Air Training, Captain Montesano has always shown his dedication and commitment to our country. His bravery and service earned him many awards, including two Legion of Merit Medals, two Meritorious Service Medals, a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and five Sea Service Ribbons, amongst many others. His service, however, did not stop when he retired from the Navy. In 1998, Captain Montesano became the Executive Director of the USS Lexington Museum on the Bay in Corpus Christi, where he served for 19 years. Throughout his time as Executive Director, Rocco brought innovation and creativity to his position and did a phenomenal job maintaining and improving the museum that sits on Corpus Christi Bay. Through his patriotism, loyalty, and service, he holds true to the values of an American citizen and he inspires us all. I thank Rocco for his commitment to our Nation. On behalf of everyone in the 27th Congressional District of Texas, I wish him a happy retirement.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to support the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, which will allow a person who is licensed in one State to carry their firearm to carry it in other States. It works just like your driver's license. My Texas driver's license lets me drive in Virginia; it lets me drive in Florida; it lets me drive in California. When I was a child growing up in Texas, my family taught me the importance of marksmanship, gun safety, and the Second Amendment. And I have long said that, when it comes to reducing violence, it is the individual, not the weapon, that we need to be focused on. This bill helps ensure an American's right to carry is not infringed when crossing State lines, enhancing public safety. In fact, as the chairman stated earlier here today, a peer-reviewed study shows that States with more restrictive concealed carry laws had higher gun- related murder rates. That is why we need an armed citizenry to protect ourselves and each other. As we saw in the terrible Texas church shooting in Sutherland Springs just recently, the death toll could have been much higher had not an armed citizen been there to confront the gunman. There are those who insist the bill will arm the criminals, but those claims are far from true, as gun laws restricting criminals from access to weapons are already there in their home States. They are going to remain undisturbed. I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and the Constitution, as I suspect most of you all are, Mr. Speaker, and I believe gun control is hitting what you aim at and nothing else.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Cuellar for introducing this bill. For those of you not from Texas who don't know where Tilden, Texas, is, if you know about where San Antonio is, you go down south about a quarter of the way to the Rio Grande Valley and you are going to pass through Tilden. It is kind of northwest of my hometown of Corpus Christi. I can tell you, having represented a lot of the area in south Texas, as does Mr. Cuellar, that this region is a region of the State that really does thank and appreciate the veterans who have sacrificed so much to serve for this country and for their families. I think it is entirely proper and absolutely a great idea to be naming this post office after our veterans, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to support H.R. 1207, introduced by the gentleman from south Texas (Mr. Cuellar). H.R. 1207 honors the veterans of Tilden, Texas, for their service to this great Nation by naming the United States Post Office at 306 River Street in Tilden, Texas, as the Tilden Veterans Post Office. This bill is particularly timely, as we just celebrated Veterans Day this past Saturday. I look forward to hearing more about this bill from my friend and colleague from Laredo, Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1207) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 306 River Street in Tilden, Texas, as the ``Tilden Veterans Post Office''.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I join Mrs. Watson Coleman and Mr. Hudson in urging passage of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3369, introduced by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hudson). The bill names the United States Post Office at 225 North Main Street in Spring Lake, North Carolina, after Howard B. Pate, Jr., a World War II veteran and former postmaster of Spring Lake. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hudson) to discuss the bill.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. This is a good government bill with bipartisan, bicameral support that will give Americans access to the data that they have paid for, will give lawmakers access to the data they need to make decisions, and will give policymakers and leadership in the executive branch the data they need to make better decisions to save taxpayers money and to do a better job at the things that we are trying to do in government. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell), who is on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to support H.R. 4174, introduced by Speaker Ryan and of which I am an original cosponsor. The American people deserve an efficient and effective Federal Government. I think we can all agree on that. Taxpayers have the right to know their money is being spent wisely. All too often, decisionmakers throughout the Federal Government make choices without sufficient evidence and data to inform them and guide them in making those decisions. In the previous Congress, Speaker Ryan and Senator Patty Murray introduced the bicameral and bipartisan Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission Act of 2016. The Commission was charged with studying and making recommendations related to access and use of evidence to support effective policymaking. Believe it or not, they finished in about a year. The Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking released their report September 7 of this year. The Commission made 22 recommendations on how to improve how evidence is accessed, produced, secured, and maintained by the Federal Government. On September 26, 2017, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing entitled ``Recommendations of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking.'' At that hearing, four members of the Commission explained the intent of the recommendations and the need for more evidence to improve policymaking. According to Dr. Ron Haskins, the co-chair of the Commission, evidence showed that many of the Nation's social programs produced modest to no impacts. H.R. 4174, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2017, addresses several recommendations from the final report issued by the Commission. The bill lays the groundwork for critical examination of what is working and what is not working in the Federal Government. Policy decisions should be based on facts. Those folks of my generation will remember Sergeant Joe Friday in ``Dragnet:'' ``Just the facts, ma'am.'' That is what we are trying to get ahold of here. According to the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, too little evidence is produced in the Federal Government to meet this need. The Commission also found cumbersome and idiosyncratic data access procedures create confusion, impose unnecessary costs, and are a barrier to evidence building. Additionally, according to the Government Accountability Office, agencies' continued lack of evaluations may be the greatest barrier to their informing managers and policymakers and constitutes a lost opportunity to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of limited government resources. These barriers are standing between the taxpayers and the effective government that they had paid for and that they deserve. H.R. 4174 removes some of the barriers the Commission identified and encourages agencies to expand the use of evidence in decisionmaking. First, each agency will need to designate a chief evaluation officer and submit annual evidence-building plans to Congress and the Office of Management and Budget. This bill also establishes an advisory committee to review, analyze, and make recommendations on how to expand access to and use of data for evidence building. It also includes the OPEN Government Data Act that Representative Kilmer and I introduced. The OPEN Government Data Act addresses the Commission's recommendation to expand access to information about data. The OPEN Government Data Act requires Federal agencies to develop a comprehensive inventory of Federal data and increases access to specific data assets that are appropriate for public release. This isn't personally identifiable, confidential, private, or classified information. It also establishes an open-by-default standard for Federal data, meaning data will be available under an open format and open license, and it will be in a machine-readable format. We are going to crowdsource some of this evidence building. We are going to let the private sector or nonprofits or whomever access this data, find ways to use it, build data, and, again, get more bang for the taxpayer's dollar. The bill further improves data management and collection by codifying the position of chief data officer and clarifying the CDO roles and responsibilities. Finally, H.R. 4174 establishes a process by which statistical agencies can access data, ensure effective and consistent privacy protections, and develop methods to reduce the sensitivity of data. This will expand opportunities for use of the data by the evidence- building community. The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2017 was reported favorably out of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. I come back to the bottom line on this: Americans expect policymakers to make decisions based on facts. And decisions based on facts are better decisions that will save taxpayer money and be good for America. H.R. 4174 will help make these expectations a reality. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), the sponsor of the bill and my friend, the Speaker of the House.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.