Blake Farenthold

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, the FACT Act requires that a very basic amount of information be released to protect against fraud against the asbestos trust system. I am standing with future victims of asbestos. The diseases associated with asbestos typically don't manifest themselves for decades, in some cases, beyond or after exposure. These trusts are being drained by fraudulent and duplicative claims. These requirements of disclosure prevent that fraud by requiring the minimal amount of information being required. In fact, a judge with 29 years of bench experience testified before the Committee on the Judiciary that the FACT Act provides more protection in terms of confidentiality of records than the legal system is able to do. This is commonsense legislation, does not invade people's privacy, and preserves these trust funds to make sure all victims are compensated. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Jackson Lee amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prevent asbestos trusts from disclosing claims information submitted by individuals living in public housing in its quarterly reports and in response to information requests. There is no reason to distinguish between the disclosure obligations of individuals living in public housing and the disclosure obligations of ordinary citizens. To the extent that claimants do not affirmatively identify themselves as living in public housing, this amendment would require asbestos trusts to determine whether claimants qualify in these categories, further draining them of funds needed to compensate future victims. The FACT Act balances the need for transparency and protecting claimants' privacy. The FACT Act excludes any confidential medical records and the claimants' Social Security numbers. We should ensure that bankruptcy asbestos claims are processed in an open, fair, and transparent method in order to protect the limited amount of money reserved for compensating future asbestos victims. The FACT Act should apply uniformly to all claimants, and it should not impose disparate burdens relating to individuals living in public housing. Mr. Chairman, for that reason, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure how this bill applies to government ethics at all. This bill is a simple bill that tells trial lawyers not to sue innocent local people in businesses just so they can forum shop. It tells them that all they have got to do is show a plausible case before they can proceed and that they have got to proceed in good faith. It has nothing to do with what the amendment proposes. This is to protect innocent folks from being sucked into lawsuits by trial lawyers. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and support the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Madam Speaker, today I am here to congratulate Calallen High School baseball coach Steve Chapman on his recent induction into the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame. Coach Chapman was born and raised in Hallettsville, Texas. After graduating from Hallettsville High School, he attended Blinn College and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, where he received a degree in education. After graduation, he began his coaching career at Victoria Stroman High School as an assistant coach. In 1983, he became head baseball coach at Calallen High School. In Coach Chapman's 33 years at Calallen, his Wildcats have won or shared 25 district championships and have been to the Region 4 finals 19 times. The Wildcats have reached the UIL State tournament on 12 occasions, played in the State championship game 8 times, and have won 3 State championships. Coach Chapman's overall record is 967 wins, 204 losses, and 2 ties. Coach Chapman's induction into the Hall of Fame is a testament to his hard work and the thousands of lives he has touched while coaching the Wildcats, including my long-time legislative director, Blake Adami. I offer my congratulations to Coach Chapman, his family, and everyone at Calallen.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate my colleague from Texas seeking to make this better, but I am going to have to oppose this amendment. It is confusing, unnecessary, and overly restrictive on agencies. This amendment would create a single definition of three different words: propaganda, publicity, and advocacy. Those are different words. Under this amendment, publicity, advocacy, and propaganda would mean making a statement not widely accepted by the scientific community. Are we going to create a test of two out of three dentists agree? It is going to be difficult to do. I mean, it could be anything. Is it propaganda for me to say I love my wife? I only know a couple of scientists, there is not going to be a broad, general consensus in the scientific community about that, but it is certainly not propaganda. It is a statement of my feeling. Publicity and propaganda and advocacy are different words. They don't mean the same thing, and they certainly don't have the definition my friend from Texas is suggesting. Check out the dictionary. You can do it on your smartphone. These definitions that are proposed in this amendment are unworkable. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, as the designee of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Messer), I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, I come back to the purpose of this bill: we want our regulatory agencies to be neutral. They propose a rule, they have done the research, and they have done the science. They wouldn't be proposing it if they didn't believe that it needed to be done. Where they crossed the line is using taxpayer money to go out and promote and advocate for it. The idea behind public comments, the whole thought behind public input is to get a diversity of ideas, but, if the solicitations seeking that comment are biased, or if the agency is advocating it, it potentially suppresses the other side. We want to get both sides of the matter. Let's look at the actual definition of propaganda. I googled it while Ms. Jackson Lee was just speaking. Propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature used to promote a particular cause or point of view. Advocacy is another one that has a definition. It is public statements for or a recommendation of a particular cause or policy. So those definitions basically say you are pushing a point of view. We don't want to limit those. The definition and the purpose behind this legislation is to make our agencies fair about seeking comment and fair about listening to those comments. We don't want the agencies going into this with preconceived notions and advocating it. We want the public comment to work the way the public comment is supposed to work. The scientific community, whether they are for it or against it, can weigh in in those public comments, and the public and the agency will know what their consensus is based on the fair comments fairly solicited. So again, I urge opposition to this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, in closing, the purpose of the underlying legislation here is to make sure we have a fair process and the Federal Government isn't pushing a point of view, it is listening to all sides. This amendment takes that away. For that reason, I urge opposition. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, this is a simple transparency measure that adds a disclosure requirement under the underlying bill. Understanding which regulations are duplicative or overlapping allows the public to be better informed as they participate in the rulemaking process. We want to know what is going on as members of the public. Too many times agencies develop regulations without consideration or coordination with other Federal agencies, State and local governments, or, in some cases, even the public. They issue proposed rules that are unnecessary, duplicative, or overcomplicated. This simple amendment helps draw the public's attention to potential areas of concern while the rule is still in the proposed phase of rulemaking. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, I think my colleague across the aisle actually makes the case for me. The executive branch already requires that this work be done by the agencies. Leaving behind the constitutional authority of this body to direct that happen in the nature of executive orders that can be changed by the next executive, this actually codifies a good part of the executive order that is already in place, so the agencies wouldn't have to do any work. What this does add, however, to that executive order and why it is so important is it adds a transparency requirement. An agency is required to look to see what regulations are out there that may be duplicative under the executive order. This requires them to tell us about it. Why would they want to hide from the American people that they are creating a duplicative regulation? This is a simple transparency amendment that improves the quality of the underlying bill, improves the amount of information accessible to the public, and holds executive branch agencies accountable to make sure they are not putting unnecessary and duplicative burdens on the American people. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, we are simply codifying an executive order here, as the gentleman pointed out, but we are adding one more thing. We are adding transparency to it so the American people know what these alphabet soups of government agencies are up to and give us, as watchdogs in Congress, or private organizations or a member of the public with internet access the ability to see how the CFR is expanding and expanding with more and more duplicative Federal rules. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is unnecessary and confusing. As I am sure my colleague from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) knows, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The First Amendment applies to everybody in this country. We couldn't write a law that infringes upon the First Amendment and have it withstand scrutiny by the Supreme Court or under the Constitution, and I certainly wouldn't support a law that did this. The underlying legislation is designed to stop public agencies from using your taxpayer dollars and my taxpayer dollars for promoting one side of an issue. It is not designed to chill any Federal employees of First Amendment rights. In fact, the Supreme Court, in 1994, in Waters v. Churchill, held that public employees do have a right to free speech. We are not going to be leaning over people's necks seeing what they are putting on their personal Twitter accounts, but we are going to say that, if you are a government agency spending taxpayer dollars to promote a point of view on something before your agency, that is a no-no. That is what this underlying legislation does. Ms. Jackson Lee's amendment is simply unnecessary because we can't suppress the First Amendment rights even if we want to. And we do not-- I say do not--ever want to violate the Constitution and interfere with people's First Amendment rights. And, listen, I agree with the underlying intent of my colleague's amendment. Simply, we can't do it. Unfortunately, this amendment is not only unnecessary, it could be harmful. If we say First Amendment protections apply in this law, are we going to have to go out and in every law we pass, put in something that says the First Amendment applies? Come on. We already know the First Amendment applies because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. So it creates unnecessary confusion that could ultimately harm people's First Amendment rights. Can you see the lawsuits? Well, Congress didn't say in there it protected my First Amendment right. So we would have to go and rewrite every law on the books. The Constitution is there and it works. It is an unnecessary amendment. So I hope my clarification that the First Amendment applies assuages the concerns of the gentlewoman from Texas and she withdraws the amendment. If she doesn't, however, I am going to have to oppose it as unnecessary and potentially confusing to the entire body of law of this country. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I would just like to point out that Commissioner Pai's release of that information would not be prohibited under this bill. It is not advocacy. It is releasing facts. So it would not be prohibited. Again, the First Amendment already applies to every law that we make in this body and every law we have made. The Constitution trumps what we do here. So, with that, I continue to argue that this amendment is unnecessary and potentially confusing, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chair, I think the utmost clarity is in the First Amendment. I am going to read it here. ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'' That applies to everything we do, every law we make. This amendment is unnecessary, and I urge opposition. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Chair, at the risk of sounding repetitious, the First Amendment applies to all we do in this body. This amendment is unnecessary. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order against the motion.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my point of order.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, as a great supporter of transparency, this bill is designed to promote transparency in executive branch agencies. Unfortunately, I think the motion to recommit would actually be violative of the Constitution. The President and the executive branch agencies we are seeking to regulate under this law are creations of Congress administered by the executive branch. The Presidency is created by the Constitution, and it is my belief that it would be unconstitutional to pass this motion to recommit. For that reason alone, I urge my colleagues to oppose it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Madam Chair, you know what? We have got over 1 million pages of regulations. We have got so many laws nobody could possibly know them. I would venture to say there are very few people today who can't go a day without violating some law or some regulation. It has gotten too complex. Nobody wants a dirty environment. Nobody wants dirty water, but we need a reasonable amount of regulation that we can understand, that we can follow, and that will protect America and create jobs. The SCRUB Act creates a commission that comes back to Congress with recommendations of what to get rid of. You know what? I would like to do it all here in Congress, too, but we sure face a lot of obstruction in getting things done here. It doesn't move fast here. Let's get a commission to do the basic work. Let's bring it back to Congress, and let us decide and let us get rid of regulations. Let's make the agencies pick and choose which regulations that they think are important, and they will do it. This is commonsense legislation to get the regulatory state under control, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. FARENTHOLD

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of a great fourth-generation Texan, Thomas Marion O'Connor of Victoria, Texas, who passed away recently at the age of 94. Like his family before him who settled in Refugio County in the 1800s, Mr. O'Connor was a true Texan, a cattleman and a devout Catholic. He lived his life with gusto, practicing exemplary land stewardship, philanthropy and commitment to his community--traits he passed on to his children and grandchildren. He was also an American hero, serving during World War II in the United States Army Air Corps, the precursor to the United States Air Force. Mr. O'Connor was well known in the community for his philanthropic endeavors, providing support to the church, the arts, schools, local health care systems and more. He was a leader in the community and an active board member for many different groups representing broad interests like agriculture, banking and education. He leaves behind a loving family of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who share his love for community and spirit. I offer my condolences to his family. Mr. O'Connor will be missed.