Tim Griffin

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. And these are folks that the Obama administration says are full-time, but they're really not full-time. They may be working 35 hours a week. They don't even have a truly full- time, 40-hour-a-week job, what most folks across America know to be full-time. We talked about this before. Who said that 30 hours is full- time? A lot of folks working 35 hours are trying to make ends meet. They would rather work 40 and get some other time. But what is happening is they're being cut back below 30, which is not just the number of hours they work. It's simultaneously reducing the money they take home.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. That's your bill.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Houston Doctors to Close Doors Because of ObamaCare; Aetna Letter Warns Customers: `Many People Will Pay More for Health Insurance' Under ObamaCare; East Penn Cuts Cafeteria Workers' Hours to Avoid ObamaCare; Affordable Care Act Insurance Mandates Leading Some Businesses to Cut Employees' Work Hours; Limiting Part-Time Hours Unintended Result of Health Law. Maybe the unintended consequences have something to do with the fact they didn't know half of what was in the law in the first place.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. And we can help those people. We can help those people through other means. As I said before, the idea that it's the ObamaCare model or nothing is a false choice. There are many other better patient-centered ways to do this to reach the same goal. Health Care Law Causing SCC to Reexamine Adjunct Faculty Members; Local Employers Struggle with Affordable Care Act. When employers are struggling, the workers are struggling. The families are struggling. ObamaCare Glitch Could Make Coverage Unaffordable for Low-Wage Workers; ObamaCare's $96-an-Hour Cost Spike May End 30-Hour Workweek. We're getting short on time, so I think we ought to run through these. I want to talk a little bit about where our bills are now, sitting at the other end of the Capitol. I want to urge our Senate friends to think about the opportunity they have. But let's take a quick look at these before we close out. Rancho Cucamonga May Reduce Part-Time Hours to Avoid Health Care Costs; Part-time Staff Hours in Flux Due to ObamaCare; Fort Wayne Community Schools Cut Hours for Part-Time Positions; Maricopa Community College Staffs Pinched by Obama Health Law; Dallas Area Cities, School Districts Expect Budget Hits from Affordable Care Act. And the good news just keeps on coming. There's a little sarcasm there. This is just awful.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. And there's so many more. One that I actually didn't get up here was reported just tonight. In Ohio, they announced that premiums statewide are going up 41 percent. AAA Parks Full-Time Jobs, Cites Health Law; Agencies Must Cut Some Part-Timers' Hours or Offer Health Insurance; Part-Time Employee Hours Cut Over Health Care; Fast-Food Worker Hours Cut, New Health Care Law Blamed. I know we're short on time. We've got some other colleagues that want to talk tonight, but I just want to close by first of all thanking my colleague, Representative Young of Indiana, for being here with me. But I'd just like to point out that the employer mandate bill that mimics what the President did, that postpones the employer mandate for 1 year, we passed it here with 35 Democrats, bipartisan. Your bill, the individual mandate postponement, 22 Democrats. We passed them out of here. We did our job. The worst the White House could say about my bill is that it was redundant. Those bills are sitting down in the Senate, waiting for action.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. On the employer mandate delay, they should pass that immediately to make the President's actions legal, and they should pass the individual mandate delay to make the President's actions fair. I appreciate you being here with me tonight. You are an outstanding member of the Ways and Means Committee, and I appreciate your leadership. We're running out of time. I want to thank folks for joining us tonight, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Chairman, on March 29, 2013, the ExxonMobil Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas, spilled thousands of gallons of oil into the homes and onto the properties surrounding the ruptured pipelines. I am committed to making things right for the people of Mayflower by ensuring that another spill like this doesn't occur again in Arkansas. The U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, PHMSA, is responsible for regulating and ensuring the safe and secure movement of oil and petroleum products to industry and consumers through our Nation's interstate pipelines. As an interstate pipeline, the inspection of the Pegasus pipeline was PHMSA's responsibility. Pipelines move nearly two-thirds of the oil and petroleum products transported annually. Interstate pipelines deliver over 11.3 billion barrels of petroleum each year. The cost to transport a barrel of petroleum products from Houston to the New York Harbor is about a dollar. American pipelines are indisputably the safest way to move oil, and I remain supportive of the pipeline infrastructure as it will provide important jobs and energy to Americans, but we've got to make sure these pipelines are safe. Every year, pipelines transport more than 11 billion barrels of oil, and last year, less than five ten- thousandths of 1 percent of it was lost to spills. We've got to do what we can to make sure spills that did occur don't happen again. Although the number of spills is a minimal fraction of what we safely transport throughout the country, I know that we can still make more certain the safety of our Nation's pipelines. I continue to support the safe transport of our Nation's oil and petroleum products, and I have introduced my amendment to increase the budget for PHMSA's operational expenses by $500,000 to further ensure the safety of our Nation's pipelines. This appropriation finances the operational support costs for PHMSA, including agency-wide functions of administration, management, policy development, legal counsel, budget, financial management, civil rights, human resources, acquisition services, information technology, and governmental and public affairs. I ask that the House support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Madam Speaker, the employer mandate provisions in the Affordable Care Act are already stifling job growth. We don't have to wait to see what's going to happen. In my district, I was approached by a 21-year-old Hispanic American. He contacted me. He said, I'm a franchise owner. I'm the vice president of a small franchise that I inherited from my mother. He said that his business has grown about 25 percent each year over the past 2 years and that he is one of the top franchisees in his group. He is a rising senior in college who is managing a small business. He said that he currently has 45 employees; and according to him, right now would be the perfect time to add another 10 or 20 full- time, good-paying jobs--but this is a small business owner. He said he can't do it because of the employer mandate. It makes him choose between increasingly expensive insurance premiums or punitive tax penalties for each employee. He contacted me for relief. If this mandate cannot be repealed, he said, could he please make the 50 threshold 250 so as not to strangle his business. The 21-year-old said it best: The government should be my partner so I can help my employees prosper. I can help them more than the government, but I'm literally not able because of taxes, the Affordable Care Act and other regulations. After 3 years of pain, the President has finally realized that the employer mandate is a bad idea. It is already costing jobs and lowering wages for millions of hardworking Americans. Americans who are forced to be part of ObamaCare deserve more than to be governed by blog posts from the Treasury Department. Only Congress can change the law. Personally, I want to repeal and replace the law; but today we can join with the President and vote for my bill.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. You know, when I look at this issue of energy, what strikes me is the President talking about jobs sounds good, but he doesn't like this sort of job or that sort of job. For example, he talks about wanting to create jobs, but he doesn't want the Keystone pipeline kind of jobs, he doesn't want the kind of jobs that come from coal. He doesn't want the kind of jobs that come from fracking, this technology that we have developed in the United States that is helping us lead the world. So he wants to talk about jobs, he has this idea that there are somehow these jobs out there, but not the ones that are right under his nose. I am holding in my hand a Washington Post article from earlier this year, and the headline is, ``European Industry Flocks to U.S. to Take Advantage of Cheaper Gas.'' Wait a minute. I've heard the President talk a lot about jobs. I've heard him talk a lot about wanting more manufacturing jobs. Natural gas that is being developed here in this country, cheap natural gas, clean- burning natural gas, abundant natural gas, that is what is helping this economy. Despite all the regulatory obstacles that this President has put in front of this economy, despite record debt, despite all of the problems that we in this body want to address, the economy is still doing some incredible things because the private sector is leading, and natural gas is a big part of that. I've got another article here from The Wall Street Journal, from October of last year. The headline is ``Cheap U.S. Gas is Europe's loss.'' Manufacturing in Europe moving to the United States because of innovation in the area of natural gas. Now, the interesting thing is I know the President is in a political bind because workers want jobs and environmentalists want to kill a lot of these projects, so he's torn between the two. How about you just go with the jobs? Working Americans need jobs, Mr. President. And it seems to me, those are the folks that you ought to put first. And I would note that there's a lot of talk by the environmentalists about killing coal and having a war on coal. Do they not realize that if you kill coal use in a country that regulates it very closely and that has developed clean coal, that coal's still going to be used? But who's it going to be used by? It's going to be used by China, where they don't have the clean air rules that we do, and so they're going to make even more pollution. Instead of turning to clean coal and the coal technology that we have here, he's sending it overseas.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. This is another reason that folks may want to go elsewhere to create jobs. We've got the gift of abundant, cheap energy. Let's not mess it up. And let's be clear. This is not just a war on coal. This is a war on working people. This is a war on the family who is sitting at their table trying to figure out how they're going to pay their power bill, how they're going to heat or cool their home, how they're going to put food on their table. And you know what? Energy costs. We all know this. When it goes up, it's passed down through the cost of product. I will tell you that Arkansas, where I'm from, a big percentage of our energy is based on coal

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I've got some good news for my colleagues here tonight.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I would like to lay this out and give the President the opportunity to digest what I'm about to say and change his mind on the Keystone pipeline. We know that he's been torn between workers on one side and environmental extremists on the other. And he's been looking and grasping for any excuse not to approve the affordable energy and the jobs that come with the Keystone pipeline. And there's a lot of these same, similar arguments, whether you're talking about coal or the Keystone pipeline or the natural gas that we're getting out of the ground that has really revolutionized this country and provided so many jobs for so many workers. But one of the reasons that opponents of the Keystone pipeline have said that they're opposed to the Keystone pipeline is that the tar sands that's being taken out of the ground in Canada at its core, its bitumen, which is a little bit different kind of crude, a lot of them have said, Well, we're opposed to the Keystone pipeline because it's different than other pipelines. This crude is different. This crude is more corrosive. This crude is dangerous. This crude should not be going through pipelines across this country because it is somehow more dangerous. Well, I've got great news for the President tonight if he's watching this. The great news is in January of 2012, we put in a requirement in the legislation. I want to be real clear about this because this is breaking news. It broke today. It hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but it's critical. We put in our bill that became law that the Obama administration needed to do a study through the Department of Transportation to determine whether this bitumen really was different than other crude, whether it was really more dangerous to pass through a pipeline across the country, whether it was really something we needed to be extra worried about. Because all the environmentalists, all the different folks who opposed the Keystone pipeline preach about bitumen and how dangerous it is.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Here's the study, my friend. And this is just great news. It's from the National Research Council and not some third-party political group working for the Obama administration, the Secretary of Transportation, pursuant to this Congress's request that they study it. I have got the executive summary right here. And this just came out today. Here's what they concluded. And this is big news because this is one of the reasons the President is against the Keystone pipeline. It says: The committee does not find any causes of pipeline failure unique to the transportation of diluted bitumen. Furthermore, the committee does not find evidence of chemical or physical properties of diluted bitumen that are outside the range of other crude oils or any other aspect of its transportation by transmission pipeline that would make diluted bitumen more likely than other crude oils to cause releases.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I wish I could have said it that clearly. But the bottom line is, this isn't Tim Griffin saying it. This is the Obama administration's own study that we mandated they conduct. And I'll tell you, if you look at the argument against the Keystone pipeline that the environmental extremists have been putting out there, this is numero uno, number one, at the top. They've been basing almost their whole deal on this. And the Obama administration says, Sorry, not backed up by the facts.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I would almost rather the President just be straight up and say, I only like some kinds of jobs. And I don't like any of those kind.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Just be straight up with us, President. Just say, I've got a war on coal. I've got a war on the Keystone pipeline. I've got a war on natural gas and removing it out of the ground, slowing down permits. I like a certain kind of energy, and I'm going to try to fund it through the government. Just be straight up.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Well, I would also point out, again, going to the environmental responsibility that we have--you as a mother; I'm a father of two, a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old--we all want clean air and clean water for them. I would point out that Duke University last month, working with the University of Arkansas and working with the Obama administration's own U.S. Geological Survey, tested about 130 wells in Arkansas, something like that, and concluded that well water was not polluted by the natural gas extraction that's going on there. Just more factual evidence that we can have the jobs; and if we extract the energy responsibly, we can take care of the environment at the same time.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I totally agree with the gentleman. We understand--and hopefully we can get more and more folks to understand--that this body is not creating the jobs. We want the private sector to continue to create the jobs and lead. But sometimes the barriers to job creation and growing jobs in this country are barriers that Washington has put into place. I find that a lot of the times when we're legislating in this body, we're not trying to create jobs to get in the way of the private sector. We go to people in the private sector and we say, what's your biggest hurdle? What's your biggest barrier? How can we help you grow more jobs? And more often than not they will say: Get out of the way. A lot of the bills that we put on the floor are to help Washington get out of the way, move it out of the way and let the private sector continue to lead in this area. I want to mention one more thing real quickly on optimism. If you study where we are as a country, whether it's with regard to the debt and regulations--some of these things, yeah, we've got a lot of work to do there. But if you study where we are with regard to innovation, energy extraction, natural gas extraction, the low cost of natural gas, the companies that I mention in these articles that are moving from Europe, I smell nothing and I see nothing but optimism. The future of this country is limitless. And when I'm long gone, my kids that are 3 and 5 now are going to be living in a country--if we do things right--that just continues to grow and has all the energy we will ever need. And as an economist pointed out to some of us earlier tonight, if you're Russia and you're Saudi Arabia and you're looking at the innovation that has come out of American companies, and you're looking at the deposits of natural gas and shale oil that we have in North America, you're worried.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, as Co-Chair of the Congressional Motorcycle Caucus and a motorcycle enthusiast, I rise today in support of Motorcycle Awareness Month, which is celebrated each May. With more than 27 million motorcycle riders today, and that number steadily increasing, being mindful of other types of road and highway users is critical for everyone. This is especially the case as the weather is warming up and more motorcycle riders are hitting the road. Drivers' failure to see motorcycles is one of the leading causes of motorcycle crashes, and the prevalence of distracted and inattentive driving poses a significant threat to motorcycle riders. I urge vehicle drivers to check mirrors and blind spots and actively look for motorcycles--especially at intersections. Taking that brief moment can mean the difference between life and death for motorcycle riders and vehicle drivers alike. I also encourage my fellow motorcycle riders to take appropriate safety precautions by practicing safe riding techniques and wearing appropriate safety equipment. The goal is to get all road and highway users to their destinations without incident. Let's work together to make this a reality.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman. I think it is important to say first and foremost that no matter how passionate you are, no matter how loud you scream, it doesn't convert nonsense to facts. The point is China's debt holdings are less than 8 percent. It makes for a great talking point. I understand that. Madam Speaker, nobody wants to hit the debt ceiling. In fact, no one wants to get anywhere near it. On the contrary, we are the ones that are trying to get Washington's spending under control so it will live within its means. That's why we talk about budgets and spending and living within our means, because House Republicans fight that fight. If we weren't doing it, we wouldn't even know that there are limits to our spending. The House budget does just that, balancing the Federal budget in 10 years. We understand that we must take precautions to protect the creditworthiness of the United States. We can hope for the best, but we must prepare for the worst. And the worst that can happen with the debt ceiling is a government default. The bill before us today takes default off the table, period. No more, no less. We've been told by the credit-rating agencies that the greatest factor affecting our national credit rating is the government's ability to pay its debt-holders. This bill makes sure that it will. This bill requires--not allows--requires Treasury to continue to pay principal and interest on existing debt if, and only if, we hit the debt ceiling before a deal is reached. This is a backstop that takes default off the table.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. With it we can focus on the other issues of debt and spending that created the problem in the first place. We can have an honest debate about what is driving government debt and how to deal with it. I hope we don't get anywhere near the debt ceiling limit. I hope we use the next few months to negotiate and reach an agreement that avoids any risk of hitting the debt ceiling; but until then, we should agree that it's our duty to protect America's credit rating. I look forward to voting for this measure, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the importance of natural gas production to America's energy security. Natural gas production is a critical part of a new economy, a new economy where energy costs are lower. In fact, there have been several articles lately that talk about manufacturing plants in Europe moving to the United States because of lower energy costs, because of the lower cost of manufacturing products using low-cost natural gas. And, also, recent studies have shown that our greenhouse gases in the United States are lower because of more natural gas use. My home State of Arkansas is an energy-rich State, and the Fayetteville shale play has helped fuel our State's economy. It's one of the biggest deposits of natural gas in the United States. It spans approximately 4,000 square miles. It's estimated to contain up to 20 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It's considered one of the most productive shale plays in the country. But what does that mean for everyday Americans? What does it mean, what has it meant for Arkansans? Well, natural gas production is providing high-paying jobs for folks in my State and my district. According to the University of Arkansas, the average annual pay in the oil and gas extraction industry was $74,000 in 2010. That's good pay. That's money that pays for food on the table, for a kid's education. That's twice the average pay of all industry in the State of Arkansas. Further, the Fayetteville shale play supports over 20,000 jobs. It's added $12 billion to Arkansas' economy since 2008. That impacts families. Across the country, though, you've heard some detractors. These individuals have spread exaggerations, in some case, falsehoods about the environmental impacts of natural gas extraction through fracking. And I want to point out that President Obama's own U.S. Geological Survey recently produced an important report that highlights the safety of natural gas production in Arkansas. Now, you're probably not hearing a lot about it, but it's an important study that was done in conjunction with Duke University and the University of Arkansas. In January of this year, they published a study entitled ``Shallow Groundwater Quality and Geochemistry in the Fayetteville Shale Gas Production Area.'' What's the point of this study? The point of this study is that they tested groundwater, and they found that what's going on in the Fayetteville shale is environmentally safe. The yearlong study examined the water quality of 127 shallow wells in the Fayetteville shale play. The report concluded there's no indication of systemic regional effects on shallow groundwater. This supports the understanding that natural gas production is safe for our environment and communities. And as the father of two young children, I recognize the importance of ensuring that our air's clean and that our water's clean. We must always seek to ensure that energy development is undertaken responsibly, but this report is an inconvenient truth for many out there who oppose fracking, which has given us so much natural gas and a competitive advantage. Mr. Speaker, we must support the continuation of environmentally sound natural gas production in the United States to ensure our energy independence and further decrease our reliance on foreign sources of energy. It is absolutely critical to grow our economy so that families across the country can put food on the table and pursue happiness in this great country.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I appreciate that transition. Thank you very much. What I'm concerned about is because we haven't gotten our fiscal house in order, we are not able to invest in a lot of things, like medical research and roads and education, the way we need to in order to be prepared for the future. I've got a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, and I want their America to be as good as the one that I grew up in. To do that, we have to invest in these things. So I call this the ``PAC-MAN problem'' because nearly two-thirds of our Federal budget is on autopilot. It's mandatory spending. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest make up that mandatory spending; and this is money that's basically spent without congressional approval because it's written into the law. Unless we save and strengthen those programs represented by the yellow here, then they're going to go bankrupt; and they're going to crowd out the investments that we need to make that will help families and help grow our economy. Basically, PAC-MAN eventually will swallow all the investments up; and when it does, all the spending for medical research, scientific development, and all of these other things will go away. So we've got to get that under control for our families.

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas

Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 890, to prevent the administration from gutting critical TANF work requirements which have been central to TANF's success over the past two decades. President Clinton shared the belief that welfare reform should be about moving people from welfare to work, and the 1996 bipartisan welfare reform law he signed promoted work as central to these reforms. The TANF program's statutory work requirements have reduced poverty and welfare dependence for the program's recipients. Since the enactment of the 1996 welfare reform law with its work requirements, the number of individuals receiving welfare has dropped by 57 percent, and employment and earnings among single mothers has increased significantly. In my home State of Arkansas, TANF success stories are based on the core work requirements. We've got the story of Suzette. When she started participating in Arkansas' Work Pays program, she was a single parent without child care or transportation. With TANF assistance and support from her caseworker, within 6 months, she was promoted to shift manager at McDonald's and then on to a career at Tyson Foods. Now Suzette is providing child care and transportation herself, and her self-sufficiency was made possible through this program's key work requirements. This success story is exactly why Arkansas has not requested a waiver from the work requirements. In fact, no State has requested a waiver. The administration's unprecedented action of pushing the waiver idea is a fundamental unwinding of years of progress made toward work as the cornerstone of moving people from poverty to self-sufficiency. We must uphold TANF's statutory work requirements and protect Congress' constitutional authority to legislate. I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 890.