H. Griffith

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I would say it is interesting that the President has taken this action to have a war on coal when his Department of Energy has been investing in some clean coal technology, maybe not as much as some of us would like, but some clean coal technology which right now appears to be on the cusp of actually yielding benefits. They are working right now in Alabama on a plant to test out a chemical looping formula. That chemical looping formula would produce coal ash and pure carbon dioxide. There's no carbon capture, it's just right there. There's no SOX, there's no NOX, there's no mercury, and there are a lot of jobs. While it is a little more expensive than conventional plants using coal to produce energy, if this technology works, which the administration has already invested in, we could have both clean coal, affordable energy, jobs, and still protect the environment. One of the problems that I have, Mr. Speaker, is that so often people say you can't have one and have the other. I believe the United States should be the leader in making sure that we develop and have available not only for companies in the United States but the entire world clean coal technology, because if we don't look at this as a global problem, if we just say we're going to shut coal down in the United States, what we do is we send our jobs to places like India and China and Russia and Kazakhstan, and the list goes on and on. And they don't have the regulations that we even had in the year 2000 on the burning of coal. And all that stuff goes into the atmosphere. And guess where it goes? According to a NASA study, it takes 10 days to get from the middle of the Gobi Desert to the eastern shore of my beloved Commonwealth of Virginia. So ladies and gentlemen, when we talk about this, it's not a matter of choosing the environment versus coal; it's a matter of choosing America first and making sure that we make America's coal affordable, usable, and clean. And we can do it.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I would ask the gentleman if he doesn't agree with me that we would be much better off as a Nation if we focused on a way to have affordable energy, clean coal technology, and not just have a war on coal, and thus create those jobs that you were speaking of. Would you not agree with that?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. That is one of the problems that we see in my district. I have a lot of counties that are really hurting. And it's not because we couldn't have jobs, it's because Washington is getting in the way. Every month we're having layoffs in some coal plant here or some coal plant there, or a company that makes things for the coal plant--or the railroad that hauls the coal, or the trucking company that helps move the coal. So while they've remained internally optimistic, it's really hard when that layoff slip comes to your house and you know that you're no longer going to be able to have that job. That's why this war on coal affects each and every one of us, but it affects folks in my district maybe a little bit more because we're on the front lines and we're getting those layoff notices now. I have people that I know who are casualties in the President's war on coal, and I'd like to hear from them at #AffordableEnergy. And I hand it back off to you, Madam Chair.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Well, it's a war on everything that we hold dear when you get right down to it. Because the truth of the matter is, when you're the number one nation in the world, everybody else wants to be where you are. Right now we're the number one nation in the world, but this administration wants to throw away what has helped us get there, and that is an affordable, reliable energy plan. And we can't just throw it all out and expect to still have the standard of living that we have. That means we won't have the money for education, we won't have the money for roads, we won't have the money for so many things that people think of today as just automatically being there. But the money has to come from somewhere, and it just can't come out of thin air. I'm sorry, Mr. President, money doesn't grow on trees.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I stand here today on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, and I come to talk about matters of import to this country and what should be important to each and every one of us. I often look, as I'm sitting on the floor getting ready to cast votes, down here at the front. You see ``tolerance'' and ``justice.'' And you see the word ``liberty''--you may not be able to see it at home, but there they are carved into the wood here. Liberty is extremely important to this country, and liberty is a fragile creature which can easily be extinguished if we, as citizens of the United States--and particularly those of us who are Members of Congress--do not take the opportunity to defend liberty, even when it sometimes may seem to be unpopular. Now we have, of recent, heard in the press reports that certain agencies of the United States Government have been accessing all kinds of information--phone records, et cetera. I think this is wrong. I think that the approach that has been taken is an overreach under the PATRIOT Act--although I believe that, when written, there were gray areas of the PATRIOT Act which could have been anticipated that there would be an overreach by the government. But some have interpreted that it's okay that you gather information even if it's just in the megadata on millions and millions of American citizens. I do not take that position. I believe that it is wrong, And I believe it cuts to the core of liberty in this country. Let me explain. To understand why we do things that we do, we have to look at the history of this country and, many times, of other countries, particularly Great Britain. When we look at our right not to have the government intrude into our homes, into our thoughts, into our very beings, it goes back to before the American Revolution. I would point to the 1760s as being instrumental. As a student of history at Emory and Henry College, I learned under Professor Raiser there that there was a fellow named John Wilkes. Now, John Wilkes was a rake of a man, and many times his actions I would not have approved of. But whether by design or just by circumstance, John Wilkes weighs heavy in both America's history and in the history of Great Britain. John Wilkes was from London. He stood for Parliament, was a member of Parliament. He began a secret printing on things that he didn't think that George III was doing correctly in the 1760s. One of those he printed in what was called the paper, the North Britain. In North Britain 35, John Wilkes actually inferred that George III may have acted dishonestly in reaching a treaty with the French. Needless to say, George III was incensed that this happened, and he issued, through his ministers, what was known as a general warrant-- that meaning that they could go, even though they didn't have a specific person, they didn't have a specific place, they could go into parts of London and search house to house, seizing papers, property, whatever they thought might lead to the conclusion of who was printing the North Britain and responsible in particular for North Britain No. 45. Needless to say, after rounding up roughly 50 people and going into a number of houses, they did arrest Mr. John Wilkes, along with a number of other people, and it was ultimately determined that Mr. Wilkes was in fact responsible for the writing that the King found so inappropriate. It's also interesting to note that, as a part of this, in his legal defense, John Wilkes raised the issue of whether or not general warrants were in fact legal. The courts would later rule that they were not. The courts would later rule that they were not. Now, it's interesting--and I'll pull out a wonderful treatise on British history, just hits the highlights, the History of the English- Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill, in talking about--and he acknowledges the faults of Mr. Wilkes, but he also points out the court's reasoning on this matter. The question of general warrants became a big issue. The radical- minded Londoners welcomed the rebuff of the government. It goes on to talk about what Wilkes did, but it also goes on to tell us what the courts ruled. Let me see if I can find it here, if you will bear with me for just a minute. I appreciate your patience as I look for the exact quote. Here is Churchill talking about what the justices said: The officials pleaded--that would be the government officials of George, III--that they were immune from a suit by Wilkes because they were acting under government orders. Churchill says this large and sinister defense--the defense would be that they could use the general warrants--this large and sinister defense was rejected by the chief justice in words which remain a classic statement on the rule of law, quoting now the Chief Justice Lord Camden: With respect to the argument of state necessity or a distinction which has been aimed at between state offenses and others, the common law does not understand that kind of reasoning, nor do our books take notice of any such distinction. Wilkes was heralded as a hero of liberty. And there's a great controversy in history as to whether he was a true patriot, a true lover of liberty, or one who merely happened to fall into the circumstances at the time. I prefer to think he was a hero of liberty. Notwithstanding the fact that he ultimately prevailed in England, he was also seen across the pond in what would later be the United States, in the Colony--particularly in Massachusetts, but in other Colonies--as a hero of liberty. He was in communication with Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty. At the same time, almost identical to this, there was a thing called Writs of Assistance. Now, those were writs that were used in naval terms dealing with trade. They said that whatever the King's people needed to do for assistance, they could have, very much like a general warrant, and some would argue that they were the same. In Massachusetts, about this same time, there was a James Otis, Jr.-- this was pointed out, I must let you know, earlier today to me by Congressman Nadler. Mr. Otis argued the same things that were being argued in the Wilkes case in Great Britain. Sam Adams was present for those arguments, so he was communicating with John Wilkes and he was listening to the arguments against general warrants or writs of assistance made by Mr. Otis. What this ultimately led to was the fact that in our country we have long held it dear that we do not issue general warrants. And to read the Patriot Act, to say that you can obtain the phone records of millions of Americans--if, in fact, that be true, and it appears to be the case--that you can use that act to sort of back door a general warrant on information on most, if not all, American citizens, is to forget that we have a right against search and seizure because of the reasoning of our Founding Fathers and the work of Mr. Otis and the work of Mr. Wilkes. They cannot be seen just in a vacuum on that. Churchill later goes on to acknowledge that the work of Wilkes-- because Wilkes was pushing the issue of ``freedom of press''--that the entire Wilkesite movement not only led to an expansion in Great Britain of the freedom of the press but also underscored for the Founding Fathers of this Nation that ``everyone should have the right to speak their mind, and that they should be able to do so without having to worry about a government that finds their actions just for speaking their opinion to be intolerable.'' So, ladies and gentlemen, I have come here this evening--because I think it's important that we understand--that notwithstanding this interpretation or that interpretation of the Patriot Act, if we allow the government to have the right to collect even the megadata--as they call it--on each and every one of us, that is a violation of the spirit of our Constitution, and I would submit to you a violation of the Constitution itself. I, for one, cherish our liberties. And in that balancing act that every government must face between security and liberty, I say we side on liberty, because we can never make society completely safe. The only way a government can guarantee you complete safety, ladies and gentlemen, is if they assign each and every one of us a padded room to live in: We're only allowed out in the Sun a certain amount of time so that we don't end up getting skin cancer. They determine what we eat, they determine what we breathe, they determine what we do. That is not a society that I choose to live in, nor one which I will stand idly by and allow it slowly to creep in on us. And while I don't think anybody in the administration would want to go that far, anyone who argues that we must have all of this information in order to be secure forgets that having security may not be worthwhile if we don't have liberty. So, ladies and gentlemen, I ask that you study the issues, you study the history, you study this carefully. Do we really want a government that knows all about us? Do we really want a government that can take away our freedom to converse with other people who may not agree with the government? I'm not talking about people who are plotting schemes against the government, but I'm talking about the right to talk to people who may have different ideas. In fact, many would argue we should do more talking here on the floor of the House. So, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to study these issues. I ask you to go look at the arguments of Mr. Otis, look at the arguments of Mr. John Wilkes, look at the arguments that were made at a time when people understood that liberty was precious and it could easily be extinguished. I hope that you will join me in doing a little illumination on our country by talking about these issues everywhere you go, and making it clear to people that liberty is worth fighting for, and being willing to say--when I say fight, I mean stand up and say your peace--and that it's worth us taking a little bit of risk in order to preserve those liberties that have been fought for and won throughout the ages, beginning in the 1760s, culminating in the Constitution, and forward to this day. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Madam Chair, this is a simple little amendment. Currently, any expenditures for flag officers' general housing on base has to be reported if there is an expenditure in excess of $35,000. This lowers this number down to $15,000. It doesn't mean they can't do the work. It just means that if they're going to spend more than $15,000, they have to file a report with Congress before they do so. In this day and age where we're trying to make sure that we're spending the taxpayers' money wisely, this seems to be appropriate. My wife and I put a roof on our house a couple of years ago for about $15,000. If they need more than that, that's fine, but make a report to Congress. If there's something terribly wrong with the flooring and it costs more than $15,000, they can report it. But most repairs to a home can be done under $15,000. This is just simply saying, hey, tell us what you're doing so that we can have a more transparent expenditure and a more transparent government. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you why people would vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It has become very, very clear that no matter how well-intentioned it may have been, it will not work. Time after time, we are finding that the things that they told us just aren't panning out to be true; and Senator Max Baucus, one of the law's main architects, recently described ObamaCare as a huge train wreck coming down. We have a chance to save Americans from being casualties of the train wreck. We can yank them off the tracks. Today, I voted to show that I am trying to do just that. I call on the United States Senate and the Senators to join us in rescuing the American people from the tracks of health care destruction.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I would also have to point out that, with everything that we've gotten to so far, it appears that their numbers have not been right. They told us that they could produce a long-term care insurance plan, and they backed out of that because they couldn't make the numbers work as they had originally thought they would work on long-term care insurance. Then we had the whole situation with the catastrophic illness fund that, from the time the bill was passed, was supposed to get folks who had catastrophic illnesses, it was going to cover all of them until ObamaCare came into effect in 2014, but they ran out of money March 1. Do you recall that?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. So those numbers weren't right, and they apparently thought they had enough money built into the budget and gave the Secretary large latitude to take money out of various funds to make things happen, but now she seems to be going around the country asking the very companies that she's overseeing as part of her job for money because they didn't calculate how much money they were going to need to sign everybody up to get into ObamaCare. So every time we turn around on the committee, it looks like we're finding something new where their numbers were always funny money numbers, Monopoly money, however you want to look at it. And it seems to me that your point is exactly right, that it's not only going to cost the people of southern Ohio, but it's also going to cost the people of southwest Virginia and every part of these United States more money than was ever projected, and it's going to come right out of the pockets of the working poor and hurt them the most.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I would say to the gentleman that it was very interesting when you talked about the cost of the insurance, and while he said overall that he thought the rates were going to go down, my recollection was--and correct me if I'm wrong--that when you were asking him those questions, part of his position was, Well, we don't know for sure, but we think they'll be lower than what they would have been if we hadn't passed the law, but they're going to be higher than what they were when we passed the law. Wasn't that pretty much his reasoning?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I would ask you in that regard, if someone sees these premium increases that we've been talking about and they decide that they don't want to buy the insurance, what then happens from the IRS's standpoint, or from the government's standpoint in general?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I would say to the gentleman that I'm sure some of those things have played out, not necessarily the differences between Texas and Virginia, because Virginia has a longer history with medical malpractice caps. And we, too, have seen that it has helped us in many ways in the State of Virginia. I would point out to the gentleman, and I doubt that he is aware of this, and I don't know the truth or veracity of it, but it is reported in the Courthouse News Service, which is a service for lawyers and press folks, that in California the IRS has actually been sued because they had a search warrant to go in to look at a specific employee's financial records. And in the process, according to the allegations made by the attorney, Robert Barnes, when they went in, it happened to be an insurance company or a company that had medical records--we're not sure because it's called a John Doe company--but it had medical records for something like 10 million Californians, including everybody in the judicial system in California. And notwithstanding the fact that they were told those were not financial records of the individual but personal medical records and that they were probably violating some HIPAA rules, they seized these records and they have now been sued by, as I said, the attorney's name is Robert Barnes in the State of Texas. That gives me some concern that perhaps what we are seeing in regards to the IRS's callousness towards political parties and political philosophy and the Constitution of the United States groups that were trying to promote that, they may also just have a callous disregard that they can be untouched by anybody, when you see that this lawsuit actually was filed in March, and I don't think it got much attention because people probably thought it was not part of their regular pattern. But now that we have seen what has happened in other parts of the country in regard to those exemptions, that may also be of some concern to people that they're out there compiling all of these records. And, again, we don't know whether it's true. But some of those records that they got from some of the Tea Party groups allegedly, and alleged by a left-leaning or a liberal group, the IRS gave them the information as to who their donors were, is the IRS also going to give out our medical information to folks that we don't necessarily want to have it? That's the question that we have to ask when you have a scandal like this at the IRS and it directly impacts ObamaCare. Because right now, before ObamaCare comes into effect, the gentleman, I think, would agree with me the IRS really doesn't have anything to do with your medical records. But now we are opening up the door and taking those 16,000 agents, and they are very likely to be looking at your medical records and your company's medical policies as well as the medical records, and that causes me some concern, and I suspect it may cause the gentleman some concern also.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. And I would further ask the gentleman if it makes him a little nervous that the folks who are going to be trying to get out there and get records and make sure that folks are doing what they're supposed to, either paying the tax or buying the insurance, are in fact the IRS? That would be the same IRS that we found out for political reasons slow-walked and made it difficult for some conservative groups, particularly from Texas and other parts of the country, to actually get their tax exempt status. Does that make the gentleman a little bit nervous?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. If the gentleman will yield further, perhaps for a colloquy, I would ask the gentleman if he suspects that this is because up to this point in time this has always been a State- driven market and, therefore, there are some differences between the States, but that the vast majority of States, according to this report, in the small-group market are going to be facing significant double- digit increases? Is that his understanding from the report?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I will yield to the gentleman.

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. And I also notice that the report says, from the data that was obtained from the insurance companies, that my home State of Virginia is going to have a 31 percent premium increase in the small group; again, not talking about the large group rates, while they will be affected by the taxes. Now, I'm just kind of curious. How come Texas is getting off light with only a 23 percent increase and Virginia is getting hit with that 31 percent increase? Can you explain that, or is that just another one of the mysteries of ObamaCare?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I thank the gentleman for yielding for a question. I am looking at the report that you have referenced that people can go look at online for themselves, and I notice that your home State of Texas has a projected 23 percent premium increase; is that correct?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Well, we once had a political party known as the Know-Nothings. We now have a President who wants us to believe that he knows nothing. He wants us to believe that he knows nothing about who decided to blame the terrorist attacks in Benghazi on a video. He wants us to believe that he knew nothing about the IRS scandal until he read the same press reports that you and I have read. He wants us to believe that he knows nothing about the Department of Justice subpoenaing 2 months of the Associated Press' phone records. What has happened to the days in America when Democratic President Harry Truman proudly placed a placard on his desk that said: ``The buck stops here''? Perhaps, sadly, we have returned to the days where the question to the President of the United States ought to be: What did you know and when did you know it?

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to send my thoughts and prayers to Virginia State Police Trooper James Lawson of Gate City, Virginia. On April 9, Trooper Lawson was injured during a high-speed pursuit in Scott County, sustaining a spinal cord injury. He was transported to Holsten Valley Medical Center in Kingsport. Trooper Lawson is now receiving treatment at Atlanta's Shepherd Center, which specializes in treatment and rehabilitation for people having sustained spinal cord or brain injuries. Trooper Lawson is a dedicated member of the Virginia State Police, having served in law enforcement for 18 years. He is also active in serving the area as a proud member of the Gate City Volunteer Fire Department. He is now Assistant Chief, serving in the Gate City Volunteer Fire Department since he was 16. Trooper Lawson is married to his wife Aimee, who is employed by the Scott County Sherriff's Department. He also has two children, Ashley and Trey. Trooper Lawson and his family are friends to many in the Gate City area, including members of my staff. Thank you, Trooper Lawson and Aimee, for your service to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Gate City community. I think I speak on behalf of all Scott County residents in wishing Trooper Lawson the very best as he continues working to recover.