Garret Graves

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Chairman, let's break this apart a little bit. So my friend from South Carolina has proposed this amendment because he wants to protect the environment. Well, let's look at what happens when you do this. My friend sat in the House Committee on Natural Resources where we had experts, not people standing here behind the microphone, but real experts who came to the Congress, who testified before us, and who said: We have looked at this issue when you stop producing energy domestically. We have looked at it. And what happens when you stop producing it domestically? You import it. You import it from foreign countries. All right. So, one, you are not stopping the production of energy. You are just doing it in another country, and you are paying them and creating jobs there. Number two, when you do this, you still have to actually ship the energy. It doesn't just pop up in the socket. You have to ship the energy. Look at the studies. Look at the reports. You have a greater chance of threatening your global environment, threatening the coast of South Carolina by transporting it by ship. Look at the statistics. It is safer to do exploration and production activities, to put it in a pipe in the United States. Mr. Chairman, my friend was there and heard the witnesses talk about this. It is important that we make sure that we are doing things that don't just feel good, but things that will actually achieve the goal of protecting our environment in the United States. This amendment is flawed. Now, look. The other thing, Mr. Chairman, I think is important is what this prohibits is it prohibits us from actually doing a resource assessment. Maybe there is an assessment and it is determined that it doesn't make sense to produce energy there. Well, let's make an informed decision. Last thing, Mr. Chairman, is about ecological productivity. Off the coast of Louisiana, where we reproduce somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of all of the offshore energy, the conventional energy in the United States in Federal waters, we have the second most productive fisheries in the Nation, only behind Alaska, another State that does offshore energy production. We have multiple times more fisheries than my friend's home State of South Carolina. So the whole ecological productivity argument is just not supported by the facts. If you support the environment, if you support ecological productivity, if you support American jobs, you oppose this amendment. If you support Russian gas, if you support Vladimir Putin, if you support a dirtier environment, I urge you to vote in support of this amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to bring up this amendment today. This amendment is pretty simple. In division E, section 106 has a provision that says that no funds in this act or any other act may be used to carry out any activities that would include transferring or effectively modifying the mission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I understand that it is pretty clear plain language, section 106, division E. The problem is this: If the performance of the agency were stellar, I would understand that, and perhaps we would try and protect it, but let me throw out a few statistics painting a picture of what it is that we are dealing with. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, today, has a $100 billion backlog in authorized projects--$100 billion. These projects are projects like sustaining communities, resilience projects, flood protection, ecological restoration, deepening navigation channels. Let me tell a little about the performance of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Madam Chair. You can look at ports in other countries. They have been able to facilitate the Post-Panamax, the larger vessels. In the United States, we are years or decades behind where we should be, putting our ports at a disadvantage, resulting in our consumers paying higher prices for those goods that are being shipped. In regards to ecological restoration in my home State of Louisiana, we lost 2,000 square miles of our coastal wetlands, had billions of dollars in restoration projects authorized, and none of them are moving forward--not even starting, in most cases. We have hurricane and flood protection projects. I don't have to remind anyone here. Hurricanes Irma, Maria, Michael, Florence; North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands. These places were pounded. People died because of the lack of resilience, the lack of these projects being carried out. Lastly, Madam Chair, my home State of Louisiana, going back to 2005, I heard a little while ago somebody talking about Hurricane Katrina. What people don't realize or don't understand, the project that was designed to stop that flooding, that devastation, the loss of 1,200 to 1,500 of my brothers, sisters, friends, relatives, neighbors, fellow Louisianians, that project was authorized, dates back to the 1970s, and it wasn't finished. It wasn't finished in 2005. I am not asking to move the cord. I am asking to look at how to improve, how to modify this. Let's look at a better result to where we are not spending as we have in recent years, $1.7 trillion responding to countless disasters across this country that have cost our Nation over $1 billion a pop. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Chairwoman, I just heard comments from folks saying that Congress needs to step in. The Transportation Committee should look at this and act, and perhaps propose reorganization legislation or studies, and other things. And I hate to bring this up, but Congress did just that. Let me say it again. Congress did just that. Section 1102 of the Water Resources Development Act of 2018, which you both supported, included language which actually says that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and the Corps of Engineers should enter into an agreement to look at more efficient delivery of Corps of Engineers' projects. This amendment doesn't move the Corps of Engineers out. What it does is, it says, clearly, there is a problem. And if the problem is Congress and the funding, then that is what the study will determine. Let them go. Let them do the analysis, just like we did on a bipartisan basis. Congresswoman Esty and I offered the amendment. It was unanimously accepted. It passed in this House twice, and it is law today. That is all I am asking for. I am baffled that folks are afraid of information, perhaps better ideas, on how to deliver these projects. I understand that people have their perception of where the problems are. Madam Chairwoman, if I bring anything to this Chamber, I have spent more time working on Corps of Engineers projects than anybody else and, in fact, I am going to go so far as to say than everybody else in this Chamber combined. I would be happy to throw the stats out. This is what I used to do. I used to work with the Corps of Engineers on a daily basis doing billions and billions of dollars' worth of projects. This is a flawed process. We routinely were able to build projects that the Corps of Engineers designed for one-half to one-third the cost. Madam Chairwoman, what that does is, it allows it to build double or triple the amount of projects for the same cost. If we need to get this backlog broken then, certainly, that is an efficiency that we can bring to the table. Why are people afraid of information? This status quo is not working. I shudder to think about what everyone is going to do and say next time we have a catastrophic disaster in an area where there is a Corps of Engineers project that sat there for decades. This is a flawed process. The status quo has failed. I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Alabama for yielding. I want to thank him for bringing this amendment up. Mr. Chairman, it is really important to make sure we understand what we are talking about here. The Paris accord was engaged in for the purpose of benefiting the global environment, for benefiting the global environment and for reducing emissions, yet what has happened under the agreement with the pledges that the nations have made is that the United States, over the last several years, has actually reduced our emissions by nearly a billion tons. China has actually increased theirs by 4 billion tons. This agreement is so disparate it doesn't make sense. The President was right to withdraw. But to distinguish, we can stay focused on the targets, the pledges, but we should not codify, memorialize, agree, or in anyway comply with this disparate approach where China can continue polluting the environment. Mr. Chairman, this is similar to a scenario where I get together with a group of friends and I say, hey, we are going to have a savings club, and we are all going to get together, and I am going put money into it, and they are going come and take money out. That is not a savings club. That is what is happening. This is not benefiting the environment. The United States should not participate, codify, or support this scenario where China is out there more than increasing by the emissions reductions that the United States is achieving. We have had the greatest emissions reductions in the world, greater than the next 11 countries combined, and we have done it without this agreement. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, President Trump visited our home state and I missed two important votes. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 203; and YEA on Roll Call No. 204.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend Sheriff Jason Ard for winning the Destination Zero Officer Traffic Safety Award. Talking about change is easy, as this body well knows. Making change happen is a different thing altogether. Sheriff Ard earned this recognition by taking decisive action to solve a real problem affecting the performance of his deputies. In January 2017, Sheriff Ard was advised that Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office had a `bad driving' problem and that his deputies were spending too much on vehicle maintenance and repairs, having at-fault accidents, and dealing with crash injuries and even lawsuit settlements. So he stepped in and initiated change. First, he identified those among his deputies with safe driving records and rewarded them with an extra week off. He also installed GPS devices on all Sheriff's office vehicles and required all deputies to complete the NADA pursuit driving class--some of his drivers ended up becoming trainers. The result? An immediate 28 percent reduction in at fault crashes, a 62 percent reduction in damage costs, a 25 percent reduction in lawsuits, and an 87 percent reduction in lawsuit settlement payments. Sheriff Ard's leadership and decisive action serve as a model for law enforcement teams across the country that may be facing the same issues. I thank him for his service to our community and to the State of Louisiana--and for setting the example.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the distinguished leader for his statement. I, too, wish this were a bipartisan bill. I do. I wish it were a bipartisan bill. Unfortunately, as the ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, I found out about this from the press, not from the chairman of the committee. I found out from the press about this bill. That is not how you pursue bipartisan legislation. If there were a true attempt and a true desire to do bipartisan legislation, certainly this would have been handled differently. Let me be clear, Mr. Chairman, I fully agree that the climate is changing. I agree that humans are contributing to that change. I agree that there is something that we need to do about this, and we need to be aggressive. As we heard from scientists just yesterday in the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, they have confirmed to us that the United States can eliminate all emissions, and we are still going to see warming. We are not going to see changes in the temperature if we eliminate all of our emissions. Mr. Chairman, China, right now, is the top emitter. They are emitting 80 percent more than the United States. As a matter of fact, Greenpeace found last year they are actually increasing their emissions. Here we are, the United States, for about the last 20 years, the largest absolute reduction in emissions of any country in the world. The Paris accord is fundamentally flawed. It is not the solution. We can eliminate all of our emissions, Mr. Chairman, and you are going to have countries like China that are allowed, under the Paris accords, to come in and more than replace all of our emissions reductions. That doesn't make sense, and it is not fair. This coming from a country that has already stolen trillions of dollars in intellectual property and cost this country millions of jobs. Let me say it again: Climate change is real, and we need to take action. This agreement is fundamentally flawed. It benefits China. Of course other countries agree. It is on the back of the United States, the nation that spends more money on climate change science and more money on climate change technology than any other country in the world. Mr. Chairman, this bill is fundamentally flawed. This whole agreement is fundamentally flawed. China has an entirely different metric to measure their emissions reduction than the United States, and they don't even have to reduce a single degree of emissions until after 2030. Mr. Chairman, this is a flawed bill, and I urge rejection.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, years ago, the administration, working through an international group, had helped to negotiate and put together an agreement on climate change known as the Kyoto Protocol. That protocol was resoundingly rejected by the United States Senate. It actually had provisions in it that indicated that should the United States in the future end up entering into some sort of climate agreement or any type of agreement, that there would have to be some type of a consent by the United States Senate; that this would have to be presented before the United States Senate. We don't have a unilateral government. We don't have a dictatorship. We have scenario whereby we have a Congress, we have a President, and we work together. In this case what has happened is, under the Obama administration, these Paris accords were agreed to unilaterally, meaning they were never submitted to the Congress. They were never submitted to the United States Senate for approval. Mr. Speaker, that is why the American people have their Representatives. Their Representative is their Senator, and that is how their voice is heard on agreements like this. Yet, we had a President that unilaterally agreed to the Paris accords and did not submit it to the United States Senate. So now we have a President that is saying: Well, this was unilaterally agreed to. I am unilaterally withdrawing. We have a bill this week, H.R. 9, that attempts to prevent the President from withdrawing from this. So I want to stick with procedure here for just a minute, Mr. Speaker. We unilaterally entered into an agreement that we don't believe should have been entered into unilaterally. We think it should have been presented to the United States Senate. It was not. Now the President is saying, I am withdrawing. And now this bill is trying to prevent that. So, on the one hand they think that a President should be able to unilaterally act, and in another scenario, the withdrawal that President Trump has proposed, you have folks saying with H.R. 9 that, no, no, you can't do that. You can't have both. One or the other, take your pick. Now, let's actually get into the contents of the agreement. The Paris accords set targets on emissions reductions for the United States. All right, so they try and set emissions reductions. Mr. Speaker, under this agreement, we could eliminate all emissions from the United States, all greenhouse gases. We can eliminate all of them, and China can come in and they can emit 10 times what we were emitting before we cut. Under this agreement that is totally legal. It doesn't make sense. To add insult to injury, China can go years and years increasing emissions; not reducing, increasing. I want to remind you, we live in a global environment. As much as we like to think we are the only country in the world, we are not. It is a global environment. If you care about the whole environment for the entire globe, you have got to look holistically. You can't come to the United States and say: Okay, you have to cut emissions. Yet, in China, they can double, triple, they can go tenfold increasing their emissions, twentyfold increasing their emissions, and that is all legal under this agreement. That is inappropriate. If we care about the global environment, let's care about the global environment. Now, to add insult to injury, the agreement also establishes an entirely different metric for developing countries like China than it does for the United States. Now, think about this, if we are in the Olympics; we are running a race, and you win the race. But then somebody comes, and they say: No, no we are giving this Chinese runner a 20-second deduction. That is not fair. And that is what has happened here. They have an entirely different metric that they are measured by. Why? If we live in a global environment, if we care about overall reducing emissions, why are we giving different standards, different measurements? That is inappropriate. This entire agreement is flawed. Now, some of you may be sitting there thinking: Well, wait a minute. I care about the environment. I care about emissions reduction. Let me read you a statement that was included in the International Energy Agency's Global Energy & CO2 Status Report. Here is the statement: ``Emissions in the United States remain around their 1990 levels, 14 percent and 800 metric tons of CO2 below their peak in 2000.'' Now, here is the kicker. Listen to this statement. ``This is the largest absolute decline among all countries since 2000.'' I am going to say that again. ``This is the largest absolute decline among all countries since 2000.'' Let me translate that, Mr. Speaker. What that means is that the United States, over the last, nearly 20 years, has reduced emissions greater than every other country. So, we are actually operating without a requirement, just with an incentive. We are operating on already reducing emissions. We are already transitioning to an all-of-the-above energy strategy which includes solar, which includes wind, which includes geothermal, which includes hydro, and nuclear, and natural gas, and coal, and oil, and other things, all of the above, whichever makes the most sense. We had a hearing today in the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and it was fascinating listening to people talking about the impact of these energy policies on the poor. Well, Mr. Speaker, the home State where I am from, south Louisiana, we have the lowest electricity rates in the United States, the lowest. The States that have the highest are the ones that are forcing things that are perverting or distorting markets. Those are the States that have the highest electricity rates. That disproportionately affects the poor. We were citing today an analysis by the Manhattan Institute. In that analysis, they looked at if you invested $1 million and you could invest it in solar, you could invest it in wind, or you could invest it in natural gas and shale--I see my friend here from North Dakota that represents much of the shale production in the United States--you would get a sixfold increase in the amount of energy produced by investing it in shale. I remind you, Mr. Speaker, transitioning to natural gas results in a significant reduction in emissions as compared to other sources. It is part of our existing infrastructure. It is part of a transition plan. And not to say that we don't ever transition or continue migrating to renewable sources; it is all of the above. Don't say all of the above, as President Obama and others did, but then carry out policies that prevent you or drive up the cost of these other energy sources. It doesn't make sense and that is what disproportionately affects the poor. Mr. Speaker, we have other Members here from the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, and I appreciate them being here. I am looking forward to engaging with them on bringing reality, bringing practicality to this discussion today. But I want to say in summary: number one, procedurally, the Paris accords were flawed. Practically speaking, the targets that were established disproportionately affect the United States, and it establishes a different measuring stick, a different standard for us than it does for China and other countries. I remind you, Mr. Speaker, China, the country that is here under the auspices of a developing Nation, this is the country that is spending billions and billions of dollars around the world on projects in other countries to improve their national security, their defense, contrary, in many cases, to the United States and our allies. This is a developing country. This is inappropriate. And I will say one last thing in closing. We are the country that over nearly the last 20 years has had the greatest reduction in emissions and we have done it by incentivizing, not by coming in and distorting markets and putting perverse policies in place. H.R. 9 is a flawed approach that is going to have a disproportionate impact on the poor. It is going to simply squeeze a balloon in the middle and make it pop out on the sides where you have more emissions resulting in China and other countries. Because companies will leave the United States, jobs will leave the United States if we address this inappropriately, and they will go to other countries where they will be less energy efficient. They will release greater emissions into our global environment. That is not a win. Mr. Speaker, I urge rejection of H.R. 9. I urge support of involving the United States Senate, the United States Congress in these discussions and negotiations, and to develop a true all-of-the-above energy strategy that incorporates things like incentives, thinks about our infrastructure network and other important components of ultimately achieving this objective, which we all share, which is giving a better planet to future generations. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia, Congressman Buddy Carter, that, similar to me, represents a coastal district.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for his comments. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Armstrong), who is another member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Dakota for his comments. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Miller), who represents a lot of the victims of bad energy policy or energy policy that is not thought out.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, might I inquire how much time is remaining.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I will now close. Mr. Speaker, it has been fascinating serving on the House Natural Resources Committee, where we have talked about efforts to stop pipelines from being built under the auspices of this is protecting our environment. Mr. Speaker, study after study has shown that, when you stop pipelines, it doesn't stop the utilization of oil and gas. What it does is it puts that on barges, on trains, and on trucks--less safe means of transportation. The safest thing you can do is put energy in a pipeline. If you care about the environment, that is what you should do. Mr. Speaker, we had a hearing recently in the Natural Resources Committee where we had a career Department of the Interior official. We talked to him and asked him: What happens when you try and stop the supply of energy? Does that reduce the demand for oil and gas? Do you know what the response was? This person has served in at least the Clinton administration, all of these different Republican and Democratic administrations. He said: No. As a matter of fact, we have researched this extensively. What it does is it causes us to import more energy. Mr. Speaker, I remind you of some of the top nations we would import from: Venezuela, Middle Eastern countries, and Nigeria. We are giving them billions of dollars. To put it in perspective on how much this is, Mr. Speaker, in 2011, 58 percent of our Nation's trade deficit was attributable to our importing energy. Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear. I am going to reiterate what my friend from Georgia said. I have children. I care about the environment. I taught outdoor education classes for years, and I care about the environment. I care about the environment. I know that facts can be pesky little things, but we have to introduce more science and data into these decisions to make sure that we are making informed, deliberate decisions that result in a better global environment, not simply coming in and squeezing the United States to the benefit of China where they end up releasing greater emissions into our global environment. That is a flawed strategy. It is what this bill, H.R. 9, would do. I urge, once again, rejection of this flawed approach. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I rise to discuss concerns with S. 47, legislation we will soon be voting on in the House of Representatives. Madam Speaker, S. 47 has some positive things in it. The legislation provides for expanded recreational opportunities, expanded opportunities to hunt and fish on our public lands, and a lot of things that I very much support. Madam Speaker, the bill has some pretty profound flaws, one of which being process. This is a 700-page bill--a 700-page bill--that has been held at the desk. It has not gone through the regular committee process. This isn't some small bill that folks have been exposed to. This is 700 pages of text, and it has not gone through the regular legislative process and, in fact, is being put up under suspension of the rules, where we are not even being provided the opportunity to offer amendments or to represent our constituents, other than just voting ``yes'' or ``no.'' Madam Speaker, I want to throw out some statistics on what this bill does and the implications. It provides 1.3 million acres of land being designated as wilderness areas--1.3 million acres; 694 acres of recreation and conservation areas; 370,000 acres of mineral withdrawals; national monument designations of 2,500 acres; 621 miles of wild and scenic rivers; 2,600 miles added to the national trail system; and 42,000 acres added to our national parks. Now, Madam Speaker, I used to teach outdoor wilderness courses. I have spent hundreds, maybe even thousands of nights of my life in the outdoors, sleeping out in the wilderness areas, national parks, and national forests and others. I love these areas. I enjoy them. I am not saying that these things shouldn't happen. I am saying that we need to have the ability to go through regular order, just like the Senate did this week when they had the ability to offer amendments to this bill. We are not being afforded that same opportunity. Madam Speaker, my biggest problem or concern with this legislation is this: The bill permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which, I will say it again: I support the acquisition of lands, the protection of lands, so we can enjoy the ecological productivity and enjoy time in the great outdoors. However, the bill does not address the fact that we have a $17 billion backlog in national park maintenance--$17 billion. So we are acquiring more land without a plan for addressing the existing backlog maintenance issues that actually prohibit or prevent people from enjoying some of these same lands that are being acquired. We are talking about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and $9 billion in funds over the next 10 years being deposited into a Treasury receipt account to acquire more land. Guess where this money is coming from, Madam Speaker. A hundred percent of these funds is coming from the State that I represent and the other five States that produce offshore energy. Every penny of it is coming from the State of Louisiana, which produces perhaps over 80 percent of all the offshore energy of this Nation in Federal waters. It is paying for this fund. At the same time, we have lost 2,000 square miles--2,000 square miles--of our coast. Guess how much of this bill addresses the problem there? With 2,000 square miles of our coast disappearing, the ecological productivity being lost, the increased vulnerability to the people that I represent, zero, nothing. This bill diverts money for conservation and for protection in other States in other areas and does nothing for my home State of Louisiana, yet it is coming from our revenues that we are producing in our offshore. This is a flawed process. This is a flawed bill. We need to go through regular order. I really can't even believe that this is happening. Here we have dozens of hearings on climate change and other things, and the very State that is the canary in the coal mine, the State that is experiencing the worst ecological challenges or losses as a result of sea rise and other challenges, is being completely ignored. Where are the climate change advocates right now? Where are you? I strongly urge opposition to this bill. We need to go back through regular order, consider the largest conservation and the largest natural resources bill that we have had since I have been in the Congress, and send it through regular order again. I urge opposition to this bill.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding. Mr. Speaker, years ago, they created something called the internet. If you are not familiar with it, I would urge you to go to your local library, go to the card catalog system to get the right Dewey decimal number, go find a book, and read up on it, because apparently many in our Federal Government haven't realized that this has been created. As was noted a little while ago, in 1974, there was an act called the Privacy Act that was passed--1974. Since that time, we have had companies like Apple and Amazon and Microsoft and many others that have proliferated and are now worth billions and billions of dollars, some of the largest companies in the world. Mr. Speaker, this is similar to us having to mail in a form to get an ambulance to come to our house. As was noted by some of the previous speakers, in many cases, people contact us because of emergency situations. We have had family members contact us when their loved ones were stuck overseas in emergency situations. We have had people contact us because there was water filling up their home and they needed emergency services at the time. Under the Privacy Act of 1974 that was written 45 years ago, we were unable to help them, as Mr. Meadows noted, unless they sent us a signed privacy release form. I remember distinctly, in August of 2016, when we had a record flood in my home State of Louisiana, talking to constituents who were on their cellphones saying that their homes had 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 feet of water and asking for help with FEMA, the Small Business Administration, and other government services, and myself or other folks on our team having to tell them: You bet, we want to help you. All you need to do is go to your computer, go to this website, click the link, print it out. You can imagine the response from people: I would love to be able to go to my computer right now. I would love to be able to find it, if it wasn't under 4 feet of water right now. Incredibly frustrating. Mr. Speaker, the government today has a customer service approval rating of 70 percent--70 percent is the customer service approval rating. While that was sufficient to get me through high school, that is not okay for the Federal Government. It is entirely inappropriate. This bill simply updates the Federal Government to put it online with how we file our taxes, how we handle our banking, insurance, and virtually everything else we do, ensuring that when people contact us, we can use those same technologies to protect privacy, that we can ensure the right people are asking for the right approvals, and we can quickly, within minutes, begin providing them services through their own Federal Government. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) for persevering and continuing to work with us on this. I want to thank my friends, Mr. Meadows from North Carolina and Ms. Hill from California. Thank you all very much for doing this. This is bipartisan. This is common sense. It should have been done decades ago. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Jennifer Bollinger, Eric Fins, all the OGR staff and others who helped get this bill done, and I am looking forward to passage. I urge full support.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 831, and I thank my friend, the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for carrying the ball on this one. Madam Speaker, our scenic byways, the national program, has a few mottos. One of them is: No two experiences are the same. Another one is: Exploring the heart and soul of America. Madam Speaker, some of the top or most visited tourist destinations in the United States are areas like Central Park and other areas of Manhattan. You have Las Vegas, our own Union Station, Disneyland, Disney World, and the Golden Gate Bridge. But some of the real experiences in America are in some of these more scenic areas, and we have such extraordinary treasures in our country. There is much more to America. By reopening the scenic byways designations, we are giving access to, we are bringing attention to some of these great places, some of these great experiences in helping to highlight those and bring tourists to those areas. In my home State of Louisiana, we have two right now. Number one, we have the Louisiana Great River Road, a scenic byway which goes along the length of the Mississippi River, through my hometown of Baton Rouge; and, also, the Wetlands Cultural Byway that goes through our wetland areas in south Louisiana's Sportsman's Paradise. Madam Speaker, it really is just incredible. Years ago, the Department of Tourism in Louisiana came up with a motto saying, ``the Atchafalaya Basin, America's Foreign Country,'' and I really think that applies to much of south Louisiana, which is home and where I represent. It is such a unique place in terms of the food, the culture, the people. We need to bring more attention to some of these treasures that America has. I thank, again, my friend from Rhode Island, for carrying the ball on this. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Chair, since 1980, we have had about 220 disasters that have caused over $1 billion in damages. In fact, when you add all that money up, we have spent about $1.5 trillion in disaster recovery, nearly all of that being emergency spending, adding to our deficit. Now, the thing that we do here in the Federal Government to help bring an offense to the table, to help address resiliency, is largely the mission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: projects for flood protection, for water management, for ecosystem restoration that can help improve the resiliency of our communities, hurricane protection in my home State of Louisiana. Yet we have a $100 billion backlog in Corps of Engineer projects across the United States. This Congress provides between $1 billion and $2 billion a year in construction. Madam Chair, you can do the math. You have $100 billion in authorized projects. You get $1 billion to $2 billion a year in construction, you will finish that backlog approximately never. You are not going to finish it. And so what we did in the Disaster Recovery and Reform Act in October, that was signed into law in October and passed through this body three times, is we did a provision that says that FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds can be used to build a Corps of Engineers' project if your State, if your community determines that is the highest priority. Right now, under Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Funds, there is a prohibition--and this is largely boilerplate language--that prohibits these funds from being used for a Corps of Engineers' project. What this amendment does is it simply removes that if a State, if your community determines that that is the highest priority, addressing resiliency, telling your community that it is okay to build back here because we are going to make it safer, we are going to reduce the risk, prevent you from having future disaster, future damages. Madam Chair, right now, sitting in the gallery is a group of students from Ed White High School in my home State of Louisiana. They have a project in their community that has been in the study phase since 1992, and the Corps of Engineers has spent $80 million studying it. That is ridiculous. It has caused billions of dollars in flood damages in this area. This project has not moved forward. We have got to make sure that we are advancing these projects as quickly as we can, improving the resilience of our communities. So this amendment, again, makes the CDBG-DR funds eligible if your State, if your community determines that is the highest and best value, the best investments of the funds. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Chair, I appreciate the gentleman's question, and certainly there is no intention under the provision as written to appropriate or provide more funds than are authorized under the existing act or allocated to that State or county or parish or what have you. In addition, obviously, there would be no intention under the provision to spend more money than the project is actually authorized for because you couldn't build a project more than once. I hope that was responsive to the gentleman's question.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Madam Chair, the chairman brings up a good point in that is the authorized amount the full authorized amount that the Federal law for a Corps of Engineers project provides? For example, if Congress authorized a flood protection project for $100 million, could they possibly get more than $100 million? The answer to that question is no. The second question to attempt to clarify would be, if a community is allocated $50 million through the CDBG-DR program, would it be possible for them to spend more than $50 million on the project? Once again, to the chairman's question, the answer would be no. This would not intend to obligate or in any way spend more money that is allocated to them under CDBG-DR or under the authorized project in Federal law.

Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Yes. Absolutely. That is the intention that we would not exceed the authorized amount of the project authorized by the Corps or by FEMA. As I indicated, we couldn't build a project more than once, so whatever that authorized level is in existing Federal law, that would apply.