Dave Hobson

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, under general leave for H.R. 5427, the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2007, I submit the following table: [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25MY06.015 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25MY06.016 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH25MY06.017

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5427, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. HOBSON

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

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson).

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I am going to rise to strike the required number of words, I guess, because I am going to accept her amendment.

Mr. HOBSON. I think this is a very responsible amendment. I happen to agree on geothermal, and I want to thank the Member for working with us to find the appropriate funding source on this, and I look forward to holding this as we move forward into conference.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes a change to existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriations bill, and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states in pertinent part: An amendment to a general appropriations bill shall not be in order if changing existing law. The amendment does change the existing law. Therefore, I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, section 202 of WRDA 1999 requires the use of continuing contracts. When the corps decides to move forward on a project, it must use a continuing contract. You need multi-year contracting authority. Without it, the corps would be in anti-deficiency. This permits the corps to obligate the Federal Government in future fiscal years priority appropriations. The out-year costs of continuing contracts are not fully budgeted. This is an irresponsible use of continuing contracts; and, frankly, something has got to be done. If the authorizers will not do it, then the Appropriations Committee will. There are instances where continuing contracts make sense, but the corps, not the contractor, needs to control the spending rate. It must be no more than is available to the project. We requested the GAO review the corps' use of this mechanism, and early findings are similar to the reprogramming report of last year. The corps has made the use of this contract provision the rule rather than the exception. The corps cannot reliably account for the contracts currently in place. As a result, the House report directs the corps to secure the services of a national accounting firm to audit and account for all existing contracts and contain this clause and the out-year commitments required to meet these obligations. The problem you have here is that the corps enters into these contracts, they don't control what the funding level is, and then they take money from another project and put it over there. Then they can't fund that one, all because of this provision. We have tried to get the committee of authorization to handle this matter. They haven't. So what we have to do, and I know you will sustain his point of order, but it is not the proper thing to do, then we are going to have to go and put it back in the bill, do it for another year, because we can't get the authorizers to get into the reprogramming, which is affecting the corps and causes increased costs to the corps. So while I disagree with the gentleman, I understand the technicalities of this. But sometimes we are able to work these things out with committees so for the good of the country we move forward. Apparently, they want to continue this. I have no other way of dealing with this than to argue about it. And then I will have to stick it back in until we get some responsible response from the corps on this matter and save money, I might add.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

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

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise and report the bill back to the House with sundry amendments, with the recommendation that the amendments be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, do pass.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 5427, the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections and conforming changes to the bill.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to submit to the House for its consideration H.R. 5427, the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2007. The Appropriations Committee approved this bill unanimously on May 16, and I believe this is a good bill that merits the support of the entire House. Mr. Chairman, this bill provides annual funding for a wide range of Federal programs, including such diverse matters as flood control, navigation improvements, environmental restoration, nuclear waste disposal, advanced scientific research, applied energy research, maintenance of our nuclear stockpile, and nuclear nonproliferation activities. The total funding for energy and water development for the fiscal year 2007 is $30.017 billion. This funding amount represents an increase of $546 million above the budget request and $172 million below the current fiscal year. I want to point out to everyone that our subcommittee's 302 allocation is right at the level and provides adequate funding to meet the priority needs of the House. Title I is the Army Corps of Engineers. This provides the funding for the Civil Works Program of the Army Corps and the formerly utilized Sites Remedial Action Program which is executed by the corps and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. The committee recommends a total of $4.983 billion for the title I activities, an increase of $251 million above the budget request and $345 million below the enacted level for the current year, separate from emergency supplemental appropriations. In recent years, Mr. Chairman, in my opinion and I think our committee's, the corps' civil works program had lost its way. Instead of taking care of the Nation's most pressing water resources needs, the corps tried to keep everybody happy by spreading its limited resources across an ever-enlarging set of projects; and, frankly, Congress has been a big part of that problem, giving the corps more and more projects to do but, frankly, not enough money to do them. Our committee has taken steps in the last several years to put the corps on the road to fiscal recovery and to restore the focus on getting the most critical projects done efficiently. As before, we do not fund any new starts and do not carry any new project authorizations. I might say we not only cut out the Members' new starts in the corps, we cut out the President of the United States' new starts. We treat everybody the same. Instead, we concentrate our limited resources on the completion of ongoing projects. This will save money. I support the administration's attempt to apply performance-based criteria so that resources are applied to the highest-priority items. This is still a work in progress, and we know that the ratio of remaining costs and remaining benefits should not be the sole major of a project's merits, but I give OMB, and this is hard for me to do, credit for listening for a change to our concerns and, frankly, moving in what we all believe is the right direction. One obvious consequence of folks seeing limited funding on the most important projects is that fewer House Members will receive funding for corps water projects in their districts. We added $251 million to address Member needs for additional water projects. As in prior years, we favored projects that could complete a useful increment of work in fiscal year 2007. We also continue the initiatives we started last year to improve fiscal management in the corps. These initiatives have administration support. We maintain the reprogramming guidelines that we put in place last year, and we establish a fund to begin paying back some reprogramming comments that were made in previous years. We included language last year significantly limiting the corps' ability to misuse continuing contracts and to continue those limitations in fiscal year 2007. I have directed the corps to hire a commercial audit firm to provide Congress with a full accounting of these contracts. The current year is a transition from the old way of doing business to a new one in which the corps is more accountable for how it uses the funds that Congress appropriates for water projects. Frankly, in my opinion, these changes were long overdue; and we are confident they will put the corps on a more secure footing in the future. I would also like to talk about title II, which is the Bureau of Reclamation. Title II of our bill provides $941 million for the Department of the Interior, including $40 million for the Central Utah Project and $901 million for the Bureau of Reclamation. This represents an increase of $17 million above the budget request and $114 million less than the amount appropriated for the current fiscal year. We included an additional $6 million for the bureau to assist existing and future flood risks in the California Bay delta area and included the administration proposal to rescind $88 million of balances for at-risk desert terminal lakes. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would now like to discuss title III of the bill, which is the Department of Energy. The Department of Energy receives a total of $24.37 billion in the Energy and Water Development bill, $299 million over the budget request and $326 million above the current new fiscal year. The budget request proposes a number of major new initiatives for the Department of Energy in fiscal year 2007, the American Competitiveness Initiative, which strengthens basic research by increasing funds for DOE's Office of Science by $505 million, for a total of $4.6 billion. We fully fund the budget request for the Office of Science, and we provide an additional $30 million of headroom to fund House earmarks in the science account. The Advanced Energy Initiative would increase funding for providing clean technologies. We generally fund all of these accounts at or above the requested funding levels funding. Funding in our bill for research in biomass energy increases 65 percent over last year. Research and development on solar energy increases 78 percent over last year. Research on hydrogen technology increases 26 percent over last year. We have also increased funding for vehicle technologies, building technologies and industrial technologies. As with the science earmarks, we also provide additional funding for the House earmarks so that these do not harm the underlying applied science research programs. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, GNEP, is an initiative to recycle spent nuclear fuel with a first-year request of $250 million; and while we believe very strongly that we need to recycle our spent fuel, we have serious policy, technical and financial reservations about the GNEP proposal. It appears that the administration funded the GNEP by cutting other essential energy programs such as university nuclear energy education. We restore these funds and limit GNEP funding to $120 million in fiscal year 2007. We terminated the State energy programs. This amounts to $50 million spread among 50 States plus the territories. From our perspective, the States are fully capable of administering their own State energy programs. Where there is sufficient energy projects that exceed a State's capabilities, then those projects should be submitted to the committee as part of the DOE budget request. We do not support taking Federal funds from our bill and giving those States funds to spend. I might add that the group that came in, that lobbies for this, is a group located in Washington created by the States, funded by our money, to lobby us. So what do we do? We send the money out to the States. First of all, we collect it in taxes, we take a cut off of it here, then we send it back to the States, they take another cut, and they fund all these special people. The costs go as high as 52 percent, and then they do these little grants. We think if they need them they ought to do them; and if they really need them that bad, we ought to fund them. We fully fund the request for the Yucca Mountain repository of $545 million and provide an additional $30 million for interim storage contingent upon authorization. Unfortunately, Yucca Mountain is on a schedule that will not allow it to accept significant quantities of commercial spent fuel until the end of the decade at the earliest. The GNEP initiative to recycle spent fuel is on a similar schedule. The Department estimates that the Federal Government incurs a liability, and I want people to listen to this, of $500 million per year for each year that the repository is delayed. In addition, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may not be able to issue a waste competence determination for any new reactors if the Federal Government does not provide some tangible solution to the problem of accumulating spent fuel. That is why we include $30 million for the Department to explore its options for interim storage. The Department says it needs additional statutory authorization for interim storage. If that authorization is not enacted by the end of the fiscal year 2007, then the remaining funds will revert to the effort to begin the process of selecting a site for a second nuclear waste repository. We continue our efforts to reform the DOE nuclear weapons complex. The committee views the reform of the weapons complex as a package deal. We will move forward with a reliable replacement warhead but only if accompanied by actions to consolidate the footprint of production complex, consolidating special nuclear fuel materials and accelerating dismantlement. I hope people will listen to this next paragraph, because this is probably one of the most outrageous expenditures we have done. It is one we have to get on with. We have to get it done, but the cost escalation of this project drives me out of my mind and I think most Members, if they would listen. The largest environmental cleanup project in the country, the waste treatment plant in Hanford, is billions over budget and 6 years behind schedule. The cost growth of this project is an increase of $6 billion in only 5 years; and, frankly, we still do not know what it will cost, nor can they tell us. We direct the Department to make several major management changes to this project. The Department must complete 90 percent of design before construction of major facilities, and it must impose a tighter linkage between contract payments and contract performance. Most importantly, our bill requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's oversight of nuclear safety at the waste treatment plant, and we direct the Department to transfer $10 million to the NRC for this purpose. Fiscal year 2007 funding for the waste treatment plant is $600 million, a reduction of $90 million from the request, but an increase of $9 million over the current year. I would point out that our recommended funding level of $600 million is $80 million higher than what the Government Accountability Office recommended as needed for fiscal year 2007. We do increase funding for other cleanup activities at Hanford, primarily to mitigate the risk of radioactive contamination from reaching the Columbia River. Total funding for all DOE environmental cleanup activities, both defense related and nondefense, is $644 million, an increase of $161 million. The committee provides a total of $1.59 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation activities, a decrease of $133 million from the budget request. This reduction to the bottom line total for nuclear nonproliferation is due to the elimination of funding for construction of the mixed oxide project and associated pit disassembly and conversion facility at the Savannah River Site. In 2000, the United States and Russia each agreed to eliminate 34 metric tons of excess weapons grade plutonium. While MOX is a far more expensive option for plutonium disposal than immobilization, it was felt several years ago that it was worth doing to encourage the Russians to do their own MOX plant. Well, guess what folks? The Russians are not coming. Listen again: The Russians are not coming. The Russian government signaled this spring that they no longer have any interest in proceeding with their own MOX project, so there is no longer any compelling nonproliferation reason to build the MOX plant. Earlier this week, I met the head of RosAtom, the Russian atomic energy agency. He confirmed that the Russians have no interest in spending any of their own money on MOX activities in Russia. Now, they did tell us that they would build it if we would provide all the money, because, they said, if we have to put money into something, we don't want to do that because we think it is too expensive; we think there is better technology, and we need to move on. They view MOX as an expensive outdated technology for plutonium disposal. In addition, the GAO tells us that the cost estimate on this facility has risen from $1 billion in 2002 to over $3.6 billion in 2006, and the project is already 8 years behind. Now, if you look at Hanford as any example, what do you think this thing is going to wind up at? And this is a deal that the Russians say they don't think the technology is any good. At the beginning, when we put it together, we didn't think it was that good, but we thought we could get them into the deal by doing this, so they said, let's go ahead with the deal. To deal with the plutonium already stored at the Savannah River Site, we should use the cheaper immobilization option. The only remaining rationale to continue the MOX plant is simply as a jobs program for certain States, and I don't think that is a compelling reason to spend several billion dollars of taxpayers' money. There is not 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium in South Carolina at this time, and the plutonium that is there wouldn't be able to be used in the MOX anyway, because it is of a different type than that which would be used for the MOX program. The requested fiscal year 2007 construction funding for MOX is applied to other priority nonproliferation activities, and roughly two- thirds of it is kept at the Savannah River Site for plutonium immobilization activities and to meet environmental cleanup needs at that site. Title IV, Independent Agencies: title IV of our bill provides $228 million for several regional commissions and independent agencies. The committee recommendation provides the requested funding for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Board, the Delta Regional Authority, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Inspector General and the Nuclear Waste Technical Board. The committee reduces the funding, and if I had my way I would take it down to zero, and I tried to get those that are offering amendments to take this down to zero, but they didn't take me up on it, the Appalachian Regional Commission, which my State gets money for. But, again, it is like the State program: We send money here. We send money back there. And the Governors run around creating a bureaucracy and go do the little projects, and nobody really knows kind of what they do. I have had letters from all kinds of people who say they don't support excess spending. They do not like earmarks, but everybody seems to like the little earmarks that the Governors do in these little programs back in their State. So I cut the money. The President's request was around $60 million. And OMB always tells me they are so cost effective down there; I don't know why they don't look at this program. And I cut it back to $35 million. The first year, I cut it back to zero, and then we had to fund it when we got to conference. Unfortunately, that will probably happen again, but I don't like that. But if I had my way, I would cut out all these little commissions because I just think they take away from a lot of good work that the Congress does. We have also put an additional $40 million of budget authority to provide for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to address anticipated license applications for new reactors, which I hope we can really move forward with. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to include some further observations on our bill. I think the committee has produced a very responsible bill that makes sound investment decisions for the future of our agencies and, frankly, for the future of our country. I believe we have one of the best Secretaries of Energy that we have had in a long time. The DOE budget request for fiscal year 2007 reflects some very clear policy choices made by the Secretary in favor of basic science research and applied energy research. While we don't rubber-stamp every one of the Secretary's priorities, I very much respect that he has been willing to articulate his vision for the Department of Energy and has been willing to make some hard funding choices to support that vision. Frankly, we wish we saw some of that same vision and leadership in the Corps of Engineers. The devastating consequences of the hurricanes that hit the gulf coast last year demonstrates what happens when we make the wrong investments in critical water resources infrastructure. The gulf hurricanes served as a wake-up call for many other parts of the country, such as Sacramento, that have inadequate flood protection. Last fall, we asked the corps to provide Congress with a ``top 10'' list of the flood control and navigation infrastructure needs in the country. The corps was surprisingly unable or not allowed to respond to this simple request, and that tells me the corps has lost sight of its national mission and has no clear vision for projects it ought to be doing in the future. We have asked the corps to prepare 5-year budget plans, and the corps has made real progress in making these a useful planning tool, but we have not got there yet. We have also tasked the National Academy of Public Administration to identify sensible criteria for prioritizing the most worthy projects in the future. But, frankly, what is still lacking is a long-term vision of what the Nation's water resources infrastructure should look like in the future. ``More of the same'' is not a thoughtful answer, nor is it a responsible answer in times of constrained budgets. After the New Orleans experience, should we continue to rely solely on levees for urban flood protection? What should our deepwater and inland navigation system look like in 20 years? Nobody right now can tell me that, and I have been asking that for a couple of years. And how should the corps be structured and managed to meet these changing times? The committee is determined to work with the corps, with our colleagues in the Congress, and with outside groups to help the corps craft a better vision for the Nation's water resources in the future. Our country is also in an energy crisis, and we have the responsibility to do everything we can in our bill to address that. I feel our bill, within the limits of our jurisdiction, does that. Our bill provides significant funding increases for research on renewable energy and nuclear energy resources. This research is not going to get us the results overnight, but it puts us on a long-term path to increasing energy independence. In short, this bill supports a variety of energy efficiency programs that can realize savings immediately. The bill increases funding for weatherization, energy savings programs for the Federal Government, vehicle technologies, building technologies, and industrial technologies, all efforts in the near term to find energy savings wherever we can. Now let me talk about earmarks. My goal for this year's bill is to earmark less than we did last year. The number of incoming Member requests to our subcommittee was down slightly from last year. In fiscal year 2007, we received 2,957 requests, a reduction of 17 percent from the 3,572 requests submitted in fiscal year 2006. By comparison to the total value of $1.24 billion of earmarks and congressional adds that we carried in our bill and report last year, we have only $1.4 billion this year. This is a reduction of $200 million, or 16 percent. Frankly, if we include congressional adds and programmatic increases and focus only on project-specific earmarks, then our earmarks total only 1 percent of a $30 billion appropriations bill. Most importantly, most of the earmarks in our bill are fully funded, meaning they do not compete with administration priorities. And I want to say once again we not only take out ours where we have to, we take out the President's, and last year we took out a number on the Senate when we got to conference. We have produced a very responsible House bill. If you want to see real earmark reform, then we encourage our colleagues in the other body to live by the same earmark levels that we have in our bill and to provide funding headroom for those earmarks so they do not adversely impact the base programs of our agencies. Lastly, I want to thank all members of the Energy and Water Subcommittee for their help in bringing this bill to the floor. Our subcommittee held four more hearings than last year, including two intensive oversight hearings on the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant and on reform of the DOE nuclear weapons complex. I appreciate our members' attention and participation in these hearings. I particularly want to thank the ranking member, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky). He has been a true partner in this bill. We have had some hard-fought wins in this bill and have continued to work together. This is truly a bipartisan bill that represents the best of this Congress. This is the way I believe our constituents expect their representatives to work together. I am proud of our bipartisan process. I also want to thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Lewis, and the ranking member, Mr. Obey, for their support and for allowing us to move this bill forward in an expeditious manner. Lastly, I want to thank the staff of this subcommittee, and it is truly a bipartisan staff. Kevin Cook is our clerk, Scott Burnison, Terry Tyborowski, Taunja Berquam and Tracy LaTurner, and I thank them for their hard work on this bill. I also want to thank Dixon Butler of the minority staff, and both Kenny Kraft from my office and Peder Maarbjerg of Mr. Visclosky's office. I might add that Peder is going to be leaving. This is his last bill. He has done a great job. He has always been great for everybody to work with. He is headed off to law school. Mr. Visclosky and I are both lawyers; I am not sure that he took our advice, but he is doing it anyway. We want to wish him well in his new career. I also want to acknowledge our agency detailees. The formerly single Tony DiGiovanni, and he just got married last week. We tried to advise him, but he didn't listen and got married. He is from the Department of Energy. And I am probably going to hear from a lot of people about that, but I have been married to my first wife for 47 years, so I guess I can get away with that maybe a little bit. And also Debbie Willis from the Corps of Engineers for their invaluable assistance in putting this bill together. If you see the hard work that goes into putting these bills together and all of the detail and especially the phone calls we get asking: How did I do in the bill? How come I didn't get more? What do you mean this is a new start? What do you mean? Everybody thinks that their thing is the most important thing. We tried to do the best we can. I am sure we made some mistakes, and we will try to take care of those in conference on this bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman that this research and development that we are funding in this bill needs to have a pathway to the marketplace. As we move forward to a conference with the Senate, we will both, Mr. Visclosky and myself, keep the gentleman's concerns in mind, as we agree. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert). (Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham), a member of the committee.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise.

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during further consideration of H.R. 5427 in the Committee of the Whole pursuant to House Resolution 832, notwithstanding clause 11 of rule XVIII, no amendment to the bill may be offered except: Pro forma amendments offered at any point in the reading by the chairman or ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their designees for the purpose of debate; An amendment by Mr. Visclosky regarding funding levels and tax cuts; An amendment by Mr. King of Iowa regarding Corps of Engineers funding; An amendment by Mr. Deal of Georgia striking section 110 of the bill, which shall be debatable for 20 minutes; An amendment by Mr. Pickering regarding funding limitation on Corps of Engineers contracting; An amendment by Ms. DeLauro regarding funding for the State energy grant program; An amendment by Mr. Markey regarding funding reduction for GNEP; An amendment by Ms. Millender-McDonald regarding funding for energy efficiency programs; An amendment by Mrs. Davis of California regarding funding for industrial assessment program; An amendment by Mr. Andrews or Mr. Leach regarding funding for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative; An amendment by Mr. Wilson of South Carolina regarding funding for MOX plant at Savannah River site; An amendment by Mr. Brown of Ohio regarding funding limitation for contracts relating to port security; An amendment by Mr. Tiahrt regarding funding limitation on competitiveness; An amendment by Mr. Gordon regarding funding limitation on energy efficiency in Federal buildings; An amendment by Mr. Bishop of New York regarding funding limitation on FERC reviews of LNG floating storage applications; An amendment by Ms. Berkley regarding funding limitation on Yucca Mountain Youth Zone Web site; An amendment by Mr. Markey regarding funding limitation on subtitle J of title IX of Energy Policy Act of 2005; An amendment by Mr. Engel regarding funding limitation on alternative fuel vehicles; An amendment by Mr. Lynch regarding a Secretary of Energy plan for oil and gas supply disruptions; An amendment by Mr. Barton of Texas regarding funding limitation on GNEP; An amendment by Mr. Hefley regarding across-the-board cut; An amendment by Mr. Hinchey regarding funding limitation on electric transmission in the Upper Delaware Scenic River; An amendment by Mr. Stupak regarding funding limitation on Corps of Engineers harbor dredging policy; An amendment by Mr. King of Iowa regarding funding limitation on bimodal spring pulse releases on Missouri River; An amendment by Mr. Inslee regarding funding limitation on termination payments by certain regulated entities; An amendment or amendments by Mr. Hobson regarding funding levels; An amendment by Mr. Flake regarding funding limitation on the Center for End-of-Life Electronics in West Virginia; An amendment by Mr. Flake regarding funding limitation on the Southwest Gas Corporation GEDAC heat pump development in Nevada; An amendment by Mr. Flake regarding funding limitation on Virginia Science Museum; An amendment by Mr. Flake regarding funding limitation on the Missouri Forest Foundation; An amendment by Mr. Flake regarding funding limitation on the Juniata Ultra Low-Emission locomotive demonstration in Pennsylvania; An amendment by Mr. Flake regarding funding limitation on the research and environment center at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. Each such amendment may be offered only by the Member named in this request or a designee, shall be considered as read, shall not be subject to amendment except that the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations and the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies each may offer one pro forma amendment for the purpose of debate; and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. Except as otherwise specified, each amendment shall be debatable for 10 minutes, equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent. An amendment shall be considered to fit the description stated in this request if it addresses in whole or in part the object described.