Dave Hobson

Mr. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word to enter into a colloquy with Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I share the concerns of my colleague from Illinois, especially since I am from Ohio and we have the Great Lakes. That is why I commit to revisiting in conference the issue of funding for the demonstration barrier in fiscal year 2007. If Congress were to appropriate the necessary funds, I believe the corps has the authority to operate and maintain the demonstration barrier. Continued operation of this demonstration barrier may very well be necessary if some outstanding authorization issues are not resolved and the corps is unable to complete construction of the permanent barrier next year. Should those authorization issues be addressed before the conference on this bill is complete, I am open to providing the corps with the additional resources it needs to complete construction and testing of the permanent barrier. Mr Chairman, I agree that we need permanent, redundant protection against the spread of the aquatic invasive species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. I commit to the gentlewoman from Illinois and the rest of our Great Lake colleagues, including my ranking member from Indiana, and we will both, I believe, work in conference to address the issue of protecting the Great Lakes from invasive species like the Asian carp.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I would yield any remaining time I have to my ranking member.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode).

Mr. HOBSON. I understand the gentleman's concern and realize the importance of the Corps of Engineers' recreation sites to local communities. In a time of static budgets and aging infrastructure, we must work together to make our limited funding go further. I commit to working with the gentleman from Virginia to review existing corps policies and funding to address this issue.

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

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my ranking member, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky).

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), a member of the committee.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me talk about hypocrisy. Let me talk about extraneous matter out here. I mean, this is outrageous. First of all, if we want to save money, you do not go back and do these itty-bitty State grants. My State gets a million dollars out of this, $1.6 million. Big deal. Under your deal, it is going to get $250,000 or less the way you have drafted this amendment. It is absolutely ridiculous to send money up here. We take administration off the top, and then we send it back to the States, and they start it all over again and take a bunch of salaries. The group that is out here now advocating this thing on behalf of all of the States is funded by this program. This is just another pork- barrel program for Governors of States. We ought to get rid of it. The State grant does absolutely nothing. This amendment will make it even less effective. And what it does to the Department of Energy is outrageous. Under this, this mandates reduction of 100 employees. Those employees are responsible for the financial integrity of the Department. The next thing they will be saying is, we are not doing it right, and that is because we have cut 100 people out of it. These employees are responsible for the Department's cyber security. Then we hear it is all gone. Programs like Minority Economic Impact, General Counsel and the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity would be severely impacted. This amendment is outrageous. You want to get rid of pork-barrel stuff around here, these kinds of programs are a waste of money. There are a couple of others in this bill that I would take out totally, too, but this one is particularly egregious because it doesn't do the job. Vote ``no'' on the DeLauro amendment.

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

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman's amendment proposes to increase funding for nuclear nonproliferation activities that were already significantly increased in this bill. The Nonproliferation and Verification Research and Development program budget was increased by $39 million, an increase of 15 percent over the request. This program develops better technologies for satellite detection of nuclear activities. The MPC&A program was increased by $170 million, an increase of 41 percent over the request. This program secures nuclear weapons and nuclear material in Russia and installs radiation detection monitors at border crossings around the former Soviet Union and at foreign seaports. The MegaPorts program was increased by $65 million, an increase of 162 percent over the request. The committee recognized the need to protect the country's seaports against nuclear smuggling and increased the funding to scan cargo containers. The Global Threat Reduction Initiative, or GTRI, which the gentleman's amendment would increase funding for, was already increased by the committee for a total of $13 million, or 12 percent over the budget request. The increase was targeted to accelerate recovery of domestic and radiological sealed sources, Russian-origin nuclear material, and U.S.-origin orphaned nuclear materials still overseas. I urge a ``no'' vote on the gentleman's amendment. We have already added $222 million to this account. I do not think we need to add any more money into this account at this time. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOBSON. I understand the gentleman's concern. Let me tell you this. If funds become available along the way, we will take a look at it. I am interested in the program, but I just think we have done an awful lot, probably more than this committee has done in years. Mr. Visclosky has been around longer than I, and Mr. Obey has always been interested in nonproliferation, Mr. Edwards has been interested in nonproliferation, and we have tried to meet those needs by the amounts of moneys we have put in here. I am sorry this does not meet the gentlemen's needs at this point, but if funds become available along the way and we can find them, we will do that. But at this point I would have to oppose the gentlemen's amendment but tell them along the way we will try to take a look at it as best we can. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment from the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. As you know, our bill does not use the Nuclear Waste Fund for any activities under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Your amendment is entirely consistent with the views of our committee and its uses of the waste fund, and I encourage Members to support this amendment.

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

Mr. HOBSON. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. We talked about it, and we are on very different sides of this issue. One of the reasons I am upset about some other things out here is I don't want to build seven or eight Yucca Mountains, and we differ on that, and I don't want to put perfectly good rods into Yucca Mountain. I want to go through GNEP and some other things. And maybe someday, if we were really lucky, we wouldn't have to put anything there. But I assume that we will probably have to do some things, certainly with the Naval reactor stuff. But I think education is one of the most important things we can do. I think one of the things we ought to work on is maybe we need to look at this Web site and have some other types of things and some more balance to it. I happen to think that the best cure for fear is knowledge, and I don't happen to agree with some of the things that you are causing fear about what is going on at Yucca Mountain, and we may disagree about that. But if we could have a more balanced approach, I still think Yucca Mountain Johnny may have a place in teaching kids. We may differ on where that place is. But I think, in the long run, education, good education is a way to go. So I would encourage the gentlelady to try to work with us and maybe with the Department to get a better and less cutesy sort of thing going and educating people, especially young people, about Yucca Mountain and the responsible use of green fuel in this country.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall).

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I have no additional speakers at this time and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOBSON. Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment that is being offered by Mr. Gordon.

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