Rush Holt

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this misguided, unnecessary, and environmentally harmful piece of legislation and yield myself such time as I may consume. We all know that under President Obama the United States is in the middle of an almost unprecedented oil and gas boom. Last week, the Energy Information Administration said that for the first time in 20 years U.S. crude oil production surpassed imports. Also last week, the International Energy Agency projected that the U.S. would become the number one oil producer by 2015. The headlines keep coming. On October 4, EIA reported: U.S. expected to be the largest producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons in 2013. On October 16, a headline read: U.S. is already world's number one producer, consultants say. Even the Republicans have to admit this energy boom is happening, but they say it has nothing to do with President Obama because they don't want to give him credit for anything. They say all of the increased production--all of it--is coming from State and private lands. President Obama, they believe, is choking off production on Federal lands, and that is why we need the giveaways to Big Oil. That is why we need these attempts in this legislation to stifle public comment. That is why we need drill-at-all-cost measures. But they are wrong. Flat-out wrong. What has actually happened to oil production from our public and Indian lands out West since President Obama took office, you may ask? It has skyrocketed. Onshore oil production from Federal and Indian lands, just what we are talking about in this legislation, has gone up every year since the President has been in office. It is now 35 percent higher than it was under President Bush. Yet this legislation would not just reduce environmental productions. It would gut them; it would remove them. So here is an even more interesting statistic. The nationwide increase in oil production since President Obama took office is 30 percent. The increase on Federal and Indian lands is even outpacing the increase nationwide, including private lands. I believe it is simple enough that anyone should be able to understand this. Oil production for the entire country is up 30 percent. Oil production on Federal and Indian land is up 35 percent. But the Republicans have this playbook that they just can't get away from, this shopworn 2008 drill, baby, drill playbook. And so they want to try to make things easier for Big Oil while trying to ensure that conservation and hunting and fishing and recreation and renewables, and everything else that these Federal lands might be used for, has to take a back seat to drilling. The entire premise of this bill is that President Obama is shutting off access to Federal lands and driving oil production down. The premise is false. We are not here because we need this legislation to increase our domestic production of oil and gas, and it certainly has nothing to do with prices at the pump. We are not here because the bill will have any impact on the world price of oil or gasoline at the pump. We are not here because anyone thinks this bill has a chance of becoming law either. We are here because we have a deeply divided Republican caucus, and one of the few things that unites this caucus is the belief that Big Oil should enjoy higher profits, and those profits should come from publicly owned land. We are here because bills to convert our priceless national treasures into profits on Big Oil's balance sheets are about the only idea that our Republican colleagues can agree on among themselves. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), a lifelong stalwart supporter of the environment and of energy production. (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, I gladly yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, let's summarize what is in this legislation. H.R. 1965 is a compilation of a number of wishful bills, wishful legislation from the other side. It would shortcut environmental reviews, discourage public participation in energy development decisions, and eliminate thoughtful leasing reforms. It would require that any public entity or individual that wanted to challenge a leasing decision post a $5,000 protest fee just to be able to access the process. It would require that the Department of the Interior lease at least 25 percent each year of oil and gas nominated areas, whether or not they are suitable for drilling now. And, Madam Chair, I get this. It would elevate oil and gas leasing decisions above all other uses of public lands, such as hunting, fishing, grazing, conservation, recreation, and other energy uses. It would also require a plan to crisscross the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska with roads and pipelines, a network that would be a bonanza for some contractor, I am sure, ignoring the management plan that was approved this year. Why? Not for a good reason. We don't need all these relaxations--``relaxation'' is too mild a word--the gutting of environmental review, the removal of public participation, because oil production is doing very well, thank you. Let's deal with facts. Federal onshore oil production, which is what this bill is about, has increased 35 percent. It is actually a faster growth rate than oil production overall in the United States. I am not sure why the other side refuses to acknowledge that. I would think they would want to take that as good news. If you look past their talking points at the actual data, you will see that Federal onshore oil production has increased every year since 2008. That doesn't include Indian lands, where production has also increased every year since 2008. So the fundamental premise of this bill is flawed. There are, right now, 37 million acres of Federal land under lease for oil and gas development, but two-thirds of that is not in production or exploration. Go figure. Let's go ask these companies why they are bidding on these lands. When you lease land, it is because you think it will be productive, yet they are sitting on them. We don't need to streamline. We don't need to remove any environmental controls in order to stimulate leasing, because 37 million acres of Federal land are under lease now. Furthermore, even if the other side was right about their flawed premise, even if it was a problem in production, onshore Federal oil is only 5 percent or 6 percent of total production. That is all it will be. So if there were a production problem, if it were not the case that we were producing more than we have produced--we are in better shape than we have been in decades--further drilling on Federal land would not be the answer. So there is no reason for this bill. It sets back the use of these Federal lands to a free-for-all, unprotected state, and this is bad legislation. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chair, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished whip of the Democratic Party, someone who understands the economic importance of protecting the environment.

Mr. HOLT. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the minority member of highest rank on our committee, the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. HOLT. I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. HOLT. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to address the talking points that have been parroted without thinking by speaker after speaker from the other side. The fact is oil production on onshore public lands, the subject of this legislation, is up by 35 percent. It is not down. It is not flat. It is up. It is up even more than oil production in the country overall. So what is the problem here? As for employment, it is worth pointing out that oil and natural gas industry employment has increased. Clearly, there was a falloff with the recession--or let's call it a depression--but in the last half-dozen years, industry employment has increased by more than 162,000--a 40 percent increase. Oil and gas industry jobs decreased in 2009 as a result of the recession, but now the jobs are increasing at a rate even faster than before. And I have to emphasize that in connection with this because this legislation says that oil and gas would take precedence over all other uses of Federal lands. Federal lands don't exist solely for the purpose of oil and gas extraction. As I have said before, there is one thing that the Republicans seem to agree on, that we should give away whatever we can to the oil companies. That is why we are doing this legislation, because they don't have any other legislation that they can agree on well enough to bring to the floor. But multiple uses of our Federal lands, aside from oil and gas production, are important to Americans. As for jobs, the government shutdown that the folks who are proposing this legislation voted for and supported caused the closure of over 400 units of our National Park Service and cost local economies hundreds of millions of dollars and caused delays in the approval of pending permits, by the way. It is also worth pointing out that this week the Interior Department announced that, because of revenues from oil and gas extraction, the Department of the Interior was able to disburse $14.2 billion--a 17 percent increase over the previous year--to State, local, and tribal accounts. This money goes for the land and water conservation fund, the reclamation fund, historic preservation, and so forth. So this is a bill to address a problem that doesn't exist--and to do it in a way that does not address the interests of the people at large. It is a giveaway to the oil and gas industry. I urge my colleagues to vote this down. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. HOLT. I wanted to point out a curious, but revealing, point about this amendment. In order to get the bill to score properly to fit with the policy of the Republican Conference, it was necessary to cut $5 million out of the authorization in the bill. So where did they go? To cut $5 million out of renewable energy and let the tens of millions of dollars of authorized funds for the oil and gas to sit untouched. But I would really like to address something else that the gentleman said that has to do with the whole reason we are here today on this bill instead of doing that important work that Mr. Hoyer spoke of earlier. The gentleman talked about how we have to increase the supply of oil so that we can drive down prices at the pump and talked about how the policies of President Bush were responsible for the undeniable increases in onshore oil production. They say that gas was as much as $4 a gallon in 2008. You know whose fault that was. And then, in 2009, it was $2 a gallon. Did the supply in the United States change that much in 1 year? No. This shows quite clearly that it is not because of the amount of drilling on public lands. That has nothing to do with it. It has a scant effect on the price at the pump. It is amazing, Mr. Speaker. When confronted with something uncomfortable, the Republicans always have a convenient excuse. Gas prices were $4 a gallon in 2008. Oh, that is because Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House. Gas prices plummet later that year to half that amount. Well, that is because President Bush said we need to drill more. Then, gas prices shoot up after John Boehner becomes Speaker of the House, but that is because President Obama is in office. And, now, oil production on Federal lands skyrockets under President Obama, and it is a boom. But that is really because of President Bush. So if gas prices go down further this year, maybe that is because of, I don't know, was it Eisenhower or Reagan? Give me a break. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Affordable Care Act: Nearly 13 million Americans have benefited from $1.1 billion in rebates from health insurance companies; 105 million Americans have received access to free preventive services; Nearly 30 million women are receiving free preventive services; Up to 17 million children with preexisting health conditions are no longer denied coverage by insurers; 6.6 million young adults up to age 26 have taken advantage of the law to obtain health insurance through their parents' plans; More than 100 million Americans no longer have a lifetime limit on their insurance coverage; More than 7.1 million seniors in the doughnut hole have already saved $8.3 billion on prescription drugs; and More than 4.4 million seniors have free annual wellness visits under Medicare. Mr. Speaker, rather than working to make the Affordable Care Act successful, Republicans are telling Americans they want to return to the days when insurance companies could tell those with preexisting conditions, Sorry, you don't deserve and cannot purchase health insurance. Forty-six times, Republicans have told Americans that if they reach their lifetime limits, that is just too bad. Forty-six times, they have said they want to keep the Medicare part D doughnut hole and keep medication unaffordable for seniors, and that is the way it is going to be. Mr. Speaker, Americans deserve access to affordable, quality health care.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3350. This bill has no purpose, other than to destroy the effort to provide excellent, affordable health care to Americans in every walk of life. Yesterday, the President provided a workable solution to allow insurance companies to continue to offer existing policies to people who want to keep their policies. But the Upton bill we are considering today would allow both those that had these plans, and those that did not, to obtain care under these plans. Especially, people could buy plans that don't really offer much ``insurance'' at all should anyone in their family get sick. The comprehensive health care reform legislation we passed in 2010 was a sincere and honorable effort to provide every American with access to affordable and quality health coverage. The law was designed to ensure that health coverage would include access to free preventive services, and would also be robust enough to actually help an individual afford critical, life-saving care should they fall ill. The legislation that we are considering today accomplishes none of those goals. H.R. 3350 would allow insurance companies to continue to sell and attract new customers to substandard health plans that offer little protection. I have received calls and letters from constituents over the past several weeks who share with me their frustration that their health plan has been cancelled. And I sympathize with them. They tell me in complete sincerity that they like these plans--after all, they are not used to having any choice. They think their previous insurance plan is all they can afford. But under the Affordable Care Act they now have the ability to buy real insurance that will not drop them when their kid gets sick or require them to a huge deductible and with government subsidies in an active insurance marketplace, most will probably save money on their premiums. But I have also heard from constituents who have fallen ill, and during that time of personal turmoil, learn that their insurance does not cover the treatment they need. Their ``Basic and Essential Plan,'' as they're called in New Jersey, does not cover their basic or essential needs. They are on their own, and they will have to pay out- of-pocket for the chemotherapy, hospital tests, or physical therapy their doctor ordered. Prior to health reform, in 2007, more than 60 percent of all bankruptcies were a result of illness and medical bills, and nearly 80 percent of those who filed for medical bankruptcy were insured. We passed the Affordable Care Act not only to extend coverage to the 48 million uninsured Americans, but also to improve insurance for the millions more Americans who are underinsured. H.R. 3350 would undermine the Affordable Care Act by allowing new, additional customers to purchase health insurance that provides limited protection, and little prevention. It would result in even more Americans becoming underinsured and lead to additional family's filing for medical bankruptcy. Many parts of the ACA are working and have very beneficial effects for ordinary Americans--removing caps that cut off coverage even in the middle of critical treatments, allowing 25 year olds who are trying to get on their feet professionally to stay on their parent's policies, guaranteeing equally good coverage at equal cost for women, increasing access to preventive care, and other things. I would hope the sponsors of this bill would devote their best efforts to making the remaining parts of the legislation work. That is what they owe their constituents, rather than trying to destroy this sincere, honorable effort to make health care as good as possible in America. The rollout of the health insurance Marketplace has not been smooth, and I am as frustrated as everyone else, but the potential for Americans to gain affordable and comprehensive coverage is still enormous. Nearly one million New Jerseyans lack health insurance, and there are still many more underinsured. I am committed to protecting the provisions of health care reform so that New Jerseyans have access to health coverage that is affordable, comprehensive, and reliable. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this bill and get to work on implementing the Affordable Care Act so Americans have access to better health care coverage.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, I rise today as a member of the Safe Climate Caucus to say that climate change is making extreme weather worse and costing us in lives and dollars. Last week, Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm to make landfall in recorded history, struck the Philippines with sustained winds of almost 200 miles per hour. Thousands are reported dead and missing. Haiyan, Sandy, Irene, Katrina, wildfires, floods, droughts. If you flip a coin 20 times, it is possible that an honest coin will land on heads every time, but you should start to suspect that there is something wrong with that coin. Sure, the recent extreme weather event might be coincidence, but as superstorms continue again and again, you should suspect that something is wrong with our climate. We should begin fixing our broken world, not be pretending that all is well. This week marks the beginning of the 19th U.N. climate change conference in Warsaw, where representatives from more than 190 nations will be discussing climate change and how the world should be responding. For international climate negotiations to succeed, the U.S. should take the lead, and leading internationally will require us to start here at home.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I want to join my friend from Colorado in lamenting the lack of legislative action on immigration and so many other issues. I am sure the gentleman doesn't want to leave the impression that Members of Congress do nothing when we are not actually in session. However, the lack of number of days in session, the small number of days in session, is really symptomatic of the problem. It is an unwillingness to deal with the great issues of the day, be they immigration, appropriations and funding for government activities, reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to replace No Child Left Behind, providing workplace training and job creation, the transportation legislation and nutrition programs. It is worth pointing out that only now--I mean right now, we are about to lose 13 percent in the SNAP program, the food stamp program. For all of those reasons, we should be working here in the Chamber and in committee and elsewhere. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the so-called Retail Investor Protection Act, which is one more attempt to delay and derail implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform law. The financial crisis should be all the evidence we need to know that stronger, not weaker, enforcement; tougher, not weaker, regulations are necessary. Dodd-Frank is the law of the land. Yet, as with ObamaCare, the Republican agenda consists only of delay and repeal, with no solutions to, in this case, prevent a future economic meltdown. I want to be clear that, in voting against this bill, I am not stating approval or endorsement of the U.S. Department of Labor's proposed fiduciary rule. In fact, since 2011, I have voiced concerns about how the proposed changes to the definition of ``fiduciary'' might lead to a reduction in financial education and access to investment advice.

Mr. HOLT. Americans are not well prepared for retirement. I have long believed that the more investment advice available to employees the better. They need more advice, not less; more encouragement to invest, not less. I look forward to continuing to work with the Secretary of Labor to craft a rule to allow more Americans, not fewer Americans, to be better prepared, not less prepared, for retirement. I thank the gentleman from Colorado for the time.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. I thank my friend from New York (Mr. Tonko) for arranging this discussion. It is well worth recognizing the anniversary of this devastating storm because it might be said this was a storm like we have never seen before. That may be true, but I don't think it is correct to say this is a storm such as we will never see again. A year ago, Hurricane Sandy devastated New Jersey and much of the east coast. The storm may have faded from the headlines, but New Jerseyans haven't forgotten. It is felt in a very personal and painful way by thousands and thousands of New Jerseyans still today. These New Jerseyans are not alone. I mean that in two senses. First, we can hear from some who are representative of the millions. But also, when we hear from the younger New Jerseyans who are affected, we understand that they represent the future that will be affected by climate change. Quite simply, superstorms like Sandy are the new normal, and we had better get used to it, even if climate change skeptics claim otherwise. I think response to Sandy means, of course, tending to the human needs of those who have been victims of the storm, but it also means making significant investments in power engineering and transportation engineering and rail engineering and wireless engineering and shoreline engineering and river flood control engineering and residential planning, and taking steps to deal with the root cause of what we see. We may not be able to stop hurricanes in their tracks. In fact, we certainly can't. But we can make sure that our infrastructure and our environment and our communities are more resilient when they strike, and if we work hard as a Nation and as humanity, we may be able to stem the climate change that will result in more and more powerful superstorms. I know some in Washington are skeptical of the role of the Federal Government in fighting climate change, but as Sandy's $83 billion pricetag should make clear, society, our economy, yes, and our government will bear the costs of climate change one way or another. If we make the investments today, as the debts are coming due, we would do far better than to wait to pick up the pieces after other superstorms hit. I will be happy, as we go along, to talk about some specific New Jerseyans who were affected. I will be happy to talk about some of the science that suggests where we are as a world. Mostly, I just want to make the point that this is the new normal that we should be prepared for.

Mr. HOLT. Some of the repair has taken place, but the recovery takes a very long time. Today, three New Jerseyans came to visit me. One, Eric, from Jersey City, had been ready to open his bakery with his wife when Sandy hit. The bakery was flooded by 6 feet of water, and a lot of equipment was damaged. It delayed until fairly recently the opening of that bakery, and of course there was the loss of income to that family. Norma, from Seaside Park, was displaced by severe flooding, nearly 4 feet. We can talk about the depth of the storm surge or about the record low barometric pressure or what the wind speed was, but we mustn't lose sight of the people who were affected here. Norma had space in her home that was flooded, and so she lost the rental income for that space. She is still cleaning up. Incidentally, she is a science supervisor at a local school, and is now talking personally about climate change and extreme weather. April, from Jersey City, is a single mother of a child with asthma, who was uprooted because of the flooding from Sandy. She is now dealing with mold issues in her child's school as a result of the flooding, and she has gotten involved in helping low-income families recover from Sandy. I want to make this point about who is hurt the most. Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey looked at families who are employed but who are struggling. These would be asset-limited people, people who are barely earning a living. This makes up, really, about a third of New Jerseyans. They have no cushion. Yet about a third of New Jerseyans incurred more than half of the residential damage--the cost--and are obtaining only slightly more than a quarter of the resources that are available for rebuilding. So low-income families, who tend to have less safe, less resilient housing, are the ones who suffer the most damage. Many who work hourly jobs are less able to deal with the loss of wages that occur from these disasters. Many of them were underinsured, and about 90 percent did not have flood insurance. So it is only a fraction of the people in New Jersey, but it is a very large fraction of the people, who suffered the really severe damage. As bad as this is in America, the effects of climate change are even worse in developing countries around the world. Developing nations are more vulnerable to crop failure. Tropical diseases are very sensitive to climate change. Malaria and dengue fever and diarrheal disease are more prevalent now because of climate change, and developing nations are less able to afford the damage that results. I got in some trouble earlier this year--I was challenged earlier this year--when I said we have got to deal with climate change or millions will die. In fact, I looked it up. The World Health Organization estimates that climate change is already causing 140,000 deaths per year--more than would have occurred without the climate change--primarily in developing countries. So it doesn't take very many years before, indeed, millions are dying. That is something of the human cost of what we are talking about.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that all of our colleagues understand that when my friend from New York talks in detail about new energy systems that he is talking about human welfare, that he is talking about addressing the human cost that we were speaking of earlier. In other words, it is not just a matter of providing energy for people to power our economy and provide comfortable daily lives; it is also a matter of doing it in a way that avoids this enormous human cost from climate change. The way we produce and use energy is the greatest insult to our planet. It is changing our very climate, and we must address that. The sooner we address it, the more effective we will be at addressing it, and the more of these costs we can avoid. It is unmistakable, unequivocal, that global warming has taken place and is taking place. Just in the past month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out with its fifth very carefully prepared report. It says that global temperatures are likely to rise from a third of a degree to 4\1/2\ degrees, roughly, Celsius, and that sea levels will rise. It is certain that the upper ocean has already warmed over the last three decades. It is certain that the upper ocean has already absorbed carbon dioxide, making it more acidic, as we heard from our friends earlier. Most of the aspects of climate change will continue for centuries with the result in a cost in lives and dollars if the CO2 emissions are not brought under control. In fact, some of these costs will be incurred now even if we bring CO2 emissions under control because of the damage already done, but it is important to emphasize that it comes down to the human cost. That is what we mustn't forget in all of the charts and graphs and scientific discussions of the causes and effects of climate change.

Mr. HOLT. The work of the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Coalition here in Congress is to see that we can move into the future in a sustainable way. It is completely appropriate that we talk about both energy and environment in this same--really with the same breath. Because as I said, the way we produce and use energy is the greatest insult to our planet. But it is possible to produce and use energy that will power our economy and provide a good quality of life for 10 billion people in the world if we are smart and if we get to work now. We can do it in a way that doesn't ruin the world and condemn all of these billions of people to the kinds of superstorms, the kinds of effects of climate change and spreading diseases and so forth that will result if climate change runs amuck. New Jerseyans need no further reminder that climate change is real. Evidently, some of our colleagues here do need that reminder. This year, one year after Hurricane Sandy, we are here to tell our friends, to tell our colleagues this is for real, this is serious, and we should get to work. The work of the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Coalition is dedicated to that work. I thank my colleague, Mr. Tonko of New York, for his work to propel the SEEC coalition.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida. Despite some merits in the WRRDA bills that the Republicans have proposed, they fail to address the number one reason why Corps of Engineers projects are delayed, a serious lack of Federal funding. The bill before us perpetuates a myth that the problem is environmental review of engineering projects and not inadequate funding. In my congressional District, the Green Brook project has been funded at $11 million per year. If this funding level continues, it will take more than 30 years to complete the project, which will eventually protect several flood-prone communities frequently at risk from extreme weather, and save lives. Until then, the Green Brook residents remain under threat. Now, every water resource project has effects on the environment and should have good environmental review. Streamlining environmental review will not save money or expedite construction. Limiting the national environmental review limits public participation, prevents identification of potentially costly problems, project-stopping problems. Environmental review is not something to be tolerated. It is something to be welcomed.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, today, the House is finally, at the 11th hour, voting to re-open the government and avert a financial disaster by avoiding a default on our debt. The bill keeps the government open until January 15, 2014, and raises the debt ceiling until February 7, 2014. This is a stopgap measure, and my fear is that we will face another manufactured crisis again a few months. We should have never gotten to this point, the majority should have never caved to the vocal minority in the House. This bill ends an unnecessary, self-induced crisis. It fails to end sequestration's painful cuts in government services. It fails to invest in creating new jobs. It follows costly weeks of government shutdown and unnerving the financial world. It sets up the alarming prospect of new confrontations over the budget and the debt ceiling early next year. Ever since this phony crisis began, a majority of the Congress-- Democrats and Republicans alike--have sought to reopen the government. Yet Republican leaders, out of misguided deference to the reckless ideologues in their ranks, refused to allow a vote on clean legislation to reopen the government. Today that finally changed. The Speaker allowed the majority of House members to work their will, and as a result, our government has reopened and the U.S. can resume paying her debts, as we have for centuries. My hope is that, in the months ahead, Speaker Boehner will follow today's precedent and allow votes on other pressing issues, such as job creation and immigration reform, that Democrats and Republicans can agree on. The alternative would be to continue to follow the extreme minority who shut down the government for no apparent reason, with no clear idea of what they hoped to win.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring to the attention of the House the wise remarks of Dr. Hunter Rawlings, President of the Association of American Universities, delivered at the ceremony installing Dr. Christopher Eisgruber as President of Princeton University, September 22, 2013.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring to the attention of the House the eloquent remarks of Dr. Christopher Eisgruber at his installation as President of Princeton University, September 22, 2013. Friends, colleagues, students, teachers, Princetonians: I am honored to be standing here this afternoon and I am very touched, indeed a tad bit overwhelmed by the generosity of the remarks delivered by the speakers who have preceded at this podium. I am grateful for their gracious words. I am also honored by the presence here on stage of three great presidents of this University, Bill Bowen, Harold Shapiro and Shirley Tilghman. In the past weeks, people have occasionally asked me whether I could have imagined, in the days when I was a student here, that I might someday be the university president. I reply very honestly that it never crossed my mind, not when I was a student and not, for that matter, when I returned to join the faculty in 2001. My dream job, both as student and a faculty member, was to be a Princeton professor teaching about the Constitution. And, when my dream came true, when I came back to Princeton as a member of the faculty, I reckoned that I had been very clever. I thought that by becoming a law professor at a university without a law school, I had reduced if not eliminated any chance that large administrative assignments might ever distract me from the teaching and research that I loved. Of course, by returning to Princeton, I had also come home to a university that I loved more than any other, and where the responsibilities of administration would be more meaningful to me than anywhere else. Princeton's wonderful 19th president, Shirley Tilghman, realized that before I did, an she changed my life by offering me the opportunity to become her provost. I suppose that all of us, as we move through this complicated world, require some time to realize what matters most in our lives. The path to and through adulthood takes unexpected turns. Childhood heroes show hidden flaws; youthful causes lose their luster. If we are lucky, though, we find certain ideals from which we can draw enduring inspiration and to which we can commit our life's energies. In my life, there have been two: constitutional democracy, as manifested personally for me in the American constitutional tradition, and liberal arts education, as exemplified especially by the blend of research and teaching at this great University. The iconic building behind me combines these traditions. Nassau Hall was once all of Princeton University, and this University's alumni still regard it as the symbolic heart of their alma mater--even if it has now become an administrative office building into which few students ever venture. Nassau Hall was also briefly, in 1783, the home of the Continental Congress, and so the seat of this nation's government. And Nassau Hall was, as Hunter Rawlings has so movingly described, the site where James Madison (undergraduate Class of 1771, graduate Class of 1772) acquired the learning that eventually made him the father of America's Constitution. Constitutionalism and liberal arts education also have deeper connections, ones that depend not on the contingencies of history and geography but on their relationship to human nature. Both of them are long-term institutions that recognize simultaneously humanity's virtues and its imperfections, and that aim to cultivate our talents, orient us toward the common good, and make us the best that we can be. In one of the most famous passages from his extraordinary arguments on behalf of constitutional ratification, Madison wrote, in Federalist 51, ``What is government . . . but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.'' [Madison, Fed. 51; Rossiter ed. 322] Madison used gendered language, but I have no doubt that in this respect at least James Madison was a feminist: He meant his skepticism to apply equally to both sexes. If people were angels, they would cooperate, look out for one another, and generally do good deeds. They would need no laws, no courts and no constitutions. But people are not angels, so they need constitutions that create institutions, define processes and separate powers. We might equally well add that if people were angels, they would have no need for teachers. Students would need no one to inspire their studies or correct their errors. If students were angels, they would need, at most, a few syllabi, a library, some laboratories, a computer and perhaps a few Massive Open Online Courses. They might then all be more or less self-taught, as were Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, those almost superhuman, if not quite angelic, heroes of the American constitutional tradition. But people are not angels, and very, very few students are like Franklin and Lincoln. The generations of students who have come to Nassau Hall, including the great James Madison, have wanted teachers to fire their imaginations, dispel their misconceptions, explode their prejudices, stir their spirits and guide their passions. And students have found mentors here, not just in professors and preceptors, but also in chaplains and coaches, counselors and graduate students, conductors and directors, deans and administrators. I expect that all of you in the audience today can look back upon your lives and identify teachers whose support and guidance were valuable beyond measure and without whom you could not have achieved the successes that matter most to you. I am especially pleased that in attendance today are two teachers whose mentorship has guided me throughout my career: Mr. Pat Canan, who taught me physics at Corvallis High School; and Professor Jeffrey Tulis, who taught me about the Constitution and political theory when I was an undergraduate at this University. I have kept in touch with both of these teachers for more than 30 years now. Thirty years is a long time. As I have already said, education, like constitutionalism, is a long- term enterprise. Great teachers, and great universities, make extraordinary investments in students and research in anticipation of future benefits that are usually unknowable and occasionally implausible. Perhaps the seeds you plant in the mind of 19-year-old students today will guide careers that blossom and mature many decades hence. Or, to take an example from our Department of Chemistry, perhaps your curiosity-driven research into the pigmentation of butterfly wings will, 50 years later, produce a drug that improves the lives of cancer patients. If human beings were angels, we would cheerfully focus on long-term goods. We would invest enthusiastically in schools and colleges for our own children and for everybody else's children, so that they could become productive, engaged citizens in the future. We would happily support speculative research projects so that we could reap the benefits of discovery and innovation. We would gladly nurture humanistic inquiry because it provides an essential foundation for understanding what makes life meaningful and sustains the wellsprings of civil society. Indeed, we need not be angels to do these things. We would do them if we were perfectly rational investors, because economists like Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz have shown convincingly that education and research are powerful drivers of economic prosperity. But we are not perfectly rational any more than we are angels. We live embodied in the present, sensitive to short- term pleasures and pains. Notions of the common good and promises about future returns feel abstract and feeble by comparison to the intensity of immediate experience. This bias seems especially fierce in America today. Our world features a non-stop news cycle, continuous political campaigns and an obsession with quarterly earnings statements. We demand that messaging be instant, and we talk in tweets. This short-term perspective threatens America's colleges and universities. Already it has done significant harm. Our nation has reduced its support for public colleges and universities, and it has squeezed the funding needed for research, innovation and scholarship. In so doing, we risk squandering a national treasure. America's colleges and universities are a beacon to the world. Parents around the globe dream of sending their children here, scholars dream of landing a place here, and nations dream of creating universities like America's. Yet, here at home, we see a parade of reporters, politicians and pundits asking whether a college education is worth it--even though the economic evidence for the value of a college education is utterly overwhelming. People discount this evidence because they worry, quite understandably, about the cost of college. They say that higher education should be more efficient so that it can be cheaper in the short term and equally valuable in the long term. Make no mistake about it: Those of us who lead universities must make our institutions as efficient as possible. We must also ensure, through financial aid and other programs, that our colleges are accessible and affordable to students from every sector of our society. But there is a difference between expense and inefficiency. Expensive investments can be both efficient and valuable if their returns are sufficiently high. When professors provide individualized attention to students, their time is expensive and valuable. When scholars strive day and night to enhance our understanding of the world, their activity is expensive and valuable. Great colleges and universities are not cheap. They require big investments, and they are also among the very best investments that this nation, or any nation, can make. And, as I have said in the past, great universities are also places where the human spirit soars. They are special communities where students, teachers and researchers strive to transcend their limitations and, on occasion, to expand the boundaries of human achievement. I am grateful to be joined on this stage by Princeton alumni, and by former Princeton faculty members and administrators, who now serve as presidents of an extraordinary range of colleges and universities from throughout the world. Their presence here today symbolizes our need to work together on behalf of higher education. It also reminds us of Princeton's obligation and opportunity to play a leadership role in public discussions about the value of research and collegiate education today. Those debates are urgently important to the nation, to the world, and to this University's mission, and Princeton University must be boldly active within them. Long-term institutions, be they educational or political, can flourish only if they inspire energetic commitment in the short term. Madison knew this. Even ``the most rational government,'' he said, must have the ``prejudices of the community on its side.'' (Fed. 49, Rossiter 315). In his famous debates with Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln called attention to this country's annual celebrations on the Fourth of July. He insisted that the ``cannon which thunders [the] annual joyous return'' of our independence serves to remind us of the basic principles upon which this country is founded and which unite us as a people. [P. Angle, Created Equal: the Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, at 130 (Ottawa); see also id., at 40 (Chicago)]. Civic pride, and the colorful and noisy celebrations that go with it, can reshape self-interest and motivate people to care about their collective future. We, too, at Princeton have traditions of joyous return. We even have cannons--though our most famous one is buried deep in the ground behind Nassau Hall and none of them thunder anymore. But joyous return: We do that very well. ``Going back to Nassau Hall'' is woven into the music and the soul of this place. We go back to Nassau Hall for Reunions, for Commencement and Baccalaureate, for Alumni Day and the Service of Remembrance, and occasionally for special ceremonies like this one. In so doing, we renew the camaraderie that enlivens our commitment to this University, and we rededicate ourselves to the principles for which Princeton stands and upon which it depends. I would not presume to enumerate all of those principles, but prominent among them are these basic convictions: That liberal arts education is a vital foundation for both individual flourishing and the well-being of our society; That residential and extracurricular experience both supplement and reinforce the lessons of the classroom, building character and skills that last a lifetime; That rigorous research and scholarship are indispensable for understanding the human condition and improving the world; That learning, discovery and understanding are valuable not only instrumentally but also for their own sake, as sources of the joy and fulfillment that make a human life worth living; That scholarship and teaching are mutually reinforcing activities--that scholars learn from their students' questions, and that students learn best when they are exposed to, and can participate in, research that extends the frontiers of knowledge; That we must cultivate new generations of talent enthusiastically and unselfishly; That all social and economic groups should have access to the educational resources of this great University and to higher education more generally; That we as a University, and we as alumni, must constantly rededicate ourselves to the nation's service and to the service of all nations; and last, but most certainly not least, That a great university can and should be the heart of an alumni community that not only engages in a lifetime of learning, leadership and service, but that continues to do all it can to sustain, strengthen and nourish this University--ensuring that it can live up to these principles and achieve its highest aspirations through all the generations yet to come. I am honored to accept the presidency of this, our beloved University, and I will work with you enthusiastically to sustain the excellence of what we are doing now, to realize more perfectly the ideals to which we are committed, and to demonstrate by argument and deed the extraordinary value of Princeton University, and of all the colleges and universities that help to bring out the best in the people of this country and this world. Thank you for welcoming me so warmly this afternoon, thank you for coming back once more to Nassau Hall, and thank you, most of all, for your sincere commitment to this place and this community that matter so deeply to all of us. Thank you!