Rush Holt

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I want to follow on the remarks of our colleague from Connecticut. The SNAP program is in jeopardy, which means children's health is in jeopardy, and we should extend the ARRA-created benefits as well as to fully fund, not cut, the SNAP program. My colleague referred to the article this past week in The Lancet, the prominent medical journal. Allow me to quote from that. Many studies have shown positive associations between receipt of SNAP . . . and a lower risk of anemia, obesity, poor health, hospital admission for failure to thrive, and reports of child abuse and neglect. Children aged 5-9 years of SNAP-participating families have better academic outcomes and less obesity than children in nonparticipating families. Between 1961 and 1975, the program was implemented county by county, thus, allowing for comparison across counties that differed only by SNAP availability. In SNAP-available counties there was . . . a significant increase . . . in mean birthweight for both Black and White Americans, compared with those counties where SNAP was not available. As the Speaker knows, that is an important measure associated with infant health. Children of low-income women in SNAP-available counties were less likely to have metabolic syndrome [ill health such as diabetes] in adulthood, and women who had received food stamps during early childhood were more likely to be economically self-sufficient. These are children who had the benefits of SNAP. As adults, they were healthier. This seems, to me, to be a very important point.

Mr. HOLT. The societal benefits of food stamps extend far beyond a temporary reduction of hunger pangs. The benefits last for years--even into the next generation. Why on Earth would we consider reducing support for such an important humane and, yes, economically beneficial program?

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I may hereafter be considered to be the first sponsor of H.R. 139, a bill originally introduced by Representative Markey of Massachusetts, for the purposes of adding cosponsors and requesting re-printings pursuant to clause 7 of rule XII.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, the health care marketplaces are finally open. The only complaint is that people are so eager to learn more about their options and to sign up that too many people logged on yesterday. Now, to hear my colleagues from across the aisle describe this day, you might expect to look out the window and witness the beginning of, as ``Ghostbusters'' once put it, 40 years of darkness--earthquakes, volcanos, the dead rising from the grave, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. Perhaps these warnings were overblown. The start of the Affordable Care Act resulted in exactly zero people locked out of their offices with their paychecks on hold. By contrast, the Republican shutdown has furloughed 800,000 Federal employees. Exactly zero people yesterday were deprived of their annual flu shots because of the Affordable Care Act. In fact, ObamaCare has made preventive care for things like vaccines free, without copay, to insured patients nationwide. By contrast, the Republican shutdown has forced the CDC to halt its annual seasonal influenza program, just as flu season is getting underway. Because of the Affordable Care Act, exactly zero infants yesterday were deprived of healthy food and nutrition information. By contrast, the Republican shutdown has put at risk the entire Women, Infants, and Children program, which provides some 9 million Americans with the support they need to feed their children. The Republican shutdown has also brought to a standstill critical lifesaving biomedical research being conducted at the NIH and NSF. Exactly zero people yesterday went untreated because of the ACA for foodborne illnesses. By contrast, the Republican shutdown has forced the FDA to cease many of its food safety operations. The Affordable Care Act has not ushered in an era of doom and gloom that the Republicans promised. Instead, it has offered hope and opportunity for good health care coverage. Here is the reality: The ACA is helping my constituents who previously found health insurance out of reach. The access provided by ACA is long overdue. Rather than seek delay, we should be embracing it. For years I've been hearing from people like Nicole, from Lawrence, who writes not about the fear of the ACA but, rather, ``the fear that the health care of your family will bankrupt you and that your lack of resources will leave you and your loved ones vulnerable to sickness and death.'' Now, I also hear optimism--optimism--that comes from the options that can now be found in the new marketplace. Just ask Mary, from Princeton, who wrote me earlier this week: Please do not allow the implementation of ObamaCare to be delayed. I've been waiting and waiting for a time when my adult children would be able to afford health insurance. She goes on to say that the health care marketplace has given her ``the opportunity to review plans with them and to assist them to choose the best plan.'' There is the single mother from Scotch Plains who wrote me: I am a registered Republican, and I am embarrassed by all that has been happening for the last few days. The Tea Party and some Republicans keep yelling that they're speaking for the people. Well, they're not speaking for me or anyone I know. ObamaCare must be given a chance. I have been without coverage since my COBRA ended 2 years ago. I was unable to get reasonable coverage at a reasonable rate. I don't want charity; I'm not looking for a handout. I want affordable health care. I've been praying I stay healthy. I'm patiently waiting for the affordable care exchanges so that I can finally try my luck there. Please, please don't let the Tea Party take this away from me and so many others who need it. Now, I wish my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would accept this as the good news that it is. I wish they would accept that their stories of doom and gloom for ObamaCare were wrong. But instead, we're learning that the dire stories were not a prediction, they were a threat. The Tea Party, confronted with the prospect of a duly passed law that has been upheld by the Supreme Court, have thrown a temper tantrum. They have taken hostage the entire Federal Government, and they have sabotaged the process of self-government--all to prevent Americans from gaining access to affordable health care. Let's make the health care law work as well as possible. Let's, together, make our other government services--necessary services--work as well as possible.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. I thank the gentleman. I ask unanimous consent that the House bring up the Senate amendment to H.J. Res. 59, the clean CR, and go to conference on a budget so that we can end this Republican government shutdown that is undermining public health by preventing the CDC from working on its annual flu vaccine or detecting disease outbreaks.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the ranking member of the subcommittee. Now, why, the Republicans say, are we not eagerly endorsing their plan? Now suppose someone comes into your neighborhood, builds a barrier around your house, a fence, locks you and your family out, won't let you in. Two days later, they come to you magnanimously and say we've modified your house; we'll let you into one room. And they can't understand why we don't enthusiastically embrace that deal. That's what you're offering here. Of course we should be funding the National Park Service. Of course we should be funding the CDC and food inspections. Bring up the clean CR and we will do it. Mr. Speaker, today the Tea Party continues its reckless and damaging government shutdown. Yet in an effort to distract from their irresponsibility, they have offered what they claim is a compromise: to reopen only those agencies of government which they deem, for their own political reasons, to be necessary. This notion--that the Tea Party can pick and choose which agencies of government to reopen--proceeds from a false premise. It is based on the idea that the Tea Party, which represents one faction of one party in one house of Congress, possesses the unilateral authority to choose which parts of government are worthy and which are unworthy. This idea is wrong-headed, it is arrogant, and it is astonishingly irresponsible. The members of the Tea Party are not dictators, nor are they inventing a new government from scratch. They are, rather, the latest in a centuries-long line of democratically elected representatives who have, with the people's mandate, established our entire government. Yes, that government includes the functions that the Tea Party today has deemed worthwhile: the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, the National Parks Service, and so on. But it also includes many other functions that the Tea Party has no right to unilaterally reject. Our government includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It includes loans for small businesses seeking to expand and for students seeking to attend college. It includes food safety inspections and public health research and Head Start. It includes grants to help towns build roads, bridges, and schools. It includes public servants who process applications for Social Security and visas and passports. If the Tea Party truly believes that the functions they seek to defund today are unnecessary, there is a clear, democratic process by which they can dismantle them. They could introduce a bill to abolish, say, Head Start. That bill could be considered by this House, by the Senate, and by the President--and if it were to pass and were to be signed, it would become the law of the land. That outcome would be, to my mind, catastrophic, but it would at least be constitutional and democratic. The Tea Party is right about one thing: this government shutdown-- which they demanded, incited, and celebrated--is causing great pain. I hope that they are, as they claim to be, dismayed by the suffering they have created. And I hope they will act upon their dismay by finally bringing to the floor a bill to put the entire government back to work, which the Senate already has passed and the President has promised to sign into law.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, on September 28, I was not present to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted: ``aye'' on rollcall vote 500--H.R. 2848: Department of State Operations and Embassy Security Authorization, FY2014; ``aye'' on rollcall vote 499--H.R. 3210: Making continuing appropriations for military pay in the event of a government shutdown; ``no'' on rollcall vote 498--H.J. Res. 59: On concurring to the in the Senate amendment with amendment #2; ``no'' on rollcall vote 497, H.J. Res. 59: On concurring in the Senate amendment with amendment #1; ``aye'' on rollcall vote 496, H.R. 2251: On motion to suspend the rules and pass, as amended; ``no'' on rollcall vote 495, H.Res. 366: Agreeing to the Resolution--Providing for the consideration of the Senate amendment to joint resolution (H.J. Res. 59) making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and providing for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3210) making continuing appropriations for military pay in the event of a Government shutdown; and ``no'' on rollcall vote 494, H.Res. 366: Ordering the Previous Question, Providing for the consideration of the Senate amendment to the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 59), making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes, and providing for consideration of the bill.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. HOLT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HOLT. While the process of moving this legislation forward has taken some time, it has also demonstrated that Members of both parties, Members of both Houses, can work cooperatively and in good faith to reach bipartisan solutions. This is the sort of legislative action Americans want to see us undertaking. The legislation before us is a version that none of us would write if left to our own devices. Every Member who has worked on this bill, every stakeholder affected by this bill has had to make compromises to achieve a shared goal of maintaining the supply of helium that is important. We have had to make substantive changes to address legitimate policy concerns, and we have had to make technical changes to address parliamentary and budget matters; but we have gotten the job done. I wish we could use this as a model for the continuing resolution, for the debt ceiling, for the farm bill, for so many other things. With the clock ticking, the need to get this legislation across the finish line is urgent. As I said when we considered this bill back in April, helium is not used just to fill balloons. It is critical for MRI, magnetic resonant imagining, machines; it is necessary for preparing NASA rockets for launching; for high-tech manufacturing such as cleaning silicone chips for integrated circuits; and for lots of important scientific research. For many of these applications, there is simply no replacement for helium. Our Nation's Federal Helium Reserve supplies nearly half of the helium used in the United States and roughly a third of all the helium used globally. If Congress fails to pass this legislation by Monday-- the end of the current fiscal year--the Interior Department's authority to continue operating the reserve will expire. If this is allowed to happen, nearly half of America's helium would be cut off creating a crisis--and that's not an overstatement--that would devastate important sectors of America's high-tech and medical economy. H.R. 527 would extend the life of the Federal Helium Reserve past the end of this fiscal year and ensure a fair return to taxpayers on this federally owned resource. It would generate more than $300 million for American taxpayers, according to the Congressional Budget Office. I thank Chairman Hastings, also former Ranking Member Markey and current Ranking Member DeFazio. They deserve enormous credit for moving this legislation forward. This is a good bill that provides a workable solution to a real problem, and I urge its adoption. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Connecticut (Ms. Esty).

Mr. HOLT. Let me ask the chairman if he has additional speakers.

Mr. HOLT. Then I will close with a few remarks, again, with thanks to the chairman; and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I just want to stress how important the operation of the Federal Helium Reserve has been to science, to technology, to manufacturing, to health care in the United States. Three-quarters of a century ago, farsighted legislators began stockpiling helium thinking it might be used for dirigibles and blimps lighter than aircraft. They didn't know what else it would be used for, but they recognized and understood that helium had some very special properties. Additionally, the Federal Helium Reserve--the country's domestic stockpile of helium--has been a good investment for taxpayers. Helium is without a doubt a rare valuable resource, critical to our economic and national security. Because of decisions by Congress in past years, we are now in a position where failure to act in the next 5 days will result in nearly half of America's helium supply being cut off, creating a crisis in health care, in research, in manufacturing, and in many other areas. Here we have an example of where Congress was farsighted and then subsequently shortsighted. Today, I think we are taking wise steps to remedy the situation. It's important that as we make the decisions and the changes that we make with this legislation, that we don't fail to recognize the possible future uses, many perhaps not envisioned, and a possible failure of the market to provide an adequate supply of helium to meet those demands. I know there is an ideology that's prevalent around here that for any commodity, for any human need the market will provide. In fact, it doesn't always. In this case, in the helium over the decades, it would not have had it not been for the Federal reserve. So it is important today that as we are passing this legislation, we remember that it does require within 2 years the development of a long- term helium strategy to secure access to helium and to minimize disruption of a helium supply once the current reserve is shut down. The Federal Helium Reserve over the life of this bill will generate over $300 million for American taxpayers. Now, Mr. Speaker, the definition of a good investment is something that returns considerably more than you put into it. The helium reserve has been a good investment for this country; and, frankly, the Federal Government should be looking for more opportunities to make such investments. If in a few years' time we realize that a Federal Helium Reserve is necessary to secure a long-term domestic supply of helium, then I hope we can work together in the same cooperative manner that we worked on this to make the farsighted investments that legislators made many decades ago to establish a Federal Helium Reserve. I thank my colleagues on the committee, especially my friend from Washington State, Chairman Hastings, for his work on this bipartisan solution. I encourage my colleagues here and in the other body to get this to the President for his signature quickly. I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a member of the Safe Climate Caucus to say the evidence is clear that the Earth's climate is changing and that human actions are the primary cause. Climate change is not something that can be addressed at the last minute. We're governing by crisis with the continuing resolution, the debt ceiling, and the farm bill. This Congress has failed to act or even consider legislation related to climate change because this Congress is stuck in a last-minute way of thinking. Governing by crisis makes it nearly impossible to undertake those actions that require a long-term perspective--those things that are important but not recognized as an immediate crisis. But climate change is immediate. And it is a crisis. Just ask the victims of the droughts, floods, wildfires, and superstorms that are costing American lives and dollars. Ask the victims if this is a crisis. To start dealing with this crisis, we should stop emitting greenhouse gases and wean ourselves from fossil fuels.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, I oppose this flawed continuing resolution, H.J. Res. 59. As the Congress lurches from self-imposed crisis to self- imposed crisis, it is easy to understand why members of the public shake their heads in disgust at the inability of the government to do the important work of America to help Americans. Today we go through another farce--the 43rd time we will vote to stop the Affordable Care Act. It's another gimmick. It's another charade to appease the Tea Party. This bill takes a slightly different tack than the others that have tried to kill health care reform. The attempt to defund Obamacare is tied to the legislation that would fund the federal government. On October 1st, the government will shut down if a budget is not passed before then. One of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, ``We've got to play the game.'' Running our country is not a game. Shutting down the government is not a game. It's the height of irresponsibility. This bill will not become law, I am very sure. The House Republicans know that this is a terrible idea, but they are proceeding with it evidently with the expectation it will fail. But they seem not to care that shutting down the government puts in jeopardy our servicemembers, our veterans, those who are experiencing hard times as our economy is still in the midst of recovery. It puts children's health care in peril. Talk about absurdity. Once again the House Republicans have decided to put party ideology above the needs of the American people. Once again the House Republicans have made senseless accommodations to the callous and vociferous shouting of those who simply don't care how devastating shutting down the government is to Americans. The radical games need to stop. We have played them over and over again. Playing with American lives is not what a responsible government does.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill. I opposed the first farm bill this House considered because of a $20.5 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). I opposed the second attempt to pass a farm bill, because it completely removed the Nutrition title of the farm bill. And I oppose this bill today because the Majority has doubled down on a bad policy with a nearly $40 billion cut to SNAP. Right now, as the U.S. is emerging from a great recession, robust nutrition programs are needed more than at any time in recent history. In New Jersey the number of SNAP participants over a 5 year period has doubled from 437,860 monthly participants in 2008, up to 875,437 participants in June of this year. These families need just a little assistance in order to afford the most basic of needs--something to eat. The Majority here in the House has titled this legislation the ``Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act of 2013.'' Some of my Democratic colleagues have called this bill the ``More Hunger, Less Opportunity Act.'' I personally think we should call the bill before us today the ``Malnutrition Act'' because even though 92 percent of people on SNAP are children, elderly, disabled, or already working, this bill would take the food out of their mouths, hurting nearly 4 million Americans next year. Representatives here in Congress continually punctuate their arguments with assertions that the U.S. is the greatest, most powerful, most wealthy country in the world. Well, the greatest country in the world makes sure that working families, children, seniors, veterans, and the unemployed have the support they need to afford something to eat. It is not simply the existence of wealth and power that makes the U.S. exceptional; it is the willingness to use that wealth and power to help the less fortunate among us. It is the ability of our elected leaders to not just make the rich richer but to make sure that the hungry are fed. I'm sick and I'm tired of these ceaseless attempts to cut spending at the expense of those who can least afford it, but at least I'm not going hungry tonight. With $40 billion in SNAP cuts I could not claim as much for the 4 million Americans who will suffer from the cuts in this bill. In 2011 I joined my wife, representatives from the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, and a local SNAP beneficiary to shop for a week's worth of food with the average weekly SNAP benefit of $31.50. I have always looked at prices when I shop, but never in the past 30 years have I had to watch the budget this closely. I left that experience with a strong reminder of what beneficiaries of federal nutrition programs experience week in and week out. When the House farm bill passed, minus the Nutrition title, the Majority claimed that they were not taking a position, but Democrats opposed the bill because we knew the position of our colleagues. So, thank you Mr. Speaker for bringing this bill to the Floor today, because now all of our constituents across the country can see clearly where every Member of Congress stands in the fight against hunger in America.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, Social Security is one of the most successful programs of the Federal Government. However, many Americans don't realize that the wealthy pay a lower rate on taxable income into Social Security. With Senator Harkin, Representative Linda Sanchez, along with many cosponsors, we have introduced legislation to scrap the wage cap on payroll taxes. Most Americans will, no doubt, think it is more fair that everyone pay the same rate, and the bill would stop the misguided claims that Social Security needs to be changed or scrapped. It would allow increased monthly benefits. It would also provide a cost-of-living allowance that better reflects the actual cost of living for seniors. I ask my colleagues to join us in this effort.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer for the record and the benefit of my colleagues a recent op-ed in the Huffington Post by international affairs expert Jeffrey Laurenti. It outlines a sound broader approach to bringing the tragic civil war in Syria to an end. Although some of the circumstances have changed since he wrote this piece, the wisdom of his analysis and recommendation still shows. [From the Huffington Post, Sept. 12, 2013] Seeking a Viable U.N. Path Forward on Syria (By Jeffrey Laurenti) Public consternation in the United States and abroad about President Obama's planned ``targeted, limited, and effective'' punitive strike against Syria confirms the wisdom of his overall approach to the Syrian crisis the past two years. In facing down the caws from Washington hawks for arming rebels, bombing missile sites, and trying to impose no-fly zone, Obama has gauged perfectly what Americans--and the world--expected of him: restraint. As he acknowledged last week, ``I was elected to end wars, not start them.'' The apparent large-scale use of chemical weapons by the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad certainly adds a new factor to the calculus, both for Obama's personal credibility and international concerns about weapons of mass destruction. It may be enough to sway a critical margin in the Congress to let the president proceed with his planned strike, which we would have to hope might accomplish its objective without widening the war. But there is a good chance the public and Congress will remain immovable and reject any kind of military involvement in Syria. With the prudent counsel that St. Luke (14:32) recorded for political leaders facing possible defeat, the president's team should already be working now on Plan B: an ambitious effort to shut down the Syrian civil war altogether. Perhaps the administration conceives air strikes as the lever to push the Syrian resistance to the long-promised negotiating table with Assad's government. That might be a plausible strategy for wresting peace from the jaws of wider war. But even if this is the game plan, the administration should be laying the groundwork now for the diplomatic denouement to come--which might even help it on Capitol Hill--in the U.N. Security Council. Ah, the United Nations. The institution whose resolutions-- and, by extension, whose Charter restrictions on the use of force--Obama seemed to dismiss last week as ``hocus pocus,'' delighting his right-wing enemies and shocking the political support base at home that won him his party's nomination and the many publics abroad that had cheered his election. (Those most shocked presumably include the Nobel Committee that awarded him its Peace Prize in 2009 for having ``created a new climate in international politics . . ., with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play,'' with ``dialogue and negotiations . . ., preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.'') Ambassador Samantha Power, a committed multilateralist now representing America at the United Nations, last week declared, ``there is no viable path forward in this Security Council.'' If the path we want the Security Council to travel is authorizing a U.S. military strike against Syrian government forces for the grotesque use of chemical weapons, she is likely right that Russia and China would vote no. But even so, simply securing a nine-vote council majority would itself indicate to the Congress and American people that the red line that U.S. action would be upholding is the world's, not just Obama's. And it would justify a General Assembly call for limited military action, giving the gold- standard international legitimation when discord paralyzes the Security Council. Perhaps those votes are just not there. President Bush abandoned the effort to win a Security Council majority for his planned invasion of Iraq when he couldn't get more than four votes. But that was surely the canary in the mineshaft in 2003, warning against what proved to be a disastrous war. There is another viable path that the United States could usefully pursue right now, taking advantage of both the shock of the Ghouta gas attack and the fears of a U.S. strike's unintended consequences. It could take a page from the Security Council's first successful initiative as the Cold War wound down: its Resolution 598 that forced an end to the Iran-Iraq war (in which, coincidentally, Iraqi gas attacks against Iranians also figured). These might be core elements of such an initiative: A demand for an immediate ceasefire by all forces in Syria--the government and the various insurgent factions-- with a short deadline for compliance; Imposition of full-spectrum sanctions, especially on arms, on any party that refuses to comply with the cease-fire; A summons to the Damascus authorities, the Syrian National Council, and other relevant parties to attend the much- postponed Kerry-Lavrov-Brahimi peace conference, to be convened within 30 days, and to negotiate in good faith; Dispatch of a capably sized United Nations ceasefire monitoring force to oversee the ceasefire, investigate and report violations, and protect U.N. weapons inspectors; Establishment of a U.N. commission of inquiry to determine responsibility for the Ghouta attack and any other reported chemical weapons use, with a demand that the government and, in rebel-dominated territory, insurgent groups permit full, unfettered access for U.N. weapons inspectors to undertake their investigation of sites of alleged attacks--much as Resolution 598 created a commission to certify officially who had started the Iran-Iraq war (surprise conclusion: Saddam); Referral of the commission's findings of responsibility for chemical weapons use to the International Criminal Court, or less ideally an internationally vetted Syrian tribunal, for criminal prosecution; A demand that Syria declare to U.N. inspectors its chemical weapons stocks for their provisional surveillance; A reaffirmation of the need to kick-start the delayed conference on elimination of weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East that was promised at the 2010 nuclear nonproliferation treaty review conference. It does not help President Obama's global credibility for Washington to appear to disdain the U.N. inspectors' pending report--especially when his one Western partner, France, now insists on waiting for it And it is certainly awkward for the president to hold the moral high ground when the pope is leading prayer vigils and writing to world leaders decrying the planned attack. It may be that the world community places a thicker red line on unilateral use of force than on punishing poison gas. All the more reason for having Plan B in place to pick up the pieces.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I am an original co-sponsor of this legislation and look forward to its passage by the House. One of the most important services our State Department Special Envoys perform is to help highlight the concern of the American people for specific, often troubling, developments beyond our shores. Such is the case and the need where issues of the persecution of religious minorities are concerned. During my tenure in Congress, I have heard from many of my constituents on the scope and brutality of state-sponsored or state- sanctioned persecution of religious minorities. Whether it has been Coptic Christians in Egypt, Baha'i in Iran, Falun Gong in China, or Muslims in Burma, the story is always the same: a violent element of the majority religion--or in China and Iran, the state itself--commits the most horrific acts of violence against religious minorities in their midst, including the destruction of the sacred places of those religious minorities. Our government must do more to help combat this insidious evil, and one mechanism for doing so is creating and properly funding this position. As a nation founded by religious minorities seeking a safe haven in a new land, we have both a history and an obligation to do all in our power to protect the rights and the lives of religious minorities around the world. Creating the position of Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia is one important step in making good on that commitment. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this bill.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today we are considering H.R. 761, the so-called National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act of 2013. Now, despite the bill's title, it has almost nothing to do with national strategic and critical minerals production. In fact, under the guise of promoting the development of minerals critical to the United States' national security, this legislation would reshape mining decisions on public lands for almost all minerals. Mr. Chairman, the bill's classification of ``critical minerals'' is so broad that even sand and gravel and other such things can fall under its definition. Critical and strategic minerals? The Democratic amendments we will consider today will attempt to tailor this legislation to cover only minerals that are truly critical and strategic and will address the egregious provisions that would truncate important environmental review. Make no mistake, this bill is a giveaway. It is free mining, no royalties, no protection of public interest, exemption from royalty payments, near exemption from environmental regulations, near exemption from legal enforcement of the protections. And it's unnecessary. There is a real debate that we could be having about the mining laws in this country. It should start with reforming the mining law of 1872, which is as archaic as its name suggests--the mining law of 1872. We should be discussing abandoned mine reclamation. We should be discussing ensuring taxpayers a fair return on industrial development of our public lands. Mr. Chairman, in the Natural Resources Committee markup on May 15 of this year where H.R. 761 was reported out on a nearly party line vote, the committee also reported two other bills on a bipartisan basis, two other bills that would lay the groundwork for developing critical and strategic mineral production. Those bills, H.R. 1063, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Policy Act of 2013, and H.R. 981, the RARE Act, were unanimously reported out of the Natural Resources Committee and legitimately would be worth debating here in the House as part of any serious effort to improve our understanding of critical strategic mineral deposits and to aid in their development. We reported out bills on a bipartisan basis that would do what this legislation purports to do. We could be discussing those bills. Instead, we're taking up legislation which is a giveaway. The legislation we could be dealing with would actually deal with strategic and critical minerals. Now, if the majority were to bring it to the floor, I'm sure it would pass in an overwhelming, bipartisan way and would likely be passed by the other body and signed into law. In fact, in the last Congress, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Policy Act--not to be confused with the Production Act that we are considering today--was supported by the National Mining Association. The president and CEO of the National Mining Association issued a statement when that bill passed out of committee last Congress, and he said: ``The House Natural Resources Committee took important bipartisan action today to ensure U.S. manufacturers, technology innovators, and our military have a more stable supply of minerals vital to the products they produce and use.'' He went on to say that legislation, ``will provide a valuable assessment of our current and future mineral demands and our ability to meet more of our needs through domestic minerals production.'' We could be considering legislation like that. We should be able to work in a bipartisan fashion when it comes to improving our supply of rare-earth minerals and other strategic minerals and ensuring that we are not dependent on China and other nations for their supply. But the majority seems to be not interested in that. Evidently, they don't want to work in a bipartisan fashion to produce legislation that all sides out there in the country, in industry, people who look after public lands and the environment could agree on. Instead, they're moving this bill, H.R. 761, which has almost nothing to do with strategic minerals, is really about giveaways to the mining industry. This bill would be a Trojan horse if it were to become law; however, it has no chance of becoming law. Maybe the American people should be grateful we won't pass this giveaway, that the American people--I say, those American people who don't stand to get rich by this mining giveaway. But can the American people really feel good that we're wasting time and actually not looking after the critical and strategic minerals that American products, American defense depends on? Why are we playing these games? Why, I should say, are they playing these games with our legitimate needs to develop strategic minerals? We should be working in the kind of fashion that led to last year's bill. The majority should shelf this giveaway to the mining industry and bring to the floor serious proposals that we could honestly debate as part of a legitimate bipartisan discussion regarding rare-earth policy and supply. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. May I inquire of the time remaining, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. HOLT. I thank the Chair, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, I will repeat. This bill is a giveaway. It is free mining, no royalties. I referred to the archaic legislation that goes by the archaic name of the Mining Act of 1872 which excuses miners from royalty payments. That would apply here. And as for excusing the miners from environmental regulations, the legislation says that the lead agency shall determine that a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of human environment has not occurred or is not occurring. In other words, the mining activities are excluded from, excused from, the triggering language of the Environmental Policy Act. No significant environmental policy review would be undertaken under the National Environmental Policy Act if the agency can say, Well, the State is doing something; the State is doing something, whatever that may be, however adequate that may turn out to be. So I call that a relaxation, if not an exemption, of environmental protection. And I repeat, these mining activities do not allow for a fair return to the taxpayer, the owners of this land, for the use of this land. And under this, we could call anything at all strategic and critical. Yeah, sometimes the military might need to build a runway or extend a runway, but to say that the sand and gravel that's necessary to do that becomes strategic is a real perversion of the idea of strategic and critical. So let's deal with those things that we need for aircraft engines and powerful magnets, lanthanum and neodymium and gadolinium and dysprosium and these other so-called rare-earth elements, some of which are actually not so rare, but they're dispersed and, therefore, hard to mine and hard to get adequate quantities of them and some of which are truly rare. Let's deal with the legislation that makes those available for manufacturing needs, for national security needs, rather than having a catch-all mining definition that excuses any kind of mining from royalties and from environmental regulation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This legislation is fundamentally a solution in search of a problem. Now, according to analysis of data provided by the Bureau of Land Management for hardrock mines on public lands, for which there is complete data, the average time it takes to approve a plan of operation for a mine has actually decreased under the Obama administration. We do not need a relaxation of regulations in order to speed things up. According to the BLM data, plans of operation for hardrock mines are being approved roughly 17 percent more quickly under the Obama administration than under the previous administration. Thank you, President Obama. And despite the majority's claims, 82 percent of plans of operation for hardrock mines are approved within 3 years under the Obama administration. Now, the mining company will say, oh, 3 years, that's so long. Well, according to the BLM ``it takes, on average, 4 years to approve a mining plan of operation for a large mine, more than 1,000 acres on public lands.'' Now, my colleagues on the other side have asked repeatedly what the problem is with their legislation that would truncate and eviscerate proper review of all mines on public lands if the majority of plans are approved within 3 years. Well, it's because a little more than 15 percent of hardrock mines take more than 4 years to approve. For these mines, where mining companies may not have submitted a complete application, or may not have posted sufficient bond to ensure that the mine is cleaned up after the work, or where additional environmental review is required because the mine is large or potentially damaging to our environment and to public health, this bill would prevent proper review. We're already approving hardrock mines more quickly under the current administration than under the previous administration. We should not be eviscerating proper review of virtually all mining operations on public lands, including sand and gravel, I repeat, as this Republican bill would do. We should certainly not be doing it under the pretense of developing critical and strategic minerals. Now, the other side likes to cherry-pick. They cherry-pick one statistic out of a report, without having, apparently, read the rest of the report. If you look at the full report by the international consulting firm Behre Dolbear, it states that ``permitting delays are a global issue'' and that ``the business environment will likely favor firms that aggressively take a proactive stance concerning societal and environmental issues.'' Plans under the current administration, under the current BLM, plans of operation for hardrock mines are being approved roughly 17 percent more quickly than previously. They say that the United States is last, ranked last, in mining. No. What they fail to note is this very report says that the United States is one of the most attractive countries in the world for mining, sixth, to be precise, sixth most attractive. We are number six in the world when you take all factors into consideration and all countries into consideration. Yet my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to cherry- pick and say that the United States is so unfair to the mining interests that we have to give them a break, that we have to give away all of these mining resources on the public's lands, with no royalties and very few questions asked. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume. My friend on the other side of the aisle says that, evidently, the agencies that are reviewing these massive projects, projects that can permanently degrade the environment, permanently degrade the environment, hurt public health, affect communities, they're doing it just to be mean to the mining interests. No, I don't think so. They are charged with protecting the lands that belong to Americans, the health of Americans, and the long-term welfare of the communities. Now, as for China, let's talk about China. We should be talking about China. We should be concerned about what happens to the rare-earth minerals around the world and in this country being locked up by China. Talk to any business searching the venture capital community for start-up funding, and one of the first things that they will be asked is, what is your China plan, because if you don't have a China plan, you won't be very successful. The bill that we're considering today, once again, shows that Republicans, in their eagerness to have giveaways for the mining industry, are wandering in total darkness when it comes to developing a strategy for dealing with China. In the Findings section of the bill before us it says: The industrialization of China and India has driven demand for nonfuel mineral commodities, sparking a period of resource nationalism exemplified by China's reduction in exports of rare-earth elements. True. And these are the rare-earth elements that are necessary for telecommunications and military technologies and health care technologies and conventional energy and renewable energy technologies. So what would this bill do about China's export restrictions? What would this bill do to ensure that China not restrict exports of rare-earths to us, or that we keep the rare-earth elements in this country to be used as strategic input to these strategic industries? Nothing. I have news for my colleagues. We do, in the United States, produce rare-earth. We mine and concentrate rare-earth elements. The Molycorp facility in California mines one of the richest rare-earth deposits in the world. They're ramping up to 40,000 tons of production by next year. That will be a quarter of the global production. But guess what? Guess where they are sending much of that production? Yes, China. That's right. Our rare-earths will go to China to be refined into alloys and metals. And there they will stay, if the Chinese Government so determines, for Chinese high-tech manufacturers. What are we doing about that in this legislation? Nothing. So why are we doing this legislation first when the bigger problem is how are we going to have a reliable supply of these strategic minerals. The Republican solution is, China, we waived our environmental laws. We're going to turn these out faster and faster from these public lands that belong to the American people. We'll send them to you, China, so you can refine them. And please send them back to us. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. I have no further speakers, and I yield myself the remaining time. In closing, let me just repeat what we've heard over and over. This is unnecessary. It's not dealing with the real problems first. It is a giveaway to the mining industry to exempt them from regulations, to exempt them from paying a reasonable royalty to the American people for use of the American people's lands. It would alter nearly all mining operations on public lands in the United States by reducing or even eliminating review under the National Environmental Policy Act. It would change these mining operations not just for these rare-earth elements but for copper, uranium, sand, and gravel. The Interior Department testified this legislation would remove many of the environmental safeguards for almost all types of hardrock mines on public lands, bypass evaluation of potential impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act, and limit public involvement in agency decisionmaking. Can that be a good idea--to eliminate all those things and not actually deal with the production and supply and availability of strategic minerals? The authors of the bill say it's needed ``because it could take a developer years to get all government permits in place.'' Well, that's up to the developer to get those in. And it's up to the government agencies to make sure they do it in a way that protects the public health, protects the public lands, protects the future of communities that would be affected by this. This bill is not about fixing delays, but really about preventing proper environmental review and safety and public health reviews. We should be updating the Mining Act of 1872. We are a century or a century-and-a-half late in updating that mining law. Maybe there was a time in the 19th century where we wanted to send people out to develop the great expanses of the western United States and give them carte blanche. We've come a long way since then. We should get up to date here in the House of Representatives. We should be dealing with the hundred thousand known abandoned mines that are a danger to people and to the environment. Promoting the development of minerals that are critical to core national priorities and that are genuinely susceptible to disruptions should be an area where both sides, Republicans and Democrats, can work together. Instead, we're dealing with special interests, giving them free rein in a handout. I urge my colleagues to reject this misguided bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.