Rush Holt

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to George ``Jerry'' Goodman who died on January 3, and who will be remembered and whose loss will be mourned in New York today. I regret I cannot be there in person to praise my friend. As a leader in the economics and business community, Mr. Goodman was best recognized for his pseudonym, Adam Smith of Adam Smith's Money World, an alias he used for his thirteen year public television program. He understood the complexity of investing and economics, and became an educator to the everyday American investor through his books such as ``The Money Game,'' ``Supermoney,'' and ``The Roaring '80s.'' Like many Americans, I have learned from and valued Jerry's timeless work. He was endlessly curious and interested in many ideas and issues. He has also been acknowledged for his particular style for presenting economic data, and his witty sense of humor brought joy to many. His talent for including humor, even jocularity, remains an Adam Smith's trademark. It is Adam Smith that we have to thank for the well- recognized story known to many economists. The story presents a physicist, a chemist, and an economist stranded on a desert island with no implements and a can of food as their only source of sustenance. The physicist and the chemist each devised ingenious mechanisms for opening the can; the economist merely said, ``It's easy. First, assume there is a can opener!'' His humor only enhanced his explanatory prose. Prior to his Adam Smith days, Mr. Goodman helped start Institutional Investor magazine, served as executive editor of Esquire, and published a popular children's book, ``Bascombe, the Fastest Hound Alive,'' which he claimed was his most widely read work. Jerry used his experience as an intelligence analyst in the Army to write about countless topics for Barron's Time, Fortune, and various other magazines. Jerry, his charming, remarkable late wife, Sally, and I had many fascinating discussions on a huge variety of matters, always enjoyable and illuminating. I also have been pleased to work with his daughter Susannah, who leads Common Cause's national campaign for election reform, on a number of issues to improve the function of our democracy. We continue to benefit from Mr. Goodman's ability to explain complex economic data in a way that we can all understand.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. For 23 years, Congress had an insightful nonpartisan agency aimed at providing Members of Congress and their staff with expert advice on the technological aspects of public policy. It was called the Office of Technology Assessment. From 1972 to 1995, it produced reports on topics that were striking in their relevance even today: computer software security, disposal of chemical weapons, teaching with technology, bioenergy, and many more. OTA was part of Congress, understood the congressional process; it spoke the language of Congress, and it looked at the technological aspects of a large variety of issues and provided clarity where it was needed. Congress turned out the lights on the OTA in 1995 with the thought that congressional agencies like CRS, GAO, also universities and private industry would fill the void. They have not. In the years since the OTA was defunded, our need for its work has grown only more acute. Too often, we have considered or not considered legislation in ignorance of the technological factors. That is why I am introducing an amendment to restore some funding to the OTA. My amendment would reallocate to the OTA $2.5 million appropriated for the House Historic Buildings Revitalization Trust Fund, about 1.4 percent of the surplus in that trust fund. During its 23 years, the OTA produced an amazingly high return on investment, with hundreds of millions of dollars in savings. A study on Agent Orange helped save the government $10 million. An OTA report was the source of recommendations for upgrades in the computer system of the Social Security Administration that led to a savings of more than $300 million. Studies on the synfuels helped save, literally, billions of dollars. When Congress stopped receiving the OTA's counsel, technological topics didn't become less relevant in the political process; they just became less understood, and scientific thinking lost its toehold on Capitol Hill, with troubling consequences for the ways we legislate on all issues, not just on those that are explicitly scientific. I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment in order to give Congress a tool that we desperately need to do the people's work with clarity and reason. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. McDermott), who observed the OTA in action in his time here in Congress.

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), my good friend, a member of the Appropriations Committee, someone who has also observed the OTA in practice.

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chairman, in closing, for almost a quarter of a century, the OTA was one of the most respected, productive, cost- efficient agencies we have seen, producing comprehensive reports for the House and the Senate on issues related to health care policy, agricultural production, telecommunications, space policy, electronic surveillance, national defense, and much more. It prevented decisions made in ignorance, and ignorance is expensive. My friend from Oklahoma and also the ranking member, the gentlelady from Florida, talked about cost. What we are talking about here is finding the low-hanging fruit on making government more efficient. That is what the OTA did. That is what the OTA would do. This is the last Legislative Branch appropriations I will be dealing with. I know the OTA. I worked as a staffer on Capitol Hill. I saw that it works. I saw how much it elevated the debate here on Capitol Hill. It saves taxpayer money. I urge a ``yes'' vote. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, Judge Hastings, for his friendship, his consideration, and his assistance during my time here in Congress. And I am pleased to recognize the very fine Member, my good friend, Representative Cole from Oklahoma. I will speak later, at another time, about the appropriations bill on the legislative branch. I now want to speak in support of the Military Construction, VA and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. For 4 years in a row, the Appropriations Committee has placed in the bill an additional $20 million for suicide prevention and mental health outreach services. Several people have made this possible, starting with my New Jersey colleague, Representative Runyan, who has worked with me very closely and in a very bipartisan way on this issue over the last 4 years. I want to thank the subcommittee chair, Representative Culberson, and Ranking Member Bishop for their steady support of our efforts; and of course to the full committee leaders, Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Lowey, for their support. Since 2012, the committee has increased funding for suicide prevention and outreach by $120 million overall at the request of Representative Runyan and me and other Members who have joined us in this effort, but our work on this issue is far from over. Last week, The Washington Post reported that, while the suicide rates for our Active Duty force have come down in recent years, we have actually seen a tragic increase in suicide rates among our Guard and Reserve and veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs' own statistics show that suicides among veterans have risen from an average of 18 per day in 2007 to about 22 per day, each one a tragedy. And I fear that the number may be even higher than is recorded. I have no doubt that this committee and every Member of this body is committed to reversing this tragic trend, and these additional funds will certainly help. I believe that Congress must now give greater attention to the question of why we are seeing a difference emerging in the suicide rates between our Active Duty force, on the one hand, and our Guard and the Reserve and veterans population, on the other. While this bill will be the last VA appropriations bill on which I work in Congress, I know that other Members who share my concern will carry on this work, and for that, I am grateful. I hope that Congress will authorize a regular permanent increase in funding for mental health and suicide prevention so that these annual appeals for appropriations will not be necessary in the future.

Mr. HOLT. Finally, I would say to anyone who is listening--my colleagues and the public alike--if they know a current or former servicemember who may be in need of help, Vets4Warriors, which is the Defense Department's New Jersey-based peer-to-peer counseling program, can help. The phone number is 1-855-VET-TALK. Calls are free, answered 24 hours a day, staffed by former servicemembers. It is the best lifeline we can offer.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, the Better Off Budget would create 8.8 million jobs over its first 3 years by investing in infrastructure, education, training, and research. It would invest $100 billion in teachers and schools and $81 billion in science. A person or a country invests with the hope and expectation that investing some resources now will give us a better future, give us savings, give us a better quality of life so that we will be better off. America's optimistic outlook has made America great and strong. The Ryan budget is a very pessimistic document. It is based on the premise that we cannot afford to invest in infrastructure and in science and education. We have to cut, we have to shrink, we have to reduce our efforts and hunker down. We can't afford to do things, anything. The wealthiest Nation on Earth should invest as if we have a future. Quite simply, the Better Off Budget invests as if we will have a tomorrow. It ends the absurd, pessimistic cuts of the Budget Control Act and the pessimistic Ryan budget.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, on March 24, 2014, I was not present to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on all votes: H.R. 3060: The Sergeant William Moody Post Office Building in Burleson, Texas; and H.R. 1813: The Lance Corporal Daniel Nathan Deyarmin Post Office Building in Tallmadge, Ohio.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in strong opposition to this legislation that would ignore the poisonous environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining and would attempt to force States to adopt a discredited and vacated midnight Bush administration rule. Mountaintop removal mining is a serious environmental health threat in Appalachia. Companies literally blast the tops off of mountains, scoop out the coal, and dump what is left over--what used to be the mountaintop and the mining residue--into the valley below. In the process, landscapes are scarred; wild habitat is destroyed; mountain streams are buried; fish are killed; and the long-suffering people living in the valleys suffer as they are left with degraded water. It is not simply my opinion or the warnings of a few fringe environmental groups. This is what the science tells us. In a paper published in the journal Science a few years ago--a preeminent scientific journal--dozens of scientists laid this out very clearly. Building on a wealth of recent scientific data from a variety of researchers, they wrote: Mountaintop mining in the valley fills revealed serious environmental impacts that mitigation practices cannot successfully address. Now, the chairman today is talking about detailed procedural matters. He is wrong on that. The real point is the health of the people in the valleys. These scientists described: When streams are buried, water emerges from the base of the valley fills, containing a variety of solutes that are toxic and damaging to biota, and that the recovery of biodiversity in mining waste impacted streams has not been documented. In other words, the recovery that they talk about does not exist in fact. It has not been shown to be possible. Most frighteningly for the people who live with these impacts in their backyards, the scientists write: Adult hospitalizations for chronic pulmonary disorders and hypertension are elevated as a function of county-level coal production . . . They know it comes from this. To continue the quote: . . . as are the rates of mortality, lung cancer, chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease. Hospitalizations, hypertension, lung cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, increased flooding. Water with dangerous concentrations of toxic metals? Yes. That is what the science says. And the destruction of forests and streams. These are the impacts of mountaintop removal mining that Congress should be addressing today. This is what we should be holding hearings on and writing legislation about. We should be making the protection of people and the environment of the Appalachian region our top priority and making the mining companies act responsibly, not just cheaply. But the Republicans, Mr. Chairman, don't seem to want to talk about any of these impacts. They prefer to keep their heads in the sand and the gravel and the toxic waste when it comes to this issue. Instead of the real impacts of mountaintop removal mining, they are focusing on imagined impacts of a rule that hasn't even been released yet. They imagine a war on coal, they imagine a political conspiracy to subvert the rule that the Bush administration put in place in the last minutes of their administration, instead of seeking to guarantee clean water for all Americans. So they spent years trying to uncover that conspiracy, all the while forcing the Department of the Interior to spend tens of thousands of hours of staff time and millions of taxpayer dollars in order to comply with their commands--and now their subpoenas. And they have come up empty. The inspector general for the Department of the Interior confirmed in December there were no political shenanigans. There was no misconduct. There was a poor choice of contractors, yes, and a debate among career staff about the proper way to move forward. Could it have been handled better? Maybe. But there was no misconduct. Meanwhile, the rule put in place by the Bush administration--the very rule that this bill would force States to adopt--was thrown out by a Federal court 2 weeks ago because the real misconduct was from the Bush administration, which decided that it didn't even need to consider the effects that destroying streams and rivers would have on threatened and endangered species. They did not do the consultation that is required under the law. So this bill would overturn the court's decision, forcibly enact a rule that was improperly developed in the first place, and forbid the Obama administration from actually doing something to protect the streams from being buried and to protect the people who live there. This bill would forbid them from actually doing something to protect forests, fish, wildlife, and humans. It would forbid them from actually doing something to protect the health of the people in these communities. This bill would create its own reality through an amendment added at the last minute that would deem the 2008 rule to have met the requirements of the Endangered Species Act that the court said they did not meet. Now ``deem'' is a word that is not in common use. It certainly is a strange word the way it is used here in Congress. By ``deem,'' they mean they would declare in legislation that the Endangered Species Act was observed and that consultation had taken place, even though it wasn't and it hadn't. That is preposterous. I wish we could do the same thing to environmental destruction caused by mountaintop removal mining and to the contaminated water and to the health impacts by simply saying, by legislation, that contamination never happened. Those people were never affected. Their health never deteriorated. They didn't die. But we can't do that. This bill does nothing to protect people from the destructive impacts of mountaintop removal mining. It is strongly opposed by a coalition of environmental groups like the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Parks Conservation Association, and many more. It is not just me standing here talking about it. It is not even just these scientists. It is many more. Once again, I want everyone to understand that the real issue here today is not bureaucratic procedure. It is not even when a rule might have been issued and what went into making up that rule. What is at stake today is safe water for people, the health of the population, and an environment that can save us all. I urge my colleagues to defeat this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the ranking minority member of the Resources Committee.

Mr. HOLT. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to my friend from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth), a champion for people's health, for wildlife and the environment, an outspoken critic of destructive mining practices, and the sponsor of the Appalachian Communities Health-- emphasis on health--Emergency Act, a bill on which I am pleased to join him as a cosponsor.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), my good friend.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), a Member of this body who has been a leader on countless environmental issues, my friend from Virginia who knows the harmful effects that mountaintop removal mining has had in his own State and throughout the Appalachian region.

Mr. HOLT. I would gladly yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), my good friend and colleague from the Natural Resources Committee who has been a leader on standards and enforcement in mining and knows as well as anyone the time and energy that has been wasted in the committee's investigation of this stream protection rule, time that could have been spent protecting the environment and the people's health.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is an actual photograph of actual water coming from an actual mountaintop removal site. I hope that the camera captures the color of the green hills that used to be there and the orange water that is there now. A stream this orange might be good for dyeing Easter eggs but not for drinking. Now, earlier, I referred to the studies by scientists that associated hospitalizations with these activities. I referred to hospitalizations, hypertension, lung cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, increased flooding, loss of habitat, damage to wildlife. The other side, the majority, keeps wanting to talk about procedures, so let's talk about procedures for just a moment. The record is clear. These are the words of the Federal District Court. The record is clear. The 2008 rule may affect or threaten endangered species or critical habitat. Further, the court goes on, the errors in this rule constitute a--in their words--serious deficiency and not merely a procedural defect. Mountaintop removal mining is a serious environmental and health threat in Appalachia. That is what we should be talking about today, not about creating legislation that will deem reality to be different than it actually is, that will declare this stream clear flowing, that will declare these mountains green and verdant, that will declare that the Endangered Species Act was observed when it wasn't, that will declare that this rule will protect the environment and human health when it won't. No amount of legislative deeming will make this reality change. What will make this reality change would be good, strong regulations with good, strong enforcement with an emphasis not on speed and cheapness but on people's health and an environment that can sustain us. That is what we should be talking about. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a most thoughtful and strong spokesperson on protecting our environment and people's health.

Mr. HOLT. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. HOLT. I am prepared to close, as well.

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The other side speaks about technicalities. Is it a technicality to fail to consider the negative impact on wildlife and the environment? Is it a technicality to ignore the harmful health effects for people living in communities near mining operations? Is it a technicality that allows us to sacrifice people's clean drinking water so that large mining companies can save a few dollars as they blow up a mountain? No. These are not technicalities. In fact, the U.S. district court a few weeks ago made it clear these were not technicalities. I will repeat, in their words: the way this was put together is a serious deficiency and not merely a strictly procedural defect. That is why the rule was vacated by the court. We should not be imposing that now. We should be looking after the health of our environment and the health of the people we were sent here to represent.

Mr. HOLT

Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4015, a transparently phony attempt to fix the flawed Medicare payment system. For 17 years, we have neglected to address the erring formula by which we compensate Medicare physicians. By repealing and replacing the inadequate Sustainable Growth Rate, we have the power to improve Medicare for our seniors and more fairly reimburse their health care providers. Today's vote should be about redesigning the Medicare payment structure so that we reward physicians for the quality of health care provided, not the quantity of procedures performed. We should be considering how to transform our health care system to one that encourages value driven care and incentivizes the coordination of critical services to meet the needs of our aging population. But today's vote is not a sincere effort to improve the delivery of care for the nearly 50 million seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicare. In fact, today's vote is yet another attempt to destabilize the private health insurance market and subvert the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans have presented a false choice between jeopardizing access to care for our seniors, or dangerously increasing the cost of health care for all Americans by delaying the Affordable Care Act's individual responsibility provision. Make no mistake: shifting access to affordable health insurance farther and farther out of reach for millions of Americans is not an ``offset''-- it is a scandal. While I support the underlying attempt to replace the Sustainable Growth Rate, I cannot in good conscience vote for this bill because this ``fix'' creates far more problems than it solves.