Doug Lamborn

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona, who's a new member of the committee and understands these issues well, Mr. Gosar. (Mr. GOSAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LAMBORN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a Member who is doing an excellent job of pointing out the need for bringing jobs and production back online in Louisiana and in the gulf, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming).

Mr. LAMBORN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say, I have been listening very closely and I still haven't heard a clear answer as to how $4 billion of additional taxes on energy companies will translate into lower costs at the pump. Now, I don't think it can be done, but I haven't even heard a cogent argument to establish that. So I am still listening, and maybe I will hear that later. At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana, who lives on and represents a district on the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Landry.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to inquire how much time is remaining to our side and if any remains on the other side.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to a new member of the Natural Resources Committee, a member who is jumping in and making an immediate impact on the need for increasing our energy production, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. LAMBORN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, families and businesses across the country are struggling with skyrocketing gasoline prices that in many places have already passed $4 per gallon. Everyday activities, such as commuting to work or taking the kids to soccer practice, have strained family budgets, forcing Americans to make tough choices and sacrifices. Unfortunately, rising gasoline prices are not the only energy crisis currently hurting our country. For over a year, communities along the Gulf of Mexico have suffered through a real and then de facto moratorium on offshore drilling imposed by the Obama administration. The administration's intentional slow-walking of drilling permits has cost 12,000 jobs according to their own estimates. According to economist Dr. Joseph Mason, this could cost over 36,000 jobs nationwide if businesses and their employees are not allowed to return to work soon. Over the past month, the Natural Resources Committee has heard from numerous small businesses in Louisiana that have had to lay off hundreds of people, eliminate benefits and diminish their savings just to try to stay afloat. The bill being considered by the House today will help address all of these concerns. It will put the people and businesses along the gulf back to work by requiring the administration to act on new drilling permits in a timely manner. For Americans across the country who are suffering from rising gasoline prices, this bill acts now to expand American production to help lower costs. H.R. 1229, the Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act, sets a firm time line for the Secretary of the Interior to act on permits. Let me be very clear. Action does not necessarily mean approval. Action simply means that the Secretary must make a decision either to approve or to deny a permit. The bill gives the Secretary 30 days to act, along with two 15-day extensions. This 30-day time frame is consistent with the time line for approving exploration plans, which are far more complicated. A deadline is necessary in order to stop the endless bureaucratic delays and inaction that are currently taking place and to provide companies with some certainty. There are over 50 permitted projects in the Gulf of Mexico that were under way when the Obama administration imposed the moratorium in May 2010. Nearly a year later, over 40 of those same 50 projects have yet to resume work. This bill would give the Secretary 30 days to restart these projects that have already been approved. I want to stress that H.R. 1229 will have an immediate impact on jobs and energy production. Each drilling platform supports 800 to 1,400 jobs. Each permit that is issued translates into several hundred people returning to work. In addition, there are production wells just waiting for permits to resume work, meaning that more American energy could come online within months of a permit being issued. Perhaps most importantly, H.R. 1229 also makes significant safety improvements. U.S. offshore drilling helps create American energy and American jobs, but it must be done in a safe and responsible manner. The bill reforms current law by requiring a drilling company to obtain a permit to drill from the Secretary. Currently, such a permit is not required by law, only by regulation. The bill further reforms the law by requiring the Secretary to conduct a safety review. The bill ensures that all proposed drilling operations must, quote, meet all critical safety system requirements, including blowout prevention, and oil spill response and containment requirements. Finally, this bill establishes an expedited judicial review process for resolving lawsuits relating to gulf permits. This reform ensures that ending the de facto moratorium imposed by the Obama administration isn't replaced by paralyzing and frivolous lawsuits that could take years to resolve. What we will see today during the course of this debate are two very different approaches to America's energy future. Republicans are pursuing an all-of-the-above energy approach to American energy production to create jobs, generate revenue, lower gasoline prices, and strengthen our national security. The Obama administration and congressional Democrats, on the other hand, want to make energy more expensive. Their agenda is to raise taxes to make energy production more difficult and costly. We saw proof of this last Congress when they did everything they could to push through the job-destroying Waxman- Markey national energy tax. Now they are trying to increase taxes on American energy producers. While Americans are looking for solutions to lower gasoline prices, the Democrats' proposals would increase prices even higher. How in the world higher prices and taxes on energy would help Americans at the gas pump is beyond me. It's time for Congress to take steps to end the economic pain in the gulf by allowing people to return to work. It's time to ease the pain of high gasoline prices by expanding American energy production. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation to create jobs, to lower prices, including the price of gas at the pump, and to strengthen our national security. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

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

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 1229.

Mr. LAMBORN

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

Mr. LAMBORN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. While I appreciate what the gentleman is trying to accomplish, the underlying bill already protects the Defense Department's responsibilities in the Outer Continental Shelf of Virginia. So this amendment is totally unnecessary. Because preserving the working relationship between the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior is of great importance to the Virginia congressional delegation and to the Natural Resources Committee, H.R. 1230 already ensures the mutual goals of national security and energy independence by requiring that the lease sale be conducted with stipulations on surface use, as well as additional requirements to make certain that the leases issued in this area would not impact defense operations. I also want to point out that bipartisan support for energy production offshore of Virginia does exist. According to a study by the Southeast Energy Alliance, offshore energy development in Virginia could create nearly 2,000 jobs in Virginia and produce more than one- half billion barrels of oil and 2.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This natural gas is important, because in the last few years the Dominion liquefied natural gas terminal in Baltimore, Maryland, received huge amounts of foreign natural gas. Developing energy production in offshore Virginia could displace foreign natural gas as well as mean more energy for Virginia. Now, in context, one-half billion barrels of oil is enough to fuel all 4 million cars in Virginia for more than 4 years, and 2.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could heat all 3.2 million Virginia households for more than 11 years. And, developing resources off Virginia's coast could generate nearly $19.5 billion in revenues to Federal, State, and local governments. Virginians, along with their Governor, both Democratic Senators, and a majority of the congressional delegation here in Congress, and the city council of Virginia Beach, off of which much of the development would take place, do support offshore leasing and development because they understand it can bring much-needed jobs and revenues to the State. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This bill is the first step for Republicans to bring a new energy policy to this country, the American Energy Initiative. Look at this chart. It says it all. Under Barack Obama and his regulators, the average price of gasoline in this country has gone up from $1.84 a gallon when he took office to just under $4. Under his watch, gasoline has more than doubled. We need more supply, and everyone agrees it should be our own energy, not foreign. Under the law of supply and demand, which my friends across the aisle have not found a way to repeal, more supply means lower prices, in addition to thousands of more jobs for Americans and billions of revenue dollars for the Treasury. H.R. 1230 requires that four promising lease sale areas, three in the gulf and one off Virginia, must be opened up for production. No more stonewalling by this administration and extreme environmentalists. After this bill came out of my committee and the full Natural Resources Committee, this administration belatedly said it would start action on one of these four lease areas. If the only way we can get action is to shame them into it, Republicans will do so. If the administration still refuses, we will do our best to force action by changing the law. This bill is the first step to get gasoline prices down. The American people deserve no less.

Mr. LAMBORN. In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would just point out that the Governor of Virginia supports this, the majority of the House Members from Virginia support this without the amendment, and the Democratic Senators from Virginia have in the past agreed to legislation identical in wording to what this legislation says about offshore activity. So because the offshore activities are adequately and responsibly dealt with in the bill as it is, I would urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, on April 24, 2011, the world will commemorate Armenian Remembrance Day and remember the one-and-a-half million Armenians that endured unspeakable suffering and loss at the hand of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In addition to the loss of so many Armenian lives, the twentieth century also bore witness to the loss of six-million Jews and four- hundred thousand other persons deemed ``non-desirable'' by the Nazis, the loss of millions of lives in Russia and in China by communist tyrannies, and modern day horrors in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur. All too often, we have not learned from past genocides. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states ``No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'' and that ``Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.'' Though nothing changes the fact that mass killings and unspeakable acts of brutality occurred, today I wish to learn from the past to better bring about hope for a brighter, more peaceful future and reconciliation of the people of Armenia and Turkey. Only with a thorough examination of history and open acknowledgement of the past will the plight of the Armenians be fully understood. As we continue confronting atrocities taking place today, and seek to prevent them from occurring in the future, we must also be resolute in acknowledging genocides of the past.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support this rule, H. Res. 174, and the underlying bill, my legislation, H.R. 1076, to prohibit Federal funding of National Public Radio and the use of Federal funds to acquire radio content. It is time for American citizens to stop funding an organization that can stand on its own feet. Long before any of the recent news stories on videos or the Juan Williams fiasco, I sponsored legislation in Congress to pull the plug on taxpayer funding for NPR. I enjoy some programs on NPR, but I have long believed that it can stand on its own. The point at issue is not the quality or content of programming on NPR. The point is not the degree to which Americans support the arts, radio, news, and educational programs. The point today is whether government programs and services that can be funded privately or that are otherwise available in the private sector should receive taxpayer funding. Apart from constitutional concerns, as a country we no longer have this luxury anymore. With the national debt over $13 trillion, the government simply can't continue to fund nonessential services. Let me add that no one can really argue that these programs will disappear if Americans are no longer forced to subsidize them with Federal tax dollars. NPR can survive on its own. This bill will accomplish three things: One, it will prohibit direct funding of NPR. It now receives money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Department of Education and Commerce, and the NEA, among others. Two, it prohibits the use of Federal funds provided to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the payment of dues by local radio stations to NPR. And, three, it prohibits the use of Federal funds provided through Corporation for Public Broadcasting for acquiring or producing programming. Now, local stations could use Federal funds from the corporation for their operating expenses, but they would have to produce their content or acquire it with non-Federal funds. Unemployment is now about 9 percent. When we get Federal spending under control, the economy will be stronger and there will be more jobs. That is why we are doing this. NPR reports that only 2 percent of its funding comes from the Federal Government; however, that is only half the story. NPR local radio stations directly received congressionally appropriated funds that reached $64 million in 2010 alone. Plus, local stations directly receive grants from other Federal sources such as the National Endowment for the Arts. NPR stations then use these taxpayer dollars on licensing fees for NPR programming which goes back to the headquarters in Washington. Taking this indirect funding into account, Federal funds now make up, I would say, closer to 20 percent of their annual budget. But let me be clear. This measure will not prohibit local stations from receiving any funding. It will just not allow them to use taxpayer dollars to pay NPR programming and pay NPR dues. They can do it without Federal dollars by embracing the private sector. I want NPR to grow on its own. I want to see it thrive. Just remove the taxpayer from the equation. I thank the Rules Committee for this resolution. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and to vote ``yes'' on the underlying bill.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. To wrap up, like many Americans, I enjoy much of NPR's programming; but let it live on its own. It can do that simply by changing its business model. Just take the taxpayer out of the equation.

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Madam Blackburn, for your great work that you do on the committee. I introduced H.R. 1076 because the Federal Government can no longer afford to fund programs that are fully capable of standing on their own. This is not about the ideology of NPR executives or the content that NPR produces; but whether, in this age of trillion-dollar annual deficits, taxpayers should subsidize a nonessential entity. Plain and simple, this bill accomplishes three things. First, it prohibits public radio stations from using Federal funds to purchase programming. Current Federal law requires that about 26 percent of Federal grants to public radio stations be used for the production or acquisition of programming. Many stations use these restricted grants to purchase programming from NPR. These programming fees are the largest single source of NPR revenue at $56 million in fiscal year '10. Second, H.R. 1076 prohibits stations from using Federal funds to pay NPR dues: in fiscal year '10, over 400 member stations paid a total of $2.8 million in dues to NPR. Third, my bill prohibits direct Federal fundings of National Public Radio. For fiscal year '10, NPR received over $5 million in direct funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Departments of Education and Commerce, and the National Endowment for the Arts. These three sources of revenues I just described totaled about $64 million in fiscal year '10. Local public radio stations would not be able to use Federal tax dollars under this bill to purchase content, whether it's from NPR or any other vendor. However, under this bill, a station could use other dollars for the payment of NPR dues or the acquisition of programming. Should this bill become law, the prohibition of funds would take effect immediately. But the real issue today is the proper role of the Federal Government with National Public Radio and whether government programs and services that can be funded privately should receive taxpayer dollars. We live in an age of digital radio, computerized digital streaming, commercial all-news radio, and radio talk shows, many of which are also streamed on the Internet or over satellite radio; and these provide sources of news and opinion without Federal taxpayer dollars. NPR should do the same. With the national debt over $13 trillion, the government should simply not continue to fund nonessential services, and this bill is just one step. Long before any firings, videos, and executive comments at NPR, I sponsored legislation in Congress to pull the plug on taxpayer funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR's parent company, as well as NPR. Last year, many of you will remember this issue came up as a YouCut item, and we voted in support of de-funding. Last month, this House passed H.R. 1. Within that bill, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's unobligated funds for fiscal year '11 would be rescinded. When you couple H.R. 1 with this bill, H.R. 1076, we end up with taxpayers having to subsidize National Public Radio. I'm a strong believer in the free market. I'd like to see NPR rework its business model and begin to compete for all of its income. NPR already receives a huge amount of funding from private individuals and organizations through donations and sponsorships. NPR can and should be entirely supported with private sources. In my own State of Colorado, Colorado Public Radio received in fiscal year '10 only 6 percent of its funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Now, according to this bill, Colorado Public Radio is still permitted to apply for and receive Federal grants through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but they cannot use Federal money for the NPR dues or purchasing of content. They could use the other 94 percent of their money to purchase program content. Will this potentially require them to review and reprioritize where money is spent? I'm sure it will. But will it kill its programming? No way. According to NPR, Federal funding to supplement operations amounts to less than 2 percent of its annual budget. Some have said this Congress should not bother with such a small amount of money. Only in Washington would anyone say $64 million is not worth saving. You have to start somewhere if you're truly serious about getting our fiscal house in order. If Congress cannot make difficult decisions in the small areas, how can we even begin to tackle entitlements or other major programs? If we look at the sting video that has received so much attention, Ron Shuler admits that NPR would be better off without Federal funding. There is no need for further debate. NPR does not need taxpayer dollars. We can save a program, or we can save our country. Americans want Washington to get serious about ending our overspending. If we can do that, the economy will get better, and we will have less unemployment and more jobs.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chair, I rise today to call up my amendment at the desk, amendment number 504, which would restore the cuts made to the defense appropriations section of H.R. 1. I am pleased that so many of my Republican colleagues in the House Armed Services Committee supported this amendment and are willing to stand with me against these cuts. HASC Chairman McKeon, Ms. Hartzler, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Forbes, Mr. Miller of Florida, Mr. Wilson of South Carolina, Mr. LoBiondo, Mr. Turner, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Wittman, Mr. Rigell and Mr. Schilling should all be recognized for their commitment to our men and women in uniform. We cannot in good conscience stand by while this body takes an ax to the defense budget. My amendment restores cuts to the Department of Defense to the level authorized by Congress in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. The C.R. contains approximately $516 billion in defense appropriations found in Division A, about $14 billion below the defense appropriations authorized in the 2011 NDAA. We should honor that budget authorization with this amendment. We have watched the Obama Administration develop a pattern of raiding the defense accounts first, not last, as it should be. We have a Constitutional responsibility to provide for the common defense and yet, the Administration sees defense as an account that can be gutted at the expense of our national security. The government has already asked the Pentagon to find $100 billion in efficiencies and to cut $78 billion over the next five years. The cuts proposed in H.R. 1 are just the beginning of a downward spiral. Our government has a constitutional mandate to protect the American people. America must retain her qualitative edge in the world. Weakness will invite aggression and lead to instability throughout the world. As I have said before, I wholeheartedly support finding cost savings through efficiencies in all areas of the Federal Government. In the area of national defense, I believe we must reinvest those savings in other defense priorities such as an effective and robust homeland missile defense system, equipment that increases protection and combat effectiveness for our servicemembers, and modernizing our aging defense infrastructure. As vital as it is to cut our national budget so we can live within our means, my hope and desire is that we do so in a way that does not sacrifice our military capability. Again, I thank my colleagues who have vocally supported this amendment and I ask other Members in the House to do the same.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment to remove taxpayer dollars from Planned Parenthood. In my State of Colorado, the voters passed a State constitutional amendment by initiative about 30 years ago. It said no taxpayer dollars will go to abortion, whether directly or indirectly. We decided in Colorado that because money is fungible, giving taxpayer dollars to an organization that provides abortion, even if they say it doesn't go directly to abortion, does indeed ultimately fund it. This is because that taxpayer money frees up that organization's resources to be moved around on its books. Money is fungible. Taxpayer dollars enable Planned Parenthood to perform abortions, and the sentiment in Colorado is the same as in the rest of America: Americans don't want to use taxpayer dollars for abortions. Until the day comes that Planned Parenthood stops performing abortions, it should not get another penny of taxpayer money. I urge my colleagues to support the Pence amendment. Mr. Chairman, I now yield to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the hard work that the House Appropriations Committee has done in crafting a bill that in so many ways is making the tough choices necessary to bring back fiscal sanity to Washington. I am pleased that they have incorporated a bill that I had earlier filed in this session, H.R. 69, which also would eliminate taxpayer subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. There are a number of well-known accountability groups, such as the Club for Growth, Americans for Limited Government, and National Taxpayers Union, that have all endorsed this end of funding for taxpayer-supported broadcasting. You know, if we go back in time, in 1967, when the Public Broadcasting Act was first enacted, the intent of that act was ``to provide telecommunications services to all citizens in the United States.'' Well, that has been accomplished. That was over 40 years ago. Now we have 500 channels on cable TV. People get Internet access on their cell phones. We have satellite, wireless available around this country. We have so many media options that are available now that were not available 40 years ago. So we have fulfilled the purpose of that Act. Now that Republicans are in control of the House, we're getting serious about getting the budget under control. There is some good programming that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting produces that I personally enjoy and like; but that's not the issue, whether we like it or not. It's whether taxpayers should subsidize this form of broadcasting. When something puts out good quality programming, like the corporation does, they could survive, if they wanted to go into the free market and get funding--whether it's selling advertising or something like that. They are perfectly capable of surviving, and not just surviving but thriving in the open market because they do have some good-quality programming. They don't need to rely on taxpayers. And when you look at what a deep fiscal hole we are in now as a country--for instance, this annual deficit that we are in the middle of right now is going to be $1.6 trillion, the highest in the history of this country. The time has come to end funding for government programs that are no longer necessary. So it's a matter of fiscal responsibility and fiscal sanity that the Appropriations Committee has produced this amendment. It's not against the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; but it's for the taxpayers, saying, You don't have to keep subsidizing something that no longer needs the government crutch that it originally was given. The amount of money we're talking about is considerable. For fiscal year 2011, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting appropriation is $430 million. For next year, it will be $445 million. And President Obama's budget request that was just submitted that we got on Monday asks for $451 million for 2014. That's almost half a billion dollars. When we have $1.5 trillion annual deficits, we have to get our budget in order. And the reason is because, by leaving money in the private sector, that will create jobs. Rather than the government and the favored programs having the money, if that can stay in the private sector, people can invest and create private sector jobs, and those are the jobs that Americans are really looking for. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.