Doug Lamborn

Mr. LAMBORN

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

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Speaker, under normal circumstances, the programs under the jurisdiction of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee bring in the second-highest revenue to the Federal Treasury, provide opportunities for American job creation, and contribute to our Nation's economic and national security. However, the Obama administration is crippling American energy and mineral production through restrictive new policies, rules, and regulations. President Obama's de facto moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has left many thousands of people out of work. Since last spring, the administration has issued only a handful of new shallow water permits, and they have issued no new permits for deepwater leases. Why are no new permits being issued? The reason is simple: it's regulatory confusion. The administration is attempting to create new rules for oil and gas permitting and has repeatedly changed the rules and moved the goal posts on companies operating on both Federal lands and waters. Instead of thoughtful, reasoned rulemaking that seeks public comments and engagement, the administration unilaterally directed the change of over 14,000 engineering requirements. The Louisiana Secretary of Natural Resources has said the changes would not enhance safety but, instead, ``creates a regulation with increased safety risks, mandates that cannot be met, and too many ambiguous and unenforceable requirements to count.'' This same regulatory uncertainty is happening all over the country. Take the Western United States. While the administration has announced that solar energy is one of its highest priorities, it has once again created tremendous regulatory confusion. The new solar energy zones proposal, while potentially helping some solar development, has left dozens of major energy projects and many jobs with no regulatory path forward. The regulatory confusion on Federal lands is even worse for onshore oil and gas production. Rule changes and regulations have cost billions in lost investments in the West. In my home State of Colorado, there's been nearly a 90 percent drop, a 90 percent drop in new leases on Federal land. A recent study by the respected Western Energy Alliance has documented $3.9 billion in investment that was diverted from the West in 2010 because of red tape and overregulation by the Department of the Interior. The Western Energy Alliance estimates this lost investment could have helped create upwards of 16,000 jobs in the West. And these are high-paying jobs. The administration is now examining how to impose Federal regulations for the first time on hydraulic fracturing on Federal lands. This proposal would duplicate State permitting and create an unnecessary obstacle for American energy development. Finally, no discussion of burdensome regulations would be complete without addressing the administration's war on coal. Nowhere is this effort more evident than their effort to rewrite current surface mining rules. The current rule was the result of years of environmental review, public comment and hearings, and responsible rulemaking. The administration is now purposefully limiting public comment opportunities and rushing forward with a rule that, by its own admission, will cost thousands of jobs. Even worse, the Obama administration recently pulled a permit 3 years after it was approved for a coal mine that was already hiring people. What sort of confidence can anyone have in an administration and its regulatory environment when issued permits can be stripped away at whim?

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, to conclude, this resolution asks us to focus on the impacts of restrictive regulations just like these, and that is what we plan to do. We will focus on how we can clear away these regulatory hurdles to create a path for energy security, lower energy prices, help for balancing our budget, and, most of all, more high-paying energy jobs for Americans.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the leadership of my friend and colleague, Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey. He is such a leader in this vital area of life. All who are pro-life in Congress look up to him. Mr. Speaker, my heart breaks when I think about the children who are now a part of a missing generation, a generation whose contributions to society we will never fully know, a generation whose lives could have inspired their families, Nation, and world had they been allowed to live. Our society now discriminates against these tiny human beings, who should receive the same protections as other persons. Not only does abortion strip the world of human lives; it also dramatically affects the lives of mothers, leaving them to deal with the emotional aftermath of this brutal procedure. I commend the work of pregnancy care centers across the country that provide needed services to both mothers and their children. Today I mourn the over 50 million American lives cut short by abortion since Roe v. Wade and pray that God continues to heal those touched by this tragic practice. I will remain steadfast in the fight for the rights and dignity of the unborn. Every human deserves the opportunity to live, and I will always fight to guard the rights of the unborn. I am dedicated to protecting the sanctity of human life, from the unborn to the elderly. Like a majority in the House today, I made good on a campaign promise and voted to repeal the job-destroying health care law known as ObamaCare. There were many reasons for my vote to repeal, but one of my main reasons was that the bill did not adequately protect life. You will recall President Obama signed a well-intended, but ineffective, executive order stating that no Federal tax dollars could be used for abortions under ObamaCare. We need that commitment written into law. That is what I will fight for. Tomorrow, the House will vote on a resolution directing the appropriate House committees to start working on legislation to replace ObamaCare with patient-centered commonsense reforms. Like many Americans, I want to see health care reform that, among other things, includes statutory language prohibiting taxpayer funding of abortions and provides conscience protections for health care providers. During my time in Congress, I have sponsored, cosponsored, or supported many bills related to protecting the unborn, the family and traditional values. One such bill I supported last Congress was H.R. 227, the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being and that life begins at conception. I became an original cosponsor of similar legislation, H.R. 212, which was just introduced. Additionally, I am a member of the Values Action Team and the Pro- Life Caucus. Through these groups I work with my pro-life colleagues in Congress to advance legislation and initiatives that support life and family. One day in the future, and I don't know soon or how long it may take, I believe with all my heart that this country will have a renewal of respect for life, including for the unborn.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this historic effort to bring back our health care system from the grip of a massive, unprecedented government takeover. Overwhelmingly, my constituents in Colorado, like the majority of Americans, know that ObamaCare increases costs, explodes the deficit, raises taxes, hurts job-creators and, most importantly, gives the government control over personal health care decisions. To force every American to buy a private product like health insurance is unconstitutional. By using budgetary gimmicks, like counting 10 years of tax hikes against 6 years of spending, Democrats rigged ObamaCare to get a misleading score from the Congressional Budget Office. Realistic accounting shows that this law is a budget buster. ObamaCare creates so much new bureaucracy and spending that it took 2,800 pages to create it while the bill to repeal is only two pages. Republicans will work to craft better solutions that empower patients and families to make their own health care decisions.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Article VII: ``The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.''

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Mr. F. Mike Miles-- the Superintendent of Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Mike is an innovative educator who has brought sweeping changes to the students and teachers in his district. Our local newspaper, the Colorado Springs Gazette notes, ``local and state educators are watching because Miles is in the vanguard of educators nationwide who are using controversial techniques in an attempt to turn around failing schools.'' Most recently, Miles implemented the most rigorous and innovative pay-for-performance plan in the Nation. Mike, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, was one of eight children born to retired Army Sergeant Major Floyd Miles and his wife, Chiyo. Mike and his siblings worked hard in school and promised their father when he deployed to Vietnam that they would all graduate from college. All of them did. After graduating as valedictorian from Fountain-Fort Carson High School, he earned a degree in engineering from West Point, where he was eighth in his class. He then joined the ranks of the officer corps at Fort Lewis, Washington, where he served in the Army's elite Ranger Battalion and commanded an Infantry Rifle Company. During a night training exercise at Fort Lewis, Mike was nearly killed in a C-130 crash. The fuselage of the plane split open as the plane skidded 200 yards and embedded in the desert floor. Mike recalls, ``I felt my hand break, in three places, and smelled dirt and was knocked unconscious.'' He was buried under the dirt with only his arm showing. Two fellow rangers dug him out and helped him crawl from the wreckage as the plane exploded into flames. After the Army, Mike studied Slavic languages at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Leningrad in Russia. Mike then pursued advanced study of Soviet affairs and public policy at Columbia University after being selected as a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities and winning a National Science Foundation Graduate Scholarship. Mike graduated from Columbia University in 1989 and joined the U.S. State Department as a Presidential Management Intern. He handled a portfolio usually reserved for more senior officials at the Soviet Desk, making policy recommendations and writing talking points for the Secretary of State regarding German reunification, chemical weapons, NATO, and other issues. While at the State Department, Mike became a Foreign Service Officer. As a diplomat in Warsaw, Poland, Mike tracked Poland's evolving relations with Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe. He analyzed the strength of the post-Communist Party, correctly predicting its return to political power in 1993. A tour in Moscow followed. As special assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Mike helped coordinate the Embassy's response to critical events during a time when Russia's relationship to the U.S. in a post-Cold War world was as yet undefined. He received the State Department's Meritorious Service Medal in 1994. The Cold War largely won, Mike and his family decided to return home. He honored his commitment to continue to serve the public interest and entered the field of education. Mike has assumed leadership roles to raise academic standards in his school district and the State of Colorado. Mike also serves as an educational consultant and motivational speaker for school districts and other public organizations around the State. He is recognized as an accomplished practitioner of curriculum alignment, organizational effectiveness, and systems thinking. Over the past 5 years Mike and the Harrison School District Two School Board have been on a quest to turn around the chronically underperforming Harrison School District Two. More than 70 percent of the 11,300 students are living below the poverty line and many are at risk of dropping out. Their systemic reforms of the school district include: Developing and implementing a rigorous pay-for-performance evaluation system; Changing the recruitment paradigm by identifying teacher candidates early and investing in their training and preparation in return for a commitment to teach in the school district; Piloting a Year 2020 curriculum in a middle school and high school in which students learn critical thinking, information literacy, economics and globalization, math and science reasoning, Chinese, and the arts; Developing principals and instructional leaders who are held accountable for improving the quality of instruction and raising student achievement; and Creating a culture of instructional feedback in which classroom instruction is observed and effective feedback is given regularly and consistently. The district cites these other achievements during Mike's time as superintendent: District removed from state academic probation; Significantly improved test scores; Decreased the minority achievement gap; Improved teacher effectiveness, including removing ineffective, tenured teachers from the district; and Created the only public year- round school in the area. Despite enormous resistance from the teacher's association in the district, Mike and the school board have not backed down from putting children first. I admire his focus and fortitude in fighting for the school children of Colorado Springs. I commend him for his success and urge professional educators across the country to study his record of success as they look for ways to better educate our young people. Mike is married to Karen Miles, and they have three children: Nicholas, Madeleine, and Anthony. Madam Speaker, I thank you for allowing me this opportunity to pay tribute to Mike Miles for his success in improving the lives of our children.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I, too, am concerned that repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell would have a profoundly negative impact on the readiness and effectiveness of our military, particularly among our front line combat forces. The survey on repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell was fundamentally and fatally flawed. Rather than asking the question, ``Should the law be repealed?'' the survey presumed the law would be repealed and asked how our Armed Forces would implement the presumed change. Additionally, the survey itself did reveal widespread concern about overturning the current law, but it was largely ignored in the mainstream press coverage. For example, among personnel who said they have served with a leader they believed to be gay or lesbian, 91 percent of those who believe that this affected unit morale say that that impact was mostly negative or mixed. And 67 percent of our frontline marines in combat arms units predict working alongside a gay man or lesbian will have a negative effect on their unit's effectiveness. We must not ignore the concerns of our combat troops. It is irresponsible for Congress to fail to pass a defense authorization bill for the first time in almost 50 years and at the last minute attempt to pass a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell to placate some within the Democrat liberal base. The United States military is not the place for social experiments. Congress should be focused on ensuring that our brave men and women have the resources they need to protect this great Nation instead of playing partisan games.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the MITRE Corporation on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary of their Colorado Springs site. It is a pleasure and privilege to honor MITRE for its dedicated services to the Colorado Springs community and to the United States of America. The MITRE Corporation was founded in 1958 on the premise that the government needed a corporate partner to provide technical expertise in systems engineering and integration. MITRE was born out of the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its founding principle was to produce quality expertise for the government by drawing on the best in both the commercial and public sectors to solve the nation's most difficult technical problems. MITRE joined the nation and Colorado Springs community to help with the challenges of standing up the new North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and engineering capabilities for its operations including the Cheyenne Mountain complex. Over the years, the Colorado Springs site has been a vital part of the development and testing of countless critical sensor systems, data link systems, and command and control systems. From its development of space and missile warning methods in the 1960's to its recent work on the integration of Space, Cyber, and Missile Defense capabilities, MITRE has spent the last fifty years providing essential services to the defense community of the United States. Today, the MITRE Colorado Springs Site consists of 180 engineers, scientists, researchers, analysts, and support staff providing a wide range of development and engineering expertise to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, United States Northern Command, the Air Force Space Command, Missile Defense Agency, Electronic Systems Center, and Air Force Academy. MITRE has earned an international reputation for technical excellence and innovation. Their local employees devote themselves to serving the public interest as well as contributing community service throughout the Colorado Springs community. Madam Speaker, on behalf of the United States Congress, I am proud to honor one of America's true corporate leaders, the MITRE Corporation and its Colorado Springs site, for their fifty years of service to the defense community of Colorado Springs and across the United States. I wish everyone at MITRE the best for continued success.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor ``Wait No More'', an adoption and foster care awareness program that is a part of Focus on the Family and displays exceptional service to our nation's children. Focus on the Family has long believed that all children deserve to know the joys of a permanent, loving family. At its very core, Wait No More believes in the value of all human life, and this guiding principle led to the creation of the Wait No More program. The goal of Wait No More is to raise awareness of, and recruit families for, waiting children in foster care. Its mission is straight forward--``Finding Families for Waiting Kids''. While the need for orphan care and adoption exists all around the world, Wait No More focuses on the needs right here in our own communities. Wait No More held its first recruitment event in November of 2008 in Colorado Springs, a community within my district in Colorado. That one event has since blossomed into numerous other recruiting events around the country, drawing over 4,300 people from Los Angeles, California to Cincinnati, Ohio, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. To date, over 2,400 families have benefited from Wait No More through its services of adoptive and foster family recruitment, post-placement support, and local foster care agency engagement. Of those, more than 1,100 families have initiated the process of adoption from foster care. Furthermore, based in no small part to the efforts of Wait No More, the number of children who are waiting for placement in Colorado has dropped from over 800 to less than 400. By the end of today, 850 children will have entered the foster care system, many of whom have suffered from abuse or neglect. By week's end, 4,250 children will find themselves on the beginning of their journey through the foster care system. However, due to the extraordinary efforts of the dedicated individuals at Wait No More and Focus on the Family, new families across the country are now waiting with open arms to welcome these children home. I consider it a great privilege to represent the district that is home to Wait No More. I rise today to show my gratitude to Wait No More for its efforts in bringing hope to children and families both in Colorado and across the nation.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the gentleman, Representative Trent Franks from Arizona, and I thank Steve King for making some good points about Iran and the mistakes made by this administration in canceling the third site. And I was with the group that went and talked to the people in Warsaw and Prague, and they were not happy. They put the best face on it. They knew it was inevitable, but they were not and are not happy. And, yes, there are attempts to contain Iran with a theater defense, and that's good as far as it goes. But theater defense for missiles against missiles is not the same as defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles. And that's what we would have had with the ground based interceptors in Poland. So, yes, I do like that we will have Aegis ships with theater missile defense missiles on them in places around Iran. I'm troubled by the role of Turkey. I think they are not as stable of an ally as they once were under their current leadership. And I'm not sure they're very dependable these days. I hope they become more so. But Iran is developing threats that will go beyond our theater defenses faster than we will have intercontinental protection in place. So they will be able to go beyond our theater defenses before we have intercontinental defenses. So their threat is emerging faster than our defenses will be put into place. And that is what concerns me about the phased adaptive approach, which is the theater defense in the alternative to the third site that would have been in Poland. And I yield back to the gentleman from Arizona, who is an expert on these issues

Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding. I would like to say that this administration has not done enough with North Korea. Some good efforts have been made, but much more needs to be done and much more needs to be done with Iran. I am particularly appalled that we did nothing in the last year, when the Green Revolution started, when the fraudulent election took place, Ahmadinejad was reelected as President. There was rampant fraud throughout the country. It was obvious to any observer, and the people of Iran were offended and resented that and they rebelled and took to the streets. We did nothing to support them. That would have been, and maybe still is, the best way possible to overthrow this murderous regime in Tehran. But we are doing nothing to help the opposition. That type of lack of effort, I don't understand it. It's our best shot at freeing the people of Iran so that they can become more democratic and peace loving. There are many pro-Western Iranians, especially young people. Some of them have been to the West, and they like the West. And yet we are doing nothing to support those in opposition to this government. And to find out from WikiLeaks, to have the confirmation that 19 intermediate range missiles that could go as far as Moscow or Western Europe have been sent from North Korea to Iran, and that we know Iran is working on a nuclear weapon at the same time to put on these missiles, there is no question about that, this is unacceptable. This should not be happening. We should not be allowing North Korea to send deadly arms to countries like Iran or Syria. Rumors have it that they want to do the same with Burma or Venezuela. We have to not let North Korea proliferate like this, and our administration should and needs to do more.

Mr. LAMBORN. I think this recent civilian trial of the person formerly who was in Guantanamo Bay, who was tried in New York City, I believe, who was found not guilty of about 250 counts of murder-- although that's about how many people were killed in the terrorist attack on the embassy in Africa--but was found only guilty of conspiracy to destroy government property when over 200 people were murdered in that terrorist attack shows the weakness of using civilian trials to try these terrorists who are committing acts of war against our country. And the WikiLeaks documents, getting back to those, show that this administration has been trying to place these Guantanamo detainees in other countries around the world, like Saudi Arabia. They are offering them money. They are offering them concessions if they'll take some of these people off of our hands so that the President can move closer to his goal of closing Guantanamo Bay. But that is a misguided policy from day one. These people should not be released. I think Saudi Arabia said in one of the cables that was disclosed, or they said later on, that they would just release the people eventually if they were sent to their country and they would ultimately, as we know from cases in the past, many of them would find their way back to the battlefield where they would kill Americans or American allies. So I think that the whole misguided policy of Guantanamo Bay being closed is exposed by some of these WikiLeaks documents. But still, these should have never been disclosed in the first place. This administration needs to find a way to punish those involved and make sure it never happens again.

Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me point out that, to its credit, The Wall Street Journal did not accept the offer to disseminate these WikiLeaks latest round of documents from the diplomatic arena, and I think that that is to their credit. Unfortunately, The New York Times did not have the same scruples, which is extremely disappointing to me. Representative Franks, as we look at some of the reports of what were contained in these diplomatic leaks, there are some really troubling national security implications that arise. One is that we find, for instance, that it is confirmed that Iran has received 19 advanced missiles from North Korea. Now we have long suspected that there have been ties on a covert basis between those two countries, we have some evidence of that; this just makes it more of a glaring issue. And our administration needs to be doing more, not just to stop WikiLeaks in the future from revealing our national secrets, but in stopping Iran and North Korea from the propagation of deadly nuclear and missile technology that they seem to be doing. The fact that Iran has received 19 advanced missiles from North Korea, each of which is capable of reaching Western Europe or even Moscow, is very troubling to me. These are our NATO allies that we are bound to defend if they are attacked, and I don't think our administration is doing enough to stop the propagation, the dissemination of deadly technology from North Korea to other countries. When we are done talking about WikiLeaks, Representative, I would like to make sure we talk more about some of these national security implications as well. I would like to yield back at this time.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Terrance W. Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan has served as leader of the Colorado Springs Convention & Visitors Bureau for 20 years. In this role, Mr. Sullivan has helped support and expand the tourism industry in Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region. He has previously been awarded Outstanding Individual Contribution to Colorado Tourism by the Governor of Colorado in 2005, and was elected to serve as President of the Tourism Industry Association of Colorado (TIAC). Mr. Sullivan has also served in leadership roles in numerous civic and business organizations and has contributed significantly to the economic development of the Pikes Peak region. His exemplary career is marked by his chairmanship of the Tourism Industry Association of Colorado (TIAC) and the Colorado Association of Destination Marketing Organizations (CADMO), organizations that work cooperatively to promote travel to our state, region, and city. Mr. Sullivan is also a co- founder and board member of the Southern Colorado Business Partnership and has served and continues to serve on many other community boards and committees. He continually supports community parks, museums, historic sites, and open spaces. In addition to his achievements in the tourism industry, Mr. Sullivan was an Army aviator in Vietnam followed by service in the National Guard and Army Reserves. He is rated as a Master Aviator with approximately 3,000 flying hours. In March 2004, Mr. Sullivan participated as an organizer and crew member in the Smithsonian Museum of History's ``America's Huey, The Final Journey Home.'' Mr. Sullivan continues to support the military community by founding the Mountain Post Historical Association, serving as an honorary board member of the Peterson Air & Space Museum, and serving as an active member of the Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Council. Mr. Sullivan will retire from the Colorado Springs Convention & Visitors Bureau on December 31, 2010, leaving a lasting legacy of hospitality and tourism promotion for all that follow. Mr. Sullivan's future hopes for the Convention and Visitors Bureau include bringing further credibility and recognition to the Colorado hospitality industry, proactively pursuing an increased air service network, creating valuable and effective partnership marketing opportunities, attracting more sports-related events to the Pikes Peak region, and assuring the development of a community infrastructure. These will meet the future needs of a growing and healthy tourism industry. Madam Speaker, residents and visitors of Colorado have been fortunate to have Mr. Sullivan serve as leader of the Colorado Springs Convention & Visitor Bureau for the past 20 years. His involvement in Colorado tourism and civic engagement has provided economic development to Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region as well as a richer experience to visitors of our beautiful state. I know my fellow Members of the House of Representatives will join me in thanking him for his lasting contribution to the community and for his commitment to our country.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to General C. Robert Kehler. The President of the United States nominated him to be the next Commander of United States Strategic Command. General Kehler became Commander of Air Force Space Command in October 2007 and he leads the world's greatest space and cyberspace force. General Kehler entered the Air Force in 1975 as a distinguished graduate of the Pennsylvania State University Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program. His exemplary Air Force career is marked by command at the squadron, group and wing levels, and a broad range of experience in intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) operations, space launch, space operations, missile warning, and space control. General Kehler began his illustrious career as a Minuteman Combat Crewmember. His Air Force journey would take him and his wife, Marjorie, through a series of Air Force and Joint assignments. As the Chief of the Strategic Missile Branch in the Secretary of the Air Force's Office of Legislative Liaison, he was the Secretary's point man on Capitol Hill for matters regarding the President's ICBM Modernization Program. As Director of the National Security Space Office, he integrated the activities of a number of space organizations on behalf of the Under Secretary of the Air Force and Director, National Reconnaissance Office. Prior to assuming his current position, General Kehler was the Deputy Commander, U.S. Strategic Command. In his current assignment as Commander, Air Force Space Command, General Kehler is responsible for organizing, equipping, training and maintaining mission-ready space and cyberspace forces and capabilities for North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Strategic Command, and other combatant commands around the world. He provides inspirational leadership to more than 46,000 personnel responsible for mission areas ranging from assured access to space to on-orbit space operations, space situational awareness, and cyberspace operations. General Kehler's dynamic leadership capabilities were vital to the transfer of the ICBM mission to the newly established Air Force Global Strike Command and in standing up the 24th Air Force to execute the Air Force's cyberspace mission. His decisive and visionary leadership of Air Force Space Command earned National Defense Industrial Association recognition as the 2009 Hartinger Award winner for ``Outstanding Achievement in the Military Space Mission of the United States.'' Madam Speaker, the American people have been fortunate to have General Kehler serving as the Commander of Air Force Space Command for the past three years. Marjorie, and their two sons, Matt and Jared, can be proud of his fine character and dedication to service. He will be greatly missed in Colorado Springs, but the community's loss is the country's gain. I know my fellow Members of the House of Representatives will join me in thanking him for his continued commitment to his country.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the previous question and in support of this week's YouCut item, the elimination of taxpayer subsidies to National Public Radio. National Public Radio's recent firing of longtime news analyst Juan Williams was a wake-up call for many Americans to political correctness and liberal bias at NPR. However, it's not the liberal bias that offends me so much as that American citizens are forced to subsidize it with their hard-earned tax dollars. Long before the Juan Williams fiasco, I sponsored legislation 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 question is not the quality of programming on NPR. The question today is whether government programs and services that can be funded privately should be subsidized by taxpayers. As a country, we no longer have this luxury, if we ever did. With the national debt over $13 trillion, the government simply can't afford to continue funding nonessential services. Americans voted through the popular Web site YouCut to place this proposal on the House floor for a vote today. The selection of this measure shows the American people desire to rein in unnecessary spending. My proposal would prohibit Federal dollars from going to NPR through any of the various Federal grants they now access. I myself enjoy NPR programming, but why should Americans foot the bill for this when we have to borrow about 40 cents on every Federal dollar? NPR local radio stations directly receive congressionally appropriated funds that reached over $65 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 are then funneled back to NPR headquarters here in Washington, DC. Taking this indirect funding into account, Federal funds now make up an estimated 20 percent of NPR's annual budget. Let me be clear, this measure will not prohibit local stations from receiving any other funding. It will just prohibit them from using taxpayer money to acquire NPR programming. Unsustainable Federal spending is a serious threat to the United States economy and to the future prosperity of the American people. Americans know this. We shouldn't wait until the 112th Congress to start solving this problem. Cutting spending begins now. We must begin the hard work of eliminating these deficits and creating jobs by making tough choices on spending today. The American people have asked Congress to put a stop to out-of- control spending. Millions of them have voted through YouCut that prohibiting Federal funding of NPR is a good place to start. I urge my colleagues to heed the will of the American people to get Federal spending under control and vote for a sensible reduction of spending by opposing the previous question.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, on October 10th, the Republic of China will celebrate National Day, this year marking their 99th anniversary. The United States of American and Taiwan enjoy a close and strong relationship based on shared democratic values and free market economies. I salute the people of Taiwan for their recent achievements, including the completion on June 29 of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China. Improving relations between Taiwan and mainland China have greatly reduced tension across the Taiwan Strait. While welcome, the improved relations between the two sides does not eliminate the need for the United States to continue to help Taiwan's defense capabilities under the Taiwan Relations Act. We should continue to aid Taiwan in replacing its aging air force. According to the most recent Department of Defense report on Taiwan's military power, China continues to enjoy air superiority over Taiwan. It is also my view that we must support Taiwan's participation in global affairs by supporting Taiwan and its 23,000,000 people in becoming a member of the United Nations. An internationally visible Taiwan is a strong Taiwan. Today, Taiwan is a major trading partner and friend. Our strong economic and cultural ties go back nearly a hundred years. We hope that this strong bond will continue for another 100 years and more.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay respect to a great man in my hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Greg Mitchell is a hands-on, results-oriented leader with a proven track record of achieving success. A longtime resident of Colorado Springs, Mitchell is retiring this year after serving six years as President of Colorado Technical University, CTU. Greg, a former Naval officer, has championed our state's veterans and young people in both his professional and personal roles for nearly three decades. As President of CTU, he played a key role in developing programs to serve soldiers, including the wounded warrior program that awards 50 scholarships annually to wounded veterans and their spouses. He once said, ``If you do the right thing, it's very rewarding. We can't do enough for the military today.'' In 2008, the school was named one of the most military friendly institutions in the country. Under his leadership, Colorado Technical University partnered with the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund to provide a full four-year scholarship for a son or daughter of an American military hero who has served and sacrificed for our nation's freedom. CTU pledged $1 million in full tuition scholarships for Freedom Alliance scholarship recipients who wish to attend their University. Prior to coming to Colorado Technical University, Mitchell worked in Colorado Springs for Plasmon LMS/Philips Laser Magnetic Storage, Media Security Incorporated, Brown Disc Manufacturing, and the NCR Corporation. Outside of Mitchell's professional contributions to our community, he has served on numerous community boards. Some of his volunteer work includes serving on the following boards: --Better Business Bureau --Colorado Thirty Group --The Home Front Cares --Congressman Doug Lamborn's Defense Advisory Board --Advisory Board for the Latino Chamber of Commerce --Advisory Council on Military Education --Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce --Vitality Group Advisory Board Mitchell is a devoted husband and father. He has been married for twenty years to his wife, Cindy, and is the father of three grown children, Garth, Blake, and Paige. I thank Greg for his tremendous contribution to our community and our men and women in uniform. He is a great American patriot.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the courageous and selfless actions of Army Staff Sergeant Jamie West, which have earned him our Nation's highest congressionally authorized award for heroism during peacetime. As a member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, I am proud to recognize one of Fort Carson's finest soldiers who placed his own life at risk to save the lives of three Colorado Springs children in 2008. While driving off-duty on February 23, 2008, Staff Sergeant Jamie West observed three children fall through a fragile ice-pond and one of those children becoming completely submerged in the freezing water. The Soldier's Medal citation reads, ``Without thought to his own safety, he decided to attempt to rescue the endangered children. With ice crumbling around him and at risk to his own life, he pulled the children from the water and successfully administered first aid until emergency personnel arrived.'' Every soldier knows the importance of courage. It is one of the Army's seven core values of soldiering. Courage on and off the battlefield cannot be underestimated. It takes courage to withstand the rigors of war and it takes courage to assume responsibility for life and death decisions. It also takes courage to do the right thing under intense pressure, but the act of courage at the risk of one's own life deserves special recognition. The pages of American military history are filled with heroes who willingly put their lives at risk in order to save others--and Staff Sergeant West's name will now be inscribed among them. It was no accident that SSG West was in the vicinity of that pond at the time of crisis. It is clear that, for some providential purpose, he was in the right place at the right time and had demonstrated great courage and personal sacrifice. It is my distinct honor to recognize his heroic actions and commitment to uphold the finest qualities of leadership and military values.

Mr. LAMBORN

Mr. LAMBORN. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMBORN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, Republicans have no problem with this amendment. The fact that the bill will force small companies to now band together simply to meet threshold requirement activities in the offshore is a sad statement on the rest of the bill. Although this provision may help small companies meet their certificate of financial responsibility requirements, nothing in this amendment solves the liability problem and nothing in this amendment solves the $22 billion tax increase in this bill. Unlimited liability will cripple domestic production by removing all but the largest companies from offshore drilling. There should be reasonable liability, but unlimited or infinite liability goes too far. It will kill jobs. Republicans support this amendment, but it's simply like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. I suppose it doesn't hurt anything, but it doesn't cure the underlying problem; and it might even lull someone into thinking we're doing something. Anyone who votes for the Teague amendment and the underlying bill together is putting the people they are purporting to help out of business. The Teague amendment does absolutely nothing to cure unlimited liability. Mr. Chairman, I would now like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I would just reiterate that we have no objection to this amendment. I wish it really accomplished something, because the deeper things that are problems in this bill are going to kill offshore production in large part; and we don't need to be killing jobs and raising taxes in the time of a recession. We have no objection to the amendment because it doesn't do any harm. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim time in opposition to the amendment, although I do not intend to oppose it.