Jeff Landry

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Chairman, I rise as a proud member of the Tea Party. I opposed the debt ceiling. I opposed some of the CRs. I opposed our involvement in Libya. I'm a strict constructionist when it comes to the Constitution. When I joined this body, I raised my hand to God and swore to uphold the Constitution and protect it from all threats both foreign and domestic. I am a veteran. With this oath, my duty to protect our citizens' liberties is matched by my duty to protect their lives. That is exactly what the text of this bill, when combined with this amendment, does. It ensures that every American has access to our courts and ensures that they will not be indefinitely detained. Equally important, our amendment does not harm our Armed Forces' ability to protect this Nation. Unfortunately, some in this body choose to believe that our soil here is not a battlefield in a war on terror. They want to treat the al Qaeda cell in Seattle differently or better than the al Qaeda cell in Yemen. To yield to these Members to adopt their view does nothing to protect the liberties of our citizens. It only harms their safety. For that reason, I urge them to adopt this amendment.

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. I would like to thank Chairman McKeon for working so diligently with me to protect the civil liberties that we enjoy so much in our country. Mr. Chairman, as we debate the protection of these civil liberties in this bill, we need to ask ourselves: What are we trying to provide? We must protect every citizen's basic due process rights. What are those basic due process rights? Specifically, it would be the right to notice, the opportunity to be heard, the right to a neutral forum, the right to counsel when before the court, and the right to an appeal. Some of my colleagues are proposing the creation of additional rights. Doing so does not further protect us under the Constitution nor does it further the protections of our constituents. They say we must allow foreign terrorists captured domestically to be tried in criminal court, enveloping them with all of the protections granted to civil criminals. It gives them access to our national security intelligence that ordinary Americans currently are denied. We incentivize them to come to America. The base text of the bill makes it clear and precise that anyone detained is afforded access to the basic rights of due process that I mentioned earlier. Therefore, those basic rights are now enshrined. I urge Members to support the underlying bill, accompanied by the Gohmert-Landry-Rigell amendment, and to oppose any other attempts to create additional rights for foreign terrorists.

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. LANDRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. NOAA and the fishing industry have had a long history of working together. Since the 1990s, NOAA has worked with the fishing industry to develop a regulatory system that provides meaningful protection to turtles, while at the same time not economically harming our fishermen. Under the system, fishermen had agreed that they would periodically remove their nets from the water, allowing any turtles trapped in the net to escape. By offering to do so, they would not have to use the turtle exclusion devices. Now NOAA intends to regulate these shrimpers and force them to use TEDs. The recent rulemaking negates this partnership and places the whims of environmentalists ahead of the scientific data or economic well-being of the fishermen in the coastal communities. There is no scientific data that's proving that the lack of the use of TEDs by shrimpers is causing any additional deaths in the turtle population. Over 60 percent of the shrimp landed in Louisiana is by the inshore and near-shore fleet, which is primarily skimmers and butterflies. This regulation, if implemented, will affect thousands of fishermen in Louisiana. Fishermen will lose money due to the cost of TEDs equipment and also the money lost from loss of catch. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LANDRY. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this week marks another tax day, culminating another year that Americans have been subjected to an outdated and overcomplicated Tax Code. Three years ago on tax day, I attended the first Tea Party rally in my hometown of New Iberia. I was fed up with an overreaching government and fed up with an overburdensome Tax Code. As a small business owner in the oil and gas industry, I've created jobs; I have made payroll; I have paid insurance; I have balanced budgets. I did these things like the majority of small businesses out there across America did, with hard work, determination, and, of course, a fantastic accountant to sift through the 3,837,105 words of the United States Tax Code. Mr. Speaker, it's no secret that small businesses are the real drivers of our economy. To date, small businesses employ half of the U.S. workers. And despite our lagging recovery, they have managed to generate nearly 65 percent of all of the new jobs created over the past 15 years, often outperforming their larger counterparts. I often speak with small business owners in my district. The one word I hear again and again from them is ``uncertainty.'' From looming health care mandates to volatile energy prices, American small businesses simply don't know what to expect. To the farmer out there who is watching his energy prices and his fertilizer prices increase, to the small business owner trying to determine if hiring that new talent is the responsible thing to do, to building a new factory, the uncertainty in the current environment is what is keeping them from expanding and what is keeping them from creating jobs. The oil and gas industry is a classic example. And I'm not talking about Big Oil. I'm talking about the nearly 18,000 independent oil and gas producers here in this country who are small business owners. These small business owners develop 95 percent of all oil and gas wells, produce 68 percent of America's oil, produce 82 percent of America's gas. In total, America's onshore independent oil and gas small businesses supported 2.1 million direct jobs here in the United States in 2010. In my State alone, over 47,000 people are employed directly by the oil and gas sector. When you add in other aspects of the oil and gas industry--refining, transportation, pipeline--there are over 111,000 people in the State of Louisiana directly employed by the oil and gas industry. And just like every other small business, these businesses, the ones that literally fuel America, are faced with a crushing tax burden that threatens their very survival. And they hear from our President who is threatening to take away parts of the Tax Code that helps them. I'm not talking about Big Oil subsidies. I'm not talking about lowering the corporate tax rate either. Believe it or not, most of our domestic energy producers don't pay that corporate tax rate. They don't get a subsidy. They don't get a direct check from the government. They simply are taking advantage of the same credits out there that other small businesses around this country partake in. Logically, as most small businesses deduct their expenses, these small businesses deduct theirs as well. These independent producers, like other small businesses, like I said, do not receive a direct check from the government. Instead, it's a cost of doing business. Without the ability to expense these ordinary and necessary business costs, an independent producer would have to reduce its drilling budget by 20 percent to 35 percent almost immediately and bring a drastic decrease of energy production here in this country. Without this reinvestment, U.S. production would decline rapidly because wells deplete as they are produced. America cannot afford a decrease in energy production, and small oil and gas businesses cannot afford a tax hike. Tax hikes would also hurt American retirees whose mutual funds, pension plans, IRAs are invested in these publicly traded oil and gas companies, all the while harming American energy. With so much uncertainty being created here in Washington, the threat of billions of dollars in new job-crushing tax hikes, a Federal takeover of hydraulic fracturing, regulations, less access to taxpayer- owned energy resources of our Federal lands, the permitting process still lagging, the cost of doing business continues to be challenging. Mr. Speaker, Washington can do better. We can do better. We owe it to our small business owners in every industry to provide for a basic sense of consistency and certainty in our Tax Code. Tomorrow the House will consider the Small Business Tax Cut Act, legislation that would allow small businesses to deduct 20 percent of their active income in order to retain more capital and create more jobs. I congratulate our majority leader for bringing this bill to the floor. I'm confident that with a strong step in the right direction, we will continue to work to make sure that our small businesses have the certainty they need to grow and to thrive. I thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise today as Louisiana mourns the loss of another member of the Greatest Generation. Yesterday evening, Mr. Louis Michot, Jr., passed away, and he passed away at the ripe old age of 89. As I visited with his son this morning on the telephone, he had a nice remark of saying, you know, my dad would constantly say that if he knew he was going to live that long, he would have taken better care of himself. Imagine that. Mr. Michot was born in 1922 in south central Louisiana. At the age of 24, he bravely served our country during World War II in the Marine Corps. After serving his country, he came back and began living the American Dream. He became an entrepreneur. He started his own businesses. In 1958, he bought a restaurant franchise which he expanded all across south Louisiana. He ventured into other businesses, from cattle ranching to real estate to oil and gas. Later, in 1960, Mr. Michot sought to serve his community and his State. He was elected to the State House of Representatives, where he served for 4 years before making a run for Governor. He reentered the political arena in 1968, when he won a seat on the Louisiana State Board of Education, and went on to serve the State as the State superintendent from 1972 to 1976. Outside the political sphere, Mr. Michot was an admirable community leader, a faithful husband, a loyal friend, and a proud father of 10 beautiful children. He passed on his belief of civic responsibility and serving his community to his children; three of them served in public office, one continuing to serve as a district judge, another as a State senator, and another on the parish council. He was a longtime member of the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, and he received the esteemed Lafayette Civic Cup for his many community service efforts in 1994. As Mr. Michot is laid to rest, it is my hope that we reflect upon his life and learn from the shining examples of selfless service and civic duty that he set forth. Though I'm sure he will be missed by many, I'm confident that his legacy of hard work and determination will live on for many generations through his children and their children.

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank our guest chaplain, Mr. Gerald Theriot, for his dedicated life of public service. Chaplain Theriot is a retired veteran of the United States Air Force, a cryptologic linguist specializing in French, Vietnamese, and Korean. Mr. Theriot rose through the ranks and retired as a first sergeant. Following his military service, Mr. Theriot served his Louisiana neighbors in the Department of Social Services. Chaplain Theriot is a loyal member of American Legion Post 513 in Thibodaux, Louisiana, where he has served as a vice commander, historian, service officer, and chaplain. He has also served as Louisiana's department chaplain since 1997. And on September 1, 2011, Mr. Theriot was appointed the national chaplain of The American Legion. Chaplain Theriot is the proud husband of Mrs. Ethel Theriot, father of four, and grandfather of our State's future leaders. On behalf of Louisiana's Third Congressional District and the United States House of Representatives, I applaud Mr. Gerald Theriot for his sacrifice and service and commitment to our country.

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Chairman, I will just close with this: As the gentleman from Louisiana just indicated, 30 percent of all oil and gas produced in this country comes from Louisiana shores. A quarter of all the seafood is caught in Louisiana. In Louisiana, we have made it a constitutional amendment that any revenue we receive from the Federal Government or offshore royalties goes to coastal protection and the building of the coast that we are so rapidly losing. And again, this is not an amendment whereby we're asking for more of our share. We are simply asking to raise a cap when other States will have no cap. This is only fundamental fairness here, and I certainly would urge all Members to consider that and to please support this amendment when it comes to the floor. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LANDRY. I yield 1 minute to the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. LANDRY. How much time remains?

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Chairman, this is a bipartisan amendment offered in cooperation with my good friend, the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Cedric Richmond. As the gentleman said earlier, Louisianians invented offshore oil exploration, and it has been drilling off its coast ever since the mid- 1940s. Yet, for the first 60 years of drilling off the coast of Louisiana, our State and other Gulf Coast States had received no money--not a dime--from the revenue derived from these wells. Starting in 2007, Congress passed an act called the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act. This act provided that a small portion of offshore revenues would finally start to trickle in to our Gulf Coast States. Those of us in the Gulf Coast States will continue to receive a small portion of those revenues through 2017 when, at that time, we will start to receive the 37.5 percent of the offshore revenue of each of those wells producing at that time. However, in GOMESA, it included a cap so that, collectively, those four Gulf Coast States could never receive more than a collective amount of $500 million. As the current bill is now going to provide revenue sharing without a cap for additional States, we are simply asking for fundamental fairness here in that the cap of $500 million be raised to $750 million. That's what this amendment does. This amendment simply raises the collective cap amongst those four States from $500 million to $750 million, reminding everyone that there will be no cap on the additional States. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LANDRY. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. LANDRY. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Richmond).

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to call out hypocrisy because it is amazing that the same level of uncertainty that my colleagues from across the aisle have injected into our economy today, which is failing our economy, they now want to inject that type of uncertainty into the American family's budget. Two months? One of the pillars of the President's jobs bill was the extension of the payroll tax for 1 year, and Republicans agreed with him and sent over to the Senate a bill which extends that payroll tax holiday for 1 year, and yet, the Senate can only give us a sixth of that. Where is the compromise? Where is the agreement? Where have the Senate majority leader and the President missed each other? The President wanted a 1-year extension, and that is what we stand for today, a 1-year extension of the payroll tax holiday to give certainty to American families at a time when they need it the most.

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LANDRY. Will the chairman assure me that together we will work with the committee to further clarify the language contained in this bill in order to ensure that the clear and precise language which protects the constitutional rights of American citizens is protected?

Mr. LANDRY. Do you agree that, as the Supreme Court has held, ``a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of our citizens''?

Mr. LANDRY. My concern is that when the writ is suspended, the government is entirely free of judicial oversight. So do we agree that no section of the NDAA purports to suspend the writ of habeas corpus?

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in order to fulfill my constitutional duty of ensuring that the liberties and freedoms are protected of the men and women that this bill authorizes to fight for. The protections bestowed on U.S. citizens are the ones that I am concerned with the most. The question now upon us is whether or not the NDAA impacts the rights of a U.S. citizen to receive due process to challenge the legality of detention by the executive before an article III court.

Mr. LANDRY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Speaker, when I talk to business owners around the country, there are two things that I hear prevent them from putting Americans back to work, and that is regulatory uncertainty and inequity in government regulations. Both the industry and the administration have confirmed the existence of ambiguity in the current law governing energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf. This is creating uncertainty and inequity, affecting job creation. This bill corrects the problem and strengthens our renewable energy industry by giving our stakeholders the information needed to make the right business decisions and investments. It levels the playing field for all industries operating on the Outer Continental Shelf. We agree that to effectively rid ourselves of foreign oil we need an all-of-the-above approach to energy development, and our laws should follow suit as this industry develops. Both sides of the aisle don't often agree on ways to strengthen our energy independence and on ways to create jobs; however, this bill affords us the opportunity to do just that. I'm proud to have bipartisan support for this bill and want to thank both the distinguished chairman from the State of Washington (Mr. Hastings) and the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), who helped us on this bill.

Mr. LANDRY

Mr. LANDRY. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. LANDRY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. My amendment is simple. It says that if another country is fine with having an offshore supply vessel carry a certain cargo in that country's water, then Coast Guard cannot object to it. I bring this amendment because a company in my district is trying to get a vessel certified to operate in Mexico trying to preserve American jobs. Mexico has okayed the vessel and the AVS has said it has no objection. The only holdup is the Coast Guard. As a result, the company in my district currently has my vessel sitting at the dock and workers sitting at home and capital tied up fighting the regulation. Again, my amendment is simple. It allows an offshore supply vessel to carry as much oil as it does drilling fluids when that vessel is operating outside of U.S. waters if that vessel is in compliance with the international safety standards for that class vessel. This is a commonsense change. Drilling fluids have the same flash point as oil, as such, an equal risk. Thus, there should be a uniform standard for how much of that type of cargo the vessel can carry outside of U.S. waters. Unfortunately, I don't believe that Congress needs to act on this matter. I believe that the Coast Guard can easily make the necessary changes by simply adopting commonsense language and listening to the host country. For this reason, I would offer to withdraw my amendment if the chairman will promise to help me work with the Coast Guard to get this commonsense approach made and American workers back at work. I yield to the chairman.

Mr. LANDRY. Madam Chairwoman, I have an amendment at the desk.