Tom McClintock

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I had risen before we had passed that point in the bill and was not recognized.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McCLINTOCK. This amendment leaves all of those legitimate activities of the ITA intact. It still leaves $160 million of activities. All it does is to defund the trade promotion activities that the CBO recognized as being wasteful, as did OMB, as did Simpson- Bowles.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I want to reiterate that this does not in any way affect the enforcement activities of the ITA. It does not in any way affect the measures that Mr. Poliquin of Maine just referenced. It affects only the trade promotion activities of the ITA that have been singled out time and again as being duplicative of what the companies profiting from these activities should be paying for themselves or are duplicative of other programs. It is only the trade promotion activities. None of the enforcement activities are affected by this amendment. I would ask for an ``aye'' vote. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is not an endorsement of marijuana. I have never used it. My wife and I raised our children never to use it. And I believe that local schools ought to assure that every American is aware of the risks and dangers that it may pose. This amendment addresses a much larger question: whether the Federal Government has the constitutional authority to dictate a policy to States on matters that occur strictly within their own borders. I believe that it does not. But even if it does, I believe that it should not. In 1932, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis described the beauty of the 10th Amendment this way. He said: ``A State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.'' That is exactly what States like Colorado and Oregon have done with legalization and what many more have done with aspects of it. They believe that the harm that might be done by easier access to this drug is outweighed by removing the violent underground economy that is caused by prohibition. I don't know if they are right or wrong, but I would like to find out, and their experiment will inform the rest of the country. Now, the Federal Government has a legitimate authority to protect neighboring States by forbidding transport across State lines, which this amendment protects; but, at the same time, it protects the right of a State's citizens to make this decision within their own boundaries. It is not necessary to become embroiled in the debate over marijuana. These States are having that debate and establishing their laws. The question is over the right of their people to have these debates, to make these decisions, and for the rest of the Nation to observe and benefit from the outcome for good or ill. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, the chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources, for yielding. Mr. Speaker, Marine Staff Sergeant Sky Mote cared about a lot of things--his fellow Marines, his country, his family, his community--but his father, Russell, recalled, ``He never cared about medals. He never showed them to us. Once,'' he said, ``I found one in his laundry.'' The irony is that Staff Sergeant Sky Mote received the second highest medal that our country can bestow upon a Marine, the Navy Cross, for his heroism in defending his fellow Marines on the last day of his life, August 10, 2012. The Navy Cross is in addition to the Purple Heart, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, two Combat Action Ribbons, and three Good Conduct Medals that he earned during his 9 years of exemplary service to our Nation. In the U.S. Marine Corps, that prides itself on maintaining the highest standards of the American military tradition, Staff Sergeant Sky Mote stands conspicuously above and beyond. On that day, that last day of his life, Sergeant Mote was at his post in the tactical operations center of the 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion in Helmand province. On that day, a so-called Afghan police officer opened fire on the Marines who had come there to help that country. When the attack broke out, Sergeant Mote was in an adjoining room. He could have easily escaped to safety. According to the Navy's citation, ``He instead grabbed his M4 rifle and entered the operations room, courageously exposing himself to a hail of gunfire in order to protect his fellow Marines. In his final act of bravery, he boldly engaged the gunman, now less than 5 meters in front of him, until falling mortally wounded.'' According to the citation, it was Mote's actions that stopped the attack and forced the attacker to flee. It was this heroism for which he received the Navy Cross. We know that he didn't care much about medals, but he cared so deeply about his Marine Corps brothers that he gave his life for them. Many who would have perished that day will go on to lead long and productive and prosperous lives because Sky Mote sacrificed his own for them, as did Captain Matthew Manoukian of Los Altos Hills, California, who also gave his life to defend his fellow Marines that day. Staff Sergeant Mote and his unit had been in the thick of the fighting in Afghanistan, often functioning as a commando force. During their tour in Puzeh, he and his unit were often engaged in daylong firefights, and Mote in particular had often exposed himself to grave danger. His family didn't know a lot of this at the time. His stepmother, Marcia, said: ``He'd always say, `I'm going to be on a camping trip' or `I'm going to go on a hike.' He didn't want to give us any reason to worry.'' His father said that, although his son was indifferent to medals, he was intentionally proud of his EOD badge designating his service as an explosive ordnance disposal technician. Russell Mote explained: ``He was just a humble person doing his job, and his job was to protect his team. He was not like a gung ho military person. You wouldn't know he was in the Special Forces.'' To the EOD technicians, bombs are not something to be avoided, but something to be sought out and disarmed. On one such day, Mote defused two IEDs; crawled through a heavily seeded minefield to save the life of his team leader, who had been severely wounded by a third; and then directed the evacuation of his unit. On that day, Sergeant Mote had earned a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a V for valor. On another very different day nearly 3 years ago, Sergeant Mote returned home for the last time. Thousands of his countrymen stretched out more than a mile on El Dorado Hills Boulevard to silently express their gratitude and respect for this hometown hero. Hundreds more lined overpasses to pay their respects along the motorcade route. Still more stood silent vigil in front of Silva Valley Elementary School and Rolling Hills Middle School, where he had attended, as the procession passed by. A thousand more waited for him at the church. Many knew him by his deeds; a fortunate few knew him as a person and recounted stories of his growing up in that community. His father recalled: ``Sky loved life, family, and friends, and he loved being a Marine. He loved to surf. He loved to hunt and hike in the Sierra.'' Marcia perhaps put it best when she said: ``He was just everybody's friend, and he would do anything for anybody.'' Sky Mote was 27 on that fateful day in Afghanistan. He was born June 6, 1985, in Bishop, California. When he was still young, his parents divorced, and his father brought his children to El Dorado. He married Marcia, and there, they raised Sky and their four other sons. There, Sky joined the 4-H. He raised pigs and rode horses. He joined the Civil Air Patrol. At Union Mine High School, he lettered in track and cross country. He camped and biked and hiked with his family throughout the Sierra. From the time he was a child, he spoke of some day joining the military and defending his country. Right after graduation in 2003, he did just that. Nine years later, he returned home to be laid to rest by a country that honors him, a hometown that remembers him, and a family that misses him. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to share a little of what I learned about Marine Staff Sergeant Sky Mote because it helps to answer the question that James Michener first asked: ``Where do we get such men?'' Well, we get them from the heart and soul of America. We get them from good and decent families like the Motes. We get them from little towns like El Dorado, California. We come here today, to the Hall of the House of Representatives, to try to honor a hero who didn't care much about medals. Lincoln, at Gettysburg, noted our difficulty in doing so when he looked over the quiet battlefield and noted that ``in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our poor power to add or detract.'' But nevertheless, we try. Lincoln was right: we cannot add to the honor of his deeds. We come, instead, to draw inspiration from them. We reflect on a young life, with all the hopes and joys and aspirations of a long and productive lifetime ahead, all sacrificed for a country that, to this day, represents what Lincoln called the ``last best hope of mankind.'' We come in gratitude to know that in every generation, there are such heroes among us who will step forth from the safety of hearth and home and into mortal peril to protect their fellow citizens. Patton put it best when he said: ``It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.'' We come out of recognition that although the suffering of these fallen heroes has ended, the suffering of their families goes on day in and day out. There are Gold Star families among us who spend their Memorial Days not at barbecues and beach parties but in solemn ceremonies and quiet vigils around honored graves. We honor their loved ones in hopes that in some small way, we can help fortify them against the loss that they bear every day of their lives. But most of all, we come in recognition of Shakespeare's plea that ``this story shall the good man teach his son.'' A few years ago, I had the honor to visit members of the 3rd United States Infantry Old Guard who tend the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery. They are meticulously dressed and painstakingly drilled as they honor the memory of our fallen warriors. It is quite an impressive sight. And on a warm spring day like this, thousands of tourists will show up to watch and to join the Old Guard for a moment to honor the sacrifices memorialized at the tomb. Tourists don't often show up during hurricanes or in driving snowstorms or at 2 o'clock in the morning in sleet and hail, but the Old Guard does. They commit 2 years of their lives to this service, under the strictest of conditions. I asked this young sergeant, ``Why? Why do you do this?'' His answer was simple and direct: ``Because, sir, we want to demonstrate to our fellow Americans that we will never forget.'' For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I bring this bill to the House today with the unanimous support of the entire California congressional delegation. We do so to ensure that our fellow Americans never forget Marine Staff Sergeant Sky Mote. In consultation with his family, we have identified a mountain in the John Muir Wilderness of the Sierra National Forest overlooking where Sky Mote and his family often camped and hiked. This bill proposes that it forever more be known as Sky Point as a token of our Nation's respect of his heroism, its appreciation of his sacrifice, its sympathy for his family, and of its solemn pledge that succeeding generations of his countrymen will never forget him.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to rise in recognition of the Mariposa County High School Grizzly Band, which will be performing in the upcoming National Memorial Day Parade. The Mariposa Grizzly Band brings much pride to a small rural community in the Sierra Foothills; it serves this community by supporting American veterans at every possible opportunity. This commitment has led the band to perform patriotic music at every Memorial Day service conducted by the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6042. Its participation in this year's Memorial Day Parade is not the first time the Grizzly Band has travelled across the country to showcase its talent. The band's impressive reputation afforded it the opportunity to perform in New York City for the 92nd Annual Veterans Day Parade. During this school year alone, the Grizzly Band has received first- place recognition for its performance at four separate events. It is no wonder the Grizzlies are so beloved in the foothills--their talents have won a total of thirty-seven first-place awards in the last decade. Furthermore, the band was the recipient of the GRAMMY Foundation's Signature Schools Enterprise Award. This growing list of accomplishments is evidence of the hard work and dedication of these young men and women. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to welcome the Mariposa County High School Grizzly Band to Washington, DC, and I look forward to hearing of both their future accomplishments and their support of our local veteran community.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Margaret Davis for her many years of service to the Tuolumne County Republican Party, and for her unwavering efforts in support of Republican ideals across California and our nation. For decades, Margaret has devoted her time to advancing conservative principles as a member of the Tuolumne County Republican Central Committee, the Tuolumne County Republican Women Federated, and the California Federated Republican Women's Central Division. Margaret served multiple terms as President of the Tuolumne County Republican Women Federated. She has also held a variety of positions within the organization, and tirelessly supports Republican candidates and values. In addition to her past contributions, Margaret currently serves as the 1st Vice President of the Tuolumne County Republican Women Federated, the 2nd Vice President of the California Federated Republican Women's Central Division, and the Treasurer of the Tuolumne County Republican Central Committee. She does all of this while simultaneously presiding as Chair of the Tuolumne Chamber of Commerce's Governmental Affairs Committee. With all of these roles, it is clear that Margaret is a fundamental pillar in the local community. On a personal level, Margaret is well- respected and known for her high moral character. She's regularly involved in events, but more than that, she is the first to volunteer in support of her state, and her community. Margaret balances her lifetime commitment to the Republican Party with her lifetime commitment to her family. Perhaps the only responsibility she places above her dedication to Tuolumne is her role as a widowed mother. Margaret gives her free time to Republican efforts, but her primary focus remains caring for her adult daughter, who is suffering from effects of a severe stroke. Mr. Speaker, Margaret Davis does not just stand for conservative values; she lives by them. Tuolumne County Republicans consider Margaret Davis a remarkable example. California will continue to benefit from her efforts for years to come, and I rise to express my profound gratitude for her tremendous service.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, a large and respected Iranian expatriate community has settled in California, and it has been my privilege to get to know some of them in recent years. They are part of an international diaspora of 5 million people who fled Iran after it fell to Islamic fascism 36 years ago. The stories they tell are bloodcurdling. One woman told of her cousin who had been rounded up in an antigovernment demonstration and taken to prison. After several years, the families were informed that their loved ones were to be released in the town square. When the excited families arrived for their long- awaited reunion, their sons were hanged before their eyes. A doctor told me of his college days in Paris. He called home to tell his brother in Tehran of an anti-Khomeini demonstration. His brother was promptly arrested, tortured, and imprisoned for simply listening. Now, a few months ago, after many years of silence, the brother in America received a call from his brother in Iran who wanted to tell him of the simmering unrest going on throughout that country. The American brother told him to shut up, to remember what happened the last time they had spoken so candidly. His brother in Tehran said: ``I don't care anymore. They can't arrest all of us.'' All of the Iranian expatriates I spoke with tell me the same thing: the economic sanctions and international isolation of the regime were bringing Iran to the brink of revolution. And this brings us to the President's negotiation with Iran's fascist Islamic regime. Any agreement between Iran's leaders and the United States is meaningless because Iran's leaders' word is meaningless. Iran's government is a notoriously untrustworthy rogue state that has made it unmistakably clear that it intends to acquire nuclear weapons and, once acquired, to use them. The only way to avert this nightmare, short of war, is for the regime to collapse from within. Over the last several years, the Iranian opposition has grown dramatically for two reasons: there is a strong and growing perception among the Iranian people that the Iranian dictatorship is a pariah in the international community, and the resulting international economic sanctions have created conditions that make the regime's overthrow imperative. At precisely this moment in history, Barack Obama did incalculable damage by initiating these negotiations. By engaging this rogue state, President Obama has given it international recognition and legitimacy at just that moment when it had lost legitimacy in the eyes of its own people. Worse, by promising relief from economic sanctions, he has removed the most compelling reason the organized Iranian resistance had to justify the regime's overthrow. It is not the outcome of the negotiations that matters because any agreement with Iran's conniving leaders is meaningless. It is the negotiations, themselves, that have greatly strengthened the regime, just when it was most vulnerable from growing opposition among its own people. Now, the House just passed H.R. 1191 that purports to restore congressional oversight to these talks. I believe it completely missed the point. First, our Constitution requires that any treaty be approved by two- thirds of the Senate. Well, that wasn't going to happen, so Mr. Obama simply redefined the prospective treaty as an agreement between leaders, an agreement with no force of law and no legal standing. I fear the Congress has just changed this equation by establishing a wholly extra-constitutional process that lends the imprimatur of Congress to these negotiations with no practical way to stop the lifting of sanctions. Instead of two-thirds of the Senate having to approve a treaty, as the Constitution requires, this agreement takes effect automatically unless two-thirds of both Houses reject it--a complete sham. But worse, I fear this bill gives tacit approval to extremely harmful negotiations that Congress, instead, ought to vigorously condemn and unambiguously repudiate. We can only hope that in the days ahead what Churchill called ``the parliamentary democracies'' will regain the national leadership required to prevent these negotiations from producing what amounts to the Munich accords for the Middle East. That will require treating the Iranian dictatorship as the international pariah that it is, and it will require providing every ounce of moral and material support to the Iranian opposition that they need to rid their Nation of this fascist Islamic dictatorship, to restore their proud heritage, and to retake their place among the civilized nations of the world.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, with this vote, our Nation is about to take its first step away from financial ruin and back to prosperity and solvency. Our Nation's debt has literally doubled in 8 years, now exceeding the size of our entire economy. That debt requires us to make interest payments of $230 billion this year. That is nearly $2,000 from an average family's taxes just to rent the money that we have already spent. On our current path, that burden will triple within a decade, eclipsing our entire defense budget. Medicare and Social Security will collapse just a few years after that. Time is not our ally, and the future is not a pleasant place if we continue just a few more years down the road that we have been on. That is why this budget is so important. It changes the fiscal course of our Nation, slowly pointing us back toward solvency and prosperity. It restores congressional oversight of an abusive Federal bureaucracy. It rescues our healthcare system from the nightmare of ObamaCare. It rescues Medicare from collapse. It adopts the time-tested progrowth policies that produced the Reagan economic recovery and the unprecedented prosperity of the 1980s. If we can implement this budget, in 10 years, deficits will turn to surpluses, and we can begin paying down this ruinous debt at a pace that ensures that students now in college will retire into a prosperous, secure, and debt-free America. It is not perfect, and it is not complete. Ahead of us are many months of legislating to build the governmental streamlining and reforms that it calls for, but if we can set this course and if we can stay this course, one day in the very near future, a new generation of Americans can know just how wonderful it is to awaken and realize that it is morning again in America.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, perhaps from the damp State of Ohio, this might look like a solution in search of a problem. I would invite the gentlelady to come to California in the midst of this drought to see the devastation it is causing. The Bureau just released 10 billion gallons for this stated purpose, to adjust river water temperatures and to nudge steelhead trout smolts to the ocean. They weren't coy about it. They were very, very clear. They have been very clear in their budget requests for this practice. But let me, just for the sake of argument, accept the gentlelady's point that they have no plans to do so. Well, if that is the case, she should have no objections to this measure. The fact is, they not only have plans to do so, but they have been doing so, and it is devastating what little precious water is remaining behind our precious reservoirs. We will run out by the end of the summer if these practices continue. And if they continue and if we do, I think that the gentlelady will need to make an apology to the 38 million suffering people of California. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, hydrologists tell us that California is facing the worst drought in 1,200 years. With the rain season officially over, our snowpack is just 3 percent of normal, and many reservoirs are already drawn down perilously. Californians are now threatened with draconian fines if they take too long in the shower. This amendment forbids the Bureau of Reclamation from purchasing scarce water in California in the midst of this catastrophic drought for the purpose of dumping it in rivers to adjust the water temperature to nudge baby fish to swim into the ocean. As ridiculous as this sounds, that is exactly what the Bureau of Reclamation has been doing throughout this drought. It is using money taken from families' taxes in order to purchase water that is desperately needed by these same families and then literally dumping it down the drain in front of them. This exacerbates an already perilous scarcity of water while forcing the price of our remaining supplies even higher. It also makes a mockery of the sacrifices that every Californian is making to stretch every drop of water in their homes. And it undermines the moral authority of the government to demand further conservation from the people when it is squandering water so outrageously itself. We don't know exactly how much the Bureau is spending for this purpose because they don't account for how their purchased water is used. This measure would forbid them from wasting any of our water on such frivolities as adjusting water temperatures. Now if this sounds harsh for the fish, let's remember that in a drought like this one, there would be no water in our rivers. There would be no fish. The dams make it possible to save the water from wet years so that we can get through the dry years. That doesn't work if we open floodgates in an extreme drought like this to make the fish happy. This month, the Bureau of Reclamation released nearly 30,000 acre- feet of water from the New Melones Dam in my district for that purpose. That is enough water to meet the annual residential needs of a population of nearly 300,000 human beings for the express purpose of encouraging the offspring of some 29 steelhead trout to swim toward the ocean--which, by the way, they tend to do anyway. And to add insult to injury, almost all of these smolts will be eaten by predators before they reach the ocean. So let me put this again and quite bluntly. In order to benefit a handful of steelhead trout, the Bureau sacrificed enough water to meet the annual needs of a human population of 300,000. At $700 per acre- foot, the cost of this exercise amounted to $21 million. This is the lunacy of the environmental left and the policies they have imposed on our State and our country. It needs to stop now. And to the extent that we can do so through the power of the purse, we must. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, it is said that, when the plan for the ancient city of Alexandria was presented to the great Alexander, his master builder pointed with pride to an ingenious way to honor the city's namesake. All of the city's water supply would be channeled to one great central fountain featuring a giant statue of Alexander and then flow from it to the surrounding city. When Alexander seemed unimpressed, his architect explained the symbolism. Water, the life's blood of the city, would flow from Alexander to Alexandria. Alexander replied, ``But water is not the life's blood of a city. Commerce is the life's blood of a city.'' The statue of Alexander was placed, instead, at the entrance to the port. As it is with city-states, it is with nation-states. Every nation that engages in trade prospers from it; every nation that fails to trade, fails to prosper. Today, international trade agreements are the means by which nations establish the terms of their commerce. This often requires intricate negotiations with trading partners, and our trading partners must be confident that the United States is bargaining in good faith and that what is decided at the bargaining table will not be revoked or redefined later at a congressional table. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce with other nations. Congress, thus, has the final say over any trade agreement, but trading partners have to have confidence that, once the agreement has been reached, it represents the last best offer of both sides, a meeting of the minds that won't be repeatedly altered after the fact. That is why, since the 1930s, Congress has chosen to exercise its responsibility by establishing the broad terms of the agreement that it seeks and then giving explicit instructions to our negotiators at the beginning of the process. If--and only if--these objectives are advanced in the agreement, Congress will then consider it as a whole package and either approve it or reject it. That process is called trade promotion authority. It stood the test of time. It has been used to the great benefit of our Nation in the past and has never been controversial until now. From the left, opposition comes from protectionist special interests. They fail to learn from the painful lessons of history. Protectionism is the fastest way to destroy an economy, as this Nation has learned repeatedly, including during the Jefferson administration and, again, in the Hoover administration. From the right, opposition comes from a mistrust of this President's judgment and competence, a mistrust I completely and unequivocally share. It is precisely because of this mistrust that the trade promotion authority sets forth some 150 objectives that must be advanced before Congress will even consider the resulting agreement. Once those objectives are attained, a majority of the Congress must still approve it. This measure does not empower the President to do his own thing; it binds the President to faithfully execute the will of Congress. Trade promotion authority simply continues a time-proven process through which Congress exercises its authority to regulate commerce at the beginning of negotiations so trading partners can have a reasonable expectation that their painstaking negotiations, compromises, and concessions won't be ripped asunder and reopened when Congress acts. Indeed, the successful Base Closure and Realignment Commission process worked on exactly the same principle. Let me repeat, this gives the President no new authority. It binds him to Congress' will at the outset of negotiations and promises only that, if the objectives set by Congress are advanced, will the Congress agree, not necessarily to approve the agreement, but simply to vote on it without opening new issues or causing unnecessary delays. The statue at one of our greatest ports is not of a person, but of an ideal, liberty. It is freedom that produces prosperity, the free exchange of goods between people for their mutual betterment--the greater the freedom, the greater the prosperity. Trade promotion authority is the means by which this freedom is advanced among nations. Mr. Speaker, freedom works. It is time that we put it back to work.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I would simply respond to my friend from Idaho that he is right to point with pride to the fact that the Committee on Appropriations has reduced EERE spending by 16 percent. He is certainly on the right track. He is just building a little slowly in that regard. We want to help him by doing what is right and restoring to the private investors the responsibility of using their own money to research and develop these energy breakthroughs and leave the Federal Government to doing what it does best, and that is staying out and letting the private sector succeed. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. McCLINTOCK. I appreciate the gentlelady's kind words. I would point out that this defunds nothing. All that it does is to freeze spending of those unauthorized programs at last year's level until the authorizing committees actually sit down and review them and revise them and reauthorize them. Nor is anything in the NDAA affected by this freeze. I appreciate my friend from Idaho's sympathy, but I would trade it in a moment for his support. And I would point out that this amendment, the whole point of this amendment is that authorizing committees have got to review, reauthorize, revise, or repeal these measures. They have got to do one of those things. But why should they, why would they want to go to all of the fuss and bother of reviewing these programs, taking on entrenched interests, asking hard questions, making people cranky in the process, when all they have to do, under our current practice, is sit there, do absolutely nothing, and the funding, just like the mighty Mississippi, just keeps rolling along. We cannot continue down this course responsibly. We have a responsibility to the American people to do that heavy lifting, to go through these programs with a fine-tooth comb, to make the revisions that are necessary according to our own experience and, in the most important mandate this Congress has been given, to stop wasting people's money. This measure is a very small step. To suggest that it is going to have dire consequences, cutting thirty-six one-hundredths of 1 percent of the total funds in this bill, is a measure of how out of control our thinking on spending has gotten. So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I would ask for this single token, that we take a stand and at least freeze the unauthorized spending.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, this amendment continues the effort to stop or, at least in this case, to freeze appropriations that are made for agencies whose legal authorizations lapsed many years and even decades ago. Ever since 1835, the rules of the House have forbidden spending any money for purposes unauthorized by current law; yet today, about one- third of our discretionary spending is for unauthorized programs. Why is that? Well, it is because the rule against unauthorized spending cannot be enforced because it is always waived by the resolutions that bring these bills to the floor. The bill before us today contains $25 billion in unauthorized spending for programs that have not been reviewed by the authorizing committees since as far back as 1980, Jimmy Carter's last year in office. I am sure that some--even many--of these programs are valuable and worthy of taxpayer dollars, but surely others are not. The fact that they have not been authorized in as many as 35 years ought to warn us to at least be a little more careful in continuing to fund them. Rather than review our spending decisions and making tough choices about spending priorities, Congress simply rubberstamps these programs out of habit, year after year. It is no wonder we are so deeply in debt with so little to show for it. My amendment does not defund these unauthorized programs, as the House rules require. It simply freezes spending on them at last year's level. The cuts contained in this amendment total $129 million, or about thirty-six one-hundredths of 1 percent of the total spending in this bill. This House has a responsibility to examine these programs, reauthorize the ones that work, and modify or end the ones that don't. It has a responsibility, but it has no incentive, as long as we keep funding them and, worse, increasing the funding that these programs receive. In a sense, this is a token. It is a symbol. Reducing this bill by thirty-six one-hundredths of 1 percent will have no appreciable effect on the $35.5 million in this appropriation or the $3.8 trillion the Federal Government plans to spend this year, but I hope that it will send a subtle but clear message that the Members of this House insist that the Congress reassert its constitutional responsibility to authorize Federal spending and to enforce its own rules that prohibit spending blindly on unauthorized programs. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is similar to the previous one, except this one requires energy companies of all kinds to fund their own research and development programs rather than continuing to require taxpayers to subsidize their activity to the tune of almost $3 billion. It does not affect the funds set aside for nuclear waste disposal or national defense projects. For too long we have suffered from the conceit that politicians can make better energy investments with taxpayer money than investors can do with their own money. It is this conceit that has produced a long line of scandals best illustrated by the Solyndra fiasco. This research doesn't even benefit the common good by placing these discoveries in the public domain. Any discoveries, although financed by the public, are owned lock, stock, and barrel by the private companies that receive these public funds. Public costs, private benefit; this is nothing but corporate welfare, and that is what these energy subsidies amount to. My amendment protects taxpayers from being forced to pay the research and development budgets of these companies. It gets government out of the energy business and requires all energy companies and all energy technologies to compete equally on their own merits and with their own funds. Last year when we debated similar amendments, we heard of all the technological breakthroughs financed by the Federal Government, from railroads to the Internet. We heard promises of future breakthroughs from this massive expenditure of public funds. I freely recognize that if you hand over millions of dollars of public subsidies to a private corporation, perhaps in Ohio, that corporation will do very well. Some of these dollars might even produce a breakthrough that will then be owned by that private corporation, and then it will do extremely well. But what the advocates of these subsidies fail to consider is Bastiat's dilemma between the seen and the unseen. We see the politically well-connected company that makes out like a bandit. What we don't see are the sacrifices that struggling families and small businesses must make as these taxes are taken away from them. You don't see small companies struggle by having to compete against their own tax dollars given to their corporate competitors by a doting friend in government. Nor do we see the breakthroughs and discoveries that these dollars might have purchased if they had been made by investors using their own money, making investments based on the highest economic return of these dollars. Politicians using other people's money make investments based on the highest political return of these dollars. That is the principal difference between Apple Computer and Solyndra or between FedEx and the post office. These public subsidies, in effect, take dollars that would have naturally flowed into the most effective and promising technologies and divert them into those that are politically favored. Dollar for dollar, this minimizes our energy potential instead of maximizing it. For example, hydraulic fracturing has revolutionized the fossil fuels industry, and it offers us the very real potential of becoming energy independent. After the 1973 oil embargo, the Federal Government spent $1.5 billion on oil and gas production research, much of it on shale production, and accomplished nothing. The government lost interest. But private investors renewed research with their own money in the 1990s and began producing the technologies that are used in today's boom. Public investment failed miserably; private investment succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. In short, if the technology is promising, it does not need our help; and if it isn't promising, it doesn't deserve our help. In either case, we have no business taking from the earnings of struggling families and small businesses that pay the research and development budgets of big corporations. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, California is now in the fourth year of the worst drought on record. Hydrologists estimate it is the worst drought in 1,200 years. The Sierra snowpack today is just 5 percent of normal. One of our largest reservoirs, the New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus River, is at just 22 percent of its capacity, with the rainy season now officially over. Water rationing is in effect in many communities. Many Californians face $500 fines if they take too long in the shower or spill a gallon of water on their sidewalks. And yet in the last several weeks, the Bureau of Reclamation has released about 10 billion gallons of what precious little water remains behind the New Melones Dam in order to nudge a handful of steelhead trout toward the ocean. That is enough water to meet the annual residential needs of a human population of about 300,000 for the whole year. How many fish are affected? Well, biologists estimate that it will affect the offspring of about 29 steelhead trout on the Stanislaus River, a few hundred smolts, almost all of which will be eaten by predators long before they reach the ocean; and that assumes that they won't swim toward the ocean on their own, as they have been doing without our helpful assistance since time immemorial. Put in financial terms, with water selling for $700 per acre-foot, the cost of this ridiculous exercise is about $21 million. But the real cost will be felt in the fall if the rains don't return. At that point, these releases guarantee there will be no water left for human beings or for fish. All this occurs after a compromise without which Lake Tulloch, below New Melones, would have been drained below the water intake pipes that serve a population of nearly 10,000 human beings. When are we going to wake up to the lunacy of these current environmental laws and the ideological zealots who are administering them? Who in his right mind would dump enough water to meet the annual residential needs of a population of 300,000 human beings in order to nudge toward the ocean the offspring of maybe 29 steelhead trout--it could be as few as 6--in the worst drought in 12 centuries? Yet that is precisely the policy of this administration. President Obama has authority under the existing Endangered Species Act to convene a process to suspend these laws during the drought. Governor Brown also has the authority to request the President to act, yet despite repeated calls to do so, neither has responded. Ironically, before we built these dams, in a drought like this, there would be no rivers and there would be no fish. Nor is this waste limited to just one reservoir and one river. The Bureau of Reclamation is ordering pulse flows throughout the State, completely uncaring of the impact on the rapidly endangered species called homo sapiens. Mr. Speaker, 3 weeks ago I introduced H.R. 1668, the Save Our Water Act. It simply provides that during an extreme drought the requirements of massive environmental pulse flows are suspended. I want to urge speedy consideration and passage of this act, but I fear it will not come in time to prevent the exhaustion of our remaining water supply. I warned of this practice last year, and I appealed to State and Federal water managers to suspend these water releases during the drought. Sadly, I was unable to rally much public interest, I think in large part because few people actually believed that our water policy could possibly be so foolish. Well, they believe now. We are now reaching a crisis that can no longer be ignored, and Californians are now starting to realize that our environmental laws long ago passed from the realm of reason to the realm of ideological extremism. Droughts are nature's fault. Water shortages are our fault. We once built dams to store water from wet years so that we would have it in dry ones, but the same radical environmental laws that are squandering our existing water supply have also obstructed the construction of any major new storage since 1979, while the State's population has nearly doubled. Dr. Johnson once said that when a man is to be hanged in the morning, it concentrates his attention remarkably. Well, if any good comes out of this drought, it may be that the American people finally have awakened to the damage these laws have done and are ready to change them and change the zealots in government who are responsible for them.

Mr. McCLINTOCK

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, with great sadness, I rise to mourn the passing of Jim McNeal, a California business and civic leader, who for decades guided one of the largest and oldest independent ambulance companies in California, Schaefer Ambulance. His work ethic was legendary. At the age of 83, he was still running the family business. For all those years, he struggled with the challenges of competing against his own tax dollars in a highly regulated environment, facing and fighting government double standards at every turn. I know all about that. I would get an earful from him every month or so. Jim McNeal was a patriot who served in the Korean war and believed in freedom as a gospel that he would preach to everyone that he met. During his marriage of 53 years, he and his wife, Louella, raised three children and had six grandchildren. Their family's grief today is shared by all who knew him. Our country has lost an exemplary citizen and, his family, a devoted patriarch.