Randy Neugebauer

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, for those of you watching at home today, this is not a C-SPAN rerun. I stand before you today to discuss the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, a bill that passed this House 417-7 at the end of the previous Congress. This bill is a result of long and difficult bicameral and bipartisan negotiations. But for whatever reason, the previous Senate decided that it was more important to go home a couple of days earlier rather than reauthorize the TRIA program. As a result, the program expired at the end of the year. So, today, the House will act on this important piece of legislation once again. Doing so will provide certainty to the terrorism risk insurance market and ensure that the American economy remains resilient against the threat of terrorism. Congress passed the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11. It was intended to provide a 2-year transition period in which the market participants could develop resources that would enable them to offer private terrorism insurance coverage once the program expired. For various reasons, that transition has not taken hold. Throughout the last 2 years, my subcommittee learned how evolved the terrorism risk insurance marketplace has become since the last reauthorization. Since the advent of TRIA in 2002, markets have stabilized, risk management practices have improved, terrorism risk modeling and underwriting has advanced, and the price of terrorism risk coverage has actually declined by 70 percent. But we have also learned that this evolution of TRIA has failed to keep up with marketplace realities. In fact, the program remains largely unchanged over the last 12 years. This has hindered the growth of private market participation in terrorism risk insurance and resulted in a bad deal for the taxpayers. The bill before us today is an effort to recognize and to keep pace with the market developments of the terrorism risk insurance marketplace over the past decade. The bill strengthens taxpayer protections without altering the program's fundamental functions, brings greater certainty and stability to the terrorism risk market, and lays a foundation for a more robust private market for terrorism risk. With regard to the taxpayer protection, the program's trigger doubles from $100 million to $200 million. It also decreases the Federal share of insurers' losses from 85 percent to 80 percent and enhances the taxpayer repayment requirements. And for the first time, we will have meaningful data on the program to increase accountability and transparency. To provide certainty, the program is extended for 6 years but makes no changes for the first year so that the market will have time to adjust. It also clarifies it streamlines the terrorism certification process so that policyholders are better protected. Most importantly, the bill today creates a framework that will allow for a more healthy private market terrorism risk over time that slowly replaces taxpayer-funded reinsurance with private sector capital. Finally, the bill before us today includes some bipartisan reforms that will help boost the economy and job opportunities for all Americans. These Dodd-Frank fixes will help America's hardworking farmers, ranchers, and business owners. They did not cause the financial crisis, and they deserve immediate relief. I am also proud of the inclusion of the reestablishment of the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers, or NARAB, which is an efficient and effective way to enable insurance agents and brokers to be licensed on a multistate basis while retaining essential State regulatory authority. I thank Chairman Hensarling for trusting me to reform this important program, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 26. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record an exchange of letters between the Financial Services Committee and the House Agriculture Committee. House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture, Washington, DC, January 7, 2015. Hon. Jeb Hensarling, Chairman, Committee on Financial Services, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Hensarling: I am writing concerning H.R. 26, Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2015. As you know, provisions of H.R. 26 are within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Agriculture. In order to expedite floor consideration of the bill, the Committee on Agriculture will forgo action on H.R. 26. Further, the Committee will not oppose the bill's consideration on the suspension calendar. This is also being done with the understanding that it does not in any way prejudice the Committee with respect to the appointment of conferees or its jurisdictional prerogatives on this or similar legislation. I would appreciate your response to this letter, confirming this understanding with respect to H.R. 26, and would ask that a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter be included in the Congressional Record during Floor consideration. Sincerely, K. Michael Conaway, Chairman.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), my neighbor to the south, our new committee chairman for the House Agriculture Committee.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for his tireless efforts on NARAB. I think we are going to get it done this time. I know he has worked on it a number of years. He and I have worked together to try to get this done. It is a commonsense piece of legislation, and I am hopeful that this will be the time to get it passed. I am now pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. King), who has been a tireless advocate for the TRIA program.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts. I want to tell him how much I enjoyed working with him. He was the ranking Member of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, and we had an opportunity to work together. It was a pleasure to do. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman), a distinguished member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Guinta), a distinguished member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I think what you can see by the comments today is that we have a bipartisan piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation that passed overwhelmingly in the House in the 113th Congress. Unfortunately, it was not taken up by the Senate. This is a win-win bill. It does a number of really good things for the country; and, more importantly, for the taxpayers, it begins to bring reform in a program that originally was meant to be a temporary program but somehow has become a permanent program, beginning to stairstep-up the private market participation and stairstep-down the taxpayers' participation. It increases the trigger; it increases the amount of recovery that the taxpayers would be able to recover in the case of an event. Another thing you heard many people talk about is this end-user provision that is going to help farmers and ranchers and small businesses not have to put up additional capital so they can use that capital to create jobs for America. Another provision in this bill is the NARAB II, which is a small business provision allowing your local insurance agent, maybe he or she can sell insurance in multiple States by being a member of NARAB and being able to not have to get a license in each individual State, but if they are licensed and meet the qualifications in that State, that is recognized by other States. So this is a great bipartisan effort. It has been, as mentioned, a long process, and so I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 26. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I would respond to the point that some extraneous things were put in this bill. When it came over from the Senate, it came over with an extraneous item in it as well, and that was to change the structure of future Federal Reserve Board of Governors. They also sent over a program which, quite honestly, I agree with, which is something that is in this bill, of allowing your local insurance agent--if he is licensed in or she is licensed in the State one resides in, to do business in other States. None of the policy that is in this bill is new policy. This is policy that this body has voted on in the past. With that, I think we have got a good bill. I see my good friend from New York (Mrs. Maloney) over there, and I am anxious to hear her thoughts on that because this is an issue that she has been very interested in.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I thank the chairman of the Rules Committee for allowing me this time. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important piece of legislation to our country. We have heard a little bit of the history that, after 9/11, the insurance industry took a pretty substantial hit. Their reserves were drained to pay out on these claims. As they were looking at writing new business, they were very concerned about what the future held because America had never experienced that kind of disaster in the past, so they were trying to figure out how to underwrite those in the future. TRIA was put into place temporarily to be a backstop for the industry for them to get back on their feet. They have gotten back on their feet, and their reserves are at all-time highs, and they have had a number of years now to model this risk. The reason it was originally important to do that was, basically, in order to continue the construction projects or the number of projects around the country, the insurance industry needed some assurance that they wouldn't have to bear that kind of event again. When we began to look at this process when we knew this was going to expire at the end of this year, we knew that there were kind of three options out there. One was to let the program expire as it was meant to be a temporary program. There were some Members who wanted to do that, and some Members did not. Others wanted to just extend the program the way it was. Under the Bush administration, though, we began a process to begin to reform this and to begin to transition more and more of the risk away from the taxpayers and back to the insurance companies. Unfortunately, when it was last reauthorized, none of those reforms were built into it. Even the President of the United States says that TRIA needs to be reformed, and he has offered up, for example, to change the trigger levels. One of the things we have done with this bill is we didn't really change the overall structure of TRIA. We could have written a whole new terrorism insurance program. We didn't think that was good for the market. The market had already begun to adapt to the current framework, so we felt, if we worked within the existing framework--changing some of the triggers and some of the knobs on this particular program--that that would begin to allow the industry to take on more of the risk and for the taxpayers to take less of that risk. I think we have accomplished that with this bill. As has been pointed out, I think a lot of people, quite honestly, don't know a lot about TRIA. One of the things is that the insurance industry takes the first losses under this program. So, if there were a loss today, as the gentleman mentioned, 20 percent of the previous year's premiums, which, if industrywide, would be about $40 billion today, would go directly to the insurance companies. Should those losses exceed that--should we have another catastrophic event--then what would happen is that the taxpayers and the insurance industry would begin to share those expenses with a provision now. We have strengthened that in this bill. I think one of the more important parts of it is that the taxpayers would get their money back and would get some return on their money. I think we are headed in a good direction.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I thank the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, I think the point that we want to continue making here is that when we use the existing framework, the objective here was to give certainty to the industry--both the insurance industry and to the people that the insurance industry is insuring--so that over the next 6 years, they will know what the policy is. But at the same time, we are beginning to transition some of these reforms that hopefully will be a trend for future reauthorizations, should they be necessary. And let me emphasize that: should they be necessary. One of the things that we do know is that the industry is doing a better job of being able to model what the potential risks are. There is some mitigation going on to make sure that new structures, new facilities take into account preventing the potential for certain types of attacks. So we want to encourage that kind of behavior. But it doesn't encourage that kind of behavior if there isn't some economic incentive. There is no economic incentive if the taxpayers keep having to pick up the bills on a number of these programs. I am very pleased with the reforms that are built into this. I think we bring the market certainty in that we didn't materially change the program and that we are doing a long-term reauthorization. I think the interesting thing is--and I think we can make the point-- there is really not anything controversial in this bill. Now, there are some people who don't like the fact that there have been some things included in it. But, quite honestly, we are taking up a Senate bill that was sent over to us with extraneous policy built into it. It is policy that, quite honestly, some of us agree with, particularly the NARAB. And why that NARAB provision, NARAB II, is important, as I said earlier, is because your local insurance agent now can do business in adjoining States without having to go take a license test in each individual State. It doesn't preempt the States' ability to regulate the insurance activity in that State but actually streamlines it and basically is a small business bill. The other issue that has been talked about is this Business Risk Mitigation and Stabilization Act. That is an important piece of legislation because a lot of our small businesses are out there. They are trying to raise capital. They are trying to create jobs. And there are certain risks that they just don't want to take or they feel like it is in the best interest of their business to be able to help someone risk-share that with. And many of the products that they buy to share that risk, the risk factor of doing business with that company is already priced into that transaction. But we have an overinterpretation here now, where not only are those businesses paying a risk premium but they are also having to put up additional collateral. So this begins to keep the working collateral for the company so that they can invest in new equipment and in things that can help create new jobs in this country. I want to talk about the fact that 411 people, including the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney), voted for this piece of legislation. So this is not something that we are trying to sneak in on anybody. This is something that was voted on, in this House, by 411 votes. And Mr. Dodd and Mr. Frank, the primary authors of the Dodd-Frank bill, both said that this was never an intention of Dodd-Frank and have spoken in favor of some kind of reform to that in the future. So this is a good piece of legislation, and I am a little concerned that my colleagues think that it is in jeopardy. Well, the only reason it would be in jeopardy is if our colleagues over on the other side of the building decide, for some reason, that they don't want to reauthorize TRIA. That is certainly a decision that they would be making on their own. But, again, nothing in this bill is policy that has not been considered by this body in the past. So, Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this rule. We need to move this forward. Time is running short, and the marketplace needs that certainty. I am confident that we will pass this bill in the House today, and we are going to encourage our folks over in the Senate to ratify that. We hope the President of the United States will help bring market certainty to the American industry in the future.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, the third piece of this legislation that is important is that we are going to help farmers, ranchers, and small businesses be able to cover the risks that they need without taking a lot of their operating capital, putting that operating capital into a plant, into equipment so they can hire and create more jobs in America. These are all issues that have had bipartisan support in the past. Mr. Speaker, I now urge my colleagues: let's do something good for the American people, and let's pass S. 2244, as amended.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I thank the chairman. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion about this bill, and people were talking about reforms. And you know what? I think what the American people need to understand is why these reforms are important to them. The reason they are important to them is, quite honestly, right now, the taxpayers in this country are underwriting part of the risk for terrorism attacks in this country for the property owners. What this bill does is it begins to bring certainty for the industry, for the insurers, and also certainty for the people who are building the new buildings and apartment houses and shopping centers and other types of public facilities. It gives them the certainty of what the policy is going to be over the next few years. But I think the important part is that the taxpayers are an additional cushion that is being put between them and any potential loss. One of the things that has been mentioned, we raised the trigger from $100 million to $200 million. That is an important part of that. I think the other issue that we have tried to do with this in order to create this certainty was, we didn't change the overall structure of the TRIA program. We have tried to keep it within the confines of how it has been operating over the last few years, that way, creating the least amount of certainty that we could. I think the part that isn't mentioned a lot of times is the fact that we did leave in place a deductible, and basically the industry has to take the first loss up to about 20 percent of their annualized premium for the previous year. Today, on an industry-wide basis, that is about $40 billion. So if you have got a $200 million trigger, you have got a $40 billion cushion between the taxpayers and a potential loss. The other thing that we did in this bill is we said when we get to the point where after the deductible the taxpayers start sharing that loss, then the taxpayers' portion moves from 85 percent to 80 percent. So that is another cushion. I think one of the things that we want to let the folks know also is that an additional protection that was built into this bill was the amount of money that the taxpayers could recover if, in fact, they had to put additional money into the TRIA program. So now we have increased that amount substantially. I am feeling good that we are moving in the right direction, but ultimately, what we need to do is get the taxpayers out of the insurance business. When you look across the board where the taxpayers are having to underwrite insurance-type losses, whether it be flood insurance or mortgage insurance, quite honestly, the government doesn't do well at pricing those. There are some good things in this bill besides the TRIA reform in that we have that NARAB II. What is that? Well, that is a good small business bill. A lot of people have independent insurance agents in their districts or in their communities or in their States that may want to write business in other States. To do that today, they have to go pass another license, take another license in that other State. Under NARAB II, they would be able to take their existing license if they meet the requirements in other States and follow those laws. They would able to underwrite that.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Financial Services be discharged from further consideration of the bill (S. 2270) to clarify the application of certain leverage and risk-based requirements under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the service of my friend and colleague, Congressman Ralph Hall. You look at Ralph's life, and it is a record of service to his country. It began in 1942 as a young lieutenant flying an aircraft off of an aircraft carrier. After the war, Ralph came back to this country and started work in the private sector, creating jobs and expanding the economy in Texas. Later, Ralph would be the county judge for Rockwall, Texas, and then later would be elected as a Texas State senator. In 1980, he was elected to the United States Congress to represent the Fourth District of Texas, where he has represented that district with distinction. If you ever traveled in Ralph's district and you stop at the 7-Eleven and you stop to get a little gas and you mentioned Ralph Hall, people's faces light up because I bet everybody in Ralph's district has met Ralph because one of the things that he was very diligent about doing was making sure that the people in his district felt represented. Since his election, he has worked tirelessly here in Congress on a number of issues, and I had the honor and privilege to serve on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee with Ralph. One of the things I appreciated most about Ralph and I think most of us appreciated is Ralph's sense of humor. Now, that didn't stop him from really asking very direct and grilling questions of witnesses that would come before our committee, and sometimes, it would be a tense moment, but Ralph always had something funny or a story to tell that kind of broke the ice. You see a number of members of the Texas delegation are here today, particularly the Republican delegation. Every Thursday, we have lunch together and talk about what is good for Texas. The thing that we always looked forward to was we couldn't wait until Ralph got there so Ralph could share a funny story. One of the things that I will miss most about Ralph is those times when he would be on the floor or he would be at lunch sharing those stories. Now, one of the things about Ralph is that, as he got older, he got wiser. In fact, he got so wise in 2004 that he realized that he needed to be a part of the Republican Party, so he switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, and we were so glad to welcome him to that. As I said, it has been an honor and a privilege, Ralph, to be part of your team on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and it has been a great honor to be one of your colleagues. More importantly, Ralph, we want to thank you for your friendship, your kinship, and, most importantly, your service to this great Nation and to the State of Texas. With that, we say, Ralph, job well done, God bless you, and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, when Roll Call Vote #516 was taken on November 12, 2014, I was unable to be in Washington, DC to place my vote. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, as I was listening to the gentleman, I was wondering if he was talking about the amendment that he had actually offered, because actually he is making the case that I stood up to make today. Let me tell you what this amendment would do. It would exclude scientific information published solely in the internal Interior Department publications from the definition of ``best available science,'' which would allow the Department of Interior to avoid transparency requirements in section 2 of the bill, which requires that the data used by the Federal agencies for the Endangered Species Act listing decisions to be made publicly available and accessible through the Internet. So what the gentleman was saying is they cooked the books, they cooked the information, and he doesn't want that to be made available. So here we are making important decisions about the potential taking of people's land, spending millions of dollars in mitigation for what may be false science. This gentleman's amendment defeats the whole purpose of transparency, the intention of this bill. What we are trying to do is we are going to say: Let's take the facts, let's take the best available science that the Fish and Wildlife and some of these agencies say that they have, let's compare it with what is the best available science from the stakeholders and come up with the truth. But the gentleman's amendment, which I urge Members to defeat, defeats the whole purpose of that transparency. The American people deserve that. Their tax money is being used against them in the fact that the tax money is going out and being used to determine what is the best available science. Now if we have got the best available science--in fact, as the gentleman referred to it as ``cooking the science,'' then the American people ought to have an opportunity to dispute that and it not be hidden from them in some agency memo. With that, I encourage Members to defeat the amendment.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4315, the 21st Century Endangered Species Transparency Act. I also want to thank Chairman Hastings for all of the work that he has done on this issue, and I also want to thank him for inviting me to be a part of the ESA Working Group and for including my bill, H.R. 4317, the State, Tribal, and Local Species Transparency and Recovery Act, in the final version of this bill. In the 19th District, we have been facing a lot of these issues with the Endangered Species Act. We had the lesser prairie chicken. We had the Dunes Sage Lizard and some of the areas dealing with minnows. But one of the things that this bill does in the part of the bill that I introduced is something that is very simple and straightforward and very commonsense, and that is to say we need to make sure, before we make some of these decisions, that we have the facts. Now, that is kind of a novel idea. When we have a lawsuit, everybody gets to present the facts. And so what we are saying, and when we begin to go down the road of listing, causing millions of dollars' worth of expense and, in some cases, encumbering millions of acres of private property, we need to deal with the facts. Now, why are we bringing this bill up? Well, it has been pointed out that this bill is like over 40 years old and over 1,500 species have been listed, and only 2 percent of those have been recovered. Now, imagine going to a doctor and you say: Doctor, what is your outcome ratio? He says: 2 percent of the time I have good outcomes. Or imagine buying a product where you say this product works 2 percent of the time. So, basically, the ESA, Endangered Species Act, does need reform, and my bill, this bill, begins to do that. What does it do? It just says that when the Federal Government has collected data and they are making the decision, they have to make all of the findings, all of the data that they used to reach that decision available to the States and local governments and to the stakeholders. That seems fair to me. The other thing it says is that the local stakeholders and the local State governments and the local county governments have the right to present their facts. Now, one of the things that is important about that is that, I know a lot more about Lubbock, Texas, than maybe somebody that lives in the State of Oregon or the State of New Jersey. So that local knowledge of the habitat, the conditions is an important part of the data. So when you are dealing with the facts, then I think we are going to have better outcomes. And if that is the goal of the Endangered Species Act, then why are we trying to suppress the facts? I don't get it. So that is the reason that this is an important part of that. I notice that the gentleman mentioned that he thinks that this bill somehow dictates what is the best science. Not true. What it says, though, is that all of the data that they collect they have to present to the other stakeholders. What it also says is that the data that the stakeholders and the county and local and State governments present, they have to consider that data.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Now, if somebody has got a study about what they think the conditions in Lubbock, Texas, are, we think the people on the ground in Lubbock, Texas, or in west Texas probably have better information and ought to be a part of that consideration. I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 4315.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Chairman, basically, what the gentleman's amendment would do is strike the language in the section of this bill that requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider all data submitted by State, tribal, or county governments as best scientific and commercial data available. Let me dispel one of the myths. It says that all of this data has to be considered best scientific and commercial data. That is not necessarily true. The Fish and Wildlife Service still has discrimination over what data that it considers. What it does say is that it must consider the data that is submitted. The other thing that you hear my friends on the other side of the aisle say is that I guess all of the best data and all of the smartest people in the country must be in Washington, D.C., but we have Mr. DeFazio, the gentleman from Oregon, stand up and say: no, sometimes they cook the books. So I wondered if that memo that the gentleman was talking about was the best commercial and available science for the wolf. Obviously, he was saying it was not. What we are really saying about all of this is it is just about transparency. It is about recognizing that the people in the States and the local governments may actually have better information on the ground about a lot of these issues than somebody sitting in Washington, looking at some model or some report that someone has drawn up. I will talk about my State of Texas, for example. The Texas Parks and Wildlife service has developed over 8,000 wildlife management plans covering over 30 million acres. I would probably tell you that those people have some of the best available and commercial science on a lot of the issues facing Texas probably a little bit more than maybe somebody sitting in Washington, D.C., or some other State. So one of the things that I am a little perplexed about is my colleagues keep fighting the transparency. This President said he was going to have one of the most transparent administrations in history, but that has been far from the truth. I would encourage my colleagues to defeat this amendment. It defeats the whole purpose of the bill and the intention of letting the American people know the facts. If you go to a trial, you don't get to use only your facts. You have to hear everybody's facts. Since this is a trial that determines whether these species are in fact endangered or not endangered anymore, we should be able to deal with the facts, but we can't deal with one set of facts. We have to deal with all of the facts. So if you want to hear all of the facts, defeat this amendment.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, due to flight delays on July 8, 2014, I was absent from votes in the House. I, therefore, missed rollcall votes 369 and 370. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall No. 369 and ``aye'' on rollcall No. 370.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Chairman Smith's support of this legislation, as well as Ms. Johnson, the ranking member. I rise today in support of H.R. 1786, the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Act. This is a very important piece of legislation because what we know is that tornadoes and tornadic-type winds have caused a huge amount of destruction and loss of life in our country. Last year alone, there were over 1,300 recorded tornadoes in our country, causing over 70 deaths and over 1,500 injuries. These storms not only cost lives, but they also damaged property. The average is about $4 million a year, except in 2011, when we saw a bad year for tornadoes. The damage was over $28 billion. That is not just a natural disaster; it is national disaster as well. Back in 1970, I had an opportunity firsthand to find out exactly how devastating these tornadoes can be. In my hometown of Lubbock, Texas, a tornado ripped through our community and killed 26 of our citizens. Fortunately, I was not injured. It was in an area that I lived at that time, and I had the opportunity to see firsthand the tremendous amount of devastation that can happen from these storms. Very quickly, after that storm in 1970, Dr. Ernst Kiesling, with Texas Tech University, began to study these tornadic winds and to look at ways to build structures more effectively, to build shelters, and to really study the impacts that these storms have on building materials and what materials hold up the best. We have been talking about statistics, but it is really about the lives of people that are impacted by these storms. When someone loses their home, they not only rebuild their home, but, in many cases, they are going to have to rebuild their lives, which is one of the primary reasons that I introduced this important piece of legislation. What does it do? Basically, it begins to, as I mentioned earlier what was going on at Texas Tech, not only study the building materials and different types of wind activity and the material in the structure and construction techniques that are used to apply those materials, but also to begin to have a better ability to predict how these storms form and, in the future, be able to give more warning, but just doing the research overall of how we can do better at predicting and also helping the American people do mitigation against these kinds of storms and understand the mechanics of them. Basically, what this NWIRP does is take four agencies and pool them together in how they spend money for this important research. It takes NOAA, the National Science Foundation, FEMA, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, and basically makes sure that they are coordinating and sharing that information. What is so important about using Federal tax dollars to do that research is to make sure that we are transforming that out into the general public. And so as we learn about these techniques and we begin to make suggestions of how building codes, building standards, and building techniques can be improved in the future, we thereby save lives and property down the road. That is an important part of this. What we learned is that for every dollar that we spend in mitigation, we save $4 in response down the road. And so not only is this a piece of legislation that will help save lives and property, but a really novel idea of saving the American taxpayers money at the same time. This is a commonsense piece of legislation that is bipartisan. It passed out of the committee in a bipartisan way. It will save lives; it will save money; and it will save property. I encourage my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.

Mr. NEUGEBAUER

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourns to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.