Steve Pearce

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, Judge Poe.

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. First of all, thanks to Mr. Cleaver and Mr. Lamborn for bringing this bill to the floor today. Thanks for your dedicated work on that. Thanks to Mr. Poe. Around here we just simply know him as ``Judge,'' but thanks for his poignant comments. As a Vietnam veteran returning to the United States in the 1973 era, I found a Nation that was disrespectful to young men and women who had served, myself included. I took my uniform off and put it in a closet, never to pull it out until I ran for Congress and people began to ask why I didn't tell about the military story. That is a condition and a mindset that no matter how you are registered, no matter what culture you are in, what race, what religion, we must never let this happen again. We must be willing to sacrifice for those who have sacrificed for us and those who have been willing to make the sacrifice. My grandfather was in World War I. As I was approaching my time to go to Vietnam, he visited with me about being in the Argonne Forest and about being gassed there. It left him with a lung condition and frailty throughout the rest of his life. But he never was sorry for serving, never was sorry for those things that had happened to him. It is young men and women who are willing to do anything for others' freedom that we are honoring here today. And again, I would urge all to support this legislation. It is a noble concept and a noble tradition of remembering those who have served this country in the military. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PEARCE

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

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

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), who is a tireless advocate for Native Americans and Native American housing.

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma and, again, appreciate his leadership. As you have heard, there is no shortage of debate on the bill, but there is also no shortage of people coming together and saying let's pass this bill. I listened with interest to the ranking member. The points that she made today were made during the markup, and, again, I appreciate and respect that and have not set those concerns off on the side. It was absolutely essential that we move the bill forward in order to get this passed in this session, so I appreciate all of the support from our partners across the aisle. This support that you are hearing from Native Americans across the country from people in this Chamber is no coincidence. It comes from hard work, and that hard work has come from both sides of the aisle, but especially from Ms. Moore, Mr. Heck, Mr. Kildee, and, again, Ms. Waters. So thank you all for that dedicated effort. On our side, Mr. Young, Mr. Cole, and Mr. Hensarling have been just vital in getting this kind of pulled together in a fashion that we could bring it here today on suspension. For the past 2 years, my office and I have worked with countless tribal leaders and housing associations nationwide; we have worked with other Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle; we have worked with HUD and the administration--all for one end result, and that is to create greater prosperity for Native Americans. It is that simple. I am proud to cosponsor H.R. 4329 because it does so much to accomplish this goal. For generations, prosperity and growth has evaded many Native American communities. NAHASDA is not designed as an entitlement but, rather, as a tool of empowerment and growth. To date, each reauthorization has built upon the past to make alternations and updates designed to provide greater autonomy and prosperity on tribal lands. H.R. 4329 is no exception. I ask that you join me today in reauthorizing this commonsense yet transformative legislation, which will help millions realize the dream of prosperity. Vote ``yes'' and help break a perpetual cycle of poverty through self-determination and independence. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, every country must deal with and answer the question: What does it take to be prosperous and to have prosperity for future generations? There are many answers to that question, but one of the keys is science, technology, engineering, and math--the STEM fields--in our educational system. The United States needs to be able to compete in these fields on a global scale, and children of all schools should have the opportunity to develop these skills no matter where they live. Recently, teachers in the Second District of New Mexico brought up the question: What about us? Can we use funds that are set over here in the Education Department to develop better skills in the STEM areas? Those questions were not answered in a completely positive way--that maybe it was not possible. Therefore, the teachers put forward an idea that maybe we should just get the flexibility in, a practical suggestion for an important concept. Teachers and educators in the Second District provided firsthand experience and developed the idea into a concept. Several teachers formed an ad hoc working group. Brian Claar from White Sands Schools, Lindsey Guerrero and Marci Hearn from Gadsden Independent School District, Marci Behrens from Las Cruces Public School District, as well as Susan Brown, Nicole Delgado, and Christina Abeyta from the New Mexico State University STEM Outreach Center, all came together and developed that concept into a proposed legislation. Working with my staff, they actually got the bill written, and on June 25 of this year, I introduced H.R. 4973, titled: Spurring Teacher Education Movement for STEM Act, also known as the STEM for STEM Act. H.R. 4973 increases flexibility for teacher development funds under the Rural and Low Income title of the Elementary and Secondary School Act of 1965. It allows the funds to be used for teacher development in teaching STEM. The STEM for STEM Act also expresses the need for the U.S. to compete on a global scale. A teacher should have the high-quality professional development opportunities in STEM to increase their content knowledge and improve student learning. Professional development is essential for providing teachers and educators with growth opportunities that then are presented to our children. Teacher professional development enriches the learning environment for students and educators alike. It is important for us to say thank you to those teachers who make it possible for America to compete into the next generation. Hopefully, this bill, H.R. 4973, will provide a small element of help for the rural areas that stretch across the Western part of this country.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding and appreciate his leadership on this issue. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 4315. New Mexico used to have 123 mills that processed timber. Today, that number is zero because of an endangered species called the spotted owl. Now, 20 years after declaring the spotted owl to be endangered because of logging, last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came out and said: oops, we made a mistake, it is not the logging at all. We killed 123 mills in New Mexico. Eighty-five percent of the Nation's timber industry is gone because of a mistake. That sounds like the junk science that our opponents are arguing that we should be avoiding. Mr. Chairman, last year, a lizard was going to be named as threatened or endangered in my district, and an ad hoc committee of scientists came together. They looked at the science that the Fish and Wildlife Service was going to use to list, they proved all of it to be false, and the listing did not occur--but only because of peer review. That is what this bill is trying to do, to establish a process where others can get to see what is going on inside those hidden dark doors of the Fish and Wildlife Service. This year in New Mexico, the lesser prairie chicken was listed as threatened which, again, put people out of jobs. Ben Tuggle, the Fish and Wildlife Service director in New Mexico said they felt pressured by the lawsuits--not by the science, but by the lawsuits. This is what it looks like dealing with the Endangered Species Act in the West today. It kills jobs, takes away the future, and takes away tax base--all for junk science that is currently being used by the department. This bill simply says let's get some transparency and let's get peer review. I urge the Members to vote for this bill.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, April is National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. April 25 was National DNA Day. It commemorates the discovery of DNA's double helix and subsequent scientific advancements. DNA has revolutionized public safety in the criminal justice system. Since its inception in 1994, the national DNA database system has solved more than 200,000 previously unsolved crimes. It provides closure to victims of violent crimes. It assists prosecutors in taking violent offenders off the streets and has helped clear more than 300 wrongfully convicted. Katie Sepich was a 22-year-old New Mexico State University graduate student. In August of 2003, she was brutally raped, strangled to death, burned, and abandoned at a dumpsite. Katie was a fighter with full DNA profiles under her nails. Through DNA, we were able to find her attacker. Katie's Law was signed into law last year, helping States with DNA collection. The discoveries and advancements of DNA have done wonders for our society. Closure has transformed our justice system.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman from Lubbock for yielding. Many would ask: What does a former Representative from Texas have to do with New Mexico? Well, New Mexico's Second District is bordered on two sides by Texas. In those days growing up 3 miles from Texas, often we New Mexico guys slid across the State line in the middle of the night. We found things to entertain us there, and we would be back home by daylight. So west Texas and eastern New Mexico have a lot in common. I had an opportunity to meet Mr. Hance when he was in Congress. I was flying as the corporate pilot for the Congressman from the Second District of New Mexico, at that time a gentleman named Mud Runnels, and during that association, I had the opportunity to meet the Congressman from Lubbock. I started watching him from a distance there. Many people are going to recount the good things, the titles and positions that he has had, but I would like to recount as someone watching Kent Hance from a distance as he made his way through Congress and later became chancellor of Texas Tech, a university that is host to many students from New Mexico. Watching from a distance, I can say that Mr. Hance did the things that all leaders are called to do. He served with honor and distinction, but he made tough choices when they were called for. A couple of years ago, a high-profile employee of Texas Tech needed the firm hand of discipline on his shoulder, and Kent Hance made the tough calls. Texas Tech has been better off because he was there as a strong person in times when they needed strong leadership. So again, from the New Mexico side of the border, we would like to say thank you for guiding an institution that has been home to so many New Mexicans. Thank you for your distinguished service, your commitment to principle and honor and duty. We all from New Mexico say God bless you, Godspeed to you, and thanks for your years of service.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the work of the gentleman from Washington and for his yielding time. You have just heard one view of what the bill does from our friends on the other side of the aisle. I would bring a different view. Just a couple of months ago, Secretary Jewell visited a city in my district, Las Cruces, with the full intent--my belief--to create a Presidential executive order creating a monument. Keep in mind, that monument bill could not be passed through this House under Democrat rule. It could not be passed through the Republican-controlled Senate with a Republican sponsor. It could not be passed through the Democrat-controlled Senate when they had a filibuster-proof majority. Now, then the President is going to come and unilaterally declare almost one-third of a county to be restricted. The West is starving education because of the public ownership of land. Any time you create a monument, you restrict the ability of local economies to survive. So the first monument--the first wilderness area that was created by Congress is in my district, the Gila National Wilderness, and they are starving for jobs in that entire region. They are asking: When can we have our jobs back? So the gentleman describes that it is somehow we, as Republicans, objecting. No. All we are saying is that the President needs to live by the same rules as everyone else. The President is not above the law; neither is his Secretary. This bill is very simple. It is transparent. It says that the NEPA process is about public involvement. That public involvement is what has scared away both Democrats and Republicans trying to make this 600,000-acre wilderness happen in the 2nd District of New Mexico. This bill needs to be passed because Washington needs to understand the people own the land.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, natural gas is revitalizing American industries. It is revitalizing the middle class. That natural gas is being produced because we do a process called hydraulic fracturing. My background is in oil and gas. I have seen the process my whole life. I have seen new technological innovations that keep us more safe, keep the process safe, protect the well bores, and protect the water. So who would be against a process that is rebuilding American industries, that is rebuilding the job base of this country? Sand sales you would not seem to identify with this particular process, and yet that is exactly why sand sales are soaring in the country and the production of chemicals is soaring--because of the use of this process called hydraulic fracturing. It has been around for decades. New Mexico has safe drinking water, but we have also got plentiful jobs, and American consumers have lower costs of living, all because of a process.

Mr. PEARCE. New Mexico knows how to regulate its own industry. Do not force us to live by some cookie-cutter mold that has produced an Affordable Care Act that is killing jobs across the country. Give us our freedom and we will protect the environment.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, the President promised that if you like your plan you can keep it; but he hasn't followed that promise, and he followed up with an administering of the plan that is even worse. Only 172 people have been able to sign up in the one month's 24-hour access to the Web site that is supposed to allow us to sign up. More people are served popcorn and soft drinks during the halftime of an Artesia football game than have been able to get service through this Web site. The losses are extensive: In Truth or Consequences, Ron says that he lost his coverage and that the replacement is 350 percent to 550 percent higher; Jacob in Roswell: his whole road crew lost its plan. It is seeing its premiums triple; Kathy from Silver City, who is on fixed income-retirement: their premiums are quadrupling; Jen, on Facebook, who is going from $300 a month to $1,500 a month, wonders where she can get the money to pay that. Maybe you have an answer, Mr. President.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chair, I am here to support H.R. 3080 and to compliment the ranking member and the chairman for the work they have done on this valuable bill. I support it because it creates jobs and deauthorizes $12 billion in backlogged projects that are outdated and do not have construction funds obligated. I do want to point out that there are some issues with the text of the bill that my constituents have brought to my attention. For example, one dam in the Second District of New Mexico is awaiting approval from the D.C. Corps of Engineers office but likely will not get approval until January, with a projected contract awarded in March 2014. I have been assured by the chairman and committee staff that the deauthorization language will not target projects like this one, projects that are in a study, design, or reevaluation phase. I thank the chairman of the Transportation Committee for his efforts to pass this vital infrastructure bill and for ensuring that the cuts are targeted toward wasteful and unnecessary projects, not those that impact public safety and our economic well-being.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, words are very powerful and words are important. I hear the words from our President and realize that he understands the importance of words, also. In the past, he has talked about debt, borrowing, and spending, but now he talks about obligations, because he understands that ``debt,'' to the American public, is a four-letter word. He doesn't want to be tagged with the fact that he is asking for more debt, so now it is ``obligations.'' That is a word that has cleaned up the concept that we are simply borrowing against our future. But even the word ``borrowing'' needs to be looked at, because that assumes that we have the credit to borrow with; and the truth is no nation can lend us the kind of deficits that we are running right now, so we are actually printing the money. But even the word ``printing'' has been changed in Washington. Now it is ``quantitative easing.'' It just sounds so much better. ``Printing'' sounds so crass to the American public who might be worried about what is happening to their savings accounts while Washington is printing money. The word ``negotiation'' is a word that the President is familiar with. He did it 2 years ago when we reached this exact same point. Both sides came to the table and negotiated, and we wound up with a budget that was not as extremely overdrawn as we had faced before. That is the power of negotiation. But now the word ``negotiation'' is taken out of the President's vocabulary, and he declares that he is being held hostage. Oh, really? This thing he calls being held hostage is actually the American way. It is what our Founding Fathers wanted. They came here and set up a system with a President and two Houses of Congress and two different parties; and those parties would sometimes have all the power, and sometimes they would share the power. This President says he is being held hostage by the system. That means he doesn't believe in the balance of powers that the electorate cast in the last election. He declares over and over that the election is done--I was elected. The same people that elected him chose to put Republicans in power in the House of Representatives. I think they did that because they were afraid of this debt, deficit, borrowing, and spending. We are told that we should have a clean CR. There is nothing clean about sacrificing the future of our children and grandchildren. That is what the President wants: a CR where he can spend what he wants to spend without negotiations on anything. We actually, in the House, submitted four different plans before this shutdown occurred. Those plans were just summarily rejected by the Senate, waved off, not really even considered; and yet we find our friends declaring this to be the Republican shutdown, not that both Houses failed to come to an agreement and the White House failed to sit down and negotiate. They just weren't going to be held hostage. So now, then, we need a clean CR, according to some, and we need to stop this Republican shutdown. Words are very powerful. No longer do we talk about spending in Washington. We talk about investing. We are investing the American public's money. We are investing it in things like studies of the sexual habits of the fruit fly in Tijuana or wherever. ``Debt'' is, indeed, a four-letter word. We are finally led to believe that default will occur immediately, that we somehow won't pay our obligations, that the American people need to understand that they are still paying their taxes every day and those taxes come to Washington. That is about $2.5 trillion a year. If we do not extend the debt ceiling any higher, then what Washington is going to have to do is it is going to have to prioritize. It is going to decide which of its expenses to pay. The Constitution demands that we pay our obligations. It says we can't default on those. Washington would have to do the same thing every American family does: it will have to prioritize its expenses if we do not extend the debt ceiling so chaos will not reign. We simply have to live within our means. That is what every American family has to do.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, we are here this morning. Many in the Nation have questions about how we arrived at this point. It's not that complex. Different people across the country elect people to represent their viewpoints. Even across my own State, the viewpoints vary widely. I probably represent five or six different demographics, different economic engines, different needs. We are sent here to make decisions, to make hard decisions. One of the toughest things that the Nation faces right now is that we are on an unsustainable path in our United States budget. Those are not my words. They are the words of a specialist, the economist that we hired to tell us such things just last week, notating that what we're doing is not sustainable. The one side, I recognized their viewpoints, that they should provide more for more people. Other viewpoints are that we should live within our means as a Nation, that we cannot continue to borrow from the future to pay for the present. And so we arrived at this budget negotiation, this way to fund the government, the continuing resolution. What should happen is that we pass 12 different appropriation bills funding the government, one unit at a time, with great insight coming from both points of view, both parties, both sides of the aisle. About three or four or five of those have been passed out of committee. Some have been sent to the Senate. Those have not been processed, but the House hasn't finished its work. So we were forced into a circumstance caused by both houses, both parties that said, we'll fund the government with a continuing resolution. That is, we will resolve to continue how we spent before. Those are sometimes inadequate, inaccurate reflections of current spending problems, current spending needs. But that's where we were. Now on the one side, the President said, We want you to just give us the money to spend. Our side said, We will do that, but we want things in return. If we're spending more than the Nation can bring in, if we're spending more than the government has, then we would like to check that spending. We would give attention to the Affordable Care Act, to ObamaCare, that we would choose that in order to relieve the pressure. The bill is unpaid for. We are printing the money to make government work now. About $1 trillion a year is being printed. We call it quantitative easing because printing sounds so crass to the American public. So we're quantitative easing $1 trillion a year; and yet we're bringing on another program which is unaffordable and which we do not have the trillion or $2 trillion to spend. So our side said, initially, we will give you the funding for the government, but on our side, we would like to defund the entire program. That position simply was never responded to by the Senate. In good faith, we said, okay, we understand your unspoken communication, so we notched down a bit. We will still continue the government funding at the price that you, the President, are asking for. And this time, we'll simply delay the program for 1 year. It's not working. It has problems in many different States. We still aren't certain where the funding comes from. And, again, the President and the Senate remained silent, not even bothering to show up for work for a couple of days before they sent our first opinion back, simply rejected. The second was sent back. Last night we were faced with another quandary. We said, we'll notch down one more time. We said, we'll fund the government at the level you're requesting, but we should, on our side, suggest that we would delay the individual mandate. The President has given many individual exemptions. He's given waivers to companies, to unions. He said to all employers, we're going to delay your input for a year. Last night the Senate rejected that. That's the reason we're here today. I call on the Speaker, the President, and Mr. Reid, to gather publicly in front of TV cameras and work the differences out.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, for the last few days, I have been in the southern district of New Mexico. I've had the opportunity to visit the devastation caused by the flooding in that area. We've seen houses that have been completely washed off their foundation and completely destroyed. We've had loss of life and livestock, even the ground and certain farms washed away, and the underlying roadbeds washed away 8- and 10-foot deep in some areas. But in all of that, we see the inspirational actions of our first responders, volunteers, and people who came out and worked around the clock to provide help. In one instance, neighbors knew that a young couple was away from home so they took pickup trucks and unloaded their belongings and moved them to safety before the house washed off its foundation. These are the things that make America great. These are the things that make New Mexico great. Any time we see calamity, we have the opportunity to see the other side of America, and it shines brightly.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this bipartisan bill that brings commonsense management back to our forests. Since Tom Tidwell took over the Forest Service, he said that he would like to reintroduce fire into the wild. Well, he's done that. This year, almost 10 million acres, more than twice the size of New Jersey. In the years since 2009 when he took over, larger than Ohio, 27 million acres have burned in our national forests. Instead, this bill creates jobs--jobs in places like Cibola County in New Mexico where Matt Allen used to have a thriving mill but now survives on cutting one-by-four timber, one-by-four boards out of the logs he is able to take out of the forest. Our streams are choked with mud. Habitat is devastated. A 75-foot deep lake near Ruidoso, New Mexico, that provides drinking water to the city of Alamogordo has 50 feet of fill in that 70-foot lake. Our fish are dead. Our streams are dead, choked with mud because the head of the U.S. Forest Service says, Let it burn instead of cut it. Common sense says cut it. This bill ensures that.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I would make a comment to my friend from Virginia that we in the West are being protected from ourselves, we are being protected from jobs. The devastation is in our jobs. I have one county--I have 18 counties--one county is 7,000 square miles. That is three times the size of Delaware. It is six times the size of Rhode Island. It has a population of 3,725 people. The jobs have gone away. There used to be 11 rare-earth mineral mines in the southern district of New Mexico. Today there are none. All of those jobs have gone to China. This is just a commonsense bill that says we are going to go through the process. We have economies that are being devastated, but it's not an environmental devastation. It is from the environmentalist who will sue to stop every single job in the West. We've lost our mining jobs; we've lost our timber jobs. These are areas that are not sitting out here making life unlivable and unhealthy; these are areas that are looking for jobs. I would urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment with respect to my friend.

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

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment today to H.R. 761, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act. My amendment is very simple. It only serves to clarify the scope of the bill by stating that it does not impact the rules put in place by Secretarial Order No. 3324, issued by the Secretary of the Interior late last year. That order sets in place buffer zones between potash mines and oil and gas drilling, among other requirements. The Permian Basin's potash reserves are some of the purist in the world, and our oil and gas drilling plays a key role in the current energy boom that the country is experiencing. There is a very long history between potash and drilling operators in the region, and the secretarial order helped to clarify some of those issues. I've spent the better part of my career in Congress working to facilitate an agreement between these two industries to ensure both are able to thrive simultaneously. While some have criticisms of the secretarial order, it is an important step in the process of assuring the safe extraction of mineral resources. My amendment simply clarifies that the text of the bill cannot be used by the Bureau of Land Management to show favoritism for either potash or oil and gas leases within the area laid out in the secretarial order. It does not affect the underlying bill, and it does not cost the American taxpayers a single dime. It brings economic stability to the Permian Basin and ensures that these two mineral resources can be safely and properly developed side by side. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to differ with the gentleman from New Jersey, my friend. He said that potash is not very high-tech. When you use a scoop shovel to follow the cows around and use the byproduct from the cattle to fertilize with, potash is extremely high-tech. So, with that one exception, I yield 30 seconds to the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).