Steve Pearce

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Madam Chair, I rise in support of H.R. 4402, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act. It's nice to hear on the floor who it is that's speaking for the trees in New Mexico. We've just burned down 300,000 acres of those trees in New Mexico because of the voices coming from Washington saying don't cut a single one of them. Let the fuels build up in those forests until they burn down. All this bill is doing is saying, let's hold our government accountable to some standard of performance. We want our government servants to do the same work they would do in 10 years in maybe 30 months. That is not an unreasonable assumption for us in America, who are looking for the jobs. New Mexico used to be the home to 11 rare Earth mineral mines. Those are the ones that create cell phone batteries, the minerals that create technological things. And we now have pushed those out of New Mexico and the rest of the West, and we've pushed them over to China so that they have the jobs and we no longer have them in this country. We have people here who are willing to scream foul on every single thing when we ask the government to simply do its job in a little bit more efficient manner. We actually did that in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. An amendment placed in the Resources Committee actually improved the permitting process. It had categorical exclusions. It created pilot offices. I just had a chance to visit with the State director of BLM last week. He said that our processes are so much better today because of that bill. That's all we're trying to do in this bill here today. H.R. 4402 simply listens to the President. We were talking about, from the other side of the aisle, we should rename it. Well, why don't we rename it, We're Listening to You, Mr. President? You asked on March 22 that our Federal permitting and review processes must provide a transparent, consistent, and predictable path. The President is asking for it, and this bill simply gives it. The reason that we don't have jobs in this country is because we're sending them to other countries. Companies cannot wait for 10, 12, 15 years. They can't invest in that permitting process to get to the point of where their process is finished.

Mr. PEARCE. They can't invest 10 to 12 years in a permitting process to be told at the end of it, we're sorry; we're not going to do it. We could call this the Let's Reinvest in American Green Jobs. Green jobs require aluminum; 100 percent of that is imported. Green jobs require nickel; 100 percent of that is imported. Green jobs require platinum; 91 percent of that is imported. Our friends on the other side of the aisle speak from both sides of their mouth. We want green jobs, but we don't want to have any of the productive assets here. We want to import them from other countries. Let's reinvest in America.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I rise today in support of the rule for H.R. 4402, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act. The gentleman from Utah has stated it right: It's a fair rule, it's a good bill. All it does is simply defines a critical mineral as any related to national security or the Nation's energy infrastructure. That clarity is needed. But additionally, it affects one thing that the people are constantly clamoring about in my particular district: Where are the jobs? This bill understands what the President began to hint at in his March 22, 2012, executive order. The President in that executive order said: Our Federal permitting and reviews processes must provide a transparent, consistent, and predictable path for both project sponsors and affected communities. They must ensure that agencies set and adhere to timelines and schedules for completion of reviews, set clear permitting performance goals, and track progress against these goals. The President has moved toward the problem that we see in this country--that many of our mines are moving outside this Nation. New Mexico used to be the home for 11 rare Earth mineral mines. Today, it's the home of zero. Those mines have relocated over in China. As we look at the rare Earth minerals, those are strategically important. That's one thing that this bill attempts to get at--the definitions that will really give teeth to the President's executive order from March 22. People in New Mexico constantly ask: Why don't the two parties work together? I think there are many opportunities for the parties to work together. The President has begun the process, and we're simply adding the reverse piece to it that would make it a completed argument. The President has said in the past, for instance, that we're not working together, and he has stated in both the last two States of the Union that we must reform corporate taxes.

Mr. PEARCE. I requested the President work with us to affect those taxes. Let's lower those corporate taxes. Let's get companies back here. But the President has at this point kept those discussions at arm's length. This bill is simply another attempt to reach out to the President and say we all want to create jobs. We want commonsense solutions to the problems that we face. Work with us to define the strategic and critical minerals. And let's do it in this act. So I think it's something that the President should be reaching out to this body and saying, ``Yes, good, go.'' I would thank the sponsor for bringing the bill. Let's work together to create jobs and get those mining industries back here in America.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to address the House on a matter of the West. There are major fires burning across the western United States. There's tremendous property damage and tremendous damage to the environment. Habitat for endangered species is being burned up in the hundreds of thousands of acres. The species themselves are being destroyed and killed in these massive wildfires. And the Chief of the United States Forest Service says, We need to introduce fire back into our forests. Just this week as the Chief visited in my Rayburn office with me, I said, Chief, this is what it looks like when you reintroduced fire into the forests in the West right now. The forests are chock-full of fuel. Decades of mismanagement by our Forest Service has allowed the fuels to build up to where it's a dangerous, explosive environment. The drought which actually occurs regularly in the West has caused those buildup of fuels to be explosive in nature, and when fire gets loose, this is what it looks like. This is the town of Ruidoso, New Mexico, in my district, and these are the flames that burn that makes it look like Hades has taken over all of New Mexico. Is this what you intended, Mr. Tidwell? Is this what you describe as allowing fire to run its course and accomplish management objectives in your forests? You're the one responsible, sir. Thank God for the firefighters who will come out and fight to save the community. Thank God for the men and women who will stand in harm's way to stop this. But this should not be occurring. This is the Lincoln National Forest, and right next door, the Mescalero Apaches have about the same acreage of forests. With 14 people, they're able to clean their forests out. They're able to harvest the timber. When the fire gets to the Indian reservation, it simply drops down on the ground and becomes a grass fire, the way that fires typically ran in New Mexico and throughout the West. History shows us that in our forests, we generally had somewhere between 50 and 100 trees per acre in the arid West on our forest lands. They are grassy savanna lands mostly with widely scattered trees. It never became more than a grass fire, but our tree rings show us that about every 8 years, a very hot fire would come through, burning all of the grass and the underbrush, the ladder fuels, burning the small diameter trees while they are still small. But decades of putting out fires and decades of not harvesting any timber at all have allowed our forests to become explosive caldrons which are breaking into fire. The shame is that this fire in New Mexico started as one-quarter acre, and for about a day it stayed about a quarter of an acre. And then it spread to 4 acres for the next 3 days. Still, no call for tankers, no call for those aerial drops of water or the slurry which puts out the fire. None. Not until the fourth day, late in the fourth day. The Forest Service says they can't ask questions like this about those decisions. I think that the decisions locally are made by people who are trying to follow the policy of reintroducing fire into the forests. Regional Forester Corbin Newman recently stated: Fire will have to take its natural course. And we're just trying to put fire back into its natural processes, he said. This rings the same tone as was stated by Mr. Tidwell in my office this week, that we want fire to get back into the forest. Well, fire in the forest had a natural process when the forest was in balance. The forest is desperately out of balance right now. This is not the first brush with disaster that we've had. And keep in mind that the Forest Service personnel themselves said they're worried about losing the entire town of Ruidoso, that it was at high risk, not just at risk but at high risk was their statement as we were briefed about the fire. But we had warning signs last year. This is what it looked like last year in Ruidoso. High winds and a small fire began to throw embers throughout the town, and you can see the little spots of fires over and through the mountains that are in and around Ruidoso. We began to sound the alarm at that point to our Forest Service: Please clean the fuels out. We can't stand for this to run wild. This year, it has run wild and destroyed 242 homes in this area, and more outbuildings, more structures, beyond just the loss of homes. This is not necessary. All that is required is for us to manage the forests properly. It's a call that is going out from the people who live in the forests throughout the West. They're watching their wilderness areas, they're watching the forest lands burn to charred masses, and the Forest Service personnel themselves, the specialists, are telling me that trees will not grow here for another 100 to 150 years. How is it managing our forests to burn the trees for 150 years? How is that good for the environment? How is that good for the species? And how is it good for the people who live in this area? Shame on you, Forest Service. Shame on you for dictating policies to local managers who know better. Shame on you, Mr. Newman and Mr. Tidwell, for saying that we're going to reintroduce fire into our forests and let it run its natural course. The forest in and around Lincoln County, some has been cleared and harvested. We're not saying to clear-cut our forests. What we're saying is that a balanced thinning program will go through and leave widely spaced trees. This is similar to how it looks on the Mescalero Reservation and also it's similar to how it looks out at Fort Apache in Arizona. Last year, the Wallow fire burned 500,000 acres in the Wallow area, the Wallow fire, in Arizona and New Mexico, but when it got to Fort Apache, it simply fell down on the ground and stopped right there because they had thinned their forest. This is what a forest should look like in the West. There's not enough rain and not enough nutrients to support 2,500 trees per acre. This is the way forests looked in the West when fire had its way, when fire ran its course. Instead, our forests today are densely packed, 2,500 trees per acre, and this is the outcome when you see that. That's what the U.S. Forest Service looks like in most places, a deep contrast to what it should look like. And it is into this forest that the head of the Forest Service, the Chief of the Forest Service, is saying that we're trying to reintroduce fire into the wilderness and into our forests. It's a misguided approach. That idea that we're going to reintroduce fire is playing Russian roulette with our national forests and our wilderness. It's a game that is not working out too well. We have two major fires in southern New Mexico right now. We have the Little Bear fire in Ruidoso, but over in the Gila we've got 300,000 acres of land that has burned there, a strong mix or combination between the Gila wilderness and the Gila National Forest. Again, it started as a small fire. It started as a small fire, and the Forest Service releases say that they are monitoring it, that it's achieving its management objectives. I'm sorry, but management objectives of using fire in drought-stricken areas of the West, in forests that are chock-full of fuels, is misguided at the very least. The people who live and have lost much have suffered deeply. The Forest Service needs to be responsible for those losses. But additionally, they should be responsible for the loss in tax base to the local communities. They should be responsible to local homeowners whose value of their homes is going to be depreciated for decades. Those people who have moved close to the national forests want to be there with that natural beauty. Instead, they're going to be faced with a brush pile that doesn't grow trees for the next 100 to 150 years, according to their specialists. So what are we to do? Are we to stand by and allow our forests to burn because of policies that originate in Washington? Are we to put at risk the lives of local people? Are we to put at risk the property values of local people? Or are we to call on common sense, just a pragmatic understanding that you cannot use fire to achieve the balance when the forests are full of fuel? We have deep disagreements with our Forest Service on their policies. We have deep love for the people who manage the forest out in the field and for the firefighters who risk their lives. We're thankful every day that they're there 24 hours a day around the clock, 7 days a week, away from their families to protect us. But they should not have to protect us in this fashion. It's expensive. It's expensive in the loss of our forests. It's expensive in the dollar cost of the fire. This fire in Lincoln County was running about $2 million a day to try to put it out. The one on the other side of the State in the Gila was running about $1 million a day. But that is not the only problem that we face. Now that the trees are gone, when it rains, the rainwater is going to rush off the hills into the valleys; and it's going to rush down the valleys, and we're going to see flooding. If you go to the Web page that we have for our congressional office, you will be able to see a dramatic video called the Dixon Apple Orchard flood. That's up now to just above the Santa Clara pueblo in northern New Mexico. People from that pueblo were waiting for the water that they knew would come, and they videoed several different spots. So take a moment and look at that, if you would, to see now the next calamity that is going to face New Mexico. Because when you burn the trees, there's nothing now to stop the water from rushing off the hill. It is going to carry topsoil with it. It's going to carry rocks and boulders, and it's going to flood towns completely off the face of the Earth. One of the people fighting the fire out west in the Gila said that that area would have some of the most dramatic flood potential that he had ever fought fires in; that is, the canyons are so steep and so deep, and they come together, nine canyons come together, at Glenwood. All of that water is going to be pouring through the small town. Mogollon, New Mexico, sits at right at the mouth of one of those canyons. It has high, high, steep canyon walls on both sides of it. It's at the bottom of the V. And those communities that have existed for decades--Santa Clara, which has existed for hundreds of years, is going to face flooding, not because of anything they've done, but because of the way that the Forest Service has managed its lands, the way that the Forest Service has managed those resources that we asked for them to take care of so that we all might enjoy the benefits and the beauty of our Nation's landscape. Yet we're not going to be able to see that, and we are going to be exposed to floods for decades to come. What kind of sense does that make from Washington? People across America are beginning to say that our government is broken. They're saying it's broken because of policies that result in fires, like the one that we just showed the picture of. People are saying that this is not responsible, that a government who would say that we're going to reintroduce fire into the forest with this kind of result, what kind of responsibility is that? That's the question that we're here tonight to ask. It's not reasonable to expect people to just stand back and say nothing. So we are accepting an invitation to speak at a public rally where people are going to express their concerns, their fears, and express their losses in this fire, a fire that we've had decades to prepare for. Several years ago, we had a fire on the backside of Capitan Mountain, just in this same area. And the local forest supervisor said, Well, it was a small fire, 15 acres, and it didn't justify bringing in air tankers and more resources. It blew out of control and became a 58,000- acre fire. It's that mindset that we're not going to address the fire situation totally that is putting the West at risk right now. In Colorado, in that fire, we actually lost the life of a citizen who couldn't get out of her cabin. When are we going to start managing properly? That is the question that lies before us all--us as a Nation, us as a Congress, and the U.S. Forest Service and the head of the Agriculture Department, who manages them. It's a tragedy, what's going on in the most pristine parts of our country, wilderness areas where fields have been allowed to burn and where we're going to see the absolute destruction. It's not a matter of if our forests will burn; it's simply a question of when they're going to burn. Now, we can manage differently and we can manage better, but we absolutely have to make the commitment that we're going to give up the policies that are failing and move into a new thought process. In visiting with the head of the U.S. Forest Service this week, I asked about a policy that used to exist to put out fires. It was called the 10 a.m. policy. That is, if we see a fire running at any time today, we're going to put it out by 10 a.m. tomorrow; and if we don't get it out by 10 a.m. tomorrow, we're going to put it out by 10 a.m. the next day. The head of the Forest Service, Mr. Tidwell, said, yes, it was very successful; in fact, he said it was too successful. Too successful? How can you be too successful in putting out these fires? Too successful? That was his statement. Yes, it worked too well. Well, Mr. Tidwell, I want it to work too well because I don't want the forest to look like this. I don't want our communities to be greatly at risk. This is your standard operating practice. This is the outcome. I want you to go back to the 10 a.m. policy that says, Put it out by tomorrow at 10 a.m. Then let's go in and let's start clearing our forest and cutting the fuels out. Let's start actually managing those forests, and then we'll stop burning them up. Then they'll be healthy forests, widely spaced trees. They will have enough nutrients. The bark beetles won't be able to get into them because they will be big, healthy trees. Right now, the bark beetles are killing millions of trees across the West because they're starved for nutrients. They're like children that don't have enough nutrition. They're weak. They're spindly. They're susceptible to not only fire, but disease and insects. And all of our specialists tell us, but we don't make a change. We've got many mountain communities in New Mexico. All of them face this same risk. We're not going to stand idly by while our chief U.S. forester says it's time to reintroduce fire back into our forests. I'm sorry. I disagree with the concept that our wildernesses will become charred stumps, that our national forests will not grow trees for 100 to 150 years because the heat of these fires calcify the soil sometimes as deep as 3 feet. It turns it almost into a glass, where the trees can't get root. Only the grass and small shrubs that are able to get some rain at the top of the surface will penetrate this. We've got an area like that close to Cloudcroft, New Mexico. There was a very hot fire in the early fifties. It still is only shrubs. We haven't grown that forest back. So I believe when the specialists tell me it's going to be 100 to 150 years, I have seen at least 50 in that one forest myself. So I know that they're saying partial truths, and I think it to be complete truths. Why are we accepting this management process on our Nation's forests? It doesn't make sense. It is extremely costly to people. It's extremely costly to the government. We can and should use the resources of this country better and more fairly. We should allow our species to have forests to live in, not to burn them out and not to burn the species up. The spotted owl lives in this area, and you can see what's happening to his habitat. You can see what's happened to the spotted owls who were actually here. They don't exist anymore. The Fish and Wildlife Service in the past has said that this fire runs less risk to the spotted owl than logging. How can you say that this is less dangerous than doing this? The logic is completely missing. Actually, the spotted owl thrives in these circumstances. The Mescalero tell us that they have numerous pairs that are coming back into the reservation because they have widely spaced trees. The spotted owl actually roosts in the tree, uses its altitude to glide off, catch its prey, and come back up. It cannot do that in this forest, and it can do it in this forest. So every argument that we are being faced with right now does not make logical sense as we talk about the policy here in Washington, D.C. It's a discussion that has now started in earnest in the West. The Eastern States, number one, don't have a problem with the drought. And number two, they don't have as much public land as we have in the West. It is the West that is burning up. It is us in the West. I'm the chairman of the Western Caucus, and we are taking the lead in voicing our complaint, our frustration, and our fears for the population because of the management of the forest in the West. Again, our highest compliments to the foresters who live and work in the West. It is not them. It is the policies coming from Washington, D.C. It's the culture, it's the thought process that somehow tries to justify the actions which are causing these monstrous, massive fires. We need to stop it today. We need to stop it now. We need to manage properly for the future so that all might enjoy these precious resources. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, we have a discussion that needs to take place before we make a decision, and I see the gentlelady coming onto the floor. So if we can take just a moment to discuss, there is an amendment we would like to be made in order, and I need to visit with the gentlelady, if I can. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Burgess-Markey amendment. With all due respect to my friend from Ohio who said that this is a national security issue, the Department of the Navy has said they have enough material to last them through 2050. We have plenty of time to start from scratch to bid the project out. If the contention of our friends is that we must have a U.S. company that produces this material, then start the bid process today. We have until 2050. USEC has attempted for over 30 years to develop a centrifuge--and has yet to do it. They've had over $5 billion given to them. If they get this bailout, then they're going to continue operations with the request for another $2 billion. At which point are we, the designated representatives of the people, going to stand and say that other people can do that? Right now, the Department of Energy is saying the only scientists in the country that we can fund are at USEC. I sincerely disagree with them. I do not believe that we should have foreign-owned corporations providing this material, but we have plenty of time now if we start. We're told that we do not have the intellectual property if we somehow take the funds away, if we don't give them. What intellectual property is available when the company has spent $5 billion to create 38 machines, six of which have had catastrophic failures? One split the case, which stops the whole program because that would cause a leak of radioactive material. It is time for the Congress simply to say what they want to go to bid and allow the best bidder in the Nation, the best developer, the best minds in the Nation, to come together and develop what we want. Stop funding a failed corporation that was at risk a month ago of being pulled off of the New York Stock Exchange, that has been downgraded. USEC had 90 percent of the world market. They had 90 percent of the U.S. market when they were given the company and privatized. They were given a billion dollars worth of tails. A billion dollars worth of product and 90 percent of market share, and they have squandered that market share down to 10 percent. Several years ago, they put those tails on the open market and collapsed the uranium market. What valuable company sells the raw materials out the backdoor that they are given and collapses the world market? That's the company that I'm saying in the Burgess-Markey amendment simply doesn't get bailed out. The head of that company last year paid himself $5 million. Taxpayer bailout dollars are going to pay the executives of this company elaborate salaries when they're not producing anything. If the company were as good at producing centrifuges as it is getting government handouts, they would have long ago succeeded in developing the capacity to make centrifuges. Other countries, other companies, other nations have centrifuges by the hundreds of thousands operating-- and this Nation, after $5 billion, has 38 that don't operate. Just stop the games. Stop the bailout. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment today which transfers funds from the Office of the NNSA Administrator and into the Defense Environmental Management Fund, a program which funds the cleanup of radioactive waste. This program is important to our defensive mission, our environment, and public safety. The Defense Environmental Management Program has demonstrated success in solid waste disposition, soil and groundwater remediation, and facility decontamination and decommissioning, and will continue to do so with sufficient funding. I would like to thank Chairman Frelinghuysen and Ranking Member Visclosky for their hard work on this bill and for prioritizing this issue particularly. Unfortunately, the budget request from the White House did not accurately reflect the monetary needs to fully fund the project contained in the EM program. My amendment would simply put back $40 million into the Environmental Management Program, which would provide much needed relief to the already constrained budgets for these projects. As we accelerate the permanent disposal of radioactive waste, we decrease downstream the long-term cost for security, storage, and providing a better, safer environment into the future. Many of the storage sites that currently exist for radioactive waste sit aboveground and are threatened by tornados, earthquakes, and wildfires. As I'm sure most of you have seen this week, New Mexico is susceptible to wildfires that can be started at any moment, get out of control extremely quickly, and rage out of control for days. Los Alamos is located in a forest area and is highly vulnerable. In fact, just a little less than 1 year ago, the Las Conchas fire burned around 150,000 acres of thick pine woodlands in the Santa Fe National Forest, which surrounds the lab complex in the adjacent town of Los Alamos. At one point, the leading edge of the fire was as close as 50 feet from the grounds, which contain thousands of outdoor drums of plutonium-contaminated waste. Until this week, the Las Conchas fire was the largest in New Mexico's history. There is a similar story from the year 2000, the Sierra Grande fire. As a result, just this January, DOE and the New Mexico Environment Department entered into a consent order framework agreement to expeditiously address the highest risk waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The waste amounts to 3,706 cubic meters of non-cemented aboveground waste, and the agreement calls for the removal of this waste by June 30, 2014. This amendment will allow LANL to meet groundwater and surface water requirements, as well as ensure the health and safety of the New Mexico residents who live closest to the lab. While the overall bill dedicates funding to LANL for this project, it still falls short of what is needed. Without full funding, projects like removal of the highest risk waste at LANL are in jeopardy. Finally, I am transferring this fund out of the Office of the Administrator for NNSA. These funds are needed more in the field and less in Washington, which, as we know, could go on a strict diet. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I have no additional comments, and would yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I flew combat missions in Vietnam in 1971, '72, and '73. I was there when Members of this House voted to cut the funds to troops in combat. I'm hearing the words ``safe'' and ``orderly'' withdrawal. Has anyone on the other side looked at the safe and orderly withdrawal that occurred in Vietnam? As we fell head over heels, we left 574 combat- ready aircraft there. That was the safe and orderly withdrawal we had when this body began to manage Vietnam. We lost the Vietnam War because we took the control of the war away from the generals and placed it into this body, people who had never been in combat, who had never been in harm's way. I'm telling you, as someone who was there during a time when Congress choked off the funds to people that were in harm's way, I had a burning anger that burns today. And when I see this amendment and visualize the young men and women over there whom you're cutting funds off to and saying we're going to leave you with an orderly and quiet withdrawal-- it's not humanly possible. The other side doesn't play by your orderly rules. Understand that this is war, and our troops' lives are at risk, and you're putting them more so.

Mr. PEARCE

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

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This week we have been inundated with complicated facts and details about our Nation's uranium enrichment capabilities as well as its impact on our national security. All of these technical, confusing arguments revolve around one failed company, the United States Enrichment Corporation, USEC. Regardless of the complex arguments, it's very simple: Are we going to do the job we were sent here to do and protect the taxpayer from wasteful government spending, or are we going to look the other way and allow a $150 million earmark to bail out a failed private company? My amendment ensures that we do what I believe we came here to do, to be stewards of our constituents' hard-earned tax dollars. I ask you to remember one fact: USEC is a failed company with no technological innovation to show for the billions it has been given. Why are we propping up this company with more taxpayer money instead of asking the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to use a fair and open and competitive process like it does for every other national security need? I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PEARCE. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We continue to hear different arguments. We hear that USEC is necessary for national security purposes. It is absolutely not. The U.S. Navy confirms that it has enough highly enriched uranium fuel to last until 2050. DOE itself declared that at no time in the foreseeable future would more highly enriched weapons-grade uranium be needed for defense. In March of 2012, the head of NSA testified to the Senate that tridium production would not be affected if USEC failed. We're hearing arguments that don't stand up to the facts. My colleagues claim that USEC funding will protect U.S. intellectual property. It will not. USEC has had decades and billions of dollars of taxpayer money to create this technology--and has failed. They have created 38 machines. Six of those have failed, one catastrophically. There is nothing to be gained. Our friends are complaining that this amendment does nothing. In fact, in January of 2012, Secretary Chu wrote a letter that DOE does not have the authority to shift funds around without the consent of Congress. With this amendment we're striking that authority. Guess what USEC is? USEC is Solyndra on steroids. It is a taxpayer bailout of a failed company. USEC is a company that lost $540 million in 2011, and paid their chief executive officer $45 million while doing it. It's a company that has been downgraded three times in the last 5 years. Mr. Chairman, I request that we vote for the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time. The Secretary of Energy, Washington, DC, January 13, 2012. Hon. Ed Whitfield, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Whitfield: Thank you for your letter regarding the proposed Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) plan for the American Centrifuge Project (ACP) in Piketon, Ohio. I continue to believe ACP offers an innovative technology approach to uranium enrichment that offers both national security and economic benefits. The Department's proposed RD&D work is the best way to help ACP achieve commercial viability by reducing technical and financial risks associated with the project. As you know, in October the Department of Energy and USEC asked Congress to allow the Department to use $150 million in fiscal year 2012 from our existing funds and the transfer authority to re-allocate funds within our existing budget to support the ACP research partnership that would enable the project to reduce its technical and financial risks by finalizing machine designs and demonstrating the technology and key systems on a larger scale. Unfortunately, Congress did not give the Department authority to proceed in this manner. Because the project has strong commercial potential and because its success would strengthen and protect America's national security interests, we want to continue working with Congress to secure approval for this research effort. To make a down payment on the research effort while giving Congress the additional time it needs to act, the Department has decided to use its administrative authority to provide near term assistance. Specifically, the Department will assume $44 million in liability for uranium tails while taking precautions to protect taxpayers. Transfer authority will still be necessary to complete the full research effort. With additional time, and strong backing from leaders in Congress, we hope that Congress will approve transfer authority to allow DOE to use its own funds to conduct RD&D on advanced enrichment technology. In the absence of Congressional action to provide DOE the necessary transfer authority, the company asserts that the project and the jobs it supports are in jeopardy; demobilization of the project could entail significant risk that the project could not successfully be restarted. I urge Congress to act as swiftly as possible to provide the needed transfer authority so that we can use funds from our existing budget to fund the full RD&D program. I thank you for your efforts to support a domestic uranium enrichment capacity in order to advance our energy, economic, and national security interests. I remain hopeful that by working together, and with prompt action by Congress, we can succeed in making the full RD&D program a reality. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Sincerely, Steven Chu.

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

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman for bringing this issue before the House. It is rare that a person can impact your life in a very strong way. It is almost never that a person can impact your life in a very strong way on different ends of the spectrum. In 1970, I graduated from college. I had drawn a very low draft number earlier in my college career. I had joined the Air Force ROTC in order to avoid going to Vietnam in the middle of my college career; but, as an ROTC graduate, I then had an obligation to go to pilot training. I attended pilot training and then went overseas. I was assigned to the C 130s. We were stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, but most of our missions were in Vietnam. For the next year and a half, that's where I was. On one particular mission there in that time of 1971 and 1972, I was a copilot who was flying into Cambodia. Now, at that time, we were supposedly not going into Cambodia, and we were supposedly not going into Laos, but we were in and out on several trips that day. That evening, when I got back to the BOQ, to the quarters there at Korat Air Force Base, which I think is where we were stationed at that time for 2 weeks, I was interested to see that President Nixon was on TV. The camera zoomed in very close to him, and he described that American soldiers were not in or around Cambodia, that that mission was not one that we as soldiers were fulfilling. Now, having just been in and out around Cambodia the entire day, that struck me as unusual that a President would say things that were completely untrue, that I knew to be untrue. In my heart, I began to believe that he could have said, I don't think the American people have a right to know. He could have said, It's secret, and that's classified information. But he came out with the camera looking him square in the face, and he said that we were not there. Now, maybe he did not know. I'll give him that. Yet, when I got back to the U.S. and had found out about Watergate-- that was beginning to unravel--the idea of who to vote for in those 1972 elections was ever present on my mind. His opponent, there was no chance I would vote for him. His opponent was Eugene McCarthy. I would not vote for him, but I ended up filling my ballot out that neither man was qualified or deserved this office. I did not vote for a President that year simply because of my personal experience. Then in watching this whole problem with Watergate, Chuck Colson, Haldeman, those guys who were inside--the Plumbers--it began to give me a sense that this was a very bad point in my life and that Mr. Colson was a part of that group that was willing to mislead a Nation, that was willing to say things that weren't true. At the end of the day, President Nixon, as you know, stepped down. He gave up his office because of misdeeds that a small group of them pulled together. Now, it was with that background that I knew Chuck Colson for most of my life. Then in 2003, when I arrived here at the Capitol when being first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, I started going to just a very small lecture series, and it was hosted by a gentleman named Chuck Colson. It didn't take long to make the association; but he was bringing in some of the best Christian worldview thinkers in the entire country, and I was able to experience Mr. Colson in a far different way than that remote acquaintance I had made in the early seventies. In this way, he was one of the most compelling thinkers in the country. It was he who said that he lived in the dark until he saw the light. It was he who committed himself to a different view of the world, one that said that we must have redemption, that we must have a savior, that there is no hope for us as human beings if we are not to deal with those problems that each one of us faces in our lives. As he began to develop his insights and began to be one of the premier organizers of the Christian worldview, bringing in literally people from around him, he established his pillars for glorifying God through the works that we do. Those pillars are: One, prepare well; two, keep an eye on the horizon rather than up close to you; three, engage and enlist others; four, run assessments; five, seek the abiding fruit, not just that that is temporary; and, finally, have guidelines that you have applied. It is in those principles of glorifying God that Mr. Colson really developed a presence that affected the world and affected my life significantly. He began to compel those of us attending this lecture series in this House of Representatives, in one of the rooms beneath us, to enlist those around us, to be a light that shines out to others, to let our lives be different, to let our lives be the equivalent of salt and light, which are rubbed, so to speak, into the fabric of the American mind-set so that those around us will know that they have embraced a lie. It was Mr. Colson who told me the most dramatic thing. His perception was--and I believe it is still--``The greatest problem facing America,'' he said, ``is truth.'' We don't know the truth in this country anymore. It's not revered. As we don't know the truth, then we see the fragments of society beginning to come loose around us. I hear my own daughter and grandchildren say: Which side is right? They're all saying different things. When we as a Nation walk away from the concept of truth, when we as elected officials fail to honor our obligations to speak the truth as we know it, when our courts declare that there is no truth, then the Nation truly does suffer. He made that extraordinarily clear and lived it in his life. It's at that point that I began to be compelled that I should be more honest and transparent in my own faith. Not that I would go out and be interrupting people and thrusting myself into their consciousness, but that they would look and see there's something different. They would say: Maybe we can trust that viewpoint. So it is with sincere appreciation to my friend who is honoring Chuck Colson with this time tonight--because I believe that the Nation has lost one of the premier thinkers, one of the premier people who would guide us along a path, who would give us a wake-up call saying that we must find that salvation, we must find that way back when things have gone wrong. He was speaking from his experience of having gone so desperately wrong at a young age, being upheld and lifted into the very White House in this country, and having stumbled so badly. He could speak with experience saying we all have to come back. There are things that every single one of us slip into that eventually we're going to want to change course. It's through his example, through his words, through his values, through his ideas that I know there are many here in this Congress who have lived a different life because of those ideas. He came to New Mexico a couple of years ago. They had a large conference on the weekend. Again, I remember the same clarity, the same professionalism, the same looking toward the horizon there at that conference in New Mexico as we heard in this building here. He was a constant. He was refreshing to speak so openly about his problems. He was never able to let them loose, never get them away from him, never get that stain off of him. But he embraced that, yes. That's who he was and now he was different, that he had lived in the dark until he had seen the light. Each one of us, if we were to make those same understandings and give those same acknowledgements, I believe, would live better and more transparent lives with truth being a greater part of that life. And I think the Nation would be better off for us living, as it is for him having lived. We mourn his passing, but we also glorify God that he was placed into our midst that he might truly shine the light of truth into the darkness that he found around him. My friend, I will stay around to hear what else we have. Thank you very much.

Mr. PEARCE

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman for his comments and would, again, accentuate both his points and the gentlelady from Wyoming's about the administration's current war on the poor. We have heard repeated comments from the administration and their representatives that we need to get the price of gasoline up so that people will consume less, that, yes, the price of electricity by our policies will necessarily increase dramatically. The price of electricity increasing, the price of gas increasing, punish the poor terribly. Why would we have policies that are so unfair to the poor? It defies imagination. Also, following up on my friend's comments about the Secretary saying that it is impossible, just not feasible, even unimaginable that people in the States would take better care of the property than the Federal Government has, I would simply direct the Secretary's attention to those massive forest fires in the West. They are managing our forests in order that they would burn down. They and the Federal Government have choked the bureaucracy full of people in order to manage these resources, but, instead, they manage them in a process that ultimately sees that they will burn down. It's not a question of if but when. The final comment I'm going to make, and then I'm going to yield to my friend from Colorado, but the President recently asked for $52 million to crack down on speculators, which he claims are the cause of high gas prices. $52 million to crack down on speculators. Now, speculators, you have to understand that they make their money by guessing which way the market is going to go. Right now they see a government that is choking down access to supplies, so they scratch their head and say, We think maybe the price is going to go up and so they speculate and buy on the assumption that the price of gas is going up, the price of oil is going up, and lo and behold, they're making money. But if the President were to announce today that he was going to open--and people sincerely believed him, that he was going to open access to Federal lands, those same speculators who today think the price is going to go up would begin to say, Oh, I better buy down, because if I bid up and the price falls, I'm going to lose money. So those speculators would begin to drive the price down. But he doesn't need $52 million. All he needs to do is give one sentence from the White House that the war on the West is ending and we're going to open the West oil production up again. That would do the trick; no $52 million putting us deeper into debt. It simply makes sense to us from the West because we see it day in and day out. We're joined tonight by our good friend, Doug Lamborn, from Colorado, and welcome here. It's nice to see you, and we appreciate your participation in the Western Caucus. We appreciate you being here tonight.

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I'm proud to be on the floor tonight speaking on behalf of the Western Caucus. We, in the West have been working for 2 years now--for a year and a half--to help the Obama administration out with their tasks. In September of last year, September 11, President Obama said that he would keep trying every new idea that works and listen to every good proposal, no matter which party comes up with it. And so 4 days later, on the 12th of September, last year, we in the Western Caucus, Senator Barrasso and myself, sent a letter to President Obama outlining the ``Jobs Frontier Report''; but, to date, we have not yet heard from the administration. In that jobs report we have, basically, 40 different pieces of legislation that create American jobs, utilize American energy, and also stop regulations that are in the process of killing, during this year, 3 million more jobs. So at a time when the Nation is faced with 8.2 percent unemployment, continuing over 8 percent, month after month, for one of the longest periods of time in our history, the administration seems pretty flat- footed on ideas, and so we in the Western Caucus felt like we could assist in that. That's our business. Many of us are familiar with the industries, we're familiar with the job creation that can go on in the Western States. And so we felt that we were offering help to the administration but, to this point, they've been completely unresponsive. If you go on our Web site, you would be able to see the ``Jobs Frontier Report.'' We've got the cover of it depicted here, and it simply describes in that report the 40 exact pieces of legislation that have already been written and submitted in order to create these jobs. Now, it would be important to understand that all of these jobs, not one of them requires Federal input, no Federal expenditure, no Federal stimulus, no tax to the American people. And, instead, we're simply trying to solve the problem with the free market that has caused this country to be so great in the past. We are faced with unemployment in the West that is actually much higher. It's 10.1 in percent in the West, which tells us that the accusations that there is a war on the West, a war on jobs in the West by the administration are verifiable in the unemployment figures. We have other documentation. Gas prices have doubled since 2009. The public lands are facing increasing restrictions. The President has recently stated that the oil production is up in the U.S. Well, he stated a correct thing; but what he should have been, from his perspective, talking about is it is all produced on public lands. And when we analyze that, we find out, in 2011, that oil based on public lands, produced on public lands, actually decreased by 14 percent, and that the gas production, natural gas production, decreased by 11 percent. And so when Secretary Salazar levies his charge that the facts don't speak for what our position is, maybe we could redirect the Secretary to go to the Web pages for the government that would describe exactly what we're showing here, that the oil production that is occurring to increase our total production is occurring on private lands. It is not occurring and is, in fact, decreasing on public lands. That's because the government is slowing down the permitting process. They're finding new and restrictive ways to implement requirements on people who would be creating jobs, who would be drilling for oil; and each of these processes simply strings out our investment. We had testimony earlier today, the House and Senate Western Caucus came together, had testimony from two different panels; and one of the panelists explained that they had bought--they had paid for these leases on public land, but they, in fact, then turned them back because the requirements turned it into a proposition that they had not bid on at all. So we continue to find these case examples of too much interference, too much regulation, causing the energy sector to slow down in certain areas on public lands therefore creating more unemployment and creating a bigger gap. I'll finish one thought, and then I'm going to yield time to my friend, Congresswoman Lummis from Wyoming, who is a member of the Western Caucus and is the vice chairman of that. We were in the hearing together earlier today. But at this time in our Nation's history, almost everyone agrees that the greatest threat that we face is the continuing debt and the year- after-year deficits. There are only three ways that you can solve deficit. If you're spending more money than you're bringing in, as a family, well, you've got a couple of choices. Number one, you can go out and get a second job or retraining to where you make more income so you can increase your income. Number two, you can cut your expenses down; or, number three, you can borrow money to make up the differences. The Federal Government is faced with the same conclusions. It either needs to increase revenue, that's by raising taxes; or you can increase revenue by growing the economy, that's creating more jobs. Secondly, you can cut spending. Thirdly, you can borrow. Unfortunately, the Federal Government goes one extra step that most families, some families actually resort to, but it's against the law for families. It's perfectly legal for the government. But the fourth thing is to print money. And it's that printing of money, that debt which is not being able to be repaid that is the great threat to the country. If we were to look across the West and see where we've choked off jobs and put those people back to work in the hundreds of thousands of jobs, then each job would do two things. First, they would cut the cost of the government because those people come off unemployment, welfare, food stamps; but then, secondly, they go to work and start paying taxes. So you have a squeeze from both the cost end, because the government is spending less money; but you also have an increase in revenue so your costs and revenue move together when we create jobs. That's the reason that the Western Caucus is concentrated on jobs rather than a taxation policy or a borrowing policy and especially not on the printing-of-money policy. So at this moment, I will yield time to my good friend, Cynthia Lummis, from Wyoming. We welcome you tonight and thank you for being willing to speak on behalf of the Western Caucus.

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming for her presentation and the facts that she presents. One of the things that people constantly say who are opposed to oil and gas, to energy coming from America, is that it's impossible to drill and remain environmentally sensitive and safe. I think that those people are simply not looking at current technology. It is possible with today's technology to drill up to 7 miles horizontally. That would be like drilling from here in this room here across the Potomac River somewhere out into Crystal City and putting a drill bit through a window that's maybe this large. So what we're able to do is drill down 3,000 or 4,000 or maybe 5,000 feet, turn horizontally and drill and hit the zones of production. It is possible in today's technology to preserve almost the entire footprint of whether we're wanting grass lands or forest lands or whatever. We almost don't have to disturb those because the drill bit actually will be so far beneath the surface, we don't have to go in and clear locations like we did 15, 20, and 30 years ago. You can also take one well, drill it straight down and then come off that and put multiple well bores so that what used to be spread on a quarter-acre or quarter-mile spacing or half-mile spacing might now today be one well for any number of the distributed wells. So the environmental impacts of drilling today are probably less than in any other technology. Wind energy, for instance. Wind is very large in New Mexico. They've got these miles and miles of wind generators standing in the air. Very large footprint. New Mexico is very capable of producing a lot of wind, but one of the problems is that the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't shine all the time. We had in Arizona recently--one of the operators of a wind farm said that they get about 12\1/2\ percent reliability, that is about 12\1/2\ percent of the time they're getting generated power out of the wind, and it's somewhat higher in Arizona for solar, about 25 percent of the time. So when people are talking about converting from oil and gas to wind and solar, and I think every one of us believes that we ought to be using all of those forms of energy, but we have to understand that if we go to 12\1/2\ percent reliability, that's the amount of time that when you flip the switch that you're going to have power. I think most of us are living lives that we demand and need power immediately for use of home appliances, for use of our computers. In manufacturing, you don't want power that is just available part-time. Generally, manufacturing is expensive and competitive. We're trying to keep our manufacturing jobs here, and the last thing we want to do is tell manufacturers you've got to shut down for 10 hours today because the wind is not blowing. The modern economies absolutely demand the predictability of good power when you flip the switch to turn on equipment or to turn on things in your home. It is possible to provide those energy resources at the same time that we protect the environment. In my father's generation, there were lots of problems. In my generation, I watched as major companies began to clean up things that had originated back in the twenties and the thirties. So it's necessary for us to say that every single one of us wants to see the environment clean. They want clean water. They want the soil to be clean and clean air. And it is possible to achieve both because of the technologies that we have today. I would draw our attention next to the fact that this administration has been saying that they want an all-of-the-above energy policy. At the same time, then, they're increasing restrictions on public lands and access to public lands. They're making it more difficult for the producers of both coal and electricity generation. They're making it so much more difficult that everyone in the West is struggling under the load. The reason that the West has to deal with the problem more than the East is that the Western lands are so much more owned by the government. State government and Federal Government own such a large proportion of the land in the West that it's incomprehensible to States back East exactly about the problems that we face. But whether it's endangered species, whether it is restrictions, whether it is EPA, all of the agencies play a part in slowing down the process. Recently, our administration--through Mr. Abbey at the BLM--said that we really want the BLM across the Nation to lower the time required to give permits. In fact, that time is still abysmally high at over 200 days. I see my friend from Utah (Mr. Bishop) standing ready to speak. At this time, if he is ready, we'll yield time to Mr. Bishop, and we appreciate your presence on the Western Caucus. Mr. Bishop is the past chairman and still a respected person on the House Western Caucus. Thank you for being here tonight, and we appreciate your participation on the caucus.

Mr. PEARCE. That is absolutely true. One point that is often omitted by the opponents of fracking is that the people who most want fracking not to communicate with the fresh water are the oil companies themselves. They drill this million-dollar well bore, then they run casing in the well bore. They put cement outside that casing in order that they can have a nice tight well bore in order to produce the oil that allows them to pump the oil out expeditiously. And when they frack, they frack thousands of feet below the water zones. They're usually right up at the surface. And for contamination to occur, that pressure that is pumped down in the thousands of feet lower in the well would have to come outside the well bore, outside the cement around the casing, all the way to the surface, and then contaminate the water up there. In doing that, they have ruined the entire well bore. So the companies themselves are watching to see if there's any drop in pressure. That's when you know that you've got something bleeding off. They shut everything down. They patiently look at it. The oil companies, again, are the best custodians of the water because they don't want to ruin the well that they have spent drilling and a lot of money in completing. I notice that my good friend, Mrs. Lummis, is back at the podium, and would yield more time to her at this point.

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentlelady. Before I yield time to my good friend Mr. Bishop again, I'm reading in today's quotes that Interior Secretary Salazar said that House Republicans live in an imagined energy world. I appreciate his concern and his criticism. I consider it as constructive. But think about this imagination. The President in March of 2012 said: We can't just drill our way to lower gas prices. We can't drill our way to lower gas prices. That's a viewpoint that could be considered legitimate, except that about the same time he's calling for Brazil and Saudi Arabia to increase their drilling in order to get the prices down so that people in America don't have to pay as much at the pump. Now, I'm not sure what imagined energy world says that it will cause the price of gas to go down if they drill in Saudi Arabia and Brazil, but it won't cause the price of gas to go down if they drill over here. That, to me, argues that it is that that is instead an imagined energy world. The Secretary goes on to talk about that these members of the Republican Party are members of the Flat Earth Society in a demeaning term. Now, in my county, you can see from one end to the other, miles and miles; and if you turn and look east, you can see all the way to Dallas 300 or 400 miles away. I do live in a flat part of New Mexico and can see across the line into Texas. And so he speaks in demeaning terms about flat Earth, and yet he's very happy to have all the production of oil and gas that comes from there. So the flat-broke administration is criticizing the Flat Earth Society. And of the two, I would rather live on flat ground than be flat broke. And so I would yield to my good friend, and then I will close out.

Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman. Senator Hatch is going to introduce this week the West Act, which is a combined 10 bills that we have previously sent from the House of Representatives that are sitting dormant drawing dust in the Senate, and so he is going to lump them together and push them out. Those are a part of our ``Jobs Frontier Report.'' And those acts do things like H.R. 1229, Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act, that's by Representative Hastings; H.R. 1230, Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act by, again, Mr. Hastings; H.R. 1231, Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act; H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, and that's by Mr. Gardner from Colorado; H.R. 1837, the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act by Mr. Nunes of California; H.R. 872, Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act by Mr. Gibbs; H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Prevention Act by Ms. Noem; and, finally, H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act by Mr. Upton. Now, just talking among friends, I would feel that the Secretary of the Interior exposes a little bit of thin skin. These are credible debates that we're having in America right now, whether we should use foreign oil or oil produced in this country, whether we should export our jobs overseas to produce energy or whether we should get them here. I read where Mr. Salazar says that the fact is most of the Outer Continental Shelf resources are open for business, he says. Well, then, give us the nod, and we'll simply pass those first three bills: Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act; Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now; and Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium. If it's already the case, then just humor us, nod your head, and nothing will be changed since it's already open for business, and if the President would tell the Senate to go ahead and pass just those three bills, we could send them up to the President, and we could have plenty of jobs starting out and plenty of American production. Again, I would look back at the price of natural gas. When the administration says that you can't drill and come up with lower prices, the price of natural gas a couple of years ago was in the $12 range. Today, the price is about $2.50. Now what caused the price to go from 12 to 2? When the price is going up, the President says, I need $52 million to control the speculators that are driving the price up. But when the price goes down, somehow he's not saying we need to give you $52 million back because now those speculators are driving the price down. This view of energy in the White House, originating with the Secretary of the Interior, somehow doesn't get the fact that the reason the price of natural gas has fallen from 12 to 2--and that's a very steep decline--is because we have drilled our way into lower prices. We've increased the supply enough through more jobs and more production that world demand is kind of swamped with the supply. It's, again, an economic equation of supply and demand. I think that's the greater impact in the price of gasoline today. The supply and demand of oil and the supply and demand of natural gas controls that. We have drilled our way to success in natural gas because companies went everywhere drilling on private lands. But now, then, the administration is saying we need to curtail all that production here because it's not going to lower the price; we need to the control the speculators. These are simply inconsistencies that are punishing the American public. They're punishing the American public and especially the poor in the American public by higher gasoline prices and by higher electricity costs. It's making it to where families just can't get by, to where they can't make the payments for the month. And poor families everywhere are having to make choices to buy energy or to live in cold, live without air conditioning, and to not be able to drive and see their grandkids. What kind of choices are those? Those are not the choices that I think most Americans want. I think most Americans like our lifestyle. Our lifestyle is based on two dominant things--the cost of food and the cost of energy. And when we drive both of those costs up through overregulation and through government limitations, then we're doing a disservice to the American public. Every single person in America wants to see our land protected, they want to see the workers protected, they want to see soil, water, and air protected; but they also are desperate to see jobs created. It's within the power of this body, it's within the power of the Senate, and it's within the power of the President to create those jobs, to create the answers for an America that is tired, for an America that is scared, and for an America that is worried about its future and the future for her children. It's within our power in this town to reverse those things, to stop the war on the West, to start making sense in public policy, to start making decisions that create solutions--real solutions for not just jobs, but for careers where people can plan their lives, they can set aside to buy a house, or to send their kids to school. That's the America that all Americans want across party lines, across racial lines. People for generations have come to this country for that promise, for that hope, and that opportunity. It starts with us in this town. It is time for us to put aside the differences. We ask the Senate to pass the West Act; and, Mr. President, we respectfully ask for you to sign that act to bring jobs to the West and bring prosperity to the Nation. God bless this country, and God bless each one of the taxpayers. I yield back the balance of my time. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore