Mike Pompeo

Mr. POMPEO

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

Mr. POMPEO. Mr. Chairman, just as Congresswoman Jenkins opposed this amendment, I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment as well. The facility at NBAF is a facility that is not just about Kansas. It's important that it's in Kansas. I'm happy that Kansas went through an incredible competition against businesses all across the State and facilities all across the country to make sure that we had the best facility, the facility that was right not for Kansas, but right for America. After that competition, Manhattan, Kansas, was chosen for the site of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, and now Kansas and the United States have already invested heavily in this facility. It's a facility that creates a biosafety lab level four. It's like no other asset, no other national security asset in America. It's incredibly important. It's important for our food supply and safety for human health. It's not a partisan issue. It was supported by both the Bush and Obama administrations and was passed through both a Republican- and a Democrat-controlled Congress. So there's no partisan nature to what's going on at the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. It's simply about national security. There have now been multiple reports and commissions indicating that this kind of threat is one of the most imminent threats to our Nation's entire homeland security. It's been for that reason that DHS has been very supportive of NBAF and NBAF being built in Kansas. The State is uniquely qualified. It has exactly the right kind of scientific experts and precisely the expertise to be applied immediately and for the facility to be built in a way that it can operate safely. We've got to protect animals and people from disease and make sure that when we do that our communities are safe and secure. This is a challenge that our country is ready and able to undertake at the facility in Kansas. I urge my colleagues to reject this effort to delay this critical development essential to the health and safety of our food supply, and ultimately the safety of the American people. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. Mr. Speaker, just a few days after Memorial Day, I rise in support of a new resolution introduced by Mr. Gingrey to honor America's Patriot Guard Riders. The Patriot Guard started in August of 2005 in Mulvane, Kansas, the southern part of the district which I represent, with a group of folks from VFW Post 136; and it now numbers over 220,000 patriotic Americans. These great Patriotic Guard Riders attend funerals and protect the families from unwanted intrusion during this important time after the servicemembers have fallen. They visit veterans at hospitals and meet with the family members of the soldiers, and they contribute their time and their dollars to scholarships for the families of America's fallen soldiers. I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring Mr. Gingrey's resolution, H. Res. 669, and in honoring this group of patriotic Americans known as our Patriot Guard Riders.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. Mr. Chairman, I want to first start by commending Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Ruppersberger for their great work on crafting this bipartisan bill, a strong piece of legislation that addresses some tremendously important issues that face our country. While this legislation in its detail--and we've heard the chairman speak about it--talks about new initiatives and programs and three- letter Agencies, this is about something different from that. This is about protecting the American people. This is about keeping the citizens of El Dorado and Coffeyville and Wichita and Anthony, Kansas, safe against a staggeringly large and very real threat. On September 11, now over a decade ago, we began to enter a very different time, very different war. Now 15 years ago, I was serving in the military. I served along the East German border. Then it was different. We could see the enemy. They wore uniforms. There were fences and boundaries. And today, we live in a very, very different world. And this legislation, the 2013 Intelligence bill, attempts to, in a fiscally responsible way while protecting the privacy of every American citizen in a conscientious way, address those very real threats. It is easy sometimes to forget--to forget from a decade ago and forget that al Qaeda is still there, active and trying, fighting vigorously to take down the American way of life. And to see this thoughtful piece of legislation put together in a way that both parties could agree to, that both parties could say this makes sense, these are the resources we have available, we're going to do this in a fiscally prudent way, is something that I think should encourage each of us and cause every Member to support this legislation. We can't allow anyone to forget that this threat is real. The gravity and consequences of not having an active and capable intelligence set of agencies and forces is too important. I know the chairman and ranking member both understand this, and I want to thank them for their work. I want to encourage each and every one of my colleagues to support the FY 2013 Intelligence Authorization bill.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. POMPEO. I rise in opposition to this amendment. Just because you call something ``economic development'' does not make it so. We could name an Agency many things. This administration is one that most folks have never heard of. I had never heard of it before I came to Congress 16 months ago. This is a classic case of the Federal Government taking from one and giving to another, often for the benefit of private companies. You'll see in a minute that I have got an amendment that takes a very different approach to economic development and how we ought to attack this problem. But I heard the distinguished gentleman from Maine talk about job creation. It's one thing for elected officials to go to a ribbon-cutting and stand in front of a facility and talk about jobs and say those are all the jobs that we created when, in fact, those jobs were created by taking money from taxpayers. Where elected officials often don't want to go is to stand in front of the unemployment line or talk about folks who had to pay too much in taxes or stand there and tell someone why that company got money and the company over on the other side didn't get this particular grant from the Economic Development Administration. I have seen this Agency up close and personal. It is a very, very political use of capital. This is not the free market that we all know. This is an agency that distributes money all over the country, very, very intentionally into 400-plus districts all across America with the aim of making sure that this Agency continues to exist in perpetuity. This is precisely the kind of stimulus that we have demonstrated time and time again in America. It doesn't work. And for that reason, I oppose increasing the funding for the Economic Development Administration. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POMPEO. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. POMPEO. Thank you very much for yielding. You said that, because I'm in my first term, maybe I didn't understand. Perhaps it's because you've been here a couple of years that you don't appreciate how jobs are really created in the real world, not here in Washington, D.C. You talked about Kansas. You may have forgotten that the air capital of the world, where 60, 70 percent of all aircraft are manufactured-- indeed, the business I was in for a decade--was good manufacturing jobs. What we didn't need was more taxes and more government spending. What we needed was the government out of the way.

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Chair, I rise today to talk about something that Congress doesn't often get a chance to do. I talk to my constituents, and they often tell me, you know, we never get rid of anything. Programs just continue on and on. They grow. They go away for a little bit, and then they come back. We have a real opportunity here. My amendment is to eliminate the entire Economic Development Administration. We are $16 trillion in debt. This gives Members on both sides an opportunity to start addressing a serious spending problem in a real way. This is an amendment that has bipartisan support that I will talk about in just a little bit. Having spent over $1.5 billion on grants, the EDA does nothing but simply pick winners and losers by region, by industry, by community, and by particular businesses. It is very similar to earmarks. This administration uses the EDA to advance local projects and narrowly benefit a particular company or group. At its core, it is nothing more than a wealth-redistribution program, a stimulus bill built up in the nature of an Agency that has been around since 1965. Let me describe how it works. It begins by taking dollars from all across the country. That money flows to Washington, DC and before it ever goes back out, over 20 percent of it is consumed here in Washington, DC, no value returned. Then it asks companies and communities to apply for free money from the Federal Government to renovate a movie theater or build a road, for a new industrial park. Some of these projects are ridiculous; some of them perhaps not so bad. However, each one is a local project that the Federal Government has no business being involved in, and almost every one of these projects would advance without taxpayer resources. A frequent flier, the EDA Administrator travels all around the country for groundbreakings and ribbon-cuttings, taking credit for creating jobs when it was really private companies that would have created them anyway. He proudly took credit for a $1.6 billion steel plant in Minnesota with a $1.4 million EDA grant. This is one-tenth of 1 percent of the project. I promise you that the CEO of that steel plant had no idea that that money was in his capital structure. Now, you might not be familiar with EDA projects, so let me talk about just a couple. In 2008, the EDA provided $2 million to begin construction of the Harry Reid Technology Park. As best I can tell, that facility continues to be empty. Sometime later, the EDA granted money for a culinary amphitheater, some $2 million of your taxpayer money. Then, $1.5 million for what I am sure is a beautiful theater, but what business does the Federal Government have in providing money for a theater such as this? We have many in Kansas, too. We didn't happen to get this particular grant. We didn't strike the EDA lottery. And, finally, half a million dollars as far back as the 1980s to build replicas of Egyptian pyramids. To this day, you can't drive to this facility that is uncompleted. Half a million dollars of taxpayer money spoiled and wasted. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment. Groups like the Business Coalition for Competition, Club for Growth, Heritage Action--folks who believe in the private sector's capacity to create jobs support this. I will close with this thought. I talked about this bill being bipartisan. The Simpson-Bowles Commission included the elimination of EDA in its projections. It said this Agency ought to go away, on a bipartisan basis. But more, perhaps surprisingly, in 2008, I want to quote from then-Senator now-President Barack Obama who criticized the EDA as ``little more than a fund for corporate welfare.'' Madam Chair, I agree with the President, and I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting the Pompeo amendment to this bill. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

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

Mr. POMPEO. I want to thank Chairman Rogers and Chairman Ruppersberger for their hard work on this important piece of legislation. I am among those folks who, when I first learned of this legislation, had some concerns to make sure that it was balanced and it did the right things. Also as a former Army officer, I recognize the deep national security implications of the cyberthreat, but I also wanted to make sure that we also did everything that was necessary to protect everyone's privacy rights. This is a simple amendment. It makes clear that the liability protection in the bill with respect to the use of such systems only extends to the identification and acquisition of cyberthreat information and no further. This is an unprecedented threat from countries like China and Russia. These are hostile nations, and they're committing resources, unprecedented resources, to attack U.S. networks each and every minute of every day. While this new threat is being developed by our foreign enemies, organized criminals and foreign hackers also just as easily deploy malicious cyberattacks to disrupt stock markets, transportation networks, businesses, governments, and even our military operations. A devastating cyberattack could easily be unleashed from the remote comfort of enemies' computers thousands of miles away from our Nation. We must take this threat very, very seriously. Part of the challenge in cyberspace is that a line of computer code could be just as deadly as a traditional military weapon. We've already seen these attacks used as an instrument of war. In 2008, Georgia suffered a significant cyberattack prior to the invasion by Russia. This attack crippled Georgia's banking system and disrupted the nation's cell phone services, helping to clear the battlefield for the invading Russians. Perhaps the most significant dangerous activity in cyberspace even goes unnoticed. Cyberspies lay in wait for years in order to eventually steal precious military and economic secrets. Each of these examples further illustrates the need for legislation. Unfortunately, some civil liberties and privacy advocates claim that liability protection in this bill with respect to the use of cybersecurity systems could lead to broader activities than authorized. This legislation doesn't do that, but my amendment simply provides clarifying language to the original language of the bill, and thus enjoys the support of bipartisan cosponsors of the legislation, as well as the outside groups that raise these concerns. Madam Chair, I urge approval of this amendment. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to offer a second amendment to this incredibly important piece of legislation that's been worked on for an awfully long time to balance the security needs of our Nation and the privacy rights of every United States citizen. Similar to the first amendment I offered, this amendment addresses some of the concerns raised by me, privacy folks, and civil libertarian advocates to make very clear the intentions of this legislation. I talked earlier about the threat we face today. It's real, it's foreign, it's domestic, and these cyberattacks are an enormous risk to our national security and to our economic security. I now strongly support this legislation. I've had a chance to work with Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Ruppersberger to solidify limitations on this legislation that make it very clear that this government's use of this information will be limited. I think some have claimed incorrectly that the current bill could be read to provide new authority to the Federal Government to install its Einstein system on private sector networks and to monitor traffic and send it back to the government with absolutely no limitations. That's wrong. This amendment, however, makes it even more clear. This amendment makes clear that nothing in this bill would alter existing authorities or provide any new authority to any entity to use a Federal Government- owned or -operated cybersecurity system on a private sector system or network to protect such a system or network. Again, I'm pleased to support the legislation. It doesn't create any new regulatory regime. It doesn't create any more Federal bureaucracy. And it has no additional spending. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and final passage of CISPA. I yield whatever time he might consume to the chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. I rise today in my role as Representative and with the perspective of both a Christian and a former soldier. I urge this body and our President to do all within our collective power to defeat Iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon and delivery system, the combination of which presents a world-changing threat to every American, to every Israeli, and to citizens everywhere in our world. I've had the privilege to travel twice to the Holy Land. One cannot walk the Golan Heights or travel the hills around Jerusalem and fail to appreciate the momentous nature of these places. Even a quick survey of history reveals that this is among the most geopolitically and strategically important patches of land on Earth, and it is also the focal point of the world's three Abrahamic religions. Our Declaration of Independence speaks of a humanity endowed with rights by its Creator. The land we speak of here is the land where He walked, the land where He taught, and the land where my faith teaches me that He gave His life for each of us. And now this land is menaced by a dangerous and inimical enemy. One cannot stare long at a map without plotting the strategic course open to this enemy. In doing so, one is struck by the miniscule flight time for a missile departing from Iran for this land loaded with a weapon of mass destruction. Mr. Speaker, it's election season and our President appears to be more interested in dissuading Israel from defending its people than deterring President Ahmadinejad from achieving nuclear weaponry. Unfortunately, danger--this danger, particularly--knows no timetable, and political calculation amid such peril is an abdication of a Commander in Chief's responsibility. Mr. Speaker, we hear the President's team has said that an Israeli attack would destabilize the region. It is hard to doubt that, to a degree at least, this is possible. But more destabilizing by an order of magnitude would be the permanent threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. It is a folly to trade temporary peace for a permanent menace to world security. Mr. Speaker, our President's intelligence chief has said that the Iranians have not yet decided to build a bomb. To me, these words are reminiscent to those of Neville Chamberlain, who doubted that the Nazi command had finalized its decision to invade all of Europe, both east and west. The threat was either ignored or considered too irrational to be possible by a timorous and distracted world bent on avoiding conflict. Mr. Speaker, this body must unambiguously oppose the weakness our President has spoken of on this issue. Our Commander in Chief has fought against every Iranian sanctions measure that we have presented to him; he has casually mused about returning to pre-1967 borders, as if road-testing an idea; and he has consistently sided with the Palestinians on key issues surrounding American national security. It should be no wonder then that President Ahmadinejad feels emboldened, for weakness always breeds and invites aggression. In such situations, perceptions will influence outcomes--and possibly determine them. With this in mind, we must emphatically, and in no uncertain terms, display unwavering American commitment to the defense and support of Israel. The perception that we mean it, and that we mean it without reserve, will serve to inhibit Iran's nuclear ambitions as surely as a policy of American doubt, hesitation, and vacillation will serve to strengthen it. We are mindful, too, that our President has said, when he believed himself to be out of the reach of microphones, that he was tired of President Netanyahu. He said, ``I have to deal with him every day.'' This was an all-too-rare and certainly valuable glimpse into the heart of the President. It seems to confirm to me what many of us suspect and what gives President Ahmadinejad courage: that despite the careful language suggesting alignment between America and Israel, the President will crumble when Israel needs him most. Mr. Speaker, I will say in front of this microphone and on the record this morning that I'm tired. I'm tired of creating risks for America's democratic foothold in the Middle East; I'm tired of a badly mistaken notion that Israel is some way or another the aggressor; and I'm tired of the President speaking of a moral equivalence between Iran and Israel. There are but a few moments in history that have set the course for a relationship among nations, and I believe this is one of them. We must make a powerful and unequivocal commitment to the nation of Israel, and we must make an equally powerful and unequivocal commitment to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weaponry. Iran must not be allowed for even one moment to doubt our will, and it must not be allowed to think twice about our willingness to act. The fate of the Jewish people and the American people--one and inseparable--depends on it.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to commend the Air Capital Chapter of AMBUCS. AMBUCS provides mobility and transportation for people with disabilities. They provide therapeutic tricycles and bicycles to children and veterans with disabilities, and they give along with that the sense of freedom and hope that comes with being able to be transported. Last year, my local chapter--appropriately named the Air Capital Chapter of AMBUCS--provided Marine Sergeant Jonathan Blank of Augusta with an AmTryke bike. It allowed him to regain some of his mobility. Sergeant Blank, having lost both legs in an explosion last year in Afghanistan, has been in physical therapy to learn to use his prosthetic legs. The AMBUCS-provided bike has allowed him to get exercise and stay healthy--strengthening his body and helping him walk with prosthetics sooner. Air Capital AMBUCS has now provided over 30 specialty bikes since they were first chartered just 1\1/2\ years ago and are now one of the top five organizations all across the country--quite an impressive accomplishment. I would like to thank the Air Capital AMBUCS all- volunteer staff for the amazing work they do and their dedication to this very noble cause.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. Madam Speaker, on Monday of this week, 2 days ago, the President released his budget plan. It will take America's deficits, or total debt, to over $27 trillion. That's a big number. It's hard to get our heads around numbers like that. So I want to talk about how it impacts a particular industry and a particular group of people, how his budget and plan will put under attack 1.2 million Americans and an industry known as general aviation that generates over $150 billion for our U.S. economy. Now, the general aviation industry is an industry that this President has been assaulting ever since he took office. It is one of America's last great manufacturing sectors, indeed, a manufacturing jewel still here in America; and yet it has become a bit of a political punching bag for our President who constantly refers to the entire industry as made up of nothing but ``corporate fat-cat jet owners.'' But I want to talk about the job creation aspect. I want to talk about how the general aviation industry impacts real people. I want to tell some real stories about how lives are impacted when a President speaks about an industry this way and then presents a budget that has such an enormous impact. There are real consequences. I can tell you that each time the President attacks the general aviation industry, a machine shop in Wichita, Kansas, is impacted; a West Virginia company loses a sale; or a private company putting jet fuel on airplanes in California feels the squeeze. I want to recall some of the attacks, but I also want to talk about these people. The general aviation industry produces aircraft that are a tool--a tool--that increases productivity and ultimately contributes to the success of businesses all across our country. It's about helping a parts supplier, a fellow named Jim who wrote a story to me from Plainwell, Michigan. It helps him deliver parts all across the country so not only can his company succeed and grow jobs, but all of the folks that Jim's company serves. It's about getting a daughter to a hospital who is very ill on an Angel Flight--a wonderful nonprofit organization that uses excess capacity on small planes all around the country to meet the medical needs of people all across our Nation. It's about the town of Fort Morgan, Colorado, whose local industries rely heavily on general aviation and which is an absolute lifeline for this small town's continuing success. It's about a fellow named William in Mobile, Alabama, who wrote me and said: I work for a manufacturer. We build jet engines for the general aviation industry. We've seen firsthand how President Obama's rhetoric hurts our industry. We lose sales. Why would a President attack an industry that provides hundreds of thousands of good, union jobs when he says that his entire focus is those jobs? I wish the President would encourage general aviation, and not attack it. I think William has it exactly right. Many in my hometown of Wichita, Kansas, which is the headquarters for Beechcraft, Learjet and Cessna, know these stories all too well, also. For the third time now in the President's budget, he's called for user fees on every flight of every general aviation aircraft and has set up a system whereby it will become more expensive through the Tax Code to purchase these aircraft--these American-built aircraft. But it impacts lots of folks in different places, not just the manufacturers. Chris from Los Angeles wrote me and said: My little flight school employs five full-time workers and three part-time employees. Up through now, I've been able to weather the economic storms. Unfortunately, despite the claims that piston aircraft will be exempt, these user fees will hurt us, Mr. President. I'll be forced to shut my doors, thereby laying off my employees. Madam Speaker, this is not about fat-cat corporate jet owners in the corner office. This is about the livelihood of those eight people in California who depend on this industry to put food on the table for their families. Carl from Plano, Texas, wrote me and said: Like others have said, a large percentage of people who use business aircraft do it as a productivity tool. I wish Washington would recognize that an airplane is a tool just like production machinery and a delivery truck. The whole time the President is criticizing the aircraft flying industry, he flies around in one of the great jets built in Kansas--Air Force One. His Cabinet members and senior staff fly on airplanes all across the world, and I'm proud of that. But, unfortunately, the President doesn't see the value in general aviation except for when it's his own. I've invited the President multiple times to come to Wichita, Kansas, to see the workers who build these great planes. And yet it continues: the President tries to destroy an industry that employs over 1 million people. This is not leadership. This is division and envy, and I wish the President would cease to do so. It's a travesty, it's not good for jobs in America, and it's not good for our general aviation industry.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. Mr. Speaker, we often come to the podium to talk about a bill or piece of legislation. Today I have the great privilege to stand in support of protecting every human life. In Kansas is a place that has marked a great piece in the history of the pro-life movement. In the early 1990s, the Summer of Mercy was held in Kansas. A huge step forward in people speaking out about the tragedy that is abortion. I, personally, a couple years later had the privilege of working doing some research for a woman named Mary Ann Glendon, who became the ambassador of the Vatican, who taught me about how this movement can work, and how we can begin to eradicate this plague that sits on top of America after still 39 years. For me, too, it's personal. I have a nephew and a niece that, but for a pregnancy crisis center in Wichita, Kansas, would not be my niece of 6, Emily, and my nephew of 10, James. Two brave women who made the right decision. Today was an incredible privilege. I got to stand at the Mall and look out at hundreds of thousands of folks, including enormous groups of young people who came from Kansas on buses of 25-hour rides from Clearwater and from Norwich and from Garden Plain, and from our high schools and colleges in Kansas who came today to stand for life and to say that this movement will continue, that we are winning, that after 39 years we can now say that America understands that this is not about choice but about protecting those lives. To see those young faces and those young smiles was a glorious thing. I want to thank them for coming to Washington, D.C., to be part of this today, and with them and with our continued effort we can do the right thing and protect every human life.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. In 36 days, the President will have an opportunity to do a great thing for America. He'll have an opportunity to allow private industry with private funds to build a pipeline to carry petroleum all across the country to lower the price for consumers driving their cars, for manufacturers who use these products, and to do so in a way that is environmentally friendly. It is indeed my hope that the President will take this opportunity to do just that. Today we've got oil at over $100 a barrel. It was not all that long ago in the history of our country that we stared at North American energy production and wondered: Will we have enough natural gas, will we have enough oil here domestically so that we don't have to depend on the Middle East? I remember when I was much younger sitting in a car with lines of cars waiting to get gasoline. We could only get gas on even days because that was the license plate that we had on our car. Today, technology and innovation, American-style, has led us to a place where we have got an abundance of energy. All we're asking is that we permit a pipeline to carry their product safely all across the country so we can get that energy to the places we need it at prices Americans can afford. We know, too, that we suffer much like we did back in the late 1970s. At the same time we had this perceived shortage of fossil fuels, we also had enormously high unemployment. We had a misery index in the low twenties. Today, we have a similar phenomenon. We've got far too many people out of work. Unemployment is officially at 8\1/2\ percent. But if you go around Kansas' Fourth Congressional District, you know that it's much higher in the place that matters, the place that folks would really rather work more hours, would rather work for higher pay, or, frankly, we've got a lot of folks who've just found the workplace so unappealing to them in terms of their job prospects that they've given up. Yet here we sit with a project that everyone agrees will create 20,000 jobs. Most of those jobs are with trade unions--folks that are building and welding and riveting and who will make this pipeline safe and secure. And yet we've got a President that continues to reject this as an option for our country. We need this capacity. We have found oil in North Dakota. We are finding oil in south central Kansas. We've got to make sure that this product can get to the markets, the places that it needs to be. This pipeline would do that. Now, I can't figure out, for the life of me, why this pipeline has become the cause celebre of the left. We have tens of thousands of miles of pipelines all across this country. This product is transported safely. It is highly regulated. Indeed, this year, in a year when there was lots of bickering between the parties, we passed a piece of pipeline safety legislation which will continue to further improve the way we transport fossil fuels around our country. This pipeline can be done safely, too. The objection that there are risks to groundwater and to environmental harm is greatly overblown. Industrial accidents certainly happen, but we know, to make America move forward, we've got to do it in a way that is responsible and safe. Everything about the way this pipeline has been engineered and developed meets that mark. This President has shared this notion of energy independence as we all do. We see the need for it. Yet he's taken an approach that is so different from what we are trying to do with the Keystone XL pipeline. This approach has private citizens meeting real demand in the real marketplace, folks who want products. The President's approach has been very different. He has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money trying to subsidize energy sources that America does not want. It's not that America wouldn't like solar energy or wind energy. It's simply that today they can't be provided in a cost-effective manner, so we force taxpayers to subsidize those energies to try and bring them to market. We've seen what happens when you do that. You get things that happen like Solyndra. We don't need to do that. The energy is available. The risk will be taken by private industry. They'll provide the capital. They'll provide the hard work. They'll provide the innovation. They'll provide energy for America at a time we so desperately need it. I just returned to Washington, D.C., today. I was in the airport in Wichita, Kansas. I talked with half a dozen folks. Each of them talked about jobs being the most pressing issue that they wanted me to take care of when I came back to Washington, D.C. I spent a lot of time over the break, as well, talking with folks who provide energy. We have lots of independent drillers and E&P companies and folks who provide field services to the oil patch in Kansas and in Oklahoma and Nebraska, all around. We need these products. Consumers need these products. I hope that the President, 36 days from now, will decide that he agrees, affordable American energy coming from North America, provided safely, so that the Keystone XL pipeline can move forward. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. I thank the chairman for yielding. This is a great day for rural America. H.R. 1633 is going to do what we've been trying to do for a long time, during my entire 11 months in the United States Congress, which is to provide just a little bit of certainty for those folks who are out there trying to create jobs, trying to create food for America, trying to do the things that we've done in the rural parts of our country for so long. The truth is the other side continues to say we are shooting the fairy dust and talking about Tinker Bell. I can assure you that I'm not amused. I can assure you that the 500 folks with whom I met just 2 weeks ago now at the Kansas Farm Bureau meeting were not amused either. We understand that the very real risk of Lisa Jackson and the Environmental Protection Agency beginning to clamp down on farm dust still exists. We worked in our committee diligently. There were some valid concerns raised by the folks on the other side, and we endeavored, Mr. Chairman, at every moment to try and meet those concerns. We offered amendments. I offered an amendment in the nature of a full substitute which tried to address some of the concerns that the opposition expressed. The truth is they just want to leave our farmers and our ranchers and our agricultural community at the whim of the EPA. That's not the place to put good, hardworking Americans who go out there every day trying to do the right thing. The whims of the EPA we have seen all too often present a real risk, a real risk of job destruction, a real risk of higher costs for every consumer in America. This is a wonderful piece of legislation. It will, for the first time, get the EPA to move their hands away from the throats of our farmers and agricultural communities, and I would urge every one of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. POMPEO

Mr. POMPEO. I applaud the House for taking up H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act. As a veteran and a strong defender of the Second Amendment, I encourage all of my colleagues to support me in this important piece of legislation. In Kansas, in 2007, we began to issue concealed-carry permits. Since then, Kansas has entered into agreements with many other States across the region to create interstate reciprocity. And while many States have similar agreements, they benefit only a portion of the American population that have this basic fundamental right to keep and bear arms. The legislation and the rule we're considering today offer an opportunity for the Federal Government to facilitate cohesion between the States without extending its reach further into our laws than is necessary. The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act would allow concealed-carry permits in one State to be legally recognized in another and accepted in every other State of the Union that has similar set of laws. Under the bill, everyone is still required to follow the firearm laws in each of the different States in which they choose to carry. Our Founding Fathers considered this right to bear arms so important they put it in the Constitution. Allowing this reciprocity is a simple act of extending what our founders originally intended. I hope that Congress will honor this principle by supporting this rule and passing this bill, which at its core does nothing more than protect the Second Amendment right of every Kansan and every law- abiding citizen.