Scott Perry

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I understand and recognize the good, intended efforts, the heartfelt efforts of the committee members and on both sides of the aisle, certainly the Members representing the States involved. I understand and I recognize that, and I think they mean to do well. There is nobody there to administer this. There is nobody present, but we are going to give them the money anyhow. We don't have any money to give, Mr. Chairman. We are borrowing money to give to a program with nobody there to administer it on projects that we haven't even seen yet. I don't know about you, but that seems like, to borrow an old phrase, putting the cart before the horse, or something like that. People are going to say, well, we have to have the money so we can set it up. Okay, fair enough. The problem is we don't have the money. Again, I don't mean to be a broken record here--I know I sound like one--we don't have any money, number one. Number two, these are State and local projects. If you are showing me one that crosses State lines, and building a highway between Pennsylvania and Ohio or something like that, then we have a conversation going. Now, there are already agencies and administrations to do that--we talked about that before--multiple agencies doing the same things, not just a couple, a couple dozen, but if that is not enough for you, just go with the fact that your constituents, your bosses, my bosses, can't afford this. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I rise to offer this amendment to reduce funding for the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission, the SCRC, to fiscal year 2019. I don't want to leave anybody out here. I listened to them all. Yet again, this commission serves as a duplicative slush fund for parochial interests for projects in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Literally, by the way, in counties bordering Washington, D.C. We are talking about distressed counties, right? Some of the richest counties in the country right here are included in this regional commission. From FY 2010 to FY 2020, the SCRC received $250,000 annually, all without having an appointed Federal co-chair. Did anybody get that? Nobody was in charge but to get money. It is awesome. I guess that only happens in the Federal Government. Now, after a co-chair was appointed in December 2021--unfortunately, whether you like it or not, just conveniently related to an influential politician in this body--that number is now a whopping $20 million in this bill. Now, I am sure there is no coincidence. I just want to rely on everybody's integrity here, but there is absolutely no reason for the dramatic increase in funding, especially when these projects fund both projects with no national nexus like electric vehicle charging stations. If you want to have them in your community, God bless you. That is awesome. Go pay for them. It is not the Federal Government's job to pay for that any more than it is the Federal Government's job to pay for your local gas station. How about stormwater management? It is an important issue. I come from Pennsylvania, we have got a lot of stormwater. I am not asking the Federal Government to deal with it. We should deal with that at home, as well as green infrastructure, according to the SCRC's 2023 through 2027 strategic plan. Our constituents do not have money for these projects that have no impact on their lives and, in many cases, drive up inflationary spending. Oh, sure, they have an impact where you live if you live in one of these places, but if you don't, you get to pay anyhow. This is why we have State governments. This is why we have local governments. The Federal Government is supposed to be there, obviously, but it is not the job of the Federal Government. Again, I ask my colleagues to consider reducing, not ending, the funding for this regional commission. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to leave anybody out. We are getting to the end here. This amendment would be to have the funding for the Southwest Border Regional Commission. Now, this Commission, which only had its first chairman confirmed in 2022 and only was funded starting in fiscal year 2021, funds projects in the southern border regions of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. Incidentally, the first chairman was previously the Director of Economic Development and Special Initiatives for Senator Martin Heinrich, who continues a theme of politically connected chairman of these regional commissions, just to let you know. I know that folks on both sides of the aisle care about the border. I believe that. However, the answer to solving border problems is to actually enforce our Nation's immigration laws, not to give $5 million to a commission that has not published a strategic plan and does not even appear to have a website. I would think they could afford to have a website with $5 million. The Commission received $250,000 in FY21 but is now being funded at $5 million in this bill for FY24 for literally no results. Now $250,000 is a lot of money where I come from, and $5 million is even more. I can see inflation; I could see the cost of living going up. The people that I represent, their grocery costs are 20 percent up; fuel costs, electricity costs, everything they pay for is up, but not $250,000 to $5 million. That is a little bit more of a jump than everybody is used to. Again, this amendment simply strikes this figure in half to a still exorbitant $2.5 million. Mr. Chair, I urge support of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment reduces funding for the Denali Commission by $2 million to the FY19 level. The Denali Commission's mission for providing job training and other economic development services in rural Alaska can be better served by the 29 other Federal programs in which it duplicates the very same efforts. The Obama administration sought to eliminate funding for the commission in FY12 because it was duplicative back then and did not select projects based on competition or merit. Say it ain't so, but it is so. In 2013, the inspector general for the Denali Commission called for the elimination of the program. Some people say: Perry, you are just mean. You just don't understand. You just don't want to help poor people or rural people. I came from a house with no running water, no electricity, and no plumbing. We had an outhouse out back. There was no insulation. There was no heat in it. The roads weren't paved. Somehow, I made it to Congress. It wasn't the Federal Government's job to fix my mom's house or get me to work. In 2013, the inspector general for the commission called for the elimination of the program, like I said, stating that he recommended that Congress put its money elsewhere. I am happy to take his recommendation. The Trump administration, likewise, sought to eliminate the commission in FY18, FY19, FY20, and FY21. It seems imprudent to continually fund yet another parochial commission in the face of two administrations--one Democratic, one Republican--and the inspector general's recommendation that we cease funding. At a bare minimum, we should pass this amendment to keep the Denali Commission's funding flat at its pre-COVID-19 level and not allow for its continued growth. I am not asking to eliminate it. I am saying, oh my goodness, two administrations said it ought to be eliminated. The inspector general said it should be gone. I am not even taking their advice on that. I am just saying, let's save a little money here because we have this debt we can't afford. Mr. Chairman, I have been to places where the country could no longer afford the debt that it had. You walk through shells of buildings just abandoned, walked away from by the workers who were there, that were once funded by their government. I have watched that in this town, right across the river at St. Elizabeth's, where they just shut the doors, couldn't afford it anymore, and walked away. It is a tragic sight, but if we are going to keep going, it is not going to be just this place that does it. It is going to be all across the country. If we are going to be able to afford the things that we want, we are going to have to make some difficult choices. We are taking in $5 trillion this year. We are spending $7.2 trillion. I am not a mathematician, but somehow that is not adding up to me. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, as the designee of Mr. Norman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I rise to offer this amendment to reduce funding for the Northern Border Regional Commission, or the NBRC, to fiscal year 2019 levels. Like other regional commissions, the NBRC provides economic development assistance to projects in various States, in this case, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. These commissions simply serve as a slush fund, though, for parochial and regional projects with little to no national nexus as described in the other ones. Let's take a look at some of the funded programs taken from the 2022 annual report, which is the latest report available: 304,000 to purchase the sound system for an auditorium in New Hampshire; over 350,000 to expand rail yard capacity in upstate New York; and another $350,000 for a sailing center on Lake Champlain. I am sure they are awesome projects. I am sure their communities love them. I just don't understand why people in Ohio, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, Georgia--you name it--are paying for this, especially when they can't afford the bills they already have as evidenced by a $33 trillion debt and a $2.2 trillion deficit this year. Furthermore, the Biden administration's aim to inject their misguided diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, and climate-related goals into these projects are not only unaffordable, they are just completely unnecessary. Instead of pandering to special interest groups, we must pare back these wasteful programs that only serve as a boondoggle for a limited slice of America. This amendment does not zero out the commission's funding; it simply reduces the funding to pre-COVID, pre-Biden spending levels, which everybody on this side of the aisle voted against last December. If you were against them last December, we are getting pretty close to this December, but I don't think a whole lot has changed. If you were against them then, you should be against them now. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment strikes $35 million in funding for the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. For those unfamiliar with this office, according to its website, it accelerates the market adoption of clean energy technologies and fills a critical innovation gap on the path to 100 percent clean energy by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2050. I am going to characterize it a different way. Since the real market, the private market won't do it, you are going to pay for it under force by your taxes so that you can have less reliable energy as soon as possible, and we can be less energy independent. That is what it does, courtesy of your Federal Government. It funds projects like long-duration energy storage and distributed energy systems to support the electric grid for electric vehicles, which are also being subsidized by your Federal Government under force of penalty of you not paying your taxes. It is astounding. The Democrats continue to push this technology when the drawbacks of this so-called clean energy technology are clear. The actual grid is being powered by solar and wind energy sources that are inherently unreliable and don't work when the Sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. Battery technology storage is not there, and of course, all that stuff that I just talked about comes from China, and oh, by the way, built with slave labor, whether that is in Turkistan or whether that is in the Congo. Your tax dollars are supporting it under penalty of law. Try not paying your taxes and see what happens then. Vehicles powered by this grid are built largely using slave labor like I just talked about and our reliance on the Communist Party of China since they control all the necessary components in the mineral supply chains. Not that we don't have them in America. They say they are rare earth minerals. Mr. Chairman, they are not rare. We just can't mine them in America because the left doesn't allow that, so now we have got to buy them from China. That is another story. Vehicles powered by this grid are built largely, like I said, using slave labor and the supply chains that go with them. These vehicles have limited range. Their lithium batteries often catch fire. Those fires are more difficult to extinguish than traditional fires. This office that I am talking about is also managing $2.5 billion for carbon capture facilities and greenhouse gas monitoring technology. Mr. Chair, if these technologies were so great, why isn't the market already adopting and innovating without taxpayer-funded handouts? My friends on the other side of the aisle will tell you these are critical investments, and they are not going to happen if the Federal Government doesn't do them. If we don't take your tax dollars and spend it on this, it ain't going to happen. My goodness. Thank goodness that this country didn't become the greatest country on the planet without the Federal Government subsidizing all this stuff. I don't know how Thomas Edison would have made it. I don't know how Ford Motor Company would have made it without the Federal Government. Somehow they did it, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that the chairman did not approve additional funds for these clean demonstration projects, but my amendment strikes all the funds for this office. Mr. Chairman, I urge support of my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I, again, say this commission includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. I have been to every one of them. Many of the residents of Pennsylvania are moving to those States because they are doing pretty well. We lose population compared to these States every 10 years, which is why we lose a seat in Congress every 10 years. We are spending money in Pennsylvania on these States. We are not spending in Pennsylvania; we are spending in these States, so our residents then move to these States for all the great things. When I asked the regional commissioner how much money has been spent in the counties surrounding Washington, D.C.--because, as you recall, Virginia is included--how much money is spent on the counties right around Washington, D.C., some of the most wealthy counties in the country? I couldn't get the answer to that either. I don't know if they don't have the answer or they don't want to give me the answer, but that is unacceptable. That is unacceptable. The counties around Washington, D.C., can afford the amenities they have and they don't have to ask all these other States to pay for them. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment cuts $35 million from this bill for the Appalachian Regional Commission, lowering the funding level in this bill to $165 million. The IIJA provided the Appalachian Regional Commission with an advanced appropriation of $200 million a year--the entirety of its authorization level for fiscal year 2022 through 2026, meaning every dollar provided under this bill is more than the authorization level. We authorize things here and then we pay for them. It is authorized at a lower level, and we are paying much more. In other words, under this amendment the ARC would receive $365 million for the fiscal year rather than $400 million provided by this underlying bill. Even with this minimal cut under this amendment, the program funding is still extremely bloated, and its effectiveness remains unclear, as do all the regional commissions. Moreover, this Commission's programs are duplicative of other Federal economic development programs and better addressed by State and local levels. In fact, the fiscal year 2018 budget justification identified that the Appalachian Regional Commission failed to show a strong link between grants and a positive impact on the communities they serve. Worse, this year, the Commission's inspector general identified the massive increase in the Commission's funding over recent years as a threat to its variability to evaluate grant proposals, measure program performance, and conduct appropriate oversight. When we were talking about the last one, we needed the money for oversight. This one, we have got so much money that they can't oversee it. This is your Federal Government at work here. The spike in funding threatens to worsen an already tenuous link between funding and success. We simply must bring the funding level for the ARC, the Appalachian Regional Commission, down to ensure that it has the capacity to ensure it meets its mission. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, in closing, certainly, I congratulate the gentlewoman and her great State for the success of all the House of Representatives today and their contribution. On this occasion, though, I must disagree. As I said, I just had a hearing with the Delta Regional Authority present, and she is right, it targets hundreds of communities, as do all of these commissions. They target hundreds of communities. One of the things that was fascinating to me was I asked for the metrics by which anything is measured. What measure of success does anyone have? Is there some standard? Is there some way to know whether all of these millions of dollars that are being spent actually get us anywhere, actually fix anything, actually do anything other than: We made sure the grants all got out, and we helped with the grant writing. We fixed up the sidewalk. We fixed up the theater. We provided some healthcare. Those are all awesome things that are all being provided by someone else, by the way. What was the metric by which they measured their success? Close your eyes. What do you see? That is what I got back. Nothing. There is no measure of success here. Mr. Chair, this is well intended. It is well meaning. However, it is unaffordable and unnecessary. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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