Rick Renzi

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3967) to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to reallocate costs of the Pactola Dam and Reservoir, South Dakota, to reflect increased demands for municipal, industrial, and fish and wildlife purposes, as amended.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 3967, introduced by my colleague, Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth of South Dakota, reallocates costs to the Pactola Dam and Reservoir to reflect growing municipal needs for water. As Rapid City, South Dakota's municipal water needs continue to grow and demand for local irrigation water continues to decrease, this legislation appropriately reallocates the costs associated with the change in water deliveries. This bill is a win for the citizens of Rapid City and a win for the American taxpayer. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I also want to commend my colleague from South Dakota for her leadership on this issue, particularly as water out in the West is such a valuable commodity. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for engaging in this debate. More so, I want to thank him for taking us to Alaska, a whole group of us. Several weeks ago, many of us went up to the village of Kaktovik and had a chance to sit with the Inupiat people and talk to them about what it is they really wanted on their lands. I represent more Native Americans than anyone else in Congress. While I was there, they talked about a sovereignty issue. We had 400 people in the gym. We asked them, how many people don't want us using the newest technologies to go after this resource? Two people stood up. One was a white woman from San Francisco, a lawyer. So I am telling you, from the people, they want sovereignty. They want their own self-determination. They want to be able to use their own resources to better themselves and better their lives. Seventy-five percent of the people of Alaska want to use new technology to go after this. It is not a silver bullet. To say it is, is a false argument. It is an energy bridge. It allows us to bring enough hydrocarbon fuel down in the 48 States to help us bridge to the next energy generation, from a guy who drives a hybrid, because I know that argument is going to come up, a guy who drives a hybrid, not those big SUVs like they drive up there in Boston. Vote ``yes'' on this bill, and let's get it done.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the chairman and commend him for demanding from the Department of Homeland Security an in-depth examination of what will work and how we will implement the newest plan to protect our border. But new plan needs to include, as the chairman talked about, a tactical operation, the tactical ability to stretch the border. In other words, we need to get on offense and not take such a passive approach to our issues on the border. We need to be careful that we are not just sitting in a green and white Border Patrol pickup truck, sitting on the border on the night shift, hoping that we picked the right spot, and thinking we will interdict illegals using that kind of an approach. Mr. Chairman, I grew up in Arizona and my ranch sits within a few miles of the border. On many occasions I have had my fences cut, and I have had many people flow through my ranch headed north. Over the last 18 months, my staff and I have and our team has developed a comprehensive approach to border security called the Red Zone Defense. We currently have 8 aerostat balloons on the border using look-down radar peering into Mexico, stopping the flood of airplanes flowing into America. We need to add sensors that can peer across the line, see them coming, see where they are staging before they get to the border in order to shift the defense, shift the limited amount of manpower we have so we can interdict in a pro-active approach. Many of my colleagues have embraced this plan. The chairman of the authorization committee, Mr. King of New York, included it in the authorization bill. And it needs to be part of the financial strategy that is developed by DHS in order to gain operational control of our borders. Coming from Arizona and living on the border, growing up on the border, we deal with it day in and day out. I ask that DHS, as it begins to move forward in responding to the chairman and the ranking member's demand for a comprehensive plan, look at pro-active intelligence that can cue our limited manpower and can see the illegals coming before they cross the border. We need to have it included in the plan.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Chairman, I rise to strike the last word for the purpose of engaging the chairman in a colloquy. Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking the chairman for his hard work on the National Fire Plan and also for the ranking member. The $2.7 billion in funding under the National Fire Plan increases the amount over last year by $80 million. It is essential in preventing forest fires throughout our Nation. This map here shows the largest southern Ponderosa pine forest in America. I know the gentleman is very, very familiar with it. We have the largest stand of heavy fuel loads left in the forest, which are providing large-scale size forest fires throughout Arizona. The last fire we had in our State broke the State record from the previous fire, which was over 560,000 acres. Communities like Flagstaff and Payson and Prescott, are entrenched with a fuel load around them that is making it a threat to live in this community and causing the insurance rates to skyrocket. Severe drought, bark beetle infestation, and poor forest management have all led to this kind of a condition. I would ask, please, and would thank both gentlemen that the report language include some of the boundary projects that need to go in place for people who do live in the forest, who make their livings there, who raise their families there, to be able to survive through the next forest fire season. Our forest fire season begins in February, the earliest in the country, and goes all the way to the end of autumn. And I would like to thank both gentlemen for their work on this effort.

Mr. RENZI. Reclaiming my time. I appreciate the gentleman's comments. We in Arizona understand warming, the sunshine State; and our initiatives are more towards the area of trying to thin the forest. We are so far behind in getting those fuel loads out, and I know the gentleman recognizes that. And I do appreciate the chairman talking about the town of Payson, Arizona, which we almost lost last year, an entire community where the fire was burning so hot and so fast it actually blew embers a mile and a half in the air as they were landing in and near that community. So I thank you very much for your comments. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your hard work on the National fire plan.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Kansas for his leadership on this issue. First and foremost, I stand against this amendment because it authorizes the destruction of innocent human life, the most innocent, the most defenseless, the voiceless in our society. We talk about the fact that the cost will be provided by a private individual. Not true. This authorizes prolife Americans to have to underwrite the cost of building the facilities, training the physicians, training the nurses, equipping the facilities. Underwriting the cost will be borne by prolife Americans. Requiring military hospitals to perform elective abortions exposes the physicians, the nurses, the military personnel to move against their own personal convictions of life in many cases. Imagine a full colonel directing, giving military orders, to a young major who is prolife, a prolife doctor who is a major, giving him military orders to perform an abortion. His military career would be over. The Most Reverend Edwin O'Brien, Archbishop for Military Services, said, ``Military hospitals have an outstanding record of saving life even in the most challenging times and conditions. Their commitment extends to the smallest of human beings. Please allow them to continue abiding by these values.'' I stand by those Americans, those prolife Americans, who do not want to underwrite and have our prolife dollars going to military hospitals. I stand by those prolife doctors and nurses who don't want to be given military orders to perform an abortion.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4902) to award a Congressional gold medal to Byron Nelson in recognition of his significant contributions to the game of golf as a player, a teacher, and a commentator.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4902, the Byron Nelson Congressional Gold Medal Act, sponsored by my friend from Texas (Mr. Burgess). Mr. Speaker, while most people know Byron Nelson's significant contributions to the game of golf, it is his humanitarian and philanthropic activities that make him worthy of receiving this medal. The highest civilian honor Congress can bestow is this gold medal. Mr. Nelson is a golf champion, but he is also a champion for the underprivileged. He has given his time, his talent and his treasure to make this world a better place. Through the EDS Byron Nelson Championship, Mr. Nelson has helped raise more than $88 million for the Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers, a nonprofit agency that provides education and mental health services to more than 2,700 children and their families throughout our Nation. Additional, the Byron and Louise Nelson Golf Endowment Fund has provided more than $1.5 million in endowment funding to Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. Further, since 1992, Mr. Nelson has been the honorary chairman of the Metroport Meals on Wheels which provides daily home delivery of hot lunches for the frail, elderly and chronically ill residents of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Byron Nelson is a legend in the game of golf, much noted for his unprecedented 11 consecutive wins in 1945, his five victories at major tournaments, and his overall 54 career victories. Byron Nelson is one of the greatest players the game of golf has ever seen. Through his outstanding accomplishments as a golfer and a humanitarian, Byron Nelson has provided and shown us what it is to be a United States citizen. The time has come for Congress to bestow on this gentleman an honor worthy of his lifelong accomplishments and what he has put forth to improve the lives of those who are less privileged. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for that tribute, and I yield to the author of the bill for as much time as he may consume, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess). (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. Mr. Speaker, I have a good friend in Flagstaff, Arizona, a guy named Joe Galli who is a terrific golfer himself and he was kind enough just to inform me that my neighbor in Flagstaff is PGA pro Ted Purdy. He was the 2005 Byron Nelson Classic champion last year. He defends that title this year. So from Flagstaff, Arizona, I want to thank you for allowing me to manage this bill today. It is certainly exemplary of the fine spirit, that generosity, that philanthropic endeavor that this gentleman has given to our Nation. So I congratulate the Nelson family.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4912, the Rural Health Care Capital Access Act of 2006. This piece of legislation would extend the exemption of the current law that allows small rural hospitals to remain eligible for Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance. Recent health care statistics show a huge backlog of capital improvement needs for the majority of hospitals in the United States, and rural hospitals face even fewer opportunities to make such needed repairs, achieve reasonable terms for refinancing or build replacement facilities. The FHA Section 242 Hospital Mortgage Insurance Program has been a valuable tool for many hospitals seeking to rebuild or make improvements. Recently the program became available to critical access hospitals. Critical access hospitals are facilities certified to receive cost- based reimbursement for Medicare. This cost-based reimbursement is intended to improve their financial performance and thereby reduce hospital closures. Despite the efforts of FHA, some challenges have remained for these rural hospitals to gain access to the critical access program. One of these was a statutory requirement in section 242 that at least 50 percent of the hospital's adjusted net patient days must be used for acute medical care. While this requirement may be useful in urban areas, rural isolated communities such as those served by critical access hospitals often cannot sustain separate independent hospitals which provide acute care and nursing facilities. It is common for rural hospitals and nursing homes to operate as a single unit in order to take advantage of savings related to cost- sharing of some services and staff. To deny critical-access hospitals access to FHA mortgage insurance on these grounds unfairly disadvantages these facilities that are desperately in need of capital improvements. H.R. 659, the Hospital Mortgage Insurance Act of 2003 amended section 242 of the National Housing Act and included an exemption that eliminated the so-called Patient Day Test for critical-access hospitals, which allowed these rural hospitals to be eligible for FHA mortgage insurance. The exemption expires on July 31, 2006. H.R. 4912 would simply extend this vital exemption for 5 years, which would give FHA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development time to review the exemption's impact and recommend to the Congress whether it should be made permanent. I am a proud cosponsor of this important legislation, which will benefit 11 critical-access hospitals in my home State of Arizona and three hospitals in my district: Page Memorial Hospital in Page, Arizona, Sage Memorial Hospital in Ganado, located on the Navajo Nation, and Winslow Memorial Hospital located in the town of Winslow, Arizona. I would like to thank the Housing Subcommittee chairman, Congressman Ney, Ranking Member Waters, full committee Chairman Oxley, Ranking Member Frank and all of those who worked hard to pull this together for their support of this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan piece of legislation that would allow more opportunities for critical-access hospitals to improve the quality of health care in rural America. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4912) to amend section 242 of the National Housing Act to extend the exemption for critical access hospitals under the FHA program for mortgage insurance for hospitals.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 4902 and H.R. 4912 and to insert extraneous material thereon.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. I thank the gentleman. I want to help clear up a couple of confusing issues here. First of all, when we talk about the resolution of force that was passed by the House of Representatives, both Republicans and Democrats, we were talking about our response to the attacks on this country after 9/11. We were talking about morphing the force; being able to have liquidity and being able to take the capability of this country and go after terrorists, who don't confine themselves to the border of one country. You talk about the resolution of force, and you mention the country of Afghanistan as if it was only limited to the boundaries of Afghanistan. It is a falsehood to say so to the American people. It is not right. It is wrong. We took the resolution of force and said, you, the President, you have got to manage the intelligence, you have got to manage the Armed Forces, you have got to go after terrorists all around the world like a cancer that metastasizes itself. You have to go where they are. You have to be able to listen to them calling into the United States. You have to break up their terrorist cells. The American people expect you to do so. There has been a lot of talk and a lot of rhetoric of people on this committee about a point that we debated ad nauseam in committee, which is that the President somehow didn't inform the committee. That is a falsehood. The President fully informed the committee to the letter of the law. The 1947 Intelligence Act established that the President shall inform the committee, but the establishment language of the act says that the President and the Congress shall establish the procedures. So what were the procedures established under Truman? That it was okay for the President to inform the Gang of Eight, the House and the Senate, and limit it to four on each side. It is okay to do that. And Truman did it, and Carter did it, and Reagan, and Clinton, and this President did it, and he abided by the law. And to say so otherwise is to ill inform the American people. It is misguided, and it is false.

Mr. RENZI

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your work and the ranking member's work on this bill. I want to also go back to some things that were said earlier concerning civil liberties and the Republican Party, in its effort to try to balance civil liberties post-September 11. It is unfair and unwise to enter into the Congressional Record the misleading information that this is the first time in history that terrorist surveillance was conducted outside of FISA. Every one of you over there knows that President Clinton conducted terrorist surveillance outside of FISA, and he was justified in doing so by Jamie Gorelich at the Justice Department based on an argument of Article II of the Constitution. It is not the first time in history outside of FISA it has been conducted. This legislation also, as the gentlewoman from New Mexico talked about, goes to restore and rebuild our capabilities that were very much slashed during the 1990s. It was a time when our intelligence officers declined by 30 percent. It was a time when a number of CIA sources worldwide were cut by 40 percent. The number of intelligence reports that our intelligence community was able to produce was cut in half. If you remember back during the Reagan administration when President Reagan had to rebuild our military, this is very much like how our history stands right now in trying to restore and rebuild our intelligence capability. There was a time when our intelligence officers were hamstrung by the Deutsch guidelines, when poor management and a lack of urgency at the top did not allow our intelligence agents to function properly in the field. That has changed. This intelligence authorization bill allows us to gather more information globally at more locations than we had in the recent past. When famine strikes in Africa, when the saber-rattling in Venezuela is conducted, when the narcoterrorists along the Mexican border begin control, this intelligence bill acts. I want to once again thank the chairman. As a Member from Arizona, we need the kind of increases that our agents are asking for, particularly on our Mexican border.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry).

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, within our Nation's media organizations there exists a great number of professionals who provide America with information of substance and great importance. The media's role is vital to this Nation. They provide checks and balances of power and oversight of our political activity, and I want my words today to be respectful, particularly of those true professional journalists who have a hard time choosing in the battle to get their story and the need to protect our Nation. Yet amongst the journalistic profession there are a few, a small few, who disclose our most sensitive intelligence sources and methods to our enemies. They even boldly have justified their actions recently by claiming themselves to be whistleblowers. Yet it is not the role of a reporter working with a disgraced or disgruntled politically motivated former government employee or those who are on the verge of retirement to determine when to reveal our national secrets. Some reporters explain that the information that they are disclosing is illegal. If you suspect it to be illegal, then notify the FBI or the intelligence committees. If you feel that there will be inactivity or political coverup, then inform both Republicans and Democrats. But do not publish classified information for personal gain. My amendment expresses the sense of Congress that the President ought to use his full authority, where warranted, not to overclassify information, but to protect national security information and take effective action against those persons who have betrayed this Nation during wartime by publishing current, ongoing operational disclosures of classified information. We all want to protect our frontline agents. It is vital to the war on terror. It is also vital that those nations who we conduct joint operations with are able to trust us, not to ask our agents in the field whether or not we can even keep a secret. I understand our publishers and their need to get the story, but I also understand that it is their right that by free speech they also safeguard this Nation and help contribute to our victory in this war on terror. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.