John Shimkus

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge Bryleigh Buchanan's athletic achievement. Bryleigh is a 2018 graduate of Harrisburg High School in the 15th District of Illinois. She earned the third-place medal in the high jump at the Illinois Class 2A Girls Track and Field State Final Meet for the second year in a row. In her final high school track meet, Bryleigh just ticked the bar on what would have been a gold-medal winning jump of 5 feet, 7 inches and later settled for the bronze after reaching 5-6. I offer my congratulations to Bryleigh Buchanan on her outstanding athletic achievements and wish her well in her future goals.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the upcoming bicentennial celebration for Albion, Illinois. George Flower of Hertfordshire, England, founded Albion (which is the poetic name for England) in April 1818, just two miles east of where Morris Birkbeck, another affluent Englishman, founded Wanborough. The two villages and the area around them became known as the ``English Settlement.'' While Wanborough eventually faded away with the accidental drowning death of Birkbeck in 1825, Albion survived to play an important role in Illinois' history. Albion was the birth place of Illinois Governor Louis Lincoln Emmerson. He was born in the house which is now the Edwards County Historical Society Museum at 212 West Main Street. George Flower's brother-in-law, William Pickering, was elected to the Illinois State House of Representatives in 1842 and served for ten years. He developed a close relationship with Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln was elected President, he gave Pickering his choice of either being Minister to England or Governor of the Washington Territory. Pickering chose to be appointed Governor of the Washington Territory. The City of Albion is planning a three day celebration beginning on Friday, October 12, 2018, to commemorate their bicentennial. They will have a giant cake, several kettles of chowder, a quilt exhibition, music, and much more. On Sunday they plan on having a community-wide ecumenical worship service at the stage for all to attend. I offer my congratulations to the city of Albion on their bicentennial anniversary, and I wish them many more.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the St. Joseph-Ogden High School girls track and field team, who are the 2018 Illinois High School Association Class 1A state champions. St. Joseph-Ogden won the title with a score of 43, easily outpacing the second place finisher by seven points. St. Joseph-Ogden benefited from having two event winners, Atleigh Hamilton, who won the long jump event with a mark of 18 feet two inches and the 4x200 Meter Relay team, composed of Abbey Mizer, Maclayne Taylor, Hailey Birt, and Atleigh Hamilton, who won with a time of 1:43.89. Also making important contributions to the overall victory were the 4x100 Meter Relay team of Abbey Mizer, Maclayne Taylor, Hailey Birt, and Atleigh Hamilton with a second place finish; the 4x400 Meter Relay team of Maclayne Taylor, Rylee Sjuts, Zea Maroon, and Atleigh Hamilton, which also finished second; and the 4x800 Meter Relay team of Rylee Sjuts, Zea Maroon, Hannah Rajlich, and Sam Mabry, which took third place. Mr. Speaker, today it is an honor for me to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the St. Joseph-Ogden High School girls track and field team in winning the 2018 championship, and I wish the team and their coach, Kelly Steffen, all the best in the future.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I am glad my friend from Oregon mentioned the blue ribbon commission. The blue ribbon commission was told: Do not consider Yucca Mountain. So come on. Really? Pull out the blue ribbon commission and say ``this is the truth'' when they were told: Consider everything else, but you can't consider the law of the land. Preposterous. To my colleague, Chairman Walden--actually in Oregon--this is Hanford. These are the tanks next to the Columbia River, which goes next to Oregon. And you are saying it has no defense-related provisions for this bill? Come on now. Let's move forward. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).

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

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 3053.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, I am going to have a lot of people wanting to come to the floor, so I will abbreviate my opening remarks and just address a few questions that are going to be raised. First, I just want to highlight the fact that you are going to hear a lot about local, consensus-based decisionmaking, and then you are also going to hear about closeness of proximity. This chart kind of highlights what we are talking about. The red is Federal Government land. The Federal Government land is larger than 31 countries on the Earth. You have three different sections. You have the national test and training range. You have the national security site. You have also some Fish and Wildlife/Interior land, bigger than many of our States in our Union. So, to my colleagues, I want to make sure they have in perspective the size of the area that we are talking about: bigger than the State of Connecticut and areas that people are going to talk about. That is one question that will be addressed. Another question will be the fear of tourism, because Las Vegas gets 42 million tourists a year, and they seem to be concerned that this might affect that industry. And then it dawned on me that the city of Chicago gets 55 million tourists a year--55 million--and they have over 10,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel in Chicagoland. So I want to make sure that my friends in Nevada understand that that should not be a terrible concern when Chicago seems to be doing well with tourism on that issue. Also, there will be a debate about transportation. I just want to call attention, Mr. Chairman, through you to my colleagues that we operate a nuclear Navy. That nuclear Navy has to have the power systems refueled. That means new nuclear fuel goes there. That means spent nuclear fuel goes off the nuclear Navy ships. That is on the ocean. That is either on the Atlantic Ocean or on the Pacific Ocean. This spent fuel goes to Idaho, which means that we transport, safely, spent nuclear fuel, and we have done it for decades. Those are the three main contentions you will hear with this bill. I am going to allow my colleagues to talk about all the great benefits of this bill. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time. House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC, October 6, 2017. Hon. Rob Bishop, Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Bishop: On June 28, 2017, the Committee on Energy and Commerce ordered favorably reported H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017. This bill was additionally referred to the Committee on Natural Resources. I ask that the Committee on Natural Resources not insist on its referral of the bill so that H.R. 3053 may be scheduled for consideration by the Majority Leader. This concession in no way affects your jurisdiction over the subject matter of the bill, and it will not serve as precedent for future referrals. In addition, should a conference on the bill be necessary, I would support your request to have the Committee on Natural Resources represented on the conference committee. Finally, I would be pleased to include this letter and your response in the bill report and in the Congressional Record. Thank you for your consideration of my request and for the extraordinary cooperation shown by you and your staff over matters of shared jurisdiction. I look forward to further opportunities to work with you this Congress. Sincerely, Greg Walden, Chairman.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance), who is on the committee, and has been doing great work to deal with his constituents.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to end by saying I know there are some rumblings out there about what is this litigation fund being paid for and who is paying for it? The United States Government is being sued. We have to make these payments because we are not abiding by the law. It is not the private industry. There are rumblings out there about: Oh, we are relieving the nuclear industry of reliability. That is absolutely false. We are going to protect U.S. taxpayers from the liability that we are paying because the Federal Government is not complying with the law. And I want to make that straight. That is accountability, that is transparency. That is what my colleague Mr. Keating is doing. And with that, I support his amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chair, I have the right to close. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate my colleague from Illinois-- one of the Chicagolanders that I talk about--for bringing this amendment. I use his district--and I have used it for years--to talk about the challenges that we face if we do nothing. This authorization bill is designed to start doing something, and, actually, it is designed to help us comply with the law that is already written. Zion is the perfect example of the need to move spent nuclear fuel to an interim site and then a final geological repository, thus, freeing up, obviously, great lakefront opportunities on the Great Lakes for redevelopment that would help this community that suffered because of the closure. I am glad the gentleman is here. I appreciate the amendment. I am going back to what Mark Sanford said: This is a national problem. We need a national solution. That is what we are trying to do now in a bipartisan manner. Good job. I thank the gentleman for offering the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Mimi Walters), who has been very helpful in this project.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt), a subcommittee chair of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my colleague from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating). I think this is a very needed amendment. I would say one of the most frustrating things about this process, and my colleagues on the other side know, is that we passed this bill in June of last year. And then we had the funding, and the money, and the debate, and the trust fund, and appropriators and budgeters. Anything we can do to clear out and get some clear guidance on the money, we may have to then move to another piece of legislation to really clarify. Our bill does that for new revenue coming in, so I think it is a great addition, and I appreciate him coming down. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the majority whip.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.