John Shimkus

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. This has been a great debate. We don't have debates on the floor too much. I want to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania. He is a good friend. I think it was well conducted. Just to close, these are specialized plants for twofold purposes. The first purpose is to clean up coal refuge sites, which are all over, again, and it keeps them from having the piles on the ground. And if they catch on fire, there is no controlling technology for that. It keeps them from leaching into our streams, as Congressman Rothfus said numerous times, which is why EPA, again, has said these units warrant special consideration. That is what this legislation does. Again, not a Trump EPA, but an Obama EPA made that statement. If that 200 acres is in your backyard, that is an important 200 acres to clean up. Mr. Rothfus brought this down. If those 200 acres are here, you want this? This is a pretty good deal--paid for not by the taxpayers, but paid for by this industry that is using this technology to take the coal refuse and create electricity. As I said once before in this debate, if you have remediation of environmental hazards, if you have a revenue stream to pay for it, if you have good-paying jobs, you create a local tax base, and you protect the Abandoned Mine Land fund, this SENSE Act makes sense. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, this is really a great debate, and I appreciate my colleague coming down here to offer this. I am not sure he was here for the whole debate, but these coal refuse sites sometimes catch on fire. And you want to talk about pollution and hazards? These power plants clean those up. Some of these coal refuse sites leach into the groundwater, the streams, the tributaries, so that the water is yellow. These power plants clean them up. The Obama administration, under Lisa Jackson, said that these units ``warrant special consideration.'' Why? Because they are remediating all of these environmental hazards. They are not like a typical power plant. They are meeting environmental standards, as the author has said. This bill is supported by the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, the Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation. Actually, the abandoned mine reclamation is not on the taxpayers' dollar, it is on the power plants' dollar. We are saving money in the Abandoned Mine Land Fund. And the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation. So, you see, the eastern and the western side of Pennsylvania. It is like the Phillies and the Steelers. Right? There is always going to be a divide there in Pennsylvania. Cambria County Conservation District, the Blacklick Creek Watershed Association. Here is a watershed association supporting this piece of legislation. The Anthracite Region Independent Power Producers Association. As I have said a couple of times during this debate, this is what this is about: You remediate environmental hazards, and you take land like this and turn it into land like this at no government cost. That is why this is the step forward. This is the reasonable approach. The revenue stream is paid for by corporate America. You have got good-paying jobs. You have got a local tax base. Some of these power plants, if this power plant leaves a county, that is their major employer. That is their major tax base. What are they going to do? Raise local taxes to meet their schools', counties', and municipal's obligations? The SENSE Act makes sense. This motion to recommit is trying to obviously defeat this bill. This is a sensible bill. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote against the motion to recommit, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume before I yield to Mr. Rothfus just to get things straight here. Let's see. We can remediate environmental hazards by private sector dollars. I think that is good, saving the AML for other sites that can't use private sector dollars. We have a revenue stream to pay for that remediation. We have good-paying jobs and, as my colleague said, union jobs. I am from a coal-producing State everyone knows, deep southern Illinois. We have a local tax base to protect. Again, it protects the abandoned mine funds. When I was a young boy, I had a motorbike, and one of the places to ride which kind of scared me--I did it a couple of times--was on what we would call a slag hill. What is a slag hill? A slag hill is an abandoned mine refuse pile. So many of us have lived in and around these sites. This opportunity to take this and turn it into this, without taxpayer dollars, is a win. And the gentleman stole my line. The SENSE Act does make sense for jobs, for a tax base, for remediation, both in land and water, and protecting the abandoned mine funds to go to those sites that don't have a reclamation facility that can produce power and put it on the grid. So I am pleased to be down here and fighting with my colleague, Congressman Rothfus. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus), the author of the language.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 1119.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 1917.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today we have a chance to help hundreds of small businesses, manufacturers, as well as thousands of employees, while also lowering prices for consumers. I thank the bipartisan cosponsors of H.R. 1917, the Blocking Regulatory Interference from Closing Kilns Act, the BRICK Act, and urge my colleagues to support this commonsense bill. American brickmakers literally produce the building blocks of our Nation. They are primarily small businesses, and they are often the most important employer in small communities across America, where many are located. Like an old brick house, this industry has had to weather a lot, including a long economic downturn, that we have finally come out of, that suppressed new construction activity and, thus, brick sales for many years. They even weathered the 2003 EPA regulation that cost many millions of dollars to comply. That regulation was later thrown out by a Federal court, but the judicial relief came too late, as the industry had already spent considerable sums to meet EPA's tight deadlines. We don't want to see a repeat of that unfair result, but, once again, EPA has imposed another regulation with difficult deadlines that will likely take effect before judicial review is complete. Brickmakers have testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee that this regulation may result in layoffs and even plant closures. H.R. 1917 would simply extend the compliance deadline until after judicial review is final. This industry has already reduced its emissions by up to 95 percent, according to a study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It should not be forced to comply with another new regulation that may not withstand judicial scrutiny. We owe it to these brickmakers, their employees, and consumers of building materials to allow meaningful judicial review. I might add that a Senate bill has been recently introduced that also provides regulatory relief for brickmakers, but it takes a somewhat different approach than our version. I pledge to work with the Senate so that we can provide timely relief to this important industry. The bill also deals with wood heaters. As with bricks, the wood heaters industry is dominated by small business manufacturers who are often the economic anchors of rural communities, where many are located. Many wood heater buyers are low-income, rural households that rely on them to get through the winter. In 2015, EPA set a two-step wood heater emission rule. The first step took effect in 2015 and reduced emissions in new models by up to 90 percent. The more stringent second step is scheduled to take effect in 2020, but is causing a great deal of difficulty. Only a small fraction of the wood heating models currently available can meet the 2020 standards, and time is running out to design and certify any additional models. One wood heater manufacturer testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee that he has already had to cut staff as a result of the 2020 deadline, and others feel there will be additional job losses if the 2020 standard is retained, but this is not just a jobs issue. Users of wood heaters face both reduced product choice and higher prices for new models. Many would have to forgo buying a new wood heater and continue using older and dirtier ones, which undercuts the claims that the current deadline will improve air quality. The provisions in the bill retain the 2015 standards, but extend the 2020 deadline by 3 years to 2023. This is a reasonable fix that would avoid unnecessary economic damage while still prioritizing environmental protection. In conclusion, the brick industry and the wood heater industry may both be small, but they are far from small to those who owe their jobs to them and to those who rely on their products. I urge my colleagues to provide targeted relief to these two industries by supporting H.R. 1917. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 762, I call up the bill (H.R. 1917) to allow for judicial review of any final rule addressing national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants for brick and structural clay products or for clay ceramics manufacturing before requiring compliance with such rule, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the next individual, I just want to say it is not a low cost to the individuals in these small communities who lose their job, and it is not a low cost to the communities that lose the tax base when these small businesses fold up and go away in small towns. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Harper), a person who also represents big parts of rural America.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson), the author of the BRICK Act.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this is a good debate and discussion. It is one we had in the subcommittee; it is one we had in the full committee; and we are bringing it to the floor. It just focuses on a different way in which we view manufacturing and, really, as you heard in this debate, small manufacturers--small brick manufacturers, small wood heaters, because, as everyone knows, when you are in a big corporation, you have got lawyers and you have got--you can do an economic analysis and you can do research and development, but a lot of these folks are just small local operations, probably started by a husband and wife, probably brought on a kid and next-door neighbor. In my opening statement, I mentioned how, in rural America, there are not a lot of businesses, other than maybe agriculture, people coming into the town; so not only are these manufacturers, they are the backbone of these small communities. So, simply put, this bill is a combination of two. One says you really shouldn't force someone to comply with a rule and regulation until they have fought the litigation battle, because, in the example that we are talking about today, the claimants, the manufacturers, won, where either they went out of business because they were trying to comply or they had to have this excessive cost. That is issue one. Issue two on the small wood heaters is just say they were forced to move forward in cleaner technology, increasing their environmental ability 90 percent; and we all know that the cleaner you get, the harder it is to get the last percentages. So all the folks are asking for is more time to comply. They are both bipartisan bills. I applaud folks coming down to talk and defend those. This is an exciting time in our country. It is exciting because we are having economic growth. We are having economic growth for two reasons. One, our historic tax cuts. Fifty percent of all manufacturers of the country have said they are going to invest in capital investment. Pretty exciting. There is optimism again. Wages are increasing. Benefits are increasing. You have people getting checks increasing or new growth capital expenses. There is another component of this exciting time for jobs in the economy, and this other component is easing up on the assault that the EPA has done over the past decade on our manufacturing sector and our job creators. So you put these two together, the American worker has a greater opportunity, and these are just a couple of examples of the bills we are moving today, how we can continue to make that happen. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, a Member uses a motion to instruct or recommit to change or amend the bill. I don't think we build and use bricks to make our airplanes, and I don't think we power our planes with wood heaters. So what is the deal with this motion to instruct and recommit? It is just purely politics, and it is not surprising. Why? Well, because Democrats want to distort us from our economic success of the Republican agenda. And it is built on two foundational principles. One is the very successful tax reform and bill that we passed in December. And Americans are seeing it. Fifty percent of all manufacturers around the country are going to invest in capital expansion. People have bigger paychecks now. They are getting bonuses. In fact, I was on the floor last night with Illinoisans. We were reading stories from constituents about the benefits they are receiving, either in less money being taken out on taxes or increase in wages; trucking companies expanding. So it is an incredible success of optimism when we have been in an economic malaise for the past 8 years. And that is the kind of society I want to live in. I want to live in a society where, when my kids enter the workforce, there is a job there. And I want them to say: If I work hard and play by the rules, man, there is an opportunity for me. And that is what is coming back. There is another component to this economic success, and that is calling off the EPA dogs who have been attacking the job creators in our country over the past 8 years. Ease the regulatory burden, provide historic tax relief, excitement in the economy, new jobs, new energy. So I understand why my opponents on the other side would like to distort us from this record. This motion to recommit is purely politics to do that, so that is why I ask my colleagues to reject the motion to recommit and, once we do that, support the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I include the following letters in the Record on H.R. 1917. Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, Washington, DC, March 7, 2018. To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports H.R. 1917, the ``Blocking Regulatory Interference from Closing Kilns (BRICK) Act of 2017.'' The bill would ensure that the U.S. brick industry will not be forced to comply with the Brick Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards for air quality issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until after judicial challenges to the rule are resolved. EPA issued an earlier version of the Brick MACT rule in 2003, which required the brick industry to spend millions of dollars to purchase, install, and operate control equipment. Five years later, a court threw out the 2003 rule. Now brick companies are faced with having to pay to tear out the equipment they installed and install even more costly new equipment. Brick companies are rightfully worried that they may make the investment to comply with the 2015 rule, only to have it subsequently thrown out by a court. To avoid this unfair and wasteful outcome, H.R. 1917 would set a compliance date for the final Brick MACT rule after judicial challenges to the 2015 Brick MACT rule are completed and after any subsequent final rule is promulgated. It is important that American industries are not unfairly penalized when they are compelled to comply with costly rules that are later overturned by the courts. This wasteful and unreasonable outcome must be avoided. Sincerely, Neil L. Bradley.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from the great State of Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), a Democrat who is going to speak on behalf of part of his bill.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding. It is great to be here with my friends from the State of Michigan. As a Republican, sometimes people ask: What is the difference? I always say: Well, Republicans, we believe in less government, individual responsibility, lower taxes, more personal freedoms and liberties. From my time here in Washington, I have always wanted a fairer, flatter, simpler Tax Code. We shouldn't have to fear filing our income taxes. We shouldn't have to fear whether we have the receipts. I think the other thing that was always frustrating about the Tax Code is you never know if you have done enough of the itemizing that you are actually going to get anything or not. And then, have you forgotten something that you are not recouping? So having said that, that is why--and I am glad Congressman Mitchell raised this issue, the fairer, flatter, simpler Tax Code. Before we passed the bill, 80 percent of my constituents did not itemize. Under this tax reform, 90 percent of all of my filers--90 percent--will be able to do it on this simple postcard. And it is easy to find. People can pull it up at fairandsimple.gop to check it out. Congressman Upton was correct: this process worked. We had a House bill and we had a Senate bill, and then the two sides merged to keep some of the deductions that people really thought were important, and a great compromise that was working. So the question is: Is the proof in the pudding? In other words, is it operating as advertised for either side? I think we are down here to say it is operating as advertised and we can proudly stand down here and tell some of these stories. What we did is we posted a question on our newsletter to ask people to respond, and I want to share some of these responses. These are on the individual side. I will talk about the corporate side in a minute. Ken and Pam from St. Joseph--we call it St. Joe--they say: ``Personally we have seen an increase in our net wages each week. With our business, we seem to have an increase in other companies starting new things.'' Gregg from Charleston says: ``More money in my take-home check.'' A pretty simple statement. James from Marine says: ``My retirement check just went up. Thanks.'' Jeff from Carlyle says: ``Positive results only so far, just as expected with a commonsense tax cut.'' Carl from Collinsville, which is my hometown. I am glad Carl is happy. He says: ``I am seeing more on my paycheck each week. Keep up the good work.'' So that is just on the individual side. Then we briefly want to talk about what is going on from business. You know, these are great announcements. I had the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, my good friend, Kevin Brady, tell me 50 percent of all manufacturers in this country are planning expansion. Not 50 percent of the manufacturers in Illinois or Michigan; across the country. That is pretty awesome. So what is going on in my district? Griffith Trucking, Broadway Express, Heartland Peterbilt, and Heartland Classics--which are in Effingham and Newton--gave $1,000 bonuses to 65 full-time employees. FedEx has a big distribution hub in my district, same place, in Effingham. FedEx has committed to more than $3 billion in wage increases, bonuses, pension funding, and expanded U.S. capital investment. Charter Communications is raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour as a result of this tax cut plan. It is great to see Congressman Roskam on the floor. He will get a chance to speak later. He was a major architect of this. I am very proud that he comes from Illinois. These stories are attributed to Peter's great work. The other one I wanted to mention--of course, I live in the metro St. Louis area. Boeing has a big presence in St. Louis, but a lot of their great workers, probably their best workers, live on the Illinois side. Boeing has announced employee-related and charitable investments of $300 million as a result of the tax law. So great things are happening. I want to follow what Fred Upton said, in that we as a body were tired of being in a malaise. Is this all we can hope for? We wanted an economy that would grow and create jobs and be vibrant, that people would be excited about going back to the workforce, working hard, taking home more of their pay, investing it into the market or in their retirement savings; and that is just what we are having. Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of my colleagues here on the floor, so I could talk a long time on the benefits of the bill. I am very, very excited about it. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Mitchell for organizing this tonight.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the topic of this Special Order.

Mr. SHIMKUS. I do that, Mr. Speaker, because we have had Members from Oregon--I am from Illinois--Tennessee, Minnesota, California, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Connecticut come down. Many, many Members from all over this country also wanted to join me here tonight, but they could not, so they will be submitting statements for the Record. I appreciate the Chair allowing us to us do that. Mr. Speaker, I also want to highlight a few things and just follow up on some of my colleagues, who I really appreciate coming down and spending their time to talk about the importance of this issue. This issue has national support, I think identified by the 49-4 vote out of the Energy and Commerce Committee. People are very diverse, from all over the country, on the Energy and Commerce Committee. I would encourage people to go to the Energy and Commerce Committee website and look at the members of that committee and how wide and how diverse we are. We are all united on this issue. The national newsmakers and the recorders of what is going on are starting to take interest in solving this problem. We have a couple editorials and statements from some major papers and some smaller ones. Here is The Washington Post: ``Put Yucca Mountain to work. The Nation needs it.'' As was stated, the law was passed in 1982 and it was amended in 1987. Congressman Duncan said it right. This is the law of the land. For the last 8 to 10 years, we have been breaking the law by not moving forward. People have heard me say that numerous times before. Here is The San Diego Union-Tribune: ``Revival of Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project overdue.'' Well, it is 20 years. We should have been receiving spent nuclear fuel and defense waste 20 years ago. Now we are paying judgments because of our inability to comply with the law. Wouldn't you like the government to do what it says it wants to do and then is planning to do it? And then shouldn't they do it? Here is Aiken Standard: ``Fed should proceed with Yucca Mountain.'' Here is the Reason: ``Open the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.'' Here is the Los Angeles Times and their statement on this issue: ``The Federal Government needs to renew its efforts to bring the Yucca Mountain site into operation.'' There is a lot of support in California because they are closing nuclear power plants and they have spent nuclear fuel on the beach, as Congressman Carbajal has said. He is talking about San Luis Obispo. I think I will show a chart later on that shows San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, or SONGS, which is being decommissioned. Here is the Chicago Tribune, from my State: ``Yucca Mountain is the only viable alternative to the jury-rigged status quo. We hope the Trump administration and Congress will revive it because if they don't''--well, you can read it, right? So let me give you an example. It was mentioned by one of my colleagues, and I will talk about Illinois for a little bit. Zion Nuclear Power Station is decommissioned. On the shore of Lake Michigan is spent nuclear fuel. Part of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amendments of 2017 does a couple things. It makes sure the authorization language is in place so that we start moving forward on a final repository. We have listened to my colleagues from around the country to say it is not going to move fast enough, even if you start it. Can't we find some regional temporary locations. Now, in the nuclear timeframe, ``temporary'' is about 40 years. That is temporary when you are talking about nuclear stuff. So we want to be able to consolidate. What this shows is licensed and operating nuclear spent fuel storage installations. These are just locations where you have nuclear power. And you can see the red dots all over the place, and other nuclear registered locations. I am not talking about the other issue, which is defense locations. That is why I am glad my colleague Joe Courtney came down to talk about Connecticut and the nuclear Navy. A colleague that really wanted to be down here was Dan Newhouse, who represents Hanford. Hanford is the epitome story of why we need to get our act together as a nation and fulfill our obligations to clean up these sites. This is a defense site. We created waste in the production of our nuclear arsenal. Decades, stored in tanks, toxic sludge underneath the ground that needs to be glassified, as Chairman Walden mentioned. And where that glassified toxic sludge is supposed to go is underneath the mountain in a desert in Yucca Mountain. So these are the different locations we have here across the country. As was stated tonight already, 39 States, 121 locations. Thirty-nine States, 121 locations. So let me give you a few examples of what we are talking about. My colleague Jason Lewis was down here earlier, and he mentioned Prairie Island. These are old charts, but they are oldies but goodies because we haven't done anything. I can go into the dustbin of history when I talk about this on the floor, and the only thing that has changed is there is more spent nuclear fuel on these sites. So you have Prairie Island. You have waste stored aboveground in pools and in casts. You have, in the Mississippi floodplain, on the Mississippi River, 50 miles from Minneapolis-St. Paul versus Yucca Mountain. Now, what do we have at Yucca Mountain? Now, Yucca Mountain is where, by law, we are supposed to be receiving long-term repository. I refer people, there is no nuclear waste on site. Here is the mountain in a desert. The waste will be stored 1,000 feet underground and 1,000 feet above the water table. The Colorado River is the closest body of water 100 miles away. So that is the example. That is what we want to show to the American people. Would you rather have nuclear waste or defense waste next to your major cities and by major bodies of water, or would you rather have them in a desert underneath a mountain? I had a few Californians down here tonight. Why? Because they are decommissioning nuclear power plants. This is the one I visited just maybe 14 months ago. It is no longer an operating nuclear power station. They are decommissioning it. The waste will be stored onsite. It is the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. It is between L.A. and San Diego right on the Pacific Ocean. At this time, there are 2,300 waste rods onsite. That has probably increased by a number I don't know. Waste is stored aboveground. It is adjacent to the Pacific Ocean, and it is located 45 miles from San Diego, versus Yucca Mountain which is located here, which is a mountain in a desert. The waste would be 1,000 feet underground, and that is 1,000 feet above the water table. So I have listened to my colleagues from Nevada. In fact, in this picture, this green area, these are all the counties around the Federal land site that have passed resolutions in support of moving forward. Now, what do the Nevadans tell me? They want to make sure it is safe. How do you make it safe? You decide to adjudicate the science. We give Nevada, as per law, their last chance to question the science. That is what we are trying to do in the appropriation process is get the money to do the final adjudication so that the question can be answered. To my friends from the State of Nevada: Is a mountain in a desert a safe place to store the defense waste and spent fuel? Now, the red part is Federal land. Yucca Mountain would be about right here, a little pinhole. That yellow there is--when you hear people say local consensus, the yellow here is a local consensus from Sweden, and if you notice, it is smaller than the Federal land that we have. So I would argue the local consensus is the Federal Government since it is all that property. Now, why do we have all that property? Because Yucca Flat is there. Because we put nuclear fuel--nuclear waste, in some short and some shade, is already housed there. So, again, it is a great location. I was given a pin tonight from Nye County, and it says, ``Host of Yucca Mountain.'' So with all due respect to my colleagues from the State of Nevada, when they say that everyone is against it, they are not talking to everyone in the State of Nevada. I have been to Las Vegas, I have been to Reno, and I have been to Pahrump, and there are people that--if proven safe. So I would ask the Governor, allow us to have the litigation to fight the science. That is what he wants to prove, that is what we want to prove, and that is what we need to appropriate the money, get the final adjudication, and then I am convinced that our nuclear scientists, the studies, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that issued a safety and evaluation report will come out and say: You are not going to find a safer place on this planet; there is no more of a studied location on the planet than Yucca Mountain. So, again, I want to thank my colleagues for coming down to do a couple things. First of all, we want to highlight to our leadership in this House and our appropriators that we need to get money into the final omnibus to do the adjudication to fight for the science, and we have to do that now--issue one. Issue two, there is a bipartisan consensus, as proven by the 49-4 vote in the committee and by 108 cosponsors, and when we get the bill on the floor, a passage of a bill that we probably would project to get 300 votes out of 435. So the nuclear era started in World War II. It was started to beat Hitler to make sure they didn't win World War II. Then we had the arms race with the Soviet Union. It has helped protect our freedom and liberty. There was a price to pay, environmental degradations across this country. We owe it to these communities and to ourselves to safely gather, store, and protect the environment and protect our citizens. We do that through the appropriation process. We do it by passing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 2007. Mr. Speaker, I want to again thank my friends from both sides of the aisle for coming down this night. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Georgia for his comments, and now I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for his strong work, his positive statements, and his reaching out so that we could have a national solution to a national problem.