Lamar Smith

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the Pew Research Center recently studied how the media covered the first 60 days of each recent administration. Not surprisingly, 62 percent of the media coverage of President Trump was negative, compared to 20 percent for President Obama and 28 percent for Presidents Bush and Clinton. As Investor's Business Daily put it: ``The media from the get-go had decided Trump was a bad President--before any of his policies had a chance to take hold.'' Now that his policies have taken hold and improved the economy, the media still does not want President Trump to succeed. You have seldom heard or read a word about our strong economic growth, the record- breaking stock market, high consumer confidence, and the record-high household income. The liberal media seldom highlight this news because they would have to credit President Trump's successful policies. When the liberal media give the American people the facts and present the news objectively, they will have earned our trust. Until then, they just serve as another biased source of information.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, a recent Washington Post University of Maryland poll asked Americans whom they blame for causing dysfunction in the U.S. political system. It is no surprise that 88 percent of respondents said the news media caused some or a lot of the dysfunction. Given that the liberal media unfairly blames President Trump for nearly all the problems in our country, they bear the burden of this dysfunction. Months of liberal biased reporting have shredded the media's credibility in the eyes of most Americans. The media should report the facts objectively. That begins with fair coverage of the President and his administration. So far this year, the media has been anything but fair. According to a new Harvard study, media coverage of the President's first 100 days was 80 percent negative, a record for recent Presidents. Until the media becomes less slanted, they will continue to be a source of dysfunction in our political system.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have a message for the liberal so- called mainstream media. You are essential to democracy. You have an almost sacred responsibility to inform the American people, but they don't believe you anymore. Your coverage of the President and conservative Republicans is now obviously so slanted, so biased, that you have lost your credibility; in fact, polls show that it is at a record low. In trying to destroy this President, you are destroying yourself. Is that what you want? Remember the Chinese proverb: ``When you set out on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.'' Why not trust the American people with the facts and let them make up their own minds rather than telling them what to think? I don't know of any other way you can restore your credibility.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, a front-page story in Roll Call about Chief of Staff General Kelly is as misleading as you can get. It clearly is an intentional hit job. The headline read: ``Kelly's Antics Rankle Capitol.'' The article claims, ``GOP and Democratic Members are united'' in not wanting General Kelly to speak out. But only one Republican, known for his criticism of this administration, is quoted, compared to four Democrats. Of the four Democrats, three are current Members of Congress, and one is a former Clinton administration official. So much for balance, and so much for the article's unfounded claim. This is what passes for journalism these days. When you see stories like this one, you begin to understand why the President is right to use the term ``fake news.'' I doubt General Kelly will be intimidated, and I hope he will continue to speak out.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee approved the Legal Workforce Act, a bill I introduced that saves jobs for citizens and legal workers. It requires U.S. employers to use the E-Verify system to check the work eligibility of all future hires. A September 2017 Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 82 percent of voters favor requiring business owners to check the immigration status of prospective employees. E-Verify is the most popular immigration reform that reduces illegal immigration. E-Verify is a free and quick system that already is used voluntarily by employers to cover one-third of the workforce. The Legal Workforce Act has the backing of both national business organizations and immigration enforcement groups. This bill deserves the enthusiastic support of all Members of Congress who want to put the interest of American workers first.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the chairwoman of the Budget Committee for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, we need to pass this budget not only to rein in out-of- control spending, but also to give Congress the go-ahead on much-needed tax reform. We need to reduce the tax burden on hardworking Americans. The typical household in the 21st Congressional District of Texas pays over $15,700 in Federal taxes. Past experience shows that tax relief generates strong economic growth. It enables Americans to save, invest, create jobs, and spend more of their income. Our vision of tax reform benefits families across America. For example, in my congressional district, one-sixth of households utilize the child tax credit. Increasing the child tax credit will help families keep more of their hard-earned money to use on child care or parental leave, school supplies, college savings, and other expenses associated with raising a child. Let's help American families enjoy a more prosperous future rather than pay more of their hard-earned dollars to the Federal Government.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, a recent Morning Consult poll found that nearly half of all voters--46 percent--``believe the media fabricates news stories about President Donald Trump and his administration.'' It is not surprising that the American people feel this way. Each day they wake up to another barrage of negative reporting about a President they elected. In fact, a recent Harvard University study found that news coverage of President Trump's first 100 days was 80 percent negative, a record high for any recent President. The news media used anonymous sources to report illegitimate claims that intentionally placed the President and his administration in a bad light. This is borderline malicious. The liberal media frequently rushed to print stories with one single biased source. Often, the stories turn out to be false. This is the current state of journalism by the liberal media. The media should report on the topics of the day in a fair and balanced manner; otherwise, the American people will continue to consider the media's coverage to be fabricated news.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow is Jennifer Young Brown's last day as Chief of Staff of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. For more than 28 years she has helped me represent the residents of the 21st District of Texas and, more recently, helped the Science Committee enact numerous policies that benefit the American people. Jennifer started working in my personal office after she graduated from the University of Colorado. She has held five different positions, including Chief of Staff. For several years, she served as COS both in the personal office and on the Science Committee, a rare double COS, before becoming the full-time Science Committee Chief of Staff in 2016. Her talents and skills are many. She has mastered the difficult art of multi-tasking--no one does it better. Jennifer is simply a remarkable woman. She manages to balance well the demands of husband, children, school activities, Science Committee work, and friends, almost 200 of whom attended a reception for her yesterday. If Jennifer is going to leave us, at least it is for a worthy cause-- Texas Tech University. Over the years Texas Tech has supplied our office with impressive interns and graduates and even made me an honorary alumnus. Jobs may end but friendships continue. Jennifer and her family-- husband Barry, son Leighton, and daughter Gipson--will always be special friends and I know I will continue to see them often. So Jennifer, I thank you for all you have done for me. Her family is fortunate to have her as a role model. And I am fortunate to have had her influence on my life for over 28 years. As I've learned to say, ``Go Raiders.''

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll professed to find that a majority of Americans supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. That is not hard to do, given how the survey was conducted. The polsters asked to speak only with the youngest adult at home; over-sampled Democrats by at least 4 percent; used the word ``undocumented'' rather than ``illegal;'' questioned illegal immigrants, at least 3 percent of the population; and conditioned amnesty on requirements that can't be met. Other than that, I am sure it was an accurate poll. Beware of polls done by liberal media organizations that have an agenda of their own. The American people may not be getting the facts. They deserve better.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, you may have heard of Colin Kaepernick, the football quarterback who started ``the kneel'' to protest the national anthem at NFL games. He was the originator of the resistance movement in the NFL against police officers. But you likely haven't heard that he donated $25,000 to a group that was named after a convicted cop killer. Neither national broadcast stations nor major daily newspapers reported the donation to an organization honoring Assata Shakur, who escaped prison and fled to Cuba after being found guilty in the 1973 murder of police officer Werner Foerster. Assata is currently on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. Why did the liberal national media think this story was not newsworthy? Do they agree with Kaepernick? Do they approve of contributions to organizations named after cop killers? The liberal national media seems to have a grudge against law enforcement and patriotism, as well as religion and traditional values, based on their lack of fair coverage of those subjects. This might explain why the media's credibility is at a record low.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Webster) for yielding me time and for introducing H.R. 2105, the NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Act. This important and timely bipartisan bill, cosponsored by 17 Members of Congress and approved by the Science Committee by voice vote, directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology to provide small businesses with cybersecurity guidelines, tools, best practices, standards, and methodologies necessary to better protect themselves from cyber attacks. Small businesses help produce a thriving economy that benefits our entire country. They bring innovative ideas, cutting-edge products and services, and jobs to the marketplace. In my home State, for example, there are more than 2.4 million small businesses that employ almost 4.5 million Texans. Major cyber attacks dominate news coverage, such as the Equifax or Yahoo hacks that impacted millions and billions of people. But small businesses, which often do not have sufficient information to adequately monitor and protect their computer systems, are frequently the target of cyber attacks, as well. A 2016 Symantec report notes that cyber attacks against businesses with fewer than 250 employees have grown from 18 percent in 2011 to 43 percent in 2015. This bill can help those businesses. October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so it is appropriate that we consider a bill designed to help protect small businesses from cybersecurity attacks. Today's legislation provides small businesses with NIST expertise to reduce their cybersecurity risk. NIST experts developed a cybersecurity framework through collaboration between the government and the private sector. This framework is accepted and used by many private organizations to address and manage their information technology vulnerabilities in a cost- effective way. The guidance described in this bill to help small businesses is based on the NIST cybersecurity framework. H.R. 2105 prioritizes dissemination of this guidance by NIST within its almost $1 billion budget. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to show their support for small business by approving Mr. Webster's fiscally responsible, innovation protection bill today.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 2763, the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Improvements Act of 2017. And I thank the gentleman from California, Mr. Knight, for introducing this important legislation. He serves on the two Committees that share jurisdiction over the SBIR and STTR programs: the Small Business Committee, chaired by my good friend, Mr. Chabot, and the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, which I chair. Mr. Knight took the lead on last year's timely reauthorization of the SBIR and STTR programs, and he is the sponsor of H.R. 2763, which makes a number of needed policy changes to increase the programs' efficiency and effectiveness. The SBIR program was signed into law by President Reagan in 1982, followed by the STTR program in 1992. These programs help spur economic innovation and competitiveness, and increase small business participation in federal research and development activity. SBIR and STTR award winners convert the results of taxpayer-supported pioneering research into products that are critical to our economic competitiveness and national security. Recent examples include parts for NASA's Mars Rover and a unique cockpit airbag system to protect Army helicopter pilots. Today 11 federal agencies provide funding to small businesses through SBIR, and five agencies provide funding through STTR--a total of nearly $3 billion this fiscal year. That's more than 66 times greater than the $45 million spent under the original program in 1983. Recipients of SBIR and STTR funding have boosted scientific and technological innovation and created hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Several large, international companies like Qualcomm, Sonicare and Symantec can trace their initial growth to when they were small businesses that received SBIR and STTR support. I want to call attention to two provisions of H.R. 2763 that were added by Members of the Science Committee. A provision authored by Mr. Hultgren requires participating federal agencies to give priority to SBIR and STTR projects that will strengthen American manufacturing innovation and increase manufacturing jobs in our country. A provision authored by Mr. Higgins requires federal agencies engaged in cyber security research to give priority to SBIR and STTR projects that will spur advances in cyber security to protect the American people from increasingly aggressive and malicious cyber-attacks. The legislation before us addresses a number of red flags raised by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about lax administration of the SBIR and STTR programs. Several participating agencies do not produce accurate, timely information that Congress requires to evaluate program performance. The U.S. Small Business Administration has not submitted its required, comprehensive annual report to Congress since 2013. The last administration provided virtually no information to Congress and taxpayers about the SBIR and STTR programs. It's reassuring that SBA associate administrator Joseph Shepard promised during a joint hearing of our Committee and the Small Business Committee that annual reports will be submitted on time. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2763 was unanimously approved by both the House Small Business Committee and the House Science Committee. I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, within minutes of the tragic shooting in Las Vegas, Democrats and the liberal media called for more gun control measures. A recent Washington Post op-ed describes how one gun control advocate researched restrictive gun laws in Great Britain and in Australia, only to discover that gun buybacks and gun bans do not reduce mass shootings or gun-related crimes. She said: ``The case for the''--gun control--``policies I had lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. . . . But I can't endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them. Policies that often seem as if they were drafted by people who have encountered guns only as a figure in a briefing book or an image on the news.'' This researcher concluded that more lives would be saved by focusing on individuals instead of guns. We should ensure that background checks work as intended and prevent those with mental health issues from acquiring guns. This actually will do some good, as opposed to meaningless gun regulations.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, both the Washington Examiner and Washington Times recently have reported on a practice that is resulting in overly low approval ratings for President Trump. Pollsters are not necessarily rigging their questions to get a desired result; instead, they are creating a biased result by how they select people to poll. Frequently, the pollsters contact more Democrats than Republicans. Unsurprisingly, the results tilt anti-Trump. The Examiner pointed out that this ``robs Trump of about 8 points in his approval ratings, from 46 percent to 38 percent.'' The Times noted that in polls including Presidential approval questions, the Economist relied on a sample that used 58 percent more Democrats than Republicans, which ``gave Democrats a 14-point edge, while Reuters and Gallup gave Democrats an 11-point and 7-point edge in their samples.'' Mr. Speaker, as the 2016 election taught us, we shouldn't rely on biased polls if we want accuracy.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the President is doing what he was elected to do--call it shaking up the system, putting the brakes on the bureaucracy, or creative deconstruction. Our country simply cannot continue on the same course: where the government increases the debt by hundreds of billions of dollars every year; where hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants cross our border annually, insulting those who play by the rules and wait their turn in line; where political correctness limits freedom of speech, especially for conservatives. The liberal media is trying to shut down this Presidency because they oppose everything President Trump is trying to do. Mr. Speaker, in this great conflict, the American people and our democracy could be the casualties.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Madam Speaker, the media bias beat goes on. Last week on PBS, columnist Mark Shields criticized Senate sponsors of the new healthcare bill. He said that no Republican Senators have credentials for working on healthcare, and added that Senator Cassidy got to the Senate a year ago and is not exactly a long-term legislator. In two clicks online, Mark Shields could have learned that Bill Cassidy and his wife are both doctors who have provided healthcare for people around the world. Those are called credentials. Senator Cassidy also served in the State senate, three terms in the U.S. House, and is now in his third year in the United States Senate. He is obviously an experienced legislator. Where is the balance? Where is the truth? And the liberal national media wonder why their credibility with the American people is at a record low.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, here are recent examples of the liberal national media's ignoring inconvenient news: The economy grew by 3 percent last quarter, the fastest pace in years, but you might not know this good news because of the media blackout of the story by broadcast networks. The media blackout extended to a story by The New York Times on a current Senator's corruption trial, which failed to mention he was a Democrat in a 1,200-word story. The media hyped the claim that climate change was responsible for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but the media blacked out the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that hurricanes are not increasing in intensity or frequency. This is what the liberal media do: they ignore the facts that contradict the liberal view they want to promote with their readers and viewers.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, President Trump doesn't have many fans in the political, media, or academic establishment. The definition of ``establishment'' is a ruling class or a controlling group. They oppose the President because he is not one of them. They hold different views of immigration, trade, regulations, political correctness, and media bias. Their beliefs are threatened by his world view, so they are relentlessly trying to discredit his Presidency. The President, I believe, sees himself as representing the working men and women of America; Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. This is the broad middle class and those who aspire to be part of it. The establishment has linked arms and resists the President's reforms, but all true reform starts with the voice of the people, and they are on his side.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, President Trump's recent decision to end the unconstitutional DACA program has received unfair criticism by the liberal media. When reporting on President Trump's decision to end the DACA program, outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CBS all included former President Obama's criticism of the announcement. What is not being reported is that then-President Obama stated over 20 times before issuing DACA that executive amnesty is an overstep of executive authority and is unconstitutional. To use former President Obama's criticism of the termination of DACA without also noting that he, himself, considered DACA unconstitutional is biased reporting designed to promote a pro-amnesty agenda. It is no wonder that the media's credibility with the American people is now at a record low.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I support this bill and endorse division C, the CJS appropriations bill developed by Chairman Culberson. The appropriations included in division C implement the Science Committee's authorizations that have been enacted into law or passed by the House. I offer an amendment today to simply increase physical and biological science research by one-half of 1 percent, or $30.2 million, over the current funding within the $6 billion National Science Foundation research account. Total spending is not increased, as NSF will adjust other areas of spending accordingly. I ask the chairman and members to support the amendment and endorse this increase for the basic research that produces the scientific breakthroughs that fuel technological innovation, new industries, economic growth, and good jobs. I yield to the chairman, Chairman Culberson, for his support of this amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Culberson for his support and very much appreciate his help along the way. On a separate matter, can the chairman assure me that the funding in the bill is fully consistent with the Tsunami Warning, Education, and Research Act enacted into law earlier this year?

Mr. SMITH of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas, the chairman of the subcommittee, for his support, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Texas

Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues may be aware of a legal immigration reform bill that increases skilled workers needed in America, reduces the chain migration of non-immediate relatives, and saves jobs for American workers. This is to alert Members to the welcome endorsement by many in the national media. Even President Clinton liked the idea. That was when similar legislation was recommended by the Jordan Commission, chaired by the Texas Democrat, former Member Barbara Jordan. Today, similar legislation is opposed by these same newspapers. How time, or at least the political party of the authors, changes. Most of the national media supports more open borders and increased levels of immigration, contrary to a majority of the American people. But Congress needs to approve an immigration bill that puts the interests of Americans first.