Mike Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, the only thing I would ask the gentlewoman from Ohio and the gentleman from Virginia is: What are they going to do with the additional $97 million? What are you going to do with it? You have got $733 million sitting there right now that they can't spend. We have to have agreements with foreign countries to do nonproliferation work. Where are they going to spend it? I have been complaining--not complaining, but arguing, I guess--with Members for the last several years that want to put money in to show their support for nonproliferation: Why don't you just put more money into it? I ask them: What do you want to do with it? They can't tell you. By saying we increase the nonproliferation account, it shows we support nonproliferation. But you have got to have something you are going to do with it.

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. SIMPSON. Reclaiming my time, I guess you have got an agreement there with Iran to do nonproliferation work? The reason we have some excess money is because the agreements with Russia, when things got a little cold between our two countries, some of those agreements kind of went by the wayside. I would like to know what the projects are. If there is something that somebody has come up with, if there are agreements to do those types of things. You can't say: I want to spend another $97 million on top of the $733 million. If that is accurate at $190 million, we've got $733 million to do it right now. So why throw another $97 million on top of it? It just doesn't make sense to me. Mr. Chairman, I urge opposition to the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I recognize my colleague's concerns about certain actions and practices of the Western Area Power Administration. I applaud his dedication to improving the functionality of the agency for the benefit of his constituents. In fact, he has worked with this committee to make improvements related to appropriations, and I would encourage him to continue to engage with us on appropriate oversight measures. This amendment, though, will not improve the effectiveness and transparency of this agency. Rather, it is simply a punitive one toward one individual, and I cannot support such an effort. That is why I opposed the Holman rule that was adopted by the rules package, I guess--what?--last year or something like that, the year before last. The problem is you have got an individual here, and there have been claims about his behavior or his inability to do his job, and we are going to debate whether he is going to have a salary or not or whether you are going to essentially fire him, reduce his salary to $1, in a 10-minute debate on the floor. Is that really fair? Is that right? I don't think you should do that. If the activities that have been suggested by the gentleman from Arizona have occurred, why isn't the Government Oversight Committee looking at this? Why aren't they calling him in, having a hearing on it? Why isn't the Energy and Commerce Committee doing the same? That is the appropriate way to do that when you have got someone who has misbehaved as an Administrator, not to come on the floor with a 10- minute debate, make charges which may or may not be true--I just don't know--but then ask us to essentially fire somebody. I just don't think that is right. For these reasons, I must urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, nobody is defending this individual. What he has presented is 20 accusations. I think he ought to be able to have his day in a proper hearing before the proper committee to decide whether it is the right thing to do, not sit here and say, ``I agree with these accusations.'' I don't know if they are true or not. Nobody on this floor knows whether they are true or not. Mr. Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, has my time expired?

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

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

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me first state that Idaho is not next to an ocean, although we do have the furthest inland port of any State in the country. The point of this is that you all make great arguments--arguments that ought to be held and debated in the authorizing committee. The point is that the ocean policy here was put in effect without ever going through Congress. It has never been authorized. It is not that it has been authorized and the expiration dates just expired, like many programs, far too many programs. This has never been authorized by Congress. I might agree with you in the end, but it ought to go through the proper process instead of just doing an executive order.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, this would not be an appropriation bill if we didn't have this amendment before us. Every year, this amendment has been offered, and the gentlewoman from Tennessee and I have debated this many times in the past. While I commend my colleague for her consistent work to protect the taxpayers' dollars, this is not the approach that I would endorse nor can I support. The bill in its current form balances many of the needs. The bill prioritizes funding for national security and critical infrastructure, yet the gentlewoman's amendment proposes an across-the-board cut on every one of these programs, including increases in funding that are sorely needed to modernize our nuclear weapons stockpile and to protect our Nation's electrical grid from emerging cyber threats. Across-the-board cuts make no distinction between where we need to be spending or investing in our infrastructure, promoting jobs, and meeting our national security needs and where we need to limit spending to meet our deficit reduction goals. That is what we actually do when we write a bill in the Appropriations Committee and have the hearings and so forth. The main reason this bill is $1.5 billion above last year and the reason that the chairman gave this allocation to the Energy and Water Subcommittee is because there was a need in rebuilding our nuclear security infrastructure. That is where the majority of that money went. The next major portion of it went to the Army Corps of Engineers to build the waterways and infrastructure that need to be replaced. There is something like a trillion dollars--I know it is not the exact number, and I don't know if that is the correct number, but it is pretty close--of backlog, of needs within the Army Corps of Engineers, with an aging infrastructure: locks and dams, harbors that need to be maintained for our economy, that need to be dredged. That is where the majority of that money went. That is why the Appropriations Committee put the additional $1.5 billion into this. Yes, reducing the deficit and addressing our debt are critical things that need to get done, too, but everyone here, including the gentlewoman from Tennessee, who is my good friend, knows that it is not the discretionary spending that is driving this debt and deficit each year; it is the huge increases in mandatory spending. Those are primarily Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, interest on the debt. That is what is driving the debt. If you look back 40 or 50 years ago, out of the entire Federal budget, 70 percent of it was discretionary spending. That is what we spend money on that everybody thinks as government when they think of government. About 30 percent of it was the mandatory programs. It has reversed. Now a little over 70 percent of the Federal Government is mandatory. It is on autopilot. Unless we change the law underneath it and have the courage to do that, it continues to grow. If you look at our budget today on the discretionary side, we spend less today than we did in 2010. That is 8 years later. We spend less today on discretionary spending than we did in 2010. That is the reality. So while I appreciate the effort to address the debt and the deficit, this is not the way to do it. It is not addressing the main problem that is driving our debt. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First, let me assure my colleague that I understand her interest in addressing flood risks in her district. In fact, the Appropriations Committee has worked very hard to prioritize these activities, including significant funding in the supplemental bill earlier this year, in the fiscal year 2018 appropriations act, and this fiscal year 2019 bill before us today. Since the amendment does not change funding levels within the bill, I will not oppose the amendment, and I encourage my colleagues to support it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. While I agree with my colleague that we need to be finding savings where possible, this amendment is not the approach that I can support. The bill in its current form takes a balanced approach to meet a number of needs, not just wants or wishes or anything else, but actual needs. The bill prioritizes funding for national security and critical infrastructure and reduces funding for certain activities that did not need sustained funding at prior year levels to accomplish their mission in fiscal year 2019. These tradeoffs were carefully weighed for their respective impacts, and the increases proposed are responsible and, in some cases, are absolutely essential. Approximately half of the funding in this bill is for national defense activities. This bill includes $15.3 billion for the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons security program which provides funding to maintain our Nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and for the Navy's nuclear propulsion programs that supports our Navy's fleet of submarines and aircraft carriers and for nonproliferation activities that are reducing global nuclear threats. In February, the administration released a Nuclear Posture Review that described a sobering view of the current global nuclear threat situation. Russia is modernizing its full range of nuclear systems. China is modernizing and expanding its already considerable nuclear forces, pursuing entirely new capabilities. North Korea's nuclear provocations threaten regional and global peace. Iran's nuclear ambitions remain an unresolved concern. Global nuclear terrorism remains a tangible threat. This amendment would slash funding for the activities in this bill that are an integral part of the United States' national security strategy to address these nuclear threats. For that and many other reasons, I would oppose the gentleman's amendment and suggest that maybe we ought to look at what is causing the debt to go up, and that is the mandatory spending and not the discretionary spending that we have. I would urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

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

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the consideration of H.R. 5895, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. The bill provides $92 million for the facilities and infrastructure program within the EERE account. That level fully funds operation and maintenance activities at NREL and is the same amount as was appropriated last year. In light of EERE being reduced by $243 million compared to last year's level, I would say that the bill contains very strong support for NREL's operations and maintenance activities. This amendment goes too far in increasing an account that already has strong support. Additionally, I am concerned that the amendment would have unintended consequences in taking away strategic funding from the departmental administration account. Mr. Chair, for these reasons, I must oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, I agree with everything the gentleman just said, but I disagree with the amendment. Everything he said is absolutely accurate. My colleague's amendment would increase funding for the Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, or CESER, account, by using the Fossil Energy account as an offset. I share my colleague's support for the important work funded by the CESER account, and the underlying bill reflects that support. In fact, the CESER account was provided an increase of $50 million over last year's level. That is a 52 percent increase in this bill. Put another way, that is the single largest percentage increase in any account in this bill. I support the CESER account and efforts to enhance the cybersecurity and resilience of our electrical grid. That is why the bill provides the highest level of funding these research and development activities have ever had. However, my colleague's amendment would take away funds from other important research and development activities. The Fossil Energy account focuses on research and development activities that ensure the Nation is using its abundant natural resources as safely, cleanly, and efficiently as possible. Targeted increases to the Fossil Energy account support technological advances in carbon capture, carbon storage, and advanced energy generation technologies. Cuts to the Fossil Energy account threaten these innovations. In light of the robust support for the CESER account in the underlying bill and the unintended consequences this amendment may have on the Fossil Energy account, I must oppose the amendment, but I will tell my colleague that I look forward to working with him to address this concern that ought to concern all of us. Cybersecurity is a huge issue, and I think it is going to be one of the biggest things we face in the coming years. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.