Mike Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. I move to strike the last word.

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

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. What the amendment does is create the 30 percent language that we've had in the past, which is a floor, and makes it a ceiling rather than a floor. The EPA's Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Funds provide grants to States to capitalize on their revolving loan fund programs. These programs offer low-interest loans to communities for projects included on a State's Intended Use Plan. These low-interest loans are usually below market rates and are used to finance water and wastewater infrastructure projects. Many small and disadvantaged communities with a low income base can hardly afford to apply for these loans even with the low-interest rates. Therefore, this provision in the base text, which we have had for a few years, would offer zero-interest loans, which are loans that forgive a portion of the principal, or grants, to these disadvantaged communities that would otherwise be unable to afford a standard SRF loan. The provision provides some relief to small communities across the Nation that are tirelessly working to provide clean and safe drinking water to their residents and bring construction jobs to their communities, all at the same time as they balance their books. Given the huge infrastructure needs facing this Nation and the crumbling water and wastewater infrastructure, we should be providing more of this assistance, not less. So, while I appreciate my colleague's amendment and share his interest in preserving the viability of the SRFs, I do not support this amendment, and I would urge a ``no'' vote. I would just say, we've talked about this in the subcommittee for a number of years. One of the real problems we have is we have these State revolving loan funds. We put the money out there, and there are a lot of communities that can't even afford the loans, so it doesn't help them rebuild their water systems or the wastewater treatment facilities. With the standards that we have with arsenic and other things, I have a lot of small communities in Idaho, and it doesn't help them that they have a State revolving loan fund, because they can't afford it. What this does is help them through that to meet some of the clean water standards that they have to meet. As I said, what we've carried in the bill before us is that a minimum of 30 percent, or a floor of 30 percent, of those funds have to be used for those types of things. What the gentleman's amendment would do would make that a ceiling in which you could only use 30 percent of that. I oppose the amendment, and hope my colleagues would also. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. This amendment would take $21 million from the Forest Service's State and Private program and put it in the Spending Reduction Account. While it's easy to stand here and say, ``It just reduces it by 10 percent. Who can't stand a 10 percent reduction?'' I'd like to note that the State and Private Forestry program has already had a significant cut in this budget--$133 million below that of FY11, and despite its name, it is critical to managing the national forest system. The accounts we kept intact are extremely important: for example, cooperative fire protection in rural areas. This helps rural communities fight catastrophic wildfires. With such a large percentage of public land and such a small tax base, many rural communities are hard-pressed to pay for the suppression of large wildfires that start on public lands. Cooperative forest health: in other words, the prevention and treatment of insects and disease. Improving forest health helps prevent catastrophic wildfires. In the South, I know you're familiar with the southern pine beetle. This program has helped to contain the spread of southern pine beetle. I wish the same were true in the Western United States where 20 million acres are dead due to the mountain pine beetle. I understand the gentleman is standing on principle. So am I. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in reluctant opposition to the gentlelady's amendment. While the program that she seeks to increase funding for is a good program, and I think most people support it and its intent and what it does, the problem is is that it takes the money out of the Wildfire Suppression Program. Anybody that has been watching the news for the last 5 months understands the wildfire problems we have in Texas, in New Mexico, in Arizona. And as NOAA has told us, those wildfires are going to climb into the Pacific Northwest later in the year this year. So I suspect August, September, October in the Pacific Northwest is going to be a huge fire suppression cost. So I think we can ill afford to take the money out of wildfire suppression and put it into the program. It would be nice to increase the funding for those conservation programs to help protect those things, but if they burn up, we're not really protecting them. So we've tried in this bill to fund the wildfire suppression at the 10-year average, which we have done, and I would be hard-pressed to support taking money out of that given the fire situation we find ourselves in this year. And I would oppose the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, first I would like to note that I support the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, CFLR. This bill funds the program at $30 million. In the CR, it was funded at $25 million; and in fiscal year 2010, it was funded at $10 million. We've supported it enough that we've increased funding for it from the 2010 level through the CR and in this bill. The funding for this program has increased dramatically at a time when other programs are being cut. The offset for this program is hazardous fuels; and because of the budget authority and outlays, the amendment has to cut $16.6 million to pay for a $10 million increase in this program. The hazardous fuels program has been extremely effective at reducing the threat of catastrophic fire. I would also argue that hazardous fuels funds get to the ground and actually make a meaningful impact much earlier than the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, which can take years before a project is even implemented. I understand and agree with the gentleman that in our bill report we state over and over that the Forest Service needs more active management at a much larger scale. But CFLR is not the only program that does this. There are numerous programs and line items for improving forest health and reducing wildfire risk. We funded all of these at FY11 levels. I am glad that the CFLR program is working well in Arizona, but it is not working as well in other parts of the country. In some areas, other buckets of funding are more effective at actively managing the forest. As a result, I reluctantly have to oppose the gentleman's amendment and urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. This is truly one of the less-thought-out amendments, I think, that's been proposed to this bill. The Smithsonian is truly a gem in this country--ask the American people--if you look at what they are doing and the important role they play. A lot of people think that it's not important if you don't come to Washington. The Smithsonian doesn't do anything. They only operate some museums here and a few things like that. That's not the truth. The Smithsonian operates all across this country. If you look at what they're doing in digitalization of the things they have in their museum and stuff, and they're reaching out to schools and so forth, it is making an amazing difference. Go on their Web site and see what they're doing in terms of the applications for your iPhone and things like that that are making a difference in people's lives, plus the research that they do on a variety of things around this country is just amazing. If the gentleman wants to reduce this, and everybody can take a $58 million hit, I guess, but this is $100 million or more below what the President already requested. Another $58 million hit on this would be a substantial hit. They also raise $158 million in private funds. That tells you that private corporations and citizens all across this country love what the Smithsonian does. And they do a fantastic job. If you want to get the public outraged, slice the Smithsonian's funding so that when someone comes here to visit Washington, maybe a trip that they planned on for quite some time, and their kids want to see the number one thing they came to see, guess what it is. The Air and Space Museum, and the other things that occur here. But the Smithsonian is so much more than that. Go look at what they do at the National Zoo. Go look at what they do in their collections that they have. This is an incredible organization. I'm only sorry that in this budget climate, and I appreciate the gentleman's desire to address the budget deficit that we have. Everybody wants to do that. There are some things that we should maintain. The Smithsonian is one of them. So I would hope that not only would the Members of this body vote against this amendment, but that they would vote hopefully unanimously against it and in support of the Smithsonian and the work that they do for this country. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Walberg amendment. First, let me associate myself with the words of my good friend from Virginia and his comments on this. The Walberg amendment would return the NEA funding to the 2006 levels of $126 million. The National Endowment for the Arts--the NEA--is funded in this bill at $135 million, which is a $20 million reduction from the fiscal year 2011 enacted level, a $32.5 million reduction from the fiscal year 2010 enacted level, and a $10 million reduction from the fiscal year 2008 enacted level. I was asked earlier by a Member if I would support just going back to the 2008 level. We could do that but we'd have to add another $10 million into it. And we, frankly, just don't have it. This would take it back to the 2006 level, as I said. Overall, the committee has cut $2.1 billion in this bill from the fiscal year 2011 enacted level. This is on top of the $2.6 billion we cut from the bill earlier this year. I think this amendment is excessive. But I will tell you that for some people, voting against any funding for the arts is okay with them. I'm not suggesting that that's what the sponsor of this amendment is proposing. He's only proposing a reduction in this. But there are Members who believe that the Federal Government or a State government-- no government--should be involved in the arts at all. I disagree. When we ran into problems several years ago before I was here--maybe it was when Mr. Moran was here; I can't remember--but they ran into some controversies with the arts and the funding for individual artists that they've done. Since then, the Interior Appropriations Committee has done, working with the NEA, some reforms. So we don't fund individual artists. We fund what the intent is, I think, of the National Endowment for the Arts, and that is to get the arts out to the rest of America. If you're sometimes in a large city and that type of thing, you have access to arts. But when you're in Salmon, Idaho, you don't have access to the arts like they do in some of the other areas. So one of the things I've been focused on in working with Chairman Landesman is making sure the arts get out to rural America so that they have an opportunity to see these art performances, whether they're the visual arts or the performing arts or other things. But we need to get them out to rural America. If you want to come to Boyce, Idaho, you will have missed Boyce, Idaho, in the summer if you don't go to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, partly funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Yes, they raise private funds and have sponsorships and other things, but part of their funding comes from the National Endowment for the Arts. Chairman Landesman was out in Idaho last spring, I guess it was, and we toured around Idaho and looked at some of the arts programs, at the local arts agencies that receive some funding from the NEA, and we looked at the impact it had on their operations. We also went to Jerome High School where the actors who did their performances in Boise City, at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, toured the schools and gave performances to students. Then they sat there afterwards and talked with the students about what it was to be in the performing arts--how you get into it, what the pluses and minuses of it were, and other things. They helped educate these students in these communities. It's a very important thing. There are a variety of very popular programs in this bill which are popular on both sides of the aisle. The American Jazz Masters program, the Heritage Fellowships, The Big Read program, and Shakespeare in American Communities have their funding maintained, not at the previous levels, but at a level so that they can maintain these very popular programs. The chairman has introduced a new program that we're working with him on--exactly how it would work and what it would be--called Our Town, which is how the arts can help transform local communities and other things through a grant program, so we've been working with him. I will tell you that the arts are important, and I think having a Federal investment in the arts is an important thing to have.

Mr. SIMPSON. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. SIMPSON. In reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's concern. The Hide and Seek program, as the gentleman mentioned, was not an NEA program. It was not funded by the NEA, and that was not part of the NEA. We have a tendency to think that anything that's done in this country or in this State or in this community that is done in the name of arts is done by the NEA. That's not the truth. So, when we attack them because of Hide and Seek, that's just not an accurate statement. Again, there have been times in the past when there have been criticisms of the NEA, mainly because of the individual artist funding that went on. The committee has addressed that, and they have made reforms in working with the NEA to make sure that those types of things are not funded in this bill and that we don't fund individual artists. The main funding of the program is to get the arts out into the rural communities. Like I said, the American Jazz Masters program and The Big Read program are all vitally important programs that, I think, the American people like and that, I think, Members on both sides of the aisle like. I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, this debate is always fascinating. I've got to tell you, if rhetoric were fast food, there'd be golden arches over all these doors because I've never heard so much rhetoric in my life. And I hope that the gentleman from California actually read the report. Maybe he did and maybe these pages got stuck together. I don't know. But if you look at the report--he said that we don't care about the lands and the designations, that we just want to use them up and all that kind of stuff. Let me read, for the Record, what the report says: As mentioned in the introduction of this report, the committee lauds the Department of the Interior for its significant changes in wild lands policy and notes that the Bureau of Land Management has, to this date, been in compliance with the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution prohibiting funds for the use of Secretarial order 3310, which was to designate, and as the gentleman said, he couldn't designate wild lands because that policy didn't exist, and he can't. And he's in compliance with that. It continues: While the Department is now rightly requesting the input of Members of Congress, Senators, and the public, the committee is concerned about the internal direction given by the Bureau of Land Management regarding the inventory of lands managed by the Bureau. As the Department has stated, inventories of bureau lands are required under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, FLPMA, and the committee agrees. The committee agrees with this reading of the act. The committee points out that inventories should, however, cover all land uses, multiple use, not just lands with wilderness character. The values to be assessed include wildlife, fish habitat, nonmotorized and motorized recreation, hunting, fishing, grazing, conventional and renewable energy development, mining, wilderness character, forest management, and aesthetics. All of these values are important, and one value does not supersede the other. The committee also directs the Bureau to use the definition of wilderness as defined in the 1964 Wilderness Act, as directed by section 603 of FLPMA. The committee will continue its oversight of this issue. The Secretary has done the right thing by withdrawing his policy of wild lands designation, a designation that he made up. Only Congress can designate a new land designation. That's what Congress does. The Secretary agreed with that, withdrew it. We have no problem, and encourage them to go on with the inventories for all of the characteristics of public lands. So the gentleman's comments relative to oh, all we care about is mining and flattening the land, or whatever he said, is just rhetoric. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. The reality is, if the Secretary carries out what he says he's going to do, this amendment probably isn't necessary. If they decide to reverse course, then it was necessary. If they do what they said they are going to do, it absolutely won't have any effect, as the gentleman from Utah said.

Mr. SIMPSON. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. SIMPSON. What does it hurt? It doesn't hurt a thing. What the gentleman is suggesting is because we are essentially saying you can't follow Secretarial order 3310, that means you can't follow FLPMA, which requires the inventory of these lands. They still have to do the inventory of the lands under FLPMA whether or not there is a Secretarial order 3310.

Mr. SIMPSON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SIMPSON. It is absurd to think that repealing a Secretarial order which does not supercede Federal law somehow changes the underlying Federal law. It does not. FLPMA still exists whether the Secretarial order is there or not.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SIMPSON. This is really hard, Mr. Chairman, but given our allocation, we had to cut many EPA programs, including programs we support like the clean water and drinking water State revolving funds. In the base bill, we reduced nearly every EPA geographic program below the 2011 enacted level, in addition to providing none of the requested increases. Despite the cuts, restoration of the Great Lakes remains a committee priority as demonstrated by the fact that the Great Lakes program is the largest recipient of funds in the geographic programs. It's the largest geographical area, also, so you would probably expect that. While I appreciate the intent of the gentleman's offset, where he offset this from, we cut EPA's climate budget by $23 million--and it's easy to vote against funding for climate change or the increased funding that we have put into climate change--in the chairman's mark, and, believe it or not, there are some EPA programs we support under the climate change heading, including research and development of new automotive technologies, including the hydraulic hybrid technology for trucks, carbon capture and sequestration, and initiatives to increase methane transmission. The reality is that over a period of time, because ``climate change'' is now kind of the key phrase, that if you want to get money for your basic science, you call it ``climate change.'' Just like after 9/11, if you wanted money for some program, you called it ``homeland security.'' That was the key phrase. Now ``climate change'' is the key phrase. A lot of the requests from the administration have been basic science programs that have been going on for a long time but have been shifted over and called climate change. While we looked at the funding for climate change and the increases that had occurred in this budget over the years and that have been substantial, the fact is, when we looked at them, many of them were just basic science that needed to be continued. So we couldn't just go out and eliminate all the climate change or reduce it, I believe, any more than we did, and climate change took an $83 million hit in this bill. We see the same thing happening in the Department of the Interior, where base programs have been reclassified as climate change. So we really need to be careful about what we are using as an offset under the administration's classification of a ``climate change program.'' In addition, funding for the Great Lakes restoration efforts grew from $60 million in 2009 to $475 million in 2010. Therefore, at the chairman's mark of $250 million, funding for the Great Lakes is still four times above its historical levels. And, again, it continues to be a committee priority as evidenced by the fact that the Great Lakes program is the largest recipient of funds in the EPA's geographic programs. If I felt we could fund the Great Lakes at a higher level within our allocation, then believe me, I would have done so. I would have done anything to avoid this debate with the gentleman from Ohio, but, unfortunately, even though the gentleman makes a good point and I agree with him and if we had more money in the allocation I would be more than happy to do it, it's the offset and where it comes from that causes me some concern.

Mr. SIMPSON. I would be more than happy to yield.

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, that would be one of the overall problems with the title, Climate Change, but I would have to oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.