Mike Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I rise in strong support of this legislation offered by my good friend from Wyoming. It would be one thing if what the gentleman from Virginia says were the case in reality. It's not the case in reality. I think that's the reason that this law was passed, so that those people, the powerless, less wealthy individuals that the gentleman referred to, would have access to the courts. And the last thing we want to do is deny citizens their right to have a say in how, in this case, our public lands are managed. But it has become, frankly, a cottage industry: suing the Federal Government, which is suing the people, and then asking the people to pay for your legal fees to do so. The Equal Access to Justice will allow those suing the Federal Government to be reimbursed for their legal costs even if they don't prevail on a majority of the counts. The implication that the gentleman just gave is that you have to win. They can be reimbursed even if they don't prevail on a majority of the counts. The law has been abused by several interest groups who have turned this into, as I said, a cottage industry and now sue the government on a regular basis. They fund their organization through this and that's a problem. If somehow we could get it back to what the gentleman said it was, that would be one thing. So far we haven't been able to do that. And, in fact, we had language in our last appropriations bill that didn't make it to the floor, along with the other appropriations bill, that would have at least said why don't we find out who's getting this money. If I'm a farmer out there and I get payments under the farm program, every citizen in this country has the right and ability to look it up and see who's getting those farm payments. You know what, that doesn't happen with who's getting these fees, who's being reimbursed by the Federal Government. They're supposed to keep track of that, but they don't do that; but, in fact, when we asked the Secretary, does this come out of your budget or does it come out of the justice fund, who pays for this? Nobody really knew. And if it doesn't come out of their own budget, what's their incentive to do things the right way? Quite frankly, many of these lawsuits prevent the management of Federal lands for the benefit of the people. For example, holding up important forest-thinning projects and wildfire prevention projects. This, as I said, has become a cottage industry and needs to be reformed. This would prevent these fees from being paid during the term of this CR the next 7 months or however long it takes.

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I understand the concern of the gentleman from Texas, and we pledge to work with him as the EPA comes before our committee to address this issue, but I must insist on my point of order. I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriation bill and, therefore, violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states in pertinent part: an amendment to a general appropriation bill shall not be in order if it changes existing law. This amendment gives affirmative action in effect. I ask for a ruling by the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chairman, I rise in concurrence with the comments of my ranking member from Virginia. Funding for the Presidio in this CR is $8.2 million below the FY10 enacted level, and $7 million below the fiscal year 2008 level. When the government closed down the Presidio Army base in 1994, it was transferred to the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It could have been turned over to the National Park Service and run as a historic park, but that would have cost tens of millions of dollars per year to the taxpayers. Instead, Congress devised a unique management and funding model by creating the Presidio Trust to preserve the Presidio and help it become financially self-sufficient. The trust manages 80 percent of the Presidio lands, including most of the buildings and infrastructure. The Park Service manages the remaining 20 percent, including the coastal areas of the Presidio. The Presidio Trust receives Federal appropriations that are diminishing each year and, as was mentioned, will cease at the end of FY12, when it becomes self-sufficient. This truly is a model of how we can do these things where they will become self-sufficient and off the roll of the taxpayer. But our part of this is we have to keep our end of the deal. And so through FY12 we need to make sure that we keep our word on what was agreed on in 1996 and let this Presidio Trust take over and become self-sufficient at the end of the next fiscal year. So I rise in opposition to this amendment and would encourage my colleagues to vote against it.

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

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chairwoman, the amendment proposes to amend portions of the bill not yet read. The amendment may not be considered en bloc under clause 2(f) of rule XXI because the amendment does not merely propose to transfer appropriations among objects in the bill, but also proposes language other than those amounts. I ask for a ruling of the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chairman, we agree that there is a major problem with the wild horse and burro policy. It is too expensive and problematic for multiple uses on public lands and conserving western rangelands. I would like to work with Mr. Burton, Mr. Hastings, and Mr. Bishop on this problem. The true problem is the law, not the funding of the law. In recognition of the problems that Mr. Burton raises, we will accept this amendment, but first I would like to make some important points about the wild horse and burro program. The wild horse population is not native to North America and can double every 4 years. If horses aren't removed from the range, it can cause degradation and reduced foliage for wildlife and livestock. If this program isn't appropriately funded and horses aren't removed from the range, wild horses will continue to reproduce, over-graze and eventually have a population crash, which means starving horses. I would also point out that it is already illegal to slaughter wild horses or burros, and the BLM spends no funds on slaughtering wild horses or burros. But I appreciate the gentleman from Indiana pointing out the problem, and I would like to work with him to find a reasonable solution to this that doesn't cost the kind of money that it currently costs. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chairwoman, I insist on my point of order.

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

Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

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

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. The International Forestry Program has already been reduced by 25 percent in this proposal. It's funded at $7.4 million in the CR. In FY10 it was funded at $9 million. The International Program brought in an additional $36 million in funds from State and USAID. The International Program brings in approximately $3 for every dollar invested. This program, regardless of the amount of money spent, is still a lot of money in Idaho, just as it is in Kansas. But this program is critical to protecting forestry and the forest products industry in the United States. It's the only forestry entity representing the U.S. at trade summits. International Forestry is the only program working directly to counter the flow of illegally harvested forest products abroad. These materials compete with legally and sustainably harvested U.S. forest products. The U.S. negotiators from the Department of State and the U.S. Trade Representatives rely on the International Program to provide technical input to effectively advocate for the domestic forest products industry. These agencies do not have this expertise. The International Program also prevents the introduction of invasive and nonnative pests that would cause millions of dollars of damage to U.S. forests and the U.S. economy. The International Program, though funded through funding from USAID, plays a critical role in protecting U.S. security interests in conflict-prone areas. Unrelated, illegal resource extraction many times leads to unrest and corruption abroad. So I would oppose this amendment, even though I understand that it's easy to go after international programs when we have such problems here. The fact is that they protect industry here in this country, in the U.S. forest products industry in this country, because, as I said, they're the only ones representing the U.S. forest products industry and forestry in general in international trade agreements. I would oppose this amendment and hope that my colleagues would also. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I understand and sympathize with the amendment that the gentlelady from Wyoming is proposing. We in the West sometimes have a little bit different point of view. Regardless of where the funding comes from, whether it comes from money that comes from oil sales or other things, when you're buying additional land in the States with 64 percent of Federal land currently, that causes some concern to westerners. So I understand why sometimes people from New Jersey and Massachusetts and other places that don't have a lot of public lands sometimes don't understand the same concern that we share out there. So I sympathize with what the gentlelady is saying in this amendment, but I would point out this started out in 2010. There was $450 million in the Land and Water Conversation Fund appropriated for this year. We have reduced that in this bill to $58 million. It already terminates funding for any new Federal land acquisition projects, an action we had to take in order to meet the subcommittee's allocation halfway through this fiscal year. All that remains is enough funding for managing projects funded in prior years and for emergencies and in-holdings for small acquisitions that make sense and save taxpayers money in the long run. So we've reduced this fund for any new land acquisition. I can't tell you what's going to happen in the next bill, but this one would allow for those in-holdings to be purchased, those things that are ongoing and currently under negotiation. So I think it's the appropriate thing to do. Terminating these programs will pull the rug out from under private landowners that we've already made commitments to, many of whom have fallen on hard times in this economy, who need to sell their lands and who would want to conserve those lands for the benefit of all Americans. So as much as I sympathize with what the gentlelady is trying to do, I think reducing all of the funds out of that account would be inappropriate. And I would oppose the amendment and urge all Members to oppose this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SIMPSON. I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, in the CR, we have already proposed deep cuts with tough choices. In the Interior and Environmental section, we have proposed to cut $4.4 billion and to eliminate 26 different programs. The STAR program competitively funds research grants and graduate fellowships in numerous environmental science and engineering disciplines. I would note, as the gentleman from Arizona knows, that this is competitively awarded in that they actually, as I said, compete for these. The EPA receives approximately 2,000 to 2,500 proposals each year, and it funds about 150 research grants and 125 graduate fellowships. I'd be a little leery about coming down here and just naming off the title of what a research project is and then saying that it's silly, because I don't know. I don't know exactly what they're trying to do with some of these things. You actually need to dig into it and find out what they're trying to find out with some of these research grants. A few years ago, some people did this with, I think it was, the National Academy of Sciences research grants. I can remember some of my colleagues brought down amendments to defund this research grant or that research grant. One of them was to defund a research grant on studying brown fat in panda bears. Of course, we all on the floor went, Wow, that sounds silly. Why are we studying brown fat in panda bears? Can't we actually study brown fat in American bears? When I called the National Academy of Sciences, what I found is that who supported that research was NASA, because, if you're ever going to do deep space research, you need to know something about brown fat. Guess what animal has more brown fat than any other animal on Earth? Panda bears. That's why they were doing it. So just to look at the title of a research project is kind of a silly way to propose eliminating it and making fun of the program. Some of them may be silly--I don't know--but I know these are peer-reviewed, that they actually are competitively granted, and that the gentleman from Arizona has always been concerned that we give earmarks that are not competitively granted. Here we have a program that is competitively granted, so that seems, to me, to be the right way to do it. Like many other EPA programs, the CR reduces the STAR grant funding. We did so by applying a $10 million reduction to fund the grants at $51 million in the CR, which is $8 million below the 2008 level. Therefore, while we understand the intent of the amendment is to eliminate all funding for the STAR grants, there is no longer $61.4 million in the CR to reduce for STAR grants, and other research programs would need to be reduced based on the way the amendment has been drafted. In addition, I believe we must maintain our scientific competitiveness as we work to bring our fiscal house in order, and zeroing out this program, I don't believe, is in the best interest of our country or that it is the right thing to do. This is a program that we should--and will--discuss on the record with the EPA during the 2012 budget hearings, and we will either build the case for further reductions or an elimination of the program, or we will have a better understanding of why we should look elsewhere for additional cuts. Therefore, I recommend my colleagues vote ``no'' on this amendment given that it would unintentionally cut the EPA's research by more than that which is in the CR for the STAR grants and given that we will be taking a look at this during our hearings. The gentleman sits on the committee, and will be, obviously, involved as we have the EPA before us for our oversight hearings. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriation bill and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rules states in pertinent part: ``An amendment to a general appropriation bill shall not be in order if changing existing law.'' The amendment gives direction in effect.

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

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

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

Mr. SIMPSON. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. SIMPSON. When do you expect Congress to act on the Energy Tax Prevention Act?

Mr. SIMPSON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes.

Mr. SIMPSON. No. It's not even necessary to be a climate change skeptic to be an EPA greenhouse gas regulations skeptic. These regulations are all economic pain for little, if any, environmental gain. EPA can only regulate American companies, and we know that China already emits more carbon dioxide than we do. Its rate of emissions growth is many times faster than ours, and the Chinese Government has repeatedly made clear that they will never impose such job-destroying regulatory measures on themselves. Even Administrator Lisa Jackson, as you said, has concluded that unilateral action would have little or negligible impact on further temperatures.