David Schweikert

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, to the gentlelady from Ohio, you hit a couple points that I absolutely agree on. We have a horrible obesity epidemic. We have a crisis of nutrition of what people consume. If you really care about those things, then you would actually look at the farm bill overall and what we do in this country to distort what we consume. Walk down your grocery store aisles and you will see what we've done by more government policy. But the fact of the matter is you, in many ways, make your own argument. If there is actually a program that you believe is working at all in Pennsylvania, then you've demonstrated the States are capable of doing this. But, once again, to take another $125 million of Federal money to create another program that ultimately actually does things like buys a grocery store, I mean actually competes with a private business, I see something that's almost absurd in that if that's the way that this amendment ultimately works. With that, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. May I request my remaining time?

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I will try to be fast at this. To the gentlewoman from Ohio, actually, I want to be careful in my language because I did say purchase grocery stores. It's basically finance their acquisitions through loans and other mechanics. It would be unfair to use the Solyndra type, but it is that mechanic of doing those loan mechanics and those things. And functionally, the taxpayers do have money out and risk in that fashion. Look, for many of us here, we see an amendment like this, we see the well-meaning nature of it, but the underlying cause of much of this is the global policy we engage in--and we have for 60, 70 years. We seem to be, if you look at all the amendments and really dig through this farm bill, I believe you will see layer after layer after layer where we're trying to fix sins that we created with our last attempt to fix a mistake. I appreciate we have a crisis in parts of our country--whether it be access to healthy foods, whether it be obesity--but a $125 million program that creates special grants, special purchases, special loans, this isn't the way you get there to fix that. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, being someone who worked on this amendment last year--and I appreciate my next-door neighbor and my old friend, Matt Salmon, for bringing it up--for those of us from Arizona, we actually have some very intimate experience with sort of dealing with these mechanics. For almost all of us in this body, we run for office telling everyone that immigration is a Federal issue. You know, we need to set Federal policy, and that's how we mechanically will come up with our commonality of enforcement. But what happens when, all of a sudden, we have a municipality that's still taking those Federal dollars and yet is not playing under the same rules as their next-door neighbor municipalities? The beauty of this amendment is very, very simple. It says, if you're going to take these resources, you need to play by the rule book that we in Congress set on an issue that we're supposed to be dominant on. And the reality of it is, when you have a municipality that, through stated policy, flaunts what we're trying to do, particularly in immigration policy, it ends up creating this sort of balkanization in our communities, and it sets off those very fights that I believe our last speaker was touching on. And having been the county treasurer of Maricopa County, I've seen the edges of this, when one municipality was looking very, very differently at our Federal laws compared to another one and, literally, the movements that would happen with populations and the fights that would start and also the chaos it would actually create when you were trying to have a community of also equal law enforcement. So, Mr. Chairman, that's one of the reasons I stand here and support the Salmon amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, I wanted to take this 60-second moment to stand here in front of the House and talk a little bit about the Working Families Flexibility Act. I am someone that as a Member of Congress, in a previous life, has run both a State agency where they could do this, where actually employees at my State level had the options of how they managed their compensation, whether they wanted to take it in time or actually in dollars. But yet the arrogance, the continuing arrogance of Washington, it's good enough for our public employees, but it's not good enough for the businesses around the country. I've got to give Martha Roby credit. Thank you for bringing this bill before us. Hopefully, we're going to step up and say, if we really want economic choice for the American people, we'll pass this bill.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, this is actually one of those moments when you get to stand in front of the House with sort of a happy story. There's an organization out there called Family Promise. They are in 41 States with, I believe, about 160,000 volunteers, and they've had an issue for years now. They bring in homeless families, but often those homeless families would have a pet, a furry family member. Just this week, PetSmart set up PetSmart Promise. I actually got to see this firsthand in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they actually are taking care of that furry friend of that homeless family that needs to get their life back in order. So PetSmart gets a real call out from us. Family Promise is doing amazing things, and this is just one of those moments where you're very proud of a corporate entity like this, stepping up and working with Family Promise to help homeless families around the country.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, this is one of those moments where you come up here for 1 minute, and I wanted to share a certain frustration, particularly the votes we just had here in the House. I come from Arizona. We have 22 tribal communities, 21 actual designated reservations. I lived almost my entire life alongside the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian community. It's a sophisticated tribe with wonderful outreach into the community. They've come light years in the last 10. They've done amazing things. We have been working with that community and Congressman Cole's office trying to work on language that would work with them in VAWA, and yet Congressman Cole and Congressman Issa were not allowed in the process to offer their amendments. That's of great frustration to me because there was months of months of labor and work put into that. But there was also another irony here. I heard some folks on the right and a lot on the left talking about the self-determination court process within those tribal communities. Okay, great. Are we now ready to have this body step up and help our tribes in Arizona that are sophisticated manage their own finances and their own health care? Because they're asking for that self-determination.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. To my good friend, Mr. Smith, thank you. Thank you for managing this. The last handful of Congressmen that have come up to the mic have been medical doctors. I get to stand here behind the microphone and share a slightly different story. This is that one very special time of year I get to stand here and say ``thank you'' to a woman named Mary Lynn Sheridan, at the time who was named Mary Lynn Gephart. She was a 17-year-old who found out she was pregnant, and she was in the car on the way, at that time in southern California, on her way to, apparently, Tijuana. And she broke down crying and kept crying more and kept hyperventilating. The two girlfriends she was with were so terrified she was getting sick in the car, they turned around and took her back home. Heaven forbid, she told her mother she was pregnant. I was born a few months later at Holy Family Unwed Mother's Home in downtown L.A. The amazing thing is--picture this: You're in your thirties. You come into work one day. You turn on your computer, and there's an email saying, Hi, David, you have no idea who I am, but your sister gave me information. Here's your birth mother. What do you do? How about if she's never told her family, told her two daughters that I'm out there? And I send a really carefully worded note after having a family meeting, and I had one of the most amazing experiences you could imagine. Imagine a couple of weeks later, you get a phone call, and it's this little voice saying, I've prayed for you every single day of your life. Every March 3, I go to mass and I light candles for you. Are you okay? Are you happy? Have you had a good life? All I could tell her through all the tears was, Look, I'm incredibly lucky. I was adopted by an amazing family. I've gotten to live a great life. I'm here in Congress, which, actually, in many ways, may have disappointed her. But the reason I stand here and tell the story is I've had this amazing relationship, having now met my birth father, having spent holidays with my family that has raised me and my birth family. I have a picture in my office with all these kids and all these people where all of our families--even my little sister, who has met her birth family, because my siblings are all adopted, and we get everyone together and go to Disneyland. I've noticed there is an amazing change out there where the little kids come up to you and say, Okay, my mom is your sister, but your sister is not my mom's sister. The little kids get it. I think with this I get to come here behind the microphone and say, Thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance to be alive. Thank you for giving me the chance to engage in this battle that we have here in Congress of trying to do good things for our country. Thank you, Mary Lynn Sheridan. My mother would send my birth mother pictures of me as a baby. So when I would go to Walnut, California, and go see my birth mother, down the hallway would be all these pictures of me as a little kid. My birth mother has developed a very aggressive type of Alzheimer's, and something amazing has happened in her mind. She can describe all those photos. In her mind now, I grew up with my two younger sisters there in Walnut, California. In her mind, I've been with her this whole time. And that heartbreak she used to describe to me for all those years wondering what had happened to me is gone. Thank you, God, and thank you to Mary Lynn for giving me a chance to be here today. Thank you.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure and esteem that I congratulate Captain Craig Doyle on his promotion in the Navy Reserve to the lead position in the Global Logistical Support Center. As noted in recent congratulations, this movement in position is a highly contested declaration of the Navy's `Total Force' concept. This testament to Capt. Doyle's ability is only the most recent recognition. Capt. Doyle is no stranger to valor and success, having notably served in the U.S. Navy, including a deployment to Iraq, and Yokosuka, Japan, along with a special assignment to Macdill Air Force Base, Special Operations Command. Capt. Doyle is a long time resident of Arizona with a family as dedicated to the United States as he is, graciously supporting his service in the Navy. It is with much enthusiasm that I congratulate Captain Craig Doyle on this great achievement, and Captain Weidner from the Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 14 on his incoming role.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. How many of us have heard of a little town called Tombstone? It's popped up in movies, American folklore. Guess what? The Forest Service seems hell-bent on ending its existence. This town is older than my State. Its water rights are older than my State. Yet the Forest Service is restricting the town from 87 percent of its water supply because there's Forest Service land around Tombstone. This picture isn't a picture of a bunch of cowboys out having fun. They're not allowed to take a little Bobcat up the mountainside to get the springs to fix their water, so you have to go up by hand up a mountainside to remove the boulders. Is there an adult in the Forest Service who has a lick of sense?

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. This is one of those moments of wondering where you begin with some of the absurdity that we hear. I think this might be one. I skipped the last set of comments because they had nothing to do with this amendment. The agreement is already there to spend the $45 million to do the high-temperature NOX incineration. As this is way outside of my expertise, that's my understanding. The EPA is coming back and pushing and pushing and pushing to spend $1.1 billion for an almost statistically insignificant improvement. What you're really observing here is the classic case that we see over and over on this sort of issue of an environmental political feeder up against reality. The math isn't reality. I used to chair the Indian Affairs Committee at my State legislature. I've spent more time on Native American lands in Arizona than I bet anyone in this body. The fact of the matter is if the EPA gets their way here, it's going to bust a number of the water compacts and a bunch of our agreements with those Indian communities.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with the Honorable Jeff Denham to congratulate and honor Robert E. Rucker, Jr., on his promotion to Battalion Chief for the City of Scottsdale Fire Department. Following in his grandfather's footsteps, Bobby Rucker, Jr., pursued a career in fire service. In 1988, he started his career with the Rural Metro Corporation. He attended the academy of 88-01, receiving the award for Outstanding Cadet Firefighter as selected by Fellow Cadets. His training was immediately followed with a trip to Yellowstone to participate in one of the largest forest fires in American history. Robert served as a PT instructor for 92-01 and 97-02 academies, as well as a Reserve Coordinator for 3 years. During his 17 years with Rural/ Metro, he served as a Firefighter, Lieutenant, and Captain before being hired by the City of Scottsdale in 2005. Prior to his promotion to Battalion Chief, he worked as a Captain on engine 602 in downtown Scottsdale. He was temporarily reassigned as a Recruit Training Officer for Academy 08-01 and again recently for Academy 12-01. Robert has been an active member on the deployment team, safety team, EMS team, facilities team, and training team. Battalion Chief Rucker was a recipient of the 2009 City Manager's Award of Excellence in recognition of the Police/Fire group ability to Collaborate as a Team and was nominated in 2007 for Fire Captain of the Year at the Firefighter's Choice Awards. In addition, he has received commendations for the 1988 Yellowstone Fire and the 1995 Rio Fire. Bobby's formal education consists of an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Fire Science from Scottsdale Community College and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Emergency Services Administration, Magna Cum Laude from Northern Arizona University. During his career, Bobby has always had the loving support of his wife Toni, son Trevor, daughter Morgan, his father, Bob Rucker, Sr., and step-mother Micki, his mother, Cathy Hoff and her husband Bob, his sister Sharon Rucker, and step-brother Brian Hoff. Mr. Speaker, please join us in honoring and commending the outstanding contributions made to fire safety by Battalion Chief Bob E. Rucker, Jr., and hereby wish him continued success in his career.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And to my friend from California, she has always been a passionate and very articulate in the battle for resources for the regulators. But I'm going to stand here in opposition to this amendment for a couple of very simple reasons. One, this is already the job they're supposed to be doing with the money they have, this cost-benefit analysis. And we can talk about that further. But also, as you work through the amendment, I have great concern for the law of unintended consequences, and that is, in a weird way, subsidizing and incentivizing bad cost-benefit analysis. In the amendment, it basically says, if you end up in litigation over your cost-benefit analysis, there should be an appropriation, an unspecified amount of money that the appropriators should send you for that litigation. So if you do a really bad job in your cost-benefit analysis and you get sued, you actually get more money that is supposed to be appropriated to you. The sort of constant thing I focus on a lot is that law of unintended consequences of, does it actually create an incentive to draw down more cash for the agency, for the litigation? And the way you get to the litigation is the quality of the work that was done in the cost-benefit analysis. So there are two primary issues: A, this is what the agencies are supposed to be doing; and B, in the design of the amendment, I actually have a concern that ultimately, it may incentivize the very thing we're trying to stop. And with that, Madam Chairwoman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairwoman, just one quick comment I'll throw in there. I'm part of the belief system that one of the great burdens right now in economic growth and to sort of that next generation of what's the next world of jobs that will be coming into our economy--how are we going to form the capital, how are we going to see what our future looks like--is actually, in many ways, what we're debating here. I do believe the massive growth in the regulatory environment over the last couple of years is stymying that next generation. There is one point I also want to make. Think of the last decade. I'm doing this somewhat from memory, but I think a decade ago the SEC's budget was about $300 million. Today, I believe it's $1.35 billion. So it's up $1.05 billion in 10 years, to give you some sense of how much massive increase has been moved into the regulatory body. With that, Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. To my friend from New York, this is sometimes one of those amusing moments you get where we're both referring to the same litigation as part of our arguments against my side and for her amendment and somewhat making the point that, in that proxy rule litigation, demonstrating that the SEC actually didn't do the proper job. And actually, that's what the court stood up and told them. One of the reasons--and maybe this is just the classic fundamental different view of what the Agency should be doing to ultimately protect investors and the economy and working towards capital formation--is you would think the Chairman of the SEC, instead of moving this to the bottom of the ranking, it would be at the very, very top. You would think, actually, in many ways you'd want to rewrite this amendment, at least from my view, flip it, saying one of the very first things the Chairman of the SEC does is come in and say, Hey, we did an appropriate, detailed cost-benefit analysis for this new rule and regulation, and here's the impact it has on the economy; here's the impact it has on job creation. If we stand here repeatedly and say how much we care about jobs and economic growth, I would think that would be the order you would want to be pursuing. In many ways, this amendment--actually, not in many ways, it's what the amendment does--it actually does just the reverse. It lowers that to the bottom of that ranking. With that, Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, my amendment hopefully is deemed to be somewhat simple, as this piece of legislation moves forward, trying to make sure that definition of cost from the regulatory environment, is properly, shall we say, a proper box is built for it. So the amendment in many ways is very simple. The costs to organizations, a business, a business concern--as rules are being promulgated, that business is spending money to get into compliance. Those costs should also be calculated and put into the cost to the economy calculation. Secondly, as the calculations are being built, it should also--the calculations should take a look at what it did to the revenues of organizations, because those revenues are what are used to hire people, to grow, to expand the economy and, actually, ultimately, expand the tax base. So the amendment's very simple. It basically says, as the calculations are being made for cost of regulations, okay, let's actually add them up in a fashion where we actually acquire the real cost. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Reclaiming my time, Madam Chairman, and I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland's comments. But he hit one part there, and that is you do believe that the costs to industry, to business, to job creators should be calculated. It's just the debate here is how they should be weighted and how ultimately, I assume, how they should be documented. All I'm trying to accomplish here with this amendment is a couple of very simple mechanics, those costs that go into the preparatory to be in compliance with the newly promulgated rule should be calculated, and that the calculation of the cost in the net revenues, gross revenues, to a job-creating industry should also be part of that calculation. And part of this was the bill is--I obviously fully support it, but I thought actually creating a little tighter definition of many of the types of costs that happen in a regulatory environment. I mean, obviously we will have a separation on the view of does it stymie regulation. I'm from the view that I truly believe one of the great hindrances to economic growth, to job growth in this country is the substantial growth of our regulatory environment. Okay, if we're going to run legislation that says regulations that exceed a certain cost, you know, are held till employment reaches a certain level, why not make sure we're calculating those appropriately? Madam Chairman, with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. My two arguments still stand. But there is one other point. And I actually have a little bit of information here. According to the inspector general of the CFTC, the commission regularly employs a ``stripped down'' type of cost-benefit analysis that has ``proved perilous for financial market regulators.'' In the past, they've used a stripped-down methodology. So in many ways, what we're doing here in the overall legislation is saying, here's the box, you are supposed to be doing this, it's already part of your budget. And as I spoke earlier, in the design of the amendment, I have a fear of the unintended consequences that you are almost incentivizing; that when the litigation happens, the agency actually ends up getting more money. And with that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. SCHWEIKERT

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Oh, yes. I think they have multiple casinos. There's another fact that bounced up here, Mr. Speaker. There's actually, I think, one, two, three, four, five casinos in the urban area by, I think, three different Native American communities. This isn't about defending one tribe versus another. This is about there's 21 tribes in Arizona and the agreements that have been put together. Heaven forbid what you're going to do to these communities, particularly the rural ones that get some of the sharing, if we blow up the compacts through my State.