Paul Tonko

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, our colleague and my friend from Ohio indicates that this bill will not increase litigation or increase costs or delay ongoing or future site cleanups, and so my amendment would not affect the measure before the House. So it really is a statement in support of the amendment. There is no just reason offered to not support the amendment. With that, again, I would encourage my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. At a time when too many of our citizens are still out of work, our Nation's infrastructure is in need of repair, the Tax Code needs revision, and when the safety net that provides basic necessities for our citizens has a tragic number of holes to close, we are spending our time on yet another bill that is headed straight for the legislative dust bin. It was the high-profile contamination at Love Canal in my home State of New York back in 1978 that motivated Congress to address the serious public health threat that existed at many sites across this country. Toxic contamination of air, of water, and of land from the improper handling of disposal of hazardous materials. Many of us represent districts that have formerly contaminated sites or sites that still remain to be cleaned up. Superfund is not a perfect law, but it has, in combination with other environmental laws, returned many abandoned, contaminated sites to productive use. When contaminated, blighted land is transformed, the entire community benefits. A long-abandoned former industrial site along the riverfront in my district was restored to a popular park. The residents of Amsterdam now enjoy a beautiful waterfront area. H.R. 2279 does nothing to improve public health or create jobs or protect the environment or avoid needless public expenses. In fact, it does the opposite. Title I of this bill further delays actions that should have been taken years ago. Congress included broad authorities for the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that businesses that handle hazardous substances were financially able to deal with contamination that might result from their activities. This provision remains essential to protecting taxpayer interests, and it ensures these businesses are acting responsibly. EPA's goals within the Superfund program should not stop at cleaning up the legacy sites that we have. It should also prevent new sites from being contaminated. It should prevent more people from being exposed to toxic substances, and it should prevent the property damage, loss of revenue, and stigma that communities experience when they are marred by these sites. H.R. 2279 blocks the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing financial responsibility standards that their inspector general's office and the Government Accountability Office have advised are prudent actions that will avoid unnecessary public expenditures to clean up contaminated sites. The GAO's last report on this topic indicated that in the 10-year period they examined, Federal agencies spent $2.6 billion to reclaim abandoned hard-rock mine sites on Federal, State, private, and tribal lands. So how does H.R. 2279 address this potential $100 million per year liability? By blocking EPA from taking recommended steps to avoid these potential cleanup costs. We cannot afford to continue this destructive policy. Under the guise of ``fiscal responsibility,'' the majority voted to expand the list of requirements for applicants to the food stamp program to include drug testing and work requirements in addition to the detailed examination of an applicant's financial assets already required--all this to avoid providing a subsidy of about $1.50 per meal. Apparently, it is too much to ask that a business, which could expose communities to toxic contamination, leave taxpayers with cleanup costs in the tens of millions of dollars, and result in lost local revenue and loss of property values, provide the government with assurance that it can afford to properly manage or clean up contamination that it created. The inconsistency in these policy choices is, indeed, incredible. Blocking EPA from instituting basic requirements to protect public health, community vitality, local economic interests, and taxpayer interests provides a massive subsidy to a polluter at great public expense. Titles II and III of this bill are somewhat of a mystery. I have no idea what problems with the Superfund program they propose to fix, but we have heard from the administration about serious problems this bill would, indeed, create. The proponents of this legislation claim that title II will provide States more funding, give States a greater role in cleanups, and improve cooperation between States and the Federal Government on site cleanups, but States already have a significant role. Under current law, States can assert greater control over cleanups through a variety of mechanisms if they wish to do so. The provisions altering the relationship between Federal and State government have a number of serious problems. For example, title III creates situations in which Federal employees could find themselves in a legal mess if caught between conflicting State and Federal direction of a cleanup site. This is an issue that was raised when this bill was considered by the committee. It was not resolved in committee, and it was not resolved before coming here to the House floor. This is not the first bill this House has considered that demonstrated a disregard for Federal workers. This House has repeatedly turned to Federal workers to shoulder an unfair amount of the burden of deficit reduction. Our erratic appropriation process has made their jobs more difficult, even as we have reduced their benefits and frozen their salaries. We shut down the government, creating tremendous uncertainty for their families and barring people from their workplace. Now we are poised to pass a bill that might result in Federal workers being put in jail for doing their job. Mr. Chair, I have touched on a few of the problems with this legislation. This is a poorly crafted bill that offers nothing for the public. It will not speed cleanups. It will not save money. It will not improve public health. This is bad policy and poorly crafted legislation. With that, I urge my colleagues to reject it. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, while the Environmental Council of the States may have supported some concepts of the bill, they have not moved to endorse the bill. I will stand by my statement. Next I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a staunch defender of the environment and a good friend.

Mr. TONKO. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee and also the longest-serving Member of the House, my good friend from the State of Michigan (Mr. Dingell), who was at the table in 1980 to oversee the Superfund and knows more about the Superfund than perhaps anyone in the House.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, before I yield, I would like to make a few comments. I keep hearing from the bill's supporters that the States need and want this legislation. I am a little confused by those statements. My staff called the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials, and they do not support the legislation. We also called the Environmental Council of the States, which represents the State environmental commissioners, and they have not endorsed the instant legislation before the House. So I am somewhat confused by the statements being made here. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), who has fought for many environmental causes through the committee on behalf of his home State of New Jersey and, for that matter, for this Nation.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chair, I now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the former chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and a staunch defender in public policy and outspoken word for the environment.

Mr. TONKO. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) who has organized the Environmental Justice Advocates of his home State of Minnesota, and is also the chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chair, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close. Mr. Chair, H.R. 2279 is a deeply flawed bill that will increase costs, increase litigation, slow down the pace of cleanups, and, indeed, put the public at risk. It will do nothing to make cleanups at contaminated sites more efficient or more effective. The proponent's intended goals for this legislation are not reflected in the bill's language. We can, and we should, do much better for people living in communities that are dealing with toxic legacies from past failures to deal with hazardous substances properly. If we want to prevent new Superfund sites from being created and to clean up contaminated sites in their communities and convert them from liabilities to productive assets, we must reject H.R. 2279. I oppose this legislation and urge my colleagues to do the same. With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Take a break, as they say. You can't have it both ways. You can't deny all these legislative bills that are advanced to the Congress or initiated by Members of the House that would speak to job growth. The President has sent forward on behalf of the administration a number of bills that would grow our economy, grow the climate to enhance job growth. You can't reject that agenda and then not reauthorize the unemployment insurance benefit package. If you are going to do that, if you are not going to reauthorize, then you need to do the jobs packages that have been sent here. But to do both, to reject the job packages-- the legislation that would grow that climate--and also reject the reauthorization of unemployment insurance, reject minimum wage, reject the SNAP programs, that is harsh. That is not being guided by a moral compass, and that is not America at her best. So I would implore with my colleagues on this floor this evening, with Representative Garamendi, Representative Horsford, I would implore the leadership of this House to pursue that agenda that provides for job creation and that speaks to economic justice and that responds with insensitive measure to those who are unemployed through no fault of their own who are actively searching for employment. We need those job-training programs. We need the assistance programs, so as to maintain the economic comeback from the recession.

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Garamendi. Quickly, the infrastructure issues are heavy duty. It is not just traditional roads and bridges. It is airports and rails and subway systems, it is mass and public transit, but it is also communications, it is also the energy grid. We have a system that was designed for regional activity with monopolies, and now we are transmitting electrons, wheeling electrons from region to region, State to State, nation to nation. So upgrades are essential. An infrastructure bank bill could assist in great ways to make that all happen. Today, again with the visit of Vice President Biden to the 20th Congressional District of New York, specifically to Albany, the history of the Erie Canal was addressed. In the early 1800s, a huge effort was made, a difficult task, to sell an idea in very difficult times. But it was again in those difficult times that we had our shining moment, and what we did was create out of a small town a huge port. We developed a New York City that we know today as a robust area, metropolitan area. And the corresponding result: a necklace of communities dubbed ``mill towns'' that became the epicenters of invention and innovation that allowed for a manufacturing boom to take hold. While we addressed quality of life to people, not just in New York, not just in this country, we inspired a westward movement, and we affected the quality of life of people around the world. Often-times--often-times--that growth, that innovation came from blue collar workers who gave it their all and who suggested to management, here is a new idea, here is something we can produce in addition to our ongoing ordinary business. So what that strikes in my mind is the need to invest in R&D, research dollars that translate into jobs, taking that innovation, that intellectual capacity of this Nation, taking all of that brain power we develop through education and higher ed investment and putting it to work and allowing us to grow our energy independence by innovation, by producing energy supplies here as American power and delivering in more effective, efficient ways where there isn't line laws, where perhaps there is grid system activity that is localized close to the source that requires that electricity. Many, many things that we can respond to if we open ourselves to the innovation, the reform that is essential, and if we attach to that tax reform policy that is so long overdue. It has been a pleasure to join with my colleagues here this evening.

Mr. TONKO. The Vice President mentioned it too.

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Garamendi, for leading us in this discussion for an hour of focus on solutions that are possible out there, within our grasp, easily within our grasp. As you and the gentleman from Nevada (Representative Horsford) have highlighted with a very, very strong context placed in terms of the human impact here, and the great compassion with which you spoke, I couldn't help but think that we are challenged in this given moment by a very daunting series of questions, most notably: Do we reject our history, or do we respect our history? Our history, replete with success stories, perhaps in some of our darkest, deepest, painful hours, should inspire and direct and challenge us, guide us in a way that enables us to embrace the progressive voices of the past and use that in an instructive measure to move forward with the socially correct thing to be done so as to respond to those needs of the many, the bulk of the middle-income community that beacons us to be there and to be there in such a measure. Do we respect that history? Representative Garamendi shared the words of President Franklin Roosevelt. Are we willing to add to those who have plenty? We were challenged by President Johnson in his message addressing the war on poverty. Today, as all of these statistics were exchanged by my two colleagues, I couldn't help but recall the fact that we are reaching some of the greatest measures of productivity in our business community, in our industrial settings today. Where is the sharing of success? Where is the sharing with the middle-income community, the workers who have produced that sort of productivity? So let me understand this. The growth of the top 1 percent, the top income strata of our society, has been exponentially strong, all while we have seen a diminishing of the growth, the potential growth of our middle-income community or a flat-lining, all while we have been most productive in our industry and business settings. Where is the economic justice? Where is the sharing that allows for us to enhance that purchasing power of the middle-income community? That is the economic engine of this Nation. So as we are faced with these given statistics, as we are challenged with these economic times in the post-recession recovery, the moral compass should guide us, if not our history, replete with success stories. Do we respect our history or do we reject our history? I would suggest those progressive voices of the past that led us through our darkest hours envisioned an outcome that strengthened everyone in the equation, not playing toward favorites, because, in my opinion, catering to a small percentage of the population is a dangerous outcome for them. In order to succeed, in order to continue to grow and survive, you need to have that strong purchasing power. We know, we know from statistics, we know from past history that we should be guided by those economic reforms that enable social and economic justice to take hold. I look at the impact in New York State: 127,000 people affected when I look at the 20th Congressional District. In all of the statistics, the numbers swell from 127,000 to another series of 133,000 that will be affected. As it has been stated earlier tonight, some economic consequences of $400 million and 200,000 jobs lost. Are we willing to endure that simply by our lack of professionalism here? The willingness to walk past those who, through no fault of their own, are unemployed. Three people pursue every one available job, and that statistic also is accompanied by the requirement that you must actively pursue employment. It is part of the program. I was visited today, Representative Garamendi, by Vice President Biden in the 20th Congressional District. He and our governor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and our State leadership, Shelly Silver, speaker of the Assembly with whom I had the pleasure of serving, who has been a great leader for New York, as has the Governor, and the Senate majority leader, Dean Skelos, all of whom have shown an interest in infrastructure, all gathered today in New York in the 20th Congressional District, specifically at Albany, our State capital. It was about Superstorm Sandy and the impacts of storms Irene and Lee that in 2011, for Irene and Lee, and in 2012 with Superstorm Sandy devastated various regions of New York State. Yes, we need to rebuild, but you need to do it intelligently and with an order of academics, and certainly with a strategic planning that accompanies all of that effort that is effective, efficient, smart government. The Vice President spoke to the wisdom of investing in infrastructure because commerce requires it. Across this great Nation, talk to the midland of America. Without the appropriate infrastructure, they can't send forth their agricultural produced products or their manufactured goods. They cannot ship forward, and so commerce is crippled by our lack of investment in infrastructure. And so with great sensitivity the Vice President spoke, spoke to the infrastructure needs of New York and that we will utilize these efforts with the guidance of New York State, with the Governor and the legislature, to make certain that it is not merely replacing infrastructure damaged by the ravaging of Mother Nature, but rather restructuring and reorganizing how we respond to that. Much of our energy infrastructure, our water-sewer treatment infrastructure, our manufacturing infrastructure, are along water's edge, either intercoastal systems or the coastal system itself. We extended our land into the coastal system and now Mother Nature is saying, whoa, push back. But that urgency that came with those storms has us now struggling with infrastructure investment. Is that what we require in order to invest in infrastructure? So we need to go forward and make certain that these down payments on the future strength of this Nation are made and made sensibly and made in an order of investment, not spending but investing, where reasonable expectation, justified expectation, of a return on those hard-earned tax dollars is there. We will see that with the infrastructure improvement. So much can be done. I will close with this--not close with this, but----

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. And absolutely, those benefits have been exhausted, and I think that needs to be very clear here. Mr. Speaker, while this budget compromise is not perfect, I would like to highlight a provision that will reduce our deficit. Since 2011, I have fought to change a little-known statutory formula for capping the maximum reimbursement for Federal contractor executives and employees. Due to a flaw in this formula, taxpayer-funded salaries have spiraled out of control in recent years. Just this month, OMB announced that it was required to raise the cap to over $950,000 per year--$950,000--while we debate our ability to afford essential services for our most vulnerable citizens, for extending unemployment insurance. We are paying private sector executives nearly million-dollar salaries. This agreement sets the cap at $487,000. Personally, I would have preferred the cap to be set at $230,700--the Vice President's salary--as it is stated in my legislation, but this is an important step and sensible compromise to restoring sanity to taxpayer-funded salaries. Just a sampling, GAO, within the Department of Defense, found just 7 percent of their contracts when reduced to this level would save hundreds of millions of dollars. I again thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, well, here we go again. Our to-do list continues to pile up and Republican House leadership of this legislative body--if we can even use words like ``leadership'' and ``legislative'' to describe the House anymore--has officially cemented the first session of the 113th Congress as the ``least productive of all time.'' We have not passed a budget, have not passed a farm bill, have not fixed the Voting Rights Act, or done anything in our charge to make the people's voices heard in their Nation's Capital. In fact, if recent reports in the D.C. newspapers are any indication, House leadership seems to be more concerned with planning fund-raisers in New York City than getting anything done here in Washington, D.C. The leadership of the people's House has continued to govern by sound bites and passing messaging bills that go nowhere--even shutting down the government for more than 2 weeks in the process, a painful exercise and expensive exercise. But we are about to call it a year and skip town with so much left undone. Our unemployment--or employment--rate is at its lowest point in 5 years. But imagine how much lower it would be today if we would work together and focus on jobs instead of attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act since 2011; Rolling back sequestration and replacing it with a responsible budget that cuts where we can and invests where we must; Passing comprehensive immigration reform to expand the American Dream to our friends and neighbors who want so desperately to contribute to the greatest country on the planet; Updating the Voting Rights Act so that everyone is able to fulfill their basic human right and duty of going to the polls; Increasing the minimum wage to restore dignity to those who have been forced to work two, and sometimes three, jobs simply to put food on the table; Passing a farm bill--something that needs to be done and used to be routine--and empowering our Nation's family farms to ensure that our national food supply remains secure and remains plentiful; Focusing on the clear and present danger that climate change has brought to the Midwest and to our shores along the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast. I could go on and on, but I only have 5 minutes. Tax reform, certainly commonsense gun reform like expanding background checks, and passing ENDA. The fact is that there are about 10 to 15 pieces of major legislation that would improve our country and the quality of life for Americans of every race, orientation, political party, and socioeconomic status. But they are not being pushed by this House. Almost all of these bills, if given a simple up-or-down vote, would pass with a bipartisan majority; but House leadership continues to act in the interest of a few extremists in their own party instead of doing what is right for our American people. I, like many of my Democratic colleagues, have signed onto a resolution introduced by my good friend Louise Slaughter, which would prevent Congress from adjourning unless the House agrees to a budget by December 13. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this resolution so that we stay in town until we perform at least one of our basic duties before leaving for the holidays. The American people deserve so much more than what we have given them in the past year. It is my hope that when we gavel in next year, we will do so with a renewed willingness to work together and focus on the top priority for Americans, which is, indeed, putting people back to work. The American public expects and deserves nothing less.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be here with my colleague from Ohio (Mr. Johnson) in support of H.R. 3588. As we heard, 3 years ago, Congress passed important legislation to reduce lead in drinking water supplies by eliminating a very significant remaining source of lead--our water delivery infrastructure. The Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act amended the Safe Drinking Water Act to address the high levels of lead documented in the drinking water in many communities. Lead is a very dangerous contaminant, and it is especially dangerous to our children. It is retained in their bodies and leads to a host of chronic problems. We need to remove lead from our drinking water, but we do not need to regulate fire hydrants to achieve this worthy and important goal. Fire hydrants are rarely used to provide drinking water, and those rare occasions are during emergencies--for instance, the break of a water main. And, when these rare events occur, flushing the hydrant is sufficient to ensure that lead and other contaminants are not conveyed in the water. As sometimes happens, Mr. Speaker, laws have unintended consequences. When Congress passed the amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act 3 years ago, I doubt anyone intended to have EPA regulate fire hydrants. EPA hosted a webinar on this issue recently. The agency consulted stakeholders from the hydrant manufacturing industry, municipalities from across our country, State and city regulatory agencies, and water supply companies. These sources provided the Agency with information to demonstrate that regulating hydrants would be expensive to implement, and it would deliver virtually no additional public health benefits. Closer to home, I heard from two municipalities in my district, Latham and Colonie, both in Albany County. Their local leaders were very concerned about the expense of replacing their inventory of fire hydrants and about problems that could arise if they were unable to service and replace hydrants in a timely manner. As we all know, fire hydrants are a vital part of the safety infrastructure of every community, large or small, across this great country. I am told the average cost is as high as $2,000 per hydrant, if not more. Most communities keep a reserve inventory so hydrants can be replaced as needed. Without this fix, communities across the country would be spending millions to replace inventories of working hydrants. Not only would communities have to replace their inventory of hydrants, but there is a real question about the availability of lead- free alternatives. The supply of lead-free hydrants is still small, and some newer designs have yet to be tested and certified fully. Well, we certainly do not need to impose unnecessary costs on our communities across this country. We can fix this problem, and we are moving forward with a sound and effective solution today. H.R. 3588 adds fire hydrants to the list of plumbing fixtures and other components of water infrastructure that are exempted from the requirements to reduce lead. H.R. 3588 is a simple, bipartisan bill that provides a straightforward correction to the law. It will save our communities money and time, two very important commodities. In addition, the bill contains a provision requiring the EPA Administrator to consult with the Drinking Water Advisory Council on options for reducing lead in our drinking water in a cost-effective manner. Hopefully, this dialogue will provide more cost-effective options for achieving a worthy goal: cleaner, safer drinking water. Again, I want to commend our colleague, Representative Johnson, for his work on this legislation and thank him for working together with me to ensure that communities can concentrate on efforts that will bring true public health improvements to our citizens and avoid unnecessary expenses that achieve no real benefits. With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers here on our side. Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio; I want to thank Chairman Upton of the Energy and Commerce Committee and Ranking Member Waxman of the same committee for expediting this very important bill. Again, I urge all of our colleagues to support this worthy legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, the bill that we are addressing before the House simply does not address the problems with pipeline approvals because the committee has not identified any problems with them. The natural gas pipeline approval process works well. The Government Accountability Office's recent review found that FERC's consideration of the vast majority of these projects is completed within a year of receiving a complete application. The network of over 2 million miles of gas pipeline spread across this country ensures that natural gas can be delivered where it is needed. We do have some areas where additional infrastructure is required, but the failure to fill those needs is not due to the permit approval process at FERC. It is due to economic decisions being made by those in the private sector. We do have some problems with pipelines. Accidents resulting in explosions have severely damaged property and, in some cases, claimed lives. We should be doing more to prevent these accidents. The 10 percent of project approvals that are not completed within a 1-year period are those that are more complex. They extend for many miles, traverse densely populated areas, and cross sensitive or valuable resources such as farm lands or water bodies. A project with these characteristics may need more than 1 year to ensure that the pipeline that is ultimately constructed is not going to place people, their communities, other businesses or valuable resources at risk. Whenever a regulatory agency is poised to act under the law to defend the health and safety of our citizens, there is a hue and cry about the necessity of doing extensive analyses of all aspects of the proposed regulation to determine its potential impact on businesses and the economy. Many of these analyses take years and delay commonsense protections that will, indeed, save thousands of our citizens from illnesses or death. Apparently, protecting public health or the environment can wait, but the oil and gas companies cannot. We need energy, but we need other things also. FERC's process weighs all these considerations before approving pipelines, and that is how it should be. Pipeline projects should be evaluated in a timely fashion; but the imposition of a hard, 12-month deadline for all projects, regardless of their length or complexity, is bad policy. We should devote our time to solving problems, not creating them. H.R. 1900 should be rejected. It will do nothing to improve the pipeline approval process.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 1900 attempts to solve a problem that simply doesn't exist. The bill seeks to change FERC's process even though the pipeline companies have testified that the permitting process is ``generally very good.'' Thousands of miles of natural gas pipelines are being approved under the current system. We have real energy challenges in this country and should be seeking real solutions to these challenges, not spending our time on problems that don't exist. My amendment addresses a real problem--the dangers of climate change and the contributions of natural gas infrastructure to this growing threat--and it prevents waste by ensuring that we use it and don't lose it. Climate change is the most urgent energy challenge that we face today. If the global average temperature continues to increase, we will face even more serious impacts, including flooding of coastal cities, increased risks to our food supply, unprecedented heat waves, exacerbated water scarcity in many regions, increased frequency of high-intensity tropical cyclones such as Hurricane Sandy and the recent supertyphoon in the Philippines, and an irreversible loss of plants and animals that share this planet with us. Our behavior is driving these changes. We must take responsibility for the situation and work to halt it. We should not leave this task to our children and grandchildren and condemn them to a more uncertain and unsafe world. Many hope that natural gas, or methane, will serve as a critical bridge fuel as we work to reduce our carbon pollution, but natural gas poses its own challenges. Although natural gas emits less carbon dioxide than coal or oil when burned, the development and transportation of natural gas results in releases of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas 25 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide. This is a serious concern. According to a study by the World Resources Institute, leaks from natural gas systems ``represent a significant source of global warming pollution in the U.S.'' The study further found that methane leaks occur at every stage of the natural gas life cycle--at the wellhead, from compression facilities, and from pipelines. These fugitive methane emissions can reduce or even negate the net climate benefits of using natural gas as a substitute for coal and oil. The good news is that we can reduce methane emissions by applying proven, cost-effective technologies throughout the natural gas system. My amendment will ensure that new pipelines incorporate designs, systems, and practices that minimize leaks, thereby conserving gas and reducing pollution. We will still need to address problems with existing infrastructure and other sources within the natural gas system, but this would be a very important start. It is precisely what we should expect and require of energy infrastructure that will be around for decades. By including this requirement in the law, the applicants are informed before they begin their application of the requirement for this information and would have ample time to include it in permit applications. Encouraging the prevention and monitoring of leaks would have the added benefit of increasing pipeline safety. The language does not require an applicant to wait for the development of something new. These technologies exist today and only need to be applied ``to the extent applicable.'' This makes both economic and environmental sense. By reducing pipeline leaks, the amendment ensures that more of our domestic energy resources will be used and fewer of these resources will be wasted. The amendment doesn't fix the core problems with H.R. 1900, including the bill's arbitrary and harmful deadlines, but it does ensure that the bill addresses an energy problem that actually exists. If we are going to revisit the law governing the permitting of natural gas pipelines, this is the kind of commonsense step that we should be discussing. With that, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, this week, it was reported that House Republicans are looking for a legislative plan to close out the year and to move forward into 2014 and, as such, passed out a blank sheet of paper as their agenda--a blank sheet. Each month, polls put congressional approval rates at new lows, and more independent organizations rank the 113th Congress as one of the least--if not the least--productive of all time. In response, leadership of the people's House has continued to govern by sound bites and pass messaging bills that simply go nowhere--even painfully shutting down the government for more than 2 weeks in the process. If House leadership is looking for an agenda, they need only to look across the aisle to their friends. We have some suggestions, and chief among them is putting Americans back to work. During our August work period, I participated in some 166 events, meeting with constituents each and every time. At nearly every stop, my friends and neighbors wanted to know what was being done in Washington to help the private sector create jobs. My district is extraordinary, but not in this regard. I have to believe that the people of Albany and Schenectady and Saratoga Springs, New York, my hometown of Amsterdam, New York, in the 20th Congressional District, are thinking what America is thinking. They are asking what myself and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are doing to grow the economy. House Democrats stand ready to work with Republicans to address the real challenges that face this great Nation of ours. Sequestration-related cuts are estimated to cost our economy some 1.6 million jobs through 2014. Let's work together to save jobs and pass a budget that invests by growing in a justified way, in a fair way, revenues and belt tightening so that we cut as we can, so that we then invest as we must. Our family farms deserve the certainty that a 5-year reauthorization of the farm bill has brought them for decades upon decades. Our parties clearly don't see eye-to-eye on cutting such items as hunger assistance, hunger assistance for millions of veterans, millions of frail people, millions of elderly, millions of children. If we work together on jobs, we will help the private sector put people into jobs and cut poverty and reduce the need for hunger programs. Now, isn't that a humane approach? We see middle class America experiencing pain at the gas pump, and we worry that our foreign policy is dictated by our dangerous dependency, our gluttonous thirst for fossil-based fuels. Yet, we stand today without a clear and definitive clean energy agenda that would make our Nation a safer place and create tens of thousands of jobs in the short- term, boosting an American green-collar economy. It can be done. A report just last week on solar panels was interesting. If we would use just simply 5 percent of available rooftops in Los Angeles County, we would be able to create 29,000 jobs in that effort. In the past week, we have seen major severe weather events wreak havoc on the Philippines and across 12 States within the Midwest of our country. Even if you choose to ignore fact-based science that really proves climate change to be real and here, we can all agree that our aging infrastructure needs our assistance, it needs to be upgraded, it needs to be improved and replaced, so that we are taking a proactive approach to the soundness of infrastructure, which grows jobs. Instead, we are allowing storms of the century to impact our communities and then have a reactive process that simply isn't the best way to do business. I could go on and on, but I only have 5 minutes here. Immigration reform, updating the Voting Rights Act, tax reform, expanding background checks for gun owners, or passing ENDA--there is more than enough for us to tackle that translates into jobs. The vast majority of these policies would pass in a bipartisan fashion, as the government shutdown was avoided by a bipartisan vote with a unanimous vote from the Democrats with a minority of votes from the Republicans. We could get things done if we would allow votes to be taken up on this floor, a simple up or down vote, but get it done and grow jobs. This week, we solemnly observe the 50th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest leaders our Nation has known, President John F. Kennedy, a man who once said: Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery. We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world--or to make it the last. To act is both in our power and our duty. We must tackle these problems. I implore this House to take up a jobs agenda. Let's put America to work.