Greg Walden

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. I appreciate that. The point here, though, is this: We would not be here today if the Democrats in the last Congress had bothered to take up a budget and pass it or even vote on it. That is the first time since the 1974 Budget Act was put into law that I believe the House didn't consider a budget. It's not that the House and Senate have always agreed on a budget, but at least they've always voted on a budget. And the Democrats, under Speaker Pelosi and my friend from Maryland, could not bring or did not bring a budget to the House floor for even consideration in the House. Now I was in small business for 22 years, I've served on various boards, and if you failed to bring a budget and pass a budget at a city council, a county commission, a corporation, you would be tossed out. But in the Congress--well, I guess they did get tossed out in November, but they didn't do a budget. And then, you didn't fund the government through the fiscal year we're in today. You only funded it into March, and then it was left on our doorstep when we took the majority. That's not the first time that's happened, and it has happened over time, but we came in and said, okay, we won, we assume the responsibility to govern. And we passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through the rest of this fiscal year--it would have funded our troops and everything else--and cut $61 billion in spending. And that still resides in that august body across the Capitol where they can't seem to act. When that didn't work, we came back with another continuing resolution, cut $2 billion a week. That resolution was passed in this House--I think with bipartisan support--went to the Senate, was passed there, signed by the President. We continue to negotiate because we're not here to shut down the government. We're here to cut the government spending and get back toward a balanced budget and create jobs in the private sector. When they couldn't get a deal, we passed another continuing resolution. We cut more--another $2 billion a week, we're up to 10 now. That passed this House, it went over to the Senate, it became law. And then when we could get nothing else back from the Senate, yesterday we brought forward a resolution to make sure our men and women in uniform, who are fighting for our freedom across this globe, and their families here at home, would get paid through the end of this fiscal year. And we also cut spending. We cut the spending we cut in the first resolution--that's still residing in the Senate where they can't act--and we sent that over to the Senate where it sits. Now the first thing we hear from the President is, I'm going to veto it. And the Senate says, oh, we can't take that up. Well, why not? We passed it here, and we did so in a bipartisan way. And it's over there. Republicans have acted responsibly to the will of the American people. We have said time and again we will govern, and we will govern responsibly. There is no blank check here anymore. And we're going to follow the rules. point of order

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

Mr. WALDEN. I have not yielded.

Mr. WALDEN. To my dear friend and colleague from Maryland, I'm actually surprised he has the time to come to the floor given the status of negotiations, I'm sure they're taking place as we speak, but we appreciate him coming to the floor. Let me make a couple of points. First of all, the continuing resolution they put forward in this context is more of the status quo spending that just keeps government growing. We're saying no; we are to do better than that for the American people. We need to reduce wasteful Washington spending. We need to create jobs in the private sector. We came here to cut back on the deficit and not put an ever- increasing, intolerable, unsustainable--frankly, immoral--budget deficit and debt on the next generation, our kids and our grandkids. We did not come here to do that. We came here to cut spending.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. WALDEN. I would be happy to answer. I am not part of that negotiating team. And I don't think you are, and I don't think Ms. Eshoo is or Mr. Waxman. And so those who are negotiating are negotiating, and we're taking care of this business.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte). (Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, it is evident that there's confusion on their side of the aisle, because at one end they have a Speaker that says we're doing the bidding of the big oligarchies, these big companies, and on the other hand that all those companies oppose what we're doing. I'm trying to figure out just which side they're on. We're for an open Internet that is vibrant as it is today because it's not regulated by the government. I would now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz- Balart).

Mr. WALDEN. First of all, I think it's very interesting that the last speaker pointed out that in Iran and in China they can shut down the Internet. That's because the government controls the Internet. That's what Republicans are trying to stop from happening here, in part because we think it's wrong, in part because we know that the FCC does not have the legal authority to take this action. That's why we're doing that. But beyond that, it's a bad economic decision, because we had a Harvard MBA testify before our committee, ``Over time, the order represents a direct transfer of wealth from broadband access providers to those whose content rides over the network. That means that it provides those who ride the network with a strategically vital financial weapon to use against broadband providers who in many cases are their competitors.'' You see, this is picking winners and losers. The Democrats do not want to extend the net neutrality rules to the search engines and others who ride on the network. They don't want to do that. They want to pick a winner and a loser. They're the ones who are siding with the big companies in this case. We're the ones on the Republican side who are siding with keeping the Internet open and free as it is today, that has allowed it to flourish and grow, that has allowed incredible technology and innovation to take place. We want it open and unfettered from government regulation in terms of the management of the Internet. Further, we do not believe that the FCC has the legal authority to regulate in this area. When they have attempted this before, the D.C. Circuit Court has said, you did not prove, FCC, that you had legal authority and struck them down. And if they are able to get authority using section 706, they may well have opened the door to every State regulator in the country regulating the Internet. That's bad for innovation.

Mr. WALDEN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 200, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 37) disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to regulating the Internet and broadband industry practices, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I think this points up two things. When you have government-run microphones on the Internet, you're going to have a problem. And, second, we are for open and free microphones; so they are welcome to use our podium as well. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the joint resolution.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger).

Mr. WALDEN. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. WALDEN. What is the relevance?

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my point of order.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Commerce be permitted to file its report to accompany H.R. 1217 at any time through Monday, April 11, 2011.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentleman from the Rules Committee for his good work on this issue. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of issues I would like to address as chairman of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee. First of all, when it comes to the notion that the FCC--or let me back up--these carriers that give us the Internet might somehow regulate religious speech, it's interesting to note that the FCC, in its own order, threatens and pulls out specifically a threat to religious content. Paragraph 47, footnote 148, which I'm sure the gentleman from Colorado must know about, says that a religious organization would be prohibited from creating a specialized Internet- accessed service. Now, there is an Internet provider out there called Koshernet that wanted to have a special service for those religious subscribers who happen to agree, if they don't want to be exposed to things on the Internet that they are bound to regarding their religion. So the issue that the FCC points out is that, oh, we're not going to allow that to happen under these rules. So you can't have a separate Internet provider that is just set up for its own subscribers that just wants to have a filter on the Internet, if you will, for those who want to subscribe to that because of their religious beliefs. So already you see a government getting involved at the head end. Now, we've seen in Egypt where the government is involved and had a kill switch and just turned it off when opponents of the government got engaged. We've heard a lot about China, and we all know the various back doors to the Internet there that they tried to put in to regulate speech, to control access to content and all of that. That's the government doing that. We know this country for many years operated under the Fairness Doctrine. That was the government trying to regulate political speech on the broadcast airwaves. It wasn't until President Reagan's FCC after a couple of court decisions basically said that trips right up against the First Amendment that President Reagan's FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine. Congress tried a couple of times to put it back in place. What we should be about is a free and open Internet. And that's what we've had, and that's what allowed this incredible explosion of technology and innovation to take place. And it has not taken place because the government picked winners and losers on the Internet because the engineers and scientists and technicians and innovators and entrepreneurs did that on the existing Internet. Now, along comes the government, the Federal Communications Commission, on a 3-to-2 partisan middle-of-the-night sort of decision, if you will, right over the holidays to say, We're going to seize control and regulate the Internet. Now, that's not been done before, although they tried in the Comcast BitTorrent case where they tried to regulate the Internet once before. But the court here in Washington, D.C. said they lacked the authority. They had not proven--they had failed to demonstrate that they had the authority. And so the court struck them down pretty clearly in part because they relied on a statement of policy, and the court said a statement of policy does not constitute statutorily mandated responsibilities. Previously, the FCC rule, by the way, that section 706 did not constitute an independent grant of authority and has not overruled that prior decision. Now, that's important, because section 706 is part of the foundation upon which they think they have this authority, even though in a prior case they've said that didn't grant them an independent grant of authority. Regulating otherwise unregulated information services is not reasonably ancillary to the section 257 obligation to issue reports on barriers to the provision of information services. There are a number of issues here that bring us to the rule that we have today on the Congressional Review Act that would repeal the rule that the FCC put in place at the end of the year and notified us on. Now, why are we using the Congressional Review Act? It is a very specific, very narrow, very targeted bipartisan-created process. The current leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, was an advocate and supporter of the congressional review process because it allows Congress to step in when an agency has overstepped its bounds on a major rule and say, No, you don't have the authority, or, We disagree with the rule, and so we chose this CRA process to overturn this rule that a partisan group of unelected officials chose to enact exceeding their authority. Now Congress, whether you're for net neutrality regulation under title I or title XX or no title at all, you should not stand idly by when an agency exceeds its statutory authority. I think, ultimately, this will be thrown out in court, once it's ripe for a court to review, as the court has slapped down the FCC in the past. The long and the short of it, though, is that, in relying on section 706, they may have inadvertently opened the door for State regulation of the Internet, because section 706 says that the FCC and State commissions shall have certain authorities and goes on to explain that in the first title of that act. I don't think any of us here wants that door to be opened, but the FCC, in its naked grab for power it does not have, chose to base part of their decision on section 706. Now, I heard, as I was coming over here, a recitation of my comments last night in the Rules Committee by my friend and colleague from Colorado that all of the major companies support this, or virtually all, and, gee whiz, they did this voluntarily at the FCC. Well, come on. None of them will publicly admit to the fact that the FCC had, holding over their head, a title II proceeding that would have treated the Internet as a common carrier, as simple telephone service with a highly regulated environment. And it's one of those Hobson's choices: either go with us with title I, which is ``light regulation'' but opens the door to government regulation for the first time of the Internet, or we may come after you on title II. Now, to back up that argument, I would point out that there's an open proceeding at the moment on title II. They have never closed their title II proceeding. So these companies have a lot of other issues before the FCC, like mergers--has anybody ever heard of those?--and other things. They are their regulator. I was regulated by the FCC for 22 years as a license holder in broadcast stations. The last thing you're going to do is poke your regulator. And when your regulator has you by your license or by your next merger, you're probably going to acquiesce to the lesser of two evils, which is what happened here. So, Mr. Speaker, and to the ladies and gentlemen of the House, I would encourage you to support this rule. It's narrow. It's defined. It's closed for a reason, because the parliamentarians and others have told us basically there's no real way to amend this and carry out its lawful action. And so in a rare instance, this makes sense to have a closed rule.

Mr. WALDEN. I just want to point out that back on KosherNet, the Federal Communications basically singled that out and said, no, you can't, as an Internet service provider, have that kind of separate system. You can't filter out even if you want to. And I think that's different. As for the court decisions the gentleman referenced, I don't necessarily know where he's going on that. But I understand the court said the time is not right yet for the appeal by Verizon and MetroPCS on the Internet rules, not right because the Federal Communications Commission has not put these rules into the Federal register because they haven't completed some of their due diligence, apparently, on the effects on business. So that will still be ripe to litigate later on. The other point I want to make is understand that while these rules promulgated, I believe, outside the authority of the FCC apply to the Internet service provider, the pipes if you will, they do not apply to the content providers on the other end. So in other words, once you get on the freeway, as we know the Internet, you want to get out into the neighborhoods eventually. And so a lot of people go to a particular search site let's say, a search engine, and that search engine is making enormous decisions about where you end up on the Internet. Those search engines and other providers like that, they are not under these rules at all. And I would suggest I am not eager to have them under these rules. But I find it fascinating that they can block, they can tackle, they can hide, they can change their algorithms. So you know, by the time you search for something, you may get moved from number one in your category to No. 71 because they make some decision in their algorithm. So there is a lot going on out there. But I would say this: Most Americans have access to broadband, most of us are on the Internet, and we are a very powerful community when somebody misbehaves. And generally, the Internet has been successful because misbehavers have been punished by the consumers in an open and free marketplace effectively and quickly and much better than through a government regulatory regime.

Mr. WALDEN. Will the gentleman yield on that point? Because I don't believe that was the case.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Chairman, nearly a decade ago the farmers and families in the Klamath Basin suffered irreparable harm when two government agencies with conflicting demands and questionable data shut off water for irrigated agriculture, threatening a way of life and the economy of the region. Fertile farmlands turned to dust under the summer sun. A wildlife refuge nearly dried up. Some farmers whose families had tilled the soil and grown crops for generations lost everything and filed for bankruptcy. The stress was too much for some. One died of a heart attack and another took his own life. Out of that aftermath, the House Resources Committee, then chaired by Jim Hansen of Utah and Richard Pombo of California, went to work with me trying to find short-term solutions and work on the long term. Principals in the basin, as you have heard, found common ground where they had been apart, and they reached agreement that they have brought forth to KBRA and the KHSA. However, it's clear to me that the agreements as written do not have those in charge of the Resources Committee today. The gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) have made that clear. There is little point, then, in spending more of the taxpayers' money, especially during these dire fiscal times, on an effort that is unlikely to move forward in its present form. Given that reality, I will support the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock). The House's decision today, however, will not lessen the threat to irrigated agriculture in the Klamath Basin. It does not add to water storage. It does not provide protection to the ratepayers. It does not resolve the water rights disputes. It does mean, however, the burden of finding a timely and effective solution to conflicts in the Klamath Basin now resides in the Resources Committee and those who rejected these plans, because there is no escaping the fact that the problems remain, the conflicts grow and the courts call all the shots absent legislative action. Nearly a decade ago, the farmers and families in the Klamath Basin suffered irreparable harm when two government agencies, with conflicting demands and questionable data shut off the water for irrigated agriculture, threatening a way of life and the economy of the region. Fertile farmlands turned to dust under the summer sun. A wildlife refuge nearly dried up. Some farmers whose families had tilled the soil and grown crops for generations lost everything and filed for bankruptcy. The stress was too much for some . . . one farmer died of a heart attack and another took his own life. Meanwhile, the nation's attention turned to the plight of the Klamath Basin farm families and more than 15,000 members of the community turned out in a symbolic bucket brigade that stretched from one end of town to the other. I was a member of the House Resources Committee then, and our chairmen, first Jim Hansen of Utah and later Richard Pombo of California, responded to my calls for help with hearings and legislation. And the Bush Administration weighed in, too. We were committed to finding lasting solutions to prevent another water cut off. We put in place historic conservation efforts to improve water management. We got funds to screen the A canal and to remove Chiloquin dam. We created water banks and added to storage--although not by enough. And then the principals in the Basin who often were on opposing sides, spent years trying to find common ground. They worked in good faith, tirelessly in search of a long-term plan to prevent another water cutoff. They should be commended for their work. And it is the culmination of that effort--with all of the controversy that surrounds it--that brings us here today. It is clear to me, that the agreements as written do not have the support of those in charge at the Resources Committee. The gentleman from California Mr. McClintock and the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Hastings, have made it abundantly clear that they will not move forward on the KBRA or the KHSA. There is little point in spending more of the taxpayers' money-- especially during these dire fiscal times--on an effort that is unlikely to move forward in its present form. Given that reality, I will join them today in voting for this limiting amendment. The House's decision today will not lessen the threat to irrigated agriculture in the Klamath Basin. It does not add to water storage. It does not provide protection to ratepayers. It does not resolve water rights disputes. It does mean, however, that the burden of finding a timely and effective solution to the conflicts in the Klamath Basin now resides with the Resources Committee and those who rejected this plan, because there is no escaping the fact that the problems remain. The conflicts grow. And the courts call the shots, absent legislative action. I pray that we never have to see a repeat of the disaster of 2001. I look forward to working with the Chairman Mr. Hastings and the Subcommittee Chairman Mr. McClintock on whatever plan they have in mind to bring about a comprehensive, Basin-wide solution. And I know they must understand, especially in this water year, how critical prompt action is. Doing nothing is not an option. [From Klamath Falls Herald and News, May 27, 2010] Commentary: Hukill, Switzer: Against Dam Removal, but for KBRA (By Al Switzer and Cheryl Hukill) There seems to be some confusion on where we, Commissioners Al Switzer and Cheryl Hukill, stand on dam removal and the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement. From the very beginning of this process we have publicly stated that we are against dam removal and lobbied for fish ladders or trucking of fish instead. We are for jobs, jobs, jobs, and a strong economy. That message has never changed and will not change. State Rep. Bill Garrard has stated publicly that his position is against dam removal but for the KBRA, and this is the same position that we have taken and continue to take. We are not willing that outside entities make the decisions for this Basin when it comes to the water and agricultural issues that face us. We know that whether we signed the agreement or not, the dams are destined to come out. That was a private company making a private business decision. Government has no business interfering with private industry. But the destiny of our farmers and ranchers is our priority, and we must be participants of the committees that will be formed as a result of the KBRA. The agricultural community brings in over $600 million, using a multiplier of 2. It has also created over 4,000 jobs. Businesses with livable wage jobs will quit looking at Klamath County as a viable place to relocate if we do not have a stable economy, of which agricultural is a huge part. Status quo is no longer an option. We must never forget what happened in 2001. Every business was affected by the government shutting our water off. At least with the KBRA, a committee of stakeholders will help set the course for our water issues. If the KBRA had been in effect in 2008, we would have had enough carryover to have 330,000 acre-feet of water instead of the 150,000 acre feet. Why? Because the biological opinion would have allowed the flow of water going down the Klamath River between October and February to be far less than it was this year. Again, we stand against dam removal, but stand for jobs and a strong economy. The authors Al Switzer and Cheryl Hukill are Klamath County commissioners.

Mr. WALDEN

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