June 7, 2018 - Issue: Vol. 164, No. 94 — Daily Edition115th Congress (2017 - 2018) - 2nd Session
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ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019; Congressional Record Vol. 164, No. 94
(House of Representatives - June 07, 2018)
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[Pages H4956-H4957] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019 General Leave Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the consideration of H.R. 5895, and that I may include tabular material on the same. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Idaho? There was no objection. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 923 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, H.R. 5895. =========================== NOTE =========================== June 7, 2018, on page H4956, the following appeared: The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Idaho? There was no objection. The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 923 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, H.R. 5895. The online version has been corrected to read: The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Idaho? There was no objection. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 923 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, H.R. 5895. ========================= END NOTE ========================= Will the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney) kindly resume the chair. {time} 2039 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the bill (H.R. 5895) making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes, with Ms. Tenney (Acting Chair) in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The Acting CHAIR. When the Committee of the Whole rose earlier today pursuant to House Resolution 918, a request for a recorded vote on amendment No. 39 printed in part B of House Report 115-711 offered by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman) had been postponed. Pursuant to House Resolution 923, the further amendment printed in part A of House Report 115-712 shall be considered as adopted. The text of the further amendment printed in part A of House Report 115-712 is as follows: Page 165, after line 14, insert the following: Sec. 239. For an additional amount for the Department of Veterans Affairs, $1,138,000,000 for the programs and activities authorized in the VA MISSION Act of 2018 and the amendments made by such Act, which shall be in addition to amounts otherwise made available in this Act for such purpose, of which-- (1) $600,000,000 shall become available for the Veterans Community Care Program under section 1703 of title 38, United States Code, as amended by the VA MISSION Act of 2018, on the effective date specified in section 101(b) of such Act; and (2) $253,000,000 shall be available for the Family Caregivers Program under section 1720G of title 38, United States Code, as amended by such Act: Provided, That amounts made available under this section shall remain available until September 30, 2020. The Acting CHAIR. No further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in part B of the report and available pro forma amendments described in section 4 of House Resolution 918. Each further amendment printed in part B of the report shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, may be withdrawn by the proponent at any time before action thereon, shall not be subject to amendment except amendments described in section 4 of House Resolution 918, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question. Amendment No. 1 Offered by Mr. Nolan The Acting CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 1 printed in part B of House Report 115-712. Mr. NOLAN. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment. The text of the amendment is as follows: Page 5, line 13, after the dollar amount, insert ``(increased by $1,000,000)''. Page 7, line 16, after the dollar amount, insert ``(reduced by $1,030,000)''. The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 923, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan) and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota. Mr. NOLAN. Madam Chair, I would like to begin by thanking Chairman Simpson and Ranking Member Kaptur. I wish the whole country could be here to watch how hard you have worked, not just tonight, but throughout the year to bring this important legislation before us. It would give them great hope and faith in the process, and I commend both of you, your committee members, and your staff for the work that you are doing here. Madam Chair, I will be brief. My amendment would add $1 million to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' aquatic nuisance control program. In effect, it would double the annual funding to $2 million for the important and critical research that is needed to combat some 1,500 terribly destructive invasive species in our lakes and waterways, including six new invasive species of foreign zooplankton that were just discovered in Lake Superior. I am not sure where it came from and what kind of damage it will do. A little quick history here: I am only going to take a couple of minutes. My amendment to the 2014 water resources bill added fish and other aquatic creatures to the official definition of invasive species, a definition that had been previously reserved only to plants. So that opened the door for us to have a way to combat these aquatic species. And in so doing, the Congress gave the Army Corps the authority to do the research to eradicate invasive species like Asian carp, zebra mussels, and so many hundreds of others that are causing so much damage to sport and commercial fishing, to shipping, navigation, and to harbor maintenance. The aquatic nuisance control program is supposed to be leading the way with cutting-edge research, and it is doing a good job. But the fact is, it is terribly underfunded, leaving little resources to address the influx of the aquatic species. As a result, the aquatic invasives like zebra mussels have infested more than 130 lakes in my own State and thousands of lakes across the country. To give you an idea of how fast these zebra mussels, for example, spread, a female zebra mussel can produce a half a million offspring each year. And the simple truth is, the zebra mussels are just choking off all kinds of snails and clam and other native fishes--even bird species. In fact, they killed over 10,000 loons in Lake Erie alone because they ate something that had zebra mussels in them, and the zebra mussels had a botulism that killed 10,000 loons. That is how devastating these things can be. {time} 2045 For outdoor recreation, our people are getting their feet cut and getting all kinds of injuries by stepping on these zebra mussels. Thousands of good jobs and slowdowns of our economy are caused, delaying ships as they are painstakingly having to remove these zebra mussels. They are just one of more than 1,500 invasive species. So I urge my colleagues to approve this amendment so the Army Corps can get to work cleaning up our lakes and waterways and putting an end to the invasive species that are causing so much costly damage and destruction to our lakes and waterways. Madam Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan) for yielding me the time. Talk about working hard, you are here at 9 o'clock in Washington and the day started very early. I thank the gentleman for being here and defending the Great Lakes. I support his amendment. I personally represent about 200 miles of Lake Erie's [[Page H4957]] coast, the shallowest and most abundant of the Great Lakes. We know what zebra mussels are and quagga mussels. We also know about aquatic plants like phragmites that are just invading and causing all kinds of problems along our shores. The Aquatic Nuisance Species Research Program works on other species in other parts of the country, so I thank the gentleman for being a champion of the Great Lakes and a champion of so many important causes. We know that in our Great Lakes we have about a $6 billion fishery that we are trying to protect, but these quagga and zebra mussels are spreading rapidly. The gentleman is right. It is just an explosion. There is no other way to explain it. They came in in ballast water. We tried to adopt ballast water regulations so it has to be dumped when it is further up the Saint Lawrence Seaway before those ships come down. It didn't happen, so now we have this to contend with. We are trying to keep these invasive species out of our lakes. We are threatened by the Asian carp. We are trying to fish those out temporarily while we try to find a more genetically impactful solution. I want to thank the gentleman for transferring $1 million from the Corps' operation and maintenance account to increase the Corps' Aquatic Nuisance Species Research Program. I commend the gentleman for that and thank him for working so late into the night. Your constituents are lucky Congressman Nolan is here. Mr. NOLAN. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan). The amendment was agreed to. Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise. The motion was agreed to. Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Weber of Texas) having assumed the chair, Ms. Tenney, Acting Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 5895) making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon. ____________________
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