On the Rule for HR 1837
House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
February 29, 2012

Mr. Speaker:

In 2009 and 2010, hundreds of billions of gallons of contracted water were diverted away from California farms and instead dumped into the Pacific Ocean in the name of the Delta Smelt.

This tragic policy fallowed hundreds of thousands of acres of some of the most fertile and productive farmland in America.  It threw thousands of hard-working families into unemployment.  It devastated communities throughout the region.  And it created the spectacle of unemployed farm workers standing in food lines to receive carrots imported from China -- in a region that just a short time before had produced much of American grown fruits and vegetables.

And it contributed to rising grocery prices that families felt far beyond the Congressionally-created dustbowl of California’s Central Valley.

In the last Congress, the then-minority Republicans begged and pleaded for hearings to address this catastrophe, but to no avail. 

Last year, we returned as the new House Majority to take testimony on what could be done to correct this disaster.   The result is the bill by Mr. Nunes that this rule brings to the floor. 

This bill restores the water allocations established under the Bay Delta Accord in 1994.  When that agreement was signed, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt assured all parties that – quote – “a deal is a deal, and if it turns out there is a need for additional water it will come at the expense of the federal government.”  The water diversions shattered that promise. This bill redeems it.

The Federal Central Valley Project is part of a coordinated operating agreement with the State Water Project at California’s request and consent.  The two are inseparable and in order to protect the water rights of every Californian, this bill brings the full force of federal law to protect those rights so that there is no ambiguity.  This protection has earned this measure the support of the Northern California Water Association, representing the senior water rights holders.

Opponents say, “this pre-empts state water rights.”  It doesn’t pre-empt state water rights – it specifically invokes and protects state water rights against infringement by any bureaucracy – local, state or federal – a legitimate Constitutional function of the federal government established under the 14th Amendment and made essential by the terms of the state-approved joint operating agreement of these inter-twined water systems.

The bill also restores common sense and practicality to protections for endangered native species like Salmon and Delta Smelt.  One of the greatest threats to these endangered native species is non-native invasive predators like the striped bass.  Indeed, it is common to find striped bass in the Sacramento Delta gorged with endangered salmon smolts and delta smelt.  This bill allows open season on these predators.   And it encourages the use of fish hatcheries to assure the perpetuation of thriving native populations of salmon and smelt.

It replaces the cost-prohibitive provisions of the San Joaquin River Settlement Act which contemplates spending an estimated $1 billion to achieve the stated goal of establishing a population of 500 salmon below the Friant Dam – that comes to $2 million per fish.   This bill replaces the absurd mandate of a year-round cold-water fishery on the hot valley floor with a warm-water fishery that actually acts in concert with the habitat. 

 It removes disincentives in current law that discourage ground-water banking in wet years.  It allows the re-cycling of environmental flows by communities once they have achieved their environmental purpose.

 The movement for stronger environmental protections began over legitimate concerns to protect our vital natural resources.  But like many movements, as it succeeded in its legitimate ends, it also attracted a self-interested constituency that has driven far past the borders of commonsense and into the realms of political extremism and outright plunder. 

This bill replaces the cost-prohibitive and unachievable dictates that caused so much human suffering in California with workable, affordable and realistic measures based on real science and not on what one federal judge rightly called the “ideological zealotry” of rogue bureaucrats.

This debate will determine if we are about to enter a new era when common sense can be restored to our public policy and a sensible balance restored between environmental and human needs. 

I welcome that debate, and ask for adoption of the rule to bring it forth.

# # #
  

I have submitted a shorter letter responding to the Chronicle’s front-page article by Carolyn Lochhead (“Central Valley reps bill would upend water rights,” February 17, 2012), but believe the inaccuracies and omissions in it are so stark that it deserves a more detailed reply.

“Representatives from the Central Valley pushed legislation through a House committee Thursday that would upend the state's system of water rights, deploying the federal government to extract water from Northern California farms, fisheries and cities to send to farmers in the valley.”

Title IV of the measure specifically reaffirms and guarantees the state’s system of water rights and brings the full force of federal law to protect those rights.
 
Indeed, the Northern California Water Association, representing the very water users Ms. Lochhead contends would have their rights “upended” and their water “extracted” strongly supports the bill.  It writes:

 “The bill, if enacted, now contains provisions that would not only protect the interests of senior water rights holders in the Sacramento Valley, but would also provide significant, material water policy improvements to current federal law.  The bill, if enacted, would provide an unprecedented federal statutory express recognition of, and commitment to, California’s state water rights priority system and area of origin protections.  This is important for the region to provide sustainable water supplies for productive farmlands, wildlife refuges, and managed wetlands, cities and rural communities, recreation, and meandering rivers that support important fisheries.”

 Additionally, Title I, Section 105 of the bill permits Delta and Bay Area districts to re-use environmental water once it has served its purpose, increasing the amount of water available to Northern California communities. 

 Finally, the vote was bi-partisan, with Democrats Jim Costa (D-California) and Dan Boren (D-Oklahoma) joining Republicans in adopting the bill 27 to 17.

“The legislation would halt restoration of the San Joaquin River, leaving as much as 40 miles of the river dry, restore irrigation contracts and override fish and wildlife protections in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.”

This charge, which was also made in the Chronicle’s editorial of February 16, 2012, is categorically false.  In fact, Title II merely replaces the coldwater fishery established under the San Joaquin River Settlement Act of 2009 with a warm water fishery more conducive to the Central Valley habitat, guaranteeing year round flows.   During my opening statement, I said:

“(The bill) replaces the San Joaquin River Settlement Act that was imposed in 2009 with a workable and vastly less expensive alternative.

“Let me put the current San Joaquin River Settlement Act in perspective.  It will spend more than one billion dollars to achieve the stated goal of establishing a population of 500 salmon below the Friant dam.  That comes to two million dollars per fish. And that’s without accounting for the costs that will be incurred by Central Valley farmers as water that is already in critically short supply is diverted to this project that are estimated to increase the actual cost ten-fold.”

During committee discussion, I went on to say, “The San Joaquin River is on the hot valley floor – the only time it has been a cold-water fishery was during very wet years and then only sporadically.”

“McClintock negotiated an agreement from fellow Republicans to preserve local water rights to protect his Sacramento district from the original bill.”

 In fact, I said in my opening statement that my office had conducted “a laborious eight-month process of consulting more than 60 northern California water agencies – in both Democratic and Republican congressional districts -- and the result is an unprecedented consensus reflected in the amendment.” During the committee debate, I read a list of 11 water districts in Democratic Congressman Garamendi’s district alone that we worked with on amendments to protect their water rights. 

Whatever our personal biases and opinions, we should at least be able to agree that readers are entitled to the truth, particularly in a story appearing on the front page of a major metropolitan newspaper over a matter of significant public importance.  All of the facts and statements cited above were made during the public meeting and should have been known to all those who attended it.  I believe that this article clearly crossed the line into demonstrable falsehood and I challenge the management of the Chronicle to set the record straight.

Sincerely,

Tom McClintock
Chairman, Sub-Committee on Water and Power, House Natural Resources Committee

Auburn Project Area Announcement
Auburn, California

February 21, 2012

I remember when we met here in Auburn in April of 2010 under imminent threat of closure, all the “experts” said that the only way to keep the Auburn Project Area lands open would be with massive federal earmarks.

I am pleased to note that today’s announcement is the result not of federal earmarks, but rather of re-ordering federal priorities and re-instituting the “beneficiary pays” principle – both of which have been policy objectives of the sub-committee on Water and Power during the 112th Congress.

 Indeed, when the Bureau claimed there wasn’t any money to keep these lands open, we took a line-item look at their budget and discovered that they had plenty of money for low-flow toilet grants, rock gardens and research on the sex life of salamanders. I am pleased that the Bureau has re-ordered its priorities to place public access to the public lands at a higher level of importance.

 Part of the financial support for this agreement comes from the beneficiaries of these lands, assuring that those who specifically benefit from these facilities pay their fair share of the cost.

 Although the State Parks Department calls this the “Auburn State Recreation Area,” it retains its official designation as the “Auburn Project Lands,” in recognition of its ultimate and congressionally authorized use as Auburn Lake.

 In the last few years, this region has suffered skyrocketing water and electricity prices and the Sacramento delta continues to live under the threat of a Katrina-sized flood disaster.  It is inevitable that these growing needs will ultimately result in construction of the Auburn Dam and Auburn Lake. 

It’s not just the 2.3 million acre feet of desperately needed water storage, 800 megawatts of the cleanest and cheapest electricity on the planet and 400-year flood protection for Sacramento this will provide.  It also means the birth of Auburn Lake as one of the premier recreational gems in California, offering far more recreational activities, amenities and commerce than available today and assuring that we will never again have to scramble for funding when the next round of budget cuts begins. 

 Until that day, however, today’s announcement assures that the public will retain access to its lands and that the facilities here can remain open.  And that is reason enough to celebrate.
 

Congressman McClintock offered an amendment to HR 1837 (Nunes) during a hearing on the bill in the Natural Resources Committee.  Congressman McClintock's statement on the amendment  is below.  The amendment was approved by the committee on a bipartisan vote.

Statement on Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute
House Committee on Natural Resources
February 16, 2012

Mr. Chairman,

As I said in my opening statement, this amendment has been painstakingly negotiated and crafted over a period of eight months, in response to the concerns raised over the security of senior water rights in Northern California. 

The concern, which we took very seriously, involves the interaction of California’s tangled state and federal jurisdictions.  The concern was that a change in federal law could trigger adverse state actions affecting those senior water rights holders.  And California is notorious for abridging the property rights of its citizens.

As I said during the hearing on June 13th, “no legislation will clear this subcommittee that in any way undermines local area of origin water rights as long as (I) have anything to say about it.” This amendment not only makes good on that promise, but materially strengthens those rights.

During those eight months, we consulted and negotiated with over 60 Northern and Central California water agencies and actually achieved a peaceful settlement of longstanding disputes that have simmered too long among them.

In fact, a joint statement was issued yesterday that included the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority in Northern California and the Westlands Water  District in Central California that have been bitter adversaries for many years.  It reads in part, “Water agencies in northern California areas of origin and the export service areas of the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project are now speaking with one voice concerning the benefits of this legislation.”

I ask unanimous consent to enter the full statement into the record.

Very simply stated, this amendment brings the full force of federal law to defend the rights of all water users throughout the system. 

The Northern California Water Association – speaking as the umbrella group for all the water districts in Northern California -- writes in part:

 “The bill, if enacted, now contains provisions that would not only protect the interests of senior water rights holders in the Sacramento Valley, but would also provide significant, material water policy improvements to current federal law.  The bill, if enacted, would provide an unprecedented federal statutory express recognition of, and commitment to, California’s state water rights priority system and area of origin protections.  This is important for the region to provide sustainable water supplies for productive farmlands, wildlife refuges, and managed wetlands, cities and rural communities, recreation, and meandering rivers that support important fisheries.”

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter the full statement into the record.
 
The assertion of federal supremacy in this matter is firmly rooted in the Constitution.  Indeed, in 1978 the United States Supreme Court clearly stated in California v. United States that a “clear Congressional directive” would have invoked federal supremacy over any conflicting state law governing operations of a federal reclamation project.  This measure does precisely that.

More importantly, the 14th Amendment provides Congress with both the authority and the duty to protect the property rights -- including the water rights -- of every citizen against encroachments by state governments.  This measure clearly and unambiguously does so. 

This bill initially arose because contracted water that was desperately needed to support the prosperity of an entire region – and had already been paid for -- was instead expropriated and blissfully and cavalierly dumped into the Pacific Ocean.

This bill still protects against a repetition of this tragedy, but with this amendment, it has grown into a measure that may not end California’s notorious water wars, but at least calms the troubled waters among all those communities and families who depend on this precious resource.  It places senior water rights holders in a more safe and secure position, treats our water as the precious resource it is, and restores balance between human and environmental uses of that resource. 

I want to thank the many legislative offices and our sub-committee staff, for countless hours spent in shuttle diplomacy among these many diverse agencies.  And I want to thank the many staffs and officials within these agencies for their good will, their earnest efforts, their honest compromises and their professional dedication to the residents, families and businesses that depend upon them. 

# # #
 

Opening Statement on HR 1837 (Nunes)
House Committee on Natural Resources
February 16, 2012

Mr. Chairman:

We are all aware of the human and economic tragedy that occurred in California’s Central Valley in 2009 and 2010 when hundreds of billions of gallons of contracted water were diverted to the ocean in the name of the Delta Smelt. 

This policy fallowed between a quarter million and a half million acres of some of the most productive farmland in America, threw thousands of hard-working families into unemployment, devastated communities throughout the region and created the spectacle of food lines handing out carrots imported from China in a region which had just a year before produced much of the fruits and vegetables in the United States.

In the 111th Congress, the then-minority Republicans on the sub-committee asked repeatedly for hearings to address this catastrophe to no avail.  Finally, we held an informal field hearing where we heard first hand of the human suffering these policies caused.  Last year, we returned to hold a formal hearing to take testimony on what could be done to correct this disaster. 

As a result of these hearings, Mr. Nunes introduced HR 1837.  The most significant part of this bill restores the “Principles for Agreement on the Bay Delta Standards Between the State of California and the Federal Government,” better known as the Bay Delta Accord and codifies the flows established in that agreement.  The Bay Delta Accord received bi-partisan support and served as the basis for project operations from 1994 until 2007 when the water diversions began. 

In 1992, provisions of the Central Valley Improvement Act imposed a superstructure of regulations and restrictions that have severely limited the ability of a willing seller and a willing buyer to move water from areas of surplus to areas of shortage. 

These voluntary transactions provided for efficient and rapid assignment of water throughout the system.  This bill restores the freedom of exchange on pre-existing agreements between water contractors throughout the system.

The bill also brings transparency and accountability to the Central Valley Project Restoration Fund, which has spent over $800 million in water and ratepayer dollars.

The sub-committee received ample testimony that natural ocean currents and invasive non-native predators such as striped bass pose a far greater threat to native fish populations than the delta pumps.  The currents are beyond our control, but this measure strengthens our ability to control non-native predators that are decimating native endangered fish populations in the Delta.  It also encourages the use of fish hatcheries to economically and dramatically increase native fish populations such as salmon and the Delta Smelt.

It replaces the San Joaquin River Settlement Act that was imposed in 2009 with a workable and vastly less expensive alternative. 

Let me put the current San Joaquin River Settlement Act in perspective.  It will spend more than one billion dollars to achieve the stated goal of establishing a population of 500 salmon below the Friant dam.  That comes to two million dollars per fish. And that’s without accounting for the costs that will be incurred by Central Valley farmers as water that is already in critically short supply is diverted to this project that are estimated to increase the actual cost ten-fold.

Finally, it includes provisions to encourage recycling of environmental water and it removes pricing mechanisms that have discouraged water banking and early re-payment of federal loans. 
 
The sub-committee held two public hearings on this measure – which included twice as many minority witnesses as majority witnesses.

During these hearings, a serious and legitimate concern was expressed that the unique interaction of state and federal jurisdictions posed the risk that restoring the original water agreements could jeopardize senior water rights holders if the state turned to them to replace that water.  

As a result, we began a laborious eight-month process of consulting more than 60 northern California water agencies – in both Democratic and Republican congressional districts -- and the result is an unprecedented consensus reflected in the amendments that I will present in a few minutes.

The sum total of this work broadens the measure to resolve long-standing disputes between Northern and Central California water users and brings the full force of federal law to protect the senior water rights held by Northern California areas of origin and assures greater access to water by the communities throughout the region.

# # #
 

This bill presents us with a simple question: “It is possible – just possible – that from time to time Congress has passed a spending bill or two that ought to have had greater scrutiny?”   Text.

House Chamber remarks by Congressman Tom McClintock in support of HR 3521 – Line Item Veto

February 8, 2012

Mr. Chairman:

This bill presents us with a simple question: “It is possible – just possible – that from time to time Congress has passed a spending bill or two that ought to have had greater scrutiny?”  The answer to this question might elude some members of the House, but I assure them it is self-evident to everybody else.

A country whose finances are as far out of control as ours suffers not from too many checks and balances on spending, but from too few.

Opponents discuss this bill as if it were a new and radical idea.  The fact is, many states operate with a genuine line item veto and have for generations. 

For those states, it has been an important tool to control their spending, and those provisions are far more stringent than what is proposed here.

 In conformance with our Constitution, this bill simply invites the President to call to Congress’s attention those spending items he recommends that we give additional thought to and to put a six-week hold on those funds while we do so.

In fact, from 1801 until 1974, the President had the recognized authority to impound excess spending indefinitely – a legitimate executive function first asserted by President Thomas Jefferson.  The Budget Act of 1974 stripped the executive of this vital check on Congressional excess. 

I would prefer to see us restore that fiscal safeguard, or better still, amend the Constitution to provide the President an actual line item veto.

But let’s at least set up a process so the President can warn us when he believes we have appropriated more money than he needs to execute the laws that we pass.

This bill is frankly a mouse when we need a lion.  The fact that it has produced shrieks of horror from some quarters of the House is an exact measure of the extent and nature of our problem.

# # #

National Indian Gaming Association
February 8, 2012


    Thank you for the invitation to join you again this year.

    What has brought me to support Indian gaming is not just the commerce and prosperity that it produces.  There are two more fundamental principles at stake that make this a just and noble cause.

    One is the tribal sovereignty that made the once impoverished Indian reservations islands of freedom in an ocean of anti-business regulations emanating from local, state and federal governments.

    It is not gaming that is making the tribes prosper – it is the freedom of commerce that tribal sovereignty protects. 

    The other principle is freedom of choice.  As you know, there is a strong opposition to gambling by those who believe that they’re so good at running their own lives that, gosh darn it, they’re also entitled to run everybody else’s. 

    They don’t approve of gaming so they feel entitled to deny it to all.

    I know this is a strange thing to admit to an association dedicated to the gaming industry, but I don’t gamble.  I’m sorry.  I’m not very good at it and I don’t enjoy it very much.  And I’m just too cheap.

    If it’s any consolation, I feel exactly the same way about stamp collecting.

    But that doesn’t give me the right to tell someone else who is good at it, or who does enjoy it, that they shouldn’t do it either.  And it certainly doesn’t give me a right to take government’s gun and force them not to do it.

    But it’s not just the right of individuals to make these decisions for themselves.  It is the right to compete for their business and their right to choose among competitors for those who offer the best service to them. 

    Will and Ariel Durant once asked the question, “What makes Ford a good car?”  Chevrolet. 

    Competition.  That’s what produces innovation and efficiency and excellence in any human enterprise – the fact that somebody down the street is doing the same thing.  And it is competition that makes consumers happy and loyal customers.

    I lay all this out to broach a tender subject.  As many of you know, I have been an outspoken advocate for tribal sovereignty before there was Indian gaming, and I have advocated for it for fully a quarter of a century in the California legislature and most recently in Congress. 

    It pains me to see tribe turning against tribe in attempts to deny to others these very same rights.  In 1860, Abraham Lincoln warned that “those who would deny liberty to others deserve it not for themselves.”

    These fights undermine the very principles that provide the foundation that you and I have stood upon to successfully argue to protect and extend the freedom that the reservations preserve and to protect the right to engage in peaceful commerce in competition with others in a free market.

    To abandon these principles in an attempt to obtain some temporary competitive advantage is to abandon the moral high ground that makes this cause a noble one.  And worse than that, it relegates that cause to the tawdry and unworthy realm of raw political power, where competitive advantage is not earned in the market place through merit, but rather conferred by government fiat as it picks winners among the strong and powerful and losers among the weak and voiceless. 

    I have been proud to fight by your side in state and federal government.  The only real joy I have found in politics is the chance to be part of a cause bigger than oneself and that cause can be summed up in a word, “freedom.”  And it is because of the nobility of that cause that you and I have prevailed in this fight – because it enables us to appeal above man’s baser instincts and to what Lincoln called, “The better angels of our nature.”  To traduce these principles is to begin down the road to ruin. 


 

A family that excludes from its budget the mortgage payments it knows it must make is deluding itself and sabotaging its own finances...Text.

HR 3581 (Garrett)
Budget and Accounting Transparency Act of 2011

House floor remarks by Congressman Tom McClintock

February 8, 2012

A family that excludes from its budget the mortgage payments it knows it must make is deluding itself and sabotaging its own finances.  That’s precisely what the federal government is doing right now with respect to billions of dollars of liabilities because of its ill-fated sponsorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 

This bill takes a small step toward restoring honest and accurate accounting to our government’s finances by requiring that the enormous liabilities incurred by Fannie and Freddie be accounted for in the federal budget process using the same accounting standards for loans that we already impose on mortgage lenders.

I wish this bill abolished Fannie and Freddie outright.  I wish it restored the days when banks or borrowers who made bad decisions took responsibility for them, and didn’t demand that their neighbors pay for their mistakes.

But can’t we at least agree that the public has a right to expect that the costs of this folly are honestly accounted for in the nation’s budget?
 

# # #

Opening Statement by Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock
Water and Power Subcommittee Hearing:  "Water for Our Future and Job Creation: Examining Regulatory and Bureaucratic Barriers to New Surface Storage Infrastructure"

February 7, 2012

The subcommittee on Water and Power meets today to consider what steps need to be taken to remove government-imposed impediments to the construction of new dams and reservoirs.

 The need for action can be summarized quite succinctly: The Bureau of Reclamation has built over 600 dams and reservoirs in the last century, but two-thirds of them were built in the first 60 years of its existence – more than 50 years ago.  With one exception, Reclamation has not built any major dams or reservoirs in the last generation.

 And now, under this administration, the Bureau of Reclamation is actually moving to tear down perfectly good dams to placate the most extreme elements of the environmental left. 

 This shift of purpose is fast becoming a direct and imminent threat not only to the prosperity of the west, but to our very ability to support our population.  For example, California’s 37 million people now rely on a water system built to support a population of just 22 million. 

 Last year, this subcommittee focused on the release or diversion of billions of gallons of desperately needed water to meet absurd environmental regulations.

 But that’s just part of the man-made drought that is gripping the west.  The other part is the panoply of federal regulations that makes the construction of new storage cost prohibitive.

 Last year, California had one of the wettest winters on record.  So far this year, it has had one of the driest.  Last year, billions of gallons of water had to be released simply because we had no place to store that surplus water.  If the drought continues for another year, we will rue the decisions that denied us the additional storage capacity that would have saved that water.  

As we will hear, major projects have been hamstrung because of litigation and regulatory excesses stemming from 1970’s era legislation.  Three years ago, this subcommittee travelled to Colorado which was in the grips of a chronic water shortage.  There, we learned that if the Two-Forks project had not been blocked in this manner, they would have had no water shortage.   

Apologists for the status quo tell us that dams are too expensive.  They blissfully ignore the fact that it is precisely these excessive regulations – having nothing to do with dam safety – that have needlessly and artificially driven up the cost. 

It is true that dams impede the migration of certain species of fish – a problem that is easily and economically addressed through down-stream fish hatcheries.  Yet hatchery fish are often not included in ESA population counts despite the fact there is no more genetic difference between hatchery fish and fish born in the wild than there is between a baby born at the hospital and a baby born at home.

Indeed, it was the construction of dams that made possible the year-round cold-water flows so conducive to thriving fish populations.  The dams tamed the environmentally devastating cycle of floods and droughts that once plagued these habitats. 

Nor will conservation measures such as recycling and rationing address our needs.  As we will hear, there are limits to what conservation alone can do to address this shortage, and handing out taxpayer grants for toilet exchanges and rock gardens isn’t going meet the next generation’s needs.  Title 16 recycling legislation in the last Congress cost twice as much as imported water to the same regions. 

Conservation is what you do to manage a shortage.  It is the government’s responsibility to alleviate that shortage.  And that means that this generation must summon the common sense and resolve that the greatest generation used to build the infrastructure that we still rely upon today. 

That means returning to the sound principles of finance that produced this infrastructure: hard-nosed cost-benefit analysis and restoring the beneficiary pays principle that the actual users of these projects pay for them in proportion to their use. 

We have squandered enormous amounts of money and precious time proving that the policies of the 1970’s do not work, and we now face devastating water shortages as the cost of that lesson.  It was a generation whose folly resembles Edward Gibbon’s description of “Decent easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder.”  Those days need to end now.

 It is time to open a new chapter in the history of the West: that a new generation recovered and restored the vision of abundance of its forbearers and finished the job described by the founder of the Bureau of Reclamation as “making the desert bloom.”  
 

HR 3582 (Price)
Pro-Growth Budgeting Act

The simple question now before us is whether it is better for Congress to have more information or less information when it is deliberating on matters that directly affect the economy of this nation.

 The answer should be self-evident, but apparently, some members of this house prefer blissful ignorance than having to go to the fuss and bother of actually assessing the full ramifications of the policies they are enacting.  (That explains a lot about some of the decisions they’ve made in recent years).

 The economy is a dynamic and fast-changing thing, responding rapidly to every tax and regulation imposed by government and every dollar that changes hands in markets.  

Yet, the rules under which the Congressional Budget Office operates severely constrain its ability to take this obvious reality into account in the information that it provides us. 

This measure doesn’t presume to tell the CBO how to do its job or what formulae to use in its analysis.  It doesn’t even change the outmoded static modeling it uses to score the fiscal impact of measures before us. 

All that it says is, “give us the complete picture.”  If a proposal is going to affect the economy significantly – for good or ill – tell us.  Tell us what you think and show us why you think so. 

Patrick Henry summed up this bill perfectly when he said, “For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
 

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
February 2, 2012

M. Speaker:

Today I have introduced a bill to name the United States Post Office in Granite Bay, California in honor of United States Marine Corps Private First Class Victor Dew.  This young man was only 20 years old when he left his family and friends in late September of 2010 for Helmand Province, Afghanistan.  Just three weeks later, on October 13th, Private Dew was killed in action when his convoy was ambushed.

Victor grew up dreaming of becoming a Marine.  He loved military history and was fully aware of the mortal dangers he would face. Yet, when he was offered a posting to a ceremonial position stateside, he turned it down.  He believed his duty and destiny was to keep the fight away from our shores; away from his family and his country; and so he chose combat even when he had been offered safe and honorable service at home.

What did he sacrifice to give our country a little more security and to give another country a fleeting chance of redemption?  He had everything in the world to live for.  He was engaged to be married to a devoted young lady named Courtney Gold.  Courtney said, “We had life in the grasp of our hands and we were ready to take on the world.”   They would have. 

She had already picked out her wedding dress.  There’s a picture of her wearing that dress.  It is in Victor’s casket.

 Victor was one of those sunny personalities who lifted the spirits of everyone around him.  That’s the recurring theme in the recollections of everyone who knew him – they’d be feeling down and Victor would lift them up.  I didn’t know him, but I think I caught a glimpse of him in his little brother, Kyle.  At the funeral reception last year, I found Kyle sitting at a table with his friends.  When I offered him my condolences, one of his friends said, “We came to cheer him up and instead he’s been cheering us up.”

Victor lives on in the lives of those he touched – and he touched quite a few.  He is remembered in his community as a faithful friend and an inspiring teacher – before he enlisted he had already become a popular martial arts instructor at a local dojo.  Some of his students – some of them a lot older than he – came to his service.

It has now been over a year since he returned to Granite Bay.  In that year, he would have celebrated his 21st birthday; he would have returned safely home with his unit; he would have been married.  And as Courtney said, he would have taken on the world.

Instead he rests in an honored grave.  His family does what every Gold Star family does – they cope with their grief through a mixture of fond memories, faith, and most of all, of pride for the life of their son.

There are many graves in that cemetery, etched with lifetimes much longer than the 20 years recorded on Victor’s.  But none of them comes close to his in this most important respect: what they did with those years. 

The most iconic work of art on the Titanic was a great carving that depicted “honor” and “glory” crowning time.  Victor Dew’s time may have been short in this world but he crowned that time with honor and glory that the rest of us can only marvel at.  

Every morning since he was 12 years old, Victor Dew awoke under a Marine Corps Banner over his bed emblazoned with the words, “Semper Fidelis.” In his life, we can see the full measure of those words. 

Every day in this majestic Capitol, we walk in the footsteps of the giants of our nation’s history.  The oratory of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster still echoes through these halls.  At arm’s reach of where I stand at this moment once spoke Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur and Winston Churchill.  And yet in their long and illustrious lives, not one could claim to have sacrificed more for his country than these young men like Victor Dew.

Lincoln was right, that no meager words of ours can add or detract from their deeds.  But Shakespeare was also right, that their story should the good man teach his son.

For that reason, I am proud to join a unanimous delegation from California in proposing that the Post Office in the town where Victor Dew lived, and loved and returned as a fallen hero, be named in his honor.

Today I have introduced a bill to name the United States Post Office in Granite Bay, California in honor of United States Marine Corps Private First Class Victor Dew.  This young man was only 20 years old when he left his family and friends in late September of 2010 for Helmand Province, Afghanistan.  Text.