Speeches

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Subcommittee on Water and Power held an oversight hearing today to examine the FY 2012 budget request for the Bureau of Reclamation. Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock made the following opening statement at the hearing:

Opening Statement
Congressman Tom McClintock
Chairman
House Water and Power Subcommittee

Oversight Hearing on “Examining the Spending, Priorities and the Missions of the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Water Resources Program”

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. February 15, 2011

M. Speaker:

Last year I voted to extend the PATRIOT Act for one year. I regret that vote and was glad to have been able to correct it, although I am pained that the House voted otherwise yesterday.

During this past year, I have become convinced that the provisions of the so-called PATRIOT Act are an affront to the Bill of Rights and a serious threat to our fundamental liberty as Americans.

Congressman Tom McClintock, Chairman of the House Water and Power Subcommittee, today made the following remarks on the House floor during consideration of a resolution directing committees to identify federal regulations that impede job creation and slow the economy

House Resolution 72
House Chamber, Washington, D.C

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. January 19, 2011. M. Speaker:

The Department of Interior issued an announcement yesterday that perfectly illustrates the irrationality of our current approach to water issues.

California’s precipitation this season has gone off the charts. Statewide snow water content is 198 percent of normal; in the all-important Northern Sierra snowpack is 174 percent of normal. This is not only a wet year – it is one of the wettest years on record.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. January 18, 2011.

M. Speaker:

The central promises of Obamacare were that it would bend health costs down and wouldn’t threaten existing plans.

We now know that both these claims were false.

The CBO warns that this law will increase average private premiums by $2,100 within five years above what they otherwise would have been without Obamacare. The administration’s own actuary admits that the law bends the cost curve up – not down – by $311 billion over the next ten years.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. January 12, 2011. M. Speaker:

I haven’t gotten to know Gabrielle Giffords yet, and I thank God that by His grace, I haven’t lost the chance to do so.

I didn’t know those Americans who came to speak with her that day.

But what I do know is that they gathered last Saturday in Tucson to do something uniquely American. Gabrielle Giffords was reaching out and listening to her employers, the American People, and they had come to offer her their guidance and advice and counsel.

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. January 7, 2011. M. Speaker:

Much of my district comprises forests managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Over the last two years, I have received a growing volume of complaints protesting the increasingly exclusionary and elitist policies of this agency.

These complaints charge the Forest Service, among other things, with:

• Imposing inflated fees that are forcing the abandonment of family cabins held for generations;

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. January 6, 2011. M. Speaker:

I rise to express the hope that historians will look back on the 112th Congress as the session that restored American prosperity – and to express my strong agreement with the new leaders of this House who have declared that every action of this body must be measured against this goal.

We speak of “jobs, jobs, jobs,” but jobs are a product of prosperity. And prosperity is the product of freedom.