Date: 2014-03-06
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H

Let me thank the manager. my friend. Congressman JOHNSON. Mr. MARINO. our colleagues on the floor of the House. and as well on the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Chair. I rise to accept the fact that there are opportunities for discussion on streamlining and effectively expediting processes in a collaborative way in the Federal Government to continue to move forward the Federal Government. as it is responsible to the American people. Unfortunately. I believe that we are not at that place today with H.R. 2641. President Obama has been cited repeatedly. I believe that his words at that time and today are accurate. No one would want the Federal Government to stall moving projects forward. I might ask my colleagues. however. if they would join me in fully funding infrastructure and rebuilding this country. which we have not been able to do for almost 5 years. By reading the Statement of Administration Policy. the administration strongly rejects the legislations premise in H.R. 2641 that public input and responsible agency decisionmaking under current law hinders job creation. The administration believes that H.R. 2641. if enacted. will lead to more confusion and delay. limit public participation in the permitting process. and ultimately hamper economic growth. There lies. Mr. Chairman. the underpinnings of the Presidents veto threat. Where is this bill going? I will. at the appropriate time. place the administrations statement into the RECORD. So what are we talking about with this legislation? One. this legislation would narrow the scope of judicial review. In addition. this legislation would narrow the review by one Federal agency. who would allegedly coordinate other Federal and State agencies. Let me tell you what the problem with that is. Mr. Chairman. that is that each of the agencies have their own extra expertise. so you are snuffing their expertise. You are quashing their expertise. You are forcing one agency to be the giant understander of all the nuances of the other agencies which have a responsibility to their constituency and to the American people. Then you have a set of circumstances that suggests. as my amendment will hope to correct. that you are going to deem up. If you dont get the job done. we are going to deem you up. Beam you up. We are going to just assume that everything has been done and you can go forward. It doesnt matter whether you trample on farmland in Texas or whether or not you are. in essence. leveling suburban homes in Pennsylvania or whether or not you are in the mountains of Georgia and cause havoc. So I would make the argument that this is not an act that is answering the question. It is a solution searching for a problem. Frankly. the argument made by many of us is the principal causes of unjustified delay in implementing the NEPA review process are inadequate agency resources. And the Bush administration noted that NEPA was not a cause for delay. I would ask my colleagues. how can we work together? I think for a moment I will just pause and say that yesterday was an unfortunate incident in the House Oversight Committee. It did not reflect well on this institution or chairmen who lead committees. I pause to say that because I believe it is an important statement to make on the Floor of the House. that we should never have a setting in a committee where a ranking member is silenced. or that a hand is used across ones neck to make a comment about an individual not being able to speak. All of us are equal. I raise that here because we are talking about process and procedure. And even though one might argue that there was a regular process of this particular legislation. we could have been more collaborative. because I am empathetic and I am sympathetic that we all want to make sure that projects move quickly. that jobs are created. But the administration has made an assessment that NEPA is not the delay. the Bush administration has done so. And what we need is to fully fund the government with adequate resources so that our agencies with the appropriate staff can move forward.