Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I stand, once again, today to offer an amendment with my fellow Californian, Tom McClintock, and I have to say this is a deja vu moment. Just last year, Mr. McClintock and I worked together, on a bipartisan basis, to finally strike a wasteful provision that was in the 2016 Defense Appropriations Act and had been in many previous Defense Appropriations Acts.

Our amendment, which passed overwhelmingly in this House, would save taxpayers millions of dollars by ending an outdated earmark mandating that the Defense Department ship coal from a certain part of Pennsylvania, 4,000 miles across the planet, to American bases in Germany.

Somehow, this zombie provision from the deepest days of the cold war and the golden era of congressional earmarks, when you could go into a bill like this and arrange a sweetheart deal for a certain district and a certain coal company, somehow that provision was snuck back into this year's bill. It just won't die.

Now, for years, the Department of Defense and the President's annual budget has urged Congress to get rid of this provision, to allow the use of cheaper fuels to power its military bases in Germany. But because of certain special interests, the provision has persisted. It is a terrible deal for the American taxpayers, for the environment, but it has persisted.

Now that finally changed last year, and our amendment not only passed this House but it passed by a vote of 252-179. In this House, that is what we call a home run.

Like a bad sequel, this earmark is back once again, sneaking into the 2017 bill under a new name. Now don't let the new wording trick you. The practical implications and the intent are exactly the same as the old zombie earmark language.

Congress worked on a bipartisan basis last year to kill this bad idea, and it should do so again because the bottom line is that taxpayers should not be paying to ship coal, or any other energy source, 4,000 miles across the planet to a certain facility in Germany. We should give the Air Force the same flexibility to meet its energy needs that every other U.S. military installation around the world has.

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to the balance of my time?

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the other gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).
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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, the boogeyman of Russian coal and Vladimir Putin really do strain credulity. In addition to the option of buying coal in Germany itself, which would obviously be one way to do this, as my colleague, Mr. McClintock, points out, there is abundant coal alternatives if they want to buy coal in Poland, our NATO ally, or in Ukraine, an ally that we would like to help in lots of ways as they strive for independence and economic development under the boot of Vladimir Putin's Russia.

The last thing that was raised, the fact that somehow the language in the base bill would not require coal from Pennsylvania, is also a red herring. The language in this bill that says domestically sourced energy is required and other provisions effectively mean that the status quo--the sweetheart arrangement with one specific coal company in Pennsylvania--would be the only way that the Air Force could comply with this requirement.

So let's reiterate our bipartisan opposition to this wasteful, zombie earmark. I ask for an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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