Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, this amendment eliminates the funding for the Delaware River Basin Commission, the funding that is from the Federal Government.
Unfortunately, this bill provides nearly three quarters of a million dollars to the Delaware River Basin Commission, meaning that since 1998, the Federal Government has provided funding of some sort to this commission full of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats that have unilaterally, in this case, instituted a hydraulic fracturing ban for a portion of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, literally stripping away the property and mineral rights from Pennsylvanians in direct contravention of the will of the legislature.
These people aren't elected by anybody. They are not accountable to anybody. Most people have no idea who the people on this commission even are.
The result is a prohibition on the development of critical shale plays in eastern Pennsylvania that can bring desperately needed natural gas to the market and the unconstitutional taking of mineral rights of the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Americans are having unelected bureaucrats take their rights away.
It is an attack on Pennsylvania energy and American energy. At a time when residential natural gas prices are near record highs, it creates significant inflation, cost-of-living increases for our constituents, and empowers our enemies abroad.
Now, instead of taking action to stop this unconstitutional seizure of State authority, as my other amendment that was not made in order would have done, or better yet, dissolving the compact altogether, this bill, as it currently exists, rewards the radical commissioners with money from the very taxpayers the Delaware River Basin Commission is attacking.
Providing funds to such an out-of-control, radical commission is a step in the wrong direction that incentivizes others like it to follow.
This amendment that I am offering would rescind this money and move it to the spending reduction account, ensuring that we do not further incentivize this commission to attack American energy and the rights of Pennsylvania while trying to pay off some of our $33 trillion of debt.
Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, my colleague says that it costs mere pennies. These mere pennies add up to mere dollars. These mere dollars add up to thousands, eventually millions and eventually billions, which is where we are right now.
It talks about return on investments. It talks about it but it doesn't say what the return on investment is, because there isn't any return on investment.
It provides immense value, it is claimed. Yet, the value cannot be described. It cannot be quantified. No one knows what the value is.
Will the Delaware River Basin go away if the Commission were not there? Are you saying without the Commission there would be no safe drinking water?
The actions that this commission has taken are unfounded, unjustified, and are happening nowhere else. Yet, there is clean drinking water across the rest of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania without this commission banning public and private activity.
My colleague says it is necessary funding. Necessary for what? What are we getting for this? Somebody is getting something, but the people of Pennsylvania, they are getting the shaft.
Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Chair, needless to say, I disagree with the premise of my wonderful colleague across the aisle.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I would say I dispute the claim that they work in collaboration.
The Delaware River Basin Commission itself, in contravention of the Pennsylvania legislature, has banned the practice all over northern Pennsylvania. Hydraulic fracturing; banned it in contravention of the will and the wishes of the elected members of the Pennsylvania legislature.
I would say this as well: The Corps of Engineers can do this work whether there is a commission or not, or whether this money is here or not. The Corps of Engineers has wide latitude to do that work all across the country. They don't need our involvement.
Finally, the individual States involved in this compact, that is why they got into the compact. They charge people in the individual States all kinds of permit fees and regulatory fees to pay for this Commission. Yet, somehow the Commission can't survive without more money from the Federal Government. It is ridiculous, it is duplicative, it is costly, it is unaffordable, it is unnecessary, and it needs to end.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I simply say as we finalize this discussion, that there are 14.2 million people who are being affected, who will be affected, and who think this is important.
There is a $22 billion economic activity that will be impacted. Needless to say, I have chosen this as a project that I support because in the time that I have had the opportunity to serve the 12th Congressional District in the State of New Jersey, this is an issue that I find very important. I do hope that my colleagues will oppose this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment strikes $35 million in funding for the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.
For those unfamiliar with this office, according to its website, it accelerates the market adoption of clean energy technologies and fills a critical innovation gap on the path to 100 percent clean energy by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2050.
I am going to characterize it a different way. Since the real market, the private market won't do it, you are going to pay for it under force by your taxes so that you can have less reliable energy as soon as possible, and we can be less energy independent. That is what it does, courtesy of your Federal Government.
It funds projects like long-duration energy storage and distributed energy systems to support the electric grid for electric vehicles, which are also being subsidized by your Federal Government under force of penalty of you not paying your taxes. It is astounding.
The Democrats continue to push this technology when the drawbacks of this so-called clean energy technology are clear.
The actual grid is being powered by solar and wind energy sources that are inherently unreliable and don't work when the Sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.
Battery technology storage is not there, and of course, all that stuff that I just talked about comes from China, and oh, by the way, built with slave labor, whether that is in Turkistan or whether that is in the Congo.
Your tax dollars are supporting it under penalty of law. Try not paying your taxes and see what happens then.
Vehicles powered by this grid are built largely using slave labor like I just talked about and our reliance on the Communist Party of China since they control all the necessary components in the mineral supply chains.
Not that we don't have them in America. They say they are rare earth minerals. Mr. Chairman, they are not rare.
We just can't mine them in America because the left doesn't allow that, so now we have got to buy them from China. That is another story.
Vehicles powered by this grid are built largely, like I said, using slave labor and the supply chains that go with them.
These vehicles have limited range. Their lithium batteries often catch fire. Those fires are more difficult to extinguish than traditional fires.
This office that I am talking about is also managing $2.5 billion for carbon capture facilities and greenhouse gas monitoring technology.
Mr. Chair, if these technologies were so great, why isn't the market already adopting and innovating without taxpayer-funded handouts?
My friends on the other side of the aisle will tell you these are critical investments, and they are not going to happen if the Federal Government doesn't do them. If we don't take your tax dollars and spend it on this, it ain't going to happen.
My goodness. Thank goodness that this country didn't become the greatest country on the planet without the Federal Government subsidizing all this stuff.
I don't know how Thomas Edison would have made it. I don't know how Ford Motor Company would have made it without the Federal Government. Somehow they did it, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate that the chairman did not approve additional funds for these clean demonstration projects, but my amendment strikes all the funds for this office.
Mr. Chairman, I urge support of my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I certainly respect the good gentleman from Tennessee, and I thank him for the time.
I don't know. It seems like a lot of money still remaining for project management oversight. That doesn't seem to be billions of dollars' worth of spending to me; maybe millions, but not billions.
As far as advanced reactor research, I am proud to say that in the district that I represent, some of the fusion reactor research that is being done in France is being produced in the district I represent, which is awesome, but we don't need to be paying for it. France is paying for it, and we are providing some expertise and some material.
Oh, by the way, the good gentleman from Tennessee, much of the home of nuclear fission and nuclear energy is in the United States of America. God bless America. I think it is awesome. When have we built a nuclear reactor in the United States of America? I know the district that I represent just shut one down.
We are paying for all this research. Tell me where it is. What does it provide? What does it produce? It doesn't produce anything.
If it was building nuclear reactors, maybe I could see it, but it seems to me we are paying for it and putting the research on the shelf, or worse yet, giving it to France.
Mr. Chairman, I don't care what it costs. It ought to end. I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment cuts $35 million from this bill for the Appalachian Regional Commission, lowering the funding level in this bill to $165 million.
The IIJA provided the Appalachian Regional Commission with an advanced appropriation of $200 million a year--the entirety of its authorization level for fiscal year 2022 through 2026, meaning every dollar provided under this bill is more than the authorization level. We authorize things here and then we pay for them. It is authorized at a lower level, and we are paying much more.
In other words, under this amendment the ARC would receive $365 million for the fiscal year rather than $400 million provided by this underlying bill. Even with this minimal cut under this amendment, the program funding is still extremely bloated, and its effectiveness remains unclear, as do all the regional commissions.
Moreover, this Commission's programs are duplicative of other Federal economic development programs and better addressed by State and local levels. In fact, the fiscal year 2018 budget justification identified that the Appalachian Regional Commission failed to show a strong link between grants and a positive impact on the communities they serve.
Worse, this year, the Commission's inspector general identified the massive increase in the Commission's funding over recent years as a threat to its variability to evaluate grant proposals, measure program performance, and conduct appropriate oversight.
When we were talking about the last one, we needed the money for oversight. This one, we have got so much money that they can't oversee it. This is your Federal Government at work here. The spike in funding threatens to worsen an already tenuous link between funding and success.
We simply must bring the funding level for the ARC, the Appalachian Regional Commission, down to ensure that it has the capacity to ensure it meets its mission.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, it just so happens that I had a hearing about a week ago on the Appalachian Regional Commission and all the other commissions. It is interesting that this has been around since the 1960s. There was a map of the Appalachian region, of which the home that I reside in looks on the south mountain of the Appalachian mountain range. I live right in the center of this thing.
What was interesting to me of the map that I looked at provided by the Commission since the 1960s, showed counties that had reached attainment. Well, none of them had reached attainment. It has been around since the 1960s. All the ones that hadn't reached attainment in the 1960s still haven't reached attainment in 2023. We are spending all this money, and we are not getting anything for it. Well, we are getting some things for it. You might be able to get a theater in your community, reconstructed with the help of the Federal Government, or a trail, which is awesome. These are great programs, and I am not here to argue that they are not.
What I am arguing is two things. It is not the job of the Federal Government, number one. These are things done by local communities and States.
Two, this is above the authorization. This commission was authorized funding. I don't dispute that. However, we are spending money above the authorization, and I do dispute that because we are $30-some trillion in debt with nothing in sight except more debt.
People say that we can't cut anything, that there is nowhere to cut. Well, we authorized this. This body authorized this at a lower level, and then we appropriated at a higher level.
When you don't have any more money, when you are borrowing money to pay your bills, it seems to me that it would be easy to say that we will just pull back a little here, just a little, and we will go to what is authorized, which is still a lot, hundreds of millions of dollars. I guess that is going to be a problem here, though.
This has no Federal nexus whatsoever. I will tell you, there are nice people working here. They want to do great things for their community. However, this is a boondoggle. This is spending money where other money can be spent and is being spent. This is a duplication of services.
Sooner or later, this town is going to have to realize the taxpayer doesn't have any more money to be bled out of their pockets to spend on things that are spent elsewhere for the same projects, local, State, et cetera.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment cuts the funding to the Delta Regional Authority by $6.1 million, back to the FY19 level.
In FY17, the Obama administration sought to cut funding for the Delta Regional Authority by $3 million. The FY18, FY19, FY20, and FY21 budgets all sought to eliminate funding for the Delta Regional Authority, identifying it as duplicative of other Federal economic development programs.
Mr. Chair, just like I said before on the last one, it is the same thing here. I just had a hearing on it. These folks sat in front of me and made the same arguments.
The FY21 budget pointed out that the Delta Regional Authority, like others, is set aside for special geographic designations rather than applied across the country based on objective criteria indicating local areas and levels of distress that, again, don't seem to ever be addressed even though we spend millions of dollars.
We are $33 trillion in the hole. I don't know if you looked at the economics and the financials of just the last couple of months, how much more we have gone into debt in just the last couple of months. Something has to shock the conscience of this Congress because it is shocking the conscience of the American people who can't afford groceries, gasoline, car payments, or credit card payments. Heaven forbid you have to buy a new car. Heaven forbid you try to buy a new home.
We simply can't continue to allow for the rapid growth of parochial commissions that duplicate, literally just duplicate, other Federal programs undeterred. Regardless of the duplication of the Federal programs, most of the stuff looks like it is local programs or State programs--again, worthy things. The question is, is there a Federal nexus here? There is not in many cases. There is poor oversight, and we don't have the money to do it.
Finally, this is not a partisan issue. Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents have all called for either the abolishment or the reduction of these commissions. Both have done it. It is not a partisan issue. It is a fiscal issue. It is a responsibility issue.
These things need to be dealt with. State and locals should do it if that is what they are. We don't have the money at the Federal level anymore for that.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, in closing, certainly, I congratulate the gentlewoman and her great State for the success of all the House of Representatives today and their contribution.
On this occasion, though, I must disagree. As I said, I just had a hearing with the Delta Regional Authority present, and she is right, it targets hundreds of communities, as do all of these commissions. They target hundreds of communities.
One of the things that was fascinating to me was I asked for the metrics by which anything is measured. What measure of success does anyone have? Is there some standard? Is there some way to know whether all of these millions of dollars that are being spent actually get us anywhere, actually fix anything, actually do anything other than: We made sure the grants all got out, and we helped with the grant writing. We fixed up the sidewalk. We fixed up the theater. We provided some healthcare.
Those are all awesome things that are all being provided by someone else, by the way.
What was the metric by which they measured their success? Close your eyes. What do you see? That is what I got back. Nothing. There is no measure of success here.
Mr. Chair, this is well intended. It is well meaning. However, it is unaffordable and unnecessary.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment reduces funding for the Denali Commission by $2 million to the FY19 level.
The Denali Commission's mission for providing job training and other economic development services in rural Alaska can be better served by the 29 other Federal programs in which it duplicates the very same efforts.
The Obama administration sought to eliminate funding for the commission in FY12 because it was duplicative back then and did not select projects based on competition or merit. Say it ain't so, but it is so.
In 2013, the inspector general for the Denali Commission called for the elimination of the program. Some people say: Perry, you are just mean. You just don't understand. You just don't want to help poor people or rural people.
I came from a house with no running water, no electricity, and no plumbing. We had an outhouse out back. There was no insulation. There was no heat in it. The roads weren't paved. Somehow, I made it to Congress. It wasn't the Federal Government's job to fix my mom's house or get me to work.
In 2013, the inspector general for the commission called for the elimination of the program, like I said, stating that he recommended that Congress put its money elsewhere. I am happy to take his recommendation.
The Trump administration, likewise, sought to eliminate the commission in FY18, FY19, FY20, and FY21. It seems imprudent to continually fund yet another parochial commission in the face of two administrations--one Democratic, one Republican--and the inspector general's recommendation that we cease funding.
At a bare minimum, we should pass this amendment to keep the Denali Commission's funding flat at its pre-COVID-19 level and not allow for its continued growth. I am not asking to eliminate it. I am saying, oh my goodness, two administrations said it ought to be eliminated. The inspector general said it should be gone. I am not even taking their advice on that. I am just saying, let's save a little money here because we have this debt we can't afford.
Mr. Chairman, I have been to places where the country could no longer afford the debt that it had. You walk through shells of buildings just abandoned, walked away from by the workers who were there, that were once funded by their government. I have watched that in this town, right across the river at St. Elizabeth's, where they just shut the doors, couldn't afford it anymore, and walked away.
It is a tragic sight, but if we are going to keep going, it is not going to be just this place that does it. It is going to be all across the country. If we are going to be able to afford the things that we want, we are going to have to make some difficult choices.
We are taking in $5 trillion this year. We are spending $7.2 trillion. I am not a mathematician, but somehow that is not adding up to me.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I will close quickly here. I sure appreciate the good gentleman from Tennessee. He has a lot to work with, and he has a lot of competing interests here. It is not easy. We certainly can appreciate that.
I want to point out that this is a regional commission, a regional commission like the other ones, like the Appalachian Regional Commission, like the Delta Regional Authority. Only this one exists in only one place, in Alaska. It is a wonderful place. Alaska is a great place, part of the United States of America, but tax dollars from across the country, including Pennsylvania, Tennessee, or Ohio, shouldn't go to pay for local projects that can be handled by State and local governments, especially when you are borrowing money to do it. We are out of money. We are out.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, as the designee of Mr. Norman, I have an amendment at the desk.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, apparently, I was the reasonable one in the room because this amendment offered by Mr. Norman would eliminate funding for the Denali Commission, and I can support that as well.
The Denali Commission is one of seven regional commissions that help direct Federal funds to State and local projects. However, unlike other commissions, the Denali Commission serves only one State--Alaska.
This has led some, including the Office of the Inspector General for the Denali Commission, to question the need for the commission since the Federal funds handled by the commission could easily be distributed to the State of Alaska and other local entities without going through the step of yet one more bureaucracy.
After all, State and local governments are more knowledgeable and better equipped than the Federal Government to address the needs of local communities. I think we all would recognize that.
Both the Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office have raised concerns about the need for the Denali Commission, as have I.
Eliminating funding for the Denali Commission was also suggested, as you know, by the Obama administration and the Trump administration. At a time when our growing national debt has surpassed $33 trillion, we cannot continue to use taxpayer dollars to fund wasteful, unnecessary, and duplicative programs. With the Denali Commission's own OIG, Office of Inspector General, highlighting how wasteful the agency is, why don't we just listen and eliminate this unnecessary Federal agency.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I thank the kind gentleman from Tennessee for averring or implying that I am the reasonable one in the debate here, and I would, on behalf of the gentleman from South Carolina, urge adoption.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I rise to offer this amendment to reduce funding for the Northern Border Regional Commission, or the NBRC, to fiscal year 2019 levels.
Like other regional commissions, the NBRC provides economic development assistance to projects in various States, in this case, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont.
These commissions simply serve as a slush fund, though, for parochial and regional projects with little to no national nexus as described in the other ones.
Let's take a look at some of the funded programs taken from the 2022 annual report, which is the latest report available: 304,000 to purchase the sound system for an auditorium in New Hampshire; over 350,000 to expand rail yard capacity in upstate New York; and another $350,000 for a sailing center on Lake Champlain.
I am sure they are awesome projects. I am sure their communities love them. I just don't understand why people in Ohio, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, Georgia--you name it--are paying for this, especially when they can't afford the bills they already have as evidenced by a $33 trillion debt and a $2.2 trillion deficit this year.
Furthermore, the Biden administration's aim to inject their misguided diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, and climate-related goals into these projects are not only unaffordable, they are just completely unnecessary.
Instead of pandering to special interest groups, we must pare back these wasteful programs that only serve as a boondoggle for a limited slice of America. This amendment does not zero out the commission's funding; it simply reduces the funding to pre-COVID, pre-Biden spending levels, which everybody on this side of the aisle voted against last December.
If you were against them last December, we are getting pretty close to this December, but I don't think a whole lot has changed. If you were against them then, you should be against them now.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I agree with my good friend from Tennessee. I agree with the gentlewoman, my friend from Ohio. It does seek to create jobs. That is awesome.
It is not the role of the Federal Government, number one. Number two, it is unaffordable. Number three, we have no way to measure the success.
Do you know how I know? Because I asked the folks that run these things. I asked them. What metric do you use to measure the success by which you use this money and what do we get out of it?
I received blank stares, unfortunately.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption. I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I rise to offer this amendment to reduce funding for the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission, the SCRC, to fiscal year 2019.
I don't want to leave anybody out here. I listened to them all. Yet again, this commission serves as a duplicative slush fund for parochial interests for projects in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Literally, by the way, in counties bordering Washington, D.C. We are talking about distressed counties, right? Some of the richest counties in the country right here are included in this regional commission.
From FY 2010 to FY 2020, the SCRC received $250,000 annually, all without having an appointed Federal co-chair. Did anybody get that?
Nobody was in charge but to get money. It is awesome. I guess that only happens in the Federal Government.
Now, after a co-chair was appointed in December 2021--unfortunately, whether you like it or not, just conveniently related to an influential politician in this body--that number is now a whopping $20 million in this bill.
Now, I am sure there is no coincidence. I just want to rely on everybody's integrity here, but there is absolutely no reason for the dramatic increase in funding, especially when these projects fund both projects with no national nexus like electric vehicle charging stations.
If you want to have them in your community, God bless you. That is awesome. Go pay for them. It is not the Federal Government's job to pay for that any more than it is the Federal Government's job to pay for your local gas station.
How about stormwater management? It is an important issue. I come from Pennsylvania, we have got a lot of stormwater. I am not asking the Federal Government to deal with it. We should deal with that at home, as well as green infrastructure, according to the SCRC's 2023 through 2027 strategic plan.
Our constituents do not have money for these projects that have no impact on their lives and, in many cases, drive up inflationary spending.
Oh, sure, they have an impact where you live if you live in one of these places, but if you don't, you get to pay anyhow. This is why we have State governments. This is why we have local governments.
The Federal Government is supposed to be there, obviously, but it is not the job of the Federal Government. Again, I ask my colleagues to consider reducing, not ending, the funding for this regional commission.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I, again, say this commission includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. I have been to every one of them. Many of the residents of Pennsylvania are moving to those States because they are doing pretty well.
We lose population compared to these States every 10 years, which is why we lose a seat in Congress every 10 years. We are spending money in Pennsylvania on these States. We are not spending in Pennsylvania; we are spending in these States, so our residents then move to these States for all the great things.
When I asked the regional commissioner how much money has been spent in the counties surrounding Washington, D.C.--because, as you recall, Virginia is included--how much money is spent on the counties right around Washington, D.C., some of the most wealthy counties in the country? I couldn't get the answer to that either. I don't know if they don't have the answer or they don't want to give me the answer, but that is unacceptable. That is unacceptable. The counties around Washington, D.C., can afford the amenities they have and they don't have to ask all these other States to pay for them.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to leave anybody out. We are getting to the end here. This amendment would be to have the funding for the Southwest Border Regional Commission.
Now, this Commission, which only had its first chairman confirmed in 2022 and only was funded starting in fiscal year 2021, funds projects in the southern border regions of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.
Incidentally, the first chairman was previously the Director of Economic Development and Special Initiatives for Senator Martin Heinrich, who continues a theme of politically connected chairman of these regional commissions, just to let you know.
I know that folks on both sides of the aisle care about the border. I believe that. However, the answer to solving border problems is to actually enforce our Nation's immigration laws, not to give $5 million to a commission that has not published a strategic plan and does not even appear to have a website.
I would think they could afford to have a website with $5 million.
The Commission received $250,000 in FY21 but is now being funded at $5 million in this bill for FY24 for literally no results.
Now $250,000 is a lot of money where I come from, and $5 million is even more. I can see inflation; I could see the cost of living going up. The people that I represent, their grocery costs are 20 percent up; fuel costs, electricity costs, everything they pay for is up, but not $250,000 to $5 million. That is a little bit more of a jump than everybody is used to.
Again, this amendment simply strikes this figure in half to a still exorbitant $2.5 million.
Mr. Chair, I urge support of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate my good friend from Arizona. We are sure happy to have him here, as well as the gentleman from Tennessee, and the work that they have done in collaboration with my friends across the aisle. None of this is easy, but only in Washington can you go from $250,000 to $2.5 million and still call it a cut because you didn't go to $5 million, which is what we are talking about.
I am not saying $250,000 is too much, but I am saying $5 million is too much, and saying we should spend $2.5 million, which quite honestly for me is too much, but I get it.
To the gentleman from Arizona's point, he is absolutely right, their States are being ravaged and destroyed by the Federal Government's refusal and obstinance to follow the law and allowing people to flow across the border illegally into their communities and destroy their communities.
This cannot be afforded. It can't be afforded by them and it can't be afforded by anybody else. The solution is not to spend more money there, to provide more services and encourage more people to come in illegally while this administration refuses to enforce the law.
I think the gentleman would probably agree with at least that sentiment at some point. I understand he is trying to do right by his citizens, and he should. The best way to do right by his citizens, and he has no control of this, neither does anybody in this body at this moment, is to actually enforce the law. The President can do that and clear up this whole disagreement on this side of the aisle and on that side of the aisle, but that is not going to happen any time soon.
You know what else is not going to happen any time soon, Mr. Chairman? We are not going to quit putting our country in debt and bankrupting it. We are taking in $5 trillion in revenue this year but we are going to spend $7.2.
While my good friend says this will have no impact on the overall cost of the bill, where I come from, $250,000 is a lot of money, $2.5 million is a huge amount of money, and $5 million is an obscene amount of money that most people don't have. While it might have a little impact in this town, it has a huge impact in my town.
Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to leave anybody out here on the abuse and the waste, and I know I am going to sound like a broken record so I will try and keep it short.
First, the Great Lakes Authority has only been authorized since 2022. It still does not have a Federal co-chair, it has no website, it has no programs funded. Yet strangely, it is still receiving Federal dollars to the tune of $5 million for projects supposedly in the watershed regions of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Yes, I said Pennsylvania, and I am from Pennsylvania, but when you can't afford things and you are wasting money, I don't care where you are from, you have to say something about it.
Mr. Chair, we have seen how the other commissions have gone. President Trump urged the elimination of three of them, and President Obama recommended cuts and elimination for the Denali Commission. With that level of bipartisan criticism of the existing commissions, I don't see why we need to dig ourselves even deeper with yet another one. I mean, there is not a lot we agree on in this town, but apparently there is some agreement on this. We ought to try and forge ahead with that agreement.
I know people in this building will scoff at the difference between $2.5 million and $5 million, but like I said, where I come from, $2.5 million or $5 million is a lot of money. It might not be to the President who buys beach homes with cash and all that stuff, but where I come from, that is a lot of money. That $2.5 million should not be going toward a commission that cannot even begin operations without a Senate-confirmed Federal co-chair. It shouldn't be going for that. There is nobody there to administer it.
Furthermore, all of us here know it is not going to stop at $5 million. This is just the beginning, Mr. Chairman. This Commission, like the rest, will balloon up to tens of millions of dollars if Congress, using the power of its purse, does not put its foot down. This won't be the only commission. I have been through them all tonight. Every other State and region is going to say, well, shoot, they have one. They have one over there. They have one down there. Why don't we have one? It is going to go.
Again, I would just remind everybody that we are just a little bit in debt--just a little bit--$2.2 trillion this year, $33 trillion overall.
Mr. Chair, somebody has to say no. Somebody has to say no.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I understand and recognize the good, intended efforts, the heartfelt efforts of the committee members and on both sides of the aisle, certainly the Members representing the States involved. I understand and I recognize that, and I think they mean to do well.
There is nobody there to administer this. There is nobody present, but we are going to give them the money anyhow. We don't have any money to give, Mr. Chairman. We are borrowing money to give to a program with nobody there to administer it on projects that we haven't even seen yet. I don't know about you, but that seems like, to borrow an old phrase, putting the cart before the horse, or something like that.
People are going to say, well, we have to have the money so we can set it up. Okay, fair enough. The problem is we don't have the money.
Again, I don't mean to be a broken record here--I know I sound like one--we don't have any money, number one.
Number two, these are State and local projects. If you are showing me one that crosses State lines, and building a highway between Pennsylvania and Ohio or something like that, then we have a conversation going.
Now, there are already agencies and administrations to do that--we talked about that before--multiple agencies doing the same things, not just a couple, a couple dozen, but if that is not enough for you, just go with the fact that your constituents, your bosses, my bosses, can't afford this.
Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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