Department Of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. LATTA. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chair, last night we were in Rules on, I believe, a very important amendment that Mr. Minnick and I offered. It was really to save jobs; and it was also really to put a hold on what was happening with Homeland Security and also what was going on with the folks at Customs, trying to put forward a regulation, a rule that's going to put Americans out of work.

At the same time it's also not only going to put Americans out of work, but we're looking at 35 million Americans that have a certain type of knife. I do not believe that a rule should be done that Congress in 1958 defined what a certain type of knife was. So last night of course we were there, and we shouldn't have been there. We should have been here on an open rule and with an amendment on the floor and not in the Rules Committee because this is important.

Again, as I said, this is going to cost jobs, jobs at the Buck Knife Company up in the northwest part of the United States--hundreds of jobs. It's estimated that over 4,000 individuals in this country could be affected just in the knife industry alone. Not only those 4,000 individuals there, but there is about 20,000 other ancillary jobs out there. That's why it's so important we should be talking about this. But unfortunately, again, where we were last night, we weren't doing what we should have been doing. We should have had the amendment here on the floor because I believe it's absolutely important that we make sure the House is headed in the right direction, the way it should be going; and that's through the process that we should be in, the normal process, not the process that we're in today.

But I thank the gentleman for yielding because I think that the debate that we're in is very, very vital to this country.

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