Whac-A-Mole

Floor Speech

Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank my friend for yielding and also for bringing this issue to the attention of the American people, and, by the way, for the great work that you do as our ranking member on the Natural Resources Committee.

I think Mr. DeFazio made a great explanation, a very instructive explanation about this Whac-A-Mole game that we're playing. The veterans memorial is closed, so we do a bill to open that up, a bill that we know isn't going anywhere. An issue comes about because of the lack of cancer treatment that some of our constituents need and must have, so we do a quick bill, Whac-a-Mole, a quick Band-Aid. The Capitol Police demonstrate that they put their life on the line every day, and it became very apparent this week when we had the very unfortunate situation over in the Senate. What do we do? We come out now and we say we're going to pass a bill to pay for Federal employees after this fabricated government shutdown is finished.

Those are all very serious issues, and there are a lot of other serious issues in front of us. What may pale in comparison is the issue of the wildlife refuges. People may say it's just a sport, it's recreation. To some, that is very important.

Just a week ago, ironically, our Nation celebrated National Hunting and Fishing Day, but today sportsmen and sportswomen, who are supposed to be out enjoying the opening day of duck season in many parts of my home State of California, are not because of this reckless, manufactured government shutdown that has shut down hunting opportunities throughout the entire national wildlife refuge system.

This shutdown is having a devastating impact on local economies that depend upon hunters and anglers throughout our entire country. There are 240 congressional districts that are home to national wildlife refuges. That's all the way across the country. This is an issue today and will be until we do away with this shutdown and open the government back up.

Every State has at least one refuge which allows hunting. Today, hunters are supposed to be lined up at places like the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, and the Kern National Wildlife Refuge in my State of California. But because of this shutdown, all have been cancelled.

Some duck hunters will be able to pursue their opening day on nonrefuge land. But without hunting pressure on the refuges, their hunting is going to be shut down, closed, or at least truncated to some extent. In addition--and this is a very important issue that I think everyone needs to pay attention to--most of the access for California's disabled waterfowl hunters is found on our State's national wildlife refuge system. With the refuge closed, that means that disabled hunters, including many wounded warriors, will simply have no option for waterfowling. And in 2 weeks, all of the waterfowl hunting areas in California will be open. If we don't end this shutdown, millions of sportsmen and sportswomen will continue to be shut out from their refuges.

It's not just the hunters and the anglers that are affected by the closure of these wildlife refuges. Hunting in California is big business. In 2012 alone, hunters and anglers generated more than $1 billion in retail sales, and they created and they sustained at least 20,000 jobs in California alone.

I've heard from folks who own businesses around these refuges--restaurants, gas stations, a family-owned hotel and motel--that rely on the business generated by hunters. Some local lodges and motels have seen every one of their reservations for this weekend and the following week to be canceled. They were supposed to be fully booked. Next week is supposed to be their busiest week of the year. Now, because of this fabricated shutdown, they'll have empty beds.

At Kirbs Outlet, a sporting goods store in Tule Lake, Don Kirby, the owner, told me that he was expecting to have a big season for sales this year. Instead, he anticipates losing about $6,000 every day that the refuges are closed, and he may have to take out a loan just to keep his small business open.

Hunting guides in the Klamath Basin region are losing $800 to $1,000 every day that the refuge remains closed. Just over the Oregon border, the Wild Goose Motel in Merrill could have booked up all of their hotel rooms several times over because the demand is so high for this weekend and next week. According to Fran Lynn, their manager, out of their 13 rooms and 2 cabins, they have one room that will be occupied. These businesses that rely on the next few weeks of hunting season to keep them in business for the rest of the year are in a hurt, and they can't make up for the loss. This first week is their big week each year, and it will be lost forever.

California hunters want and need access to our national refuges. It's time for the House majority to put the interests of our Nation ahead of the interests of the Tea Party and end this needless and reckless government shutdown, which is having an impact on millions of sportsmen and sportswomen around our country, along with Federal employees who are being furloughed, folks waiting on veterans benefits, folks waiting for cancer research and treatment, and the closure of our national parks.

This manufactured shutdown is costing us $12 million an hour. Please, bring back the clean CR to the floor for a vote so we can open our government. All it takes is one vote. Put it on the floor, and Democrats and Republicans will provide a strong bipartisan vote to pass it, to open our government, to get people back to work.

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Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank my friend for yielding.

One of the previous speakers asked a rhetorical question: How stupid is all this. I would like to kind of quantify that because you can actually put numbers on it.

In my home State of California, I'll tell you how stupid it is. Hunters, who aren't going to be able to hunt this week, they're responsible for about $400,000 in revenue. Retail sales from hunting is $1 billion. Salaries and wages, $760 million. Jobs, $21,000. State and local taxes, about $155 million. Federal taxes, about $175 million. That's how stupid this is.

And if you want more proof, look at the impact on the private sector. For those of you who don't like the government, for those of you who believe that we need to close down the government because everything can be done and should be done by the private sector, you're killing private sector businesses right now.

We talked about the impact on folks who are going to have to take out a loan to keep their sporting goods store open during the busiest time of the year. We talked about folks who have motels and lodges who can't rent a room at a time that would otherwise be the most productive time in their business cycle. Those are private sector business owners, and they employ private sector employees who are going to be sent home.

Unlike the bill that you just brought to the floor that was passed, those private sector employees who were sent home will not be sent home with full pay and benefits; they get paid when they work. The idea, and Mr. DeFazio mentioned it a couple of times, that we furlough Federal workers and then pay them for not doing a job, while at the same time we're closing down the facilities that they are employed to keep open and to manage, it is just baffling to me.

And look at the store owners, look at the private sector businesses that are being hammered by this manufactured closure of the Federal Government. Gas station owners, all of the people we have talked about, if they are bird watchers, fishers, hunters, they are driving to refuges, and they put gas in their gas tank. Those gas sales are gone. They buy groceries. They buy groceries to eat in the cabins they would otherwise rent and at the camp sites that they would otherwise inhabit. Those sales are gone.

Sporting goods. They buy all of the stuff that they use to hunt, fish, or bird watch. Not only are those sales gone, but for all of us who depend upon the money that's raised by the Dingell-Johnson provision, the money, the assessment that sportsmen and -women put on their own purchases that go into funding all of the wildlife refuges and all of the places that are near and dear to sportsmen and -women, that money goes away. All of the motels that would otherwise be full, that money goes away. The sales taxes go away. These are, in most parts, rural businesses that run in rural areas. So that's different than the businesses in the city. They don't have other folks coming in and spending in their area.

This is, as the ranking member stated, their Christmas holiday. This is when folks come to their area to spend their money to recreate, to hunt, and to fish. They depend upon this. So we have created a system, it's set up, manufactured, fabricated, it doesn't have to be this way, to penalize these folks who do nothing but work hard and provide opportunities for folks to recreate. In addition to that, you've heard the impact it is having on the fisheries, the commercial fisheries and the sports fisheries.

It is just absolutely outrageous that we are allowing this to happen when with one vote on the compromise bill from the Senate--and I say compromise because not only is it a clean CR that we have been hearing about, but, remember, the compromise was to bring that down to the lower funding level, a funding level that a lot of our folks on our side of the aisle have a real hard time with, and it has been dropped down to that rate. It could be brought to the floor and voted out. These businesses will be able to do business. Employees will be able to come back to work, both the Federal employees as well as the State employees. And let me remind you of the wounded warriors who aren't going to be able to recreate this weekend and this week because of this manufactured close-down of the Federal Government. Let's bring people back to work. Let's get going on this.

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Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I thank my friend from Texas for the compliment. You're always welcome in my home. I would suggest if we did more of that, we might get a little bit more cooperation on things that are important to the country.

Mr. DeFazio, I just wanted to comment on the issue you raised in regard to the World War II Memorial and the veterans who come out to get a glimpse of that, many of whom have never seen it before, some of whom have never been to Washington before, but they did in fact serve our country admirably, bravely, and heroically. They won World War II. As a combat veteran myself, I can tell you that I still get goose bumps when I hear about, and sometimes even talk about, what has become the Greatest Generation.

I think it's important for all of us to note that they're referred to as the Greatest Generation for a couple of reasons. One, and most obviously, they did a heroic job when they won World War II. There's no question about that. It was just an unbelievable feat. And the sacrifices they made were horrendous and something that we will all appreciate forever. And they won that war.

But they're also referred to as the Greatest Generation because, after winning that war, they came home to the greatest Nation in the world. They built this great Nation. And they built this great Nation for everyone, not for just the ones that they liked or just the programs that they liked.

We can stipulate that there are programs in the Federal Government that all of us may not think are the number one programs. There are programs in the Federal Government we all would like to see changes to. But the fact of the matter is, as our colleague from California pointed out, if you start passing them program by program, we've seen what's happened. Day five of the shut down and we've passed four programs--and only partially. It is absolutely ludicrous to think that we can do this.

We need to remember and honor that Greatest Generation, and we need to bring this budget that funds all of government--a government for all Americans, not just the Americans who are affected by the headlines today, not just the Americans who want to visit a memorial that's closed and we hear about it in the paper, not just an America who needs a medical procedure but that entity is closed so we're going to fund that one in the eleventh hour.

We need to fund government. We need to open government and get it back to work so we can be the greatest Nation. And we should do that. We should do it quickly.

I've said this a couple of times. This is a manufactured crisis. And nobody we represent at home or in anybody's district believes that we should operate in chaos, and that's exactly what we're doing right now. Talk to any of your business owners back home. They don't want to operate in chaos. Go to your universities, go to your small businesses, big businesses, schools. Nobody wants to operate in chaos.

We want to minimize chaos. The trains need to leave the station on time, as they say. The way to do that is to bring this continuing resolution to the floor for one vote, we open up government, and then we can get down to negotiating any changes that we might have.

You were successful in your plan. Eighty Members on the other side of the aisle signed a letter to my friend, Speaker John Boehner, to shut down the government. You were successful. Now let's open it back up. Let's bring these Federal employees back to work. And I'll repeat what the ranking member said. Federal employees that have been furloughed, they're home. They're not working. They're not keeping the World War II Memorial open. They're not keeping the wildlife refuges open. They're not at their job, yet we are paying them, according to the bill that the majority just brought to the floor and that was passed.

It's silly. It's ridiculous. This whole thing has gone on too long. Bring the CR to the floor. Let's get it voted on. It'll get strong bipartisan support. And let's open the government and then get down to the work that we were sent here to do.

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