Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017
Floor Speech
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment prevents the Department of the Interior and the EPA from using in-house agency assets and, specifically, their agency owned and operated UAS for land surveying, mapping, imaging, and other such remote sensing activities.
Mr. Chairman, you may have heard that last month the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, announced that the new small UAS unmanned aerial system--UAS rule, part 107, including all pilot and operating rules--will be effective on August 29 of this year. That is important because that will allow commercial activity in the UAS arena, not just government activity.
Now, perhaps no new technology in history will revolutionize the aerial surveying and mapping community like unmanned aerial systems. The benefits of commercial and private UAS are incalculable. Technology has moved forward rapidly, and what used to be considered toys are quickly becoming powerful commercial tools that provide enormous benefits in terms of safety and efficiency.
When UAS are performing missions connected to surveying and mapping areas for stewardship decisions and public policy, society is only just beginning to realize the full potential of the unmanned aerial system. Indeed, the demand for UAS for business purposes has been far reaching and continues to grow. UAS technology is already bringing substantial benefits to people's daily lives.
The timely acquisition of geospatial data is critical to assessment, realtime decisionmaking, and mitigation during and immediately following both natural and manmade disasters, including earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, floods, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, hurricanes, infrastructure disasters, including collapsed buildings, bridges, and dams, ruptured pipelines, various types of terrorists incidents, and in emergency blue tarp surveys to support postdisaster response.
There is a concern that agencies like the USGS and the Bureau of Land Management are acquiring unmanned aerial systems and regularly utilizing them on projects that can be accomplished by the private sector, directly competing with the private sector. The result is a loss of business for the private sector under contract to other Federal mapping agencies.
The government is getting a leg up on the private sector by obtaining certificates of authorization, or COAs, which are required to fly the UAS and performing services with UAS that are otherwise commercial in nature. Currently, there is no effective enforcement and oversight to prevent government abuse of such authority for commercial purposes.
The fact that government agencies can operate a UAS while the private sector cannot as freely or timely gain airspace access has created an uneven playing field. Allowing the Department of the Interior to use UAS in direct competition with the private sector is not only poor stewardship of taxpayer money, but it is also an inefficient use of resources. It also results in the government duplicating and directly competing with private enterprise, which is something that we don't seek to do.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman,
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I find a lot in common with the chairman and the gentlewoman from Minnesota. Certainly in times of emergency we would want to use the assets that are available to us immediately. The amendment says it prohibits the Agency to perform surveying, mapping, or collecting remote sensing data. None of those are, generally speaking, an emergency situation; so I find some agreement, but this is what the amendment says.
I just want to let everybody know that this is a $73 billion market, and while we wait around in the United States and wait on the FAA to promulgate rules beyond the line of sight, et cetera, the market moves further and further away from the United States. It drives more than $1 trillion in economic activity. More than 500,000 American jobs are related to the collection, storage, and dissemination of imagery and geospatial data. Another 5.3 million workers utilize such data. As much as 90 percent of the government information has a geospatial information component. Up to 80 percent of the information managed by business is connected to a specific location, and it is identified by the Department of Labor as one of just 14 high-gross sectors of the United States workforce.
I find it problematic that we are giving our government a leg up when the private sector is the one that pays for the government, and they are on the cutting edge of this. This amendment is supported by the American Farm Bureau; the Business Coalition for Fair Competition; and MAPPS, the association of mapping and geospatial firms.
I understand the arguments on the other side, but I think it is important that we stay on the cutting edge and we move forward in the private sector and not empower and enrich the government sector in this regard. So with all due respect, I hope that my colleagues will vote in favor of the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. PERRY. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment will reduce the funding to the Environmental Protection Agency by 17 percent to ensure the EPA bureaucrats are not immune to the negative impacts of their actions in the form of regulation. You wonder why 17 percent. I am going to get to that.
EPA regulations generally jeopardize our Nation's access to affordable, reliable power and will lead to skyrocketing electricity costs. By their own admission, and by design, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in the EPA are pursuing an ideological agenda while imposing real costs in the real world on the economy and on everyday Americans.
An analysis conducted by the National Economic Research Associates, or NERA, in November of 2015 found compliance with the Clean Power Plan would cost consumers and businesses nearly $300 billion from 2022 to 2033. Now, despite these staggering costs, the Clean Power Plan will have virtually no effect on climate change as it reduces atmospheric CO
NERA estimates the Clean Power Plan will burden Pennsylvania--the State where I am privileged to represent a district--with an average annual electricity price of 17 percent. That is where I came up with the 17 percent. They are saying that my constituents are going to pay 17 percent more for their power. So it seems to me that the EPA should feel the pain as well. You can see what the estimated burden imposed on each State is by the Clean Power Plan at the Web site www.americaspower.org/nera. You can check it out for yourself. Because you don't live in Pennsylvania, it might be a little more, it might be a lot more.
This amendment will ensure that bureaucrats in the EPA will feel the impact that their ideological agenda has imposed on the American citizen by reducing the appropriations for the EPA by 17 percent. My consumers, my citizens, my voters didn't have any choice in this. They are just going to have to pay 17 percent more for their electricity. This amounts to a funding reduction of about $1.4 billion. That is what it costs the EPA. It costs every one of my consumers 17 percent every time they pay their electricity bill. It is only fair that the EPA is forced to make hard decisions as to how to divide up its smaller budgets as it has forced to do what the families that I am privileged to represent have to do if this rule is enacted.
Mr. Chairman,
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the chairman's efforts over these many years, and I support everything he has done. What vexes me is with everything that we have done and he has done, the EPA still has found a way to reach into the pockets of my consumers, the people that I represent and take 17 percent of their power bill. They didn't say: Well, you have to take it out of the food budget or, you know, your kids' Boy Scouts dues. They just said: We are taking it right off the top. That is what they said to the consumers I have to represent.
Apparently, no matter how much we take from them or have taken from them so far, they haven't gotten the message yet. I appreciate your position, but in an effort to stand up for the citizens I represent as strongly as I can and to say we don't want a 17 percent hike in our power bills just because the EPA says so, I am going to ask that my colleagues support the amendment and heap a little more trouble on the EPA, as they are heaping the trouble on the constituents that I am privileged to represent.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
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