Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Chair, the amendment that I'm offering is intended to fortify the underlying appropriations bill. Under the bill, the National Marine Fisheries Service and this amendment seek to ensure that funding doesn't have a detrimental impact on my district.

This amendment was adopted on the floor by a voice vote last year and added to the Energy and Water appropriations bill. Further, it was also supported in H.R. 1837 earlier this year, and you would have supported what this amendment will achieve.

The San Joaquin River Restoration Program continues to push forward on an ill-advised path of wasting water out of the ocean under the guise of saving salmon. Every year, the San Joaquin River Restoration Program would require the reintroduction of salmon into the San Joaquin River if this ill-advised attempt to introduce the species fails.

The problem is that the river is not yet in a condition where the salmon can survive.

There's still a number of different problems and projects along the river that need to be completed, from a bypass to several fish screens, and even in one section of the river the administration hasn't even designated a channel from where the river will flow--and will not for another 2 years.

Premature introduction of salmon in the river will only lead to their death at a high cost to taxpayers and the local community. This amendment simply prohibits the premature reintroduction of an endangered salmon species into an uninhabitable river. Central Valley salmon runs are struggling to regain healthy numbers. This amendment ensures that bureaucrats don't purposely reduce the numbers of available salmon in other streams just to plant them into the San Joaquin system and further threaten and endanger current runs.

Agencies already possess the necessary authority to make the right decision and delay the reintroduction of salmon into a river that cannot sustain the life cycle of the salmon, but they continue to bend to an environmental agenda. More time is needed to build the infrastructure required for the San Joaquin River Restoration Program before the river can sustain the salmon run.

Finally, even the National Marine Fisheries Service has doubts about the success of reintroduction. Contained within the final draft of their reintroduction strategies, the Service stated the river would not support full-scale reintroduction of the salmon. And, further, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce jointly stated that the completion of phase 1 of the restoration project was needed before reintroduction of salmon can be successful.

This is a very commonsense amendment. The river needs several different projects to be completed for the salmon to even survive. So why would we, year after year, take salmon off of other tributaries, move them to somewhere they can't survive at a huge expense to taxpayers?

Mr. Chairman, it's a commonsense amendment to prevent taxpayer dollars from being wasted on killing an endangered species.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. DENHAM. Thank you for yielding.

As my friend from California completely understands, we can't reintroduce salmon in an area that isn't inhabitable by salmon. It's just not only a waste of money, but it's going to kill the endangered species. Why move them from one tributary where they are surviving to one where they can't survive?

Don't take my word for it. Take the word of the National Marine Fisheries Service or the Department of the Interior or the Department of Commerce. Take the opinion of the Exchange Contractors Water Authority, the San Luis & Delta Mendota. These are the locals that live there. Why waste the money?

He knows the issue. So either he wants to kill the salmon at a huge expense or he just wants to waste the money. This does nothing to overturn the settlement. All it merely says is let's follow what was originally intended, wait until 2014 when the projects are complete, give the salmon a fighting chance to survive, and let's not waste a lot of money in the meantime.

Let's not confuse the issue. He understands this has passed the House by a voice vote. It has passed the House in a bill. And now, once again, after being debated several times in committee, in the light of day, with many amendments, with many opportunities, with the American public watching, we're going to pass it one more time.

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Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Chairman, this is a very simple amendment. This simply just prevents the funds from being used to divert vital resources to an unneeded Federal courthouse in Los Angeles.

I have the distinct privilege of chairing the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings & Emergency Management. In that capacity, I have oversight over the Federal courts.

The last Congress, at the request of this subcommittee, the GAO completed a review of the 33 courthouses constructed between 2000 and 2010. What the GAO found was incredible. GSA has built over 3.5 million square feet of courthouse space that we don't need--at a cost of $800 million. As a result, the Judiciary abandoned existing courthouses across the country and severely underutilizes every single new courthouse.

The GAO identified three reasons:

First of all, when GSA is not busy taking vacations in Las Vegas, they continue to build bigger courthouses than Congress authorizes.

The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman will suspend.

Would the gentleman clarify which amendment he offered: Amendment No. 27 printed in the Record or the amendment at the desk?

Mr. DENHAM. It is the new amendment that is at the desk that corrects the printed amendment.

The Acting CHAIR. That is the amendment that was reported by the Clerk.

The gentleman may proceed.

Mr. DENHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I was saying, the GAO identified three different reasons:

GSA continues to build courthouses bigger than what Congress authorizes. Congress authorizes one thing, but then GSA goes out and builds not only something completely different, but much bigger and at much greater expense.

Number two, we don't have the judges that were once proposed.

Third, judges don't share courtrooms. These courtrooms get used about 2 hours a day, and we don't have any courtroom sharing across the Nation.

We could be utilizing these courthouses quite a bit more than what they are today. As a result, we demanded that the judiciary conduct a real courtroom-sharing study so that a third party can figure out how many judges are needed. And over the last 11 years, the judiciary projected there would be somewhere between 72 and 81 judges in L.A. by 2011.

The judiciary declared L.A. the number one judicial space emergency in the United States and proposed a massive, huge new courthouse. However, today we know the primary justification for an L.A. courthouse was wrong. There are fewer judges in L.A. today than there were in 1997. Today we have two buildings with 61 courtrooms and 59 judges. We have 61 courtrooms and only 59 judges, no courtroom sharing, being utilized less than 2 hours a day.

In that light, I have asked GSA to stop its plans to spend $400 million on a courthouse in Los Angeles. GSA has told me explicitly that they will continue with the project at whatever cost. After building a $400 million courthouse, we will have 85 courthouses and 59 judges, 85 courtrooms and 59 judges.

All of these judges--not only do we need less courtrooms, we don't need to build the one that we currently are proposing to build. You could put all of these judges in one courthouse, sell off the other courthouse, and never build the one that's being proposed at $400 million.

We've seen this before at least seven times in other cities where new courthouses were built and the old ones sit vacant today, a burden to the taxpayer and eyesores to the community. There's a big courthouse in Miami, sitting vacant. One being redone in New York, vacant. And yet we want to spend $400 million on something we don't need in Los Angeles.

I personally toured the L.A. courthouse facilities and found there's vacant space currently not being used in both the Roybal building as well as the Spring Street building. GAO ran a centralized sharing model for L.A. and found that all the judges could fit in the Roybal building alone.

This country has a $15 trillion debt, and GSA continues to waste millions of dollars on projects that no one needs. What we do need is to move everybody into the Roybal building, get rid of the vacant space, and sell off the other courthouse. At a time like this, we should be utilizing the best use of taxpayer dollars.

This is why I introduced the Civilian Property Realignment Act, to get this out of the hands of the legislature, to make sure that we are actually selling off properties we don't need.

We've sold 82 properties over the last decade, and we have 14,000 that are sitting on the vacant list. We can do a much better job, but it starts right here with the L.A. courthouse. Before we can sell off the things that we don't need, we ought to stop building the things that we don't need. Sell off the property. We can create jobs by letting the private sector go there and build something to get out of a lot of the lease space that we have in the L.A. area.

I ask my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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