The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“WHAC-A-MOLE” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H6307-H6312 on Oct. 5, 2013.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WHAC-A-MOLE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Yoho). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, one minor point. We say ``Oregon.'' And since the Ducks are going to win the national championship this year, we want to make sure everybody knows how to say it properly.
I rise today to discuss something that happened earlier in the week. The Republicans are playing Whac-A-Mole. Every time something pops up in the national press that is really embarrassing about this shutdown, they whack and hit it with a phony resolution--they're going to fix the problem--that they know is going nowhere in the Senate and not going to the President.
Earlier this week, after the extraordinary embarrassment of the veterans at the World War II memorial, they were hearing from a lot of small business people outside of Yosemite and other parks saying open the parks. I was just down there for an Honor Flight this morning.
They still don't have bathrooms, by the way.
So they took one little tiny slice of the Department of the Interior budget and they funded it, that which is most iconic, that which is most visible in the press. Guess what? They forgot everything else that goes on within the Department of the Interior.
I'll start locally, and we'll build back to the national issue here.
The William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge in the Willamette Valley opened the very popular firearms hunting season for black-tailed deer late last month, in September, but this week they are having to turn away hunters because of the House government shutdown.
The Bandon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, also in my district, is a great spot for waterfowl hunting. Right now, the only thing it is open to are swarms of mosquitos. My colleague from California will talk in some detail about the Klamath Refuge. It's closed. The beginning of hunting season, closed.
The Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon recently proposed that three other Oregon refuges--Baskett Slough, Nestucca Bay, and Siletz Bay--be open to hunting. Guess what. They can't continue the process to open those areas of hunting because of the government shutdown.
According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, nearly 300,000 hunters spend more than $135 million a year. By shutting down the Federal Government, restricting hunting access on public lands, House Republicans have turned their backs on sportsmen and small businesses not just in Oregon, but across the country.
In addition to hunting, the refuges provide for anglers, hikers, kayakers, birdwatchers, and other outdoor enthusiasts, all who spend money in the local communities around these refuges. They're not coming. They're not spending the money in the local businesses all because of the phony shutdown of the government. Well, it's a real shutdown, but a stupid shutdown of the government by our Republican majority.
National wildlife refuges generate $1.7 billion in sales for nearby communities, and many of them are very dependent upon that for their survival. And every day, small businesses across the country that relate to hunting and fishing and other outdoor recreational activities, $4.5 million a day is lost in sales to their small businesses. This has got to end.
There are other very serious issues, which a number of my other colleagues will talk about here this morning, as relates to commercial fishing, commercial crabbing, and a number of other critical activities that are fulfilled by the Federal Government under the Department of the Interior, which were not restored or phonily restored by the Republicans.
I am now happy to yield to my colleague from California, Mike Thompson.
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. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman.
My colleague from California, Mike Thompson, is the two-time chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus. And he was recently inducted into the California Waterfowler's Hall of Fame. So he obviously speaks with great authority on these issues and the impact of this unnecessary shutdown on hunters and related businesses in northern California and southern Oregon.
With that, I yield to my colleague from Washington State (Ms. DelBene).
Ms. DelBENE. Many of my colleagues today have been highlighting the impacts on sportsmen and -women who are unable to access our National Wildlife Refuges and for other public lands. As they've made clear today, this is a serious problem that's costing our country millions of dollars and is denying access to those who would otherwise be enjoying the great outdoors.
In my home State of Washington, there are 11 wildlife refuges where the public can hunt or fish. All of those refuges are closed because of the shutdown.
But it's not only recreational users that are being impacted. Commercial fishermen in my State will be seriously hurt in the coming weeks if this shutdown does not end. Right now, fishermen from Washington State are in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, getting ready for the Alaska king crab season that's supposed to start in less than a couple weeks. These are the same fishermen and boats that you see on the reality show ``The Deadliest Catch.''
But because of the shutdown, they may not get to start fishing this season. That's because the staff at the National Marine Fisheries Service have largely been furloughed. As a result, no one is available to issue the rules and individual quotas for boats and processors that will permit our commercial fishers to work.
The Bering Sea crab fishery is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to fishermen from Alaska and Washington. And now, because of inaction by Congress, the fishing fleet, the captains, their crews, and the processors stand to lose millions. So instead of a fiscal cliff, right now we're facing a fishing cliff in the Bering Sea unless Congress acts before the season is scheduled to start on October 15.
If the season doesn't start on time, the cost to industry is significant. A delay could mean they'll miss out exporting to the all-
important Asian holiday market when demand is at its highest and most lucrative. Missing the Asian market when it's in peak demand means prices significantly decrease by as much as 20 to 30 percent, which means millions of dollars in lost value. This would be a crippling loss to these businesses.
In addition to the potential loss of millions of dollars caused by market disruptions, the effects of the shutdown will be felt in other ways. Fishing boats typically incur costs of roughly $1,000 per day while sitting tied to the docks. Things like moorage fees, fuel, and food to feed the crew all cost the boat owners money.
A delayed crab season means processors will have empty facilities and an idle labor force that still has to be housed and fed. So processors will be contending with costs for housing, fuel, electricity, food for laborers, and more while not bringing in any desperately needed revenue.
Every day this shutdown continues, we're hurting the fishing industry. Without knowing when the season will start, these businesses have no certainty or visibility to plan. If we delay the start of the crabbing season by even a few days, we risk costing the entire industry millions of dollars in lost market value.
This is unacceptable. Our fishermen deserve better than this. Their families deserve better than this. The processors, suppliers, and other businesses that rely on a vibrant Alaskan king crab season all deserve better than this.
It's clear that this shutdown is hurting people, businesses, and our economy. It's time to end it and get to work on passing a long-term budget that will grow our economy, reduce our deficit, and responsibly create jobs.
I urge all of my colleagues to work together and do the job the American people sent us here to do. We must end the brinkmanship and do the responsible thing and reopen the government.
Mr. DeFAZIO. I want to thank the gentlewoman for her statements and her concern for the Washington crab fleet and others who have been impacted by this manufactured crisis.
I find it particularly bizarre now that this all started with the radical Tea Party minority on the Republican side. And I wonder what their supporters and constituents, who seem to hate all things government, are thinking about the fact that we are now paying Federal employees to stay home and not provide critical services, like opening the crabbing season in the State of Alaska.
I would also note that the west coast groundfish trawl surveys have been suspended. The five ships that were out there doing the survey were called back to port. All of the NOAA employees were sent home, but they will be paid later, some time. But they aren't doing the critical work we need for those commercial fisheries.
With that, I yield to my colleague from the State of California (Mr. Garamendi).
Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) very much. And thank you for pointing out the foolishness, the nonsense, and even the hypocrisy of what's going on here.
My colleague Mike Thompson, with whom I share a good portion of northern California, very eloquently pointed out a real problem. When the duck hunters can't hunt, we've got a problem. Opening day, how many days to opening day? Zero. It was supposed to open today. Mr. Thompson pointed out that the refuges are closed up in the northern part of the State of California.
How about elk hunters? Elk hunters out there, opening day, today. The refuges are closed, and a good portion of the Federal forests also are unavailable.
Let's see, pronghorn hunting in northern California and southern Oregon was supposed to start today. Not on the refuges. They're closed.
Well, if you are a fisherman and you want to fish in the refuges, don't go today. They're closed. And, of course, the hunters. I think I'll just leave this one up here. These are folks that really get agitated. They have every reason to be agitated. This is nonsense.
I really wanted to take a few moments to explain to the American public what is actually happening here. We came up on this shutdown presumably because we couldn't agree to a budget. The House of Representatives passed a budget in March. The Senate passed one in late March, early April. The Senate asked for a conference committee. They appointed conferees. And Speaker Boehner, until 2 days ago, refused to appoint conferees. It was only after the government shut down that he relented and appointed conferees, after the blowup.
And so you want to go to conference? Why didn't you go to conference in April, May, June, July, August, even early September? Why, Mr. Speaker, didn't you appoint conferees when we had the time to negotiate? Why did you wait until after hunters couldn't go to the refuges? I don't understand.
Oh, but you have a solution. The Speaker has a solution. We will open up individual parts of the government based upon what the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) calls ``the whack-a-mole theory of government.'' When something really embarrassing happens, we'll find a solution, says the Speaker. Wow, how brilliant.
And so what did we do? Oh, we'll open some of the national monuments--not all of them. We're not going to open the fish and wildlife refuges so that the hunters can hunt. But we'll open the World War II Memorial, and maybe we'll open up some of the Smithsonian facilities here in Washington.
Oh, but there's a problem. That's got to go through the Senate. And that's got to have the Presidential signature. And that's not going to happen.
So what's going on here? What's happening? The American public says, What are you guys doing? Well, we're not doing our job. Mr. Speaker, you're not letting us do our job.
We actually have a solution. It's called a continuing resolution, a CR. And that's not a medical procedure. A continuing resolution is actually a process that's been used over 110 times since the first day of President Clinton's--yes, I said that--President Clinton, back in 1993, 110 times we've used continuing resolutions to get passed these unnegotiable periods.
But this time, they added a little deal to it. There will be a continuing resolution when you repeal the Affordable Care Act, when you delay it, when you repeal part of it, when you change it. That hadn't been done in the past. But here we are.
So where are we now with the whack-a-mole theory?
Do you know what these are? Does the American public know what these are? These are 11 of the appropriation bills. Each one is very lengthy. There are more than 500 to 1,000 different items in each one of the appropriation bills, funding individual parts of government, one item at a time.
It's a big government. It's a multitrillion-dollar government. And it does a lot of good things, like, funds refuges so that people can go hunting, so that people can fish, so that there are national parks, camping grounds. At the national forests all across this Nation, camping grounds are shut down. Nobody's camping there this weekend.
These are the appropriation bills. Probably 5,000 or more individual items. In what has got to be one of the most foolish, nonsensical, and stupid actions, we're going to fund the government one item at a time. Yes. Hello, America. This is the Republican solution to the shutdown. We're going to fund the American Government one item at a time.
Let's see, this is day four of the shutdown. Okay. And to date, we have funded four specific parts of the American Government--oh, excuse me. I'm wrong. The House of Representatives has voted to fund four of the thousands of different parts of the American Government, four of them. Let me see, at this rate, it will probably be 2020 before the American Government is up and operating. How stupid is that when we have a solution available to us, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, listen. We have a solution available to us. It's called a continuing resolution. It's passed the Senate. It doesn't have all of the things you may want--like terminating the Affordable Care Act, which is, in effect, modifying it, defunding it, and God knows what else you may want. It's just what is known as a clean continuing resolution that funds all of government--not one item at a time, but all of government. And at what level? At the same level that it has been funded for the last 12 months. Not more funding, not less funding, but a whole lot less funding than what I think is necessary. But nonetheless, it continues the funding of government at the same level as the last 12 months for the next month and a half. And then we go through all this again with another manufactured crisis.
I wonder what the hunters are thinking of us. Mr. Speaker, these men and women want to go hunting. These men and women want to go fishing, camping. They want to go to the national parks. They want to recreate. They want America operating.
Mr. Speaker, please, please end this foolishness. Ronald Reagan went to Berlin, and he said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.'' Mr. Speaker, open up this government. Open up this government. You have the power. All you need to do is to bring to the floor a continuing resolution to fund the government at the very same level that it's been funded for the last 12 months, continue on for another 6 weeks so that we can establish what apparently you want, a conference committee, and negotiate, as we should do all the time, negotiate a resolution to this manufactured, unnecessary, stupid, dysfunctional crisis.
Mr. Speaker, open up this government.
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Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman from California. What he pointed out is critical. There is a time sensitivity to this. My other colleague from California pointed that out, too. Many small businesses are dependent on these critical weeks of opening season for their businesses. It is essentially like Christmas for retailers; the opening of hunting season for waterfowl and other species is for people who provide lodging and other services, guiding in those areas, and you are keeping them from working and you're depriving them of their livelihoods.
In Nevada, duck season opens October 12; swan, October 12; deer, October 10; elk, October 10. That's Nevada. That date is pretty soon.
Arizona: turkey, October 4. Well, we're there. Big horn sheep, October 4. On any of these Federal wildlife refuges, hunting will not be allowed.
But the bizarre thing is that some Republicans are saying this is about the deficit. So they are going to pay Federal employees to not work to make a point about the deficit. They are going to cause businesses to lose money on which they won't pay taxes because it is about the deficit; or, well, then there are others of them who say it's about ObamaCare. I wish the Republican majority could make up their mind.
But one thing is plain and clear--and I have been here 27 years--I believe in 27 years--I may be off by one--I believe two times out of 27 years, under both Democrats and Republicans, have we gotten by all of the appropriations bills passed by the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1. Two times in 27 years. But we didn't shut down the government every time that happened. We adopted a very simple continuing resolution. We'd say let's continue to fund government--not send people home and continue to pay them. Let's fund government and have them work, the same cost, and we'll do it for 4 weeks, 6 weeks, to force people to the bargaining table. Sometimes it was done at the prior year's level, sometimes slightly enhanced, sometimes slightly reduced. We have offered to do that. We have brought that up numerous times here. We're not allowed to bring it up explicitly but on votes on rules, and the Republicans won't allow a simple majority vote on temporary funding of government.
They allowed a vote today, which was unanimous, to pay people not to work, but they won't allow a vote on paying people to work over a short period of time.
I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson).
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.
Mr. BARTON. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DeFAZIO. It depends upon the topic. We're talking about locking hunters and fishers out of wildlife refuges and the impact on small communities across America, and the fact that it's essentially the Christmas season for many of these lodges, many of these local businesses that have been shut down. Certainly the Grinch has stole Christmas, and I'm not sure what the gentleman wishes to address. I will yield very briefly, but if we're going to go off topic or get on to something else, then I will have to reclaim my time.
I have known the gentleman for years, and so I am happy to yield.
Mr. BARTON. Well, I thank the gentleman from Oregon. I am not going to be demagogic. I certainly respect the comments of the gentleman from Oregon and the gentleman of California. I was actually going to pay the gentleman from California a compliment.
I just wanted the country to know these are serious issues and there are differences of opinion based on philosophy, but there are not personality conflicts. The gentleman from California was gracious enough several weeks ago to invite me into his home for a meal. He makes a delicious grilled chicken and is quite the chef, and I just wanted to thank him. And at the appropriate time after the gentleman from Oregon and the gentleman from California have made their points, if they would like to enter into a little bit of just an honest policy debate, I would be happy to do that. But I know it is the gentleman from Oregon's time, and I don't want to take away from that.
Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for those very tempered remarks and the kind remarks about the gentleman from California.
I would like to talk about a couple of other impacts. Some are in the Interior budget; some are in another budget we haven't touched yet. Mike was talking very eloquently about the fact that these impacts are falling most on rural residents and on rural small businesses, areas that are for the most part pretty darned depressed in this country. A lot of my rural areas are well into double-digit unemployment.
I was talking to the chief of the Forest Service--granted, a different budget, one that hasn't gotten on the Republican radar screen yet, although I was talking to a Republican leader this morning who said they may yet do whack-a-mole on this one to try and fix it, and that is that the chief of the Forest Service has an obligation when timber is sold to a private party to have Forest Service employees monitor those sales. He has not found a way to declare those employees as essential and, as of Monday, is going to end somewhere between 400 and 500 active timber sales, bumping up against the winter season where many people won't be able to operate, depending on where the sale is, and incurring obviously penalties on the Federal Government because he does not have the staff to go out and monitor those sales.
I don't yet know about the Bureau of Land Management timber sales. They are a fairly unique thing. They happen on the statutorily unique lands of the Oregon and California lands. In Oregon, we have been in touch with the BLM, and we don't yet have an answer about how they're going to handle it.
Much of the restoration work from recent fires cannot be considered emergency; some of it can, but most can't. That work is not ongoing. Certainly any responsible timber salvage that might happen is not even being considered, and we're losing critical time there where those activities might be conducted.
And this morning, we did get the World War II Memorial reopened, only for honor flight and World War II veterans, and maybe other veterans. I'm not sure exactly the categories that were established. There were two rangers there this morning, and I encountered a problem. I was there to greet a large contingent from Oregon, wonderful people who put their lives on the line, but we are looking at a group here who are fairly elderly, and the adjacent bathrooms are not open. I went and asked the rangers if they could give me the key and they said, we don't have the key; that's maintenance. So we placed a call to the Park Service looking for whoever is the highest ranking person not being paid to stay home, and we got a fellow in charge of at least the World War II Memorial and some other grounds, and he said, I'm prohibited from doing that. I don't have that authority.
I've now called the White House to ask them. I mean, come on, restrooms for very elderly men and women who put their lives on the line, saved the world from the horrors of World War II, and we can't open bathroom facilities. I will go down and volunteer to refill the toilet paper rolls and clean up at night, you know, if we do that. I think other people I know would also do that.
So we've just got to end this. I mean, it became so bizarre today that Congress voted unanimously to pay a majority of the Federal workforce to stay home and not provide public services, to make what point. Let's just go ahead with a continuing resolution that doesn't change anything. We can adopt the lower levels that the Republicans have advocated for. Why can't we do that for 4 or 6 weeks? Open up the refuges so business can flow again to these areas because these hunting seasons are ephemeral, as are these timber sales.
There's another impact, and that is the Student Conservation Association of the Interior Department has been shut down. So, again, hundreds of interns were sent home who were providing public services.
And then also in the other budget, agriculture, the job corps has been shut down. Thousands of young, at-risk people have been sent home. I don't know how many of my colleagues have ever gone to a job corps. It is the most inspiring thing. These kids are learning skills. These kids are high at risk. Many of these kids, young people, have been in trouble.
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They're getting skills and they're getting jobs. They want to be there. They're working hard. They have been sent home. Some of them don't have a home to go to.
With that, I yield to my colleague from California.
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.
Mr. DeFAZIO. I would like to correct one thing the gentleman said. As I understand it, we are not paying them. We will pay them. For working today, they will get a hamburger on Tuesday, sometime, maybe, perhaps.
For a lot of people, that's a hardship. A lot of Federal workers are of modest means. I would point to our Capitol Hill police here. I've had conversations with a number of them. Leaves are canceled. Some of them have had plans for a very long period of time. They can't get sick. They are not being paid. They will be paid. They'll get a hamburger on Tuesday, maybe, sometime, depending on how long this whole thing drags on.
This has risen to the point of absurdity. It started out to stop ObamaCare from going into effect on October 1, and it went into effect. It then became chipping away at ObamaCare in ways they knew the President would never sign a bill to do.
But I heard just earlier today from a gentleman from Texas saying this is all about the debt and deficit. If it's all about the debt and deficit, this is pretty easy. Let's bring up the continuing resolution that would actually reduce spending from current levels, continue government for 6 weeks while we sit down and negotiate how we're going to deal with longer-term structural problems in our economy, dealing meaningfully with our debt and deficit. That seems pretty darn simple to me. It seems we're pretty close to agreement there. But, unfortunately, I think there's 30 or 40 Republicans whose agenda is still to stop or repeal ObamaCare.
So I believe the gentleman who spoke today was probably speaking out of school and not speaking for them. But what he said, and I believe a majority of Republicans want to do, could get Democrats to agree to in a minute. Bring up the continuing resolution. We're not very happy with the further reduction in spending levels across the board--it's a dumb way to cut--but we'll accept it for 6 weeks while we work out a longer-
term deal.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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