Sam Farr

Thank you very much, Congresswoman Edwards, for your leadership before you even became a Member of Congress, but especially tonight to lead this discussion. I can't believe what we're about to do tomorrow in a vote to reauthorize. I was…

I can't believe what we're hearing here. How quickly we forget. It was your committee, Mr. Chairman, that passed the bill, the bipartisan bill, that created the Ocean Commission, which was signed into law by President Clinton, and then the…

No, I will not yield to the gentleman. I think these and a lot of other amendments warrant some serious debate in Congress, but certainly not on this bill and not at this time--10 o'clock at night, in an election year, on a Voting Rights…

I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. First of all, this is an appropriations bill. We're supposed to be discussing how we appropriate money to the Justice Department, Commerce Department, and State Department. People are just…

Thank you very much for yielding. I think you can note the passion I've had on this issue because we worked at it a long time. And I want to assure you--I'm ranking member of the Ag Appropriations Committee. I probably represent more…

Reclaiming my time, the responsible issue here is if you want to do that, let's have a congressional hearing, an oversight hearing on this ocean policy. I would be proud to defend it. But to take a meat-ax approach and whack it and say…

Thank you very much. As the President cannot create the councils by executive order, the councils have to be created by Congress. I would hope that the leadership of your committee and jurisdiction would create those councils so that they…

You're absolutely wrong. The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman from California has expired. (On request of Mr. Hastings of Washington, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Farr was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)

The worst form of democracy is to take away the ability for it to work. This is a bad amendment, and I hope we oppose it. I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise as a Representative from a great fishing community, Monterey, California. Many of you may have heard about Monterey because it was the sardine port of the world, the largest sardine port in the world; and it certainly was written…

I find this argument very interesting that people like to cast both blame and aspersions that we are sort of different from all our States, that the Federal Government is one thing and the States are different. I have an amendment in a…

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I call you Chair because you were chair when I was on the committee, and I always respect your leadership in this field. As was stated, I am ranking member of the House Appropriations Agriculture…

We borrow without a plan for paying it back by lowering taxes and not having the revenue to come in to be able to pay the bills.

NOAA's cut to education has been 75 percent since 2010.

I tell folks at home when they ask me all about this thing, I say it is like setting a speed limit and then not having any cops.

The lowest priority in the pecking order is the ocean.

The ocean is an economic engine.

What you tell your children, I don't think you teach them borrowing is bad as long as you have a plan to pay it back.

what we did in Dodd-Frank law, which is the law of the land, is that we increased your responsibility exponentially.

And yet, our survival as human beings on this planet depends on the health of the oceans.

I could tell my children that we can get by with one less F-22 if we can adequately regulate our markets.

So I am coming here to tell you that even the President's budget is not adequate.

These are American icons. And they represent our national heritage at sea.

We have got to have those cops.

I am also concerned about providing adequate employment assistance to veterans, especially with the thousands of new veterans expected from the proposed DOD drawdown.