I was unavoidably detained while meeting with Louisiana pastors after the National Prayer Breakfast. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 64 and ``nay'' on rollcall No. 65. ____________________

You can manage, these things can co-exist.

You are saying that the state of California should unilaterally be able to determine what happens with the Federal resources off the coast of their state.

President Obama and President Trump have issued these budget documents and they said that this is a Federal resource that belongs to all Americans and they all should benefit from it.

So, all these people sitting here saying, oh well, this is suddenly an awful situation, where were you when President Obama was there?

We have bought all these natural resources and protected these grounds all over the United States, which I support, if bought from willing sellers.

I think we have to have better discussion, more discussion about is this a Federal resource or is it not.

We have paid for land and water conservation funds.

I have spent 20 years of my life busting my butt to restore our coast and protect our coastal environment.

Well, I got to--I don't, either. And I am not going to sit and defend the current NEPA process, but I do want to make note that I am not aware of any environmental groups, of any activist groups, or anyone who came out and said that this…

I want to thank Mr. Smith for his leadership in this effort for so many decades. Mr. Speaker, we spend millions of dollars every year in this Nation-- in fact, in some cases, billions of dollars--providing healthcare for Americans, feeding…

So, if you can improve the efficiency of that transportation system, you are reducing gasoline payments, you are reducing emissions into the environment...

This committee, in December, I believe it was, passed H.R. 4460. It allowed for, basically, eliminating a policy obstacle...

Many of our issues are with redundant permissions.

Look, you run a waterboard. You work with non-Federal clients, I am sure, through your contractors around the United States.

But the reality is that most projects that are done by non-Federals don't actually trigger a NEPA analysis.

I will say that I don't like that the way that the Corps ultimately quantified the environmental impacts--I think that you undershot what the true wetlands impacts were, and I have been very clear on that.

this isn't just about employment and economy. This has national security implications, when this snowballs.

I thank the chairman for working with us on this and for yielding time. I also want to thank the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the ranking member for all their assistance. Mr. Speaker, this bill doesn't…

I refuse to believe that.

I would argue that we probably did more to restore our coastal resources in Louisiana than anywhere else in the United States.

The majority of projects carried out across this Nation do not go through a NEPA process.

the Federal Government, our own Federal Government, has caused 2,000 square miles of coastal wetlands loss

I want to thank the gentleman from Alabama for yielding. Mr. Speaker, there are fundamental problems with flood insurance. We all know that. The program, by some estimates, has a debt, recently, of up to $24 billion, and it is going to be…

Do you know the prices in Miami are 23 percent higher than they are in San Juan?