On the recordNovember 16, 2020
As now we come to some of the realities of this particular bill and the procedures. Mr. Speaker, it would be nice if we actually dealt with the good of the body and recognize that reauthorizations are important so that we can reevaluate what kinds of programs actually exist and if they are still necessary. We don't do a very good job in Congress of doing that. We allow reauthorizations to lapse, and then we simply go on automatic pilot, unfortunately. This is the situation with this particular program because the Sea Grant College Program expired in 2014 and has never been reauthorized by Congress since that time. The appropriators still put money into it, even though they are not supposed to do it. But once again, when we, as a Congress, fail to do the reauthorization investigation and hearings and prioritize, then we make major mistakes in what we are attempting to do. We certainly don't have the priorities that we should when these programs were originally started to make sure that they are doing what we originally intended them to do, or if, indeed, there needs to be a change, like including the Great Salt Lake in many of its provisions so that you actually do something positive for the rest of the world. Mr. Speaker, Congress in the last year, fiscal year 2019, even though this was not an authorized program, still spent $72 million to do that, even though it was eliminated from the administration's budget.…
