Last week, House Budget Chairman Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) proposed The House Republican Budget, ‘Building a Better America’ for the Fiscal Year of 2018. Republicans are working hard to fulfill a promise made years ago to the American people: to balance our national budget. For years, government spending and our nation’s debt have increased which is really just borrowing dollars from our grandchildren and passing them a nation that is worse off than the one we inherited. Absent serious reforms, our national debt of $20 trillion will increase to $52.5 trillion in the next 10 years.
With a Republican majority in both the House and Senate, and a finance-minded president in the White House, we have an opportunity and responsibility to get our nation’s fiscal affairs in order. By implementing ‘Building a Better America’, the House budget will:
- Develop a sustainable spending path by balancing in 10 years, ending deficit spending.
- Promote economic growth.
- Strengthen our national defense.
- Return power back to the states.
- Reform and strengthen government programs while improving accountability.
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It was great to see a Villages’ resident on Tuesday in town with Christians United for Israel. We discussed the United States’ support of Israel against the variety of threats they face and two pieces of legislation that I have co-sponsored – the Taylor Force Act (H.R. 1164) and Israel Anti-Boycott Act (H.R. 1697). The United States must continue to be a strong, supportive ally of Israel.
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One of our priorities this year has been to streamline regulatory processes and remove unnecessary obstacles to innovation and infrastructure investments. Last week, the House passed several bills that will move forward our energy infrastructure:
- Rep. Bill Flores’s bill, Promoting Interagency Coordination for Review of Natural Gas Pipelines Act (H.R. 2910) to end unnecessary delays of important pipeline infrastructure projects. Currently, any pipeline project must receive multiple permits from multiple federal agencies, each agency unable to advance certain parts of its regulatory review until another agency has completed its work.The ensuing bureaucratic mess means lengthy and expensive delays to otherwise mundane projects that improve our nation’s energy independence. Rep. Flores’ bill addresses this inefficient system of ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ by placing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), as the lead agency with the authority to coordinate the permitting and regulatory review of all agencies involved in a pipeline project.
- Rep. Markwayne Mullin’s, Promoting Cross-Border Energy Infrastructure Act (H.R. 2883), which establishes a predictable and transparent process to permit the construction of cross-border pipelines and transmission of electricity. Because Congress has not established such a process, President Obama was able to use administrative discretion to block the Keystone pipeline and other energy projects that would cross our border with Canada.Rep. Mullin’s legislation ensures that no future president will be able to arbitrarily decide whether to approve energy infrastructure projects that cross a border with a neighboring country.
- Rep. Pete Olsen’s Ozone Standards Implementation Act of 2017 (H.R. 806) allows states to issue cost-effective and practical application of ozone standards established by the EPA. Under the Clean Air Act’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program, the EPA designated ozone standards in 2008 and revised them in 2015, before most jurisdictions had come close to complying with the 2008 standards.. To address the overly aggressive EPA regulatory timeline, and allow states to keep up with these quickly changing regulations, Rep. Olsen’s bill extends the date for final NAAQS compliance to 2025 and allows states some flexibility in phasing in the standards over the next 8 years.
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Last Tuesday, Senate Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare stalled again. Under Obamacare, premiums have skyrocketed, making premiums and deductibles entirely unaffordable for millions of Americans. Senator Mitch McConnell has proposed using the 2015 version of Obamacare repeal, which passed both chambers of Congress and was vetoed by President Obama. I voted in support of that legislation in 2015, I have co-sponsored a House bill this year and I will vote in support again if it is brought to the House floor for a vote.
Congressman Daniel Webster represents The Villages in the U.S. House of Representatives.
