Sponsored Legislation

Below you will find highlights of bills I have sponsored listed by Congress session and year, along with a link to Search the Library of Congress' THOMAS web database for all bills I have sponsored by during that Congress.

111th Congress (2009-2010)

Search THOMAS for My Sponsored Legislation - 111th Congress

H.R. 1349, The Federal Accounting Oversight Board Act of 2009

This legislation would establish an oversight board comprised of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission, the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, and the Chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to review the accounting standards issued by the Federal Accounting Standards Board.

H.R. 1426, The Cow Tax Bill

This legislation would prohibit the issuance of permits under title V of the Clean Air Act for certain emissions from agricultural production.

110th Congress (2007-2008)

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H.R. 419 Natural Disaster Relief Act

This legislation would provide disaster assistance to agriculture producers suffering from drought and other natural disasters over a three year period from 2005 to 2007. Parts of this bill were included in a broader disaster assistance package.

H.R. 2261 Rural America Energy Act of 2007

This legislation is a comprehensive energy bill to allow rural areas to play a larger role in making the U.S. less dependent on foreign sources of energy. This legislation seeks to expand the use of energy sources in rural areas, such as wind energy and cellulosic biomass, and to help farmers participate in energy development, through small wind tax credits and dedicated funding for renewable energy projects. The 2008 Farm Bill includes some of these provisions.

H.R. 2730 Numismatic Rarities Certainty Act of 2007

This legislation would provide legal certainty for coin collectors who own certain coinage minted before 1933. The Mint has the authority to seize coins created during this period if it believes they are unauthorized coins, even if the owners obtained them legally. These unauthorized coins may have been struck illegally or possibly stolen from the U.S. Mint more than 70 years ago, but likely have bought and sold legally many times over since then. This bill would prohibit the government form seizing these coins.

H.AMDT 468 to H.R. 2829

This amendment to the 2007 Financial Services Appropriations bill would prohibit funds in the bill from being used to seize or take possession of any coin, medal or numismatic item made or issued by the Mint before January 1, 1933 that is not already in the possession of the United States Government. It seeks to provide legal certainty for coin collectors that they may buy, own or sell these coins without the threat of government seizure.

109th Congress (2005-2006)

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H.R. 1930 To amend the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987 to reauthorize State mediation programs

This legislation would amend the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987 to extend the authorization of appropriations through FY 2010 for State mediation programs.

H.R. 3849 Prior Informed Consent (PIC) and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Conventions and the Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) POPs Protocol Implementation Act

This legislation would amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act to provide for the implementation of three international environmental agreements: (1) the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs Convention); (2) the Protocol on Persistent Organic Pollutants to the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP POPs Protocol); and (3) the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (PIC Convention).

H.R. 3974 To prohibit the closure or relocation of county or local Farm Service Agency offices pending the completion of the next omnibus agriculture law

This legislation would prohibit the closure or relocation of county or local Farm Service Agency offices without approval from Congress. USDA is proposing to shut down FSA offices nationwide including 16 offices in Oklahoma.

H.R. 5077 Numismatic Rarities Certainty Act

This legislation would provide legal certainty for coin collectors who own certain coinage minted before 1933. The Mint has the authority to seize coins created during this period if it believes they are unauthorized coins, even if the owners obtained them legally. These unauthorized coins may have been struck illegally or possibly stolen from the U.S. Mint more than 70 years ago, but likely have bought and sold legally many times over since then. This bill would prohibit the government form seizing these coins.

H.R. 5363 Natural Disaster Relief Act

This legislation would provide payments to agriculture producers suffering from a series of natural disasters, including the Oklahoma drought. Producers could apply for payments for losses due to weather conditions in 2005 or 2006.

H.AMDT 882 to H.R. 5384

This amendment to the 2007 Agriculture Appropriations bill would help states deal with inadequate funding the receive from Washington to administer NRCS programs by eliminating all funding for the salary and expenses of the Washington bureaucrat who administers the program. The amendment eliminated all $810,000 in federal funding for salaries and expenses of the Washington office of USDA Undersecretary for natural Resources and the Environment, which administers NRCS programs.
Passed the House by a voice vote on May 23, 2006

108th Congress (2003-2004)

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H.R. 1907 To prevent funds that were set aside in the 2002 Farm Bill for conservation programs from being spent on other projects by Washington bureaucrats

Passed the House Agriculture Committee by a voice vote

H.R. 2912 To reauthorize provisions in the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996

This legislation would help the Osage tribe to clarify the 1906 federal law that organized the tribe. The law limits the membership of the tribe to only individuals who inherit a share of the Osage mineral estate. Currently, only Osage who own a headright interest in the Osage mineral estate are able to vote or run for elective office. It results in many individuals who are of Osage descent but are not officially members for the tribe. This legislation would reaffirm the right of the Osage Nation to determine its own membership and government.
Became public law108-3 on December 3, 2004

H.R. 3188 Pesticide Registration Improvement Act of 2003

This legislation would amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act to revise registration and maintenance fee requirements for pesticides.

H.R. 4189 Full Enrollment Environmental Quality Incentives Program of 2004

This legislation amends the Food Security Act of 1985 to delete current provisions specifying per-year funding amounts for the environmental quality incentives program from the Commodity Credit Corporation

H.R. 4289 To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the low-income housing credit without regard to whether moderate rehabilitation assistance is provided with respect to a building

This legislation would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow rehabilitation assistance is provided with respect to a building. The bill would allow mod rehab properties to qualify to compete for low income tax credits. They were stripped of this ability in 1989. Properties would be added to those who are eligible to compete for existing LIHTC state allocations.

H.AMDT 677 to H.R. 4766

An amendment to the FY05 Agriculture Appropriations bill to require that technical assistance spending for each conservation program be paid for from its own funding. USDA had proposed to take $100 million from four conservation programs (EQIP, WHIP, GRP and FRPP) to pay for technical assistance for WRP and CRP.

H.AMDT 679 to H.R. 4766

An amendment to the FY05 Agriculture Appropriations bill to require that technical assistance spending for each conservation program be paid for from its own funding. USDA had proposed to take $100 million from four conservation programs (EQIP, WHIP, GRP and FRPP) to pay for technical assistance for WRP and CRP.
Passed the House by a voice vote

H.J. Res. 26 Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to protect the Pledge of Allegiance

I crafted this legislation in response to a court decision in which the San Francisco based Ninth Circuit Court ruled that teachers can no longer lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance. The Court decided that the phrase “Under God” was unconstitutional because it was an illegal religious endorsement. This Pledge Protection Amendment will protect the Allegiance by amending the Constitution. It declares that it is not an establishment of religion for teachers in a public school to recite, or to lead willing students in the recitation of, the following pledge: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I can’t think of a better way to educate our children about America than with the Pledge of Allegiance. It teaches the ideals that our flag represents, and about the lives dedicated - and sometimes lost - to protect those ideals.

107th Congress (2001-2002)

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H.R. 557 Deposit Insurance Fairness and Economic Opportunity Act

This legislation amends the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to set forth a schedule under which the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation shall transfer annually to the Financing Corporation (FICO), for payment of FICO interest obligations, such amounts as exceed 1.40 percent of the total estimated deposits insured by the Bank Insurance Fund and the Savings Association Insurance Fund, respectively, when amounts in both Funds exceed that percentage.

H.R. 1244 To name the national aviation center operated by the United States Customs Service as the "Glenn English Customs National Aviation Center"

This legislation was created and introduced to declare the national aviation center operated by the U.S. Customs Service at 5020 South Meridian Ave. in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to be known as the Glenn English Customs National Aviation Center. Glen Lee English, Jr. served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Oklahoma’s 6th congressional district from 1975 - 1994. English was re-elected to Congress nine times, but retired from Congress on January 7, 1994, to become CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) based in Arlington, VA.
This legislation was referred to the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management but never came to a vote on the House floor.

HR 2480 To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to reduce estate and gift tax rates to 30 percent, to increase the exclusion equivalent of the unified credit to $10,000,000, and to increase the annual gift tax exclusion to $50,000

This legislation would expand and update existing conservation programs by $1.6 billion per year, as well as create a new program to preserve America’s grasslands. It would also expand the EQIP program to $1.2 billion per year. This is six times the amount authorized in the previous farm bill.

H.R. 3293 Agricultural Bioterrorism Countermeasures Act of 2001

This legislation would allow closer monitoring of food imports, fund increased research on animal and plant disease that could be used by terrorists to sabotage the food supply, and encourage coordination among universities, bioterrorism experts, and law enforcement on the research and investigation of potential bioterrorism threats.

H.R. 4846 Eagle Coin Continuation Act of 2002

This legislation would amend Federal currency law to repeal the prohibition against using silver transferred to stockpiles established under the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Pilinig Act to mint coins. When Congress authorized the U.S. Mint to strike and sell investment-grade silver bullion coins, it directed that the silver to make such coins come only from the strategic silver stockpile established under the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act. Later, Congress ordered the selloff of many of those stockpiles, including the silver stockpile, but in an oversight did not allow for a new source of silver for the American Silver Eagle coin program once the stockpile was depleted. This legislation would remedy that.
Passed the House on May 5, 2002

H. AMDT 148 to H.R. 2330

An amendment to the 2002 Agriculture Appropriations bill, which would provide $3 million to be used for the rehabilitation of aging watershed dams. There are 10,000 aging watershed dams in the nation, 2,000 of which are located in Oklahoma.
Passed the House by a voice vote

H. AMDT 168 to H.R. 2500

This amendment to the Commerce Justice State Appropriations bill would increase funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) by $11.7 million. The funding would be used for anti-methamphetamine programs for local and state law enforcement.
Failed the House by a recorded vote

H.J. Res. 104

Circuit Court ruled that teachers can no longer lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance. The Court decided that the phrase “Under God” was unconstitutional because it was an illegal religious endorsement. This Pledge Protection Amendment will protect the Allegiance by amending the Constitution. It declares that it is not an establishment of religion for teachers in a public school to recite, or to lead willing students in the recitation of, the following pledge: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. There is no better way to educate our children about America than with the Pledge of Allegiance. It teaches the ideals that our flag represents, and about the lives dedicated - and sometimes lost - to protect those ideals.

106th Congress (1999-2000)

Search THOMAS for My Sponsored Legislation - 106th Congress

H.R. 728 Small Watershed Rehabilitation Amendments of 2000

This legislation would address the issue of rehabilitation of the nation’s small, aging watershed dams. Many of these structures across the nation are reaching their maximum expected life span and are becoming less effective and in some cases dangerous to nearby citizens and property. There are over 2,000 of these dams in Oklahoma.
Became Public Law106-472 on November 9, 2000
Read the steps I took to get this bill enacted into law.

H.R. 1511 Medicare Truth in Billing Act of 1999

This legislation would require the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) to disclose accurate billing information in the Medicare Benefit Notices it sends to Medicare beneficiaries. This legislation will ensure that seniors receive accurate benefit statements and that hospitals receive credit for paying a share of a Medicare beneficiary’s inpatient hospital bill.

H.R. 1609 To amend Public Law 105-188 to provide for the mineral leasing of certain Indian lands in Oklahoma

This legislation would provide for the mineral leasing of Indian lands located on specified former Indian Reservations in Oklahoma. This legislation would add lands within the former reservations of the Comanche, Kiowa, Apache, Ft. Sill Apache, Wichita and Affiliated, Delaware, and Caddo Tribes within the State of Oklahoma. The effect of this amendment will be to permit the mineral leasing of Indian land located within said boundaries in any case in which there is consent from a majority interest in the parcel of land under consideration for lease, to permit the Secretary to execute mineral leases on Indian land when the heirs of a deceased owner have not been determined or cannot be located and to permit the Secretary to approve or execute such leases without public auction or advertised sale.

H.R. 2772 To amend the Agricultural Market Transition Act to provide a variant of loan deficiency payments to producers who are otherwise eligible for such payments, but who elect to use acreage planted to the eligible commodity for the grazing of livestock

This legislation would allow producers to be eligible to receive an LDP payment when they graze out their wheat crop.
This legislation was included in the 2002 Farm Bill, which became Public Law 107-171 on May 13, 2002.

H.R. 3278 Financing Corporation Assessment Elimination Act of 1999

This legislation proposes to eliminate Financing Corporation (FICO) assessments for all financial institutions insured by either the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF) or Savings Association Insurance Fund (SAIF). This legislation would require the FDIC to use the reserve funds in the BIF and SAIF that exceed a reserve ratio of 1.35 (the statutorily required designated reserve ratio for the safety and sounds of the insurance fund is 1.25) to pay the interest on the FICO bonds. If the reserves fall below 1.35, the FICO assessments will be reinstated.

H.R. 4082 Deposit Insurance Fairness and Economic Opportunity Act

This legislation amends the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to set forth a schedule under which the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation shall transfer annually to the Financing Corporation (FICO), for payment of FICO interest obligations, such amounts as exceed 1.40 percent of the total estimated deposits insured by the Bank Insurance Fund and the Savings Association Insurance Fund, respectively, when amounts in both Funds exceed that percentage.

H.R. 4259 American Buffalo Coin Commemorative Coin Act of 2000

This legislation calls for the minting of a special $1 silver coin intended to raise funds for the National Museum of the American Indian of the Smithsonian Institution.
Became public law on October 27, 2000

H.R. 5400 Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Care Act of 2006

This legislation would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the retail tax on heavy trucks and trailers to exclude tractors suitable for use with vehicles weighing 33,000 pounds or less.

H.R. 5627 Steel Financing Fairness Act

This legislation would name the national aviation center in Oklahoma City as the “Glenn English Customs National Aviation Center”.

H. Res. 237 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with regard to fibromyalgia

This resolution recognizes the severity of the issue of fibromyalgia and the importance of scientific research in determining the cause of the disease.

105th Congress (1997-1998)

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H.R. 1849 Oklahoma City National Memorial Act of 1997

This legislation established a national memorial on the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
Became Public Law 105-58 on October 9, 1997

H.R. 4409 Small Watershed Rehabilitation Amendments of 1998

This legislation would address the issue of rehabilitation of the nation’s small, aging watershed dams. Many of these structures across the nation are reaching their maximum expected life span and are becoming less effective and in some cases dangerous to nearby citizens and property. There are over 2,000 of these dams in Oklahoma.

104th Congress (1995-1996)

Search THOMAS for My Sponsored Legislation - 104th Congress

H.R. 987 Domestic Oil and Gas Production and Preservation Act

This legislation would provide for tax incentives for oil and gas production.

H.R. 2736 Washita Battlefield National Historic Site Act of 1995

This legislation would establish the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site in Oklahoma to provide for the preservation and interpretation of the Battle of the Washita.

H.R. 3099 Washita Battlefield National Historic Site Act of 1996

This legislation would establish the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site in Oklahoma to provide for the preservation and interpretation of the Battle of the Washita.
Became Public Law 104-333 on November 12, 1996

H. Res 135 Condemning the Bombing in Oklahoma City

This resolution condemns the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and sends condolences to the families. It also commends the rescue and volunteer workers and enforcement officials.
Passed the House on May 2, 1995