Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that India should be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), the coauthor of the amendment with me.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

So the two opponents of the amendment are each able to speak before the proponent of the amendment at the conclusion of debate?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time.

In 1987, the fuel economy standard for the United States reached 27 miles per gallon. It had increased to that amount over a 10-year period because of an act of Congress. That act of Congress changed our relationship with imported oil so that it reduced dramatically our dependence upon imported oil.

Since that time, we have sequenced the human genome in medicine, revolutionizing that industry. We have deployed the Internet around the world, revolutionizing communications. We have changed our defense technology such that we could bring a country like Iraq to its knees within 3 weeks. But in fuel economy standards, we have gone backwards, back to 24 miles per gallon, increasing to 65 percent our dependence upon imported oil.

If we do not pass this amendment, we will have 70 and 75 and 80 percent dependence upon imported oil over the next generation.

This is the most important amendment we are going to consider today. I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the Boehlert-Markey amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, in our committee, we had a huge, successful string of hearings dealing with the Enron crisis and the aftermath of that set of scandals which rippled through the entire electricity and natural gas marketplace.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, responding to our inquiries with regard to what they needed in order to deal with that crisis, said that there are seven deadly sins in this marketplace. Enron called them things like, Ricochet, Fat Boy, Death Star, Wheel Out, Get Shorty. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission called them the seven deadly sins of Enron. And the seventh one, Round Tripping.

This legislation only bans one of the seven deadly sins of Enron, Round Tripping. That would be like saying, well, we are outlawing sloth, but we are not going to do anything about pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, we will let them all stay on the books.

So what the Dingell language does is say that we give antifraud authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission so they can go against each and every one of the seven deadly sins of Enron and all of those other companies that were engaging in systematic defrauding of American consumers and competitors of those companies across our country.

And, in addition, the Dingell language dramatically increases the penalties that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can impose upon these companies so that when they get caught, the punishment fits the crime.

The Dingell language mandates that electronic trails of all these documentations have to be kept. They cannot just put it on a piece of paper, written in pencil. That makes it almost impossible to reconstruct the trail of what they were doing in their efforts to defraud the American consumer and the other companies across the country, an electronic trail like we have at the Securities and Exchange Commission, or at the CFTC, at other trading entities for equity and futures and options all around the world, everywhere but in the electricity and natural gas on-line trading marketplace. There we are still using pencil and paper like it was the 1980s, ancient history in trading in the world, and we want to bring it forward.

The Dingell amendment does that, so that when they commit the crime, we will be able to identify it, the FERC will be able to trail it, stop it, and then the punishment under the Dingell amendment will fit what they did to the American consumer and public. I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Dingell substitute and ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.

If you are concerned at all about the threat of fraud and manipulation in electricity markets, you should vote for the Dingell Democratic substitute.

The Dingell substitute would add a basic antifraud provision to the Federal Power Act, giving the FERC the tools needed to bring enforcement actions using this antifraud authority, and impose tough civil and criminal penalties on those who violate the antifraud or other pvosions of the Federal Power Act.

The first part of the amendment is a basic antifraud provision that uses language identical to that of the antifraud provisions of the Federal securities laws, which have been in place for the last 65 years. It creates a general antifraud prohibition intended to be broad in application, making it unlawful for any entity, directly or indirectly, by use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, to use or employ any fraudulent, manipulative, or deceptive device or contrivance in connection with the purchase or sale of electricity or natural gas in contravention of such rules and regulations as the FERC shall prescribe.

In the Energy and Commerce Committee, we've heard testimony from the FERC about

what Chairman Pat Wood referred to as the ``Seven Deadly Sins'' of Enron's market manipulations--trading practices known as ``Price Manipulation-Load Shift,'' ``Export of California Power Richochet'' or ``Megawatt Laundering,'' ``Fat Boy or Incing Load'', ``Non-Firm Exports, ``Death Star,'' Wheel Out,'' ``Get Shorty,'' and ``Selling Non-Firm Energy as Firm Energy.''

But the bill before us today prohibits only one of the Seven Deadly sins--Roundtripping.

That's like saying that we're outlawing sloth, but we're not going to do anything about pride, envy, gluttony, anger, greed, or lust!

The Dingell substitute would fix that. We shouldn't just be outlawing one of Enron's Seven Deadly Sins, we should be addressing them all.

FERC should not always have to fall back on its ``Just and Reasonable'' rate authority when it is confronted with fraudulent activities, and there should be a higher penalty available to FERC when a fraud or manipulation has occurred than merely ordering a refund of excessive charges. That is why this amendment is needed.

In addition, the substitute amendment gives the FERC the power to direct the establishment of electronic audit trails which are a fundamental feature of securities and commodities markets. By requiring market participants to make and keep time-stamped trading records in electronic form and to periodically provide them to the regulator, audit trails give FERC the ability to conduct market surveillance and to investigate suspicious and possibly fraudulent or manipulative trading activities. Such audit trails have been in place for many years in our stock and bond markets, and in our nation's futures markets.

The amendment also strengthens the civil and criminal penalties for violations of the Federal Power Act. The current penalties are absurdly low--$5,000--which is chump change for one of these huge companies. The bill increases these penalties to up to $1 million. That's an improvement, but it is not good enough. What we've done in the substitute is to increase the criminal penalties up to the levels the House Republicans pressed for when they added the Sensenbrenner amendment to the recently enacted Sarbanes-Oxley bill--up to $5 million for individuals and $25 million for companies. In addition, the penalties section also enhances the ability of the court to censure or place limitations on the activities of individuals found to have engaged in serious violations enumerated in the provision. This is drawn directly from section 15 of the Securities Exchange Act, and has been an important enforcement tool for the SEC for many, many years.

If we have learned anything over the course of the 3 years following the Enron scandal, and the subsequent revelations of widespread fraud and market manipulation in the Western electricity markets, it is that the perfect markets assumed by free market ideologues differ from the real markets observed by consumers.

In fact, the FERC staff has now issued two huge reports on their investigations into the Western electricity markets. What they found was a market that was rigged, transparency systems that could be gamed, and electricity and gas prices that were unjust and unreasonable.

But, the FERC staff report also shows the problem that FERC has from a regulatory and enforcement perspective is that the limitations of current law force it to go after fraudulent companies or rigged electricity markets by prosecuting for filing violations, or commencing rate-making proceedings, when the real heart of the issue is fraud. The House Majority proposal responds to these findings only half-heartedly with a proposal so narrowly circumscribed as to miss most of the Enron- style shenanigans.

Chairman Wood expressed support for the antifraud provisions of the Dingell substitute when I offered them as an amendment and he and his staff have suggested changes to these sections that have been incorporated into the amendment the gentleman from Michigan is offering today. So if you are against fraud in our nation's market, if you want FERC to be able to take action against those who would manipulate these markets at the expense of consumers, you need to vote for the Dingell amendment today.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, yes, I would like to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the State of Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Chairman, when is 2,000 acres, not 2,000 acres? Well, it is when we are talking about the Wilson amendment. This amendment does not mandate that the 2,000 acres be contiguous or that we count roads necessary for production or the gravel mines necessary to build the roads and the pipelines necessary to move oil to market. It would only count when their support posts touch the ground. This is accounting that would make Arthur Andersen very proud.

I have a poster which shows my colleagues what proponents of this amendment want us to believe will happen in the Arctic refuge. Here is the red dot placed randomly on the 1002 area of the Arctic refuge, what we are all debating about. The dot is intended to mislead us into believing that its impact on the refuge would be very small. None of us, of course, knows exactly what the industry would do if we let them loose in the refuge because drilling and producing oil is a messy, inexact, unpredictable business. One thing we know for sure is that it would not look like a nice, neat, red dot on a white background.

The overlay is much more realistic in terms of what we can expect. This is taken from a 1987 environmental impact statement of the Department of the Interior, the same environmental impact statement the underlying bill says is good enough for starting a leasing program.

As we can see, it is not a red dot. It represents impacts estimated by the Department of the Interior spreading over 130,000 acres to 303,000 acres, one-fifth of the entire 1002 area, not a 2,000-acre dot.

This shows the pipelines needed to get the oil out of the refuge, the feeder lines to the wellheads and the impact area around the facilities.

The surface area is extensive and stretches across the entire refuge.

It shows oil extraction the way it appears when it is a serious mineral extraction exercise.

Now, just so the listening audience can have an idea as to how much 2,000 acres is, the entire New Jersey Turnpike, 12 lanes, going 100 miles through the entire State of New Jersey, is 1,800 acres. The entire New Jersey Turnpike. Put the entire New Jersey Turnpike, 12 lanes, across 100 miles of this Arctic Refuge. That will give my colleagues an idea of what 2,000 acres looks like. And lest anyone believe that is still a pristine area, they do not understand that oil and pristine wilderness do not go together.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert).

(Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, as I read the gentleman's amendment, it says that amounts that are received by the United States as bonuses for leases under this title and deposited with the Treasury ``may be appropriated to HHS'' to help fund the low-income assistance program.

If the gentleman would be willing to engage in a colloquy with me, it seems that it would be entirely discretionary as to whether or not the Committee on Appropriations actually uses the funds that would be raised in order to help the LIHEAP program; is that so?

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

So as Members are voting, they are not voting for an actual appropriation for additional money for LIHEAP. As the gentleman knows, in past years the Congress has authorized fairly substantially high levels of funding for LIHEAP, and yet the Committee on Appropriations has never quite felt that they had to honor the authorization level. As a result, we have had some difficulty ensuring that the full funding for heating assistance is on the books.

Mr. Chairman, my point is there is going to be a tremendous amount of budgetary pressure on Congress for the remainder of the year. The war in Iraq has yet to be completely paid for, the deficit continues to explode, and the Committee on Appropriations will know that language like this did pass; but my experience in the past has been that they regard it with about as much weight as the piece of paper upon which it is printed. That is a sad experience for Members on authorizing committees. Has the gentleman had the same experience in the past with the Committee on Appropriations?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the good news about the bill itself is on a bipartisan basis, the legislation which we have before us actually does authorize $3.4 billion for the LIHEAP program, which is great news. It is something that essentially reflects the bipartisan support which exists for this program on both sides of the aisle, and we do not really have a debate over that at all.

The amendment by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) asks the Committee on Appropriations to use this money that may be raised from leasing in the Arctic, but they do not have to abide by that, and that is the bottom line in terms of the bite that this amendment would have on anything that the appropriators would do.

It should be noted by Members that there is in fact no binding effect which the amendment would have in terms of increasing the actual appropriations that would be set aside for the low-income program. Unfortunately, over the years, the appropriators have always fallen far short of the dollar amount that our committee has authorized to be spent on the low-income program.

I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, we already have in the underlying bill authorized $3.4 billion, and they can find it from wherever the revenues are that come in, including the revenues that might come in if there is ever any drilling up in the Arctic refuge; but they would not be constrained in terms of their ability to use it for these purposes, although the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) and I are lifelong authorizers, and so we understand the relationship that exists between what it is that we exhort that committee to do and what they ultimately reserve the right to put in place in an actual spending bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time is remaining?

And what is the order of close on this amendment?

Mr. Chairman, then I reserve that right to close. I am the remaining speaker.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It seems to me that if there is a real concern about appropriating money up to the full $3.4 billion level that is authorized in the underlying energy bill that is supported on a bipartisan basis here on the floor today, at least that part of the bill, then the best thing that we can do is to make it clear to the appropriators that each of us wants that level to be reached in the appropriations process.

The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Pickering) and I are circulating a letter to Members to ensure that, not like last year where all the appropriators could find was $1.8 billion, but this year they find $3.4 billion so that the cold-weather States and those hot-weather States, whether it be Massachusetts or Mississippi, any other State in the Union, all are able to be fully funded under this low-income program. And I think that that is the only realistic way in which we are going to be able to ensure that we do take care of this problem. Because ultimately the appropriators are left to their own discretion in terms of how much money they want to appropriate for any program, and I am just afraid that with the war in Iraq, with the looming budget deficits that are just skyrocketing, perhaps as high as $500 billion this year, that this language just will not do the job in terms of getting them to take care of this very important program.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 5.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) so she may control those 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).

(Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall).

(Mr. UDALL of Colorado asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the State of California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

This is an issue about going to a pristine area in the Arctic and drilling in order to build a pipeline, in order to bring the oil down to California to put it in SUVs that get 12, 13 miles per gallon. The people who propounded this amendment just voted against an amendment that would have increased the fuel economy standards up to 30 miles per gallon for SUVs. Rather than do that, they say to future generations that they would prefer to desecrate this sacred refuge.

Now, I saw a Roll Call about a week ago and the Congressman from Montana's picture was in there. He was a staffer at the time. He had a beard. He had some glasses. He looked a lot younger. I did, too. People change, but there are certain things that should not change. The Arctic Refuge is one of those things. And I think, unless we have a compelling reason not to increase the fuel economy standards of SUVs that we have no right to first go to a pristine wilderness that should be preserved for the next generation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the State of Colorado (Mr. Udall).

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Boehlert-Markey amendment.

I strongly believe that we need to increase CAFE standards and that our country needs to be heading towards more fuel efficient vehicles. I will support this amendment and I urge all members to support it as well.

However, since it is clear that this amendment lacks the votes in the House to pass, I am particularly disappointed that the Republican leadership did not permit me to offer an amendment I had offered at Subcommittee and Committee that would address our oil dependence in another way.

My amendment would have allowed us to keep faith with our American troops by beginning to address our nation's dependence on foreign oil.

My amendment would have directed the President to implement a plan to reduce U.S. demand for oil by 600,000 barrels per day. This is the average amount of oil we have imported every day from Iraq over the past five years. The President can rely on voluntary measures, regulations, or other means. The amendment does not provide any new authority for funding, but the President can come back to Congress to request that if he needs it. And the President need not meet the full target if he finds and certifies that there are no practical opportunities to further reduce the waste of oil.

In no way would my amendment have undone or precluded the many measures in this bill designed to boost domestic oil production. These measures include two separate federal grant programs for onshore and offshore production, as well as exemptions for oil and gas activities from the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act. And although I oppose it, the bill includes oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as numerous other provisions to encourage production on public lands.

Also, nothing in my amendment would have mandated or provided new authority for any increase in vehicle fuel economy standards.

Instead, my amendment would have attempted to eliminate the waste of oil in this country.

I'm not going to belabor statistics today. But there are three points I want to mention.

First, the United States holds 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, but we consume 25 percent of annual worldwide oil production.

Second, over the past five years, we have imported on average 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

This means that third, we have sent over $5 billion per year to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. At least part of this money was used to purchase the weapons that are now firing at our troops.

I sought to offer my amendment because this legislative exercise is almost surreal. We are at war with Iraq, and millions of Americans believe that this war is about oil. We have a bill before us that reinforces this belief. In almost 400 pages, there is nothing that focuses on the easiest and most common-sense step we can take-- eliminating the waste of oil in this country.

Now, let me be clear about what I would call for. By eliminating the waste of 600,000 barrels of oil per day, we're talking about a 2.5 percent reduction from projected demand. Let's think about how easy that would be to achieve.

For one thing, we could keep the tires on our vehicles properly inflated. This could save up to 200,000 barrels per day--one-third of the target. Upgrading air traffic management systems could save another 50,000 barrels a day, while reducing flight delays. Weatherizing homes heated with oil could save over 80,000 barrels/day. And perhaps each one of us could think about whether we really need to make that extra trip to the store. These are just a few of the many, many things we could do to reduce waste.

When Californians faced the energy crisis, the Governor called on them to reduce demand for electricity by 10 percent. They did it and averted further blackouts. I believe that if the President called on Americans to support our troops by using oil wisely, Americans would response enthusiastically.

So I want to ask my colleagues, is this modest savings really beyond our ability to achieve? Are we really so beholden to the oil industry that we are actually in favor of wasting oil?

My amendment would have asked us to make the smallest of sacrifices. And this is at a time when we are asking 250,000 of our servicemen and women to give, potentially, the very greatest sacrifice of all. When I offered this amendment at subcommittee markup, no Americans had died in Iraq. Now, sadly, over 100 Americans have sacrificed their lives in this war.

I know that every person in this room wants to do his or her part to keep faith with our brave troops. Our part, and our obligation, is to make sure that no American has to risk his or her life fighting needlessly for foreign oil.

Unfortunately, we will not even have the opportunity to debate and vote on my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the majority is proposing the biggest change to our Nation's electricity laws since the 1930s. Unfortunately, they do this while ignoring the corporate abuses that we have seen over the last few years.

Let me tell the Members, those of us from California have seen these abuses in a major way. By some accounts, California has lost $40 billion due to energy company manipulation and FERC inaction, and the State will never likely be made whole.

Deregulating the energy companies further when they have acted so irresponsibly in the past makes little sense to those of us in the West, and it is something the rest of the country ought not to invite upon their ratepayers. A national energy bill should ensure that what happened in California never happens again. This bill makes it more likely.

The energy companies argue that what happened in California and other States was simply an insufficient supply combined with a bad State law. Well, it was a bad State law, but they are not telling us the whole picture. We now have proof that companies intentionally mapped the electricity markets to increase prices.

The remedy for corporate fraud is vigorous government supervision. Lax regulation, which this bill would provide, can lead to rampant price-gouging, as California experienced during its crisis. But this bill moves towards deregulating the energy industry and does so without adding needed protections.

The substitute offered by my colleague and friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), contains what is necessary to address the corporate abuses that have so harmed the Nation. This substitute will make it unlawful to engage in the types of fraudulent, manipulative, or deceptive acts that have hurt Western families. Then it gets tough on crime by upping the criminal and civil penalties and providing treble damages.

Unlike the bill before us, these penalties will actually make it uneconomic for energy companies to manipulate the market in order to gouge consumers. The substitute will also require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to carefully review market-based rates annually to ensure that they are just and reasonable.

The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) said if Members are worried about all these other parts of the energy industry being regulated, they ought to oppose the Dingell amendment. What he does not point out is that only if they are committing fraud will they be covered under the Dingell amendment. We should support that.

Mr. Chairman, we should make it unprofitable to engage in the kind of fraud and manipulation of the markets that we have seen in California. Without the Dingell substitute, the bill before us invites more price- gouging, more deceptive practices, more fraud.

I urge support for the Dingell amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, even though there is no opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia for his efforts on this energy bill. It has been a pleasure to work with him on these issues on a bipartisan, collegial basis. Together, we have attempted to seriously examine the Nation's energy policy and provide some commonsense changes that would improve Federal energy management.

The Committee on Government Reform is the committee of jurisdiction for Federal Government management and procurement, and the committee unanimously adopted a bill addressing energy-related Federal management and procurement issues.

In particular, the committee carefully examined the existing programs that are intended to encourage the Federal Government to use alternative fuel vehicles and reduce the use of gasoline. The committee found that the existing program does not work. Agencies are using taxpayers' money to buy vehicles that can run on alternative fuels, but then they are operating them on gasoline, defeating the whole purpose.

Thus, the committee unanimously adopted, and I want to underscore that, unanimously adopted provisions to address this problem by allowing agencies to acquire fuel-efficient hybrid electric vehicles and by creating an incentive for agencies to use alternative fuels.

We also worked out on a bipartisan basis a plan for increasing the use of clean, renewable energy by the Federal Government. Despite the committee's actions, the committee's provisions were not included in the base bill. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and I filed these provisions as a floor amendment, but it was not made in order. The amendment that we are now debating contains only a few minor study provisions adopted by the Committee on Government Reform. In other words, this bill is so relentlessly and excusably pro-consumption, pro- production, pro-exploitation of energy that we are not even allowed to debate bipartisan amendments that would modestly reduce Federal energy consumption.

As offensive as this is, this is only one of many egregious aspects of the procedure we are following today; and as bad as the process is, the substance of this bill is even worse.

Last Congress I opposed the energy bill because it provided massive subsidies for energy industries and forced our constituents to pay the tab. That bill was offered with a brazen disregard of taxpayers, consumers, the environment, and the real energy needs of this country.

Now, we have seen Enron fall, we have proof of rampant price gouging in the West, and we are in the midst of a war in Iraq. After all this, we are debating an energy bill that is even worse than the last one. I have to wonder if we are really capable of learning from experience.

Once again, this bill is a massive payback to oil and gas, coal, nuclear, and utility industries; and the subsidies in this energy bill are even more skewed toward the energy industry.

This bill is also so laden with environmental giveaways to energy industries. For example, oil and gas companies, such as Halliburton, will get exemptions from the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. Taxpayers will pick up the cost of refineries' compliance with the Clean Air Act. States and the public will have less input on pipelines that will degrade our coasts. The bill rigs the hydroelectric dam relicensing process against Native Americans, fishermen, farmers, cities, and environmental advocates; and the bill tramples State authority to apply environmental protections in siting transmission lines.

This bill also ignores reality and our real energy needs. We have learned that energy companies have fraudulently price gouged families, yet this bill does not address fraudulent acts. We have learned that oil companies are responsible for polluting critically important sources of drinking water, yet this bill would protect them from the consequences of their actions.

We have learned that energy deregulation can lead to higher prices and declining service, yet this bill pushes deregulation forward, heedless of the risks. We have learned almost daily of new impacts from global warming as icebergs break free and habitats retreat, yet this bill pretends it is not happening.

We have learned that with only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, the United States can never drill its way to independence from Middle Eastern oil, yet this bill does nothing to meaningfully address our dependence on that oil.

We must wake up. We are at war, and most people believe this war has something to do with oil. After all, Iraq is

the seventh largest oil-producing country, and Saddam's wealth and power come from oil. The weapons that are still killing our young men and women were purchased with oil revenues.

I filed a very simple common-sense amendment to begin to address our dependence on oil. It would direct the administration to reduce waste of oil by the amount that we are importing from Iraq each year. Who could support wasting oil? Well, apparently the majority in this body. They have just voted to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, yet the House is not even allowed to debate a proposal to reduce oil waste. This is a bad process and a worse outcome.

As we wage this war in Iraq, we have been largely isolated because of our failed diplomatic efforts. This diplomatic failure did not happen overnight. The foundation was laid when the President rejected the global warming treaty, a priority for most of the world. Subsequent unilateral rejection of the treaty after that treaty, and other treaties after that, only helped to ensure international distrust of the United States.

I offered an amendment expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should reengage in international negotiations on global warming, not accept the Kyoto Protocol, just carry out the promise that President Bush made to pursue an alternative. This language was unanimously accepted yesterday by the Committee on Foreign Relations in the other body, the Senate, but the House does not have the chance to debate a single measure on global warming, even a consensus one with bipartisan support like I proposed.

It is time for us to admit that our foreign policies and our energy policies are not severable. We cannot set the Nation's energy course while ignoring interactions with the rest of the world. This legislation does not represent reality in America today, it represents only the reality of a lobbyist-filled reception room and smoky back rooms here in Washington, D.C.

I will be opposing this energy legislation. I hope other Members will join me in doing so as well. Perhaps if a majority of us reject the energy bill, we can get back to work on meeting the real needs of our country in dealing with trying to break away from our dependence on oil and other energy resources.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I certainly support the amendment that the gentleman and I are being allowed to offer today, even though it is not what we voted out of committee. It is a study resolution. I do not think anybody can object, should object to it or would object to it.

But I wanted to use this opportunity, since I had some time on our side, to express my feelings about the whole energy bill and the process by which this bill is being rammed through the Congress.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the great pickup truck State of Montana (Mr. Rehberg).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), a distinguished member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

It has been argued that the bill is silent on CAFE. Not so. The bill calls for a study to actually replace CAFE, just as NHTSA is recommending that we study CAFE from top to bottom. Do we know why? Because it has awful, perverse effects.

One time GM came up with a new SUV that was much more fuel efficient than its old model, and it suffered, it got penalized under CAFE. Why? Because more Americans wanted that vehicle, and it upset their average. That is how perverse the system sometimes works. We call for revamping that system.

Secondly, last year we improved the CAFE standards for SUVs, an amendment that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and I took through the conference committee and has now been implemented into law. I think because it has been implemented, I am having a harder time getting the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) to support the rest of this bill, but it is well on its way to saving fuel for the American economy.

But the bill goes further. It provides $1.7 billion for the hydrogen fuel car, for the FreedomCar initiative, for new hybrids and alternative fuels, and it provides for the implementation of the President's hydrogen car infrastructure, a dramatic improvement in fuel efficiency when the hydrogen fuel car hits the market.

The amendment gives us lighter cars and smaller cars and more traffic deaths. The bill takes us on the path to new fuels, new efficiencies, new technologies. Stick with the bill. Let us defeat this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, let me first applaud the intent of my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), in terms of trying to benefit consumers and prevent market manipulation. But if that is the intent, then I am afraid his amendment goes exactly the wrong direction. Here is why:

The issue is not whether FERC currently has the authority to deal with fraud, manipulation, and deception, or whether FERC is even using that authority. Clearly, the FERC has the authority and is using it now aggressively to crack down on market abuses.

The Federal Power Act requires FERC to ensure that all rates, terms, and conditions for wholesale power sales and for transmission services are in fact ``just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory.'' This empowers the FERC to prohibit fraud, manipulation, deception, other anticompetitive conduct that distorts the market or harms consumers.

I have heard a number of my Democratic colleagues cite the manipulative practices FERC has identified in the Western markets. I am aware of that; but that is only half the story. What has been overlooked is the fact that FERC has identified these things in the context of taking strong enforcement actions against them. FERC has found, for example, many of the practices to be unjust and unreasonable and is taking action.

A recent commission staff report identifies the following, among others. Let me list them: fraud, manipulation, deception, attempted manipulation, gaming, wash trades, withholding, price distortion, inflated pricing and bidding, violation of tariff antigaming provisions, market abuse, unjust enrichment, misreporting prices, providing false or misleading information, taking unfair advantage of market rules, and anomalous market behavior.

Not one of these anticompetitive practices is just and reasonable or beyond the FERC's authority to act right now. That is why FERC is taking action right now against them.

The issue is not whether H.R. 6 does enough to update the FERC's existing authorities. It does. The electricity title of H.R. 6 enhances and modernizes FERC's penalty and enforcement powers in specific ways that FERC itself has requested.

FERC Chairman Pat Wood has testified that he needs market transparency authority and increased civil and criminal penalties for violation of the Federal Power Act's own rules and regulations.

The bill does both of these things and more: it adds transparency for both electricity and gas, and it dramatically increases the criminal and civil penalties. It makes needed adjustments in FERC's refund and investigative authorities.

But H.R. 6 does not stop with penalties and enforcement; the Dingell amendment does. The Dingell substitute strikes the entire electricity title.

So we should ask ourselves, what does the Dingell substitute do to promote investment in critical infrastructure or to increase our electric supply? The answer is zero.

What does it do to protect system reliability, which is essential for all customers? The answer again is zero. Or to promote new technologies for greater efficiency? Zero. Or to protect consumer privacy and prevent slamming and cramming of retail customers? Zero.

That is the electricity title the Dingell amendment would strip. That is the problem: it does nothing but impose a cumbersome new regulatory framework on top of FERC's already existing broad authorities under the Federal Power Act.

It is not clear how this new SEC-style framework would work in conjunction with the ``just and reasonable'' standard of the current law, nor is it clear how broadly this new framework would apply. It applies in the Dingell amendment to every entity.

Let me tell Members what I think that means. I think it means that it applies equally to every rural co-op, every municipal utility, and every Federal utility. So those concerned about rural co-ops, Federals, and munis, they ought to know this. When the Dingell amendment talks about any entity, it covers all of these entities.

Our bill, on the other hand, covers these entities in very limited, carefully defined ways, in open access, in refund authority. We exempt the smaller co-ops and munis under 4 million megawatts.

I find it very troubling, on the other hand, the Dingell substitute would inject FERC regulatory authority completely over these, possibly as FERC would interpret it, over all the co-ops and munis.

The electricity title of H.R. 6 goes to the heart of the matter. Without adequate investment in transmission and a diverse, reliable supply of electricity, the result would be a chronic failure of the Nation's electricity market and higher prices for consumers. Regulatory overkill is not the answer.

Enforcement, yes, is very important. Our electricity title addresses that. But the key to protecting consumers is to improve the operation of the competitive wholesale electricity markets and eliminate the transmission congestion and other factors that have allowed the manipulation to occur in the first place.

According to a 2002 Department of Energy study, competition in wholesale electricity markets reduces consumers' electricity bills by nearly $13 billion annually. It is time now not to turn our backs on the wholesale competition; we have to look ahead.

Mr. Chairman, I hope we defeat this Dingell amendment which would strip out the incredibly good electricity title of this bill and simply add SEC overregulatory burdens on a FERC that is absolutely empowered and can do its job today.

Mr. Chairman, I am honored to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I notice that the letter does not say they support the Dingell amendment; it just says it is narrowly crafted.

That is correct; It is narrowly crafted. It strips out the improvements and reforms in electricity.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry), a member of our committee.

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Pickering), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Telecom Gulch, California (Mr. Issa), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. Chairman, I have one additional speaker who will close, so I would ask the gentleman to use his time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the remaining time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and the author of the electricity title, which would get stripped by the Dingell amendment. He will close on this dastardly amendment by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to speak about another national wildlife reserve. It is not in the cold north of ANWR. It is not in the frozen tundra along an Arctic coast, which is already producing just a short distance away, in Prudhoe Bay, an amazing amount of resources for the good of our country. It is the national wildlife reserve located in deep south Louisiana. It is called Mandalay. It is beautiful.

And if my colleagues think there are any critters running around in the Arctic, or in the ANWR, they should come to Mandalay. It is so rich in wildlife, with fish diversities of which one could never imagine. We call Louisiana ``Sportsmen's Paradise,'' there is so much fish, so much wildlife there. In fact, when I came to Washington as a young freshman, I told the Department of the Interior they had to get the alligators off the endangered species list quick or put us on, one or the other.

We have alligators, fish, turtles, and every kind of wildlife a person can think of in Mandalay Wildlife Reserve. There are also 100 producing wells. Each one of those wells produces for the good of our country. It produces in an environmentally safe way. Royalties from that production goes back into protecting Mandalay and the 5 million acres in Louisiana that we protect as wildlife areas, including Mandalay. We do it in an environmentally sensitive way in the heart of a region that is so full of wildlife it cannot even compare to the Arctic and ANWR.

What the gentlewoman is attempting to do in this effort is to produce for the country's sake, so we do not have to depend upon people like Saddam for our oil. In the interest of helping this country, she is reducing the footprint to a mere 2,000 acres, which is a lot smaller than Mandalay, a mere 2,000 acres. She is going to reduce the footprint of this activity to an area so small it is almost unimaginably small; and then this country would be better off for it.

The gentlewoman's amendment needs to be adopted and we need to make sure this Nation takes advantage of this other national wildlife reserve.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has a good point. We have a lot of work to do with the Committee on Appropriations. But if the appropriators were to find this new source of revenue, if this bill did pass and they found it and they appropriated money out of the royalty fund without us first having authorized it at our committee level, the gentleman from Massachusetts and I would be objecting to the appropriators authorizing on an appropriation bill. We would say in effect that we have not authorized it yet; they had better not spend it.

So this is an important first step, I would tell the gentleman. The gentleman is correct we would still need the appropriation later; but if we do not do the first step, they cannot do the second step.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield again?

Mr. Chairman, my concern is that without this amendment, the reason why I think we ought to adopt it, is that there are laws on the books that provide for where royalty and bonus income goes, and without a provision that gives the appropriators a chance to say, no, this money can go to LIHEAP, in fact, on this date in the House Chamber the House authorized it; without that having been done, they may interpret the law to mean that they cannot use these moneys.

I would urge my friend to at least give them that option.

Mr. Chairman, the Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana is a national asset, too, but there are 100 producing wells on it. And the people of California and the people of Massachusetts benefit from the fact that we produce a hundred wells in the Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge, a refuge that is much more abundantly full of resources than ANWR.

What people forget is that inside ANWR, inside the area, 1002, that was designated for drilling, that is what 1002 is; out of this 19- million-acre ANWR, 1002 is the area we set aside for production. And inside it is 92,000 acres of private property. It belongs to the people who live there, and they cannot even produce their resources.

Now, I understand if California does not want to produce or Massachusetts does not want to produce. If they want to depend upon the Mandalay Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana for oil and gas, I can understand that. We make that deal. We produce in Louisiana. We do it in an environmentally sensitive way, and we produce oil and gas for the rest of the country. If we shut down tomorrow, the country is out 25 percent of its oil and 25 percent of its gas. What do you think Massachusetts and California will do then?

But the people of ANWR, 1002, the people who live on the 92,000 acres, want to produce their own private lands and you will not let them. Not government lands, their own private lands, and you will not let them; that is what this amendment does. It says to private property owners in America, the Native Alaskans who live on this private property, you cannot produce your own property, you cannot produce resources for the rest of the country if you choose to do so.

Well, let me ask a simple question. Do you think the ANWR, the 1002 area where these people live, is any more precious than the Mandalay area in Louisiana? Do you think it deserves more attention, more protection, more sacred status than the Mandalay area, my district in Louisiana?

It does not. It does not. We produce in Louisiana. It is time for the rest of you to do the same thing.

Mr. Chairman, I want to disassociate myself from any of the gentleman's comments except the part where he said he supports the amendment of the gentleman from Virginia, because I do too.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this very sensible amendment and I commend my colleagues Mr. Boehlert and Mr. Markey for their persistence in pushing this issue forward year after year.

It shouldn't have to take years for Congress to act on improving fuel economy. With the average fuel economy of all new passenger vehicles at its lowest point since 1980 and with fuel consumption at its highest, there shouldn't be disagreement about the wisdom of improving CAFE standards.

Yet there is disagreement, and clearly we can't count on the Administration to make the right choice. The President's recent CAFE proposal for light trucks is actually less ambitious than voluntary measures announced earlier by General Motors and Ford.

And as much as I believe in the Administration's vision of a hydrogen future, I don't believe we should forgo making smart short-term choices. A recent study tells us that significantly increasing fuel economy standards now could save 25 times more oil than would be saved by waiting for fuel cell vehicles to become commercially available.

So Mr. Chairman, I believe we must abandon energy inefficiency and instead work to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cut back on air and carbon dioxide pollution, and save consumers money at the gas pump. The American people can benefit from improved CAFE standards.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment, and in doing so, I would like to take a moment of personal privilege and speak about my father, Morris Udall, who served in this body for 30 years with many of us here today. And there have been suggestions in the Committee on Resources that Mo Udall, were he alive today, would vote against the Markey amendment. I would tell you that I believe he would vote for the amendment today.

In 1980, my father opposed drilling in the refuge. I believe he would oppose drilling today, but he would say the real issue is not the past. It is the future. He lived by the credo that we do not inherit the Earth from our parents, but we borrow it from our children. And he would say we are gambling with our children's inheritance.

The odds are not good and the stakes are too high. We should not gamble with the heart of the refuge for a few months of oil. We have better alternatives and we should leave our children with some choices about how they use their inheritance. That is why I urge a ``yes'' vote on Markey-Johnson.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly support this amendment.

On the question of whether to open the coastal plain, Congress is being asked to gamble on finding oil there. So, we first must decide what stakes we are willing to risk, and then weigh the odds.

The stakes are the coastal plain. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it ``is critically important to the ecological integrity of the whole Arctic Refuge'' which is ``America's finest example of an intact, naturally functioning community of arctic/subarctic ecosystems.''

What are the odds? Well, the best estimate is by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). in 1998 they estimated that if the price of oil drops to less than $16 per barrel (as it did a few years ago) there would be no economically recoverable oil in the coastal plain. At $24 per barrel, USGS estimated there is a 95 percent chance of finding 1.9 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in the refuge's coastal plain and a 50 percent chance of finding 5.3 billion barrels.

But Americans use 19 million barrels of oil each day, or 7 billion barrels of oil per year. So, USGS is saying that at $24 per barrel, there is a 50 percent chance of finding several months' supply of oil in the coastal plain.

There is one 100 percent sure bet--drilling will change everything on the coastal plain forever. It will never be wilderness again. We do not need to take that bet. There are less-sensitive places to drill--and even better alternatives, including conserving energy and more use of renewable resources.

For example, fuel-efficiency standards for new cars and light trucks could feasibly be raised to more than 40 miles per gallon by 2010. Experts estimate that alone would save 10 times as much oil as would likely be extracted from the Arctic refuge over the next 30 years.

In short, when it comes to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I think that the stakes are too high and the odds are too long--especially since we have better options. So I do not support it.

For the benefit of our colleagues, I am attaching excerpts from an article in Foreign Affairs by two Coloradans--Amory R. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins.

Founders and leaders of the Rocky Mountain Institute, they are recognized experts on energy issues.

The article, entitled ``Fool's Gold in Alaska,'' clearly shows that drilling for oil on the coastal plain does not make sense in terms of economics, national security, or environmental protection. As they put it, ``Drilling for refuge oil is a risk the nation should consider taking

only if no other choice is possible. But other choices abound.''

We should opt for those other choices by adopting this amendment.

Here are key excerpts from the article I mentioned:

[From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2001]

Fool's Gold in Alaska

(By Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins)

the bottom of the barrel?

Oil prices have fluctuated randomly for well over a

century. Heedless of this fact, oil's promoters are always

offering opportunities that could make money--but on the

flawed assumption that high prices will prevail.

Leading the field of these optimists are Alaskan

politicians. Eager to keep funding their state's de facto

negative income tax--oil provides 80 percent of the state's

unrestricted general revenue--they have used every major rise

in oil prices since 1973 to advocate drilling beneath federal

lands on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge. Just as predictably, environmentalists counter that

the refuge is the crown jewel of the American wilderness and

home to the threatened indigenous Gwich'in people. As some

see it, drilling could raise human rights issues under

international law. Canada, which shares threatened wildlife,

also opposes drilling.

Both sides of this debate have largely overlooked the

central question: Does drilling for oil in the refuge's

coastal plain make sense for economic and security reasons?

After all, three imperatives should shape a national energy

policy: economic vitality, secure supplies, and environmental

quality. To merit serious consideration, a proposal must meet

at least one of these goals.

Drilling proponents claim that prospecting for refuge oil

will enhance the first two while not unduly harming the

third. In fact, not only does refuge oil fail to meet any of

the three goals, it could even compromise the first two.

First, the refuge is unlikely to hold economically

recoverable oil. And even if it did, exploitation would only

briefly reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil by just a few

percentage points, starting in about a decade. Nor would the

refuge yield significant natural gas. Despite some recent

statements by the Bush administration, the North Slope's

important natural-gas deposits are almost entirely outside

the refuge. The gas-rich areas are already open to industry,

and environmentalists would likely support a gas pipeline

there, but its high cost--an estimated $10 billion--would

make it seem uneconomical.

Furthermore, those who suppose that any domestic oil is

more secure than imported oil should remember that oil

reserves almost anywhere else on earth are more accessible

and more reliably deliverable than those above the Arctic

Circle. Importing oil in tankers from the highly diversified

world market is arguably better for energy security than

delivering refuge oil to other U.S. states through one

vulnerable conduit, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

* * * * *

Increase energy productivity now delivers two-fifths of all

U.S. energy services and is also the fastest-growing

``source.'' (Abroad, renewable energy supply is growing even

faster; it is expected to generate 22 percent of the European

Union's electricity by 2010.) Efficient energy use often

yields after-tax returns of 100 to 200 percent on investment.

Its frequent fringe benefits are even more valuable . . .

* * * * *

Efficiency also has major policy advantages. It is here and

now, not a decade away. It improves the environment and

protects the earth's climate. It is fully secure, already

delivered to customers, and immune to foreign potentates and

volatile markets. It is rapidly an equitably deployable in

the market. It supports jobs all over the United States

rather than few firms in one state.

* * * * *

a barrel saved, a barrel earned

If oil were found and profitably extracted from the refuge,

its expected peak output would equal for a few years about

one percent of the world oil market. Senator Frank Murkowski

(R-Alaska) has claimed that merely announcing refuge leasing

would bring down world oil prices. Yet even a giant Alaskan

discovery several times larger than the refuge would not

stabilize world oil markets. Oil prices reached their all-

time high, for example, just as such a huge field, in

Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, neared its maximum output. Only energy

efficiency can stabilize oil prices--as well as sink them.

And only a tiny fraction of the vast untapped efficiency

gains is needed to do so.

What could the refuge actually produce under optimal

conditions? Starting about ten years from now, if oil prices

did stay around $22 per barrel, if Congress approved the

project, and if the refuge yielded the USGS's mean estimate

of about 3.2 billion barrels of profitable oil, the 30-year

output would average a modest 292,000 barrels of crude oil a

day. (This estimate also assumes that such oil would feed

U.S. refineries rather than go to Asian markets, as some

Alaskan oil did in 1996-2000.) Once refined, that amount

would yield 156,000 barrels of gasoline per day--enough to

run 2 percent of American cars and light trucks. That much

gasoline could be saved if light vehicles became 0.4 mpg more

efficient. Compare that feat to the one achieved in 1979-85,

when new light vehicles on average gained 0.4 mpg every 5

months.

Equipping cars with replacement tires as efficient as the

original ones would save consumers several ``refuges'' full

of crude oil. Installing superinsulating windows could save

even more oil and natural gas while making buildings more

comfortable and cheaper to construct. A combination of all

the main efficiency options available in 1989 could save

today the equivalent of 54 ``refuges''--but at a sixth of the

cost. New technologies for saving energy are being found

faster than the old ones are being used up--just like new

technologies for finding and extracting oil, only faster. As

gains in energy efficiency continue to outpace oil depletion,

oil will probably become uncompetitive even at low prices

before it becomes unavailable even at high prices. This is

especially likely because the latest efficiency revolution

squarely targets oil's main users and its dominant growth

market--cars and light trucks--where gasoline savings magnify

crude-oil savings by 85 percent.

* * * * *

As long as the world runs largely on oil, economics

dictates a logical priority for displacing it. Efficient use

of oil wins hands down on cost, risk, and speed. Costlier

options thus incur an opportunity cost. Buying costly refuge

oil instead of cheap oil productivity is not simply a bad

business decision; it worsens the oil-import problem. Each

dollar spent on the costly option of refuge oil could have

bought more of the cheap option of efficient use instead.

Choosing the expensive option causes more oil to be used and

imported than if consumers had bought the efficiency option

first. The United States made exactly this mistake when it

spent $200 billion on unneeded (but officially encouraged)

nuclear and coal plants in the 1970s and 1980s. The United

States now imports oil, produces nuclear waste, and risks

global climate instability partly because it bought those

assets instead of buying far cheaper energy efficiency.

Drilling for refuge oil is a risk the nation should

consider taking only if no other choice is possible. But

other choices abound. If three or four percent of all U.S.

cars were as efficient at today's popular hybrid models, they

would save the equivalent of all the refuge's oil. In all,

many tens of times more oil is available--sooner, more

surely, and more cheaply--from proven energy efficiency. The

cheaper, faster energy alternatives now succeeding in the

marketplace are safe, clean, climate-friendly, and

overwhelmingly supported by the public. Equally important,

they remain profitable at any oil price. They offer economic,

security, and environmental benefits rather than costs. If

any oil is beneath the refuge, its greatest value just might

be in holding up the ground beneath the people and animals

that live there.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for yielding time to me.

This is about the future, but I think the past is instructive; and I ran across the following from a report in 1978.

The subcommittee, it says, has noted the eloquent statements of a number of prominent Alaskans about the idea of building a pipeline across the coastal plain, and the report quotes the senior Senator from Alaska who told the Council on Environmental Quality, some have appropriately compared the idea with slicing a razor blade across the face of the Mona Lisa.

I am not saying the Senator from Alaska would support this amendment. I am sure he would not, but in the spirit of what Teddy Roosevelt said when he saw the Grand Canyon, ``This is God's handiwork; we cannot improve on it,'' let us let the wildlife refuge be. We cannot improve on it. Support the Markey-Johnson amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

(Mr. GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. John).

Mr. Chairman, in order that I can give my full and undivided attention to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), for whom I have immense respect even though he is dead wrong on this one, I yield myself 2 minutes to close.

(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, this wonderful amendment, it just does not work. Although I love my good friends, the authors of it, they are dead wrong. It is going to cost jobs. The UAW says so. It is going to hurt the auto industry. The auto industry says so. It is going to force every American to ride around in a mini-car. It is going to fix it so that SUVs and decent-sized pickup trucks are not going to be available to people. It is going to mean that the auto industry is going to have to produce larger vehicles, such as larger than light-duty trucks, for purposes that ranchers and farmers and businessmen will have need of. And it is going to require unsafe vehicles, or at least less safe vehicles to be available to the American motoring public.

The simple answer is, it is going to require almost exclusively the production of mini-cars. The result is going to be a significant loss of safety.

The thing that we must understand about this is that the law on CAFE is now working. Automobiles and light pickup trucks and so forth are about twice as efficient as they were before we passed it. That has been an enormous advance of great benefit to the American people, and it has been something which has been of great help and done at great cost to the auto industry.

Something else that needs to be known: These cars are not manufactured on the basis of arithmetic averages. They are produced to meet CAFE standards on the basis of geometric or harmonic averages, which means that to produce one decent-sized car in which an individual or a company or a family may successfully and safely drive, the companies must produce many smaller cars.

So what are we looking at? We are looking at something which is going to adversely impact the American consumer with this amendment and also something which is going to adversely impact the auto industry.

Let me remind my colleagues that one job in seven in this country is an auto job, a supplier or a manufacturer. Look here, see where our people work and what this is going to do. There is no one in this country who is not dependent upon the automobile industry for a livelihood.

Mr. Chairman, let us have a responsible, sensible package of automobile fuel efficiency legislation. Let us not grasp at straws, and let us not push forward with legislation which, very frankly, although it sounds good, is wondrously mischievous and is going to not only hurt the country, the consumer, but also the auto industry and the auto workers.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, my substitute amendment replaces the electricity provisions of H.R. 6. My amendment is supported by all of labor, by all of consumer groups, by the public power industry, and by a host of other consumer and business organizations.

This is the first time that the House of Representatives has considered changes to the Nation's energy laws since the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Given the volatility and market manipulation that occurred in California

and other West Coast markets during 2000 to 2001, and the real need for reform, I wish I could muster kinder words for this portion of the bill which the amendment changes.

Unfortunately, title VI underscores the continuing lack of consensus about the direction of the Nation's electric markets. In the rush to produce an electricity title, a strange, hybrid, amphibian monster has come forth. It has produced something which has neither competition nor market reform and, indeed, there is not mention of the word ``competition'' anywhere in the bill. Instead, title VI combines elements of industry deregulation with provisions favoring special interests. Sadly, neither of these has much to do with protecting consumers or investors in this critical industry.

Among its deficiencies, title VI repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. It ties Federal regulators' hands in reviewing unjust and unreasonable electricity contracts. It codifies into permanent law a patchwork of different transmission regimes, placing some lines under Federal jurisdiction and others under State jurisdiction. While the utility may tell us that this last provision takes care of things, do not believe it, because it is going to make a fine controversy, which will continue to plague us.

Just as important, the bill lacks fundamental reforms needed to prevent recurrence of the abuses which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission uncovered at its recent western markets investigation, and proposes only limited and superficial market reforms.

It is both because of what the title does and what it does not do that I am offering this substitute amendment. My amendment takes a different tack, setting aside deregulation proposals like PUHCA repeal; and instead, provides for a number of common-sense reforms. By curbing fraud and manipulation, which is not done under the committee bill, my amendment will protect consumers and reassure Wall Street and small investors that the industry is again stable.

This amendment gives FERC broad authority to take action against fraud in both electricity and natural gas markets. The Commission's report recently found that some of the abuses in western markets during 2000 and 2001 were not even illegal. This bill would correct that.

The amendment also gives FERC the necessary tools in the form of audit trail authority and robust transparency requirements to detect and deter manipulation.

One disturbing aspect of the Enron scandal was the timing of the Securities and Exchange Commission's decision this year to revoke Enron's ``exempt'' status under PUHCA, under which they have committed all manner of outrage on consumers and investors alike.

My amendment would also reform FERC's market-based energy rate policy and permit refunds for electricity overcharges from the date it began, not just from the date upon which they were filed with the FERC.

Finally, the substitute amendment increases civil and criminal penalties to the level of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation enacted in the 107th Congress.

If my colleagues wish to vote for reform, this is the proposal. It is not one which is sought by the special interests; but it is one which is sought by consumers, investors, and others.

I urge my colleagues to vote for protection of consumers and investors and against future Enrons. In short, vote for the Dingell substitute amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have in my hand a letter from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. It will be useful information for my friends, the chairman of the subcommittee and the chairman of the committee.

It says,

Dear Representative Dingell:

Electric cooperatives do not endorse the electricity title

of H.R. 6. We have serious problems with the repeal of Public

Utilities Holding Company Act (PUHCA), and with incentive

rates and participant funded transmission.

H.R. 6 expands Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

jurisdiction over electric cooperatives' transmission through

the so-called ``FERC Lite'' provision. The Dingell amendment

is more narrowly crafted and related to fraudulent,

manipulative or deceptive practices.

For the information of my good friends on the other side of the aisle, the public power folks support our amendment, not the committee bill.

Mr. Chairman, with all respect for all of my colleagues, there are certain things that are very simple and very clear here.

The bill before us does not address the problem. It repeals PUHCA. It eliminates the merger protections. It has virtually no protections in it against fraud. It raises the bar significantly for FERC to modify contracts. And it fixes it so that you cannot get speedy refunds going back to the date that the wrongdoing occurred.

Now, what does the substitute do? It gives FERC broad antifraud authority in every part. And I would note that it is supported by both the public power people and by the co-ops. It directs FERC to establish audit trails that do other things, including requiring transparency of transactions and rate-making so as to more easily detect and deter wrongdoing.

It requires the SEC to review existing PUHCA exemptions to prevent future Enrons from obscuring its actions, and I would note that SEC and FERC have pointed out the huge number of improprieties associated with Enron.

It increases civil and criminal penalties, and it reforms FERC's authority to permit refunds of unjust and unreasonable market-based rates back to the date that they began.

If my colleagues represent any place West of the Continental Divide in the United States, they should support the amendment because the amendment is crafted to address the problems which we found in the different reviews which took place of the misbehavior of Enron and others in the electrical utility industry. I would note that the abuses there cost consumers billions, not millions, billions of dollars, and in almost every State West of the crest line of the Rocky Mountains, including California but also including Nevada and Utah and Washington and Oregon.

If my colleagues want to stop fraud, if they want to stop wrongdoing, if they want to protect consumers, if they want to protect the American investing public, if they want an honest rate-making system, vote for the amendment.