Small Community Options for Regulatory Equity Act of 2007

I reserve a point of order against the amendment.

Madam Chair, I insist on my point of order.

The amendment may not be considered en bloc under clause 2(f) of rule XXI because the amendment proposes to increase the level of outlays by $140 million in the bill.

Madam Chair, I reserve a point of order on this amendment.

Madam Chairman, I rise in very strong opposition to this amendment. The principal purpose of this amendment is to block the long overdue increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts provided in the bill. The gentleman is correct that the bill reported by the committee provides $160 million for the NEA, an increase of $35 million over the 2007 enacted level. I am very proud of that increase which I think is fully justified and broadly supported by the Members of this body.

It is important for Members to realize as they consider the committee's action that the $160 million recommended only partially restores cuts made to this agency a decade ago. In fact, the amount in this bill is still $16 million below the level provided in 1993. After adjusting for inflation, the amount recommended is $100 million below the level in 1993, as displayed on the chart in front of the Members.

As we debate the amendment, Members should also note that the National Endowment for the Arts has been transformed since the arts funding debate of the 1990s. Two gifted chairmen have reinvigorated the NEA into an agency with broad support. Chairman Bill Ivey, appointed by President Clinton, negotiated and then implemented bipartisan reforms in NEA's grant structure to ensure that funds go to activities for which public funding is appropriate. Dana Gioia, the current

chairman, then energized the agency with many new programs and a commitment to reach beyond the cultural centers of our major cities. Last year every single congressional district received NEA support through innovative programs such as American Masterpieces, Operation Homecoming and the Big Read. Today, NEA is truly a national program with outreach efforts to every corner of America and every segment of our society.

Each of us has different reasons to support the arts. Some will describe their support in terms of the inherent joy of the arts as a personally enriching experience. Others support the arts as engines of job development and economic growth. It is equally important to emphasize that except for a few members of the Flat Earth Society, there is little opposition to Federal funding for the arts and for the humanities. The culture wars are over. For each of the last 7 years, with the help of many Members in this Chamber, a bipartisan majority of the House has voted to increase funding for the NEA. During the last 2 years, Ms. Slaughter's and my amendments to add funds were adopted by voice vote without opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I do not normally include quotes in my floor remarks, but I was struck in preparing for this year's arts debate by a quote attributed to actor Richard Dreyfus at the Grammy awards ceremony:

``Perhaps we've all misunderstood the reason we learn music and all the arts in the first place. It is that for hundreds of years, it has been known that teaching the arts helps to create the well-rounded mind that Western civilization, and America, have been grounded on. America's greatest achievements in science, in business, in popular culture, would simply not be obtainable without an education that encourages achievement in all fields. It is from that creativity and imagination that the solutions to our political and social problems will come. We need that well-rounded mind now. Without it, we simply make more difficult the problems we face.''

I believe Mr. Dreyfus is right, and the committee has acted to provide the funding so arts can reach even more broadly into American communities with a richer variety of programs.

I urge defeat of the gentleman's amendment.

Point of Order

I want to insist on my point of order.

The amendment may not be considered en bloc under clause 2(f) of rule XXI because the amendment proposes to increase the level of outlays in the bill.

Will the gentleman yield?

It was in 1984 when the gentleman created the moratorium off the coast of Washington and Oregon. I hope it never goes away.

I have a parliamentary point. Limitations are appropriate on an appropriation bill. I just wanted to make sure the gentleman from Hawaii was reminded of that technical point.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I appreciate the gentleman's passion on this issue, but I do not agree that this is the time or the place to overturn the 25-year moratorium protecting our Nation's best ocean beaches and fishing areas. I agree that energy supply is vital to our Nation and our economy, but so is the natural environment.

Our committee has looked at this issue closely. The President's budget request and this committee's bill maintains the existing drilling moratoria for oil and natural gas exploration. I want to say that again. The President, who has been the strongest advocate for oil and natural gas development in the history of the country, in his budget opposes lifting this moratorium. I think we ought to listen to him this time. This leaves substantial areas in the Gulf of Mexico and off of Alaska that are available for exploration.

Our bill also continues the exploration and development of public resources onshore on our public lands. We really do not need to lift the moratorium now. The protected areas do not have substantial reserves. The total technically recoverable resources on the OCS are estimated to be about 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of gas. The amount under moratoria, or Presidential withdrawal, after January 9, 2007, is estimated to be 17.8 billion barrels of oil and 76.5 trillion cubic feet of gas.

I also point out, and maybe the gentleman from Pennsylvania disagrees with this, that the industry people I have talked to say it is impractical to pursue natural gas-only drilling, which does not involve oil. It simply is impractical to issue leases only for gas and not for oil, as well.

I think it is important that we do not start major new developments in areas that are entirely lacking drilling and energy infrastructure. These are large areas which are already leased and are available for development. Before we open large, new and sensitive areas to development, we should focus our Nation's efforts in places that already have access to existing pipelines and distribution systems.

Mr. Chairman, the Peterson amendment seems so very simple, but that is not a good approach to such a complicated issue. This amendment would not allow the various States to have meaningful input on drilling activities and the extensive development on-shore which would follow.

Please join me and continue our protection of America's priceless coastlines. Please defeat this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I will ask for a vote on the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that debate on this amendment, and any amendments thereto, be limited to 20 minutes, to be equally divided and controlled by the proponent and myself, the opponent.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).

Mr. Chairman, I reserve my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have no further speakers at this point, so I would like the gentleman to finish and then I will finish.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Again, I want to point out to the gentleman that we really do not need to lift the moratorium now. The protected areas do not have substantial reserves. The total technically recoverable resources on the OCS, the areas where we are drilling off of Alaska and in the Gulf are estimated to be about 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The amount under moratoria, or Presidential withdrawal, after January 9, 2007, is estimated to be 17.8 billion barrels of oil, which is about one-fifth, and 76.5 trillion cubic feet of gas, which is about one- eighth.

So the reason we have the moratoria is because we think those areas are more important from an environmental perspective, that we need to protect our oceans and beaches. The gentleman from California was here and talked about the north coast of California. I represent the northern coast of Washington State, and I put this moratorium in place, I think, in 1984 for both Washington and Oregon. Mr. AuCoin and I did at the time.

I have yet to have one citizen in my State ever come up to me and say, why don't you let us drill for oil and gas off the coast of Washington? Nobody has ever asked us to do that. They want it

protected. It has got fisheries. It is one of the most beautiful beaches and coasts in the entire Nation.

I went up to see what happened with Exxon Valdez and see that oil spill and all that oil in and around the waters up there and how it destroyed the herring reproduction and all of the other species.

I want to protect the coast of Washington. I want to protect the coast of Florida, the coast of Virginia. Yes, we will drill off of Alaska. We will drill off the areas where the oil and gas exists. And if the gentleman from Hawaii is so interested in this, I am sure we can work out something for him out in Hawaii.

I will yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania briefly.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I think we should continue to work in the gulf and off of Alaska where most of the reserves exist.

I urge a strong ``no'' vote on this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate the concerns you have raised. I commit to you to work with you to resolve this issue in conference so that this program can continue to be implemented as is authorized by the Congress.

And I would also point out to my good friend from Texas, both of my good friends from Texas, that there is still $47 million in 2007 money that has not yet been obligated.

Mr. Chairman, I know that the gentleman is concerned about that, and is working to see that that money is obligated as well. We will work with you on this. It is a very important issue. I appreciate your hard work and interest in this subject.

No, no, no, just for this one amendment.

Under your amendment, would you be able to drill in the Great Lakes or in the Chesapeake Bay or in Puget Sound or in the Long Island Sound?

Okay. I knew that I opposed this amendment, but now I will oppose it with even greater fervor.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) who has been a strong supporter of the moratorium throughout her career and has been a real leader on this issue.

I don't have any additional speakers, and I have the right to close.

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

I rise in very strong opposition to this amendment. I hope the House will defeat it resoundingly. This does not make any sense for our environmentally sensitive areas, particularly on the coast of California and Washington and Oregon on the West Coast, and the sensitive areas on the East Coast as well.

I ask for a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

We want to work with the gentleman on this important issue. We are very concerned about this problem and think it deserves our complete attention.

Yes, that is the intention of this legislation.

I completely agree with the gentleman. The increase is necessary in order to deal with this very serious problem. We will continue to work with the gentleman as we go to conference with the Senate. We will do the best we can to help on this important issue.

Yes, it is. I appreciate the gentleman bringing this to our attention. We should focus the resources on those areas where the problem is the most severe. If we have any problem with this, I'll be glad to work with the gentleman with the agencies involved to make certain that that happens.

I want to commend the gentleman for bringing up this issue. Based on the additional information that has come to light concerning the impact of this 25 percent reduction to the Clean Air Status and Trends Network, CASTNET, and based on the gentleman's hard work and effort on this, we are prepared to accept his amendment.

If the gentleman will yield, yes, that is correct. There are presently no Member projects within the EPA EPM account within this bill.

While I can't predict the future of negotiations with the other body, I would be willing to take a closer look at the gentleman's specific concern at that time.

If the gentleman will yield, one approach might be for the gentleman to go to the EPA with the money that they get that is unearmarked and make a presentation there about the importance of this program. I'm not certain he's going to do that, but that's a suggestion we have from our staff.

We are prepared to accept the gentleman's amendment.

I appreciate the gentleman's very constructive approach to this matter. I just wanted to make sure the gentleman knew that the distinguished chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, Mr. Gordon, and I had a colloquy at the start of the day in which I committed myself to work with him to align our approach with the work of the Science and Technology Committee when that legislation is enacted.

I would hope that the gentleman might consider that in making his decision whether to go forward with this amendment, because I do believe we have a commitment to get this important work done.

As the gentleman has mentioned, and I will give the gentleman additional time, if necessary, as the gentleman has mentioned, adaptation and mitigation of the effects of climate change are terribly important to the United States, to our wildlife, to our habitat. In fact, this is an issue that is worldwide in reach and scope.

I would hope that the gentleman might reconsider his amendment to strike and allow us to go forward with a commitment that I have made to the chairman, and I make to you, that we will work this out in a way that is consistent with the authorizing legislation. That's why the chairman was willing to go along with me at this point.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

I believe the report language beginning on page 100 very adequately describes and justifies the new Commission on Climate Change, adaptation and mitigation. As I noted in my opening remarks, we have tried in this bill to move the climate change debate beyond talking about whether global warming exists and, instead, focus on what we must do to deal with this as a reality. The recent reports of the international panel on climate change make clear that warming will persist for many years irrespective of any regulatory actions or technology breakthroughs which may occur in the near future.

Testimony before our subcommittee in April describes significant impacts already occurring. These impacts included increased wildfires, changing precipitation and water availability patterns, increasing presence of invasive species, changing migratory patterns for many animals and birds, and significant loss of habitat for many species. The 2-year Commission established in this bill is intended to help identify and jump start the science which can help our country and the world adapt to these changes.

The Commission brings together a panel of 15 of this country's science leaders, and is headed by the president of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Ralph Cicerone. Dr. Cicerone, who I have met with personally on this proposal, is one of the world's leaders in climate change studies.

While the use of advisory panels is common in guiding federally- funded science, this panel is different in two ways. First, it cuts broadly across all areas of Federal science in looking at the climate problem. I make no apology for that. This is a national and worldwide problem, and I think we need to think beyond the traditional agency or subcommittee's stovepipe approaches.

Second, the Commission has $45 million to begin implementation of its recommendations. Giving the commission implementation funds will make it both more credible and more effective.

This is not a large amount of money, but we believe it could get a few of the

most critical science initiatives going without having to wait for the 2009 funding cycle.

Chairman Obey has asked our subcommittee to be aggressive and imaginative in approaching the climate change challenge this year. We think that the funding, provided in this bill for the climate change adaptation and mitigation science, responds to that need, and I urge the funds be preserved.

The committee is aware, however, that a number of other committees are working on legislation in this area. Chairman Oberstar, from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has written us in support of our Commission, which he believes can be supportive of efforts in his committee.

We are also working closely with the Natural Resources Committee, and we understand how Science, as I mentioned earlier, will mark something up in July. I want to assure the Members that when we get to conference on this bill, presumably in September, I am going to try for July. We will give full consideration to any new legislation which may be adopted as we finalize fiscal year 2008 spending for climate research in our committee.

I think it would be a real tragedy for this House, on the first major amendment this year on climate change, to have a negative vote, to show that we still don't get it, that we still don't realize that the planet is at risk here.

So I urge the committee to stay with us. This was approved in the Appropriations Committee, and I think it's a very good Commission, and I think this thing will work and will help us adapt to the problems that we are going to face because of this. We have these problems on all of our Federal lands. We had a hearing on that.

I think this is an important amendment. I urge everyone to defeat the gentleman's amendment.

I want to tell the gentleman I appreciate his hard work on this issue, and we're prepared to accept his amendment. And having had dead zones off the coast of Washington State, in Puget Sound and in Hood Canal, I can tell you this is a very serious problem, and I'm very pleased the gentleman is working so hard to deal with it and bring it to our attention.

I certainly agree with the gentleman that rural communities are unfairly burdened by the high costs associated with Federal clean water regulations and that families in such communities are shouldering alarmingly high rates of increase.

I commend the gentleman for his efforts on the part of his constituents and for all the rural water users who are facing similar problems. I commit to work with the gentleman to see what can be done to address the problems as this legislation moves forward to conference with the Senate.

I might point out that we did put $16 million in the bill for the rural water. There's going to be a competition. This had been an earmark in the past, but it got thrown out in 2007.

I have been calling over there to Mr. Grumbles at the EPA to try to get this thing moving as fast as possible so that the money gets out to the rural communities. And I commend the gentleman. This is a major problem. I have a lot of rural areas in my district, and every single one of them is having a terrible time getting the money to do the clean water issues.

Now, remember this too: When Christine Todd Whitman did her study, she came up with a backlog of $388 billion. So we are going to need a new authorization program. And I commend the gentleman for having one that focuses on the rural areas. And we have got to at least do that as a priority.

So I commend the gentleman and we will continue to work with him.

Mr. Chairman, I thought the gentleman has been urging me to try to figure out ways to reduce the size of this bill. We have already increased PILT by $43 million. I mean, when does this end?

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my point of order, and I rise in opposition to the amendment.

The principal purpose of this amendment is to block the long overdue increase in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts provided in the bill.

The gentleman is correct that the bill reported by the committee provides $160 million for the NEA, an increase of $35 million over the 2007 enacted level. I am very proud of that increase, which I think is fully justified and broadly supported by Members of this body.

It is important for Members to realize, as they consider the committee's action, that the $160 million recommended only partially restores cuts made to this agency a decade ago. In fact, the amount in this bill is just $16 million below the level provided in 1993. After adjusting for inflation, the amount recommended is $100 million below the level in 1993 as displayed on the chart in front of the Members.

As we debate this amendment, Members should also note the National Endowment for the Arts has been transformed since the arts' funding debate of the 1990s. Two gifted chairmen have reinvigorated the NEA into an agency with broad support. Chairman Bill Ivy, appointed by Bill Clinton, negotiated, then implemented bipartisan reforms in NEA's grant structure to ensure that funds go to activities for which public funding is appropriate. Dana Gioia, the current chairman, then energized the agency with many new programs and a commitment to reach beyond the culture centers of our major cities.

Last year, every single congressional district received NEA support through innovative programs such as American Masterpieces, Operation Homecoming and the Big Read. Today, NEA is truly a national program with outreach efforts to every corner of America and every segment of our society.

Each of us has different reasons to support the arts. Some will describe their support in terms of the inherent joy of the arts as a personally enriching experience. Others support the arts as an engine of job development and economic growth. It is equally important to emphasize that here in the House we've had votes on this issue year after year after year. In fact, in the last 2 years, the votes on the Slaughter-Dicks amendment have been accepted on voice vote.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the things that I'm proudest of is the fact that we had a hearing this year and brought in artists from all across our country to testify about the arts and what it means not only in terms of educating our youth, but also what it means to the American people.

I'm always surprised that there are some on the other side of the aisle who always want to beat up on the National Endowment for the Arts. In fact, when Mr. Regula was chairman of the committee, an outstanding chairman, he put into place some very significant reforms which I supported. And what we emphasized was quality, that we don't have enough money to fund every single project, that we must emphasize quality. And that's what Mr. Ivy has done; that's what Mr. Gioia has done. And I want you to know the endowment is thrilled about this increase. They think they can spend this money wisely and effectively.

I just urge the gentleman to reconsider his amendment. I wish he would withdraw it and recognize and join all of us who support the arts here in the United States. I'd like to see us have a bipartisan approval of this bill, and particularly this particular increase for the Endowment for the Arts. And we also increase funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities. The humanities are very important to our country as well.

So I urge that we oppose this amendment and keep moving along.

Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from New York was on the floor asking for recognition.

I ask unanimous consent that the gentlelady be recognized.

Thank you. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy.

I ask unanimous consent that the gentlelady have 1 additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, I just asked unanimous consent for the gentlelady to have 1 additional minute.

What's the difference? I'm the chairman of the committee. I can ask unanimous consent any time I want.

I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute for the gentlelady from New York.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

I was somewhat mystified by the gentleman's amendment. He was talking about the border. As we understand it, the money for this amendment would go to Forest Service research, which is, as we understand it, $15.5 million over the old 2007 level, and $33 million over the President's level in our budget. We don't need any more money for the forest research. We've already very adequately and generously taken care of it.

I appreciate the gentlelady for yielding and for her great leadership over many years. I have always enjoyed being your partner on this important amendment, and now we're close to getting back to where we need to get.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in favor of the amendment, and I am glad to speak on this.

I come from Odessa, Texas, an oil and gas province that produces an incredible amount of our country's natural gas and crude oil, and I make no apologies for that. My colleagues from Florida come from Florida and they defend their beaches, and they make no apologies for that, as they should not.

But let me talk about a couple of things I have heard on the floor this afternoon. One of them was the effect of time to market. In other words, if we drill today, it will take 6, 7, 8, 9 years in order to get that production to our gas pumps. The moratorium that we are talking about, Mr. Chairman, is dated 1998, 9 years ago. Had we been drilling since then, then that production would have, in fact, come to market and would be available to reduce our demand for that product.

We have also heard criticism on this floor this afternoon about oil company profits. They have been roundly criticized from both sides of the aisle in some instances, many times from the other side of the aisle. And the criticisms seem to be that those nasty, vicious, terrible oil companies are going to take those profits and drill, take those profits and try to produce additional crude oil and additional natural gas, as if somehow that is a negative in the way we do things.

That is kind of the free market process. If I make money doing something, then I should be taking those profits and putting them back into the ground to produce additional crude oil and natural gas.

We have also heard comments about the offshore facilities, the production facilities, drilling facilities, and what terrible things they are and the terrible things they do to the environment, on the shorelines and everything else. And that may or may not be true. But what I have not heard is the equal passion for the production facilities that take natural gas into those States. In other words, where is the passion against the gas pipelines, the roads, the infrastructure that takes that natural gas that is produced in Texas, produced in Louisiana, and puts it into your State? Where is that passion for all of that terrible infrastructure that benefits you?

We have also heard an appeal to conservation. Well, okay. If those States who do not want this drilling off their shores would begin to commit today to eliminate their use of natural gas, just simply say, okay, if we are not going to drill off our shores, then we are not going to use it either. Let's see the passion for your commitment to conservation.

We have also heard conversations about the importance of the tourism industry in Florida, and I don't doubt that. An incredible impact on that part of the world, a beneficial impact. How about those hotels that run their air conditioning programs off of natural gas? Where does that natural gas come from? Well, it comes from somewhere else. And what we are saying with the gentleman's amendment is that that vast bureaucracy that runs this process of leasing and coming to conclusions that it can be done safely would be unleashed.

Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I would urge adoption of my colleague's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This drilling will be conducted in an environmentally sound method. Any time you have got an industrial operation going on, you have got some risks, but these risks have been understood for years and years and years; and this industry is so much better today at drilling and producing crude oil and natural gas than they have ever been. And, quite frankly, they will get better tomorrow than they are today, and they will be better the day after tomorrow than they are today as well.

It is inconsistent to say on the one hand that it is a national security interest for this country to be dependent on foreign sources of crude oil and natural gas, and I agree with that. The inconsistency comes, though, when we say let's do whatever we can to limit domestic production of crude oil and natural gas. That position is inconsistent with each other, and I would argue with my colleagues that they should examine that inconsistency.

The time to market again has been mentioned again, as it was earlier. In 1998, when this moratorium was put in place 9 years ago, today all of that production that would have started in 1998 and 1999 when the price was low would be available to this country to use in hotels for air conditioning, in all of the multiple uses that the natural gas is used for.

So I urge my colleagues to agree with the Peterson amendment and vote for it.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

We have heard an awful lot of debate already about both of these sections. My amendment is straightforward and simple. It will strike section 104 and section 105 from this bill.

What the effect of that would be is to unleash the Interior Department's bureaucracy to begin running the leasing program that is provided throughout this legislation that is not related to what is being conducted today. This bureaucracy would make sure that the environment is protected and that these drilling operations are conducted in ways that will protect the military training lanes; and that these operations will be conducted in accordance with all of the vast array of regulations and rules that we have in place to protect the environment and protect the coastlines and produce this energy in a proper way.

Reference was earlier made about the oil spill in Alaska, and I would remind my colleagues that was the Exxon Valdez, a ship that ran aground that caused that oil spill and not directly related to the drilling and production phase of finding that crude oil.

As I said earlier, these operations can be conducted through environmentally sound methods. There is a significant amount of oil and gas to be found. I would prefer a 20 percent increase in anything, so to denigrate a 20 percent increase or 20 percent opportunity, I think, is misplaced in our arguments.

Cuba and the Chinese governments, along with other folks, are going to be drilling within 45 miles of Florida. That is not necessarily an excuse for us to also drill, but it is in recognition that the risk associated to the folks in Florida with not drilling are out of our control, and if we can control the drilling within 45 miles in ways that are appropriate, then we ought to do that.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Section 104 and section 105, I don't know that it does the Great Lakes. But Puget Sound, I think we would be able to drill there. It would remove the moratorium that is in place now that prevents drilling in those areas, but I don't know that the Great Lakes is included.

I can include the Great Lakes if that will get you over the hump to agree to it.

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

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

Again, this moratorium has been in place for a long, long time, and the gentlewoman from California went through a litany of opportunities, and she has taken a different look at it.

We have a growing continued dependence on foreign crude oil. So the old adage about the definition of insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get a different result might apply in this instance.

This amendment would simply allow the Interior Department and its vast array of scientists and bureaucrats and technicians and others who look at this information day in and day out, who know the ins and out of it, to decide how the development of this resource should occur. They will protect the environment. They will protect the military lanes and make sure that all of our codes and rules and regulations are applied to these efforts throughout the time frame that this is conducted. I trust them to do it and do it correctly.

I urge adoption of this amendment to set a new track to provide additional natural gas and crude oil resources, domestic production for our country.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I will be willing to withdraw the amendment, but would first ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with Mr. Dicks on the subject.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure you agree that all people deserve access to affordable drinking water and families in rural communities should not be required to spend thousands of additional dollars each year to comply with unfunded mandates from the EPA.

Mr. Chairman, currently, small community water systems across America are being forced to increase rates to meet clean water regulations, and some of my constituents pay almost 800 percent more for their water than their urban counterparts. While the rules may be well-intentioned and promote public health, we must do a better job of addressing the restraint of small systems and their communities to raise the capital and afford water treatment technology. If we don't, rural, middle-income families will be forced to leave community water systems in favor of water sources they can afford, namely, unregulated shallow groundwater wells and dirt tanks, and that will not advance the cause of clean, safe water for everyone.

I have proposed to take a symbolic $2 from the Office of Ground and Drinking Water, the office which oversees these water regulations, and direct the symbolic funds to two offices which may assist rural water systems comply with these unfunded mandates.

First, the EPA is currently working on revising the Small Drinking Water System Variance Affordability Methodology, which, once completed, will redefine the EPA's definition of ``affordable'' to more accurately reflect the world in which rural America lives. My amendment would return $1 to the Office of Ground and Drinking Water to facilitate and urge the completion of this urgent report. Once completed, this report should help communities utilize the existing routes to afford more cost-effective technology.

Second, I would have chosen to redirect $1 to the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which was established in the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 to highlight the shortfall in funds faced by small community water systems. Although loans are not an ideal way to support unfunded mandates on small water systems, I have been unable to find any other relevant program to build these funds.

I would like to encourage the creation of a significant grant program for Small Community Water Systems using existing funds. I would like this fund to be modeled on the USDA Rural Utility Services and the Clean Water Hardship Grants program. There is an urgent need for some funding, as the Rural Utilities Service currently has a backlog of $3.3 billion worth of program applications, and the EPA estimates that over the next 20 years small water systems will need $34 billion to continue to meet EPA mandates.

To begin the discussion and move us in the direction of clean, safe and affordable rural drinking water, I have recently introduced H.R. 2141, the Small Community Options for Regulatory Equity Act. This bill would further assist rural communities in complying with the cost of clean water regulations by allowing not-for-profit water systems serving less than 10,000 people to request exemptions from the national drinking water standards that are too costly for them to implement. This would return decision-making power to our local communities who are best suited to understand their needs and resources and ensure that rural communities could provide clean enough water without forcing their citizens to completely unregulated water sources.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

This amendment, I believe, is one of the most important issues that we will deal with in this Congress. It's about having affordable, available, clean, green natural gas, the fuel that we take for granted. It's the fuel that heats about 60 percent of our homes, 70 percent of our businesses, and is the major building block to all the industries that are left in this country.

The petrochemical industry, 55 percent of their operating cost is natural gas. The polymers and plastic industry, 45 percent of their operational cost is natural gas. And fertilizer can be as high as 70 percent of their cost is natural gas because they use it as a fuel and they use it as an ingredient to make their product. It's an ingredient in all those products.

Clean, green natural gas now generates about 20 percent of our electricity. That didn't used to be. Biodiesel consumes huge amounts of natural gas in the production cost. Ethanol, 96 percent of the plants that make ethanol use huge amounts of natural gas. We are consuming more natural gas in this country than we're able to produce.

The chart on the left with the red, that's the gap that's growing, because we as a country, 26 years ago, Congress decided that we shouldn't produce energy offshore. Every country in the world produces both oil and gas offshore. Now, they have setbacks. But they all use offshore production because it's the cleanest, best, safest way to produce energy, and there's huge amounts out there.

Now, for this country to have the highest natural gas prices in the world almost is insanity, because we have lots of it, but we have chosen to lock it up and not produce it. This is the clean, green fuel. It's greener than biofuels. It's what we use to generate electricity when the wind doesn't blow. It's what we use to generate electricity when the sun doesn't shine for solar. It's what we use to make hydrogen for the hydrogen vehicles that are oncoming. It's the bridge to our future because it's clean, it's green. No NOX, SOX and a third of the CO2 that all other energies project. For this country not to open up its Outer Continental Shelf to natural gas, my amendment opens it up from 25 miles on out.

That doesn't mean it's going to be drilled. It would still have to be in the 5-year plan, but it would open it up.

Let me tell you, folks, we're going to do this sometime. It depends on whether we do it in time to save the millions of jobs that are leaving. Dow Chemical's energy bill went from $8 billion in '02, natural gas bill, to $22 billion in '06. They came to our committee the last 2 years and begged for release. Produce natural gas. We didn't. They just invested $30 billion that they wanted to invest in America for working men in America and working women in America to have a good job. They're putting it in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Libya, because natural gas is a fraction there of what it is here. It is absolute insanity for America to starve itself of the clean, green fuel that has never foiled a beach.

California, New Jersey and Florida will protest the most. It will never foil a beach. A gas well has never foiled a beach. It has never washed up on a shore. It's a gas. And they are the three States that are the largest consumers and who have switched their electric generation to gas and helped cause the problem that have protested the production of clean, green natural gas.

My amendment is the amendment that can keep America competitive. It can keep us strong as a nation. It can keep American working people working in their jobs, in their factories. But if we don't pass my amendment, we will lose millions of jobs in this country; in fact, all of the manufacturing jobs. I lost a plant this year that made clay tile. Natural gas prices. I got a letter the other day from a guy who re-formed steel, and he said if it continues to go up, it has went up three times in the last 2 years, 300 percent.

He said, if it goes up any further, I am out of business. I can't make sign posts. I can't make bed rail anymore out of recycled steel rail.

Folks, clean, green natural gas is more America's fuel that can keep this country strong and growing and environmentally green.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Several things have been said that I think must be responded to. Oil and gas spills. Could someone here show me a gas spill? A natural gas spill? There is no recorded history of one. Natural gas comes out of the ocean floor and bubbles into the air all over the ocean all the time. But there is no spill.

The fact is you can't drill for gas without oil. I grew up around it. I have never made money in the oil business. I have never invested a dime in it. But I grew up around it. You drill a hole in the ground. You put a steel casing in the ground. You register every place you go through, coal, gas, oil, rocks. It is actually rocks that have oil and gas in them. Then you notch the pipe where you want to produce.

In Pennsylvania, there were three or four oil sands, and the gas is way below the oil in most places. There was a little bit of gas in the oil, but not a lot. You notch the pipe where you want to produce it. So if you want to produce gas, you notch the pipe and you produce the gas, and that is sand.

Natural gas is the future of America until we can grow our renewables. I am for wind. I am for solar. I am for biofuels. I am for hydrogen cars. But let me show you how small that is; 86 percent of our energy is fossil fuel; 40 oil, 23 gas, 23 coal. That is 86. Eight percent is nuclear. We are now at 94. Six is percent renewables. Listen closely, 6 percent renewables. Five percent is biomass and hydro. Wind, solar, hydrogen, and geothermal, our future, is 1 percent. If we can double it every 5 years, it will cost a lot, but I am for it. But we are still then at 2 percent.

How do we fuel this economy that is growing a need for energy by 2 percent, and we have countries like China and India that are growing at 15 to 20 percent, and their energy consumption is sucking up the world's supply? When the moratorium was put on, we had $2 gas and $10 oil. We were awash in it. It didn't matter.

Oil and gas is scarce today. There is a world shortage. Right now, they are predicting $79 oil this summer, which will be $3.50 gas without a storm in the Gulf, without a country being upset. The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that if we have a storm in the Gulf and we have a country that gets upset that produces a lot of oil, we could have $85 to $89 oil. Do you know what that will do to home heating this winter? Do you know what that will do to travel costs? Folks, it is crisis time. Clean, green natural gas is the best alternative for a healthy America.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment deals with 100 miles offshore. When we had the debate last year, I wanted to clarify something. Everybody kept talking about a compromise. We passed a major bill in the House that opened up the OCS for both gas and oil. The Senate passed what I call a little small bill in little pieces of the Gulf that President Clinton actually had in the 5-year plan, but never leased it.

In my discussions with the other body, we were always hoping to have a compromise, but we never had one. We never had a conference committee. We reluctantly agreed to take the Senate bill because it was something, and America needs something, so we took this small piece in the Gulf because it is some additional energy for America.

We will soon be 64 percent dependent on foreign, unstable countries. I hear on both sides of the aisle here that people are distressed about that. These are not our friends. These are countries that are not democracies. They are not real stable. We often lose energy when they just have their government topple or be out of favor for a while.

We are dependent on undependable countries of the world who are not our friends. They now set the price. OPEC is back in charge. OPEC turns the spigot and lets big oil make a lot of money. I said to somebody one day, big oil's best friends are Congress and OPEC.

Collectively, we have slowed up the ability to produce oil and gas. And when we slow up the ability to produce oil and gas, the price rises. And if you owned it when it was worth $30 a barrel and were able to produce it and make money, and government restriction of supply and OPEC's restriction of supply raises the price to $70, are you going to make money? You betcha.

If you want to drop prices down, open up supply. Wall Street traders run the price up. They set the price of gasoline, fuel oil, natural gas, oil. Wall Street. Why? Strategizing on it if they can buy it and sell it and make money today or tomorrow. We often pay 15 or 20 percent of our energy prices to Wall Street as they play with it because there are shortages. When it is plentiful, they don't monkey with it.

Folks, we need a plentiful supply of gas and oil for this country. Cuba is going to be producing with China and other countries 35 to 40 miles from the Keys, our most precious Florida parks. And we are going to stay completely 200 miles offshore.

Folks, this is insanity for this country to not utilize its resources, to be dependent on undependable countries who control our destiny. And as we grow the renewables, as we get more wind and more solar and more geothermal, it is going to be years, if not decades, before we have in sufficient quantity, and in the meantime we are going to need fossil fuels, and we need to produce them.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Chairman, as we talk about the production of energy and as we talk about oil being so devastating and gas being so devastating, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all known for being environmentally sensitive countries. They all produce offshore. All of them. We are the only nation in the world that has chosen to close up our energy supply. We are dependent on unstable, unfriendly countries who control our prices and control the future of our economy.

The working people of America are counting on us to give them affordable energy that they can heat their homes with and drive their cars and have a decent competitive job. That is what this is about. And I wish we could do it with wind. I wish we could do it with solar. I wish all of those things were bigger and could grow faster.

Folks, we need to produce energy if we want to compete in the new global economy.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Do you realize how long it has been since we have actually done a modern seismographic on the OCS? It has not been done in 40 years. We didn't have good seismographics then. We don't really know, but we know there is a lot out there. If we had modern seismographics, it is usually three to four times what we thought.

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I'm sure Mr. Dicks wishes by this time that this moratorium would disappear as an issue because it keeps coming up.

I will certainly yield.

That may be, and that makes my point. I certainly was not among the ones to create it; but I'll tell you, had I been here in 1984, I probably would have voted for it. I voted for these kinds of things before without thinking much about it because it was an easy vote, it was an easy vote as to come and say, well, environmental groups, they all know all about this, why get crossways with them when you have a good environmental record. I've gotten my awards, too, not because of my bright perception, but because I voted the right way without thinking much about it.

Why is this here in the Interior bill on appropriations? Why do we have members of the committee standing up ahead of time? I don't know that anybody on Appropriations knows more about it than the people on Resources or the Energy Committee. But why? Because we legislate on an appropriations bill, that's why.

And we didn't break any agreements down here. If the agreement was what was being broken, why is this moratorium again being put into the bill this year? If we had an agreement last year, you wouldn't need the moratorium.

And I quite agree on that technical point, that limitations are appropriate. We're trying to put some limitations on some of the fiction that's out here today. I can assure you of that.

I think I know something about tourism. I know that in order to have tourists, you have to have people with jobs that have sufficient discretionary income to be able to come and spend their money. But if we're destroying the industrial structure of this country, which is what we're about right now, there won't be anybody having the jobs to be able to come and spend the money on tourism or anything else.

And if you want them to arrive in automobiles, which we can't do yet because I haven't been able to get an earmark for that bridge from San Francisco to Hawaii, that's a bridge to somewhere, I can assure you, the question then would be, well, what are you going to be paying for your gasoline? You want to have a hybrid car, you're going to have natural gas. You have to have natural gas as the base. You want to have ethanol to be able to do it? You have to have natural gas for the fertilizer that's going to grow the feedstocks in order to create the ethanol.

Natural gas is the natural energy bridge to a natural energy future, to an alternative energy future. If we don't have natural gas, let me tell you what's going to happen. It's happening right now, and there has been references to it already. Europe and Russia are now making a deal to promote natural gas exploration and extrication from Russia to the European economy, to the European Union in the hundreds of billions of gallons in order to be able to compete with us. It's not just mythology that the Chinese, using inferior technology, will be some 45 miles off of Florida right now exploring natural gas, as the Canadians are already doing on the other side of the Great Lakes.

Every single industrial country in this world is producing natural gas right now except us. We are the ones that destroying ourselves, committing suicide on this. This is what is happening; the rest of the world is going to have an industrial base and an industrial complex that's able to compete, and we're destroying ourselves.

You're looking at a convert here. I went into the Resources Committee fully prepared to not only sustain the moratorium that's here, but to vote against Mr. Peterson when he first brought up the idea of drilling for natural gas. But when I listened to him and I read all the facts involved, I decided that I had the wrong position. And what's required of us now is to become energy independent. We have to produce the energy in this country that is going to allow us to be independent, sufficient to be able to back up that Defense Department that we're talking about. The Air Force right now is spending an enormous amount of money on fuel that we have to import. If we can take the natural gas base for the Air Force right now, we stand a chance of producing fuel that can sustain ourselves.

We have to be energy independent in this country. And that means those of who us who have blindly supported, what were supposedly the right environmental proposals in the past have

to take an honest look at where we are today and what we can do to produce clean energy.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the time. I hope that when we get past this today, that we will deal with the bill that Mr. Peterson and I will be bringing forward to produce natural gas in this country to produce a free and independent America.

Mr. Chairman, I want to support my friend Mr. Peterson on this amendment.

I indicated in the last amendment, Mr. Chairman, that I had become a convert, not to everything that has to do with it, to just stand up and say, well, if it is going to be oil drilled anywhere or gas drilled anywhere, that I could care less, that doesn't make any difference. That is not true, and it is not the case.

In fact, what I have argued to the oil companies is, and I have said when I had the opportunity, why do you put these stupid ads in the paper that say we only make a return on investment the same as real estate agents? I said, there is a great way to go about saying why you got $30 billion in profits, that real estate agents are the opposition or the comparison.

I say, why don't you get up and say oil is $60 and $70 a barrel. We are rolling in money. We got so much money we don't know what to do with it. I feel like Huey, Louie and Dewey jumping into the piles of money for Scrooge McDuck. We got so much money we can't even begin to figure out how to spend it.

At that kind of money a barrel, what do you think the oil companies are going to make?

We have to have an energy supply in this country, and 100 miles out that is what we are going to have to do, because the opposition keeps on coming here against our energy independence. If we don't have energy independence, we are finished. We are destroying ourselves. Every other country in the world with a natural gas reserve out there, let alone with an oil supply, especially in the Outer Continental Shelves of their respective continents, are taking it and doing it and providing for their industrial expansion. That is what we are up against.

We are now in debt. You only have to go into the papers as recently as yesterday, the next globalization backlash. Wait until the Kremlin starts buying our stocks. We are in hock to the rest of the world, including Japan and China because they are owning this country because we have to import our energy. Energy independence is the key to freedom.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

I rise in very strong opposition to both amendments by my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) which eliminate current protections for sensitive, coastal marine areas for new offshore drill for oil and gas.

Under these amendments, we could literally see the push for new drilling off our coast begin almost immediately. Though oil and gas companies awash in profits from our open constituents profits would have us believe that all the offshore resources are off limits today, that we are only talking about drilling for natural gas and not oil, and also that today's high gas prices demand this new drilling, these arguments don't hold up under scrutiny.

First, the industry already has access to the vast majority of natural gas in the Outer Continental Shelf, already has access to it. Indeed, according to the Bush administration, about 80 percent of the known reserves are located in areas where this drilling is already allowed. Furthermore, the oil and gas industry already owns the drilling rights to more than 4,000 untapped leases in the Gulf of Mexico alone.

Second, there is no such thing as natural gas-only drilling. Drilling for gas, natural gas, means drilling for oil.

Even the Bush administration and the energy industry have dismissed so-called gas-only drilling as unworkable. This is what the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has to say about gas only drilling. This is a quote, ``There are a lot of times when you drill for oil, and find gas instead--and the other way around. You never know for sure what you're going to find until you're in there.''

Here is another quote from the former head of Minerals Management Service. ``While gas-only leasing sounds appealing, as a practical matter, it may remain difficult to implement in a manner that reflects sound public policy.''

Now, finally, new drilling off our coast is not going to lower gas prices today or any time in the near future. It would take an estimated 7 years for natural gas from new leases to come online, 7 years. Serious energy efficiency measures, and more use of renewables, this would reduce demand and bring down prices much faster.

Mr. Chairman, President Bush has promised to end our oil addiction. Yet, energy prices and industry profits are at record highs. The predictable result of a strategy of focusing on supply and ignoring demand. The Peterson amendment to drill within miles off Florida, California and other coastal States is just more of the same. With 3 percent of the world's resources, 25 percent of the world's demand, it should be obvious there is no way we are going to drill our way out of this problem.

We need to use energy in smarter ways to improve fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks, invest more of the development of new, cleaner technology. In doing so, we would be generating way more jobs, the kinds of jobs and growth that will ensure our continued preeminence in among the world's economies. Let us not sacrifice our most important treasures, our coastal economies, in a hopeless way to drill our way to energy security. It doesn't work.

I urge all my colleagues to protect our coasts by defeating both Peterson amendments.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to these amendments which eliminate, and I think we heard it clearly, eliminate the long-standing bipartisan moratorium that currently protects the Nation's most sensitive coastal and marine areas from new drilling.

I support the current ban not just because I think our coasts are beautiful, and they are, and not just because I believe our coasts provide valuable environmental habitat, and they do, I support the ban because I know our coastlines are the economic engines of our communities and that is being threatened by new drilling.

The people in these communities, I represent them. I know the value of their coastlines, and that is why they are so against new drilling in these areas. These amendments would mean drilling within 3 miles of the beaches of Florida, California, North Carolina, and other coastal States. It also means drilling where there isn't a whole lot of oil and gas, and where tens of millions of our citizens have made it clear they don't want more drilling.

Mr. Chairman, the congressional moratoria has been in place for 26 years and reaffirmed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush, and every Congress since 1992. State officials have also endorsed the moratoria, including Republican Governors Charlie Crist and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

These actions have all been met with widespread acclaim by a public that knows how valuable, environmentally and economically, our coastlines are. I represent a district with over 20 oil and gas platforms off its coastline. I know that drilling has serious consequences for the environment. I see it every day.

I know that drilling generates huge amounts of waste, and significant levels of air and water pollution. These pollutants are a real threat to our public health.

These amendments are just a continuation of the backward thinking energy policies that have gotten us here in the first place. Last year, 279 Members of Congress voted to protect the Outer Continental Shelf moratorium when we defeated a similar amendment to push for drilling off our coast.

Votes against these amendments are the same thing: A vote to protect our coasts and a statement for new thinking on energy. And so I urge my colleagues with all the strength that I have to oppose these amendments and keep our coastline pristine, the economic engines that they are, and a stewardship we will pass on to our children and grandchildren.