Pacific Island Economic and Educational Development Act of 2007

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to be recognized here on the floor of the House of the United States Congress.

I have sat here through the last hour and patiently listened to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and one of the things that comes out clearly is the tone of the message that they deliver.

I have heard this 30-Something Group now, I think I must be into about the sixth year of listening to this, and it seemed to me that at some point they would maybe get over their bitterness about President Bush winning an election in Florida twice, and all the recounts they could come up with still came up with the same result and they still carry the same resentment that the will of the people was reflected. And the bitterness that emerges in this discussion and the implications that come that challenge the motives of the President are disturbing to me, and particularly their remarks that have to do with allegations about: You put two Big Oil people in the White House, and this is what you get, is high oil prices. A lot of us that watch the policy will say we know better than that, Madam Speaker, and I know better than that for a lot of reasons.

As I look down through this, I am going to pick up the oil in just a moment, but I think where I would like to step in here first is to deal with the issue of the national debt. Now, some of the gentlemen on the other side of the aisle were clearly stating that they believe that they could have managed their way into not eliminating the national debt alone but providing for a surplus. They say: We could have paid off all the national debt if you would have just allowed us to be in charge. We would have made the right decisions.

So I listened to all that, and I tried to put myself, Madam Speaker, in a position of what it would be like for a person in a living room in someplace across the United States, or maybe someone who just pulled into the motel or the hotel and turned on their C-SPAN, turned on their television, they are surfing through there and came across C-SPAN or heard something like that, that the folks on that side of the aisle, if you would have been in charge, you would have paid off the national debt, which means if it is paid off, there must be a surplus. That is by simple, easy deduction and because the allegation is the folks that were in charge were irresponsible, supposedly.

So I thought, all right, what do I remember? What is real? What are some of the facts? And I can think in this 110th Congress, this Pelosi Congress, this Congress that is characterized by San Francisco values, Massachusetts values, and budget mismanagement, these are the things that come to mind on me. And some of them, it has been the Republican minority who has fought aggressively to protect the interests of the taxpayers. These are the things that I just wrote down off the top of my head, and it is by no means a complete list. It isn't even close:

Republicans held the line and saved the taxpayers $40 billion on the State

Children's Health Insurance Program, which I support as a State senator, which I support at 200 percent of poverty, which today is 200 percent of poverty still providing health insurance premiums for those children in families of four making in my State over $52,000 a year.

Now, we are helping those folks out some. They--most might make it on their own; in fact, I know some families that do make it on their own without tapping into the SCHIP program. But this agenda was driven off of this floor, Madam Speaker, and pushed by Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco values, at 400 percent of poverty. That bill, that SCHIP bill would have expanded this funding of health insurance premium for kids and families in my State, of families of four making over $103,000 a year.

Now, who is left to subsidize? If we are going to subsidize families that are making six figures, $103,000 a year, who is going to pay that tax? Well, presumably not anybody that is making less. We know that there were 70,000 families in America that were paying the alternative minimum tax which this Congress, this Pelosi-led Congress can't seem to get around to repealing the alternative minimum tax. But 70,000 families in America would have been paying the alternative minimum tax and been receiving a Federal subsidy for their health insurance premiums.

The whole thing of socialized medicine and the Nanny Pelosi State has come full circle, and the overlap of what subsidized for health insurance premiums for families of 200 percent of poverty would have gone to 400 percent; and families that were paying the rich man's tax, the alternative minimum tax, expands because it is not indexed for inflation. Over into that loop were 70,000 families paying the alternative minimum tax and getting help with health insurance premiums. That is bizarre.

That is what we stopped. We blocked the 400 percent of poverty that would have funded families of four making $103,000 a year with somebody else's tax dollars and created more dependency. We blocked their effort to lay the cornerstone of socialized medicine, Hillary Care, the care that I called SCHIP, the Socialized Clinton Style Hillary Care for children and their parents was blocked by a Republican majority of fiscally responsible people, and we still maintained a program at 200 percent of poverty to help out those families so their children would have health insurance. That is one thing we did, $40 billion.

The second thing we did, we fought the battle and I think in the end we have got a reasonable chance of winning the war, Barney Frank's $300 billion bailout of a $150 billion subprime problem, the idea that folks could come in and borrow up to 100 percent to buy a home that they can't make the payments on, just betting on the idea that the value of that home would appreciate and go up, maybe they could roll it into a fancier home in a few years and then refinance without any of their own equity in the home. That was going on in this country, especially in places on the Left Coast and on the East Coast. It wasn't going on nearly as much in the Midwest.

But there are people all across this country that were saving their money, that were saving up to the 20 percent down or maybe 29 percent down. They looked around, and said, well, all right, now for 10 or 15 years they put their money together and came up with $20,000 and decided, ``I want to buy a home.'' And they went out and shopped the marketplace and did the responsible thing and laid their $20,000 down and moved into a $100,000 home. In a lot of parts of the country that is a modest home; in my part of the country, that is a pretty decent home. They laid their $20,000 down and they could make their payments on the $80,000 left.

But now, the Barney Frank subprime bailout bill at $300 billion says: Now we are going to tax you, the families, the middle-income families, especially in the modest homes that put their 20 percent down on their modest home, tax those people to bail out the folks that had nothing down and moved into a $400,000 home, all to the tune of creating an increase in the deficit in this country by $300 billion. That is the bill that came off this floor. That is the bill that is over in the Senate. That is the one that I hope they can knock in the head. We don't need to do that.

And there was another one, a grab bag of ``I Want List'' off-budget for $168 billion. Those things popped in my head quickly, and I am seeing numbers of $1 trillion here and $1 trillion there roll off of the 30-Something Group. In my short little piece here, I wrote down $508 billion of irresponsible spending. Much of it Republicans have been successful in killing because it was irresponsible. That is more than one-half trillion dollars just in my memory in this short Congress, not in the full duration of 12 years in the majority, in which their grievance list goes back well beyond that.

And then, this group of people has the audacity to put out a whole series of proposals on energy because they know the American people are tired of paying high gas prices.

Now, I have sat in this Congress for these years. I started out in the 108th Congress, but I will take us back. I have some numbers here that come from the 106th, 108th, 109th Congress, and these are Congresses that were led by Republican majority and these were efforts that were brought forward that would have lowered the cost of energy in its entirety, especially the cost of gas.

These are bills that went over to the Senate from the House. Mr. Speaker, I hope you write this down and do a little research on this.

H.R. 1655, from the 106th Congress, the Department of Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act, that passed the House and went to the Senate. That was on September 15th of 1999. Also, H.R. 3822, another energy bill, the Oil Price Reduction Act, that passed the House on March 22nd of 2000. It went to the Senate, and it died in committee.

Also, in the 108th Congress, I'll name three other bills: H.R. 3062, H.R. 4503, H.R. 4517. They all passed the House in the 108th Congress. All would have lowered energy prices. All would have provided more energy in the marketplace. All died in the Senate.

In the 109th Congress--that's the Congress ahead of this one--H.R. 6, the Energy Policy Act, passed the House on April 21, 2005. That happens to be my mother's birthday. Senate action: They removed the ANWR provision that passed out of this House. It died over there. Others that passed in that Congress are H.R. 2863 and H.R. 5429 and H.R. 4761, all energy bills, all bills that passed the House, all bills, by the memo I'm looking at, at least, that didn't make it out of the Senate, that didn't come back to the House, that didn't go to conference. They just died over there. They died over there not because of Republicans in the Senate. They died over there because of the 40 Democrats who blocked the bill, the filibuster rule that they have. As long as they're able to do that, they can be in the minority, and they can block good legislation in the Senate.

That, Mr. Speaker, is what happened in the last three Congresses ahead of this one, this 110th Congress that we are in.

I didn't mention the 107th Congress. As for the 106th, 108th and 109th Congresses, all of those Congresses passed energy legislation bills. All of them would have contributed to the supply. They would have reduced the regulation. Some of them would have provided for the siting of refineries on decommissioned military bases, and part of that legislation out of here would have allowed drilling in ANWR. Part of it would have opened up the Outer Continental Shelf to at least some degree.

We sit here in this Congress, and a question that came up more than a year ago was: What is the solution for $3 gas? I happen to have a little chart that might help illustrate this.

Now, George Bush was really put up to be the demon here, in listening to the folks who spoke ahead of me, so I thought I'd put a little piece of fact up for people to take a look at, Mr. Speaker. Here are the facts. This is just slightly dated, but I can bring it up to date. This is pretty close.

This is the time that George Bush was sworn in as President of the United States. Gas was $1.49. Oh, boy. Don't we wish we had those days today.

As I move forward, we come to the point where Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as Speaker. Gas had gone up to $2.33 a gallon. I'd be happy to go back to

those days, and so would every American if we could make the deal today to hold gas at $2.33, but look at how long it took to get to the $2.33 from the $1.49.

When Bush was sworn in as President and, yes, when the speculators in the world and when the investors in the world and when the oil companies in the world and when the sovereign wealth funds in the nations that control much of the world's energy supply saw what was happening here in this country--that the United States had lost its ability to pass legislation out of this House and send it to the Senate, let alone to a Senate that would pass it and send it to the President, who would have signed, I think, every one of these bills that I've read off here--then your energy prices shot up. $4.08 is slightly dated. It's probably $4.10 or $4.11 today. So that tells you what's actually going on here.

If you take energy off the market, if you increase regulation, if you come out and you make noise about windfall profits taxes, I can tell you what I'd do if I were sitting on the board of directors of an energy company, and Congress had said, ``I want to come in and tax you after the fact.'' I would start to look for other places to put my capital, where I could get a return that wasn't going to be punished after the fact by Congress.

So I don't think that people on the other side of the aisle here, for the most part, understand this free market system that's here. I don't think they understand supply and demand. They convinced me of that today in a hearing on the Ag Committee. It was all about trying to regulate the futures market on energy. There were six different witnesses, and I lost track, actually, of how many bills were there, but some of those bills were drafted years ago, 1 or 2 or 3 years ago, when I would have thought that, maybe, their focus on this regulation of the futures market would have come within the last 2 or 3 months rather than in the last 2 or 3 years.

They convinced me, because those Members of Congress had been working that long on the futures market, that it actually indicates supply and demand on energy in the world, and it lets the people who are watching those markets understand at least what the people who are speculating on that market think is going to be there for supply and demand. They don't have the confidence in that. They think that they need to get in there and regulate the market, regulate the market, take the futures out of the energy equation because, as the gentleman from Maryland said, there must be some margin in there somewhere, and we've got to squeeze every drop out of it. Well, they're providing a service with the futures market, and that allows people to hedge, and you've got to let them hedge because there are people who are vulnerable to the fluctuation in energy prices.

Then, on top of that, supply and demand is not part of the equation on the left side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker. It's not. They convinced me of that in the hearing today. It's not or it wouldn't be proposed by the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, that we should go ahead and up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In a little bit, the gentleman from Pennsylvania will address that subject matter with a little more expertise than I bring to this floor, but it's a limited supply, and it's, therefore, a national emergency.

I can tell you that 42.6 percent of the world's export oil supply goes through the Strait of Hormuz. We have Iran threatening to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and they know that that strait there is not just the valve that controls 42.6 percent of the world's export oil supply. That's the valve that shuts down the world economy. If they can control the strait, they can control the world economy. They know it. They've known it for a long time. Even Jimmy Carter knew it.

What would be the dumbest time to open up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Well, that would be the time when we're most vulnerable and are most threatened that someone like Iran might decide they're going to try to close down the Strait of Hormuz.

That limited amount of oil is there. It can't change the market very much. The markets aren't going to change unless you have a significant change in the volume. That doesn't change the volume of oil in the market. That just dumps the reserve out and leaves us vulnerable to dumping that volume.

Now, in looking down through a list of some of these other things, they put up a chart that showed that there are 91.5 million acres leased, and there are only 23.7 million acres producing. So they're saying go ahead and drill those acres; we're fine with that. Well, all right. I'm fine with that, too, but it doesn't matter whether you're fine with it or not. Those acres are leased. The problem is those aren't producing acres. It costs millions to sink a well in most of these places. So, if you sink a well down someplace where there's not oil, you've wasted the money.

I'd say, if you're serious about this, step up and join me. Let's let the leaseholders then trade off those acres for other acres. Let them use those acres to bid with in conjunction with the dollar investment. We'll let them trade out of that 23.7 million acres or, let me say, the 91.5 million leased acres that aren't being drilled on--and I'm taking your numbers at face value. I've not checked these numbers, and I'd want to do that before I'd sign onto a bill. Take a look at this. Let them trade the acres out, and you'll find out. There's no reason why an energy company doesn't want to drill unless they don't believe there's oil there, not in this market, not in this day.

Then you know the argument ``use it or lose it.''

Well, let them use it by letting them trade those acres in for acres that are producing acres, and you'll see immediate action. They'd be happy to lose some of those acres. Open them up, and let somebody else bid on the acres that aren't being drilled. This is a prudent business decision.

Your theory, gentlemen, presupposes that there's oil in equal quantity under every acre that's leased whether it's drilled or whether it's not. Now, what kind of a myopic view of the underground do you have? Do you have any geologists over there in your caucus? I'm not really a geologist, but I have personally and physically drilled for oil, and I've dug more holes into Mother Earth than has anybody in this Congress. I've taken a little look at the stratification of that, and I at least have some understanding of what produces oil and what doesn't. It can't be everywhere by definition.

Then the position that came out over and over again is that Democrats are going to go after Big Oil. Well, Big Oil is what provides a lot of energy in this marketplace. If you cut down on the supply, you're going to raise the price some more, and you'll see this price of $4.08 go up to $5.08. Go ahead. Go after Big Oil, and see what the result is. You are not going to get oil 1 cent cheaper. That price is going to go up because you'll scare the capital out of the marketplace; you'll shut down the exploration, and you'll empower the Middle Eastern oil more because they are the sovereign wealth funds that control a significant amount of the energy. That's the mindset over here.

I suppose, if you say it over and over again, you'll begin to believe it, and maybe you actually do believe it, but you're not going to be able to get commonsense Americans to believe in an idea of going after Big Oil.

Oh, by the way, windfall profits taxes. Let's just say Exxon. I saw a piece the other day of 8.6 percent return on their capital. You want to tax windfall profits, calling an 8.6 percent return on capital a windfall profit tax? Well, if that's the case, I'll sign on with that if you'll also want to apply a windfall profits tax to every corporation in America that got a greater return than 8.6 percent. If we'd do that, we would kill the goose that laid the golden egg. We would also fix the national debt because there are a lot of companies that are going to end up getting a better return than 8.6 percent on their capital.

I spent 28 years in the construction business. Many times, I got a better return than 8.6 percent on the capital. I never felt guilty about a single bit of it because I earned it all competing in the marketplace, and that's what these companies are doing, too.

This is the one that grips Steve King, Mr. Speaker, this statement from the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan). Look at the investments in biofuels, the Democrats' support for biofuels. He says that some say it's keeping gas prices down by 50 cents. Well, I wish

that were the case. I happen to represent the number 1 biofuels congressional district in America. It's the 5th District of Iowa.

Six years ago when I came to Congress, we hardly had an industry, but Republicans passed Blender's tax credits at 51 cents a gallon. I'm the guy who introduced the legislation in my first bill in Congress that extended the Blender's credit for ethanol and that raised the small ethanol producers and the small biofuels producers' credit from 30 million gallons a year to 60 million so that we could take advantage of the economy of scale and the kind of plants that needed to be competitive.

I added biodiesel to this. It came out of the bill I introduced. It was written into another bill. I've gotten a lot of help here, and I thank everybody on both sides of the aisle for that. I sent it over to the Senate. The Senate picked it up, and it arrived at the President's desk. The first bill I introduced became law, and I thought I'm a freshman, but this is easy. Well, Mr. Peterson knows it's not that easy, and I was a little bit lucky, but it was an idea whose time was right. I just happened to know, though, about what happens with biofuels.

The 5th District of Iowa produces more, when you add it up, ethanol, biodiesel and wind energy than any other congressional district in America. We are the renewable fuels capital. We've built an industry around this. For at least the last 2 years, maybe 3, there has been over $1 billion a year in private investment capital invested in renewable energy infrastructure just in my congressional district. So I thought I'll do the math on this now.

If you can lower gas prices by 50 cents because Democrats invested in biofuels--well, they didn't do that. That was Republican leadership, but Democrats did do this: They brought the farm bill out of this floor, and it went to the President's desk. It cut the Blender's credit by 6 cents. That's what Democrats have done. So they've sent a message to the renewable fuels industry: Don't invest capital in this industry because we're going to be changing the rules on you after you get your dollars invested. That's what they think of a deal. Cut the Blender's credit by 12 percent.

Now, I'm not here to argue whether that's the right number or whether that's the wrong number. That's what happened. That was Democrat leadership that did that, but if they think that having renewable energy--and that means biofuels--on the market will cut gas prices by 50 cents, Mr. Speaker, then I went through this math, and I figured this out.

All right. Let's see. In ethanol, we produced 9 billion gallons of ethanol last year. That got blended into 150 billion gallons of overall consumption. That works out to be 6 percent of the gallons, 4.2 percent of the energy. So, with biofuels, ethanol replaced 4.2 percent of the energy consumed in gas last year. If 4.2 percent of the gas can lower the price by 50 percent as stated by Mr. Ryan from Ohio, if that can happen, then I'm here to tell you, if we open up ANWR, that will do a better job because 1 million barrels a day going into the marketplace in ANWR will replace 5.6 percent of our annual gas consumption. So, if 4.2 percent in ethanol lowers the price by 50 cents a gallon, 5.6 percent coming out of ANWR ought to take it down 60 cents or more a gallon.

And they say don't drill in ANWR.

I can take that up a little bit later, Mr. Speaker, and I have some things that I would like to say about the commodities and futures and trading markets as well, but I also recognize that the gentleman who is and remains the leader on energy in the United States, in the United States Congress, the gentleman who is down on this floor over and over and over again who is working in front of the scenes and behind the scenes, who's working strategy, who is engaging in amendments in committee, who walks this floor constantly seeking to lower energy prices for the American people, a man who leaves a legacy and hopefully gets his way at the end of the 110th Congress so there's a real marker for that legacy is the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), whom I'd be proud to yield so much time as he may consume.

I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I'm standing here transfixed. Much of this argument I have heard, but I seldom hear it put together in such a way, such a deliberative way that flows. And when you start talking about the future and what it looks like and the pain that we're going to feel because we waited too long, that's a good message for this Congress to hear.

And from my own perspective, I'd like to say this. Some of us are going to be able to coast along through and shift into retirement and be able to be just fine for the rest of our expected lifespan. That's not the case for millions and millions of Americans who are at the earlier stages of their life that have yet to step forward and get an education, that have yet to join up and raise a family.

And I'm thinking about my children, my grandchildren. I'm thinking about a little fellow named Joseph Dean Anderson that was born the day after the 4th of July that I'll be watching very closely as he grows up and how we shape the future for him, and the decisions that we make in this Congress and the debates that we're going to have a lot harder time winning because there's an agenda out here that we can't quite get our hands on.

And I'm always trying to figure out how can I bring some more logic to win this debate. I came into this political arena about, oh, I don't know, 12, 13 years ago, believing that if I'm right on principle, all I have to do is articulate that principle and that will bring those folks over to my side and we'll get the votes together. That was a naive thing to believe that somehow logic and principle was going to carry the day. It doesn't carry the day because people migrate towards political power.

So if you have a green coalition that's putting money into campaigns and if you have an agenda that's being driven across the Web pages, they say we'll support you and we'll come in and we'll march the streets and hang door hangers on the doorknobs and we'll make sure that you get reelected, all you have to do is if we label it green, just sit up and vote our way. That suspends logic. It suspends the logic. The logic that John Peterson has delivered out here tonight, the logic I think I've added to, is suspended is because this agenda is an agenda that goes beyond our rational understanding.

Now, I have been telling my constituents that Nancy Pelosi and the people that follow her, the people who would have voted for energy and now vote for green in the committee, in the end they really don't want cheaper gas. They want more expensive energy in America. That's what they want. That's what the agenda is, and now here is how I explain it.

First, for me, for those of us who approach this thing with the best interest of Americans in mind say this. If we can do this, this is the energy pie chart. It's taken me a little time to put this together, but what it represents is the inside circle the total BTUs produced in the United States of America. That's 72 quad-trillion BTUs. And then the outside circle is all the energy that's consumed in America. That's 101.4 quad-trillion BTUs of energy. Now, quad-trillion doesn't mean a lot to me or anybody else for that matter, but it's this.

Seventy-two percent of the energy we consume in America is produced in America. The difference, that 28, 29 percent, is what we have to import from outside the United States, and in these pie charts that are here are a number of these components that Mr. Peterson talked about so much.

Here's coal in the orange. That's the coal that we consume on the outside; the coal we produced is on the inside.

They don't quite match up because the size of our circles are different.

Then you can go down here, but look at the outside circle, the natural gas. Our overall consumption is 23.3 percent of our energy consumption is natural gas. Nuclear is up here; 8.29 percent of our energy consumption is nuclear. That needs to get bigger.

You get around to these parts that we've heard about, the biodiesel, wind, geothermal, how hydroelectric is shrinking. Here's your ethanol. And I've pushed hard for ethanol. And we've got solar power is a small little piece of this thing; bigger than what you might think in comparison to ethanol.

As you get around here, here's motor gasoline. That piece is the piece of this overall consumption pie that's getting smaller in proportion, but it is not shrinking in its overall consumption.

The solution for the United States of America is to add one piece to this pie; that's called energy conservation. John Peterson spoke to that as well. Then we need to take every single piece of this pie and we need to expand it. We need to produce more gas, more diesel fuel, more coal, more hydroelectric. And that's the hardest thing to do. And it is the cleanest and it is renewable. Wind is renewable, and we'll produce more of it, but it's not a big enough piece.

More natural gas. That is troublesome to me in particular, representing farm country where 90 percent of the feedstock that goes into producing nitrogen fertilizer is natural gas. And American companies that were producing fertilizer in the United States have moved to places like Trinidad because of the lower gas prices and had to set up their operations there. They've been driven offshore. We've essentially lost the fertilizer industry in America.

I would yield

Reclaiming my time, and thanking the gentleman for coming to the floor and delivering this good, composite message on energy, the natural gas that we know of in this country is at least 406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That's our reserves. We saw the map on how to go drill them.

I would point out that there was a referendum that went up on the ballot the third day of June in Union County, South Dakota, and the question was, are you for or against building a new refinery, a $10 billion investment in southeastern South Dakota? That referendum passed by 59-41 percent. We think we're going to get a refinery built that will receive that heavy crude oil coming out of the tar sands in Alberta. It's not certain that we can get through the regulations. We think we'll get one built anyway.

And I want to add that the ANWR piece--we didn't talk about ANWR very much, I've gone up there and looked at that--the ANWR component of this is about a million barrels a day. It's identical in the topography to the North Slope. We drilled the North Slope starting in 1972 and we had oil pumping out of there in 1975. It doesn't take 10 or 20 years, as the gentleman said, to get this fuel down there. We can do it in months on the North Slope of Alaska, and we can change the market prices if we open up the situation to do that.

Now, in just concluding this, grow the size of the energy pie, add a piece for conservation, produce more Btus in all ways that we can, dramatically expand nuclear. If the French can produce 78 percent of their electricity

with nuclear, we can dramatically increase that. And nuclear should be coming online rather than natural gas to generate electricity because the mother's milk of manufacturing, the mother's milk of our economy is natural gas.

We're having difficulty breaking down the barriers of the people that believe we ought to have more expensive energy in this country instead of less. And I'm here to make the point that the reason that they support more costly energy and give lip service to windfall profits taxes and higher regulation and trying to squeeze down the futures and the commodities market, the reason they denied a global demand increase--which for the Chinese this year, their gas imports have increased 2,000 percent so far this year--they deny that because they want to see higher energy prices, not lower, because they know higher energy prices shuts down the mother's milk of our manufacturing industry in this country, it slows the economy down, it forces Americans to park their car and ride their bicycle. And now, that serves the myopic belief that the goddess of mother nature is more important than the God that created this Earth, and that somehow we can serve her by shutting off the consumption of energy, cutting down on greenhouse gases, and answering to this question of controlling our climate here in the United States of America. Meanwhile, while China and India and the rest of the developing nations are building coal fire plants faster than we can shut them down here in the United States, we can't solve this problem, if it exists, by shutting off the energy and shutting down the world's economy that's here in the United States, this 25 percent that we produce.

That's what's wrong. They want a higher energy price, they want a slower economy. They think somehow that can be paid for by the rich in America. John Peterson and Steve King know it can't be.

I yield to the gentleman.

I do not.

I believe we will be going home for the August recess having done nothing with energy.

I would ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania if he would support a policy like this energy pie chart that I've advocated.

More energy of all kinds. Supply and demand does affect the marketplace. If we put more Btus on the market, we will have lower price energy of all kinds. And we need to prioritize the utilization of that energy, bring the nuclear in to replace the gas, let the gas drive our economy, the natural gas drive our economy. And we can do this and it will be painful. John Peterson is exactly right.

I yield.

Commonsense solutions delivered here on this floor, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate your attention to all of this. And I imagine we have swayed you considerably as you paid attention to the arguments of the gentleman from Pennsylvania and myself.

I thank the gentleman from Iowa and for the opportunity to share time with him.

I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker. After the 4th of July recess where we had $4 gasoline, $5 diesel, almost $4 heating oil, and Americans are shuddering because what they don't know, and they will be even more concerned, is that in a few months, they will be getting 50- to 60-percent increases in home heating costs with natural gas. Those passed-through costs will be approved by our State PUCs. My home company in western Pennsylvania raised the rates at 6 percent in May and are going to be raising it 50 percent August 1, and they have another opportunity to raise it again in November. And they're just passing through the costs of gas.

Just like New England just had a 42 percent increase in electric costs because of the percentage of their electricity that is now made with natural gas. So as natural gas prices escalate, theirs escalate.

When we have these prices, I have neighbors who don't know how they're going to heat their home this year. I have churches in my district who probably won't use their sanctuaries, seniors who are living on limited budgets. I know a gentleman, a neighbor, this week-- he's 75 years old. Four years ago, he sold his pellet stove because he was 71 and decided he was getting too old to carry 40-pound pellet bags into the basement. He had it in his basement and ran heat up through his registers. And he took it out. And with the current energy prices, he bought another pellet stove. He has to cut another hole through the cement wall that he had cemented and put another pellet stove in because he can't afford fuel.

I have neighbors and friends who kept their house at 55 last year. And this year energy prices are double if they're heating with home heating oil. They're about 75 percent higher with propane, and they're going to be somewhere between 50 and 75 to 100 percent higher in natural gas when those prices hit the market.

I know Americans who are driving 30 and 40 and 50 miles to work. I have a neighbor lady who makes $11 an hour. She has two children. She travels 36 miles to work. Her balanced billing bill is $175 a month, and she has no money in her budget for a 60 percent increase in natural gas prices that are going to hit her for this winter.

People all over America are scared. Should we open the reserve? Well, I guess if we do, we sort of say we didn't need a reserve because the reserve is only several months' supply in case there's a tragedy in the world market, there is a major problem in one of the big sending countries. Let's just say, God forbid, that terrorists would blow up the sending platforms where we load our tankers in Saudi Arabia, we would have $250 oil quickly.

The petroleum reserve is in case of war, is in case of tragedy somewhere in the country, some tragic incident that cuts off our supply. Because today, we get one-third of our oil from home, we buy one-third of it from our friends like Canada and Mexico and other friendly countries, and we buy one-third of it from the Middle East. The one-third in the Middle East, as we've heard earlier, is fragile. We don't know that will always be available. Should we use the reserve? I don't personally think we should. I think we should have kept filling it because 70,000 barrels a day is a drop in a bucket. It did nothing for prices, will do nothing for prices.

So use the reserve and say July, August, and September it will be all gone. And what do we do in October, November, December if we have tragedy or what are we going to do then? That's not a solution.

It amazes me, because I'm not giving high grades on energy to many people around here. It's my view that 3 Presidents and 14 Congresses in succession have not gotten good marks on energy, have not had a bona fide energy plan. And you say, Why is it? Well, it's kind of understandable. Up until 7 or 8 years ago, except for a spike in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s for a year or two at a time, we had $2 gas and $10 oil. And the argument was--and I remember debating it at the State--should we use theirs or should we use ours. I always thought we should produce ours. It creates jobs here. It's part of our economy. There's no better jobs than oil-

patch jobs and all the related jobs, the refineries and the pipelines and all of that whole system.

You can go down in downtown Washington and buy gasoline made in Russia, and the only person making money off of it is the guy selling it. It was refined in Russia. We can buy that in Washington, D.C. They only chain the stations here in the east coast.

So I just find it, I guess, unconceivable that we don't--we can't figure this thing out that when we're one-third dependent--we're two- thirds dependent--but one-third dependent on enemies or people who aren't our friends, and people who--or they're not stable governments. And when they say not to drill here, every day we don't drill here we become more dependent.

Since I've been in Congress, we've averaged 2 percent a year. This year we will increase another 2 percent. We're at two-thirds now dependent on foreign countries.

And what happened was--I don't give the Bush administration high marks. In fact, looking at, you know, they actually get higher marks than many. They had the hydrogen car initiative 2 or 3 years ago. They pumped a lot of money into hydrogen cars. But do we have a hydrogen car? No. Do we hope to some day? Yes. But that's futuristic. That's a good thing.

Last year they had the mandate, they urged us to increase the mandate on biofuels to 36.5 billion by 2030, switching from corn after 15 billion gallons to cellulosic ethanol. Now, I get a little nervous when you mandate cellulosic ethanol when we still don't have the design of a plant to make it. Now, we're hoping and praying, and the thought is making it out of wood waste and making it out of garbage and out of sweet grasses like switchgrass. That looks hopeful as a better way to make ethanol. Because we do know that corn prices have edged up a little from $2 a bushel to I think it hit a high of $7.70 last week. It's down to maybe $7.40 this week.

But the first Bush administration locked up the Outer Continental Shelf. We're the only country in the world to do that. Canada drills right up here. And they drill right up here within sight of our coastline. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, every country, all of South America, everybody produces offshore. In fact, Brazil, the country everybody gives high marks for, and they gave the credit for ethanol. Ethanol is 15 percent of it. But they went out and opened up their continental shelf and just recently in deep water found a huge reserve of oil, and now we're going to be an exporter of oil.

Now, what we don't know about America is when we did seismographic on our shores 30-some years ago, since then for the last 28 years law has prohibited us from even measuring out there to see what's out there. That's how stupid I say we are. We don't even want to go out and look. We could have somewhere out here, or somewhere out here, the largest oil and gas reserve because all over the world, offshore is tremendous energy production.

In fact, everybody tells me, everybody that knows the business and who have regulated the business, not necessarily producers, that it is the least environmental hazard. When you're out in the ocean and you drill a hole in the ground, I mean, one little storm stirs up more than a drilling bit going down into the ocean floor. And we've not had a major spill since Santa Barbara in 1969. We have the technology today. And the cost offshore is big.

But here offshore when we did the seismic measurements 30-some years ago. We only did it in water less than 4,000 feet. Now, today we can drill in 2-mile deep water so we've never even used--and the seismic of today would be like comparing an old seismic 30 years ago. It would be like a black and white TV to the current thin-screen TVs like we have today. That would be the difference. I mean, the new seismic tells you what's there. Tells you a lot.

But we're not there. We just drill in a small part of the gulf. That's the other thing. And it amazes me when we listen to these talks about we got 64 or 84 million acres. Until they drill that we're not going to let them. Well, you know, four out of five deep water wells are dry. It costs $900 million. I'm going to say that again: $900 million to build a deep water platform. It costs $1 million a day to operate it, and it's four out of five wells you will drill.

Now, I'm not able to personally assess. I'm meeting with some people tomorrow in two different groups to learn more about the potential of those 64 or 84--I keep hearing different figures--million acres that they're talking about. But I do know that these are great and the rest of the gulf here are great areas, and we are saying can't drill there.

Now, it seems to me drilling for oil's not a sure thing. Four out of five deep? No. You don't get anything. Three out of four shallow? No. You don't get anything. So you explore, and when you find three or four good wells, now you know you've hit a pool and you will go in and try to figure where it's at and maximize it.

We know in much of the gulf we've been drilling for so long that the gulf is actually depleting. Although we're drilling twice as many wells there as we used to, we're getting less energy because we're in old, tired fields. We're drilling between wells. We're drilling deeper where it's more costly, and it's still exploring, trying to find more gas and oil.

Now, I guess the part that really confounds me is the hope we have for renewables. And you know, I hope for the day in my lifetime that we can run our country on renewables. But here is the chart. From the middle of this chart towards me is history. This is the Energy Department's figures. From the middle of my chart to my left is their projection of the future. Of course, oil's the Big Kahuna. Natural gas and coal are the other big ones.

Now, they show coal increasing. I disagree with that because of the carbon issue and because 70 coal plants in the last 8 or 9 months have been turned down by State agencies, and they will all become gas plants. And the reason we have such high gas prices in our country today is that 12 years ago we took away the moratorium for using natural gas to make electricity. Historically, Mr. Speaker, we only made electricity out of natural gas in a peak power plant that ran in the morning and the evening when we consumed huge amounts of electricity when we're heating water at home and cooking and doing the washing and so forth in the morning and evening, and all of the plants that were running to. So that was a maximum load of electricity.

So 12 years ago we took that moratorium off, and now 24 percent of our electricity is made with natural gas. From 7. That's a huge increase, and we didn't open up supply.

Now, just several years ago natural gas was $2 a thousand. The last few months it's been running at $1,300 to $1,350 a thousand. Those are figures that will drive most industries left out of this country because natural gas is not a world price. It's a country-by-country price. When we pay $130, $140, or $150 for oil, it's very painful; but it's painful for our competitors. It's painful to our neighbors.

But on natural gas, we've been paying the highest prices in the world, and we have competing countries who are right in South America. Trinidad has $1.60 gas. Now, if you're going to make glass or you're going to make bricks, you're going to make petrochemicals, you're going to make fertilizers which consume enormous amounts of gas.

Just to show you. Dow Chemical in 2002 paid $8 billion a year for natural gas. Today, Dow Chemical pays $8 billion a quarter for natural gas. And to show you the migration of jobs out of this country, Dow Chemical in the year 2000 had 64 percent of their production on shore in America. Today they have 34 percent. Why? They can't afford to be here. Just like my neighbors can't afford to heat their homes and drive their cars in rural areas. Companies and small businesses who heat treat things who bend metal and twist metal and have to heat it with natural gas, they can't afford to function competitively in this country if they're competing with products made in another country that can buy gas for a fraction of the cost.

Now, let's look at where we're putting all our faith. I want wind and solar to be huge but it's not.

Nuclear, we did in the 2005 Act streamline the nuclear process. We have thirty-some permits applied for. I think we have 33 about ready to be

given. We need 35 to 40 new plants built for nuclear to keep nuclear at 20 percent of the grid, just maintain, 20 percent, not gain.

Hydro continues to lose ground--that's the brown line here--because we're not building dams. We aren't allowed to build dams. That's the cleanest energy we could have.

The top line is the renewables. Now, over on my left, I'm going to have a big chart tomorrow, but the red is biomass, woody biomass. Now, woody biomass has grown almost a percent in the last 4 years. That's pellet stoves. Over 1 million Americans this year will heat their home with a pellet stove. That's wood waste factories burning boilers with wood waste, heating their factories with wood waste. And it's power plants topping their coal loads with some wood waste to meet air standards there near the edge. So woody biomass, and I don't think there's been any initiatives, any tax credits. That's just happened.

Then we have hydro, and it's not gone. It's going to stay there. The yellow line is geothermal, and there's all kind of incentives. They get the tax credits, but as we grow our economy, it just remains a small portion.

Then we have the blue line, which is wind, which has bubbled somewhat. But if we double wind and solar in the next 5 years we will be less than 1 percent of our energy portfolio. Now, I hope we can, and I hope we can double it again the next 5 years, but we'd still be less than 2 percent of our energy portfolio, maybe even less than that because our energy needs will grow.

Now, the problem that's changed in the world, and a lot of people don't realize it, is the growth of use of energy in the world. It's not us. We're flat on energy use. In fact, we're decreasing because of price.

China is increasing 15 to 20 percent a year. India's increasing at a huge rate. You have South America developing. You have Malaysia developing. You have millions and millions of people in this world who are buying their first car and owning their first home, and when they buy their first car and own their first home, they're in the energy use business.

So, no matter what we do, we can't control prices by conserving. I'm for conservation. In fact, we need to figure out how to help Americans to use energy more wisely and let them write it off on their income taxes in a 3- or 4-year period. We need to do that, whether it's more efficient heating, whether it's better windows, better doors, whether it's more efficient appliances, yes, we need to help them out, because, really, I hate to say it, but the only thing Americans have today that they can do is use less energy. There is nothing now because we are not going to drill. We're not going to drill.

I have a bill to open up the Outer Continental Shelf. I had it poised. I offered it in the committee, in Interior, in the subcommittee, and it's the first time that it's been treated partisanly. We had six Republican votes were ``yes'' and nine Democrats votes ``no.'' Now, I'm not going to blame those Members. They had tremendous Speaker power applied to them. There were Members who voted against energy who have never voted against energy in this Congress in that sitting.

A week or two later, we were going to offer our amendment again in the full committee, where you have about 75 or 80 Members. And I think somebody in the Speaker's office took a count, and when they didn't have the votes to beat my amendment, we didn't do the Interior bill. And here we are today, weeks later, we are still not doing the Interior bill. Why? Because Congressman Peterson has an amendment that would open up the Outer Continental Shelf that would open up drilling 50 miles out, from 50 to 200.

Like I say, I don't pass out any gold awards around this place in the last three decades on energy leadership, and I mean that sincerely. We haven't had a President. President Clinton didn't lead on energy. He vetoed the ANWR bill. And I personally think President Bush tried hard to do ANWR. I voted for ANWR, but if he would have put the same effort on offshore, we would have probably accomplished it, but he didn't. In fact, he has never supported offshore until a news conference two weeks ago. But he also--and I'm going to say this critically--there's a Presidential moratoria and there's a legislative moratoria, and he said, if Congress will lift their moratorium, I will lift mine.

Mr. President, I was disappointed that you didn't lead. I was disappointed that you didn't lift your moratorium. Now, your father put it on. It was not supposed to be long-term. It was supposed to be 5 years until they could assess what parts of our coastline might need to be protected. President Clinton came in, had no energy initiative. He extended it to 2002, and then come Bush II, and because he had a brother in Florida and offshore drilling was an issue, he didn't touch it.

In fact, last year we passed a major bill here in the House to open up offshore. The Senate wouldn't deal with it. They passed a small bill down here in the gulf that was tracked 181 that had been on the 5-year plan in the Clinton administration that had not been leased, was taken out of the 5-year plan because of its proximity to Florida by the Bush administration, and was legislated back into the 5-year plan by the Senate, and I had to lead the fight here to get that accomplished in the House. They wouldn't conference with us on our bill so we could merge the two bills, but I led the fight here to make sure that we got that passed. That lease sold for I think $3.6 billion and is on its way, and it was done rather quickly.

Now, there are those who say we can't do anything in 10 to 20 years just don't know what they're talking about. If we work close to the areas in the gulf first--and we will--that have been leased, there's infrastructure. And if we would expedite the permit process legislatively like we did with track 21, and force the hand of the bureaucracy not to sit on this and to get it done, we could have oil and gas production in several years.

We still have 27 platforms active in the western coast that were exempted by the moratorium. They're still functioning. In fact, the governor of California uses some of them to drill in his 3-mile zone, when he's telling us not to drill nationally. Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, issues permits, and California approves them or his administration does, to drill off the shore of California every year, drilling in the 3-mile zone. Now, they drill part of them from onshore with a slant drill. They go on our Federal platforms in Federal Waters and slant drill into the 3-mile area to produce oil.

I'm sorry, but California and Florida are huge users of energy and both of them have thwarted us. I've got to give credit to the Florida delegation. They have come around. Many of the Florida delegation realize--and the Florida citizens picked it up first--they're now supporting offshore production of energy. Offshore production of energy is not a threat to our coastlines. It's the best reserves we have. It's close to where the people are. We have pipelines and refineries there. It's what really works.

When you produce oil in some parts of the Midwest it's hard to get it to market. I'm not saying we shouldn't produce it, but when you produce it on your shorelines where your population centers are, it's the best place.

I find this Congress almost unbelievable that we use excuses like there's 68 million acres that are leased and are not producing. Well, if you punch 10 holes in the ground and they're all dry holes, you stop spending your money.

I know also there's probably hundreds of cases in the gulf where there's lawsuits preventing them from drilling a hole in the ground. Citizen lawsuits, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, all these organizations continually sue to stop the production of energy.

Yes, the problem we've had, we've had three Presidents in a row and 14 Congresses in a row, and all these 10, 11 environmental groups that said we must stop using fossil fuels. We must stop using these, and we're going to replace them with these. They're going to replace these with this.

I wish we could, but until we can, we better produce and we need to be doing coal-to-liquids and coal-to-gas. We need to be continuing to push hydrogen. We need to do all of the above.

And I want to tell you something, it's my opinion, my humble opinion, that if we drill offshore and we drill more in the Midwest and we do coal-to-liquids and coal-to-gas--they all take time--this country is going to be in an energy

crunch for a number of years, and there's going to be pain felt in this country. We're going to lose middle-class jobs. We're going to lose industries out of this country because they can't afford to be here, no matter what we do, because we've waited too long.

Would the gentleman yield?

That's one of the things I didn't mention is I think nitrogen fertilizer is 70 percent natural gas. Petrochemical, 55 percent natural gas, as an ingredient. Polymers and plastics, 45 to 50 percent natural gas. We have steel. We all know the manufacturing of steel and aluminum use huge amounts of natural gas.

My prediction is if we don't open up natural gas and get the price down, we'll make our bricks--bulk commodities like bricks that are easily made in our own neighborhoods from clay somewhere in a mountain nearby, those will be made in Trinidad, where gas is $1.60. Glass for our home windows will be made in Trinidad. In fact, car windows are coming in from overseas right now because of natural gas prices.

Natural gas is the mother's milk of the manufacturing process in this country. And if we don't fix the natural gas problem, we're not going to have a manufacturing base of anything. We will import everything that's manufactured. And at the same time, Americans, this winter and the winters ahead, are just plain going to struggle to drive their cars and heat their homes.

Could I ask you a question?

To the gentleman from Iowa, do you know of any energy bills scheduled for this week?

Do you know of any energy bills scheduled for next week and the week after, before we go on the August recess?

I would have to think, if I was a citizen back home knowing just a fraction of what I know now, I would be one angry citizen. Because this Congress, like the 14 Congresses in succession, have done little to formulate an energy policy for America and produce available, affordable energy. And it's doable, it's something we can do.

Oh, absolutely.

We heat 63 million homes, we heat five million small businesses, and a quarter of a million industrial companies use natural gas in great numbers, and they're all going to get hammered this year. Our hospitals and our schools are going to pay twice as much as last year.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3062) to authorize appropriations to provide for South Pacific exchanges, provide technical and other assistance to countries in the Pacific region through the United States Agency for International Development, and authorize appropriations to provide Fulbright Scholarships for Pacific Island students, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this proposed resolution, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, I want to thank the distinguished chairman of our committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), and our senior ranking member of our committee, the gentlewoman

from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for their support and their leadership in bringing this important legislation before the floor.

I am pleased to bring to the floor today a bill that will benefit the entire Pacific region. I am honored and proud to sponsor this legislation.

While they may be overlooked when listing our great allies, the United States has long and profound relationships with the Pacific Island nations that stretch back more than two centuries. With consideration of this legislation today, Congress will act to significantly strengthen this vitally important alliance.

The Pacific Island nations have long been integral to our strategic interests, from the vital role they played in the Pacific theatre of operations during World War II to their critical role that they played in the conduct of our nuclear testing and missile defense system that even today is critical to our overall military and strategic interests in this important region of the world.

We work closely with the nations of the Pacific to combat transnational threats, particularly the rapidly increasing peril posed by global warming. The people of the Pacific have also fought and sacrificed side-by-side with American soldiers in conflicts from World War II to the current war in Iraq.

But as we look towards the Pacific, we must step up both our multilateral and bilateral relationships to provide critically needed assistance to ensure that other countries do not fill the void. Foreign assistance and scholarship offerings from other countries to the Pacific Island nations has increased dramatically in recent years. Such aid comes with few requirements for good governance and few environmental or labor standards.

The bottom line, Madam Speaker, our public diplomacy program and educational and cultural exchanges with the Pacific Island nations is shameful and without excuse.

Left unchecked, such foreign assistance from other countries can cause further instability, leaving these island nations to believe the United States no longer is interested to assist them, and thereby leave them vulnerable to establish friendships with countries that do not necessarily support our interests in this vast region of the world.

We must act now to fill the void and exert our influence. The Pacific Island Economic and Educational Development Act of 2007 seeks to address the development needs of our allies in the Pacific Islands and to engage the United States in the region more deeply.

This legislation pushes for greater activity in the Pacific Islands by authorizing the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development to listen to the needs of the leaders of the Pacific Islands and to provide assistance accordingly. This task would be significantly easier if USAID reestablished a serious presence in the Pacific Island region, something that has been long overdue.

The legislation also authorizes funds to increase the number of Fulbright scholars from the Pacific islands, making use of our most successful international educational program to increase the training of future leaders of the Pacific Islands. Fostering educational opportunities overseas is one of this government's strongest and most effective public diplomacy tools. Leveraging these grants would represent a tremendous way of reengaging with these critical allies in the Pacific region.

Under section 2 of this bill now entitled Pacific Island Country Exchanges, it is the intent of Congress to specifically increase funding for the U.S.-South Pacific Scholarship program, a program which has been in place since 1994, and has been administered by the East- West Center in Honolulu under the direction of the U.S. Department of State. The U.S.-South Pacific Scholarship program has successfully trained many Pacific Island leaders, and it is imperative to U.S. interests in the region that we continue this program.

In this new world where shipping is vulnerable to terrorism and climate change is a top priority, we need these Pacific Island nations as much as they need us. Let's commit to reengaging with them, to strengthening our alliances with them, and to aiding them in every way possible.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3062, the South Pacific Economic and Educational Development Act of 2007, and take this opportunity to highlight its value for the strengthening of United States diplomacy in Oceania.

I have the distinct privilege and honor of representing the people of Guam in this House. My constituents remain keenly aware and are especially appreciative of the United States foreign policy programs most relevant and important to our neighboring islands in the greater Pacific Basin. Indeed, the provision of United States technical and financial assistance to Pacific Island states is cause for associated growth and development in, and international recognition of, the neighboring Pacific Island territories of the United States.

Our island territories, including Guam, the Northern Marianas, an American Samoa, together with the State of Hawaii, serve as logical bridges and links to our friends and allies in the greater Pacific Basin. Commerce, trade, communication, and transportation flow between and through our Pacific Island territories and the Pacific Island nation-states. Heads of state and government officials frequently convene in the Pacific Island territories for meetings and summits on issues of relevance and interest to the region and to the United States. H.R. 3062 is predicated in the historic relationship and responsibility the United States has developed with the Pacific Island nation-states.

The introduction and consideration of H.R. 3062 is timely in that it follows the eighth meeting of the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders, an organization that was founded in 1980 with the support of the East-West Center. The eighth meeting convened in Washington, D.C., this past May, and marked the first high-level gathering of Pacific Island political leaders in the Nation's capital in the Conference's history. Twenty separate heads of states and leaders from Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, participated in that meeting, at which partnerships between the islands and the United States were renewed. A commitment to re-engage in the shared needs and interests of our countries was forged at this recent meeting.

H.R. 3062 would help fulfill a part of the United States commitment to re-engage in the Pacific Region. The bill would authorize the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide technical and other assistance to Pacific Island nation-states. The bill would also require the Department of State to take certain steps to ensure the participation of students from the Pacific Island nation- states in the distinguished and highly-recognized J. Fulbright Educational Exchange Program.

I am confident that the provision of such assistance and the participation of Pacific Island students in the Fulbright Program will serve to strengthen United States-Pacific Island relations. H.R. 3062 would also serve to support the advancement of efforts to strengthen regional cooperation, especially in the areas of trade, tourism, the environment, education, and defense and security.

I commend our colleague from American Samoa, Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Chairman of its Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment, for sponsoring this legislation and for his leadership in buttressing United States assistance in the greater Pacific Basin. I urge my colleagues' support for H.R. 3062.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3062, the Pacific Island Economic and Educational Development Act. The island nations of the South Pacific, which include longstanding friends of the United States, face continuing challenges in development and education.

I want to commend the chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment (Mr. Faleomavaega) for his leadership in introducing this legislation and for working with us in the committee to refine it during the committee process.

Because the amended text deals with authorizations, not mandates or appropriations, it signals congressional interest in deepening our cooperation with the people of the Pacific Islands, while also allowing executive branch agencies appropriate discretion in carrying out such programs.

The text before us will increase the amounts authorized for U.S. educational and cultural exchanges with South Pacific nations to $1 million in each of the next 2 fiscal years, establish a Fulbright exchange program for Pacific Island students, and underscore the interests of the United States Congress in making appropriate USAID technical assistance available to Pacific Island governments.

I thank the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega) for accommodating some of our suggested changes. I am pleased to support the amended text.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.