Congratulating and recognizing Mr. Juan Antonio "Chi-Chi" Rodriguez for his continued success on and off of the golf course.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1284, I call up from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2642) making appropriations for military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendments to the House amendments to the Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I offer the motion at the desk.

Mr. 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 pending legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot of comments tonight about what there should or should not be in this legislation, and I agree with many of those comments. And honestly, just once, acting as chairman of a committee, I would like to put together a bill which reflects my priorities. But that is not usually what chairmen have to do in this place.

What we have to do is try to find a consensus that will gather 218 votes and be sustained over time. And on this bill, there are some peculiar problems because, very frankly, we have a very different constituency in this House for continuing the war in Iraq than we have for most of the other items in the bill and, therefore, we had to find a way to allow each and every Member of the House to express his or her opinion. We had to try to find a way to allow each and every Member to vote their convictions in a way which would not keep the House tied up in knots for another 6 months.

Now, the way we did that was to adopt a procedure under which we took a conference report pending between the Senate and the House, and used that as the device by which each House would express their preferences, and we would work our way to a solution.

Our committee is often criticized because we wind up producing omnibus appropriations in which everything is thrown into one package, and people are forced to vote up or down on the entire package. What we tried to do this time was to do just the opposite, to disaggregate these issues so that people would have a chance to vote separately on the major propositions in the legislation.

And that is why the House sent to the Senate originally three amendments. We sent one amendment that would fund the operations for Iraq and Afghanistan. We sent a second amendment which stipulated the conditions under which the first amendment money could be expended. And then we had a third amendment which laid out, basically, other domestic priorities or associated military priorities that we thought were important. And we sent it to the Senate, and it included a number of items about which questions have been raised tonight.

In addition to the expanded GI benefits for veterans and unemployment compensation, we tried to protect the Medicaid safety net by having a moratorium on seven Medicaid regulations.

We also had a number of restrictions on Iraq policy, one requiring that any money that is expended for reconstruction by the State Department or USAID be matched dollar for dollar by the Iraqi Government so that they

would begin to pick up a fair share of the cost of redeveloping their own country.

We also had language with respect to trying to assure that there would be no permanent bases in Iraq. We had funding $2.2 billion above the President's level for military construction and veterans' hospitals, and we fully funded BRAC.

Someone asked earlier on the floor today why did we have $178 million in this war supplemental for the Bureau of Prisons. Very simple. Because the executive agency asked for the money because if we don't, there are going to be prison guards laid off because there has been a heavier than expected Federal prison population. And that may not be an emergency to Members of Congress, but if you're one of those prison guards who's working shorthanded under dangerous situations, you don't want to have people laid off in those Federal prisons.

And so we sent that package over to the Senate, and the Senate added roughly 37 additional items which cost $10 billion and which the House felt, in many instances, did not accurately reflect emergency expenditure funds.

So the Senate sent those amendments back to us, and among other things, they stripped out totally the conditions on the war. That is why I will personally vote against amendment No. 1 because I would vote for that amendment provided that we had a set of reasonable conditions in defining what our national policy is in Iraq. Absent those conditions, I don't intend to vote for that amendment.

But I do intend to vote for the second amendment, and I want to take just a moment to explain what was in it. Primarily, we do three important things: We, first of all, create a new program to provide greatly expanded education benefits for American veterans under the GI Bill. We have some Members of this House who are unhappy about the fact that that is not paid for. I am among them. But I would point out that the entire war is not being paid for. Mr. Murtha and I and Mr. McGovern tried to offer the House an opportunity to vote to pay for the entire war. We did not, frankly, find much enthusiasm for that on either side of the political aisle.

But we stipulated that we felt that if that war was going to be fought, even though I personally think it's the most misguided war since the War of 1812, nonetheless, we felt if the war was going to be fought, at least we ought to pay for it so we didn't pass the cost down to our grandkids.

That has not happened.

My point is simply that if we aren't going to pay for the war, then I feel no particular guilt about saying to the GIs who have fought the war that we aren't going to provide you with the equivalent of a 4-year college education because we have had no sense of self-sacrifice in this country except on the part of military families. They've been asked to sacrifice again and again and again while the rest of us have been asked to go shopping or swallow a tax cut. And I think that's illegitimate.

We lost the argument on funding the war, and it just seems to me that it is a peculiar view of proportion if people get exercised about not paying for the GI Bill expansion but don't get exercised about not paying for the war. It would take over 50 years of paying benefits under this new expanded GI Bill. It would take more than 50 years to spend as much money on veterans as will be spent in a 2-year period in Iraq.

And so I make no apology. While I would prefer that it be paid for, I make no apology for the fact that, in the end, it wasn't. This is the only way that we could get the United States Senate and the administration to accept the expanded GI Bill. And I think we owe it to those veterans to provide it no matter what the budgetary niceties are.

Secondly, with respect to unemployment compensation. We wound up essentially--and I want to thank Mr. Rangel especially for the work he did in conference yesterday. The House initially sent over a package which provided 13 weeks of expanded unemployment benefits for every State in the country and then provided an additional 13 weeks on top of that for States with high unemployment rates.

The administration, as you know, Mr. Speaker, did not want that. They objected to it. So we looked for various ways to try to salvage as much of that as we could.

In the end, we adopted changes which bring the cost of that down from about $10 billion to $8 billion. So we have retained 80 percent of the original unemployment compensation provision.

We've made two changes. We have agreed with the administration's request to require 20 weeks of work history if a person is going to be eligible for that, and we also dropped the second step, the targeting of those benefits. We will have to deal with that issue on another bill in another venue.

The third issue that was causing great controversy was the fact that we were trying to place a moratorium on seven Medicaid regulations that the administration was trying to impose that would cut services to seniors, families, and those with disabilities. In the end, we got six of those seven in the package. I think that's doing pretty well.

Because of the new disasters that we have had around the country, certainly most visible in Iowa recently, the administration agreed to $1.8 billion in disaster funding. This bill comes in considerably higher than that at $2.65 billion.

That's basically the outline of what we have done. And there are several other items in the bill. One that Members should be aware of, if we do not get our appropriation bills done by the end of the fiscal year--that has been known to happen from time to time around here--if that doesn't happen, then if we were to proceed for a short time on a continuing resolution, Israel would wind up receiving $170 million less than the President's budget. We did not want that to happen. And so we are including in this bill a provision which guarantees that as of October 1, that even if we were to pass a continuing resolution at last year's level, Israel would not be accidentally shortchanged by that action and they would get that additional $170 million.

There are a number of other provisions in the bill, but I think most Members are familiar with them. Most of these items have been around for quite a while.

And so with that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer.

I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel. I want to thank Mr. Rangel for the work he did in conference.

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

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Let me simply take this opportunity to thank the staff, especially Rob Nabors, on our side of the aisle. And I want to especially also thank Mr. Murtha and Senator Inouye and Mr. Young for the work they did in fashioning amendment No. 1 that we have before us today.

I also want to thank Mr. Rangel, certainly Mr. Hoyer, and the Speaker for all of the work that they have done in bringing us to this point. And I also want to thank especially Mr. Boehner, who certainly has been integral to achieving this today. And also Mr. Lewis and Cantor, who have worked consistently on this, and I appreciate the work they did even through yesterday. And one more thank you to Senator Webb and to Representative Herseth Sandlin in this House for leading the efforts to see that we did have an expanded GI Bill benefit for veterans, and also Senator Reid.

And now let me inquire, does the gentleman have any other speakers?

I intend to have the Speaker do the closing. Would you like to finish before I ask her to close?

I thank the gentleman, and I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Speaker of the House.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for yielding.

I want to join my colleague, Mr. Obey, the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee, in acknowledging the great work of Rob Nabors and all of the staff involved in putting this bill together today.

I want to join him in acknowledging the leadership of the distinguished minority leader, our majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, the chairman, Mr. Rangel, for his important work on unemployment insurance, Mr. McDermott, who just spoke, for his important work getting the bill ready. Mr. Lewis, to you and to Mr. Cantor and all involved in all this. Mr. Murtha, to you as well, and Mr. Skelton, to you as well.

We were able to come to this compromise because we were ready. As Mr. McDermott said, earlier in the year we had a bill ready for unemployment insurance. It wasn't going to be signed by the President. We had to put it off until another time. Two weeks ago tomorrow, the unemployment rate in our country shot up by half a point from approximately 5 to 5.5 percent. It sent a very stern message to the Congress of the United States and to the President that we must act.

Following that, on the floor last week, on two occasions, we had a very strong bipartisan vote in favor of unemployment insurance. So when Mr. Rangel went to the table to talk about compromise, it was clear that we had to reflect the will of the American people, and he was ready, he was ready with the legislation. And I'm pleased that Mr. Boehner was ready to accept that.

When we started talking about the final versions of this bill in the past couple of weeks, little did we know that the skies would open and rain would fall and the Midwest of our country would be deluged, and there would be a need to make some adjustment in this bill for disaster assistance to the Midwest and to replenish the FEMA fund to make up for funds spent now. We were ready. And I don't think there was any compromise on that subject; we all agreed that that had to be done.

I am particularly pleased that in the legislation there is a signal sent that this Congress cares about investments in science, it cares about the future, not as much as I would like, but nonetheless, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having that included. And I thank my colleagues for accepting that.

I want to join in all the commendations, again, to those who helped bring this compromise to the floor. I am very pleased that it has the GI Bill, finally. It became clear that this is what we had to do, what we owed our young people to say thank you to them by sending them to college. Mr. Chet Edwards has been a champion on this issue. I will come back to that in a moment.

But, Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry that I cannot fully participate in all of the comradery that is accompanying this legislation that we bring to the floor because of the huge amount of money that is in this bill to fund the war in Iraq without any conditions, without any limitation on time spent there. I'm glad that we have something about no permanent bases, yes, but this is the first time that we will be sending a bill-- well, we sent it to the Senate with conditions and they struck it. We have no choice. This is not about a failure of this House of Representatives; it's about what we cannot get past the next body and onto the President's desk.

Mr. Speaker, about a week ago, I spoke at the opening of the groundbreaking for the Institute of Peace. I know that you have been involved in that over the years. And I said that day, on a warm June day like today, it was reminiscent of one 45 years ago when President John F. Kennedy delivered the commencement address at American University.

In the last summer of a life that ended far too soon, President Kennedy spoke of the need to seek peace even in the midst of the Cold War. He said, ``The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war,'' Kennedy told the crowd assembled. ``We shall be prepared if others wish it, we shall be alert to try to stop it, but we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just.'' That was President Kennedy's philosophy of his foreign policy.

Contrary to that policy, President Bush started a war based on a false

premise. He sent our troops into a situation that he didn't know what he was getting into. The philosopher Hannah Arendt once said, she observed that nations are driven by the endless flywheel of violence, believing that one last, one final violent gesture will bring peace. But each time they sow the seeds for more violence.

Five years later, we are still engaged in the war in Iraq, 2 years longer than we were in World War II, and that has come at a very great cost. The costs are clear, of course, and we all mourn 4,100 of our troops who have lost their lives in battle, tens of thousands of our troops injured, thousands of them permanently. I met with some of them with my colleagues, Mr. Dicks, Mr. Inslee and Mr. McDermott, at the Seattle VA Hospital last Friday. And before that, Mr. Murtha and I visited our troops in the hospital as well here in Washington, D.C.

Over Memorial Day, I visited our troops in Iraq with some of our colleagues. It was my sixth trip into the theater. And what they asked me is what they always ask: What's going to happen to us when we go home? And for a long time on those visits I didn't have an answer that I could be very, very pleased to tell them. But now, because of the leadership of Mr. Edwards, and others, we're able to say that when you come home, you will be met with the biggest increase in the Veterans Administration health budget in the 77-year history of the Veterans Administration, and that means in the history of our country, an even bigger investment this year.

And after tonight, in a bipartisan way, we can proudly say--and Mr. Young, who has done more than you? You have just been wonderful, and I salute you as well. We can proudly say to our troops, to our young student veterans, that when they come home, we will say thank you by sending them to college; $7 for every dollar spent on the GI Bill following World War II. We owe these troops nothing else.

Now let's go back to the cost of that war. We talked about those who lost their lives, we talked about those who are permanently injured. And it's such a sad story. The cost to our reputation in the world is enormous. The cost in dollars, the Heritage Foundation said $2.75 trillion. The Heritage Foundation, that's their figure; nearly $3 trillion projected to be the cost of this war.

And so it's hard to understand when we say to the President, we would like to insure 10 million children in America, and he says we can't afford it, so I vetoed the bill. And the Republicans stuck with him on that veto--not all, many voted in a bipartisan way. Forty days in Iraq, 10 million children insured in America for 1 year. We can't afford it? $2.75 trillion, the cost of this war.

But what is worrisome--I know to Mr. Skelton, to Mr. Murtha, and I'm certain to Mr. Young, although he has not given me license to speak for him--is the cost of the military capability of our Nation, lives, limbs, reputation, dollars, opportunity costs at home. But this is about keeping the American people safe. That's what we take an oath of office to do, to provide for the common defense. And our ability to honor our oath of office to uphold the Constitution--in the preamble it says ``to provide for the common defense''--is greatly diminished because this war has diminished the capability of American military forces to protect our interests wherever they are threatened in the world.

So let us think and hope that this is the last time that there will ever be another dollar spent without constraints, without conditions, without direction. Why should we trust the same judgment that got us here in the first place in this war?

So while I'm pleased that we have some spirit of civility here tonight about coming to a conclusion on this bill to bring it to the floor, and I enthusiastically will vote for the domestic piece of this, I'm not urging anyone to do anything, I just want you to know why I would be voting ``no'' on the spending without constraints.

We owe our troops more than sending them into war on a false premise, without the equipment and training they need, without a plan for success, without a strategy to leave. This war has not made the region more stable, it has not made our country safer. It has undermined our capability to protect the American people. It should come to an end safely, honorably, responsibly, and soon.

Mr. OBEY, Mr. Speaker, I submit the following:

Explanatory Statement Submitted by Mr. Obey, Chairman of the House

Committee on Appropriations, Regarding the Further Amendment of the House of Representatives Relating to Supplemental Appropriations for

Fiscal Years 2008 and 2009

Following is an explanation of the further amendment of the

House of Representatives (relating to supplemental

appropriations for fiscal years 2008 and 2009) to the Senate

amendment numbered 2 to the House amendment numbered 2 to the

Senate amendment to H.R. 2642, the Supplemental

Appropriations Act, 2008.

In this statement, the provisions of the further House

amendment are generally referred to as ``the amended bill''.

The further House amendment provides that, in lieu of the

matter proposed to be inserted by the Senate, language be

inserted providing supplemental appropriations for military

construction, international affairs, disaster assistance, and

other security-related and domestic needs, as well as

language providing for accountability in contracting,

improved veterans education benefits, temporary extended

unemployment compensation, and a moratorium on certain

Medicaid regulations. The amendment also strikes lines 1

through 3 on page 60 of the Senate engrossed amendment of

September 6, 2007.

The text of the amendment is printed in the Rules Committee

report (H. Rpt. 110-720) to accompany House Resolution 1284.

Unless otherwise noted, all appropriations in the amendment

are designated as emergency requirements and necessary to

meet emergency needs pursuant to section 204(a) of S. Con.

Res. 21 and section 301(b)(2) of S. Con. Res. 70, the

congressional budget resolutions for fiscal years 2008 and

2009.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

I want to thank the chairman. No one has worked harder to get us to this point in time in a bill that can be signed by the President and passed by the Senate. No one has worked harder than David Obey has on that objective, and he spent months at it. His staff has worked extraordinarily hard.

I also want to thank my counterpart, the minority leader Mr. Boehner who just spoke, and thank him for his efforts. This agreement would not have been reached without his leadership and his cooperation, and I appreciate that.

I also want to thank Mr. Lewis for his work on this effort as well.

Mr. Speaker, this supplemental appropriations legislation is the result, as has been said, of a bipartisan compromise that addresses critical needs of the American people.

Will every Member be happy with the substance of the two amendments that we are going to consider? The answer to that question is no.

Will every Member here get what he or she wants? Again, the answer is no. That is, after all, the legislative process.

However, our Nation is at war. We have 150,000 men and women in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan. Catastrophic floods continue to wreak havoc in Iowa and other States in the Midwest. And millions of our workers are struggling to make ends meet because they've lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

These two amendments that we will consider address these needs, as well as others.

The first amendment will provide funding for our troops on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each Member will decide how they should vote, and their vote should not be questioned on that particular amendment.

It is also important to note that the second amendment includes important policy provisions regarding the war in Iraq.

First, it prohibits military construction funds from being used to establish permanent bases in Iraq. We have addressed that previously in this House and overwhelmingly supported that proposition.

Secondly, it requires reconstruction aid for Iraq to be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Iraqi Government. With the price of oil being what it is, having been told by the administration that the oil in Iraq would pay for all reconstruction, that is a reasonable and appropriate requirement.

Additionally, the second amendment includes major legislative items that the White House has agreed to accept. That is a good sign that there is an opportunity to work together when the interests of the American people are at stake. We don't always do that. The American public is concerned about that and disappointed by that. But this night, we have come to such an agreement, and the American public can be pleased by that.

Among other things, this amendment expands the education benefits that veterans receive under the GI Bill to restore the promise of a full, 4-year college education, and allowing servicemembers to transfer educational benefits to their spouses and dependents. That was a bipartisan agreement. It's something that we can be pleased about as a country. It's something that we do, in fact, owe our veterans, and we will redeem that promise this night.

Thus, this legislation supports our troops not only when they're abroad but when they return home as well.

We know from our experience with the original GI Bill that this legislation will foster an educated workforce and a vibrant economy. The greatest generation, after all, not only defeated fascism--Charlie Rangel, at a later time, fought for our country in the field--but they also came home, that greatest generation, and built the greatest economy the world has seen. This bill will help in many ways redeem the promise for this generation of men and women who are asked to defend our country and its freedom. It is the right thing to do. We will do it this night.

The President initially indicated his opposition to an extension of unemployment insurance. But this second amendment includes a 13-week extension for workers in every State who have exhausted their benefits. Again, the right thing to do.

The administration also had placed a moratorium on seven Medicaid regulations, the result of which would cut services for seniors, families, and those with disabilities. The administration, after conversation with both sides, has decided and agreed to a moratorium on six of the seven regulations. That's good for the States, but more importantly, it's good for those whom these dollars will help in a time of trouble. This provision has overwhelmingly been supported in this House previously, both sides of the aisle, who voted for protecting the Medicaid safety net by a vote of 349-62. I am pleased the administration has joined us in the support of this effort.

The second amendment also includes critical disaster assistance in the wake of devastating tornadoes and floods, which all of us have seen on TV over the last few days, as well as funding to strengthen New Orleans' levees, as requested by the President, and housing vouchers for those left homeless by Hurricane Katrina.

I want to again commend Chairman Obey and Chairman Rangel. Chairman Rangel played a key role in getting us to this agreement, and I thank him for that.

I also again want to thank Minority Leader Boehner and Ranking Member Lewis for their leadership on this legislation.

Some will say this legislation is not perfect. To that extent, they can apply that to any piece of legislation that we consider, but this legislation is a good piece of legislation. It will provide for our troops in the field, while addressing critical priorities here at home. It will have my support, and I urge the support of this body for such amendment as they believe to be appropriate in the best interests of our country.

Mr. Speaker, I will vote for these amendments today. They provide necessary funding for our troops, create new educational benefits for our veterans, and address domestic and global needs.

The war funding will pay for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq for the rest of this year and half of 2009. I support this because it will make it possible to provide the equipment, ammunition, fuel, and other supplies needed by our brave men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who have shown such extraordinary skill, determination and endurance in answering their call to service.

I opposed the Bush Administration's rush to war in Iraq, and voted against the resolution that authorized the President to send our armed forces into that country on the theory that this was necessary in order to deprive the Saddam Hussein regime of weapons of mass destruction. So, I understand why some of my constituents who also opposed the war want Congress to reject this funding measure.

And I could not agree more that the record of the current Administration demonstrates an

enormous failure of leadership. We desperately need new leadership that will bring to a close our open-ended military engagement in Iraq and will refocus on the very urgent tasks of reducing the terrorist threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But I am convinced that voting to deny funds to provide our men and women in uniform the resources they need to do their jobs is not the right way to bring about the change we need--especially because President Bush has shown he is prepared to veto funding for the troops rather than agree to change course.

This bill also improves veterans' educational benefits to more closely resemble the GI Bill of Rights that made it possible for so many World War II veterans to go to college. The GI Bill of Rights helped make possible the postwar growth of the middle class that was one of the greatest achievements of the Greatest Generation. Some have complained about the cost of providing similar benefits to those who are serving today. But to put those costs into perspective, we should remember that so far our spending for military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq has exceeded $800 billion.

By all indications, this bill will not be vetoed. Compromises were made on all sides to make it acceptable to the White House and the leadership of both parties. Of course, compromise means that everyone gives up something.

So there is good news: The bill addresses the needs of our soldiers and provides enhanced educational benefits for our veterans--but also extends unemployment benefits to help laid-off workers, provides relief for the thousands of people flooded out of their homes in the Midwest, and prevents the implementation of new rules that would increase the cost of healthcare, among other provisions. But there also is bad news: The bill does not include all the important policy provisions included in the first version of this bill, among them a requirement that our troops begin to redeploy from Iraq, a reminder to Iraq's government that U.S. troops will not remain in Iraq indefinitely.

I'm disappointed that the bill gives the President most of what he wants in Iraq spending without any significant policy constraints. Congress has tried and failed to include such constraints in previous spending bills, and here we have failed again. What we need is consensus here at home on a path forward in Iraq, but as long as the architect of our current Iraq policy occupies the White House, I'm afraid that won't happen.

I hope that the next Administration will give serious consideration to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group as a framework for consensus. Those recommendations would be accomplished by legislation I introduced last year, which would support a course of escalating economic development, empowerment of local government, the provision of basic services, a ``surge'' in regional and international diplomatic efforts, and lightening the American footprint in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I voted against war in Iraq because, as I said then, the Bush Administration was rushing to war without necessary international support or a clear plan to prevent the chaos that would follow after Saddam Hussein was overthrown. I was concerned a prolonged conflict would devolve into civil war. Since U.S. troops entered Iraq more than 5 years ago, we have lost thousands of our brave service men and women, seen tens of thousands more wounded, and spent half a trillion dollars in taxpayer money.

Yet the President's mission is no clearer, he has still offered no exit strategy, our enemies in Afghanistan have regained their strength, and our armed forces have been stretched to the breaking point.

Only Democrats and Republicans working together can find the path out of Iraq. I will continue to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle on further steps we can take to change our broader Iraq policy. But today, I will vote to provide funding for our troops in the field, enhanced educational benefits for our veterans, and assistance for Americans suffering through the current economic downturn and the high costs of healthcare.

Mr. Speaker, it's a privilege to come to the well of the House and address this body. It's Tuesday, about 16 minutes to 1 o'clock, and the House is back in session for another week.

Today, we are going to be taking up some interesting resolutions. H.R. 1002 expresses support for the designation of April 2008 as Public Radio Recognition Month. We are going to take up House Resolution 1029, which congratulates and recognizes Chi-Chi Rodriguez for his continued success on and off the golf course. We are going to rename a post office in Cleveland, Ohio. We are going to rename another post office in Rancho Mirage, California, and we are going to recognize or have a bill that recognizes the historical significance of Juneteenth Independence Day. That's what is on tap for the House of Representatives today, Mr. Speaker.

What aren't we going to do?

Well, we aren't going to do what my constituents in the Sixth District of Georgia want us to do and what Americans all across this Nation want us to do, and that is to deal with the issue of gas prices, of rising gas prices. For another week, we're not going to deal with that because the leadership in this House, the Democrat leadership in this House, will not allow the bills to come to the floor that will increase American energy for Americans.

The average gas price in this Nation today, Mr. Speaker, is $4.08 a gallon. In California, it's $4.60 a gallon. In Connecticut, it's $4.38 a gallon. Now, facts are stubborn things, Mr. Speaker, but there are some laws of economics that are driving all of this.

Part of it, not all of it, is supply and demand, and there are some other facts that are important for all of us to appreciate. The United States expanded its dependence on foreign members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries--that's OPEC, Mr. Speaker--by a full 7 percent in 2007 alone. That means we increased our dependence on foreign oil. The United States is the only developed Nation in the world that forbids, that forbids, Mr. Speaker, safe energy production in its Outer Continental Shelf. That's deep sea exploration. We are the only developed Nation in the world to do this.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that America's Outer

Continental Shelf contains nearly 86 billion barrels of oil, 86 billion barrels of oil. How much is that, Mr. Speaker? It's enough oil to replace OPEC imports for 50 years. We can gain that in an environmentally sensitive and sound way without threatening the environment.

On our side of the aisle, for the Republicans, when those votes have come up in the House, 81 percent of us have supported deep sea exploration for American energy for Americans. As for the other side of the aisle, when those votes have come up, 83 percent of House Democrats have opposed this.

So, as my friend Mr. Westmoreland has said, we are going to break it down pretty simply. Who wants to bring onshore oil on line for Americans? Who wants to bring deep water oil on line for Americans? Who wants to increase refining capacity in America? American energy for Americans, which Members of this body want to do that?

We've got a petition. We've got the pens at the ready, Mr. Speaker. All it takes is for Members to step up and to find their line and sign, and if they need help finding their line, we'll be glad to help them. It's important. It's important that the American people know that this body, the House of Representatives, appreciates the challenges that they're having right now at the gas pump, with filling up their cars and their vehicles, the difficulty of the truckers across this Nation in delivering the goods and services.

It's imperative that this House of Representatives addresses the issue of conservation, yes, alternative fuel, yes, but increasing supply. When you hear our friends on the other side of the aisle, they will say, well, there's already land that has been leased to the oil companies, and they aren't using it. Well, you're right. They're not using it because there's no oil underneath it. They need to go where the oil is, and the oil is demonstrated in the deep sea exploration that we ought to allow.

So, Mr. Speaker, I'm proud to stand here with my colleague who has brought forward the kind of clear evidence that Members of this House can demonstrate to their constituents back home and to their colleagues here in the House. It's time to increase American supply of American energy for Americans. I call on the leadership, on the Speaker of the House and on the leadership of the majority party--the Democrats--to bring those bills forward. Let us vote.