Providing for the correction of the events of August 2, 2007.

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

Mr. Speaker, there are two points I would like to make, one about the rule and one about the process.

I served 13 years in the Vermont State Senate, a small body, 30 members, sometimes in the minority, sometimes in the majority; and we had fierce fights about issues of enormous public concern, tax policy, environmental policy. In all of the time that I served in that State Senate, winning fights, but losing as many as I won, I never, ever saw the other side leave on an appropriations vote. Never. When you lose, you get up and you fight another day. That is what we learned. That is what all of us have learned.

There is a use of process here that has an effect of avoiding discussing substantive issues that are really of vital concern to the people of this country and the people that we represent. None of us can certify that the position we take at any given moment

is guaranteed to be the right one. We have to debate that, we have to listen to the other side. But we don't stop listening when it comes to our final decision, the ultimate responsibility that we have been given by the people who have elected us to stand in this well and to vote ``yes'' or ``no'' and to accept accountability for the ``yes'' or ``no'' vote that we take.

I do not understand, Mr. Speaker, walking out on a vote, most importantly, one involving appropriations for rural America. I don't understand the excessive use of motions to adjourn when it has no purpose, no purpose whatsoever other than to bring down the respect that the American people should have in this institution. I don't understand that. Maybe in time I will.

This bill brought forth by this rule is going the allow America to have a new debate on energy. It is that simple. The old approach on energy has been oil and fossil fuels. It has had a place and will have a place, to be sure. But the question is, are we going to continue with the public policy of this country, with subsidies as we have for mature industries like oil and nuclear, which in the 2005 legislation received $15 billion in taxpayer subsidies. That is real money from real Americans. Yet, as that happens, global warming expands, the price of gasoline increases. It is a dead-end policy, Mr. Speaker.

And the question that is going to be raised in this legislation for the decision of each and every one of us is whether we are going to turn a page on the old energy policy to a new one that is going to allow efficiency to matter. Using less, not more, saves money. The efficiency provisions in this bill will save tax ratepayers $300 billion. Whether we are going to use the power of tax incentives, a tax incentive budget to unleash the entrepreneurial skills, the engineering skills of people across this country in local communities, to harness wind, solar, renewable sources of energy, whether we are going to unleash the opportunity to create 3 million new jobs.

Let me say this: for all the good that is done by some of the energy policies that we have had, let's make the acknowledgment that there are many good things out there, every time a consumer in a local area, my town of Hartland, pays the light bill, most of the time that dollar that I pay gets sent hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away to a generator. And what we are trying to do in our State, what we are trying to do in many other States around the country is to have an energy policy that is going to allow consumers to spend their money locally so that the repair person that was mentioned that fixes the air conditioners, more of those people are going to have jobs. Every dollar that we keep in our local economy is strengthening our local economy.

Energy efficiency, renewable energy is about creating jobs, not just improving and cleaning out the environment. It is about independence and strengthening of local communities, not just shipping local money to faraway corporations.

Mr. Speaker, if we needed any wake-up call about why we have to turn a page and move in a new direction, it is in this morning's newspaper report about Toyota. Let me just read one paragraph:

``Booming sales of fuel efficient cars helped lift Toyota to its biggest quarterly profit ever, and kept the maker of Prius Hybrid on pace to pass General Motors as the world's number one automaker.''

That is not good news for us. What is good news for us is that we accept the challenge that is there, not run from it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this rule and support this underlying legislation.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 615 Offered by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida

At the end of the resolution insert the following new

Sections:

Sec. 5. Upon adoption of this resolution, House Resolution

622 is hereby adopted.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I attempted to offer an amendment to H.R. 3221, the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act, to prevent possible waste and maintain appropriate management of our government expenses. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires the Secretary of Energy to contract with the National Academy of Public Administration to conduct a study for assessing management practices for research, development and demonstration programs at the Department.

My amendment would simply prohibit funds in the bill to the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA-E, within the Department of Energy, until the study has been completed and it makes a recommendation that we do establish ARPA-E.

However, the Rules Committee would not accommodate my amendment and refused to make it in order. Without this amendment, we are shooting in the dark. We are authorizing $300 million for fiscal year 2008 that may not be necessary. This is not a good way to manage the people's tax money. If the majority is going to gamble like this, we might as well put the whole Federal Treasury on green double zero and just hope for the best.

I have another concern, and that's about a new portfolio standard. The renewable portfolio standard in this bill calls for 20 percent renewable by the year 2020, and it will not include any nuclear.

Well, the Southern Company, in my district, provides about 12 to 15 percent of their power by nuclear, but, yet, that cannot be included as a renewable. So we are projecting a wind farm off the coast of Georgia bigger than Cape Wind in Massachusetts, and that would only produce 1 percent toward this renewable standard. It's almost an impossible standard to meet, if you do not let us include nuclear as a renewable source, which, surely, it is. Basically, the compliance penalty for not meeting this standard, for the Southern Company in my district, would be $745 million.

This legislation is nothing more than a backhanded attempt to ease our Nation into a carbon trade scheme, and it victimizes Georgia by making us a donor State.

I ask my colleagues to vote down this rule and vote against the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray).

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to defeat the previous question so that I may amend the rule to provide for the adoption of H. Res. 622, a resolution introduced by Mr. Blunt to correct the injustice done to all Members of this House on August 2, 2007.

As my colleagues know, the majority engaged in a manipulation of the vote on the motion to recommit the Agriculture appropriations bill to reverse the outcome.

If we defeat the previous question, the resolution will direct the Clerk to retrieve the Agriculture appropriations bill from the Senate, add in the amendments that should have been included in the bill, and return the bill to the Senate.

While we took the important step yesterday to establish a select committee to investigate the reasons why this injustice occurred, the Agriculture appropriations bill will continue through the legislative process well before the select committee's final report is complete; meaning that we must act now to correct this injustice.

I ask my colleagues to support me in defeating the previous question and righting this wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment be printed just prior to the vote on the previous question.

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of our colleagues in a responsible manner, realizing the historic importance of what has transpired this week, to defeat the previous question, allow this wrong to be righted, to defeat the previous question and defeat also this unfair rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, as a former member of the Air Resources Board in the State of California and working on air pollution issues for decades, I was looking at the text that said this bill was going to move America forward.

This text is not moving America forward; it's moving us back to a 1970's agenda. This agenda is the same agenda we had in the environmental community in the 1970s. In the 1970s, we were doing the best we could then. But this is the best America can expect from this Congress, is 30-year-old ideas that have been proven false, and the example, this bill is going to pick winners and losers in the industry.

It is going to mandate not only the inclusion of poisons in our gasoline in places like California where in 1992 we warned you about MTBE, we warned you that ethanol was going to cause problems, but this place was bought off by special interest groups that claimed to be environmentally sensitive and forced MTBE into the fuel of America.

Later, when you realized we were right, you said, sorry. Just last, a few months ago, Harvard came out with another study about ethanol. All we are asking is, don't mandate that this poison is put in the fuel.

If you can't believe CARB, then why are the States around the north using our standards at CARB to clean up the environment? Look before you leap, but this technology that we are talking about doesn't even include zero mission generators like high pressure gas reactors, doesn't include.

The only way we are going to beat greenhouse gases is to go nuclear, but you don't have the political guts to look our friends in the eye and say we have got to move beyond the 1970s. We have got to move forward. We have got to be willing to do what is right for the environment.

If that tells Archer Daniels Midland or the extreme wackos who are always going to be against nuclear that, sorry, guys, the environment comes first, if you don't have the guts to do that, don't claim this is a green proposal. 1970 cars are polluting and wasteful. This bill is polluting and wasteful.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill with its tax provisions. I think it's time that we level with the American public about this and be truthful about what we are trying to accomplish here. This bill has some good things in it, but it's not really addressing what we really need to be focused on right now. That is, the strategic management of our dependence over fossil fuels for the next 10 to 15 years as we transition.

We need to manage our strategic dependence on fossil fuels, a strategic dependence that we are going to have for the next 10, 15, maybe 20 years as these new technologies develop. Now, what does this bill do? It taxes U.S. companies working on production of oil, and making these companies less productive and less competitive, therefore, shifting more oil and gas activity into the hands of national oil companies that are not our friends. This will not bring down the price of oil and gas and not alleviate our energy concerns.

Secondly, it abrogates leases, very important leases in the Gulf of Mexico, with the stroke of a pen. Now, that's not the American way. That's not something that we would be proud of in this country, not something the American people would be proud of. It's certainly something that Hugo Chavez would be proud of.

Finally, I will say this bill is not technology neutral. It seeks to pick winners and losers and eliminates some very promising technology for alternatives fuels.

For that reason and many other reasons, I oppose this bill. I oppose the underlying bill with its tax provisions and urge all Members to think twice about this. We have to level with the American people about the energy situation and manage our strategic dependence and not deal with fantasy.