Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, yesterday America lost a great public servant, a great friend of the State of New Jersey, the father of one of my--if not my best friend in Congress, a friend of my family's, and just a wonderful guy.

Mr. Frelinghuysen--as I knew him, Peter Frelinghuysen--served in the Congress, as my friend from New Jersey just mentioned, from 1953 to 1975. He was the second or third oldest former Member of Congress. Now my father, who is 98, is the oldest former Member of Congress. Our families grew up together. We grew up in the spirit of public service, of good friendship, of bipartisanship, and of action.

I remember Mr. Frelinghuysen so well as a child, bringing us around here in the Chamber and around Capitol

Hill, and even out to amusement parks in the Washington, D.C., area. He was a great father to his five children. But most importantly, Mr. Speaker, he was a great American and a very fine, distinguished Member of Congress.

I will miss him. I know his family will miss him. I know the citizens of New Jersey will miss him. He was a great American.

Mr. Speaker, while I was present for rollcall vote 200 on March 30, 2011, my vote was not recorded. This vote was on H. Res. 186, the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 471 to reauthorize the DC opportunity scholarship program.

Had my vote been recorded, I would have voted in favor of H. Res. 186.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this legislation.

For me, this debate is not about whether or not climate change is occurring, nor is it about preventing the congressionally directed policies that Congress should have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and allow us to have a low-carbon producing economy.

I, for one, think that climate change is real and a problem that needs to be addressed with practical solutions that have attainable goals to reduce emissions and provide certainty in our economy. I also believe that the Clean Air Act has truly benefited our Nation and should never be weakened--rather, strengthened.

However, agencies should not be able to regulate what has not been legislated. Doing so does not solve problems. It creates even more uncertainty as it opens up the agency's rules to countless legal challenges.

And I am committed to finding a workable solution to achieve clean air, help address global warming, and preserve the economic competitiveness of

the United States in the global marketplace. With my friend, Congressman Matheson of Utah, we offered an amendment during markup that is now in the bill that states that there is established scientific concern over warming of the climate system and Congress should fulfill its role in developing policies to control greenhouse gas emissions.

I rise in support of this legislation, but I also support a meaningful solution to the carbon crisis.

I thank my colleague from Ohio for such a wonderful introduction.

I want to thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the members of the committee for all their hard work.

Cutting programs to zero in the middle of a fiscal year may be good legislative policy, but it isn't really all that practical. We need to address the future size and scope of government in the normal, regular order of the appropriations process. The LaTourette amendment makes us meet our spending reduction goals, but does it in a way that is simple and is fair and is effective and is practical.

I support the LaTourette amendment because I think it is ``the'' vehicle that will actually do what we want to do, which is to cut spending now and then get on with the regular appropriations process, in which we can give these agencies the kind of oversight they need so that we will make the right decisions.

So I urge the support and adoption of the LaTourette amendment.

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairman, my amendment very simply adds $50 million to the Low Energy Assistance Program, otherwise known as LIHEAP. Winters in the Northeast and elsewhere in America are long and hard, and especially this year it has been difficult. It has been a tough year. In January we saw more or less twice the average amount of snow. Temperatures have been well below average in some parts of the country; and there are similar stories not only in New Hampshire, but elsewhere in the Northeast and around the Nation.

The problem with reducing the contingency fund in the Low Income Energy Assistance Plan is we are in the middle of the winter right now, and what my amendment does is add $50 million to ensure that we have adequate resources to make it through March and into April. The amendment also reduces the substance abuse and mental health services by an equivalent amount, but that is only about 1 percent of the total funding for that line item.

Let me point out that what this amendment will do is ensure that low- income individuals in America have the necessary resources in order to ensure that they have adequate heat throughout the rest of the year.

This is a difficult process that we are going through here, and I recognize there are trade-offs; but this is a very small change in a safety net that provides an enormous resource very quickly. We can debate the rest of the Low Income Energy Assistance Plan later in the year. What this $50 million increase does is make it possible to get through the winter.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I thank the chairman for recognizing me. And I have great respect for my colleague from California and all the hard work that he has done now for generations, practically on this issue.

I would point out that from the late seventies through all of the eighties, special education was funded at 1, 2, 3, 4 percent. And it wasn't until 1995, 1996, 1997--actually '96, '97, '98, '99, into the 2000s that funding for special education began to increase significantly under the Republican-controlled Congress.

President Clinton's own Education Secretary said on a number of different occasions that full funding of special education had to take a second place to the new programs that the administration was offering at the time, which

was school construction, school improvement, and these other programs that my friend, the maker of the amendment, was proposing to reduce in order to fund special education.

I have felt for many years that IDEA funding should be the top priority for education funding in the Congress, and I am pleased that we have this amendment that will restore funding to the same level that it was in fiscal year 2010. I would certainly like to have it higher than that, but under the circumstances I believe that this is a good and justifiable improvement. It is especially important and it is different from SIP and teacher quality grants because we make the rules, when it comes to special education, here at the Federal level, and the school districts put out their individual service plans for students, which they have to pay for. So without this amendment and with a cut in funding for special education, it is a direct dollar-for- dollar cost shift to every school district in America.

So this is an amendment that is good. It should be bipartisan, and we should all support its passage so that we can get special education funding back to FY10 levels.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Offered By: Mr. Bass of New Hampshire

Amendment No. 564: Page 291, line 11, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $98,000,000)''.

Page 293, line 4, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $50,000,000)''

Page 293, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $50,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 15, after the dollar amount, insert

``increased by ``(increased by $48,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Bass of New Hampshire

Amendment No. 565: Page 291, line 11, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $98,000,000)''.

Page 293, line 4, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $50,000,000)''.

Page 293, line 8, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $50,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Bass of New Hampshire

Amendment No. 107: Page 291, line 11, after the dollar

amount insert ``(reduced by $50,000,000)''.

Page 293, line 4, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $50,000,000)''.

Page 293, line 8, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $50,000,000)''.

I thank the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Mr. Speaker, this health care reform bill was a bad bill passed at the wrong moment. It is, in my opinion, one of the major reasons why we face such economic uncertainty in this country. Businesses don't know what it will cost to hire somebody. Businesses don't know what's coming down. Employers don't know what the world is going to be like. And consumers feel the same way.

Now, in the course of this debate, we've talked about the issue of preexisting conditions and how the Republicans are not going to allow for preexisting conditions to be included in their alternative. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Republicans have consistently offered proposals to give individuals with preexisting conditions medical access to affordable health care coverage; but we will do it in a way that will be predictable, it will be fair, it will be competitive, it will save costs, it will make health care transparent, and it will keep premiums down. We have an opportunity now to make changes that should have been made from the very beginning.

I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to stand here before you in support of S. 4001. As my good friend and colleague from Vermont mentioned a minute or two ago, this is the culmination of a very tortuous negotiation process that has taken place over a period of years. I am very pleased to be able to culminate this process in this fashion as the last bill that I, as the Representative of the Second Congressional District, will be speaking in favor of and supporting on the floor of the House, and probably his last bill as he heads over to represent his great State of Vermont in the U.S. Senate, and I offer him my congratulations.

This is a very significant piece of legislation for New Hampshire and the White Mountain National Forest. It will set aside 34,000 acres in wilderness designated lands, as we said before, in the Sandwich Range and Wild River areas of northern New Hampshire. It is, as was said, the culmination of 5 years of planning on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the USDA staff that are on the ground in the area, the stakeholders in the region, including the towns, environmental groups, State reps and State legislators. It is the culmination of an open process in which many, many different points of view were brought into consideration, and this plan was developed. This is the legislative initiative that implements that plan, and I fully support it.

The White Mountain National Forest was established in 1911 through the Weeks Act. It is the most visited national forest in the country. I believe, although I don't recall the exact number right now, but over 5 million people frequent this national forest. We have

two ski areas that exist in it. It is a great source of recreation, but it is also a very diverse ecosystem, and I think that the plan that we have here before us today represents a reasonable compromise between the need to preserve key wilderness areas for future generations and the need to recognize that a national forest is also an economic engine and is part of the economy for the region and a critical part of that economy.

So by including the designations in the State of Vermont, New Hampshire and Vermont are working together, because indeed their forests and our forests are very close to one another. In a bipartisan fashion, with the support of both Governors and the whole delegation to implement this plan, the impact of this designation will not be felt just this year and next year but forever.

So I just want to say that, as my last bill on the floor of the House, I think it is as important a bill as I have ever had because its impact will last long after I am gone and everybody else that is here today. So I want to thank, in closing, all of those who have helped on the House side and on the Senate side to bring this wonderful jewel to New Hampshire and preserving 34,000 acres of the White Mountain National Forest for eternity.

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

Mr. Chairman, I certainly understand and appreciate my friend from Texas's interest in making sure that people are identified at the border. But, quite honestly, this amendment is far, far too restrictive.

I cannot imagine what the impact of this amendment would be on commerce between Canada and the United States. The 49th parallel is the longest undefended border in the world. The trade that goes on between Canada and the United States is amongst the freest in the world.

I would point out that my home State of New Hampshire trades almost $2 billion a year with Canada. The State of Texas trades over $17 billion a year, and 370,000 jobs in the State of Texas are supported by Canadian industry.

I can't imagine, Mr. Chairman, what would happen in Michigan or in the Detroit area with the auto manufacturers if all these people that go back and forth between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit had to get passports.

Now, the government has worked, with the support of the Judiciary Committee here, on a plan to provide a pass that would be cheap, it would be counterfeit proof, and the Federal Government will issue it.

It will be somewhat like a driver's license. I understand my friend's concern about the fact that driver's license and other forms of ID are not universal and are easy to counterfeit, but we are working on a plan that will provide this kind of identification without having to go through the cumbersome expense and time required to get a U.S. passport.

The passage of this amendment would have serious implications for our relationship with Canada. I appreciate the gentleman's concern with Mexico to the south, but this amendment, in its restrictive nature, will really limit the economy. It would be devastating to the United States. It would be devastating to the lifestyles of people who are used to going back and forth over the border. It would be devastating to the tourism industry along the Canadian border. It would be devastating to trade. I urge that this amendment not be accepted.

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

Mr. Chairman, I believe I have the right to close.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, as I said a moment ago, this amendment is far too restrictive. We have all sorts of different programs that are under development right now, the NEXUS card, the SENTRI system and the PASS card, as I mentioned a minute or two ago. If this amendment were to pass, all those programs would be for naught.

The passport is indeed as secure a document as you can get, but time has passed since passports were developed in their present form, some 40 or 50 years ago. There is modern technology that can provide American workers and tourists and citizens the proper identification at a much lower cost and make it possible for them to get back and forth across the border more quickly than they would and less expensively than they would with a passport.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, because the impact of it would be devastating for the economy of the United States. It would be devastating for the relations that we have with our neighbor to the north, which are amongst the best in the world.

I met with seven members of the Canadian Parliament yesterday, and they brought up this very issue, that they were concerned about the restrictions that might be placed upon American travel to the north. So I hope this amendment is not successful, despite the fact that I respect my friend from Texas' good intentions.

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

Mr. Speaker, today we come to the floor to debate the merits of H. Res. 841, legislation honoring the men and women of our armed forces and declaring our commitment to a sovereign, free, and united Iraq. As our country continues to engage Al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations around the globe, it is important that we convey the depth of our resolve. We cannot allow Osama Bin Laden and his lieutenants to succeed in their attempt to drive our forces from Iraq and topple that country's democratically elected government.

Today, we are engaged in what I hope will be the first of many public debates on our national strategy to combat the growth and development of global terrorist networks. In Iraq and Afghanistan, as was clearly described by the 9/11 commission, we must stand for a better future by working with the international community to give the citizens of these countries a fighting chance to develop secure democratic institutions. These countries must never again be allowed to descend into the lawlessness that gives sanctuary to international criminals and terrorists.

Last week, coalition and Iraqi forces scored a major victory over foreign terrorists working to foment a civil war between the Sunni and Shia peoples of Iraq. Our cooperative efforts to eliminate Jordanian terrorist leader Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi should stand as a landmark along the road to independent security in Iraq. It should also serve as an opportunity for this Congress to publicly expand its oversight activities to include the Iraqi Governments ability to maintain security and expand reconstruction activities absent the direct assistance of our forces on the ground.

Over the last few months we have seen momentous changes in Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki's freely elected government has announced plans to expand reconstruction efforts, begin the national reconciliation process, and put an end to independent military forces

in the country. Last month, Iraqi security forces played an active role in 90 percent of security operations and acted independent of coalition support in nearly 40 percent of those missions.

These successes have given us the opportunity to consider the eventual withdrawal of our forces and those of the 28 coalition allies who continue to support the development of a free and stable Iraq. However, in doing so, we have a responsibility to do so based on conditions on the ground, and should not be bound by an arbitrary timeline for withdrawal that could only strengthen our enemies resolve. Doing so would do a grave injustice to the brave men and women of our armed services, who have already sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee for recognizing me and, Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this piece of legislation.

We have heard all the good reasons why the bill should pass. We need new refinery capacity. We need more regional diversity in refinery capacity. We are too reliant on oil as a feedstock for fuel in this country, and we need to develop alternative energy resources.

Now, I know that there is work under way right as we speak to try to figure

out a way that we can accommodate the interests of my friend from Maine, Congressman Allen, and his concerns over the Brunswick Naval Air Station, which is a BRAC'd naval air station in his district. I assure you that this section 5 was never created with the intent of forcing any kind of refinery capacity on any community in an area that didn't want it. If they do not want it in Maine or somewhere else in the country, they are not going to have it. There is no question about that, and the language is very clear in that respect.

The fact is the Association of Defense Communities does not oppose this bill and recognizes the protection of local authority that is maintained by this piece of legislation. So if we can dispense with that argument and pick up more support than we have already got. When the bill got 237 votes, which is, at last count, a majority of votes in this Congress, the last time it came up, it didn't get two-thirds, but it got a majority. We will work to increase that margin if we can do so in such a fashion that we can protect the ability of closed bases to subsequently build refineries or biorefineries. We need biorefinery capacity in the Northeast and this represents a potential great opportunity.

Now, we heard from other Members that refinery capacity is tight for economic reasons and not because of environmental permits. Let me make a couple of points there. First of all, I have here a list of the major permits and authorizations that were required for Arizona Clean Fuels, and I would point out that there were 37 of them required, 37 of them.

This bill would not short-circuit one single one of those requirements. Not one. But what it would do is it would allow them to occur at the same time, instead of in succession, and it would make the permitting process more seamless and occur, hopefully, more quickly.

It interests me that my friends are really supporting Big Oil, when they say that Big Oil doesn't want it so we shouldn't make it more possible. Well, Big Oil are not the only entities that necessarily build refineries, and I would suggest that the industry that wants to keep oil prices high might not want to make it easy to build more refinery capacity. But I suggest don't give them the excuse.

This bill does not circumvent any environmental, Corps of Engineers, local authority, or anything, but what it does do is, it takes away the excuse that it takes too long to build a refinery. And we need more refinery capacity in this country.

Another argument was made by my distinguished colleague from Michigan that all we needed to do was to increase the size of the refinery capacity that we have today. Apparently, my friend has forgotten that last fall one of the major reasons why energy prices climbed by 50 cents a gallon in my part of the world was because a hurricane went through the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana. We need diversity of refinery capacity in this country, and I mean by that geographic diversity.

What this bill will do is not promote bigger, fewer refineries, but more refineries in more places around the country, and the potential to have a biorefinery built in the Northeast, which is critical to my district.

My friends, this is about energy. There is no question about that. But it is also about energy diversity. We need more oil supplies, but we also need more alternatives, and we are willing to do what we can without bending good environmental policy to increase that capacity. I urge support of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida for recognizing me, and I want to thank the staff, the chairman of the Commerce Committee and the chairman of the energy committee, Chairman Boehlert, for their participation in working out this piece of legislation.

As has been said before, this legislation passed the House a few weeks ago 237-188. Although it prevailed by a pretty good margin, it wasn't enough to make the two-thirds margin required for suspension, so we bring it up today under regular order.

I just want to point out exactly what this bill does. It directs the President to appoint a coordinator for the process of considering refinery citing permits.

It requires that coordinator to work with, not against, but with Federal, State and local entities to issue the needed permits and approvals and set an agreed upon schedule for each approval.

It also allows this coordinator to establish a memorandum of agreement with all the relevant parties which will set forth the most expeditious path toward a coordinated schedule for permitting.

It allows the local Federal district court to enforce this agreed upon schedule, giving proper opportunity for good faith delays and setbacks.

It instructs the President, as we heard a minute ago from my friend from Maine, to designate at least three closed military installations as potentially suitable areas for the construction of a refinery. And, by the way, at least one of those must be designated as usable for a biorefinery, not an oil refinery.

I would point out, as had been debated the last time the bill came up, we haven't built a new refinery in this country since 1976. Gasoline demand in the United States has doubled since then; doubled. Our current capacity for refining gasoline is about 17 million barrels a day. Our consumption is over 21 million barrels a day, which means that the deficit is being imported as a finished goods product from abroad. We are indeed importing an enormous quantity of gasoline every day, which is adding to the instability of gasoline prices as well as availability.

Secondly, too much of our refining capacity is in one part of the country. We learned last year when energy prices climbed 50 cents a gallon at gas stations that Katrina, going through Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico, can have a devastating impact on availability when refineries are shut down for short periods of time or even longer periods of time. We need to have a more diverse geographic location for refinery capacity in our country.

Furthermore, our current refinery capacity is too reliant on crude oil as a feedstock. Less than 2 percent of our motor fuel is based only anything other than crude. Our national agriculture and forest industry resources can sustainably provide feedstock to displace more than one- third of our transportation fuels. I am hopeful. I would welcome a biorefinery in my neck of the woods. We need refined ethanol to replace MTBE as an oxygenate for gasoline.

We have heard the opponents of this legislation say that even big oil industry, the oil companies, don't think that expediting the permitting process is necessary. Well, I would rather not take the word of the big oil companies as to whether or not they think tight refinery supply is good or bad for business. I don't want to give them any excuse for saying that they can't build new refinery capacity.

Nothing in this legislation will circumvent any existing regulation that exists today. All it does is make it quicker and more expeditious and more efficient, but it doesn't eliminate nor short circuit any local protections.

Others say we are better off expanding current refinery capacity. Well, I addressed that a little bit a minute ago. The danger we face in having a few very large refineries and not other refinery capacity in this country is serious. The impact on consumers, on the economy, can be devastating if we only have a dozen or two. The increased dependence on foreign oil that we may face under these circumstances is significant.

My friend from California earlier mentioned that there is no evidence that the passage of this legislation would lead to the construction of any new refinery. That is a difficult question to answer, because if you don't make it easier, how are you going to know that making it easier doesn't work? The fact is that we know that it can take up to 10 years to get the permitting process done.

I would point out that this bill does no harm whatsoever to the current process, but it makes it work better. If the industry doesn't like it, I don't want to be on the side of an industry that wants to restrict increasing refinery capacity.

I believe that what we envision in this bill protects the environment, it protects the process, it can potentially lead to more diverse and better and modern refinery capacity in this country, which will lead to a stronger economy, lower gas prices in my part of the world, and yet at the same time protecting our fragile environment.

So I urge the Congress to not oppose this rule, bring this bill to the floor, and pass it on to the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks and rise in opposition to the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 5429, the so-called American-Made Energy and Good Jobs Act. Once again, we will spend valuable legislative hours debating drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In the past few years, the House has repeatedly taken vote after vote on this issue. In each instance, Congress has ultimately not supported the opening of this refuge that was set aside by President Eisenhower 45 years ago.

The development footprint on the region, even using the most advanced technology and methods, would significantly disrupt this fragile ecosystem. Think about every heavy industrial factory and facility you know of, and then superimpose that image on a wilderness like Yellowstone Park or the National Forest or Park in your own home state and ask yourself if that is the legacy you want for your children.

Proponents of the bill argue that the 2,000 acre limitation on drilling would localize disruptions. However, this is only a gimmick: it fails to recognize the expansive nature of roads, pipelines, and machinery that will be built across 1.5 million acres. Rather, it is a cynical attempt to confuse and discount the effect of widespread development and blight on the entire region.

Other, more effective solutions to our energy needs exist. In addition to reviewing our domestic production capacity, focusing greater attention on renewable energy sources, alternate fuels, and more efficient systems and appliances would yield more net energy savings than could come from ANWR, and that priority would have a higher benefit for the nation's economic leadership and security.

I urge you to help put an end to the ``drill ANWR first'' solution and help move the Congress toward real energy security. Vote ``No'' on