Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, September 8, 2005, I regrettably missed recorded vote No. 464, on H. Res. 427.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, June 23, 2005, owing to an important family matter, I regrettably missed recorded vote numbered 306.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, June 23, 2005, owing to an important family matter, I regrettably missed recorded vote numbered 307, on the Bradley amendment to H.R. 3010. This amendment would add critical Federal support for grants to States to carry out the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

As a constant and long time supporter of meeting the Federal Government's share of IDEA funding, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, June 23, 2005, owing to an important family matter, I regrettably missed recorded vote numbered 305, on the Obey amendment to H.R. 3010. This amendment would restore critical Federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

As a constant and long time supporter of public broadcasting, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, in the 11 years that I have been in Congress I have been in Washington at 5:20 in the afternoon on Friday exactly twice. The first was when the Federal Government was shut down in 1995, and the second was last year in early October when we passed our omnibus bill on a Saturday morning and everybody stayed here Friday night.

I go home on weekends. I am here today because my friend, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), reserved this time to talk about one of my highest priorities, which is the development of alternative energy resources.

Now, he is right. I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and, as such, we have jurisdiction over energy matters, shared with the Science Committee, a little bit with the Ways and Means Committee. And it is a high priority.

I voted against the energy bill last year when it came to Congress. I voted against it in the committee. And I did so because I felt that it really did not reflect a balanced approach to the development of our Nation's energy resources and energy priorities.

You know, energy is not about Republicans or Democrats, about conservatives or liberals or moderates, or whatever. It is not about philosophy. It is really about region. But what binds all of the regions of this country together is our understanding that we have to have a cohesive and balanced energy program that gives every region of the country an opportunity to participate in what becomes a national role, where we are less dependent on foreign oil, where we are economically competitive, both nationally and internationally, and every region of the country has the opportunity to develop its own resources and do so on a level playing field with every other region of the country.

Now, you say to yourself, well, why did not a single Senator from northeast of Pennsylvania vote for the energy bill last year? The answer is that the energy bill did not really address what was important for northeastern States. I am pleased to say that the energy bill that we sent to the Senate and that is currently under consideration in the Senate in a somewhat different form, but the differences will be worked out in conference, is much more balanced and I will tell you why.

For one thing, it has a significant section added to the bill that would provide for rebates for the installation, purchase and installation of solar, wind, and biomass, heat and electricity generation systems, on a residential and light commercial basis, and authorizes for appropriation $1 billion for that purpose.

Now, in the Northeast we do not have oil wells and gas wells. We do not have significant hydro, although we do have some. We did not have the kinds of energy resources that other parts of the country have, but we do have solar, we do have wind, and we have enormous biomass.

In the 1970s when we had the great oil embargo and the gas lines, there was a big push for renewable energy. The Energy Research and Development Administration, ERDA for short, became the Department of Energy, and we had a national energy policy at the time.

And there was a big push to develop biomass. But what it turned into essentially was the marketing of solar equipment that did not work particularly well, even though you got tax credits for it of biomass boilers that basically ran on logs that you shoveled in, two or three times a day. It was unreliable. It was dirty. And after a few years most of these systems were discontinued.

The 21st century is different. I come here today as a convert, because I myself a year and a half ago converted my house from oil to wood pellets. My house, which is not small, used to burn about 3,000 gallons of heating oil a year. Over the last 14 months, I have burned 165 gallons of oil. I have burned approximately 15 tons of wood pellets.

I have a boiler that, unfortunately, I had to buy; it was imported from Denmark, had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. It was not cheap. But what it demonstrated was that for a Btu cost of about 90 cents per gallon, I can heat my house with a system that is so sophisticated that nobody in the house knows that I am heating with wood.

Everything is computer-controlled. Everything is automatically fed. It is clean. It is carbon neutral. And it is a resource that comes from essentially my own backyard. It can work in every household in America where you have access to these resources.

The problem is we do not have any manufacturing capability in this country, because there is no demand. We are a country that has based our energy policy on nothing but oil, gas, and coal and the development of it.

Little wonder that my region of the country is 85 or 90 percent dependent on number 2 heating oil in the winter time. We do not have those options available to us. But what this energy bill does is create the opportunity to develop demand for biomass, demand for wood energy.

Also in New Hampshire, an old coal-fired plant over on the Piscataqua River, the Shiller plant, is in the process of converting from coal to wood chips. I believe it is on the order of 200 megawatts. It is a very large facility. We are on the way to changing some of our energy resources in the Northeast, which will change the mix of the dynamic and end our dependence not only on foreign oil, but from oil everywhere else in the United States.

I believe that we can, if we pass this energy bill, have a meaningful plan to develop the kinds of energy resources that we need in this country; wind, solar. Solar is no longer a bad roofing job, it is a technology that can really provide heat and electricity for houses all over the place, even in the North, where the sun is low in the winter months; that we can develop low-head hydro in an ecologically acceptable fashion so that we can have microenergy development.

I have a constituent who is developing a very efficient sterling engine that could be utilized for water distillation, for electricity production, running on anything that produces heat. This is the kind of technology that we need to promote in America, that we need to promote through legislation, that we need to promote in order to lessen our dependence on traditional energy sources and imported energy resources.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) for giving me the opportunity to bring to the Congress my commitment to this important priority.

If we as a Congress can do what is right with the energy bill, Americans will be better off for many years to come.

Mr. Speaker, today we will take up H.R. 810, the stem cell research bill; and I agree with the distinguished majority leader. The debate that we have today will be about life and death. It will be about the lives of many millions of children who have diabetes, who want to live a fulfilling life and have hope for finding cures at some point in the future, about those who are paralyzed, about those who have congenital heart problems, about those who suffer from cancer and Alzheimer's and other diseases, debilitating diseases.

We need to give the scientific community an opportunity to address these important issues and to do so in such a fashion that is ethical, that has adequate government oversight, that does not allow other countries around the world to take over. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 810, with its 200 cosponsors, will pass today because America wants to find cures for these diseases and not leave it to other countries around the world.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the House to support H.R. 810.

Mr. Speaker, a ``yes'' vote today is a vote for progress, for reason and for sound research.

Mr. Speaker, it is conservative to conserve, and this bill utilizes stem cells that have already been discarded, discarded because in most cases those who undergo in-vitro fertilization have excess fertilized cells available. Their only choice today has been for freezer storage, putting them up for adoption or discarding them, yes, into hospital medical waste.

Now we will add a fourth option, and that is to allow these embryos to be used for scientific research, to find cures for diseases that have afflicted Americans, a large portion of Americans, that threaten the lives of young people. This is not about life, this is about saving life, and it is important that the Congress make this statement for a brighter future for many, many Americans.

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

This is an amendment that I think adds flexibility and workability to the bill. What it will do is it will allow States to petition the Secretary to use grants that are covered for expenditures that are considered anti-terrorism activities and are normally duties that would be exercised by the Federal Government. What is not currently allowed in the bill are personnel costs or agreements between State and local entities that affect a Federal agency.

The type of activities that this amendment would permit include, but are not limited to, border duties, assisting with the Coast Guard and ports, waterways, coastal security duties or detention of illegal aliens on a temporary basis until Federal authorities can take over.

What the amendment does not do is make any changes in the allocation of resources from one entity to another, and it does not allow States to petition to recover from the Federal Government costs for services that are performed by State law enforcement agencies that are not terrorism-related.

This amendment really does add flexibility to the administration of these grants. It would allow, for example, in our seacoast port of Port Smith to reimburse them for the State police boat that currently supplants those efforts being undertaken by the Coast Guard at the behest of the Coast Guard. It allows local police departments such as the police department in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, that had to detain illegals for a period of time, had to deal with them and could not get the immigration department involved quickly enough, to apply for reimbursement. It also allows local police departments to enforce border crossings, if necessary. It allows them to apply for reimbursement. It does not guarantee it, but it allows them to apply.

I hope that the committee will accept this amendment. I know we have had good discussions on both sides with it.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), my cosponsor.

Mr. Chairman, I have no further speakers. I urge the support of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.

As we can tell, this is the kind of issue that we could spend the next 10 years debating.

I want to solve the problem. The problem is not going to be solved by filing lawsuits, by scoring political points, by paying huge legal fees to the trial bar, waiting year after year after year while constituents of all of us wait for some kind of remediation.

Sure, claims have been filed, almost 100 of them, I understand. There has not been a single judgment to date. There have been some settlements, but there has not been a single judgment rendered. I do not call that a safe way to procure that our constituents get their water cleaned up.

Last year CBO said that this was not an unfunded mandate. This year another analysis says it is an unfunded mandate.

As one who served on the Committee on the Budget and was here in 1995, I would suggest that this would be classified, if one is an accountant, as a contingent unfunded liability or a hypothetical unfunded liability. But it will not be that way in the end because there are two choices that we face here today: an easy choice, which is to vote ``yes'' and to have the status quo and to go forward as we have in the past; or the hard vote is to really solve the problem.

Having voted to strip MBTE provisions from this bill last year, I am voting the other way this year, and I am proud of it, and I will tell the Members why. I have established it with the chairman, a task force that is going to work between now and conference time on a plan that will structure a remediation program that will clean up the water, not 10 years from now or 20 years from now, not unfairly in this community and not in that community and not in this State or that State, but across the whole country.

My constituents deserve a workout for this problem, and we as policymakers have an obligation to work together in a bipartisan fashion in our conference to come up with a solution.

It is my hope that this solution will include the creation of a fund that will include participation by all the potentially responsible parties, a way to settle claims in a quick and fair fashion that reduces the overall cost.

I do not want to see communities like South Tahoe City suing their own lawyers to try to get the money back so that they can actually perform the remediation that they had planned to do and might have been able to do if it had been settled in such a fashion so that they did not have to deal with other costs. I want to see a fund created that will really resolve this issue.

Please allow this bill to go forward to conference, and when we come back with a conference product, it will be a product that my constituents who have been hurt by MBTE contamination will see their wells cleaned up, will see adequate compensation to redress their issues; and we will have the problem resolved, and we will end this endless fight that we could have if we do nothing.

I urge opposition to the pending amendment.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). Basically, this guts the whole bill. It substitutes a power act amendment for the entire bill. It, frankly, goes far beyond anything being considered currently in the electricity debate, particularly with respect to utility security, FERC rate-making authority, reporting requirements, and industry accounting.

In addition, this amendment would fundamentally rewrite portions of the Natural Gas Act, something that is clearly outside the scope of this debate. I point out that the amendment is opposed by the Edison Electric Institute, the American Public Power Association, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Those are the co-ops.

It does not help site new transmission that is needed to ensure reliability and provide adequate supplies of affordable electricity to consumers. It does not repeal PUHCA, which facilitates the construction of new construction and promotes badly needed investment in the electric utility industry. It does not amend PURPA to reform the contract process and save constituents money, and it does not promote certainty of contract that is necessary to promote investment and better market operation by putting all market-based contracts at risk. It does not provide FERC the flexibility needed to regulate markets that develop in the future by issuing prescriptive rules, procedures, and penalties.

What the amendment does do, unfortunately, is create market uncertainty, it imposes excessive penalties, and it institutes almost continuous investigation of all utilities with market-based rates, not only burdening utilities, but also burdening FERC and stretching its resources.

Madam Chairman, I hope that the Congress will join me and other like- minded colleagues in opposing this amendment.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chairman, over the past several months, the gentleman from Texas and I have worked toward a fair and equitable solution to the problem of contamination caused by MTBE getting into our groundwater and other waters. I appreciate all his efforts and the faith he has placed in me on this issue which is so critical to New Hampshire, a State that has been affected significantly and, obviously, other affected States.

Like him, I had hoped that we would be able to have our solution ready for today's House consideration of the Energy Policy Act. However, I am not satisfied that what we have agreed upon in principle is sufficient to the problem or comprehensive enough to have my support, and I would rather not rush it simply for the sake of being done today.

Does the gentleman agree that spending additional time will result in an improved product that will provide a mechanism to ensure that our drinking water is clean and safe today and into the future?

I thank the gentleman for those comments.

Does the gentleman also agree that the principles we have established so far, including a fair funding system, strict cleanup standard and an appropriate amount of time for contamination discovery will be safeguarded in the final product unless equivalent mechanisms can be developed?

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Neal and I rise today to congratulate The New England Council as they celebrate their 80th anniversary of

being a regional voice for the people of New England.

For 80 years The New England Council has been instrumental in uniting the region's business and political leaders to discuss and shape public policies and programs that advance the economic well-being of the region. As a nonprofit alliance of schools, hospitals, corporations, public agencies and other organizations throughout New England, the Council has worked diligently to promote economic growth and a high quality of life in the six-state region.

We commend your leadership in identifying challenges and opportunities and looking for regional solutions on issues including energy, workforce development, healthcare, transportation and education.

Under the leadership of Jim Brett and the Council's esteemed Board of Directors, the Council has played a significant role in both providing a forum and in advocating an agenda that addresses the issues which impact New Englanders and the regional economy.

We applaud the Council's efforts to promote the economic growth of New England and to improve the quality of life for those who live throughout the region.

We ask our colleagues to join us in honoring the 80th anniversary of The New England Council and in wishing the Council continued success as it faces the challenges and possibilities of the 21st century.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 28 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Amendment No. 5 Offered by Mr. Farr

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, January 6, 2005, I regrettably missed recorded vote 7. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, October 8, 2004, I regrettably missed recorded vote numbered 524. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, October 8, 2004, I regrettably missed recorded vote numbered 525, Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''