Floor Statements

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to support the Hastings amendment to the omnibus lands bill. I want to give you two examples why and they couldn't be farther apart and still be in America.

One is here in Washington, D.C. I had a friend who worked for the Federal Government who was getting threatening phone calls from a disgruntled former employee. She was an older woman who lived alone and worked for an agency here in the Federal Government. And so she got a concealed weapons permit to protect herself and was commuting in and out of D.C. to an adjacent State. Having that concealed weapon would have been illegal under the new judge's ruling, which is why the Hastings amendment to the omnibus lands bill needs to be adopted.

Now here is my example from the West. It is springtime. We're just starting to fix fence after a long winter that broke down some of the fences. When you're sitting on the ground fixing a fence and you're sitting right next to a rattlesnake, it can be very disconcerting. So a number of us carry weapons while we're fixing fence. If you let a weapon be hidden under your coat, even accidentally, you need a concealed weapons permit. So some people get concealed weapons permits and carry a weapon while they're fixing fence. Well, if you happen to be one of those people who is also driving between Cody, Wyoming and Jackson, Wyoming, you're going to go through Yellowstone National Park. That is your commute. And it would be illegal to have that weapon under this recent judge's ruling.

Mr. Speaker, both the Bush and the Obama administration have pushed forward with a rule to allow the carrying of concealed weapons on these lands subject to local State laws. By doing so, they bring these public lands in line with millions of acres of BLM and Forest Service lands where the application of local gun laws have guided our public land managers well. It took just one U.S. District Judge to throw that consistency out the window, but this Congress has the opportunity to renew it should the Democrat leadership in the House allow just one simple amendment to address the protection of our second amendment rights. Sadly, they are refusing to do so, placing the importance of a political win on the public lands omnibus bill above the constitutional rights of our citizenry to keep and bear arms.

I urge the Rules Committee and the House Democrat leadership to reconsider their priorities and to allow us to protect second amendment rights when we consider the public lands bill tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an achievement of the University of Wyoming Nordic Ski Club.

Two weeks ago, this team swept the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association Nationals, with the men's and women's team both bringing home the gold.

I would like to congratulate coaches Christi Boggs and Rachel Watson, who led this team to double championship titles at Devil's Thumb Ranch in Colorado. This is the fourth national title for the University of Wyoming's women's program and the second for the men's program in 10 years.

Particular recognition should also go to Daniel Lewis, who came away with three individual championships, as well as his fellow teammates on the men's championship relay team, Eliah Pedersen and Evgeniy Panzhinskiy. In addition to these three accomplished young men, John Kirlin was named an Overall Individual All-American.

On the women's team, this title was awarded to Gracey Lewis, Kari Boroff, Gwynn Barrows and Marie Cartwright.

Again, I congratulate the University of Wyoming ski teams, my alma mater ski teams, on all their success. The Cowboy State is proud of these young men and women.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important issue to me.

I rise to oppose Senate 22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act in the suspension, but my decision to oppose this was not an easy one, because two of the individual bills in this omnibus measure were introduced in honor of a dear friend of mine, one of the truest Western statesmen to have ever served in the United States Congress. I speak, of course, of the late Senator Craig Thomas, who was also a Member of this body, a tireless advocate and protector of those values that continue to shape Wyoming and its people.

Wyoming is a State blessed with unparalleled natural resources, from spectacular mountain ranges and wide open plains to the vast mineral deposits that lie beneath them. In Wyoming, we find balance regarding how those very resources are managed. The bill we are considering today fails in achieving that have balance.

While our economy reels and the Federal deficit reaches record highs, this bill places an additional $10 billion burden on the taxpayers in Wyoming and across the Nation. These are not dollars being spent to ease economic woes or create jobs, these are dollars being spent in large part to restrict access to our public lands, to limit responsible energy production in the West and to codify the vague and ill-conceived National Landscape Conservation System.

Supporters of this 1,200-page massive omnibus package will tell you that most of the bills it is comprised of are largely noncontroversial. In some cases they are correct, but in many cases they are not.

Nearly 100 of the bills wrapped into this measure were never considered by the full House, let alone by those of us who were freshmen. Absolutely no amendments are allowed to be offered today.

As such, I am afforded no opportunity to work with the people of my State to address the specific local concerns regarding the Wyoming portion of this package.

In today's vote we are asked to choose all or nothing. I know, Mr. Speaker, the House can do better. Our public lands deserve better.

I thank the gentlelady from Illinois for this fine session this evening.

The American people know, and particularly women in this country know, that you cannot tax and spend your way into economic prosperity; and furthermore, you cannot tax during a recession. Yet, that is what is being proposed, and those taxes will fall on you.

One of the ways in which those taxes will fall on you during this recession is through something called cap and trade. Cap and trade is a tax, so I'm going to go over and change this and add the word ``tax.'' And I want to talk

specifically about how it's going to affect family budgets.

Cap and trade is a tax that will be used to change the way that you use power--meaning electricity, oil, gas--and anything that comes from carbon--meaning oil, gas, or coal, specifically. And those sources of energy represent 50 percent of the electricity in this country, which comes from coal, and also a significant amount, of course, of our gasoline coming from oil, and natural gas, which is used to heat our homes. These all emit carbon. And in order to change the American behavior and the way that we use these carbon-emitting substances, the Obama administration proposes to tax them. It will be called a cap and trade system, which is a market-based system, but it's cleverly disguised as a market-based system because, in reality, it is a tax, a carbon tax, and it will be paid by the American consumer. So if you use electricity, if you heat or cool your home, if you drive an automobile, if you use public transportation, you will be paying this tax. And here's how it will accrue to you if you are an average household.

Gasoline is in blue on this chart, natural gas in red, electricity in green. And as you can see, the cost of these for an average household without the cap and trade tax is on the left, and the cost with cap and trade is on my right--the left of someone who would be viewing this chart. So you will see it will have a 9 percent increase for electricity in the average home, 14 percent increase for natural gas, and a 16 percent increase for gasoline in the average home.

Now, I can tell you, in my home State of Wyoming it will be much higher than that because in the winter it costs more for us to heat our homes. In the summer, admittedly, it costs less for us to cool our homes. But we consume more gasoline per family than any other State in the Union and that is because there is no public transportation in Wyoming. The distances are too far. We are the ninth largest State by land mass, and we have the smallest population in the Nation. Consequently, we can't go anywhere on public transportation; it is all automobile-based. That's why we consume more gasoline than other States, and that's why the effects of this tax will fall very heavily on people who live in rural areas, and also in areas with extreme climate changes or extreme temperature changes, places that must heat their homes in the winter and cool their homes in the summer.

So if you fall into any of those categories, you're going to see much higher expenses because all of the cap and trade taxes are going to be passed on to you. They are not going to be absorbed by the companies that are producing oil, gas and coal. However, there is going to be another impact on those businesses, and that is job loss, job loss at a time when this country is in recession, at a time when job losses are already driving us more deeply into recession. And that job loss looks like this: 2011, over 200,000 jobs lost; and each year thereafter, climbing to the year 2015, to about 1.5 million jobs lost due to this cap and trade tax. And once again, I'm going to write the word ``tax'' on this chart.

What's worse, this is being foisted on the American people in the name of climate change, in the name of global warming. And those who believe that global warming is man-made--and there are many, I would say a preponderance of people believe that climate change is man-made-- believe that if Americans change their ways and consume less carbon- emitting substances, that they will be able to change climate. I learned last week in a Natural Resources Committee from an international expert on energy and climate that that is not the case, that America could cease all economic activity, that Japan could cease all economic activity, and that Europe could cease all economic activity, we could turn off our lights, we could quit using our cars, we could stay home, we wouldn't work, the factories would shut down, in all three of those large economies and it is not going to have one iota of influence on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere unless China, Russia and India change their climate policies.

China desperately wants each person in their economy to have a light bulb in their home. That is their goal, a light bulb in every home. And in order to put a light bulb in every home in China they are building one new coal-fired plant a week, and they will have to continue to do so for a very long period of time. No one can blame China for wanting a higher standard of living for every person in their country, and no one can fault them for wanting them to do it with resources they have--like coal, oil and gas--and for wanting to do it with the cheapest source, hydroelectric and coal. Consequently, the costs that will be borne by the American consumer are going to have not one single effect on carbon emissions in this atmosphere. That's where rational thinking goes out of the way and the American consumer foots the bill.

I want to close--and I thank the gentlelady from Illinois--I want to close with this thought: You can't tax and spend your way out of a recession. And taxes during a recession is the absolute worst consequence on a family in America in the 21st century with these problems.

I thank the gentlelady from North Carolina and the gentleman from Tennessee for their dialogue. It brought to mind a constituent of mine.

I am from the State of Wyoming, and an Arapaho woman, who is a friend of mine, had a business last summer on the reservation in Wyoming where she was bringing groceries in, trucking groceries into the reservation for easy access and purchase by members of both the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation. It provided an opportunity for Native Americans to shop on the reservation rather than having to go into town in Riverton or Lander. It provided Native Americans with jobs in trucking and in the grocery business. And she's a wonderful entrepreneur.

When the price of gas reached $4 a gallon, it was not clear that she would be able to keep her grocery business open. She was beginning to cut down on the hours that her employees worked, cut down on the amount of product she had on her shelves. And had those prices continued at that rate, she would have had to have closed her doors making it more expensive for Native Americans to drive to adjacent communities to purchase their groceries. Fortunately, the price of gas dropped.

But since I've come to Congress, and particularly in the last week, I've seen, as a member of the Budget Committee and a member of the Natural Resources Committee, proposals in the President's budget for Cap and Trade legislation that would include $646 billion in new revenue. Now, that new revenue is going to come from the American people.

I yield.

We do. And the gentlelady makes a wonderful point.

These are taxes. These are taxes on the consumers of American energy. So if you have electricity in your home or in your office, or if you drive a vehicle, or if you use electricity or oil or gas or energy of any kind, you will be paying a tax. And that tax will amount to $646 billion in new taxes, which will come out of your pocket.

So 100 percent of the people who use energy in this country will pay 100 percent of the taxes that will be levied pursuant to the Cap and Trade bill.

Now, this means that a typical consumer, in their electric bill in their home, will see about a 62 percent increase in their utility bills. And businesses, small businesses--such as you and the gentleman from Tennessee have been discussing--will see a 100 percent increase. They will see a doubling in their utility rates.

And, of course, other fuels will increase as well, including gasoline--which, once again, makes me recall my friend who brings groceries into the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and the hardships that will be imposed on regular Americans as a consequence of Cap and Trade legislation.

In addition, the proposed budget by the President includes an enormous array of taxes on the oil and gas industry, which will, once again, be passed on to consumers in America--that is if the industry here survives.

And if the industry here does not survive or cuts back, that will reduce American jobs, it will increase our dependence on foreign sources of oil and gas. It fails to acknowledge that natural gas is the cleanest burning hydrocarbon. And my State of Wyoming, which produces coal, may end up shipping its coal to places like China, which are demanding coal and building new coal-fired power plants.

Now, I learned today in a committee meeting before the Natural Resources Committee from a witness that was brought in at the pleasure of the majority party that if you ceased all economic activity in the United States, Europe and Japan combined and did absolutely nothing, that unless China,

India and Russia changed their ways, we'll see no reduction in carbon emissions--which is to say we could completely cease all economic activity in Europe, the U.S. and Japan and still, because of the carbon emissions and the increases in carbon emissions that are occurring in China, Russia and India, there will be no reduction in carbon emissions.

So, in other words, we are not going to be able to influence. By hurting our own economy, reducing our own jobs, taxing our own people, we're not going be able to reduce carbon emissions.

So, consequently, we need to look at the benefits of these programs that are being proposed in the President's budget and compare them to the costs. And I can tell you based on what I saw today in budget presentations in the Budget Committee and testimony in the Natural Resources Committee that the benefits of reducing carbon emissions in the United States, Europe and Japan are not recovered, and the cost is borne by the American people.

Would the gentlelady yield?

Who is going to bail out the bank when the bank loses that money?

Thank you very much for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it's a privilege to participate in this discussion.

As a new member of the Budget Committee, I learned today that the President's budget would project the levels of spending in the war in Iraq at the same level that they are during the surge, and use that dollar amount and project it out to the year 2019. It does not account for the fact that President Obama has decided to withdraw combat troops from Iraq in August of 2010, but for this manner: if you project that spending is going to go up when you factor in inflation until 2019 at surge levels, and then you project that we're going to withdraw troops, that gives you $1.6 trillion that the administration is choosing to spend on other programs. In other words, that money won't be saved, it will be redirected into other components of this President's budget.

Thank you for yielding. It does, in a way, accomplish just that because it's taking money that is being spent on defense now and rerouting it into domestic spending that is discretionary and creates new programs. Now, I would not object to that but for the fact that this increased spending is in addition to new taxes. And the gentleman was accurate in pointing out the effect that that will have on small business.

As you know, my State of Wyoming is all small businesses, that an individual tax rate of $200,000 will trigger a tax increase, that filing jointly at $250,000 in income will trigger a tax increase. And correctly you have pointed out that the brunt of that is going to fall on small business.

Small business has been pegged as the opportunity for growth in this country through the entrepreneurial free enterprise ethic. And if that ethic is thwarted through high taxes, that will be a component of our country that is not growing. That is the component of our country that is creating 70 percent of the new jobs. So as large employers lay off employees because they were ``too big to fail'' and then failed

anyway, it would be a robust small business community that could absorb them if the tax structure were such that those monies could be made available by expanding the entrepreneurial spirit.

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker; you and I are freshmen colleagues, and it's wonderful to see you in the chair this afternoon.

You and I came to this Congress as freshmen with a desire to do away with ``politics as usual'' and start anew. And what I saw yesterday on this floor was not exemplary of that particular goal of mine, and I suspect yours and some of our other freshmen colleagues as well.

What I saw was a rule that was brought to the floor that would prevent us from discussing amendments to the big omnibus $410 billion spending bill. If you voted for that amendment to stop amendments to the bill, that was your way of being able to voice support for keeping congressional salaries capped. So those of us who are fiscal conservatives had to vote for that amendment in order to be consistent and true to our fiscal conservative roots; but at the same time, we had to disallow ourselves the opportunity to debate and discuss a $410 billion spending package. So I want to discuss it a little bit today. That bill has already passed, but there are some concerns I have about it, especially when coupled with the stimulus package we passed, especially when coupled with the President's budget that we just received today.

Some of my concerns are these: the President's proposal would provide that those who are making $250,000 a year and above will be those who are subject to a tax increase. That applies to many of our small businesses in the United States. And my State of Wyoming has no large businesses; it is entirely made up of small businesses. And those businesses create jobs for 70 percent of the jobs in this Nation. So we are, in essence, going to tax those who are creating jobs. And to me, when we're in a budget crisis and a fiscal crisis and a mortgage crisis, those are the wrong people to whom to turn and ask for more revenue.

In addition, the previous speaker pointed out that the President's message, although very comforting to me coming from a coal-producing State like Wyoming, that he does acknowledge that we need clean coal technology, in the very same sentence said we also need cap and trade. And cap and trade is a tax, it will fall primarily on coal, that will send us to other nations to derive our energy. And that, I think, is a step in the wrong direction as well.

Furthermore, the debt that we're taking on will have to be absorbed in large part by other nations. We're already the largest debtor nation in the world. China already owns over $1 trillion worth of our Treasury notes, our debt. And it must be of great concern to them that we would approach them to buy more of our debt knowing that the consequence of all of this spending will mean we will be paying them back in dollars that are worth less than the dollars that they needed to purchase our U.S. treasuries now. Inflation will be the consequence of all the spending we are doing.

Consequently, I was so hopeful that the President's budget would provide a modicum of discipline and would be flat spending so that the American people will have a chance to see if the stimulus package works before we undertake more government spending to see if the budget that was passed yesterday, the $410 billion, is responsive to stimulus so we can flatten budgets in the future. But what we saw yesterday is that we're going to increase spending over last year's budget, followed the very next day, today, by even more spending. The levels of spending just get higher and higher, government intervention into the private sector gets higher and higher. The people of this country need us to go shoulder to shoulder with them and exercise the fiscal discipline that they are having to exercise themselves.

Mr. Speaker, again, it's wonderful to see you in the Chair. I thank you for your time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 2 o'clock and 49 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, March 2, 2009, at 12:30 p.m., for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to use my time today to compliment the bipartisan work of the Committee on Homeland Security. The bill before you, the FAST Redress Act of 2009, is the result of extensive bipartisan negotiations. This is what my constituents asked for when they elected me to Congress.

The people of Wyoming want to see the parties working together for the good of the American people. And this bill is an example of the type of bipartisanship that I hoped to see when I came here.

Unfortunately, my first month in this body did not display to me that type of bipartisanship. So to have this example here today is very refreshing. Last week, we had an example that was quite the opposite.

The stimulus package went to the Senate without a single Republican vote. But the fact of the matter is, the American people are now weighing in, and they're weighing in with their Senators, and they're giving their Senators the opportunity to make a better decision than we in the House made: a decision based on the spirit of bipartisanship and a decision that's based on job stimulus, not on pork barrel spending.

So I want to compliment the Committee on Homeland Security for bringing us a bill that is truly bipartisan. And I would encourage us, as a Congress, the House of Representatives, to take the same spirit of bipartisanship to heart when the Senate returns the stimulus package to us for our subsequent consideration.

Mr. Speaker, it is daunting, indeed, to follow such an articulate speaker on the floor of this House, but I rise today to express my support for House Joint Resolution 3 and my opposition to the decision to release the second half of the TARP bailout funding.

Washington, DC, has often been described as 70 square miles surrounded by reality, and I think that description, particularly today, is right on target. Only in this town can people actually believe that throwing more money down a rabbit hole during these harsh economic times will produce positive results.

Wyoming people are right to express their frustration about how the taxpayer dollars were spent under TARP. I believe and they believe their hard-earned money has gone to waste due to a lack of accountability and transparency under this program.

TARP funding was originally meant to stop the downward spiral of the banking industry. And while I opposed it from the beginning, I am even more appalled by how the funding has been redirected. The Reform Act the House passed yesterday, for example, would direct the second half of TARP funds to go towards the auto industry, foreclosures assistance, and even student loans. While some of these programs may have independent validity, the original intent of TARP funding was not directed towards them and should not now be directed towards them.

With a possible trillion dollar stimulus package just over the next hill, we as a Congress and we as a Nation need to assert some fiscal discipline. The release of the additional $350 billion, especially after the lack of knowledge on how the first half has been spent, is not fiscal discipline. It is inexcusable. It is poor planning on our part, on the part of Congress.

It is poor planning on our part to release this money without giving real consideration to how it will be used or whether its goals will be met.

I stand in support of House Joint Resolution 3, and ask my colleagues to stand with me for fiscal discipline and support this resolution.