Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to two exceptional people, who I am proud to call Hoosiers. Lynne and Phil Himelstein will be recognized for their years of dedicated service to both the people of Indiana and to the State of Israel at the annual Indiana-Israel Dinner on October 19, 2008--sponsored by the State of Israel Bonds/Development Corporation--which this year commemorates the 60th Anniversary of Israel's statehood.

Since 1951, the State of Israel Bonds Development Corporation has issued securities in the name of the government of Israel for the development of every aspect of Israel's economy. This has included Israel's roads, public transportation, power plants, agricultural expansion, water desalinization, and industrial growth. State of Israel Bonds Corp. has secured more than $28 billion in investment of capital, and maintained a perfect record on the payment of interest and principal on the securities it has issued over the years. From a small, fledging idea, the organization has grown into a powerful legacy of achievement. In fact it's probably fair to say that the State of Israel Bonds Corp. is the financial rock upon which the modern State of Israel is built.

This same kind of entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to community drives this year's honorees, Lynne and Phil Himelstein, who have individually and collectively made a huge impact in their community, both for Jewish and secular causes. Their efforts will leave a lasting legacy that will benefit both Indianapolis and Israel.

Lynne Himelstein was born in Beverly Hills, California, and decided to move her family back to her husband's home state of Indiana for a more Midwest value-oriented life. Immediately, Lynne became extremely active in the Indianapolis Jewish Community. After seven years of working as a Jewish day school teacher, Lynne was able to become a strong voice and leader to many of the communities' organizations. Since then, Lynne has served a term as President of AIPAC for Central Indiana, and is currently co-chair of Endowments for National Women's Philanthropy of the United States Jewish Community. Lynne has also served on the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Community Center, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis (JFGI). During her term with the JFGI, Lynne spearheaded the raising of millions of dollars as the campaign chair in both 2003 and 2004. Lynne also created an academic scholarship in her name that is awarded annually to one deserving Jewish individual.

Lynne's husband, Phil, is a Hoosier by birth. When Phil returned to Indiana in 1992 with Lynne--after seventeen years working for a prosperous law firm in Los Angeles--he became manager of Magic Menu Foods, a company that produced nutritional food products for the health care industry. Currently, Phil runs Hilan Capital, a private equity partnership that he co-founded in 1998. Phil is also the director of the Sage Group, an investment bank in Los Angeles; and a director of Brainscope Company, Inc., a neurodiagnostics company based in St. Louis and New York City.

Phil is as equally hard working outside of the boardroom; he currently serves as chairman of the Indiana Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center; one of the largest treatment centers in the country serving individuals with bleeding disorders. Phil is also a founder and trustee of University High School of Indiana, a diverse college preparatory school in Indianapolis with a college placement rate of 100 percent.

Madam Speaker, individually and together, the Himelstein's contributions to the United States, to the people of Indiana, Indiana's Jewish Community, and to the State of Israel represent the highest tradition of selfless public service, civic stewardship and commitment to others. Their praiseworthy efforts will be recognized at the Indiana-Israel Dinner of State on October 19th but I ask my colleagues to join me now to commend and congratulate Lynne and Phil for their outstanding achievements, and their lives of service.

Mr. Speaker, recently I had the pleasure to meet with Joyce Jones, who is a Spina Bifida Association board chair, and past board member of the Spina Bifida Association's Central Indiana Chapter. Ms. Jones's daughter, Lisa, is afflicted with spina bifida, and also is active within the chapter and is a past Chapter president. Ms. Jones visited my office to discuss the daily challenges that her daughter faces as an adult suffering from spina bifida. As the House of Representatives prepares to adjourn, possibly for the year but certainly through the November elections, I rise tonight to ask my colleagues to join me in the best spirit of bipartisanship to help raise awareness of the struggles of people like Lisa Joyce by recognizing October as National Spina Bifida Awareness Month.

For my colleagues who may not know, spina bifida--which literally means split spine--is our Nation's most common, permanently disabling, birth defect. This defect often presents itself within the first month of a pregnancy and leaves a permanent opening in the spinal column of the unborn child. Due to this opening, a person with spina bifida faces complications with almost every organ system, including physical, developmental, educational, and vocational challenges throughout life. The estimated total medical and surgical costs for persons affected by spina bifida in the United States exceed $200 million. Currently an estimated 70,000 to 130,000 Americans are afflicted with this condition and that number is growing by about 3,000 annually.

Compounding this tragedy is the fact that spina bifida, and many other so-called neural tube defects, are largely preventable. In fact, research has shown that adequate' consumption of folic acid or vitamin- B by women of child-bearing age before and during their pregnancies could lower the possibility of a pregnancy affected by a neural tube defect by almost 70 percent. The important point, however, is that folic acid is water soluble and it does not stay in the body for very long; so women need to take it every day to help reduce the risk of neural tube defects. Throughout October, the Spina Bifida Association and others will work to raise awareness of the fact that all women of child-bearing age are at risk for having a pregnancy affected by spina bifida; and the fact that they can significantly lower that risk by taking a daily dose of folic acid.

National Spina Bifida Awareness Month is perhaps the most valuable tool we have to

help convey this message and I hope that my colleagues will spend October, as I will, speaking out about this critically important issue.

Mr. Speaker, a number of the speakers tonight have been talking about the bailout on Wall Street. And we've been told by the head of the Treasury and the FDIC that, unless we do this, there could be real dire consequences for the entire economy of the United States.

The amount that we've been talking about, which will be brought to the floor, is somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 billion, which is directly going to go to our national debt, in all probability. Hopefully, some of those assets that are going to be bought will be able to be sold down the road and the money repaid to the Treasury.

But the thing that bothers me the most is we haven't done anything that will really create new jobs. The speaker that just spoke talked about the creation of new jobs. And we passed an energy bill last week that really isn't going to do anything. And we have the ability to drill off the Continental Shelf and Alaska and elsewhere. And we can get billions and billions of dollars in money coming into the United States Treasury from these assets that we have already, and that is, oil, gas, shale, and other commodities that will help us with our energy crisis.

We have an energy crisis right now, and we have not passed an energy bill that will do anything. Boone Pickens has been on television talking about the transfer of wealth, $700 billion a year. It's an odd consequence that we're going to be asking for $700 billion for the ``Wall Street bailout'' and at the same time we're denying the drilling for oil and other energy products here in the United States which could save $700 billion of our money that's going overseas to Saudi Arabia, to Nigeria, down south to Venezuela. And so the United States is actually turning over our money that we could keep here at home and create hundreds and thousands of jobs and really help this economy if we could just go after the energy sources that we already have here in the United States.

I just don't understand it. We're sending $700 billion to Saudi Arabia, and they're going to be buying these assets here in the United States. It's going to be our money that's purchasing the oil that gives them the money to buy the products here in the United States. It makes no sense, especially when we have the energy products right here in this country, offshore and up in ANWR, and elsewhere, trillions of square feet of gas, millions of barrels of oil, and we can't drill for them because of the environmental concerns that people are talking about. And we could do it in an environmentally safe way.

It makes no sense to me whatsoever to send $700 billion out of this country that we can keep here at home creating jobs. And at the same time that we're sending that $700 billion out of this country to buy oil from other parts of the world, we're asked to give $700 billion to bail out bad investments that have been made, bad loans that have been made. It just doesn't make sense to me.

If we're really concerned about the economy of the United States, we need to drill here, we need to drill now. Use alternative sources of energy as well--wind and solar and everything else--but we need to drill here in the United States. The American people are suffering. They're still playing $4 plus for a gallon of gas, $80 to fill up a 20- gallon tank on a car or a truck. The American people can't afford it. And we could be saving that money, reducing the price of oil and gasoline dramatically, if we drilled here and drilled now, keeping $700 billion of our money here instead of sending it overseas, and especially at a time when we're going to be bailing out financial institutions to the tune of $700 billion.

It's really odd. We're sending $700 billion of our money overseas--we don't need to--at a time when we could sure use it here at home to deal with our financial crisis.

We need to drill here, we need to drill now. We need to lower the price of gasoline and oil and other energy products and we're not doing it. And I simply don't understand it, Mr. Speaker.

And I want to say it one more time; the energy bill we passed last week isn't going to doing anything. It's not going to provide one barrel of new oil from the United States. And we're going to continue to send to Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and elsewhere, $700 billion of America's money, which could be used to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. It makes no sense. We should drill here, we should drill now. We should move toward energy independence and immediately start lowering the price of gasoline and other fuel products.

Mr. Speaker, you know, there's an old saying that sometimes people whistle past the graveyard. I think, last night, that's what this Congress did. The majority on the other side rammed through a bill that's not going to do anything to move us toward energy independence, and that means we're going to continue to send $700 billion a year overseas to Saudi Arabia, to Nigeria, to Venezuela, and to other countries, many of whom don't like us at all and who are using our own money against us. $700 billion a year.

While we didn't do anything about that, that which would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States, we have found that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae we have bailed out for God only knows how much money. It's in the hundreds and hundreds of billions. It's probably going to be more than the S&L tragedy we had years ago. Bear Stearns we bailed out. AIG, $85 billion last night. There's $25 billion to $30 billion we're going to give to the auto industry. We're going to be giving money, no doubt, to the aviation industry because it's in trouble because of the energy crisis. The stimulus package we're talking about is going to cost probably about $50 billion in the next week because the Democrat majority is going to send that to the floor, and we don't have the money. We're talking about $800 billion to $900 billion that the taxpayers are going to have to cough up that we do not have. Now, what does that mean for the economy of the United States?

It means simply that the dollar and the economy are going the wrong way. Today, get this: Gold went up over $70 an ounce. If you look back over the past several years, gold was running between $250 an ounce. Today, it went up by 25 percent over what the average was for the price of gold. Do you know why?

It's because there is no confidence in the dollar right now, and we're not doing a darned thing in this body or in the other body to deal with the problem. Nothing. We had a chance last night to move toward energy independence and to save $700 billion a year that we're sending overseas. That would have made a dent in the problem we're dealing with right now, and it would have provided a mechanism for hundreds of thousands of jobs, and it would have cut the price of gasoline and of heating oil and of everything else that we have to deal with. It would have moved us radically toward energy independence. It would have helped stabilize the economy of the United States. We didn't do a darned thing, and everybody knows it. Everybody knows what we did last night was a sham.

It's not going to result in any drilling. It's not going to result in any more oil here in the United States. It's not going to result in anything toward

nuclear or toward alternative sources of energy. It's not going to do a darned thing. Yet we went to the American people last night, my Democrat majority with that bill, and said, ``Hey, we're going to solve your energy problem,'' and it was a big lie, a facade.

We had an alternative bill. We had an alternative bill sponsored by Democrats and Republicans--Mr. Abercrombie and Mr. Peterson, Democrats and Republicans--that would have moved us toward energy independence that was really a compromise. It didn't allow drilling in the ANWR, which I preferred, but it did allow other things like coal shale converted to oil and drilling off the Outer Continental Shelf. It would have resulted in revenue sharing with the States that would allow us to drill.

The bill that we passed did not do any of that. The bottom line is this economy is in real trouble, and it's not just because of this Congress, but it's in real trouble because of loans that we gave to people who didn't deserve home loans, and it was because of the packaging of those loans and selling them up the line.

The fact of the matter is we could have done something last night to help stem the tide by passing an energy bill that would have led us not only to energy independence but to saving about $700 billion a year that we're sending overseas to people who are not our friends.

It's a real tragedy. This Congress is sitting on its hands, and it's not doing anything at a time when this country is crying out for some action, not just for energy, not just for lower gas prices but for some kind of a movement toward solving the economic problems that face this country.

I'm going to end by telling you this: If gold goes up $70 in one day, that's an indication that the value of the dollar is going down the tubes. In addition to that, everybody's 401(k)s and IRAs are going down with it.

This is a very, very difficult time for America, and Congress needs to respond, and we're not doing a darned thing. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are listening. The Democrat majority needs to do something about this, especially about the energy crisis right now and not just sit on your hands and pass bills to help get people reelected, which is what you did last night.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is all about the future. It's about protecting the Democrat incumbents to make sure they get reelected. This should be called ``The Protect Congressmen and Congresswomen Bill.'' We're bringing this bill to the floor at the 11th hour just before we adjourn for this year, unless we have a special session. They know full well this bill is not going to get through the Senate. So we're not doing anything. This is window dressing.

We have a severe problem in this country, and they're doing nothing but creating a facade so the American people will think they're doing something when they're not. This bill will not do anything to help people with the price they are paying for food, gasoline, clothes or anything else that is transported by diesel or gasoline. It's not going to do anything because it's not going to go anywhere.

In addition to that, this bill has no nuclear, no clean coal, no refineries and no revenue sharing with the States. So if a State says they want to drill off the coast 50 or 100 miles, which is a long way and it's going to be really deep, they are not going to do it unless they're going to get something back, some revenue back. Why else would they do it? So this bill is really a facade because it's not going to encourage the States to allow drilling off their coast because they don't get anything for it. This bill increases taxes on the oil companies. It's going to discourage further exploration and further drilling.

This bill is something that the American people ought to know is a fraud. It is not going anywhere. It's not going to

solve the gasoline crisis problem. It's not going to solve the energy problem. But it's going to help reelect some of the Democrats because they have heard from their constituents when they went home, you have to do something about the energy problem. You have to drill here in America. You have to pass a bill. So they're going to pass a bill. But this bill is not going to do anything. It's going to accomplish nothing. It's not going to get through the Senate. And we're going to be in the same situation 6 months from now because they will not move a real energy bill.

There was a bipartisan bill that Mr. Abercrombie of Hawaii and Mr. Peterson of Pennsylvania sponsored. I was a cosponsor of that bill. It had all kinds of compromises in it. But it dealt with the energy crisis. They don't want that bill. The Speaker doesn't want that bill. And they're not going to do a darn thing, and the American people ought to know.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, for many years, Washington, D.C. has had the distinction of being the murder capital of America. It's very high as far as crime is concerned, right up at the top.

I want to tell you a couple of stories, and I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle listen to this. I had a gal that worked for me, a young lady that worked for me as my secretary, years ago. She lived about four blocks from the Capitol, and one night she had her window opened this much on the second floor. A guy shimmied up the drain pipe, came in with a 4-inch knife and stabbed her four times. The only way she could protect herself was to hit him in the head with a pan. She couldn't have mace, she couldn't have a gun, and so she was at his mercy.

When I first got elected, I took a cab to the Capitol. On the way in, I said to the cab driver, I said, tell me about Washington, D.C. He said, ``Oh, it's a beautiful place, but there is an awful lot of crime.'' I said, ``Back in Indiana I used to carry a lot of money in my business, and I had a gun permit. Maybe I should get one here.'' He said, ``Oh, you can't get a gun permit here in Washington, D.C. Nobody has guns here except the police and the crooks.'' He reached under the front seat of his cab and pulled a .38 out and says, ``But if you want one of these, I can get it for you in 15 minutes.''

Now a person who wants to defend themselves and their family in this city, and they want to do it legally, they are at the mercy of the people who can get these guns in 15 minutes.

The record shows that this has been a murder leader and a crime leader across this country, because criminals know if they break into your house, you don't have any way to defend yourselves. That's why the Supreme Court made the decision that it did, because people have a right to protect themselves.

You know, I live across the river in Virginia. The crime rate over there in Alexandria is much, much lower than it is here, and it's because the people have the right to defend themselves and their property in their own homes. If they want to, they can get a gun permit to carry a gun to protect themselves.

That's the way it ought to be in Washington, D.C., and it isn't. As a result, we have had Members of Congress mugged, the former minority leader of the House was mugged, beaten half to death. Two of my staff people have been mugged and beaten, one of them twice, and he took their money. They had no way to defend themselves, none, even in their homes.

Now, we are not asking you to give gun permits to everybody that's walking around the streets, but they ought to at least have the right to have a gun in their home to protect themselves if somebody breaks in.

I want to end up by saying this, I think this is a beautiful capital, I enjoy being in Congress, but there is no way in hell I would live in this city. I live across the river where it's safe.

Mr. Speaker, during the August recess, I think a lot of my colleagues got the message from their constituents that they want an energy bill, they want energy independence, and they want us to start working on that right now.

I talked to some of my Democrat colleagues today, and I had an indication from them that we might have an energy bill next week. All I wanted to say to the leadership on the Democrat side is, Give us an energy bill that we can really support. Please don't give us a facade. Don't give us the frosting on the cake without the cake. We want an energy bill that will move us toward energy independence that will allow us to work and get energy from a whole host of sources, as well as the alternative sources that we're talking about in the new technologies.

Give us a good energy bill. Don't give us a piece of junk that we can't vote for.

I see my other colleague who's here. I hope I am not jumping in front of you. If I am, I will pledge to you I am going to talk a very short period of time so you can get to the mike and express your views.

My brother, Congressman Latta, is a State representative in Indiana, Woody Burton, and he called me the other day and he gave me some startling facts. I think the American people would be interested in hearing these things he told me because I'm sure it's happening all over the country.

He said that sales tax in Indiana is down by 28 percent, which means simply that people are buying so much less because they are spending their money on gasoline and getting to and from work and on buying products that they have to have to survive. Food. Milk in Indiana had gone from about $2 a gallon, up over $3, and they are making packages of food that are close to the same price but they contain less of the commodity. And so sales tax is down in Indiana by 28 percent.

But just to let you know how much the people are spending on gasoline, gas sales tax is up 24 percent. So you see a direct correlation between the amount of money people are spending on products that help the economy and the amount of money that they are spending on gasoline to get to and from work and do what they have to do.

My colleague from Georgia just made a very eloquent statement on why we need to deal with this energy crisis now. I won't belabor the point by going into it again, except to say that about 75 or 80 percent of the American people, depending on which poll you look at, say: Drill here, drill now, just like T. Boone Pickens says. They don't want to see $700 billion going overseas when we can keep that money at home and create hundreds of thousands of jobs which, again, would be a big help to the economy.

I just want to say we really need an energy bill, we need it right away, and

if the American people are paying attention, I hope that they will, Mr. Latta, take this opportunity to contact their Congressman and Senators because when the pressure is put on them, then they do respond.

I talked to one of my Democratic colleagues today. He is a cosponsor of a bill that I am sponsoring with him and about 20 other Members of the House, both Democrats and Republicans, which is a bipartisan energy bill. And he said their caucus today was entirely about the energy issue, and he told me he was confident that we would have an opportunity to debate and vote on an energy bill in the next 2 or 3 weeks, which is the end of the session.

I hope he is correct, and I hope if we do have an energy bill, it's a real energy bill and not some kind of a facade. If we get a facade here, I hope we at least have some amendments that we can vote on, which would make it a real energy bill, and that means we'd have to have an open rule.

So let me just say to Mr. Latta one more time, thank you for doing this. I know it takes away from things you would like to be doing elsewhere, but you come down here on the floor of the House, along with a few of our colleagues, to talk about how important this issue is. And I applaud you for that.

Well, it's 9 o'clock, it's a Wednesday night, and 2 days from now we will all be home for 5 weeks and Congress will not have acted on many pieces of legislation that deal with the energy crisis. While we are home talking to our constituents and doing things that we have to do back in our districts, the people of the United States of America will continue to pay $4, $5 a gallon for gasoline. They will have to take money away from other important areas of their homes; food, clothing, whatever it might be, so they can put enough gasoline in the car to get to and from work or to take the kids to school. I think that is tragic, Madam Speaker.

This Congress should be doing something immediately to lower the price of gasoline and oil. A few days ago, I think last week, the President of the United States removed the executive moratorium on drilling offshore. As soon as he did that, the price of oil per barrel dropped. Likewise, just in the last couple of days, the price of gasoline dropped. If the Congress of the United States were to act likewise to remove the moratorium on drilling offshore on the Continental Shelf, the price of gasoline would drop I believe dramatically in a very short period of time.

But we are not going to do that. We are going to leave here in the next 2 days without doing a darn thing. The American people sit at home, 70, 75 percent of them saying, Why in the world don't you drill? Why don't you drill here in America. Why are you sending all that money overseas, $700 billion a year to the Saudis and to others who aren't really our best friends? Why not keep that money at home; why not drill here; why not become energy independent so we don't have to worry about the rest of the world and what they are doing. But we are not going to do that.

We are going to leave here without doing a darn thing. Now, there are a number of bills pending before the Congress that have been introduced that would solve the problem, but none of them have seen the light of day and none are going to see the light of day between now and when we leave.

Today, a bipartisan group headed by Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii and John Peterson of Pennsylvania, about 15 or 20 Members, bipartisan, introduced a bill that had a lot of compromises in it that would have dealt with this problem of energy independence and would have helped lower the price of energy and gasoline.

It was a multifaceted bill. It dealt with solar energy. It dealt with wind energy. It dealt with cars that use all kinds of fuel, the hybrid cars, the hydrogen powered cars. It gave tax credits to encourage the people around this country and the industries around this country to move on wind-driven energy and solar energy and other forms of energy that we are not dealing with right now.

In particular, it dealt with the drilling off the continental shelf. It did not talk about ANWR, because that was one of the areas where there was some disagreement. So in order to go ahead and move forward with an energy bill, this bipartisan group decided they wouldn't put the ANWR issue in there, but they would go ahead with the continental shelf exploration. They said that 25 miles off the continental shelf from the shore would not be explored, and 25 to 50 miles offshore the States would have the right to decline to drill should they want to do that.

But it was a giant step forward, and they moved this bill today to the committees of jurisdiction and we should be acting on that. If we don't act on it between now and when we leave on Friday, we should certainly be acting on it in September.

Now, today we had a vote up or down on whether or not we should adjourn for 5 weeks starting this Friday until September. The vote passed by one vote. Democrats, many Democrats, and almost all the Republicans voted not to leave this body until we dealt with the energy crisis, and it failed by one vote. So the people of this country saw today that a large number of the people in this body that represent them in the Congress want to deal with the energy crisis, but the majority, the Speaker of the House, once again blocked this effort, and I think that is very unfortunate.

It is extremely important that we move on this before we leave in September. The people in this country are going to suffer for another 2 months, and we really need to do something about that before we adjourn for the rest of the year at the end of September, as has been told to us is going to be the case.

We have enough energy in this country to be energy independent. We have enough oil to be energy independent. We have enough gas to be energy independent. We have enough coal shale to be energy independent. We are not doing anything to deal with the problem, and the American people know it.

So I would just like to say tonight, Madam Speaker, before we leave, that this is intolerable, what we are doing. The American people want action. They want the gas prices down, they want the energy prices down, and it is within our power to get the job done, but we are not doing it.

So I would like to urge the leadership in this House, the majority in this House, as well as the minority in this House, to move rapidly; to move rapidly on an energy bill between now and when we leave on September 30th. This is one of the most important issues, it is the most important issue that we are dealing with this session. Madam Speaker, I think it is unconscionable that we have not yet dealt with it.

Mr. Speaker, another week has gone by, and we have taken no action whatsoever, no action whatsoever to solve the energy crisis. I listened to the majority leader during the 1-minute talking about what's going on next week as far as legislative action is concerned, and he said that even if there were more oil leases available, he said there are no drills available.

Well, if there are no drills available and the oil companies feel that there is oil down there, they are going to make drills that would be available. The problem is on the oil leases that are available right now, the oil companies aren't finding sufficient oil to be able to put up a $2 billion oil platform to drill, and we are only using 3 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf for drilling purposes and for these leases.

If we make more of the continental shelf available these oil companies are going to get out there, they are going to get these oil leases, and they will find oil. Geologically they will survey it. They will find oil, and they will drill. They will find the drilling capacity, they will find the drilling equipment, they will build the $2 billion platforms, and they will drill. But they will have to make sure it's economically feasible, or they won't do that.

You know, if we have more production, we are going to have lower gas prices, there is just no question about that. Every week that we go out of here like today, we are ending another week, we are going home, we haven't done anything to increase the supply which will lead to lower gas prices and lower energy prices.

I listened to the hyperbole during these talks on the floor. I listened to everybody giving reasons why we are not doing this or why we are not doing that, and the fact of the matter is we are not doing anything, and the American people are still suffering. They are spending $70, $80, $90 just to fill their gas tanks. They don't know what they are going to do. They can't get to work, they can't take their kids to school. It's affecting everything that we buy, our clothes, our food, everything.

As a result, we are facing not only energy problems, we are facing an economic problem, an inflationary problem. We are not doing a darn thing about it.

We need to drill wherever we can to find oil, in the ANWR, if necessary, off the continental shelf. We need to open up the other 97 percent of the continental shelf to drilling. If we do that I guarantee you, I guarantee there will be leases, and the oil companies will find the platforms necessary and the drilling equipment necessary to drill for that oil. If they can make money doing it, they are going to do it.

The leases they have right now, if they are not going to find oil down there, it's not sufficient, they are not going to put a $2 billion platform down there and drill for that oil. That's why we need to open up more of these areas of the continental shelf for drilling.

Remember, and I hope the American people listen to this, 97 percent of the continental shelf is not being explored or even allowed to be explored. That's terrible. We know we need energy, and we are sending $700 billion to the Saudis, to South America and other countries when we had that energy right here in America.

Somebody said, well, it will take 10 years to get that oil to market if we drill for it. Well, I don't think it will take that long, but let's say it does. We need to get started sometime, and we were going to start in the 1970s, and we didn't do anything. We are in a worse situation today than when we had the oil embargo.

We need to start. We need to move toward energy independence.

I will submit to you that before the end of this session, before September 30, we have an opportunity to end the moratorium on drilling off the continental shelf and elsewhere. The moratorium on drilling off on the continental shelf and elsewhere in this country expires September 30. The only way that moratorium can continue is if we pass legislation to continue it. So I believe, and I know that there will be legislation before this body and the end of September that will extend that moratorium.

I would like to say to my colleagues, both Democrat and Republicans, we need to vote against that moratorium extension. If it's in a spending bill or any other kind of a bill, we need to stop that bill from being passed as long as that moratorium is in there, because the American people are demanding, demanding that we do something about this energy crisis. They are demanding that we move toward energy independence.

They want alternative fuels. They want alternative sources of energy. They want solar, they want wind, they want all of that. We have seen all of that on television, but during this transition period, they want energy. The only way we are going to get it is to drill for gas and oil.

We can do that if we end that moratorium. I would like to say to my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, let's get together in the next month, end that moratorium, not allow any legislation to go through that will extend that moratorium, so we can move toward energy independence.

If you don't believe that the people in this country are concerned about it, go to any gas station in this country, the next week when you are home or next weekend when you are home, and you will find that everybody is madder than hell about this. I was getting gas the other day, and I heard a guy say to his child, ``Come here, son, do you want to help me spend some of your college education?''

I am not kidding. He didn't know I was there. He had a pickup truck, and he said to his son, ``Come here, I want you to see how we are spending part of your college education.'' We need to move toward energy independence, we need to drill, and we need to do it now.

Madam Speaker, Sunday July 20, 2008, marked the 34th anniversary of the day in 1974 when Turkey intervened to stop an ethnic cleansing campaign against Turkish Cypriots by militant Greek Cypriots. Over the course of the next few days I am sure that a number of my colleagues will come to the floor of this Chamber to lament the so-called ``invasion'' of Cyprus. I have said this before and I say it again, I am deeply concerned when I hear some of my colleagues throwing barbs at the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey in an attempt to lay all the blame for this complicated issue at their doorstep. The truth is that an unbiased examination of the facts leads to a different conclusion; and by

distorting the facts, by continuing to perpetuate the myth that Turkish Cypriots and Turkey are solely to blame for this incident, I fear that such statements only undermine the good faith efforts of the United States, the European Union and other members of the international community to finally see this conflict resolved; and to see peace and prosperity come to all the people of Cyprus.

Tragically, an historic opportunity to resolve the crisis was lost when the Annan Plan, a UN- brokered proposal to settle the dispute, was soundly defeated by the Greek Cypriots in April 2004. Although the plan had broad support from the international community, and was ratified by the Turkish Cypriots, the Greek Cypriots inexplicably rejected the proposal by a 3 to 1 margin. Those individuals and special interest groups who adhere to the ``blame Turkey'' school of thought on the status of Cyprus seem to ignore the irony of the fact that when offered the chance to vote for peace, it was the Greek and not the Turkish side that rejected peace.

After the referendum, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported to the Security Council that ``the Turkish Cypriot vote has undone any rationale for pressuring and isolating them;'' he called for all Security Council members to ``give a strong lead to all States to cooperate both bilaterally and in international bodies, to eliminate unnecessary restrictions and barriers that have the effect of isolating the Turkish Cypriots and impeding their development.'' Unfortunately, while the Greek Cypriots became full members of the European Union, little changed for the Turkish Cypriots and their economic and political isolation continues to this day.

Despite the Greek Cypriots' failure to embrace peace and the international community's failure to end the economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriots; Turkish Cypriots continued to seek a just and a peaceful settlement to this crisis. Unfortunately, the issue was at a virtual standstill until recent elections in southern Cyprus brought a new Greek leadership to the forefront who seems more willing to reach a settlement.

In fact, the two leaders in Cyprus, Greek Cypriot Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot Mehmet Ali Talat, met on July 1, 2008 and achieved a remarkable breakthrough by striking an agreement in principle on the issue of a single sovereignty and citizenship. They also agreed to meet again on July 25th to prepare for the first full- fledged negotiations in four years. United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Daniel Fried, who has followed the talks closely, has said that: ``There's a chance . . . that we will be moving forward again in a way we haven't in some time.'' He has also hinted that the Administration is considering appointing a special envoy to Cyprus.

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the Greek and Turkish Cypriot Leaders for their recent courageous steps; and I sincerely hope that when they meet again a few days from today that they will get down to the real work of reshaping Cyprus into a peaceful island that respects human rights and the fundamental freedoms for all Cypriots. I also sincerely hope that all of my colleagues will learn from their example and join with me to end the `blame game,' and instead advocate for an even handed approach to the thorny issue that is Cyprus, an approach that recognizes the fundamental equality of all Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I think the American people are not aware of is that on September 30, the moratorium on drilling for oil offshore on the continental shelf will expire. And when that expires, this Congress will have to vote once again to extend that moratorium.

Now most Americans are saying, well, what in the world does that have to do with me? The cost of gasoline is now over $4 per gallon. People that go to fill up their gas tank are spending $70 to $80 or even more dollars per tankful to get their car filled up to go to and from work and to run their kids to school. If we are allowed to drill off the continental shelf, it's my belief, and the belief of most of the Members of this body, that the price per barrel of oil will begin to drop precipitously, and that translates into lower prices at the gas pump for gasoline, which will be a benefit for every person in this country that drives a car. But in addition, it will have a positive impact on the purchase of goods and services around this country. Food, clothing and everything else is transported by truck.

And tonight, what I would do if I were talking to the American people, I would ask them to contact every Senator and Congressman in both Chambers, and if I were talking to them, I would ask them to tell their Congressman and Senators to eliminate that moratorium. The minute that moratorium is removed, we will be able to drill for oil and gasoline off the continental shelf. Right now, we're prohibited from doing that. And as a result, the price of gasoline, oil and gas products continue to go through the roof.

It's time that we move toward energy independence, Mr. Speaker. And the American people, if you talked to any of them at the parades that took place over the Fourth of July, or any other meetings that take place, the town meetings, they're all telling us, do something about the price of gasoline. Do something about the price of energy. Make us energy independent. Drill in America. Drill anywhere. But lower the price of energy and make us energy independent.

We have the ability within the next 60 days to remove the moratorium on drilling offshore on the continental shelf. We can do that. All we have to do is not pass a bill that extends that moratorium.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the American people are clamoring for that. They want the cost of gasoline to go down. They want the cost of energy to go down. They want us to be energy independent. Every place we go, they're saying drill here, drill there, drill anywhere, but lower the price of energy and get us to energy independence. We have the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to do that within the next 60 days.

And so, once again, Mr. Speaker, I know I can't talk to the American people. But if I were talking to the American people, I would say, call your Congressman, call your Senator, and tell

them to not extend the moratorium on drilling offshore on the continental shelf. Because if they do that, Mr. Speaker, then the price of gasoline and energy will go down, and we will move rapidly toward energy independence. And that is what everybody wants.

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the ``Relief Now on the Road to Renewable Energy Act of 2008.''

I believe this bill will provide relief now from soaring gasoline prices and also accelerate our pace down the road to alternative energy and energy independence. Few things affect American consumers like high energy prices. Higher gas prices strain the budgets of America's working families, raise the cost of goods and services, increase harvest costs for America's farmers, and negatively impact the economy and the livelihood of working Americans.

According to the latest figures from the Department of Energy, the retail cost of a gallon of gasoline breaks down as follows:

53 percent--Crude Oil.

19 percent--Refining. (This component varies from region to region due to the different formulations required in different parts of the country.)

9 percent--Marketing and Distribution.

19 percent--taxes. (This component also varies depending upon whether States have also enacted sales tax on gasoline and whether local counties and cities have levied their own gasoline excise or sales tax.)

As you can see, the single biggest factor affecting the price of gasoline is the cost of a barrel of oil; oil which largely comes from politically unstable regions of the world, such as the Persian Gulf, Nigeria and Venezuela. Unfortunately, we find ourselves so heavily dependent upon these expensive sources of oil because decade after decade Congress has established legislative and regulatory roadblocks to prevent exploration for and refining of domestic supplies of oil and natural gas.

I believe it is time to invest more now into conservation and energy efficiency. My bill, for example, includes provisions that would increase alternative energy sources and diversify the energy grid with currently available alternative energy technologies. As a nation, we waste far too much energy with inefficient engines and machines. That is why my bill provides tax incentives for companies to produce fuel efficient vehicles. In fact, it provides a $1,000 tax credit for individuals who purchase hybrid cars produced by American corporations. I believe that as we work with the market demand, these energy- efficient changes will work to stimulate domestic economic growth.

The fact of the matter is that wind and solar power cannot bring down the cost of the gasoline we need to power our cars, trucks, planes, trains, boats and power plants while we are developing greater efficiency. The cost of gasoline is a simple economic debate, oil supply and demand. We need more supply. The answer, I believe, is to end our dependence on expensive foreign oil by developing our own domestic supplies of oil and natural gas. My bill will open up new areas for oil and gas exploration.

For example, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) holds the single largest deposit of oil in the entire United States. Its 10.4 billion barrels of oil is more than double the proven reserves of the entire State of Texas and almost half of the total proven reserves in the U.S. (22 billion barrels). Had President Clinton not vetoed ANWR energy production in 1995, the United States could be getting nearly 1.5 million barrels of oil per day from the Arctic right now.

There are also vast oil and gas deposits along our coastlines that are completely off limits to development because of government interference. In fact, the Department of the Interior (DOI) conducted a comprehensive inventory of oil and natural gas resources located off our coastlines within the last 2 years. According to the Department of the Interior there is an estimated 8.5 billion barrels of known oil reserves and 29.3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of known natural gas reserves along our coastlines; with 82 percent of the oil and 95 percent of the gas located in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). However, even more importantly, the Department of the Interior estimates that there are untapped resources of about 86 billion barrels (51 percent in the Gulf of Mexico) and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (55 percent in the Gulf of Mexico) out there.

Similarly, the U.S. has been called the Saudi Arabia of oil shale. It has been estimated that oil shale deposits in Colorado,

Utah, and Wyoming hold the equivalent of as little as 1.8 trillion barrels of oil and potentially as much as 8 trillion barrels of oil. In comparison, Saudi Arabia reportedly holds proved reserves of 267 billion barrels. Unfortunately, oil shale is roughly equivalent to diesel fuel and a number of Clean Air Act regulations--such as low- sulfur diesel--and Federal motor fuel taxes, which favor gasoline over diesel fuels--have created a strong financial disincentive regarding the production and use of oil shale fuels. In addition, many of these deposits are on public land making it more bureaucratically complicated to exploit this resource. My bill provides a financial incentive for companies to invest in and produce more oil from oil shale.

Getting more domestic oil on the market is only half the solution. We haven't built a new refinery in this country in more than 25 years because the approval process for new refinery construction is estimated to require up to 800 different permits. While existing refineries have undergone significant expansion over the years, even as others have been shuttered, our aging refinery infrastructure leaves little margin for error. If we begin to produce more domestic crude oil we would need to turn it into home heating oil, gasoline, or diesel through the refining process. The ability to refine oil must keep pace with the demand for gasoline and diesel. My bill would expedite the construction of new refining capacity by streamlining the permitting process and opening up closed military bases for construction.

Clearly, developing new oil fields and refineries will take some time. In the interim my bill will help promote the switch to flexfuel and hybrid cars and trucks; extend important alternative energy tax credits; and provide individuals and truckers a vitally needed fuel price tax relief package. It also opens up land for the production of biofuel crops in order to provide relief from high food prices as a result of ethanol production.

Again, I believe in conservation, I believe in energy efficiency, and I believe in diversifying our energy supply by using wind, solar, coal- to-liquid technologies, ethanol and other renewable energy sources. But the fact of the matter is that oil and natural gas are still going to be a part of our energy mix for a long time to come and we must give our constituents some relief now.

Mr. Speaker, I think everybody in America knows that we import an exorbitant amount of the oil that we use in this country. We are dependent on oil from the Middle East. We are dependent on oil from South America, from Venezuela and elsewhere. And as a result, we are at the mercy of these countries if they decide to cut back on the amount of oil that they are selling to this country or if OPEC decides to raise the price per barrel of oil.

As a result of our dependency on foreign oil, we now see gasoline at the pump of between $4 and $5 per gallon. And everybody in this country, in fact, almost everybody, about 70 percent of people in recent polls, have said they want America to move towards energy independence. They want us to drill here in the United States. They want us to drill offshore on the continental shelf. They want us to drill in ANWR up in Alaska. They want us to use coal share converted into oil for energy. And they want us to drill for natural gas. But unfortunately, we are not going to do it because we can't get the votes in the House or the Senate to get this job done.

Now today we had a meeting. And we found out that in addition to our dependency on foreign oil from sources like Saudi Arabia or Venezuela or elsewhere in the world, we find out that from Nigeria we import almost 37 percent of our sweet crude oil, which is the preferable kind of oil you want for many of the refineries on the east coast because they can convert that in an easier way into gasoline to be sold at the pump. Now if they have to rely on heavier crude oil, as I understand it, they won't be able to convert that because they are not geared up for that. They are used to using, and the refineries are geared to using the sweet crude oil.

So as a result, we see 37 percent of the sweet crude oil coming from Nigeria and almost 1 million barrels of oil a day coming from that country. And they have problems over there right now we found out today, Mr. Speaker. They have rebel groups that are stealing as much as 500,000 barrels of oil a day and selling it on the world market to put into their own pockets. And if they decide to go further into the pockets of Nigeria, they can dig into the 1 million barrels of oil that we receive from Nigeria a day. And that is about 9 percent of the oil that we get from around the world.

The reason I'm bringing all this up is that we are dependent on Saudi Arabia. We are dependent on Venezuela. We are dependent on Canada. And we are dependent on Mexico. And now I find that we are dependent on Nigeria for about 9 percent of the oil we have, which is about 37 percent of the sweet crude oil we get, which is the preferable kind of oil that we need for refining on the east coast of this country.

We are dependent on the rest of the world. And the price of gasoline at the pump is between $4 and $4.50 a gallon. And if there is a disruption because of OPEC or what goes on in Nigeria, we could see the cost of gasoline per gallon go to $5, $6 or $7 a gallon. And the American people and our economy cannot stand that kind of a price for gasoline. People are spending $70, $80 or $90 for one tank of gasoline. And seniors and people that live in rural areas and business people trying to get to and from work cannot afford that. We can't afford the cost of getting food to the marketplace and for us to buy it without raising the price of these products. Everything is going up because of the price of oil.

And we find that we can be energy independent in this country. We can move rapidly toward energy independence if we drill off the continental shelf and Alaska, and drill for natural gas and convert coal shale into oil. We can be energy independent, and we don't have to depend on the rest of the world.

And the American people, Mr. Speaker, need to contact their Congressmen and their Senators and tell them that we need to move toward energy independence. We need to drill here in America. We can get the job done. We're a can-do country. And we need to get with it right away.

I won't speak very long. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I really appreciate the information that my Democrat colleagues have been bringing out night after night on alternative sources of energy. I just learned a little bit more about geothermal energy than I did, and I would like to have that right next to my house.

But the problem, as I see it right now, is how do we deal with bringing the price of gasoline down, and what do we do in the case of a national emergency?

The former chairman of the Energy Committee, Mr. Barton, was talking about what would happen if there was an emergency and how we would utilize this Strategic Oil Reserve. My concern is what would happen if a major supplier of the United States and the rest of the world could not supply that oil? Right now, and I spoke about this the other night, there is a lot of unrest in the Middle East. There is concern about Iran developing a nuclear weapon. And they have been working on a program for some time. Israel just flew a mission the other day about 2 weeks ago where they had over 100 planes fly the length down the Mediterranean that it would be to fly from Israel to Tehran. And so there is the possibility that none of us want to see occur where there could be a major confrontation over there.

If you sink two or three ships in the Persian Gulf in the Straits of Hormuz, you're going to have a terrible problem in getting maybe 20 percent of the world's oil supply to market. And we get a lot of our oil from there.

And so I think we ought to look at the long-term problems that we face in this country while we're converting to other forms of energy, which I agree with you we should be doing. But oil is going to be with us for a while. And we're going to need that energy, as you said, for aircraft, transportation, for trucks and other things as we make this transition. And during that period of time, we need to be thinking about what we are going to do to protect this country strategically in the event of a conflict during this transition period.

And that is why I think that this bipartisan group that started meeting tonight is talking about trying to get everybody together to come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the energy problem and the gas prices, that we look at that. We look at the problems that occur not only today but what might occur a month from now, 2 months from now, 1 year from now, or 3 or 4 years from now.

And during this period of transition when we want to move to cleaner- burning fuels, we need to have the energy here in America. I appreciate everything that you are bringing up, but I also am concerned about the security of this Nation. And right now we are so dependent on foreign oil, if we have a problem in certain parts of the world, we will have an even higher price for a gallon of gasoline. That is why I believe we should expand our drilling opportunities out on the Outer Continental Shelf and ANWR.

I appreciate this discussion tonight. I think we should be doing this on a regular basis.