Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan, I want to thank our chairman of the committee, I want to thank Ms. Zoe Lofgren, who's Chair of one of the subcommittees I serve on in Judiciary, for all the effort that they've put into this. This is a good idea.

Some people who likely will review our comments here would ask the question: Aren't there enough lawyers in Congress? Actually, there are less lawyers now than there were 10 or 20 years ago, but I think that is an interesting question.

I'd be happy to yield.

I understand that as well, but some would wonder why we need the influence of more law graduates here, and that's misunderstanding what we're attempting to do here.

Right now both the judicial and the executive branches have clerkship programs which are accessible to those who are graduates of our top law schools. This is particularly pronounced in the area of judicial clerkships. It is considered quite prestigious

and an honor for someone to serve a judicial clerkship.

As the gentlelady from California mentioned, it was the dean of the law school of Stanford University, Larry Kramer, who first raised this issue with me and with her. It was interesting to hear from the law school dean because his message was not what I expected, and he has been quoted here on the floor.

Let me give you a more extended quote of what he said, which is: Clerking for a trial or appellate judge provides young lawyers with an invaluable insider's understanding of the judicial decision-making process. Not surprisingly, judicial clerkships leave young lawyers with a highly court-centered view of the law and the legal system, and precisely because these are the top law school graduates, former law clerks go on disproportionately to assume leadership positions in the bar and in the profession--and again quoting Dean Kramer--explaining in part why the legal profession in this country is heavily tilted toward the courts.

Now, we can argue about whether they are tilted to the right or to the left or they're tilted properly, but the fact of the matter is it is a court-centered view of the law which I think interferes with the delicate balance established by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution, which saw there were worthy and valuable distinctions among the three branches of government.

And we can bemoan the fact that this is the case; we can talk about judges on the bench and we can talk about people not taking their constitutional obligations seriously when they take their oath of office; but if we really want to get down to it, it seems to me this is one of the undue influences that's out there. And so the idea was, as Dean Kramer said, that it would be enormously beneficial for both the profession and the public if some of these young lawyers began their careers in the legislature and, as he said, developed an equal sense of the national legislature. We're not saying that is to disregard or in any way scale down their appreciation for the judicial branch, but rather to raise up their appreciation of the understanding of how this place works--and by this place, I mean the institution of the House of Representatives and the institution of the United States Senate. It would bring them an understanding of the workings of Congress that they would then bring to bear as they move on in their careers, both within the legislature and other branches. And I don't see how that would not be beneficial to this country, healthy for the body politic, and probably end up with better legislation overall.

So I would hope that Members would understand what we're attempting to do here. We're attempting to establish, on an equal footing, a clerkship for top graduates of law schools around the country that they currently have an opportunity to participate in in the executive and the judicial branch. It would be beneficial to us, it seems to me, it would be beneficial to them, but more importantly, it would be beneficial to the public.

And for those who are concerned that this might cut into their MRA, by the terms of the legislation, it would not in any way affect the collective or individual MRAs that Members receive at the present time. As was mentioned before, it would be done on a bipartisan basis so that we would all have the opportunity to benefit from this. And similarly, these clerks would have the opportunity to benefit from exposure to both sides of the aisle.

So I would hope that we would get a unanimous vote in favor of this. This is something that I think will improve the quality of the discussion and the quality of the work that we do around here. But more importantly, I would hope that it would have a lasting impact on the understanding within the bar itself of the proper workings and functionings of the legislative branch, and in fact the quality of work that is provided in the legislative branches. And so I thank the gentleman from Michigan for the time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

And again, I appreciate the comments of the gentlelady from California. However, I would be remiss if I didn't respond a little bit to what she said about colloquies and committee reports.

We at least ought to enter into the Record the Scalia view of things, which is, law is what is in the law, not what's in the committee report or the colloquy.

One of the important things he tries to point out is that in some ways it would be unfair to members of the public to pass a law with intentional ambiguity that can only be interpreted by a committee report since the average citizen probably doesn't have access to that. And his commonsense notion is that Members should strive to make laws understandable by the language that they have in them. And it is often misunderstood as to his interpretive analysis of law and the Constitution when he talks about original understanding.

What he is basically saying is that when you have a law or constitution that is presented to the people, they can only be held to the usual and customary understanding of the words as they are in the law, otherwise you basically are fooling the people.

Now, if there is a necessary ambiguity, obviously a colloquy or a committee report aids in the interpretation of understanding what it was in terms of the meaning of the words at that time. But I understand the gentlelady may have a slightly different view of the Constitution than Justice Scalia, as some do, but I thought it important that we try and understand that we, as legislators, ought to strive to put the precise words we want into the law because too many times on this floor I've heard people say, don't quibble about those words, we'll let the courts decide what it is. And having been a trial lawyer--not necessarily a plaintiff's lawyer, although I have done that in my time as well--the difference between one word, two words, or three words, or a clause or a sentence in a statute can make all the difference in the world. And I would just hope that we would be attentive to our responsibilities and disciplined in our actions such that we try and choose the words precisely that carry the meaning that will give the average citizen an understanding of what we're doing here.

I would be happy to yield to the gentlelady.

Somehow I thought that might be the case.

Reclaiming my time, I would just say I remember an instance about 25 years ago on the floor here dealing with a matter, the Bankruptcy Act. And the late, great chairman of judiciary, Peter Rodino, got up and gave his interpretation of it which was contrary to the interpretation we had. So every time he would get up to give his colloquy I would get up to give ours to make sure that when the judges looked at it they would see there were two contrary positions so they could decide, as they should, under the words we actually used in the statute. And I thank the gentlelady.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill. Twenty years ago I was privileged to be the only Member of Congress selected to serve on the commission that was referred to just a moment ago, and I served as the vice chairman of that commission.

I accepted appointment to that commission because, as someone who grew up in Southern California, born shortly after World War II, I was one of those many Californians who, frankly, grew up knowing very little, if anything, about the treatment of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans during World War II.

And yet I was from an area in which we had a mature Japanese American community on Terminal Island prior to World War II. When I grew up, Terminal Island was actually part of the Navy complex in the San Pedro Bay, the Long Beach part of San Pedro Bay. There was nothing left of the Japanese community on Terminal Island at the time I was born and at the time I was growing up.

And while there were many Japanese Americans in our community, there was not much discussion of what took place during World War II. On a number of occasions, there was an attempt to bring up a Commission, and finally, we garnered enough votes to support the commission with the idea that it was important for us, not only to acknowledge what went on during World War II and have a historic examination of what occurred there, but as importantly, if not most importantly, it was a concern of mine and other members of the Commission that we have a continuing remembrance of that experience, not to sort of wallow in the mistakes that were made in the past and to point our finger back at a previous generation, but rather to try and extract lessons from that experience so that it would provide us an understanding of how we made mistakes there, and provide us an opportunity to learn from that, such that we would not make similar mistakes in the future.

It was an interesting time to be on that Commission to hear the accounts of so many who had gone through that experience and to learn that history can be a strange and often an experience that brings you surprises.

For instance, a great civil libertarian in his future years, Earl Warren, as Attorney General and Governor of the State of California, was probably the strongest advocate for the executive order. In his later years, he accepted responsibility for that mistake.

Among the top counsels of government of the Roosevelt administration, there was one individual who stood out from the others who opposed the executive order and believed it was unnecessary and, frankly, overreaching. That person was, interestingly enough, J. Edgar Hoover. J. Edgar Hoover said, ``We don't need to bring all of these Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans away from the coastline. We don't need to have any camps to hold these people in and their families.'' He said, ``We think we have sufficient intelligence for those who may be reasonable suspects and we can just concentrate on that.'' And that was rejected by the national leadership on a bipartisan basis except for one place, Hawaii. The executive order was not carried out in Hawaii because the military leader in Hawaii, when he received the order, responded back to Washington that it would basically cripple the workforce in Hawaii.

And so in Hawaii we had the only place where they followed the suggestion of J. Edgar Hoover not to round up everybody because of their ethnicity.

And the only reason I bring this up is that it is so easy for us to look forward and say we will never repeat anything like that and only this group would do that, and that group wouldn't do that, and that leadership wouldn't do that, but this leadership would. And you will find when you go back in history, under the pressure and stress of a threat, sometimes we do things that we ought not to do.

So I appreciate the kindness of the gentlelady from California. In fact, it was her husband, among others, who convinced me they ought to actually sit on that Commission. And I think that it is extremely important for us to not only remember what happened 20 years ago but more importantly what happened some 60 years ago and to take lessons out of that that will help us ensure that we don't repeat those mistakes in the future no matter what our political philosophy, no matter what our political identification.

I think this is a very worthy bill that we have here today. I thank the gentleman for his time.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 6295 is a bill on which Congressman Poe of Texas and I have worked to address a serious problem relating to the use of submersible and semi-submersible vessels to transport drugs and potentially other contraband which pose a threat to our communities and our national security. The language in the amendment before us reflects an agreement reached with Chairman Conyers and the majority on the Judiciary Committee, and we thank him and them for their willingness to work with us to address this very serious challenge.

Submersibles and semi-submersibles are watercraft of unorthodox construction capable of putting much of their bulk underneath the surface of the water. This makes them very difficult to detect. These submersible and semi-submersible vessels are typically less than 100 feet in length and usually carry between 5 and 6 tons of illicit cargo, everything from drugs, guns, people, and potentially weapons of mass destruction. The range of these vessels is sufficient to reach the southeastern United States from the north coast of South America without refueling. According to recent press reports, in order to cover even longer distances, some of these vessels have been caught while being towed by larger ships with the idea that they would be released for the final approach to the shores of California or off the northeast coast of the United States.

Now, we're talking about stateless vessels that are built in the jungles of South America. They have no legitimate use. They are built for stealth and are designed to be rapidly scuttled. Their crews often will abandon and sink the vessels and contraband when detected by U.S. law enforcement in order to avoid prosecution. According to the Coast Guard, when you scuttle a vessel and all of the evidence ends up at the bottom of the ocean, it makes prosecution difficult, if not, in most cases, impossible. As a July 9 article in Politico reported:

``On June 16 U.S. forces encountered one of newfangled drug boats northwest of the Colombian-Ecuador border. But before the Americans could get to it, the four Colombians aboard scuttled it, along with the estimated 5 to 10 tons of cocaine they were carrying . . . So what started as a major drug bust ended up as a rescue mission. And with no evidence the government could not prosecute the four drenched sailors.''

This adds a new dimension to the notion of ``submarine warfare,'' and it's critical that our prosecutors be equipped with the tools necessary to adapt to this new challenge facing Federal law enforcement authorities.

Although these new vessels are being used to evade detection and prosecution for drug trafficking, my own interest actually in this issue is even broader. The potential that someone might seek to transport a weapon of mass destruction into the United States is further reason for concern and why we need an aggressive response to alter the calculus of deterrence with respect to the use of these vehicles.

In testimony before our Crime Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, the U.S. Coast Guard testified that these semi-submersible vessels present ``one of the emerging and most significant threats we face in maritime law enforcement today.''

In making the case for legislation, the Coast Guard testified that: ``If operation and embarkation in an SPSS were illegal, U.S. interdiction forces and U.S. Attorneys would have the necessary legal tools to combat the threat even in the absence of recovered drugs or other contraband. So criminalizing the operation of these vessels on international voyages would improve officer safety, deter the use of these inherently dangerous vessels, and facilitate effective prosecution of criminals involved in this treacherous and emerging trend.''

The Coast Guard has asked us for help on what they deem to be one of the most significant emerging threats to their mission. Language similar to that before us passed this body by a vote of 408-1 as an amendment to the Coast Guard authorization offered by Mr. Poe and me. The recent seizure of a semi-submersible by the Mexican navy a little over a week ago is additional evidence that this pressing challenge to our drug enforcement authorities is no less compelling than it was when this body overwhelmingly supported this request by the Coast Guard before. So I ask once again for the unanimous support of this House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that some people look at this and I have had people say to me, well, my goodness, if you have something like that, why don't we just sink them? Why don't we just shoot them down. If this were wartime, we would do that sort of thing. This is not wartime in the judicial sense of the word. So what we need to do is how we can successfully prosecute them to get around

their evasive tactics of scuttling their ships, sinking their ships, throwing their cargo overboard. That's why we need this legislation, to allow us to have a legal premise for prosecuting them for actually being on the high seas.

Secondly, and I don't think this is an idle threat that we ought to consider, one of the most serious concerns I have being a member of the Homeland Security Committee is the possibility of a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb somehow being discharged somewhere in the United States. We think the possibilities of that are rather low, but the fact of the matter is there are possibilities. And these kinds of delivery systems could be modified for that purpose.

So rather than our waiting until we have an even greater problem than we have now, we think this legislation deserves the support of the Members of this committee. There is companion legislation in the other body. We believe that they are very likely to affirmatively respond to this bill. And so if we could get it over there to the Senate as quickly as possible, it enhances the opportunity for this actually becoming law, helping the Coast Guard, helping this Nation, and preventing further tragedy in the future.

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

Mr. Speaker, I returned to this House after 16 years because I believed that this was a forum for dealing with the problems facing the American people. That's why I come to the this floor so disappointed.

If I were to go to a doctor suffering from cancer and the doctor were to give me only aspirin, I would say that he would be guilty of medical malpractice. What we have here on the floor of the House is leadership malpractice. The American people understand we're suffering from not enough supply. And so what is the answer we get here today? We're going to open up the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And they say the reason this works is it's worked three times in the past. But examine how it has worked in the past.

In each and every instance, we had a temporary disruption of supply. We were able to affect that because we had a temporary infusion of supply. What we have here today is a long-term issue of lack of supply. And the Speaker said and other Members on the other side of the aisle said, Well, look. We shouldn't be begging foreign countries to give us more oil.

No. What we're requiring the American people to do is to beg the Congress to allow us to produce more American oil. And why should the leadership of this House refuse to allow us to have American workers using American ingenuity, American creativity to produce more American energy?

This is the hoax on this floor. To say that somehow taking this out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is going to give you any long-term benefit is nothing more than a hoax. A couple of cents for a couple of days. It also takes away our ability to respond to temporary disruptions in the future, which is the reason this was put in in the first place.

Why should we be afraid of Americans producing American oil? Free America. Let Americans produce American oil. Let's get rid of this leadership malpractice we see on the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of representing the Third Congressional District of California. It is in the Greater Sacramento area. I live in a wonderful community called Gold River along the American River, near the site of the finding of gold in the 1800s, which began the great gold rush in California.

When I was home in my district over the last several weekends, I had an opportunity to speak to a number of people in that district, and the issue that they were most concerned about was that of energy.

This is of some interest to me, not only because of the legitimate concerns of the people of my district--the problems that are besetting them as a result of the higher and higher prices of energy, particularly with respect to gasoline, the embedded transportation costs and many other things, such as food--but because, before I moved to that area some now 20 years ago, I for most of my life lived in Long Beach, California, and I'd had the privilege of representing that area and the adjoining areas for 10 years in this Congress during my first tenure here. Although I was not involved in the energy industry nor were my parents nor were other members of my family, I did go to school with a number of people who were either involved or whose parents were involved in that industry.

The community of Signal Hill is completely surrounded by my hometown of Long Beach--Signal Hill, one of the longest producing oil fields in the United States. As I grew up, I saw

offshore drilling, some very close to shore on the manmade islands in San Pedro Bay and Long Beach Harbor, where the drilling of a resource that had been counted to be, perhaps, as large as 2 billion barrels of oil was a reality during the years I grew up, and it continues to this day.

As a matter of fact, every school district in California benefited from that as they got a bit of the royalties that were achieved because these are considered State lands, tidelands.

I also saw some rigs further out off the shores of the Long Beach and Huntington Beach areas that I represented, and I noted that we didn't have problems with oil seepage or with the loss of oil to any measurable amount during those years that I saw it there.

I also understood from those who worked in the fields and from those who worked in the refineries that this is tough work, difficult work, but it is proud work, hard work, blue-collar work, American work. I remember some of my friends having parents who were called wildcatters. It wasn't a derisive term at the time. It was a term of some pride. These were people who took risks to go out and attempt to find oil, not only in California but in other places around the United States, and somehow during the period of time or from the period of time that I was a child to the present time, these people have gotten a bad name, that somehow anything that is touched by the oil industry is dirty and befouls the environment.

Yet what we have seen over the last 30 to 40 years is a remarkable improvement in technology and tremendous attention to detail with respect to the protection of the environment. So it not only surprises but it saddens me that on this floor we can't have debate about bills that would allow us to discover, uncover and produce the natural resources that are available to us at this present time for ourselves, for our children and for our grandchildren.

We are here on a Thursday evening once again. We are not here for a 5-day week but for barely a 3-day week, coming up next week for our last week before we leave for the August recess, and we have not had one serious piece of legislation dealing with increased supply. We've had shell game legislation like today's legislation on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We'll remove some now, put it back later. The net result is no increase in supply worldwide, and that is the answer, in part, to the energy problem.

I have supported wind, and I have supported solar, and I have supported nuclear, and I have supported geothermal, and I have supported hydroelectric. I continue to support that, but the fact of the matter is, if you look at the real world, we very much rely on oil, natural gas and oil, and we have tremendous reserves in and around this country that we have put off limits. It doesn't make sense. It makes less and less sense every day, and yet we fail to move.

I would just hope that, before we leave next Friday, we would at least have a single vote on this floor to open up greater areas for exploration and for the production of American oil produced by American men and women for American men and women.

I appreciate the gentleman allowing me to get in the midst of this intramural squabble here on the Rules Committee.

It seems like it was just the night before last that we came back to work this--well, it was just the night before last that we came back to work this week. And it seems like we just--well, we are just leaving. We came in the night before last to do business, we were here yesterday, we're here today, we're going to get out by, I guess, about 3 in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the people of the United States are suffering because we have no energy policy.

Now this political cartoon graphically states what it is. It says:

We demand you energy companies do something about high energy prices.

We can drill in ANWR.

Forget it.

How about offshore.

Are you crazy?

Clean coal.

Out of the question.

Nuclear power.

You're joking, right?

Don't just sit there, do something.

Well, that's what I'm asking this Congress to do. Don't just sit there, do something.

I thought that maybe what I believe is now called the Natural Resources Committee--it used to be called the Resources Committee--the Natural Resources Committee, I thought it had jurisdiction over ANWR. And I looked it up and it does. And I thought it had jurisdiction over offshore drilling. And I looked it up and it does. And I thought it had jurisdiction over coal on Federal lands. And I looked it up and it does. And I thought it had jurisdiction over tar sands and other kinds of resources, natural gas, offshore. And it does.

So what does it bring today? A bill that talks about a historic trail. We've waited 227 years to designate it as an historical trail. You would think we could wait a couple of more months and do something on energy.

Madam Speaker, I will not violate the rules of the House by asking for a show of hands in the galleries, because that would be out of order, but I suppose that if the people in the galleries were like the people in my two town halls last week, they would answer the same. When I asked them do you think we should drill in ANWR, about 75 to 80 percent said yes. When I asked them do you think we should start drilling offshore, about 75 to 80 percent said yes. When I asked them do you think we should lock up the greatest natural resource we have for energy in this country, coal--we're the Saudi Arabia of coal--they answered 75 to 80 percent no. Nuclear power. Over 50 percent are for it now. But this Congress does nothing about that. In fact, they have created self-fulfilling prophecies. They say, look, if we allow offshore drilling, it will take 10 years. Do you know why it would take 10 years?

They set up the formula for failure. They make it a reality that it will take 10 years because of all of the extensive environmental requirements, the continued legal challenges, and if you know how the system works, you can actually make a decision by not making a decision. If you can in court ensure that no decision is finally made, no one is going to make the capital investment.

Our friends on the other side say, well, wait a second, we've got the answer. All we're going to do is make them drill with the leases they already have.

Now let's think about this. The oil companies pay millions, billions of dollars for leases and they're not looking for it? The fact of the matter is just because you have a lease which is a tract of land on a map, a line on a map, doesn't mean there's oil there. Actually some of the Democrats on the other side of the aisle have said this. They've said, our leadership doesn't understand the reality of drilling oil. And so what do they leave us with? They leave us with a policy which says drive small cars and wait for the wind. The gentleman from California says look at all we've done. We've forced Americans to drive smaller cars. That's the solution. We're waiting for wind. We can wait for a long time.

I'm for solar energy. I'm for wind. I'm for all of the above. But the fact of the matter is we have to do something on the supply side. And here we have a bill out of the committee that has jurisdiction on this very matter, the one that would get us started, and it doesn't bring forth this. It has brought forth a mouse in comparison to what we need in terms of our energy. All the American people are asking for is some sense of reality. We cannot suspend the laws of economics.

The gentleman from California says look at all the price controls that we have adopted. I have to say, it was a Republican President, President Nixon, who tried to use price controls in the seventies. It didn't work. It didn't work. At some point in time we have to understand that what we have to do is increase supply.

And if we come to the floor with the committee of jurisdiction bringing us bills that have nothing to do with energy, what are the American people to say except that, Don't just sit there, do something. We are absolutely just sitting here and doing nothing. People back home are not waiting for 20 and 30 years. They're talking about what's happening now. It's not just the gas in their car. It is the cost of transportation embedded in everything. And it's going to get worse before it gets better.

This Congress should do something. It should act now. Act now. Maybe we could stay here longer than 2\1/2\ days to do something about energy for the American people who sent us here to do their work. Where's the 5-day workweek? Gone. Gone along with the opportunity to drill for oil and produce energy for the American people. Maybe they ought to pay attention to what's happening here on the floor of the House and insist that we do something. Drill here in the United States, not overseas. Produce here in the United States. Save America.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In attempting to respond to the gentleman on the other side of the aisle, he said, what have we been trying to do in terms of energy? Did we just discover it? Well, no, that is not the case. We have been trying to work on energy for the last number of years. Let me just give the gentleman some figures.

On ANWR exploration, every time it has been brought up in the last 6 or 7 years, 91 percent of the Republicans have supported it; 86 percent of the Democrats have voted against exploration in ANWR, a clear delineation between the two parties.

Coal-to-liquid. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal. We have more coal than anybody else in the world. So wouldn't it make sense to try and use new technology to take coal to liquid? Every time it has been brought up, 97 percent of the Republicans have supported it; 78 percent of the Democrats have opposed it. That is not pontificating. That is voting on the floor.

Oil shale exploration. Along with Canada, again, we are the Saudi Arabia of oil shale. Every time it has been brought up, 90 percent of the Republicans have voted for it; 86 percent of the Democrats have voted against it.

Outer Continental Shelf exploration. Every time it has been brought up, 81 percent of the Republicans have voted for it; 83 percent of the Democrats have opposed it.

The gentleman says, why aren't we drilling on some of those leases? Well, the definition of an idle lease is a lease where drilling has not yet occurred. That means you have to go through all of the existing red tape, such as permitting and environmental laws. The process can take years. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy on the other side of the aisle.

My friend on the other side of the aisle and his allies in the environmental community, what have they done? Environmental protests have increased by 718 percent over the last 7 years. Three million acres of currently leased land is tied up in courts, where it cannot be utilized.

You ask why they are not leasing? Because they can't, because they are subjected to lawsuits. Companies are unable to begin exploring on the land they have already leased. Fifty-two percent, 52 percent of the wells that have been drilled, exploratory wells offshore, have proved to be dry holes. That is why they are not producing on those.

When I was here 20 years ago during the Reagan administration serving in this House, the Reagan administration managed to lease 160 million acres of onshore land. Today only 50 million acres are leased. ANWR contains 10.4 billion barrels of oil. 100 percent closed. Offshore, 86 billion barrels of oil we believe are there by the U.S. Minerals and Management Service. 97 percent of it is closed off.

And the gentleman says we are pontificating. We are not pontificating. We are asking your side of the aisle to allow us to have votes on these issues. Allow us to have a vote on ANWR; allow us to have a vote on coal-to-liquid; allow us to have a vote on oil shale; allow us to have a vote on offshore drilling, Outer Continental Shelf exploration; allow us to have a vote on refinery capacity increases. That is not pontificating. That is saying allow the American people to have these particular supply-oriented responses to the energy crisis voted on on the floor.

Now, the gentleman may say, we just go home. I go home. I just got back from home. I talked to people in my district. You know what they said? Get back to Congress and vote to change the laws to allow supply.

Now, once again, unless your side of the aisle is capable, excuse me, Madam Speaker, unless the other side of the aisle is capable----

Madam Speaker, unless the other side of the aisle is capable of suspending the law of economics, the law of supply and demand, we have to start dealing with the supply side.

We have dealt with the demand side. The American people in the last several months have dropped their usage per capita of gasoline greater than they have at any time since we have kept records. The American people are responding in responsible ways. They are responding on the demand side. They are asking us to help them be able to respond on the supply side.

That is not pontificating. That is not politics. That is governance. We are asking for good governance. Allow us to have the chance to vote on these things on the floor, and then let the votes fall where they may. Maybe the gentleman from the other side of the aisle is correct in his assessment that the American people don't want more supply. I suspect he is wrong. The only way we will know is if we have a vote. Just give us a vote.

I thank the gentleman for the time.

Madam Speaker, we are in this Chamber just several days removed from our July 4th district work period, and I had reserved time on the Friday before our scheduled departure to discuss the importance of and the relevance of the birth date of this Nation. Since our session for that day was canceled, this is my first chance to speak on that subject.

Nearby in the Capitol rotunda hang four paintings crafted from the hand of John Trumbull, one of George Washington's aides-de-camp during the Revolutionary War. In the first of them, members of the Second Continental Congress, now 232 years ago, signed their names to the Declaration of Independence, thereby formalizing a severance of the institutional bonds between the colonies and their mother country. Out of a ``decent respect for the opinions of mankind,'' they stated the reasons for this action in assiduous detail, invoking the ``laws of nature and of nature's God'' and the natural right of revolution because their inalienable natural rights had been abridged.

Twelve years later, after a long, exhausting, but ultimately successful war for independence, the people of this country were debating in ratifying conventions up and down the eastern half of our now expansive land whether to ratify or reject a new governmental framework for our experiment in self-government. That document, our Constitution, which Akhil Amar, perhaps understating the case, has called ``one of the most important legal texts in human history,'' would ultimately be approved, and thus would commence the beginning of our new government.

Today in the afterglow of the colorful commemoration of our national independence--and I might say I was fortunate enough to enjoy the fireworks at Kings Beach, California, and Incline Village, Nevada, as well as the city of Folsom Rodeo this past weekend--I rise to celebrate our twin pillars of freedom, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Madam Speaker, they are much more than dry pieces of parchment from centuries bygone. No. They are documents which embody the very notion of our independence, recognizing our unique quality of self-government and cementing our commitment to constitutionalism. Make no mistake, this was something much more than just and efficacious for mankind than that which had come before. Yes, we have much to celebrate.

Madam Speaker, these celebratory facts were not foreordained. As Carol Berkin has written, 1786, ``was the 10th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the third year of life in a new Nation, but political leaders everywhere feared there was little cause to celebrate. Dark clouds and a suffocating gloom seemed to have settled over the country, and these men understood that something had gone terribly wrong.

``From Virginia, George Washington lamented the steady stream of diplomatic humiliations suffered by the young Republic. Fellow Virginian, James Madison, talked gravely of mortal diseases afflicting the confederacy. In New Jersey, William Livingston confided to a friend his doubt that the Republic could survive another decade. From Massachusetts, the bookseller-turned revolutionary strategist, Henry Knox, declared, `Our present Federal Government is a name, a shadow without power or effect.' Feisty, outspoken John Adams, serving as America's minister to Great Britain, observed his Nation's circumstances with more than his usual pessimism. The United States, he declared, was doing more harm to itself than the British Army had ever done. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Monroe, Robert Morris, in short, many from every State, agreed that a serious crisis had settled upon the Nation. The question was: Could they do anything to save their country?''

The answer that came forth was a thunderous yes. They did do something to save their country. Our Constitution was the fruition of 4 long, hot months of deliberation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

On September 15, 1787, delegates there finalized a text, and 13 days later Congress, then meeting in New York, voted unanimously to send the proposed Constitution to the people of each State for ratification.

Madam Speaker, the framers of our Constitution articulated a new science of politics. It had been believed that republics were only feasible as small homogenous clusters and were most likely destined to fail, since Democratic governance could lead to the tyranny of the majority or demagogic usurpation of people's consent, sovereignty rights, and freedoms.

And so this new, unproven republican design was put before the people through the instrument of ratification. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, said that without ratification, the Constitution was like a dead letter. In fact, life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people, speaking through several State conventions.

Contrary to contrary expectations in the 21st century, popular ratification was a novel idea. Underscoring the boldness of their venture, several States even made their voting qualifications more inclusive than before so that more could partake in the ratification process.

And what a rich process it was. Brutus, Publius, Anti-federalists, Federalists. The debates over ratification still enlighten, inform, and reminds us of the seriousness with which we take our political system and the principles embedded within it.

So it's important for us to remember just a week after this grand Fourth that our history included framers, signers, and ratifiers, and as always, then as now, there were also those of us, merely we, the people.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote to the voters of New York in Federalist Paper No. 1, ``After an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting Federal Government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country by their conduct and example to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we arrived may, with propriety, be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made, and a wrong election of the part, we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.''

Thankfully, many agreed with Hamilton, and our Constitution is still intact today, 220 years later. In the intervening years, much has been written about how to appropriately interpret our Constitution. What do its clauses mean; what do its phrases imply; what is the scope of this or that respective enumerated or unenumerated power? How are we to approach or understand issues today that were unforeseen in 1787 or 1788?

Madam Speaker, I believe the constitutional interpretation should be a principled process, moored and anchored in the text, ascending up from the text, meaning context, and history

of the words, phrases, concepts and structures of the Constitution itself, not a deductive process says that begins by asking, as one former Justice, according to one of his former law clerks, used to ask, What is the just result, and working backward from the answer to that question to see how it would comport with relevant theory or precedent.

I am for ultimate justice, Madam Speaker. But such an untethered interpretative technique is neither just nor fair to the individuals in specific cases. Justice implies measurement by some objective standard in an appropriate and specified context, not in a free-ranging philosophy seminar that only tangentially touches upon the context for this particular discussion that is the Constitution of the United States.

Akhil Amar is right, ``A careful examination of constitutional text, history, and structure will often leave us with a clear answer. At other times, however, the most the document can yield is the right set of questions to ask ourselves.'' But this is no deficiency. As we all know, asking the right question is the first and most important step towards appropriate adjudication and resolution.

Now some have argued through our history that the Constitution is outdated and irrelevant to our contrary circumstances and lives. Outdated, irrelevant? How could it be, and what does that mean? For it to be outdated we'd have to ignore Chief Justice John Marshall's words when he said that, ``We must never forget it is a Constitution we are expounding.'' Why would he exhort us to elucidate something outdated and irrelevant?

One prominent Justice once said that Justices should adjudicate according to the felt necessities of the time. This is contrary to the thoughts of John Story, who wrote in his famous Commentaries that the Constitution has, ``a fixed, uniform, and permanent construction.'' To measure the felt necessities of the time is an impossible task. Whose necessities are to be felt; how are such feelings to be measured, is this the proper role of the judiciary, even if it were possible?

As Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78, the judicial branch was to have neither force nor will. In Osborne versus Bank of the United States, Justice Marshall said that the judicial department has no will in any case. Judicial power is never exercised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the judge, always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the legislature or, in other words, to the will of the law. Judicial power, as contradistinguished from the power of law, has no existence. Courts are mere instruments of the law, and can will nothing.''

Again, Story reminds us that the judge ought not to enlarge the construction of a given power beyond its fair scope of its terms merely because the restriction is inconvenient in politic or even mischievous. Since the Government of the United States is one of limited and enumerated powers, a departure from the true import and sense of its power is pro tanto in the establishment of a new constitution. It is doing for the people what they have not chosen to do for themselves. It is usurping the functions of a legislator and deserting those of an expounder of the law.''

In another case, Justice Marshall wrote, ``to say that the intention of the instrument must prevail; that this intention must be collected from its words; that its words to be understood in that sense in which they are generally used by those for whom the instrument was intended; that its provisions are neither to be restricted into insignificance, nor extended to objects not comprehended in them, nor contemplated by its framers; is to repeat what has already been said more at large and is all that can be necessary.''

Thus, the Constitution endeavors to draw the broad strokes of principle and dimension, not to articulate each and every iota of detail which may arise from the entire future of American history. In McCulloch versus Maryland, Chief Justice Marshall tells us, ``A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and can scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would, probably, never be understood by the public. Its nature therefore requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those limits be deduced from the nature ate of the objects themselves.

``That this idea was entertained by the Framers of the American Constitution is not only to be inferred from the nature of the instrument, but from the language. Why else were some of the limitations found in the ninth section of the first article introduced?

``It is also, in some degree, warranted by their having omitted to use any restrictive term which might prevent its receiving a fair and just interpretation. In considering this question, then, we must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding.''

In the Dartmouth College case, Marshall explained that, ``although a particular and rare case may not in itself be of sufficient magnitude to induce a rule, yet it must be governed by the rule when established unless some plain and strong reason for excluding it can be given. It is not enough to say that this particular case was not the mind of the convention when the article was framed, nor the American people when it was adopted. The case, being within the words of the rule, must be within its operation likewise.''

In contrast to those who believe that the Constitution is nothing but a set of policies which enjoy popular acceptance at the time of ratification, followed by judicial interpretation in light of the conditions and opinions of later years, I would agree with the esteemed judge and scholar, Michael McConnell, who has written that, ``constitutional language is an embodiment of legal principles; it is necessary to understand those principles in order to understand the Constitution.'' It would be most unwise to separate and detach all interpretive ties to the text and context of the actual document as well as to the structure and concepts with it because, Madam Speaker, once that is done, we now would be playing a deductive game of polling and power based on the momentary whims of the people and the magnified moods of missionary-minded judges.

Constitutional jurisprudence must be more than the inevitable byproduct of different political and social milieus. In the traditional enterprise of constitutional law, the meaning of the Constitution is seen to be a legitimate question for historical interpretive inquiry. I would argue this should not change.

Madam Speaker, our Declaration and Constitution are worth celebrating here tonight because of the unique framework they give us to govern ourselves to prosper by offering ourselves economically, socially, and societally according to the rule of law and to attempt to discern the common good. It also allows individual citizens and communities the capacity and volition to decide for themselves whether to shrink from or rise to doing their duty as citizens and individuals, since republicanism empowers the people.

So this is our challenge. As de Tocqueville said, ``in Democratic times especially, the true friends of freedom and human greatness must be on guard because an inordinate amount of individualism can lead to self-seclusion, fear, and temerity.

But it doesn't have to be this way. As Harvey Mansfield has reminded us, our constitutional system allows for democratic greatness to appear in individuals with extraordinary knowledge, vision and ability, but such individuals are always constrained by constitutional boundaries.

More importantly, since our system recognizes the fallibility of our human nature, it does not depend on honor and virtue being constantly present in the executive or in positions of legislative or judicial leadership. Thankfully, our constitutional system allows for ideas and societal passions to be filtered through the vortex of time, transparency and deliberation.

As Federalist No. 10 says, ``As long as the reason of man continues fallible and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other and the former will be objects to which the latter will

attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate is not less an insuperable obstacle to the uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.''

And then he says something very interesting. ``The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity according to the different circumstances of civil society. It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interests which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.''

So, Madam Speaker, given the potential for evil intrinsic within human nature, our framers were wise not to give man too much credit, but not so pessimistic as to regulate themselves to fatalistic hopelessness.

Our system of checks, balances and federalism allows for the refining and enlarging of public views. As Madison writes in Federalist 55, ``As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.''

Madam Speaker, the history of the past 220 years teaches us that we do not need the chains of despotism to restrain ourselves from self- mutilation. Our Constitution has served and continues to serve us well in times of intense societal debate and in times of relative calm.

Herman Belz has written that ``the framers intended the Constitution as a permanent instrument of government for the American people and that instrument has proven to be quite remarkable.''

Several years ago, a former Associate Justice of our Supreme Court said that ``the Union survived the Civil War, the Constitution did not. In its place arose a new, more promising basis for justice and equality, the 14th amendment.''

I would humbly disagree with that assessment. The Constitution is the Constitution because of its amendability, whereby it allowed for just such a development as the 14th amendment to take place, fulfilling its original purpose, that is, to devise a system of government presupposing the equality of persons under the law.

One current Justice has recently said that ``the Constitution evolves and should reflect changes in society; that going back to what was meant originally when they wrote, for instance, `We the People' makes little sense.''

I disagree. It does make sense. ``We the People'' did institute this government, or else under what court and government does the Justice now serve, since this government is the one constituted in 1789 and in continuation to this day? Thankfully, we, unlike any other government then established on earth, set up a constitutional framework that allowed for changes to be made according to the orderly deliberation of society through representation and the legitimacy of the legislative process.

Let us not forget, as Akhil Amar has said, that ``the framers themselves also were, after all, revolutionaries who risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to replace an Old World monarchy with a New World order unprecedented in its commitment to popular self-government. Later generations of reformers repeatedly amended the Constitution so as to extend its liberal foundations, dramatically expanding liberty and equality.''

Thankfully, throughout our history we have had leaders and statesmen who were committed to constitutionalism and not to power and might. After all, as Lincoln said in his first inaugural, ``If, by the mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution.''

As Federalist 71 stated, ``The Republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs, but it does not require an unqualified complacence to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive.''

Madam Speaker, none of us has the right to oppress minorities, let majorities rule tyrannically or turn the Constitution into a grab bag of personal policy preferences and arbitrary power grabs. We all have a responsibility to study the Constitution and attempt to humbly delineate the contours of confluence between constitutional principle and our contemporary realities to which it has applied.

Each of us has a duty to do this. After all, each member of the three representative branches takes an oath to ``support and defend,'' or to ``preserve, protect and defend'' the Constitution of the United States. We must take those oaths seriously. We must take the 9th amendment seriously, which states, ``The enumeration of the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.''

We must take the 10th amendment seriously, which states, ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.''

These are important clauses and should not be forgotten, lest we forget the accumulation instead of the dispersion of power is the very reason we sought our independence, unless we assume self-government is free, easy, and passively perpetual.

And in this regard, I would refer to Alexander Hamilton's words in the Federalist Papers No. 78, where he described his vision of the judiciary as one of the three major branches. And these are his words: ``Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power,'' they referred to the branches as ``departments,'' ``whoever attentively considers the different departments of power, must perceive that in a government in which they are separated from each other the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution.''

He goes on to say, ``It proves incontestably that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power, that it can never attack with success either of the other two, and that all possible care is requisite to enable it to defend itself against attack.''

But then he goes on to make an interesting point that is often lost. He says, ``As liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.''

What he is saying in current vernacular is that if the judiciary ever trespasses on the proper powers of the other two branches, it will become the most dangerous. He is suggesting that in the area of the activity of the democratic branches of government, that is those who are elected by the people and most readily subject to their action, the executive, and particularly the legislative, that if any of their power is encumbered, encroached, trespassed upon or poached by the judiciary, it would become, rather than the weakest, the most dangerous branch of government.

That is why I would suggest that we ought to look at the words of Chief Justice Roberts when he was up for his confirmation hearings in the Senate. When asked what his philosophy was, among other things he said, ``One of judicial modesty.'' I have often used the word ``judicial humility,'' and what I

mean by that is a recognition of the limitations of the expanse of their power.

Judge Andrew Kleinfeld of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in his dissent in Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington case in 1996 said these words: ``That a question is important does not imply that it is constitutional. The Founding Fathers did not establish the United States as a democratic republic so that elected officials would decide trivia while all great questions would be decided by the judiciary. That an issue is important does not mean that the people through their democratically elected representatives do not have the power to decide it. One might suppose that the general rule in a democratic republic would be the opposite, with a few exceptions.''

One of the proper understandings of the Constitution, Madam Speaker, is that there are limitations for all three branches of government, including the judiciary, and that the judiciary, if it makes a mistake of reaching beyond what its role ought to be, destroys the intrinsic value and purpose of the other two.

To put it another way, Justice Scalia said a number of years ago in a speech, he said when he was a kid growing up and you saw something that you didn't like or you thought that was wrong, your response was there ought to be a law. But he says, today if you see something you don't like or something you think is wrong, your response is, it is unconstitutional.

Now, those are just a few words changed in your response. Your emotional response to the situation is the same, maybe even your intellectual response to the substance is the same, but your response in terms of the manner by which you address the problem is so different that it radically changes the substance as well as the environment.

What do I mean by that? When an issue is determined to be constitutional, it becomes ultimately the final decisionmaking arena of the courts. It is taken out of the hands of the democratic branches, because the democratic branches cannot, unless they enact a formal amendment to the Constitution, cannot do anything to overturn that decision by the court.

So if we define every important issue as a constitutional issue, we are rendering impotent to a degree both the executive, but, more importantly in my judgment, Madam Speaker, the legislative branch, and particularly the House of Representatives.

So as we should understand the reach and limits of our branch, as the executive branch should understand the reach and limitations of their branch, so ought the judicial branch.

Madam Speaker, today, because of the Declaration and the Constitution, we do not live under the perverted political thumb of the divine right of kings, under the specter of religious persecution and bloody religious wars, under monarchy, or feudalism. For that we are thankful.

We are not a blood and soil Nation. We are a propositional Nation, committed to the equal natural rights of all citizens to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness, not to the immediate satisfaction of momentary appetites. We are a Constitutional system in a multifaceted society that guards against the twin evils that may be found in popular democratic government: Majority tyranny on the one hand, and demagoguery on the other. Our mediating institutions, whether they are families, whether they are churches, and our voluntary associations are so important because they temper our unrestrained passions.

Madam Speaker, the Declaration and Constitution can edify and teach Americans about our history as a people. Ours is a history that includes millions of honorable citizens and numerous men and women of extraordinary contribution:

Men like Roger Sherman, who was one of only two men who signed the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. He was a delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses. He was a member of the five-man committee formed to draft the Declaration of Independence, and a member of the Committee of Thirteen formed to comprise the Articles of Confederation. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he actually delivered more speeches than all but three others. He was instrumental in the Great Compromise, was a Member of the first U.S. House of Representatives, later served in the Senate, where he played important roles in the debate over the Bill of Rights and the national bank.

Or men like John Dickinson, a Quaker from Delaware and Pennsylvania who served both States as the elected chief executive. Dickinson wrote the instrumental Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania, which circulated in 1767 and 1768; was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in October of 1765, where he drafted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances. A member of the first and second Continental Congresses, Dickinson was a principal draftsman of the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms issued in July 1775, and one of Delaware's delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Or, finally, men like James Wilson, who made more speeches than anyone at the Constitutional Convention, than Governor Morris, served on the Supreme Court and articulated so eloquently the principles of natural rights our Declaration and Constitution were meant to protect.

Madam Speaker, a few years ago, the esteemed historian Bernard Bailyn wrote a short series of essays which he entitled To Begin the World Anew. Taking his title from the hopes and pens of Thomas Paine, in this splendid and fascinating collection of essays he explained how the Founders, including those just like the ones I mentioned, were provincial, they were isolated, they were unaristocratic; yet their perseverance, imagination, and vision were not inhibited, leading to what Carol Berkin has called, ``A brilliant solution: Our Constitution.'' Indeed, it was and is.

Several years ago, it was written that, ``At the dawn of a new millennium, constitutional law is at risk of losing touch with the Constitution itself. A dense doctrinal grid threatens to obscure the document with generally unfortunate consequences. The Constitution is wiser than the Court. The document will outlast many of today's doctrines, and it provides a stable fulcrum from which to criticize some of the Court's less admirable adventures.''

Let this always be the case. For as John Ely has written, ``Though the identification of a constitutional connection is only the beginning of analysis, it is a necessary beginning. The Court is under an obligation to trace its premises to the charter from which it derived its authority. It should do this for many reasons, none other than the fact that what the American people have said and done in the Constitution is often more edifying, inspiring, and sensible than what the justices have said and done in the case law.''

Madam Speaker, today our Declaration and Constitution should be celebrated, not as mere icons or cultural symbols that immature societies need to give them cultural and simplistic cohesion. No, the Declaration and the Constitution should be celebrated for what they really are, demarcations of our commitments as a people to as wise a system as possible, given our human fallibility of government here on Earth.

I happen to agree with a current Member of the Senate who said, ``I have a deep-seated belief that America is unique, strong and great, because of a commitment to personal freedom, in our economic system and our politics. We are a free people who consented to be governed, not vice versa.''

I would also agree with the aspiration of Justice John Marshall Harlan, who wrote, ``In the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.''

Madam Speaker, 1776 was not a year free of bloodshed and hardship. It was anything but. We are now over 22 decades removed from those events, 22 decades which have seen our great country

grow, prosper, suffer, mourn, rejoice, exalt, and contemplate while our lives and the lives around us were changed by technological, political, international, and societal change.

We today honor those who sacrificed on the fields and hills of Lexington, Concord, Breed's Hill, Princeton, Saratoga, and Yorktown. We honor all those who sweated, debated, argued, thought, reasoned, wrote, and ratified the document by which we all do our collective best and our collective business here in Congress, in the White House, in the Supreme Court, and in this great country and society full of families, communities, localities, counties, and States.

So let our twin pillars always guide, always steer, and always stay firm, tall, and strong as we continue to humbly exist as one of the many on this earth, yet one incomparable as to the rest. The Declaration and the Constitution, let us always declare, and let us continue to constitute our experiment in republican self-government in such a way that we pay due deference to those who have come before, and make proud those who will come after.

Happy birthday, United States of America.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 52 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, July 14, 2008, at 12:30 p.m., for morning-hour debate.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in opposition to this bill for the reasons stated by the gentleman from Virginia. We could have had a bill here with bipartisan support dealing with the problems as they truly exist, but instead, we have this bill on the floor.

The gentleman that just spoke on the other side of the aisle talked about the fact that we had unprecedented action by this administration and therefore we need to act. The fact of the matter is that what is unprecedented, what is unprecedented is the tremendous increase that we have had in the cost of gasoline to average Americans back home.

I just got back from my district. I had two town hall meetings. I met with people at a local gas station. I talked with many, many other people. They didn't want to know about what we were going to do about electronic record keeping, and I do disappoint the gentleman. That was not on the tip of their tongues. That was not in the back of their brain. They never even thought about it. Frankly, they think we could do that some time else. As a matter of fact, since this bill doesn't take place until another year, we could do it another time.

What we should be doing here is responding to the American people who are saying, When are you people going to get your act together?

So I came back hoping that I could find the electronic communications, the secret e-mails of the Democratic leadership as to what we're going to do about energy. And what I found was the statement by one of the aides to one of the top Democrat leaders, and this is their energy plan: Right now, our strategy is drive small cars and wait for the wind. Drive small cars and wait for the wind.

I hope everybody across this land understands what the Democratic plan for energy appears to be. It basically means, listen, to those of you back home, sit down and shut up; you don't know what you're talking about. We've got more important things to do. We have to rush back and deal with the electronic record keeping bill because that is what is going to be most important to the American people.

Now, I don't know about you, but I haven't found a single person in my district who drives with a wind-driven car. And I'm all for wind energy, and I'm all for solar energy. They want to know when we're going to do something about bringing the cost down.

Now soon, we might hear from the Democratic side they're going to bring a bill to suspend the laws of economics, and they're going to tell us that supply and demand no longer prevail. Maybe that's the new magic we're waiting for. But that won't satisfy the people in my district. I'm in a small community in the foothills. The people I met in the Delta, in Rio Vista, the folks I met in Citrus Heights, the folks I was talking to in the Sacramento area, they demand that we do something now. And what we ought to be doing is drill here. That's in America. Drill now. Not 10 years from now. And pay less.

Now you can hear all the arguments that it's not going to make any difference. If it's not going to make any difference, why do we hear from the Speaker of the House that their first step with dealing with this is to empty the Strategic Petroleum Reserve claiming that that's going to make a big impact on the world market? At least they're saying that supply does matter. If supply really matters, then let's not tell the American people, as we hear now from the Democrats, drive small cars and wait for the wind, or as we hear from the Senator from Illinois who said that he's not so upset about the price of gasoline going up, it's that it went up so fast. It would have been better for us if the price of gasoline had gone up more slowly and continued on. That's not an energy policy.

So while I respect the work of the chairman of the subcommittee and the committee on this issue, and as important as electronic message preservation is, it pales, it pales compares to the energy needs of the American people. And certainly we can do better. We ought to demand we do better. We ought to do better or not go home at all.

Mr. Speaker, I have been informed that the rules of the House do not allow me to wear a lapel pin or a lapel sign, so I had to take this off. I was going to use this chart, but I thought, maybe, since the rules allow it, I would take this pin off and put it here so people can see what it says. It says, simply, ``Drill here. Drill now. Pay less.''

It is also symbolic of the smallness of the area that would be affected if we went offshore or if we went to ANWR. It would have to be about a pin dot here of this size to display what it would actually represent in ANWR versus all of Alaska.

Drill here in the United States. American resources. Drill now, not 20 years from now, not 30 years from now. Now. Pay less. As the futures market would look at the change in policy and would recognize that we're no longer going to hamstring ourselves, they would begin to understand that prices would not go up as fast as they have been going, and we would begin to pay less.

Drill here. Drill now. Pay less for the American people.

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

Mr. Speaker, while we wait to find out what we are going to do tomorrow and whether there will be a real energy bill presented to this floor, or some more energy fluff, I do rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 377 which would authorize use of the rotunda of the Capitol to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the integration of the United States Armed Forces.

On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which provided for the equal treatment of blacks serving in the military. We should remember that previous attempts had been made to integrate the Armed Forces. In fact, during our Revolutionary War, approximately 5,000 African Americans served in integrated units. They served in many different capacities, including as artillerymen infantrymen, laborers, and even entertainers. Each served our Nation proudly, protecting the freedoms that they themselves had not yet come to know.

With a new century, though, came political realities that would once again segregated the military. Nearly 50 years passed until once again blacks and whites were able to stand shoulder to shoulder, as a unit defined not by color, but by a commitment to freedom and love of country. President Truman's executive order to integrate the military also laid the groundwork for other minorities to gain those same rights, paving the way for the diverse group of men and women of all backgrounds who today serve in our military.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H. Con. Res. 377, so we may mark the historic occasion of the integration of our Nation's Armed Forces with a ceremony here in our Nation's capital at the Capitol rotunda in a manner that would truly honor the sacrifice that men and women of all backgrounds have made to our Nation throughout history.

As I understand the gentlelady has no further speakers, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that goes: Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

Well, what we have in the United States is oil, oil everywhere, and not a drop to drill. That is the slogan of the Congress led by our friends on the other side of the aisle.

If you look at this map, you will see we have made off-limits some of the most potentially productive oil reserves and natural gas reserves not only in this country but in the world. It makes no sense whatsoever.

This week, instead of us addressing the problem this way, our friends on the other side of the aisle are going to bring us sue, sue, sue laws. That is, we are going to not drill our way out of this problem, we are going to sue our way out of the problem. The American people understand that's not the way to get us going.

Let's use American ingenuity, American creativity and technology to safely drill off our shores here in the United States so that we can become energy independent.

As we are coming up close to July 4, let's strike a blow for independence. Let's do something meaningful.

Madam Speaker, soon we will be breaking for the July 4 district work period. July 4, Independence Day. But what are we doing about making us, the American people, independent of foreign oil and foreign energy? If you look at the record in this House, absolutely nothing.

The first response we had from the majority was denial. They say this supply will do nothing. Well, of course it will do nothing unless you explore it and produce it.

Then they say energy will be produced by lawsuit. We have got a bill coming out of the Judiciary Committee. Sue, sue, sue, and somehow that is going to give you more energy.

The American people are smart. They understand that if we have a precious resource granted to us, we ought to use it.

Independence Day, July 4. Why can't we bring at least one bill to the floor that would begin to give us energy independence?

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4044, the National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Act of 2008. I am happy that the House is considering today this bipartisan legislation.

As the gentleman from Michigan, the chairman of the committee mentioned, several years ago we passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. The purpose was to ensure that bankruptcy procedures were still allowed for those who needed them, and yet the abuses that we had seen in the years leading up to the bill would be reduced if not eliminated. It received bipartisan support.

Today's bill deals with a part of that scene that needs to be addressed and addressed immediately. Republicans strongly support the mission and appreciate the sacrifice of our dedicated reservists and guardsmen. As many people know, we rely far more on our National Guard and Reservists in the conflict that we have ongoing in the Middle East today than we have in previous conflicts. That was a conscious decision by the Congress of the United States over the last couple of decades.

As a result, many, many more dedicated reservists and guardsmen are assuming responsibility in areas of conflict. We agree that reservists and guardsmen who are plunged into bankruptcy by the demands of their service should be given a helping hand under the bankruptcy code.

In committee, Republicans labored long and hard to achieve a workable compromise that would help these serving men and women. The major issue for committee Republicans was simple--that the bill respond to bankruptcies attributable to a reservist's or guardsman's service.

This bill does not perfectly meet that concern. However, it is part of the art of compromise and it meets it sufficiently for committee Republicans to support passage.

It does this first by requiring an important study by the GAO. The study will examine the degree to which bankruptcies benefiting from the bill are indeed attributable to service, as we hope they will be.

The study thus will help us to be sure of whether reservists and guardsmen are using the relief granted by the bill when it is their service that leads to

bankruptcy. And the study must be completed promptly within 2 years of enactment.

Secondly, the bill includes a 3-year sunset. When we are asked to reauthorize the bill, we will have the GAO study and report. And we will know for sure how the bill is working, and if it needs to be modified, how it should be modified. It is not my expectation that it would be abused, but if it is, we would be able to address that at the time the reauthorization is considered.

With these requirements added, I am pleased to support passage of the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California, one of the major sponsors of this bill, active sponsor of this bill, Mr. Dana Rohrabacher.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Once again I would just repeat this is a bipartisan bill brought to this floor with strong bipartisan support. Hopefully we will get a unanimous vote in favor of it. This is something that recognizes the unique situation our reservists and guardsmen and women are placed in when they leave the jobs that they have, go back to the theater of war, serve us well and run into difficulties as a result of that service from a financial standpoint.

We all agree that they should receive relief. I would hope that we can get people on the other side of the aisle to also agree that they ought to get relief from these extraordinary, out-of-character, unprecedented high gas prices that we have. What a shock it must be for our reservists and guardsmen to leave this country and do service for this country in a foreign land and then

return and find out that in the period of time they have been gone, all of a sudden gas prices have risen $1.50, $1.70, before they were even able to return.

So hopefully as we grant relief in this small particular area of bankruptcy law, we might also think about the relief not only for reservists and guardsmen but all Americans from the extraordinary costs that they are now being called upon to pay in the area of energy.

It is not just at the gas tank, it is rippling through the economy because transportation costs are built into the cost of just about everything that we have, and our friends on the other side of the aisle say, well, we will bring a lawsuit, maybe that will do something. Wind, solar, I support those, but I have yet to find a wind-powered car in my district, or a solar-powered car in my district.

And creeping up on us, although we are now involved in the middle of summer, the beginning of summer, but it feels like the middle of summer with the heat that is out there, creeping up on us is the extraordinary increase that we are seeing in the cost of natural gas. Natural gas supplies a good bit of the heating for the winter that we will find come November and December.

I have been informed that in California electricity is produced at least 60 percent by natural gas. We don't have to wait for our heating fuel. We can worry about the concerns that we have with air- conditioning supplied by electricity.

So all I'm saying, Madam Speaker, is that as we work on worthy legislation like this, there is other worthy legislation out there. And all we ask is what the American people ask: Give us a vote. Give us a chance to prove that the reserves that are available in the United States, American reserves, American oil, American natural gas, be utilized for Americans. If our enemy was doing this to us, we would be in a fighting mood, but unfortunately through our Congress, we're doing it to ourselves.

So at some point in time, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, we might be able to prevail on the other side to understand that supply makes a difference and help us bring those costs down as a result of increasing the product that is available to Americans from American sources.

Once again, Madam Speaker, I support H.R. 4044, the National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Act of 2008.

I yield to my good friend from Michigan, the chairman.

Madam Speaker, of course I cannot address the gentleman directly under the rules. So through the Chair, I would just say that yes, shale oil and tar sands are important. We happen to be the Saudi Arabia of those certain resources of God, placed here for us to use, and yet for one reason or another, we're almost afraid to use the world ``drill.'' So I appreciate the chairman using the word ``drill'' three different times. That doesn't mean going to the dentist. That means drill for oil, drill for natural gas. That will be something which will help the American people.

So I would just say that I don't need my leadership to tell me about it. All I need to do is go home and see the prices of gasoline. All I need to do is listen to people. Seventy-some percent of the American people now, by the latest Fox poll, say they want more drilling, they want more production in America. The only group that doesn't have a 70- some percent support of it is this group, the House of Representatives. Either we're behind the times or we're ahead of the times. And I suspect we're behind the times.

And all I'm doing is asking my good friend, the chairman from Michigan, to understand that the people of Michigan suffer as much as the people of California when we fail to understand that we have resources that we could use. We ought to use American technology to develop American energy rather than having it developed all around the world.

Oh, and by the way, oil spills. They come from tankers. They come from tankers, not from offshore rigs. We ought to understand the more we're dependent upon foreign oil, the more tankers that supply the oceans and a greater possibility of a problem which would cause difficulty on our beaches and those beautiful waves that my friend from California enjoys surfing on in California.

I yield back the balance of my time.