Floor Statements

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

H.R. 5853 has been adequately explained by the Democrat bill manager, and we have no objections to the legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, we have no other requests for speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I believe the bill has been explained very well, and I do support the bill.

I have no other speakers, and I yield back my time.

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

Madam Speaker, this is an effort that's been adequately explained, and I support the legislation.

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

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

This legislation, H.R. 5335, has been explained by the good manager of the bill, and we support the legislation.

I would like to, at this time, acknowledge the bill's author, Congressman Zach Wamp, and of course Congressman Shuler. Both of them have asked me and asked the leadership of the Resources Committee to move this legislation.

I support the legislation because it does recognize the angst of those that marched on this trail. I strongly compliment both of those gentlemen for their hard work.

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

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

I want to thank Congressman Lamborn for initiating this National Park Service study of Camp Hale so Americans can appreciate the events that occurred during World War II and the Cold War because people forget about the Cold War. A lot of activity went on.

The Tennessee Pass and Camp Hale served as the training site for the 10th Mountain Division, a specialized skiing unit whose heroism during World War II inspired our Nation. Later the site was used for covert training operations furthering the cause of freedom during the Cold War.

Colorado today benefits from the ski area and the educational opportunities presented by this unique landmark. Listing Tennessee Pass and Camp Hale as a unit of the National Park Service will allow us to learn about and experience this unique piece of history.

Madam Speaker, I urge passage of this legislation and yield back the balance of my time.

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

I would like to commend Congressman Rob Bishop and his staff for their hard work and diligence on this land conveyance. I would also like to thank Chairman Rahall for allowing this bill to go forward.

This legislation will help the community of Box Elder, Utah, gain much needed land and help the Forest Service better meet its management needs.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I wish to congratulate Congresswoman Musgrave on this bill. H.R. 3299 provides a legislative solution for a number of homeowners in Larimer County, Colorado, who own real property adjacent to the Roosevelt National Forest and have occupied or improved their property in good faith and in reliance on 1975 land surveys.

A recent forest resurvey now claims that a small portion of the Roosevelt National Forest is occupied by these adjacent land owners. This bill conveys approximately seven acres occupied by the affected landowners to those landowners and is long overdue.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to support the resolution authored by Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Doc Hastings, and the entire State of Washington delegation.

The Grand Coulee Dam is the largest concrete structure ever built in the United States, with enough concrete to build a sidewalk around the Earth twice. The dam helped us win World War II by providing much needed electricity to build fighter planes and naval ships. The dam was also constructed to provide flood control, recreation and irrigation.

Today, it serves over 600,000 acres of irrigated cropland which feeds consumers nationwide and around the world.

As you know, we have major energy problems in this Nation. The Grand Coulee Dam is an example of what our country has done right. It's a shining beacon of clean, renewable, domestic energy. In 2006, the dam provided 22,000 gigawatts of emission-free hydroelectricity. This translates into the reduction of 18 million tons of carbon dioxide, into 55,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and into 44,000 tons of nitrogen oxide.

Without this clean form of energy, 36.4 barrels of fuel oil, 10.7 million tons of coal or 223 billion cubic feet of natural gas will have to be used to keep the lights on. In fact, Grand Coulee is so environmentally friendly that the NBC Today Show focused solely on the dam as part of the Earth Day broadcast.

Despite the consensus that hydropower is clean, renewable and emissions-free, the Democrat leadership continues to exclude long-term hydropower resources, such as the Grand Coulee Dam, as part of its proposed renewable portfolio standard. This is logic-free given the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that I just mentioned. We hope the Democrats come to their senses and see the reality that large hydropower sources should be counted as a renewable resource in future bills.

Madam Speaker, this resolution couldn't be brought up at a better time. I strongly support the 75th anniversary of the Grand Coulee Dam.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

H.R. 6685 reauthorizes a vital educational grant program to train members of federally recognized Indian tribes to become ironworkers. By the way, they are outstanding ironworkers, and they always have been. They built the City of New York and New Jersey, itself, and I have to recognize their capabilities.

This apprentice program has trained thousands of Native Americans over the years, providing graduates with careers, earning above-average wages. Graduates of this program have been a significant source of economic support in their tribal communities. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Congressman Jim Saxton, who has worked tirelessly on this legislation and to have it scheduled for floor debate today. He cannot be here because he is en route.

He has had a long and distinguished career championing ocean and coastal causes in the House of Representatives. He will be missed as he retires at the end of this Congress. I thank him for his service and for his leadership on the Natural Resources Committee as well as for his being a former Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee member. I wish him good winds and fair seas in his next voyage in life.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I will recognize Mrs. Musgrave from Colorado for as much time as she may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to introduce legislation today which will transfer property from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Maniilaq Association in Kotzebue, Alaska. This transfer would occur through the Indian Health Service, the current owners of the properties.

Since 1995, Maniilaq Association, a Native non-profit entity in Kotzebue, Alaska has carried out a comprehensive health care delivery program to residents in Kotzebue, Alaska and the Northwest Arctic Borough. They have carried out these responsibilities under the Alaska Tribal Health Compact and Funding Agreement negotiated annually with the Indian Health Service. These agreements give Maniilaq Association the right to acquire title to all federal property that they have utilized to provide these health care services.

Currently, the Indian Health Service owns the properties that Maniilaq Association uses to carry out its health care delivery services. While there is an administrative process in place for them to acquire these properties, the process is cumbersome and sometimes may take years to accomplish the goal of acquiring these properties. Thus, Maniilaq Association is asking for legislation to acquire the properties listed in my legislation.

Madam Speaker, we are not setting a precedent with this legislation. Congress, in the past, has enacted legislation which transfers excess government properties to non-profits such as Maniilaq Association.

My legislation would authorize the Secretary of the Health and Human Services, through the Indian Health Service, to transfer to the Maniilaq Association by a warranty deed to a number of parcels of land legally described in my legislation.

I am pleased to introduce this legislation on behalf of Maniilaq Association to allow them to continue with their health care delivery programs and to provide better services to their patients and residents of the Northwest Arctic Borough.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Carlos Boozer, Corey Cogdell, and Matt Emmons, three Alaskans who recently returned from competing in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. These three Alaskans, joined by their fellow athletes from across the country, traveled to Beijing, and represented the United States in an extraordinary manner. The U.S. Olympic team distinguished the United States from other nations by winning 110 medals, the most of any country. Carlos Boozer, Corey Cogdell, and Matt Emmons each won medals, and boldly represented the United States in their specific competitions.

I truly believe that the importance of the contributions of these three talented Alaskan athletes to our country cannot be overstated, which is why it is important that we honor their great accomplishments. For this reason I am introducing the following resolution to honor these three athletes for their accomplishments and representation of our country.

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

(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, I rise in the strongest possible opposition to this ill-conceived, if it was conceived at all, legislation.

I don't know how many of you ever saw the Peter Pan story, the movie, or even read it. This is a Peter Pan story. You know, they have the imaginary bowls, the bowls that were not imaginary but they were empty, and they convinced Peter Pan, Robin Williams, to use his imagination and the bowls will be full of food.

And this is what you're doing today, Mr. Chairman, and the people that wrote this bill, who we do not know who did write it. Use your imagination. We're going to have the oil for everything because this bill produces oil.

It produces nothing. This is a Peter Pan story. It's a figment of the imagination. It is a political gimmick. It is a sham on the American people.

Shame on this House, that the courage wasn't there for the leadership to go on both sides of the aisle, listen to those that have some expertise in this problem we are facing today, the high cost of energy, and work together and pass an energy solution to a problem that produces not only fossil fuels but other forms of fuel, that solves the problems for the commuter who has to go to work. And Mr. and Mrs. Commuter, if you think this bill today that came out of this leadership on that side produces one bit of relief to you as you drive to work, don't believe it. Go see Peter Pan. That's all this bill is.

It has nothing in there to produce energy. In fact, it probably will drive down the ability to produce energy. It will help foreign countries.

I just heard my chairman talk about Big Oil, how bad Big Oil is, and put the blame on Big Oil. Where do you think you're getting your oil today as you put it in your tank? From Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Chavez, foreign countries that have control of us right now. We ought to be talking about that. Forget talking about Big Oil, because this body, and I've said it before on this floor of the House, both sides of the aisle have not seized the ability to solve the energy problem by developing fossil fuels.

Coal. There's nothing in this bill about coal to liquification or gasification. There's nothing in this bill about nuclear power. There's nothing in this bill that produces any energy. In fact, this bill takes land that's open now and closes it, and take lands that was closed and opens it, but it happens to be 50 miles offshore. Any oil in between there can't be developed.

And by the way, my good friends, if any State contiguous to decides not to have it drill 50 miles and out they can say no, and they will say no because there's no revenue sharing in this bill. None.

It is probably the best way to call this bill the Venezuela, Russian, Middle East Oil Production Act, because you're protecting the foreign countries under this legislation.

I don't know why I'm getting worked up about it because we all know this is a political gimmick. It's never going to go anywhere. It's not going to become law. But it will give some people cover to say, I voted for more drilling and more production. This bill does not do that.

It will increase energy costs. And I'm a little concerned on both sides of the aisle again because oil has dropped down to $93 a barrel today. You know, if that would have happened last year we would have said, my God, the world's coming to an end. Oil went to $93. But it was $145, and we are being lulled into this type of legislation saying we're going to solve the problem and nothing is occurring to solve the problems of the American consumer. We're right where we were last year and the year before that, and that's wrong.

It does leave out ANWR. I wasn't going to bring up that, but the closest, quickest way to produce a million barrels a day to the United States was to open ANWR. No, we left that out. Can't happen. A million barrels a day for the next maybe hundred years, for the American consumer. Every barrel would have gone to the United States of America. A little provision says you can't export any of this oil to overseas. We're not exporting oil, we're consuming it. But we're consuming most of our oil from overseas, paying the foreign countries the oil prices today because you have not come to this floor, not one hearing in our committee on this issue.

This bill was written in the midnight. I shouldn't say the midnight, the midnight sun. I would say it was written in the darkness of night. And introduced last night, had the rule last night, 500 pages. I have read it, and it produces nothing.

You can get more energy out of this bill, ladies and gentlemen, if you take all the copies of the bill and put it in a bonfire. And that is not good for this House of this Nation. You had the opportunity.

Now, I don't understand, really, why anybody would support this legislation at all because we're committing something wrong to the American people. We had a chance.

I see people from oil-producing States over on that side. Why did you buy into the concept we wanted to bring a bill to the floor that does nothing but say I helped develop more oil when it doesn't do it?

If you believe that, you would have let us have this bill, 2 weeks, 3, 4 weeks ago, but you didn't because you know when it finally gets out to the public and they start understanding what's occurring, that the public will understand, yes, it was a sham.

And I'm tired of politics on oil in this body. We have a Speaker that believes that we have to save the planet because we can't burn any more fossil fuel. If that's the case, then let's admit it. I believe this is what she believes, and I think that's sad.

I believe we ought to say, okay, we do have to have fossil fuels and we can develop the other forms of energy but it takes time. We need that bridge. This bill doesn't do that.

So we're going to come back here next year, the public will be hoodwinked. The public will have high prices again, nothing will be done.

If we're really wise, we'd take this bill today, totally defeat it, send it back and work across the aisle for the American people, work across the aisle for solutions that would no longer have the yoke not of Big Oil around our necks, the yoke of the foreign countries that took those billions of dollars. The largest transfer of American wealth in history occurred because this body didn't act correctly and did not develop the resources so we wouldn't have to transfer that wealth overseas, and we did it.

So we have a responsibility to defeat this legislation. It was conceived in the dark. Who the father is, I do not know. But we do know it's not legitimate.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Again, I have great respect for my friend from Texas, and I understand the pressure he's under.

But just think for a minute. There's no real offshore exploration in their bill. There's no renewables in their bill. There's no oil shale in their bill. Of course there's no ANWR in their bill. There's no nuclear in their bill. There's no clean coal to coal to liquids in their bill. There's no new refinery capacity in their bill.

There is no electricity price hike control in their bill. And most of all, there is no lawsuit reform in their bill.

This bill is, in fact, a ``no'' bill: no energy, no energy, no energy.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Texas and the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee be allowed to control 21 minutes of the general debate time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

The gentleman from West Virginia was giving a history lesson a moment ago. We passed ANWR on this House 10 times, never got out of the Democrat Senate side because of filibuster, and Bill Clinton vetoed it. And my candidate has sort of changed his mind with his new Vice Presidential candidate, who is going to be the next Vice President of the United States, who strongly supports drilling in ANWR.

I am convinced with her great personality and her knowledge, she will be able to convince him the right way, more than we do Mr. Obama.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).

Madam Speaker, first, let me say I'm very supportive of this legislation. And I understand the fiscal responsibility. I understand that those that say we're taking $8 billion and we're not having an offset. Remember we, this body, borrowed the money. And I want to compliment Mr. Oberstar on the history of what occurred in 1998 and where we are today. So we're really paying back what we borrowed. And that's part of the principle about, I call it an obligation, a man's word, or a woman's word, to someone else.

We borrowed that money from the taxpayers that paid at the pump, and very frankly, we spent it for other purposes, be it put the debt down, et cetera, that's not why we paid that 18.2 cents per gallon. We paid it for an infrastructure system.

Having said that, we have another problem. Our infrastructure is falling apart. When I was chairman of the Transportation Committee, I asked for a five-cent increased tax on gasoline. And very frankly, my side of the aisle and my President said, no, and we're further behind today than we were when I first suggested that. We ended up with $286 billion instead of $216 billion, but not nearly enough.

There's no one in this Nation today that can tell me that our transportation is keeping up. It is falling further behind each day, each day; and when we do that, we add to the debt of this Nation because our economy is based upon the ability to move product and people. If we can't do that, we have no economy.

The thing that hurts me the most, my good friends, in this energy crisis we have today and the high cost of energy, we're spending more money and more gallons of fuel sitting still than moving because we have congestion. That is not the economy this country needs.

I will say this to my new chairman, Mr. Oberstar. He has a huge responsibility, and I hope this Congress will listen. And whoever the next President is, we must address this issue of raising the dollars to improve the transportation system within this Nation.

Mr. Blumenauer said to the effect that no one's talking about transportation in this Presidential election. And I'm not being partisan here. Neither party's talking about transportation. If we do not do that, with the increase of the population we cannot have an economic base.

Lastly, let me suggest one thing. One of the reasons the money is not there and why we should pass this bill today is because we are spending less on gasoline because of the high price. And for those who do not want to drill, those who do not want to reduce domestic prices, think of what you're doing to the transportation system in this country. My chairman is going to have to come up with a way of funding. Maybe it's other than the gas tax. I don't know.

But we do have the automobiles. I don't care whether they're hybrids. I don't care what they are in saving fuels. We do have a transportation necessity in this country, and this body has not had the courage to go forth and have the vision of improving the transportation of the Nation for the future generations. We must do that.

This bill is a short step. It's needed. It's important, and it is returning what we borrowed; we, being the body of Congress, from the taxpayers at the pump. I have come from the old school that if you borrow it you pay it back, and that's what we're doing today to keep the largest driving force in this country going, the construction of our infrastructure, the improvement upon and then the repair. If we don't do that today, I'm sure we will, we'll make a great mistake.

But let's go to the future, the next highway bill. And those that are talking about we shouldn't spend it here, we shouldn't spend it there, there's no better way to spend the dollars of the American taxpayer than in an infrastructure for the future generations. It creates employment today, it creates employment in the future, and it takes and makes our economy strong forever.

Madam Speaker, today I introduce a really simple bill which will help one of the towns in my home State of Alaska. This bill will fix a problem which cannot be solved without this legislation. The bill, entitled the Connell Lake Watershed Protection bill, will allow the Forest Service to apply the Recreation and Public Purposes Act to a vital watershed in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough.

By doing this, the local government, the Borough, can manage and protect the watershed which is now owned by the Forest Service. While the Forest Service can manage this area, it is better that the local government has control of its own watershed since that watershed is located within the Borough's boundaries.

This is a small area--just 880 acres consisting of a natural lake which was enlarged by a dam constructed in the 1950s when the area was used by the now defunct Ketchikan Pulp Company. The company needed a water source and constructed a small dam to enlarge the already existing, natural Connell Lake. That lake has since served as a water source for the Ketchikan area and the Borough wishes to own and maintain the lake and the surrounding area.

If Ketchikan were not completely contained within the Tongass National Forest, there would be an easy solution, the Recreation and Public Purposes Act, which is specifically designed to solve problems like these. If these lands were in the public domain in the lower 48 States, the Bureau of Land Management would simply process a deed under that Act to allow the Borough obtain ownership of the land subject to a reverter if the land is not used for either recreation of public purposes.

However, the Recreation and Public Purposes Act does not apply to the National Forest System. So, Congress must approve the use of the act for this purpose. This is not an unprecedented situation, and Congress has passed similar legislation in the past. For example, in The Southern Nevada Public Land Management act of 1998, P. L. 105-263, Congress approved a bill to allow this Act to be used in both Southern Nevada and in the Tahoe Basin, which lands became part of the National Forest System.

So, Madam Speaker, I ask only that this bill be passed to allow local government to use the Act just as it would in Nevada or any other western state. The Borough is well able to handle this management and will maintain the current management which is as a recreational site and for water source and watershed protection. The full terms and conditions of the Recreation and Public Purposes Act would apply--no exceptions are being asked.

I look forward to rapid consideration and passage of this bill.