Floor Statements

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 1 minute at this time.

Madam Chair, this is really a tremendous piece of legislation. It's a win-win-win. It will ultimately wind up with $9.2 billion worth of energy savings for American consumers because of the installation of these work smarter, not harder, technologies that we will be helping consumers to purchase. It will create 168,000 new jobs, especially in the construction sector which has upwards of 25 percent unemployment, and it will increase our energy independence by backing out that oil that we import into our country, moving us closer to this energy independence, which should be the goal of our country, using new energy technologies that make it possible for every consumer to participate in this revolution. This is an excellent piece of legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush).

We have just heard from the Republican sponsor of the bill, and now we hear from the principal Democratic sponsor, the gentleman from Vermont, who has been giving us the leadership on this issue for the past 3 years. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Madam Chair, I yield myself 1 minute.

The point here is that what the United States, over the years, has done is to not properly focus upon the things that we can do in order to avoid ever having to import oil from Saudi Arabia, from OPEC. The smartest way to do that is to put in place programs that have the most efficient air conditioners, the most efficient heating systems, the most efficient windows, the most efficient devices that consumers can use in order to reduce their energy bills, reduce the need for us to import energy from overseas, to improve our own American self- sufficiency, and to pass on to the next generation a country that is using our technological genius. That's who we are.

The United States only has 2 percent of the oil reserves in the world; that's our Achilles' heel. Our strength is that we are a technological giant. When we apply our technological genius, we solve problems.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the State of California (Mr. McNerney).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Madam Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Welch has just gone down the litany of organizations, from the National Association of Manufacturers, to the Chamber of Commerce, the steelworkers, the communications workers, utility workers, American Federation of Teachers. The list goes on and on on both sides. This is the kind of program that the United States should be thinking about at the point at which night after night we see this oil spill down in the gulf because it once again reminds us that the United States only has 2 percent of the oil reserves of the world.

What we do in this legislation is create a program that provides the rebates to homeowners to jump-start the manufacturing, the retail, the construction industry, focusing upon using technologies, manufactured in America, with high standards of efficiency. And by doing so, we say to our country that we are going to turn to our own people, that when America has a plan, America wins.

This is part of a plan. And it is a part of a plan to end dependence upon imported oil. We just can't have half of our trade deficit coming from the purchase of oil from countries that we should not be purchasing it from. We need a plan. This bill is part of that plan. This bill is part of the plan that says that we are going to end business as usual. And what are the companies that we are going to use? We are going to use companies like Whirlpool, and we are going to use companies all across our country that manufacture these items that are 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent more efficient than anything that people have in their homes who are going to become a part of this program.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

The result of this will be a concomitant reduction in energy bills, in importation of energy, and kind of the sense that America has that we are losing control of our ability to control our own energy agenda.

At this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Would the Chair inform us as to the order of completion of debate.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, again, let me summarize. Home Star is a 2-year energy efficiency program that will save $9.2 billion in consumer energy costs, create or save 168,000 jobs when our country desperately needs an increase in the number of people who are working, and increase energy independence across the Nation by sending a signal that we are going to use new technologies, more efficient technologies to back out that oil that we import.

Home Star's Silver Program is a 1-year program to provide rebates for energy efficient materials and installation. It will jump-start manufacturing, retail, and construction jobs.

Home Star's Gold Star program is a 2-year program that allows homeowners to receive rebates for making their homes at least 20 percent more energy efficient, and that includes any measure approved through an energy audit. Gold Star does not pick winners and losers. We just want the most efficient technologies to be used to reduce energy consumption in our country.

Finally, Home Star offers an energy efficiency loan program. This program will offer low-interest loans to help offset a household's 50 percent share of energy retrofit cost.

Again, an all-star cast of supporters. You are not going to see this very often: the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home Builders, partnered with the steelworkers, with the communication workers, with the laborers, the utility workers, the transit unions, the sheet metal workers. This is what America needs if we are going to put our country back to work again. We should embrace this in a bipartisan fashion so that we can create a plan for our country to reduce energy consumption while we use American workers to accomplish this goal.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I, as the designee of Mr. Waxman, rise to offer an amendment.

Madam Chair, Chairman Waxman's amendment strengthens the core functions of Home Star: to save energy, create jobs, and save consumers money. I will highlight just a few of the provisions in the amendment.

The amendment offers additional rebates for super-efficient air conditioners and furnaces. It requires rebate aggregators under Home Star to be entirely employed in the United States. And it includes rebates for storm windows and doors.

The technical changes to the amendment have streamlined the effectiveness of the program. For example, the amendment includes a provision to ensure coordination between existing State energy efficiency programs and Home Star. I think that Chairman Waxman's amendment improves significantly the bill. I think it contributes to our overall goals. I ask that the amendment be accepted by the House.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Arizona (Ms. Giffords).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan).

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

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition.

I yield myself 2 of those 5 minutes.

Madam Chair, people want to save money on their energy bills, but not everyone can afford the upfront costs of an energy retrofit. What the Home Star Energy Efficiency Loan Program is designed to do is to help those people participate in the Home Star program. The loan program is also meant to provide a sustainable source of loan funds for years of future energy retrofits across a broad geographic and economic spectrum. The program will reach out to low-income households that would greatly benefit from reduced energy bills.

Now, if the Barton amendment is passed, it would severely limit the number of people who could participate in Home Star. Without long-term opportunities for efficiency loans, many low-income households will, literally, be left out in the cold.

Home Star will incentivize energy-efficient retrofits. It must also make those retrofits a reality. The loan program offers households a pathway out of crushing utility bills towards a clean energy future.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Barton amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself whatever time is remaining.

I thank the Chair.

The Barton amendment would eliminate the revolving part of the loan section which requires the money to be dedicated, again, to energy efficiency after it is repaid. Unfortunately, this would limit the ability of the middle class to take advantage of the Home Star program and invest in energy efficiency in the future.

If adopted, the amendment would create a black hole. It leaves unanswered the question of what to do with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that will be repaid in the coming years.

I am concerned that this amendment is not only counter to the goals of the program, but it would leave it vulnerable because of the lack of precision which the actual impact of this amendment would have on the operation of the program in the future. So I continue to urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself as much time as I may consume, and that is only to make the point that the way in which the amendment is drafted is that it is just a classic motion to strike. And in striking, it eliminates everything within the subsection that exists without substituting any additional instructions. So the metaphor of a black hole just refers to what is the legislative result of having just a strike section without also additional language in order to substitute for what the intent would be to ensure that the money is then used in a way that did not lead to the law of unintended consequences being invoked.

We are very concerned here about this amendment. As it is constructed inside the legislation, we know what the program is. We know, historically, it has been a very successful and a very popular model that has been used in other laws. In the Clean Water Act, it was used as a revolving loan fund to finance wastewater cleanup for decades. The Safe Drinking Water Act has successfully used this model for the last 15 years.

So, again, my hope would be that Members would reject the Barton amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Madam Chair, I yield myself those 30 seconds in order to again make the point that this program is central to our ability to ensure that the Home Star program will work and that there will be a democratization of access to the capital which will be needed in order to implement this program. We believe that it will have the impact of ensuring that more and more and more Americans will become aware of it, will use this funding mechanism, and will create this technological revolution which we need in energy efficiency in our country.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

At this time, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Chair, a philosopher once asked: If a tree falls in the middle of a forest and if there is no one around, does that tree make a sound? It is a

very deep, profound, philosophical question. Mr. Burgess' amendment raises a similar question. If there is a great energy efficiency program and if people don't know about it, will it help to actually increase energy efficiency? The answer to that question, I think, is no. We actually need to have a plan to spread the word about Home Star to achieve the best results.

Now, I do agree that Lowe's and Home Depot will have a stake in getting the word out, but the truth is that those large chains aren't the only companies that are going to be part of this program. The local hardware stores will be as well. So we need to create a balance here of ensuring that people in rural America, who might have hardware stores right down the street from them, understand that they can go there as well. We need to make this program as accessible as possible and as successful as possible in this telescoped time frame that the program will be in existence. In a modern American, capitalistic culture, we know that advertising is the central means by which consumers learn about good products.

The gentleman from Texas, I am sure, is an educated consumer, especially about this program. He knows a lot about it. Yet there will be millions and millions of Americans who will not unless we augment what Lowe's and Home Depot might spend as part of their advertising programs.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

We should augment what Lowe's, Home Depot, and other large chain stores do with programs to ensure that the other tens of thousands of small stores across the country, which will also be able to participate, will have consumers who understand that that is where they can go. I think it will dramatically enhance the attractiveness and the success of the program.

As a result, I would urge a ``no'' vote on the Burgess amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Would the Chair inform us as to how much time remains on both sides?

I yield myself as much time as I have remaining, and I will complete debate.

Madam Chair, this amendment will make it very difficult for millions of Americans and for thousands of smaller stores across the country to be able to fully participate in the program. It will put a limit on how ultimately successful and democratic the access and opportunities are to this funding that we are creating in this legislation.

So I would urge a ``no'' vote on the Burgess amendment so that those smaller Main Street hardware stores all across the country will have the same ability to have it known that their stores are available to participate in the Home Star program in the same way we can be sure that Lowe's and Home Depot are using their incredible advertising capacities to let the public know that they can go there as well. I think if we have that balance this program will be very successful.

With that, I urge the Committee of the Whole to vote ``no'' on the Burgess amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment.

Madam Chair, I support the gentleman's amendment.

Home Star must be funded at a level that would save or create 168,000 jobs, save energy in 3 million homes, and save consumers $9.2 billion over the next decade. These savings will not be realized if the authorization is decreased through earmarks.

I urge my colleagues to support the Flake amendment.

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

Madam Chair, I rise in support of the amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I support the gentleman's amendment. The gentleman is seeking to have the GAO determine if the Silver and Gold Star programs are cost effective. We believe that those programs will save consumers $9.2 billion over the next 10 years. We do believe that it will create 168,000 jobs, saved or created. And we do believe that it will, in fact, save the electricity equivalent to four 300-megawatt coal-fired plants from ever having to be built in our country just in 2011 alone. Home Star is designed to be cost efficient; so I believe that we will find the program to be very successful. But we don't object to a GAO study on the matter, and I would just express my support for the amendment.

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

I rise in support of the Bachmann amendment.

I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Chair, for nearly 20 years, the Energy Star program has been raising awareness about energy efficiency and helping consumers reduce their energy bills. And I share my colleague's astonishment at the March GAO report that showed how easy it was to obtain Energy Star certification for products that didn't even exist.

We need to do all we can to restore the integrity of the Energy Star program. And I want to assure all of the Members that we have common cause in achieving that goal. But I also similarly want to assure all Members that no similar danger exists for waste and fraud in the Home Star program as opposed to the Energy Star program.

First, only real, proven energy-saving technologies are included in Home Star. A group of technical experts provided extensive input to establish a specific list of Silver Star products. Second, in contrast to Energy Star, which relied on self-certification of products, self- certification, the Home Star program uses an independent third-party quality assurance process to ensure that work is performed as promised.

Finally, Home Star relies on a professional and certified workforce to install energy efficiency measures. Under Silver Star, contractors must be licensed, insured, and warranted. Under Gold Star, contractors must be certified by the Building Performance Institute and other reputable organizations. We must ensure that Home Star lives up to its promises.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

I encourage my colleagues to defend the bill's quality assurance and certification provisions to guarantee that this program creates jobs and saves energy, as intended.

I support the amendment of the gentlelady. I think it will add a reinforcement to a program which we have already constructed that ensures that the kind of fraud that might be found in other kinds of programs are not in fact created in this program.

I urge an ``aye'' vote on the amendment of the gentlelady.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time and encourage Members to vote ``aye'' on the Bachmann amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, our great ally and friend.

Over 60 years ago, Israel's pioneers began to revitalize an ancient land. Today, Israelis remain pioneers at heart--pioneers for prosperity, democracy and progress. They are once again facing challenges in their homeland with determination and a vision for a better future for their children and for their country.

But even as we celebrate the founding of the State of Israel, we know that while sovereign independence is necessary, it is not sufficient-- security of the State's people is also of paramount importance. The Jewish homeland must be kept safe, surrounded by neighbors who respect its right to exist in peace. Through sacrifice, ingenuity and innovation, Israel has managed to thrive for 62 years in a dangerous and unstable region of the world. Let us hope that the conflicts that have marked the difficult decades since Israel's founding will subside in the years to come.

Indeed, Prime Minister Golda Meir believed that one day there would be peace in Israel, because there are mothers and grandmothers--and let me add fathers and grandfathers--in Egypt, in Jordan, in Syria and the Palestinian territories who also want their children and grandchildren to live in peace. Today is an opportunity to both acknowledge history and look to the future. I am hopeful that someday soon Israel and its neighbors will finally find the keys to a peaceful future side-by-side in mutual security, and the conflict in the Middle East becomes relegated to the history books.

I congratulate the State of Israel on its 62nd anniversary, and offer my sincere wish for its peaceful and productive future.

Mr. Speaker, on April 22, 2010, I missed rollcall Vote No. 219. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Madam Speaker, recently, President Obama announced a 5-year offshore drilling plan that would allow oil and gas exploration in new areas off the East Coast and in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. However, before oil companies drill off thousands of miles of pristine coastline, they should first use the thousands of drilling leases they already own.

Right now, oil companies hold the offshore drilling rights to an area the size of Pennsylvania on which they are not actually drilling. In fact, of 7,316 total offshore leases held by oil companies right now, only 1,844 are producing, according to the Interior Department. Production is occurring on only 8,894,428 acres on the Outer Continental Shelf out of 39,331,641 total acres leased to oil companies. That means that oil companies are producing on only about one-quarter of the leases and roughly 22 percent of the acreage that they hold offshore.

As a result, today I am introducing legislation that would provide an incentive to oil companies to move quickly to get oil to the market or relinquish the leases so that they could be developed by other companies. My legislation, the United States Exploration on Idle Tracts Act or the USE IT Act, would establish an escalating fee over time on nonproducing leases to encourage companies to expedite production. Similar legislation repeatedly passed the House in the last Congress with large, bipartisan majorities.

President Obama has also included this concept in his budget request for fiscal year 2011. The Department of Interior estimates that the proposed fee would raise $760 million over the next ten years--allowing us to drill for oil while also drilling for deficit dollars on behalf of U.S. taxpayers.

As gas prices once again move towards $3 per gallon, it is time to finally get oil companies to ``use it or lose it'' on their nonproducing leases.

I thank the gentleman very much, and I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher) for his leadership on this critical issue, along with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) in partnership with Mr. Waxman and with Mr. Barton.

Mr. Boucher and I have been working on these issues for many, many, many years, and this bill that has been produced by his subcommittee is something that, in my opinion, is going to go a long way towards helping our country to create a new boom economically in this wireless sector. We saw a great boom in the 1990s when we moved over 200 megahertz of spectrum, creating the third, fourth, fifth and sixth cell phone license, combined with the Telecom Act of 1996. We saw, actually, a transformation in the way in which we communicate in our country.

Who would think that we could move from black rotary dial phones to BlackBerrys in just 10 years, almost on a ubiquitous basis.

Who would think that Mr. Stearns could be checking his BlackBerry even as I'm speaking out here on the floor? That's something we're very proud of. We're very proud of that revolution in the 1990s. And I think we have the potential here in this legislation to accomplish the very same kind of addition to the spectrum capacity. And Ms. Blackburn is showing not only can we use these devices now for voice but also for video and for data.

It's become a technology with the great deal of flexibility; yet because of this technology, we are going to be able--and I thank the chairman for this--to inventory each radio spectrum band of frequencies from 225 megahertz to 10 gigahertz, and that includes the radio services authorized to operate within each band of frequencies, the identity of each Federal or non-Federal user within which such radio service is authorized to operate in each band of the frequencies, the total amount of spectrum by band of frequencies allocated to each Federal or non-Federal user and an approximation of the extent to which each Federal or non-Federal user is using each band of frequencies.

This basic goal that the legislation advances to create this inventory will

make it possible for us to build on this revolution that occurred from the mid-1990s to 2005 where companies whose names did not exist-- Google, eBay, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube--are now replaced or added to with a whole new generation of companies, of technologies, of gadgets and applications that will give incredible economic stimulus to our country.

So what we have here is a debate over the American economy, and it's central to our wellbeing; yet in a lot of ways, it just doesn't get talked about as being the biggest part of what happened in the 1990s. And as it moves into the 21st century, we're seeing these technologies now be included in new energy technologies, new health care technologies, new education technologies. It now has infiltrated technology after technology in our country.

And what the gentleman from Virginia is doing in a bipartisan partnership with the gentleman from Florida is, in my opinion, central to ensuring that we have the leadership in this mobile innovation, that we have a smart spectrum policy that is put on the books, and then we can just get out of the way and watch these entrepreneurs and watch these whole tech communities make it possible for us, with a little bit of luck from Mr. Stearns and others, that the applications become so great that perhaps he and millions of other Americans will never again have to look up from their BlackBerry. There will just be so much interesting stuff that is on it, it will be so versatile.

So thank you so much and congratulations. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this important legislation.

On health care, the Democratic party is the ``party of hope'' and the Republicans are the ``party of nope.''

The Democratic health care bill lowers prescription drug costs for seniors, expands coverage to 32 million more Americans, reduces the deficit by $143 billion over the next 10 years, and gives middle class families tax credits to help pay for health coverage.

What do the Republicans say to this plan? They say ``nope.'' Nope to lowering prescription drug prices, nope to expanding coverage, nope to health insurance tax breaks.

GOP used to stand for Grand Old Party. Now, it stands for grandstand, oppose, and postpone. They grandstand with phony claims about nonexistent government takeovers, they oppose any real reform, and then they want to postpone fixing a broken health care system. GOP: Grandstand, oppose, and postpone.

Today we have a choice between change and more of the same, between ``hope'' and ``nope.'' Ted Kennedy is looking down and smiling today. Vote ``aye'' for John Dingell, for Ted Kennedy, and for all of those Americans that need health care in our country.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Madam Speaker, information is the ultimate tool for empowering consumers. The more people know about the things they buy, the better able they are to match their needs and budget to the appropriate product and quantity of that product. This principle has been applied to help consumers make more fully-informed decisions on everything from corn flakes to cars, but never to electricity. Today I am introducing the Electricity Consumers' Right to Know Act (e-KNOW) to establish the consumers' right to access their electricity information. Encouraging energy efficiency and conservation in our homes and businesses is one of the easiest and most cost- effective ways to strengthen our energy security and reduce global warming pollution. e-KNOW is a simple way to ensure that electric utility consumers have access to free, timely, and secure data regarding their electricity prices and usage patterns so they can take charge of their energy use and save money on utility bills.

The Pacific Northwest National Lab has found convincing evidence that consumers will change their energy consumption behavior in response to feedback they get regarding prices and patterns of use. When people see just how expensive electricity is when demand peaks on a hot summer day, they find ways to conserve energy or defer usage to a later time. This saves consumers money directly and also reduces the need for utilities to build more power plants, thereby indirectly saving consumers money through avoided rate increases in the future.

Rapid developments in Smart Grid technologies are providing a golden opportunity to

bridge the consumer information gap, but without regulatory reforms to ensure customers and their third party designees can access their electricity information, the potential of these technology advances will not be fully realized. The Recovery Act provided $4.5 billion to accelerate standardization and deployment of the Smart Grid, including assistance in deploying millions of ``smart meters'' that can provide customers real-time usage and pricing information through two-way communications with the utility. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that the U.S. will spend $165 billion over the next 20 years building the Smart Grid, and FERC estimates that smart meters deployments will rise ten-fold over the next decade, from 8 million today to 80 million in 2019.

With full roll-out of smart grid technologies, the Pacific Northwest National Lab estimates that conservation efforts resulting from consumers' access to information will reduce residential and commercial electricity demand by 6 percent. This would save businesses and consumers more than $15 billion annually and reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly: 92 million metric tons annually in 2030, equal to the emissions of 16 large coal power plants. Providing customers with access to the data will not happen by itself. One recent study of a number of large utilities found that of the almost 17 million new meters being planned or deployed by respondents, only 35 percent had clear plans to provide customer access to the data. Less than 1 percent of these utilities' customers have real-time access to electricity data today.

States and utilities need not wait for full smart meter deployments to see benefits from adopting more transparent consumer data policies. Even without price incentives, simply providing consumers better information about their energy use has been shown to reduce total consumption by 5 to 15 percent, providing annual savings of $60 to $180 for the average American household. Even without smart meters, customers with access to historical electricity usage and price data can analyze their energy usage over time, evaluate prospective energy- efficiency investments, and compare electricity consumption against similarly sized houses. Improved access to this very basic data will also let new buyers of homes or buildings factor energy efficiency information into their purchase decisions.

Making energy data readily accessible to end-users will also open a whole new market and unleash massive innovation in the area of home and building energy management. Google and Microsoft are among the many innovators that have already released Internet-based visualization tools that are helping consumers better manage their energy use.

This legislation implements critical recommendations regarding increased consumer access to energy data that were included in the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan that was also released today. e-KNOW is critical to empowering energy consumers in the near-term, but it is also one part of an evolving national Smart Grid policy that will encourage entrepreneurs to use new technologies and business models to create a variety of energy management and information services over the longer-term. Making energy data available to electricity customers and their authorized third parties is fundamental to unleashing this vast potential for innovation.

The e-KNOW Act amends Title II of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 by adding Section 215, Electric Consumer Right to Access Electric Energy Information.

Under this legislation, U.S. electricity consumers, and any third parties they designate, would have the right to access their electricity usage and pricing information from their retail electricity provider in a free, timely, and convenient manner that ensures privacy and data security. To help implement this consumer right of access, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), in consultation with State regulatory authorities, the Secretary of Energy, and other appropriate Federal agencies, would--within six months of the date of enactment-- establish guidelines identifying minimum national standards that States and utilities could adopt to ensure customers this right. These standards would incorporate and build upon the pioneering work done in this area by innovative States, including California, Pennsylvania, and Texas, which have already adopted standards to ensure consumer access to electricity data.

If, one year after the promulgation of the FERC guidelines, a retail electric utility fails to uphold the minimum national standards for ensuring consumer access to electricity data, the State may bring a civil action against the utility on behalf of its electric consumers to ensure compliance with the Act. If no civil action is brought by a state authority, any electric consumer may bring a civil action against their retail electric provider to require compliance with the Act. Enforcement authorities would not apply against utilities that FERC has, within the most recent two years, determined have adopted and implemented a policy that complies with the minimum standards set forth by FERC.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 83, I did not vote, but intended to vote ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the National Alzheimer's Project Act. I would like to thank my colleague and fellow cochair of the bipartisan Alzheimer's Task Force, Mr. Chris Smith of New Jersey, for continuing to partner with me on this important legislation.

An estimated 5.3 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, and one in ten individuals has a family member with the disease. Unless science finds a way to prevent or cure it, nearly 16 million Americans will have Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050. Additionally, in 2005, Medicare spent $91 billion for the care of individuals with Alzheimer's disease, and this amount is projected to increase to $160 billion in 2010.

While we have made great progress in the battle against Alzheimer's, much more needs to be done. This bill will establish a National Alzheimer's Project Office and interagency Advisory Council to help coordinate a national plan for Alzheimer's research, care, and related support services. The National Alzheimer's Project Office will be established within and overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services. Alzheimer's efforts throughout the federal government will be coordinated and continually evaluated by this entity, including research, clinical care, and various support programs. The Alzheimer's Association has endorsed this bill which will modify care delivery and help prevention of this awful disease.

Madam Speaker, in order to help fight this disease and reduce the number of patients who suffer from Alzheimer's, it is imperative to better coordinate federal activities relating to this disease. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important legislation, and I look forward to continuing to work with them throughout the legislative process.

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the E-Rate 2.0 Act, an important advancement in the effort to update the successful E-Rate program for the 21st century. I am pleased to introduce this bill with my colleagues Representative Lois Capps (D-CA) and Representative Doris Matsui (D-CA).

While the U.S. lags behind other countries in several key broadband categories such as adoption rates, there is one area where our country leads: Internet connections to classrooms. Our leadership position in this important area can be traced back to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which created the education rate--or ``E-Rate''--program. I was proud to be the lead author in the House of the legislation creating the E-Rate program. At the time the 1996 bill was enacted, only 14 percent of K-12 classrooms had Internet access, compared with more than 95 percent today.

Over the past 14 years, the E-Rate program has helped schools around the country connect to the Internet and other telecommunications services, enabling students to access a vast universe of educational information, communicate with other students around the world, and capitalize on opportunities that otherwise would be out of reach.

With the E-Rate's mission of connecting classrooms to the Internet largely fulfilled, now is the time for an updated E-Rate program--an ``E-Rate 2.0''--to move the program into the 21st century. I have introduced the E-Rate 2.0 Act, which directs the FCC to implement three vital pilot programs:

The first pilot program narrows the digital divide through the distribution of vouchers to enable low-income students to purchase residential broadband service.

The second utilizes a competitive grant program to extend funding for broadband equipment and services to selected community colleges and head start facilities that best demonstrate need and incorporation of broadband use in their educational mission.

The third enables certain E-Rate applicants serving particularly low- income students to apply for significantly discounted services and technologies for the use of e-books

The bill also would provide for an inflation adjustment to the current $2.25 billion cap on the E-Rate program, so funding would increase with inflation. The bill also calls for the streamlining of the application process to improve the ease and accessibility of the application process.

As the scope of technology has expanded, the E-Rate program needs to keep pace. I am pleased to introduce the E-Rate 2.0 program today and look forward to its consideration in the future.

I urge my colleagues to join in cosponsoring this legislation.

Madam Speaker, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, is a vital safety net for millions of Americans. This winter, a perfect storm of economic hardship, rising heating oil prices, and increased demand for home energy assistance is leading to a serious home energy crisis for millions of Americans. The Energy Assistance for American Families Act that I am introducing today would increase the level of funding for LIHEAP and expand its availability in order to protect millions of American families who are facing difficult choices this winter between paying for food or paying for fuel.

The Energy Assistance for American Families Act would increase the authorized funding level for LIHEAP to $7.6 billion per year for fiscal years 2011 to 2014, an increase of $2.5 billion over the last authorized level, enacted in 2005. The Energy Assistance for American Families Act would also extend the expanded eligibility levels that were included in the omnibus appropriations bills for fiscal years 2009 and 2010--giving states the option of helping families with incomes up to 75 percent of the State Median Income level.

According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), states assisted 8.3 million households last year--more than a 33 percent increase in the number of households served from the previous year. In my home state of Massachusetts, LIHEAP funding helped 186,160 Massachusetts families in 2009, according to the Campaign for Home Energy Assistance.

However, overall demand for LIHEAP aid is rising this year, in large part due to the economic downturn. NEADA estimates that 10 million households may apply for assistance this year. Increasing the LIHEAP funding level will allow states to meet this increased demand and to continue to provide meaningful aid.

Energy prices are also on the rise--average household expenditures on heating oil this winter are expected to increase to $1,911 from $1,864 last winter, according to the Department of Energy. The Energy Assistance for American Families Act will allow grants to continue to cover a significant portion of home heating bills.

Our economy may finally be heating up, but the effects of a recession, periods of cold weather, and rising energy prices are still having a chilling effect on millions of American families. Expanding LIHEAP's funding and availability is absolutely essential to help families who are struggling this winter.

Madam Speaker, yesterday the administration announced that President Obama will propose a three-year freeze on non-security discretionary

spending in his State of the Union address tomorrow as a way of addressing the federal deficit. However, as President Obama works to reduce the budget deficit and put our nation on a path of fiscal responsibility, oil companies are pushing us further into the red by continuing to drill for free on public land.

The ``Royalty Relief for American Consumers Act of 2010'' that I am introducing today with the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Van Hollen, would recover the more than $50 billion that taxpayers currently stand to lose in foregone oil royalty payments as a result of defective leases issued by the Department of Interior between 1996 and 2000. The minerals below our public lands belong to the American people and no company should be allowed to exploit them for free. This legislation would protect American taxpayers and reduce our budget deficit by up to $54 billion.

The legislation that we are introducing today would offer oil companies a simple choice: they can continue to drill for free on public lands but they will not be permitted to purchase new leases from the federal government. The language in the Royalty Relief for American Consumers Act has repeatedly passed the House of Representatives in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It is time that we start drilling for deficit dollars by reclaiming these lost royalty payments and ending the free ride that oil companies are currently enjoying on public land.

As President Obama steps up efforts to reduce the federal budget deficit, ensuring that oil companies are paying their fair share is a common sense way to help restore fiscal responsibility. We can no longer afford to allow oil companies to drill for free while taxpayers are left holding the bill. Enacting this legislation will put an end to this taxpayer rip off once and for all.

Madam Speaker, one of the most critical elements of the legislation now before us is the establishment of tough new regulation of the over-the-counter derivatives market. This reform is long overdue and I strongly support the legislation now before us.

I am pleased to say that I can wholeheartedly support this bill because--thanks to language agreed upon by Chairman Peterson, Chairman Waxman and myself--it ensures that the expansion of Commodity Futures Trading Commission's authority over derivatives will not in any way limit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's authority to regulate energy markets. FERC plays a critical role in ensuring that those markets deliver energy reliably and at just and reasonable rates.

The bill preserves FERC's role in three ways:

First, the bill amends the Commodity Exchange Act to fully preserve FERC's authority over agreements, contracts, and transactions entered into pursuant to a FERC-approved tariff or rate schedule. An exception is made for instruments that are executed, traded, or cleared on a CFTC-registered entity. However, it is the drafters' understanding and intention that CFTC cannot construe this exception to limit FERC's underlying authority. For example, FERC-regulated entities, such as Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators, would not be required to register with CFTC based on their utilization of Financial Transmission Rights or other instruments to facilitate the physical operation of the electric grid. Nor will CFTC require instruments of that nature to be executed, traded, or cleared on some other CFTC-registered entity.

Second, in any area where FERC and CFTC have overlapping authority, the bill requires the two agencies to conclude a memorandum of understanding delineating their respective areas so as to avoid conflicting or duplicative regulation. Where FERC has regulatory authority, CFTC is permitted to step back and let FERC do its job. It is the drafters' understanding and expectation that CFTC will recognize FERC's primacy with regard to energy markets that it comprehensively regulates.

Finally, the bill states that it does not in any way limit or affect FERC's existing authority, under Section 222 of the Federal Power Act and Section 4A of the Natural Gas Act, to protect against manipulation of the electricity and natural gas markets. As one of the principal authors of these anti-manipulation provisions, which were included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, I see the preservation of this authority as critical to ensuring fair and transparent energy markets. These provisions were drafted broadly to allow FERC to protect against the use of any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance ``in connection with'' FERC-regulated electricity and natural gas markets, regardless of where such manipulation occurs.

With these elements now included in the legislation, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this legislation.

Madam Speaker, without question, we are now engaged in an historic debate, and that debate is over the question of whether the United States is going to become a leader and not a laggard on the question of climate change and energy independence and clean energy job creation in our country.

What is happening on the Republican side is that they have decided to engage in a phony debate--in a debate about science, which is, in fact, not debatable, in a debate about whether the United States should be the leader in green job creation and energy independence, which should not be debatable. So let's begin first with the science.

The science is quite clear. Over the last 130 years, there has been a tracking of the temperature of the planet. It is clear that we have now entered, as the world has industrialized, a period of rapid warming of the planet. In fact, since 2001, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the history of our country have been recorded. Nine of the 10 warmest years in the record. So this trend line, this rapid warming of our planet, is something which, of course, is of great concern because glaciers melt. The Arctic ice cap melts. The deserts in Africa, in Asia begin to widen. Water evaporates. The world, as a result, sees fundamental changes in the way in which it operates. So this undeniable increase in warming due to the CO2, the greenhouse gases which are going up into the atmosphere, is something which we really don't have an ability to debate.

What the Republicans have done is they have taken a couple of emails from some scientists who had a fight scientifically over whether or not they would be properly characterized at some point in the past, and they have taken that as an entree to question the consensus that has been reached by the National Academy of Sciences of every country in the world. It's kind of their death panel equivalent for the climate debate, for the energy debate. How can we find something that's irrelevant--minor--and elevate it to the point where it obscures the need for us to really debate the big issues that are in front of us?

So this warming trend is absolutely indisputable. What they contend is that, at this point, it really hasn't spiked that much higher in the last 10 years. It has stayed at this relatively high, historical plateau. So their concern is that there needs to be a reevaluation as to whether or not the planet is actually warming.

It's kind of like saying to a mother, Well, you know, the average temperature is 98.6 for all human beings, and little Joey's temperature is now up to 100.6, 2 degrees higher, but it has only been there for the last 10 days, so don't worry about it. That's the new normal for his temperature, 100.6. Who as a parent would ever accept a 2-degree increase in temperature for 10 days as being the new normal?

Well, that's what they're saying about the temperature of the planet. The planet is running a fever. There are no emergency rooms for planets. We must engage in preventative care; but what they are saying is that this new temperature is the new normal, the new temperature for the planet, even though we can see the beginnings of the catastrophic consequences of having that temperature at such a high level.

So this debate does turn on science. Ours is irrefutable. No one denies even on their side that the temperatures have risen dramatically. They don't debate that. They don't debate that the Arctic ice cover is eroding rapidly. They don't deny that there has been a 30 percent increase in the acidification of our oceans. They don't deny that it has become 6 degrees warmer in Alaska during the winter over the last 50 years. None of this do they deny, but what they really are trying to do is to stop any legislative attempt, any international attempt to put together a set of solutions for these problems. That's really at the heart of this matter.

So, as we move forward, the issue for us is: How do we deal with it? Well, you know, I thought I would think through some analogy that we could use, and what I thought about was baseball.

In baseball, going back to 1920 when Babe Ruth was playing, the average number of players in the Major Leagues who hit more than 40 home runs in a season was 3.3 players. That goes all the way from 1920 up until very recently. So that covers Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays. That's why they were so famous. Anyone who could hit more than 40 home runs was very famous.

Then all of a sudden, beginning about 20 years ago, more and more players started hitting more than 40 home runs. Major League Baseball said, Well, don't worry about it. The players are getting stronger. Don't worry about it. The ballparks must be getting smaller. Now, some people said, Maybe, just maybe, the players are injecting steroids into themselves; but Major League Baseball said, No, no, no--don't worry about it--until finally we reached a point where 10 players were hitting 40 home runs, where 15 players were hitting 40 home runs, where 17 players were hitting 40 home runs. They just weren't breaking Babe Ruth's record. They were blowing that record away. They were just so much stronger.

Then all of a sudden, baseball decided, because of congressional intervention, to start testing for steroids. Guess what happens? After they start testing for steroids, all of a sudden, very quickly--just over the last 3 years--the same average for 40 home run hitters that existed from 1920 has been restored. The American League leader only had 39 home runs this year. I wonder why that happened? Maybe because they tested for the injection of artificial stimulants into baseball players.

Well, the same thing is true when it comes to our planet. When you inject artificial stimulants into the atmosphere, you get warming. You are now playing with Mother Nature. The warming of the planet has dramatic consequences for all of its inhabitants, and we in the United States are not immune to the consequences. We are going to be radically adversely affected by the impact. So what is the solution?

Well, you might remember just about a year and a half ago that President Bush went to Saudi Arabia. At a point when we had gas prices up around $4 a gallon and at a point when our economy was starting to teeter on the brink because of this impact of oil, President Bush went to Saudi Arabia.

President Bush said to the Saudi prince, Please produce another million barrels of oil a day that we could purchase from you. Send us more oil. Have us buy more of your oil at $147 a barrel.

That was a low point in American history. By the way, do you know what the Saudi prince said to President Bush?

The Saudi prince said, I will consider selling more oil to you at $147 a barrel, but you must first promise me that you will start selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia.

Do you know what President Bush's response was to the Saudi Arabians?

We will start selling nuclear power plants to you.

Now, which country in the world does not need nuclear power for its electricity? Which country in the world has so much sun, so much wind, so much oil, so much gas that to build a nuclear power plant would really be a waste of money? I wonder why the Saudi Arabians would want nuclear power--uranium? plutonium? Yet that is the promise that President Bush made to the Saudi Arabians.

We are in the midst of a debate over climate, in a debate over some emails. Who do you think partnered with these skeptics? Who do you think has partnered with the Republican Party in now questioning the validity of climate change?

The Saudi Arabians yesterday said, we want an investigation. We want an

investigation as to whether or not there really is climate change affecting the planet. Now, I wonder why the Saudi Arabians, the number one producer of oil on the planet, the number one exporter, would start to question climate change, start to try to throw some doubt into whether or not the world should be moving away from imported oil, moving away from this dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

I wonder why they would be the partner with the American Petroleum Institute on this issue, in the same way that maybe you would wonder why the American Tobacco Institute used to question whether or not smoking caused cancer and all of the science which they funded at the American Tobacco Institute as these fumes were being inhaled by people and by children and those families.

Well, now we have a different kind of fume that has been going up from coal-fired plants, from oil that is consumed in our country and around the planet. We know that there is a dangerous warming of our planet, a dangerous impact.

Yet, like the American Tobacco Institute, the American Petroleum Institute says, well, let's question what's going on. The Saudi Arabians say, let's question what's going on. Maybe we don't want to move too fast.

Well, let me tell you something. In 1970, when the United States was just really beginning to get addicted to imported oil, we imported about 20 percent of the oil which we consumed in the United States. Well, today, ladies and gentlemen, we import 57 percent of the oil that we consume, and we import it from very dangerous places in the world.

As a matter of fact, here is an astounding number. One half of our entire trade deficit is from imported oil. Everything else that we import combined is equal to the price we have to pay for oil to bring it into our country. We produce fewer than 8 million barrels of oil a day, we import more than 11 million barrels of oil a day. Over the course of the year, oil accounts for half of our trade deficit.

Now, here is another astounding fact. Three percent of the world's reserves of oil are controlled by the United States, but we actually consume 25 percent of the world's oil every day, 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, 25 percent of the consumption.

Now, you keep that going for another 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, you can see what that's going to do to our national security. You can see what that's going to do to our trade deficit. You can see what that's going to do to a new clean-energy jobs revolution.

Those that want this revolution to be stopped, this revolution consisting of wind energy, solar energy, geothermal, biomass, all- electric vehicles and hybrids, buildings that are twice as efficient so that we don't have to use all that energy. All of the opponents, of course, are going to jump on this very, very, very thin reed and try to use it as a way of undermining our ability to pass historic legislation and the world's ability to come together to create historic international agreements to reduce the amount of fossil fuels that we burn in our atmosphere.

People say, oh, can you do it? Is it possible for the United States? Is it possible for us to lead in this new direction?

Well, I would point back to the 1990s. In the 1990s, we were still living, unfortunately, in this kind of black rotary-dial phone world. We were living in a world where cell phones were about the size of a brick, it cost 50 cents a minute to make a call and people didn't have cell phones in their pocket. We had to change the laws in the United States.

Well, I happened to be the chairman of the Telecommunications Subcommittee at that time. If we wanted an 18-inch satellite dish that people could buy, we had to change the law. If we wanted cell phones that people could have that had data, video, voice, and they paid under 10 cents a minute, we had to change the laws. If we wanted to have broadband in our country, rather than narrow band, if we wanted to have a capacity to have Google, eBay, Hulu, Amazon, Twitter and YouTube, we would have to change the laws.

Now, of course, there were many people, led by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, opposed to the Telecommunications Act. The Chamber of Commerce said, Oh, it will be bad for our country. Can you imagine if we had listened to the Chamber of Commerce and we had not changed our laws? All of these products would have been created-- but not in the United States. We would not have branded it ``Made in the U.S.A.''

We are a technological giant. That's our greatest strength. Our weakness, our greatest weakness, is that we only have 3 percent of the oil reserves in the world, and we allow it to control our destiny.

This revolution, the telecommunications revolution, it created 1.5 to 2 million new jobs. There are people all across our country right now, and we are able to go down and check our BlackBerry, even as they are listening to us here. That's great. That's what we should be looking for.

That's what young people want. That's what ``the green generation'' wants. They are saying, no brainer, why don't we move towards green energy? Why don't we move towards these clean energy jobs, wind, solar, move that way? No, no the opponents are saying. That would be dangerous.

They have got a couple of emails that they believe call into question the entire science of whether or not the planet is warming, whether the glaciers are melting, whether the corals are being destroyed, whether there has been a 30 percent increase in the acidification of our oceans, whether or not there has been a 6-degree warming in Alaska in the winter over the last 50 years.

They are calling it all into question. Of course, they don't have any answers for it. They don't have any way of really explaining it, but they are using it as a deliberate political tactic in order to slow down the legislative and international response to the problem.

The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, 2 days ago said in the opening session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen that the recent incidents of stealing the emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts, perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC. But the panel has a record of transparent and objective assessments stretching over 21 years performed by tens of thousands of dedicated scientists from all corners of the globe. I am proud to inform this conference that the findings of the panel are based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the oceans and in the ice-covered areas of the Earth. The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these email exchanges, many of whom have dedicated their time and effort to develop these findings in teams of lead authors in the series of IPCC assessment reports during the past 21 years.

The IPCC process is designed to ensure consideration of all relevant scientific information from established journals with robust peer- review processes or from other sources which have undergone robust and independent peer review. The entire report-writing process of the IPCC is subjected to extensive and repeated review by experts as well as by governments.

There were a total of around 2,500 expert reviewers performing this review process. Consequently, there is full opportunity for experts in the field to draw attention to any piece of published literature and its basic findings that would ensure inclusion of a wide range of views.

The Republicans have been unable to win a debate on clean energy and climate based on the facts, the science or the economics. Now, in a desperate attempt to manipulate the truth, they have joined with Saudi Arabia and ExxonMobil to promote a manufactured scandal about stolen emails, not science, because they can't answer these questions about the warming of the planet, the permafrost being destroyed up in Alaska.

The personal emails in question----

The gentleman will have his turn.

The personal emails in question do not in any way disprove or undercut the mountain of scientific evidence on

global warming. Now the Republicans are attacking the scientists who have worked decades on this problem, going so far as to accuse them of scientific fascism.

This is an insult to America's best and brightest scientists. The science that we are relying upon is the science of NASA, the science of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Academy of Sciences and our United States military. That is the evidence that we are relying upon. Men and women who had nothing to do with the emails and whose work has shown climate change is real and a danger to public health.

The scientists have used a careful, rigorous and transparent approach to come to consensus that evidence of global warming is unequivocal. The data topics referred to in the emails were all transparent and also debated openly and in public literature at that time.

Additionally, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the AAAS, has reaffirmed its statement that global climate change caused by human activities is now underway and is a growing threat to society.

On December 4, just a couple of days ago, more than 25 leading U.S. scientists sent an open letter. Here is what they said. They said the content of the stolen emails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming. The letter states, even without including analysis from the UK research center from which the emails were stolen, that the body of evidence underlying our understanding of human-caused global warming remains robust.

The AAAS expressed grave concerns that the illegal release of private emails stolen from the University of East Anglia should not cause policymakers and the public to become confused about the scientific basis of climate change. Similarly, the prestigious British journal Nature published an editorial last week saying that there was no reason for its editors to revisit papers submitted by scientists whose emails were stolen.

The American Meteorological Society has also stated that the emails gave them no reason to revisit its conclusion that human activity is driving climate change.

Bryan Walsh of Time magazine writes in his article, ``The truth is that the emails, while unseemly, do little to change the overwhelming scientific consensus on the reality of manmade climate change.'' The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, in the opening of the U.N. climate change conference, as I just pointed out, made the very same point.

So the consensus from the scientific community is clear that the Republicans are trying to manufacture an issue to derail legislation. They do not have the information. They do not have the scientific evidence to maintain their points. However, the Saudi Arabians and ExxonMobil, they want to question it. They want to continue business as usual in our country. But the consequences, if we do move forward in their direction, will be further catastrophic consequences for our planet.

The emails do not in any way indicate global warming data is flawed or manipulated. The emails do not in any way undermine the sound science or disprove the unequivocal scientific consensus that global warming is real and caused by manmade carbon pollution. These emails do not show evidence of a conspiracy. The emails do not contain admissions of a global warming hoax. And the emails do not show that data was falsified. The Republicans are cherry-picking key words in emails to try to manufacture a scandal.

Here are two prime examples: one email suggests using a trick. Now, this email was written in 1999, 10 years ago. Since that time the planet has had 9 of the 10 hottest years on record. We have seen category 5 hurricanes like Katrina, record wildfires out West, villages falling into the sea in Alaska, and a 500-year flood in the Midwest, not to mention the disappearance of Arctic Sea ice at a rate far outpacing the climate models. These events are not a trick. They have all found global warming to be a danger to public health and national security. This work is publicly available and fully transparent.

Next, skeptical scientists have not been silenced or suppressed. The deniers have not been silenced. In fact, their very research and opinions mentioned in the emails were, in fact, included in the IPCC report. Two of the skeptical papers that the emails suggest should be kept out of the IPCC process are cited and discussed in chapter 3 of the 2007 IPCC Physical Science Basis report. Deniers have testified before Congress literally dozens of times. But the majority of their work has been funded by Big Oil and by other polluters. And let's not forget deniers and skeptics had 8 years of George Bush to help them delay action.

The scientific process has been very robust; but if you want to have a story about emails, then let's talk about the Environmental Protection Agency of George Bush.

After the Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA was rendered in April of 2007, they instructed the Bush administration and its Environmental Protection Agency to make a determination as to whether or not CO2 posed a danger to the health and welfare of the American people. They told them they had to make a finding one way or the other. Well, back in May of 2008, the EPA of George Bush made the decision that CO2 was a danger, and they sent an email over to the White House saying we have found the danger.

But Vice President Cheney found out that an email had been sent and the finding was not going to be finalized until the Bush White House accepted that email.

So what did they do? Vice President Cheney ordered that the email not be received in the White House. No email, which is the consensus of the Environmental Protection Agency of George Bush that CO2 is a danger; we won't accept that email.

Now, there is a scandal. That's a scandal. The American Environmental Protection Agency has made a finding that CO2 is a danger and Vice President Cheney says, We won't accept it. Send the email back because once we get it, we'll have to act on it. There is a scandal. That's the Cheney-Bush years, holding hands with the Saudi Prince. Please send us more oil, denying the science that their own EPA had developed saying that CO2 is a danger to the health and welfare of our country. That is what is the real scandal, that they were denying science. They were denying the evaluation made by thousands of scientists not only in our own country but around the world.

And who are these scientists? They're the people that work at NASA. They're the people who work at NOAA. They're the people who work at the Navy Department, in the Army, in the Marines, in the Air Force. These are the people that have gathered this information. Our submarine crews who have been in Polaris submarines going under the Arctic to measure the depth of the ice, these are the people whose information is now being called into question by the Republicans.

These are the people whose email going into the White House was rejected by Dick Cheney. No, we don't want to act. We're going to finish out all 8 years of the Bush-Cheney era without ever having done anything about climate change.

This scientific process is very robust. The emails show without question that scientists are human. The power of the scientific process, however, has always been its ability to overcome human bias. That is the case with climate science as well. Despite the revelation that a few climate scientists may have considered acting inappropriately, there is virtually no evidence that anything was done that in any way would affect the final conclusion that was reached that this is a real danger to our planet.

The burden of proof here is all wrong. The climate deniers should be trying to explain why the tens of thousands of scientists who say global warming is unequivocal are wrong, why they think global warming isn't happening. And they can't do it. They cannot take on these tens of thousands of scientists around the world. So instead they're trying to create a mini-contretemps, something that makes it look like there's a real debate.

Yes, it's between Democrats and Republicans, but it's really between scientists at a 98 percent level and everyone else. But they're trying to take the 1 percent, 2 percent and make it out like there's an evenhanded debate. That's what the American Tobacco Institute used to do. The American Tobacco Institute used to find a couple of scientists that said, Don't worry about smoking, there's still no conclusive evidence that it's harmful to your lungs.

By the way, my father, smoking two packs of Camels a day, he used to say to my brothers and my mother and I, Don't worry about my smoking; okay? Two packs of Camels won't kill me. Until finally that little spot showed up on his lung and took my father. It still didn't convince, of course, the American Tobacco Institute. It didn't convince those people who were in scientific denial that these fumes that were being inhaled could lead to the death of people any more than the science which is overwhelmingly conclusive that the glaciers are melting, the Arctic ice cover is shrinking, the permafrost being exposed up in Alaska, the villages falling into the ocean beginning with Shishmaref, the village up in Alaska, because of that dramatic warming; that it had nothing to do, of course, they say, with the science--kind of like the American Tobacco Institute.

But the overwhelming consensus not only of our scientists but of the world is that these fumes that are being inhaled by our planet are making our planet sick.

So that's our choice. It's to make them explain why the Arctic has lost an ice cover three times the size of Texas compared to just a couple of decades ago; why Alaskan winters are 6.3 degrees warmer now than they were 50 years ago; why the ocean waters are 30 percent more acidic than they were in pre-industrial times; why this summer, the ocean was the warmest in NOAA's 130-year record.

The year 2000 was the 15th warmest year in NASA's record; 2001 is tied for the eighth warmest; 2002 is tied for the third warmest; 2003 is the sixth warmest; 2004 is tied for the eighth warmest; 2005 is the warmest year on NASA's record; 2006 is the seventh warmest year ever recorded; 2007 is the second warmest ever recorded; 2008 is the 10th warmest ever recorded; and just today we learned that 2009 is projected to be the fifth warmest year on record. All of it leading inevitably, inexorably towards catastrophic conditions for our planet.

Well, as this science was being developed, the Republicans did not decide to accept it. Dick Cheney said, Keep that email out of the White House. I don't care what my own EPA says. I don't care what the scientists hired by the Bush administration said about global warming, that email telling us that it is a danger to our planet, to our country, because that's the finding they had to make. The finding the EPA had to make was not a danger to the world, a danger to the United States of America. And that email, that scientific email, was summarily rejected by Dick Cheney because once they accepted it, they would then have the political and moral responsibility to ensure that something had to be done about it.

So there was no open and free discussion inside the Bush administration on that science. There was no roundtable with Dick Cheney sitting in the middle of it saying, Well, let's now debate the science. Oh, no. No free and open discussion of science. No free and open discussion of how the Vice President is going to reject out of hand the consensus of the entire EPA of his administration in the 8th year of the Bush administration. So it wasn't as though there were a bunch of Clinton holdovers at this point. This was a decision made by the Bush administration and its EPA, and it was rejected without so much as a debate by Dick Cheney and the White House.

So all of this, unfortunately, is being covered by the media as though it's kind of an evenhanded discussion here that's going on: 99, 98 percent of all scientists on one side, 1 percent on the other side. No, let's just make it even-steven, which is kind of how the tobacco debate was handled for a generation.

Well, there are two sides to the story, you know. Either tobacco and its inhalation into the lungs of human beings causes cancer or it doesn't. There are a couple of scientists over here that the American Tobacco Institute has and there's every other scientist in the world, every doctor, every physician.

So this is a huge moment for us as a country. We have two pathways that we can go down. We can continue to beg for oil from other countries. We continue to spew these greenhouse gases up into our atmosphere. Or we can say to America it is time for an oil change. It is time to move to an agenda of wind, of solar, of green buildings, of plug-in hybrids, a new era where we become the technological giant that we should be; that we do in the energy field what we did in the technology sector; that we overhaul our relationship with these technologies so we can overhaul our relationship with other countries in the world and create the 2 million jobs here in our country.

And that's really what is at stake because China right now is moving towards becoming number one in the world in wind, in solar, in all of these technologies.

So if you listen to the dissenters here, they're willing for us to move from an era where it's made by OPEC to an era made in China without ever having had a ``Made in America'' period. These jobs in wind, in solar, green buildings, plug-in hybrids, they should be American jobs. They should be the future for our country. They should be the next manufacturing sector. They should be what Google and eBay and Amazon and YouTube all represented in terms of the changing of our national view as to how we worked in our country. That is our challenge.

This is actually a good debate to have because it gets right to the heart of the matter, a green job revolution, backing out imported oil and saving the planet in the bargain, or engaging in a debate over a few emails. By the way, the emails were ultimately included in the report of the U.N.--included, not excluded. Included.

During our debate here in Congress, we had the deniers that were able to sit at the table and to make their points. We heard them, we listened to them, we deliberated, and then we passed the legislation based upon the overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence.

So that's our challenge. We are either going to help each other on this planet or we are going to hurt each other. We are either going to know each other or we're going to hurt each other. The glaciers melting, the coral reefs dying, the deserts that are being created, the least that we should be able to say to ourselves as a people in the year 2050 is that we tried, we really tried to do something about global warming, about this imported oil, about the need to create a new generation of green jobs in our country. We should try to create a world in 2050 where children have to look to the history books to find that there ever was such a time where America imported 60 percent of its oil, where we allowed the temperature of the planet to warm dangerously, where we missed the opportunity to create 2 million green jobs in our country. That's what this debate is all about. We have enjoyed the benefits of this fossil fuel era, but we have a responsibility to the generations to come to create a new era for them. That's our challenge.

And to have this debate over a couple of emails is really a disservice to the American people and to the planet. This should really be about something that's much bigger, and our country deserves that debate. The world wants us to be the leader. We have dangerously gone down a path of imported oil for too long.

The other major story that we are debating right now is sending another 30,000 young men and women to Afghanistan to join the hundreds of thousands that are already over there. How much more do we need to know? Where do we send them towards? We send them towards the countries with oil; we send them towards the countries that have fundamentalists that are funded by oil money. That's the other major story. It doesn't take a lot to link them together, to make it all part of one big opportunity for our country.

Let's follow the science. Let's follow all of those who have labored to create this understanding of what's happening to our planet, to our country, and end

the debate over the emails and begin a real debate about our energy and climate future.

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

I would be glad to yield.

How do I reconcile what?

Well, the facts are very clear. The facts are that 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred in the last 10 years and it has reached a temporary plateau. We are in a recession, and in China and in the United States and in other countries there has been a slower pace of increase in emissions. And by the way, this year it's going back up again, it's going to be the fifth warmest year in history this year.

Yes, they are public. This is the data provided by NASA, which I will provide to you. NASA has been compiling temperatures from the last 130 years, and I will be more than willing to give it to you.

I guess the fundamental question is, as China and India industrialize, as other parts of the world industrialize and start to send up more fossil fuels into the atmosphere, do we believe this trend is likely to stop and abate, or is it likely to exacerbate and continue to skyrocket? I think the evidence, since the beginning of the industrialized period as we have moved from 280 parts per million to 380 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere, is that the more we add the warmer it gets. And as the 3 or 4 billion people in this developing world begin to want to drive automobiles and have electricity in their homes, it's pretty clear that the trend line is heading upwards. Yes, over the last 10 years it stayed very warm. As I said earlier, it's like a child having the same temperature, 100.6 not 98.6, for about 10 days.

And I would be more than willing to do that. But then we have to agree whose data are we going to rely upon? I would say that if we don't rely upon NASA's data and NOAA's data, which are the institutions that we historically have relied upon, then we are going to allow a small number of outlying----

I completely agree with that. And I think that the incontrovertible evidence of the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world is what is represented by the science that the United Nations and all of the National Academy of Sciences of every country in the world has accepted.

Again, as I point out, even papers mentioned in those emails and the points in them were included in the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of the United Nations. So it was in. It was a minority view, it was not accepted by the overwhelming majority of scientists. And amongst these human beings that are scientists, they did show some very human qualities as they debated the subject, but it never did call into question the fact that human activity was causing the warming of the planet. But the views were included in section three of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report that the United Nations produced.

I thank the gentleman.

I would be glad to yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 515, the Radioactive Import Deterrence Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Congressmen Gordon, Matheson and Terry. This important legislation will ban the importation of low-level radioactive waste into the United States. This is a bipartisan bill, cosponsored by 80 House Members, including 20 Democratic and 4 Republican members of the full Energy and Commerce Committee.

H.R. 515 was drafted in response to an attempt to bring 20,000 tons of Italian low-level nuclear waste into the United States to be processed in Tennessee and disposed of in Utah. Italy wants to ship their waste to the United States because they have no disposal capabilities of their own. And Italy is by no means the only country in this position.

In fact, the United States is the only nuclear waste-producing country in the world which allows for the importation and disposal of foreign nuclear waste. No other country does, and for good reason! Why should the United States take Italian nuclear waste if they won't take ours? I think the answer is simple: this House will not allow the United States to be the world's nuclear dumping ground.

H.R. 515 will preserve U.S. low-level nuclear waste disposal sites for U.S. low-level nuclear waste. Today, we have a few sites in the country which dispose of our low-level waste. For the moment, this is adequate. However, it is extremely difficult to establish new disposal sites. It is only practical that we carefully manage our existing domestic low-level nuclear waste disposal capacity to ensure that we do not face a crisis in the future. This will be even more critical if new nuclear reactors are built in this country.

Not only would H.R. 515 preserve existing disposal sites for our own waste, but it would maintain the integrity of the Low Level Waste Compact System, and protect the States from being forced to accept foreign nuclear waste.

When Congress established the Low Level Waste Compact System, we did not intend for the compacts to handle foreign waste. We empowered the States to establish sites for common use within the various regions, and specifically allowed them to exclude waste from outside those regions. This bill will responsibly fix a loophole which was never intended to exist.

If we fail to protect the Low Level Waste Compact System, what were supposed to be domestic disposal sites could be turned into global nuclear waste dumps. If that occurs, we could end up in a position where many States are unable--or unwilling--to participate in these compacts at all, leaving domestic companies with nowhere to go to dispose of their radioactive waste. That would not be a good development for the nuclear industry, or for the Nation.

This bill moved through the Energy and Commerce Committee under regular order, and received bipartisan support. It was reported favorably by the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment to the full Committee by a voice vote, and the Energy and Commerce Committee sent the bill to this Floor by a strong vote of 34-12.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this important legislation today.