Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill.

With this bill we are now engaged in the second phase of ``The Republican ReCONciliation Game.'' That's exactly what it is--a giant Con Game.

In February, the Con Game began with the Republicans' cutting nearly $40 billion in benefits for the most vulnerable in our society:

They cut $12 billion from student loan programs to help kids go to college.

They cut $6.4 billion from Medicare and made elderly beneficiaries pay higher premiums for their health care.

And they cut $6.9 billion from Medicaid which helps the poorest and sickest children and families in our country get healthcare.

And then they tried to turn to the second part of the Con Game, where the Republicans turn over that money that they got from cutting programs for the poor to the Ways and Means Committee to give all of that money away to their millionaire friends.

But in February when they tried for the first time to give this money to millionaires there was a public outcry because people understood that the Republicans were taking from the poor and giving to the rich. So the Republicans had to pull the bill and wait for the public to forget.

So now, three months later, the Republicans are hoping that the American public has forgotten about all of those cuts they made. They are hoping the American public won't remember that the Republicans cut Medicare and Medicaid and student loans in order to give more to their fat cat friends.

This bill favors the wealthy so dramatically that the average American family making $40,000-$50,000 a year will get $46, which is about enough for one tank of gas.

But if you make over a $1 million a year, you will get about $42,000. That's enough to buy a luxury Hummer 3 and still have $10,000 left over for the gas!

It is immoral to take medicine away from the poor, elderly and disabled so that millionaires can buy Hummers.

Vote to reject this con game and vote ``no'' on this shortsighted, fiscally irresponsible and immoral legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

This bill has a fatal flaw. It relies upon paperwork checks. If you went to the airport with your bags, showed up, showed the person your ticket and your ID, and then the person just waived you on to the plane with another 150 people and all the bags went on as well, with no scanning, no screening, you would sit petrified in your seat.

Well, that is what is going to happen, unless the recommittal motion which Mr. Nadler and I are going to make later on today is in fact voted upon successfully.

The Republican leadership has refused to allow a debate on 100 percent screening of cargo containers coming into the United States.

Now, why is that important? It is important because of all of the unsecured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union that al Qaeda can purchase, take to a port in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, and then, with a piece of paper and an ID, waive on a 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 pound container and, with the nuclear bomb inside of it, send that ship, that container, right to a port in the United States, to New York, to Boston, to California, to any other city in America, without being screened.

President Kennedy took on the Soviet Union technologically in the 1960s. He put a man on the moon in 8 years. The Republicans are saying they can't figure out in 8 years, 8 years, from 2001 to 2009, how to screen cargo containers coming into the United States and how to put tamper-proof seals on them, knowing that al Qaeda has said that bringing a nuclear weapon into the United States is their highest goal, to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

So this vote that we have later on today will decide whether or not this fatal flaw in the Republican bill is allowed to stand, if the Bush administration is allowed to turn a blind eye to

the number one threat that al Qaeda poses to our country.

I thank the gentleman from New York for his great leadership on this issue.

This recommital motion deals with the fatal flaw in the Republican bill. They have refused to allow a vote on this House floor on this issue. This is now the time for the Members to go on record to get real about cargo security.

The threat is that, in the former Soviet Union, with all of the loose nuclear material, that al Qaeda purchases a nuclear device, brings it to a port in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, places it upon a ship. Using the screening which the Republican party supports, the screening would be a piece of paper. Oh, you look okay. You can bring it on to the ship. No inspection, no scanning. That is what their bill does.

The Democratic substitute says that no container can be placed on a ship coming to the United States which is not scanned for uranium, for nuclear materials, for a nuclear bomb, for weapons of mass destruction.

The screening must be done overseas, and we must seal those containers. We must scan and seal overseas so that we do not have to duck and cover here in the United States. That is the risk that al Qaeda has said they pose to us at the very top of their terrorist target list.

The Republicans are basically saying they are going to put a ``Beware of Dog'' sign out on the lawn but not purchase a dog, never do the screening, never do the inspection, use a paperwork inspection instead.

This bill has a loophole big enough to drive a cargo container filled with nuclear weapons material through it. This is an historic moment.

Here is the seal which the Republicans are still approving to be placed upon a cargo container. This can be cut by a child's scissors, ladies and gentlemen.

This is what should be placed upon each one of the containers after they have been scanned, after they have been sealed, to make sure that if it is tampered with an electronic signal goes to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Republican party says no. The Republican party says they will use paperwork instead of real, physical scanning of each and every cargo container, knowing that it could have a nuclear weapon, knowing that these nuclear materials have not been secured in the former Soviet Union.

Vote ``aye'' on the recommital motion and protect the security of our country from the single greatest threat that is posed to it. Vote ``aye'' on the recommital motion.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mohammed Atta started in Boston, my friend. There were Bostonians on that plane.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Nadler, Mr. Oberstar and I requested an amendment to be put in order, and the Republicans said no. In the former Soviet Union, there is deadly nuclear weapons material that is still unsecured that al Qaeda could purchase, bring to a port in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, put it on a ship and bring it into the port of the United States and detonate a nuclear weapon without ever having been inspected.

Now, the amendment which we asked the Republicans to put in order was one that required all containers coming into the United States to be screened overseas before they are put on ships to come into American ports so that we can identify which ship has the nuclear weapon.

In the Homeland Security Committee, our amendment lost 18-16. The Republican majority refuses to allow the coastal representatives to vote on this issue.

We should have learned something from the Dubai debacle, the threat to our container ships coming into our ports. Our amendment says no deadly uranium bombs allowed in, no Dubais. The Republican majority says, we are not going to screen any containers coming into the ports of the United States.

It is dangerous. The least that we should be able to say when that nuclear weapon goes off is that we tried, we really tried to prevent it from happening. The Republicans are not only not trying to stop it from happening; they are stopping us from having a debate on the floor of Congress on this issue.

This is the issue that is at the top of the al Qaeda terrorist target list, to bring a nuclear weapon into the port of an American city. And instead of allowing for this debate to take place, they are saying they cannot figure it out. They are going to study it for three more years. So that will mean we went from 2001 to 2009 studying this issue.

When the Soviet Union threatened the United States in 1961 with Sputnik, President Kennedy did not say, we are going to study it until 1969. He said, we will put a man on the Moon and bring him back to Earth; we will control the heavens, not the Communists.

What the Republicans with the Bush White House say is, they are going to study the issue of the greatest al Qaeda threat to our country, a nuclear bomb in a container in a port in the United States. They are going to study it for all 8 years, 2001 to 2009. President Kennedy said, rocket science, we will master it. The Republicans say, we cannot even figure out how to screen a container; we cannot even figure out how to put a tamper-proof seal on a container.

The price our country will pay will be too high a price. It will be the most horrendous event in the history of our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the ``Network Neutrality Act of

2006.'' Joining me today as original cosponsors of this important legislation are Rep. Rick Boucher, Rep. Anna Eshoo and Rep. Jay Inslee.

Broadband networks, Mr. Speaker, are the lifeblood of our emerging digital economy. These broadband networks also hold the promise of promoting innovation in various markets and technologies, creating jobs, and furthering education. The worldwide leadership that the U.S. provides in high technology is directly related to the government- driven policies over decades which have ensured that telecommunications networks are open to all lawful uses and all users. The Internet, which is accessible to more and more Americans with every day that goes by on such broadband networks, was also founded upon an open architecture protocol and as a result it has provided low barriers to entry for web- based content, applications, and services.

Recent decisions by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and court interpretations, however, put these aspects of broadband networks and the Internet in jeopardy. The corrosion of historic policies of nondiscrimination by the imposition of bottlenecks by broadband network owners endanger economic growth, innovation, job creation, and First Amendment freedom of expression on such networks. Broadband network owners should not be able to determine who can and who cannot offer services over broadband networks or over the Internet. The detrimental effect to the digital economy would be quite severe if such conduct were permitted and became widespread.

This network neutrality bill has essentially three parts. The first part articulates overall broadband and network neutrality goals for the country, and spells out exactly what network neutrality means and puts it into the statute so that it will possess the force of law. The second part embodies reasonable exceptions to the general rules, such as to route emergency communications or offer consumer protection features, such as spam blocking technology. And the final part of the bill features an expedited complaint process to deal with grievances and violations within thirty days.

The legislation states that a broadband network provider may not block, impair, degrade or discriminate against the ability of any person to use a broadband connection to access the content, applications, and services available on broadband networks, including the Internet. It ensures that broadband network providers operate their networks in a nondiscriminatory manner. The bill also ensures that consumers can attach any device to the broadband operator's network, such as an Internet phone, or wi-fi router, or settop box, or any other innovative gadget invented in the coming years. Moreover, in order to prevent the warping of the World Wide Web into a system of ``tiered service,'' the legislation will prevent broadband providers from charging new bottleneck fees for enhanced quality of service or the prioritization of bits.

Finally, if a broadband provider chooses to prioritize data of any type, it requires that it do so for all data of that type and not charge a fee for such prioritization. For instance, if a broadband provider wants to prioritize the transmission of bits representing a VOIP phone call for its own VOIP service, it must do so for all VOIP services so as not to put its competitors at an arbitrary disadvantage.

Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of Internet time until August of 2005, the Internet's nondiscriminatory nature was safeguarded from being compromised by Federal Communications Commission rules that required nondiscriminatory treatment by telecommunications carriers. In other words, no commercial telecommunications carrier could engage in discriminatory conduct regarding Internet traffic and Internet access because it was prohibited by law.

In August of 2005, however, the Federal Communications Commission reclassified broadband access to the Internet in a way which removed such legal protections. And how did the industry respond to this change? Just a few weeks after the FCC removed the Internet's protections, the Chairman of then-SBC Communications made the following statement in a November 7th Business Week interview: ``Now what they [Google, Yahoo, MSN] would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. . . .''

In a December 1, 2005 Washington Post article, a BellSouth executive indicated that his company wanted to strike deals to give certain Web sites priority treatment in reaching computer users. The article noted this would ``significantly change how the Internet operates'' and that the BellSouth executive said ``his company should be allowed to charge a rival voice-over-Internet firm so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth's offering.'' Meaning, that if the rival firm did not pay, or was not permitted to pay for competitive reasons, its service presumably would not ``operate with the same quality'' as BellSouth's own product.

Finally, on January 6, 2006, the CEO of Verizon, in an address to the Consumer Electronics Show also indicated that Verizon would now be the corporate arbiter of how traffic would be treated when he said the following: ``We have to make sure [content providers] don't sit on our network and chew up our capacity.''

I think these statements should give pause to those who might argue that we shouldn't do anything to enact strong network neutrality provisions because currently no harm is being done.

Do we really have to wait till these corporate giants divide and conquer the open architecture of the Internet to make that against the law? These telephone company executives are telling us that they intend to discriminate in the prioritization of bits and to discriminate in the offering of ``quality of service'' functions--for a new fee, a new broadband bottleneck toll--to access high bandwidth customers, we cannot afford to wait until they actually start doing that before we step in to stop it.

Once they start making money by leveraging that bottleneck position in the marketplace, will a future Congress really stare them down and take that revenue stream away?

Mr. Speaker, if we don't protect the openness of the Internet for entrepreneurial activity, we're ruining a wonderful model for low barrier entry, innovation, and job creation. Broadband network owners should not be able to determine who can and who cannot offer services over broadband networks or over the Internet. The detrimental effect to the digital economy would be quite severe if such conduct were permitted and became widespread. The deterioration of significant policies of nondiscrimination by the imposition of artificial bottlenecks by broadband network owners imperil economic growth, innovation, job creation, and First Amendment freedom of expression on such networks.

The Network Neutrality Act of 2006 offers Members a clear choice. It is a choice between favoring the broadband designs of a small handful of very large companies, and safeguarding the dreams of thousands of inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. This legislation is designed to save the Internet and thwart those who seek to fundamentally and detrimentally alter the Internet as we know it. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support this bill and urge the House to take a decisive stand in favor of network neutrality.

Mr. Speaker, in November 2005, President Bush announced a ``National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza'', which contained plans ``to prepare our nation, and our world to fight this potentially devastating outbreak of infectious disease.'' Clearly, our government must develop and implement thorough plans to detect, respond to and recover from an avian flu pandemic in the event that an outbreak occurs in the United States. However, our country cannot effectively combat avian flu unilaterally. That is why today I am introducing the Global Trade Requires Unmitigated Truth in Health, TRUTH, Act, a bill that seeks to address global health risks in an era of unprecedented international commerce that has created enormous opportunities while also speeding the spread of communicable diseases.

As global trade increases the number of products crossing international borders at faster rates, we also see an increase in harmful and dangerous diseases flying across our borders. With mounting concerns surrounding avian flu and recent experience with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, SARS, governments have not only the right but the responsibility to protect their countries from the threat of disease.

Because avian flu cases have been confirmed in Asia, Europe and the Middle East and the ease of international travel increases the chances that avian flu could emerge in our country, our health officials need the latest epidemiological data as soon as cases are confirmed abroad. The Global TRUTH Act will ensure that all countries that participate in global trade are also good citizens when it comes to protecting the global public health.

The SARS outbreak in Asia in 2002 and 2003 highlighted the inherent dangers in delayed reporting of public health risks for the supposed benefit of international trade. When a country is reluctant to publicize early cases of disease for fear of such an announcement's economic effects, that disease is allowed to spread. In order to maintain a system of global public health preparedness, we should enshrine fundamental public health preparedness principles in the international trading system, including the World Trade Organization,

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

I thank my friend from Florida Mr. Stearns. He and I have partnered on the resolution and on cofounding the Congressional Cystic Fibrosis Caucus. And I want to thank him for his commitment to CF, its cause, and the difference that this institution can make in helping to find the cure. It is, without question, something that we can agree upon on a bipartisan basis.

The resolution before us today is to support the goals and the ideals of the National Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month, and it is really so that we can bring the most powerful four-letter word to this cause, and that word is ``hope''; hope that the United States Government will increase its funding, will help to find the cure for this dreaded disease, that we can give hope to the families who are affected by it. And today is a really important day on that path because for the first time we do have a caucus, and this resolution in a lot of ways will memorialize that and give more momentum to finding the cure.

CF is one of the most common life-threatening genetic diseases in the United States. People with CF produce abnormally thick, sticky mucus, which makes breathing very difficult. They find, as a result, they cough and they wheeze constantly and are at constant risk for life- threatening lung infections.

Approximately 30,000 children and adults in the United States have cystic fibrosis, but it affects far more than those 30,000 people. It affects all of the families and the loved ones of those people who are struggling with this horrible disease. It affects the moms who have to wake up at 5 a.m. so that they can pound on their child's chest before they go to work. It affects their siblings who have to wait with their sister while she goes to yet another doctor's appointment. And it affects the dads who worry that their child will never grow up to have a normal life. This resolution is about supporting these families and providing them with the hope for a better future.

Significant improvements have been made in the treatment of cystic fibrosis. A few decades ago many children with CF did not live past 10 years of age. Today life expectancy is 35 years of age, and much of these achievements are due to the hard work and the dedication of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. That is why CFF really stands for courageous fighting families, courageous fighting friends of those families.

Yet even with this incredible work of our courageous fighting families, we still have a long way to go to provide the people with CF with a normal and healthy life. It is time for Congress to become more involved in the pursuit of a cure. We need to make a greater investment in research and make a stronger commitment to the people with CF, their families, and their caretakers.

This is something which in the 21st century we should leave as a forgotten memory, but we can only do it if we provide hope now. It is the most powerful word in the English language: Hope that we can raise awareness of the families struggling with CF, hope that we can find better treatments and ultimately a cure, hope that our children will have to turn to the history books to find that there ever was such a thing as cystic fibrosis.

I thank, again, the cochair of the caucus Mr. Stearns. This is now going to bring a larger, more powerful spotlight on this disease. And hopefully, working together in a bipartisan fashion, we can address this as a human issue and not as a Democrat or Republican issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Port Operations Require Tough Scrutiny (PORTS) Act to ensure that decisions about the sale of critical U.S. infrastructure such as ports are thoroughly reviewed so that the homeland security consequences of these transactions are not brushed aside in favor of commercial interests.

The Bush Administration's recent decision to approve the sale of British port operator Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation to Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has raised significant homeland security concerns. This decision also has shined a light on a little-known committee at the Treasury Department and the secretive process it uses to make decisions that can have important consequences for the security of our Nation.

Clearly, the UAE port deal did not receive the scrutiny it deserved. The 9/11 Commission identified the government of the UAE--the same entity that would operate major functions at 6 U.S. ports--as a ``persistent counterterrorism problem''. Two of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the UAE banking system was used as a conduit for funds for the September 11th attacks. The UAE was a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea and Libya. The UAE was one of only three nations to recognize the legitimacy of the Taliban government and still does not recognize the State of Israel.

Despite all of these warning signs, the proposed port deal did not even trigger a 45-day investigation, which is provided in current law and should have been interpreted as being mandatory when foreign governments--whether involving the UAE, the UK, the Ukraine or any other nation--seek mergers, acquisitions or similar transactions that could affect U.S. national security. Nevertheless, when asked about the UAE port deal last week, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said, ``I am reluctant to make judgments based on the minimal amount of information I have because I just heard about this over the weekend.'' (Defense Department news briefing, 2/21/06).

It is unacceptable that President Bush, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of the Treasury were not informed of the UAE port deal until after it was approved and had caused widespread public outrage. President Bush has repeatedly told the American people that 9/11 changed his thinking, and extraordinary measures, such as warrantless wiretapping of

American citizens, are required to keep America safe. How, then, could the Bush Administration have overlooked such an obvious homeland security threat?

My legislation would strengthen the process for assessing the national security impact of foreign ownership of critical U.S. infrastructure. Specifically, the legislation would:

Limit Takeovers of Critical Homeland Infrastructure. In cases where the purchaser is a government-owned company based in a foreign country, the transaction must be approved not only by CFIUS, but also by the President and be subject to congressional review.

If the purchaser is a foreign company, but not government-controlled, the transaction must undergo a 45-day investigation and be found to not undermine national security before it can be approved.

Increase the 30-day Evaluation Period. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), ``Several officials [participating in the CFIUS process] commented that, in complex cases, it is difficult to complete analyses . . .within 23 days.'' CFIUS's guidance requires member agencies to determine if they are likely to object to the transaction by the 23rd day of the 30-day review period. The legislation would double this initial evaluation period to 60 days and permit any participant to be granted an automatic 10-day extension, separate from CFIUS's 45-day investigatory period.

Require Reports to Congress. According to Treasury Department regulations, CFIUS reviews of any proposed transactions are confidential, and there is no congressional oversight of CFIUS decisions. The legislation would require CFIUS to report annually to Congress on the number of notifications it received during the year and the action taken after each notification.

As security experts and the 9/11 Commission have pointed out, our ports are a vulnerable entry point that could be exploited by terrorists to strike our country. Almost none of the cargo that enters U.S. ports is ever inspected. While the federal government is ultimately responsible for security at ports, much of the day-to-day security responsibilities, such as hiring security guards and ensuring adequate access controls and fencing are in place, are delegated to the companies that operate at the port. The port operator also has access to real-time sensitive intelligence of the continuous movement of ships, their cargoes and the millions of containers they are stored in; the identity of their shippers and inside knowledge about the security in place at the ports.

While oversight of these private operators is the responsibility of the Department of Security, the Bush Administration is nickel and diming our port security by proposing a budget that eliminates millions in port security grants. This is a wrong-headed decision that only leaves our country vulnerable to a devastating attack, such as a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb being detonated in our country.

We know that terrorists are seeking to use U.S. ports as a route to launch a devastating nuclear attack on U.S. soil--one of the millennium bombers entered the United States through the Port of Boston in an attempt to bomb buildings on the West Coast. Cargo containers represent a cheap, deadly method for delivering bombs on U.S. soil--we cannot afford to be lax in our oversight of the shipping and handling of these containers. This Administration's scrutiny of this UAE deal is just like their treatment of tons of cargos at our door: insufficient, incomplete and incomprehensible, given the security threats we face.''

As the DP World decision illustrates, the CFIUS process urgently needs to be overhauled. I urge consideration of this legislation so that we can increase the scrutiny of transactions that could create serious homeland security risks. Commerce must not be permitted to trump common sense.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 341. Iran has obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, NPT, to not carry out a nuclear weapons program. Iran has ignored its obligations by carrying out a covert uranium enrichment program. It is becoming increasingly clear that this enrichment program is not merely aimed at producing nuclear fuel for a civilian energy program. According the IAEA, Iran has documents in their possession for casting of enriched and depleted uranium metal into hemispheres--something which has no legitimate civilian purpose and which appears clearly to be related to the fabrication of nuclear weapons components. Possession of these documents is a violation of the NPT.

I support the work of the IAEA to monitor Iran's nuclear program, to press for Iran to agree to the Additional Protocol for enhanced monitoring and inspection of that program. The British, the French, and the Germans have tried for years to convince Iran to move away from nuclear weapons capability and to agree to increased international monitoring of its nuclear activities. Iran has rejected their efforts and made it clear that it is not willing to accept the type of negotiated solution proposed by the Europeans.

Right now we face a crisis that challenges the future of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. If the international community cannot address the issue of Iran, then we risk the collapse of the NPT.

I hope the U.N. Security Council can resolve this issue. Now that this matter has been referred to the Security Council, the international community needs to begin a dialogue about how best to respond to Iran's action. We need to start thinking about tough and enforceable sanctions that can send a clear signal to Tehran that ignoring the will of the international community on this issue has consequences.

As we call upon Iran to stop their clandestine program, however, we must remember the United States also has obligations to the NPT. We can not ask the world to enforce regulation on Iran while we shirk our obligations to the NPT by opening up nuclear trade with India, a country which has not signed the Treaty. If we seek special exemptions from international and domestic nonproliferation law for India while simultaneously seeking strict enforcement of such laws for Iran, an NPT signatory, we will undermine our credibility as a leader on nonproliferation. Iran will accuse us of hypocrisy, and other nations may seek similar special exemptions.

For example, we know that China has long had a close relationship with Pakistan's nuclear program. Pakistan has already asked the U.S. to make special exemptions for them from international and domestic nonproliferation law. China has called for that as well. Are we going to also exempt Pakistan from the international system of controls and safeguards established by the NPT and by U.S. law? Are we going to stand by and do nothing if China goes ahead and sends the same type of nuclear technology and materials that we are talking about sending to India?

We also know that Russia has historically had a close relationship with the Iranian nuclear program. They've been trying to get the Iranians to agree to a nuclear fuel supply arrangement in return for foregoing a domestic Iranian enrichment program. But what if Moscow decides now to go far beyond that and afford Iran broader access to controlled nuclear technology, citing what we're proposing to do with India?

I think that if we want to send a strong signal to Iran that its flouting of international nuclear nonproliferation norms is unacceptable and will have adverse consequences, then now is not the time to be thinking of granting selective exemptions from nonproliferation laws and treaties for other nations, even if they are our friends. We need to be principled leaders on the most important of all issues facing our country. We do not want Iran, with a regime that has made it clear that it desires the destruction of Israel, a regime that is known to have provided material support to terrorist groups, to obtain its own nuclear arsenal.

The time for us to act as an international community is now. There are forces within Iran that want to move away from extremism. We need to send a strong signal that the international community does not accept the current Iranian government's nuclear aspirations, and that there will be consequences, there will be sanctions, if Tehran persists in its current course of action.

Mr. Speaker, the American people expect their leaders to articulate a vision and a comprehensive strategy for America's energy future. They expect us to be focused on reducing the high energy costs to American consumers and completely eliminating our dependence on expensive and volatile Middle Eastern oil. In contrast, several weeks ago the New York Times released an investigative report revealing that payments made by energy companies are not keeping up with the skyrocketing cost of energy. Today, the Times, revealed that big oil companies stand to receive future royalty giveaways from the Bush administration of nearly $7 billion. This royalty relief for Exxon Mobil, BP, and Chevron Texaco comes at a time when consumers are paying record high energy prices.

It is time to start providing royalty relief to the American public, and to end it for multinational energy companies that just made more profit in one year than any industry in modern history.

Today, Representatives Maloney, Miller, Waxman, Emanuel, Inslee, Pallone, Grijalva and I are introducing the ``Royalty Relief for American Consumers Act of 2006'' to ensure that the taxpayers will receive the billions of dollars in royalty payments they are owed by the big oil companies as payment to drill on public land. Our legislation would prohibit royalty relief on any future oil and gas leases, call for a renegotiation of current leases, and prohibit the purchasing of new leases by those companies that refuse to renegotiate.

Oil companies pay a fraction of the value of the oil and gas produced on federal land as a royalty to the Federal Government. However, on Valentine's Day, we have learned of yet another sweetheart deal that the administration is giving to big oil. Across the country, Americans can't afford roses and chocolates because they are getting squeezed at the pump for every last nickel and dime they have--meanwhile the Bush administration is giving its sweethearts in the oil industry $7 billion that rightfully belongs to America's taxpayers.

In the 1990's and again last year, the Republican Congress voted to suspend royalty payments by oil and gas companies for oil and gas produced in Federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, the President's own budget directs the Department of the Interior to allow companies to pump nearly $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas without paying royalties. Apparently the administration doesn't feel that the record profits being reported by Exxon Mobil and the other big oil companies are high enough. The Bush policy of subsidizing wealthy oil companies has proven to be wildly effective in boosting oil company profits, but it continues to harm American consumers. It is time for this administration to stop letting oil companies make the greatest profits we have ever seen in the history of the world while not paying their bills to the American public.

The ``Royalty Relief for American Consumers Act of 2006'' will ensure that the American taxpayers receive the money they are owed by the oil companies in the future. Our legislation will help reverse the Bush administration's policy to ``Leave No Oil Company Behind'' and instead provide relief to the American consumers who are currently footing the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Eliminate Warehousing of Consumer Internet Data Act of 2006. This act is designed to ensure that personal information about consumers and their use of the Internet that is no longer necessary for any legitimate business purpose is destroyed. The warehousing of personal information about consumers' Internet use, data which often indicate nonpublic details of their lives, should not be stored needlessly awaiting compromise by data thieves or fraudsters or disclosure through judicial fishing expeditions.

Mr. Speaker, as America's telecommunications networks continue to grow and broadband digital technologies become ever more prevalent, individuals and industries will increasingly use such networks to communicate and conduct commercial transactions. The ease of gathering and compiling personal information during such communications, both overtly and surreptitiously, is highly efficient due to advances in digital telecommunications technology and the widespread use of the Internet.

As such information is gathered and gleaned from consumers, it is important to acknowledge that consumers have an ownership interest in their personal information. Information gathered about consumers over the Internet can provide detail about some of the most intimate aspects of an individual's life, including their surfing interests, communications with other citizens, purchases, information inquiries, and political or religious interests, affiliations, or speech. Certain information from Internet searches or website visits conducted from a particular computer can be obtained and stored by websites or search engines, and can be traced back to individual computer users. Some Internet search engines, for example, today can collect information about a consumer's search request, the Internet protocol address, the consumer's browser type and browser language, the date and time of the request, as well as information regarding cookies that may uniquely identify the consumer's browser.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that in order to safeguard consumer privacy interests, companies that gather personal information that can identify individual consumers should cease to store such information after it is no longer necessary to render service to such consumers or to conduct any legitimate business practice. This is an obligation that cable operators today discharge. A cable operator, which can gather personal information about a subscriber's use of the cable system and obtain information about a consumer's video programming choices and use of their cable modem are currently required under section 631 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 551, to destroy any personal information gathered from a subscriber after it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was gathered and if there are no other pending legal requests for such information.

This legislation is designed to extend to consumers similar protection. It does so for websites and Internet search engines who arguably possess information about computer users which is more detailed and more personalized, than information cable operators typically gather. It does however permit such entities to utilize such data to render service to consumers in a way which does not inhibit their ability to innovate and only requires that once the entity no longer has a legitimate reason to warehouse such information to destroy it within a reasonable period of time.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on this and other consumer privacy issues this year and in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this nearly $40 billion cut from programs to help poor and middle class Americans.

Last night, in the State of the Union, President Bush said, ``our greatness is not measured in power or luxuries, but by who we are and how we treat one another. So we strive to be a compassionate, decent, hopeful society.''

Yet the Republican's first act after the President uttered those words is to take hope and help away from those who need it most.

This Republican reconciliation bill slashes $11.9 billion from student loan programs to help kids go to college.

It cuts $6.4 billion from Medicare and makes elderly beneficiaries pay higher premiums for their health care.

It cuts $1.5 billion from programs to make sure that dead beat dads take responsibility for their actions and pay their child support.

And it takes away $6.9 billion from Medicaid which helps the poorest and sickest children and families in our country get healthcare.

And all of the money that is taken away from the poor and middle class will go straight into the pockets of millionaires. The Republican Reconciliation Tax Cut bill gives the top 1 percent of Americans who are millionaires will get $32,000 extra dollars a year. The average American family will get approximately $7.00 from that bill.

While the Republicans claim that this Reconciliation process will reduce the deficit, it will have the exact opposite effect.

The Republican Reconciliation package will increase the deficit by giving more and more tax cuts to the ultra-rich.

While cutting Medicaid, Medicare and student loans will do little to offset the $122 billion dollars in tax cuts that the Republicans have passed over the past year, it will have an enormous impact on the lives of average Americans.

What does this say about who we are and how we treat one another?

It says that this Republican Congress believes that it is more important to make their fat cat friends fatter than it is to provide education, health care and child support to those who need it most.

So much for compassion and decency.

This Republican bill does not simply rob the poor of resources. The proposed cuts rob the poor of opportunity by targeting programs that work to bridge the gap between rich and poor and even the playing field for all American families.

Our country deserves better than empty promises and recycled rhetoric from our leaders.

Vote ``no'' on this irresponsible, short-sighted and immoral Republican Reconciliation package.

Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity to change fundamentally the relationship of the United States to energy in a way that helps the consumer, reduces pollution, reduces greenhouse gases, and reduces the need to use military force to protect oil fields in countries thousands of miles from our shores. Nearly 70 percent of all the oil we use is consumed by the transportation sector, so we must look for alternatives to imported oil for fueling our cars and trucks. Today, advances in the production of ethanol--the refining of starch, sugar and cellulose into auto fuel--have reached the point where we have an opportunity to make a huge difference in opening up the market for alternatives to gasoline. Now is the time to be bold.

The powerful promise of ethanol to dramatically reduce foreign oil imports has just been demonstrated by Brazil. As a result of its ethanol production and technological development, Brazil has cut its dependence on foreign oil from about 80 percent in the 1970's to nearly zero today--despite being the 10th largest energy consumer in the world. Ethanol now accounts for 20 percent of Brazil's transportation fuel--we should be able to do that here.

The ethanol that the U.S. currently produces--3.4 billion gallons in 2004, or the equivalent of 250,000 barrels of oil a day--is made from corn. Producing ethanol from corn has been tremendously successful in the Midwest and now we must look to replicate that success all across the country, even in places where corn doesn't grow. There is great potential in ethanol refined from sources of cellulose, which are abundant and widely available in every corner of America. Experts tell us that biomass as diverse as switchgrass, sawgrass, tree bark, or wastes such as sawdust, paper pulp or sugar cane waste could now be turned into ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol holds incredible potential--by many estimates, the ability to replace 1-2 million barrels of oil a day or nearly the amount of oil that we consume from the Middle East.

But cellulosic ethanol can be derived not just from new crops grown in the farm belt, but also the waste streams of every city and village in urban and suburban America. Right now this surplus cellulose is being trucked to a landfill at great cost. But this so-called ``waste stream'' is actually the potential backbone of an alternative auto fuel. Turning cellulosic waste into ethanol would also have the virtue of helping to relieve the immense pressure in urban areas on landfills while also producing a protein rich animal food.

We need to make ethanol a national program here as Brazil has done. Right now ethanol is a boutique fuel for the Midwest that is not widely used in the urban areas or our coasts because the costs of transporting it there make it uneconomic. We need to give every region of our country an ability to produce and use ethanol. We need to give every sector of industry a stake in developing ethanol from the byproducts produced at plants in urban areas.

Right now, there are nearly five million vehicles already on the road in the U.S. that are capable of running on E85, a fuel mix that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Recently, automakers such as Ford and GM have announced plans to ramp up production of flexfuel vehicles, planning to produce a combined 650,000 such vehicles in 2006. Making vehicles that are capable of running on 85 percent ethanol is also not significantly more expensive than making cars that run on gas only. Right now, vehicles that have flex-fuel models retail for the same prices as their gas-only counterparts.

Today, I am introducing the ``Fuel Security and Consumer Choice Act''--legislation mandating that within 10 years all cars, trucks and SUV's sold in the United States be flex-fuel vehicles, capable of running on gasoline, ethanol or a combination of both. This legislation would also gradually phase out the so-called ``dual fuels loophole'' over a 4 year period--expiring roughly around the year 2010, when the credit is currently set to expire under the Energy Bill passed last year. This phase out will ensure that as we move forward as a Nation towards using these new fuels, we do not inadvertently move backwards in overall fuel economy standards for our Nation's fleet of cars, trucks and SUVs.

Mandating that U.S. cars be capable of running on ethanol will spur the development of these new cellulosic ethanols and improve technology for producing ethanol from corn. We are a technological giant and we must develop fuels for the future for our transportation sector if we ever want to replace our dependence on oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide relief to American consumers from high gas and energy prices.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most preposterous situations that the House has ever been placed in. Poised to be placed before the House in just a matter of moments is a bill, the Defense appropriations bill, which is in violation of the germaneness rules of the House; it is in violation of any scope that the Defense appropriations bill has ever allowed to be considered in that bill because inside that bill is a provision which will in fact allow for the drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

The gentleman from California is the chairman of the committee, the Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The gentleman is out here propounding. I would like to continue to be recognized.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.

Every Member of the House should understand that they are about to cast the most important environmental vote of the decade. The vote on the rule on the Defense appropriations bill is a vote to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This provision was not in the House bill. This amendment was not in the Senate Bill. In violation of all House rules, this provision has been added to the Defense appropriations bill. A can't-pass measure has been added to a must-pass measure in order for the Republicans to give an early huge Christmas gift to the oil companies of the United States.

It is not enough that the Republicans have already tipped American consumers and taxpayers upside down all year for the oil companies. But now, after the oil companies registered $100 billion worth of profits, now, here on the Defense appropriations bill, the Republicans, waiving all rules of the House, have taken the number one environmental issue of the decade and they have slapped it onto the Defense appropriations bill.

The Republicans have said, or President Bush has said, the war in Iraq had nothing to do with oil. But here we are at 20 of 2 in the morning, with the Defense appropriations bill out here for the Republicans and what are they doing on the Defense appropriations bill? They are attaching an oil amendment to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. This whole myth that the Republicans do not fight wars over oil, do not corrupt the way in which the rules of the House are conducted in order to advance the agenda of the oil industry is once and for all put to rest here where the Members cannot even vote straight up or down on whether or not they want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

And let me make it clear to everyone who might have some pangs of conscience about our fighting men and women in Iraq, which every one of us wants to help, if you vote ``no'' on this rule, the Rules Committee in 5 minutes is going to bring another rule back down here without the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in it, and we will be able to fund everything that we want to do for every single soldier and marine in Iraq.

So do not let yourself be fooled by that. They just did it. We are doing stuff for drug companies in this bill that was just added. We are doing stuff for the oil companies in this bill that was just added. And if you think for a minute after we vote down this rule because it is the single worst anti-environmental bill in history that they are not going to have the bill right back out here in a nanosecond, then you are kidding yourself.

So that is not the cover. If you want to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, you do so. But that is your environmental vote. The next vote will be on the Defense appropriations itself. This is on a rule that is banning, barring Members from having a straight up-or-down vote on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

We reach this point at the end of the year where the House and the Senate majority, lead by the White House, is contorting the rules of both institutions in a way which will set precedence for a generation in order to accomplish a goal which should not in fact be considered on this Defense appropriations bill. So in order to preserve the integrity of the rules of the

House, in order to ensure that we give the full consideration to the historic importance of voting in this body to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I urge a ``no'' vote.

And each and every Member should be warned that this will be the number one environmental vote not just of this year but of the decade. I urge a ``no'' vote.