Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, in the coming weeks, Democrats will be laying out a comprehensive energy strategy and a vision for America's energy future. Today, Representative Rahm Emanuel and I are beginning that process by introducing a bill that would impose a windfall profits tax on the oil industry.

The Windfall Profits and Consumer Assistance Act of 2005 would impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies on oil sold above $40 a barrel. Our bill would then use half of the revenue generated by this tax to fund a tax rebate for all American consumers to help them deal with their high gas and energy costs. Our bill would use the other half of the tax revenue to supplement funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program that helps poor families and seniors of fixed incomes pay their energy bills.

Now, more than ever, huge sums of money are gushing into the pockets of the oil and gas industry. Exxon and Shell recently reported third quarter profits that were $2 and $3 billion more than the greatest quarterly profits we have ever seen, from any company, in the history of the world. These historic profits are coming as the result of oil prices that are currently around $60 a barrel and have recently been near $70 a barrel.

Meanwhile, American consumers are facing astronomical prices at the pump and with winter coming, an impending home heating crisis. According to projections in the Energy Information Administration's recently released ``Short-Term Energy Outlook and Winter Fuels Outlook,'' home heating oil prices are likely to be 31.5 percent higher than they were last year. This increase translates into an average consumer expenditure of $1,577--an increase of $378 over last winter. Moreover, last year only 15.6 percent of households eligible for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program nationwide were served. We can and must do better in addressing the additional burden that both average consumers and low-income consumers will face as a result of the current price increases.

Our bill would take a portion of the historic high profits that oil companies are making and use it to help the millions of American consumers who are bearing the brunt of high energy costs. Our bill will help reverse the Bush Administration's policy to ``Leave No Oil Company Behind'' and would provide relief to American consumers who are paying the price for the Republican Party's energy mistakes.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that the conference report has deleted all funding for the nuclear bunker buster program. This action reflects the second time that the Congress has decided to reject the Bush administration's request for this dangerous and unnecessary weapon, and I am hopeful that this action will end the debate on this issue once and for all.

The United States faces a serious national security threat from the proliferation of nuclear weapons materials and technologies, most notably in North Korea, Pakistan and Iran. The pursuit of new nuclear weapons such as the Bush administration's proposed nuclear bunker buster sends a dangerously mixed signal to the rest of the world and erodes our nonproliferation credibility. Nations that see the U.S. expanding and diversifying our nuclear arsenal are encouraged to seek or maintain nuclear deterrents of their own and ignore nonproliferation obligations. Additionally, a U.S. move toward expanding and diversifying our nuclear stockpile is contrary to our legal obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT, which clearly requires the United States to work toward reducing our nuclear arsenal.

In light of the adverse impact of the pursuit of the nuclear bunker buster and any other new nuclear weapon on international nonproliferation efforts, the fact that the bunker buster would inevitably spread high levels of radiation above ground, and existing U.S. earth-penetrating and other conventional weapons capabilities, the Bush administration's proposed nuclear bunker buster study and the development of any new nuclear weapons are a dangerous and wasteful use of taxpayer money.

While I am pleased at the outcome on the bunker buster, I am very concerned that this appropriations bill provides $80 million for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative--an increase of $10 million over the amount requested for this program. In addition, the bill provides an additional $50 million in nuclear waste disposal funding to support development of a spent nuclear fuel recycling plan. These proposals are aimed at reviving nuclear reprocessing--an idea that Congress has considered and rejected in the past.

The conference report contains language that directs the Department of Energy to use this money to

accelerate the development of a separations technology that

can address the current inventories of commercial spent

nuclear fuel and select the preferred technology no later

than the end of fiscal year 2007.

Essentially, the Appropriations Committee is telling DOE that it doesn't believe Yucca Mountain will ever be opened, so it now wants the Department to instead embark on a crash program to start reprocessing nuclear waste.

I warned back in 1987 that the decision to limit the search for a deep underground repository to the Yucca Mountain site and to bar examination of other alternative sites was a risky one. If Yucca Mountain proved unsuitable, or if it could not meet the NRC's licensing requirements, then our country efforts to find a solution to the nuclear waste problem would be forced back to square one.

Now, it appears that my warnings are being borne out. The Yucca Mountain repository is falling apart in the face of serious scientific and technical problems. But rather than come back to Congress and ask for legislation that would reopen the search for a permanent repository, which the nuclear industry and its supporters in Congress know would be politically hazardous, the appropriators now appear to be effectively abandoning the notion of deep underground burial. Instead, they want to reprocess the waste and store it in above ground ``interim'' storage facilities.

Now, you would think that such a fundamental rewrite of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act would actually require action by the committee that actually has jurisdiction over the act in the first place. In the House, that would be the Energy and Commerce Committee. However, in this bill the directive to prioritize reprocessing is being made without any participation by the Energy and Commerce Committee. The committee doesn't even get a copy of the report mandated by the Appropriations conferees.

Yes, there was language in the Energy Policy Act which authorized R&D on reprocessing. I opposed that language, and sought unsuccessfully to remove it from the bill. But R&D is far different from moving to full- scale engineering of reprocessing technologies with a short-term deployment objective. That is what is being proposed in the bill before us today. This conference report is actually talking about setting a target for site selection in fiscal year 2007, and a target for initiation of construction of one or more integrated spent fuel recycling facilities in fiscal year 2010.

This has enormous implications for the future of efforts to permanently dispose of the Nation's nuclear waste in a deep underground repository. It effectively means that there will

be no deep underground repository. It effectively means that there will be no deep underground burial of waste in our lifetimes. So, all of the billions paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund over the years will soon see those funds be diverted over to supporting this new unproven and risky scheme of reprocessing.

This is a huge policy shift. Since the 1970's we have had a policy in this country against reprocessing spent fuel, both because of the risk of nonproliferation and because reprocessing is not economical. In recent years, Republican leaders in Washington have decided they want to undo that policy, however.

I am fundamentally opposed to reprocessing, because I believe that a revival of domestic reprocessing would undermine America's nuclear nonproliferation efforts, cost us enormous amounts of money, will not solve the nuclear waste problem, and won't increase nuclear safety.

With respect to the proliferation risks--just look at North Korea. It has been reprocessing spent fuel from its reactors to use in nuclear bombs. In response, President Bush has asked the Nuclear Suppliers Group to limit access to reprocessing technology, arguing that:

This step will prevent new states from developing the means

to produce fissile material for nuclear bombs.

At the same time, the U.S. is confronting Iran over its plan to develop a full uranium enrichment program. How are we going to credibly ask the rest of the world to support us when we tell Iran or any other nation that they cannot have the full fuel cycle or reprocessing when we have one here at home? It just won't fly.

America cannot preach nuclear temperance from a barstool. We cannot credibly tell other nations that they should refrain from reprocessing or other nuclear fuel cycle activities abroad when we are engaging in these same exact activities here at home. That is why President Gerald Ford called for an end to commercial reprocessing back in 1976, and why no President since then has successfully revived reprocessing.

In addition to the serious adverse nonproliferation consequences, reprocessing also is not economical. A MIT study put the cost of reprocessing at four times that of as once-through nuclear power. The current price of concentrated uranium ``yellowcake'' in the spot market is about $53.00/kg. For reprocessing to be economical, there must be a sustained 8-fold increase in the long-term price of uranium. That is not likely to occur anytime soon.

On top of that is the cost of building a plant. As a benchmark, Japan's nearly completed Rokkasho reprocessing plant--20 years in the making--costs on the order of $20 billion. I have seen some cost estimates for a U.S. reprocessing program that run as high as $65 billion. That is not something that is economically viable at a time of huge Federal budget deficites.

Moreover, reprocessing will not really alleviate the nuclear waste problem. Talk to the folks at Savannah River where over 30 million gallons of high-level were left behind from reprocessing. Under this bill, Savannah River may be targeted again for interim storage for spent fuel, awaiting reprocessing. So might Hanford and Idaho or other Federal sites.

The conference report states that funding in the Nuclear Waste Disposal Account will be used:

to prepare the overall program plan and to initiate a

competition to select one or more sites suitable for

development of integrated recycling facilities (i.e.,

separation of spent fuel, fabrication of mixed oxide fuel,

vitrification of waste products, and process storage) and

initiate work on an Environmental Impact Statement. The site

competition should not be limited to DOE sites, but should be

open to a wide range of other possible federal and non-

federal sites on a strictly voluntary basis.

These reprocessing sites will become de facto nuclear waste dumps. Which State is going to ``volunteer'' to become a nuclear waste dump? Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, such a site cannot legally be located at the Yucca Mountain site. So, where is it going to go?

How long will the waste be stored there? The spent nuclear fuel cannot even be handled to be reprocessed for 5 to 15 years--it is so radioactive. So we know already that ``interim storage'' could last for a very long time.

And if we construct these ``interim'' waste dumps, what happens next? What will happen to all this waste when the hard reality of the disastrous economics combined with the fact that our government is already too deep in deficit that it will be unable to subsidize such a program forever? There are simply too many unanswered questions.

It is also not accurate to suggest, as some do, that reprocessing is safe. Twenty tons of highly radioactive material leaked from a broken pipe at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in the United Kingdom in April of this year. Senior officials at the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the Sellafield reprocessing have pushed to close THORP altogether, arguing that it is more cost- effective to close the plant now rather than repair the problems only to decommission the plant as planned in 2012. Is that the kind of mess we want happening over here?

When the House version of this bill was being debated on the House floor last summer, I offered an amendment which would have transferred the $15.5 million appropriated for reprocessing and interim storage to several energy efficiency priority programs that were underfunded in the bill. Unfortunately, my amendment was defeated.

I continue to be opposed to the reprocessing language in the bill. I intend to continue raising questions about this proposal, both in the Energy and Commerce Committee and on this floor.

Finally, on another matter, I am very concerned about the cuts that have been made in energy efficiency programs in this bill. We are in the middle of an energy emergency. We had a hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee last week that showed the impact that these high prices are having across the board, in every sector of the economy. The Senate will be holding a hearing today on price gouging by big oil companies and the $100 billion in oil company profits projected for 2005. There are things that we can do in this area. What we are seeing is missed opportunities.

The House Bill for the fiscal year 2006 Energy and Water Appropriations provided $41 million for the State Energy Program. The Senate bill provided $41 million for the State Energy Program. Now we go to conference and the conference report provides $36 million, which is $8 million below fiscal year 2005 levels--almost a 20 percent cut. We are in the midst of an energy crisis. This program implements energy efficiency programs and energy emergency preparedness activities in every State in our country. A recent National Laboratory study concluded that for every $1 invested, we get $7.22 in return in energy savings. This makes no sense. We should be increasing these programs, not cutting them.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce, along with Representatives Hart, Baca and Ford, the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, or CAMRA Act.

This bill has also been introduced in the Senate by Senators Lieberman, Brownback, Clinton, Santorum, and Durbin.

Our children live in the information age, and our country has one of the most powerful and sophisticated information technology systems in the world. While this system entertains them, it is not always harmless entertainment. Media have the potential to facilitate the healthy growth of our children. They also have the potential to harm. We have a stake in finding out exactly what that role is. We have a responsibility to take action. Access to the knowledge that we need for informed decision-making requires us to make an investment: An investment in research, an investment in and for our children, an investment in our collective future. The benefits to our youth and our Nation's families are immeasurable.

In order to ensure that we are doing our very best for our children, the behavioral and health recommendations and public policy decisions we make should be based on objective behavioral, social, and scientific research. Yet no Federal research agency has responsibility for overseeing and setting a coherent media research agenda that can guide these policy decisions. Instead, Federal agencies fund media research in a piecemeal fashion, resulting in a patch work quilt of findings. We can do better than that.

The bill we are introducing today would remedy this problem. The CAMRA Act will provide an overarching view of media effects by establishing a program devoted to Children and Media within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This program of research, to be vetted by the National Academy of Sciences, will fund and energize a coherent program of research that illuminates the role of media in children's cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and behavioral development. The research will cover all forms of electronic media, including television, movies, DVDs, interactive video games, cell phones, and the Internet, and will encourage research involving children of all ages--even babies and toddlers. The bill also calls for a report to Congress about the effectiveness of this research program in filling this void in our knowledge base. In order to accomplish these goals, we are authorizing $90 million dollars to be phased in gradually across the next 5 years. The cost to our budget is minimal and can well result in significant savings in other budget areas.

This legislation has strong support among researchers and children's advocates. Ted Lempert, President of Children Now, a national nonprofit organization which for years has focused on the need for policymakers to keep pace with the rising influence of media on children, writes: ``CAMRA's establishment of a program on children and the media within the Center for Disease Control and Prevention will provide invaluable insight into the role and impact of electronic media on the children's development. Kids are spending more time with media than on any other activity except for sleeping, yet there are sizeable gaps in what we know about the role media play in children's cognitive, physical and behavioral development.''

Jim Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, a leading non- partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting a healthy media environment for children, supports CAMRA, saying ``We enthusiastically endorse the funding of coherent research which will better illuminate the role of media in children's cognitive, social, emotional, physical and behavioral development. In an increasingly digital world where convergence of technologies provides entertainment, information and interactive possibilities to consumers, there are discernable knowledge gaps about the role of media on children's healthy development.''

Michael Rich, Director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, also wrote the following in support this bill: ``As a caring society we assess and respond to the quality of the air children breathe, the water they drink, and the food they consume. You and your co-sponsors are to be commended and supported for your foresight and leadership in directing the National Institutes of Health to investigate what we are feeding our children's minds and how that is likely to affect their health and development, now and in the future.''

From the cradle to the grave, our children now live and develop in a world of media--a world that is increasingly digital, and a world where access is at their fingertips. This emerging digital world is well known to our children, but its effects on their development are not well understood. Young people today are spending an average of 6\1/2\ hours with media each day. For those who are under age 6, 2 hours of exposure to screen media each day is common, even for those who are under age 2. That is about as much time as children under age 6 spend playing outdoors, and it is much more time than they spend reading or being read to by their parents. How does this investment of time affect children's physical development, their cognitive development, or their moral values? Unfortunately, we still have very limited information about how media, particularly the newer interactive media, affect children's development. Why? We have not charged any Federal agency with ensuring an ongoing funding base to establish a coherent research agenda about the impact of media on children's lives. This lack of a coordinated government-sponsored effort to understand the effects of media on children's development is truly an oversight on our part, as the potential payoffs for this kind of knowledge are enormous.

Consider our current national health crisis of childhood obesity. The number of U.S. children and teenagers who are overweight has more than tripled from the 1960's through 2002. We think that media exposure is partly the cause of this epidemic. Is it? Is time spent viewing screens and its accompanying sedentary lifestyle contributing to childhood and adolescent obesity? Or is the constant bombardment of advertisements for sugar-coated cereals, snack foods, and candy that pervade children's television advertisements the culprit? How do the newer online forms of ``stealth marketing'', such as advergaming where food products are embedded in computer games, affect children's and adolescents' eating patterns? Cell phones are one of the latest emerging high-tech gadgets to own,

and cell phone/iPod combination devices are now on the market. What will happen when pop-up advertisements begin to appear on children's cell phones that specifically target them for the junk food that they like best at a place where that food is easily obtainable? The answer to the obesity and media question is complex. A committee at the National Academy of Sciences is currently charged with studying the link between media advertising and childhood obesity. Will the National Academy of Sciences panel have the data they need to answer this important question? A definitive answer has the potential to save a considerable amount of money in other areas of our budget. For example, child health care costs that are linked to childhood obesity issues could be reduced by understanding and altering media diets.

After two adolescent boys shot and killed some of their teachers, classmates, and then turned their guns on themselves at Columbine High School, we asked ourselves if media played some role in this tragedy. Did these boys learn to kill in part from playing first-person shooter video games like Doom where they acted as a killer? Were they rehearsing criminal activities when playing this game? There is rising concern about extremely violent video games. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill October 7 that will prohibit the sale of ``ultraviolent'' video games to children under 18 without parental approval. In August, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution calling for less violence in computer and video games sold to children, citing research suggesting that the games contribute to aggressive behavior. The Federal Trade Commission reports that 40 percent of children under 18 play mature-rated video games. A person who plays mature-rated video games at least 40 minutes per day views 5,400 incidents of aggression per month, according to the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media. With so many of our children immersed in an electronic environment saturated with violent images, we have cause for serious concern.

In the violence and media area, Congress passed legislation so that research was conducted about the relationship between media violence and childhood aggression, and as a result, we know more. Even though much of this database is older and involves the link between exposure to violent television programs and childhood aggression, some answers were forthcoming about how the Columbine tragedy could have taken place. Even so, there is still a considerable amount of speculation about the more complex questions. Why did these particular boys, for example, pull the trigger in real life while others who played Doom confine their aggressive acts to the gaming context? We need to be able to answer questions about which children under what circumstances will translate game playing into reallife lethal actions. Investing in media research could potentially reduce our budgets associated with adolescent crime and delinquency as well as reduce real-life human misery and suffering.

Many of us believe that our children are becoming increasingly materialistic. Does exposure to commercial advertising and the ``good life'' experienced by media characters partly explain materialistic attitudes? We're not sure. Why then are we exposing children to heavy doses of advertisements in many of our nation's schools through Channel1 Network where ``free'' television sets to schools are provided in exchange for a small fee: unfettered access to advertise to children during school time? As streaming video programming proliferates on computers, cell phones and personal digital assistants, advertisers have more avenues to reach our children and bombard them with pro- consumption messages. As technology advances and becomes increasingly widespread among younger children, parents are justifiably concerned about losing control over the messages their children receive. Recent research using brain-mapping techniques finds that an adult who sees images of desired products demonstrates patterns of brain activation that are typically associated with reaching out with a hand. How does repeatedly seeing attractive products affect our children and their developing brains? What will happen when our children will be able to click on their television screen and go directly to sites that advertise the products that they see in their favorite programs? Or use their cell phone/iPod to download music or pay for products that they want immediately? Why should they wait? Why should they work for long- term goals? Exactly what kind of values are we cultivating in our children, and what role does exposure to media content play in the development of those values?

A research report linked very early television viewing with later symptoms that are common in children who have attention deficit disorders. However, we don't know the direction of the relationship. Does television viewing cause attention deficits, or do children who have attention deficits find television viewing experiences more engaging than children who don't have attention problems? Or do parents whose children have difficulty sustaining attention let them watch more television to encourage more sitting and less hyperactive behavior? How will Internet experiences, particularly those where children move rapidly across different windows, influence attention patterns and attention problems? Once again, we don't know the answer. If early television exposure does disrupt the development of children's attention patterns, resulting in their placement in special education programs, actions taken to reduce screen exposure during the early years could lead to subsequent reductions in children's need for special education classes, thereby saving money while fostering children's development in positive ways.

We want no child left behind in the 21st century. Many of us believe that time spent with computers is good for our children, teaching them the skills that they will need for success in the 21st century. Are we right? How is time spent with computers different from time spent with television? Or time spent with books? What are the underlying mechanisms that facilitate or disrupt children's learning from these varying media? Can academic development be fostered by the use of interactive online programs designed to teach as they entertain? In the first 6 years of life, Caucasian more so than African American or Latino children have Internet access from their homes. Can our newer interactive media help ensure that no child is left behind, or will disparities in access result in leaving some behind and not others?

The questions about how media affect the development of our children are clearly important, abundant, and complex. Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are in short supply. Such gaps in our knowledge base limit our ability to make informed decisions about media policy.

We know that media are important. Over the years, we have held numerous hearings in these chambers about how exposure to media violence affects childhood aggression. We passed legislation to maximize the documented benefits of exposure to educational media, such as the Children's Television Act which requires broadcasters to provide educational and informational television programs for children. Can we foster children's moral values when they are exposed to prosocial programs that foster helping, sharing, and cooperating like those that have come into being as a result of the Children's Television Act?

We acted to protect our children from unfair commercial practices by passing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which provides safeguards from exploitation for our youth as they explore the Internet, a popular pastime for them. Yet the Internet has provided new ways to reach children with marketing that we barely know is taking place, making our ability to protect our children all the more difficult. We worry about our children's inadvertent exposure to online pornography--about how that kind of exposure may undermine their moral values and standards of decency. In these halls of Congress, we acted to protect our children by passing the Communications Decency Act, the Child Online Protection Act, and the Children's Internet Protection Act to shield children from exposure to sexually-explicit online content that is deemed harmful to minors. While we all agree that we need to protect our children from online pornography, we know very little about how to address even the most practical of questions such as how to prevent children from falling prey to adult strangers who approach them online. There are so many areas in which our understanding is preliminary at best, particularly in those areas that involve the effects of our newer digital media.

By passing the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, we can advance knowledge and enhance the constructive effects of media while minimizing the negative ones. We can make future media policies that are grounded in a solid knowledge base. We can be proactive, rather than reactive.

In so doing, we build a better Nation for our youth, fostering the kinds of values that are the backbone of this great Nation of ours, and we create a better foundation to guide future media policies about the digital experiences that pervade our children's daily lives.

Mr. Speaker, the Republicans have decided not to bring the bill to the House floor today which would slash Medicaid, slash programs for student loans, slash programs for poor people because many conservatives say they are not cutting enough programs for poor people, all to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. All to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. And what is the excuse they have used? Hurricane Katrina.

That is why they must cut more programs for poor people, because they do not want to cut the tax cuts, and now they want to delay because Hurricane Wilma is on the way, and the Republicans are saying, Let us wait until the weekend is over and see how big that hurricane is, and then we will be able to cut more programs for poor people, more programs for those most in need in our society, rather than touching those tax breaks for the wealthiest in our country.

Mr. Speaker, hurricanes are the greatest friend conservative Republicans ever had to hurt the poorest people in the country and protect the wealthiest.

Mr. Speaker, Catholics have a sacrament, the sacrament of penance, which they call reconciliation. It is a time when you revisit your own life to take a close look at how your daily actions square with what you believe. As a Catholic, looking at this budget, I cannot square the moral values of our country, opportunity, equality and justice, with the practical impact that this budget proposal will have on the lives of working American families.

This year, thanks to President Bush's tax-cutting program, the U.S. Government will deliver up to $106 billion to the multiple bank accounts of some of the wealthiest Americans. This government program to help wealthy Americans spend more money now forces a false crunch on our resources, a $50 billion cut that Republicans believe should come from Medicaid, food stamps, and student loans. Who will feel the impact of these cuts? Well, almost 60 percent of all people in nursing homes who are on Medicaid, and one-third of all babies who are born on Medicaid, and 8 million Americans with disabilities who depend on Medicaid, and 36 million Americans who have to worry about going hungry.

How do we, as a Congress, reconcile the fact that these cuts will disproportionately affect low-income Americans, the elderly, and the poor? The answer is we should not reconcile ourselves to such an action, not for 1 minute, not for a nanosecond. If we are going to dramatically change for the worse the lives of millions of children and families and senior citizens across the country, it had better be because we had to, not because we chose to. And there is no doubt that Republicans have now chosen to rob the poor to maintain and create new tax breaks for the rich.

We are not simply robbing the poor of resources. The proposed cuts are robbing the poor of opportunity. The reconciliation budget targets programs that work to bridge the gap between rich and poor, Medicaid, food stamps, and student loans, that strive to even the playing field for all American families.

Eight weeks ago, across the United States, Americans saw the faces of other Americans staring up at them from television screens scratching out desperate signs on rooftops. Help us, the signs said. Grandmothers, brothers, nieces, nephews, newborns, the faces of families who could be our families, neighbors who could be our neighbors, but desperate, alone, and calling out to the world to see. Across the country, Americans answered with one voice: we are better than this. This is wrong. This is immoral. This must not be allowed to continue. We must take care of our own. It is our responsibility. It is our duty. It is who we are as a people.

As a country, we saw that 100,000 people were trapped in New Orleans because they did not have automobiles to escape the flood waters. We found that 50 percent of all children in Louisiana live in poverty. In response to this national revelation, Republicans have revisited our national budget and made a decision to cut programs from the poorest of the poor while protecting a new tax cut giveaway to the richest of the rich. Instead of limiting these tax cuts to millionaires, the Republicans have decided to rebuild New Orleans on the backs of the poorest people from the rest of the country.

This is a moral question, not a budget matter. The Republicans are building the high levees around their threatened tax cuts, while letting the flood swamp the programs that matter for the rest of Americans. This is what the debate is really all about. It is about our values as a Nation and how they are reflected in how we govern, how America should treat its neighbors, our fellow Americans, who by an accident of birth came into this world unable to see or who were born into a family without the means to put food on the table, or who had the misfortune to develop Alzheimer's. Should we let them starve? Should we tell their children they will never go to college because their parents cannot pay the tuition? Shall we turn them away from the hospitals because they cannot afford the care and do not have the insurance? Or should we as a country decide that in this land of plenty no one should go without basic human dignity?

As a Catholic, I was brought up to believe that character is judged by how we treat the least amongst us. This budget does not pass that test, and my hope is that tomorrow we as a Congress will rise up to defeat it.

Poverty is on the rise in our country, 37 million Americans are now in poverty.

A family of two in poverty--a single mother with her child--is living on $1,069 a month.

About 14 million Americans are living on half of poverty. A single mother with her child living at half of poverty is trying to survive on $535 a month.

That is two people living on $123.37 a week.

And each day in America 2,385 more babies are born into poverty.

The Republicans will say that society has little obligation to help the poor because they fail to take personal responsibility for their lives.

The United States has highest GDP in the world. We are first in military technology; first in military exports; first in Gross Domestic Product; first in the number of millionaires and billionaires; and first in health technology. But we rank 12th in living standards among our poorest one-fifth; 13th in the gap between rich and poor; 14th in efforts to lift children out of poverty; 18th in the percent of children in poverty; and 37th in the health status of our citizens.

We should be working to close these gaps and ensure that all Americans have a fair chance at life and are treated with basic human dignity.

Instead, this reconciliation plan will take away food, health care, education and the ability to live in dignity in old age from people who have no other options. This budget will proliferate existing inequalities.

I simply cannot reconcile this budget with my values because this budget does not reflect who we are as a nation and what we believe our responsibility is to other Americans.

We will be judged by how we take care of the least of our people.

We will be judged by our decision to turn our backs on those Americans who were driven to cry out HELP--We are your neighbors, your grandmothers, your children.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this shortsighted, fiscally. irresponsible and immoral budget.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the award of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei. Today the IAEA and Dr. ElBaradei were jointly awarded this most prestigious of awards for their active efforts against the spread of nuclear arms and against the misuse of nuclear energy for military purposes.

As we know, Dr. ElBaradei and the IAEA were asked by the United Nations, at the urging of the United States, to serve the cause of world peace by engaging in a vigorous effort to find whatever evidence might exist of a Nuclear Weapons program in Iraq through anytime, anywhere inspections. Dr. ElBaradei and the IAEA did their jobs, and the world had an opportunity both to serve the cause of preventing weapons proliferation and heading off a very costly war. Unfortunately, the United States decided to forego this opportunity, and war ensued.

Now, the world is turning once again to the IAEA as the only way to prevent weapons proliferation in Iraq and in North Korea. Will the IAEA be supported this time? The Nobel Committee's decision to recognize the work of the IAEA, and of Dr. ElBaradei, increases the likelihood that such support will be forthcoming. It is needed now more than ever.

I submit below an excerpt from the press release from the Nobel Committee, describing why the important work of the IAEA and Dr. ElBaradei is deserved of such an honor.

At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again

increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline

that this threat must be met through the broadest possible

international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest

expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director

General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the

IAEA which controls that nuclear energy is not misused for

military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as

an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that

regime. At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked,

when there is a danger that nuclear arms

will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when

nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly

significant role, IAEA's work is of incalculable importance.

In his will, Alfred Nobel wrote that the Peace Prize

should, among other criteria, be awarded to whoever had done

most for the ``abolition or reduction of standing armies''.

In its application of this criterion in recent decades, the

Norwegian Nobel Committee has concentrated on the struggle to

diminish the significance of nuclear arms in international

politics, with a view to their abolition. That the world has

achieved little in this respect makes active opposition to

nuclear arms all the more important today.

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

The bill we are debating today is exactly what the American people expect from a Republican Congress. It is a set of giveaways to big oil and to big gas, while simultaneously out here on the floor the last two speakers are calling for a gutting of environmental laws and cutting of Medicaid and other social programs for the poorest people in our country as a response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

This Republican Party is so out of touch that it believes that the oil and gas industries, the wealthiest industries in our country, the industries that are tipping American consumers upside-down and shaking money out of their pockets, is the first bill they should bring to the floor to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even after 10 years of a conscious conspiracy on the part of the oil industry to shut down 30 refineries, voluntarily.

And the reason is clear. In a series of memos 10 years ago, the oil industry said that we have too much refining capacity in our country. We must shut it down if we want to charge the consumers in our country more money.

That is what is going on out here on the floor, this leave-no-oilman- behind bill. We cannot fund leave No Child Behind, but can leave-no- oilman, who today planned this complete catastrophe that occurs because they shut down 30 refineries. They shut them down deliberately to cause this crisis.

We should be debating out here on the floor, which the Republicans refuse to do. Increasing fuel economy standards for automobiles, they refuse to even allow that debate out here on the floor. Increasing, doubling, tripling, quadrupling solar energy, wind energy out here on the floor, they refuse to have that debate. Instead, it is this leave- no-oilman-behind bill. Today, they have failed the historic test of preparing our country for this day.

We are here because this party believes that an energy policy is the President holding the hand of a Saudi prince and taking him in for a barbecue at Crawford, that it can substitute for the kind of plan which President Kennedy had in 1961 when the Soviets were challenging our supremacy in outer space.

President Kennedy had a plan for us to take on the Soviet Union. This administration says there is no magic wand, and, if there is one, it is only to give more breaks, more environmental breaks, more subsidies, to the oil and gas industry, which is reporting profits that they admit they cannot even spend themselves. There is no plan from the Republican Party, except giving more to the largest industries that have dug this hole.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican Party is in violation of the first law of holes: When you are in one, stop digging. What they have out here today on the floor is a huge excavation device digging our country ever deeper, without looking at automotive technology, solar technology and the future of technology for our country.

Mr. Speaker. I rise in opposition to the Rule providing for consideration of H.R. 3893, the Gasoline for America's Security Act of 2005.''

Let me begin by saying that I've been in Congress for 29 years now, and this is absolutely the worst energy bill that I've seen in the last eight weeks.

Moreover, the Rule that we are considering this morning is pretty much a gag Rule. It makes only one Substitute in order, and it bars the amendment filed by the Gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), myself, and the Gentlelady from California (Ms. Eshoo) to mandate new fuel efficiency standards for cars and SUVs. This amendment was identical to one that I offered in the Energy and Commerce Committee, and it is unconscionable that at a time when gas prices are over $3.00 a gallon nationwide that the Republican Leadership of this House would deny the Members an opportunity to debate the issue of whether or not to increase CAFE standards.

What is the Republican Leadership afraid of? Are they afraid that the Members, if given an opportunity to approve a measure that might actually do something to reduce gas prices, might vote for a fuel efficiency standard increase? We should be able to have that debate and vote on this issue today.

The last Energy bill that President Bush signed into law way back in August was praised by the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who said its boutique fuels provisions would ``make it more efficient to use our boutique fuels'' by reducing the number of these fuels ``so that we have greater transportability of our boutique fuels between those regions of the country that need those fuel sources.''

Eight weeks later, we are about to take up a bill that repeals those boutique fuels provisions and replaces them with a completely new boutique fuels statute. Without any hearings, and without any Record, we're just going to rewrite those provisions.

When the last Republican energy bill was on the House floor in July, the Speaker of the House said it ``promotes greater refinery capacity so more gasoline will be on the market and it increases gasoline supply by putting an end to the proliferation of boutique fuels.''

Eight weeks later, this House is about to repeal the refinery provisions the Speaker praised, and replace with a whole new refinery bill.

This bill is based on a false premise, the premise that somehow our Nation's environmental laws stand in the way of building more refineries around the country. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Clean Air Act isn't the problem, it's the Anti-Competitive Acts of the oil companies that has lead to our current problems. Consider these facts.

Since 1994, 30 refineries have been closed across the country, reducing the Nation's refinery capacity by a collective 750,000 barrels per day.

This reduction represents nearly 5% of the Nation's current refinery production capability of 17.1 million barrels per day.

Twenty-one of the 30 refineries that the refiners voluntarily closed--or 78% of the shut down refinery capacity--were located in states that are not on the Gulf Coast and therefore would not have been affected by Hurricanes Katrina or Rita.

Nine of the top 10 producing refineries that were shut down were located outside the Gulf Coast, including 3 in Illinois, one in Kansas, one in Michigan, 2 in California, and 1 in Washington.

Why are these refineries being closed down?

Is it environmental regulations? No. During this same period, the refinery industry increased capacity at existing sites--with all the permits and approvals granted by the EPA. The one new refinery permit application that was submitted out in Arizona was approved by the EPA in less than a year.

So, why did the oil companies close these refineries? The reason is very clear. During the last decade, there was a wave of mergers in the refinery industry. The Big Oil companies got bigger, and as they gobbled up their smaller competitors, they closed down certain refineries for strategic business reasons.

Oil industry documents from the mid-1990s suggest that at that time, major players sought to shut down refineries in order to decrease supply and thereby drive up prices. Consider this:

A 1996 Chevron internal memo stated that ``A senior energy analyst at the recent API [American Petroleum Institute] convention warned that if the U.S. petroleum industry doesn't reduce its refining capacity it will never see any substantial increase in refinery margins.''

A March 1996 memo from Texaco discussed concerns that ``the most critical factor facing the refining industry on the West Coast is the surplus of refining capacity, and the surplus gasoline production capacity. . . . This results in very poor refinery margins and very poor refinery financial results. Significant events need to occur to assist in reducing supplies and/or demand for gasoline.''

It seems clear that the oil industry, in closing 30 refineries over the course of the last decade, was pursuing a deliberate business profit-maximization strategy aimed at addressing the oil industry's ``problem'' of low profit margins in refinery operations. By closing down refineries, and by consolidating any increased production at existing refineries, the oil industry has been able to drive up their profit margins.

This strategy has worked out quite well for the oil industry. During the course of this year, the profit margins of each of these companies have risen higher and higher and higher. According to a recent article in the Washington

Post, there's been a 255 percent average increase in refiner profit margins over the last two years. Now, all of that is great news if you are a shareholder in any of the big companies. But it's terrible news if you're a consumer paying $3.00 a gallon or more to fill up the gas tank on your car or paying a $1,000 more this winter to fill up the oil tank to heat your home.

So, what does this bill proposed to do?

Is it going to impose a windfall profit tax on the big oil companies? No.

Is it going to mandate an increase in fuel efficiency standards for cars and SUVs so we can begin reducing consumer demand? No.

Is it going to promote investment in and deployment of solar and wind energy technologies that could be an alternative to natural gas? No.

Is it going to give the Federal Trade Commission and the State Attorneys General tough new enforcement powers to go after price gouging at both the wholesale and retail level? No.

What this bill proposes is more giveaways for the big oil and gas companies at the expense of consumers and the environment.

This bill shamelessly tries to exploit the terrible human tragedy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to advance a radical anti-environmental agenda, of gutting the Clean Air Act, of gutting the principle of local control over land use decisions, all to advance an oil company agenda.

The sponsors of this bill call it the GAS Act. In reality, it should be called the ``Leave no Oil Company Behind Act.''

This is a terrible bill. It deserves to be defeated.

I strongly urge a ``no'' vote on the Rule and a ``no'' vote on final passage.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

We cannot begin to discuss how we are going to reduce our dependence upon imported oil unless we debate increasing the fuel economy standards for automobiles and SUVs in the United States. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) and I have made this amendment for 4 years in a row. Now that the public's attention is on it, the Republican majority refuses to have a debate on how we can dramatically increase the fuel economy standards for SUVs and automobiles, and we put 70 percent of all the oil we consume into gasoline tanks.

We also are not having the debate out here on solar energy. Europe now outspends us on solar energy by four to one. Japan outspends us four to one. China is now passing us. No debate, however, under the Republican rules, on solar energy as a solution.

Instead, what we have here is new law which will allow for refineries to be built on closed-down military bases, on wildlife refuges, with a mayor or a State incapable of blocking it. In fact, if the State or city sues and loses, they must pay the legal bills of Exxon-Mobil. But if the city wins, Exxon-Mobil does not have to pay the legal bills of the city. That just shows you how backwards all of this is.

We should be debating a futuristic, innovative, energy strategy to cut in half our dependence upon imported oil, to use automotive technologies, to use solar and wind, to quadruple our expenditures, to surpass the world, to be number one looking over our shoulders at number two and three in the world, to do what President Kennedy did in responding to the Sputnik challenge of the Soviet Union.

Instead, our industry that engaged in a conspiracy to shut down 30 refineries in the last 10 years is now coming here and asking us to waive the Clean Air Act as the answer to their irresponsible actions. That is absolutely wrong. This bill must be defeated.

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

The race is on. It is a worldwide race among nations to embrace and own the energy technology of the future. Right now, the United States is not even at the starting line. We're not even tying up the laces on our running shoes.

Energy is the lifeblood of our economy, of our security, or our lives. Oil, black gold, runs our cars, machines, and planes and heats our homes--what if it just stopped coming? Think about it. It would take simply a decision of one or two oil producing nations to cut off critical supplies of oil to the U.S. tomorrow. The impact of such disruption to our economy would be crippling.

Al Qaeda has already identified this American vulnerability--our energy dependency Achilles heel. They call on jihadists everywhere to attack not just people, but also oil wells and pipelines, arguing that ``the killing of 10 American soldiers is nothing compared to the impact of the rise in oil prices on America and the disruption that it causes in the international economy.''

The decisions being made today by the Republican-controlled Congress are handicapping our nation at the starting line.

While this House is busying itself with the care and feeding of the industries of the last century--oil and gas production and refining, we are doing precious little to develop the energy technologies of the 21st Century. The only solution the Republican Leadership in Congress has to offer up to our current energy problems is giving oil companies more giveaways and more exemptions from environmental laws. Meanwhile, other nations around the world are beginning to race ahead of us.

The European Union already has set a target of meeting at least 20 percent of its overall

energy consumption with renewable energy technologies by 2020. They've just passed a resolution in the European Parliament to increase that target up to 25 percent.

Aggressive renewable energy policies have put Europe on track to increase electricity generated from wind ten-fold and from solar photovoltaics 45 times by 2020. A major factor making this rapid growth possible is the significant investments European governments have made in R&D. We spend a paltry $80 million on photovoltaics, for example, whereas Europe spends $300 million. So does Japan.

What's more, according to Christopher Flavin, Chairman of the World Watch Institute, China is set to overtake everyone. ``In 5 years' time we see China as a world leader in this department. . . . Already, 35- million homes in China get their hot water from solar collectors. That is more than the rest of the world combined.'' China has also adopted CAFE standards that by 2008 will require cars to get 40 miles per gallon and trucks to get 21 miles per gallon. China is also purchasing Hybrids from abroad and developing hybrid production capabilities.

How do we expect to keep up, let alone lead, in these emerging innovative energy technology markets if we starve our R&D sector and refuse to set bold goals that stimulate creativity and achievement?

Americans know in their bones that we need to do more--that we are lagging behind in this race. Every time we pull up to the pump and watch the cost of the gasoline filling up our cars, ringing up to $40.00 for a tank that is barely full, we are reminded of the need to get out of this mess.

Consumers are paying the price for the Republican Congress' submissiveness to the Big Oil companies, for its lack of vision.

Consumers lose when the Republican Congress allows America to slip behind the pack of nations racing to lead the energy industries of the future. Right now, we have few choices but to return to the pump, fill our cars and hope that this spike that has lasted for over 2 years is going to break soon.

We owe our citizens a new vision for America's energy future to hang their hopes on. Hope without vision is a four letter word--our vision for restoring America's greatness through an energy challenge gives wings to the hopes of Americans wondering when this crunch will end.

This is a can-do Nation that has never stepped down from a challenge. Today we cannot afford to walk away from the challenge to lead the world in the future of energy technology.

In 1961, President Kennedy announced a goal of sending a Man to the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. By 1969, Neil Armstrong was standing on the Moon looking up at the earth. We need a similar visionary leadership today.

Instead of the bill before us now, we should be bringing a bill to the floor of this House which would:

Adopt a national policy of cutting our dependence on imported oil in half within the next decade.

Recognize that since we consume 25 percent of the world's energy but have only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves, we cannot drill our way into energy independence.

Embrace innovative energy technologies to improve the fuel efficiency of our cars and SUVs so that we make our motor vehicles at least 1 mile per gallon more efficient every year for the next 10 years.

Launch a Manhattan Project scale R&D initiative that is twice the size of comparable programs in the European Union, Japan, and China combined.

Mandate that at least 30 percent of our Nation's overall energy needs be met with solar, wind or other renewable energy sources, or with energy efficiency measures.

Create public and private partnerships to help rapidly commercialize and deploy a whole new generation of super-efficiency hybrid vehicles to deploy solar energy to our homes and businesses, to broadly deploy wind turbines around the country, to deploy Fuel Cells, clean-burning coal, more efficient natural gas and alternative fuels.

The U.S. is the technological engine of the world and we must lead the innovation in wind, solar energy and new fuel sources. We cannot, we must not lose this race.

If the Democrats were in charge of this House, we would be challenging America to establish a national oil savings goal, drive the future of the energy industry, and revolutionize our domestic use of fuels.

Democrats would be setting an agenda of innovation and establishing measurable goals to test the success of this to measure the success of their energy policy.

We would be demonstrating that a modern economy can grow and provide jobs to its citizens without sacrificing the quality of its air, its water or its most precious natural heritage areas.

That is what we need to be doing on the Floor of this House, and that is what the bill before us today entirely fails to do.

I urge the House to vote down this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher).

The bill before us today proposes to gut the Clean Air Act in order to promote construction of more refineries. It is predicated upon the false premise that somehow our nation's environmental laws somehow stand in the way of the oil companies' attempts to build new refineries. Nothing could be further from the truth. The oil companies have shut down 30 refineries over the last decade. They've ordered 1 new refinery, and that one got its permit through the EPA in 9 months!

The Republican Energy bill that we passed just 8 weeks ago contained a refinery siting proposal that the Speaker of the House said ``promotes greater refinery capacity so more gasoline will be on the market and it increases gasoline supply by putting an end to the proliferation of boutique fuels.'' The bill before us today repeals that provision. Why? Has the Majority lost confidence in its own new law?

The Republican Energy bill that we passed just 8 weeks ago contained boutique fuels language that you, Mr. Chairman, praised on the House floor, arguing that they would ``make it more efficient to use our boutique fuels'' by reducing the number of these fuels ``so that we have greater transportability of our boutique fuels between those regions of the country that need those fuel sources.'' Now, the bill you have brought before us today has repealed that provision. Why? Has the Majority lost confidence that its earlier boutique fuels solution would work?

The Republican Energy bill that we passed just 8 weeks ago dropped provisions of the House bill that would have weakened the Clean Air Act. These provisions were dropped because there was bipartisan opposition to their adoption, and Chairman Domenici stated during the conference that the bill could not pass the Senate if they were included. The language that delays compliance with the Clean Air Act was resurrected. Why? Does the Majority really think that they've picked up any more votes for dirtying our Nation's air due to the terrible tragedies Katrina and Rita?

Why would we allow the EPA to extend deadlines for cleaning up ozone pollution, in some cases until 2015, without imposing any of the additional cleanup requirements mandated under current law? The proponents of this bad provision are trying to justify it by saying it is for the ``protection'' of downwind States.

However, just yesterday, 9 Attorneys General, including 6 from ``downwind'' States such as Massachusetts, sent a letter to the House leadership opposing this bill. Well if the States that are the supposed beneficiaries of these relaxed regulations don't want them, then who does? The polluters, that's who!

The bottom line is that these rollbacks of clean air requirements don't benefit the states that have to breathe dirty air for another 10 years, they benefit the corporations that don't want to clean up their power plants.

This bill before us today also proposes to preempt the ability of state or local officials to make decisions regarding the siting of a new refinery or an oil pipeline. Instead of allowing State and local officials to make land use decisions, to consider environmental impacts, impacts on local communities, on historic or cultural sites, or other factors, we are going to have the bureaucrats at the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission make these decisions. State and local officials, the cities, the Mayors, all oppose doing this.

The Democratic Substitute would replace the many objectionable provisions of the underlying bill with language that would give the Federal Trade Commission new authority to investigate and punish certain manipulative or abusive practices during any presidentially declared national or regional ``energy emergency.'' It would bar any party from selling crude oil, gasoline, home heating oil or other petroleum products at a price that is unconscionably excessive or which takes unfair advantage of the circumstances to increase prices unreasonably.

At the same time, the Substitute creates a new Strategic Refinery Reserve that builds on the highly successful Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Refinery Reserve would provide the Federal Government with the ability to produce gasoline, home heating oil, or other refined petroleum products during an energy emergency. It would be designed to be able to serve 5 percent of daily demand. During non-emergency periods, the Reserve would produce petroleum products to serve demand from the Federal government, including the Department of Defense. It would also serve demand from State and local governments that elected to opt-in to receiving fuel supplies from the Reserve.

The Substitute avoids the extreme overreaching of the underlying bill. It limits our response to the two issues that have been highlighted for us all as the result of Katrina and Rita--the need for a Federal price gouging law and the need for a Federal refinery reserve.

I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I observe that we are operating in a 5- minute vote, and we are now nearing 20 minutes for this vote to have been completed. Mr. Speaker, where does the point at which at the discretion of the Chair is no longer being used for the convenience of the Members but instead in order to abuse the discretion that the Chair has in keeping----

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding me this time.

It is not so much what is in this bill; it is what is not in this bill. What we have here is a bill which does not, in fact, deal with all of the threats which are posed by al Qaeda.

Right now, across our country, it is harder to get into some night clubs in New York City than it is to get into chemical facilities across our country. There are 23 States that have over 100 facilities that could cause injuries or deaths to 1 million people. This bill still does not mandate armed guards at chemical facilities.

The nuclear power industry still does not have a permanent upgrade of the protections which are needed against an al Qaeda attack, even though we know that al Qaeda has nuclear power plants at the top of their terrorist target list.

Public transit. While $18 billion has been spent on airlines, only a small fraction of that has been spent on mass transit to protect against al Qaeda attacks, even though we have been warned in Madrid, warned in London, and even today, New York is in fear that there could be an attack on that city.

LNG: What the Republicans have done this year is they have told mayors they have no say over where LNG facilities would go. Governors have no say. And the Coast Guard has no say. Only the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, dealing with the wish lists of the oil and gas industry, can decide where they go, but in the City of Boston and in dozens of cities across our country, they are going to have a homeland security nightmare trying to protect if al Qaeda attacked an LNG facility.

When it comes to hazardous material shipments, this majority Republican Party still refuses to have a mandate that there is a rerouting of those dangerous chemicals, the chlorines and the others that, if they were attacked, would cause catastrophic injuries in our country.

And in aviation, still only a small fraction of all of the cargo that goes on passenger planes in our country is inspected. So the people in our country must take off their shoes, put their computer through, their bags go through, all of it is screened, and they are sitting in the passenger section of the plane, and then underneath their feet will come all of this cargo that has not been screened.

This bill has only a very slight increase in its budget, but the budget itself does not determine whether or not we have good homeland security. This Republican majority still refuses to tell the chemical, the nuclear, the LNG, the hazardous material industry, the aviation industry that there is a regulatory black hole through which al Qaeda can come to attack the very list of targets that they put at the top of their terrorist target list. Not enough money and no mandates on the industry.

Mr. Speaker, catastrophe is bred by complacency, and that is what this bill is.

Mr. Speaker, the conference report we are considering today on the House Floor fails to close dangerous homeland security loopholes that continue to put Americans at risk more than 4 years after the 9/11 attacks.

Despite the urgent need to increase protections against terrorists determined to strike our country, serious vulnerabilities persist in a range of major areas:

Chemical plant security: More than 100 facilities in 23 States could threaten 1 million or more people if terrorists attacked the facility. There are no federal security requirements for chemical plants--the industry secures itself if it decides, on its own, to do so. ``60 Minutes'' did a segment where they literally walked right through an open front gate into a chemical plant outside downtown Pittsburgh. At one facility, the reporter climbed up onto a tank containing toxic material and shouted ``hello, I'm on your tank.'' There were no guards and no one tried to stop him. There are nightclubs in New York City that are harder to get into than some of our chemical plants.

Leaks of toxic chemicals can be devastating. In India in 1984, a leak at a chemical plant in Bhopal killed at least 4,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands more.

Transportation of extremely hazardous materials: Shipments of extremely hazardous materials such as chlorine routinely travel through

densely populated areas of our country. These shipments are mobile chemical weapons that often share the same track as urban passenger rail systems and could kill or injure 100,000 people within half an hour.

In a report released by the Teamsters Rail Conference last week that surveyed rail employees, 63 percent of those surveyed indicated that their train or equipment was delayed or left unattended for an extended period of time that day, and of those, 55 percent indicated that there were hazardous materials aboard that train.

LNG Security: One of Millennium Bomb plotters planning to attack Los Angeles International Airport was smuggled into the country on an LNG tanker docking in Everett, MA in my Congressional District. Terrorists may target LNG tankers and terminals, resulting in catastrophic consequences for surrounding communities. In 1979, my bill to require such remote siting was signed into law. But the Bush Administration is trying to undermine it, opening up the possibility an LNG plant would be placed, like a sitting duck, in the middle of an urban area, where an attack or accident would cause incredible devastation. Energy Bill signed into law in August 2005 froze out local officials from site decision-making process, so now convenience for energy companies, rather than security safeguards for surrounding community, will determine where facilities are built. Last month, I offered an amendment to the Coast Guard reauthorization bill to require the involvement of the Coast Guard, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, in siting decisions. My amendment was defeated on the House Floor.

Republicans claim to support local control and the right of states to fend off federal encroachments. But when it comes to LNG siting, Republicans cut out mayors and governors and state homeland security officials from carrying out one of their most important responsibilities--protecting the public.

Aviation: Approximately 22 percent of all cargo transported by air in the United States is carried on passenger planes. This cargo consumes about half of the space in the cargo bay on a typical flight, and almost none of it is ever inspected! In the past, this cargo loophole has been exploited with deadly results, such as when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland by a bomb hidden in unscreened baggage. I asked Secretary Chertoff if he would support a requirement that 100 percent of the cargo carried on passenger planes be inspected, just as all checked bags, carry-on bags and passengers are currently inspected before boarding? He said ``No.''

Why should the booties of babies be scrutinized for bombs, but no one checks the cargo bound for the belly of a Boeing? The Bush administration says we should trust the shipper. But we must apply the Reagan Doctrine to cargo security--Trust, but verify.

Public transit: The attacks in London and Madrid clearly demonstrated our vulnerability to similar strikes against our transit systems here in the United States. Despite these wake-up calls, this conference report provides only slightly more funding than what is being provided today. Ranking Members Obey and Sabo offered amendments during the conference to increase funding for public transit security, but these amendments were defeated by the unanimous opposition from Republicans on the conference committee.

The American Public Transportation Association has identified $6 billion in transit security needs for U.S. public transportation systems, approximately the same amount of money we're spending each month in Iraq. Since September 11, the Federal Government has spent $18 billion on passenger air security, but only $250 million on transit security. Yet, Americans take public transportation 32 million times a day--16 times more than they fly.

Biological Weapons: Four years after the unsolved anthrax attacks on the Capitol that killed innocent workers, DHS has only completed material threat assessments on four of the biological, chemical and radiological agents that it is required to assess under Project Bioshield. I asked Secretary Chertoff if he would commit to completing the rest of these threat assessments within 60 days. He said ``no.''

Today's conference report does not adequately address these issues. This bill does not:

Require chemical plants to be protected by armed guards trained to prevent attacks by sophisticated, suicidal terrorists or require chemical companies to substitute safer technologies and chemicals in their processes whenever possible, so if terrorists penetrate a plant, damage they could cause would be dramatically reduced.

Require re-routing of extremely hazardous materials whenever possible to reduce the threat of an attack on a chemical shipment in a densely populated area.

Mandate that LNG facilities should be built in remote locations far away from population centers or ensure that security officials, including State and local government representatives are involved in siting process.

Require that all the commercial cargo carried on passenger planes be inspected for bombs, just as all passengers and their luggage are.

Direct the Department of Homeland Security to complete all of the 60 material threat assessments and purchase all of the vaccine doses required under Project Bioshield.

Republicans continue to nickel and dime homeland security while writing a blank check for the war in Iraq. Specifically, the discretionary funding provided in this bill is $1.3 billion, only 4.5 percent more than last year, which is just slightly more than the rate of inflation. When Ranking Members Obey and Sabo attempted to add $1.7 billion for FEMA disaster mitigation programs, emergency management grants, chemical, transit and port security, and other critical security programs such as aviation security and Coast Guard operations, they were defeated by Republicans on a party-line vote.

Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita washed away the illusion that the Federal Government is better prepared to respond to a natural disaster or terrorist attack than it was on 9/11. Not only are we not prepared for a natural or man-made disaster, we are not taking the preventive measures to reduce the risk of these devastating events. This conference report does not provide for qualified, experienced leadership at FEMA, nor does it return FEMA to the staffing levels of the 1990s.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot support this conference report, which fails to address pressing, well-known homeland security weaknesses. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, the conference report we are considering today on the House Floor fails to close dangerous homeland security loopholes that continue to put Americans at risk more than four years after the 9/11 attacks.

Despite the urgent need to increase protections against terrorists determined to strike our country, serious vulnerabilities persist in a range of major areas:

Nuclear terrorism: Non-proliferation expert Graham Allison has said that ``more likely than not'' there will be an act of nuclear terrorist attack in our country. Al Qaeda views obtaining nuclear weapons as a religious duty. There are tens of thousands of nuclear weapons-worth of highly enriched uranium in the former Soviet Union, but we do not have the technology that can reliably detect it at our ports of entry.

Chemical plant security: More than 100 facilities in 23 States could threaten 1 million or more people if terrorists attacked the facility. There are no federal security requirements for chemical plants--the industry secures itself if it decides, on its own, to do so. ``60 Minutes'' did a segment where they literally walked right through an open front gate into a chemical plant outside downtown Pittsburgh. At one facility, the reporter climbed up onto a tank containing toxic material and shouted ``hello, I'm on your tank.'' There were no guards and no one tried to stop him. There are nightclubs in New York City that are harder to get into than some of our chemical plants.

Leaks of toxic chemicals can be devastating. In India in 1984, a leak at a chemical plant in Bhopal killed at least 4,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands more.

Transportation of extremely hazardous materials: Shipments of extremely hazardous materials such as chlorine routinely travel through densely populated areas of our country. These shipments are mobile chemical weapons that often share the same track as urban passenger rail systems and could kill or injure 100,000 people within half an hour. In a report released by the Teamsters Rail Conference last week that surveyed rail employees, 63 percent of those surveyed indicated that their train or equipment was delayed or left unattended for an extended period of time that day, and of those, 55 percent indicated that there were hazardous materials aboard the train.

LNG Security: One of Millenium Bomb plotters planning to attack Los Angeles International Airport was smuggled into the country on an LNG tanker docking in Everett, MA in my Congressional District. Terrorists may target LNG tankers and terminals, resulting in catastrophic consequences for surrounding communities. In 1979, my bill to require such remote sitting was signed into law. But the Bush Administration is trying to undermine it, opening up the possibility an LNG plant would be placed, like a sitting duck, in the middle of an urban area, where an attack or accident would cause incredible devastation. Energy Bill signed into law in August 2005 froze out local officials from site decision-making process, so now convenience for energy companies, rather than security safeguards for surrounding community, will determine where facilities are built. Last month, I offered an amendment to the Coast Guard reauthorization bill to require the involvement of the Coast Guard, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, in siting decisions. My amendment was defeated on the House Floor.

Republicans claim to support local control and the right of states to fend off federal encroachments. But when it comes to LNG siting, Republicans cut out mayors and governors and state homeland security officials from carrying out one of their most important responsibilities--protecting the public.

Aviation: Approximately 22 percent of all cargo transported by air in the United States is carried on passenger planes. This cargo consumes about half of the space in the cargo bay on a typical flight, and almost none of it is ever inspected! In the past, this cargo loophole has been exploited with deadly results, such as when Pam Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland by a bomb hidden in unscreened baggage. I asked Secretary Chertoff if he would support a requirement that 100 percent of the cargo carried on passenger planes be inspected, just as all checked bags, carry-on bags and passengers are currently inspected before boarding? He said ``No.''

Why should the booties of babies be scrutinized for bombs, but no one checks the cargo bound for the belly of a Boeing? The Bush Administration says we should trust the shipper. But we must apply the Reagan Doctrine to cargo security--Trust, but verify.

Public transit: The attacks in London and Madrid clearly demonstrated our vulnerability to similar strikes against our transit systems here in the United States. Despite these wake-up calls, this conference report provides only slightly more funding than what is being provided today. Ranking Members Obey and Sabo offered amendments during the conference to increase funding for public transit security, but these amendments were defeated by the unanimous opposition from Republicans on the conference committee.

The American Public Transportation Association has identified $6 billion in transit security needs for U.S. public transportation systems, approximately the same amount of money we're spending each month in Iraq. Since September 11, the federal government has spent $18 billion on passenger air security, but only $250 million on transit security. Yet, Americans take public transportation 32 million times a day--16 times more than they fly.

Biological Weapons: Four years after the unsolved anthrax attacks on the Capitol that killed innocent workers, DHS has only completed material threat assessments on FOUR of the biological, chemical and radiological agents that it is required to assess under Project Bioshield. I asked Secretary Chertoff if he would commit to completing the rest of these threat assessments within 60 days. He said ``No.''

Today's conference report does not adequately address these issues. This bill does not:

Require chemical plants to be protected by armed guards trained to prevent attacks by sophisticated, suicidal terrorists or require chemical companies to substitute safer technologies and chemicals in their processes whenever possible, so if terrorists penetrate a plant, damage they could cause would be dramatically reduced.

Requiring re-routing of extremely hazardous materials whenever possible to reduce the threat of an attack on a chemical shipment in a densely populated area.

Mandate that LNG facilities should be built in remote locations far away from population centers or ensure that security officials, including state and local government representatives are involved in siting process.

Require that all the commercial cargo carried on passenger planes be inspected for bombs, just as all passengers and their luggage are.

Direct the Department of Homeland Security to complete all of the 60 material threat assessments and purchase all of the vaccine doses required under Project Bioshield.

Republicans continue to nickel and dime homeland security while writing a blank check for the war in Iraq. Specifically, the discretionary funding provided in this bill is $1.3 billion, only 4.5 percent more than last year, which is just slightly more than the rate of inflation. When Ranking Members Obey and Sabo attempted to add $1.7 billion for FEMA disaster mitigation programs, emergency management grants, chemical, transit and port security, and other critical security programs such as aviation security and Coast Guard operations, they were defeated by Republicans on a party-line vote.

Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita washed away the illusion that the Federal government is better prepared to respond to a natural disaster or terrorist attack than it was on 9/11. Not only are we not prepared for a natural or man-made disaster such as a dirty bomb, we are not taking the preventive measures to reduce the risk of these devastating events. This conference report does not provide for qualified, experienced leadership at FEMA, nor does it return FEMA to the staffing levels of the 1990s.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot support this conference report, which fails to address pressing, well-known homeland security weaknesses. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Boehlert-Miller substitute and against the underlying bill.

A major factor forcing threatened and endangered species towards extinction is the loss and deterioration of habitat necessary for survival. We cannot expect a species to recover without first ensuring that it has the habitat in which to do so.

The Majority has just presented us with this manager's amendment to the underlying bill that would delete not only the protections and enforceability afforded under the designation of critical habitat but also the broader habitat protection provided by the jeopardy definition.

We have arrived at a situation where the underlying bill will offer no enforceable protection for the habitat that endangered species need to survive, but will only create a blizzard of unenforceable bureaucratic paperwork which, in the words of Shakespeare, would be ``full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.''

The Boehlert-Miller substitute would retain the enforceable protections for habitat provided under a strong jeopardy definition and I urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to introduce a resolution urging the United States Postal Service to act on a pending petition for an Alzheimer's Semi-Postal Stamp. I am joined by Co-chair of the Congressional Alzheimer's Taskforce, Representative Christopher Smith, Democratic Leader Nancy

Pelosi and Representative John Boozman in a bi-partisan effort to raise funds for Alzheimer's research through the issuance of a semi-postal stamp.

The petition of support for the issuance of an Alzheimer's semi- postal has been pending at the United States Post Office for over 4 years. It is long overdue that we honor this petition and allow Alzheimer's the opportunity it deserves to benefit from this public awareness and fundraising campaign.

The race to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease is now more urgent than ever. Four and a half million Americans, including one in 10 people over age 65 and nearly half of those over 85, have Alzheimer's disease. Unless science finds a way to prevent or cure this terrible illness, as the baby boomers continue to age, nearly 16 million Americans will have Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050.

Mr. Speaker, we need to help and give hope to those who are fighting the moment to moment physical, mental and behavioral battles of Alzheimer's every day. We need to help and give hope to the behind the scenes heroes--the family care-givers who selflessly offer their love and care. And we need to help and give hope to the researchers working hard to find a cure. Working together we can do more--and we must. We must do everything we can to ensure that one day Alzheimer's is a disease of the past and issuing a semi-postal stamp can help do just that.

The best way to fight Alzheimer's disease and reduce the number of patients who suffer is to find ways to prevent it before it starts. Investments we make now mean longer, healthier lives for all of us. If we can delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by even 5 years, it would save this country billions of dollars--and would improve the lives of millions of families. We can act now to strengthen our commitment to prevent Alzheimer's and to finding a cure for this devastating disease.

Semi-postal stamps are special stamps which were authorized by Congress as a tool for the United States Postal Service to not only raise funds but awareness of worthy causes. An Alzheimer's stamp would allow the public to directly contribute to research funds by charging a higher price than normal postage for the stamp and allocating most of the proceeds to research on this insidious and debilitating disease. We simply cannot afford to wait another minute, or another four years until we give Alzheimer's the attention and opportunity it deserves. I hope that the Postal Service will act and help to make a difference in the future by allowing us to contribute to Alzheimer's research through a semi-postal stamp today.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment which deals with a huge issue which is going to unfold in our country over the next decade, and that is the indisputable need for our country to have a large importation of liquefied natural gas into our country. In New England, already 20 percent of our natural gas is in the form of liquefied natural gas. It comes from overseas. This is a good thing, and it is something that has to expand, not only in New England but all across our country.

The good news is that in the year 2001, there were only two LNG facilities licensed in the United States, one of them in Everett, Massachusetts, in the middle of my congressional district. This is something, however,

which is a legacy from a period that existed before 9/11. There are now 30 proposed additional LNG facilities in the United States, and nine of them have already been licensed.

The question going forward now is not do we need more LNG; the question is how will we have the importation of LNG be done consistent with homeland security principles. And here is the issue: in Boston, right here, coming in a couple of times a month, at least, comes this huge tanker right through the middle of Boston. That is East Boston High School right above it. Outside of Manhattan, this is the most densely populated part of the United States.

Now, we cannot do anything about this facility. It is there. Maybe over time we can phase it out, but it is going to be there. The issue is, going forward, what will be the role of the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard which, in this picture, is escorting this LNG tanker right into Boston Harbor, which has to shut down every time one of these tankers comes in? What should the role of the Coast Guard be?

What my amendment says is this: since we are going to have this large importation of LNG in terminals all across our country in the next generation, let us: One, require the Coast Guard to prepare a report on any measures needed to ensure public safety and security of the proposed facility and transportation routes to and from the facility; and, two, require the Coast Guard to report on any action taken by the facility owner or by appropriate Federal and State regulators in response to any findings or recommendations made by the Coast Guard with respect to the proposed facility, including what measures have been put in place to mitigate potential risks; and, third, require the Coast Guard to approve any construction or expansion of an LNG facility before it can go forward, and direct the Coast Guard to not approve any such construction or expansion if it determines that the proposed facility or the expansion of the existing facility would pose a substantial risk to public safety and security in light of the potential loss of life and damage to property that could result.

We know that if that tank was exploded, if the tanks that are on the land where the tanker is going to unload the LNG, that the event would be catastrophic in the middle of the city of Boston; but the same would be true across the whole country. The Sandia Laboratories, in studying an incident that could occur with a tanker such as this, sees a radius of upwards of 2,000 feet that would have levels of heat and fire that would burn buildings, damage steel tanks and machinery; and one can imagine what would happen to every human being inside that radius.

So, for me, to leave it to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to have exclusive jurisdiction over where one of these facilities is sited, without taking into account what the Coast Guard will have to do as a part of the Department of Homeland Security in safeguarding that shipment, is, in a post-9/11 period, reckless. In a post-New Orleans period, it is reckless.

We must give the people who live in these densely populated areas the benefit of the doubt that the Coast Guard would raise the questions about homeland security, about what would happen if there were a terrorist attack, and then suggest perhaps that the facility be built offshore, and that there be a pipeline brought in, that the facility be built in a more remote area of the State and a pipeline be built to bring it down; but it should be the Coast Guard, the agency of expertise.

I urge an ``aye'' vote to protect public safety in all communities where LNGs will be imported in the generation ahead.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me clear up some misinformation which has been disseminated out here on the House floor. We have, in fact, not debated this issue ever before in the House.

What happened in the energy bill was that the Republican majority made a determination that they were going to remove governors and mayors from the decision-making process as to where an LNG facility can be sited. Until August of 2005, mayors and governors had a say. Now they do not because of the energy bill.

Now we all know that when and if a catastrophic event occurs, people in our country have learned not to depend

upon the Federal Government. They know that the first call has to go to the local fire, the local police. That is who they are going to call, and they have good reason to after what happened in New Orleans. I do not think any city or town is going to repeat the mistake which New Orleans made in waiting for Department of Homeland Security to respond.

But let us just say for the sake of discussion that we are going to remove the mayor and we are going to remove the governor from any say on where an LNG facility can go in the most densely urban populated parts of this State. What my amendment says is, at least allow the Federal Government to have a role. At least allow the Department of Homeland Security to have a role. But the Republican majority says, no, we are only going to allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has no jurisdiction over homeland security, no responsibility to look at the public safety issues, they alone will look at these issues.

Well, you know, the recriminations which have taken place in the last 2 weeks all turn on one question. Why did not people listen to the Corps of Engineers? Why did not we give more protection to those people in that community? But we all know that the Corps of Engineers was ignored, that their warnings were ignored.

What the majority Republican party wants to do is to tell the Coast Guard, we do not want to have your view on where an LNG facility should be sited if you are going to tell us you disagree with the energy decision.

It should be all energy. No homeland security at all. No protection for the people who will be living in the mile or two around that facility. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is what this debate is all about.

The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) and, by the way, each of them could not try harder to get more geographically far away in Nebraska and Illinois from the coastline, our experts today. Mark Twain used to say, an expert is anyone who lives more than 1,000 miles away from a problem, and we have got two experts here today telling us on the coastline what we need.

Well, what we need, ladies and gentlemen, is the Coast Guard to make a determination as to whether or not they can protect against a catastrophic event, and what they are saying is no Coast Guard, no governor, no mayor, nobody but the energy companies. That is what it is all about. It is about the energy companies.

Yes, we need a doubling, yes, we need a tripling, a quadrupling of LNG in our country.

I have the number one facility in America in my district. We need it in New England more than anyone else. But as a homeland security issue, it should have the Coast Guard making a determination as to whether or not it can be protected against a terrorist attack. And if an alternative is possible offshore or in a more remote area of that State, then they should be given the right to participate in that decision.

If you just leave it to the energy companies, which is what the Republicans want to do, this is just a continuation of their energy bill, letting the consumers get tipped upside down because the energy companies do not want to spend a few extra bucks to add into homeland security, the same way as the catastrophic events of New Orleans were just over saving a few bucks.

Well, this is your chance to do something about LNG facilities in densely populated areas, to give a say to the Coast Guard, rule out your Governor, rule out your mayor, but at least the Coast Guard, at least a part of the Federal Government should be part of this. If you want a Federal solution to the energy problem, you also have to have a Federal component to homeland security in 2005.

Al Qaeda is not taking a break. Al Qaeda is out there. Al Qaeda used the Boston LNG terminal as the route to bring in their Al Qaeda agents.

Richard Clarke in his book said on September 11, 2001 when he was asked to take over in charge of all homeland security response, his first thought was shut down the port of Boston, call the Coast Guard commandant there. That is where Abdul Meskini and the other al Qaeda agents had come in on the LNG tanker from Algeria into Boston Harbor. That is how they got here. Abdul Meskini is in prison right now for the LAX millennium bombing plot.

So let us not kid ourselves. They are coming for urban areas. They are coming for the high-impact areas. They are coming for LNG facilities. They are coming for nuclear facilities. They want to use airplanes. They want the biggest event possible. They want London. They want Madrid. They want New York. They want L.A.

They want the big urban populated areas. Let us not kid ourselves. Vote ``aye'' on the Markey amendment. Give the Coast Guard the homeland security ability to be able to make a decision to protect the citizens of our country.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I will notify the majority that I intend on withdrawing my amendment, but I just wanted to make this commonsense suggestion at this time that perhaps we could continue to discuss and work on in the months ahead.

My amendment deals with the reality that, especially in coastal areas, that there are huge containers of very dangerous chemicals and other toxic chemicals that are stored in those coastal areas right onshore and that, in many instances, those particular toxic materials have a now more modern, substitutable chemical which could be used in order to achieve the same purposes for the industries within our country.

What my amendment says is that when the Coast Guard writes an area maritime transportation security plan, it will now be required to list facilities located within the area that could substitute safer chemicals or processes in order to reduce the consequences of a toxic release caused by a future natural disaster or terrorist attack, but the Coast Guard will also have to recommend special efforts or procedures for proposed new facilities that might be built near densely populated areas or other sensitive areas that might have important economic or national security significance so that the consequences of a toxic release caused by a future natural disaster or terrorist attack might be reduced.

When the Department of Homeland Security does its vulnerability assessment for these facilities, as required under the law, it will also have to assess whether the facility could substitute safer chemicals or processes in order to reduce the consequences of a toxic release caused by a future natural disaster or terrorist attack, and it will also have to recommend special efforts or procedures that could reduce these consequences for proposed new facilities in its national maritime transportation security plan.

Finally, if the Department of Homeland Security agrees to accept the facility's own vulnerability assessment or assessment by a third party, which it can do under the law, it will now need to ensure that the assessment adequately addresses all the elements of the assessments DHS does on its own.

Hurricane Katrina taught us a lesson. They will probably have to level a couple of hundred thousand homes in New Orleans, largely because of the toxic materials that have now infiltrated into those homes. Here we have an opportunity moving forward to make sure that we are reducing the most toxic chemicals, even as we substitute other chemicals that can be used in the very same processes to keep our American economy humming.

Mr. Chairman, the events of the past few weeks have served as a wake- up call in so many areas of our lives. We've learned just how vulnerable some of our cities are to Mother Nature, how vulnerable our oil and gas infrastructure is, and, frankly, how vulnerable we all are as we contemplate the implications of our failed response to Hurricane Katrina to future terrorist attacks that will come with no National Weather Service warnings and could be even more devastating.

While the debate over how we can ensure that we move more quickly and efficiently to respond to the next Katrina or 9/11 will wait until another day, there are aspects of the bill in front of us today that can be changed to increase the chances that the potential consequences of such a catastrophe are minimized.

We have learned, for example, that the hurricane has rendered several gulf coast refineries inoperable, and in some cases this may be the status quo for months. We have also learned that the extent to which the hurricane caused breaches in these and other facilities storing toxic chemicals is not yet clear--the very preliminary EPA tests show highly elevated levels of lead and other toxic materials in some areas of New Orleans, and EPA is really only just beginning its environmental sampling process. We may be looking at an environmental catastrophe that requires an enormous amount of money to remediate, in addition to all the other reconstruction and relief costs.

And, though the hurricane was certainly a catastrophe in and of itself, the reality is that a terrorist attack on just one facility containing toxic chemicals could have led to even more

fatalities. According to a recent Congressional Research Service report I requested, there are about 50 facilities in Louisiana at which a worst-case release could put 100,000-999,999 people at risk, as well as 2 facilities that could impact more than 1 million people. In Florida, there are more than 20 facilities at which a worst-case release could put 100,000-999,999 people at risk and 7 facilities that could impact more than 1 million people, and in Mississippi, there are 2 facilities at which a worst-case release could put 100,000-999,999 people at risk. Nationwide, more than 100 facilities pose a risk to more than 1 million people--an attack on or major natural disaster near any of these facilities could result in widespread deaths, injuries and environmental contamination.

While some of the chemicals stored in these facilities are necessary to the products or processes being undertaken there, others are not. For example, a 2003 report entitled ``Eliminating Hometown Hazards'' by Environmental Defense lists several wastewater treatment facilities in Louisiana that use chlorine in amounts that could place hundreds of thousands of people at risk, even though safer and economically competitive alternatives exist and are currently in use elsewhere. Press reports indicate that many wastewater treatment facilities in the areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina have been disabled, but it is unclear as to the status of the stores of toxic chlorine that must have been onsite. Another 2003 report entitled ``Needless Risk: Oil Refineries and Hazard Reduction'' by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund describes a cost-effective alternative to hydrofluoric acid, which is used by many refineries, including Chalmette Refining in New Orleans which reportedly has 600,000 pounds of hydrofluoric acid stored on site. According to the Energy Information Administration and press reports, the Chalmette facility spilled tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the surrounding neighborhoods and could be closed for months, but it is unclear as to the status of the stores of hydrofluoric acid that must have been onsite.

The Maritime Transportation Security Act addressed some of the security concerns associated with chemical facilities located at or near ports and waterways. As the damage assessment and remediation associated with Hurricane Katrina proceeds, I believe that we need to focus not just on cleaning up the damage, but also on trying to reduce the consequences of similar damage occurring in the future, be it due to hurricanes, earthquakes or terrorist attacks. Other legislation may address the need to strengthen the levee system surrounding New Orleans so that future hurricanes can't breach them as easily--my amendment seeks to reduce the potential environmental consequences associated with a future breach of the facilities that house toxic materials.

Specifically, my amendment makes the following common-sense changes to the Maritime Transportation Security Act:

When the Coast Guard writes its Area Maritime Transportation Security Plans, it will now be required to list facilities located within the area that could substitute safer chemicals or processes in order to reduce the consequences of a toxic release caused by a future natural disaster or terrorist attack.

The Coast Guard will also have to recommend special efforts or procedures for proposed new facilities that might be built near densely populated areas or in other sensitive areas that might have important economic or national security significance, so that the consequences of a toxic release caused by a future natural disaster or terrorist attack might be reduced.

When the Department of Homeland Security does its vulnerability assessments for these facilities as required under the law, it will also have to assess whether the facility could substitute safer chemicals or processes in order to reduce the consequences of a toxic release caused by a future natural disaster or terrorist attack, and will also have to recommend special efforts or procedures that could reduce these consequences for proposed new facilities in its National Maritime Transportation Security Plan.

Finally, if the Department of Homeland Security agrees to accept a facility's own vulnerability assessment or assessment by a third party, which it can do under the law, it will now need to ensure that the assessment adequately addresses all the elements of the assessments DHS does on its own.

Hurricane Katrina taught us that we can't ignore the experts' warnings forever--sooner or later, being shortsighted will catch up to us, and as we've seen, the price we may pay may be both costly and to some extent avoidable. My amendment incorporates some of the experts' warnings on chemical facility security into existing requirements for these facilities. Let's not be short-sighted again. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I want to begin just by stating that we were briefed by the EPA yesterday and that the EPA has indicated that they have only just begun sampling and that they have, in fact, found highly elevated levels of lead, e.coli and other toxic substances. We are only at the beginning of this entire story.

If I may say to the gentleman from Alaska, I know what the gentleman is saying about making amendments on this issue to other bills. He has to understand the frustration of being in the minority in this institution.

Mr. Chairman, I know that the gentleman has now been able successfully, I would say, to have all of his amnesia treatments be completely accepted by his system because I do not think he can really appreciate how many times I have gone before the Committee on Rules and asked for an amendment on this subject, on the energy bill, on the homeland security bill. So it is out of frustration, and I will admit that, it is out of frustration that I attempt to make it on the Coast Guard bill.

The gentleman has some good points, but this is a point that should be raised, and it should be raised especially in the aftermath of New Orleans and the toxicity that is now rampant throughout that community. There is just the need for us to have this discussion, and it is a Coast Guard mission in

general, safety and security, although I accept the gentleman's point that the EPA would be the point on that, but it is difficult for the minority to have amendments successfully accepted on any issue that deals with the EPA out here on the House floor.

That is the reason I raise the point, and that is the reason I announced I was going to ask unanimous consent to withdraw it as well, so the point would be made that it is an important subject. It should be made in other bills. This was an aperture that I was taking advantage of to really just begin the process of political education, although I know that political activation and political implementation are much further down the line and dependent upon the goodwill of the Committee on Rules and the Republican leadership that we have an amendment like that.

Mr. Chairman, if I may reclaim my time, I appreciate the fact that it is an open rule; and, from a rules perspective, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. So I am out here, and all of a sudden I run into an open rule; and, believe it or not, for me, it is just you have got to make hay when the sun shines, my father used to say. So this is just my opportunity to be able to make the case, knowing at the end of the day that there were other bills that were more appropriate and agencies that had more expertise to be able to do the subject, and at the end of the day knowing that the Coast Guard will be the agency that deals with the consequences of something not being done.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be withdrawn.

Offered By: Mr. Markey

Amendment No. 6: In subtitle A of title IV, add at the end

the following new section:

Offered By: Mr. Markey

Amendment No. 8: Add at the end the following new title: