Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today to discuss the issue of health care.

For 28 years, I was committed to delivering quality health care services as a health care professional. I came to Congress with the commitment of strengthening the quality, accessibility, and affordability of our health care system, which is already one of the best in the world.

Madam Speaker, the Democratic Party is intent on rushing a health care plan through Congress that expands government control and that will ultimately decrease access and quality.

While we consume the attention of Congress on this big government proposal, we have ignored critical workforce health care issues. As the baby boomer generation retires, it will be increasingly difficult to find qualified health care providers to deliver services needed.

The debate on health care reform must focus on priority issues that truly impact services. A larger government health care bureaucracy is a cause, not a cure, to the problems of access, quality and affordability. Real health care issues, like health care workforce, is where our efforts should be focused.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, in this steady march and drum towards cap-and-trade or cap-and-tax, it strikes me that certainly the health of our Nation is really what's at risk here in terms of what cap-and-trade will do to our Nation, what it does to our businesses, our industries, what it does to our families, what it does to the individual citizens in terms of the costs that will be placed upon them, the burden that they have to bear, and it's a burden that affects all segments of the society. Those that I worry most about actually are those who live paycheck to paycheck and those who just barely get by in their household budgets and what this significant increase of costs will be, specific to turning a light switch on in Pennsylvania with energy costs going up 30 percent, with filling up your gas. I represent a very rural district, and in rural America we drive. We drive to work. We drive to pick up our groceries. We drive sometimes to pick up our mail. And the cost of gas is estimated to increase by 76 percent. Those are costs that our families and individuals cannot bear.

But I think there is something out there, as opposed to this big government proposal of cap-and-trade, that we should be looking at, and that is using our natural resources like natural gas. Natural gas currently accounts for roughly 23 percent of our overall energy consumption, and natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel. Natural gas is used for many energy sources, but it's also vital as a feedstock ingredient in many products we consume every day. Anything from plastics to pharmaceuticals use natural gas as an ingredient.

Now, as a member of the House Agriculture Committee, I must point out how important natural gas is to our farmers and our agricultural sector. We can't grow our food without fertilizer, and natural gas is an important ingredient in fertilizer. We only have to go back as far as last summer when we saw the price of energy skyrocket in our country, and that's what we are looking at now under cap-and-trade, to see what the impact of that was on our farmers and on food prices. Many farmers in the past few years have been hurting because of high energy costs.

The United States has an abundant supply of natural gas, and the vast majority of what we consume is produced right here at home. Let me repeat that. The vast majority of natural gas we produce, that's a homegrown product, and that's good for this country.

Oil, for instance, is a world price. That means that we pay $69 a barrel, today's price, but so does Germany, Japan, and Canada. However, natural gas is not a world price, meaning that the price of natural gas varies from country to country, and it's simply supply and demand. When we produce more natural gas, its costs will come down.

Now, having said that, I believe that we should expand upon our natural gas production, which could act as a bridge to get us into a future where renewables really will be the major energy source. Renewables such as wind, solar, and the like are all energy sources that we would like to utilize. But it's also important to bear in mind that these sources make up only about 1 percent of what we consume, and the major reason for that is because they are not as inexpensive as coal, oil, and natural

gas. However, the majority party in Washington would like to make renewables more viable by increasing the costs of fossil fuels through the proposed cap-and-trade bill.

Now, last fall the House Republicans had an important and major victory in Congress. They led the way in removing a longstanding moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf. I would like to see us move forward in producing in the OCS, which estimates the project has a net royalty worth of $1.7 trillion.

Another area that shows great promise is my home State of Pennsylvania. Eighty percent of Pennsylvania rests upon the Marcellus Shale, which is likely the third largest natural gas field in the world. That's literally hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean- burning natural gas that could power our country for decades, bringing jobs and all of the economic benefits with it.

Just today, in The Wall Street Journal, there was an article on the marketplace page entitled, ``KKR Invests in Gas Explorer.'' Within cap- and-trade, we talk a lot about these renewables that only exist because of the subsidy that we're putting into them. This is a great article because this is what America is all about in terms of real science. It talks about the company KKR that has invested in gas exploration. It didn't take stimulus money. It didn't take subsidy money from the Federal government or from any other level of government. It was free market enterprise money for investing in natural gas because they recognized the value of it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as an emergency medical technician to express my support for the National CPR and AED Awareness Week.

Only 8 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims survive. But with simple training, anyone can attempt to save the life of a sudden cardiac arrest victim with cardiopulmonary resuscitation and with automated external defibrillators. Prompt delivery of CPR more than doubles the chance of survival, and using AEDs helps save lives because they can restore normal heart rhythm.

The American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, and the National Safety Council are all promoting training and awareness this week. But this lifesaving training must extend throughout the year.

A bill we passed this week, the Josh Miller HEARTS Act, authorizes funding for schools to purchase AEDs and to train staff in CPR.

For 30 years, I have responded to such emergencies in rural Pennsylvania, and with H.R. 1380, our rural schools will be prepared to handle cardiac emergencies.

Please join me to celebrate National CPR and AED Awareness Week and learn to save a life.

Well, I thank the gentlewoman from Wyoming, and it's a pleasure to be with you tonight here and sharing our reflections on these first 5 months as Members of the 111th Congress. It's an honor to serve in Congress. It's an honor today.

In health care, my background was health care. I always had one boss. And today I consider that I have 660,000 very smart people that I work for in the constituents of the Pennsylvania Fifth Congressional District, and frankly, it's an honor to serve those individuals and this great Nation.

And I'm proud to be a part of this freshman Republican class. We come with diverse backgrounds, as you began to talk about, but we have a common characteristic of bringing real change to Congress. And it's change that the American citizens deserve and need to have. It's a vision of fiscal accountability, of preserving individual freedom and liberty and returning America to the values that this country was built upon.

And you touched off, the gentlelady has really touched off with the first one for this evening for our discussion, fiscal responsibility. And I would put in with that, fiscal accountability and transparency in terms of how the taxpayer dollars are being spent. We are guardians of, we are trusted. We have a responsibility to make sure that those dollars that the American citizens work hard for, that they are spent wisely here in Washington, and only on those things that they should be spent on and not wasted and spent in a way that's transparent and that's accountable.

You know, Washington, DC, really doesn't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. We hear time and time again with the legislation being proposed, well, you know, under the last administration we had a spending problem. Well, as the freshman class we recognize that. I think we agree with it. That's one of the reasons we came to Washington, because we knew that there was out of control spending here and that the American people deserved better. They deserve the same fiscal responsibility from their Federal Government that they exercise in their own household budgets every day.

American families make tough decisions when things get tough fiscally. You know, they don't go out. They don't put more money--they know enough not to go out and do deficit spending and fill up all the credit cards and take out loans where they have no idea who's going to be able to afford to lend them the money, if somebody will. But the Federal Government has been doing that.

You know, the freshmen, the Republican freshmen, all came here to restore fiscal accountability and responsibility. And that's why we're united in opposing the massive waste-filled stimulus, or as I prefer to call it, ``stimuless'' bill that we had.

And I don't think it's a reflection on my public education, but I have to say before I came to Congress I had no idea how many zeros were in a trillion.

The fact is I really didn't think it was physically possible to be able to spend almost $2 trillion in 3 months, but frankly, my friends and colleagues, Democratic colleagues, proved me wrong with that. In the President's first 100 days, it's estimated he spent $11.9 billion for each day he was in office. That's a number that's very difficult to wrap our brains around in terms of that amount of money. That means more new debt will be created under this one budget than all the combined debt created by the previous 43 Presidents, going all the way back to George Washington.

That's a lot of debt, and that's debt that the American people do not deserve to have. It's debt that I don't consider I will be in a position to pay back, my children, my grandchildren I don't have yet, great-grandchildren--I don't know how many greats we're going to have to go out in order to get enough generations to be able to satisfy that debt that we've wracked up just in 5 months here in Congress.

First of all, I would be remiss if I didn't thank my good friend and colleague from Florida and also Mr. Hunter from California for your leadership in making sure that we don't compromise the bill that funds our troops' needs. As a Member of Congress and, frankly, as a proud father of a United States soldier, I thank you. I know my son, Logan, and his comrades thank you as well.

Health care has been my life. For 28 years, I have worked in rehabilitation. That is how I got involved in public service actually, being frustrated with the Federal regulations that were being piled on the health care system that was decreasing access, increasing costs, and making the health care system more challenging. And that is the Federal system.

We are blessed in this Republican freshman class, as you said, in terms of the tremendous health care experience that we have, and I think we have a lot to offer to this debate. Hopefully we will have access and opportunity to engage in that debate a little more than what we have had in the past. Huge issues have come before this body.

Health care is a three-legged stool. It is about access, and that is what we hear a lot about today in terms of talking about the uninsured in today's debate. But it is access, affordability, and quality. I happen to believe, and I have seen evidence, that we have the best health care system in the world. I'm not saying that it is perfect and there is not opportunities that we can continue to improve upon it, but the Democratic proposals that are being bandied about and discussed would, in my opinion, in the long run, increase access issues and, frankly, lower the quality of care that we have all come to expect as Americans. This is a place where people come from around the world when they need life-saving, quality health care services.

The other side would argue that this is to provide access to those who are currently uninsured. If we identify those individuals that make a decision to not purchase health care insurance but could afford it, and we eliminate those folks from that number, we are talking about approximately 9 percent of individuals who do not have insurance. And the lack of insurance does not necessarily mean that they don't have access to health care services.

In my district, we have agencies such as federally qualified health centers. An agency that was just in to see me today near my home town is called the Tapestry of Health. We have another one called Centre Volunteers in Medicine that stand in the gap. Can we do better in health care? Absolutely. Absolutely. But do we need to ruin our health care system by reducing access and quality for all in doing this? Absolutely not. I think the Republican freshmen stand uniquely prepared to bring solutions based on real life medical experience and health care experience to this important debate.

My district is just like the rest of rural America. You know, our health care debate has to include things that aren't being talked about right now in this body, things like peeling away the regulations on health care that were instituted 40 years ago and have long since outlived their usefulness, and only serve to add cost and decrease access.

We need to reduce the practice of defensive medicine by eliminating the fears of liability that our physicians have where they order tests because they need them as a part of, not the medical record, but the evidence record, should they be sued. And that is so frequent today.

We need to level the reimbursement system, frankly, that I see as favoring urban big city health care over rural America, specifically on issues related to the wage index.

We need to address the health care workforce crisis. I have not heard that addressed at all in this body, and yet

we can redefine the payment system any way you want, but if you do not have qualified doctors and nurses and technicians and therapists to provide the services then there is no health care access. And today we are facing tremendous retirements with the baby boomer generation of those health care professionals.

There are some real health care reform issues that we need to be addressing that just have not been, and I think this class is well prepared to bring that to the health care debate.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 287, I was unfortunately detained in a cab during rush hour traffic after visiting with constituents of the 5th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, causing me to miss the vote.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, I come before the House today to bring attention to the Congressional Rural Caucus, of which I have the privilege of being vice Chair, along with my colleague from across the aisle, Mr. Walz of Minnesota. The caucus is being led by co- Chairs Mr. Childers of Mississippi and Mr. Smith of Nebraska, whom I commend for their bipartisan spirit and for their ability to reach across this so-often divided aisle in order to push for the betterment of rural issues--our rural values and our rural way of life.

The Rural Caucus has re-formed and is alive and well. Together, we will focus on issues of telecom, education and workforce development, transportation, and health care.

In January, the Congressional Rural Caucus penned a letter to the President asking him to form an Office of Rural Policy to complement the recently created Office of Urban Policy. Today, I echo that call, and I encourage the administration to make a commitment to create communities of choice, not of destiny, where no one should ever be at a disadvantage because of where one is born or chooses to live.

Well, I thank the gentleman from Missouri. Your overview of this, your reference to real science is refreshing. In the debate and most of the debate of the majority party here, it's not so much based on real science as political science or even, to some degree, science fiction. And so, to look at why this--and I looked at every piece of legislation in terms of cost benefits. And when we look at the benefits of this, I think human activity, it's acknowledged, does contribute towards carbon dioxide emissions. But it's less than 4 percent. To put that into perspective, forest fires, wildfires contribute 10 percent of CO2 emissions. And so not even with the debate of, you know, are we warming the Earth or not warming the Earth, there's a lot of smart folks out there that are publishing research or earning their dissertations based on debating that science. But what the experts agree upon, the researchers agree is, human activity is less than 4 percent contributes towards CO2 emissions.

You know, in terms of the cap-and-trade, cap-and-tax that we're discussing----

I think the gentleman points out an important point. These are all based on models and strictly speculation.

Well, and the purpose overall of this is to really eliminate all energy other than green energy. And today, I mean, the energy sources that are only seen as viable by the majority party under cap-and-tax are, frankly, solar and wind. And today, that represents less than 1 percent of meeting our energy needs in this country.

So say we work real hard and we give it that Manhattan Project, and we absolutely double that, the energy capacity of solar and wind, well, that's 2 percent. We still have a huge gap that this country has that we need to be able to fuel our vehicles, heat our homes.

And I'm from a very rural district. The folks in my area, we have some pretty harsh, frigid winters, and we need to heat our homes. We commute in my home for work, for groceries. You know, frankly, a lot of folks in my area commute just to pick up their mail. And the cost of cap-and-tax, I believe, is projected, well, with, just on gasoline alone to increase by over 70 percent.

Sure. I think the important baseline on that 17.5 percent unemployment today in the country of Spain is the fact that, when cap-and-trade was instituted, it was 7 percent. Unemployment was 7 percent.

Over 10 percentage points is the outcome. Those really are the only two major outcomes that I see of cap-and-trade--higher unemployment and higher energy costs.

In terms of the job losses, that's what this bill is all about. This is a jobs bill. They're correct on that part; but, unfortunately, it's a job loss bill. You know, they talk about all of the green jobs that were created in Spain as a part of cap-and-trade and the proposal of cap-and-trade here to create jobs. Well, in Spain, for every 10 green jobs that were created, mostly related to solar or to wind, only one was sustainable within that economy by the industry that paid for that job and for its implementation. As my colleague from Louisiana talked about, nine out of those 10 jobs are still around today because the country of Spain doesn't want to see unemployment driven higher.

So how do they hang onto those nine out of 10 jobs? It's a subsidy bubble. There are tens of billions of dollars annually that the country of Spain has to

infuse into the alternative energy industry so that it doesn't drive their unemployment up over 20 percentage points. You think about what this does to cost. There is no industry that will go untouched. Any industry that uses energy--and that's all of them--is going to see significant energy increases and costs. Today, especially in these economic times and even in the best of times, to be competitive globally and to have our costs be put up by--I don't know--say 30 percent or more, that totally makes us uncompetitive within the world.

Well, thank you, sir.

You mentioned natural gas. We could talk all evening on different types of manufacturing that utilize natural gas, not just as a process for heating and for energy but also as an ingredient. Natural gas is a key component in almost any type of manufacturing. I want to just focus briefly on two.

You know, some of the folks who help feed us are our family farms throughout the Nation; and I don't care what they're raising or what they're growing, many of those family farms use processes that use natural gas, specifically with fertilizer for growing crops--for growing our food. It feeds this Nation. When we see under the cap-and- trade of natural gas, it's clean. It's a very clean fossil fuel, but it's a fossil fuel that's going to be punished and penalized under cap- and-trade. We're going to raise the cost of food for America because of cap-and-trade and feel the impact of taxing the use of natural gas on our farmers.

Absolutely. I appreciate that.

I mean, this is a tax that hits everybody and everything, every business, every industry, every family, and it's a tax on everyone. And I tell you, the folks, I tell you what makes it an immoral tax is the fact that it taxes those folks who are just now maybe getting by paycheck to paycheck, those people that work hard every day and do their best and they're just making it. You know, what they bring in income, they're putting out on bills. And in Pennsylvania because our electricity, 60 percent of it comes from coal, we have about 35, 38 percent that comes from nuclear and nuclear's taxed. Even though there's no CO2 emissions, under cap-and-trade, nuclear is going to be taxed the same way.

One of my opening comments was the fact that it is refreshing to be here debating real science versus political science or science fiction. And here's the thing: The alternatives are out there. Republicans have been working hard. We've got an energy solutions group. We've been putting that out there. During the district days, we were in Pittsburgh and Indiana and out in the West Coast, and we were talking about a better solution for America. We've been hitting on parts of it tonight.

I view that that solution would provide us an energy margin. You know, what is it, 9 months ago where gas was pushing $4 or $5 a gallon? And gas prices are going up now again, and yet we're furthering our dependence on foreign oil. The President has shut off the tax deductions for domestic drilling and shut down areas in this country for domestic drilling, including through the Forest Service, an area in my district, Allegheny National Forest, really slowed down to a screeching halt new drilling.

And we could have an energy margin with the proposals put forward by the Republican Party that will allow us to have the domestic energy resources so that in the future when there's a hurricane, or where a foreign country that we have been dependent on for our energy resources decides to shut down that flow or some other catastrophic attack, we actually have an energy margin where our energy prices remain stable. And that's good for America. That's the type of energy policy Americans expect.

I'm actually blessed here standing between two physicians. I'd like to take the opportunity to call on their expertise--I worked in health care myself in rehab for about 28 years, but not as a physician--to get their diagnostic opinion on this. This is all in the name of green, greening America, specifically solar and hydro, but in terms of the economy, the other green that comes to mind is gangrene. And I just would defer that, though, to my colleagues who are physicians to have a better feel for that.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Penn State Ladies Rugby Team on winning the Division I National Championship. They tromped the defending champions, Stanford, with a score of 46-7 in the game that took place at the beginning of May.

While the Stanford team had home field advantage and a national title to defend, Penn State coach Pete Steinberg said, ``The key to our success this year has definitely been our defense.''

Two of the Nittany Lions players were given Most Valuable Player honors for their aggressive play: Kate Daley and Sadie Anderson, a freshman.

Penn State marked its second win against the Stanford Cardinals in the two teams' past five meetings for the championship finals. It was the largest margin of victory since Stanford's win over Penn State in 2005, which was 53-6

It is clear a healthy rivalry exists between these two powerhouse rugby teams, and I commend the Penn State for its perseverance and its victory this year.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to lend my support for this measure, H.R. 2352, the Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship Act of 2009, and to express my sincere appreciation and thanks to Subcommittee Chair Shuler, to Subcommittee Ranking Member Luetkemeyer, to Committee Chairwoman Velazquez, and to Ranking Member Graves for their leadership on this bill, for their ability to work through regular order, and for encouraging debate and input from the members of the Small Business Committee, particularly Subcommittee Chair Shuler and Ranking Member Luetkemeyer.

Coming from a long line of small business owners myself, I can attest to the many challenges that these entrepreneurs face on a daily basis. Never mind the challenges a person faces to get a business off the ground, once that business is running, it is often an uphill battle day after day to keep the doors open and the employees paid. During this time of economic downturn, there are many entrepreneurs throughout America who are facing start-up challenges who do not have the resources or the networks to provide the advice or the assistance that is required for them to be successful.

H.R. 2352 will provide entrepreneurs from all walks of life and geographic locations the ability to harness tools that would otherwise not be available to them. This bill provides a Veterans Business Center program within the SBA to provide entrepreneurial training and counseling to veterans. It utilizes technology to provide distance learning and peer-to-peer networking for those in rural and underserved areas. It enhances entrepreneurial programs for Native American populations, and it broadens the scope of the SBA's Women's Business Center.

During this time of economic downturn, we have the power to arm America's entrepreneurs with the tools to provide real stimulus for our economy and to get the country back to work. I certainly encourage my fellow colleagues to support H.R. 2352, a real smart government solution.

Mr. Speaker, today I honor a man who held his first position as a head coach at Punxsutawney High School in my district, coaching the Chucks. You will recognize the name of this coach, Chuck Daly, and realize some of his fame came much later when he led the Detroit Pistons to two National Basketball Association titles.

This is a man who was voted one of the 10 greatest coaches of the NBA's first half century in 1996, 2 years after

being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was the first basketball coach to win both NBA and Olympic titles, and he led the Dream Team to gold in the 1992 Olympics.

Daly, who died May 9 at the age of 78 in Jupiter, Florida, will be honored by basketball legends and eulogized by members of professional teams.

But in Pennsylvania, we remember that he was born in St. Mary's, Pennsylvania, attended Kane Area High School and Bloomsburg State. We remember that he led Pennsylvania University to a 125-38 record in six seasons.

In short, today we honor a hometown boy.

Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I am.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

We all know our Nation is drowning in a sea of red ink, but earlier this week we learned that the sea is even deeper than we knew. On Monday we learned that this year's deficit is now projected to be $1.84 trillion, about $90 billion higher than we were told in February. And what's the majority's answer to record-setting deficit spending? Of course it's more spending.

The bill we're debating today would add an estimated $40 billion in new spending. And despite the majority's hollow promises of fiscal responsibility, there's nothing in the legislation to offset this hefty price tag with spending reductions elsewhere. This is just more of the same borrow and spend, spend and borrow policy that we've seen under this majority and this administration.

This motion to recommit is a small but meaningful step to reverse that trend. It allows this bill to take effect exactly as the majority has drafted it as long as the Federal deficit is below $500 billion. We're not cutting the bill. We're not damaging the schools. We're not doing any of the other things that the majority would surely accuse us of. We're keeping this bill exactly as it is now. The only difference is that when our Nation's deficit exceeds $500 billion, we will not authorize the funding for this particular new program.

Half a trillion dollars is an awfully high bar. In fact, the entire time George W. Bush was President--in fact, the entire history of our great Nation, our deficit has never exceeded $500 billion, that is until this year in which we're facing a deficit of $1.84 trillion.

I urge Members to vote yes on this motion to recommit and send a signal to the American people that we're serious about taming the deficit.

Maybe one day the Federal Government will be able to afford $40 billion to tell schools how to maintain their facilities, but that day is not today.

This motion to recommit ensures that this new program will wait until we can afford it, until the American people can afford it.

Before I close, I'd like to point out that the Obama administration may feel the same way. The administration did not issue a statement of administration policy on H.R. 2187. That's a deliberate decision not to endorse the bill, and that is conspicuous. I can't help but wonder if President Obama agrees that now is simply the wrong time to swipe a $40 billion charge on the government charge card and send the bill to our children and our grandchildren.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion to recommit.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate a health care leader, Steven P. Johnson, President and CEO of the Susquehanna Health Systems in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for winning a prestigious award and recognition.

The American Hospital Association named Mr. Johnson this year's recipient of the Grassroots Champion Award for the State of Pennsylvania. Mr. Johnson was nominated for this honor by the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania because of his demonstrated leadership in generating grassroots support for the hospital community. There is no greater proponent for improved community health care than Steven Johnson.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Johnson's leadership in health care is based on a commitment to caring for those who both

deliver and those that receive health care services. I know firsthand the work and the care that Steven P. Johnson puts in to broadening the base of community support for the hospital and health care needs of the community, and this is a well-deserved award and recognition.

Thank you, sir. I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue because this is, as I was preparing to come to Congress, the fact that we had a complete lack of a national energy plan and that our energy situation we were in was just not facing us from our energy needs, but our economy and our national defense.

Mr. Speaker, I come from an energy-intensive part of the country in rural Pennsylvania. I can say that the cap-and-tax plan is nothing more than a national energy tax. The devastating impacts of creating such a program are obvious and alarming--while the benefits remain entirely unclear.

A cap-and-trade program will not just raise the price of gas at the pumps and increase our home heating and cooling bills, but it will increase the cost of all goods and services that we rely on.

The truth behind the cap-and-tax plan is that it will lead to more taxes, fewer jobs, and more government intrusion in our lives.

The President's energy plan is a $646 billion tax that will hit almost every American family, small business, and family farm. Family energy costs will rise on average by more than $3,100 a year. That makes no sense, considering the current economic crisis we find ourselves in.

Those hardest hit by this massive tax will be the poor, who, experts agree, spend a greater portion of their income on energy consumption. Cap-and-trade--cap-and-tax--amounts to, literally, a war on the poor.

In my district, many folks depend on the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to make energy costs more affordable just to make ends meet. It makes zero sense to impose what are essentially new taxes on energy when we have programs like this to make it cheaper for those who need it most.

Now, we believe that there are better solutions--better solutions than more taxes and few jobs and more government intrusion. And while I strongly favor diversifying our energy portfolio and increasing our renewable sources, we have to be realistic about how we go about this.

We talk a lot about renewable energy sources, but the fact remains that wind and solar still make up less than 1 percent of our total energy consumption in needs that it meets. Even with heavy government investment and involvement, it's obvious that these sources will continue to be minor contributors in the coming decades to our energy needs. A cap-and-trade system equates to enormous new taxes on fossil fuels, which currently accounts for 85 percent of our overall energy consumption.

What do we know about the experience with cap-and-tax? Well, Spain is a country that has been identified as a success story for cap-and-trade by President Obama. Now I agree that the best predictor of future performance is past performance. That has been something I have led my life by as I have made my decisions. So what has been Spain's experience over the past 7 years with cap-and-trade?

Earlier today, at the Republican Energy Solutions hearing, we heard testimony from Dr. Gabriel Calzada Alvarez from a university in Madrid, Spain. Dr. Alvarez reported on the failure of cap-and-trade in Spain. What are the outcomes that he saw of cap-and-trade--the real past performance of cap-and-trade?

First, unemployment. There were 2.2 jobs lost for every 1 job created in Spain. For every 10 green jobs that were created, only 1 survived. The rest require continuous massive government subsidy and funding.

The second outcome we saw was unaffordable energy costs. The price of energy in Spain has gone up 31 percent during those 7 years of this grand experiment with cap-and-trade.

The third outcome has been unreliable energy. Spain's power grid system has been unreliable, with blackouts that he reported, leading some producers to move their manufacturing plants to other countries.

Dr. Alvarez reported that just last week, British Petroleum closed two solar plants in Spain, and said that the wind and solar industries are losing thousands of jobs.

Interestingly enough, a number of these manufacturers in Spain moved to our country to escape Spain's cap-and-tax. I'm absolutely confident today they may be packing their bags, getting ready to move again, along with our own United States manufacturers, because of the crushing impact and the discussions we are having of imposing this proposed cap- and-tax in our country today.

Mr. Speaker, the best predictor of future performance is past performance. The only measurable outcomes of this proposed national energy tax is, based upon past performance, higher unemployment, higher energy costs, and unreliable energy sources. Frankly, Americans deserve better.

I really appreciate the gentleman yielding time, and I appreciate your leadership on this very important and critical issue.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 207 I was absent on the evening of April 27, 2009, because I was attending a public meeting at the Allegheny National Forest in Warren, Pennsylvania, regarding the pending Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), ongoing litigation, and the proposed ``settlement.'' Recent Forest Service actions on the Allegheny have created adverse economic distress in my rural district and are unfairly denying my constituents access to their legally owned subsurface mineral rights.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``Yea.''

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 209, I was absent on the evening of April 27, 2009, because I was attending a public meeting at the Allegheny National Forest in Warren, Pennsylvania, regarding the pending Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, SEIS, ongoing litigation, and the proposed ``settlement.'' Recent Forest Service actions on the Allegheny have created adverse economic distress in my rural district and are unfairly denying my constituents access to their legally owned subsurface mineral rights.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''