Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to submit to the Record an article by the writer, actor, economist and lawyer, Ben Stein. This article, titled ``Greetings from Rancho Mirage'', expresses support and encouragement to our many hardworking and dedicated troops abroad:

Greetings From Rancho Mirage--by Ben Stein

Dear Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, National Guard,

Reservists, in Iraq, in the Middle East theater, in

Afghanistan, in the area near Afghanistan, in any base

anywhere in the world, and your families:

Let me tell you about why you guys own about 90 percent of

the backbone in the whole world right now and should be happy

with yourselves and proud of whom you are.

It was a dazzlingly hot day here in Rancho Mirage today. I

did small errands like going to the bank to pay my mortgage,

finding a new bed at a price I can afford, practicing driving

with my new 5 wood, paying bills for about two hours. I spoke

for a long time to a woman who is going through a nasty child

custody fight. I got e-mails from a woman who was fired today

from her job for not paying attention. I read about multi-

billion-dollar mergers in Europe, Asia, and the Mideast. I

noticed how overweight I am, for the millionth time. In other

words, I did a lot of nothing.

Like every other American who is not in the armed forces

family, I basically just rearranged the deck chairs on the

Titanic in my trivial, self-important, meaningless way.

Above all, I talked to a friend of more than forty-three

years who told me he thought his life had no meaning because

all he did was count his money. And, friends in the armed

forces, this is the story of all of America today. We are

doing nothing but treading water while you guys carry on the

life or death struggle against worldwide militant Islamic

terrorism. Our lives are about nothing: paying bills, going

to humdrum jobs, waiting until we can go to sleep and then do

it all again. Our most vivid issues are trivia compared with

what you do every day, every minute, every second.

Oprah Winfrey talks a lot about ``meaning'' in life. For

her, ``meaning'' is dieting and then having her photo on the

cover of her magazine every single month (surely a new world

record for egomania). This is not ``meaning.''

--Meaning is doing for others.

--Meaning is risking your life for hers.

--Meaning is putting your bodies and families' peace of

mind on the line to defeat some of the most evil, sick

killers the world has ever known.

--Meaning is leaving the comfort of home to fight to make

sure that there still will be a home for your family and for

your nation and for free men and women everywhere.

Look, soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen and Coast

Guardsmen, there are eight billion people in this world. The

whole fate of this world turns on what you people, 1.4

million, more or less, do every day. The fate of mankind

depends on what about 2/100 of one percent of the people in

this world do every day and you are those people. And joining

you is every policeman, fireman, and Emergency Medical

Technician in the country, also holding back the tide of

chaos.

Do you know how important you are? Do you know how

indispensable you are? Do you know how humbly grateful any of

us who has a head on his shoulders is to you? Do you know

that if you never do another thing in your lives, you will

always still be heroes? That we could live without hollywood

or Wall Street or the NFL, but we cannot live for a week

without you?

We are on our knees to you and we bless and pray for you

every moment. And Oprah Winfrey, if she were a size two,

would not have one millionth of your importance, and all of

the Wall Street billionaires will never mean what the least

of you do, and if Barry Bonds hits hundreds of home runs it

would not mean as much as you going on one patrol or driving

one truck to the Baghdad airport.

You are everything to us, as we go through our little days,

and you are in the prayers of the nation and of every decent

man and woman on the planet. That's who you are and what you

mean. I hope you know that.

Love,

Ben Stein.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about House Resolution or House bill 670, which is a bill called the DRIVE Act; that is, the Dependency Reduction through Innovative Vehicle and Energy Policy.

It is a bill that Eliot Engel and I have cosponsored. It has almost an equal number of Democrats and Republican cosponsors, up to about 60. And its goal is to reduce your oil consumption by 20 percent in 20 years. What we did is sat down and said, how could we achieve that goal and do something for national security, something for the environment, and something for mom and dad back home and their pocketbook?

So we set out to try to stay true to those goals. We put fourth four things in it. To change consumer habits, we have doubled the tax credit for purchase of hybrids, flex fuel vehicles, and biodiesel, anything that would drive on something besides gasoline.

Secondly, we have sent a message to Detroit that we would like to see 80 percent of the cars made in 10 years be at least flex fuel so that Wall Street will also follow suit and invest in flex fuel vehicles and hybrids and ethanol, things like that. If Wall Street knows that the government is behind it and the market is going to be there, then the investment dollars will follow.

Too often what happens when the price of gasoline goes up, everyone rushes out and looks at alternatives; then when the price of gasoline goes down, everybody forgets all about it. We want to have a permanent investment stream from Wall Street. That is why it is a good method when you follow what we did with air bags, the air bag model.

Thirdly, we require the government to start scoring based on energy consumption. When the government goes out and buys fleets of vehicles, we want to know, are you buying innovative vehicles, flex fuels, hybrids and so forth. We believe it is important for the Federal Government to have a goal.

One thing I point out, which is not in the bill; but we deliver on Saturday, mail which is 30 percent of the volume that you have Monday through Friday, but we use 100 percent of the fuel. So it would make sense if you are in the business place to quit delivering mail on Saturday.

I understand that has some political ramifications, and thinking with our political minds instead of our business minds. I just say that is an example. Finally, we believe that a lot more research has to be done. But I want to point out, Mr. Speaker, that Toyota is already on their fourth-generation hybrid.

Unfortunately, many of the Detroit American motor companies are not that far along. But there is a lot coming down the pike. The University of Georgia, for example is making ethanol out of sweet potatoes, left- over Coca Cola and watermelon. There are all kinds of ways to make ethanol in addition to using corn.

These are the things that our bill does. You know, in Washington it is actually easy to agree to disagree. My friend, Mr. Miller and I, we have no problem disagreeing agreeably. But what we need to do is agree to agree, which is much harder. Because when Republicans and Democrats agree to agree, we make progress, and sometimes the interest groups that surround us from both parties really do not want that, because they are not as empowered as they are when we are fighting.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, I want the record to show that Mr. Sullivan has four kids and you commented that you have six kids. Are you saying that he does not have a commitment? Is that is what is going on here? The rest of us are getting by with one or two kids. Actually, I have

four. But I wanted to say you two families are doing your share for the economy.

Well, I will tell you what. Also, you and I know people across America will lose that family tax deduction for the children, which is very important.

But I wanted to get into the perspective of a business person, but the way I explain tax increases to school kids, it seems that maybe it should apply to some of these bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C. But yesterday I was speaking to a group called the People to People Exchange, a student ambassador program. And I asked for a volunteer. A young lady who had a job, a young girl who was, I guess, in about the ninth grade named Tracy, she works at Holton's Restaurant in Midway, Georgia. Tracy makes $5.50 an hour. So I got her up in front of the class, and this was an extracurricular thing. They were actually meeting on a Sunday afternoon. And I said, Okay, Tracy, so you work for 2 hours, $5.50 an hour. After those 2 hours, you bring home $11. And she looked at me like, You really are stupid in Washington, you know I don't do that.

I said, How much do you bring home?

She said, Well, it is about nine something.

So I said, Okay. Let us just say for 2 hours' work you bring home $9 and you send $2 to me in Washington. Now, what do I do with that tax money?

And, of course, these students know you pay for schools, you pay for roads, you pay for our military. And, Mr. Davis, you know Midway. You probably have eaten at Holton's Restaurant. It is right down from Fort Stewart, where you were stationed. Have you eaten there?

Well, they have a good fish and shrimp platter that is waiting just for you. It has got your name on it.

Anyway, I said to Tracy, Okay, for the $2 that we get from you that goes to the soldiers at Fort Stewart, goes to the schools, to the building, to the teachers, goes to the roads, goes to the police officers, you are okay with those things because we all agree we need them?

And she says, Yes, sir.

And I said, Okay. Now, if you know I could do it for $1.50, would you want that extra 50 cents or would you let me have it? Because, you know, if I had that extra 50 cents from you, I could spend money. I could go out and maybe improve some health care and take care of some farm programs. And who knows? I might even get a little bit more of the Federal Government dollars down to our part of the State.

She didn't like that idea. She felt like she could manage her 50 cents better than we could in Washington, D.C. And I serve on the Appropriations Committee, and I have to say for a high school girl, she is certainly accurate. She can manage her money better than we can manage her money. And yet we have this attitude in Washington that if something is going to happen, government has to be the one to initiate it. So we want the whole $2.

And the interesting thing that you have already underscored night after night is that if we let her keep that extra 50 cents, taking less of her $2 in taxes, what is she going to do? She and all the other millions of Tracys and millions of other people like the six Davis kids who will one day be working, they would go out and they might buy more hamburgers, more shoes, more clothes, more tires, more dryers, more washing machines, go out to eat more. And when they do, small businesses react by expanding. They increase their inventory. Then they have to have more people to sell their inventory; so they hire more people. Less people are on welfare. More people are paying taxes. And so the money comes into Washington, D.C. Small businesses win. People who are working win. And the government, at the end of the day, gets more revenue. That has been the case now with George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and John F. Kennedy.

Tax cuts, giving the people the right to keep more of their own hard- earned money actually brings in more revenue. Therefore, to let these tax breaks end and increase taxes on small businesses and on families across America is an absurd policy. And we have got to get folks motivated to realize that this is something that is going to happen unless people back home start raising Cain about it.

So I am glad you are doing what you are doing. And I wanted to yield back because I know we have some other speakers here, but I thank you for your leadership on it.

Mr. Davis, if the gentleman will yield, I was wondering, I was listening to Mrs. Drake talk about something she went over. I think we need to maybe get a good explanation here in terms of Congress voting on a simple majority now. Maybe you could explain that, because under the Republicans it was required to have, was it a three- fifths majority?

That was in place for 10 or 12 years under Republican leadership. So now the Democrats on their first day changed it from three-fifths required to raise taxes on working people to what?

Thanks.

Madam Speaker, in the Senate right now, there is a piece of nonbinding legislation that disapproves of the troop surge or the Bush Doctrine. Now, it is nonbinding.

What I find offensive, when we have troops on the ground in combat, is you have a bunch of self-proclaimed moralist Senators saying that we should not do this, and so what they want is a nonbinding legislation.

Well, if they really feel like this idea is a bad idea and it imperils Americans, then they should follow their conviction and introduce real legislation. After all, they do carry the impact of changing the law since they are the U.S. Senate.

I think it is silly to have an extracurricular, intramural exercise. They should bring real legislation to the floor. I am hoping that Members of the House will do that.

There are a lot of critics of the war in the House. Well, it is time to tone down the rhetoric and beef up the legislation, whether you want immediate withdrawal, phased-down withdrawal, a surge, maybe a bigger surge than the President.

We should be having real conversations in Washington. The election is over.

Mr. Speaker, I am curious about this new day for the Democrat Party because in the budget that I have a little more control over or interest in, the Ag Committee, they have cut food stamps by $11 million. I want to make sure my Republican colleagues understand that. That is right.

We just heard from the Democrat leader that it is a new day and the Democrats, on their first day of this new day, have cut food stamps $11 million.

They have also, in this budget, cut conservation programs right and left. They cut, for example, the Equip Program. The Equip Program is a program designed to help farmers with conservation and watershed and water run off and nutrients going into streams. They cut it by $70 million.

On the conservation operations account, which is an account that helps farmers create habitat for wildlife, they cut that by $72 million. It helps with surface water retention so that we can reduce the impact of drought on farmers. They have cut that, again, $72 million. It also helps with nutrient management.

There is a small dams program that they cut by $74.2 million, which affects Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Oklahoma. And, Mr. Speaker, I am reading out these States so that the Democrat Members from these States can realize that they are, a vote for this bill is a vote to cut their own dams program in their own States by $74 million.

Now, we have also heard about energy independence. This account also cuts the biomass program in the USDA by $2 million. But don't think your taxpayers are going to get any of this money. Where does the money go? To the bureaucracy. The FDA, who only asked for a $20 million increase, gets $100 million under this omnibus bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member, Mr. Lewis, for the opportunity to speak on this bill.

I oppose the bill; and the reason why, Mr. Speaker, is I think it is very important for our constituents to understand.

Yes, there was a mandate in November as there had been a growing mandate throughout the year to get rid of earmarks. Now when my constituents supported the President's call to get rid of $18 billion worth of earmarks, what they thought he meant was reducing spending $18 billion. They do not want earmarks eliminated for the sake of taking them out of the hands of elected people and putting them in the hands of non-elected bureaucrats, yet that is what this omnibus bill does.

Now in the ag section, the total spending has gone from 100 to $150 billion down. That sounds like a good savings, some of it. You can argue, where did the savings come from?

One thing that was eliminated, $70 million in environmental quality incentive program, $44 million for conservation security programs. These are programs that help farmers, and they have a cost share. It helps farmers plan on environmental repairs, keeping nutrients out of flowing into streams, safe environmental practices on dairies like building lagoons, things like that.

The bill also eliminated $74 million in watershed and flood prevention, building small dams, and it eliminates $2 million from the USDA biomass program. Now at a time when we all want energy independence, eliminating the biomass program in the USDA doesn't make sense to me.

Also it eliminates $11 million in food stamp funding for the employment and training portion of food stamps. All important things.

But where does the money go? For one thing, it goes to the FDA bureaucrats. The FDA wanted about a $20 million increase. They get, under this bill, a $100 million increase, without a single committee hearing on it.

Again, though, it is not just that the FDA is getting money. It is that the taxpayers aren't getting money. Earmarks have been eliminated, but the money does not go back to the taxpayers. It simply goes to the bureaucracy. And that is why I think we should recommit this bill because we can do a better job.

Madam Speaker, I think that there is a good part to the Democrat takeover of the House and the Senate, and that is that now the Democrats are at the table when we talk about Iraq. And there are many in this town who say failure is not an option. I think failure is an option. I think there would be disastrous consequences to that. The third largest oil-producing nation in the world would belong to terrorists. What would happen to the existing and fledgling Iraqi Government if you suddenly pulled our troops out of there? What kind of genocide would that bring? Those are things that have to be dealt with.

But I think that it is good that now we can have a bipartisan approach that the critics of the administration and the policy are now inside the room actually making policy. With that spirit, I think that it is time to tone down the rhetoric and work on a solution that will be best for Iraq, for America, and for the international community. And I say this with sincerity now because I think there is a good opportunity, and we only will have it, I think, for a few short months because the Presidential elections are kicking in, lots of rhetoric is floating around, but I think we can work together and come up with some good policy.

Madam Speaker, I wanted to speak today about the debate on the war. And I have the honor of representing Fort Stewart, home of the Third Infantry Division, which is located in Hinesville and Savannah, Georgia.

This month the Third Infantry will start its third deployment to Iraq. And as they go over there, certainly they know what is going on in Washington in terms of the debate. But I think it is real important that we don't send a signal to our men and women in harm's way that what they are doing is irrelevant, that we can't win, and that because Bush might be a President whose policies aren't perfect that we need to withdraw.

In fact, I think what we should do is reaffirm on a bipartisan basis that we support the troops. We want to get them all the up-armored vehicles that they need, the Cougars, for example, blue tracking, the advanced night vision goggles. We should say on a bipartisan basis, we want to give them absolutely all the military hardware that they need to win the war. And then, in a separate debate, have the discussion of what an alternative is, where is the plan of the Bush critics and what is the price of pulling out. And I think we need to make that statement. And I am glad Sam Johnson is moving in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, reserving my right to object, could the Speaker tell me why we are limiting 1-minutes to five per side, yet we are getting out today in the middle of the day at 2 o'clock?

Mr. Speaker, I will accept that for an answer. I just wanted to ask the question and make sure that we understood that we are.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, there is one economic fact that doesn't belong to the Democrats or the Republicans. Facts work that way. And that is, that price in the long run is the cost of production, period. It is true with anything.

What we are doing with this bill, should it pass, is we are increasing the cost of production, specifically, domestic production.

We live in a world where, in 2004, we spent $103 billion buying oil from nondemocratic countries. Now, some of them might be your best friends. Saudi Arabia, for example. Others might be less than your best friends. Of course, I say that tongue in cheek. But Iran, Iraq, Russia, Venezuela, that is who you are buying your oil from today; and you are going to increase the cost of domestic production. It doesn't quite make sense, except for in the context of the last 2 weeks, the context of the transfer of power from Republican to Democrat. We were promised open government; we were promised open rules; we were promised the opportunity to add amendments and to have fair debates. And yet this bill, as has been the case with the five bills before it, did not even have a committee hearing. It is like giving a book report having not read the book.

Sure, it is a power jam, and certainly the majority has the right to jam its power through on the minority. But in this case, wouldn't it have been more helpful to have a committee hearing so we could have gotten rid of what I would call the tuna fish clause?

Now, we know what the tuna fish clause is. Right? That is where we heard over and over again on the minimum wage debate that increasing wages was good for everybody, good for the economy, good for the worker, particularly the poor worker. And then we read this insidious, surreptitious scheme to exempt American Samoa and the tuna worker factories. Sorry, Charlie, but only the best tuna workers are entitled to minimum wage, not the folks on American Samoa.

Now, that is the tuna fish clause. Now, frankly, I think other States ought to have that option, too. We found out there was a tuna fish clause yesterday in the education bill; and that was that the title of the bill was to decrease the student loan interest rate down to 3.4 percent, but the tuna fish clause in it said that it was only applied for 6 months of the bill. How do you go back home and tell people you cut student loan rates in half when you only did it for 6 months? It is a tuna fish clause.

How do you tell the American people that you are going to have open government, and yet your first six bills bypass the committee process? That is the tuna fish clause.

Today the tuna fish clause is that our domestic oil production is low in terms of our consumption, and we are going to be increasing the cost of the production, which will be passed on to the American consumers.

We do need alternative energy. We need it on a bipartisan basis. I would say to the majority, you missed a great opportunity to work on this.

Madam Speaker, the Democrat Party has just ended its 6 for 600 hours, or whatever they call it. I wish I had a clock at home that tracked hours the way the Democrats did. By that standard, I would be 25 years old, and probably look a lot better, as a matter of fact; more youthful.

But I want to say this. The Democrats did this agenda based on kind of, you know, trite, older, more established, safer issues. There was no real reach for the sky here; no entitlement reform, no tax simplification, no energy independence. What they did also was cram down a bunch of things that bypassed the committee process, and I want to give a contrast with the Contract With America.

The Contract With America was 24 pieces of legislation. The number of bills we had open to amendment was nine. The number of bills considered under a closed rule was only three. The numbers of bills considered under suspension of the rules was only two. The total number of Democrat amendments, 154, of which only 95 failed. Many, many Democrat amendments passed.

I hope, as we go into your next 200 or 300 hours, that we can have a more participatory democracy.

Mr. Speaker, well, it looks like the Democrat juggernaut is rolling along, or maybe it is more like the first steps of fledgling toddlers stumbling through their day.

First was the embarrassment of saying we would have open and fair debates for all, and then the first rule, no amendments, no open rules, and no committee hearings, which of course led to the embarrassing ``Sorry, Charlie Tuna'' incident of exempting American Samoa from workmen's compensation. I have to ask my friends, why did y'all do that? What were you thinking?

But I also want you to know I am on the side of American Samoa on this one. I don't think it is fair to go in there and beat them up and tell them how they should run their economy, tell them what is best for them and tell them that Washington knows best on central wage planning. Wait a minute, though. That is what we did to the other States, too.

Well, as a matter of fact I don't think we should bring American Samoa into this. I think we should amend the bill, if you do decide to have a committee hearing, that is, and allow the other States to join American Samoa and set their own minimum wage. But then that would be decentralized planning.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

As I sit here, I am reminded of the story we have all heard about the guy who goes on the $100 cruise. He sees an advertisement for a $100 cruise. Like all of us, especially a guy like me, I have never been on a cruise, he goes down to the dock real excited about it and he gives the man $100. The man pulls out a two-by-four, hits him over the head, puts him on an inner tube and pushes him into the water. And he is cruising along. After a while he wakes up. He bumps into another guy with an inner tube and he is rubbing his head. Finally, the first guy says to the other guy, ``Hey, do they serve drinks on this cruise?'' And the second guy says, ``Well, they didn't last year.''

Now, the point is, how vulnerable could you be to do this twice? How vulnerable would these students be to believe what they are hearing about an interest rate that, it is true, it does go to 3.4. It dips down to 3.4, and then it springs back up.

I only wish the stock that I owned in whatever my savings account is would dip down like that and then go immediately back up the way the Democrat Party is.

But this bill had no hearings. A broken promise right off the bat. We would have hearings, we would have amendments. There are no amendments, there are no hearings.

What happens when you have no hearings and no amendments? You can get to only what can be called the tuna fish clause. We know what the tuna fish clause is. That is where there is something embarrassing stuck in a bill that nobody quite understands. And I think Mr. McKeon over and over again has pointed out what the tuna fish clause is in this, and that is that the 3.4 percent interest rate is only in effect for 6 months, from 2011 to 2012.

Now, I want to explain to the folks who haven't been paying attention, when we passed the minimum wage bill the other day and we heard over and over again how it was going to help save the workers of America and how it was good for all, at the same time the very people who were telling us what a great bill it was had put in a scheme to exempt the tuna fish industry from American Samoa, the very people who are telling us this is great for all.

So it can be called the tuna fish clause. We are going to look for the tuna fish clause over and over again.

Now, one thing that we have not talked about is that universities have had a 35 percent inflation rate over the last 5 years. That is relevant because not everybody is going to go to college on a loan or on a scholarship, and so when you have a 35 percent inflation rate, you have got to say, well, what does that do to the rest of the student population. That is something the Republican Party and, frankly, the Democrat Party should focus on, what can we do to bring this under control.

The second thing is, there has been a commitment on this. Frequently, you hear about a poll that is taken that says 90 percent of the people of America believe in clean air. Oh, my goodness, 90 percent. Please tell me about the 10 percent who do not believe in clean air. So when you hear the guy standing on the dock with the $100 cruise, that this is good for education, of course, it is good for education. Who does not want more kids to get a college education? Because our kids today are going to be competing against kids from Tokyo, and from Moscow and from Beijing.

It is important in an international global economy that we have kids that are as competitive as possible, and that is why we have always worked on a bipartisan basis. I mean, think about this. In 1995, when the Republican Party took over the House, the Pell Grant money was $2,340. We increased it the next year to $2,470, and now it is at $4,050. We did not do that only with Republican votes. We did it with Republican leadership, but the Democrats were there with us. We think bipartisanship is very important.

In addition to that, we have together worked on Perkins loans, on college work student loans, on supplemental education grants. It is very important that we as a bipartisan body come together on education just like national defense issues, because education no longer ends at the water line. It goes internationally.

So when we hear over and over again that this bill will save a student $4,400 over the life of the loan, it is absolutely mathematically impossible, and maybe that is one thing we need more of, math education, so folks could tell a fraud when they see it.

In order for you to save that kind of money, the 3.4 percent interest rate would have to stay in effect for years at a time, but as Mr. McKeon said over and over again, it is only in effect from July 2011 to January 2012. That is the tuna fish clause of this bill.

If we had worked through committees on a bipartisan basis, regular order, hearings and amendments on the floor, we could get rid of the tuna fish clause in this, and we want to do that.

I am the son of a college professor, the brother of a college professor. I am the only one in my family who only has an undergraduate degree. I believe in higher education. Who does not believe in higher education? But I also believe in truth in representation and in bipartisanship.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, you know, it is time for the Democrat Party to lay out its plan for Iraq. I understand the echo chamber of liberalism is going to be teeing off on the President all week long. I understand that, because that is what has been going on for 6 months and, indeed, in some circles for a year.

There are 65 Members, in fact, of the Get Out of Iraq Now Caucus, and I actually have a lot of respect for them because they have a vision, they have a plan. The plan is: get out of Iraq.

Now there is no answer to the question: What happens then? What happens then when you have an American defeat internationally in the Middle East, when you turn over the third largest oil producing nation in the world to a terrorist state? What happens to the people over there who are pro-America or pro-democracy? They don't answer that question, and I understand that.

But for the other Democrats who are so enthusiastically piling on the President right now, and certainly I want to say as a Republican it has not been going well and we do need a new change in direction, but I would say to the majority party, put your plan on the table.

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that this is a debate which so many of us feel passionately about on both sides. It is such a shame, though, that it was not allowed to go to committee. I hear over and over again how important this bill is and actually to both sides, proponents and opponents, yet no committee, no hearing, no amendments. It is a pity. I certainly hope that the Democrats do go back to their party's promise of last week and start opening things up.

Now, having said that, I wanted to make two points, and then I am going to extend my remarks. But there is no Federal law against embryonic stem cell research right now. Many people seem to think that this will allow something to happen that it doesn't. The debate is more about what types of lines.

Now, as you know, the President has approved research on 78 lines. Twenty-two of them are being used currently in Federal funding, and I have the list of where those 22 are, their locations, which I will submit to the Record.