Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, everyone knows that Washington isn't very popular right now, and a big reason why is that too often our leaders make decisions that lack common sense. When we need to cut spending, Washington finds a way to spend more. When we need to create jobs, Washington piles on new regulations that put Americans out of work. When we spend billions of dollars to create a safe, permanent storage facility for our country's nuclear waste, politics gets in the way, and that facility is shut down.

Like millions of Americans across the country, I'm tired that politics is getting in the way, and I'm looking to bring some common sense back to this Republic.

And as you know, Mr. Speaker, there's no better example of putting politics before country than the case of Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain is a multibillion-dollar project that was supposed to be the solution for storing our country's nuclear materials. Ratepayers in States like South Carolina, ratepayers like my constituents, have poured billions of dollars into the development of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear repository.

Mr. Speaker, this administration needs to understand that America runs by the rule of law, and depositing our nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain is the law of the land. This administration does not get to make willy-nilly decisions to benefit supporters without congressional approval. And when Congress spoke, in the National Waste Policy Act, it made Yucca Mountain the law of the land.

I was deeply disappointed when the Presidential candidates were recently asked about Yucca Mountain. I was astonished that these good folks would echo the failed rhetoric of Senator Harry Reid. And I would remind all the Presidential candidates of the Federal Government's promise to construct a long-term storage facility for the legacy weapons materials temporarily being stored in South Carolina. And I would remind them that this is the law of the land. I suspect that many South Carolina voters, including myself, will expect to hear the Presidential candidates' plan to solve this problem during their next visit to the Palmetto State.

But let's talk about the states' rights aspect of this. Where is South Carolina's right to be rid of this waste? This is a federally created problem, the residual waste of our Cold War weapons programs. Whole towns in my district were relocated by the Federal Government to create the Savannah River site. I'm not saying that we don't want the Savannah River site to continue the important nuclear nonproliferation work of the Nation. And I commend NNSA's recent announcement concerning the conversion of some of the plutonium material into mixed oxide fuel for commercial reactors. What I am saying is that the Nation needs to do right by South Carolina and fulfill the promise to take care of the radioactive waste and get it out of our State.

Yucca Mountain is a geologically stable location; it's the right location for the job. It doesn't get much rain, it's in the middle of nowhere; and when it does rain, the arid climate evaporates the water. But let's take, for instance, that it may rain a lot one day. For leakage to happen at Yucca Mountain would require that little bit of water that doesn't evaporate to transpose through a thousand feet of granite-like rock. And then it's going to get to our concrete vault, and inside that concrete vault are stainless steel canisters. So the water erodes and transfers through a thousand feet of granite rock, through the concrete, through the stainless steel, and it comes in contact with radioactive glass, glassified material that it's got to erode. And then the water has to transfer that material through more stainless steel, through more concrete, through another thousand feet of nonporous rock, down to an aquifer that is a closed system.

This is why Yucca Mountain is the right place to do the job. No one thinks that rolling fields next to a river that is a water source for two States, as it is at Savannah River site, is a long-term answer to nuclear waste disposal. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can deal with the real problem.

Now the Department of Energy's blue ribbon commission is circulating a draft report on the future of America's nuclear waste, including the nuclear waste currently being temporarily stored at the Savannah River site. The Savannah River site can only be a short-term home for this waste. The best long-term outlook for the waste of this sort is in a deep geological site, hence the need for Yucca Mountain. The waste stored at Savannah River site can be processed for a number of purposes, but ultimately this waste needs to go deep underground.

Mr. Speaker, I urge representative Lee Hamilton and General Brent Scowcroft, the cochairs of the blue ribbon commission, to reconsider their draft report to include Yucca Mountain as the long-term disposal site that Congress mandated.

Americans have already given billions of dollars to the State of Nevada for the construction of a safe, long-term storage site for nuclear material. President Obama and Senator Reid shouldn't be able to have it both ways; Nevada must either rebate the billions of dollars already spent on Yucca Mountain or stand out of the way and allow the facility to open for business. It would create jobs in the State of Nevada. South Carolina has unfairly carried the burden for storing nuclear material for decades already. It's time for this waste to move on.

May God continue to bless America.

Mr. Speaker, I have prepared remarks today, but I want to talk about Yucca Mountain.

We've heard a lot of talk this week about the Presidential candidates and Yucca Mountain. America needs to realize that South Carolina, on the Savannah riverside, is currently holding all of the legacy weapons product material that came out of the Nonproliferation Treaty-- plutonium, sitting in my State, in my district, that is slated to go, under past agreements, to Yucca Mountain. It's the right place.

America needs to bring Yucca Mountain back online. And let's take the legacy weapons products out of South Carolina and put them in a long- term storage facility.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2273, the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act.

As I see it, the three main problems facing the American economy today are the uncertainties coming from taxation, regulation, and litigation. This tone-deaf administration continues to propose new forms of taxation on American job creators to the detriment of our workers and our economy. The administration continues the threat of litigation in the form of the unprecedented and unconstitutional attacks by the National Labor Relations Board against my home State of South Carolina. And we see the EPA creating costly regulations that are forcing businesses not to make decisions on an annual or quarterly basis, but having to make decisions to comply day to day.

Fortunately, the House has worked to turn back some of these actions, but there is much work left to be done. The House recently passed two bills, H.R. 2681 and H.R. 2250. These bills seek to prevent a pair of excessive regulations from going into effect that would put hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work. One EPA regulation, the Boiler MACT rule, is expected to cost businesses and consumers around $14 billion, resulting in a loss of over 220,000 American jobs.

Today we begin discussing the administration's EPA regulation of coal ash that will drive up electricity costs for millions of Americans, as well as construction costs for roads and homes all around the country.

From 1999 to 2009, American industries successfully recycled 519 tons of coal ash, some 38 percent of the 1.35 billion tons of coal ash produced. Recycling coal ash keeps electricity costs

low, provides for low-cost durable construction materials, and reduces the amount of waste going into the landfills. In other words, continuing to recycle coal ash is good for our economy and it's good for the environment.

Yet the administration continues this headlong rush to destroy American jobs and wreck the American engineering sector. The EPA is considering treating coal ash as a hazardous waste. This is simply the latest bureaucratic overreach from this administration on behalf of their friends from the left-wing fringe and environmental movement. The impact of this government overreach would be nothing short of disastrous, with an estimated impact of $110 billion over the next 20 years and around 300,000 jobs lost. The bill we are debating today would end that nonsense before it can start.

Keep in mind, America, it allows that coal ash to be regulated not by the left-wing zealots at the EPA, but by the States. Our Founding Fathers included the 10th Amendment in the Constitution so that these issues could be handled by the States, not a burdensome Federal agency with a political agenda and an axe to grind.

Yesterday the President revealed that he had raised $70 million for his campaign. If our President spent as much effort freeing job creators from excessive regulations as he spent raising campaign donations from environmental extremists, far more Americans would be able to find work today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in opposition to H.R. 3080, the Korean Free Trade Agreement.

Earlier today, I voted to support free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama because I recognize the value of promoting trade with our neighbors.

Unfortunately, the Korean trade agreement that we're debating right now is deeply flawed, poorly negotiated, and will cost American jobs by picking winners and losers in the market place.

The textile provisions alone in the agreement will cost Americans nearly 40,000 jobs over the next 7 years. Sadly, many of those jobs will be lost in my own state of South Carolina.

While this agreement gives South Korean goods duty-free entry into the U.S. market, American exports to South Korea will still be subjected to a 10 percent Tax. That amounts to an automatic 10 percent tariff on certain US goods, putting our manufacturers at an immediate competitive disadvantage. Additionally, this agreement opens US markets to Korean goods, but doesn't guarantee the Korean market will be open for US goods.

Finally, I'm concerned about this agreement's impact on our national security as it relates to the extended domestic supply chain for industrial and military applications. These include fuel cells, oil booms, rapidly deployable shelters and tents, radar covers, Kevlar body armor for our troops, and many more advanced applications. This trade agreement could have a major negative impact on the private sector's ability to innovate and supply our military.

I strongly urge my colleagues to send this trade agreement back to drawing board. For the sake of our economic and military security, I urge a NO vote. Thank you, and may God Bless America.

January 20, 2011.

Dear Representative, As representatives of the domestic

textile and apparel sector and its nearly 600,000 workers, we

strongly urge you to oppose the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade

Agreement (KORUS). In regards to textiles and apparel, the

FTA is seriously flawed and will result in the continued

outsourcing of valuable textile, apparel and other

manufacturing jobs. With our nation struggling through one of

the worst economic periods in its history, we believe the

current agreement sends the wrong message to our workers and

to American voters.

During the past forty years, Korea has developed a

sophisticated industrial and apparel fabrics sector and, as a

consequence, is the second largest exporter of textile yarns

and fabrics to the United States. Although the U.S. textile

sector is one of the most efficient and quality-driven

producers in the world, the Korean economy presents virtually

no export opportunities to Korea for U.S. textile producers.

As a measure of this one-way trading relationship, the U.S.

trade deficit in textiles and apparel totaled $708 million in

2009.

As a result, the textile industry asked the Obama

Administration to make three fixes

to the KORUS agreement in order to ensure that U.S. textile,

apparel and fiber jobs were not outsourced to Korea and

China. These fixes concerned (a) loopholes in the enforcement

portions of the agreement that benefit China, (b) a tariff

schedule that gives Korean exporters better terms than U.S.

companies and (c) the exclusion of textile components in the

agreement's rules-of-origin that advantage non-signatories to

the agreement such as China.

These mistakes not only hurt our manufacturing workers but

also damage our industry's ability to supply our military

with essential goods for our men and women in uniform. In

particular, Korea's producers get longer phase-out schedules

than U.S. producers on a number of sensitive product lines

that include products that are needed by the U.S. military.

Damaging surges by Korean producers because of this

inequitable arrangement will hurt U.S. companies that the

military depends on for a number of important products.

Unfortunately, the Administration chose not to address the

concerns of textile workers in your districts, and we are

concerned that their jobs are now in jeopardy.

Polls have shown a rising concern by the American voter

regarding the outsourcing of American jobs, particularly

manufacturing jobs, and the decline of the U.S. as an

economic power. Recent Wall Street Journal and Pew polls show

voter dissatisfaction regarding badly written trade

agreements is at a record high.

An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute estimates that

159,000 good paying American jobs will be destroyed if the

KORUS agreement in its present form passes Congress. Of that

total, we estimate that between 9,300 and 12,300 jobs will be

lost specifically in the U.S. textile and apparel sector as a

result of legal KORUS trade. U.S. government figures show

that approximately three additional jobs are lost to the U.S.

economy for each textile job that is eliminated. In addition,

U.S. job losses from illegal Chinese exports are not included

and these would be significant. Total U.S. job losses because

of the flawed KORUS textile text are expected to be at least

40,000 jobs.

With job creation a central concern in the country, we do

not believe that this agreement meets that goal. We continue

to urge that the textile portions of the agreement be

renegotiated in order to ensure that textile jobs are not

imperiled. Until that time, we ask you to stand firm on

behalf of textile workers in your district and oppose the

Korean FTA when it comes before a vote in Congress.

Sincerely,

Auggie Tantillo,

Executive Director, American Manufacturing Trade Action

Coalition.

Karl Spilhaus,

President, National Textile Association.

Paul O'Day,

President, American Fiber Manufacturers Association.

Cass Johnson,

President, National Council of Textile Organizations.

Ruth Stephens,

Executive Director, U.S. Industrial Fabrics Institute.

Mr. Speaker, with the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York this week and with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran giving his usual anti-American rant yesterday, I would like to make a few points about my concerns over Iran's strategic aims in the Middle East and here in the Western Hemisphere.

My friends at Kronos Advisory, including Medal of Honor winner Major General James Livingston of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, released their Al Qaeda-Qods Force Nexus report in April, the text of which I ask to be inserted into the Record. Their report goes to the heart of the matter detailing that ``Iran has quietly forged a strong working relationship with core al Qaeda leaders.''

I am greatly concerned about Iran's growing influence in Latin America. The Treasury Department has stated that Hezbollah's operating center is in the tri-border region of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Hezbollah's state sponsor, Iran, has opened six embassies in South America over the last 5 years.

When the lives of Americans could face threats from Iran's growing reach through Hezbollah, why would this administration even consider giving President Ahmadinejad a visa to attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting?

[From Kronos]

The Al-Qa'ida-Qods Force Nexus

Madam Speaker, when the health care bill known as ObamaCare was being debated in this Congress, Republicans said the bill would bankrupt our country, ration care for seniors, and cost Americans jobs.

Well, that's exactly what will be happening if the new provision of the law goes into effect next week. Unelected Washington bureaucrats have ignored calls from Congress asking for a delay in Medicare cuts to skilled nursing facilities and rehab centers.

My colleagues know that I have a reputation for being one of the more fiscally conservative Members of Congress. I understand the need for cuts. But as one medical professional recently said: ``If I'm told I need an amputation, I'd like to know what limb is being cut off.''

The administration is proposing a reckless cut of nearly 13 percent to skilled nursing facilities and rehab centers. Eighty percent of the overhead at these facilities is staffed, meaning the people who take care of our seniors will be the first to lose their jobs. Receiving a lower quality of care at rehab centers means there's a greater chance that patients will spend more time at a costly hospital, resulting in higher overall costs.

Madam Speaker, this isn't common sense. This policy isn't thinking smart. Our seniors deserve better, and I strongly urge the administration to reconsider their position.

Ladies and gentlemen, I rise today in support of H.R. 2587, the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act, that would end the funding for the NLRB's lawsuit against Boeing.

I'm an original cosponsor of this legislation because I believe that what the NLRB has done to Boeing and to the people of South Carolina is one of the most egregious bureaucratic abuses of power that this administration has perpetrated. And with this administration, honestly, that's saying something.

Earlier this year, the NLRB decided that it had the power to tell a company where it could move, what it could build, and how much. Whatever you think of the NLRB, whatever stance you have on Big Labor and labor unions, would you ever think that our government would consider such an unconstitutional power grab?

In the midst of this Great Recession, when our number one focus should be on creating jobs, the NLRB is trying to stop an American company from building American airplanes with American workers, South Carolinians, right here in America.

During a recent Congressional hearing, one of my colleagues from South Carolina, he asked the head lawyer for NLRB if he knew of a single union worker who had lost their job because Boeing decided to expand production in South Carolina. NLRB's lawyer did not have an answer.

But if NLRB wins this lawsuit--listen clearly, America: If NLRB wins this lawsuit, the decision will be made, not whether to locate in a union State or a right-to-work State, the decision American companies will make will be about whether to continue production in the United States of America or take those jobs and that manufacturing process to another country. That is the hard reality of what NLRB is doing today.

I ask my colleagues to join the South Carolina delegation, and America, today in standing up for freedom, standing up for the right to start a business, standing up for American jobs, standing up to the bullying tactics of an out-of-control bureaucracy.

Mr. Speaker, let's pass this bill. Let's pass it right away. This is an actual jobs bill that you can go and read. And this is one that we can pass right now. We can pass this bill today, and we can get Americans back to work.

I want to thank my colleague from Arizona for taking on this very important issue. What a great evening to talk about America living within its means. We are $14.3 trillion in debt, and we're spending $1.5 trillion more than we are bringing in as a Nation. The piece of legislation that we passed this evening and is now residing over in the Senate includes what I think is the most important language within that legislation, and that is a vote on a balanced budget amendment.

I was a small business owner for 16 years. When I did my budget every year, I had to think about what my revenues were for the past year and what my revenues were going to be for the coming year, and I had to set a budget based on that. I couldn't just hope that there was a money tree out in the backyard and continue spending money that I didn't have.

Americans have been engaged in this process of the debt ceiling debate, and we are urging them to get involved in this process of a balanced budget amendment. Once that requirement and that amendment does pass both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, it will be sent to the States to be ratified. At that point in time, Americans from all across the land will be able to rally their State legislatures, their general assemblies, to take up and ratify this important amendment to the United States Constitution.

Many of my constituents--the gentleman from Arizona doesn't know this. Many of my constituents know that I carry a United States Constitution with me in my pocket. In fact, I read from that very podium in the well. On the second day as a Member of this 112th Congress, I read from the United

States Constitution, something I don't take lightly. But in order for this government to survive, and survive fiscally, is to get our fiscal house in order. And the secret to doing that is really to pass a balanced budget amendment, to require Washington to live within its means the way families and small businesses and large businesses have to do all across this great land.

You know, when I was a small business owner, occasionally I had to go borrow money. But I had to put a plan together for that banker on how I was going to pay that back. Hopefully, we have begun to do that through this week of debate. But a balanced budget amendment, a requirement for the United States Government to balance its checkbook. The most, I guess, simplest thing that American families and small businesses do is sit down with that checkbook register and make sure that they haven't spent too much money, to make sure that they live within their means.

So we have got that opportunity. I am proud that this was included. I am proud that I stand with 87 members of our freshman class that really helped, I think, leadership see that this was a vital component to this piece of legislation. I commend the House leadership for including it. I commend the House leadership for making sure that its inclusion in this bill that we sent over to the Senate this evening was there.

So I want to urge the American people to get behind this, to contact your Senators, contact your House Members. As we heard recently from the gentleman from the Atlanta area of Georgia say, this vote will take place sometime between October and the end of the year. So during that process and leading up to that process, contact your Senators and contact your House Members and say: Government should have to live the way I operate my household, the way my wife and I have to sit down at our kitchen table and balance our budget. Balance Washington's budget. Let's get our spending under control. The time is now.

I brought my little boy, Parker Duncan, who is 10 years old. He is sitting on the House floor with me today because I teach them, my children, the value of not spending more than you bring in. And they say: Dad, can we have that baseball? Can we have that item? I say: Son, we don't have the money in our budget this week or this month to purchase that. But let me make plans so that we can purchase that in the future.

We live within our means. Am I perfect? No. I have debt, but we have a plan to pay back that debt.

The future of our children and our grandchildren is at stake. America knows. America got engaged in this, they got engaged in the last election cycle, and they know that Washington cannot keep spending more than it has.

So I commend my colleague from Arizona for taking on this very, very important issue to make Washington live within its means, to live within its means, not to spend money that it doesn't have. Let's rein in our fiscal house. Let's get our house in order, and let's create a way to start paying back that enormous debt. We can do that with a balanced budget amendment.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I ask the American people to listen closely to these words:

``The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government's reckless fiscal policies.

``Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that `the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and our grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.''

These were remarks by Senator Barack Obama, March 2006. Mr. Speaker, the President's hypocrisy could not be more clear.

God bless America.

Mr. Speaker, one problem that I see from my colleagues across the aisle and the President is that many of them have never signed the front of a paycheck. They have only signed the back of a paycheck. I was a small-town banker for 8\1/2\ years. I practice the five Cs of credit: character, capacity, capital, collateral, and cash flow.

If our country was held to these same standards, President Obama would never get the loan that he's asking for. I have struggled on this vote because of the $14 trillion of debt that our Nation faces. President Obama has yet to come up with a plan that changes our spending trajectory, but this House has. Cut, Cap, and Balance--it's not just any plan, but it's revolutionarily reformed the way Congress spends money.

We aren't $14 trillion in debt because we tax Americans too little. We're in debt because Congress has spent too much money. We don't have a revenue problem, folks. We have a spending problem.

I thank the gentleman from Ohio for that.

Folks, reforms like a balanced budget amendment, coupled with spending caps and significant spending cuts, are the types of revolutionary reforms that can prevent our children and grandchildren from inheriting mountains of debt. Passing off the debt problem to them may be the easy way. But it is not the American way, and it's definitely not the Christian way.

As President Reagan said, ``You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but only for a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a Nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.''

Mr. Speaker, the last Congress was known as the Congress of bailouts, takeovers, taxation, and regulation. This Congress is working to be the Congress of free markets, achieving American energy independence, and job creation.

Back in May, the House passed three sweeping pieces of energy legislation designed to help end our country's dependence on Middle Eastern oil and help create American jobs by allowing deep sea energy exploration and production.

Tonight we are going to talk about American energy independence and how energy is a segue into job creation, how we can put Americans back to work. As a proud member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, we passed three I think very, very strong bills that would put America back to work, especially in the Gulf of Mexico. We passed H.R. 1229. This is the Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act. It would end the Obama administration's de facto moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico in a safe, responsible, transparent manner by setting firm timelines for considering permits to drill, which will provide certainty and allow employers and workers to get back on the job.

I don't know how many Members of Congress have been out in the Gulf of Mexico like me and looked at offshore drilling and offshore energy production. There is a difference between drilling and production. Drilling is finding the oil, drilling that well. Then they move a production platform in there to start producing that. And I talk with my colleagues from Louisiana and Mississippi and Texas that understand that the Gulf States are hurting because it's not the Big Oil companies that are out of work. It's the folks that work on those rigs out in the gulf, doing the day-to-day labor of tapping that American energy resource.

But it's also the folks back on the beach that are providing the service industry, the ones that go out and provide the food and the transportation to the workers going back and forth. It's the ships that pull the anchors when the drilling platform wants to move somewhere else. It's the pipefitters and

welders back on shore that are providing the necessary service to that industry. We want to put the gulf back to work. We urge the Senate to pass H.R. 1229 that we sent over in May. And let's put the Gulf of Mexico back to work. In a few minutes I'm going to yield to the gentleman from Louisiana, who is going to talk more about that.

Then we passed the Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, which would require the Obama administration to move forward and promptly conduct offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. I served on the Outer Continental Shelf 5-year Planning Subcommittee that looked at oil and natural gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf all around the United States. And I know what a convoluted, long process it is to have a lease sale.

The administration is failing America by not having lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, or off the coast of Alaska, or really anywhere else on the Outer Continental Shelf. It's time to restart that leasing program so that we can tap the American resources that we have in this country. H.R. 1230 is another bill we passed out on May 5. The Senate needs to act on that one, Mr. Speaker. We passed it with a bipartisan vote of 266-149.

The third bill that came out, Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act, H.R. 1231, another one the Senate has failed to act on. This would lift the President's ban on new offshore drilling by requiring the administration to move forward on the 2012 to 2017 lease plan with energy production in the areas containing the most oil and natural gas resources.

We know where those resources are. They are off the coast of Mississippi and Alabama and Texas and the western Gulf of Mexico. They are also off the coast of South Carolina and Virginia on the Outer Continental Shelf. They are in the Alaskan Sea and off the coast of Alaska, where recently we saw the EPA deny Shell Oil Company an air quality permit.

Now, Americans need to listen. This isn't an oil drilling permit. They were ready to go. They had their drilling permit. But the EPA denied them an air quality permit. And a drilling platform does flare off the gas that sometimes seeps through when they are drilling for oil, and they flare that gas off to keep from having a dangerous explosion like we saw in Deepwater Horizon. Flare gas, natural gas that's flared off.

They are denied an air quality permit because 70 miles away on the coast, 70 miles away is an indigenous village of 250 people. So this administration's going to keep us from harvesting our natural resources in Alaska by not denying a drilling permit, but by denying an air quality permit to a drilling platform in the Alaskan Sea because it might impact a small village in Alaska. That's the kind of administration policies that we're dealing with and we're fighting here in this Congress.

Folks, we want to put America back to work. Energy is a segue to job creation. Think about it. The refining capacity that needs to be expanded as we expand the harvesting of oil and natural gas. New refineries in this country. It's been over 30 years, I believe, since we've had a new refinery permit in this country. We often think about energy, we think about fossil fuels, hydrocarbons, oil and natural gas. But when I talk about energy, I think about expanded nuclear power and how one nuclear power plant can put 5,000 people to work, 10,000 people to work in my area with new construction jobs. And then once the construction phase is over with, we've got long-term, good paying jobs like we have at the Oconee nuclear power plant in Seneca, South Carolina.

I believe in nuclear power as a stable, reliable source of energy in this country. We've got to expand nuclear power. We've got to look at modularization and miniaturization. At any given time, folks, we've got over 100 small nuclear reactors floating around the seas of the world in the United States Navy. And you know what? We haven't had a single mishap. Small, modularized nuclear reactors that work. Thinking outside the box, do we do that for small communities, neighborhoods, or small cities with smaller nuclear reactors like we have on aircraft carriers and submarines?

Recent studies from the American Petroleum Institute showed the United States is poised to create thousands of new jobs next year only if the Federal Government stops blocking the permitting process. There is a study that says that in Alaska alone--this was conducted by the University of Alaska--over 54,000 jobs could be created and sustained with deep sea production in Alaska.

I am going to yield in a little while to the gentleman from North Dakota, who will tell you that North Dakota's got one of the lowest, if not the lowest, unemployment rate in the United States, 3.2 percent. It's because of the energy jobs that are being created in the Bakken oil field in North Dakota. He is going to tell you more about that because it is a wonderful success story on how energy-related jobs expand the economy and put Americans back to work.

At this time, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Washington State, who knows that putting Americans back to work can happen if we harvest the natural resources that we've got in this great country.

I was out in Washington State with the gentlewoman from Washington several years ago, looking at nuclear power, looking at the Hanford site, talking about reprocessing of nuclear, spent nuclear fuel rods and how reprocessing can deal with some of the waste byproduct but can also provide an energy source for our nuclear power reactors, and I know you are interested in that as well. So thank you for your comments.

I next want to introduce and yield to the gentleman from Ohio, who understands that these are resources that we are talking about here in America. All the natural gas resources don't belong to President Obama; they belong to the American people. And it's time that the American people speak loudly that we want to put Americans back to work, providing American solutions for American energy issues.

I, too, believe in America's greatness. And I stood here and heard her talk about the world is looking to America to be great again. This is an area that we can be great in. I've traveled around my district recently and asked folks about rising gas prices and the impact that they were having on the family budget, how they were having to reach deeper into their wallet and not take out the $20 bill, but take out the $100 bill to fill up their tank for their family for their normal commute, grocery shopping and other things they do. Americans are hurting.

The gentleman from Ohio is on the Natural Resources Committee. And when we passed those bills out to this floor and passed those bills out from

this floor to the Senate, you saw an immediate reaction by the administration, saying that we need to harvest American resources and increase domestic energy. The action of this Congress, we saw a reduction in fuel prices the next week, I think a 15-cent per gallon reduction, in my district. That's the kind of impact, that's the kind of signals we can send to the market by doing the right thing for the American people and focusing on domestic production and putting Americans back to work.

The gentleman from Louisiana came from the oil and natural gas industry. He and I have had numerous conversations about the impact that the moratorium and the de facto moratorium has had on the economies in the Gulf States. And it's not only the loss of jobs and the income taxes that are associated with that, but it's the loss of revenue to the States from the royalties that they get from the oil and natural gas production.

But in this country, at a time when we are hurting economically from loss of jobs and the lessening of income revenue to this country, keep in mind that I believe second only to--well, actually third only--to income tax revenue and corporate income tax and other revenue and borrowing. The revenue this country receives from oil and natural gas royalties is third only to those two things.

So I would like to yield to the gentleman from Louisiana, because he has got a unique story to tell.

What would happen if we had a hurricane? We're in hurricane season, and we've released 30 billion gallons from the reserve. Wasn't that there for that purpose?

I tell you what, you've hit on something that I think we need to talk more about in this Congress, and that is the administration taking the easy road, trying to lessen fuel prices at the pump for Americans. But it was a short-term, short-lived impact, if it had any impact at all.

I appreciate your comments on the administration having a ``drill there and not here'' policy, encouraging exploration and drilling off the coast of Brazil when we've got the resources right here in this country. The Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of my State or off the coast of Virginia, where they have an energy policy that wants to tap those resources. In the Alaskan Sea off the coast, where we know there is proven oil and natural gas resources. An expansion in deepwater in the Gulf of Mexico. So I appreciate your comments.

The gentleman from North Dakota knows all too well what energy production means for jobs. The Bakken oil formation in North Dakota, Montana, and up into Canada even, has tremendous resources that can be harvested. There's an estimated 12 billion barrels of oil in North Dakota alone in the Bakken formation.

I hope he will talk about the impact that jobs created in North Dakota have on that unemployment rate.

I yield to the gentleman from North Dakota.

I thank the gentleman.

The time is now. The time is now to stop the policies of this administration of taking Federal land off the table when it comes to wind, solar, and hydrogen.

The wind farms. There's a bill in our committee that deals with NOAA's obstacles to wind farms off the coast. To the Federal land in the West that's off the table for solar, land that's owned by you, the taxpayer, that is not available for new solar panels and solar technology and wind farms and expansion of the power grid and power cables and transmission lines.

The folks in Oklahoma have known energy production for a long time. I was talking with a gentleman from Oklahoma earlier about a new technology to lessen our dependence on Middle Eastern oil by using the gray matter that God gave us to create new technologies.

I now yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma to share some exciting news with us coming out of his great State.

The same American greatness that the gentleman from Ohio was talking about, where innovation meets a need.

We have a need for energy independence, and innovation is meeting that need by creating a brand new company and technology to put gasoline in America's cars and trucks and tractors. And what an amazing story coming out of Oklahoma. Hydraulic fracturing is something that I think is next on the table for this Congress to address because we are seeing a lot of misinformation out there about hydraulic fracturing contaminating drinking water. Folks, that is just wrong. There hasn't been a single instance where a hydraulic fracturing operation has contaminated drinking water.

From my understanding, most of the natural gas shales, such as Marcellus or the ones out in Oklahoma and Texas, are 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet deep in the earth. And most wells where we get our drinking water are 300 feet to 1,000 feet. A thousand feet would be a deep well, a very expensive well for Americans. That's why they don't go that far. They look somewhere else for water.

The fracking takes place much deeper, so there hasn't been a single instance. The misinformation out there has been refuted by you many times in Oklahoma when you say, I repeat, Come drink our water in Oklahoma. I appreciate that.

A key Republican energy proposal is the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska Access Act that will cut through bureaucratic red tape and unlock the full potential of energy resources in the Alaskan Natural Petroleum Reserve by ensuring that oil and natural gas are developed and transported in a timely and efficient manner. But there are delays in accessing that from this administration. And whether these delays are the result of government incompetence or ideological vendettas, the fact of the matter is that these regulations are costing American jobs and raising energy prices.

The House has offered a clear path on job creation and economic recovery. That path is less taxation, less regulation, less government intervention, and more economic certainty in the marketplace.

The folks from Kansas have talked to me numerous times about energy, and so I would like to take an opportunity to yield to Mr. Huelskamp from Kansas to talk about what is going on out there and that great American State's focus on American energy independence.

Thank you, the gentleman from Kansas.

You hit on something. Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, before he was nominated to be the Secretary of Energy, wanted to figure out how to boost the price of a gallon of gasoline in this country to the levels in Europe. At the time he made that statement, gasoline in Europe cost around $7 to $8 a gallon. That's what the administration's Secretary of Energy really expects and wants the American people to pay for a gallon of gasoline. When fuel prices got to be $4 a gallon-- $4.35, $4.50 a gallon--in August of 2008, I know what that meant for my small business, and we only had two trucks on the road. Americans can't afford that when we've got the resources here in this country to meet our energy needs.

I know that the gentlewoman from North Carolina fully understands that we've got the resources to meet our needs and that we've got to expand that and put Americans back to work through harvesting American resources. So I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina.

I yield to the gentleman from Kansas. He comes from an energy background--supplying parts to the energy production field.

We're about out of time. I just wanted to thank my colleagues for understanding and expressing very clearly that we have the resources in this country to meet our energy needs. We need to put America back to work, harvesting those as a segue to job creation. The House Energy Action Team, the committees charged with this, have passed the bills to the Senate. The Senate needs to act. Let's put America back to work solving our energy needs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about our Constitution and the specific role that it grants this Congress.

My constituents back in the Third Congressional District of South Carolina know that I carry a United States Constitution with me every day, and the first time I spoke on this floor, it was to read a portion of this great document. Specifically, I read the article that we're talking about today, Article I, section 8, clause 11, the enumerated power of Congress and of Congress, alone, to declare war.

Our Founders did not give that right to the executive branch. They invested that responsibility with us. Now, previous Congresses have delegated some of that responsibility with the War Powers Resolution. That's what's being used by this President. But I think the time has come for us to have the debate about the wisdom of that and the constitutional obligation our Founders defined for Congress.

Over the past few years, our country has seen a renewed appreciation for the Constitution, a recognition of the wisdom and divine guidance our Founding Fathers had when they crafted this sacred document. The Constitution lists our rights, these rights which were given us directly by God, but also contains the mechanisms to protect our rights from being trampled upon by man.

Among the most important of these protections is the separation of powers. Seeing firsthand the tyranny that can arise from a corrupt centralized power, our Founding Fathers sought to divide the power of government into three independent branches that serve as checks on one another.

Mr. Speaker, we in the Congress need to know: What is the national interest at stake in Libya? The President cites humanitarian needs, regional stability, and supporting the international community as his justification. I do not believe that these reasons suffice as national security interests. We did not go into Libya with a clear, attainable objective. The risks and costs do not appear to be fully analyzed.

As the President said, we would only be in Libya for days, not months. We've been there days. As a matter of fact, we've been there 73 days. Seventy-three days after we've gotten involved, we still don't have that answer. We don't know who we're supporting. We don't know whether we have a viable end game, and we don't have a congressional declaration of war or an authorization of force.

And yet this President chooses to continue to risk American lives, American servicemen and -women, and he continues to spend American treasure at the whims of the United Nations. This President should not be able to simply have wars of choice. He said this action in Libya would be limited.

Our troops have, once again, as always, performed admirably and done the job the President gave them to do. But we now have to do ours.

Mr. Speaker, the Constitution is very clear. Only Congress has the power to declare war. If this Congress allows our President to make wars of choice without the rule of law to guide him, we will be just as guilty in not upholding our constitutional obligations.

First, I thank my colleagues for taking this time to talk about an issue that--I cannot believe we are even having this discussion. We have seen a lot since we have been here in Washington on January 5, but I never thought that I would see the day when the NLRB and our government would sue a company over creating jobs in South Carolina. I may have experienced that in another country, say the Soviet Union back in the eighties, but to think that we have got a government here in America that is suing a company for making a business decision, a decision that would affect their bottom line, to go where their labor costs are cheaper, to come to a great State like South Carolina and locate in a wonderful city like North Charleston where they were already operating an operation that made the fuselages. This was a decision not to locate a whole other operation, but to bring the rest of the components to South Carolina, to assemble the complete aircraft there. And since they made that decision to come to South Carolina, they have added an additional 2,000 jobs in the State of Washington. And so for the NLRB to say that Boeing made a decision to punish a union in Washington is ludicrous. It is ludicrous.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said that NLRB's action against Boeing is a threat to every right-to-work State. And I agree with him because if this suit is successful against Boeing, we are not going to have the conversation in this country about whether a business is going to locate in a right-to-work State or a union State. The conversation is going to turn, Mr. Gowdy, to a conversation about whether to locate in America or to locate that operation overseas. That ought to scare every one of us, not just those in the right-to-work State, but every American who understands capitalism, who understands that government doesn't create jobs, businesses do.

Looking at the NLRB's decision and examining the recent electoral map, it

is not difficult to see a policy that clearly rewards blue States while severely punishing red ones. South Carolina is a red State, and we are proud of that fact. We shouldn't be punished for Boeing locating in South Carolina. And this is the second attempt by NLRB to punish South Carolina.

Right before this, they decided to sue South Carolina, South Dakota, Arizona, and Utah over the right to a secret ballot. Back in November, Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of South Carolinians voted in a referendum that we liked the right to a secret ballot when it comes to union elections, that we don't want card check, a method where union bosses can come to employees and say: You know, we really want to unionize here, and we would love to have your name, and through fear and intimidation get them to agree to go along and unionize after a majority of those people in that business have said, under intimidation usually, that they would go along with the union. We like the right to a secret ballot, that free Americans can go into the voting booth, whether it is at a union or anywhere else, and cast a ballot in secret without fear of intimidation, go in there and cast a vote on how they feel on whether they want to collectively bargain, whether they want to unionize, or whether they like the right to come to work and negotiate with their employer for their best interest and for the best interest of the company, for the best interest of the company.

And so NLRB said nope, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Arizona; we determine how you are going to unionize. We determine what methods you are going to use. And if we say that you have to use card check as a method of unionization, that is what you have to use. And just because you in South Carolina, just because 80 percent of your voters like the right to a secret ballot, that doesn't matter. That is off the table because NLRB is saying they have the last word, they are the only voice. And you know what? That is wrong, because it is a States' rights issue. The Constitution I carry says Congress--and I am going to get a little passionate on this issue because I feel NLRB has overstepped its bounds on this--it says that no power not specifically outlined in that document as belonging to the Federal Government, nor prohibited by that document to the States, is reserved for the States or the people. It doesn't say that the NLRB has the right to determine how we can unionize in South Carolina or any other right-to-work State.

I think States do have rights. And I think we have to stand up, and I applaud my colleagues tonight for standing on this floor and championing States' rights, championing the Constitution of the United States, championing the 10th Amendment, and pointing out the rightful place of the States in this country that freely joined the Republic.

So after the NLRB decided to sue these four States, they came in and decided to sue a private business, to sue a business that made a business decision to affect the bottom line, shareholder value, looking after profit, which others want to demonize in this country but which made this country great, capitalists going out and investing their hard-earned dollars, convincing others to invest their money in their stock, to grow a business, create a product that folks around the world would want to buy. And folks like buying Boeing products.

I applaud Boeing for wanting to come to South Carolina, to invest their billions of dollars in our State, their idea of staying there for 100 years, their love for South Carolina workers, the climate and the pro-business climate we have in our State, the pro-business climate they have in North Charleston, the effort that South Carolina had to step up to the plate to help Boeing in the deal to come to South Carolina.

I look forward to flying on the Boeing manufactured aircraft the Dreamliner. What a great name. We're talking about the shattering of American dreams by the NLRB suing Boeing, which is chasing the American Dream. Yet they're chasing it to form an airliner called the Dreamliner. Is that not irony? I can't believe we're having this discussion, but I'll tell you what. We're doing the right thing, and this Congress needs to get behind defunding the NLRB's ability to sue South Carolina, to sue Boeing. We need to get behind that.

Mr. Gowdy, thank you for having this.

They said they'd talk with Attorney General Wilson and the other attorneys general, but they said, We're going to do it in secret. We're going to do it in secret. They demanded secret meetings, made threats, and they attacked the right to the secret ballot. That doesn't exactly look like a good track record.

Have you heard about that?

You have to wonder why the NLRB is doing this. What is their ultimate gain? I

think it's to force a private industry to make a decision that the government tells it to. That's like a government takeover, a government's telling a private business what to do or not to do.

The American people are tired of the spending and the borrowing and the bailouts and the takeovers. We saw it with General Motors. We've seen it with other businesses. We've seen the government takeover of health care. Now we're seeing the government sue a private business for making a business decision to locate in South Carolina.

Because we come from the great Palmetto State, we know why they wanted to locate in South Carolina. We know about the work ethic. We know about the wonderful business climate, and we know about the wonderful climate, period. I know why they chose Charleston. What a great location. It's not just because the airbase is there; that it's close to the port is probably one of the biggest reasons. It's the wonderful port that we've got in Charleston. The reason South Carolina is great is because of the Port of Charleston.

While I'm on that, let me just applaud my colleagues across the building there for their help in securing the money that was necessary for deepening and widening the Port of Charleston. It was the right decision for the Corps of Engineers to make. It's the right decision for the business climate in South Carolina, and it's the right decision for our State. It's going to be a perfect business example for South Carolina and for the east coast.

The gentleman from Georgia just a few minutes ago in the last hour was over there talking about us not manufacturing anything in this country anymore, talking about bringing manufacturing back. I don't know if y'all heard that.

I sat there and listened, and I thought about the irony there, that here we are, we have the NLRB that's suing a business who is operating in this country, who has numerous manufacturing facilities, not just in Washington and South Carolina, who's creating a wonderful product that's sought all around the world. They're manufacturing it here in this country. They're creating jobs in South Carolina. We are manufacturing here. And so to that gentleman, Mr. Scott from Georgia, the message is clear: They are, and they'll continue to do so as long as we have a pro-business economy, as long as we have a pro-business climate.

Like I said earlier, if NLRB wins this suit, we're going to see decisions made about not whether to locate in a right-to-work State like South Carolina or Utah or Arizona or South Dakota or even Virginia or many, many others in this country, we're not going to see that argument about whether to locate in a right-to-work State or a union State, we're going to see truly what he was talking about, the decision being made about whether to locate in the United States of America and put Americans to work or locate in another country. That's the question that's going to be asked.

Mr. Speaker, I just have to ask myself, listening to my colleagues here, thinking about this issue, since when did America stop becoming and being the land of the free? The land of the free that we sing about all the time? Do we just want to say that we're a free Nation, or do we want to be a free Nation?

Our freedom is under attack, guys. Our freedom is under attack across this Nation, through suits like the NLRB suing the States, NLRB suing a private business for making a business decision. But in America? I can't believe we're witnessing this. It's not just NLRB, it's the EPA. When they deny an air quality permit for a drilling platform in the Alaskan Sea, where the closest impacted town is over 70 miles away, with only 250 indigenous people there.

I've been out to a deepwater drilling platform. I've been to a production platform. The only air impact that I've seen was the flare gas, where they flare off and burn off the gas that comes through the natural drilling activities. Usually it's natural gas. Some proponents of that side of the debate think that natural gas is and say--and I believe that, too--it's probably cleaner burning. But we've got the EPA denying an air quality permit, not a drilling permit this time, so we're not able to meet America's energy needs by domestic production.

We've got NLRB suing the State of South Carolina, the State of Utah, the State of Arizona, and the State of South Dakota. Then we've got them suing a fine American company named Boeing. We've got the EPA going after drilling, denying to issue air quality permits. We've got them changing the air quality standards that will affect economic development in my district and around the State of South Carolina.

This is a power grab. This is a power grab by this administration to keep us from being free people, to keep us from being able to make business decisions and creating jobs, putting America back to work.

America needs to wake up and see that your freedoms are being eroded day by day.

It's hard to believe that January 5 we were elected into Congress and had high optimism for changing the way Washington does business, and then we see this continuation of these policies, which I labeled on the campaign ``POR policies.'' I called it Pelosi, Obama and Reid policies that were bankrupting this country, and they're continuing today. They're continuing today because they are affecting private businesses that are out creating jobs in States like South Carolina.

So I applaud my colleagues and, like you said, those that aren't here, those that may be taking the floor on the other side of the Chamber in the United States Senate, those that had obligations, other places tonight that feel the way we do, that South Carolina is a great State to do business.

Boeing made the decision to come there. They made the decision about their bottom line, about profitability, shareholder value, about creating something great, creating American jobs, manufacturing in this country that the gentleman from Georgia talked about. Well, they're doing it. And they're going to do it in South Carolina because I believe they're going to win this lawsuit. I believe they are going to win because it's the right thing, it's the American way, it's unconstitutional, un-American for the NLRB to be suing Boeing.

I believe with my heart that they are going to win. They're going to put those thousands of workers to work in South Carolina, they're going to invest their money, and they're going to be there 100 years from now.

Mr. Speaker, the recent unprecedented action by the National Labor Relations Board is simply the latest example of this administration putting politics before the needs of the American people. I honestly never thought I would see the day when our government sued a company over creating jobs in South Carolina or anywhere in the United States. The NLRB's position violates States' 10th Amendment liberties and attempts to roll back worker protections for the purpose of satisfying special interests and union bosses.

The NLRB was created to protect workers' rights, but now the worker is left out of the equation in favor of big unions. I ask, what about the workers in South Carolina who lose out in this action? Where have their rights been considered in all of this nonsense? In fact, the National Labor Relations Act says in section 1 that the purpose of the NLRA is ``to promote the full flow of commerce, to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce, to provide orderly and peaceful procedures for preventing the interference by either with the legitimate rights of the other, to protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations whose activities affect commerce, to define and proscribe practices on the part of labor and management which affect commerce and are inimical to the general welfare, and to protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes affecting commerce.''

The NLRB's ruling comes on the heels of previous threats by this radically out-of-touch panel to sue States like South Carolina for constitutionally protecting one of America's most universal freedoms, the right to a secret ballot. Fear that the Federal Government might take away that fundamental principle prompted voters in South Carolina, Arizona, South Dakota, and Utah to overwhelmingly support adding secret ballot protection to their State constitutions. If the NLRB hadn't already made a big enough mockery of individual freedom, they even refused to come to the negotiation table and talk about their concerns with States' attorneys general unless they were willing to first sign a nondisclosure agreement preventing them from sharing what was discussed during the meetings.

Demanding secret meetings, threats, and attacking the right to a secret ballot doesn't exactly create a good track record for the National Labor Relations Board. That's what prompted me to introduce House Resolution 1047, the State Right to Vote Act, which would stop the NLRB from suing States whose voters took a stand against union thuggery for secret elections. And if the NLRB doesn't change the course quickly, I know there will be many in this body, including myself, who will call for the panel's removal altogether.

But, Mr. Speaker, this latest outrage is a unique power grab. Against constitutional and Supreme Court precedents, the NLRB's actions are a clear attack on our State. Think about the context: This administration has spent our Nation into oblivion, doubling the national debt in 2 short years, running over businesses both large and small, mounting takeover after takeover, and reducing the size and scope of our economy in the process. South Carolina's unemployment rate finally dips below 10 percent, and what does this administration do? It sues one of the largest prospective employers in our State just as that company begins to hire workers, potentially costing South Carolina thousands of new jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I may be new to Washington, but I promise you I was not born yesterday. Looking at the NLRB's policy and examining recent electoral maps, it's not difficult to see a policy that clearly rewards blue States while severely punishing red ones. Under the NLRB's interpretation of the law, a company with a union workforce anchored in a blue State could not expand or relocate to a red State.

Limiting where companies can conduct business sounds like something that would take place in China or the old Soviet Union, not here in the United States. Since when did America stop being the land of the free?

Let me give this message to anyone looking to start a company in America. Choose your location well. If this action by NLRB is upheld, trust me when I say that we won't be talking about companies making decisions over moving to a right-to-work state versus a union state. We will see decisions made in the context of locating in America or another country.

And what this outrageous action by the NLRB tells you is that you're stuck with very few options. Give into the union's demands, close up your shop, or take your production outside of the United States. The NLRB's actions say build your companies somewhere else, but not in America. So much for the American dream.

Mr. Speaker, this action by the NLRB is unconstitutional and illegal. I call on my colleagues in the Education and Workforce Committee to hold hearings into this bureaucratic atrocity. My South Carolina colleagues and I have introduced legislation to defund this latest lawsuit.

I ask all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to rescue the American dream and sign on to this legislation. I also ask the American people, pay attention to this problem. Our Founding Fathers would be appalled by this bureaucratic tyranny. It's time to hold our elected officials accountable. Do we want to just say that we're a free nation, or do we really want to be a free nation? Our freedom is under attack. It's time we take a stand.

May God continue to bless America.

I object.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my point of order while rising in opposition to the motion.

This Democrat motion is just one more example of congressional Democrats attempting to obstruct a bill that will increase access to American energy resources. This motion is already the law. The law says the President has an authority to restrict foreign sales, and ``use it or lose it'' is already the law of the land. If my friends want to reduce the nonproducing leases, then we need to get this administration to issue permits in a timely manner.

This motion is trying to deflect criticism from the policies that have been perpetrated that block American energy production, cost jobs and raise prices. It is simply a distraction from the real work that needs to be done to increase the supply of American energy.

The bill we're voting on today represents a real choice, Mr. Speaker, on the future of American energy: a choice between using American energy resources or remaining dependent on an OPEC cartel; a choice between creating jobs in America or creating jobs offshore of Brazil.

With this motion, the party opposite is standing for a ``drill there and not here'' policy. Mr. Speaker, that is not a strategy that will work to create American jobs. The underlying bill will create these jobs.

Finally, this is a choice between strengthening our energy security in the face of $4 a gallon gasoline or being held hostage to the whims of volatile foreign regimes. Mr. Speaker, there can be no national security without energy security.

As a small business man, I know what the pressure of $5 a gallon diesel fuel did to my business back in 2008, and we only had two trucks on the road.

Now think about what this is going to do to every household, every trucking business, every shipper, and every farmer in our country. The Nation's families are hurting, Mr. Speaker. They're trying to decide between putting fuel in their cars to go to work or putting food on their tables to feed their children. We must act to increase the supply of American energy, and Mr. Speaker, this bill will get us moving in the right direction. This is a commonsense, free market solution that can help us restore America's greatness.

Congress took bipartisan action in 2008 to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling and exploration. Yet this administration has unilaterally defied the will of this Congress and the will of the American people by effectively reinstating a moratorium. The energy resources don't belong to President Obama. They belong to the American people, and they should be used to create American jobs, to generate revenue, to reduce gasoline prices, and to strengthen our national security.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this motion. Let's pass this bill to return these American energy resources back to where they belong, and that is to the American people.

May God continue to bless America.