Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule and in strong support of the underlying bill.

I have been a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee for 26, now 27 years. I'm a past chairman. I'm a past subcommittee chairman. I currently have the title of chairman emeritus.

I participated under former Chairman John Dingell, former Chairman Billy Tauzin, former Chairman Tom Bliley, former Chairman Henry Waxman and now current Chairman Fred Upton, dozens of hearings on the Clean Air Act, markups, amendments, dozens of hearings on climate change, global warming and all of those issues.

The bill before us, if the rule passes, does not change the Clean Air Act. It does not gut the Clean Air Act. It does not in any way prevent enforcement of the criteria pollutants that are regulated by the Clean Air Act. It simply says that greenhouse gases are not to be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

And the reason it says that is that greenhouse gases are different than the criteria pollutants that are regulated under the Clean Air Act. First of all, greenhouse gases by definition are necessary for life.

As I stand here, Madam Speaker, and speak, I am creating, as I breathe in and out through the respiratory process, CO2. So under the dictates of today's EPA, I am a mobile source polluter, because I am breathing. I am creating CO2.

CO2, carbon dioxide, is necessary for life. Greenhouse gases are necessary to protect the environment. They have the ability to prevent heat from escaping into outer space, and that is what creates the temperature zone that allows life to exist.

The radical environmentalists who think CO2 is a pollutant have decided amongst themselves--I don't know how they have done it-- but they have decided that the magic number for CO2 in the atmosphere should be about 350 parts per billion. We are currently at about 380 parts per billion.

We know from records and from ice samples and tree rings and things like this of the past that we have had CO2 up in the thousands parts per billion in the past. So how 350 has become the magic number is beyond me.

In any event, let me simply say, the bill before us doesn't change one sentence in the Clean Air Act. It does say that the endangerment finding was flawed, and the decision by the Obama administration to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act is wrong, and it should not be allowed to stand.

If this Congress or future Congresses want to regulate CO2, want to regulate greenhouse gases, let them bring a bill forward through the normal regulatory process and do it.

Please vote for the rule. Please vote for the bill.

Will the gentleman yield?

A tax is a burden.

I thank the distinguished chairman.

I rise in strong support of this bill.

I would like to make a few comments. First of all, the bill before us doesn't change one sentence or one paragraph in the Clean Air Act. It doesn't change anything.

What it does do is prevent the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2 as a criteria pollutant under the Clean Air Act. I was in Congress when we passed the Clean Air Act amendments back in 1991. I was a cosponsor of the bill. I worked on the bill in committee, voted for it on the floor. So I am a supporter of a strong Clean Air Act.

CO2 is not a criteria pollutant under the Clean Air Act. It was never intended to be. It's only because of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that said the EPA had to make a decision whether it should be, and then a very flawed EPA endangerment finding, when President Obama became the President, that we have an EPA authority, tenuous as it is, to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act.

What this bill does is take us back to the original Clean Air Act and say we're going to regulate the criteria pollutants. But greenhouse gases and CO2, which is a greenhouse gas, are not one of those criteria pollutants.

What are the purported benefits of regulating CO2? According to numerous

studies, in terms of the amount of reduction in CO2, by the year 2100, which is 90 years away, 89 years away, we would see a reduction of about 3 parts better per billion if we regulated CO2 from the current 380 to 390 parts per billion. We would see a reduction in temperature by about 0.006 to 0.015 of a degree centigrade, and we would see a reduction in sea-level rise by about 0.007 of a centimeter. In other words, if we spend up to $100 billion a year to regulate CO2, we get no reduction in parts per billion, we get no reduction in temperature, and we get no reduction in sea level. But we do get a huge cost to the economy every year.

This bill is a commonsense bill that simply says the Clean Air Act is the Clean Air Act, and let's use it to regulate sulfur dioxide, and let's use it to regulate lead and particulate matter and ozone, but let's not use it to regulate a naturally-occurring compound which is necessary for life and which helps us all.

Please vote against all the amendments, and please vote for this very commonsense bill when we get to final passage.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act. Reports from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and even the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works estimate that the cost of these proposed regulations will be about $78 billion per year. The regulations will affect industries, farms, hospitals, office buildings, and hotels to name just a few. The regulations will adversely affect our ability to produce energy and structural materials.

According to the EPA, the regulations will have this estimated effect: ``Based on the re- analysis the results for projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations are estimated to be reduced by an average of 2.9 ppm (previously 3.0 ppm), global mean temperature is estimated to be reduced by 0.006 to 0.015 deg. C by 2100 (previously 0.007 to 0.016 deg. C and sea-level rise is projected to be reduced by approximately 0.06-0.14cm by 2100 (previously 0.06-0.15cm).''--Federal Register 75, page 25,495.

If we add up the yearly costs, then by the year 2100, we will have spent about $7 trillion to possibly make us cooler by 0.015 degrees Centigrade. This doesn't seem to be much of a benefit as a result of such a high cost.

The Clean Air Act was never designed to regulate GHGs. It is time for us to come to our senses and statutorily forbid the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases.

I thank the distinguished chairman for the time.

Well, let me say something positive about my good friend from Houston, Texas's amendment before I say something negative. If it were to pass, it would at least force the EPA to do a real study, which is more than I can say they did before they issued their endangerment finding.

If you look at the endangerment finding that they actually did to satisfy the requirement of the Supreme Court, they didn't do any scientific analysis. They didn't do any independent analysis. They basically took regurgitated research and press clippings and apparently some student's thesis as the justification for coming up with their endangerment finding.

If we accept the gentlelady from Houston's amendment, you do really gut this bill, which, if you are opposed to it, that's probably a good outcome. But if you are supportive of it, it's not a good outcome.

We don't need to do a study. CO2 is not a pollutant under the definitions of the Clean Air Act. It's not harmful to health, as I keep pointing out.

As I speak, I create CO2, and so you need CO2 for life. Manmade CO2 does not significantly contribute to climate change. We do have climate change, as we always have and always will.

But to say that CO2 emissions made by man somehow are causing all these catastrophic changes is simply not true. What the bill before us does is say we protect the Clean Air Act, we want to enforce the Clean Air Act, but we want it to be in force for the criteria pollutants that it was intended for, and we do not believe that CO2 is one of the pollutants that it was intended to regulate.

So we don't need a study, and I would oppose my good friend from Houston's amendment and encourage all Members to also oppose it.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I rise in opposition to my good friend from Texas, Mr. Cuellar's amendment. It may be well intentioned, but it is poorly drafted. He may not have intended it, but if we were to accept it, by allowing the EPA to regulate anything under title 2, he would give the EPA authority not only to regulate tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks, but also authority to regulate trains, planes, and any other mobile source. I don't know that that was his intent, but that is certainly the effect of the amendment.

We oppose the amendment for that reason, for the drafting reason. We also oppose the amendment because it is the majority's opinion that we need, after 2017, to have one regulator for mobile sources, and that regulator is NHTSA, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. This amendment would have three regulators: NHTSA, EPA, and the State of California.

We have been very careful in the drafting of the underlying bill to make sure that the existing standards for tailpipe emissions stay in place. This bill does not change that. It would prevent EPA from issuing regulations for CO2 emissions for tailpipes, but the underlying bill does not prohibit regulating the various emissions under NHTSA and the State of California for tailpipe emissions that actually affect fuel economy.

The only thing even without this bill that the EPA would have the ability to regulate are the emissions out of the coolant of the air conditioning systems. They have absolutely no effect on fuel economy. So we oppose the amendment.

With that, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson), and I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to control that time.

I rise in opposition to my good friend, Mr. Markey's, amendment. He must think EPA stands for ``Energy Punishment Agency'' as opposed to ``Environmental Protection Agency.'' EPA's role is not to regulate the oil and gas industry. It's not to set an oil import fee. It's not to set quotas. It's to protect the environment. And the bill before us today does that. It restricts the Clean Air Act to its original intention, which is to regulate the criteria pollutants for which it was intended when it was passed in the early 1990s.

We are trying to segregate greenhouse gases from regulation under the Clean Air Act. That's all this bill does. It's not affecting fuel efficiency standards that NHTSA regulates and will continue to regulate. It doesn't have anything to do with that. We are simply saying that greenhouse gases should not be regulated under the existing Clean Air Act. We disagree with the Supreme Court decision that gave the EPA the authority to make a decision, and we definitely disagree with the endangerment finding, which I think was fatally flawed.

We can do a lot on decreasing oil imports both by supply increases in the United States and letting the market operate in an efficient fashion. We don't need the EPA to have some sort of a stranglehold on oil production in the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, my dear sweet sister-in-law, Carol Anne Beaver, went to be with her Lord on Saturday, March 26, 2011. She passed away in her home near Lockhart, Texas, following a long and valiant battle with cancer. She is the first of four daughters of James Brasher and Betty Hodges. She was born on December 19, 1955, in Pasadena, Texas.

In addition to her parents, she is survived by her loving husband of 7 years, Jeff Beaver; three sons, Michael, Dustin, and Layton Warmack; Layton's wife, Holly; two granddaughters, Kelsie Anne Warmack and Maddy Ruiz; one grandson, Layton Warmack; three sisters, Vicki Perdue, Barbara Payne, and my wife, Terri Barton. She is also survived by numerous aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, her stepfather, Steven Hodges, two brothers-in-law, two stepdaughters, and of course her husband's family.

She began her business career in Houston, Texas, as a bookkeeper for Brinadd Company, a multinational workover and completion fluids company that was owned by her late stepfather, James Jackson. While with Brinadd Company, she gained an early knowledge of computerized accounting systems when she worked closely with the programmer to convert a handwritten system into a computerized one.

She moved to Lockhart, Texas, in Congressman Lloyd Doggett's district in Caldwell County, in 1988. She worked several years as a secretary and bookkeeper at a local law office. She subsequently returned to the accounting field, first working for Lifeway, then Columbia Health Care, and finally went to work for Austin's municipal transit system, Capital Metro System. She retired from Cap-Metro, when she came down with cancer, as the payroll manager for the entire system.

Carol was a very loving, caring woman. She had a ready smile, a twinkle in her eye. She treasured her husband, her family and many, many friends.

When I started dating her baby sister, Terri, she was, as she should be, very skeptical of whom she called Congressman Joe. She wasn't sure that her baby sister should be associated with anybody that was a Member of Congress. I would have to say, though, that when I invited Carol, her mother and two sisters and Terri to the local Dairy Queen in Lockhart, Texas, I was able to at least neutralize their opposition with some ice cream sundaes and some Barton-backer T-shirts. Carol and I became fast friends, and she came to respect not only me but this institution.

She is going to be missed. She was the absolute most courageous, dedicated human being in fighting her long battle with cancer. She never complained. She never grumbled or whined about ``Why me, Lord?'' She took her battle with cancer in stride. She is now with her Lord in a better place. We will miss her very, very much, but we know that one day we will see her again.

Her funeral will be tomorrow in Lockhart, Texas, at 1 o'clock. Visitation is this evening from 5 to 8 p.m. at the McCurdy Funeral Home in Lockhart, Texas.

Sweet, sweet, Carol, we miss you very much.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Donna Painter for her dedication and contributions to nephrology nursing and kidney patients in Texas and across the country.

Donna is one of my constituents from Corsicana, Texas and she served as President of the American Nephrology Nurses' Association (ANNA) in 2010 and 2011.

Donna earned her Masters of Science in Health Care Administration from Texas Women's University in Dallas, Texas. She is a Registered Nurse and a Certified Nephrology Nurse.

Donna has worked for Fresenius Medical Care in various positions since 1983. Over the course of her career, she has served as a

staff nurse, a charge nurse, Home Training Coordinator, Director of Nursing, and Clinic Manager. She has also been Regional Quality Manager, and Director of Training and Organizational Development for Fresenius' West Business Unit. Currently, in addition to serving as President of ANNA, Donna is the Regional Vice President for Fresenius' East Texas Region.

Donna has been an active member of ANNA for more than 20 years-- serving in a variety of leadership roles. As ANNA President, she has implemented a broad range of initiatives that will continue to improve care for patients whose lives depend on dialysis and other kidney replacement treatments. In particular, she has helped to ensure that ANNA will play a significant role in the nation-wide proliferation of quality improvements and policy in kidney care.

ANNA is one of the largest and most prestigious nursing associations in America. The organization is the recognized leader in nephrology nursing practice, education, research, and advocacy. ANNA's members are registered nurses and health care professionals that care for patients of all ages who are experiencing, or are at risk for, kidney disease.

Please join me in commending Donna Painter for her years of service to ANNA and the patients she cares for in Texas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in celebration of Texas' Independence Day which occurred 175 years ago and to commemorate the occasion I would like to share with the House, the Texas Declaration of Independence signed on this day in the year 1836.

The Unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the Delegates of the People of Texas in General Convention at the town of Washington on the

2nd day of March 1836

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty

and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers

are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it

was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the

enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights,

becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their

oppression.

When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country,

which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial

existence, and the whole nature of their government has been

forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted

federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a

consolidated central military despotism, in which every

interest is disregarded but that of the army and the

priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the

everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of

tyrants.

When, long after the spirit of the constitution has

departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in

power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the

forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far

from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the

agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary

armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the

point of the bayonet.

When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and

abdication on the part of the government, anarchy prevails,

and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In

such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-

preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the

people to appeal to first principles, and take their

political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases,

enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred

obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government,

and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them

from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare

and happiness.

Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their

acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part

of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial

world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step

now taken, of severing our political connection with the

Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among

the nations of the earth.

The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited

and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to

colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written

constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that

constitutional liberty and republican government to which

they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the

United States of America.

In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed,

inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late

changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de

Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his

country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to

abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit

to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined

despotism of the sword and the priesthood.

It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila, by

which our interests have been continually depressed through a

jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a

far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an

unknown tongue, and this too, notwithstanding we have

petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a

separate state government, and have, in accordance with the

provisions of the national constitution, presented to the

general Congress a republican constitution, which was,

without just cause, contemptuously rejected.

It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our

citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavor to

procure the acceptance of our constitution, and the

establishment of a state government.

It has failed and refused to secure, on a firm basis, the

right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty, and

only safe guarantee for the life, liberty, and property of

the citizen.

It has failed to establish any public system of education,

although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public

domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science,

that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle

to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity

for self government.

It has suffered the military commandants, stationed among

us, to exercise arbitrary acts of oppression and tyrrany,

thus trampling upon the most sacred rights of the citizens,

and rendering the military superior to the civil power.

It has dissolved, by force of arms, the state Congress of

Coahuila and Texas, and obliged our representatives to fly

for their lives from the seat of government, thus depriving

us of the fundamental political right of representation.

It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens,

and ordered military detachments to seize and carry them into

the Interior for trial, in contempt of the civil authorities,

and in defiance of the laws and the constitution.

It has made piratical attacks upon our commerce, by

commissioning foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to

seize our vessels, and convey the property of our citizens to

far distant ports for confiscation.

It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty

according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the

support of a national religion, calculated to promote the

temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the

glory of the true and living God.

It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are

essential to our defence, the rightful property of freemen,

and formidable only to tyrannical governments.

It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with

intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our

homes; and has now a large mercenary army advancing, to carry

on against us a war of extermination.

It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless

savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the

inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.

It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with

it, the contemptible sport and victim of successive military

revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every

characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrranical government.

These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the

people of Texas, until they reached that point at which

forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in

defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our

Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in

vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has

yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore,

forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican

people have acquiesced in the destruction of their

liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military

government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable

of self government.

The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees

our eternal political separation.

We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the

people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to

a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do

hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection

with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the

people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and

independent republic, and are fully invested with all the

rights and attributes which properly belong to independent

nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions,

we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the

decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations.

Signed,

Richard Ellis, President of the Convention and Delegate

from Red River.

Charles B. Stewart, Tho. Barnett, James Collinsworth, Edwin

Waller, Asa Brigham, John S. D. Byrom, Francis Ruis, J.

Antonio Navarro, Jesse B. Badgett, Wm D. Lacy, William

Menifee, Jn. Fisher, Matthew Caldwell, William Motley,

Lorenzo de Zavala, Stephen H. Everett, George W. Smyth,

Elijah Stapp, Claiborne West, Wm. B. Scates, M. B. Menard, A.

B. Hardin, J. W. Burton, Thos. J. Gazley, R. M. Coleman,

Sterling C. Robertson, Geo. C. Childress, Bailey Hardeman,

Rob. Potter, Thomas Jefferson Rusk, Chas. S. Taylor, John S.

Roberts, Robert Hamilton, Collin McKinney, Albert H. Latimer,

James Power, Sam Houston, David Thomas, Edwd. Conrad, Martin

Parmer, Edwin O. Legrand, Stephen W. Blount, Jms. Gaines, Wm.

Clark, Jr., Sydney O. Pennington, Wm. Carrol Crawford, Jno.

Turner, Benj. Briggs Goodrich, G. W. Barnett, James G.

Swisher, Jesse Grimes, S. Rhoads Fisher, John W. Moore, John

W. Bower, Saml. A. Maverick (from Bejar), Sam P. Carson, A.

Briscoe, J. B. Woods, H. S. Kimble, Secretary.

I rise in strong support of the Jordan amendment. I am obviously not a freshman. I have been in the Congress for 26 years. I am very supportive of what Chairman Rogers and all the appropriators have done.

I think it's an interesting point to have the ranking minority member yielding to the chairman of the committee, but that's Congress at its finest.

But I would point out that our budget deficit this year is $1.6 trillion. I would point out that the Obama budget, the smallest deficit it reports over a 10-year period, is about $750 billion.

The Republican Study Committee, under the leadership of Mr. Jordan, is the point of the spear that is lancing the out-of-control, reckless Federal spending that is bankrupting this country. This amendment complements what Chairman Rogers has done. We need to support it, to put them in the best position when we have the negotiations with our friends in the other body. Please vote for this necessary amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to put in the Record a letter dated November 23, 2010, on this issue that I sent to the chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Honorable Inez Tenenbaum.

I rise in strong support of the gentleman from Kansas' amendment. He is exactly right on this, and we should support him.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Energy and Commerce,

Washington, DC, November 23, 2010.

Hon. Inez Tenenbaum,

Chairman, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Bethesda,

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to my good friend, Mr. Heller's, amendment. U.S. taxpayers and electric ratepayers have spent billions of dollars on this project. It is my assumption and my opinion that the Obama administration has acted without authority to close it down. They've certainly acted outside the confines of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.

I support the opposition of my good friend from New Jersey and would urge a strong ``no'' vote on this amendment.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

I want to very quickly rise in strong support of Congressman Carter's amendment.

I have three cement plants in my district in Midlothian, Texas. It is the cement capital of Texas.

Mr. Chairman, Republicans are not for no regulation of mercury. We think this particular mercury rule is flawed. My good friend, the former chairman Mr. Waxman of California, talked about the rigorous analysis that was done. His definition of ``rigorous'' and my definition of ``rigorous'' are not one and the same. We think that analysis was fairly flawed.

I would point out that most pollutants--and we do agree that mercury is a pollutant--are measured in tons. Mercury emissions from these plants are measured in pounds per year, so mercury is a trace element of these pollutants. We think that we should go back and actually do a real economic analysis and also a health analysis.

My good friend from Massachusetts was talking about the dangers of health. Those are real dangers. But again, given that the trace amounts of mercury that are emitted per year are in pounds, it is a very tenuous connection to say that the mercury from a cement plant has a direct correlation with some of the potential side effects that the gentleman from Massachusetts was talking about.

So I think this is a good amendment, and I want to support it.

I now yield to my good friend Mr. Akin. I believe he has an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim my time.

I yield to my good friend from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart).

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

I yield back my time.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

I thank my friend Congressman Serrano.

Would Mr. Waxman agree with me that, if you get one of these new squiggly mercury bulbs and break it, you're going to be exposed to more mercury than the amount of mercury you're exposed to from a cement plant?

I think that's a factually correct statement.

Well, you might check it out because some of the benefits and some of the costs you talk about are not borne out in the real world when you do a real analysis.

So much to say, so little time.

Mr. Chairman, first, let me point out that CO2, the greenhouse gas that is most under discussion, is not a pollutant under the classical definition of the

Clean Air Act. I am creating CO2 as I speak. The gentleman from Washington, who was just speaking, as he spoke, was creating CO2. If you have a carbonated beverage, the reason it bubbles and it is called ``carbonated'' is because of CO2. Greenhouse gases are necessary to human life. They're what keep the planet warm. They're what trap heat so we have an atmosphere that we can exist in.

There is not a definition of a health exposure to CO2. The theory that CO2 is harmful is based on a theory that the amount of greenhouse gases, specifically CO2, in the upper atmosphere, as it increases, so many parts per billion somehow affect the ability of the Earth to accumulate or dispense heat. It is a theory. There is nobody in this country or anywhere in the world who has been harmed because of manmade CO2. You cannot point to cases of CO2 poisoning.

So, when my friends who oppose this amendment talk about carbon pollution, they're using a definition that is very loose and very nebulous.

The second point is that there is no question that the Clean Air Act, as passed and as amended in 1990, did not include CO2 as a criterion pollutant. Because of a case, Massachusetts vs. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled--and my friend from Washington was correct--5-4 that the EPA could make a decision to regulate CO2. Could-- not should, not must--but could.

The Bush administration began a process to analyze that decision. The Obama administration came in, and within the first 90 days, issued an endangerment finding, not based on independent analysis, but based more on press releases as far as I can say. They said, yes, by golly, that CO2 was a pollutant and that, yes, they could regulate it. They have since been trying to shoehorn CO2 regulation into the tenets of the original Clean Air Act.

The amendment before us this evening that Mr. Poe, Mr. Carter, and I have promulgated simply says: Let's take a timeout on CO2 regulation for the next 7 months. Let's actually define what the greenhouse gases are that we want to look at, and let's restrict the analysis to stationary sources on the regulations that are implemented after January 2011.

There is no question that if you regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act you are going to destroy millions of jobs, which will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, without any real economic analysis to show that it is a harm.

So I support the Poe-Carter-Barton amendment, and I hope that the whole House will.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to extend for 30 seconds the remaining time on both sides.

Mr. Speaker, parents across this country have taken a stand, and they are demanding more academic choices for their children. In that spirit, I would like to highlight that this week, January 23-29, marks the inaugural ``National School Choice Week,'' an event that promotes giving parents a choice on education.

The mission of National School Choice Week is simple: we need a K-12 education system that provides a wide array of options. We need an effective education system that has the flexibility to personalize and motivate students and allow parents to choose the school that is best for their child.

To provide a system of learning that meets the needs of tomorrow's students, we need to empower the parents, teachers and school systems today. I am honored to take this opportunity to champion this cause and the individual freedom to choose. I believe that promoting educational choice for parents and students is a vital part of the educational process. Our students deserve the best teachers, facilities, and studying environments. I am proud to say that I am ``all in'' for National School Choice Week.

Thank you, Congressman Carter. And I want to thank you and Congressman Gohmert and some of the other Texans who may have been here before I got here. I have been at a Young Guns dinner, which is why I'm late. But I did not want to fail to take advantage of this opportunity. I want to thank you for hosting this Special Order.

I want to kind of set the predicate here in terms of those kind words that Judge Carter just said about me. I have been in the Congress 26 years. I have been on the Energy and Commerce Committee 24 years. I have been a congressional observer or delegate at large to all the major global warming climate change conferences, or COPS, council of parties. I was at Kyoto when Vice President Gore came over and made his famous speech, and then on behalf of President Clinton agreed to sign the Kyoto Accord, which the U.S. Senate never took up.

Most recently, I was a part of the congressional delegation that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi took to Copenhagen last year, where President Obama came and pleaded that there be a conference agreement, which then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed to fund with dollars that the U.S. Government didn't have. So I was at Buenos Aires. I mean I have been to all the major conferences as a congressional observer or delegate.

I chaired dozens of hearings on global warming, authored bills, was an original cosponsor and passed the--I helped to vote for and support the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. So I have been involved in this issue for a number of years. Let me say this: CO2 is not a pollutant under the criteria as put forward by the Clean Air Act. It's not one of the named criteria pollutants like SO2 or ozone. It is necessary for life as we know it.

The term ``greenhouse gas,'' if you just think what a greenhouse is, self-enclosed, in this case the world, and the greenhouse gases are what create the atmosphere and help trap the heat so that life can exist. CO2 is a trace gas, it's about \1/10\ of 1 percent of the atmosphere. Man-made CO2, called anthropogenic CO2 is, I don't know the exact percentage of the total, but it is less than 50 percent.

So what has happened in the last 10 to 15 years is this theory of global warming and climate change needed a bogeyman, and they chose CO2. They have developed these models that show as CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere over time the temperature rises.

It is a fact that CO2 is rising, but it is not necessarily a fact that that rise is causing temperature to rise. In fact, there is quite a bit of data that would indicate that CO2 rises as a consequence of temperature rising, so it is a follower, not a leader in that.

So in any event, this administration, the Obama administration, when they came into office in January of 2009, began a process, or accelerated a process, to determine that CO2 was a danger to the atmosphere or a danger to the health of the U.S. population. And they, within 90 days, issued an endangerment finding where they said that since CO2 was a danger to public health, they had the right to regulate CO2, and they began to promulgate these proposed regulations.

What does that have to do with the Special Order this evening? The Environmental Protection Agency has made a decision--and I think a political decision--to be punitive towards Texas and has gone down, and I am sure Judge Carter and Judge Gohmert have pointed out that they have revoked over 100 existing air-quality permits, some of which have been on the books since the 1990s, for sites and facilities in Texas.

Those permits are for more than CO2. They actually are required by the Clean Air Act to regulate SO2 and NOX and ozone, things of this sort. They revoked all of those.

The EPA has also issued, I don't know the right word, Judge, threats, warnings to the State of Texas that Texas must begin to implement some of these proposed regulations on CO2. In both cases, I think the EPA is acting without the law being on their side; and in the case of the CO2 regulations, I am very confident they are acting without the science on their side.

So what those of us who represent Texas here in the Congress, in conjunction with our Governor, Lieutenant Governor, the Texas House, the Texas Senate and the Attorney General of Texas, are saying is before we go any further, let's see what the real facts are. Let's see, has Texas, as a regulatory entity, through the Texas Council of Environmental Quality, TCEQ, failed in its obligation under the Clean Air Act to, to implement the terms of that act?

I think the answer is Texas has not failed. I think the answer is, if you look at the record, air quality and the criteria pollutants that are specifically regulated by the Clean Air Act is improving in Texas. We have two or three or four, I guess we have, the DFW is a non- attainment area. El Paso is a non-attainment area. Houston-Harris County is a non-attainment area and Beaumont-Port Arthur, I believe, are still listed as a not. So we have four areas that have been non- attainment under the specific criteria of the Clean Air Act.

In all four of those, the State of Texas has submitted what are called state implementation plans, SIPs, and those have been accepted, I think with one exception by the EPA, both regionally and nationally. Under those SIPs, air quality is improving.

And if the EPA were not to keep changing the standard, we would be in attainment in all four regions. But each time we have gotten close, in the DFW area, for example, to be in attainment, they have tightened or changed the standard and said that we were in noncompliance.

So what we are doing this evening under Judge Carter and Judge Gohmert's leadership is saying let's begin to have a debate about what the facts are. The first fact that everybody watching this and listening on the floor needs to know is air quality in Texas is improving. The TCEQ, Texas legislature, has done an outstanding job of implementing the terms and conditions which we have passed here in Washington.

Number two, the State of Texas, working with industry, has adopted a flexible permitting program where we work with industry and say here is the standard you need to meet. Here are the various ways you can meet it; let's work together.

And that's worked very well. Compliance costs in Texas are below the national average. Industry sees that. Industry is coming to Texas. People are moving to Texas for its quality of life.

I am sure you all pointed out that Texas has led the Nation in job creation. Texas has led the Nation as one of the leading States in terms of population increase. Now, you cannot be doing all those good things and then be derelict in air quality if, in fact, air quality is improving and water quality is improving.

So we want a dialogue on what the facts are, both on the criteria pollutants under the Clean Air Act and on CO2, which is a greenhouse gas. And I would hope, Congressman, that we do

more of these Special Orders, that we even do some of these in Texas. I can assure you on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I am a senior member, I have encouraged our current chairman, Mr. Upton, and our current subcommittee chairmen, Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Stearns and Mr. Shimkus, to hold hearings, bring witnesses on both sides from Texas, bring our friends at the EPA, both up here and in Dallas, come down, come up, and let's put the facts on the table and then let's see what laws, if any, need to be changed.

I am already a cosponsor of a bill that would make it explicit that CO2 is not a regulated pollutant under the Clean Air Act and should not be. I am not saying that at some point in time we may not need to issue a standard on CO2, if it's proven that it is a harm to public health. But until that time, it should not be regulated under the Clean Air Act. It was never intended to be, and we think the EPA is wrong to keep insisting that it should be.

Again, I want to thank you, Judge, and thank you, Judge. I am glad to be here and participate.

About two-thirds.

I want to keep reiterating, air quality in Texas is improving. It is improving. The Clean Air Act gives the Federal Government, through the Environmental Protection Agency, the right to preempt States when the States either don't implement the Federal regulations on the Clean Air Act, or if the States simply turn it back and ask the Federal Government to take over. So the EPA does have the right under certain circumstances to preempt State implementation.

But in this case, I would postulate, and each of you are former judges before you became Congressmen, that since the State of Texas has complied and air quality is improving and there is a debate about whether CO2 should be regulated under the Clean Air Act, which is a separate issue, that the Federal Government has overstepped its bounds to come in and unilaterally, against the wishes of the State of Texas, repeal these permits and require that they all be resubmitted and not only resubmitted, but resubmitted in a very specific way.

The State of Texas air quality permitting program has been flexible, says we will regulate an entire site and as long as you are under that cap, you can implement new equipment and new procedures as long as your emissions stay the same or go down. And under the Texas flexible permitting program, they have gone done, in some cases as much as 20-30 percent. This is in a State where population has gone up, where productivity has gone up, and output has gone up. So in my view the State of Texas and the Texas Council on Environmental Quality should be getting awards from the Federal Government, not being punished and not being unilaterally dismissed.

I really respect and thank you, Congressman Carter, for holding this Special Order. I will tell our friends in Texas that may be watching that this Special Order is not the end; it is simply the beginning.

Those of us who support this initiative support it because we believe you can have improving air quality and improving water quality and increase jobs and economic output. It is not an either/or. It can be a win/win. But if we adopt the EPA's shortsighted, mandatory, very specific command-and-control attitude, you are, as Congressman Gohmert said, you are going to destroy jobs, destroy the economy, reduce output, and not get very much increased environmental quality.

If the gentleman would yield, common sense, we are beginning the redistributing process now, and the State of Texas is going to gain four additional congressional seats which means our population between 2000 and 2010 has increased approximately 3 million people. My question to you: Would people be coming to Texas if the quality of life was decreasing, if the environmental quality was decreasing, or would they be coming to Texas because it is a better place to live and it has economic opportunity?

If the gentleman would yield for another question, name a State that has one of the more rigid, restrictive, so- called protective environmental regulatory schemes in the Nation?

The gentleman is correct.

Name the State that has the largest net out-migration from its State to Texas?

The gentleman is correct again.

So here you have a State that is noted for its State regulatory protection regulations at the State level; and yet that State has one area, the Los Angeles basin, that has been in the worst category for nonattainment for two decades. I wish we had some of our friends from the great State of California on the floor, and they could correct me if I'm wrong, but that particular region has not exhibited any measurable increase in air quality, in spite of the most rigid regulations, and that State has exhibited the largest net out-migration of population to Texas.

I don't think that is serendipity. It is because we have strong environmental protection in Texas. Our air quality is improving. The quality of life is improving; but because of our flexible approach, you still can create jobs in Texas, and there are lots of folks around the country who want to take part in that and become part of that.

I just want to make one nonscientific comment.

I flew this morning from DFW Airport up to Reagan Airport to attend this session of Congress. The DFW area is home to approximately 3 million people, to a number of power plants, lots of industry, electronics, general aviation, defense. I flew into Washington, which has almost no industry. The air was clear at DFW. When I came into Reagan, I looked out the window, and I thought, man. I mean, I don't want to be disrespectful to our international friends over in Poland, but it did remind me of the last time, which was several years ago, I flew into Warsaw, and the air was so thick you could see it. I don't know what the issue is here in the Washington region today, but when we flew into Reagan, it was noticeably hazier and browner flying in than it was when I left DFW, where the air was absolutely crystal clear.

Now, that's nonscientific, but I would invite anybody who thinks we've got an air quality problem in Texas to go to Dallas or to go to Houston. Drive out along the Houston ship channel. Go down to Corpus Christi, outside the major refineries on the gulf coast, and you'll see a success story. What you won't see is air pollution that's caused by industry in Texas. Their compliance record is excellent, and they've got the facts to back it up.

I thank the gentleman and look forward to working with him as the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin to discuss health care, I would like to say that our prayers continue to go out to Congresswoman Giffords in Arizona. We are very gratified to learn of her continuing progress. We hope that some time in this Congress she does come back to the House floor and give her voice to the voice for her constituency. We all miss her and we wish her the very best.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today because the existing law of the land on health care is fatally flawed. Most of us think it is unconstitutional. We think it is overreaching. We think the Federal Government is intervening more and more into the daily practice of health care between the doctor-patient relationship. And we think it needs to be repealed before it does irreparable harm to our health care system, which is the best in the world.

We think that on basic principles it's unconstitutional. We believe that you shouldn't have the Federal Government mandate that an individual has to have health insurance, whether he or she wants it. That particular constitutional question is wending its way through the courts and we hope soon to have an answer to that question.

We want to repeal today so that we can begin to replace tomorrow. We want to deliver on our Pledge to America that we meant it when we said if the American voters gave us the majority, we would repeal this existing law, and that is step one. But step two is to replace it. I see that my good friend from California, Congresswoman Eshoo, is on the floor. She and I have an amendment in the new law on biosimilars that passed with a huge bipartisan majority, and we hope that that's one of the things that will be kept. We do believe that we should be able to do something on preexisting conditions. We do believe that children should be allowed to stay on their parents' plans until the age of 26. So there are some things in the new law that we think are worth keeping. But until you sweep away the bad things, we cannot begin to work on the good things.

So, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, we hope that we can repeal it on a bipartisan basis in the House and, under the leadership of Mr. Upton and Mr. Camp and others, begin to replace it tomorrow.

Please vote to repeal this law today.

Mr. Speaker, I, along with Representatives Burgess, Granger and Marchant, wish to inform the House that on December 30, 2010, the great State of Texas lost a lion. Tom Vandergriff, former mayor of Arlington, Texas, former County Judge of Tarrant County, and former Member of the United States Congress, left this life at the age of 84. All of us in north Texas will mark time from the moment we heard of the loss. The loss is monumental.

Few people have had such a positive impact on the development and quality of life of north Texas, and no one has had a greater impact on Arlington. His friends and admirers are legion, his accomplishments legendary. He was the personification of an ideal, the ideal of a selflessly devoted public servant who always put the people ahead of personal gain or ambition.

Arlington history is generally divided into two epochs: BV and AV, Before Vandergriff and After Vandergriff. He first sought and won elective office in 1951 when he became the ``boy mayor'' of Arlington at the age of 25. At the time Arlington was a small town on the railroad midway between Dallas and Fort Worth. Vandergriff saw the town's potential and set out to make it a center of prosperity in its own right while fostering a new spirit of cooperation within the north Texas region. Arlington, now the 49th largest city in the U.S. with 370,000 people, would never be the same, and neither would north Texas. Indeed, it was Vandergriff who coined the phrase, ``Metroplex,'' which is still the term usually applied to describe the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

His first major achievement was convincing General Motors executives to locate their new automobile assembly plant in Arlington. His family owned a Chevrolet dealership in town, which gave him access to General Motors Corp. Upon hearing that GM planned to build a plant in north Texas, he sold Arlington as a superior location by telling GM, as he would later tell the story, that if they put the plant in Dallas, it would make Fort Worth angry; if they put it in Fort Worth, it would make Dallas angry. He ended his pitch by convincing them that if they put it in Arlington, everybody would be happy. The plant produced its first automobile in 1954 and today is the only GM plant in the U.S. that makes full-size SUVs.

The GM plant began a building boom in Arlington that has lasted more than 55 years. Knowing a small town on well water could not sustain rapid growth nor accommodate the needs of industry, Vandergriff convinced the voters of Arlington to pass an initiative to build a large reservoir to meet the town's future needs. The effort proved to be as controversial as it was monumental for a small town, but the initiative passed, and Lake Arlington

was built. The project was ridiculed by many in Arlington and dismissed by others in the region as ``Vandergriff's Folly,'' but the folly became ``the miracle lake'' upon its completion. Large equipment was being removed from the site in 1957 when one of the worst and longest droughts in Texas history broke, and it began to rain. The lake, which experts believed would take years to fill, was full in 18 days. The lake ensured the explosive growth that came in the decades of the '60s, '70s, and '80s that made Arlington, Texas one of the fastest growing cities in America.

As a college student at the University of Southern California, Vandergriff was very familiar with Anaheim and by the late 1950s was aware of the tremendous economic impact tourism had on the city after the opening of Disneyland theme park in 1955. He knew, because of Arlington's central location, that the same benefits could accrue to his city with a product of similar appeal. It came as no surprise to those familiar with the Vandergriff vision for Arlington when he became instrumental in establishing the Six Flags Over Texas theme park in 1961. The park was an instant hit, and people all over the southwestern United States began traveling to Arlington for family style entertainment. The first of the Six Flags parks, it still operates at its original location in Arlington.

But Vandergriff didn't stop there. A devoted baseball fan, he was determined to bring professional baseball to north Texas. The effort took years and saw hopes dashed time and again before he finally convinced owner Bob Short to move his Washington Senators to Arlington in 1972. The effort did not endear him to the people of the nation's capital. On one of his many visits to meet with Short, he was unceremoniously kicked out of a taxicab when he made the mistake of telling the cabbie why he was in town. The Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers Ball Club, and Tom Vandergriff became the team's biggest fan and supporter. When his beloved Rangers won their first American League Pennant by beating the New York Yankees in Arlington last October, Vandergriff was there in the ballpark he helped build to cheer them on.

Today, Arlington is host to more than seven million visitors each year and is the second most popular tourist destination in the state, bringing millions of dollars in revenue to the city annually. The city's entertainment district boasts Six Flags theme park, the Texas Rangers Ballpark, a new Dallas Cowboys football stadium, the National Bowling Congress and Museum, Hurricane Harbor water park, and clusters of shops and restaurants that make Arlington the City of Wow for millions of Texans.

In his 26 years as mayor, two years as a member of Congress, and 16 years as County Judge of Tarrant County, Vandergriff championed two more causes relentlessly: regional communication and cooperation and helping the University of Texas at Arlington become a major institution of higher learning. Believing that everyone in north Texas would succeed if they worked together for the good of the region, Vandergriff spent decades finessing, cajoling, and winning over the leaders of other cities in the region. He led the effort to establish and became the president of the north Central Texas Council of Governments which today is the Metropolitan Planning Organization for all of north Texas. He was a strong advocate for regionalism well into his eighties, and the economic might of the region is a testament to that effort.

Vandergriff's efforts on behalf of his hometown university are equally impressive. When he became mayor, Arlington College was a tiny two-year institution affiliated with Texas A&M that was formerly a military school and then an agricultural college. Vandergriff knew it could be more, and if Arlington were to succeed as a city, so must its college. He led the effort to make the college a four-year university. Working with then-governor John Connally, he succeeded when the college became a full university within the University of Texas system in 1964. Today, the University of Texas at Arlington is the largest UT campus outside of Austin and the fastest growing university in the state. It is quickly becoming a major research facility and contributes more to the local economy than any industry in the city.

There is more, of course, much more. In a life lived as fully and as well as his, there is always more to tell: his unwavering support and leadership of Arlington Memorial Hospital, his support and leadership of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, his support of local public schools, his support of a long list of non-profit agencies, his decades as an active member of the United Methodist church, and his roles as husband, father, grandfather, and mentor to a very long list of aspiring leaders. All of this almost didn't happen, at least not in Texas.

Vandergriff was born on January 29, 1926, to W. T. and Charles Vandergriff in Carrolton, Texas. The family relocated to Arlington when Tom was 12. After graduating from Arlington High School, Vandergriff attended USC where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1947. He married his high school sweetheart, Anna Waynette Smith in 1949. Blessed with a deep, sonorous voice that he used with perfect diction, he prepared for a career in radio and broadcast journalism. After graduation he applied for and was a finalist in the competition for what he thought would be the job of his dreams, but he lost out to another young applicant. Vandergriff returned to Texas to join his father's automobile dealership, disappointed and convinced that he was a better candidate for the broadcast job. The young man who got the job was Chet Huntley.

Chet Huntley would gain fame as an NBC news anchor and reach millions of listeners nationwide, but the loser in that early competition, Tom Vandergriff, would touch millions in north Texas in ways that were deeper and arguably more significant. Many have their own stories to tell about Vandergriff, many humorous because he possessed a wonderful sense of humor, many thankful because he touched so many with acts of kindness large and small, and many inspirational because he inspired us, goaded us, and led us to be greater than we thought we were and achieved things we never thought possible. All in north Texas are better off today because Tom Vandergriff was here, and our children and grandchildren will have better lives even though they will never know him. Those of us who did will never forget him.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Mr. Speaker, Judge Tom Vandergriff was a Member of the House of Representatives from January 1982 until December 1984. He was defeated for reelection in November of 1984 by Dick Armey, moved back to Texas, and switched parties from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party. In 1990 he was elected county judge in which he served from 1990 until 2007. He passed away on December 30, 2010. His memorial service is tomorrow afternoon at the University of Texas at Arlington's Texas Center from 1 till 3.

Judge Vandergriff was a personal friend of mine. When I first was given part of Arlington in the redistricting process in 1992, he agreed to be my cochairman for my campaign. He was just an absolute gentleman and helped in every way possible. One of the most unique things about Judge Vandergriff is that in his entire political career, which spanned from 1951 until 2007, he never held a political fund-raising event for himself. He did actually accept political contributions obviously but he never solicited and he never held an organized political event that he himself organized on his behalf. I thought that was astounding in the modern political era to be as successful politically as he was without having to go out and do the numerous fund-raisers that most of us have to do.

We are going to miss Judge Vandergriff. He's got a list of accomplishments a mile long. He was mayor of Arlington from 1951 until 1967. During his tenure as mayor, he was able to get the General Motors assembly plant located in Arlington; he helped get the Texas Rangers, which were then the Washington Senators, to move to Arlington, and was able to attend the World Series this past October in which he saw the Texas Rangers first of all win the American League and then fight valiantly against the San Francisco Giants who ultimately won the World Series.

He wanted to be a broadcaster. He went to USC in Los Angeles, applied for a broadcasting job in 1947, and was not successful in getting that broadcasting job. It went to somebody named Chet Huntley, who later became an anchorman on NBC News. Judge Vandergriff returned to Texas to assume a role in his family's Chevrolet dealership with his father, which he maintained that dealership except for times when he was a U.S. Congressman in some capacity.

We're going to miss Judge Vandergriff. We give our condolences to his family. Again, he was a Member of Congress from 1982 until 1984 and he will be missed.

On December 30, 2010, Texas lost a lion. Tom Vandergriff, former mayor of Arlington, Texas, former County Judge of Tarrant County, and former Member of the United States Congress, left this life at the age of 84. All of us in North Texas will mark time from the moment we heard of the loss. The loss is monumental.

Few people have had such a positive impact on the development and quality of life of North Texas, and no one has had a greater impact on Arlington. His friends and admirers are legion, his accomplishments legendary. He was the personification of an ideal, the ideal of

a selflessly devoted public servant who always put the people ahead of personal gain or ambition.

Arlington history is generally divided into two epochs: BV and AV, Before Vandergriff and After Vandergriff. He first sought and won elective office in 1951 when he became the ``boy mayor'' of Arlington at the age of 25. At the time Arlington was a small town on the railroad midway between Dallas and Fort Worth. Vandergriff saw the town's potential and set out to make it a center of prosperity in its own right while fostering a new spirit of cooperation within the North Texas region. Arlington, now the 49th largest city in the U.S. with 370,000 people, would never be the same, and neither would North Texas. Indeed, it was Vandergriff who coined the phrase, ``Metroplex'', which is still the term usually applied to describe the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

His first major achievement was convincing General Motors executives to locate their new automobile assembly plant in Arlington. His family owned a Chevrolet dealership in town, which gave him access to General Motors Corp. Upon hearing that GM planned to build a plant in North Texas, he sold Arlington as a superior location by telling GM, as he would later tell the story, that if they put the plant in Dallas, it would make Fort Worth angry; if they put it in Fort Worth, it would make Dallas angry. He ended his pitch by convincing them that if they put it in Arlington, everybody would be happy. The plant produced its first automobile in 1954 and today is the only GM plant in the U.S. that makes full-size SUVs.

The GM plant began a building boom in Arlington that has lasted more than 55 years. Knowing a small town on well water could not sustain rapid growth nor accommodate the needs of industry, Vandergriff convinced the voters of Arlington to pass an initiative to build a large reservoir to meet the town's future needs. The effort proved to be as controversial as it was monumental for a small town, but the initiative passed, and Lake Arlington was built. The project was ridiculed by many in Arlington and dismissed by others in the region as ``Vandergriff's Folly'', but the folly became ``the miracle lake'' upon its completion. Large equipment was being removed from the site in 1957 when one of the worst and longest droughts in Texas history broke, and it began to rain. The lake, which experts believed would take years to fill, was full in 18 days. The lake ensured the explosive growth that came in the decades of the '60s, 70s, and 80s that made Arlington, Texas one of the fastest growing cities in America.

As a college student at the University of Southern California, Vandergriff was very familiar with Anaheim and by the late 1950s was aware of the tremendous economic impact tourism had on the city after the opening of Disneyland theme park in 1955. He knew, because of Arlington's central location, that the same benefits could accrue to his city with a product of similar appeal. It came as no surprise to those familiar with the Vandergriff vision for Arlington when he became instrumental in establishing the Six Flags Over Texas theme park in 1961. The park was an instant hit, and people all over the southwestern United States began traveling to Arlington for family styled entertainment. The first of the Six Flags parks, it still operates at its original location in Arlington.

But Vandergriff didn't stop there. A devoted baseball fan, he was determined to bring professional baseball to North Texas. The effort took years and saw hopes dashed time and again before he finally convinced owner Bob Short to move his Washington Senators to Arlington in 1972. The effort did not endear him to the people of the Nation's capital. On one of his many visits to meet with Short, he was unceremoniously kicked out of a taxicab when he made the mistake of telling the cabbie why he was in town. The Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers Ball Club, and Tom Vandergriff became the team's biggest fan and supporter. When his beloved Rangers won their first American League Pennant by beating the New York Yankees in Arlington last October, Vandergriff was there in the ballpark he helped build to cheer them on.

Today, Arlington is host to more than seven million visitors each year and is the second most popular tourist destination in the state, bringing millions of dollars in revenue to the city annually. The city's entertainment district boasts Six Flags theme park, the Texas Rangers Ballpark, a new Dallas Cowboys football stadium, the National Bowling Congress and Museum, Hurricane Harbor water park, and clusters of shops and restaurants that make Arlington the City of Wow for millions of Texans.

In his 26 years as mayor, two years as a member of Congress, and 16 years as County Judge of Tarrant County, Vandergriff championed two more causes relentlessly: regional communication and cooperation and helping the University of Texas at Arlington become a major institution of higher learning. Believing that everyone in North Texas would succeed if they worked together for the good of the region, Vandergriff spent decades finessing, cajoling, and winning over the leaders of other cities in the region. He led the effort to establish and became the president of the North Central Texas Council of Governments which today is the Metropolitan Planning Organization for all of North Texas. He was a strong advocate for regionalism well into his eighties, and the economic might of the region is a testament to that effort.

Vandergriff's efforts on behalf of his hometown university are equally impressive. When he became mayor, Arlington College was a tiny two-year institution affiliated with Texas A&M that was formerly a military school and then an agricultural college. Vandergriff knew it could be more, and if Arlington were to succeed as a city, so must its college. He led the effort to make the college a four-year university. Working with then-governor John Connally, he succeeded when the college became a full university within the University of Texas system in 1964. Today, the University of Texas at Arlington is the largest UT campus outside of Austin and the fastest growing university in the state. It is quickly becoming a major research facility and contributes more to the local economy than any industry in the city.

There is more, of course, much more. In a life lived as fully and as well as his, there is always more to tell: his unwavering support and leadership of Arlington Memorial Hospital, his support and leadership of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, his support of local public schools, his support of a long list of non-profit agencies, his decades as an active member of the United Methodist Church, and his roles as husband, father, grandfather, and mentor to a very long list of aspiring leaders. All of this almost didn't happen, at least not in Texas.

Vandergriff was born on January 29, 1926, to W. T. and Charles Vandergriff in Carrolton, Texas. The family relocated to Arlington when Tom was 12. After graduating from Arlington High School Vandergriff attended USC where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1947. He married his high school sweetheart, Anna Waynette Smith in 1949. Blessed with a deep, sonorous voice that he used with perfect diction, he prepared for a career in radio and broadcast journalism. After graduation he applied for and was a finalist in the competition for what he thought would be the job of his dreams, but he lost out to another young applicant. Vandergriff returned to Texas to join his father's automobile dealership, disappointed and convinced that he was a better candidate for the broadcast job. The young man who got the job was Chet Huntley.

Chet Huntley would gain fame as an NBC news anchor and reach millions of listeners nationwide, but the loser in that early competition, Tom Vandergriff, would touch millions in North Texas in ways that were deeper and arguably more significant. Many have their own stories to tell about Vandergriff, many humorous because he possessed a wonderful sense of humor, many thankful because he touched so many with acts of kindness large and small, and many inspirational because he inspired us, goaded us, and led us to be greater than we thought we were and achieved things we never thought possible. All in North Texas are better off today because Tom Vandergriff was here, and our children and grandchildren will have better lives even though they will never know him. Those of us who did will never forget him.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

I now yield to Congresswoman Kay Granger of Texas who wishes to speak also on behalf of Judge Vandergriff.

I yield to the gentleman from Denton, Congressman Burgess.

Mr. Speaker, I know we have a new protocol for recognizing former Members who have passed away. Is it appropriate under our rules to have a moment of silence for Judge Vandergriff? And if so, how would I request such a moment of silence?

So it would not be appropriate at this time?

Madam Speaker, my Chief of Staff on the Energy and Commerce Committee, David L. Cavicke, will be leaving the Committee in January after nearly 16 years of service on the Committee. Staff work quietly out of the spotlight, and I want to take this occasion to commend David for the many issues on which he provided counsel to the Members of the Committee and for his leadership of the Committee staff as Chief of Staff.

David joined the Committee staff in 1995, early in the tenure of Chairman Tom Bliley and Speaker Newt Gingrich. He came to Washington in his '84 Chevy Caprice with six suits and a 486 computer, knowing no one and hoping to contribute to the public policy changes following the historic 1994 election. Tom Bliley hired David as the Committee finance counsel based on a keen intellect, a creative gift for policy ideas that manifested itself in some of the most important changes made to financial regulation in the 1990s, a sense of due process and willingness to listen to all sides of an issue, as well as a very good sense of humor.

David helped Tom Bliley and Newt Gingrich develop and pass milestone legislation that included the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, the only public law to be enacted over President Clinton's veto.

He worked with Jack Fields and Ed Markey to pass The National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996, which preempted state regulatory authority over national securities offerings; required consideration of efficiency, competition and capital formation in addition to investor protection as elements of SEC rulemakings; and also included the Bliley SEC Fee reduction agreement, which saved one billion dollars worth of fees over 10 years.

David was also the lead staffer on the Committee's efforts to pass the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that removed the Depression era's barriers between banking, investment and insurance. He worked closely with Republican Committee members and Democratic Committee members like John Dingell and Ed Markey to see that investors' interests would be protected and that the sovereign credit of the United States would not be extended to guarantee underwriting activities by banks. Had the Congress accepted the Committee's work product rather than watering down these protections in Conference, we might have avoided some of the financial problems we experienced at the end of 2008. Other products of his work for the Committee were the Securities Litigation Reform Uniform Standards legislation, which first asserted federal jurisdiction over class action lawsuits in securities matters, as well as E-SIGN, which made digital signatures enforceable in electronic commerce, facilitating legal certainty for internet commerce.

In Billy Tauzin's chairmanship, David worked on investigations into financial fraud at Enron and Arthur Andersen. His expertise in financial markets and training as a Wall Street lawyer proved vital to the work we did to expose wrongdoing at those firms. This expertise made him the natural choice to depose the key executives at those firms. He subsequently worked on accounting standards, anti-spam legislation, anti-spyware initiatives and legislation to protect consumers' personal data, as well as leading staff investigations into accounting fraud at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

When I became Chairman, I promoted David twice, first to be Committee General Counsel where he was a tireless advocate for the Committee's jurisdiction on behalf of Members of both parties. David made the arguments that finally caused the parliamentarians to recognize the Committee on Energy and Commerce's exclusive jurisdiction over telecommunications issues as a result of the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

I then promoted David to be Committee Chief of Staff in 2007. He was the first person on the Republican side to have been promoted to Chief of Staff directly from the staff since the beginning of the Gingrich era.

In his role as chief staff strategist for the loyal opposition on the Committee to the Obama Administration, David's command of details and marshalling of resources made possible a legendary 17-day stand by a handful of Republican Members (me, Nathan Deal, John Shadegg and the rest of the gang of 23) against passage of the wide-ranging health reform law. Similarly, his careful planning helped the emboldened Republican minority resist the Administration's global warming bill until it was shelved. He has been a vigorous advocate for transparency--be it in government, or health care pricing.

Since becoming Chief of Staff, David has become the second best Texas Hold 'em player on the Committee. He beat Howard Lederer, a world champion poker player, in heads up play in a charity tournament this year. As Chief of Staff, he always defended the prerogatives of the Committee and its Members, for which we are very grateful. My colleagues and I on the Committee will certainly miss his good counsel, his great admiration for the institutional importance of the Committee, and his good cheer.