Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage the gentleman from Florida in a colloquy concerning section 521 of H.R. 2115.

Section 521 concerns what is known as ``general conformity'' under the Clean Air Act. As reported from the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the provision would require joint action by the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency regarding appropriate emission credits for airport projects. The section would also authorize a pilot program to retrofit airport ground equipment at airports located in nonattainment or maintenance areas, as defined in the Clean Air Act.

This provision is within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality that I am chairman of. I share the broad goals of this provision, but I have some concerns regarding the current legislative language, including the requirement for joint action. While the language indicates provision of the credits should be ``consistent'' with the Clean Air Act, the current construction may be subject to misinterpretation. It may also be in conflict with the present statutory role of the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act. Therefore, I would seek the gentleman's assurances that the Energy and Commerce Committee's interests will be protected in conference and that any final legislative language regarding section 521 be subject to the review and concurrence of the committee that I serve on.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

I want to thank the gentleman from Florida for his assurances and look forward to working with him during the upcoming conference.

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct privilege to introduce to the House of Representatives the fourth member to represent the 19th Congressional District of Texas, the 236th Texan to serve in the House, and 9,833rd U.S. citizen to serve as a member of the House of Representatives, the Honorable Randy Neugebauer, born on December 24, Christmas Eve, 1949, graduate of Texas Tech University, High Plains citizen, small businessman, banker, home developer, and the winner of a historic vote, I believe, by 700 votes. He will say that there were more people in Lubbock that wanted to vote than wanted to vote in Midland, Texas. He now represents both the Permian Basin and the High Plains. We are absolutely delighted to have you. You join such former Texans, Presidents like Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush, Speakers like Jim Wright and Sam Rayburn, majority leaders like Tom DeLay and Dick Armey in this august body.

We are delighted to have you. Welcome to the United States House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, as Paul Harvey says in his radio broadcasts, Let us hear the rest of the story.

My good friend from the State of Texas (Mr. Frost) from the 24th district has been expounding on potentially how unfair that particular redistricting plan that is pending before the Texas House is so I want to talk about the rest of the story.

Back in 1980, the redistricting process was controlled by the Democratic legislature in Austin as it should have been because they were in the majority in both the Texas House and the Texas Senate. We did have a Republican Governor at that time. I believe Governor Clements . But the legislative process was dominated by the Democrats. And a map that was put out had 27 congressional districts in it. And I believe, I want to say four of them, four of the 27 elected Republicans, when all the dust had settled, in at least one of those districts was an upset; Congressman Jack Fields upset long-time incumbent Democrat Bob Eckhardt down along the Houston ship channel that was really drawn to be a Democratic district.

So we had a situation where Republicans were packed and the citizens of Texas voted over 50 percent for Republican candidates. We had four out of 27 seats in that particular redistricting process.

We rock along to 1990. In 1990 you had again a Democratic legislature and a Democratic Governor this time, and Texas gained three more seats; it went to 30 because of population growth. The next election about 55, 56 percent of the voters of Texas voted for Republican candidates, but because of the lines that were drawn, nine Republicans got elected out of 30, 30 percent were elected Republicans when we were voting 57 percent. That 27 percent Delta resulted in about nine congressional seats, electing Democrats that if you had a little bit more fairer lines would have elected Republicans.

Now we cannot stand here and tell you today on the floor of the House of Representatives that some of those Democrats that got elected did not deserve to get elected.

My good friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), a good aggie friend of mine, he won in the district that could have been marginally called at least a swing district, but he did a good job. My good friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall), my good friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), they are winning in districts that are drawn to be Republican districts; and they are just doing a better job or the Republican candidates just are not up to snuff. That is fair. There is nothing wrong with that.

But when you have had two redistrictings done in 1980 and 1990 and it is obvious that the mapmakers, because they were controlled by one political party, which is fair, drew the districts to favor their party. And then we come along to the year 2002, and we elect a Republican House and a Republican Senate and a Republican Governor in Texas. And in the congressional elections we support 57 percent Republican candidates, and we still do not have over half the Congress seats, it is fair to say we should redraw the lines. And that is what the Texas legislature is trying to do right now.

I would say it is trying to do it on a bipartisan basis. No one can tell me that Ron Wilson from Houston, Texas, an African American who is chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the Texas House is not a Democrat. And he is part of this process where State Representative Velma Luna, a Democrat, is helping to put this map together. So this is not a Tom DeLay map or a Joe Barton map or even a Tom Craddick map. It is a bipartisan map. It would elect two more Hispanics in all probability. It would elect probably one more African American; and in all probability, yes, it would elect more Republicans.

Would it elect 57 percent of the delegation to be Republican? Probably not, because there are still going to be some Democratic incumbent Congressmen who just do a good job, and their constituents support the job they are doing, and they are going to elect them in the districts that are drawn to be Republican. I do not have any problem with that.

But to stand here and say, as some Members have said before me, that what is happening in Austin is somehow unscrupulous or ill-towards or ill-founded is just not the case. We are simply trying to get the congressional districts to reflect the voting patterns of the State of Texas. And that is a good thing and not a bad thing.

The legislators that are hiding out up in the Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma, it may be good PR, and it may be funny; but it is not what they were elected to do.

They were elected to go to Austin and participate in the legislative process, to win or lose based on where the votes are. I would remind my friends that when the Republicans were in the minority in 1980 where they did not have 50 Republicans in the legislature at that time, but certainly they did in 1990, they did not bug out. They got beat on the floor, but they stayed and fought. And I would hope later this evening or sometime tomorrow enough people come to form a quorum. If that does not happen, the likelihood is that some very good legislation is going to die, the reorganization of State government which would save hundreds of millions of dollars. The Governor will just call a special session, and we will do this in a special session.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, more than 2 months ago Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on changes to the local telephone competition provisions of 1996 Telecommunications Act. This ``Triennial Review'' is required of this agency by the law we passed.

There has got a better way to regulate our Nation's telecommunications industry right now it is in nothing but a tailspin. The FCCs recent Triennial Review ruling has had many unfortunate portions, and clearly cannot be what the Supreme Court was expecting when it remanded the FCCs earlier decision. They seem to allow some companies the ability to provide telephone and Internet services across the nation with minimal investment, and minimal technicians and employees.

Unfortunately, after 2 months, no one, including the FCC, has seen the final details of these new regulations.

Mr. Speaker, how can regulators vote on provisions that they themselves have not seen? The internal turf battles within this agency go far beyond the walls of the Portals. While bureaucrats argue over how many angels can sit on the head of a pin, real people in this industry are being harmed.

Since January 2000, over 600,000 jobs have been lost in the telecommunications industry, most due to a failed policy of former Chairman Reed Hundt who tried to create artificial local competition.

Since the vote by the FCC on February 20th, many more jobs have been lost. Delay in issuing regulations by the FCC only continues this ``meltdown'' of one of our premiere growth industries.

I for one do not condone this bureaucratic delay and would hope that the FCC drastically changes its initial ruling from last February.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) for yielding me this time.

Obviously, I rise in support of this Reynolds amendment, but I am really standing to just say in closing in the overall energy debate this is the most comprehensive energy legislation that has been on the floor of the House, I would argue, in the last 30 or 40 years. It is not an energy bill for Republicans or an energy bill for Democrats. It is an energy bill for all Americans. We have a broad-based bill. We do something to try to help coal, to try to help oil and natural gas, to try to help nuclear, to try to help renewable, to try to help electricity. We are for biomass and natural gas and will be for sassafras if it helps provide the energy resources for this great Nation.

We have the lowest-cost energy resource base in the world, and we have it because we believe in free markets and individuals working together in an entrepreneurial fashion to provide the goods and services in the energy sector that help makes us the most powerful and greatest Nation in the world. I hope that we would vote for this bill in a bipartisan fashion when it comes to final passage.

I want to thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the full committee chairman, who has done just an absolutely outstanding job; and if we had the Chamber full of people, I would ask that we all stand and give him a round of applause. This is a good bill for America.

Mr. Chairman, as the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee of Energy and Air Quality, the subcommittee of primary jurisdiction of H.R. 6, I recognize and acknowledge we will need to work further on some of the specifics in the bill.

Next, I want to clarify section 16023, the ``native load'' section. We will want to clarify that the term ``equivalent transmission rights'' should be read to include ``firm, financial, and tradable transmission rights'', as that is our intent. I also acknowledge that the native load provisions may have unintended consequences in the region covered the Midwest Independent System Operator, and I want to continue to work to improve the savings clause so that does not undo the development of markets in that region to date.

I note that we may need to clear up the electricity title (Title VI) of Division A. Among the technical changes needed may be inaccurate references to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and ERCOT utilities, as described in the Federal Power Act.

Finally, I have not completed work with Members on a potential addition to Division E regarding Clean Coal. I will want to discuss with Members of the conference committee a potential provision on Clean Coal General Programs. This Congress has a great opportunity to expand the clean coal title to further promote and deploy new technologies that allow coal to be used as a power source for dramatically lower emissions.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I might point out that this is also supported by the National Hydropower Association.

The title on hydro relicensing that is in the bill that is before us does not waive anything of the Endangered Species Act. It does not waive any part of the Safe Water Drinking Act. It does not waive any environmental law that is currently on the books.

What it does do, if a person has an application to relicense a hydro project in this country, and if a Federal agency proposes what is called a mandatory condition to that relicensing, we allow under our bill the applicant to offer an alternative to that mandatory condition; and if that alternative is as effective in protecting the environment and is more cost-effective or energy-efficient, then the agency has to accept the alternative. That is the principal difference between this bill and the bill that we adopted in the last Congress that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) has in his motion to recommit.

I would urge my colleagues to support the bill. The bill was introduced as a stand-alone hydro relicensing bill with several Democrats as cosponsors, and when we had votes on this in subcommittee and full committee, a fair number of Democrats crossed over to oppose the gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Dingell) bill and support what is in our bill.

So let us vote in a bipartisan fashion to oppose the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from the Committee on Rules for yielding time to me.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the strongest possible support of the rule for H.R. 6. I would like to point out a few facts.

There are 22 amendments made in order under this rule. Fifteen of these 22 are either minority-sponsored amendments or bipartisan amendments that are sponsored by a member of the minority party and the majority party, 15 out of 22. That is over two-thirds of all the amendments that are going to be debated on the House floor either have a minority sponsor or a minority and a majority sponsor. I think that is exemplary in terms of bipartisanship.

I would also point out that we have made in order under this rule 1\1/2\ hours of general debate and 6 hours of debates on the amendments. That is 7\1/2\ hours of debate on H.R. 6. That is approximately double the average amount of time that is made in order under the House rules for authorization bills of this type. So I think the Committee on Rules has acted in a very appropriate fashion to make in order a large number of amendments, 22 amendments, which I believe are more amendments than were made in order for the bill last year. Again, 15 of the 22 have a minority sponsor or a minority and a majority sponsor.

Let me talk about the base bill. H.R. 6 is a combination of bills that have come out of the Committee on Ways and Means that deal with the tax issues for energy; the Committee on Energy and Commerce, where the bulk of the bill originates from, and deals with the basic energy policy of this country; the Committee on Resources, which deals with the issue of ANWR and our Federal lands use; and the Committee on Science, which deals with the R&D component of our energy policy.

I know the Committee on Energy and Commerce passed its bill on a bipartisan basis 36 to 17, with all the Republicans voting for it and 6 of the 23 Democrats that voted that night voted for it, and I believe the other bills also had bipartisan majorities as they came out.

What the bill attempts to do is set a broad-based energy policy for this country for all of our conventional energy sources and our emerging new energy resources, and combine that with a very comprehensive set of conservation and renewable environmental protections, and then begin to invest in the future in terms of the emerging issues like the hydrogen fuel initiative.

For the first time in the House, we have, I think, a very, very comprehensive title on electricity. Fifty percent of our energy is generated in the form of electricity, and in the bill that we reported out last year we did not have an electricity title. This year we not only have an electricity title, we have an electricity title that has been voted on on a bipartisan basis in subcommittee, and it has been voted on on a bipartisan basis in full committee.

What this electricity title would do if it becomes law, it would create a national transmission system for the 21st century for the movement of electricity around the country. It does this without violating States' rights. There are no Federal mandates in the electricity title where a State has to do this, a State has to join a regional transmission organization, a State has to allow Federal siting decisions. In fact, there is specific protection on the native load of closed States and those States that do not wish to subject their native load to any kind of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission jurisdiction.

So the electricity title which has been, at least in the bill from the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the most controversial part of the bill, I think has been well tested and modified and amended so it would address

many of the needs of Members on both sides of the aisle.

On the hydroelectric reform title that came out of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), is absolutely correct in that the House adopted a provision on hydro reform in last year's bill that he was very supportive of and very active in helping to reach a compromise.

We took what we did in last year's bill and built on it. The primary difference between last year's bill and this year's bill on hydroelectricity reform is that we took the situation where we have a mandatory condition, that a Federal agency can set a mandatory condition to renew a license of an existing hydro project. Under current law, that Federal agency, there is no appeal of it; there is really no alternative input to that setting of that mandatory condition. This year's bill says there has to be an alternative allowed if the applicant wishes to put forward an alternative, and I think that is an improvement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the strongest possible support and hope that we would pass this bill in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. Speaker, I would like my good friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) to come back to the microphone, please. I just want to ask my good friend if he is going to support the Boehlert- Markey amendment that was made in order under the rule on CAFE.

Is that one of the amendments that he is glad the rule made in order?

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, what about the Markey-Johnson amendment that would prohibit drilling in ANWR? Is that an amendment that the gentleman is pleased that the rule made in order?

So it is not a totally bad rule. There are some amendments made in order under the rule that the gentleman thinks are appropriate?

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, who is the bicycle amendment from?

Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong support of the bipartisan H.R. 6 comprehensive energy policy bill that is before this body at this point in time.

Our Nation badly needs a comprehensive energy policy. This bill achieves it. Our economic competitiveness, our national security, and our way of life will all be helped if this bill becomes law.

The bill before us today touches nearly every facet of our energy sector, including electricity. The first 68 pages of the bill are bipartisan measures on conservation and energy efficiency. They were agreed to during the energy conference last year. The bill also targets a diverse and stable portfolio of production so that we are never overly dependent on any one fuel.

For our Nation's security, we will reauthorize and expand the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We will open for environmentally safe production the portion of Alaska that Congress long ago set aside for that very purpose. We will act upon the President's call in the State of the Union address for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and the fueling infrastructure that will be needed to make them successful.

Today's bill is better than H.R. 4 that passed the last Congress. We include bipartisan reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act, a much more sensible Renewable Fuels Standard, real changes to the hydroelectric relicensing process, and badly needed electricity reforms.

Legislation before the House today puts our Nation on a forward path towards better electricity markets. It should further the transition to more effective electricity markets in the following ways: It would increase transmission capacity; it would improve the operation of existing transmission; and it would make wholesale competition even more successful than it currently is today.

Mr. Chairman, I am very proud to be one of the authors of this bill. I am very proud of the work that the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), my full committee chairman, has done, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) has done, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher) has done and other members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce have done.

I am also very pleased with the work product of the other three authorizing committees that are bringing us this joint bill. This will actually help our Nation. In my opinion, it is the most comprehensive positive energy bill that has been before the Congress in the last 50 years, and I cannot do anything but strongly, strongly urge its adoption.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished full committee chairman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to comment just briefly on the electricity title in the bill. We did not have an electricity title in last year's bill because we really did not have a consensus on the issue and we were hopeful that by moving it as a stand-alone bill, we might could get that consensus. Since that time, we have worked very hard with the very stakeholders, the investor-owned utilities, the municipalities, the co- ops to try to get consensus.

I will not say we have total consensus, but I think we have solved some of the most vexing issues. We have volunteer participation in what are called RTOs, regional transmission organizations; we have an excellent reliability title; we have some transparency rules to try to prevent what happened in California several years ago in the spot market for electricity; we have native load protection for the closed States that would rather not open their States to retail competition; we have some exemptions for the more open States that are voluntarily developing these RTOs. All in all it is a very balanced title; it is a very good title.

It would help the electricity industry regain market confidence and would help get more transmission lines built.

Mr. Chairman, first I think we should point out that the Committee on Rules made in order the Dingell amendment as a substitute, as a substitute for the electricity title. We should commend our chairman on the Committee on Rules for doing that.

Having said that, this is not a substitute; this is an expansion of Federal authority over natural gas and electricity generators and transmitters anywhere in this country, regardless of their size, if it is deemed that they have directly or indirectly used any means that would employ any fraudulent, manipulative, or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate, any entity.

Now, the electricity title in the bill has bent over backwards to develop a compromise that protects States, protects small co-ops, protects small municipalities against FERC jurisdiction. The Dingell substitute right off the bat says ``any entity.''

It then goes further. Not only the FERC, but Federal courts, can prevent these entities from distributing or transmitting or generating electricity or natural gas.

Then it goes even further and says a foreign court, a foreign court, on page 11, I believe of the Dingell substitute, a foreign court: ``such entity has been convicted of any felony or misdemeanor,'' misdemeanor, ``or of a substantially equivalent crime by a foreign court of competent jurisdiction which the court finds.''

I do not understand that. But if we read that literally, a U.S. energy supplier that tried to sell electricity in Iraq and was convicted in a Saddam Hussein court could be prohibited in the United States of America from transmitting or generating electricity or natural gas.

The Dingell substitute is silent on reliability. The Dingell substitute is silent on siting. The Dingell substitute is silent on the ability to create new grids around this country. It says nothing about RTO, Regional Transmission Organization policy.

It is not a substitute; it is an attempt to be punitive towards any entity in this country that is engaged in the generation and transmission of electricity or natural gas. It may be well intentioned, but it is totally misguided. I hope we will reject it out of hand.

Mr. Chairman, the electricity title before us in the bill has 10 titles.

It has a title on transmission capacity. The Dingell substitute is silent.

It has a title on transmission operation. The Dingell substitute is silent.

It has a title on reliability. The Dingell substitute is silent.

It has a title on PUHCA. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) does refer to PUHCA.

It has a title on PURPA. The Dingell substitute is silent.

It has a title on renewable energy. The Dingell substitute is silent. Renewable energy includes net metering, renewable energy production. The Dingell substitute is silent.

It has a title on market transparency, round trip trading prohibition and enforcement. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) does address market transparency and enforcement.

It has a title on consumer protection. The Dingell substitute is silent.

It has a title on merger review and reform and accountability. The Dingell substitute is silent.

It has a title on economic dispatch. The Dingell substitute is silent.

Mr. Chairman, the Dingell substitute is not a substitute. It may be well intentioned where it does address, but out of 10 titles, it addresses 1\1/2\ titles of the electricity title. We should reject it and adopt the compromise bipartisan electricity title that has been worked out over the last 4 years in subcommittee and full committee, and I would hope that we would reject the Dingell substitute.

Mr. Chairman, in Corsicana, Texas, there is the first commercial oil field of any size outside of the State of Pennsylvania. It is in my district. It began producing oil in the early 1900s. The old Mexia field, the Bryan College Station field, these are all fields that are either in my district or in my old congressional district. They have been producing oil for generations and generations.

In the Bryan College Station field, that field goes through the water table for Bryan College Station. Over 200 producing wells, no environmental problems.

Now, somehow it is okay to produce in those fields in my home State, but it is not okay to produce in ANWR where there are fewer people per square mile than there are various animals. And we have shown in Prudhoe Bay that the animal habitat actually flourishes with oil production.

I cannot understand why we are opposed to producing between a million and a million and a half barrels a day for 30 years. I would hope we would oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I want to say to my good friend, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), that it is mild opposition. It is not head- in-the-sand opposition, but I have several questions and concerns. I am not going to ask for a rollcall vote. If it passes on a voice vote, we will work this out in conference. But I do want to point out some things.

The bill before us authorizes $200 million a year for clean coal technology. Coal provides over 50 percent of our electricity. The Oberstar-Norton amendment provides $262 million a year for solar voltaic energy, which produces about four-tenths of 1 percent of our energy. That seems to me to be a little bit of an imbalance.

On page 2 of the Oberstar amendment it says that the goal would be to install solar energy systems in 20,000 Federal buildings by the year 2010. That is an average of about 50 Federal buildings per congressional district. The only way we are really going to be able to do that is if we solar voltaic almost every post office in this country.

If we go down to the bottom of the page on page 2, it says the total amount of photovoltaic electric energy they hope to generate is 150 megawatt hours. Well, if we take the $1.3 billion that it would authorize, and admittedly that is an authorization, but if we took that $1.3 billion, divided it with 150 megawatts, which is the goal, that is a cost of about $10 million per megawatt, $10 million. Now, to put that in perspective, a base load coal plant, a base load natural gas plant, even a base load nuclear plant, we are talking $500 per megawatt. So that we are putting a lot, a lot of money into admittedly a good program.

Solar voltaics is a good program, but as the gentleman indicated, right now the best technology generates photovoltaic energy electricity at about 25 cents a kilowatt. A base station natural gas combined cycle plant generates at about 2 cents per kilowatt. So there are a lot of problems with the specific language in this amendment, but its goal is honorable.

So I am going to work with the gentleman and the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia in conference, but I want the gentleman to know that there are some major, major problems with the specifics in this language. The goal is noble, but the implementation may be somewhat flawed.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett), who, I believe, wants to speak in support of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, my eyes are getting old and tired. I cannot read the chart of the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) from here. At the end of the chart, what are the dollars per megawatt or cents per kilowatt price at the low end of the curve at the right on the photovoltaic?

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I could not read the chart; and I am a supporter of solar photovoltaics. I have some concerns about the goals and dollar amounts, but the concept I am very supportive of.

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

Mr. Chairman, first I want to thank the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for graciously, and I mean this, providing us copies of the amendment. The majority staff had the odd page copies but not the even page copies. So we appreciate it. That shows how closely we had been tracking this. So I am glad we got the entire amendment, and I appreciate that.

The gentleman from Ohio has many good ideas on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and we have worked together on many of those ideas. This is not one of them. It is an idea, but just to put this in perspective, we use every day in this country 12 million barrels of gasoline, 12 million barrels. That is what we use to keep our transportation system going.

The gentleman's amendment authorizes 20 million barrels; that is not even a 2-day supply. So even if this were implemented, it would be 1\1/ 2\ days' supply. So that is the first problem with it.

The second problem, the gentleman very graciously says we are going to put a reserve in the Northeast, put a reserve in the Midwest, put a reserve in California and in two other places. That is five places. Somebody is going to get left out. If we put one in the Northwest and in the Southeast, then the Southwest gets left out. If you put one in the Southwest and the Southeast, then the Northwest gets left out. So we have got a little bit of a problem there.

We have got a security problem. Do we really want to put a national gasoline reserve in place that is just an invitation for a terrorist target? We have got that problem.

Then we have got the problem of overflow. If we do not use the gasoline, it becomes stale. Again, we are only storing 1\1/2\ days' supply, but we are going to be continuously changing this gasoline to make sure that it is fresh in case it needs to be used. That would probably cost more in the acquisition costs. So all in all this is not an idea whose time has come.

The gentleman has other ideas that I would encourage him to pursue more vigorously, because even if this were to be implemented, I do not think it would have the intended effect.

So I hope we would oppose the gentleman's amendment and work with him on some of these other amendments. But I thank him again for giving us the copies of the pages we did not have.

Mr. Chairman, on behalf of myself and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the full committee chairman, we rise in strong support of the Barrett amendment. This amendment was included in the House-passed energy bill in the last Congress.

It would require the Secretary of Energy to study the feasibility of developing commercial nuclear energy production facilities at existing DOE sites. I and the gentleman from Louisiana (Chairman Tauzin) are strong advocates for nuclear power. The energy bill before us today includes a comprehensive 15-year reauthorization to the Price-Anderson Act, which would allow a new generation of nuclear power plants to be built in America.

We believe that the existing infrastructure in many Department of Energy sites may be ideal for the development of new nuclear power plants. In some cases, DOE sites have the space, the facilities, and the laboratory and engineering expertise and could be utilized to build a new plant. In any scenario where a new nuclear plant were to be built at a DOE site, we would expect that a substantial portion of the construction cost would be paid for by a commercial utility, which would greatly benefit from the DOE's infrastructure and expertise. We strongly support the amendment and urge Members to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I am not in opposition. I seek time only for purposes of controlling the time on this side.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

We are probike, and we rise in full support of this amendment. It passed the House in essentially the same form last year in H.R. 4. House and Senate conferees, however, did not reach resolution on this issue or other vehicle and Energy Policy Act issues.

In assessing the program outlined by this amendment, both myself and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the full committee chairman, would note that the Federal Government has already made a very substantial investment in bicycling and walking. According to a 1999 Department of Transportation report, Federal spending on such activities rose from $6 million in 1990 to $238 million in 1997.

I myself ride my bicycle back and forth to work in my hometown of Ennis, Texas, both to my congressional office and my campaign office. I would consider doing so here in Washington if we had a safe bicycle path between Arlington, Virginia, where I live, and the Nation's Capital.

So we are in very strong support of the gentleman's amendment and hope that we can pass it by unanimous consent.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly).

Mr. Chairman, we support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, our full committee chairman has been referred to on the floor this evening as the Energy Bunny. He certainly is that for his extreme support for the bill. We would have to refer to our gentleman from Wisconsin, the supporter of this amendment, as the Energy Badger, coming from the Badger State of Wisconsin, because he has badgered myself and the full committee chairman for the last 3 months in a very positive way on this amendment. So we do rise in support of the amendment.

We have one concern about it. The gentleman's amendment, as it is currently written, has a requirement for specific vapor pressures. The gentleman knows that when we get to conference, myself and the full committee chairman reserve the right to modify the technical side of this amendment to make sure that it is actually implementable in the marketplace.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, we understand that vulcanized fuels hurt consumers, and we support the gentleman's concept of going towards more uniform fuels that still meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act.

Madam Speaker, February 12, 1973, I was a graduate student at the Krannert School in Purdue University up in West Lafayette, Indiana, just another day for me; for Lieutenant Colonel Sam Johnson, it was the first day he had been able to breathe free air in over 7 years.

If we look in the dictionary under ``patriot,'' we ought to see Sam Johnson. If we look in the dictionary under ``hero,'' we ought to see Sam Johnson.

Director of the Top Gun school; Thunderbird pilot; decorated for two wars, Vietnam and Korea; holder of two Silver Stars; two Legions of Merit; the Distinguished Flying Cross; one Bronze Star with Valor; two Purple Hearts; four Air Medals; and three outstanding unit citations.

By any means he is a hero. He is an American patriot. He is my friend. I am glad he is in the House of Representatives. God bless you, Sam and Shirley Johnson.

Madam Speaker, I want to commend Subcommittee Chairman Stearns, Ranking Member Schakowsky, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) of the full committee, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) of the full committee for bringing this bill to the floor. I am a cosponsor. I think there are improvements that could be done to the bill, but I think it is a good step in the right direction.

I have been in the Congress for 18 years. I have been on the Committee on Energy and Commerce for the last 16 of those 18 years. I was one of the Congressmen who led the fight in committee to make sure that caller ID could be used as an option for those that wished to know who was calling them. I also helped lead the fight in committee to make sure that if somebody was trying to call you and blocked their identity, you could block their call, that block-the-blocker technology. This is another step in that protection of privacy that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) talked about, so that when you are in the privacy of your home, if you choose to not have any unsolicited phone calls coming into your home, you can sign up for this.

I have signed up for the do-not-call list in Texas. I have lived in the same house for the last 14 years. I have subscribed to the Dallas Morning News that entire time. And until recently I continued to get solicitation calls from the Dallas Morning News asking me to subscribe to the Dallas Morning News. Maybe with the do-not-call list in Texas and the do-not-call list at the national level, I will not get that call. Unfortunately, I will still get a phone call from Majority Leader Tom DeLay. I have raised substantial sums of money for the NRCC, but I do get solicitation calls asking me to help Majority Leader DeLay continue to raise necessary funds for various good political causes. That is one of the exceptions.

So there are things that we could do to improve the bill, but it is a good step in the right direction and I hope that we pass this bill on a bipartisan basis unanimously because it is a good piece of legislation.

Again I want to commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) for his excellent leadership and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) for her leadership on this necessary piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, when we are little boys or little girls, people ask us, ``What do you want to do when you grow up?''

Most of us say we want to do something, whatever our parents are doing, our mother or our father, or we maybe want to be a policeman or a fireman or a baseball star or a football star.

A lot of people say they want to be astronauts, because astronauts are heroes. When I was growing up in Texas, one of the things I thought about being was an astronaut. But there are so few that not many of us get to actually have that kind of a dream.

This past Saturday, six American citizens and one Israeli citizen who were living that dream found that it came to a crashing end when, upon reentry, Columbia Mission STS-107 came apart. We are here today to first of all pay tribute to those brave seven astronauts who gave their lives pursuing their dream but in a larger sense pursuing humanity's dream, to find new knowledge, to reach out into space, to reach out into the future.

I was one of the 40 or 50 Congressmen and Senators who went to Houston yesterday to participate in the memorial

ceremony. The gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) was there, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) was there, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) was there, some of the Members that are in the Chamber right now. When we got there, they took us up to the sixth floor of the administration building, and they put us in the briefing room that the administrator uses to be briefed on these missions.

Around the upper walls, they had a patch of every shuttle mission with a brief summary, from STS-1. They had not put this one up yet because it was not complete. And then down on boards they had the profiles for the missions for this year. They had STS-107 and they had, launch, January 16, the number of people in the mission, the seven astronauts and the payload and the number of orbits and how high it was going to be above the Earth, 150 nautical miles, and what its degrees of entry was when it came back, 39 degrees. That mission will never be completed in the physical sense.

But it could be completed in the historical sense if we as a Congress and we as a country carefully think about how to honor their memory and how to continue the work that they gave their lives for. A 2 percent accident rate is unacceptable. Even though it is an experimental program, we can cannot have a 2 percent risk that every time we put a shuttle up lives will be lost. So one of the things we have to do is conduct this investigation, if at all possible find the cause of the accident and prevent it, but we also have to begin to look at a substitute for the existing shuttle fleet.

I was on the committee in 1987 when we did the investigation, and we talked about going to new technology then, but we decided not to for two reasons, the cost and the fact that the existing shuttle fleet was still relatively young. That was 17 years ago. This time around I think we need, as a part of the investigation, to consider taking the next step, not using '50s and '60s and '70s technology. Let us use 2000 and 2005 technology.

We also need to reevaluate the mission of NASA. If our mission to have manned space activity is simply the space station, in my opinion that is not a sufficient mission. President Kennedy said in the early '60s, we will land an American on the moon by 1970. We did it in July of 1969. I would hope that we would take this opportunity to look at our mission. Perhaps we want to land a man on Mars by 2020. Perhaps we want to have a full-time colony on the moon by 2050. But we need to reevaluate the mission of NASA. We need to give our children and our grandchildren a vision for what America is all about, and in my opinion part of that vision is an aggressive space program with men and women in space carrying the American flag.

God bless our seven astronauts and their families, and God bless America.