Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is a cause for celebration in the Fifth District of Pennsylvania today. This year marks the 75th anniversary of an American icon, Zippo lighters. In 1932 George Blaisdell developed the first Zippo lighter in a garage in Bradford, Pennsylvania.

Today, though most products are disposable or available with limited warranties, the Zippo lighter is still backed by its famous lifetime guarantee: ``It works or we fix it for free.'' A motto of a company that truly believes in its great product.

In almost 75 years and nearly 450 million lighters later, where last year alone 50,000 lighters a day were produced in Bradford, Pennsylvania, Zippo lighters are a legacy of good business, and almost 70 percent of them are exported all around the world.

Today George Duke, Mr. Blaisdell's grandson, owns the company and is chairman of the board. Gregory Booth is Zippo's president and CEO. I know them both and appreciate their resolve to keep Zippo lighters manufactured in America and, more importantly, in Bradford, Pennsylvania.

I commend them for their devotion to the people of Bradford and congratulate Zippo and the Zippo family for 75 years of great business.

Madam Speaker, it's a delight to come to the House tonight and talk about an issue that I believe is vital to America's economic future, vital to the strength of our families, of our communities: energy.

I want to congratulate the leadership of the House. Next week is going to be energy week. We are going to be having bills coming from the Resources Committee, the Ways and Means Committee. I think, tonight, tomorrow, we will be dealing with some energy issues in the farm bill, because I personally believe available, affordable energy is the number one challenge facing America.

Now, from what I have seen in the committee structure, and I am hoping when we get to the floor we will have amendments, and we will have more discussion, but there are some concerns. I know that the bills coming to the floor remove incentives to produce domestic energy. That's energy produced in America or offshore. I know there is increases in taxes on domestic energy production. That's extra taxes on those who will produce, process energy here in America. But I see no incentives to produce the basic fossil fuels, oil, gas, nuclear, coal, or some that I think are potentially helpful, coal to liquids and coal to gas.

I have a chart on my left here that shows us the current use of energy, 23 percent clean, green natural gas; 23 percent coal, mostly for power generation. Down here, we have 40 percent petroleum, and a large portion of that is our transportation system, but it's used in other ways too. Then we have nuclear energy in the kind of a light, grayish blue color over here.

Now, the ones we really have all the hope for are here in the 6 percent; that's our renewables. Now you will hear everybody promoting renewables, and we should. But let's look at what amount we today have from renewables, and how we can grow them. We are going to have lots of incentives, and we have had lots of incentives. The 2005 bill had incentives for all renewables.

Solar is .06 of a percent of our energy supply today; .06, that's not even 1/10 of 1 percent. Now the one that surprised a lot of people is biomass, 2.4 percent. A lot of that's woody waste, it's the pellet stove industry, it's waste being burned in boilers to heat factories, to dry wood. Lots of places where they have wood waste, they put in wood-burning boilers. It's also been used to top coal-burning boilers so they can meet air quality standards, because wood burns cleaner than coal.

Then we have geothermal. We know geothermal is using ground heat, ground temperature, water temperature; but it's .36 of a percent. Then we have hydroelectric that's 2.7. That's a figure that's declining because we have actually taken dams out in this country.

Then we have wind, which we hear a lot about today, but it's .12 of a percent of our energy portfolio.

I guess my concern is that we have a growing need of energy in America, somewhere, 2, 2.5 percent a year; and we all know that we must conserve. We must use energy more wisely. This chart shows you that.

But it appears to me that all the hope, and all the faith, and all the incentives are going to be out here. We should have them out there.

But if we don't produce more natural gas, if we don't produce more oil, and if we don't at least develop coal to liquids or coal to gas, then the growth in the renewables will not even meet the demand in the growth in energy use in the country, so it's very concerning.

Now, I believe the one that we really miss out on is natural gas. Natural gas heats 57 percent of our homes. It heats probably 70 percent of our businesses. It's used in huge amounts to make electricity. I think 20 percent of our natural gas is now used to make electricity, and natural gas is a major ingredient in making ethanol.

We currently have 116 ethanol plants, and we have 78 under construction, and seven that are under expansion. Up to 95 percent of these plants, we use clean, green, natural gas to run their boilers to make ethanol. So that is very vital to us that we have adequate amounts of clean, green natural gas.

It's interesting that hydrogen is one that's not a percentage, but it's one that we talked about in hydrogen vehicles, but the hydrogen we make today is made from what? Natural gas.

Biodiesel, not on the chart, but another item that's starting to perk out there. We use, again, a lot of natural gas to make biodiesel.

Now, the problem we have had in America is we use a lot of natural gas, and here's the reason why: about 12 years ago we took away the prohibition of making electricity with natural gas. When this happened, we started to have a shortage. As the use of natural gas goes up, and we are not supplying more natural gas, we are getting huge price increases. Just 6 years ago, natural gas was less than $2 a thousand. Last year the average price to homeowners was about $12.50 a thousand, huge increases.

Now, this has been monumental to business. Dow Chemical, chemical companies use huge amounts of natural gas; 55 percent of the cost of making chemicals in America is natural gas. They use it as an ingredient; they use it as a fuel. Dow Chemical's gas bill in 2002 was $8 billion, a lot of money. In 2006, it was $22 billion, and today it's rising.

The problem we have is we have continued to make ethanol, all our chemical plants, fertilizer plants, fertilizer, 50 to 70 percent of the cost of making nitrogen fertilizer, natural gas. Natural gas is an ingredient. All the ladies who like skin softeners, a major ingredient in skin softeners is natural gas.

Natural gas is in our carpets. It's in our drapes. It's in many of our clothes. It's in plastic products; 45 to 50 percent of polymers in plastic cost is natural gas.

All the good industries we have left in this country use huge amounts of natural gas. For the last 6 years, we have had the highest prices in the world on natural gas because we have refused to open up new fields. We have refused to reach offshore. We have made it difficult in many parts of the West to produce natural gas.

We look at it as something evil to drill a 6-inch hole in the ground, put a steel pipe in and let gas out. Yet it's what fuels the country. America is great because we always had cheap affordable energy up until 6 years ago.

Another factor many Americans don't know, and too many Members of Congress don't know is that natural gas is not a world price, when, currently, oil is $75, $77 a barrel, pretty painful for our economy, but it's pretty painful for all our competitors around the world too. But for 6 years, America has had the highest natural gas prices in the world. That's something we need to do something about.

We can see a chart here of what it's done to manufacturing. We have lost more jobs in America because of natural gas prices. As natural gas prices have risen, manufacturing price jobs have dropped because the fertilizer industry in the last 2 years, 40 percent of manufacturing went offshore. They are hanging on with a string. If we don't

bring natural gas prices down in the world average price, our farmers will be using foreign fertilizer to grow corn to make ethanol. Doesn't sound like a winner to me.

But it's vital, because one more chart here on trade, that a huge percentage of the trade deficit in this country is because of energy. We're buying our energy, our oil, 66 percent of our oil today comes from foreign, unstable, unfriendly countries. I find that a worry.

The bills we have coming up next week deal not with increasing domestic production, because when you decrease domestic production, you increase foreign imports. Now, everybody says we should be independent, energy independent. It's an impossibility on oil. I wish it wasn't.

Natural gas, we have reserves offshore, we have reserves onshore. We could be total supplying all of our own natural gas. We currently supply 80 some percent of ours, about 16 percent from Canada and a couple of percent LNG. But on oil, we have been gaining 2 percent a year in the last 10 years, every year, of foreign dependence. That's because we are buying this huge amount of energy from foreign countries, not our friends, and currently OPEC is in charge.

OPEC has been controlling prices the last year again. For a while, they didn't have control. They are back in control. As we look at where we buy our oil, Canada is one of our biggest suppliers, but they are really the only friendly one that we are really close friends with, and it's the one that we could be comfortable with.

The rest of the countries aren't even stable governments and could topple tomorrow. We currently have $75, $76, $77, I am not sure where it is today, but it was bouncing around there, and that's with no storms in the gulf and with no country that's in trouble at the moment. If we have one of the big exporting countries in trouble, and a couple of storms in the gulf like we did 2 years ago, we could be at $85, $90 and we could be approaching $3.50 and $4 gasoline. We all know the devastation that will have on us.

I have legislation I want to brief you on before I run out of time, I know I am getting short, but I have legislation called the NEED Act. It's about opening up the Outer Continental Shelf. It's 3 miles to 200 miles offshore where we have energy. Every country in the world produces on their Outer Continental Shelf but America, every country in the world, Canada, Norway, Sweden, all those green countries. They all produce energy offshore.

We have chosen to lock our Outer Continental Shelf up. It's a terrible mistake. It's the last environmentally hazardous way to produce gas and oil. My bill is gas only. It gives States control of the first 50 miles. The first 25 are locked up; the second 25 are open, if they want them open. The second 50 miles is open unless they have legislation, and they can even close it; and the last 100 miles is open automatically.

It would open up great reserves so we could have access to natural gas so we could stabilize prices in this country, so we could have energy to heat our homes, affordable energy to heat our business, energy to maintain the employment base in America that we are losing. If we don't stabilize natural gas prices, we are going to lose the petrochemical business. Dow Chemical just committed $32 billion to Saudi Arabia where gas is $1.25, where ours runs $10 or $12.

Folks, we have to bring natural gas prices down so we can maintain what's left of the fertilizer industry, polymer and plastics industry. The steelmakers tell me they can't stand any more high prices, aluminum makers.

My prediction, if we don't deal with the natural gas crisis in America, Americans will not be able to heat their homes affordably. Small businesses will not be able to stay in business if they use any amounts of energy, and we will be shipping all of these great jobs that made our country strong and to give our jobs to the working middle- class people of America, we are just going to be giving those away to other countries.

I predict the big bulky items, even like bricks and glass, will be made in nearby Trinidad, which is an island north of South America, only one day away in a ship where gas prices are only 90 cents.

I believe it's vital that as we approach the energy issue next week, that we talk about production, that we talk about how we continue to have adequate energy in America, and how we specifically have adequate natural gas to maintain the industries we have left. If we have an energy bill that only makes it more difficult to produce domestic industry, if we have an energy bill that only makes it more expensive to produce and if you tax, the production of oil and gas, if you tax the production of any kind of energy, if you tax that, you raise the price, you raise the price to consumers, because they pay it, we end up paying it as consumers. So it's vital.

In my view, it's vital that we have an energy bill next week and we have an open debate and we have lots of chance for amendments, we get to talk about it. What would coal liquids do?

I think the President has proposed cellulosic ethanol. Now, it's a good idea. That's making ethanol out of cellulose instead of corn, but the problem is, it's still in the laboratory. It's close to being able to come out of the laboratory, and, therefore, is funding six plants, futuristic. I am for that.

We ought to be doing the same to coal liquids. The Germans have made liquids and gas out of coal in World War II when they had embargoes and couldn't get oil. So we ought to be streamlining that process and having it ready. We ought to be juicing up our nuclear. We need all of the 35 nuclear plants that are under permit process today to be built by 2030 to just maintain 20 percent of our electric grid to remain nuclear, no growth.

The growth in the need of oil and gas continues, as our economy continues, and the problem we have today that we didn't have a few years ago. Just 6 years ago, gas was $2 a thousand, oil was $10 a barrel, just 6 years ago.

And today there is a shortage of oil in the world, and we have competitors like China and India that are consuming energy at a much faster growth than we are. They are increasing their energy use 15 to 20 percent a year. They are buying up reserves all over the world. They are building coal plants, coal-to-liquid plants. They are building nuclear plants. They are building the biggest hydro dams in the world. They are preparing for their economic future.

In America, because we have never had an energy shortage like this, we have had little shortages for months and years or part of a year in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s when there were world crises, but the current prices, as high as they are, are a floor on which we are going to have spikes. When we have spikes and we have $100 oil, Americans are going to struggle. They are going to struggle to heat their homes, they are going to struggle to drive their cars, especially the poor Americans, and the companies that use a lot of energy are going to struggle to make products and compete in the global marketplace.

I think it is vital next week that this Congress deals with energy openly. I want all the renewables to be promoted and incentivized and, yes, even subsidized. But when they are fractions of a percent, you can double them or triple them in 5 years, and they are still a fraction. They will not meet the needs of our society in the next couple decades.

We have to have fossil fuels. Some people hate fossil fuels. We need to use them as clean as we can. We need to use them as wisely as we can. We are going to have to conserve, because I want to tell you, the next spike in energy crisis, the Americans are going to be conserving because they are not going to have the money to pay for it. They are going to have to cut down their travel, they are going to have to keep their houses cold, and that is not how Americans should live.

This Congress should not be restricting access of the Outer Continental Shelf. We should not be restricting access to the vast reserves that are in this broad country. We know how to produce energy today. We ought to be forcing forward coal-to-liquids. We ought to open up the Outer Continental Shelf.

And those who scream about the oil companies making huge profits, it is my opinion that the oil companies

have made huge profits because of Congress and the administration. When you restrict supply, then you increase price. And so when oil companies and gas companies invested in reserves and did that with the hopes that they would be worth $30 a barrel, and they became worth $75 a barrel, they are going to make a lot of money. If you had a monopoly on any issue or any item, and you expected to sell it for $10 a profit, and then the supply gets short and you can sell it for $30, you are going to make a lot more money. That is just basic economics.

So the reason oil companies have made a lot of money is they invested in oil, they invested in gas reserves assuming that their prices were going to be far less. And when our government decided that we weren't going to produce it domestically, we were going to depend on foreign countries because foreign worked cheap; it didn't really matter even 6 years ago. There was a lot of concern about our growing dependence on foreign energy, but it didn't matter. It was cheap, $2 for gas, $10 for oil. Nothing competes with that. There is no reason to go in any other direction.

But that is all behind us, and it is all behind us because there is actually shortness of energy in this country and in the world. And so we are huge competitors. China will surpass us in energy use very soon. India is using huge amounts. All the developing countries, as they develop their auto fleets and their manufacturing bases, they are all using huge amounts that they didn't before. They lived very simple lives. So as the world progresses, the need for energy will grow.

And America seems to me to be the country that is doing the least to prepare for its energy future. And its energy future is available, affordable energy, and we should have lots of gas, lots of coal, lots of oil, all the renewables we can get, expansion of nuclear. We need to be looking down every road, every new way of producing energy we can, and the cleanest and greenest we can have it. And we should be conserving it as much as we can and not wasting it.

But, folks, we are in trouble. As a country, we are facing serious problems, because energy that is affordable and available may not be with us in just the short months and years ahead. Two storms in the gulf this summer, one or two of the sending countries that export oil have a problem in their government. It happens all the time.

Eighty percent of the energy of gas and oil in the world is owned, controlled, marketed by countries that are not democracies, not our friends, and they own the oil company. Exxon is the 14th largest oil company in the world. The 13 larger are monopoly oil companies owned by the government, and those are who we are going to depend on.

America needs to secure its energy future. It needs to produce adequate amounts of gas, oil, coal, and all the renewables we can. We need to have an energy policy. And I hope next week we can debate all these facts. Natural gas is the clean green fuel that can be the bridge, help us with ethanol, help us with hydrogen, help us with biodiesel, and even a third of our auto fleet can be fueled with natural gas. We would save 2\1/2\ million barrels of oil a day. America needs to prepare for its energy future.

Madam Speaker, I cautiously come to the floor today, but I'm troubled by the process here.

I come from a Great Lakes State, Pennsylvania. We cherish the Great Lakes, but we're passing a resolution today because of a newspaper article, a column, and we have legislation without any hearings. This is why we don't have refinery capacity in America.

In light of recent attention given to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management's permit to the BP refinery, I would like to provide the facts and clear up misunderstandings, says the Department of Environmental Management in Indiana.

The BP wastewater permit was issued in accordance with State and Federal environmental laws which are protective of human health and environment. The State coordinated with EPA during the permitting process to ensure that the final permit was compliant with the Clean Water Act. On April 5, 2007, EPA issued a letter that they had no objections to the permit being issued pursuant to the Clean Water Act.

There are many inaccuracies in the recent media reports. They have given no exceptions to environmental conditions for this facility. The wastewater treatment permit meets all State laws and regulations that apply to the facility and project. Many of the limits placed in the permit are actually more protective than required by Federal law.

We need to deal with these issues with the facts, not newspaper reports. We can't build refineries in America. We blame the refineries. This happens every time they try.

I'm not for pollution in Lake Erie, but I would like to have had a hearing where Indiana could have had its case heard. We shouldn't be here on the floor debating this with very little knowledge and hysteria.

The future of refining in America, the future of energy availability in America, we must have clean water and clean air, but if we are going to have a political reaction without the hearings, without the information, we shouldn't make these kind of decisions on the floor of the House.

I'm for cleaning up the Great Lakes. I have a bill on the outer continental shelf to produce natural gas that will give $21 billion to Great Lakes cleanup. That's a bill that will help us get rid of the sludge of the past.

I just wish this wasn't before us without adequate process and hearings so we could understand what's really happened there, where we have a real knowledge of information, because we desperately need the capacity they're talking about.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment and claim the time.

Mr. Chairman, I find it ironic today the maker of this amendment represents one of the more affluent parts of America, one of the parts of America that wouldn't be there, wouldn't be growing and prospering without billions and billions of Federal investment.

We can start with the 336-mile diversion canal that diverts water from the Colorado River so they can irrigate the desert and make it a city. It seems to me that's a pretty expensive economic development project taking desert and making it grow.

Mesa last year, his home area, $35 million of their budget is Federal money, and he keeps talking about the process. Well, I think I understand the process, and I'd be glad to debate the process with him any day, anytime, anywhere. I've been in business all my life, retailing. I served in local government 8 years, State government 19 years, Federal Government 11 years, and I understand process.

Rural America is not a part of the process of funds from the Federal Government. This bureaucracy you brag about how they allocate money and how they hand it out as if this was some pure process. Rural communities don't have planning departments. They don't have planning directors. They don't have consultants. They don't hire lobbyists like Mesa and Phoenix and Arizona do. They're fighting for their economic lives.

This little forest county is less than 10,000 people. I think the population went from close to 5,500 to 7,500 because we opened a prison there. It used to be the home of an Evenflo Bottle Company, and those people would like to see a little investment in economic development in that community. It used to be the home of a glass plant. It used to be the home of a cabinet factory. They're all gone.

It is a beautiful area, some of the most beautiful parts of America. It is the best hunting and fishing in America, and tourism is the only tool they have that's working. This Hunting and Fishing Museum is another tool to try to keep hunters and fishermen and travelers and visitors to visit that part of the area.

Another thing, its interactive displays teach young people about hunting and fishing. We have a lot of people today that don't have fathers at home teaching them to hunt and fish. The Hunting and Fishing Museum is going to have classes. They're going to have classrooms. They're going to teach young people the joy of hunting and fishing. I find you take a young man and you teach him to fish, you teach him to hunt, you get him involved in a sport, he's less likely to be in crimes, drugs and on the streets.

It's a part of the fiber of America. There is no urban museum that isn't loaded with Federal dollars to build it.

Rural museums don't have that same pathway. I defy a museum in America that doesn't have Federal funding in it. Because a little community asks for 50 or 100,000, this is some sort of a crime?

I'm sorry. I'm not going to apologize. I served Forest County as a State House member, a State senator and now a Congressman. I ran a business within 10 miles, and many of these people were customers of mine when I had a supermarket. These are good people fighting for their economic lives trying to build this museum.

The State has allocated $4 million, but they have to get matching money. This $100,000 will get them another $100,000 from the State, because as they raise money, they get money. I gladly debate this museum. It's a good investment for the future for Forest County and for America.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

According to the Department of Transportation in 2005, his area received $580 million for its construction of a $1.4 billion, that's a pretty big percentage, of a 19.6 mile light rail system serving metropolitan Phoenix.

Why should people from Forest County have to pay that? I should make that argument. We can use it. Mass transit gets huge amounts of money, and Arizona gets lots of that. The largesse goes to the urban areas that have the ability to get it.

One thing about the earmark process, I am not saying it's perfect, but I have

never asked for an earmark that I wouldn't defend publicly in any setting. I am proud today to ask this Congress to give $100,000 to the Hunting and Fishing Museum in little Forest County, that is trying to rebuild their economic base, enhance their tourism and teach our young people the value of wildlife and fishing and hunting and the beauty of the area. That's a noble issue.

I will gladly support the ability to help that rural county. I ask support of this Congress for this earmark.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I will be very brief because I believe the amendment has been agreed to.

My amendment is a simple amendment that says Federal funds cannot be used to establish or collect tolls on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania.

I will yield to the gentleman.

I thank the two gentlemen. We will let the process move forward.

This was offered both on behalf of Congressmen Peterson and English.

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

I want to thank my friend from Nebraska for his leadership here tonight and for his sharing time with us.

I personally believe that energy is the Number 1 issue facing America's economic future. I don't think, I think that available, affordable energy is a greater threat to the American economy than terrorism is. That's my personal view.

Before we talk about natural gas, I want to look at what we're using. Now, these are 2004 figures, but they've changed very little. It takes the Energy Department several years to compile them. These are the figures that we made the last chart out of a few months ago.

Currently 40 percent of our energy is petroleum. Just about 22.9 or 23 percent is natural gas, and a similar figure is coal. Now that's 86 percent.

Then you get down here to nuclear, 8.2, and now you're up to 94 percent. So renewables are those figures on the left. And the largest, which surprises a lot of people, is biomass, which was 2.8, hydroelectric, 2.7, geothermal, 0.3, solar, 0.06, and wind, 0.01. Now, I think we need to look at that.

And then we look at the next chart, which is the Energy Department's estimates. Now, these are the people that deal with us every day. In 13 years, in 2020, these figures don't change much, according to their statistics. Now, I hope they're wrong because the energy bills that are coming at us do not deal with petroleum, do not deal with natural gas, certainly do not deal with coal and do not deal with nuclear, which provides 94 percent. And I don't believe they deal with hydroelectric. That's another 3 percent. And so we have about 4 percent that's in play.

And I think what we have to be concerned about, if we focus on that 4 percent, woody biomass, solar, wind, geothermal and hydrogen, can we take care of the needs of this country, because when you don't have emphasis on these, and you don't continue to drill new wells, and you don't continue to promote coal to liquids or coal to gas to furnish our mass amounts of energy needs, then these volumes go down, and that's where we've been at as a country.

We've had a policy not to produce American energy, oil, gas or coal. We are gaining 2 percent foreign dependence every year, so we're at 64 percent. We've been gaining. Since I have been in Congress it's been 2 percent a year, every year. And that's a trend that nobody thinks is appropriate or positive for America because it's foreign, unstable, often unfriendly countries with unstable governments.

Some new statistics that I'll just add to this that are a little concerning; 80-some percent of the oil and gas in the world is owned by countries that do not have democracies, unstable countries. They own the energy of the world. In fact, Exxon, our largest oil company, is 14th in the world in ownership of energy. There are 13 countries that own, starting with Saudi Arabia and Russia and Iran and Iraq, and you can tell that's not exactly our friends, on down the road, all of those types of countries that own the energy of the world, and we are totally dependent.

Now, I'm pleased that the House and the Senate are both going to be dealing with an energy bill, but I think it's important that we have some energy production in those bills.

Now, the natural gas issue is one that has, I think, is really driving us economically in the wrong direction. We use 20 some percent of our natural gas now to make electricity. The gentleman from Nebraska just mentioned that his State doesn't do that, but the country does that. The States of California and Florida, the big users of energy in this country, consume huge amounts of electricity produced by natural gas, and that's an increasing figure daily.

About 12 or 13 years ago we took away the moratorium. It used to be just used for peaking plants in the morning and the evening because people felt natural gas was to precious to use to make electricity.

Natural gas is the feedstock for hydrogen, which the Representative from Nebraska talked about is one of our future fuels. We currently make it out of natural gas. Ethanol, the big push on ethanol consumes huge amounts of natural gas in the production of ethanol, so we don't make ethanol without consuming huge amounts of natural gas. The same with biodiesel. It's the feedstock.

Now, here's where the rubber meets the road in America. Natural gas is an ingredient in almost everything that's manufactured, or it's used in large amounts to heat, treat and bend products.

Petrochemicals, all the petrochemical companies, 55 percent of their cost of producing their chemicals because they use natural gas as an ingredient, they use it as a fuel is natural gas.

Polymers and plastics, 45 to 50 percent of their cost is natural gas because they use it as an ingredient and they use it as a fuel.

Fertilizer, from 50 to 70 percent of the cost of making fertilizer to grow the corn to make the ethanol is made by natural gas. In the last 2 years, 50 percent of our fertilizer production has gone offshore.

Petrochemicals, polymers and plastics are moving offshore. Why? Because America has the highest natural gas prices in the world, and have had for 6 years. That was not true 6 years ago. South America, a buck and a quarter. Our average retail price last year was between 12 and $13. Like I said, we have consistently, for 6 years, had the very highest natural gas prices in the world.

To show you, Dow Chemical uses huge amounts of natural gas. In 2002, they spent $8 billion to buy natural gas. In 2006, they spent $22 billion, and of course those numbers just keep rising.

If we don't deal with the natural gas issue, America will not compete as a nation, because we use natural gas in producing almost all of our products, whether it's melting steel, melting aluminum.

Certainly.

They just committed $32 billion to build new plants in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya.

That's right.

There's about 100 chemical plants in the world under construction, none in the United States. And that's a tragedy because those are some of the best working man jobs. When you bend steel, when you bend aluminum, when you heat treat products, when you dry grain, you use natural gas. I mean, natural gas heats 60 percent of our homes, heats about 70 percent of our businesses.

Now, if natural gas was affordable, it would be the natural next fuel for vehicles, because we could fuel, if it was affordable, we could fuel a third of our auto fleet and that would be much quicker than CAFE. And I'm not opposed to CAFE. But it would be much quicker than all the things they're talking about because it could displace 2.5 million barrels a day, just for short haul vehicles who don't go long distances. One of the problems with natural gas as a vehicle fuel is distance because you can't store, you can't have a big enough gas tank to run long distances on a tank of natural gas.

But we have, on the Outer Continental Shelf, that's from 3 miles to 200 miles offshore, every country in the world produces both gas and oil there. Now, they may have 20-mile distance out or 30-mile distance out. But they produce, after you pass 11 to 12-mile it's out of sight. And countries around the world, when I tell them we don't produce there, just look at us and they say, why? Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, all environmentally sensitive countries, they all produce there. We're the only known modern society that does not produce oil and gas.

Now, I have a proposal that opens it up for gas because we have not been able to pass it. I would support oil, but natural gas is more important to us because how it fuels our industry, how it heats our schools, how it heats our homes, how it heats our hospitals, how it plays such a role in our economy, how it's an ingredient in so many of our products, in fertilizers and petrochemicals and plastics. So we need natural gas.

So I put the priority, and we have a bill that says the first 20 miles remains locked up. The second 25 miles State option, State control, and the next 50 miles is open unless the States pass a bill to lock it up. They can do that. The second hundred miles is just open. That's the bill that I have proposed. And I think it's vital to the future of this country, because if we opened up the Outer Continental Shelf on the East and West Coast and the rest of the gulf we would have ample supply of natural gas for many, many years.

Now, we need to produce other kinds of fuel. I mean, what I think a lot of people are not aware of is there is an energy shortage in the world. In fact, right now OPEC controls the price. I believe the price ends the day at somewhere between $75, $76 for oil. Gas is about 7 bucks, which is the cheapest it has been, but this is the slowest time of year in the use of gas. This is gas that is going into storage that you add a couple, 3 bucks to, and then there are distribution costs, and it comes back out on a next year's average price. And this year the price of gas is higher than last year so far in storage.

So we are going to have a 25 to 30 percent increase in gas prices, and it appears we are going to have, because here we are with not one storm in the gulf, which always disrupts supply. Right at the moment, we don't have a large sending country in trouble with their government. So things are kind of calm, and we have $75 oil, and we are at the high usage time, right in the mid-summer. So now all we have to do is have a storm or two in the gulf, like we did 2 years ago, and have a country have some sort of disturbance or a government overthrown, and we have $85 or $90 oil, and we know what that is going to do to the American economy. In fact, I am not sure we are really sure what $3 gasoline, which is prevalent today, is going to do to the economy long term because we have had spikes for short periods of time. But now, in my view, $3 is the base price, and it is going up from there. It is just a matter of how much it goes up.

I think what is important for Americans and Members of Congress to understand is that we have to really get serious about energy policy for this country. I am for wind and I am for solar and I am for geothermal and I was part of the Hydrogen Caucus when I first came. I am for all of those.

But they are tiny fractions when you look at the amounts they produce. And we also know that wind has its opponents and solar has just had trouble getting off the ground. I mean, it just has trouble growing. I read an article today that said ethanol, the new fuel, we spent $5.1 billion last year, subsidizing that by paying the tax on it. So it doesn't come free. And it seems foolish to me that we as a country now want to buy our natural gas from foreign countries and bring it in ships and be once again dependent.

I have had that argument with a lot of leaders in the last few years that LNG could be part of the solution, but it is not the solution. And that has turned out true because countries like Spain and Japan outbid us because they will pay more for a tanker load of natural gas than we can afford to. So we don't often get it because it becomes a commodity once a ship is loaded. But I want to get across to Members of Congress and to the American people is that we want to be for the clean and green fuels, but I think natural gas is one of those.

Natural gas is one of the cleanest fuels we have. And if we had ample supply of it, we could be expanding the use of it, not just detracting the use of it. It could be our bridge until we figure out how to make cellulosic ethanol, until we figure out how to get hydrogen vehicles, until we figure out how to charge our cars up at night with electric and have batteries that will last and all these things we are working on, we need a bridge to get to them because what is going to happen if we allow ourselves to have $100 oil from foreign countries, unstable governments, who are totally going to own this country?

The major balance of payment, and I will just show you that in conclusion, is the last chart here. This is one on manufacturing decline as natural gas prices have risen. But here is the one on the balance of payment. The major portion of the balance of payment, a huge portion, is energy prices. And as energy prices go up and we continue to import, that figure is going to grow. We could almost cut our balance of payment in half if we stopped importing energy.

Now, we are not going to be able to do that but we could move a long ways. But we need cola liquids. We need to develop the hydrogens and the winds and solars and all of those. We need to do more nuclear. We need all of those because China is increasing their energy usage 15 to 20 percent a year, and they are just drying up the marketplace. They are just sucking it dry because they are, and many other countries, are developing a strong energy portfolio; so they have energy. The United States has done little to secure its economic future with clean, green, affordable energy.

And I hope when we finally pass bills here that we have some energy in them that will secure our economic future with clean, green, affordable energy and specifically natural gas.

We have anywhere from a 50- to 100-year supply. There are huge amounts in the Midwest, but the Outer Continental Shelf has actually not been measured. But we had old seismographic 40 years ago. Actually this Congress has prevented, and I see the Senate right now is preventing, seismographic from being done in the portion of the gulf that has not been produced.

Not only do we prohibit usage but we prohibit the measurement.

Now, there was a lot of drilling off the coast of Florida a few years ago. We bought those leases back. That was very fertile gas. There is very fertile gas up in Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, New Jersey. The east coast is loaded with gas, and it is very rich, and it is where the population is. And when you produce in the ocean, it is out of sight. It is beyond the site line. The habitat for fisheries improve. They love to be around the rigs. They love to be around the platforms. And, of course, the underground piping comes in the ground under the water. It is not even seen. It is clean, green fuel. And they talk about it harming a beach. I don't know how gas harms a beach. I have never seen dirty natural gas. It's clean. It doesn't stain anything. It isn't colorful. It's just a gas. So it has been somewhat amazing. We have lots of natural gas.

When we started down that road, natural gas was less than $2 a thousand. And it has hit as high as $14 and $15 in peak periods. But Daniel Yergen, who wrote the book ``The Prize,'' spoke in the Senate shortly after that process started, and I happened to be there with Steve Largent. And he said if we don't open up supply, we are going to make natural gases so high that Americans will struggle to heat their homes, struggle to run their businesses, struggle to heat their hospitals. We are not going to make products in this country much longer that consume a lot of natural gas.

I predict if we don't deal with the natural gas issue, simple things like glass and bricks will be made in Trinidad, where gas is about a buck a thousand. That is not very far from here. Trinidad is in northern South America, probably a boat, a ship, a day away. It wouldn't take long to get to the east coast with a ship of bricks and glass. And that is a tragedy if we start importing those kinds of things that the American working man has made.

This is about jobs for working people. It is about the economy for the working people of this country. Energy punishes the poor and the middle class. The rich will go right along. The rich environmentalists who are against will live right on. They won't change their life-style. They will live in their huge homes and fancy cars and they will do their thing because money is not a problem. But the middle-class working people will not have a middle-class job anymore. They will have a poor man's job. And the poverty rate in this country will skyrocket.

Some of the best jobs in America are producing energy. When you buy Luke Oil gasoline down here, that is produced in Russia, and only the person selling it makes money in America.

Mr. Pearce can tell you how many people make money because he knows that business in the production of energy. He will give you some great information.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida and those cosponsoring this legislation.

I couldn't agree more that we must prevent or do everything we can to make sure there is not a cartel. There is some hard evidence though. Dow Chemical recently shared with me their natural gas cost. In 2002, they spent $8 billion for natural gas. In 2006, that same bill cost them $22 billion. And it is rising. It is the reason they are now investing $32 billion in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Libya, because natural gas is dirt cheap there. New chemical plants are going to replace us.

Mill Hall Clay Products was in my district for 83 years making clay pipe. They went out of business this year, and the sole reason was natural gas cost prices. When it would reach a certain level, they no longer could be profitable, and they are history.

Natural gas, clean, green natural gas, is our bridge to the future, and we must have it affordable.

Currently, it is in high usage to make ethanol. We use a lot of it to make biodiesel. When the wind and solar, the sun doesn't shine, we turn on a natural gas power plant. Natural gas is our bridge to the future. We could displace a third of our auto fleet, short-haul vehicles with natural gas, and remove the need for 2.5 million barrels of oil a day.

But folks, it is great to urge that we don't have a cartel formed, but Russia is working hard at this. We just hope and pray that they are not successful because we know what they want to do; they want to control the price.

I had this debate with the President some time ago on Air Force One that LNG was going to be the answer to our future natural gas needs, and 2 years later we are not importing much more natural gas than then because we can't buy it. When a ship gets filled with natural gas, it is a commodity. Spain outbids us routinely. Japan outbids us routinely. Our ports, we have been trying to build ports and have not been able to get them permitted. They are only at 40-some percent of capacity. Why, because we can't buy it because of the demand in the world marketplace for it, countries who don't have any.

Our fortunate part is America can be self-sufficient on natural gas. We could not import one cmf if we chose to produce it. Canada currently furnishes about 15 percent of our gas. We get about 2 percent with LNG. The rest we produce ourselves, but we have locked up much of our mainland. We have locked up our Outer Continental Shelf. We can go out of sight where it isn't in sight. There has never been a natural gas well that has ever polluted a beach. And if it is out of sight, nobody knows it is there.

Since 1913, Canada has produced natural gas in our Great Lakes, and they sell that gas to us. We don't even know it is there. The ship moves in, they drill their well, and the underground guys go down and put the piping in. Then they sell the gas to us. If they are slant drilling, they are probably selling us our own gas.

Clean, green natural gas should never be a long-term problem for America. All we need is the will to produce it. Clean, green natural gas, it is the best

fuel we have. No NOX, no SOX, a third of the CO2. The whole climate change issue, natural gas is the biggest, most significant change we can make. And we don't need to lose the Dow Chemicals in the future. We don't need to lose the Mill Hall Clay products in the future. We just have to get out of our minds that a gas well is not something that pollutes. It is a hole in the ground with a pipe in it that lets clean, green natural gas out.

We need to make sure that we never have a cartel setting our prices like we do in oil. Today the oil prices are in the $70s, because the cartel is in control. They have been in control for a couple of years now. They lost control for a while. They are back in control today, and they control the price of energy. We must not let that happen with natural gas. We have had the highest natural gas prices in the world for 6 years because it is not a world market. And we must change that so that we can compete. We will lose our chemical plants, our fertilizer plants, our polymer plants, our plastic plants. We will lose aluminum and steel that we have left. And I predict, because gas is only a buck and a quarter in Trinidad, just a short distance from here, one day on a ship, we will be making glass and bricks there and bringing them here, and the working people of America will not have a job because of high natural gas prices.

That is an issue that this Congress needs to deal with. It is important that we do not let a cartel form. We can't stop that, we can only sell, and we must continue to sell, but we can prevent it by producing the clean natural gas that is abundant in this country.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Yes.

I rise to support the Secure Rural Schools Act. My district in Pennsylvania is affected by this and many districts in the west are affected by this Act.

Over the years, timber harvesting and other mineral resources harvesting provided a huge resource for local governments, and, specifically, schools.

When those who chose not to continue the wise management of our forest by allowing the mature trees to be harvested, America's most renewable resource, we had school districts and governments in tremendous financial crisis. Several years ago, Congress had the wisdom to pass the Secure Rural Schools Act that helped stabilize the ability to educate our young people and give them the chances of an adequate, good education, because these rural communities did not have the infrastructure, because most of the property and land and resources was owned by the Federal Government. This Act has helped in immense ways, and this chance, this amendment, will continue that funding.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle).

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

This amendment, I believe, is one of the most important issues that we will deal with in this Congress. It's about having affordable, available, clean, green natural gas, the fuel that we take for granted. It's the fuel that heats about 60 percent of our homes, 70 percent of our businesses, and is the major building block to all the industries that are left in this country.

The petrochemical industry, 55 percent of their operating cost is natural gas. The polymers and plastic industry, 45 percent of their operational cost is natural gas. And fertilizer can be as high as 70 percent of their cost is natural gas because they use it as a fuel and they use it as an ingredient to make their product. It's an ingredient in all those products.

Clean, green natural gas now generates about 20 percent of our electricity. That didn't used to be. Biodiesel consumes huge amounts of natural gas in the production cost. Ethanol, 96 percent of the plants that make ethanol use huge amounts of natural gas. We are consuming more natural gas in this country than we're able to produce.

The chart on the left with the red, that's the gap that's growing, because we as a country, 26 years ago, Congress decided that we shouldn't produce energy offshore. Every country in the world produces both oil and gas offshore. Now, they have setbacks. But they all use offshore production because it's the cleanest, best, safest way to produce energy, and there's huge amounts out there.

Now, for this country to have the highest natural gas prices in the world almost is insanity, because we have lots of it, but we have chosen to lock it up and not produce it. This is the clean, green fuel. It's greener than biofuels. It's what we use to generate electricity when the wind doesn't blow. It's what we use to generate electricity when the sun doesn't shine for solar. It's what we use to make hydrogen for the hydrogen vehicles that are oncoming. It's the bridge to our future because it's clean, it's green. No NOX, SOX and a third of the CO2 that all other energies project. For this country not to open up its Outer Continental Shelf to natural gas, my amendment opens it up from 25 miles on out.

That doesn't mean it's going to be drilled. It would still have to be in the 5-year plan, but it would open it up.

Let me tell you, folks, we're going to do this sometime. It depends on whether we do it in time to save the millions of jobs that are leaving. Dow Chemical's energy bill went from $8 billion in '02, natural gas bill, to $22 billion in '06. They came to our committee the last 2 years and begged for release. Produce natural gas. We didn't. They just invested $30 billion that they wanted to invest in America for working men in America and working women in America to have a good job. They're putting it in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Libya, because natural gas is a fraction there of what it is here. It is absolute insanity for America to starve itself of the clean, green fuel that has never foiled a beach.

California, New Jersey and Florida will protest the most. It will never foil a beach. A gas well has never foiled a beach. It has never washed up on a shore. It's a gas. And they are the three States that are the largest consumers and who have switched their electric generation to gas and helped cause the problem that have protested the production of clean, green natural gas.

My amendment is the amendment that can keep America competitive. It can keep us strong as a nation. It can keep American working people working in their jobs, in their factories. But if we don't pass my amendment, we will lose millions of jobs in this country; in fact, all of the manufacturing jobs. I lost a plant this year that made clay tile. Natural gas prices. I got a letter the other day from a guy who re-formed steel, and he said if it continues to go up, it has went up three times in the last 2 years, 300 percent.

He said, if it goes up any further, I am out of business. I can't make sign posts. I can't make bed rail anymore out of recycled steel rail.

Folks, clean, green natural gas is more America's fuel that can keep this country strong and growing and environmentally green.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Several things have been said that I think must be responded to. Oil and gas spills. Could someone here show me a gas spill? A natural gas spill? There is no recorded history of one. Natural gas comes out of the ocean floor and bubbles into the air all over the ocean all the time. But there is no spill.

The fact is you can't drill for gas without oil. I grew up around it. I have never made money in the oil business. I have never invested a dime in it. But I grew up around it. You drill a hole in the ground. You put a steel casing in the ground. You register every place you go through, coal, gas, oil, rocks. It is actually rocks that have oil and gas in them. Then you notch the pipe where you want to produce.

In Pennsylvania, there were three or four oil sands, and the gas is way below the oil in most places. There was a little bit of gas in the oil, but not a lot. You notch the pipe where you want to produce it. So if you want to produce gas, you notch the pipe and you produce the gas, and that is sand.

Natural gas is the future of America until we can grow our renewables. I am for wind. I am for solar. I am for biofuels. I am for hydrogen cars. But let me show you how small that is; 86 percent of our energy is fossil fuel; 40 oil, 23 gas, 23 coal. That is 86. Eight percent is nuclear. We are now at 94. Six is percent renewables. Listen closely, 6 percent renewables. Five percent is biomass and hydro. Wind, solar, hydrogen, and geothermal, our future, is 1 percent. If we can double it every 5 years, it will cost a lot, but I am for it. But we are still then at 2 percent.

How do we fuel this economy that is growing a need for energy by 2 percent, and we have countries like China and India that are growing at 15 to 20 percent, and their energy consumption is sucking up the world's supply? When the moratorium was put on, we had $2 gas and $10 oil. We were awash in it. It didn't matter.

Oil and gas is scarce today. There is a world shortage. Right now, they are predicting $79 oil this summer, which will be $3.50 gas without a storm in the Gulf, without a country being upset. The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that if we have a storm in the Gulf and we have a country that gets upset that produces a lot of oil, we could have $85 to $89 oil. Do you know what that will do to home heating this winter? Do you know what that will do to travel costs? Folks, it is crisis time. Clean, green natural gas is the best alternative for a healthy America.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment deals with 100 miles offshore. When we had the debate last year, I wanted to clarify something. Everybody kept talking about a compromise. We passed a major bill in the House that opened up the OCS for both gas and oil. The Senate passed what I call a little small bill in little pieces of the Gulf that President Clinton actually had in the 5-year plan, but never leased it.

In my discussions with the other body, we were always hoping to have a compromise, but we never had one. We never had a conference committee. We reluctantly agreed to take the Senate bill because it was something, and America needs something, so we took this small piece in the Gulf because it is some additional energy for America.

We will soon be 64 percent dependent on foreign, unstable countries. I hear on both sides of the aisle here that people are distressed about that. These are not our friends. These are countries that are not democracies. They are not real stable. We often lose energy when they just have their government topple or be out of favor for a while.

We are dependent on undependable countries of the world who are not our friends. They now set the price. OPEC is back in charge. OPEC turns the spigot and lets big oil make a lot of money. I said to somebody one day, big oil's best friends are Congress and OPEC.

Collectively, we have slowed up the ability to produce oil and gas. And when we slow up the ability to produce oil and gas, the price rises. And if you owned it when it was worth $30 a barrel and were able to produce it and make money, and government restriction of supply and OPEC's restriction of supply raises the price to $70, are you going to make money? You betcha.

If you want to drop prices down, open up supply. Wall Street traders run the price up. They set the price of gasoline, fuel oil, natural gas, oil. Wall Street. Why? Strategizing on it if they can buy it and sell it and make money today or tomorrow. We often pay 15 or 20 percent of our energy prices to Wall Street as they play with it because there are shortages. When it is plentiful, they don't monkey with it.

Folks, we need a plentiful supply of gas and oil for this country. Cuba is going to be producing with China and other countries 35 to 40 miles from the Keys, our most precious Florida parks. And we are going to stay completely 200 miles offshore.

Folks, this is insanity for this country to not utilize its resources, to be dependent on undependable countries who control our destiny. And as we grow the renewables, as we get more wind and more solar and more geothermal, it is going to be years, if not decades, before we have in sufficient quantity, and in the meantime we are going to need fossil fuels, and we need to produce them.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Chairman, as we talk about the production of energy and as we talk about oil being so devastating and gas being so devastating, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all known for being environmentally sensitive countries. They all produce offshore. All of them. We are the only nation in the world that has chosen to close up our energy supply. We are dependent on unstable, unfriendly countries who control our prices and control the future of our economy.

The working people of America are counting on us to give them affordable energy that they can heat their homes with and drive their cars and have a decent competitive job. That is what this is about. And I wish we could do it with wind. I wish we could do it with solar. I wish all of those things were bigger and could grow faster.

Folks, we need to produce energy if we want to compete in the new global economy.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Do you realize how long it has been since we have actually done a modern seismographic on the OCS? It has not been done in 40 years. We didn't have good seismographics then. We don't really know, but we know there is a lot out there. If we had modern seismographics, it is usually three to four times what we thought.

I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for their bonding of bipartisanship. We could use a lot more of that around here. I think it has been great.

I want to thank the chairman and ranking member for accepting my amendment in full committee that was a GAO study on the implications of changing our fuel source from coal to natural gas. That's a symbol for America to listen to our carbon imprint, so we will go to the clean, green fuel, natural gas.

I see universities doing it. I see State governments doing it already. As our symbol, if that happens in all agencies, State, local, education, we will have a huge impact on the need of affordable, clean natural gas in this country.

My concern is we have a body here who is very much opposed to the production of clean, green natural gas.

One point, on Green the Capitol, I have not been able to find a window that was Energy Star. I have not been able to find a window that was not a single-pane glass that is a great transfer of heat out and cold in. It seems like we ought to be using fuel-efficient first. Maybe that's our next objective.

We're going to be accepting an amendment in a few minutes, and I am not going to protest it, I will not debate it, on light bulbs. It's going to mandate energy-efficient Star-rated light bulbs.

I have them in my home. I have a large home. We have a lot of lights going, and I try to put them where I burn them all the time. But they are not very bright. They are not good for reading. My wife has replaced the one in her reading chair. They buzz sometimes, they just buzz like a transformer, so they are not exactly what we are used to.

Oh, by the way, next year at this time, every light bulb in the Capitol will be made in Communist China, will have mercury in it, and the incandescent light bulb industry that's left in this industry, and I have two plants, those good union jobs will be leaving quicker, not later.

I am not saying Americans shouldn't switch, but we need to know what we're doing.

I believe we need to have a much more thoughtful approach and look at where the jobs are in America in that we are transferring jobs to China. We're putting mercury into the workplace, and we're eliminating some of the best jobs that we have back in our districts. We need to think about that.

Mr. Chairman, I think this is one of the more important amendments we're going to deal with today.

America needs available power, and especially electric power. We have a system that has not worked. The legislation doesn't give the Federal Government the right to usurp States rights. It only gets involved when multiple States can't get their job done. I was in State government for 19 years, and I wouldn't bet the farm on four PUCs adequately performing on a time basis so we could connect our grid.

Here's what Bill Richardson said in 2001. ``The United States has a first-rate economy. We're the Superpower of the world, the best military, a booming technological economy, but we've got a grid that is antiquated, that is Third World, that needs beefing up. We've got very weak power transmission lines to connect our generation capacity.''

And here's what Sam Bodman said in 2006, a year ago. ``The Nation is currently facing serious near problems in adequately delivering electricity to its customers.''

It means we have to fix the grid. And we've been unable to get States to work together collectively. This is a process that only kicks in when the States can't get their job done.

Connecting this country is a national issue. I don't want my State in charge of the national grid. I had a Governor's person come into my office protesting a power line that was proposed. It had been off of the table by the PGM for a year and a half and they didn't even know it. It wasn't even up for consideration. And the three States that were involved in the little piece that was left was not that State.

Folks, there's a lot of disinformation out here. The connectivity of our electric system is vital to our economic future and we need a process. This was put in the energy bill because it wasn't working, because we couldn't upgrade our grid.

And two Secretaries of Energy and leaders across this country, the Edison Institute, all say, don't pass this amendment.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Dr. Warren F. Witzig, of State College, PA, who died on June 13, 2007. Dr. Witzig, who was born on March 26, 1921, was one of the pioneers of nuclear power. Indeed, the Penn State Nuclear Engineering Society recently honored him as a ``visionary and innovator in the establishment of the United States nuclear power industry.'' The Penn State community, his friends and colleagues, and most importantly, his family, will miss him.

Dr. Witzig received a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1942, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY; an M.S. in electrical engineering in 1944, from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pittsburgh. From 1942 to 1960, Dr. Witzig was employed at the Westinghouse Research Laboratories and Bettis Plant in Pittsburgh, PA.

During World War II, he worked on the Manhattan District program on high vacuum systems, heat transfer, mass spectroscopy, and ionic centrifuge. He served as the first experimenter in the Materials Testing Reaction and later as engineering manager of in-pile tests for the naval reaction program in Hanford, Chalk River, and the MTR-ETR complex.

Dr. Witzig took the reactor of USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered ship, critical for the first time in 1954 while serving as senior engineer. He was integral in the development of nuclear submarines used by the U.S. Navy, developing engineering that was vital to the Skipjack and George Washington series of nuclear submarines, which have been the backbone of the U.S. nuclear navy.

After leaving government service, he traveled worldwide in his consulting practice, NUS Corp., which grew into one of the country's largest independent groups of nuclear consultants. He became professor and department head of Nuclear Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University in 1967. While at Penn State, Dr. Witzig was responsible for one of the earliest student programs in nuclear engineering in the United States. He established the undergraduate and associate degree programs and initiated the continuing education Program on Radiation, Nuclear Safety and Environmental Effects for Public Education. Dr. Witzig conducted research in areas of reactor design and safety, fuel cycle, nuclear safeguards, rad-waste disposal, emergency planning and radiation monitoring.

Retiring from the university in 1986, he served on multiple public and private nuclear safety and oversight boards. Dr. Witzig chaired the Westinghouse GoCo Sites Nuclear Safety and Environmental Institute board of directors from 1988 to 1993. In 1979, Governor Richard Thornburgh called him into the service of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the emergency shutdown of Three Mile Island II.

In June 1992, Witzig presented the paper, ``The Value of a Nuclear Safety and Environmental Committee,'' at the Ukraine Academy of Science at Chelyabinski State University. He toured the site of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Dr. Witzig had been a life-long advocate of nuclear energy as a clean, safe, and efficient source of energy and also for the training, accreditation, and oversight of nuclear operators.

Among Dr. Witzig's honors are Fellow, American Nuclear Society; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Sigma Xi, Sigma Pi Sigma, and Eta Kappa Nu honor societies; Special Citation for an Engineering educator in Excellence in Engineering Education, EEl Power Engineering; Who's Who in Engineering and America; and Penn State's Outstanding Service Award for retirees.

He was also a leader in his community, serving Ferguson Township as a financial auditor and working 6 years on the Planning Commission, establishing the township's first comprehensive zoning ordinance. A member of the State College Presbyterian Church, Dr. Witzig was an ordained elder of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. He served on the Christian Education committee, and was a Sunday School teacher.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in extending our deepest sympathy to Dr. Witzig's family, especially his beloved wife Bernadette, his children Eric, Leah, Marc, and Lisa, his grandchildren Heather, Sean, Christie, Monica, Mallory, and Alicia, and his great grandchildren Madeline, Ava, and Miles. Our Nation owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Witzig for his contributions to nuclear engineering. His leadership and ingenuity have saved lives, developed new technology, and advanced our knowledge of nuclear science.

I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky, Ranking Member Rogers, for yielding time and for the leadership he and Chairman Price have given this committee. It has been a pleasure to serve.

I rise today to speak about an issue of vital importance to me, the infrastructure protection and our energy delivery system protection.

This bill has $532 million to protect the infrastructure of this country. Our transportation system has been a very high focus because that is how we were attacked, the use of our transportation system. But in my view, the vulnerability of America is very much its infrastructure on energy. We lack oil refineries and cannot afford to have any refineries offline from a terrorist attack. We now import 13 percent of our gasoline from foreign countries and often have to bid for it when it's in the ship.

Our natural gas system is struggling to furnish adequate and affordable natural gas for us to heat our homes and run our businesses because we are using huge amounts of it now to generate electricity. We are using large amounts of it now to make ethanol because it is a fuel. Ninety-six percent of all the new ethanol plants use natural gas.

We are finding that natural gas is the mother's milk of this country, and any disruption in our pipeline system, because we are not able to produce adequate amounts of natural gas without any disruption in the current delivery system.

Our electric grid, in my view, we were short on generating capacity; that has been beefed up because we have built a lot of natural gas electric generators. But we have not adequately invested, or in some cases have not been able to build the grid that connects our country. We need to have all of our country criss-crossed with a stronger grid, so that if any portion of it goes down, another portion, we can come in the back door with electricity.

Our dependence on electricity and our use of electricity is growing every day. And in my view, with wind and solar slowly coming online, those are often in areas that we don't have a good hookup to the grid, and we need to build transmission lines to bring that capacity to the system.

I believe the Department of Homeland Security must be more stringently identified as a priority within the Department of Homeland Security. I have said throughout the process of marking up this bill that the vulnerabilities of our electric grid, our pipeline system and our refinery system need to be a higher priority. I am thankful for the language that was accepted in this bill to require the Department of Homeland Security, with input from the Department of Energy, to provide a report on the most critical capacity limit segments of the North American electricity transmission and distribution network. And we probably ought to be doing the same for all of our other energy infrastructures.

It is critical that we identify these segments and also identify if disruption of any of these segments would generate a cascading affect that could cripple the economy of our country. It is vital that we protect our energy infrastructure.

I want to thank Mr. Rogers and Mr. Price for their dedication on this bill and their willingness to work with me on what I believe are the vulnerabilities that need to be beefed up to make sure this country has the energy it needs.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 445 to H. Res. 465, I was mistakenly recorded as an ``aye''. My intended vote was ``no''.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 237 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Stated against: