Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose this amendment. Marijuana is not a harmless drug. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, the American Medical Association and other science-based research institutes have documented the substantial risks of using marijuana. The FDA, on the other hand, has already approved Marinol, which contains THC, a derivative of the active chemical in marijuana, totally undermining claims that there is any need for medical marijuana.

If passed, this amendment would open the door for drug dealers to use medical marijuana exemptions as cover for their growing and selling operations. Up until recently, no adequate testing had been done in this country on the devastating effects of marijuana use. If only the young people of America knew of the study that just has been released recently that marijuana use curtails the development of the brain. We have very young people in this country using marijuana, and marijuana curtails the growth of our brain, and our brain is not mature until we are 25 years of age. Anything we do that encourages young people to use marijuana will have a devastating impact on their mental capacity.

I speak with a little experience on this. I have some friends who grew up when marijuana was the hot issue, and some of the brightest young people I knew became somewhat dull and have remained that way all of their life because the recent study proves that

marijuana use curtails the growth and development of the brain.

I have never had a physician tell me that it was needed in his portfolio to treat medical diseases and pain. I have never had a physician, and I have been in the health care field, in the legislative process, for 20 some years.

Medical marijuana is not something that is needed in this country. It is a drug that stops the development of the brains in our youth, and it should not become legal in any way, in my view.

Mr. Chairman, energy prices, specifically natural gas prices, in the United States have reached drastically high levels and are devastating our agricultural sector. Maintaining abundant supplies of natural gas and other various forms of energy are essential to keeping American agriculture competitive within the world marketplace.

According to the Fertilizer Institute on May 26 of this year, ``Natural gas is the feedstock for producing nitrogen fertilizer and accounts for up to 90 percent of the cost of its production. As a result of the ongoing natural gas crisis in the United States, 21 nitrogen fertilizer production facilities have closed since 1998. Sixteen of those plants have closed permanently, while five plants remain idle.''

If present policy of denial of access to decades of natural gas reserves continues in this country, the future offers no hope for relief. The U.S. Department of Energy projects that by 2010 the Nation's demand for natural gas will increase by another 30 percent. We cannot continue to have the highest natural gas prices in world. We are at $7, Canada is at $6, Europe is at $5, China is at $4, and the rest of the world is below $2, and two countries are below $1.

Mr. Chairman, as we move toward a conference with the Senate, may I have the gentleman from Texas's (Chairman Bonilla) commitment to work with me in securing report language calling for the Economic Research Service to examine the impact of rising natural gas prices on our domestic agricultural economy and the effects that has on American agriculture in the world marketplace?

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I thank him for his answer.

Amendment No. 6 Offered by Mr. Chabot

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments, and I ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc.

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment will remove the words ``natural gas'' from the moratorium that has been in every Interior bill, I am told, for 20 some years, unbeknownst to many Members of this Congress, that prohibits the Department of Interior from leasing or subleasing lands on the Outer Continental Shelf, our greatest reserve for natural gas.

The number one economic challenge facing America was not addressed in our energy bill, in my view and the view of many, because we did not adequately deal with the clean fuel, the fuel that has no NOX, no SOX, the least CO2, the clean- burning fuel, natural gas, that can be our bridge to the future.

It is threatening home ownership, folks. 76 percent increase in oil prices, 176 percent increase in natural gas prices. Here is what one of our leading employer group says: America has a new energy crisis. This time it is the runaway price of natural gas.

Congress must act now to ease the natural gas crisis of this Nation's fragile economic recovery, or it will return to recession. Every recession since World War II has been preceded by a run-up in energy prices and none of the run-up in prices have equaled the run-up in natural gas prices.

It is threatening small business. It is the fastest increase in the cost of education. It is the fastest increase in the cost of our hospital health care. It is the greatest threat to our farm community with exploding fertilizer costs. And because fertilizer factories use so much natural gas, 21 of them have quit making fertilizer in America, and all of them are looking offshore to produce fertilizer. Ninety thousand chemical jobs, some of the best paying jobs in the industrial sector we have left. Polymers and plastics are all looking to move offshore.

The production of natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf is not looked at as an environmental threat by Canada, they sell us gas that they produce, the UK, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, all countries with environmental records. Eighty-five percent of our gas reserves are locked up by moratorium.

Why? It is the clean fuel. As I said before, no docks, CO2 one-fourth as much. It is the bridge to hydrogen. It could be bridging us in the transportation field like school buses, transportation systems, taxicabs, delivery trucks, easily changeable to natural gas if it was affordable and we had adequate supply.

Natural gas is 25 percent of our energy use today. If we had an adequate supply, it could be the friendly bridge, the environmentally friendly bridge, to lead us to hydrogen, give us time for stronger conservation measures, growing use of renewables and less dependence on oil today.

A gas well is not an environmental threat. It is a 6-inch hole that is cemented at the top and cemented at the bottom with a steel casing, and it lets gas out. Canada produces in our Great Lakes and sells the gas to us with no environmental impact.

When we look at this map, and this is my concluding comment, the natural gas and oil, when we buy $50 oil, the whole world buys $50 oil; but in natural gas we are at $7. Europe is at $5-something. Japan and China are 4-something, and then we look at a dollar, 90 cents in Russia. Where are industries going to grow? They are not going to grow here.

This is the most important amendment we will consider, in my view, in this part of Congress. Natural gas is a tragedy happening, and we can stop it by lifting the moratorium.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

(Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

(Mr. KING of Iowa asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to ask the gentleman if we had hearings before it was put in this bill 20 years ago and every year in a row? No.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

(Mr. PEARCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, for the first 2 years I served in Congress, I was fortunate to serve on this committee; and I will have to honestly say I miss that opportunity because I really did enjoy it. The future of America depends on the work of this committee.

I want to commend the committee on the work they have done on this bill. I think they have done outstanding work at working through the process of making this a strong bill. It is my belief that our economic future depends on the use of the latest, most modern technology. Historically, the academically gifted in America have unlimited opportunities; but, unfortunately, the

technically gifted have too often been left behind because we have undervalued technology education. This bill modernizes Perkins and advances technical education to what I hope is a brighter future.

When you look at the delivery of health care, it is about technology. When you look at manufacturing, if we are going to be successful against cheap labor, it is about technology. You talk the whole IT revolution in this country, it is technology. It is what caused it. Marketing is technology. Warehousing and distribution, it is technology. Repairing autos and equipment, it is about technology. Technology is what makes our country work today, and it is vital.

We have too often had high schools that were using 1970 technology in the era of 2005. That does not cut it. We have to advance technical education and make sure that America's youth realize that the jobs that are wanting in America have the word ``technology'' beside them. There are many people with 2-year technology degrees that will earn a better income than those with 4-year liberal arts degrees, and we do not offer them adequately in the same manner that we offer academic education.

If you look at the successful companies that are competing globally, it is about the massive use of technology. We must make sure that our high schools is where it begins, in the early middle schools, that young people realize the excitement of the technology world and that we have the latest, most modern technology there and that we bridge it into the community colleges. In some of the more progressive States, we have community colleges paralleling at the high schools, joint teaching in the 11th and 12th grade, adding the 13th year and giving a 2-year associate's degree in technology that equips people to go to work more. All of those fields needing the technology workers would be happy if we could do that on a broad scale across this country.

I commend again this committee and the staff for putting together a good bill, and let us hope that it is the beginning of technology education being valued in this country, because it must be if we have an economic future because our economy in the future is about the massive use of technology.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor four Samaritans that put their lives at risk to save a young man who was badly electrocuted after a car accident in rural Forest County, Pennsylvania, on February 12th of this year.

On that snowy Saturday, Eric Wallace was driving on Blue Jay Road through the Allegheny National Forest, when he lost control of his pickup truck. The vehicle crossed the roadway and rolled over an embankment, landing on the driver's side. Mr. Wallace climbed out of his vehicle, but came into contact with live power lines buried in the snow. Mr. Wallace went down 50 feet from his wrecked truck, his face in the snow and a hand and foot aflame from the current passing though his body.

Thankfully for Mr. Wallace, four men happened to be on this rural two-lane road on that winter Saturday. One man, Ron Weisenstein of nearby Sheffield was the first to happen by the accident scene, which he saw from his vehicle. Mr. Weisenstein pulled his vehicle over and ran to the injured passenger. Seeing the power lines across Mr. Wallace's body, Mr. Weisnesten instinctually pulled the victim away from the lines, only to receive powerful shock himself.

Michael Brunner was working at his parent's house down the road from the accident when he heard the crash. After having his parents call 911, Mr. Brunner ran down the road to join Mr. Weisenstein. Shortly thereafter, Brian Marshall came upon the accident. Appraising the situation, Mr. Marshall told the two others that he had a rope in his vehicle. Mr. Weisenstein took the rope and wrapped it around Mr. Wallace's left foot, finally pulling him off the downed power lines.

The three men found Mr. Wallace to be without a heartbeat and not breathing. Mr. Brunner remembered the CPR training he had received as a Boy Scout in his youth and with the assistance of Mr. Weisenstein was able to get the injured man breathing again. Soon after Mr. Wallace started to breath on his own, Paul Hebert came across the accident. Mr. Hebert, an Emergency Medical Technician visiting the area from Manassas, Virginia, cleared Mr. Wallace's airways and helped stabilize the man until personnel from the Sheffield Volunteer Fire Department arrived. Mr. Wallace was taken by helicopter to the Intensive Care Burn Unit at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is now on the road to recovery.

Mr. Speaker, without the assistance of these four gentlemen who happened to be on this quiet road through the forest on a winter's day, Eric Wallace would have likely died either from electrocution or exposure to the cold. We should all applaud their quick thinking, teamwork, and selflessness to help a fellow man, and I am honored to have the opportunity to highlight their actions.

Madam Chairman, I think I am on a different bill than I just heard described here. I applaud the energy efficiency and conservation in this bill. I applaud the increasing of renewable technologies in this bill. I applaud the hydrogen fuel cell program in this bill. I applaud the next-generation nuclear in this bill. I applaud the clean coal technology.

I applaud the incentives for deep gas drilling. That is the one issue I do not think we do enough in this bill. I believe we need to do much more to increase the supply of natural gas, and I hope in conference we can.

Current natural gas prices are exporting thousands of American jobs, the best jobs we have, the chemical plants, fertilizer factories, and those who melt steel and ore and use a lot of national gas.

We as a country have an island to ourselves with natural gas; they are not world prices. When everybody pays $50 for oil, we have the highest prices for natural gas of all modern countries, and we are losing the companies who use large quantities of it.

Just to compare, we are 40 percent higher on natural gas than Europe. We are 50 percent higher than Japan. We are 600 percent higher than South America. We are 800 percent higher than Russia. We heat our homes, our schools, our hospitals, and our businesses with natural gas.

It is the bridge to hydrogen. All hydrogen today generally is made from natural gas; it is the easiest way to make it. It can assist us in transportation, with our buses, taxi cabs, delivery trucks, by using natural gas rather than oil. We need, in the final bill, to have a much stronger chapter with natural gas; it is the one area that I think we need stronger in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank both the chairman and the ranking member for bringing this legislation up. It is very simple. They have explained it well. The Allegheny National Forest is a 600,000-acre forest in northwestern Pennsylvania. These parcels were used for some of their management facilities that have now been relocated on the forest in new facilities.

Some of these plots of land have nice buildings on them. They are deteriorating. They need to be turned back over into the private sector, into the local government sector. One piece will go to the local fire department in Marionville, Pennsylvania, which will help them expand their service for the community there. Another one will be to the Ridgway Township whose facilities border this land. It will assist them. In fact, the facility will enhance their ability to serve their community. Another parcel will go to the county economic development agency for further development of the economy in that region. The other parcels will be put up for sale, and the cash will be used to enhance the many facilities that are on the Allegheny National Forest. The use of those facilities continues to grow, but there is a lot of

maintenance, there are a lot of enhancements needed to serve the growing public use of the forest. I just want to thank the committee and all those for bringing this forward and ask my colleagues to pass this legislation. It is good government.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla).

I rise today on behalf of the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis) and the rest of the Congressional Rural Caucus to request that as you move forward with this appropriations bill and eventually go to a conference committee with the Senate you will work with the Rural Caucus to increase appropriations for both the value-added agricultural product market development grant program and the rural broadband loan program.

Since being authorized in the 2002 farm bill, the value-added grants program has been the engine that has driven many valuable projects and local entrepreneurs across the country. Unfortunately, this program has been funded well below the $40 million authorized level every year, resulting in lost opportunities for rural America.

Likewise, the recently created rural broadband loan program is quickly proving to be an invaluable tool to rural communities in connecting us to broadband technology.

Without access to this technology, rural communities will continue to struggle to become fully integrated into the new economy. We hope you will support these requests as you undergo the difficult task of guiding the fiscal year 2005 Agricultural, Rural Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill through this process. I know that you being from the Texas heartland are very sensitive to these rural issues, and I thank you for your leadership on these important issues.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to first thank the members of this committee, the gentleman from New York (Chairman Boehlert), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), and the ranking member, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) for their good work at not only reauthorizing this program, but restrengthening this program. I think it is vital at this time that we do that; but I think also if programs are going to serve us well, it is important that they are accountable, that they are accountable to the public they serve.

Currently in law, they have to have audited budgets that go back to the State and Federal agency that fund them. But I have had the unfortunate situation of having one of these agencies who, when members of the community or the press asked for a copy of their audited budget, they were told that they were a 501(c)(3) not for profit and they were private. This was private business.

Mr. Chairman, when programs are funded with Federal dollars, with State tax dollars, they are public programs. In my view, accountability can be obtained from Federal and State oversight, but real accountability comes when the people they service and press and interested citizens locally have the ability to look and evaluate their records.

My amendment simply says, it clarifies and ensures these audits are available to OMB, but they are also available to the public and press upon request. I think that is important in making sure that these programs are efficient, that they are well-run, and they are on the right priorities, that they are serving the right part of the manufacturing community, and that our other economic development agencies have the ability to work closely with them and ensure that we get the biggest bang for the buck.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman very much and congratulate him for his good work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 150th anniversary of my district's largest employer, the Pennsylvania State University, which consists of 11 academic schools, 20 campuses throughout Pennsylvania, the College of Medicine, the Dickinson School of Law, and the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

Penn State was founded in 1855 as America's first land grant college and was the first institution in the Nation to offer a degree in agriculture. One in every eight Pennsylvanians with a college degree, one in every 50 engineers in America, and one in every four meteorologists in America are alumni of Penn State, which has the largest dues-paying alumni association in the Nation.

Penn State consistently ranks in the top three universities to receive SAT scores by high school seniors. Penn State hosts the largest student-run philanthropic event in the world benefiting the Four Diamonds Fund for families with children being treated for cancer.

Penn State has excelled at academic and athletic achievements by doing things honorably and exceptionally, by doing things the Penn State way.

Happy 150th birthday, Penn State. I am proud to represent you in Congress and add my voice to those exclaiming, ``We are Penn State.''

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

Mr. Chairman, it has been interesting to listen to this discussion today and talk about why we have high prices. Someone just talked that we had a failing energy policy. Folks, this Congress has never put an energy policy on any President's desk, and I do not know that any President has asked for one till George Bush. He has begged for one. He has pleaded for one, and this Congress has not put an energy policy on his desk. That is why we are in trouble. Even with an energy policy, it is going to be years before we have much to say about our future.

We are dependent today because we do not have a plan; we do not have a policy on foreign parts of the world who dictate. Think, just a few months ago, one of our supposed friends said when oil was $32 a barrel, they were going to raise the price. No. They were going to reduce how much they were sending. Historically when it got over $30, they put more oil in, and the price would come down a little bit, but at $32 they took oil out, and prices sky-rocketed within a couple of months to $42.

Folks, we are vulnerable to countries who have little long-term interest in us, little long-term commitment to us, and that is why it has never been more important for us to have a stockpile. SPRO was not designed for price control. The strategic oil reserve is for us in case of war, in case of something that would interrupt our supply of oil. We are now 58 percent dependent on imports from unstable parts of the world.

We have never had a time when our oil supply, they are looking on how they can disrupt our oil supply every day, whether it is blow up tankers, whether it is blow up pipelines. Iraq had serious problems just this week. It was going to stop supply, a tremendous amount of supply from Iraq.

We are vulnerable, and if we would have one of these countries taken over by a dissident group, we would have not $40 oil, not $50 oil, but possibly $60 oil, which would crush our economy. We have to look at the big picture here, but all of those pleading for price control, let us talk about an energy policy. I wish you would join us in saying let us put an energy policy on the President's desk so he can sign it so this country can get on a plan of action where we are not dependent on foreign oil.

The natural gas issue right beside us is crushing us economically because we cannot import natural gas like we import oil. We have $6- and-something gas going into the ground right now that is going to be coming out next winter. Last year at this time we put natural gas in the ground at $4.60, and that was a record. This year it is in excess of $6. When you combine those two, greater pressure on oil because of high gas prices. They were related. Last winter, school districts, hospitals who had the ability to divert, diverted from natural gases because of high prices and used more oil, increasing our need to import oil from foreign countries.

We talk about our oil companies control, this country has little control of oil. We do not have it. We are only producing 42 percent of the oil we use. We

produce 20 million barrels a day out of the 80 million; and we have China, we have India who are now becoming huge users. The countries that took care of us have lots of people knocking on their door now saying we need oil. They have other people who are going to use huge amounts of oil. There are those who predict China will use more oil than us in 5 years. I do not know that that is correct. I have not researched that, but I have heard that stated.

The most important thing we can do here in this Congress is give the President, quit our bickering and our partisan fighting and get an energy policy on the President's desk that he can sign that will help us wean ourselves off foreign oil, get us out of oil for transportation down the road and other measures to move our vehicles. We have to have a plan of action. We are becoming more dependent every day, and we are dependent on less and less stable parts of the world for oil.

The energy issue, when you combine oil prices and natural gas prices, has the potential to stall the economy of this country. And if we do not protect SPRO and have it in case of an interruption, disruption, $50 and $60 oil will shut the economy down is what we are talking about.

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

Somebody said I cannot talk, I am too far east. Maybe we ought to have people who have ridden on snowmobiles and understand them, the only ones that can talk. I think it might have changed the debate a little bit today.

Someone talked about a fair process. In 1997 the Park Service began the process of developing an environmental impact statement. The service has prepared research examining winter wildlife, snowmobile emissions and impacts, and visitor use. They released the draft of EIS on September 29, 1999, for public comment. The draft contained seven alternatives. None of them talked about banning snowmobiles.

Just a couple months later in December, the service prepared a substantially revised alternative G, which made it rather than alternative B, the new preferred alternative. These changes include an outright ban on all recreation snowmobile use in the park. None of these changes had been previously shared with the public or the State or the county cooperators.

The cooperating States immediately protested. Then on April 27, the former Secretary, John Barry, issued a memorandum directing the service to prohibit the snowmobile use.

That is the process that was reacted to. That was the process that was considered a compromise, not a compromise.

I was not planning to speak on this issue, but I had three snowmobiles for a long time, when my children were growing up and neighbor kids, and we had some wonderful times there. I was intrigued when the gentleman from California talked about wildlife watching because I have probably spent as much time watching wildlife as anybody in this Congress. As a kid, I grew up in the forest. I camped in the forest. In the summertime, my brothers and I slept in the forest, and I can tell you for hours the wonderful wildlife scenes that I saw.

I want tell you, I will never forget the day my wife and son and several other people saw their first flock of turkeys up close. Yes, we were on a snowmobile, putting down a country lane, a road in the woods, and came down around the hillside and there was 15 or 20 turkeys scratching. They stopped and watched us, scurried off to the side as we went by.

I remember seeing deer; and I taught my son, when we see wildlife, do not stop. Just keep moving slowly. We went by beautiful deer looking over us. And I will never forget the day that this big owl sat there fairly close to us, and I can still see him squinting with one eye, trying to see what we were, watching us put by on our snowmobiles. I have seen fleeting fox. I have seen all kinds of wildlife creatures because they are far less scared of you on a vehicle than they are in person. If I had walked around that bend, I probably would not have seen them because they would have seen me before I saw them. But I have seen more wildlife, wonderful, beautiful scenes; and if you learn not to react to them, they will watch you go right by.

We have seen wildlife up closer where you actually watch their eye activity on a snowmobile. So those who are interested in wildlife watching, snowmobiles are not that big machine that is going to chase wildlife away. They are far less fearful of that vehicle putting down through the woods than they are of any one of us walking.

I have spent thousands of hours out there, and I cannot tell you the stories I have seen of beautiful wildlife scenes on a snowmobile. So that argument, in my view, needs to be turned around.

People will see scenes on a snowmobile they never dreamed of. They will see wildlife up very close. And I think that is an important part that needs to be shared.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the Chabot-Andrews roadless amendment. Thirteen million acres of the Tongass is off limits to roads; 13 million acres. And 330,000 acres are available to forest repractices, and now we are trying to lock that up. I hear all of the talk about hunters support this. I do not know how many Members hunt, but my

hunters hunt where people timber. Old growth forests do not have a lot of wildlife because there is no food there. This amendment is simply an effort by extreme environmental groups to impose their will over the objections of Alaskans. The Alaskan delegation, including the former Democratic Governor, Tony Knowles, is opposed to this lockup of the Tongass National Forest. The State of Alaska does not support blanket roadless area designations. In fact, the State took the Clinton administration to court over the issue and won. The environmentalists lost in court, and now they are trying to get Congress to do it for them.

The National Forest Management Act already outlines a process for the Forest Service to make decisions on whether to build a road. The Tongass Forest Management Plan process was locally driven, based on site-specific conditions such as wildlife risk, insects and disease outbreaks, wildlife habitat, and threatened and endangered species. This amendment ignores this process, ignores local input, science, and the experience of highly competent forest managers.

Mr. Chairman, 78 percent of the Tongass is already roadless, wilderness, or nondevelopable designation. Only 2 percent of the landbase is open for forestry. The only people who support this designation are the special interest groups who want to stop all uses of our natural resources. They lost in court, they do not have local or State support, and they want Congress to make a foolish move and get into Alaskan business that nobody wins with.

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

Mr. Chairman, do we need to change this policy? We talk about the resistance to the Bush changes to the current policy. I happen to represent the Allegheny National Forest. It is about a 600,000-acre forest, the finest hardwood forest in America, it was, but it will not be for long if we do not soon manage it, because we have not been managing it.

The current process of rewriting the forest plan on the ANF has been going on for years and years and years, and we cannot get there. The current plan does not work. The process of managing a forest for multiple use should not be complicated. It should not take decades. It should take a year or two to sit down and figure out where we are, what should happen there, and how do we manage part of it for forestry.

That happens to be one of the most mature hardwood forests in the world and has some of the most valuable cherry, and that is a forest that only lives about 100 years; and it is about reaching that age and it is going to die. We had a big blow-down last year. We cannot even get the blow-down trees harvested because the process does not work.

We need a new process.

Let us look at what the current plan brings us. We had a big gypsy moth defoliation a few years ago; we had that for 2 or 3 years. And then we had other insects a few years later. So they designed the East Side Sale to salvage dead and dying and diseased timber and clear up these oak areas so they could regenerate, because they will. The hardwood forest in the east does not even have to be planted. If it is pruned properly and cut properly and managed properly, there will be a good forest there for our children, our grandchildren, forever. It grows from seed, it grows from sprouts, it comes back naturally if it is properly maintained. It is a renewable resource.

Do we want to cut it off? We manage a very small portion of it. The Allegheny allows a cut of 90 million board feet. Some years we do not cut any, and some years we cut 5 or 10 million board feet. Almost nothing.

But what happens? We planned the East Side Sale and a student sues who has a religion about trees should not be cut down. Not a soil scientist, not a forester, not a biologist. A student gets a free lawyer from a university, goes to court, and wins. We redesigned, redid it, totally reworked it over a couple of years, put back out again, and another student sues. Three years, this time they win. Not the student, but the Forest Service wins, after 3 years. Now we have 5 years, and we finally have a result. The student sues again, just thrown into a Philadelphia court, and we do not know whether it will ever come out of there.

Folks, the process does not work.

Now, I heard a lot about scientists. I do not think our Forest Service gets enough credit, because the Allegheny Forest has foresters, fish biologists, game biologists, soil scientists, archeologists, hydrologists, entomologists and ornithologists, all who play a role in everything we do there, whether we are going to do recreation or whether we are going to do forestry. They sign off. These are experts. Now, the people who sue and win usually have no credentials. They are someone with a religious philosophy that you should not cut down trees.

I want to tell my colleagues, the unmanaged forest in the east is going to die. It is going to be very prone to wind storms, and it is going to blow over. It is not a habitat for wildlife, an old forest. And all of us, those of my colleagues who are concerned about CO2, a forest that you do not prune and manage becomes a CO2 emitter, just the same as a plant, just the same as us when we breath out. A forest that is managed is the most successful carbon sink in America. Active agricultural land and actively managed forest land absorbs tons and tons of CO2 and puts it into logs, locks it up; and we are averting that process on all the public land in this country.

Mr. Chairman, our foresters and our scientists are leaving our system because they are disgusted with this Congress's involvement, because they cannot manage. All the science they have, all the experience they have, we have Congressmen who think they know better; and they are wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to ask the question, How long can America afford to not have an energy policy in place?

For many years we had cheap energy in this country. We had oil for over a decade at about $10 a barrel and natural gas around $2 a thousand, but that has all changed.

Today we have oil constantly popping past the $40-per-barrel mark. The natural gas that we were putting in the ground today for next winter's heating $6.47 a thousand. Last year the world was shocked when we put it in the ground at $4.60 a thousand for the next heating season during the winter.

The question I ask again and again is when will we put an energy policy on the President's desk so he can sign it? He is the first President to continually ask Congress for an energy policy, an energy plan. Other Presidents ignored it. We have an education policy, but no energy policy. We have a defense policy, but no energy policy. We have an ag policy, but no energy policy. A transportation policy, an environmental policy, trade policies, but no energy policy.

I live within 5 miles in Pennsylvania of Drake's Well, the first oil well which was drilled in 1859; and when oil was discovered, it changed the world. It brought about the industrial revolution and the modernization of our society, and today the world consumes 80 million barrels daily. We use about one fourth, 20 million barrels; and our use continues to rise.

The alarming fact is that China and India are now growing faster in energy use than us and competing with us for foreign oil. And as the world economy begins to really grow, and it is, the demand continues to rise. Our problem is 50 percent of our oil comes from unstable parts of the world. We have no control over oil prices. We have no control over energy costs. And coupling that problem with the natural gas issue, which is new, just a few years ago it was $2 a thousand. Today, they continue to sky rocket. Four years ago, it was less than 3, usually 2- something. Last year, we were putting in the ground at $4.70 at this time of the year.

On the average of almost $6 over the year. Today we are putting it in the ground for next year at $6.47, and some think gas will be 7 to $8 a thousand this winter.

The problem that raises is that we are not competitive. Europe pays $3.70 a thousand. North Africa $1.20; all the others are under that. So the rest of the world has natural gas much cheaper than us.

Now, what is that doing to business in this country? It is eliminating the fertilizer business in this country as we speak. You cannot afford to make fertilizer in America because they use it as an ingredient and as a fuel. It is harming the petrochemical industry, which is quickly moving to Europe. Polymers and plastics and anybody that heats, bakes, cooks, melts or dries products with natural gas has a problem. We produce 85 percent of our natural gas in this country. We import 14.5 percent from Canada; a percent and a half of liquefied natural gas from numerous parts around the world; and we export about 1 percent of our gas to Mexico.

A decade ago, a moratorium was removed on the generation of electricity with natural gas. I think it is an issue that really needs to be debated again today. At that time, 8 percent of our natural gas was only allowed to be used for peak power, in the morning and evening time when we need that extra surge. But when they removed that moratorium, in a few short years 25 percent of the natural gas in this country is now used to generate electricity.

We have 1,000 rigs drilling, a number higher than most, than normally, but the shortage remains. All of the gas-rich areas in America are off limits to drilling, many legislatively. It has been prohibited to drill the east and west coast offshore. Around the Florida coastline where there is lots of gas, it is off limits. Forty percent of the gulf, and we know the rest of the gulf is rich with gas because we get a lot of it there, is off limits to drilling. Sixty percent of the Midwest, which is owned by the Federal Government, much of it is off limits to drilling or it takes years to get a permit.

We must somehow figure out if we are going to use natural gas to generate electricity, how we replace that supply because we are threatening homeownership, we are draining commerce, and we are threatening industries in this country that particularly use a lot of natural gas.

The question I ask again, Can we afford to float down the river aimlessly with no plan of action, no energy policy on the President's desk?

Yes, we must conserve and we must use energy more wisely and we must promote renewables, but the growth has not been there. Wind and solar are only used part of the time so you have to have an abundant source. America needs an energy plan. It needs to be on the President's desk tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, let us put some competition into the marketplace. We just have a proposal now that says we will have a government-subsidized program, and we all know where that will take us. The taxpayers will pay and pay.

Here is the problem: 50 percent of America has one insurer. That means you have a monopoly, and that is where we are getting 20, 30, and 40 percent increases annually, and businesses are straining. But when you only have one insurer, the new pharmacy plan, we have guaranteed everybody two. But in health care, over half of America have one.

Associated Health Plans would, I think, change the marketplace dramatically, because you would bring lots of competition to the marketplace. The monopolies would no longer rule. A lot of other companies that are not monopolies do not want health care either. Why? It is going to be competition. Whenever America is successful, we bring competition into the marketplace.

Yes, those monopolies are leaving community rating; yes, they are cherry-picking today. And State mandates are part of the problem, because 50 States have different mandates and we guarantee everybody gets a Cadillac plan. That means a lot of people cannot afford a plan at all, because you only can deliver a Cadillac plan. That is the system we have.

In rural areas, where monopolies exist, businesses, individuals and governments pay measurably more for

health insurance than neighboring counties. In my district, I have school districts and counties who will pay $650 for a family plan. Two counties away they pay $1,100 for the same insurance coverage under the current system. Why? Because there is no competition there.

Now, the hospitals, the doctors and providers under these monopolies get paid less too, because they have no bargaining power with the big insurance giants that are the monopolies.

The current system will change dramatically with Associated Health Plans, because, for the first time, all parts of America will have many people who they can purchase insurance from. Yes, maybe if I am a restaurateur, I will be part of a national restaurant association who has a plan tailored for restaurants.

I was a supermarket operator for 26 years. I probably, if I were back in that business, would have a plan that works well for super markets. But when you put them all in the same box, you put all kinds of employers in the same box, as we currently do with State mandates.

Let us give our businesses and our government service agencies choices. Let us give them Associated Health Plans, not another government-subsidized program. But let us turn the competitiveness of American ingenuity, and we will solve the uninsured problem in this country.

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, May 6, 2004, I was unavoidably detained and missed House rollcall vote No. 152 on H. Con. Res. 398, a bill expressing the concern of Congress over Iran's development of the means to produce nuclear weapons.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on H. Con. Res. 398, and ask unanimous consent that this be reflected in the appropriate place in the Record.