Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, 34 years ago, Turkish troops invaded the Island of Cyprus, resulting in the death and displacement of thousands of Greek and Turkish Cypriot citizens; leaving behind a state of conflict within a civilization that can trace its history back more than ten thousand years. A 113-mile long divide was created as the Turks began their occupation of one third of the island, which exists to present day.

Today, we recognize this tragic event, but we also look at, with hope, the future that lies ahead.

As part of a congressional delegation last November, other members of Congress and I discussed this long-standing conflict and the path toward resolution with members of the Cyprus government. I am encouraged by the recent overtures made by leaders on both sides of the Cyprus question.

I am hopeful that the meetings between President Christofias and Mr. Talat will continue, and that the work of the mutually established Working Groups and Technical Communities may ultimately lead to a unified Cypriot nation.

I am confident that through tolerance, compromise and the continuation of diplomatic efforts, lasting solutions to the remaining differences will be attained.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush listened to the American people this week, and he lifted the executive moratorium on energy exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf. Unfortunately, a congressional ban still exists and remains in place.

Congress needs to listen to the American people. Whether it is the folks back in central Texas that I represent, or the people on the coast of Maine or Southern California, Americans want to explore safely and properly for American energy. 67 percent of the American people want sound exploration using safe practices, and to have American industry.

There is only one obstacle that stands in the way, and that is Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress. Americans are counting on Congress to work together to lift this ban.

Republicans are ready to work with Democrats to do just that. Give us a chance to have a vote on this, and we will have American energy for the American people.

I have been listening to this debate, and it has been extremely interesting. But I think that we have got a situation here where, because of the fantastic nature of the Congress, nobody understands what we are talking about. In reality, we are talking about leasing, and they are saying use the lease you paid for.

Now, I think the American people, almost every one of them out there, they know what a lease is because probably they have leased an apartment, or they have leased a home or they have leased a car. They have leased something in their life. And I doubt very seriously if they paid a lease price, a pretty good size lease price that came out of their family's pocket, and then didn't use what they leased. They parked the car in the garage and didn't use it. They rented the apartment for a year and never set foot in it, but lived someplace else. Or if they were in business, they rented a warehouse to store things, and then didn't put anything in the warehouse and wasted their money.

Now, what we are talking about here is leases that the people who are in the oil business have spent billions, with a B, of dollars to lease. Does it make sense to anyone's common sense that they would spend that kind of money and then not look to see if there is some way they could get their money back on the deal? Of course they have.

And in fact, as Kevin Brady pointed out, they have been looking and looking and looking and looking in this area to find enough resources to justify billions of dollars worth of expenditures to drill.

I will tell you, you are welcome to drill in my back yard. I have got about two, a little over 2 acres. I will lease it tomorrow, okay? But there is no oil in my back yard, and I don't expect anyone to lease it or drill there because they know in Round Rock, Texas there is not any oil.

Now, the same thing goes here. You can talk about use it or lose it, but once you know there is no production in an area, there makes no sense to spend millions of dollars to find nothing. That is what this is all about. Common sense tells you there is no oil there.

Madam Speaker, on July 8, 2008, I was unable to be present for all rollcall votes.

If present, I would have voted accordingly on the following rollcall votes: Roll No. 471--``aye,'' Roll No. 472--``aye,'' Roll No. 473-- ``aye.''

I am honored to be here with my colleagues from Texas. As I start, I am sure there is someone somewhere who is saying, yes, there are three Texans on the floor from the largest petroleum-producing State in the Nation, and of course they want to talk about oil and gas. Well, of course we do.

Also, I think most of us who are here tonight have lived with this industry in our homes and our hometowns in our State. And there seems to be some kind of mystery about terminology that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle I assume are confused about but I don't think that they would intentionally use sloganism to misadvise the American public. But they are in charge of the House, and it is their responsibility to know what we mean when we say lease space for production of oil and gas.

Now the concept of leasing is not a tough concept. This House is full of lawyers, but it doesn't take a lawyer to

talk about a lease. Most Americans know what a lease is. Most Americans some time in their life have leased a home or leased an apartment. Some Americans have leased a house for their family or they have leased a car over a period of time.

Now when they lease, let's say, a car, they say I will pay you so much money for the ability to have this car in my possession and use it as I see fit for a period of time. And I am going to use it for transportation. But they don't have to use it for transportation. They can park it in the garage if they want to, but they would be economically stupid to park it in the garage when they are spending good money for the right to use that leased car. But they certainly would be entitled to do that. If they were doing it for business purposes, they certainly would lose money on that business.

There is no difference, really, between an oil and gas lease and any other sort of lease. The concept is the same concept. A company goes and bids to lease from the Federal Government a certain amount of land for the production of oil and gas and petroleum products. And they pay money to the Federal Government for the right to be able, for a period of time, 5 or 10 years, to explore and ultimately drill for and produce petroleum on that land. If they haven't done that within the period of time of that lease, then the lease is void and goes back to the government. I suppose the government can lease it to somebody else.

Now, we have a term that has come out ``use it or lose it'' which is nebulous, to say the least, because every single oil and gas lease that I have ever heard about from the Federal Government is a use-it-or- lose-it lease. The terms of the lease say you have the right to explore for and produce on this property for a set period of time, say 5 years. After that period, if you haven't done that, if you haven't explored and you haven't produced, the lease goes back because that's the purpose of your using this land. You either use it for that or after 5 years, the terms of the lease that you paid for, you lose it.

Now the oil companies spend billions of dollars for these leases because there is something peculiar about oil, and I think most people in this country understand this. The peculiarity is that it is not everywhere. It is sometimes in your backyard, and sometimes the nearest place is five States away. So the oil companies are speculating based upon sort of known concepts, but they use very highly technical equipment and procedures to give them an indication of whether or not there is oil or gas underneath a piece of property.

For my lifetime they have been using seismic measurements to determine whether or not there is the possibility of a formation below the ground that would be producing oil or gas. This seismic thing is not really fancy. It is vibrations through the earth and they use explosives to make it. Now from the time when I was a kid when I tried to get a job on a seismic crew, that was pretty old-fashioned technology. Today I am sure it is digital and high tech and much better than it was in those days. And I just recently learned they are using some kind of magnetic survey that the big companies are working on that give them other indications where it might be. But the bottom line is it is either there or it is not, and they have to look for it and spend money to see if it is there. So they lease large parts of the country or the offshore area, and they go out and they spend lots of money to look and see if there is oil. And you know what, if they don't see any good indications for production that will pay for itself, they are in the business of oil and gas. So just like you wouldn't lease something you wouldn't use, they won't continue to lease a lease that they can't produce on.

But to say use it of lose it for the leases that are out there, believe me, every oil company that is in the business of producing petroleum products is going to utilize the money they spent on those leases to try to make discoveries to find oil and gas products.

So to come up this slogan that means nothing because it is already in the contract, it doesn't make sense. It is not a good way for us to stand up for the American people. The Democrats are in charge of this House. They have to be willing, as we were when we were in charge, to take the heat for the things that are happening in this country. And quite frankly, the heat right now is the price of gasoline. It has gone up $1.75 or so since they got in office, and they have to take the heat.

What we Republicans are saying is basically what we have been saying since 1990: America has the potential to produce its own energy in multiple forms and we support all those forms that are clean, can be produced environmentally safely, and oil and gas falls within those parameters. And we should be using American energy that we can produce in America.

I would like to tell you, there is an issue about ANWR. ANWR is the frozen tundra area in the far north part of Alaska. You can probably see the pictures of those pristine mountains in the distance if you use a telescopic lens to make it look like they are in your backyard. But most pictures you see of actual ANWR, it kind of looks like this table but it is marshy and frozen.

And this is a good example so you know what we are talking about. I think every American knows what a football field looks like. If they don't, they know what a soccer field looks like. If you take a book of matches and toss it out on the football field, that book of matches would represent the area that is being sought to drill the well to produce in ANWR, and the football field would represent ANWR.

So when they are talking about destroying the wildlife preserve, we are talking about a tiny bit of a place the size of South Carolina. That's what we are looking to drill on, that is what we are looking to produce on. And the track record is undisputable as far as drilling is concerned. Drilling is environmentally safe and almost spill-proof. Last year we spilled one tablespoon of oil in the drilling process. Remember, I said the drilling process. So one tablespoon of oil worldwide producing oil through drilling. So yes, there is a little spillage, but that ain't bad. That is pretty good, and I think we could do that without even spilling a drop in ANWR.

So these issues that are making so much noise come down to basic, sound principles that we can't afford $4 or $5 or $6 a gallon gas until we start making some common sense about American policy towards oil and gas.

I don't even want to mention because I happen to be blessed to live down in a State where at least in my part of the State it doesn't get real cold in the wintertime. But I have been in Congress long enough to know that the minute it starts getting cold up here in the northern clime, people start getting real cold when they don't have heating oil to heat their homes. And then they start running to Congress and asking us to give them money to supplement their heating bills because the price of oil is through the roof. Well, they haven't seen the price of oil through the roof until they look at this $138 or $139 a barrel price for crude oil. And the heating cost that is going to be hitting the northeast and the midwest and the far west and the mountain areas of this country come cold weather time is going to make this problem with driving our automobiles look like a walk in the park for people in that cold weather.

So let's start dealing with this issue now so that we can, as we show the courage to do what is right and not block what is right, then those people who are speculating, and also just bidding in competition with us on the futures that are available in the oil market, will realize that America is serious about producing its own energy. And when they see us serious, they will know that we won't be the big players to drive up the market, and I believe they will start to dump those holdings they are holding now. As they dump those holdings into the market, the price will go down. It is the argument that everyone has said here today, the law of supply and demand. Right now we are short on supply, certainly short on domestic supply. As we show the will to seek domestic supply, our competitors will realize we are going to have our own supply which will make that international trading in the market less valuable to them and they will start to dump their oil before they start to lose money on their speculations. So I think this is common sense. This is easy. This is economics 101. I hope that everybody will remember that leasing is just exactly what it is.

There is nothing magical about an oil and gas lease. It is paying money for the use of land for a period of time. That's what we are talking about here. So this use it or lose it idea is really strange.

In addition, there are some facts that have been thrown out that I want to mention, and then I will yield back my time.

Democrats are saying that 4.8 million barrels of oil per day and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day may be extrapolated from the oil company's Federally leased land that they already hold today. This is not true.

No Democrat, not Speaker Pelosi, Hoyer, Rahm, any of them can give us one source where they got that number, and it's been specifically requested by the Republicans in the Natural Resources Committee to ask them where they got that number and how they extrapolate it, and there's been nothing forthcoming. I can't imagine that they just made it up.

But the reality is if it is there, it has got to be found. If it has got to be found, there's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars spent to find it. And believe me, they're not going to waste their money. If it's there, they're going to go get it. And so this is simple stuff. And I hope the American people and the Members of this Congress know it's simple stuff.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I hope that everybody is listening in detail to what my colleagues are talking about here today.

You know, I spent a long time as a district judge and watching lawsuits. It is very fascinating, this sue OPEC argument that's out there, because as I understand it, the lawsuit would be you are not producing enough, therefore, you're fixing the price and we're suing you. And I would see a lawyer for the Saudi Arabians or whomever we had sued, they would say, well, wait a minute, you're not producing, therefore, you're influencing the price of oil; so I'm going to counter-sue you under this lawsuit, and now, America, let's see who's not producing the most.

I'm afraid we'd lose because we're not producing anything on the east coast, anything on the west coast, anything in half of the Gulf of Mexico and anything in a quarter of Alaska, where they can argue that they're producing everything they can pump. It's just how fast they turn up the pumps. So that lawsuit might turn its back on us right there, and that concerns me. But that's all speculation.

It's not speculation that that family's not getting to go on a vacation. You know, it's not speculation the people who worry about how they're going to get their children to their schools and their after- school activities come the start of school in the fall.

I talked to a lady two-and-a-half years ago when the Democrat minority, when we were in the majority, were criticizing us for $2.40 a gallon, $2.50 a gallon gasoline. They were criticizing us, and I went and pumped gas in a gas station for about 3 hours and talked to the people as I filled up their tank.

And the lady who told the most compelling story was the one who said, I have to get my kids to their various recitals, practices, after- school activities and make sure they get to school on time. They go to three different schools. I'm a single mom, with three kids in three different schools in three different parts of town. And I have to choose between what we eat or if we eat and whether I get to drive the car to get these kids.

That was at $2.50 a gallon of gas. We have now got $4.07 a gallon of gas, and I can't help but think about that lady every day and wonder-- I'd like to actually hear from her--wonder how she's doing.

Also, the trucker that hauled a load from Houston to San Diego and got paid $1,800, and his fuel costs were $1,700, how is that man going to make a living?

This is about making a living, living the American dream, just being good Americans, and we're being kept from that by the Democrats' energy policy. It's time to wake up and produce American energy for America.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to have my name removed as a cosponsor for H.R. 6041.

I thank my good friend from Virginia (Mr. Forbes) for yielding to me.

I've been very, very impressed with the folks that have gathered here today to tell us about the religious history of the United States of America. It is so important that Americans and Members of this House remember the history of this country and how important the Christian religion has been to the history of the United States of America, and what an important part of the very basis of our society it is.

But I think it's important, too, for the people of this House and for the men and women back home to know that this religious history continues in the House of Representatives of the United States of America.

The first day I walked through the door of this beloved building, the Capitol of the United States, the first time my old Texas boots set foot inside this building, I was approached by a man who said, ``I think you're Carter from Texas, right? You just got elected.'' I said, ``Yes, sir.'' He said, ``Well, my name's Ron from Kansas.'' He said, ``I saw by your Web site that you proclaim yourself to be a Christian. I want to invite you to a gathering of men and women that get together and study the Bible and pray together for this country, and we're meeting tomorrow morning. Would you join us?''

Recognizing who Jim Ryun was, the famous miler from Kansas, I was flattered by the invitation, and I actually got there an hour early for the event and sat outside in the halls before the rest of them showed up. But I can tell you that that has been a major part of my life for the 6 years I've been in Congress because of the fellowship of those men and women who gathered that day in various numbers. Bipartisan is part of the deal, and we will sit and talk, visit, pray and discuss the Bible, and it revitalizes my life every day and every week.

And I have a friend back home who is in the radio business, and I call him from time to time. He always signs off with me by saying, ``Be sure and do the Lord's work in the devil's city.'' It's a joke and we laugh about it, but the reality is that there are people who think of that, of this city as the devil's city, and I'm here to tell him that the Lord is alive and well. The Lord Jesus Christ reigns in the capital city of the United States of America.

They need to hear that that is part of the present history of the United States, and there are men and women who gather almost every day as people of faith and pray for this great Nation.

The little group that we're a part of, we formed up the National Prayer Caucus. That National Prayer Caucus is catching on around the country, and people are gathering and praying for the United States of America. I would hope that every Member of this Congress and every American citizen would take to their knees and pray for the future of our country and for the salvation of America.

That is what we need. That is what saves our Nation and that's what's here. The history is not only the history of the past, which is glorious; it is the history of the present, and the present is full of grace and peace and love of Jesus Christ in this building and around this town, and I want everybody to know it. It's part of our Nation today, just as it was at its founding and throughout its history.

So it's wonderful that I may stand and rise in support this week where we acknowledge the history, the religious history of our Nation.

I am just real pleased, Madam Speaker, to be able to stand up and speak in favor of this, because this is a great example of conserving fuel for America. These cars don't run on gasoline or diesel. These kids are just going to let gravity take its course. I guess this trucker from Houston that I met with this last week who told me that he took a load from Houston to San Diego and got paid $1,800 and his fuel costs were $1,700, he probably wishes it was all downhill from Houston to San Diego so he wouldn't have to pay the kind of fuel costs that are being imposed upon the American public.

The American public is asking this House to address this issue. I don't think anybody who went home and talked to their constituents this last week could not have found out that people are frightened at the cost of fuel. Single parents are concerned that they can't get their children to school. They are concerned they are not able to get to do shopping. They are having to choose between food or fuel in families across our country. It is time to use American energy intelligently.

As we look at this great race, which I support, I am excited for these young people and I think it is really Americana at its best. But using America's resources wisely is also Americana at its best, and our citizens expect us to find and use the fuel that is available for them to bring these prices down.

I encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us on this side of the aisle in trying to find new sources of fuel from all over this Nation, from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico to offshore. It is important to America. It is important to our families.

I thank you for allowing me to express my opinion.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 355, on agreeing to the Akin amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, I was unavoidably absent due to a family medical emergency. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no''; on rollcall No. 356, on agreeing to the Franks, AZ, amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye''; on rollcall No. 357, on agreeing to the Tierney amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``no''; on rollcall No. 358, on agreeing to the Pearce amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye''; on rollcall No. 359, on agreeing to the Lee amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``no''; on rollcall No. 360, on agreeing to the Braley amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``no''; on rollcall No. 361, on agreeing to the Price, NC, amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``no''; on rollcall No. 362, on agreeing to the Holt amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``no''; on rollcall No. 363, on agreeing to the McGovern amendment to H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``no''; on rollcall No. 364, on the motion to recommit with instructions H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye''; on rollcall No. 365, on passage of H.R. 5658, the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 2009, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye''; and on rollcall No. 366, on the motion to suspend the rules and agree to H. Res. 986, Recognizing the courage and sacrifice of those members of the United States Armed Forces who were held as prisoners of war during the Vietnam conflict and calling for a full accounting of the 1,729 members of the Armed Forces who remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam conflict, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

I thank the gentleman and my good friend for yielding and allowing me to talk on this. You know, having two Texans here, somebody is going to be saying, Well, there they are in Texas again, talking about energy. And we know something about it. But let me tell you about a couple of energy experts that I ran into when I held a little impromptu event of standing around a service station in my district and talking to the people at the pumps as they pulled up to buy gasoline and diesel.

The first memorable energy expert that I remember was a lady that pulled up there and she had a baby, I would say about 2 years old, and then she had probably the age 6, 7, 8-year-old girl in the car who looked like she was on her way to her ballet lesson. I said, I wanted to ask your opinion on gasoline prices. This lady started crying. She said, I am a single mom. I have got three kids, two of which I have to transport to everything that they go to. I don't want to deprive my children of anything that they can go to, like their ballet lessons or their ball games. But I just don't know how I am going to be able to feed my family and be able to take my kids around, with the price of gasoline.

That is an energy expert. This lady knows that the fact that we have failed in our energy policy in this country has caused her to have a harm imposed upon her family. There's not much you can say to that energy expert but I'm sorry, ma'am. We are trying.

Then we have another energy expert that pulled up there, and he had a plumbing truck. And he was a family plumbing business in Georgetown, Texas. I asked him how he felt about the energy business. He said, Well, I will tell you what, partner. The price of plumbing in this part of Texas is going up, and it's going up in a big way. Me and my boys are running four trucks. And he said, I am telling you, the cost of fuel going up is killing us,

and we are going to pass it on to our customers, and the price of plumbing is going up. And he says, You know the old joke about plumbers charging more than lawyers? Well, I guarantee it's going to be that way from now on. I laughed and said, Yes, sir. I hear what you're saying. He said, I hope you hear what I am saying.

I wanted to share that story with you because that story took place 2\1/2\ years ago when gasoline hit $2.85 a gallon. That was that same 2\1/2\ years ago when the Republicans were in the majority in the House of Representatives. When they took their shots, they were taking them at me, because the party that I belong to was the party in power and we were being heavily criticized for $2.85 a gallon gasoline.

Fortunately, that gasoline went down some and it lightened up after a point in time, but the criticism continued about the price of gasoline. And in the last election, we had promises that there was a plan to bring down the price of gasoline, absolutely commonsense plan to bring down the price of gasoline. Well, since that promise, I think gasoline has gone up $1.65 a gallon. At least when I was home this last week, gasoline in my part of Texas was $3.95 a gallon. I understand now it's over $4 a gallon.

I have to think back to that lady and those kids and that family plumber with his boys and their business and all those people who are having the services and are having the relationships with those people. Those were the kind of oil and gas and energy experts we ought to start listening to.

There is a commonsense solution to our energy problem. I want to tell you that at the time that I was talking about previously, then-Chairman Barton had presented an energy plan that was excellent; that sought energy from all sources, including renewables, but certainly looked at the oil and gas resources, coal resources, atomic energy resources that are available to this country. Yet, that bill was killed by the Democrats in the Senate and got nowhere. We are now sitting here looking at a worse situation than that by almost two. And we are not getting anything done.

As my colleague pointed out, while we are doing this, the Chinese Communists are drilling off the shores of Florida in Cuban waters. But we don't drill in those waters. Did you know that last year the oil and gas industry in the drilling process spilled one tablespoon of oil worldwide? One tablespoon. Yet, we are not willing to even take a look at seeking the resources that were there.

When I was a kid, I guess I was in high school, they had an article in the Houston paper where they talked about the dwindling resources in the oil and gas business. My father worked for an oil company. So I was concerned. And I asked him about it and he told me, son, there's shale oil in the Rocky Mountains but it's too expensive to go get. When the price is right, we will be able to harvest trillions of barrels of oil from the mountain regions of our country. That oil is still there and the price is available now to where it's worth going after. We should seek the resources that will bring down the price. The American-made power is what our American citizens are asking us for. They are begging us for it.

When you go home now, I guarantee you there's not a member of this House that if they went home and stayed home this last Memorial Day break, if they didn't have somebody ask them about the price of gasoline, they must have been deaf or slept through the whole period. Because they asked me at church, they asked me at the grocery store, they asked me at the service station, everybody that saw me, and they asked me everywhere I went, even at the hospital.

So, you know, when you're sitting there realizing that the American family is now suffering and looking down the road and saying there is no relief in sight, it's time for us to wake up America, wake up this Congress. Let's do that bipartisan work that so many people are bragging about right now. Let's do it, and let's do it now.

Let's do all the energy resources that are available to Americans. Let's don't be afraid of one or another industry. The American intelligence can make every one of these resources clean and available and nonpolluting to this country. We have proven it. Let's look off the coast of California and let's look off the coast of Florida and let's look in Alaska, let's go to known reserves, and let's take care of that lady and those three kids so that she has affordable gasoline so she can live her life in the kind of good, free manner that Americans and Texans want to live.

I thank Mr. Barton, my good friend, for allowing me to come here and talk about this. I am no energy expert. I just know that the American people are. And they want energy that provides the ability to drive their automobiles and heat their homes and light our world and give us the prosperity of industry that will keep us going. If we have that, we will have done our job, and this is our job today.

I thank you for yielding time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the successes and achievements of Elizabeth Breazile, who has received the Congressional Certificate of Merit award at Stony Point High School in Round Rock, Texas. Elizabeth has shown exceptional leadership qualities through her involvement in numerous activities which makes her a great candidate for this award.

Elizabeth is very involved in theatre at her school and has had 9 performances in 2 years. She also is involved in film productions and has been in Pre-AP and Advanced Placement courses all 4 years of high school.

I congratulate Elizabeth Breazile for her achievements in school and in her community and am proud to represent such talented and dedicated people in the 31st District of Texas.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the successes and achievements of Goli Zarchi, who has received the Congressional Certificate of Merit award at McNeil High School in Austin, Texas. Goli has shown exceptional leadership qualities through her involvement in numerous activities which makes her a great candidate for this award.

Goli is involved in HOPE, a program that mentors at-risk students, Student Council, National Honor Society, National Latin Society, and the Green Club. She has also participated in many community service projects outside of school and has shown outstanding academic performance during her high school career.

I congratulate Goli Zarchi for her achievements in school and in her community and am proud to represent such talented and dedicated people in the 31st District of Texas.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the successes and achievements of Rebecca Smith who has received the Congressional Certificate of Merit award at Hutto High School in Hutto, Texas. Rebecca has shown exceptional leadership qualities through her involvement in numerous activities which makes her a great candidate for this award.

Rebecca is a class officer, FCCLA officer, a member of the varsity track and cross country team, and is involved in numerous activities in her community. She is also in the top ten percent of her graduating class and has received the academic award for biology, world geography, and health.

I congratulate Rebecca Smith for her achievements in school and in her community and am proud to represent such talented and dedicated people in the 31st District of Texas.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the successes and achievements of Marci Hise, who has received the Congressional Certificate of Merit award at Georgetown High School in Georgetown, Texas. Marci has shown exceptional leadership qualities through her involvement in numerous activities which makes her a great candidate for this award.

Marci is involved in cheerleading, powerlifting, Peer Assistance and Leadership, FCA, and Peer Buddies. She also spends time each week mentoring and encouraging two elementary school students. Marci is on the A-B honor role and puts 100 percent into her academics.

I congratulate Marci Hise for her achievements in school and in her community and am proud to represent such talented and dedicated people in the 31st District of Texas.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the successes and achievements of Nicholas Shelburne, who has received the Congressional Certificate of Merit award at Belton High School in Belton, Texas. Nicholas has shown exceptional leadership qualities through his involvement in numerous activities which makes him a great candidate for this award.

Integrity and energy for leading in a positive direction are trademarks of Nicholas. A natural leader, he is the ultimate role model for others and he excels in everything that he is involved in. Nicholas' work ethic and diligence set him apart from others.

I congratulate Nicholas Shelburne for his achievements in school and in his community and am proud to represent such talented and dedicated people in the 31st District of Texas.