Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise to mourn the passing of a great American. Keith Cason was an example of a true American family man. He grew up in Fairmont City and moved to the Caseyville area to raise his family. He always had a smile on his face and always set a good example of what we strive to be. He was full of life and energy and enjoyed attending church on Sundays with his father.

Tragically, Keith was lost in an automobile accident in St. Louis on July 15 of this year. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife Mary, his sons Ryan and Craig, his sisters Kena and Karen, his father Charles and all those who mourn at this time for Keith. He devoted his life to his family and his country, and he left a positive mark on both. He will be dearly missed by all who had the privilege to know him.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great city in Southern Illinois which has earned a great honor.

Centralia, Illinois, was recently named a 2008 Governor's Home Town Award winner for its Centralia Clean Community Campaign, a community cleanup program. This year, roughly one in eight members of the community participated in some facet of the community cleanup, which included such events as curbside pickup, school neighborhood cleanups and liberty garden planting.

I want to congratulate the citizens of Centralia not only on earning this recognition, but also on their civic mindedness and their willingness to take the time to show their pride in their community by helping to keep it clean. I especially want to acknowledge Bev Virobik, coordinator for Clean & Green and Keep Centralia Beautiful for her organization's efforts in leading this project. Centralia's efforts are truly a model for other communities to follow in expressing their civic pride.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor St. John's United Church of Christ in Breese, Illinois. For 150 years, St. John's has been one of its community's cornerstones. Before a frame church was built in the summer of 1858, services were held in the homes of settlers and led by the people themselves. In 1859, the Rev. Christepler Starck was called as the first resident pastor. A parsonage was built in 1861 and the church's membership continued to grow.

Throughout its 150-year history, St. John's UCC in Breese, Illinois has served both its local community and the world. St. John's works with House of Manna, a local food pantry, and runs a vacation bible school for local children. St. John's members prepare meals for local seniors and send care packages to servicemen and women in Iraq. As an active contributor to the wider outreach of the United Church of Christ, St. John's gives to meritorious national and international organizations.

St. John's also embodies the spirit of neighborliness: with its active involvement in yearly ecumenical services; in its close working relationship with a local catholic church; and when it gives freely of space and time to local community organizations.

I join with my fellow Representatives to congratulate St. John's on 150 years of faith, service, and neighborliness.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Principia College Solar Car Team. Since 1995, students and advisors have worked on perfecting their solar car model. This year, they came very close to that goal by finishing second in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge.

The Challenge is a 2,400-mile race from Plano, Texas to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This year, fifteen cars began the race; only five finished. Principia College is a small liberal arts college in Elsah, Illinois that does not even have an engineering program. The Principia solar car team beat out much larger schools to finish second in the exhausting ten day event.

On the second to last day of the race, Principia's car experienced electrical trouble and stalled for seventy-five minutes. The team electricians were able to remedy the problem and put the car back on the road. Advisor Joe Ritter and his team remained calm throughout the race, especially during the electrical complications.

The pioneering spirit of the young people on the Principia College Solar Car Team deserves recognition and thanks. These students are the ones who will carry our country forward. I stand with my colleagues today to honor the Principia College Solar Car Team for an outstanding second place finish in the North American Solar Challenge.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the members of Rosemary's Circle for 75 years of service to the Nashville, Illinois community. In 1933, a Sunday school class was formed at the United Methodist Church in Nashville, Illinois. These 30 students aimed to complete charitable work in their community. Some of the group's activities have included: Christmas fruit trays for shut-ins, fundraising for school activities and Children's homes, funeral dinners for church families, and quilt donations to the local EMT.

From its inception until 2003, the class was named after its first teacher, Jennifer Bennett. In 2003, the longtime president of the ``Jennifer Class'' passed away, and its members decided to rename the group in her honor. Known now as Rosemary's Circle, this group of dedicated women continued to serve the people of Nashville, Illinois for seventy-five years.

In recent years, membership in Rosemary's Circle has dwindled due to the aging of its members. In July of 2008, the group, upon conferring with its namesake's descendents, decided to disband and made a final donation to the Methodist Children's Home. Although Rosemary's circle is no longer active, the generosity of its members will not soon be forgotten. I join with my fellow representatives today in honoring the members--past and present--of Rosemary's Circle for many years of community service.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2638.

Requesting Member: John M. Shimkus.

Bill Number: H.R. 2638

The account: Defense, Procurement of Ammunition, Army. Account 042, Provision of Industrial Facilities.

Requesting Entity: General Dynamics, 6650 Route 148, Marion Illinois.

This program will establish a flexible small caliber trace charging and bullet/cartridge assembly production line adjacent to the medium caliber lines at GD-OTS' Marion, Illinois ammunition production facility. This cost effective approach builds upon the existing manufacturing base and infrastructure at this plant and it capitalizes on the resident talent and expertise at Marion. This capability will be established on a noninterference basis without interrupting current 2nd Source small caliber deliveries.

Requesting Member: John M. Shimkus.

Bill Number: H.R. 2638.

I am requesting language to ensure that until such time as preliminary flood insurance rate maps in the city of St. Louis, St. Charles, and St. Louis, counties in Missouri and Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair counties in Illinois initiated prior to October 1, 2008 are completed and released for public review, preliminary base flood elevations are published in the Federal Register, and the second required local newspaper publication of such base flood elevations is made that the Administrator shall not begin the statutory appeals process required under section 1363 of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Madam Speaker, I, too, am honored to be here tonight just for 5 minutes to talk about two of my colleagues, two of my mentors, two of my friends who helped me as a new Member of Congress. They both served seven terms, finishing their seven terms, 14 years. One's about 10 years older, one is the same age.

Both represented--well, Jerry had parts of Cook County, Chicago in his first district, but mostly south of I-80 guys, which brings in a different dynamic in Illinois politics, which is rural, small town, agriculture interests.

I'd like first to spend time to talk about Jerry and his fight on the Ways and Means Committee primarily--most of us know him for eliminating the marriage penalty, and that was before Jerry got married. So it was no conflict of interest. He wasn't in doing things for himself.

And since that time not only did he save--I mean the basic debate that he made was this. Marriage should not be penalized under the Tax Code, and that position he fought hard and long for, and it has maintained itself until the loss of the majority here. And that marriage penalty is threatened unfortunately by Democratic control of Congress, and hopefully, they will make that permanent, and it will be a tribute to you, Jerry, if they do that.

Not only does he have a lovely young bride, a congresswoman, Zury Rios Sosa from Guatemala, but a lovely daughter, and I can't even pronounce her first name, Marizu Catherine Weller, and Jerry has been proud to show these pictures around. We understand why Jerry now has chosen a different path in life. He's got a lovely bride, a young daughter. This is not a very great profession for families. It's very challenging. And no one casts any disappointment on Jerry Weller choosing family over a profession here.

Jerry's been a confidante and friend. Our staffs are very close. My chief of staff worked in his first campaign. Jerry has been very helpful to me. He knows that. I'm honored to call you a friend, and I look forward to working with you for many years to go.

Ray LaHood. These guys are like two polar opposite-type guys. Ray's come up through the political system as a staff director for Leader Bob Michel, a State rep himself, a man of the institution. Shocking that he would decide to leave because he loves the institution so much. Ray is close friends with former Speaker Denny Hastert. He's a guy that you always know where Ray stands, and he's not embarrassed to tell you, and he's not embarrassed to tell his constituents when they agree with him and when they don't.

Ray has a unique ability to confront those in opposition with him forcefully and firmly. Some of those attributes I've tried to take on because sometimes you have to confront those who attack your values and your position. You've got to attack it front on. You don't want to be coy. You just want to tell them what it is you believe and why, and that's what Ray has always brought to the table.

Ray and I have had our own fights, but our friendship and loyalty has lasted through the time of our service. He's also finishing his seventh term, that means 14 years as a Member of the House, many years with Leader Michel, probably 30-plus years in Federal service that he's done for this great country.

A man from Peoria, born, raised there, lives there, went to school there, again a southern Illinoisan who tries to balance the interests of rural America and agriculture interests with some of the big, monumental issues of our time. He proudly represented Caterpillar, which the home office is in Peoria, and made sure, as Jerry Weller did, the importance of trade to both our agricultural community and manufacturing sector, especially Caterpillar.

These are good friends, mentors to me, mentors when I was doing stuff right and mentors when I was probably going off the track and I needed some direction to stay focused on the responsibilities as a Member of Congress. Jerry was always there to help me do that. Ray definitely was, also. I appreciate that.

We're going to miss them, but they have chosen to pursue other pursuits. We want to honor and recognize that, and I want to thank them publicly for their service.

Well, thank you, Judge. You're a friend and a colleague, someone that helps us share a laugh and a joke. We also know of your powerful oratory ability when things need to be said. I don't know if I have seen you so emotionally engaged in this tribute to your colleague and friend. I think that is probably one of the best tributes you can give someone. So it was noticed by me. And I know it was noticed by your colleague. And I know she appreciates it.

I'm going to take a few minutes just to tie two things together. We had this great financial crisis. This financial crisis is based upon two events. One is the subprime financial mortgage issue that has worked its way through Wall Street. The other one is high energy prices. And these two things have really put a damper on the economy.

We've had some great successes in this Congress with this CR that just passed. After a good couple of months about fighting over the oil and natural reserves in this country, we won. The OCS moratorium has been lifted, and the moratorium on oil shale has been lifted.

Now what am I talking about? I'm talking about that we, as legislators, especially on the Outer Continental Shelf, which are these areas here, the red, since 1982, we said we're not going to allow any Federal money to be spent to lease areas for exploration and recovery of oil and gas, thus depriving the country of the revenues from those areas and depriving those countries from the jobs that would be created. And so we, with the consistent drumbeat, have, for this time, for this short time, have won that fight. Also here, we see three mountain States in which we also put off-limits recovery exploration of oil shale. Oil shale can be turned into liquid fuels. We said we're not going to allow any Federal money to be spent to allow that to happen. In the continuing resolution, these moratoriums were taken off the books so that now, we know it still takes years, the Federal Department of Mines and Minerals are going to have to go through the regulation and accept the request and do that action, but at least these things can start. And when we're exploring for oil and gas and starting to recover that, we're using oil shale to turn into fuel, we've got a couple of things happen. We bring on more supply.

Now I'm not one that says we're going to drive prices down to prices that they were a year, a year and a half ago. But I will say what we do want to do at a minimum is stabilize energy prices. And hopefully we can drive them down. But we do need to stabilize them, because the middle class, the poor and rural America are those who are hurt the most by high energy prices. And it hurts our ability to buy goods and services, and it depresses our economy.

It didn't take very long for the ink to dry on the CR, the continuing resolution, when rumors started coming out from the Democratic leadership saying, we were just joking, as soon as we come back, we're going to replace that moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf, thus depriving us of the oil and gas in those areas and depriving us of those revenues that can be generated to help grow our economy. So I'm just putting my friends on the other side on notice. We're going to do what we did in this Congress next Congress. And we're going to hold them accountable. And we're not going to allow them to take these areas that we have now opened and open it and allow them to use it for this political short period of time to get re-elected and then come back here and close it. If they think they had a fight this year, wait until next year. We are going to sharpen our swords, and we're going to be ready to come back. And I think it's going to be much more difficult for them to make the case that they should close these areas up.

So I want to come down here tonight, obviously a great competitor in the political arena and public policy is the majority leader, Steny Hoyer. Actually most of us really like the majority leader. But his quotes today say, we're going to do this first order of business, we're going to close these areas up. And to the majority leader, I just say, we're ready to go and fight for this in the long haul because it will be good for jobs and the economy and lowering the energy costs for average Americans.

So Judge Gohmert, I appreciate your allowing me to share some of your time tonight. I look forward to the conclusion of this Congress. And I'm even looking more expectantly to the next Congress as we try to continue to use all our natural resources that we have. We won on OCS. We won on oil shale. We have a long way to go on coal. We still have the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We have great places that we can recover oil, gas and coal and make this country more energy independent. And I know with your help we're going to be able to that.

I would be honored to engage in a colloquy.

Well I do want to highlight the fact everybody talks about the trade deficit, and what is the biggest impact on the trade deficit is our purchasing of energy from foreign countries, especially in this era of high energy prices. This $700 billion number that you're referring to is a transfer of wealth from Americans to some of our friends, Canadians, they are our largest importer. We import from them. They are a large exporter of energy to us, and Mexico, but we also transfer our wealth to places where we're not sure about our relationship. We know Venezuela is not our friend. We have an interesting relationship with Saudi Arabia. One day we're close, and the next

day they may be funding our enemies. They fund our enemies through oil revenues that we're paying.

There is a better way. And that is to become more energy independent. And what I like about this debate, and I think you are alluding to it a little bit, is when we are recovering oil and gas and oil shale and I would say coal in other places, the government receives royalty payments for that exploration.

Congressman Barton, the ranking member now of Energy and Commerce, has proposed, hey, if we are going to have to do this great outlay of money to stabilize the economy, we have a place we can go for revenues. Great idea. Let's have a pay-for. These would be great pay-fors.

Now, that hasn't really been resolved in this debate, but I still have always historically on the floor talked about the jobs that are created when you look for, find and then recover oil and gas in the OCS and the oil shale. And, of course, I am talking about that because that was part of the continuing resolution. Those are the provisions.

In fact, the majority leader of the Senate in the CR wanted to strip this portion out. In fact, he is trying right now, to say, oh, the House was wrong. They shouldn't have eased the moratorium on oil shale. I want to put that back on.

I don't think he is going to be successful. But the fact that in the Senate they want to do that and in the House they are talking already about doing the OCS, what does that do for the average consuming citizen of this country, and what signal does it send to the futures markets? It says, well, is the government serious about opening supply, or are we not?

We Republicans are serious about an all-American energy policy that brings in all our natural resources. Are our friends on the other side just playing a cruel joke on the country, saying yeah, we said so now, but, man, wait until January. We are just going to take it right back. I hope it is not a cruel joke, because it will cost my constituents a boatload of money, our schools, our hospitals, our jobs.

Again, we need to continue the fight that we started early this spring, through the summer, through the end of this Congress.

I was here that day also. And, of course, we honored Ralph tonight at an earlier special order where the delegation from Ohio was here, and that is the benefit of having Members who have served a long time. They help keep the whole debate in perspective. The new Members are firebrands, want to change the world, and that is good. We need all sorts. We will miss the Ralph Regulas of the world.

But he wanted to come back. He wanted to participate in this debate, because he knew the history of this. Sometimes you think, oh, it is just the young firebrands. But he knew what we were doing, and because he had experienced the story you just told, he said I wanted to be part of that, because I want to set the record straight of what happened and why, and why we need to use this great resource that we have available for our energy security and for jobs and the economy.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the 2008 National Observance of POW/MIA Recognition Day.

In each conflict since the Revolution, brave Americans have found themselves prisoners of the enemy. Far from home and country, cut off from news of loved ones for months or even years, sometimes subjected to physical and mental abuse, these Americans held out the hope that they would one day see home again. Through the horrors of Andersonville and the Bataan Death March, American prisoners of war have endured the cruelest of humanity. Some did not survive to have their much awaited reunion with loved ones. All have earned our Nation's abiding respect and admiration for the sacrifices they made for our Nation.

It is my privilege to join this day with my colleagues in honoring the 2008 National Observance of POW/MIA Recognition Day. Let us never forget these great Americans and all that they have done for us.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Miller, thank you for the good work on this. I'm planning, as many of us are, to be highly supportive of it.

I just want to bring to the attention of the Chamber an article that was in USA Today, September 4. We're talking about disabilities here and the disabilities act, and also remind people, as a teacher of government and history of 4 years, the process of how a bill becomes a law.

We had a vote last night that passed a bill. It has not yet become law. In essence, we still have done nothing to ease the energy crisis, and this article highlights ``Gas Prices Confine Sick People.'' Some have to cut back on traveling, treatment, such as dialysis or chemotherapy. The picture here is a visit to a Lou Gehrig's, ALS, clinic; and one of the quotes is saying, ``People are going to depend on us more because their friends and families can't afford to transport them in their cars.''

When we've been fighting so hard for an energy policy and energy debate, many times I would come to the floor to say energy is a variable in everything that we do in our society. It's a variable in the cost of doing the job here as we use power to generate electricity, air-conditioning, and, of course, communications. It's a part of the educational environment as we find schools having to adjust transportation schedules on diesel fuel. It is a critical portion of how we can meet the needs of the disabled.

And one of the places they point out here is in Sacramento, the disabled individuals can't get services because they can't afford to drive to reach the services. Again, this is not me. This is USA Today on 4 September. Pretty big article.

We have to move a bill that the President will sign. We have to have a comprehensive policy that brings in all the above. I personally like coal. I personally like renewable fuels. I personally like nuclear power. I personally like oil shale, and I like oil sands. I like wind. I like solar.

If we do not have a comprehensive energy policy that helps stabilize and bring costs down, we can pass all the pieces of legislation we want to in the world but the disabled are still going to be harmed, especially in areas that I represent, which is rural southern Illinois, where to get a job, get health care, you have to drive a long distance.

Madam Speaker, I too join with our leader and all in the Chamber in support of this legislation. I actually have great respect for the ranking member here. We have had our fights, but I know he is a man of sincerity.

We are on the floor just to highlight the other challenges faced by those people who we are trying to help. SSI payments do not go far enough when we are under a regime of high energy prices, and, as I talked about in the last bill from this article here, gas prices confine sick people.

Again, as a former high school teacher on how a bill becomes a law, we should not be dancing in the well of the floor on the passage of a bill, nor should we be disappointed, those of us, with the outcome. The process still goes forward. Hopefully there will be a conference.

Hopefully there will be changes and we bring more supply to this energy debate. Because if we don't bring on more supply, and in my aspect coal-to-liquid technologies, the tar sands from Canada, we get a real bill that addresses where the oil is off the California coast, which is 50 miles less, not 50 miles out, and then we take those royalties to move into renewables, clean solar, wind, all of the above, we are going to have to continue to revisit all these spending regimes on social services based upon high energy costs.

So we come down here respectfully with the matter of the bill. It is needed. It is supported. We are all going to vote yes. But also to highlight the fact that there is much more to be done on the energy debate. And I am not one that says we are going to drive prices down to $1.50 a gallon. I never make those proclamations. What I would like to see is stabilization, instead of the swings that we will see.

I would also like to see us not be held captive to Mother Nature by having all our main assets in hurricane alley versus disbursed around the country, and in my case the coal-to-liquid refinery aspects, which would be very, very helpful.

This article says, ``Gas prices confine sick people. Some have to cut back on traveling, treatment such as dialysis, or chemotherapy.'' If that is what not having an energy plan that can be signed into law is doing to our most needful, then we have not done the right thing.

Mr. Speaker, my coal Democrats, who have promised me that they would take one vote in this Congress to advance coal, and we have not seen it. And my colleagues will want to attack the oil, but the best way to get off of imported crude oil is to use coal.

There is nothing in the Democrat bill that advances coal use; nothing, zero--no oil shale, no coal, no oil sands, nothing. It's not a comprehensive plan.

We can turn coal into liquid fuel. That's what our Department of Defense wants. We can turn coal into clean burning electricity. That's what the environmentalists want. But is there anything for coal in this bill? No.

If you vote for this Democrat bill, you are voting against coal. It's our largest resource that we have in this country. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal. We do not use it fully, you all know it. Speaker Pelosi hates coal, hates it, and that's why it's not in this bill.

Madam Speaker, I'm pretty happy today. The rumors coming out of the majority bring hope that

we'll have an opening up of the Outer Continental Shelf, not just in this energy bill that should come to the floor next week, but also in stopping the prohibition on the continuing resolution. That will bring the opportunity of more supply of oil and gas to our country, a much- needed benefit.

I know we all focus on crude oil a lot, but an all-of-the-above energy strategy would also address coal. There's two provisions, Congressmen Boucher/Shimkus coal-to-liquid bill, which would help incentivize coal being turned into liquid fuel. That would help decrease our reliance on imported crude oil, make our country safer.

The Department of Defense wants long-term contracting so that we can incentivize coal-to-liquid refineries. That would also help. An all-of- the-above strategy would not forget coal.

Mr. Speaker, here's the difference between both sides. Following my colleague, who says this administration, this President, what he fails to mention is that the Democrat majority in this House for the past 2 years is part of the problem. I recognize that.

Here is the price of a barrel of crude oil when President Bush came in: $23 a barrel. Here's the price of a barrel of crude oil when this Democrat majority came in: $58 a barrel. Today it's at $103. We can't sustain that. We can blame everybody we want, but this is a problem we can't sustain.

Drill, baby, drill. Here's the Outer Continental Shelf. They want to only to do 20 percent, maybe. They can't even get an agreement on what they want. This whole area should be open for exploration recovery of oil and gas in our country to help decrease our reliance on imported crude oil and lower prices, and they don't have a clue. They'll continue to say ``no'' to oil and gas exploration.

They won't even address coal as part of the solution. Coal is the greatest resource we have in this country.

I want to drill, baby, drill, and I want to mine coal.

Mr. Chairman, it is great to have a chance to be on the floor to talk about energy and the lack of movement from my colleagues on the other side. It's not the first time I've been down here, it's not going to be the last, and I seriously doubt that the provision that will be brought to the floor will be an all-of-the-above, comprehensive plan.

It will be a smoke screen, it will try to have some cover for votes for November, but it will not be the all-the-above strategy that we are demanding on the floor of the House.

There will not be a provision on coal in this bill. Coal is our most valuable resource we have in this country. There will not be a provision on oil shale. More energy than any other country in oil shale. We will not deal with opening up the entire Outer Continental Shelf. We will not use the revenues to fully expand the grid or go into all the renewables.

We would like regular order. We would like the chance to move a bill through the committee. I serve on the Energy and Air Quality subcommittee; I serve on the Energy and Commerce full committee. The 2005 energy bill that you all had attacked went through regular order. It went through your committee, it went through my committee, it went through the Science Committee. It went through all the committees; it was cobbled together on the floor; we had amendments on the floor, and we voted.

Democrats attacked us for the majority of the majority rule of the floor of the House. Well, we're going to turn that around, because now it's just a majority of one: It's whatever Speaker Pelosi decides, that will be the bill on the floor. And she is dissing you all. She's not allowing you all to have any

input into the legislative process. It's whatever she says goes. And you just can't deny that fact, because it is not going through any regular order.

So when you attacked the 2005 energy bill that went through the subcommittee, went through the full committee as being written behind closed doors, there is no more closed doors than what you are doing and proposing to do in this bill, and it is a shame and it is an insult on the legislative process.

Let's see if we address coal-to-liquid. There are two provisions you all could put in the bill right now to make us more energy independent.

You could put long-term contracting Department of Defense, who are asking for coal-to-liquid applications for jet fuel, long-term contracting, and we would have coal-to-liquid refineries being built with American jobs today.

You could take a Democrat bill, the Boucher coal-to-liquid bill. You could put Rick Boucher's bill in this, quote/unquote, comprehensive energy bill, and we would have coal-to-liquid refineries being built in this country within a year.

But it won't be comprehensive because you're going to not address coal, the greatest resource. We have more coal reserves than any country on this planet. So you can't really say you are going to have a comprehensive energy plan when you don't address coal.

The other thing that you will not do is open up the Outer Continental Shelf. You may open up 5 percent more. This whole red area, you have seen it numerous times, off-limits.

We're going to call your bluff. We're going to shut down this government on the CR because we're going to defeat the moratorium. So you can pass all these energy bills you want. You know you can't conference it with the Senate. You know it's not going to go to the President's desk. It's a fig leaf. It's a farce. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

What we're going to do is we're going to wait till the spending bill comes to fund government, and then we're going to call your bluff. Are you willing to shut the government down and keep off-limits billions of barrels of oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas? And if you're willing to do that, fine. We'll do that before the election. We'll go back and we'll hold you accountable at the polls.

Do you know why you can't bring a comprehensive bill that comes through regular order? Because Nancy Pelosi loses, and it's her bill.

Will the gentleman yield?