Floor Statements

So you go through all of this and say it's not even some of the above. They'll put in, especially when it comes to drilling, and they'll say well you can drill in these specific areas.

But as one of my colleagues, Congressman Shadegg, has pointed out, I think in Alaska and some other areas, where 487 leases were issued, every single one of those leases has been challenged multiple times through the process by radical environmental groups to make sure that no drilling takes place. Those folks know that we can open this up, but because we've created these environmental standards, the radical environmental standard, no drilling will ever take place.

I think as we talk about this, and I hope our colleagues join in. I come from the great State of Michigan and we're struggling. Last month, we were at 8.5 percent unemployment. My expectation is that now with what's happened at the national level that unemployment rate is going to go up.

But as we struggle with these energy costs, it has absolutely hammered jobs. It has absolutely hammered the automotive industry and these types of things, and the refusal of our colleagues to deal with this issue means increased unemployment and increased hardship for a State like Michigan.

And you know, our Governor came out recently and said I can't believe that Michigan may be in play in this election, and it's kind of like, excuse me, Republicans are going to do very well in the State of Michigan because Democrats in Washington have refused to deal with the issue of energy. And if people want to take a look at what America might look like under a Democrat administration all the way through, take a look at Michigan.

Michigan, our Governor came up with a brilliant strategy of saying, you know, we've got the highest unemployment rate in the country. You know what we ought to do? To attract more business, to attract more investment to the State of Michigan, let's raise taxes and let's make sure people don't understand exactly how much or where those taxes are going to be raised because we think that will get people to

come to our State and get them to invest and create jobs.

Now, we live on a peninsula. People don't come to Michigan naturally. If they want to do and invest in Michigan, they've got to be going down the expressway in Indiana, and depending on whether they're going east or west, they've got to make a left turn or a right turn. And I'll tell you, they're not turning into Michigan anymore because they're looking at Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and all of these States, and they're saying these are pretty good States to do business in. And if we take a left turn and go up into Michigan, we're going to be paying more in taxes. We will just kind of stay on the interstate and do business here.

But that's what, you know, we're facing with a Democrat leadership that not only won't deal with the energy issue, but will raise taxes because they believe the best way for America to be competitive on a global basis is not to grow American industries but to tax American industries and to tax the American citizen so that we can feed this beast in Washington.

Mr. Speaker, it's great to be back in the Chamber with the microphones on and with the lights fully ablaze and with our guests in the gallery and with cameras rolling.

For the past 5 weeks, I along with 135 of my Republican House colleagues have been on the floor, talking to our guests in the Chamber, talking about the number one issue facing America today, which is high energy prices. It was a very good exchange and a chance to not only talk about energy and where we're at and where we need to go in the future but also to visit with many of our guests here in Washington, D.C.

The major premises that we had when we left on the 1st of August are still true today. We have no comprehensive energy plan or policy. Even though gas prices might be stabilizing, they're stabilizing because the economy is going down. Eighty-four thousand jobs have been lost, all directly related to high energy costs. Think of it. In the aviation industry, in the transportation industry and in the automobile industry, those jobs have been lost because of high energy prices. So here is what we've been talking about over the past year.

Here is the problem. The problem is, when President Bush came into office, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $23. Actually, when I came into office, it was $10 a barrel. When the Democrats came in in January, it was at $58. Today--and I update this daily--the price of a barrel of crude oil is $104.13.

All we're trying to say here from our side of the aisle is this is not a good trend. This is not a direction in which we want to continue if we want to have a thriving economy, one that all of the people of our country can benefit from. I represent rural America. I represent 30 counties of southern Illinois, and it's really those in the rural communities who have to drive long distances to get to work, to get to school, to access health care; there's no public transportation; they're working in the fields; they drive big trucks. They're the ones who are harmed, I think, exponentially greater than those in major metropolitan areas. So this is not a good trend.

So what is the solution? One solution is to bring on more supply. On this chart, we identify some of those supply options that we have in this country that we fail to access, and I had a bigger chart earlier. One that we hear a lot about is the Outer Continental Shelf. We only drill and explore in 15 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf, and we don't want to just up that to, maybe, 30 percent, which are some of the proposals coming from the other side of the aisle. We want to open up the entire Outer Continental Shelf. We want all of the above. We want to open up the eastern gulf. We want to open up the eastern seaboard of the Atlantic. We want to look at what's on our west coast. We want to make sure that there are billions of barrels of oil and the trillions of cubic feet of natural gas we can find and that we can access so we can help bring on more supply, U.S. supply. When we do this, this is U.S. energy and this is U.S. jobs, which is what this country needs.

Another resource that we have is coal. The United States has more coal reserves than any country on Earth today. In Illinois alone, we have 250 years worth of recoverable coal. We should access that for electricity. In Illinois, 70 percent of our electricity is by coal- fired power plants. Nationally, as a whole, 50 percent of all electricity is generated by coal. We can take coal and turn it into liquid fuel, thus competing with gasoline, thus competing with diesel fuel, thus competing with aviation fuel by having a new commodity product to compete with crude oil. We can move to solar and wind. That's part of the solution. That is more supply. We can look at renewable fuels like biodiesel and ethanol--ethanol from corn, ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks.

The big debate here is: What do you do with the Outer Continental Shelf? Here is a bigger chart. All of this red area is off limits by our design here in the House of Representatives. We have said annually for the past 30 years ``no'' to going after oil and gas in those areas. We are at a crisis time. This debate which will be on this floor is: Do we open up a little bit more or do we open up the whole thing? My position and that of the majority of people in my country is ``all of the above.''

Mr. Speaker, I got a magazine from a good friend, a former colleague of ours, Chris John, who is now the president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. All of our colleagues got this magazine. I want to quote from his introduction in this magazine:

``The path of the Washington Democrats, with a few notable exceptions, is to repeal tax incentives and possibly levy other taxes on the industry, with the money going to the development of alternative fuels. This will do nothing to lower gasoline prices or increase crude oil supplies. In fact, enactment of such a plan would discourage new investment in exploration and production in the United States and send those dollars overseas.''

Now, Chris is a good friend and a former colleague, one that we all trust and appreciate his service. He is right on this issue. We should not drive our investment in oil and gas exploration overseas by burdening them with new taxes.

I thank my colleague for the time, and I thank Mike Conaway for his great comments. And it is important that we are here tonight, and it is important that we continue to push this issue, especially as we are coming close to the time when we adjourn for what we call our district work period, which is for layman's term it is really the month of August, and it will go to the first week of September. We will be back in our district. Members will be traveling around the world on the congressional delegation tours and events.

But one of the main premises that we are trying to address this week is just stating the position that we should not leave. We should not adjourn and leave Washington until we have at least one vote on increasing supply.

We have been talking about bringing on supply as part, not the totalitarian solution, but as part of the solution, and we have been down here 3 months straight pretty much and continue to drive the message. And in the People's House, the House of Representatives, this is the body that you are supposed to hear the outcry of the citizens. You are supposed to hear the pain and the agony, as my colleague from Texas stated. And you are supposed to transform those cries for help from the citizenry to at least a debate on the floor and hopefully a vote to address these issues.

I too did a tele-town hall meeting last night, and an independent trucker called me up. And you know what he was saying. He is saying, I can't make it. I can't make ends meet. I used to be able to make a good income for my family and provide for them. But now with the doubling of the cost of diesel fuels, I don't know, we need help. And his response, and I think we have been helpful in moving the debate nationally, is we need to bring on more supply.

So I would like to just go back to the basics real quick, where we came from, where we are at and where we are headed. And because my debate has been over a period of months, I have softened the debate as far as the real partisan rancor and just talked about the facts.

So I go back to when President Bush got sworn in. The price of a barrel of crude oil was $23. Now, when I came in, elected in 1996, came in 1997/1998 we were worried that the price of a barrel of crude oil was so low that it was going to close the margin wells in Southern Illinois. It was down to about $10 a barrel.

So here we are at $23. The new majority comes in January 2006. The price of a barrel of crude oil is $58.31. And today, I think this is correct. If it is not, it is close. $123.67.

And then the basic of this chart is just to say, you know, the trend line is not good. It doesn't matter if you start in January 2001, it doesn't matter if you start back in January of 1997, January 2001, January 2006, or today, this trend line is not good, and it is not sustainable for the people that we ought to be standing up for on the floor of the House here, and that is the middle income, lower middle income individuals who are disproportionately hurt by high energy prices.

The poor, they are not going to go out to the new car dealer and buy the Toyota Prius. If they are lucky, they are going to scrape some money together, they are going to go to the used car lot, and they are going to get whatever they can afford to get them to work. That is what the poor are going to do.

And when we cause this increase in the price of a barrel of crude oil, which translates into an increase in gasoline costs, we hurt the people that we are trying to protect, which is the poor, the middle class, and in my aspect of my district, rural America.

Rural America is disproportionately harmed greater because in rural America you have to drive many miles to get to your schools. You have to drive many miles to get to your health care. You have to drive many miles to get to your job, and so that is the difficulty.

Now, here is the problem. Here are some solutions. And part of that solution is what my colleague from Texas said, Americans for American energy. American energy translates into American jobs. In a time of low economic development, wouldn't it be great to use our own resources to create American jobs using American energy?

So we have a couple of things here. Of course, parochial interests are always important. We have 250 years worth of recoverable coal in the United

States. We have as much Btu, British thermal units, of coal in the Illinois coal basin as Saudi Arabia has in oil. We use coal; 50 percent of all of our electricity is generated by coal in this country. But we can also use coal to turn it into liquid fuels.

Wouldn't it be great to have a competitor at the pump to gasoline, based upon crude oil, so that there is some competition between the liquid fuels competing for lower prices, better quality, better service?

And we do that by taking a coal field, American jobs, building a coal to liquid refinery, American jobs to build the refinery, American jobs to operate the refinery, a pipeline, American jobs to build the pipeline, to the airports of the world. You can take coal, you can turn it into jet fuel.

Why do we have four budget airlines have gone broke? Why is American Airlines charging $15 a bag? Why are our airline tickets going up? It is all because of the high price of fuel. And if we incentivize coal using fissure trope technology into jet fuel, we would not have the loss of these aviation jobs that we have today. And that is a trickle- down aspect, because when people are unemployed they are not going to the store. They are not going to go to the movie theater. As my colleague from Texas says, they are going to make decisions whether to go to vacation or send people to camp or just stay at home.

I would be happy to yield.

Well, the answer is it is the extreme environmental left that hates coal. The leader of the other body, Senator Reid said, ``Coal will kill you.'' That is his direct quote. And so that is the leadership is saying that coal is bad.

I am here to say that coal is good. It can address our concerns. It could bring on more supply. We can do it cleanly, we can create jobs, and it is part of the solution. Our part of the debate is American energy, all-of-the-above. Part of that all-of-the-above is the great use of a great resource. We have more recoverable coal in this country than any country in the world and we ought to take advantage of it.

And part of the debate is, you know, we are one of the few major--it doesn't have to be a major country. Most countries, when they see a great resource that they have available, they say, yahoo. We have a strategic advantage because we can create low cost power which will help our manufacturing base, which will help create jobs.

We see a national asset like coal and we say, we have an environmental disaster here. And there is no way we are going to use this. And that is the fallacy, not just in coal, but it really involves any of the fossil fuel arena, whether it is our OCS, or Outer Continental Shelf, whether it is the billions of barrel of oil, the trillions of cubic feet, it is the inability to look at that as a strategic national advantage and look at it like an environmental hazard, by the Democrat leadership, both here in this House and in the other body, that is stopping our ability to take advantage of the resources we have involved in this country.

And the country is now awakened, and they know that we have these resources, and they are really confused as to why we are not taking advantage of them.

That is correct.

Well, that is true. Let me just give you a--for every dollar increase in a barrel of crude oil it costs our United States Air Force $60 million. That is $60 million of our taxpayers dollars that has to go just to fuel the aviation fleets of our, the defense of our country.

And you mentioned the Democrat majority. I know it is the Democrat leadership. I am hoping, I know I have got a lot of great Democrat friends in those coal areas that are just looking for the right time. We are just here trying to encourage them to seize the day, seize the moment and help bring supply on.

I would be happy to yield.

I have no disagreement with that. We have an all-of-the- above strategy. We have an American energy, you know, meet the American needs. It is all of the above. It is highlighting the great abundance of coal that we have in this country, and taking advantage of it.

We get it. We are going to do it in an environmentally safe and sound way. But we want to bring other commodity products to help make our energy needs. We want to thrust them in a competitive market with other sources of energy so they compete at the pump, so that we have lower prices. It is the American way, and we ought to encourage it.

I will just be brief. And I thank you for the question.

And there was a time when you just grabbed the coal and threw it in and you burned the coal. Pretty dirty, pretty sooty emissions, and that goes back to the advance of the industrial age.

Then they developed crushing and pulverizing the coal and sweeping it up in oxygen to burn it a little more thoroughly. It still has, if you're a climate change person and carbon person, that still you have the carbon emissions.

Now, the carbon emissions are not toxic. It's not like nitrous oxide, it's not like SO2. It's not like particulate matter. It's not an issue where people are going to point the finger and say, Oh, you're causing a disease by these emissions. Carbon, it's naturally occurring, but there are some people who have problems with that.

So the best way to address that is to go back to technology that was developed in World War II. It's Fischer-Tropsch. Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch. It's almost like kind of a joke. It's Hans and Franz, Fischer and Tropsch, who developed the technology to take coal, synthetically, and gasify it or turn it into liquid fuel. And when you gasify it and you burn it, you burn it cleanly. And in that extreme, you can pull off the carbon in a more economic manner.

I have got a lot of other colleagues that want to talk. I will finish with my last poster here.

We've talked about the coal-to-liquid. But here is what the current debate here is on the floor. What about the Outer Continental Shelf? We have all of these available locations. We only explore off of 15 percent of our Outer Continental Shelf. That means 85 percent is off limits by a legislative fiat by us.

If we explore there and when we recover oil and gas, those companies pay royalties to us, and those royalties can go to solar and wind, they can go into renewable fuels. My colleague from Tennessee mentioned cellulosic and the debate on biofuels.

What we want is American-made energy creating American jobs, an all- of-the-above position, so that these energy events compete, and that's what I like about it. They compete for our attention based upon offering lower prices. When you have a one-fuel policy like we have today, you have no competition. You're held hostage to the imported barrel crude oil, and we need to break away from that.

I want to thank my colleague from Texas and make sure that my other colleagues have plenty of time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in commemoration of the 40th birthday of the Special Olympics. Experts agree that this organization has had a more positive impact on the lives of people with intellectual disabilities than any other organization of its kind.

Illinois is divided into 17 Special Olympic areas. My area, area 12 consists of 8 counties and works with over 1000 athletes. At least 8 weeks prior to the competition, volunteer coaches work with individuals to prepare them to compete in one or more of the 12 sports offered by Special Olympics. Through the Special Olympics, athletes better their physical fitness, motor skills, and self-image, as well as gain confidence that will carry over into their daily lives.

The Special Olympics are not only beneficial to the athletes themselves, but benefit the families of the athletes as well. Families gain a stronger appreciation and respect for their athlete's abilities. Volunteers within the organization also gain a great satisfaction from interactions with the athletes and seeing them succeed.

The Special Olympics can only be made possible through the generous donations of money and time through its supporters and volunteers. Fundraisers and donations make this remarkable program possible. For all those that make this program possible, I would like to thank you for your unwavering dedication and support. You have made an impact on the lives of all the athletes. For the athletes, congratulations on your amazing accomplishments, within the Special Olympics and all other aspects of your life. I wish every one of you nothing but the best in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to come down to the floor at the end of the week to just say if we really want to be sincere about bringing down the price of energy, we need to have an all-of-the-above strategy.

That is opening up the Outer Continental Shelf which we legislatively limited 25 years. That is bringing on wind and solar. We can use the revenues from opening the OCS to build wind and solar operations. We can use our vast resources of coal, 250 years worth of supply in the Illinois coal basin alone, turning that into liquid fuels creating American jobs. We also can continue to expand the use of biofuels.

The great thing about the Republican proposal is that it is all of the above. We are not willing to say ``no'' to everything. We want everything to come on board, to bring on more supply and lower the cost of liquid fuel for the cost of electricity, and we want these fuels and these commodities to compete. In the competition, we will have lower- cost fuel and energy so we can have a manufacturing base left in the United States of America.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor the Rochester Lady Rockets soccer team on their success in winning the championship game of the Illinois High School Association Class A State tournament.

Kelly Werthwien, Kelcie Kolis, Sarah Wright, Grace Capranica, Marissa Burge, Beth Fitzsimmons, Kellse Sandercock, Amy Shackelford, Jessica Heaton, Jillian Sulcer, Mollie Edgecomb, Kassie McIntyre, Taylor Heissinger, Kelcee Walsh, Amy Cassiday,

Maryssa Bandy, Taylor McDermott, Alecia Mantei, Taryn Butler, Aubrey Heck, Caley Cook and Casey Turner, along with head coach Chad Kutscher, Assistant Coaches Scott Tucker, Andrew Ford and Kristi Coppernoll and Trainer Sara Powless, put together a 16-4-3 season and swept through the sectional tournament en route to their first State championship.

This is the third straight year in which the Lady Rockets reached the State tournament, and the first for Coach Kutscher.

I am very pleased to congratulate the Rochester Lady Rockets on their victory and wish them the best of luck for next season.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this time to be able to address. I want to commend East High School in Denver, Colorado. As a former civics teacher myself, I concur with my colleague from Colorado of the importance of teaching government and the processes of how we should do things here in Washington. Hopefully they're giving some real world examples of what we do and what we fail to do. An

example of what we fail to do is energy policy in this country.

Historically, since the Bush administration came in, crude oil was at $23 a barrel. When this new leadership came in in the House, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $58, now it stands at $145 a barrel. What we're saying here on this side of the aisle is that the trend line in this energy debate is bad, and we have to address this. That's why we've come to the floor--unfortunately we have to do it in times like this--to raise awareness that there is a plan to get away from this reliance on imported crude oil. And that answer is, do all of the above. Do all of the above: Expand our renewable portfolio; push for efficiencies; open up the Outer Continental Shelf; explore and recover gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I was in a hearing today addressing expansion of nuclear power. Move to coal-to-liquid technologies.

Now, what's interesting about this floor, this bicameral legislative body that we have, we have a House and a Senate. The Founding Fathers, as ``We the People'' would teach, identified the House as the body that should be most outraged and be the most responsive to the public needs and demands. It is the House that's supposed to take up the clarion call when the public is angry and frustrated at their government, and it is the House that's not doing that. We're acting like we're the Senate. We're sitting back and doing nothing. We're trying to take some long-term provision instead of moving aggressively to address the energy crisis in this country.

And the people are behind us. Numerous polling is highlighting this debate. A new IBD/TIPP poll says 64 percent of Americans support Republican-led new American energy production efforts. That's not good enough? I had a telephone town hall meeting last night to my district. Three different callers referenced this poll number: 76 percent of Americans say we need more drilling, we need more supply.

The Founding Fathers, in the formation of this new Constitution that we have, would say it is the House that should be taking up this call. We're the ones who are supposed to be responding to the 76 percent of Americans, saying, ``we hear you. We're going to aggressively move to open up more supplies.''

Seventy-six percent, just over three-quarters, support immediately increasing oil drilling in the United States, more than seven in 10. And from Democrats, 71 percent of Democrats hold this view. So the populist issue that should be raised in the House is not being heard. A CNN opinion research poll, 73 percent of more than 1,000 Americans surveyed from June 26 to June 29 said they favor offshore drilling for oil and natural gas in U.S. waters. Los Angeles Times poll, 68 percent; when all registered voters were asked whether they support increased exploration for oil and natural gas, 68 percent responded in the affirmative. In a Rasmussen poll, 67 percent. According to Rasmussen, 67 percent of Americans support oil drilling off the Nation's coast. And 64 percent think it will lower gas prices.

Is anyone on the floor of the House listening to this? Sixty-seven percent. Seventy-six percent of the public want us to drill. They want us to look at our natural resources not as an environmental disaster, but as a strategic national interest.

Reuters: Most Americans support more U.S. oil drilling, some 59.6 percent of Americans surveyed in a poll. In a Gallup poll, 57 percent support drilling. Now, why is this important? Here's a news story from my congressional district, Wayne County Board. The Wayne County Board has approved covering a shortfall in the county sheriff's gasoline budget with money from the county's Public Safety Tax Fund. Members urged the sheriff to cut costs anywhere possible and to curb any unnecessary spending the remainder of the fiscal year. Why? High energy costs.

A transfer of funds will take place near the end of the current fiscal year.

Sheriff Jim Hinkle has announced that dramatic measures have been taken to curb gasoline consumption in his department. This is in a rural county. One major community, rural. The sheriff covers the entire county. He has initiated two-man patrols and has mandated that officers perform 2 hours of stationary patrol. I think that's an oxymoron. How can you patrol and be stationary? But energy costs are causing rural sheriffs to make a decision which does not have sheriffs driving the county roads. He has initiated two-man patrols and has mandated that officers perform 2 hours of stationary patrol with their engines turned off during each 8-hour shift.

Friends, we don't have to be in this position. Mr. Speaker, we can aggressively address these issues. The House should be the body. My colleagues on the other side should be welcoming this. We're doing what the Founding Fathers intended us to do. We are the body that should be throwing stones when the Federal Government is not hearing the cries of the public. And the cries of the public are we have got to address this problem. And how do we do it?

A current debate is the Outer Continental Shelf. We only drill and explore on 15 percent of the Federal lands in the Outer Continental Shelf, and that is the western gulf. What is off-limits by mandate by us by Federal law, we said no, you cannot go on the West Coast, you cannot go on the East Coast, you cannot go on the eastern gulf coast, thus depriving our country of billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.

We can change this today with a vote on the floor. In fact, yesterday the President said have at it, I will not stand in the way. Now it's up to us to address the Outer Continental Shelf, bringing on more supply to lower gas and oil prices. That's what this line here has.

Other options is when we do that, we'll get royalties, we will get Federal money, and we can expand wind and solar. The great position about our side is we are for all of the above. We want more renewables. We want more efficiency standards. We want more supply. We want more energy to lower prices.

Also I have talked about earlier coal-to-liquid technologies. Taking American coal, American jobs, mining that coal, bringing it to the surface, building a coal-to-liquid refinery, refining that coal into liquid fuel and using it for aviation. The bill coming to the floor next is honoring Nelson Mandela. South Africa is a leader on coal-to- liquid technologies. South African Airlines, that's how they operate their fleet.

And then, of course, the renewable fuel issues with biodiesel, soy diesel, ethanol, cellulosic. And the one solution is to bring on more supply.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this time to be able to talk about we the people and addressing the important educational aspects of our Founding Fathers. Having taught civics for 4 years at the high school level, I agree with my colleague from Colorado we can't teach the Constitution and the process more than we do today, but we have to lead by example here on the floor of the House. We cannot continue to bring regular order bills on a suspension calendar so we are not allowed a chance to amend, debate, and argue this out in front of the American people.

This is the first in a long time that the Republican side has been so right on a populous issue that the public wants and that we're right on our votes, that we welcome any chance, and, unfortunately, the only chance we have to do it is on suspension bills like we have today.

I want to thank my colleague from New York, who is a great friend and a colleague, for putting up with my ranting and raving. I want to thank the ranking member.

I want to thank my colleague for yielding, and I appreciate all the work he's doing to raise these issues.

I'm going to take a different tact tonight and respond to an e-mail that I got from a constituent in my district. And most of the e-mails we are getting are pretty angry about the high costs of fuel and energy. This one is asking

for answers and debating some of our points; so if I might, and it's an e-mail that I usually don't get very much because he claims he's a tree-hugging constituent of mine. So I want to take this time.

He says: ``There has to be a better way to go than this. I would rather pay more at the pump than risk poisoning the oceans and nature preserves up north any further with additional drilling.'' I want to address two of those points.

There are people who are willing to pay more. But there are people in this country, the poor, the middle class, the lower middle class, who can't afford to pay more, and that's what is frustrating in part about this debate. We know that there are people who, because they are very wealthy, live in splendid homes, can afford to pay whatever the price to bear. But we know in our congressional districts those people who are making tough decisions or families who used to be able to travel away to their kids' sporting events and now have decided not to do that. So it's affecting everyday family life. So I get the point that some people can. I will tell you that the vast majority of Americans can't afford to pay more.

And the other issue I would like to address on this is when energy costs go up, costs for everything go up. This whole food/fuel debate is really a food/energy debate. When a kernel of corn gets planted and then gets harvested and goes through the process and then goes all the way to the grocery store, it's going to travel about 1,500 to 2,000 miles. Now double the cost of diesel fuel, and you could see the escalation of food prices. So although someone may be able to pay more at the pump, they are also paying more at the grocery store. They are actually paying more in taxes as we have to heat and electrify government buildings and all those processes. So I get the point that some people can pay more. The vast majority of Americans can't.

And I will tell you the ones in my district in rural America, I have got some very proud, independent, tough people who can get through anything, but they live in small counties away from major cities, and to get to work, to get the food, to get the health care, they have to drive long distances.

He also says: ``Wouldn't more funding for alternative fuels and infrastructure go a long way?'' And our response would be all of the above. We want that. But when people say let's just put more funding into these things, what that means is that if you're not finding a way to recover that revenue through oil and gas exploration, where does that new revenue come from? The new revenue to advance alternative fuels, the new revenue to increase infrastructure all will come on the backs of individual taxpayers. So now you're laying more energy costs on them; then you're laying more taxes on them; then you're getting to a point where, you know, this country was founded on tax revolt, taxation without representation, and these energy costs are a new tax burden on the middle class that they are revolting from, and they are looking to us for help.

I wanted to talk to him about the alternative fuel standard. Most of us know about the renewable fuel standard, talking about biofuels, ethanol. But we have numerous times come to this floor on the alternative fuel standard, and alternative brings in other types of fuels. You have a chart up there of the Outer Continental Shelf. If we were to bring on more supplies of natural gas, we could take that natural gas, turn it into liquid fuels, and that could be part of a new alternative fuel supply which is cleaner than conventional gasoline.

Many people know that I'm from Southern Illinois and I deal with coal. Taking coal and turning it into liquid fuel should qualify as an alternative fuel, not relying on imported crude oil, not exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf, not up in Alaska. It is right in the middle of our country, safe and sound from hurricanes, and if they would close the sea traffic, our own coal reserves would not be affected by that.

He ends up by saying that we should be working harder and smarter. And I think our position has been we do because what we want to do is we are not saying no. Our problem is this: This trend line from $23 to $58, when the Democrats came in, to $145 is not sustainable. I think that's accepted throughout this country, and I think it's public opinion.

So the question is what do you do about it? And you have offered a lot of options. And I like this. I have got the same chart here, the Outer Continental Shelf. We heard today that there is more pollution in the ocean and on the beaches based upon boaters and the normal seepage of oil and gas undersea than there is through oil and gas exploration. So, in fact, oil and gas exploration could take the pressure off the crude oil that's trying to seep to the top of the surface; so it could be at least helpful.

Then you get the revenue. This is working smarter. We get the revenue from the folks who are in the Outer Continental Shelf, and you take those dollars, and you move that into wind and solar and alternative fuel technologies, efficiency standards, plug-in hybrids. We're for all of the above, and when you go through all of the above, you're talking about American jobs.

GM announced a major layoff today, thousands of jobs. Why? High energy prices. Airlines are laying off thousands of jobs. Why? High energy prices.

Here is the coal-to-liquid provision, where we're talking about taking U.S. coal, building a coal-to-liquid refinery, refining that into a liquid fuel, putting it in a pipeline in the United States, taking it to our airports. We can produce jet fuel from coal. South Africa has done it for 50 years.

Finally, another option is the renewable fuels under attack. Biodiesel by soy or reformulated cooking oil, ethanol. Hopefully, we move to the cellulosic arena where we're out of the corn kernel and we move to really the trash of the trash. We can get there, and I say to my constituent who wrote, and I will probably reply with an e-mail, that we can get there by working harder and smarter using the great resources.

We are the only industrialized nation in the world where we see a natural resource and we say, ``Ah, an environmental hazard,'' instead of saying, wow, now we are placed in a strategic national advantage to compete against the world in manufacturing goods and services. We can take the royalties from that and we can help to decrease our reliance on imported crude oil.

That's the future we are working for. It's a future of job creation for all America. It keeps us competitive around the world. And the first start is to allow us to start recovering the oil and gas reserves in this great country.

I appreciate your leadership. I signed your petition. We're having a lot of fun helping to educate ourselves and to educate the American people, and I appreciate the time.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor the Rochester Lady Rockets soccer team on their success in winning the championship game of the Illinois High School Association Class A State tournament.

Kelly Werthwien, Kelcie Kolis, Sarah Wright, Grace Capranica, Marissa Burge, Beth Fitzsimmons, Kellse Sandercock, Amy Shackelford, Jessica Heaton, Jillian Sulcer, Mollie Edgecomb, Kassie McIntyre, Taylor Heissinger, Kelcee Walsh, Amy Cassiday, Maryssa Bandy, Taylor McDermott, Alecia Mantei, Taryn Butler, Aubrey Heck, Caley Cook and Casey Turner, along with head coach Chad Kutscher, Assistant Coaches Scott Tucker, Andrew Ford and Kristi Coppernoll and Trainer Sara Powless, put together a 16-4-3 season and swept through the sectional tournament en route to their first State championship.

This is the third straight year in which the Lady Rockets reached the State tournament, and the first for Coach Kutscher.

I am very pleased to congratulate the Rochester Lady Rockets on their victory and wish them the best of luck for next season.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to mark the 60th anniversary of the Jefferson Fire Protection District in southern Illinois.

From a humble beginning, with a 5\1/2\ square mile district and a tanker that was a converted Army truck from World War II, to today's department with modern equipment covering 220 square miles, the Jefferson Fire Protection District has been keeping residents of Jefferson County, Illinois, safe for 60 years,

It is because of dedicated citizens, willing to put themselves into harm's way to help another in need, that our Nation is the great place that it is. Every time the department has responded to a house fire, an auto accident, a medical crisis or any of the myriad of other emergencies that they have been called upon to face, these brave public servants have reminded us of what it means to be a hero.

I want to congratulate the members of the Jefferson Fire Protection District, past and present, on reaching this milestone. I also want to thank them for the vital public service they render to local residents.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to an outstanding group of young ladies from Madison County, IL.

The Metro United U-17 girls soccer team won second place in the Illinois Youth Soccer Association State Cup finals June 15 in Libertyville, IL. Their only loss was in the championship game to Eclipse Select, the number one ranked team in the nation. Along the way to the finals, Metro United beat Eclipse Select South 2-0, Illinois Fusion 3-1, and Chicago Magic 1-0.

I want to congratulate coaches Tony Segobiano and Mitch Bohnak, and the members of the Metro United U-17 team: Megan Pawloski, Brittney Dailey, Jenny Humphrey, Emily Morris, Kelli Segobiano, Tess Huetner, Allison Menchak, Ashley Juravich, Jordan Hendrickson, Kaisi Hartwick, Kaitlyn Hoffman, Sam Poteet and Maureen Nesbit.

These young ladies have devoted many hours of hard work and dedication toward reaching this achievement, and I join with the other members of the House in congratulating them.

Mr. Chairman, I come in support of the legislation. I served, as many people know, in the United States Army for 5 years actively, 23 in the Reserves, a West Point graduate, great respect for George Washington, who established the fortifications there at West Point, the longest active military installation in the country. Of course, this constitutional Republic owes a great debt of gratitude to the French, and it is unfortunate we have to use discussions on this to come to the floor and exercise our rights of freedom and speech to talk about a new Declaration of Independence. So with respect to the chairman, I hope he will indulge me.

When we talk about the day-to-day and we talk about around the Fourth of July, America knows that we are held captive to imported crude oil as energy and that we have to break away to become energy independent and free. There are a lot of ways that we can do that, and I believe there is a huge consensus in this Congress today. Unfortunately, that consensus is not being allowed to be brought to the floor, and that is why we have to use legislation like this to exercise our ability for free speech to talk about pressing concerns.

We all know the problem, and I have tried to change my debate and discussion away from the basic partisan aspects to just the realities. And the reality is when President Bush became president, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $23. I highlight it here. I don't shy away from that fact. When the Democrat majority came in, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $58. Yesterday, I haven't checked the spot price today, but yesterday's price was $140. And all I have said on this floor now for about 12 weeks is that this trendline is bad, this trendline for our economy, for our middle class, for our lower middle class, for rural America, is not sustainable, and that we have to address this. And we can. We can address it in a bipartisan manner on this floor. There are a lot of things we can do.

We have tried on this floor numerous times to bring alternative fuel standards, the debate of using American coal, the largest recoverable resource we have. We have the largest recoverable resource of coal as any country in the world in coal. People don't understand that, but we do. The Germans developed technology in World War II to

take coal and turn it into liquid fuel. Wouldn't that be helpful today in the high energy prices, to be able to take something that we have a lot of and turn it into liquid fuel to help us become more independent from the importation of crude oil, especially from dangerous places around the world, places that really don't like us and we really would like to not have to be there.

So when we talk about becoming energy independent, we would like to say we are always going to need some, so we have got North American allies, the Canadians, a great source of imported fossil fuels, Mexico, a great supporter of fossil fuels. Using that, using our own coal reserves and our other resources, we could become independent from imported crude oil from other places.

We are independent on energy for electricity. We produce in our country the electricity we need. So we can be independent. We are not independent on the energy we need in liquid fuel.

One way we do this is with our great coal reserves. I am from Illinois, 250 years worth of recoverable coal. You go to a coal mine, you build a coal mine, American jobs. You operate the coal mine, American jobs. You build a coal-to-liquid refinery, American jobs. You operate that refinery, American jobs. You actually have a tax base developed for our local schools.

You build a pipeline from these refineries to maybe the local airport. Four budget airlines are bankrupt. That means baggage handlers, ticket takers, pilots, planes sitting idle because they can no longer compete with the high aviation fuel. Well, you can make aviation fuel from coal-to-liquid technology,

The United States Air Force is the number one aviation fuel user in the world. Every time this barrel of crude oil goes up $1, it costs us, the taxpayers, $60 million just to pay the aviation jet fuel bill. They are asking us to do this. If we want to become energy independent, as we are speaking about the independence of our country, being free from foreign oppression, being free from foreign influence, we have to become energy independent.

Another way to do this is the Outer Continental Shelf. Great resources, billions of barrels of crude oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, just waiting to be explored and recovered. These areas here in red are off limits by a dictate imposed by Federal legislators 25, 30 years ago, in a spending bill. We said in a spending bill you can't go off the east coast. You can't go in the eastern Gulf. You can't go on the west coast. It is off limits. So a way that we could become more independent, energy independent, would be to use our vast coal resources and to open up the Outer Continental Shelf. I have another chart here I forgot to bring that talks about wind and solar.

But the great thing about the Outer Continental Shelf is this: When we allow industry to look for, find and recover this, it is my understanding they have to pay us for that, and how they pay us is in royalties. So if we are going to use money for solar and wind and renewable energy, what a great place to get the pay-for.

I got a lot of Blue Dogs, they have been fighting the battle on pay- fors. What a great pay-for, to become energy independent by using the available oil and gas reserves, bringing more supply to the market, lowering the price.

It is all gain. There is no disadvantage to using our coal resources and creating jobs. There is no disadvantage to opening up the oil and gas reserves off the Outer Continental Shelf. And really there is no disadvantage into going into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area the size of the State of South Carolina, a drilling platform the size of Dulles Airport. To put it in perspective, take a football field and put a postage stamp on there.

When you hear people talk about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it is not like Woodland Park in my hometown of Collinsville, Illinois. That might be a little bit disruptive if you are drilling. It is not disruptive in an area the size of the State of South Carolina.

So the frustration for me as a member of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee and the Energy and Commerce Committee is we can't even have this debate in the committee. If we could have this debate in the committee, if we could move a bill and get it to the floor, we could use that time to debate energy. But, unfortunately, we have to use this time on a historic trail that helps us remember where we come from, helps us remember our national heritage.

We have obviously the portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette right here in the Chamber. Remember when we have had trouble with our French friends, they were here when we needed them and were instrumental to this Republic, and we need to thank them. Anything we can do as a history teacher to remember history and strengthen it for future generations, I am for.

I just hope what we want to do in the history, I hope we are willing to do the same thing for future generations for energy independence. And I challenge my friends to bring on the environmental restrictions. We can meet them. But we have to have a whole portfolio. I am willing to join you, if you all let me.

With that, I would like to thank the ranking member for the time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the service of the Collinsville, Illinois, Lions Club over the past 85 years. When the Collinsville Lions Club was founded in 1923, it was the only service organization in Collinsville. In the 1920s and 1930s, Collinsville was transitioning from a mining district to a mixed commercial-residential area. The Lions Club helped ensure a smooth transition then, and for the past 85 years has been an important part of the Collinsville community.

Throughout the years, this service organization has aided students in Southern Illinois interested in healthcare by providing yearly scholarships. Additionally, the Lions Club has been active in assisting the blind and visually impaired. In the past, they have provided glasses, cataract surgery, and sight-assistance dogs. Most notably, the Lions Club outfitted a reading room in the Collinsville Public Library with reading and hearing equipment, as well as hearing aids and reading glasses.

I would like to congratulate and thank the Collinsville, Illinois, Lions Club for 85 years of successful service and wish them the best of luck in the future.

Mr. Speaker, here is the problem: When President Bush took over as President the price of a barrel of crude oil was $23. When the Democrats became the majority, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $58. Today, it's hovering around $140 per barrel of crude oil. All we're trying to do on this side is bring forth some solutions. We're doing that today with a discharge petition on one such technology, coal-to-liquid technologies, H.R. 2208. It's not my bill. It's my Democrat colleague, Rick Boucher's, bill.

The United States has the largest coal reserves in the world, 250 billion tons of recoverable coal. China has invested $24 billion in coal-to-liquid technologies. We, in the United States, have invested zero. The largest reserves, zero investments.

This is how it works: We operate a U.S. coal mine, U.S. jobs. We build a coal-to-liquid refinery, U.S. jobs. We have liquid fuel to compete with crude oil fuel, we pipe it in a pipeline, U.S. jobs. We go to our aviation industry with jet fuel. All these budget airlines are going broke because of high cost fuels. This is ``a'' solution, not one, but one of many.