Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to pay tribute to a great American patriot.

Randy Jones served the American people as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1972 until 1980, and then as a civilian employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for over 20 years. He did his duty to our Nation through two deployments overseas in the war on terror and through his work at the Melvin Price Lock and Dam. At the time of his death last week, he was the Lockmaster at Lock and Dam 27 on the Mississippi River. He is remembered by his colleagues as a dedicated employee and a mentor to a great many co-workers.

My thoughts and those of the House go out to his wife Sharon, and his three daughters and two sons-in-law, Lori and Jeremy Cole, Meredith and Kenneth Zimmer, and Shara Jones, his son and daughter-in-law, Chad and Ann Jones, his eight grandchildren, as well as his brothers and sisters and all his neighbors and friends in Brighton, Illinois.

All of America is grateful for Randy's service to our Nation, and he will be dearly missed by all who knew him.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Centralia, Illinois native Steven J. Breeze on being awarded the United States Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross and upon his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.

Lt. Col. Breeze was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in a March 22, 2003 mission during Operation Iraqi Freedom. His low level flight lasted 3 hours, covering 590 miles. His skills saved 58 lives and delivered an assault force on time to their destination.

I am proud to recognize Lt. Col. Breeze for his service to the United States of America. I join a grateful Nation in thanking him for his service and congratulating him on this award.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to the contribution of a small business in my district to granting foreign workers their certifications necessary to work in this country. CMW & Associates, a female owned and 8(a) company located in Springfield, Illinois, has assisted the Department of Labor in Chicago in assuring that per Secretary Chao's directive, there is no longer a labor certification backlog.

Recently, Secretary Chao commended her staff at the Office of Foreign Worker Certification. ``Behind every application is a person or group of people, waiting to come to our country and work in jobs for which no qualified U.S. worker can be found. The Permanent Labor Certification program is really proud about people--their hopes and their dreams of greater opportunities, and reunification with their families.'' Secretary Chao presented a certificate of recognition to Bill Carlson, Administrator of the Office of Foreign Labor Certification for his leadership role.

I want to recognize the Department of Labor for its exemplary work in expediting the processing of granting foreign workers their certifications necessary to work in this country, both on a permanent and temporary basis. And I want to thank Charlene Turczyn, CEO of CMW & Associates for her role in making sure America is able to obtain the skilled workforce necessary to make U.S. employers successful. As is often the case, small businesses play an integral role in the success of our government's ability to achieve its goals.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the city of McLeansboro, Illinois upon receiving the Governor's Cup Award for efforts to build a youth playground in the city park.

The Kids Kingdom Playground was made possible thanks to a donation by the Jerry and Bobbye Sloan Hand-in-Hand Foundation as well as thousands of volunteer hours. I have had the opportunity to visit the Kids Kingdom Playground with Coach Sloan and I can attest that this is an excellent addition to the park for the McLeansboro community.

This project is a shining example of the willingness of a community to work together for the greater good. I extend my gratitude to those who made this playground a reality. I am pleased to congratulate the city of McLeansboro and all those who made the Kids Kingdom Playground possible.

Mr. Speaker, legislation is like making sausage. When Henry Waxman and John Shimkus come to the floor on an energy bill that we grudgingly will support, that is probably newsworthy in itself.

A couple of things. First, congratulations to Mattoon, Illinois, that has been named as the FutureGen site for the next generation of coal- fired clean emissions plants. I want to put that on the record.

The benefit of this bill is the tax increase is out of this bill. That is a plus. That is less cost to the American consumer. The RFS is out of this bill. That is a plus for the consumer. The RFS was unable to be met and would have been costly to the consumer. The RFS could have been better. It could have been an alternative fuel standard which brought in coal-to-liquid technologies that I have talked numerous times on the floor about, taking coal, using fossil fuels, turning it into clean-burning liquid fuels. That is a fight we will have to bring to the floor another time. And the CAFE language is an acceptable compromise that industry supports.

The world will continue to demand more energy, not less. We have to focus on more supply. That supply comes from coal. It comes from natural gas. It will come from nuclear power. While this bill doesn't measure up to the demands that we need in the future, it is an acceptable start.

With that, I will support the bill, but continue to come to the floor talking about the importance of bringing coal, nuclear and natural gas portfolios to the energy debate; coal-to-liquid technologies, which takes a natural resource; a U.S. refinery to fuel our war machines of the future, whether that is aviation fuel, whether that is diesel fuel; clean-burning technologies that are available today. The majority is going to have to wise up and know there has to be more supply in the energy debate.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry that we're on the floor here today. This year I've yelled on this floor. I've cried on this floor. I've stormed off this floor. So today I decided to be the still, small voice in support of coal, in support of the internal combustion engine, and in support of national security.

Illinois alone is the Saudi Arabia of coal. If you want to decrease our reliance on imported crude oil, coal has to be in an energy bill. It just has to. And to deny that is a failure on public policy ramifications.

I here hold in my hand an internal combustion engine, much maligned on the floor and in the world today. It's 1.5 horsepower. It's lighter and it's easier to carry than 1\1/2\ horses. And we have to imagine the benefits to this world that the internal combustion engine has caused, how it's uplifted the poor and the downtrodden. But this bill attacks the internal combustion engine.

And on national security, coal-to-liquid fuel and natural gas, the evidence is clear: the Department of Defense wants to relieve itself of reliance on imported crude oil. They are seeking support of coal-to- liquid applications for jet fuel. The United States Air Force is the number one consumer of aviation fuel. Our coal fields to our refineries, to our pipelines, to our jet planes is the way in which we can decrease our reliance on imported crude oil and protect our national security interests. This bill does nothing in that respect. Vote ``no.''

I want to thank my colleague, Don Manzullo, for putting this together tonight. It is great to listen to my friend and colleague, Ray LaHood, and follow Dana Rohrabacher. I think you will see a lot of Members speak tonight, and they will say a lot of similar things. We have colleagues from Texas, Ohio and New Jersey here, which shows the width, breadth and the reach of Chairman Hyde.

When you come to this institution as a new Member, there are people who are national figures and many people learn to become friends with them in different ways. I think one of the great privileges is when you become a colleague of one of these great figures of history, and as Dana Rohrabacher said, he meets the requirements of what you would expect and the person that you have idolized and respected over the years.

I follow Ray LaHood who mentioned our bipartisan luncheon. We would also get together as a Republican delegation every now and then, and at that time we had the Speaker. Before the Speaker would weigh in, he would always turn to the dean of the Illinois delegation seeking Henry Hyde's counsel, his wisdom, his experience, and his expertise. I think that is a sign of a great leader when you know who to go to; and, of course, with the great respect we had for the wisdom and the conviction of Chairman Hyde.

When Henry spoke, people really did listen. That is a lot to be said because we speak a lot and a lot of times people aren't listened to. But Henry Hyde did it, and for many of the reasons that Ray mentioned, but I think because of the great respect that people from both sides of the aisle had for Henry Hyde.

We all have our own little stories to tell. I am an individual who struggled personally with the term limits debate. Chairman Hyde would just always respectfully beat the heck out of me because of my stated position. He said, John, we have term limits; they are called elections. When people talk about Henry's strong speeches on the floor about term limits, they would think he was for term limits, but Henry was adamantly opposed to term limits because he was a constitutionalist at heart. He said the Constitution allows for term limits, and that is why we go before the voters every 2 years.

After wearing me down for many, many years, I eventually moved to the Henry Hyde position on term limits.

But that is the type of person he was, not out of a view of political expediency or what is right for the public political perception at the time, but what was right for the country.

We have a lot of colleagues down here so I am not going to belabor the point. Dana Rohrabacher said it right. I think the great way to remember Henry Hyde is to remember life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life in the Hyde amendment. You can say these simply, clearly and they identify Chairman Hyde.

Again, life would be the Hyde amendment. Liberty, aid to the freedom fighters in Nicaragua and Central America and the fight against the nuclear freeze movement. Chairman Hyde, that was liberty making the hard decisions against political expediency to promote democracy and freedom.

And the pursuit of happiness, the Millennium Challenge. It is not just the pursuit of happiness for the country, it is the pursuit of happiness for the whole world.

I am honored to be able to be on the floor to take a few minutes to thank Chairman Hyde for his friendship, his mentorship. He is and will be missed. God bless you, Henry Hyde.

I thank my colleague, and it's great to be here tonight. We did a press conference last week addressing some of these concerns, and it's good to follow up with a Special Order tonight.

At the press conference, we really highlighted the issue of when our friends on the Democratic side took over the majority, crude oil prices were at $58.31 per barrel of crude oil. And when we did the press conference of last week, the crude oil price was at $96.65, the price of a barrel of crude oil.

Our issue was that when you have no energy plan, you have, when you can't plan, you have, this is the default energy policy of this country. The price escalations, as my friend from Texas, the difference about the price escalations now is that many times when we saw the run- up of these, the costs for a barrel of crude oil in the past, it was based upon some national emergency, Katrina, pipeline disruptions, maybe a refinery fire. What's different about the price escalations today is that it's all demand related. So if you, as many of us have, have taken Economics 101 in college, maybe in an MBA program, the simple law of supply and demand. If you have high prices, and we'd say we have high crude oil prices and we're quoted today at $91 a barrel, you would think that that would then encourage people to go into the business to explore new means of recovery of crude oil so that they would bring more supply into the market so that you would lower the prices.

But the policies here in Washington not only prohibit that, but they discourage any investment, because when people bring capital to the market, they assume risk. And when you assume risk, you assume the opportunity of losing it all. And most people in the investor community and the business community, all they want to do is if they're going to assume risk, they want to try to get a return on that investment.

So last week we had close to $100 a barrel of crude oil, in California $5 a gallon of gas. Now, this is before we even talk about a global warming debate and a 50 cent per-gallon tax.

And as I said last week, so what you now have is we have European prices for liquid fuel, but we don't have European distances. I always remind my friends, those that want to, well, why shouldn't we have as high gas prices as they have in Europe? Well, that's because you can put all of Europe on the eastern seaboard. We don't have the distances that our European friends do where they can drive across their country in 2\1/2\ hours. I can't drive across my district in 2\1/2\ hours from one point to another from the far west to the far east. So that's a problem that we have in this debate.

So what we would like to see, we've already moved some energy bills on the floor. They're mostly efficiency oriented, the light bulb and the light car tires. But what we need to do is we need to focus on bringing on more supply, and that should be an energy policy.

When you have no energy policy, the energy policy of this country is $96 a barrel crude oil. That's the default energy policy of this country if you do not bring on significant amounts of increased supply.

So what kinds of supplies? All my friends here on the Republican side, one thing we have in common, although we will talk about different types of supply, is that we're all supply people. We all know that you if want to lower costs, you've got to bring more supply on board. And so that's kind of the commonality of the focus, because when you have more supply, you have lower cost. When you have lower cost, that's lower out-of-pocket cost to the individual consumer.

And the consumers are going to start complaining when they're at $3 a gallon of gas, $3.50, especially around Christmastime because they're going to be spending that extra money at the pump versus going to the store. Then you have an oversupply of toys at the store. We all know about the focus on, you know, the Christmas shopping period. High energy costs will diminish and dampen the ability of our consumers to have a good Christmas shopping season. So that affects the manufacturers of all the things that we would like to buy for our loved ones at Christmas.

So how do we address the supply concerns? And again, all of us are going to be involved with that. One thing that I've always pushed for and always encouraged us to take, look after, is an alternative fuel standard.

When the President was here for the State of the Union address he said he would sign an alternative fuel standard. An alternative fuel standard would talk about things like corn-based ethanol. It also would address stuff like

soy diesel, soybeans crushed and mixed with petroleum diesel, which is obviously the soybean portion, or the beef tallow or the reformulated cooking oil or all things that are renewable.

And then, obviously, we have coal. And now in Illinois alone and in parts all over this country, we have a 250-year supply of coal in the Illinois coal basin.

Now, coal can be used for a lot of things. Coal can be used to generate electricity. When we have this energy debate, we focus, sometimes we all lump it together, and sometimes I like to split it apart: part of it would be electricity generation; the other would be liquid fuel.

It would surprise people if they knew that 50 percent of the electricity generated in this country comes from coal. In fact, the lights in this building and the lights at the Pentagon and all the electricity that we use here in the Capitol complex we can point to not only our own power plant, which uses coal, but one right across the river that also provides electricity.

Now in this country, we're pretty much independent on electricity generation. Fifty percent coal, 20 percent hydro, 20 percent nuclear, 10 percent the other one. The concern we have is the liquid fuel debate where we are highly dependent on imported crude oil. And hence, because demand goes up, we have $96.65 a barrel crude oil.

A no energy plan is a plan to fail and a plan to increase crude oil prices. So while we're trying to work with our friends across the aisle and the leadership of this House, I mean, there's a lot of my friends who I call fossil fuel Democrats who understand the importance of fossil fuels in this country and understand the importance of making sure that we bring more supply in the fossil fuel arena to this debate. They have been tampered down by the leadership.

But we hope in this Special Order, we hope from the press conference of last week, and we hope from the anger and angst that the driving public's going to see by escalating prices, that we'll start at least start making the point of you can't always say no if you want to have an energy policy. You can't always close up supply. You've got to make sure that where you know you have available resources, you then take the opportunity to go in those arenas. Like we want to exploit the Illinois coal basin for electricity generation and for liquid fuel. We do not want to shut off areas by which we can bring in more natural gas reserves or other type of fossil fuel research.

So for my colleague from Texas, for planning to execute this Special Order, I appreciate the time that he has allotted me and want to let him know that I'm going to continue to be on the watch trying to drive home to the American public the importance and the need for a sound energy policy that, yes, talks about some efficiency issues, but as important, in fact, I think more important, talks about really bringing more supply to the debate so that we can at least maybe hold prices steady.

I'd like to see us move to start lowering prices so that the consumers of this country have more spending power, the manufacturers in this country will have that as a net plus in their competitive advantage, which is low-cost power. And I feel that the inability of the Democrat leadership of this House to move effectively on the supply end will cause great distrust, dissatisfaction, and danger for the energy security position of this country.

I want to ask my friend from Pennsylvania a couple of aspects on the chart. The first one, when we talked about the tax, under this current Congress, how many times have the Democrats gone to that same pot of money for PAYGO issues of other bills that have come to this floor?

I know there is at least three times, and I'm being told four, using this same pot of money to justify the PAYGO, the new spending that they brought on.

The other thing that we really need to have here and talk to the American public about is that the Energy Information Service, what we don't have depicted is, what is going to be the future demand? And the future demand is going to double. So with your great chart of all the portfolio there, it's kind of confusing because the public might think, well, as we look at that, that everything is going to stay pretty much the same. But the reality is demand is going to go up exponentially. And if you have the same amount of supply and the demand goes up, then you see $100 a barrel crude oil, $120 barrel crude oil. And that's why, as we have come here to talk about supply, we want to bring more supply to the table. And we know we have friends on the other side of the aisle that believe the same thing.

I'm working with Rick Boucher. And you mentioned coal-to-liquid. Just imagine this, we have 250 years' worth of coal in the only coal basin. So you have the coal underneath the ground, you build a coal mine, right on top of it you build a coal-to-liquid refinery somewhere in the Midwest or somewhere in Pennsylvania where there is a coal field, and then you connect it to pipelines that we have today. Then you limit the risk. The risk we have now is, if we're not going to build new refineries, we're going to build refineries and expand existing refineries, and we have so many down on the gulf coast, we have them in Louisiana, we have them in Corpus Christi, we have them in Houston, we have them in all these areas where they are really at risk, and we dodged a bullet this year, of major storms that take these refineries offline, depending upon the severity of the storm. So for national security sake, to have a diversified energy portfolio, John, you said it numerous times, diversification. When you have an investment portfolio, you want diversity for security.

We've got to have a diversified energy portfolio. And for our friends on the other side to say no to coal, no to oil, no to nuclear, yes to solar, yes to wind, and it's such a small portion of what can really affect the cost, it's really sending a terrible signal to our constituents that the salvation is in renewables when we all agree we want a diversified portfolio. We want to bring them on. But if you do it at the risk of the other major sources of supply, you do great harm to this country.

I mean, you bring up a good point. And I would like to focus on that for a minute. Because now you're going from 12 coal fire plants or electricity generation plants to three. And one of the reasons why the building trade and many in organized labor are in support of a new supply provision, because look at what you've done, look at all the jobs to build these plants, and then look at all the good-paying jobs to operate these plants.

I don't know what Texas plans are, but I can see them very well, governments south of the great State of Texas citing a power plant and selling power across the border into Texas. And then who gets the jobs? It's like the same, my friend from Pennsylvania, we talk about natural gas all the time; if we're not willing to have a liquefied natural gas port built inside this country, where are they going to go?

Where are they going to go? To the Bahamas. Or they are going to go to other places where when they build the port facility, they build the liquefied natural gas, and then they pipe it in to this country. Who loses the jobs? We lose the jobs. So that is one of the frustrating things of this debate.

There are two main issues. We always talk about energy security because we address it in the national security component of how do we keep our Nation safe, how do we stop from being extorted by foreign rogue countries, and how do we keep our economy from falling in disruption should there be a strike in the sea lanes.

But there is also another security debate that we have talked about, and that is financial security, financial security for this country, and what really strikes individual families is financial security for the families. When you have these types of price escalations, when you don't bring new major supply to the economy and you put all your promises on a small portion of renewables that won't even meet the future demand increase, then what you are doing is, you are going back to $96 a barrel of crude oil. And that is the no energy plan that we are talking about. And all we are saying to our friends, and again, I have many of them. I work with them on the committee all the time. My fossil fuel Democrats, now is the time to make sure that fossil fuel

is a huge, is a part of this debate. And my friend from Pennsylvania is right. We are not saying it has to be the whole thing. We are all comers here. I have got my corn here. I have got my soybeans. I have my coal. I have got marginal oil wells in southern Illinois, marginal oil that we can use and recover, and we are still recovering oil from southern Illinois. Bring on the wind, bring on the solar, but we want to bring everything in. The more supply we have, the lower the cost, the Nation will be better off

I know that the public, sometimes they don't understand that carbon dioxide is a commodity that is bought and sold, that people want, and we want it in the soda business to give the fizz in your Coke or your Pepsi, or as my friend from Texas knows, advanced oil recovery. You shove that CO2 back in the ground, it helps recover that margin of oil that has been harder to recover in the past.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor, not only our courageous men and women in uniform, but the students at Buford Intermediate Center in Mt. Vernon, IL, for their contributions to our service men and women.

The pupils at Buford personally welcomed home Zach Wood, Brian Gibson, and Tony Mays, all National Guard soldiers, from a 15-month deployment in Iraq. Along with welcoming home soldiers, the students are raising money for gift cards for soldiers who will be serving during the holidays. In addition, the students send care packages and letters to the soldiers to become acquainted with them.

After their welcome home, the soldiers took time to answer questions from the students ranging from fast food opportunities to the deaths of fellow soldiers to help students and faculty better empathize with the soldiers and their struggles.

Now, more than ever, our service men and women need the encouragement demonstrated by the students at Buford Intermediate School to show they are in our thoughts and prayers. We must demonstrate our support and admiration for their work and I thank these students for the example they have set for us.

I applaud the students at Buford Intermediate School for their service to our men and women serving in Iraq. May God bless them for their efforts and may He continue to bless America.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the St. Joseph's Church in Olney, Illinois as they celebrate their 150 year anniversary.

The St. Joseph's Church in Olney, was established in 1857 by Father Laughren and celebrated its 150 year anniversary on October 7, 2007. It was Bishop Junken, who was appointed as the first Bishop of the Alton Diocese by His Holiness Pope Pius IX in 1857, who selected Father Laughren as the founding Pastor of St. Joseph's Church. The first church was built in 1861 on property that was donated by Thomas Lily at the corner of Fair and Butler Streets. The church was then moved on rollers to its present location to Elliot and Chestnut Streets.

A prominent family of the time, that of Dr. George Weber, was very influential in establishing St. Joseph's school do to the fact he wanted to provide his own children with a Catholic education close to home. When the school was completed in 1907, Weber strove to bring the Ursuline Sisters of Paola, Kansas, who taught from 1907-1914, to the school. It grew to 70 students by the fall of 1908.

Construction of the present day church began in 1937 and was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day in 1938. The exterior of the church

remains basically unchanged to this day, and the parish is presently serving about 700 families. The first and smaller parish house was purchased from the estate of C.P. Porter in 1953 and originally served as the sister' covenant. A larger and more modern structure was then built and became known as the Parish House but was then demolished in 1997 to make room for a more spacious building to enhance the parish facilities.

I salute St. Joseph's Church as it is an icon in the city of Olney and has provided a sense of stability and constancy as it has endured many tests during the course of the last 150 years. Members of the church and community equally have had this pillar of strength given to them by the church, which is something that will expectantly remain important for the city of Olney for at least an additional 150 years.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to address the schedule for the rest of this week. Regular Members don't have a chance to talk. It's usually the majority leader and our chief deputy whip. But I did this a couple of weeks ago when we left at 5 o'clock. Today it's another 5 o'clock ending session.

We have really three bills left to address this week, the Hard Rock Mining and Reclamation Act, which we could do tonight, Trade Globalization Assistance Act, which we could do tomorrow morning, and we could appoint our conferees tomorrow morning, mid-afternoon, which would allow many Members to be able to get home with their family.

I have an 8-year-old son. It might be nice to go trick-or-treating with him.

There's no reason we have to be here for 2 days to conduct this type of work. I'm embarrassed for this House and the time spent here doing no work.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the patriotism of Michael Heiermann.

Michael is a High School Junior from Mt. Vernon, Illinois. For several years now, he has put out small American flags throughout his neighborhood to mark special national holidays.

President Kennedy said, ``A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also

by the men it honors.'' Today, America is a better place because of young men and women like Michael. And America is a better place because of good parents like Edward and Dorothy Heiermann.

Small acts of great love are the unremitting actions that make America great. It is my honor today to recognize the service of this young man as an example of a true patriot--a testament to which we should all aspire.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as a cosponsor of H. Res. 106.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Antonio Moore, a 16-year-old student at Mt. Vernon Township High School in Mt. Vernon, Illinois.

Antonio was chosen as one of the 401 athletes for Team USA that will be competing in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in China. While in China, Antonio will compete in the 400 meter run, shot put and 4 400 meter run.

I also rise to honor the organization that makes Olympic dreams like Antonio's a reality. The Special Olympics currently serves over 2.5 million athletes with intellectual disabilities worldwide. Their volunteerism and commitment to helping people with disabilities is truly remarkable.

I am pleased to congratulate Antonio on his success. I wish him, and all of Team USA, the best as they represent their country.

Mr. Chairman, I want to commend my colleague, Congressman Costello, for his great work. It is a pretty simple premise that if we are going to do the FEMA floodplain analysis, it ought to be in a watershed. As he so aptly put, when floods come across rivers, they will flow across banks on both sides. So as we have to address how to do the compensation, it only makes sense that they do it that way.

So I appreciate him bringing this forward, and I appreciate Chairman Frank's effort in this aspect.