Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise with Ranking Member Joe Barton and all of our Energy and Commerce colleagues in enthusiastic support of H.R. 1553 which is called appropriately the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act of 2008.

I would like to thank my friend from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) for introducing this important piece of legislation. I want to thank Chairman Dingell and Subcommittee Chairman Mr. Pallone for working in such a bipartisan manner as we moved this bill through our Energy and Commerce Committees

Because of the bipartisan efforts of all of those involved in this legislation, I'm proud to say that the legislation before us today will now work in conjunction with the NIH Reform Act of 2006, and I believe that this bill should serve as a model for others that seek to improve a particular field of research at the NIH.

As my colleagues are no doubt aware, I firmly believe that it is our responsibility as Members of Congress to ensure that the NIH has the latitude and flexibility to continue its research in all areas of health care.

Our focus in Congress should be on ensuring that the NIH, along with other relevant Federal agencies, receive the necessary funding to carry out their missions; and I believe that Congress must also strive to avoid micromanaging the NIH unless we want to inadvertently hamper the very scientific discoveries that we all want to see come to fruition.

Deborah Pryce is a committed mother and a dedicated, tireless advocate for ending the dreadful curse of childhood cancer in our great Nation and throughout the world. Through this legislation, she is honoring not only the memory of her daughter but also the memories of all the children and families who have suffered from cancer. As a parent, I can't imagine anything more tragic and devastating to see your child go through that.

So we've worked so hard to help improve the research capacity of the National Institutes of Health. Always keep in mind that it is my sincere desire that these efforts would lead to fewer parents knowing this awful feeling of loss.

We will all greatly miss Representative Pryce after her retirement from the House at the end of this Congress. Without question, she is leaving both a legacy for her work on behalf of the people of Ohio as well as further leadership of the Republicans in the House of Representatives.

Again, I thank my colleagues for their efforts, Mr. Pallone, Mr. Dingell, Mr. Barton, and encourage all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle to support this legislation.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time.

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield as much time as she may consume to the author and the grand gentlelady from Ohio (Ms. Pryce).

Madam Speaker, at this time, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the rest of our time.

I've participated in some very intense debates on this House floor. And these are times that, on a bill like we have before us today, where truly we all come together. It's beyond bipartisanship, as people have heard from the rather dramatic and emotional testimony from all of the Members who have testified here today. Because there is nothing more emotional than a child who has been diagnosed with a cancer. There is just nothing more traumatic to a parent, to a family. And if there is anything that we can do as a congressional body to try and alleviate that type of pain a family could suffer in the future, we should undertake that. And we've done it here today.

I want to thank Deborah Pryce for her strength, not only in her testimony here on the floor today, but for the years that she has continued to work this issue and push it forward to its House conclusion today.

I also want to just thank Mr. Pallone and Mr. Dingell, who participated in this bill and made sure that it moved through our committee in a timely way and onto the House floor, as well as Mr. Van Hollen and so many other supporters of this bill. Many thanks go out to them.

So we should be proud, as Mr. McCaul and many speakers said, of our efforts here today. I encourage every single member of our conference on this side of the aisle to join me in supporting the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Disease Act.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Thank you, and I, too, rise in support of our community health centers and the reauthorization.

We have two in my district in Omaha. We have the One World Health Center. It used to be known as the Chicano Awareness Center, but now it has kind of created a new name and new marketing in the sense that it really helps all of our community, and then in the north Omaha community we have the Charles Drew Center.

I frequent these facilities, meeting with their physicians who work there and their directors, and every time I have been impressed with the high quality of the health care that they provide for our communities. They are first-rate. Both of them are in brand new buildings that can rival any physicians' offices anywhere else in the metropolitan Omaha community.

And I think these health centers really are key in our try to provide universal health care or at least access for everybody so those that have minimal insurance or no insurance can show up at our community health centers and receive first-class medical care. And that is one of the major reasons why I stand in support.

Now, just quickly here, I feel compelled from listening to some of the testimony from a previous bill, we had a speaker that stood up and talked about how it was the White House or George Bush's fault that we have to import more oil during his administration.

And of course that does appear to be our energy policy. But keep in mind that this House has voted, in the 10 years I've been here, at least I think eight or nine times to open up either offshore or Alaska oil, which has been shut down on every attempt. We've been able to pass it a handful of times; it has either been vetoed or blocked within the Senate.

So if you aren't allowed to use American supply of energy, of course the only alternative is to import more. I'm personally embarrassed that our administration is going to the Middle East and begging for them to increase production. What that shows, to me, is they're giving up on the fact that we should be using more of our own American resources. And we can do that. We should open up offshore. We should open Alaska. We should open up the oil shale in Colorado.

Now, what the public should know is, just in the last 6 months, back in November-December, this House voted to take the oil shale in Colorado and Wyoming off limits to oil companies to be able to extract oil from there. We made it so you cannot extract that oil.

Just 2 weeks ago, this House voted to ban the military from using synthetic aviation fuel made from coal, also known as coal- to-liquid. So here's another alternative energy source that we could use to provide aviation fuel not only to the military, but to the civilian side, that would be stable, reliable, no cost fluctuations like you see because of the oil markets. But yet this House voted 2 weeks ago to say no to using that source for fuel. So of course if we're going to limit every source of energy in this country, you have no other place to go.

Last week, I rolled out a plan at home that showed if we allowed all of our resources to be used from the conservation from new vehicles and tax credits to help consumers purchase them, we open up offshore oil shale in Alaska, as well as the alternative, we can become energy independent.

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

I would like to thank the Speaker and Mr. Green and the committee for bringing this forward in such a timely manner.

This is an important act. This bill reflects a bipartisan effort, strengthened by the leadership of Mr. Towns, who provides the necessary funding for the poison control centers to continue their lifesaving work. I must say that in writing this bill, I enjoyed working with Mr. Towns and his staff and appreciate all of their help and cooperation.

The poison control center located in Omaha is the designated poison control center for Nebraska, Wyoming, and, amazingly, American Samoa and the Federated States of Micronesia. It is one of the oldest poison control centers in the United States, established in 1957. It's one of fifty-two poison control centers in the United States certified as a regional poison control center by the American Association of Poison Control Centers and operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with full information and treatment capabilities. The majority of funding is provided by the Nebraska Med Center, Creighton University Medical Center, and the University of Nebraska.

In 2007, 61 poison control centers located throughout the United States played a critical role in saving lives by responding to 4 million calls. Poison control centers are staffed by medical professionals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These professionals are trained with the knowledge needed to assess poison risk, advise treatment and/or triage patients, recommend a treatment, or refer them to appropriate medical facilities.

Poisoning is the second leading form of unintentional death in the United States, and an estimated 60 percent of those exposures are experienced by children under the age of 6. Calls received by poison control centers addressed chemical, biological, and nuclear exposure, as well as adverse reactions to pesticides, cleaning products, and other hazardous products.

This bill provides the funding needed to authorize the poison center national toll-free number, national media campaign, and the State grant program to provide assistance for poison prevention. This legislation not only saves lives but saves millions of dollars a year in preventable medical expenses. A report by the Institute of Medicine concludes that the Nation's poison control centers yielded $7 in savings for every $1 invested. In 2005 alone, poison control centers saved Federal health programs an estimated $525 million.

I encourage my colleagues to examine this bill and join us in support of this bill and the lifesaving work of poison control centers across the country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close.

As I mentioned in my first statement, my opening statement, this is a bipartisan effort. Once again, I want to thank Mr. Towns.

I have the floor statement of our ranking member, Joe Barton, who is also in support of this bill, and I will read in significant part his statement.

He states: ``As our primary defense against injury and death from poisoning, poison control centers are a vital part of our health care system in the United States. Few people realize poisoning is the second most common form of unintentional death in the United States. In 2005 there were over 26,000 deaths in the United States caused by the ingestion of poisons that resulted from approximately 5 million incidents of poison exposure. And without question, the number of deaths and debilitating injuries resulting from poisoning would be significantly higher if it weren't for the strong network of poison centers we already have, and with the passage of the legislation before us today, I am confident that we can make a great program even better.''

And thanks to all of the efforts from the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee in making this a great bipartisan bill.

Mr. Speaker, with that I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, free our resources. Our families have to pay $4, almost $4 a gallon to fill up. They are spending $70 just to fill up mid-size cars. We can't take this anymore, but yet we have the resources right here within the United States, whether it's offshore, Alaska, oil shale in Colorado that has been taken off and we can't drill in it. Today, we are going to do tax credits, 1 year of tax credits, that are going to be meaningless to develop biofuels and cellulosic ethanol.

So we have the resources here, my friends, to decrease the price at the pumps by adding more supply, and it's being blocked. It's being blocked by the leadership here. Free up our resources, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I really believe that we need to have our own American-made energy, and we have the resources here. I have been a leading advocate in Energy and Commerce on alternative energies, on wind, solar, geothermal, closed-loop biomass and cellulosic ethanol, and these tax credits, I think, are important in that process. We need to have a complete portfolio that includes alternatives, these types of alternatives. But I have to say that I am disappointed greatly in the fact that we are extending these for 1 year.

I have sat down with the leading folks in especially wind energy. And, by the way, let's not confuse these sources that generate electricity with putting fuel in our cars. Most of these generate electricity, like wind. We need it. But they can't take their business plan to the bank on a 1-year tax credit. They said they need at least a 5-year, and prefer a 10-year.

If we are very serious about making alternatives part of our energy portfolio, we need a 5- to 10-year plan to extend these tax credits. Otherwise, we are just simply perpetrating a hoax upon the American public that is looking towards Congress to find a way to alleviate the pressures of high gas costs. It is about what they are paying when they pull up to the pumps. So if we are serious about it, let's do a long- term tax credit bill that is actually going to be usable by the folks that want to invest in these alternatives.

Yes, we do a little bit better job on solar. I am surprised that they pulled one out and treated that so specially, when all the others are just so meritorious. And, by the way, I am not sure we have gotten to the technology yet where we can have wind panels and solar panels operating our cars for us. They can generate electricity if we want to do a plug-in, but even that we are not doing a long-term plan for.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity.

Let's look at this in perspective.

We just learned from Mr. Shimkus that over the lifetime of ANWR, if we just opened up that area to produce, that we could provide revenues of up to $192 billion on the lease bids and royalties. And we always seem to be looking, at least the bills that keep coming forward from our friends from the other side of the aisle, from the majority, always seem to be trying to raise revenues. And certainly the $6 billion per year that we could get just from the ANWR royalties in bids would pay for the GI Bill that they're going to raise taxes for tomorrow.

Not only is this a bonus that we raise revenue. By the way, we have a deficit that we're running. So I think where we can raise revenues without raising taxes is somewhere we could look.

But over the weekend, I had the opportunity to sit down with a trucking company in Omaha. They were telling me that the average price of diesel across the Nation is $4.50. It's costing them almost a dollar per mile. What does that mean to the consumers? Well, it means that your family budget is going in the tank, literally. That means that when you go to the grocery store, that you're paying higher prices for food, not because some portion of corn is being used for ethanol; what it means is that the transportation costs of the food from the farm to the grocery stores is so high and is being absorbed in the prices at the grocery store.

So that's why your milk is going up, that's why the eggs have gone up, that's why your grain-related foods, like cereals and bread, have gone up. Yes, we need to focus on demand here. But we can also win-win by focusing on supply.

Let's do the right thing. And good job, Mr. Ryan.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come down and speak.

Certainly in every one of our districts, the housing crunch or crisis affects everyday people. And we have to look at the best way to resolve this.

And I think what we have today is kind of a best-intentions type of bill. But I don't think it's really getting to the heart of the matter. When I have talked to several economists that specialize in the real estate markets, all have told me that when you're looking back and trying to remedy or bail out what has occurred, that you are really not going to fix the problems or stimulate the housing industry.

So I have developed, with several of my colleagues, a bill that is forward looking. It is straightforward. It is an up to $10,000 tax credit for a purchaser of a home, not a foreclosed home only or a new build only or anything like that. Just if they want to buy a new home or a home they would be eligible.

I realize that there was at least a weak attempt to something like that in the amendment that is before us now. We have got a $7,500 tax credit. But when you look at the eligibility and the fact that, yes, it is a refundable tax credit that you have to pay back, it turns out to be rather useless in trying to stimulate the housing market. This is really a faux or phantom tax credit. So I don't think that can be used to help stimulate our economy or the housing market to get us out of the housing depression here.

And one of the issues that we're talking about here today is the devaluation of our homes because of the housing depression and that what we're going to do is make up the difference of a home that has been devalued that goes into--

What we are going to do is spend $300 billion to try and get us to right size that by bailing these folks out. That's just going to prolong the problem according to the economists.

Two points there: If that is all that we are really going to do here, we are not going to turn the tide of the devaluation of our homes. The only way to do that is to increase demand overall, which increasing your tax credit will do, not the phantom one that is here.

The other way is when you look at the market and the availability of credit, especially for lower income people, I think we are doing the right thing here by increasing the cap or the limit on credits for low- income housing. But there is also market-available tools that are out there. I have had people come to my office and present these market, nongovernment bailout programs, not programs but options, where they use a 501(c)(3) entity where you can put the life insurance in and cover the costs, reduce the house, and I thank you for the opportunity.

Madam Speaker, I have a motion to instruct at the desk.

Madam Speaker, I rise today with my motion to instruct to make sure that we keep a tax credit that the Senate has in its version of the farm bill for cellulosic energy and the blending. It's a dollar tax credit, and that's important that we have the higher number because cellulosic energy or cellulosic ethanol, I think, is where we are going to move to for our midterm energy strategy in this country, and that we really are at the very embryonic stages of its development, as I'm going to show here in a few minutes, and that because we are at the beginning stages of cellulosic energy, taking it literally from the research laboratories to the experimental market, trying to produce it more than at 1 gallon at a time, that we will need to, more heavily subsidize these beginning processes.

Now, I'm going to build our argument here of why I feel that cellulosic energy or cellulosic ethanol is important and why we need the $1 credit versus the lower number that was in the House version to get to our ultimate goal here, which is energy independence.

And by the way, I define ``energy independence'' as not relying on OPEC countries. We will need to use the natural gas and oil from Canada, and we will need to, for a variety of reasons, use the oil from Mexico; but wouldn't it be great if we were in a position that we didn't have to use the oil that's produced by countries that don't like us, that really hinders, as the gentleman from Tennessee, Zach Wamp, mentioned. Our foreign policy, we have to counsel, we have to do things for countries that really are trying to harm us economically, like Venezuela is right now.

Now, the bottom line here, the bottom line here is that every citizen of the United States is paying higher prices at the pump. They are paying more of their family budget to get to and from work, to and from the grocery store, and they're upset and rightfully so. So I am asked frequently, what is the plan. Well, the problem is there really isn't a cohesive plan. We do know that it is an issue of supply and demand.

Now, we've nibbled at the edges in an earlier bill this year that was signed by the President in December on the demand part. We did things to help incent electric cars, hybrids, battery technology; and probably the key component or foundation of that demand bill or lowering demand of oil was increasing the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks. That was called the Hill-Terry bill. So I was one of the co-authors of that bill, and we got that in there. And that will increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent, in stages, to 2020, where I really see that we're going to end up earlier meeting those goals because of battery technology and ethanol.

We already have some vehicles out on the road today using ethanol blends as high as 85 percent that are hybrid. So you're combining ethanol, lowering the amount of oil that we have to use and refine, and battery technologies at lower speeds: for example, the Ford Escape.

Now, let me broach into an area here that I think is important for people to understand because our midterm strategy, at least as I envision it, is going to involve ethanol. And for some reason, ethanol has been blamed for every ill that has occurred globally. There has been severe droughts that have affected rice crops, and yet I read in U.S. papers that that's caused by ethanol. It's baffling how they make this connection, and it's wrong; but yet it seems like ethanol is causing more problems, as related by the media, than President Bush is. Maybe President Bush is happy that ethanol is pushing him off the front page. I don't know.

All I know is most of what you're reading about ethanol is completely bogus. And even people in the Corn Husker State are now starting to tell me, We can't rely on ethanol. We're learning that this is bad, because I am paying more at the grocery store. My eggs are more expensive because of ethanol. Huh? Well, okay. Maybe some of the grain- related foods have been impacted by ethanol.

I want to show you a few charts here. And by the way, these studies are done by the government. They've been reported in The Wall Street Journal and other major business magazines.

First of all, the problem with the higher prices at the grocery store in total is because of increased energy costs. The price per barrel of oil closed short of a $124 today. It's grown dramatically, and ethanol is actually helping with those energy costs. Every report that I have seen, and we will use this chart, has shown that we would be paying much more at the pump today if it were not for the ethanol that we're blending.

Here is a chart that shows today's average price at the pump of $3.65. That would be $4.20 at the pump today if we didn't have the ethanol to blend.

Now, you're saying, well, that's great but, you know, it's driving up the food costs so I'm actually paying more. Well, that's not true, but we're not hearing about it in our media.

The reality is that today, because of ethanol being blended into gasoline and that major difference of what you would pay at the pump, it would be as much as 40 cents more, maybe 60 cents more, according to that information. So actually the consumer is saving around $305 to as much as $420 a year because of ethanol.

Now, every study that I have seen has shown that the direct impact of ethanol, that part of the corn crop that's diverted from feed or shipped to be manufactured into food, impacts about 5 cents on a box of cereal. Every study that I have seen from Texas A&M, the government, University of Nebraska has said it is about 3 percent on grain-related foods. 3 percent. But yet you're saving 15 to 20 percent at the pump, and it is helping you in today's world.

Now, let's talk about cellulosic. Cellulosic is where you take a biofeed stock, it can be just about any living, growing thing, and you use an extra step in the process to take this and break down the gluten, kind of the glue that holds the cells together, that holds the sugars; and when we are able to dissolve those, then you can extract that and create ethanol.

Now this type of ethanol, by the way, has a higher Btu rating and has more energy involved in it. So actually this ethanol goes further for us.

What type of products can we use? Well, you can use things like switchgrass. You can use wood pulp. You can use sweet sorghum. You can use anything as long as it's a living, growing organism. You don't have to use food. So that's why it's important.

Now, I'm going to say that ethanol is here to stay, but I do believe ethanol, based on corn, is going to hit a ceiling; and so cellulosic, if we can then use these types of bioproducts and create more energy or liquid fuel, then that is more that we can displace. And we will need a complete national energy strategy, and that's why I was curious when Zach Wamp came up here and talked about Lamar Alexander announcing

his energy plan using one of our biolabs that's doing work on the cellulosic area. And I think their focus in that lab has been on switchgrass and wood pulp. And so that will be interesting.

But the beauty of cellulosic is not only that it gets us much closer to energy independence but that every region of the country has something to offer, whether it is wood in the northeast or northwest, or algae; switchgrass, and even in my State you can go from switchgrass in the Missouri Valley area where I live to corn to sweet sorghum out in the dry parts because sweet sorghum grows stalks 12 feet tall and requires less than 12 inches of rain.

Where are we, and I'm getting back to my friend from Colorado to why we need the higher, the $1, the higher amount for the blending credit.

USDA and Department of Energy are partnering together--it's nice to see two of our agencies actually working together--to open up several cellulosic ethanol plants over the next 2 years. They will produce a small amount, maybe 10 million gallons to start with, but if we can't use this product in the market and blend it, because we all know this is first generation so it's going to be expensive. It's going to be about $5.50 a gallon to produce this with the first-generation technology. They will get it down to $3, but if we can't get past this first generation stage, we're never going to get to second, third, fourth generation. So we need that higher level of subsidy or blending credit to make sure that the product that comes out of the new cellulosic ethanol plants is being used within the market.

Now, my expectation is while maybe 2 to 3 years from now we're producing maybe 50 million, that's a drop in the barrel, by the way, 50 million gallons; I really think that with this type of a blending credit that we can then double and triple and quadruple and maybe tenfold that 5 to 10 years later. And then we couple that with hybrid and electric technology, and man, I really am optimistic about the future of our country.

Now, the gentleman from Colorado, I have one speaker that would like to say a few things. Do you want to take some time right now or let us finish up and you can have some time and I will take 1 minute for close?

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Thank you. I do appreciate those comments. It's good to know that that is what is in the report. Many of us have not been able to see the report language yet to know what's in or what's not. So I appreciate you letting me know that's in there.

At this time, I would like to yield to the gentlelady from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

I have closed, and I will probably use my 3\1/2\ minutes for closing.

Would the gentleman yield?

I plan to mouth those words at the end of my ending comments.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado.

In closing, what we're faced with is restricted supply, ever increasing demand on oil products, on oil and gasoline, $124, just shy of $124 per barrel today, and my friends, it's just going to keep going up. And we need a plan to make sure that we protect our economy and your budget.

We know that we can't continue to pay these type of prices at the pump. We know that what we're experiencing with our inflation at the grocery store is about 80 percent related to those high costs of energy.

We have a solution before us with ethanol, corn-based ethanol. Again, just in a summary here, the ethanol that is blended into the gasoline today is actually making it cheaper. That's allowing you to save more. You're not going to be spending as much on gasoline if it were not for the blend of ethanol in it.

The argument that food has increased because of ethanol is not accurate. In fact, these are just several of the publications that have gone on record, Wall Street Journal, CNN, have all said that it's a fallacy that food prices are going up because of ethanol.

So net, it's helping our citizens, but the future isn't with corn- based ethanol, it's with cellulosic. Cellulosic is going to supplement this ethanol. And its potential is immense.

So I'm proud to learn from the gentleman from Colorado that the dollar producers credit--I think I called it blenders credit a couple of times during the statement--but that 101 producers credit, coupled with the blending credit, is what's going to lift cellulosic ethanol for us into the market and make it a viable way that we can secure our independence from the OPEC producers.

Knowing that that is in the farm bill conference report, I feel comfortable, then, not instructing the farm conference, especially since there is no more conference.

I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, under rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 2419.

The form of the motion is as follows:

Mr. Terry moves that the managers on the part of the House

at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses

on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2419 (an Act to

provide for the continuation of agricultural programs through

fiscal year 2012) be instructed to recede to the provisions

contained in section 12312 subtitle C of title XII of the

Senate amendment (relating to a cellulosic biofuel production

tax credit).

Madam Speaker, today I, along with several of my colleagues, am introducing legislation to provide homebuyers with incentives to purchase as a way of eliminating the excess inventory of homes, relieving some of the pressure on falling housing prices, and increasing housing demand at a time when mortgage lenders are tightening up their loan requirements.

According to the Nebraska Business Forecast Council, December 2007, inventories of completed and unsold housing units in Nebraska remain high. Although housing construction in Nebraska did not experience the surge seen on the east and west coasts, it could take the balance of 2008 before new house inventories in Nebraska are drawn down. Reducing these housing stocks in Nebraska is critical to the continued growth of Nebraska home builders and the many other sectors of the economy dependent on the housing construction industry.

According to the National Association of Realtors, total housing inventory rose 5.5 percent at the end of this January to 4.19 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 10.3-month supply at the current sales pace, up from a 9.7-month supply in December. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noted in November 2007 that reducing home inventories is critical for the health of the economy.

Madam Speaker, under the legislation I am introducing today, home buyers who purchase a qualified principal residence within a year of the Act's enactment will be eligible for a one-time tax credit of 10 percent of the home's purchase price, up to $10,000. Mortgages which exceed the maximum original principal obligation of a mortgage the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation will purchase, will not qualify.

American taxpayers should not bear the burden of bailing out scam artists and speculators. This bill provides a market incentive which works to actively reduce local inventory of homes, stimulate the economy and empower homebuyers. I encourage my colleagues in the House to examine this bill and join me in helping provide Americans with a viable pathway to home ownership.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of House Resolution 1086, acknowledging May 6 through May 12, 2008, as National Nurses Week. In addition to kicking off National Nurses Week today, we are also celebrating the comforts and care that nurses provide by recognizing May 6 as National Nurses Day. This tradition started in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation making today National Recognition Day for Nurses.

This is a week to recognize nurses as being the largest single component of the health care profession with over 2.5 million registered nurses in the United States and the critical role they play in providing care to not only the citizens of America but are also serving our Nation in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to the immediate care they provide to patients, they also have helped to educate, inform and improve education and retention of nurses.

I would like to thank the author of this resolution, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, for her leadership in honoring nurses that have helped promote health, prevent disease and help other Americans cope with illness. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to one of our physicians in the House of Representatives, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

I continue to reserve. I have no further speakers.

May I inquire how much time is remaining.

We have no further speakers. I continue to reserve.

Mr. Speaker, in our closing, let me once again reiterate our appreciation to the authors of this bill, Ms. Johnson from Texas, Mrs. Lois Capps from California, and Mrs. McCarthy from New York; and, once again, encourage our side of the aisle to vote ``yes'' on this measure.

We have no further requests for time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back all of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I too rise in support of H.R. 5919, a bill to make technical corrections to the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007.

The House and Senate both overwhelmingly agreed to the underlying legislation just last month. However, there needed to be a change in the date. Another version was sent to the White House, so now we're here to make the corrections that were supposed to have been made then. So that's all that this is. We all support it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I, too, rise, sticking up for American families that are struggling with the high prices of many products right now, most of which I hear from my constituents in Nebraska is about the price of gasoline at the pump. I hear about the groceries as well. And of course then when I see a bill like this, the bill that we have up now about making sure that our beaches are clean and we have plans for that, unfortunately under the leadership of the House and Senate currently now, my first thought isn't well, that's absolutely right, we need to keep our beaches clean. My first thought is, is this another environmental tool to make sure that we can't get to drilling in places where we need to get?

Now, the frequently asked question about gasoline prices is, what are you going to do about it? Well, we have a couple of options that I think could alleviate some of the pressure. One is, we can take the 1970s actions done by the Nixon administration to simply set the price. We will set the price. We will freeze them; $3.30 at my home, we can freeze that. Well, what did that do? Created about a half mile line for gas. And then maybe if you pulled up to the pump, you might see that little white piece of paper that said ``out of gas.'' We can go back to that. But the gas prices would be stable. But running out of gas begs the question, the question is, what's causing this?

Now, obviously it's just simple high school economic supply and demand, folks. What we have is that oil that we have access to within the United States, whether it's ANWR or off the Continental Shelf or shale in Colorado or other pockets that have been made into public lands and thereby unaccessible, what we've done is adopt a policy in this country that we want to push the production or creation of fuel out of our country to foreign countries. That makes us reliant on foreign countries. In fact, about 60 some percent, about 63 percent, of our oil needs are imported. We use about 20 million barrels per day to meet our energy needs, and 14 million barrels per day are imported. So as other countries compete with us for that oil on the world market, prices increase. At the well head, just yesterday closing out the markets, sweet crude jumped $2.30, hitting a new record of $112.21, closing at the closing record of $110.87 per barrel.

Now, we can ask what the solution will be. Do we just simply raise taxes on oil production, or do we say that it's part of our plan to make sure that we can become energy independent and secure this Nation's future? And I think the long-term answer can be the type of issues that we're dealing with, with alternative and biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, like hydrogen, but let's admit that those are a generation away if we make the commitment today. So what we need to do in the meantime is either be honest with the American citizens and say that our policy is to limit supply in a competitive global market, therefore, get used to $4 and then $5 per gallon of gas, or we allow the drilling to take place where we can produce more of our own resources of oil. And we can do that.

I asked the question the other day, how much oil and natural gas do we have access to within 75 miles of our coastline? The answer is ``I don't know'' because we have been blocked from being able to explore that. We can't measure that. That's wrong.

Amendment No. 8 Offered by Mr. Flake