Floor Statements

I thank my friend from Iowa. And I admire so much, not just him, but also his State. And having had him be a gracious host previously, I appreciate all that Iowa is doing for the country.

But Mr. Speaker, my friend from Iowa is right; there's a lot of people that know a lot about energy in east Texas where I'm from. And the fact is--and we brought this up in our Natural Resources Committee--you know, there in east Texas where I live they're drilling, they're exploring, they're producing. We're doing everything we can to provide energy for the rest of the country to use. But we're to the point now, we desperately need some help, and we need it from those States that have energy but have been sitting on it and will not help the rest of the Nation with it.

Now, there are too many in this country that have to drive to survive. There's no mass transportation that is going to get them where they've got to go to keep their job. We were in a debate in Judiciary last week, and one of the Members across the aisle said, well, our Democratic Party, we're concerned about the consumers, unlike the other party. And the fact is, I know those of us on the floor, our friends, we've got some good friends across the aisle--not the ones in leadership, but across the aisle--who understand. You want to help consumers, the men and women that are just trying to keep their job so they can pay down their credit card so they can get enough gas to keep their job next month, they're needing help. And yes, we want to help the consumer, we want to help them keep their job. We want jobs to be available. But I'm talking to people that have restaurants, that have small businesses, convenient stores. They're saying their business is down about 30 percent or so.

And what some of our friends in leadership across the aisle don't understand is, yes, it's nice if you never had to use fossil fuel, but it's what is used to keep the economy going right now. And I'm hoping we can drive in directions--figuratively speaking--that will allow us to get off fossil fuel someday. But what they don't seem to understand is, when you destroy an economy, when you devastate an economy, which is beginning to happen now as these energy prices are hurting people so badly, you don't help the environment. We see that in India. We see it in China. When people are worried about keeping food on their table for their family, when they're worried about providing a place to live and sleep for their family, then they believe that the environmental issues have to take a back seat because we've got to survive first.

Now, the United States--I know with all the beating up that goes on with

the United States, but the United States has done more globally to help clean up the world's environment in the last 30 years than any nation on Earth. You destroy our economy, you hurt this economy the way this is beginning to do and you will lose the help from the best help source in the world, and that's the United States of America.

And this isn't the first time I've been proud of America; I've been proud of America my whole life. But I note that on the Natural Resources Committee that I'm on, you look at things that we've been doing in the last several months and compare that to what went on in the last Congress, when the Republican leadership was in charge. Well, I was upset with some of the things that the leadership didn't allow or didn't get done or didn't help us to do, but some of the things that were done were good.

For example, we had a bill, an energy bill in the last Congress, came out of our committee, we got it passed. And it provided incentives for people to use biomass to produce electricity. Tried and true, we've got a facility down in Nacogdoches just that's coming online. People relied on the representations that there would be incentives to use biomass, like left over tree limbs, things like that, to produce electricity. In our committee, in the last months, we decided to withdraw those incentives and instead provide a bunch of money for a new study to tell us whether it's feasible. I said, we know it's feasible, just use it. It's another source of energy.

We've got wind--and of course our friend, T. Boone Pickens, has been talking a great deal about that--geothermal, hydroelectricity, the solar and biomass, as I've mentioned, those are all out there for use and they need to be pursued. But in the meantime, it's fossil fuel that is driving this country and it's fossil fuel that's driving the planet. And what we end up hearing in so many of these debates, including these late-night discussions, are people that hear things and just assume, well, it's said in committee, it's said on the floor, it must be true. And so we still hear people say, if we were to start drilling in that section 1002 part of ANWR that President Jimmy Carter designated would be used for oil and gas development, you know, nearly 30 years ago, we pursue that, well, it would still be 10 or 15 years before that would be available. What's been heard more recently that people aren't saying across the aisle is--at least not in the leadership, some of our moderate friends know--but that is that actually there is a pipeline, as I understand it, 74 miles from ANWR, this section of it. And despite what you see on the news, there are no pristine mountains, there are no antelope playing or buffalo roaming or anything like, it's just basically a waste land. And what better place to drill. The technology is there to do it.

But we could have that in the United States--some of us have been told it can be done within 2 to 3 years; within 3 years it could be in the United States. Do it now. The mere fact that we would go after that would tell the speculators--that some say are contributing a third to the price--it would be nice to drop the price of gasoline by over a dollar just on speculation when they see we're serious about providing our own energy.

The OCS. We're hearing people say, well, it can be 10 or 15 years down the road. Others say, you know what? We're serious about this. The price of oil is so high, gas is so high, we get out there, and some think it could be produced and on its way back to us within 2 years. I mean, this stuff is right here, available for us to utilize.

We've got this--and most people, those that are listening probably have never seen, but that shale being talked about in the Green River Formation up in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, it's a thick black--looks like a black rock. It is full of what can be turned into barrels of oil, very clean oil. Now, the 2005 RAND study says that there are probably 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil in this Green River Formation of oil shale. Some of us have heard numbers more recently that actually there may be a trillion barrels of oil in the entire Middle East left. Some think we can get two to five times that much recoverable from the shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. That is American energy from America for Americans, and there's no reason not to be producing that.

But you look at the Outer Continental Shelf. We hear about all these acres that are not being drilled and produced. Ninety-seven percent of the Outer Continental Shelf is not leased and not being used. And as a Texan, I can remember growing up hearing people say, oh, no, if you put drilling rigs out there in the Gulf of Mexico, it will destroy all of the aquatic life that's left out in the Gulf of Mexico. And you know what? When those platforms went in out there, they looked to the fish like artificial reefs. And now, if you want to go fishing, there is no better place to go than around these platforms way out in the Gulf. Man and the aquatic life of the Gulf of Mexico are doing splendidly together.

And when we hear about all this oil that is messing up beaches, most of that comes from tankers and natural ooze out of the Earth itself. When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf off Louisiana and Texas, most people aren't aware, but it virtually destroyed some of those platforms. But you know what? They didn't leak. That's still coming from tankers and natural ooze from the Earth itself.

And I appreciate my friend from Iowa yielding because one of the things that's coming out, it seems like yesterday and today, the price of gasoline may have dropped 20 cents or so. And some people are already saying, see, we can take credit, we can back off; we don't have to drill the Outer Continental Shelf; we don't have to drill ANWR; we don't have to produce from coal to liquid, as our friend, Mr. Shimkus, talked about; we don't have to produce from the oil shale in the Green River Formation; we don't have to go after this new Haynesville formulation for natural gas--some are saying may be one of the biggest finds in history of natural gas in Louisiana and part of east Texas. Some are saying we don't have to do that anymore, we're okay, not to worry.

But you go back historically, and it's like that frog in the warm water; you know, you start it with warm, and you can get it warmer and warmer. And if he gets a little antsy, you may lower the temperature so he doesn't get too antsy and jump out, and eventually you can boil him. And it seems like that's what's going on.

We're to the point in American history where we can't keep funding people who fund our enemies, or as someone once said, ``we can't keep feeding the dogs that are trained to bite us.'' And I'm not calling the people that we pay for oil dogs, it's just a figure of speech that what we're doing, we're feeding people who are trained to hurt us. And that's got to stop.

We have got to follow through. We have got to use an energy plan that makes us independent. And Mr. Speaker, I wouldn't have thought a year ago that I could say this in good conscience, and so I didn't, but now I can say it. I believe this Nation can be completely energy independent, where we're not having the biggest transfer of funds in the history of the world. We could be energy independent for a number of decades while we develop these alternatives.

And I have some ideas. I'm hoping to file a bill this week that, if we follow through on this, could revolutionize ways to provide energy because of the way we store it. But we'll get into that later, but I'm hoping to file that this week.

These are long-term goals that could make this Nation even greater than it is today as the greatest Nation in the world. But the more we become dependent on those who have funded our enemies, the more vulnerable we are. And those that thought a solution was to raid the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, there's not that much oil in the scheme of things. And when you know history like my friend from Iowa and I do, you know the Battle of the Bulge was lost by the Germans, not because it was toward the end of the war and we had worn them down--yes, it was late in the game--but they, many historians believe, could have driven the Allied Forces right to the Atlantic and North Sea if they hadn't run out of gasoline.

We can't afford to get rid of our strategic reserve that may be necessary, if Iran decides to cut off the Straits of Hormuz, if we get a severe cut in our supply, we've got to be able to step up

and allow our military to have what they need, and that petroleum reserve does that.

So, I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa yielding. Let me mention one other thing. In the last month--I believe it may be the last thing that we've done in the Natural Resources Committee that deals with the issue of providing more of our own energy--we passed a bill--and I say ``we'' loosely because I sure voted and spoke against it; most of us walked out, we couldn't believe we were doing it. But anyway, we put the last best source of uranium in the United States off-limits.

We have already put vast amounts of our coal off-limits. Now we are putting uranium off-limits. We can't keep doing that and expect to be the greatest nation in the world much longer. I think we can go on for decades as the greatest, but it takes common sense now. I know my friend from Iowa has it. I know my friend from Texas out here has it. But we have got to deal with this problem now. We can't say, well, it's dropped 20 cents; so we won't worry about it. We have got to deal with this issue now or it will devastate the economy, which will devastate the environment, and will hurt the free world, and we can't afford to do that. I appreciate my friend for yielding.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. You're talking about the caribou that more than 10 times gained from where they were before.

And with regard to the wolves being shot, one of the things I was surprised about when I heard that polar bears were now listed as threatened here recently was the fact, and we discussed this--it came out in debate in our Natural Resources Committee--it's acknowledged that in the last few decades we were down to 10,000 to 12,000 polar bears in the world. Now it's acknowledged universally there are over 25,000 polar bears, and somehow that caused the polar bears to now be threatened now that there are more than twice as many as there were a few decades ago. So it certainly isn't because of a lack of polar bears that the caribou are doing well. The polar bears are doing quite well themselves despite what you may hear from some of the far left folks on that issue.

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

I thank my friend from California for his work on this bill, and thank the chairman of the committee and also the ranking members of the subcommittee and committee.

I am delighted to see us conclude today our consideration of H.R. 3564 which would reauthorize the Administrative Conference of the United States. The bill we consider today was amended slightly by the Senate which required this action by us today. But I strongly urge the House to concur in the Senate's amendment today. I also urge the Appropriations Committee and the House to appropriate funds promptly to ACUS. We need this exemplary agency once again to become a living, breathing entity and reality.

So why is that? As the distinguished Member from Utah (Mr. Cannon) remarked when we originally voted out the bill, and quoting from prior adage,

``The government that governs best, governs least. And when the government does govern, it should govern at its best.'' He is exactly right. That is the role of ACUS, to ensure that when the government acts, it acts at its best.

The small appropriations that we historically invested in ACUS yielded us major overall savings in time and in money. ACUS consistently pinpointed ways for the government to reduce the cost it incurs and that it imposes. As we confront the specter of exploding Social Security and Medicare entitlement costs hijacking the Federal budget, we need ACUS all the more. We must do everything we can to avoid waste in our spending and to lighten the government burden on our economy. By reauthorizing and refunding ACUS, we can take important steps in that effort. I again thank the gentleman from California for his work.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I again thank my friend from California, I thank the chairman of the committee, the ranking member of the committee, and those who have worked on this bill.

I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 381 honoring and recognizing the dedication and achievements of Thurgood Marshall on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Thurgood Marshall, born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908, was the grandson of a slave. But after graduating first in his class from Howard Law School in 1933, he went on to serve as the legal director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and argued over 30 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. He won 29 of them, including the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which held that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

Thurgood Marshall, as most people know, was later nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the

Second Circuit by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. He served there as the first African American Solicitor General from 1965 to 1967. And in 1967, he was nominated by President Johnson to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court, its first African American member.

I recall the days before I took the oath as a district judge back in Texas. I was told by a retired judge who was dying of cancer that it was a good job and a noble job, but that it would be the loneliest job I had ever held. I can only imagine that would have been true for any Supreme Court Justice, but particularly true for the first African American Justice on the Supreme Court. It had to be a lonely job; yet he honored himself and he honored this country with his brilliant work.

Thurgood Marshall will be remembered for the many Supreme Court decisions he had a hand in writing, including the concurring opinion in Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos.

Justice Marshall made so much in the way of contributions that are so far-reaching and still very timely today. For example, we have had the remaining Presidential candidates of both political parties express support for allowing faith-based organizations to take part in Federal social service programs. So it is worth remembering that in the Amos case Justice Marshall joined with Justice Brennan in stating that section 702(a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was constitutional. That section of the Civil Rights Act has, from its inception, exempted nonprofit, private religious organizations engaged in both religious and secular nonprofit activities from title VII's prohibition on discrimination in employment on the basis of religion. If religious organizations are to be allowed to join Federal social service efforts, they must be allowed to remain religious organizations, and they can only do so if they are allowed to be free to compose themselves of individuals who share their religious world view. Justice Marshall recognized that, and so should we.

He even had something to say about vouchers for education. In Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind, Justice Marshall upheld a voucher program in which ``vocational assistance is provided under a program that is paid directly to the student, who transmits it to the educational institution of his or her choice.'' Justice Marshall held that such programs are constitutional where the resources ``ultimately flow to religious institutions as a result of the genuinely independent and private choices of aid recipients.''

It is also worth noting that he did allow exception to the Civil Rights Act to allow religious institutions to hire people who agreed with their religious beliefs.

I would urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting House Concurrent Resolution 381 in recognizing Justice Marshall's judicial legacy. It was profound, it was far-reaching, and it changed the country for the good. That rich legacy includes his support for the right of religious organizations to maintain their religious identity, for government voucher programs that allow individuals to exercise free and independent choices, even when those best choices or services are provided by religious organizations. It is a real honor for me to get to honor the legacy of Thurgood Marshall.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would yield to my friend, Mr. Chabot from Ohio, such time as he may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers. But in the spirit with which Thurgood Marshall conducted himself, I can't help but think,

as the son of a teacher, that he would be pleased if the name of the teacher that may have changed history by having him memorize part of the Constitution had her or his name entered, and if no one on the floor knows who that is, Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent for 48 hours to revise and extend my remarks so that we get the name of that teacher that helped this student, Thurgood Marshall, change history be inserted into the Congressional Record.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman from California, and I do rise in support of House Resolution 1182, a sense of Congress that U.S. flags flown over Federal buildings should be made in the good old U.S.A.

The flag represents our unity and strength to the rest of the world, and it is only fitting that U.S. flags flown over Federal buildings be a product of our own country's labor and resources. Americans produce the best in the world when they put their minds to it, and it is entirely appropriate that the flag staffs on our Federal buildings be reserved for the best in the world, made right here in America.

I hope all my colleagues will join me in supporting this resolution.

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

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

I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 369. This concurrent resolution does honor the men and women of the Drug Enforcement Administration on the occasion of its 35th anniversary.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, was created by President Nixon in July 1973. The DEA was established to create a single unified command to conduct ``an all-out global war on the drug menace.''

The DEA has the core mission to enforce U.S. controlled substances laws that regulate drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, Ecstasy and controlled prescription drugs. Initially, the DEA had 1,470 special agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Its foreign presence consisted of 43 foreign offices in 31 countries. Since that time the DEA has grown substantially and is now 5,235 special agents, a budget of more than $2.3 billion, and 87 foreign offices in 63 countries.

I have personally seen them at work, both here and abroad, and know that the DEA agents are on the front lines of our war on drugs. They are courageous individuals, and they are to be honored and commended.

DEA special agents work to track and identify the individuals and organized crime syndicates that grow, manufacture and traffic drugs into the U.S. To accomplish that mission, the DEA manages a national drug intelligence program by cooperating with Federal, State, local and foreign officials to collect, analyze and disseminate strategic and operational drug intelligence information. The DEA and its multi- jurisdictional partners form task forces that use this intelligence to plan highly successful operations.

In May, a DEA-led task force completed an investigation called ``Operation Sudden Fall'' in San Diego. This investigation resulted in the arrest of 96 individuals, including 75 San Diego State University students who were involved with the trafficking of cocaine, marijuana and Ecstasy on the university's campus.

As the plague of drugs has become more pervasive, the DEA has also increased its international efforts to combat drug trafficking abroad. The DEA coordinates with the United Nations, Interpol and foreign governments to develop programs designed to reduce the availability of illicit drugs in the United States such as crop eradication, crop substitution and training of foreign officials.

These international efforts bring significant results. Recently, Colombia extradited 14 members of a paramilitary and drug trafficking group to the United States to face charges of drug trafficking, support to a terrorist organization, and money laundering.

In June, the DEA worked with partners in Afghanistan to conduct Operation Albatross. This effort resulted in the seizure of 262 tons of hashish, the largest of any known drug seizure in history.

As H. Con. Res. 369 notes, in this decade alone, DEA agents have seized over 5,500 kilograms of heroin, 650,000 kilograms of cocaine, 2.3 million kilograms of marijuana, 13,000 kilograms of methamphetamine, almost 80 million dosage units of hallucinogens, and made over 240,000 arrests. This is a tremendous amount of poison that they have prevented from entering our fellow citizens.

In supporting this resolution, I join my colleagues in, one, congratulating the DEA on the occasion of its 35th anniversary; two, honoring the heroic sacrifice of the agency's employees who have given their lives or have been wounded or injured in service of our Nation; and three, giving heartfelt thanks to all of the men and women of the DEA for their past and continued efforts to defend the American people from the scourge of illegal drugs and terrorism.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I have no other speakers.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

With that, Mr. Speaker, we would urge our colleagues to join us in this resolution's support.

My friend from Ohio will be managing the next two bills, the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act, and the one to follow. Before I finish yielding back my time, I would like to express my thanks to my friend from California, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member of Judiciary, as well as our chairman in Crime, Bobby Scott, on the Debbie Smith reauthorization. I will not be here to be able to speak on that, but I am so grateful we were able to keep that from being overly burdened with things that would keep it from achieving its goal which, here again, helps everybody, including the DEA agents, when we do that job properly. I'm so grateful that we're going to be able to take that up and get that done today.

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

Mr. Speaker, we're talking about e-mails. We're talking about the rule on e-mails for Federal agencies, for the White House. But the truth is, the e-mails that keep coming in are desperate. What we saw in the last week were people running out of gas in greater numbers than ever before.

The Democratic Party, the once proud party, always talked in terms of helping the little guys. The little guys are suffering. The little guys are hurting. We're losing union jobs because our energy has gotten so expensive in this country and we're overtaxing some of the people providing the jobs.

Gas is going from $4 to $5, and this Congress could make a huge difference, and we're talking about e-mails. The e-mails say we need help, do something. And we can. And I know that we have some courageous Democratic friends across the aisle that want to do something and could do something, but the Democratic leadership seems vested in this idea that really we won't say it publicly but $20 a gallon for gas would be a good thing because people would quit driving and that would save the planet, not realizing when you tank an economy, people quit caring about the environment, as they should, because they're worried about having food, having shelter, taking care of their families. And we could help them if we bring the right bills to drill now, to mine what we have.

Those of us who believe in God have got to believe God is sitting there going, Look at what all I gave you in the way of natural resources. And yet the last bill to come out of our Natural Resources Committee this last month was to put our last best source of uranium off-limits for some made-up, contrived emergency that doesn't exist. I think the bill will end up being unconstitutional, but it still shows we're still putting our resources off-limits.

If you're worried about killing caribou, we have seen that when we put a warm pipeline out there in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness area, then the caribou thrive. They go mate around the pipeline. We're up over ten times the number of caribou we used to have. If you're worried about killing fish off the coast by drilling, we have seen in Texas it creates artificial reefs, and that's where people go fish now.

We can help the people and the environment if we will use what we have got because in the years to come, the archivists are going to come pull e-mails and see that the number one concern of people right now in this country was energy and all we wanted to talk about was e-mails and scenic trails when they haven't got gasoline to drive to those trails.

Let's help Americans where they need help. Let's do the right thing. Let's work on energy and producing what we have got.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Virginia.

I rise in opposition to this. Here we are talking about e-mails from the White House and the executive branch when all we're hearing from the people in America is you've got to help us with energy prices.

Now, I realize there may be, if you look at enough e-mails from the White House, you may find out they're getting the same messages that all of us are getting: help us with energy prices, we're desperate.

Now, what I was hearing was from retailers, from restaurateurs, from people that are providing jobs, from people who have jobs and they're hanging on just by the skin of their teeth. They're union jobs, hardworking folks like that, that are just trying to make ends meet, and now they're at the end point where they're having to use their credit cards to pay for gas to get to the job so they can get paid so they can pay down their credit card enough to buy gas the next month. I'm seeing more and more people running out of gas on the interstate. They're getting desperate. And what is so sickening to me is knowing that in the last year all these different resources are becoming so much more clear that we have.

You know, we have been told, some of us, that there may be 900 billion to 1 trillion barrels of oil left in the entire Middle East, and then we hear that from that black shale that's in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, that we could recover three times that much at least in barrels of oil that could supply this Nation.

We've heard for all these decades now, for 3 decades, gee, let's don't go after ANWR, it will take 10, 15 years. Well, the latest information, as my friend from Alaska has pointed out, is there's a pipeline 74 miles away. It can be flowing to this country, this continental U.S., within 3 years.

And when you think about the Outer Continental Shelf, we may have more natural gas out there than any country in the world. We have been so blessed with natural resources, and yet, instead, we're making our citizens struggle just day-to-day to make ends meet. We're losing jobs. People are laying people off.

And I know--and I said this over a year ago--I know we have friends across the aisle who believe that perhaps even $20 a gallon gasoline would be a good thing because it would save the planet because people would quit using it. And as Al Gore said, the internal combustion engine was the worst invention ever created for the destruction of man, something along those lines.

And the fact is, we do need to move to the alternative energy sources. We need to do that. But it's going to be 30, 40 years before we can get there, and in the meantime, it appears now we have enough natural resources, we could tell some of these other countries to kiss our backside and we don't need your fuel anymore. We can do it with what we have ourselves, and we ought to be doing that.

We ought to be doing coal-to-liquid. We ought to be using ANWR, and what's more, if you look at the royalties that could be obtained from all of that wealth of resources, we could cut taxes and create some of the programs that my friends across the aisle want to do. Do all of that with the massive revenue that would come in. Everybody would win, but until we get realistic and want to help folks, all we're going to be doing is talking about e-mails.

So let's do the right thing by the people that send us here. Let's help them with their energy costs. It is getting desperate, and it's time to put that word and all that wind being created--you talk about carbon emissions. There's no worse carbon emitter than this floor of the House of Representatives, gosh, with all the wind being generated.

But let's do something constructive and put it into action.

Mr. Speaker, an 83-year-old woman told me she is paying over $400 a month now for her energy bills, and she may end up finishing her life burning wood, like she started it.

The fact is, God has blessed this Nation with an abundance of solutions in the form of natural resources that can support growing domestic energy needs. Within 3 years, we can get a million to a million and a half barrels of oil from ANWR. Some have indicated there are three times the amount of oil left in the entire Middle East, three times that amount in shale in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, but they can't get to it.

The limited areas that are available for lease have an 8-year lease, and they are saying it takes right at 8 years to get all the permits. Yes, there is some property under lease that they can't produce. There is some that doesn't produce. That's the energy business.

But we need to help hardworking Americans. I don't understand what the majority leadership has against good union jobs. We are losing them every day in our district because energy prices are too high, and I want to keep those good union jobs.

I thank my friend from Iowa for yielding.

Of course, Iowa is going through some tough times right now and our hearts and prayers go out to the folks there.

Energy is a huge problem around the country. My friend from Iowa was talking about the production of oil in Alaska, and it's amazing, but so many people were saying back in the days when there was talk of building a pipeline up to Prudhoe Bay, that if that pipeline is built, it will destroy completely the last 2,700 head of caribou that exist in the area, that they just would not be able to exist in that area any longer.

Well, the pipeline got built, and, as it turns out, those 2,700 head of caribou found that when the oil, warm, comes out of the ground and goes through the pipeline, the pipeline is warm.

We have subsequently found that now, when the caribou want to go on a date with each other, they will invite each other to come to the pipeline. Apparently the pipeline actually makes them a little bit amorous. Now, all these years later, we are up to 30,000 head of caribou.

Now, I grew up in Texas, and we used to hear, a few decades ago, that, my goodness, if they start building these deep-water rigs off the coast of Texas, it will destroy fishing in the Gulf of Mexico from now on. That's what we heard.

Now, if you want to go fishing, deep-water fishing in the gulf, your best bet is to go out to one of those drilling rigs, the platforms, because they have acted as an artificial reef. We have got all this additional fish and aqua particular life around those platforms. It's just further evidence that man and animal, fish, the environment, can work together to each other's good.

Now, I know the rules are you are not allowed to recognize people in the gallery, and I won't do that, but I can tell you that the students in Henderson Middle School know that people and oil and gas drilling rigs can actually survive together.

People in Nacogdoches, people like the Reynolds family, they know. You can survive in areas where there are drilling rigs. Not only that, you can proliferate and do well. So in my district there in east Texas, as someone said here yesterday from east Texas, we kept the military afloat in gasoline in World War II from east Texas, the east Texas oil and gas field.

Many don't realize the Germans potentially could have driven us to the sea if they had not run out of gasoline during the Battle of the Bulge, but they did run out. That is something that we have got to constantly keep a weather eye on, and I am proud to represent a district that understands the seriousness of having the energy we need and that $4 a gallon gasoline headed to $5 a gallon gasoline is a travesty for people.

I have got hardworking union people in east Texas. I have got hardworking folks in all kinds of jobs who are struggling to get by. This Congress, for the last 18 months, has done nothing to help produce more of our own energy.

I am so grateful to have a friend like my friend, Mr. King, from Iowa, who understands that. I am proud to represent people like the students from Henderson Middle School who understand these concepts and understand we can work together for the greater good of mankind of the United States of America, of aquatic life, plant life, and all be better for it.

I appreciate my friend from Iowa yielding, and I appreciate the effort you are making to educate America on exactly what we can do to help ourselves if the majority party in this Congress will allow us to help ourselves.

With that, I yield back to my friend, Mr. King.

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon an extraordinary thing did happen when we had a vote on a supplemental with all kinds of strings attached to it to fund our troops in harm's way.

The Democrats have the majority. They have the ability to pass that funding without a bit of help from the Republicans.

Many of us on the Republican side of the aisle were quite concerned, however, with the strings, with the linkages that were made to this bill to help our troops do their job. One, for example, was that in the second amendment, which we knew would pass, provisions there existed to create hard and fast deadlines for pulling our troops out of Iraq.

We all want to see our troops home. We all want to see our troops back with us. And those of us who go over to Iraq and see them in harm's way, we long for the time of having them home completely. But the vast majority of those guys in record numbers re-enlist because they know they're doing good. They know they are making a difference. And when you go over there, you see it. I was in Kurdistan in December, in the northern area of Iraq. Construction booming, things going well.

We have made a difference with the surge. It is a profound difference. We have al Qaeda on the run. They're making last-ditch efforts to try to stop what's going on. We have the Iraqi people that are there working for themselves, more soldiers, more police trained than ever. There are really good things going on. And were we to pass a supplemental that was linked to that second amendment with the time deadlines, the message would be a message of hope for all those who hate us and want to destroy us. And that is: ``If you will just hold on a little bit longer, we will have the Americans put their heads between their legs and go cowering away, as they did from Vietnam.'' We could have won Vietnam; we can succeed in Iraq.

The great state of Iraq is so close to governing itself. Just like John Adams wrote to Abigail, what people have only dreamed of, governing themselves is so close, within our reach. We can't give it up now. It's so close. Iraq is there. We cannot hand our enemies and the Iraqi enemies, the enemies of liberty, this kind of win.

So we voted ``present.'' If the Democrats had had enough votes, then they would have passed the supplemental by itself and it would have been linked to the second amendment that would have required the time deadlines for withdrawal and would have given hope. As it was, we couldn't vote against our troops, many of us, but we voted ``present.''

The first amendment that we took up this afternoon failed; so now we have got to come back with a clean supplemental to help our troops. And the

crud in there about the $52 billion tax hike at a time when the economy certainly can't afford that, let's get the linkage out to admitting and saying we are defeated, we can't win, giving our enemies a victory, get all of that stuff out of there. No more linkages like that. No more tax hikes. Just a clean supplemental to give our troops the wherewithal to do what they need to succeed. That's the message we needed coming out of today. And that's why so many of us voted as we did. We voted for victory for our troops.

And I will never forget the words of Travis Buford's mother. Travis was killed over in Iraq. And as I stood near his coffin with his mother, it was an emotional time, and I said, ``Is there anything I can do?''

She gritted her teeth and she said, ``Tell the Congress to shut up and let the military do their job.''

That's what we need to do. Let the military have the wherewithal to succeed, as they can, without the linkages to failure so that we can keep our head held high and, what's more, perhaps go 7 more years without being attacked here.

Madam Speaker, this is such a critical issue. You know, there are so many important things facing this country, whether it's the war on terror, the importance of FISA. But when you talk to people at home, it's getting desperate. It is getting very desperate, and they need help on the price of gasoline. They need help on the price of diesel fuel.

What are we doing? We are hearing people say, oh, we couldn't possibly drill ANWR. I am from Texas. Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, we have got States where we are doing everything we can to pump up all the energy we can to help the rest of the country.

We need some help. We have got all of these other resources, and they are being put off-limits. They are being kept off-limits, and we have heard from some on the other side, well, drilling doesn't really bring down the price of fuel.

You know what? We are told from some of the experts, 20, 30 percent is speculation. These speculators are smart. They see that every bill that's come out of this House for the last 16 months does not provide any answers to getting us more energy any time soon.

Talk about ANWR. Now, it was pointed out yesterday in our Resources Committee that really this area that is proposed for drilling is not part of ANWR. It was a section set aside by Jimmy Carter to make sure that we had an area that we could develop.

Now we are told that perhaps once a year caribou may come through this area of ANWR, and, oh, my goodness, if we put a drilling rig out there, it may destroy our caribou. We heard the same thing back some years back, that if we put a pipeline through some of this area up north it was going to kill off the last 27 head of caribou.

You know what happened? The pipeline went in, that oil is warm going through that pipeline, and what happened is it makes the caribou amorous. Now when caribou want to go on a date, they invite each other to go over to the pipeline. We are up to 30,000 head of caribou now because of what the warm pipe has done for the good of the caribou community, so it's going well.

We are told we can't drill the Outer Continental Shelf. About 97 of our coastlines are unavailable. We heard the same thing in Texas years back. Oh, please, don't put a drilling rig, not a platform out in the water. Oh, my goodness, you get beyond 30 miles, nobody can see it from the beach.

But what we found in the Texas coast is, despite all the naysayers saying it was going to kill off the fish, what's happened, if you want to go fishing and really go where the fish are, they go around the platforms because they have become wonderful artificial reefs. Man and environment can work together to help each other. The Outer Continental Shelf, we may have the highest second supply of natural gas in the world, some think we might even have the most, but we have put it off- limits and won't go after it.

We have lost so many wonderful union jobs because of the price of natural gas. I lost several hundred jobs out of my district when a paper mill closed

because it ran on natural gas, and we were paying the highest price in the world because we wouldn't utilize what we have.

My friend has pointed out coal. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, according to a lot of experts, and yet we put it off-limits. President Carter put a huge amount of our coal off-limits. We are the only advanced nation that takes our greatest resources of energy and puts them off-limits.

Nuclear. Now I am not one to advocate mimicking France over anything, but they have about got it down on nuclear. We could follow their example and provide so much energy. Refineries, the bills we keep passing out of this Congress, out of this committee I am on, it makes it harder to open refineries. That makes the price go up. Speculators see that.

If we had an announcement today, tomorrow, from Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid that, by golly, next week we're going to drill ANWR, we're going to drill Outer Continental Shelf, we're going to start supplying more of our energy needs until we can bring all these alternatives on line, that 20 to 30 percent would go down.

I would be willing to bet you that we would lose a dollar off the price of gasoline within a week's time because the speculators would say, whoa, they are really serious about providing their own energy needs.

We had a report last week, that it turns out a lot of the experts believe that we may be able to get three to five times the amount of oil left in the entire Middle East from our shale in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, three to five times. They are saying there are maybe 900 billion barrels of oil left in the Middle East, maybe a trillion, and we may get 3 to 5 trillion barrels recoverable from shale in areas so much of which is off-limits.

In some cases they say, well, we'll give you an 8-year lease, but it will take over 7 years to get the permits. Folks, we have to help our people. They are crying out, and we need to do something now.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, next week is National Police Week, a time for us to recognize those who boldly serve in municipal, county, State and Federal law enforcement. Furthermore, on May 15, we will observe National Peace Officers Memorial Day to honor those who have been disabled or killed in the line of duty. They have made the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of their fellow citizens.

The peace of mind we are afforded thanks to the dedicated service of our law officers is invaluable, but many times we aren't immediately aware at what price that security comes. However, this past weekend, my constituents and I were painfully reminded me of the very real danger that our law enforcement officers and agents battle daily. On Saturday, May 3, hundreds and hundreds of us mourned the loss of Texas State Trooper James Scott Burns at his funeral in Linden. Scott was killed by shotgun blasts from a killer who he chased and pulled over on April 29 while doing his job of service to his fellow citizens. He left a widow and a 6-month-old daughter, of whom he was extremely proud. He also left a huge family that was both related by blood and related by spirit who care deeply about him.

The overwhelming support shown by family, friends and fellow law enforcement officers was truly a testament to Trooper Burns' lovable nature, his sense of humor, his honorable character, but most important his sense of service for others. His loving family is now forced to carry on without him and the world is worse off without him unless we perpetuate the good that he did in his life through the things that we do in the future so that he will not have lived in vain. Though Scott's being killed by the possibly drug-crazed killer meant that others were not also killed, Scott's greatest contribution came not in the way that he died but in the way that he lived.

The extraordinary choice by Scott Burns and other law officers to protect our communities means that they go to work every day knowing and believing the words that came from Jesus himself when He said, ``Greater love hath no one than this, that a person lay down his life for his friends.''

Our law enforcement officers dedicate themselves to protecting citizens knowing that they may very well lay down their lives to protect others. No words can adequately express the gratitude that's due them. Scott's family will hopefully find solace from so many who showed their support in the past and will do so in the future. The fact that the funeral processional extended for so many, many miles down Highway 59 from Linden to the cemetery will hopefully provide some solace. It also shows that those who are affected by Scott and his life will not forget. Law officers from around east Texas, from the State of Texas at large as well as from all over the country came and were there.

As a former prosecutor, a former judge and chief justice and now as a member of the House Judiciary Committee and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, it is both a sobering privilege and a priority to address

issues and legislation regarding the security of our law enforcement community and the American people. There is no greater function of the Federal Government than to provide for the common defense against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Therefore, it is imperative that we work to support our law enforcement officers and agents and their families by providing them with the training and resources they need to properly carry out their duties. Furthermore, there should be greater incentives in place to encourage harsher sentences for violent offenders who might otherwise be released to the streets and repeat dangerous offenses.

While law enforcement officers risk their own safety every day for the well-being of our Nation and local communities, Congress must do as much as possible to ensure the preparedness and security of our noble crime fighters. As we prepare next week to nationally honor the courage of police officers like our own Texas State Trooper Scott Burns, let us consider the well-being of our law enforcement officers and their families with the same persistence and selflessness with which they afford us.

Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, April 15, 2008, I was in Tyler attending the funeral of the longest serving county judge in Smith County history: Judge Larry Craig of Tyler, Texas. Had I been present for the vote on the Motion to Recommit to H.R. 5719 regarding sanctuary cities, I would have voted ``aye.''

Madam Speaker, some of our Democratic leaders say they just cannot agree to give immunity to the telecommunication companies for helping after 9/11. Perhaps the reluctance comes from massive contributions from law firms suing these patriotic companies.

Back in the days immediately after 9/11, we didn't know who all was involved in the most violent attack on U.S. soil. We didn't know if another attack was coming the next day or where or who would strike next. In that context, the telecommunications companies were asked to help their country, and they responded. Just as we had men and women respond all over this country to the Nation's call to help fight the forces of evil, these companies responded by helping, and now many in the majority are letting them be shot by friendly fire. These companies heard the cry for help from our Nation and responded, yet some in this body want to hang them out to dry on a firing line as targets for some of their biggest contributors. Let's pass FISA, with immunity from friendly fire.

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

I appreciate Mr. Conyers, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for whom I have great respect. This bill was on the calendar to take up in weeks past, but it was pulled a number of times, resulting in it being taken up at this time. We are grateful that it has been allowed to come to the floor.

I rise in support of House Resolution 945, and I want to commend my good friend and fellow Texan, and also fellow recovering judge, Ted Poe, the original sponsor of this legislation, for his dedication and commitment to the issue of criminal justice.

The goal of this resolution is to raise awareness and promote education of the criminal justice system by establishing March as the National Criminal Justice Month. It is important that Congress encourages Americans to learn more about the criminal justice system, and the approximately 3 million Americans who work within the system.

As a former prosecutor, judge and chief justice, I have been honored to be involved with some of our Nation's best who work in the criminal justice system for some time. Throughout that experience, I have been consistently impressed with the professionalism and the ability of the public servants who work in the field of criminal justice. These brave and dedicated Americans work every day to make our country safe for ourselves and for our families.

Further, it is important to recognize the gains that have been made in combating crime across the Nation. Crime rates began dropping within the last 20 years as more tools were given to law enforcement and the more dangerous criminals have been locked up for longer periods of time, though there are some who are working to reverse that decade-long trend.

I have great respect, as I said, for the Judiciary Committee chairman, who mentioned the reference to this being called a prison nation; and it is tragic that we have so many people who are locked up. I must say that one of the things that concerned me and drove me from the bench were having an increasing number of people who ended up in the criminal justice system before me as a district judge, having allegedly committed felonies, and in the cases I

am talking about where they admitted them, told about their background, had testimony about it in court, but it began to break my heart.

Back in the 1960s, we had legislation called The Great Society legislation that was well intentioned. There were single mothers that were seen to be trying to survive with only a deadbeat father to help. And the Federal Government looked, saw the need and said let's help these people. They began giving checks to women for each child born out of wedlock. And I began having more and more young mothers, some older mothers, who would have a child out of wedlock, many times encouraged to do so by people they respected and loved, and they found out rather quickly that check will not allow the individual to live a decent living and take care of the child. So they would have another child, thinking that two checks would help, and then three.

It broke my heart that our Federal Government had lured people into a rut and not given them a way out. So it is important that we be careful in considering legislation that we pass. Of course, everybody has to be responsible for their own actions, but the legislation we pass is important, and I think it is wonderful that my friend, Mr. Poe, has sponsored this legislation, and that our chairman, Mr. Conyers, has encouraged this and supported it, in establishing March as the National Criminal Justice Month.

Congress will provide an opportunity now to educate Americans through this designation about the criminal justice system, and will make Americans more aware of causes and consequences of crime, as well as how to prevent crime and how to respond to crime. This resolution will also recognize and applaud the efforts of law enforcement officials, judges, court staff, and the many probation and parole officers who work with offenders to help them reintegrate into the community. Those are all important positions. We appreciate them all. I urge my colleagues to support the resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as the right honorable Judge Poe may consume.

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