Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, this week, with the support of the American Legion and West Virginia veteran John Peters, I am again introducing two bills that will honor those who have served our country so bravely in times of conflict. Both pieces of legislation will achieve this by extending benefits to veterans who have served in harms way, though not in a time of declared war.

Throughout the history of the United States, our country has seen the personal courage and sacrifice by millions of Americans who have served in various wars and conflicts protecting our freedoms and our way of life. Madam Speaker, we have honored many of these fine men and women, but not all. Our

current law only awards full pension benefits to those who have served in a designated ``period of war'' and excludes those who have fought valiantly in other parts of the world.

Tom Hayes of American Legion Post 93 in Kenova, West Virginia recently acknowledged this mockery of our benefits system in an article from the Huntington Herald Dispatch in Huntington, West Virginia dated April 11, 2007. In this article, Mr. Hayes stated ``On Oct. 23, 1983, 241 of our finest died in Beirut, Lebanon. By the time the hostility ended on Feb. 8, 1984, 270 Americans had died. Some 20,000 Americans fought on or around Grenada between Oct. 23 and Nov. 21, 1983. Nineteen were killed and 116 were wounded. In Panama, 23 were killed in action and 322 wounded between Dec. 20, 1989 and Jan. 31, 1990. Public Law 101-478 expanded eligibility for membership in the American Legion to Veterans of Lebanon, Grenada, and Panama.'' In addition, Mr. Hayes wrote, ``Subsequent to Jan. 31, 1955, the Vietnam and Gulf War periods (Aug. 5, 1964 to May 7, 1975, and Aug. 2, 1990, to present) have made Korean Veterans eligible for disability pension, leaving approximately half who served between those periods not eligible along with veterans of Lebanon, Grenada, and Panama who answered the call to fight and who may now need financial help and are not eligible for a penny from the

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of the growing sentiment about the war in Iraq felt by not only the youth of my district, but by the youth of the Nation as well.

Recently, a senior Civics Class from Boone County in my district wrote to me expressing their concerns for the war and the effects this war has had on the homefront. These students represent a generation that will have to deal with the direct consequences of the actions we take today.

I'd like to read to you a portion of that letter.

Our primary concern is the war in Iraq. We are in favor of

fighting terrorism, but America went into Iraq under false

pretenses. We now know that Iraq had nothing to do with the

attack on 9/11. We believe that the reason we went to Iraq is

to gain a stronghold on the oil fields. We are trading blood

for oil. We have a strong feeling that American should have

never invaded Iraq because our presence there is breeding

more terrorism around the world. We are giving terrorists a

common foe to retaliate against. We are incubating more

hatred from other terrorists and now giving them a reason to

unite.

I not only share the students' concerns about the war in Iraq, but I also share their concerns about the effect our involvement in the region has had here at home. The men and women of our military have gone above and beyond the call when it comes to serving their country in Iraq, but more is still being asked of them. While many of our troops are serving their third tour of duty, the President continues to move forward with his plan to send more troops into the region.

These students also point out that as this added strain on our military families continues, the strain on our domestic budget grows every day.

They go on to write, ``Another of our concerns is the way our economy is being affected by the war. Just think of what $2.9 trillion dollars could have done for this Nation. Oil companies are making an annual profit of $39.5 billion dollars while many people in this Nation suffer in poverty. They are suffering because in today's society one cannot support a family on the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. The money spent on the Iraq war has put a tremendous amount of pressure on the recipients of Social Security. Many older Americans have to choose between medication and food because they cannot afford both. Add to this the fact that thousand of Americans still do not have any health insurance.''

I believe that no American should have to be burdened with such consequences. We must find a way to balance the cost of this war with the cost that families are continuing to pay here at home.

I applaud these young men for speaking up. They represent the voice of the majority of Americans who want us out of Iraq, and I want them to know that concerns have been heard. Rest assured, I will continue to do all that I can to make sure that their voices never go silent and that we continue to strive for the best course of action in Iraq and for our Nation here at home.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the Huntington Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) located in Huntington, West Virginia. I am so proud to report that the Huntington VAMC was named the ``Best Performing Facility'' for 2006.

This is a well deserved honor for the dedicated employees of the Huntington VAMC who work so hard to ensure that our Nation's veterans receive the quality they deserve. This honor is even greater considering this is not the first time the Huntington VAMC has been singled out for its high quality care. Just two years ago, this center received similar recognition from the VA.

It is wonderful to know that the veterans who call West Virginia home have such a topnotch medical facility to provide care. As we all recognize, our veterans are our heroes and these heroes deserve only the best care available.

It is important that we remember our veterans have given so much to the future of our country and have asked for so little in return. Our veterans, as our soldiers today, remain foremost in the thoughts and prayers of all West Virginians.

I am honored that the Huntington VAMC is in my district. I hope that this entire body will take a minute to congratulate the hard-working men and women of the Huntington VAMC and to honor the sacrifices that our brave service-members have made and continue to make.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of a great public servant to the State of West Virginia. After 45 years of federal service, R. Byron Davis recently retired and while he will surely be missed, he leaves behind a legacy of work that will benefit the State of West Virginia for years to corne.

Beginning his career in the 1960s, serving as a civil engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Huntington District and later the U.S. EDA, Byron went on to become the Chief of Engineering Service for the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Huntington. He has spent the last 20 years as the Economic Development Representative for the State of West Virginia with the EDA.

During that time, Byron has traveled to all 55 counties in the State, meeting with most County Commissions, conducting meetings with city officials, economic development authorities and public service districts. Through his hard work, many new projects have been funded and many long-term jobs have been created.

In my District, Byron was instrumental in providing us the support to establish multi-use industrial buildings and incubators to Marshall University, Beckley, Hinton and Huntington. He was also instrumental in helping fund industrial park projects in Wayne, Mercer, Raleigh, Fayette, Logan, Summers, Monroe, Greenbrier and Mingo counties. Most recently, he was instrumental in helping with my establishment of a Mine Safety Technology Consortium in the Third District, and I am grateful for his support of this important project that will be a catalyst in transforming West Virginia coal mining.

It has truly been an honor and a pleasure to work with Byron through the years on these and so many other important initiatives. I admire and respect his dedication to our state, his strong work ethic and his unwavering values.

I again commend Byron for great work that he has accomplished. Of course, of all of his accomplishments, Byron would likely say that he is proudest of his strong Christian family, his wife of 47 years, Marion, and his seven grandchildren.

I hope that in his retirement he will get to spend a little more time with ``his greatest accomplishment'' and enjoy the fruits of his labor, for they are many. I wish him the best as he begins the next chapter in what has been and continues to be a life lived well.

Byron, the great State of West Virginia thanks you.

Madam Speaker, in May 1997, a small reading task force at National Education Association came up with a big idea. ``Let's create a day to celebrate reading,'' the group decided. ``We hold pep rallies to get kids excited about football--why don't we do something to get kids excited about reading? We'll call it `NEA's Read Across America' and we'll celebrate it on Dr. Seuss's birthday.'' And so was born on March 2, 1998, the largest celebration of reading this country has ever seen.

To commemorate this special day, I recently joined third-graders at Coal City Elementary and read to them some of Dr. Seuss' more famous stories, including The Cat in the Hat, which marks its 50th anniversary this year. As always, it was a joy to spend some time with the students and their instructors, Sandra Snuffer, Donna Thomas and Janet Smith. I was inspired by the students' interest in learning, and encouraged by our educators' dedication to teaching them the importance of literacy.

Of course, as we all know, just as reading should not be confined to our classrooms, neither should our efforts to encourage literacy be confined to one single day of the year. As President Bill Clinton once said, ``Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right and a responsibility. If our world is to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century we must harness the energy and creativity of all our citizens.''

It's hard to believe, but 20 percent of the people you see during the course of a day cannot read, according to most recent statistics. In the Third District of West Virginia, this average is even higher, at 24 percent. This is a startling statistic that needs to change and we are deeply indebted to the organizations that devote themselves to this important cause--organizations like the Literacy West Virginia, which has councils in all of West Virginia's 55 counties. On February 21, I had the opportunity to meet with the Tri-State Literacy Council and its director Dee George at the Cabell County Library to discuss the great strides the organization is making in adult education.

I am proud of my record of support for literacy programs and initiatives. Time and again I have opposed budget proposals from this Administration that would cut funding to important literacy programs which are intended to assist families break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. And I will continue to fight policies that undermine the hard work so many are doing to improve reading levels in the Mountain State.

I have also again contacted my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee in Congress urging them to provide $25 million in federal funds to the Reading Is Fundamental Inexpensive Book Distribution Program (RIF), allowing this important literacy initiative to continue operating at its current level. As the Nation's largest children's literacy organization, RIF last year provided more than 16 million new books free of charge to nearly 4.5 million of the nation's most underserved children in all fifty states.

Literacy is the gateway to educational excellence and a key to success in our society. On Read Aloud Day, let us recommit to helping improve the lives of the men, women, and children in West Virginia and across America who cannot read.

Because with literacy, to borrow from the great Dr. Seuss himself:

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Joe Harrison, President and CEO of the American Moving and Storage Association (AMSA). AMSA represents approximately 3,500 professional household moving companies worldwide. For the last 25 years, Joe has served as the industry's primary spokesperson and advocate, but is now set to retire on March 31, 2007.

During his tenure, Joe has appeared before this body many times, providing information about the industry and its ``best practices.''

For the past quarter-century, Joe has lobbied Congress on issues ranging from retaining the federal moving tax deduction, to small business tax and regulatory relief, to affordable health care for his Association's members and their families.

Additionally, he has worked with the states to continue their ability to regulate the intrastate transportation of household goods.

He has been a champion of various industry-led consumer education and protection activities, including but not limited to increased ceiling amounts for arbitration of disputes between carriers and shippers; a Certified Mover Program; adequate federal oversight and enforcement of the interstate household goods consumer protection laws; limited antitrust immunity for ratemaking by the industry's Tariff Bureau; competitive and efficient procurement policies for relocation of federal employees and military personnel; reauthorization of our federal highway program; and a host of other commercial vehicle safety policies, such as proposed ergonomics and hours-of-service regulations.

A tireless advocate, Joe has taken every opportunity, including numerous media interviews, to convey the responsibilities to the consumer his association members carry. In 2003, Joe's dedication to the Association and the industry were recognized when he was awarded the Moving and Storage Institute's ``Distinguished Service Award'', the moving industry's most coveted award.

I thank Joe for his years of dedicated and professional service to the Nation and the legislative process, and wish him continued success in the next chapter of his personal and professional life. He has been, and will forever remain, the ``Consummate Mover and Shaker on Capitol Hill.''

Madam Speaker, as Black History Month again draws to a close, it is the perfect time to reflect on the accomplishments of so many black figures who were intimately connected to the Mountain State.

To fully appreciate the breadth and depth of the contributions of these heroes, we need only to imagine what life in the Mountain State-- what life across America--would be like without them.

We might not even be celebrating this special month, for example, were it not for the efforts of Carter G. Woodson, referred to by many as the ``father of black history,'' a son of slaves who came to Huntington, West Virginia, and worked in our coal mines until he could afford enough money for an education. Once firmly established in a successful academic career which included West Virginia State College and Howard University in Washington, D.C., Cater used this education to bring to life the story of black Americans missing from many of our history books. In 1926, he gained helped establish ``Negro History Week,'' and in 1976 Woodson's week was expanded into the Black History Month we celebrate today.

And where would America be without the contributions of Booker T. Washington, undoubtedly West Virginia's most famous African American? Poverty stricken but free at last, young Washington and his family made a perilous journey on foot through deep forests and across the New River Gorge, from Franklin County, Virginia to Kanawha County, West Virginia. Alongside his father, Booker T. Washington went to work in the salt furnaces at Malden when he was only nine and later in a coal mine along Campbell's Creek. Naturally intelligent and starved for an education, Washington left Malden at 16 and walked the 200 miles to Hampton Institute in Virginia. Upon graduation, he returned to Malden to teach school for both black children and adults.

Like Carter G. Woodson, Booker T. Washington rose to national prominence. He established the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which still educates many today, and he helped set up the National Negro Business League. Washington wrote twelve books, the most famous of which, Up From Slavery, recounted his early life in Malden, still read widely in our schools today.

Other West Virginia sons and daughters, too, have made lasting contributions that have changed the landscape of our land and our intellect:

J.R. Clifford, born in Grant County, fought in the Civil War and then came back home to fight for civil rights. A lawyer and a journalist, he brought the first legal challenge of the state's segregated school system to court, and worked with his friend W.E.B. Dubois to found the Niagara Movement of 1905.

Christopher Harrison Payne, born a slave in Monroe County, broke ground in black journalism, establishing three newspapers, The West Virginia Enterprise, The Pioneer and the Mountain Eagle. In 1896 he was elected to the state legislature as a Republican delegate from Fayette County, the first black to serve in the West Virginia legislature.

Minnie Buckingham Harper of Keystone, the first African American woman to become a member of a legislative body in the United States, broke ground for countless women in 1928 when she was appointed to fill the term of her late husband.

Leon Sullivan, born in Charleston, was brought up in a dirty alley in one of the city's most poverished sections, worked in a steel mill to pay his tuition at West Virginia State College, and rose from poverty to found the Opportunity Industrialization Center, a job-training organization with branches around the world.

Helen Dobson of Raleigh County, well-known throughout West Virginia for her beautiful voice, performed at the inauguration of two of West Virginia's governors and served as public school teacher for many years. Her spirit is still strong in southern West Virginia and it was with Ms. Dobson in mind that I signed on as a co-sponsor of a bill that designates the African American spiritual as a national treasure. This bill passed the House of Representatives earlier this month.

This, of course, is just a small sampling of so many strong African Americans who have made a difference. Add to this list the countless men and women who worked long hours for less pay to provide for a better future for their children, the many men and women who fought and continue to fight for our liberties in the armed forces, the men and women who through their compassion and quiet strength, were role models by which we all can live. Also add to this list the many African Americans who continue today to work for a better West Virginia.

We are deeply indebted to our educators, folks like Bluefield State President Albert Walker; Maurice Cooley, Director of African American Programs at Marshall University; Betty Jane Cleckley, Vice President for Marshall University Multicultural Affairs; Loretta Young, Vice President for Development at Concord University; and Roslyn Clark- Artis, Chief Advancement Officer at Mountain State University. These men and women, and so many others, like Thomas Evans, Raleigh County educator and principal of Stratton High School and Rev. William Law, founder of the Beckley World Mission, whom both passed away recently, have raised the torch that Carter T. Woodson lit so many years ago.

Too often, the history of black Americans is not fully taught or remembered. Let this annual return of black history month spur us all to celebrate African-American contributions to the greatness of West Virginia and to commend those carrying on this proud tradition of service today.

Madam Speaker, scripture tells us, ``David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds and with every leader.'' Throughout the war in Iraq, the President has failed to adequately consult with the American people and their Congress or other countries in the region whose best interests are also served by a stable Iraq. He has long recognized that staying the course in Iraq is not working, yet he stubbornly stays the course.

The Congress has a duty to make sure once sent into harm's way for good cause, our troops are equipped and supplied with everything necessary to accomplish a given mission. The Congress has an equal duty to change or end a given mission, when circumstances, realities and rationales demand it.

We in Congress want to work with him to bring our troops home from a more stable

Iraq. We should not only ensure that the people are given a full accounting of what the President is expecting of our troops in the coming months, and how much it will cost our Treasury, but we must also demand accounting of what the war in Iraq has cost the U.S., and our men and women in uniform, over the last four years.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to submit for printing in the Congressional Record, pursuant to rule XI, clause

2(a) of the Rules of the House, a copy of the Rules of the Committee on Natural Resources, which were adopted at the organizational meeting of the committee on February 7, 2007.

Rules for the Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of

Representatives, 110th Congress

Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of two counties in my district, Mercer and Monroe, which have recently received the honor as two of the Nation's ``100 Best Communities for Youth for 2007'' by the Alliance for Youth. This is the second such award for Mercer County, which was also honored last year.

These counties competed against hundreds of communities in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, who were all vying for the unique distinction.

This award is well-deserved, as these communities have dedicated themselves to fostering a healthy, safe, and caring environment for our young people. I share this vision, and am deeply honored to have the only two localities in West Virginia recognized located in my district.

I pledge to continue my work to make the communities of the Third District a healthy and nurturing environment for our children, by supporting legislation that will keep our children safe. Last year, I supported legislation to better fund our law enforcement. I also supported the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, a bill that will protect children and save countless lives by dramatically improving efforts against sex offenders and violent criminals. In addition, I took action in the House of Representatives to protect West Virginia children from Internet predators, voting in support of the Deleting Online Predators Act and similar legislation.

While these steps are significant, it is by far the end of our work. As the folks of Mercer and Monroe Counties can attest, we must never waver from our commitment to our youth. As much as we accomplish, we must always strive to do better.

West Virginia native and renowned author Pearl S. Buck once said, ``If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.''

These are words to live by, words that Mercer and Monroe Counties are living by today. I again commend the entire community--the teachers, the civic leaders, the parents and the children as well, who are all so very bright--for the hard work they have done and continue to do.

I encourage other communities in the Third District and across West Virginia and our Nation to follow the fine example set by Mercer and Monroe Counties. As the Alliance for Youth said, ``They are shining examples of what it means to keep America's promise to our young people.''

Madam Speaker, recently, I received an offer from American Express entitled, Travel Delay Protection. That's right for $9.95 per person per trip you can get an insurance plan to safeguard against flight delays and their associated hassles and costs. Has American aviation really been brought to this level Madam Speaker? Like Lloyds of London of old responding to sinking ships, American Express simply sees a modern opportunity in a far too sinking industry.

We have been told that the recent debacle in Texas in which passengers were held hostage for almost a day, was an anomaly. We are told that to legislatively address the basic rights of air passengers is an overreaction.

Well, Madam Speaker, if American Express, no dummy of a company, sees profit in the misfortunes of America's airline industry, I think Congress at least should listen to the collective voice of countless aggrieved passengers. Especially, Congress should hear passengers who suffer regularly from flight delays and disruptions, but because they are not caught up in the major anomaly of the season, they don't get to air their disdain on the national news. They just suffer.

Madam Speaker, one year ago today tragedy struck for the second time in less than three weeks in the coalfields of West Virginia. A fire broke out along the conveyor belt in the Aracoma Mine, at Alma, Logan County, taking the lives of two good men and turning the national spotlight on a sorely risky industry practice.

The use of the belt air entry to ventilate a mine, as was the case at Aracoma, is egregiously dangerous. The belt entry--the tunnel through which the coal conveyor belt runs--has long been recognized as the dirtiest, most fire-prone entry in the mines. To use it to draw air to the working face exposes miners to higher levels of health-endangering, flammable coal dust and noxious gases. And, although saving operators the cost of adding more entries into the mine, it limits the escape routes for miners trying to evacuate in an emergency--an unacceptable tradeoff.

For at least 35 years, from the time the Mine Act was signed into law, the use of the conveyor belt entries to draw fresh air into working areas of coal mines was effectively ``ruled out'' as an acceptable standard practice. The use of belt air, during all that time, was considered to be the exception.

Under an initial Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) rule, issued decades ago, mines could use the method, but only after obtaining an exemption through a petition process--a process that, at least, required high-level scrutiny on a mine-by-mine basis. The idea was that, if a mine wanted to take a higher degree of risk, it had to provide a higher level of safety precautions and prove that it was doing so.

Over time, however, MSHA allowed a growing number of mines to use this suspect practice, until in 2004, when the existing, more cautious rule was replaced. The new rule superceded the prohibition Congress had written into law, and opened the door wide to belt air ventilation and all of the dangers it brings with it.

That 2004 rule was a symptom of a shifting set of priorities at MSHA that put promotion of coal production above the protection of miners. That rule should be jettisoned.

Madam Speaker, the Aracoma fire of a year ago, demonstrates how the deteriorating mine safety policies at MSHA have combined with insufficient numbers of inspectors and lax enforcement to intensify the dangers associated with the use of belt entry air.

In issuing that 2004 rule, MSHA decided that the use of modern air monitoring technologies had improved to a degree in recent years to sufficiently reduce the risk posed by belt air ventilation. But at Aracoma, the air-sensing technology failed. The agency put faith in presence of water systems to suppress the outbreak of fires. At Aracoma, the water system malfunctioned. Portions of a wall needed to separate the conveyor belt from the miners primary escapeway, although on the mine map, were missing.

At every turn, some safety measure that should have been taken to protect lives at that mine failed. Even the inspections, on both the state and federal levels, failed.

The problems in our Nation's coalfields are thickly layered and will take years to sufficiently unravel. It makes no sense for the MSHA to retain a rule that allows broad use of this dangerous ventilation method in the midst of an inspector shortage and an overhaul of the mine safety system.

I am at a loss to understand why MSHA has failed to withdraw the 2004 rule, even temporarily. The fact that it has failed to do so demonstrates to me that MSHA is still not putting its duty to protect our miners above the profits of the industry.

So today, Madam Speaker, I, along with my colleague from West Virginia, Alan Mollohan, am introducing the Federal Mine Ventilation Act of 2007. The bill simply requires the Secretary of Labor, ``no later than 90 days after enactment of this Act,'' to revise: regulations to require, in any coal mine that belt entries ``not be used to ventilate active working places.'' I note that it is my intention with this bill to return to the pre-2004 rulemaking procedure, where the use of belt-entry ventilation was generally prohibited, while retaining the petition process and the associated heightened safety controls.

If MSHA will not act to correct its mistakes then the Congress must.

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

Mr. Speaker, as we know, the House is considering a part of the 100- hours agenda, H.R. 6, the Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act.

This legislation seeks to end the unwarranted tax breaks and subsidies which have been lavished on Big Oil over the last several years, and done so at a time of record prices at the gas pump and record oil industry profits.

Big Oil is hitting the American taxpayer not once, not twice, but three times. They are hitting them at the pump, they are hitting them at the Treasury through the Tax Code, and they are hitting them with royalty holidays put into oil in 1995 and again in 2005.

Meanwhile, our people back home stand in their work boots pumping precious, costly gas into their tanks, while energy lobbyists have scuttled about in Armani suits wanting more.

Indeed, over the last few years we have suffered an unprecedented assault on America's resources and on American taxpayer pockets under the guise of contributing to our energy security. It almost seems like Albert Fall's ghost walks the halls of the Interior Department.

Now, as you remember, Fall was the Secretary of the Interior who embroiled the administration of Warren Harding in the infamous Teapot Dome scandal. Without competitive bidding, Fall leased the Federal oil reserves at Teapot Dome and the Naval oil reserves at Elk Hills in exchange for $404,000 in gifts from the oilmen. In those days, that was a hefty sum of money, but a princely sum back in 1992.

Today, we have a situation at the Interior Department where the OCS oil and gas leasing program is hemorrhaging money as a result of unwarranted royalty relief, royalty underpayments, inadequate audits and potential fraud. The GAO and the Interior Department's Inspector General, Earl Devaney, in particular, have issued scathing reports on these matters.

Last year, in testimony before the House Government Reform Committee hearing on the bureaucratic bungling of oil and gas leases, Devaney went so far as to say: ``Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest level of the Department of the Interior.''

This is no small matter. These are public resources. The names of every American are on the deeds to these public lands and waters where these drillings for oil and natural gas take place. Royalties from this production contribute a significant amount to the Treasury, nearly $8 billion in the last fiscal year, and it would be more if it were not for all the mismanagement at the Department of the Interior.

The pending legislation represents the beginning of the exorcism of Albert's Fall's ghost from the Interior Department by dealing with one egregious aspect of the OCS leasing program. I can assure my colleagues that the Natural Resources Committee will follow up with aggressive hearings into other areas of this program in the near future.

The situation that we seek to address in the pending bill, of course, harkens back to the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act of 1995, which Congress passed over the objections of many on this side of the aisle. That act sought to encourage oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico by allowing them to avoid paying royalties on oil and gas production of publicly owned resources.

As many of us warned at the time, this was nothing but an unwarranted giveaway of public resources, paying the companies to do what they would do anyway, drill for oil. To make matters worse, the Interior Department botched the administration of the law. They failed to include provisions in leases issued between 1998 and 1999 to cut off royalty relief when market prices are high. In other words, these leases did not contain any threshold, any threshold, for when royalty relief would kick in. According to GAO, the failure to include price cutoffs for royalty relief in the 1998-99 gulf leases could cost the Treasury up to $10 billion. H.R. 6 would fix these abuses.

The bill would establish thresholds in the 1998-1999 leases for royalty relief. The holders of these royalty-free leases would be required to either agree to negotiate with the Interior Department to pay royalties when market prices reach those thresholds, or pay a new conservation resource fee established in the bill. In addition, H.R. 6 would impose an annual per-acre fee on nonproducing OCS oil and gas leases. According to CBO, these provisions would raise $6.3 billion over 10 years, money that could be used to finance renewable and alternative energy initiatives.

There are two items that I would like to emphasize with respect to these provisions. First, this legislation is not violating any contractual arrangements. The leases in question were issued with a clause that allows the Federal Government to impose new requirements on them in the future, such

as the conservation resource fee being proposed in this bill.

Second, the House is already on record as supporting provisions of this nature. Provisions of this legislation as they relate to the OCS leases have been addressed by amendments offered in the past by Maurice Hinchey, Ed Markey, Ron Kind, and Raul Grijalva over the years. Further, the Jindal-Pombo OCS leasing bill that passed the House last year also included the imposition of a fee on the 1998 and 1999 royalty-free leases. So I would point out that none of the oil companies complained about their contracts being violated at that time.

Finally, H.R. 6 would repeal the extension of the original 1995 royalty relief provision that was contained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and also reform several other royalty relief and special benefit provisions in that law. Amendments offered in the past by Ron Kind and Raul Grijalva over the last two Congresses to various of our energy legislation attempted to strike these provisions.

So now, as I conclude, Mr. Speaker, it is time to stand up and be counted: to vote for the integrity of America's resources, to vote for the end of corporate welfare, to vote for a new dawn, a new era, in the management of our public energy resources. And that is to vote for H.R. 6.

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

Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman from Alaska, I welcome him as the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee. I am sure it will be a good year ahead. I look forward to working with him.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), a member of the Natural Resources Committee, a gentleman to which I have already referred in my opening remarks and a leader on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green), a gentleman with whom we have worked with on this legislation in good faith and appreciate his leadership and input.

Mr. Speaker, if I understood the gentleman's question, he is asking why we are not using more clean coal.

Yes, to get a clarification of your question to me.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time. The gentleman is inaccurate. The fund created would allow for the development of renewable and alternative fuels. And as far as the lack of clean coal technology in the past, it is because Congress in the past energy bills has never gotten serious about clean coal technology. Lip service, yes. Authorizations to go fish, yes. But hard-core appropriation dollars for clean coal technology, no. Thanks to my senior colleague in the other body, yes, we did that, but not through any actions of energy policy acts of this Congress in the past.

And, besides, how can we get anything from coal when we are so addicted to the oil diet? Because we give tax incentives and royalty holidays and other grants to the oil industry without any mention of coal in these pieces of legislation.

I would say to the gentleman from California we have joined in the past in cosponsoring legislation that would help coal liquefication.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

I understand the point that the gentleman from California raises, and it is not one with which I disagree. If I might say, in due process, in due time that will be considered by this Congress. I have no question about it. This bill is not a comprehensive energy bill. Nobody is out here touting it as such. That is to be addressed later. This is part of our 6 for '06 agenda; it is to get us started in the right direction, and my agenda on the Natural Resources Committee will go much further than this, not only hearings on our bills and legislation, but extensive oversight over the entire oil and gas leasing program both offshore and onshore.

I say to the gentleman, please be patient. We didn't get in this mix in 100 hours; we are not going to get out of it in 100 hours.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman from Illinois, some of the issues which he just addressed are properly addressed in the Ways and Means Committee or the Ways and Means section of this bill.

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), a member of our Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time we have?

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I remind the gentleman who just spoke that he voted for the Pombo bill in both committee and on the floor last year, which included the imposition of these new conservation fees.

Mr. Speaker, in response to the speaker from New Mexico referring to the silly mistakes of the Clinton administration, I remind him that the current administration has been in power for 6 years.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), a member of the Committee on Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy), another member of the Committee on Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

May I have a time check, please, Mr. Speaker?

And the gentleman from New Mexico?

I am sorry, I have the right to close; is that right?

Mr. Speaker, I yield for unanimous consent only to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

(Mrs. JONES of Ohio asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, just by way of clarification with the gentleman of New Mexico, my name is the lead sponsor on this bill and I am from the State of West Virginia, not San Francisco. Just to correct any misperceptions there.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield to a valued member of our Natural Resources Committee, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) 1\1/2\ minutes.

How much time do I have left now, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a valued member of our Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of my time to the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee and a valued member of our Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Madam Speaker, in response to the declaration of the gentleman from Louisiana that this is a tax increase on the oil and gas industry, this bill is not a tax increase, I say to my colleagues. What we are doing is repealing subsidies, repealing royalties, and asking the oil and gas industry to pay their fair share. There is no tax increase whatsoever in this bill.

The meat and potatoes of this legislation, H.R. 6, came through our Natural Resources Committee. It was drafted by our committee in consultation with the leadership. This committee is the same committee chaired in a previous Congress by our former colleague, Chairman Richard Pombo. Much of the legislation in this bill, H.R. 6, has been debated, has had hearings held therein, and has even been voted upon by the House of Representatives in the previous Congress.

So I would suggest to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to go back and look at those votes that were held in a previous Congress in order to be consistent today.

For example, the new conservation fee of $9 per barrel that is set up in this bill if the companies choose to pay no royalties. That was set up in the Jindal-Pombo bill of the last session of Congress and supported by a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Reference has been made to these notorious leases of 1998 and 1999, where the American taxpayers got socked the most; that these were instituted and allowed to take place under the Clinton administration. True, President Clinton was President of the United States at that time. But I would also remind my colleagues who make this charge that in 2000 we elected President George Bush as President of the United States, and the last time I looked at the calendar, this is 2007. Six years with no action by the current Department of the Interior to correct these abuses. And, I might say, until December 31 of this year, Republicans controlled the Congress as well, yet no action was taken.

So what we are doing here is an attempt to correct mistakes, correct bungling by the Department of the Interior, mismanagement, whatever word you want to call it, on these 1998-1999 leases where there were no royalties collected, where the price of oil has certainly gone above the threshold that was established in the 1995 Deep Royalty Relief Act, again passed by a Republican Congress, and which was overlooked in the implementation and collection on these 1998-1999 leases.

To those who charge that we are breaching contracts today, there is ample precedent and reservation of power in the U.S. to impose fees for the conservation of resources both in the

statute in the Outer Continental Lands Act, and reserved specifically in the leases that are issued in the Gulf of Mexico. Again, these leases issued in 1998 and 1999 are royalty free regardless of market, and that is when we impose this conservation fee passed by the Republican Congress in the past but failed to be enacted into law. So we have set ample precedent here.

As I conclude, let me say that I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, in a bipartisan fashion, as we have voted before on this legislation, to pass H.R. 6 for the sake of the American taxpayers.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. McDermott.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Tennessee Mr. John Tanner's name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 6.

Madam Speaker, President Bush's war in Iraq has now gone longer than America's involvement in World War II. Now we learn President Bush intends to escalate the number of American troops in Iraq. The great question across the land today is: is more of the same, the answer? Will more of the same stabilize Iraq, or for that matter the Middle East?

In all this long war in Iraq, we cannot help but wonder, what if?

What if we had not gone to war?

What if we had listened to that very important and vocal minority who stood against the war when the President lead us down that misbegotten road? Oh yes, I agree we are where we are today and we need to get out of this mess together. I have been patient since my ``no'' vote on this war four years ago and my ``yes'' vote almost 17 years ago for the first Gulf War.

Of course, there are others who are also asking what if. They are the family and friends of the young men and women who served their country. They are the loved ones of those who have not been lucky enough to make it home. They are those who sacrificed marriage, children, jobs, all in the name of a war many now casually say was a mistake.

They are those, like my son-in-law, who sacrificed seeing the birth of his and my daughter's first child.

These moments are painful for families across the country as we recently celebrated the holiday season. These moments make us want to dwell in the hope of the question, what if?

But we must not dwell, because in reflection we sometimes miss opportunity. The President is set to announce that he wants to see a ``surge'' force of approximately 20,000 extra soldiers to support the ongoing civil war in Iraq.

Madam Speaker, it does not take a rocket scientist to calculate the odds that more troops will mean more wounded, more fatalities, more losses to American families. Is the President ready for 20,000 more grieving families? Worse yet, has the President considered what this will do to the existing all volunteer force?

Retired Army Colonel Douglas McGregor has been quoted as saying, ``It will break the force, which in my estimation is broken already. It will leave you with no strategic reserves.'' Retired Army Colonel David Hunt has said, ``Everyone we met was on a second tour, at least, and many were on their fourth or fifth combat tour in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The soldiers are tired; the families are going nuts. It's not the solution.''

But then, Madam Speaker, the President has not shown that this is truly about the sacrifice of our men and women. If it were, all of the options presented to the President would be open for consideration, not just the ones that already fit into his ideological philosophy. The report from the Iraq Study Group would not have been as casually tossed aside as were the advisements of the Presidents own military leaders-- career servicemen and women who have given their entire professional lives to protecting America.

Over 3,000 have already lost their lives, and that's only the Americans. One journalist in particular, is asking what if on his own. Keith Olbermann, host of Countdown with Keith Olbermann has asked:

``What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them--and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

``This is where we stand tonight with the BBC report of President Bush's ``new Iraq strategy,'' and his impending speech to the nation, which, according to a quoted senior American official, will be about troop increases and ``sacrifice.''

``The president has delayed, dawdled and deferred for the month since the release of the Iraq Study Group.

``He has seemingly heard out everybody, and listened to none of them.

``If the BBC is right--and we can only pray it is not--he has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for ``sacrifice.'' (Countdown, MSNBC, 1/2/ 07)

Madam Speaker, the President's proposal reminds me of the ostrich who would rather stick his head in the sand, than face the reality that Americans want our soldiers home now. Not after another 20,000 have had to die for a strategy that is entirely wrong.

In Olbermann's words, ``The additional men and women you have sentenced to go there, sir, will serve only as targets.'' Which is exactly what they will be, bodies to absorb the surge in the number of insurgents which this senseless war has created. This senseless, endless war, as Mr. Olbermann states has succeeded in two ways:

``It has succeeded, Mr. Bush, in enabling you to deaden the collective mind of this country to the pointlessness of endless war, against the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

It has gotten many of us used to the idea--the virtual ``white noise''--of conflict far away, of the deaths of young Americans, of vague ``sacrifice'' for some fluid cause, too complicated to be interpreted except in terms of the very important-sounding but ultimately meaningless phrase ``the war on terror.''

And the war's second accomplishment--your second accomplishment, sir--is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.'' (Countdown, MSNBC, 1/2/07)

Which, Madam Speaker, brings me back to the question of what if? In light of all of the evidence to the contrary, what if we, as Congress, allow the President to send tens of thousands of more men and women to keep a peace that does not exist?

Madam Speaker, it is my hope that four years from now, I will not have to look back on this question of what if with the same heavy heart that I do for the past four years.