Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 58: At the end of the bill (before the short

title) the following:

Sec. 534. None of the funds available in this Act may be

used to carry out or enforce section 5 of the Voting Rights

Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973c).

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 59: At the end of the bill, before the short

title, insert the following new section:

Sec. 535. None of the funds made available by this Act

shall be used to establish or implement a National Climate

Service.

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 60: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule. I am very disappointed that the Rules Committee did not rule my amendment in order. My amendment would have required the State Department to wait for a response from the CIA before issuing a visa to an applicant when a Security Advisory Opinion has been requested.

National security is a primary function of the Federal Government under the Constitution, and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, our Nation has had to take a closer look at our policies and create a more layered approach to security, including visas. However, as tourism has once again increased, so have the waiting times for some visas.

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security initiated a review of the State Department visa approval process, Mantis applicants in particular. The committee staff was finally briefed last week on changes that had already been implemented. According to details supplied during the briefing, DHS determined that the waiting period for Mantis visas was too long. The primary reason cited was lack of staff.

Instead of simply increasing the staff and resources needed, DHS recommended and implemented several policy changes--a small window for certain intelligence agencies to respond before State could clear the visa. This is insane.

Let me be clear. What we're talking about is allowing some foreigners to enter our country before our intelligence agencies have fully vetted their visa applications. Again, what we're talking about is allowing some foreigners to enter our country before our intelligence agencies have fully vetted their visa applications.

I'm very concerned about these changes, and I urge my colleagues to join me in investigating this issue. It's an important aspect of our national security, and I am disappointed that my amendment was not allowed to receive debate and a vote on the floor today.

I thank my colleague of Pennsylvania for yielding me some time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill encourages Americans to support AmeriCorps. There are some around the country who would agree with that. There are others who would not because there are problems with AmeriCorps, such as moneys that have been expended on ACORN. Other funds and efforts by AmeriCorps volunteers have been utilized in campaigns, which I don't think is quite appropriate, particularly when we're trying to promote volunteerism.

Whether people would support AmeriCorps or not, I think that there is another issue that, if the American people were to fully comprehend and understand, the vast majority of this country would not support. It's what the liberals in this Congress are calling cap-and-trade legislation. I call it tax-and-cap legislation because that's what it's all about. It's about taxes. In fact, the President recently said, if this bill were not passed, he would not have the money to fund his socialized medicine program for which he is actually pushing very hard and for which he wants passed by the end of this year.

Now, socialized medicine is going to take people's choices away. It's going to take their choices of doctors away, their choices of hospitals, their choices

of what medications they can utilize, whether they can even have a procedure or have surgery that is so desperately needed. It's going to be a program that's going to literally kill people because it's going to deny them care that's desperately needed.

So this tax-and-cap legislation--``cap-and-trade'' as it's called--is about money. It's not about the environment. It's about money. It's about more funds being brought into the Federal government to foster what I call a ``steamroll of socialism'' that's being shoved down the throats of the American people. It's going to slay the American economy. It's going to cost jobs.

The President has talked about using Spain as the icon for what we should look at. Well, in Spain, the icon that the President looks to, we have already seen that for every single green job that it has produced another 2.2 jobs, which were real jobs, permanent jobs, were destroyed.

In my congressional district in northeast Georgia, right now, today, in many counties, we have an unemployment rate of nearly 14 percent. The national average is over 9 percent. In northeast Georgia, it's higher, much higher. I have manufacturing entities within my district that tell me, if this cap-and-trade/tax-and-cap legislation is passed, they're going to lock the doors, and the unemployment rate in northeast Georgia is going to go up markedly from what it is today, which is roughly 14 percent. I think we're going to see 18 percent, 20 percent, maybe 25 percent unemployment in northeast Georgia because of one bill, because of one bill that is being pushed down the throats of the American people: this cap-and-tax--``tax-and-cap'' as I call it--cap- and-trade legislation, the Waxman-Markey bill.

It's going to be disastrous for the American economy, it's going to be disastrous for American workers, and it's going to be disastrous for the poor and those who are on limited incomes.

Why do I say that? Well, I say that because every single person in this country utilizes energy. Every single person, when they flip on their light switch, their electric bill is going up. Every single person in this country is dependent upon gasoline or diesel fuel. Why? Even if they don't have a car, even if they use public transportation, it is gasoline and diesel fuel that motivates America. But it's more than that. Groceries don't grow in the grocery store. Grocery prices are going to go up markedly because of this tax-and-cap legislation. Every single good and service in this country is going to go up because of this tax-and-cap legislation.

Now I'm a conservationist. I fought in the conservation movement for a long period of time. We have to be good stewards of our environment. There's no question. I want clean air and clean water just as much as the most ardent, rabid environmental activist in this country. I'm a physician, and I know what dirty air does to my patients who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or chronic asthma and lung diseases. We must have clean air. We can do that, but we can do that without destroying our economy. We can do that without costing American jobs.

All we're going to do is run jobs overseas instead of having them here in America. We ought to have public policy that grows our economic base, not kills it. Tax-and-cap legislation would kill it. We ought to have public policy that stimulates the economy instead of kills it. Tax-and-cap will kill it.

We are in a bad economic situation today. People are hurting all over this country. We are borrowing too much. We're spending too much. We're taxing too much. We see the policy from this administration and the liberal leadership of Congress in both the House and the Senate that is going to not only extend this current recession, but I believe it's going to deepen it. I believe it will even take us into a severe recession to the point of a frank, outright depression. Tax-and-cap legislation is going to be the locomotive that takes us down those tracks, and it's going to be a high-speed train taking us toward economic ruin. That high-speed train is going to run off a cliff, and it's going to take the American economy and the American people with it. It's going to kill small business. It's going to kill big business. It's going to kill jobs. It's going to hurt poor people. It's going to hurt the elderly, those on limited incomes. It's going to raise the cost of medicine, raise the cost of health care.

And why are we doing this? It is so, as the President himself has said, that he can have the funds to create a bigger socialized medicine program and other socialized programs, bigger government, bigger spending, more economic doom and gloom that's going to be foisted upon the American people. We've got to stop it. And if the American people realized what was happening, they'd stand up and say no to cap-and-tax, cap-and-trade, what I call tax-and-cap legislation, as well as the socialized medicine program, the two big things that this administration and the liberal leadership in this Congress are pushing. Both of them are going to be disastrous. Both of them are going to kill jobs. Both of them are going to take away choices. Both of them are going to destroy our economy. Both of them are going to put our children and grandchildren in severe economic peril. And believe me, I believe it's immoral. I think it's totally immoral because we are robbing our children and our grandchildren of their economic futures. They will live at a standard that's much below ours today.

We have a clear picture of where the leadership in this Congress is taking us and the way the administration is taking us. All we have to do is look in Venezuela. This administration and the liberal leadership in this Congress is going down the same road that Hugo Chavez has taken the Venezuelans. Venezuela nationalized their energy systems. That's exactly what we're trying to do here with cap-and-trade. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez nationalized the financial institutions. We've already done that. We've nationalized Chrysler and GM, and they're trying to force Ford into the same trap. We've nationalized the insurance industry. We're nationalizing everything of major consequence in this country economically. And now the leadership wants to nationalize, federalize, socialize the health care system in America.

Now where is that train going to take us? We've got a clear picture of that, too. All we have to do is look in Cuba, look in the Soviet- controlled Soviet Union prior to them making their reforms and turning toward a more capitalistic system. But we can look at Cuba. Cuba, prior to Fidel Castro taking over that government, was very prosperous. Certainly they had problems, but not the problems that they have today. In Cuba we have a very rich elite, headed by a Marxist, Fidel Castro. The vast majority of the people in that country are struggling, very poor, with no choices. That's exactly where we're heading in America today if we continue down this road, this steamroller of socialism, this high-speed train that's going to drive us off the economic cliff. We've got to stop it.

Republicans have offered alternative after alternative. We had alternatives to the housing crisis. The liberals on the other side were obstructionists. They wouldn't let our alternatives be heard. We had alternatives to the stimulus bill. I call it the nonstimulus bill because it has not and will not stimulate the economy. We had alternatives. The other side were obstructionists. They would not allow our ideas to be heard or brought to this floor for debate.

We've offered alternatives to the banking crisis. But what have we done? We've bailed out Wall Street. Republicans have offered many alternatives to bail out Main Street, but they are not heard on this floor. Over and over again, the other side has been obstructionist. They've blocked every effort that we have brought on our side, from the Republican side, to bring forth commonsense, market-based free enterprise solutions that would not have put our children and grandchildren's futures at peril. But the other side have been obstructionists. They have not allowed those things to be heard. They have been buried in committee. We introduced the bills. We had press conferences. The Main Street media around this country are very compliant with the leadership on the liberal side because they bury it and don't even report the alternatives.

We hear on the other side that the Republicans are the Party of No. Well actually we are the Party of Know, but it's K-N-O-W. We know how to solve these problems in America. We know

how to solve the banking problems. We know how to solve the stimulus/ economic problems. We know how to solve the environmental problems, the energy problems, the health care problems that America faces. But are our ideas heard? The other side is the side of no, N-O, because they say no to every proposal that we've made on our side.

The press also is the party of no, N-O, because they've not reported on any of the proposals that we've offered, and it's not right. It's actually going to be disastrous to the American people, and the American people need to stand up and say no to this steamroller of socialism. Stop this high-speed train running off the cliff of economic doom that's going to take our children and grandchildren down into the chasm of a poor economy, struggling to try to pay off the debt for this totally inappropriate outright steamroller of socialism that's being forced down the throats of the American people.

We've got to stop it. And we can stop it if the American people rise up and say no to the steamroller, put a stop to this high-speed train that Nancy Pelosi's driving and Harry Reid's driving that is going to hurt our children, it's going to hurt our grandchildren, it's going to hurt America, and I'm not sure that we can recover in the next 10 decades, century. It may take that long to put us back on the right track, if we can ever get back on the right track.

We've seen over and over throughout history societies destroyed because of people doing things in a self-centered manner, and that's exactly what's happening in this country today. We are self-centered as a people. We need to look at serving other people, particularly our children and grandchildren, put this country back on the right track, and we can do that.

Former U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen one time said, when he feels the heat, he sees the light. The American people need to put the heat on Members of Congress in the House and the Senate and say no to cap-and- tax, cap-and-trade legislation, to the Waxman-Markey bill. They need to say no to the socialized medicine program that the liberal leadership on the Democratic side is trying to force upon us which will take our choices away. They need to say no to the steamroller of socialism, no to big government, and yes to free enterprise, yes to personal responsibility and accountability, yes to small business. We cannot borrow and spend our way to prosperity. We have to stimulate the economy by stimulating small business. We have to have money in the hands of small businessmen and -women around this country to create jobs. We have to have money in the hands of the taxpayers so that they can have money for a college education for their children, buy clothes, buy food.

The bill just before this one was about encouraging physical education for our children. I'm a medical doctor, and I have seen over and over again how fat and out of shape the kids in this country are. But our economy is going to be skinny and poor because of a fat, bloated Federal Government that the liberal leadership in this House and this Senate are trying to force upon the American people.

So the American people need to stand up and say no to all these steamroller of socialism programs, to the cap-and-trade, to socialized medicine; and say yes to the Republican alternatives that will look to the free marketplace and will stimulate the economy, get us back on the right track and help us have a strong economic future not only for us today but for our children and our grandchildren for the next decades to come.

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

No, sir. I live near Watkinsville, Georgia, south of Athens, and I represent northeast Georgia. And I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The chart that you have down there on the floor. If you put the date of this week on the next bar, going back to what Mrs. Bachmann was just talking about, these dealerships are shutting the doors. Dealerships may have 20 employees, they may have 30 or 40 employees. I've met with a number of them. There is a dealer in my district in Clayton, Georgia, in Rabun County, right up on the North Carolina line, called me this week and he got one of those pink slips. He is a customer of the automaker, and that's what all of these dealers are, they're actually customers. And what is happening is this administration is forcing the Big Three automakers to fire their customers, and that makes absolutely no economic sense.

But this dealer doesn't do any floor planning. In other words, he doesn't have to borrow money from the automaker to put the cars on his lot. He owns them all. He's paid for them all. He owns his dealership. He doesn't owe anything to the carmaker. But they have fired him. And in doing so, this administration has fired all their employees.

So the next bar for all of these dealerships I think is 780-some-odd just this week that are going to be fired--the dealership's going to be fired, thus all of their employees are going to be fired. And that's going to put that bar even higher. And it's just not right.

This is an unprecedented takeover from the private sector by this administration--by the car czar that has been set up by this President--and it is totally unconstitutional, it's totally against freedom, it's totally unprecedented. And it's exactly the same thing that Hugo Chavez is doing down in Venezuela.

So if we could imagine that next bar on that graph, it's going to be even higher than it is.

If the gentleman will yield, absolutely. That's what's going to happen. You cannot borrow and spend yourself to economic prosperity. And that's what's going on here. We're borrowing too much, we're spending too much, taxing too much, and it's going to cost jobs.

I'm sure we'll come back to discussing what the gentlelady from Wyoming was talking about because there is somebody else that's going to talk a lot of jobs across this country. But we're going down a road that is going to hurt our economy. It's going to cost jobs, as we see an increasing number of jobs on your chart there that are being lost. And unemployment claims, we're going to have more and more of those. And it's really taking away from the future of our children and your grandchildren.

Congressman Akin, I appreciate you yielding.

I wanted to come back to something that you said that I think the American people need to understand very clearly. The President has talked about looking to Spain as being the model of this energy tax--I call it tax-and-cap because it's about taxes, it's about revenue for the Federal Government, it's about getting more revenue to socialize medicine and other things to nationalize, all of the business and industry that is already being nationalized, and even more. But in Spain, I would like to confirm something. It is my understanding, if you would, please, sir, it's my understanding in Spain, when they put on their tax-and-cap or cap-and-trade policy a number of years ago, they touted it as creating green jobs.

Well, the point is, they talked about creating green jobs. Just recently, one of their--I think it's members of Parliament--was over here talking to the Conservative Opportunity Society. And he told us--I don't recall if you were there, Mr. Akin, or not--but he said for every single green job that was produced in Spain they lost 2.2 jobs. The green jobs that were created were temporary jobs; the jobs that were lost were permanent jobs, industrial jobs. And that's what I kind of recall. Is that correct?

If the gentleman would yield back just a half second. I want to go back to the outrage that my dear friend, Michele Bachmann from Minnesota, was showing us. The American people should be outraged. And the American people can call a stop to this. We can't. We, as Republicans, have offered alternative after alternative. Wall Street bailout; we offered an alternative, and President Bush, Henry Paulson, the leadership in the House and Senate wouldn't accept it. The nonstimulus--as you call it porkulus bill; I call it the nonstimulus stimulus bill--we offered alternatives. The leadership in this House were obstructionists and wouldn't allow us to have an open hearing and discuss it.

The omnibus appropriations, we had alternatives. We have had alternatives for all this. They call us the Party of No, n-o, but really we are the Party of Know, k-n-o-w, because we know how to help stimulate the economy. We know how to create jobs, and you do that through small business and give the money back in ways to create an environment where small business can create jobs. As the gentleman from Missouri so aptly told us just a few minutes ago, small businesses is where those jobs are created. It's about 85 percent of them. But we have offered alternative after alternative. And this what I call ``tax- and-cap'' legislation has been estimated it's going to cost America, that somewhere between 1.7 to 8 million jobs are going to be lost. In my district in northeast Georgia, we have got in multiple counties right at 14 percent unemployment.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey, for yielding.

I think the American people need to look at what President Obama said as a candidate and go back to what Dr. Fleming was talking about just a few moments ago about the options. Republicans are offering options because certainly we need to do something about health care financing. People are hurting. Health care expenses have gotten too high. Medicines are too high in the drugstore. Doctor bills are too high. Doctors are actually earning less money today. When I was practicing full time prior to coming to Congress, I was making in real dollars less money than I did 20 years ago and seeing as many or more patients. We see the whole health care system being strained tremendously. But candidate Obama talked about giving the American public options, a public versus private option. He said, if you like your current insurance, fine. Stay there. But as Dr. Fleming was talking about just a few minutes ago, what President Obama is actually offering us is a reduced-price health care financing system that's going to take away people's choices. It's going to take away their ability to choose their doctors. It's going to take away their ability to choose the hospital, what medicines that they have. It's going to delay them being able to get needed procedures, surgeries, delayed in getting x rays that are needed, ordered by their doctor. It's going to take the choices away from the patient, and it's going to put those choices in the hands of a Washington bureaucrat. I don't think the American people want that. I'm not sure that they understand yet what we're talking about tonight in our second opinion, that government-run health care is not going to give them the choices that they're used to today. They're not going to be able to stay in their private plans because they're going to be priced out of the market. They're going to have to go to that government-sponsored plan that is going to markedly narrow their choices.

What it's going to do is it's going to kill people because, as we saw in the stimulus bill, there is a new program set up in the Federal Government to look at cost effectiveness and comparative effectiveness, comparing the effectiveness of health care decisions. Age is going to be one of the measures of how those decisions are going to be made.

We already see this happening in Canada. We already see it happening in all the socialized health care systems around the world. When people have celebrated a few birthdays and are getting what growing up down in Georgia folks talked about being ``long in the tooth,'' a little white haired, as I am turning to be, then what happens in those government- run health care systems is they just deny the procedures, deny the tests, deny the care that the people need to stay alive, and people just die.

Now, in Canada, a system that many tout, many on the other side in the Democratic Party tout the Canadian system and others, if you are a certain age and need a kidney transplant, you just don't get it. If you need bypass surgery, if you are a certain age, they will put you on the list, but you never get off the list. You just die. If you need medications, you are denied those. If you have cancer treatment that is needed, you just don't get those.

We in this country, with the health care that we as physicians can give, we have made marked strides since I graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in how people survive various forms of cancers.

I think Dr. Roe is probably going to talk about breast cancer, because he very eloquently talks about that frequently, but our breast cancer survival rates in this country are extremely good. In other countries, where they have socialized medicine, people die, and there is very poor long-term survivability of that disease. Heart disease, diabetes, you can go down the list of all these chronic diseases.

In socialized health care systems, as this administration and the leadership in this House and the Senate across the way want to take us, it is going to take away people's choices. They are not going to be able to get the care that they desperately need to stay alive, and it is just the wrong thing to do.

Dr. Gingrey, I just congratulate your efforts in trying to bring these things out to the American public, and I appreciate your being one of the cochairman of the Doctors Caucus and helping the American people to understand the direction that we are being led by this leadership, the liberal leadership in this House and the Senate, because it is not going to be in the best interests of the American public, and it is actually going to create a financial collapse, as Dr. Fleming was talking

about, that is going to be exacerbated, and people are going to be exasperated because of this rationing of care, taking away their choices, and some Federal Government bureaucrat in Washington, DC is going to make those health decisions for them. It is not going to be their doctor, it is not going to be their family and it is not going to be the patient, and it is the wrong thing to do.

I thank you for yielding.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I'm a scientist, a medical doctor; and I believe wholeheartedly in science education. Whether this bill is a good idea or not remains to be seen. Whether it will pass or not, I think that it probably will.

The thing that concerns me is the education of the American public about not only the money they spent on this--which we don't have--but the money that is going to be spent and taken out of their pockets for what is called cap-and-trade here in this House of Representatives and in the Congress of the United States.

This administration, the leadership in the House and the Senate, are forcing upon the American people a policy that is going to increase taxes on every single household in America over $3,100 per family-- that's rich, poor, and between. The people on limited incomes, the retirees, are going to be hit the hardest because experts agree that they spend more of their income on energy-related sources than any other thing.

It's also going to run up the cost of food, medicine, things that everybody buys. In fact, every good and service in this country is going to go up because of this tax-and-cap, as I call it--or cap-and- tax, cap-and-trade legislation that is being brought to this floor, and it's going to be forced down the throats of the American people.

The President himself said that it was going to increase electricity costs for all Americans. The President also said that it's about revenue. It's not about the environment. He said if this is not passed, then he won't have the money to force the socialized medicine program that he's trying to introduce in this Congress and wants to pass by the August break. The American people need to be educated about how bad this policy is. We've got to stop it.

Republicans have offered many alternatives to a non-stimulus bill. Our alternatives were not heard. To a housing crisis, our alternatives were not heard; to a banking crisis, our alternatives were not heard. Over and over again, Republicans have offered alternatives that the leadership in this House have been obstructionists and not allowed those things to be heard.

The American people need to understand that. We're headed down a road of socialism, of communism, of greater control of people's lives and the loss of the control of your money and your freedom. And the American people need to stand up and say ``no.'' I do believe in science and education, but the American people need to educate themselves to the bad policy that the leadership in this Congress are forcing upon them, shoving down their throats as a steamroller of socialism that's being forced down the throats of the American people that's going to slay the American economy.

It's going to kill jobs. This cap-and-tax legislation is estimated to cost somewhere between 1.7 to 8 million jobs. The President says it's going to create green jobs. Well, in Spain, their cap-and-tax has, for every job created, they've lost 2.2 jobs.

It's wrong for America; it's wrong for the working people; it's wrong for the poor people; it's wrong for the retirees. It's absolutely the wrong thing, and the American people need to be educated about that. Stand up and say ``no'' to cap-and-trade legislation.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of veterans and military personnel in America. As one who believes in the Constitution under the original intent of the writers of that document and one who believes that most of what we do here in this House and in this Congress is unconstitutional, according to that original intent, supporting our veterans and our military personnel is absolutely critical for the national security of America.

We are not doing what we are supposed to do for our veterans. We have broken promises over and over again. The veterans are not getting the benefits that they have been promised; and I think that is immoral and verges on criminal, because we have broken as a Federal Government the promises that we have made to the veterans and military personnel in America. We need to fulfill those promises. We need to do what we have said we would do for them, and that is to take care of them, to take care of their spouses. We need to do so for their lifetime.

On the other hand, what we are doing here is we are going further and further down the road away from the Constitution and the original intent. We are stealing our grandchildren's future by spending more and more money that we don't have.

It is right and good and proper for us to spend money on national defense and supporting our veterans. It is right and good and proper to spend money on military personnel, on the national defense, on homeland security. It is not right and proper for us to continue spending our grandchildren's future.

The American people are going to have to stand up and say no to this robbing their future. They are going to have to contact their Members of Congress and say no to cap-and-trade, no to bailing out Big Business, no to doing all the things that we are doing over and over again here in this Congress. It is up to the American people to stand up and say no.

I say yes to veterans, yes to the military, yes to strong national defense,

yes to good policies for the veterans, and no to this steamroll to socialism.

Mr. Speaker, all the symptoms are clear. As a medical doctor, I rise today to diagnose the Obama administration and the majority leadership in this Congress with an addiction to raising taxes.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama budget calls for more than $1.1 trillion in new taxes over the course of the next decade, including $646 billion in new taxes for their cap-and-tax scheme alone.

Cap-and-tax will raise the American family's energy costs by more than $3,100 each year. That amounts to the largest tax increase in the history of our Nation.

Cap-and-tax is an overdose of new taxes. And mark my words, it will lead to catastrophic consequences. Experts almost unanimously agree that the cap-and-tax will destroy millions of jobs and devastate our economy, all of this while having marginal, if any, impact on global emissions.

I urge my colleagues and the American people to stand up against these tax increases and oppose this legislation.

Recently, while I was on a hunting trip up north, I flew out of an airport in Montana. The number of screeners actually outnumbered the number of passengers. So, when this bill came before the Homeland Security Committee, I offered several amendments, one of which would have required a GAO study of the current staffing levels at TSA to determine their appropriateness and whether or not staffing levels could be reduced by consolidation of duties and functions or by enhanced use of technology.

In March 2009, GAO reported that, ``TSA has not followed Federal internal control standards to assist it in implementing DHS's risk management framework and informing resource allocation.'' I wanted to ensure that hard-earned taxpayer funds were being used in the most cost-effective and efficient manner and ensure that TSA wouldn't become known as Thousands Standing Around.

I'm disappointed that my amendment was not accepted. A number of commonsense provisions were not included by the majority, or were watered down to avoid the jurisdiction of other committees. Rather than produce a good bill and negotiate final language with other committees, our committee only allowed provisions to be considered in committee that were wholly within the Committee on Homeland Security's rule 10 jurisdiction. This bill could be much better.

For example, the majority showed that they saw no value in affirming TSA employees' rights to protect themselves during a public health emergency. One of my amendments offered in committee would have simply allowed any TSA employee to choose to wear a protective face mask in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak or other public health emergency.

TSA employees encounter 2 million domestic and international passengers every day and should not be prohibited by their supervisors from wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment in the event of a public health emergency, particularly when the disease is both contagious and deadly.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents many of the employees, voiced strong support for this provision designed to protect the TSA's frontline officers. The only reason this provision was essentially gutted by the majority with a ``perfecting'' amendment and any references to public health emergency was removed is because the provision could have allowed the Committee on Energy and Commerce to review the language requiring the Secretary of Homeland Security to collaborate with the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Other changes were made to weaken other Republican amendments as well. At the markup, I, along with my fellow Republican members of the committee, unanimously supported an amendment authored by Representative Mark Souder that would have placed any detainee that is housed down at Guantanamo Bay on or after January 1, 2009, to place them on TSA's No Fly List. I think that makes sense.

Again, this amendment was gutted, giving the President the sole authority to determine if a former Guantanamo detainee should be assigned to the No Fly List. The committee must assert its jurisdiction and conduct vigorous oversight of the transfer or release of detainees currently housed at Guantanamo Bay.

The Homeland Security Committee is the primary authorizing committee for the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after the 9/ 11 attacks to protect our homeland. We cannot shirk our responsibility. It is justified and necessary for this committee to take a lead role in protecting and securing American citizens.

I'm pleased, however, that my cybersecurity amendment was included with others in the bipartisan en bloc amendment adopted by the committee. My amendment adds the vulnerability of cyberattack to the list of risks to be assessed and ranked by TSA.

Reports indicate that civilian air traffic computer networks have been penetrated multiple times in recent years.

They include an attack that partially shut down air traffic data systems in Alaska. Our transportation systems are networked. Train switches can operate remotely. Even some metro buses can change a traffic light as they approach. It is a very important amendment, and I thank my colleagues for accepting it.

In closing, I would like to thank my colleagues and the staff on this committee from both sides of the aisle for working together on this bill and on numerous other amendments in a bipartisan manner. I'm sorry we cannot come to agreement on all of our amendments.

Going forward, I hope that we can work together to address the jurisdiction concerns that have caused so many problems for our committee.

Madam Speaker, today, I missed the following votes: Rollcall Nos. 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, and 300. If I had been able to make these votes, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall votes 296, 298, and 299, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall votes 295, 297, and 300.

I thank my good friend, Mr. Bishop from Utah, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in very strong opposition to the Waxman- Markey cap-and-tax boondoggle. That's what it is. It's a boondoggle. This energy tax is the largest tax increase in American history, an estimate of almost $2 trillion tax increase. It will probably cost every family, it's estimated to cost every single family, rich, poor and in between, over $3,100 for every family in additional energy costs and will drive millions of good-paying American jobs overseas.

In fact, I have several plants in my district in northeast Georgia that have told me that, if this onerous bill passes, they'll have to lock the door. And those manufacturing jobs will go overseas because they cannot afford to pay this high energy tax. It will devastate their business, and we'll lose jobs.

This is an outrageous tax on every family that drives a car, who buys American products, or even flips on their light switch when they come home. So that means you, it means every single family in this country is going to pay over $3,100 per family for this increased energy tax.

Senior citizens, the poor, the unemployed will be hit hardest by this tax increase, as experts agree that they spend a greater proportion of what money that they have, their income, on energy consumption and on products that have high energy consumption and, thus, will have higher costs for those goods and services. In fact, it's going to raise the cost of every single product, every single service in this country, because of this outrageous energy tax.

This is a time when we should be promoting policies that stimulate our economy and not tear it down. Various studies suggest that as many as 7 million jobs will be lost. In fact, our President has held forth as a paradigm the country of Spain that put in an energy tax similar to this one and about the green jobs that were created there.

We just talked to a man who serves in their legislature in Spain, and for every single green job produced in Spain, they lost 2.2 additional jobs. So they had a net loss of 1.2 jobs for every job that was created.

It's not right. It's not in the best interest of our Nation. Make no mistake that the Democrats' airtight tax-and-cap will suffocate America's small business, and it will strangle America's respiratory system, the free enterprise system.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will claim that that tax-and-cap will help clean up the environment. However, this doesn't seem like it's even about the environment or about global warming anymore. This has turned into a revenue generator, a revenue generator for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, for their radical agenda that includes socialized medicine. And, in fact, the President said, if we don't pass this, that he's not going to have the funds to force this socialized medicine system that he's proposing down the throats of the American people. It's a socialized medicine system that's going to take your health decisions from you and your doctor and put it in the hands of Washington bureaucrats.

That's why they want this tax-and-cap, as I call it, bill passed, so that they can afford, have the money to grow this huge socialized health care system that's going to destroy the quality of health care.

Fortunately, Republicans have offered an alternative, an alternative to this unaffordable energy tax. We believe you can clean up the environment. We can clean up the environment. We must be good stewards of the environment. We can clean up the environment. We can keep jobs and keep money in peoples' pockets all at the same time.

Our solutions include American energy, American energy produced by American workers to create American jobs. Our all-of-the-above energy plan brings us closer to energy independence, which is critical for our own national security. It encourages greater efficiency. It encourages conservation. It promotes the use of alternative fuels, and it will lower gasoline prices. Lower gasoline prices.

This cap-and-tax bill isn't the only disguise we've seen here lately. In the last hundred-plus days we've seen the following: We've seen a nonstimulus stimulus package. We've seen secretive bills in what was supposed to be an open and transparent Congress, and we've seen bigger government creating trillion dollar commitments versus fiscal responsibility. In fact, what we have seen is downright fiscal irresponsibility.

So far this year, Washington Democrats have forced taxpayers to pay for the following: A $1 trillion stimulus spending bill; a nonstimulus bill that, in spite of the administration's repeated attempts to spin it in a positive light, is riddled with waste and inefficiency on projects such as a skateboard park in Rhode Island, a new auxiliary runway at Representative John Murtha's airport for no one. It's even worse than the bridge to nowhere, an airport for no one in Pennsylvania. And even checks have been sent to deceased people who've been deceased for many years in Maryland, and who knows wherever else in this country those checks have been sent.

We've seen a 400-plus billion dollar omnibus bill, a spending bill loaded with more than 9,000 unscrutinized earmarks. We've seen a budget that adds a staggering $13 trillion to the debt. It doubles our national debt over the next 5 years and triples it over the next 10. Triples our debt. Who's going to pay for that? It's stealing our grandchildren's future because they're going to have to pick up the bill.

We've seen a $50 billion check written in financial aid to General Motors, which seems to have only brought a bankruptcy filing. And it's only June the 3rd.

The sad fact is that this administration has added more debt than every single President combined, from George Washington all the way through George W. Bush. We hear it here on the floor all the time that our financial problems were caused by George Bush, but we've created, we're creating, more debt in the next 5 years, listen, people, more debt in the next 5 years than every single President from George Washington through George W. Bush all combined created. This eclipsed, in less than 5 months, what it's taken more than 230 years to establish. And now they're calling for the largest tax increase in American history.

Enough is enough. I urge the American people to stand up and say ``no.'' No more of these policies that will create more and more debt and will actually bring down our economy even worse than it is today. And it will steal our children's and grandchildren's future.

We must say ``no'' to our Representatives and Senators in this Congress to oppose the Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax or, as I call it, tax- and-cap legislation, and we need to begin to return to some fiscal responsibility here in Washington, D.C.

Republicans have offered, over and over again, multiple alternatives, multiple alternatives, but the Speaker has been an obstructionist. She's obstructed every effort to get to this floor the proposals that the Republicans have brought. She's blocked every effort that we have had for all of these proposals to stimulate our economy, to solve our energy crisis, to put America back on the right track economically, to solve the housing crisis in America.

We've proposed solutions, commonsense, market-based solutions that would not have cost American jobs, would not increase taxes, would not have stolen our grandchildren's future. And the American people need to stand up and say ``yes'' to all these other proposals, and say ``no'' to Waxman-Markey, ``no'' to the course that this administration and the leadership in this House and over in the Senate are taking us, because it's going to bring financial ruin to America if we don't.

So it's up to the American people to say ``no'' to your Congressman, say ``no'' to your two U.S. Senators to this tax-and-trade or cap-and- tax or tax-and-cap legislation that's going to ruin America, cost American jobs, and it's going to be a tremendous financial burden on you and your family. So say ``no'' and resist this as we are here on the Republican side in the U.S. House of Representatives.

I thank my colleague for yielding, and I applaud all your efforts to bring forth our proposals to the American public, the proposals that make sense economically. And I thank you, Mr. Bishop. You're doing a great job, and I applaud that.

Will the gentleman yield?

I just want to bring out a point that you were talking about what it's going to do. Let me tell you something that it won't do, and you may want to talk about this, too. It's not going to solve the global warming problem. In fact, they don't talk about global warming here in America anymore in the government. They talk

about climate change. And why? The reason they don't talk about global warming anymore is because we've had global cooling for almost a decade now, global cooling.

And the experts say that if we marginally reduce the carbon emissions like this bill proposes, it's going to be less than one degree of improvement in the global temperatures. In fact, it's only a smidgen of the total carbon put out throughout history that we're going to be affecting. So it's not going to accomplish the thing that they're trying to sell it on, and that's affecting climate change. It's all about getting more money, more money for a socialistic government that's going to control people's lives. And that's what it's all about. The socialized medicine and care for this steamroller of socialism that they're trying to shove down the throats of the American people, and we've got to stop it.

Madam Speaker, today, I was unable to vote on the following bills: H.J. Res. 40, H. Res. 421, and H. Res. 489. If I had been able to make these votes, I would have voted ``yea.''