Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, Vermont is proud to welcome General Miroslav Stojanovski, Chief of Staff of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia. General Stojanovski's visit is the latest step in a long history of partnership between Vermont and Macedonia.

Established in 1995 through the State Partnership Program of the U.S.-European Command, the partnership began as primarily a military- to-military relationship between the Macedonian Army and the Vermont National Guard. This military partnership has resulted in over 540 joint events that have included over 6,000 members of the Macedonian Army. In September 2006, Vermont National Guard troops and their Macedonian Army counterparts carried out a major, 2-week-long, small- unit exchange exercise to support the professionalization of the Macedonian military in its transformation to meet NATO interoperability standards.

Vermonters' engagement with Macedonia has expanded into civil affairs as well, including the establishment of university partnerships, economic development discussions, and support for the Macedonian youth baseball organization.

In May 2007, the University of Vermont signed an agreement with the SS Cyril and Methodius University to promote collaborative scientific research, joint conferences and workshops, and faculty and student exchanges.

Vermonters have also played an important role in bringing baseball, our national pastime, to Macedonia. C.J. Knudsen, the general manager of the Vermont Lake Monsters minor league baseball team traveled to Macedonia to deliver gloves, balls, bats, uniforms, and other equipment to help start the country's first little league.

Macedonia has made incredible strides since its independence in 1991, achieving membership in the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the World Trade Organization, and to NATO's Partnership for Peace and Membership Action Plan. Macedonia is a candidate for European Union membership and may soon be invited as a full member of NATO, hopefully as soon as April of this year. I look forward to the continued strengthening of the United States and especially Vermont's partnership with the Republic of Macedonia.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, as we know on a bipartisan basis, the cost of college is skyrocketing, and it is putting in jeopardy access to college and achievement of the American Dream for kids across this entire country. The Education and Labor Committee has taken a number of very concrete steps to try to address that. And this Congress passed a major increase in financial aid, $17 billion, over 5 years. Over the last 10 years, student aid has increased from $37 billion to $86 billion. But every time we raise a dollar in financial aid, if it is a dollar increased in tuition that is burned away, the students are continuing to graduate and swim in a sea of debt.

So if we are going to continue on this effort and be successful in making college affordable for average kids wanting to achieve the American Dream, we have to work on both sides of the equation. We have to address the financial aid side, which we are doing our best to do, and do it in the context of enormous budgetary pressures, and we also have to do it on the cost side. And we have to look to our university administrators to work with us to do everything that is possible to constrain the ever-rising cost of college education.

Many kids now are graduating with a debt that is equivalent to what was the mortgage on the first house that I bought, and they don't have the home. They do have the education.

This amendment is very simple. It would require colleges and universities to annually report to the Department of Education on how much of their endowment was spent each year for the purpose of containing college cost, including tuition, fees, textbooks, meals, and room and board. And it would provide Congress really with much-needed information, the same information that goes to the trustees, so it is not in any way a significant burden.

We have to work together if we are going to be successful in containing costs. And we have to acknowledge that we have to work on that cost side as well as on the financial aid side. So this amendment would give us information to work with colleges in trying to achieve that goal to maintain cost affordability for our kids.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield to the chairman such time as he may consume.

Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you. I have been listening, partly presiding, but I have been thinking about this question of why is it there is such a sense that we need to do something called a stimulus package, where we are talking about $100 billion going into an economy that is $14 trillion, and it's a modest amount. Why is it that there is such a sense that this stimulus is needed when in fact, by historical standards, unemployment is actually relatively low. We had bad news. It went from 4.7 to 5 percent. But the historical average is well above 5 percent.

The reason there is such anxiety is the reasons my friend from Kentucky and all of you have mentioned, that this has not been a rising tide that lifts all boats. Most people, even those who are employed, have not had wages that have come close to keeping up with their bills, and that has been intensified, of course, with energy, buying gas, buying home heating fuel, paying for your college education for your kids, and medical bills. The story that the Speaker told about that young family with medical bills is painful, but it's true. So what you have had is this economy that is simply not working for average people.

So what do we have an opportunity to do? A stimulus package is something that is concrete. We don't offer it as something that is going to ``solve'' the problem, but it is going to show that there's a cop on the beat. And there is an opportunity, by following the advice of economists across the spectrum, from conservative to liberal, that say that in a time of declining incomes, a stimulus is a mainstream Keynesian approach to giving a shot in the arm to the economy and a boost in confidence.

Now, we do that and do it quickly, hopefully in the next 2 weeks, and we do it together with our colleagues. It's a statement of confidence, and it also, by the way, establishes that where you need to help is with those folks who are paying their bills on the basis of their salary or punching a clock. Then we have the longer term work to do, and that is to right the inequities that have been so systemically applied to have this vast spread between the middle class, low-income folks, and everyone else. It's all these things people have been talking about, credit card abuse, this scheme that was cooked up by Wall Street and others on the subprime mortgage, and even the so-called exceptional mortgages that are below subprime, the way that Wall Street has found to package these and then sell them to, in some cases, unsuspecting buyers, and in some cases, to knowledgeable buyers who thought they could make money; the degradation of any kind of regulatory oversight, when regulatory oversight done right is going to protect average people. The chairman of Financial Services, I think, put it right on regulation. There's only two problems; one is when you do too much, and the other is when you do none at all. It is something that has to be done in order to protect the pocketbooks of everyday Americans.

Yes.

The elements of the stimulus package, as we know, are being discussed, but basically it would be a short-term tax break or check to families; it would be food stamps for folks who are struggling; it would be an extension of unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 39 weeks for folks who have been laid off from their jobs. So those are some of the things that would help.

It's not just Vermont, as you know, my friend from Iowa. By the way, I am a great fan of the Homestead Act, but if your forebears had not walked from Vermont to Iowa, you might be a Congressman from Vermont right now.

I yield to my friend and class president from Minnesota.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 876 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material in the Record.

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

Madam Speaker, H. Res. 876 waives a requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII. That rule, as you know, requires a two-thirds vote to consider a rule on the same day it is reported from the Rules Committee. This will allow for the same-day consideration, today, of any resolution reported on or before the legislative day of December 19, 2007. It provides for the consideration or disposition of, one, a bill relating to the Children's Health Insurance Program and a bill relating to Medicare, something that at this point is moot in view of earlier proceedings today. But it also has an application on a bill relating to the alternative minimum tax; a joint resolution making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2008, the so-called CR; and the bill, H.R. 2764, making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, the so-called omnibus appropriations bill.

With passage of this rule, it allows the House to move one step closer to passing this omnibus appropriations bill that will fund the government outside of the Department of Defense. That, of course, we have already completed our work on and it has been signed into law by the President. And it will provide for funding for the entire fiscal year of 2008. It will also take us one step forward towards considering and passing a patch for the alternative minimum tax, which will affect, unnecessarily and unwisely, 23 million American families. They would be subject to paying a tax that was never intended for middle-class working families.

All of these bills, obviously, are crucially important pieces of legislation that Congress must act on before we go home, and we owe it, obviously, to the American people to get this work done.

The omnibus bill is going to reject enormous cuts that had been proposed by the President in his draft budget, cuts to essential domestic priorities such as health care, education, law enforcement, homeland security, highway infrastructure, and renewable energy programs. That omnibus bill instead does invest in crucial domestic priorities: medical research to study diseases like Alzheimer's, cancer, Parkinson's, and diabetes; health care access, including programs like the Community Health Centers that provide more access to health care to underinsured Americans. Small rural hospitals will be helped. Special education, teacher quality grants, afterschool programs, and Head Start; Pell Grants and other student aid programs; technical training at high schools and community colleges; State and local law enforcement for communities across the country; Homeland Security grants to help fight in the war on terror. This meets the guaranteed levels for higher infrastructure and adds funding to our Nation's bridges. It also provides funding for solar energy, wind energy, biofuels and energy efficiency with a careful blend of new scientific investments and conservation efforts.

This same-day rule will take us one step closer to completing our work this year.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, we have no additional speakers on this side. I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas. And I will respond and close.

A couple of things. First, let's be focused on the fact that the rule that is going to be before the House really applies to two things: consideration of the alternative minimum tax and consideration of the omnibus appropriations bill. And the rule is being brought up for same day consideration in recognition of the fact that there has been enormous work on both sides on the AMT. There is nothing new. And, in fact, the AMT bill that will be brought before the House for consideration today corresponds with the view of the minority as to that being passed without pay-fors.

And secondly, the omnibus appropriations bill is bringing before the House appropriations that had been passed in 11 separate appropriations bills but have now been consolidated as a result of the inability of our friends in the Senate to pass those bills individually as we did here in the House. So, there is nothing new that is coming up before the Members of the House. It's just the convenience of being able to act today rather than wait until tomorrow.

Secondly, my friend from Texas made some assertions about the conduct of this House in application to the rules. You know, context is everything. The reality is that virtually every piece of legislation that has been brought before the floor has received bipartisan support. Many of the items that the gentleman mentioned in the ``Six for '06'' legislative agenda, student loan cost reduction, price negotiations for prescription drugs, the restoration of the PAYGO rule, these were passed with overwhelming support on the Democratic side and substantial support on the Republican side. When they got to the other body, the Senate has been using, frankly, politics of obstruction to stop virtually anything from being considered: the filibuster, the hold. Every device available procedurally to avoid taking up a ``yes'' or ``no'' vote on a question has been employed by the Senate. And there is a sense by many on our side that the criticism that my friend from Texas is making that we have not done as much as we should in Congress, despite the fact that we in the House have passed substantial legislation helping the bottom line for American families, has been an explicit strategy on the part of the other side to use every rule, every device, every procedural opportunity basically to thwart passage of legislation. And they have the full and complete support of the President of the United States in that effort, who stands behind the whole agenda with the veto pen.

And the President appears to many of us to be operating on a one- third-plus-one approach where, as long as he can get his veto sustained, he will be able to block passage of legislation the American people need and then accuse the Congress of not getting anything done. And I think most Americans see through that.

So, Madam Speaker, with the passage of this rule, the House will move towards adjournment for this year and

have an opportunity to pass the omnibus appropriations bill and the AMT fix.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and the rule.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 877 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Res. 877.

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

H. Res. 877 provides for the consideration of the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 6, to move the United States toward greater energy independence and security, to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to protect consumers, to increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles, and to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options. In short, it's a comprehensive energy bill.

The rule makes in order a motion by the majority leader that the House concur in the Senate amendment. The rule waives all points of order against the motion except clause 10 of rule XXI. The rule provides 1 hour of debate, controlled by the majority leader and the minority leader.

Mr. Speaker, this is historic legislation. Today, we will move from a policy of dependence on foreign oil, a policy of endless drilling, to a policy of independence and efficiency. It's a policy that is overdue. It's overdue for the health of the American economy, the health of the world environment, and for the strengthening of our foreign policy options.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the American economy is being hit very hard by spiraling fuel prices. Around the country, families are sitting around their kitchen tables wondering how they are going to afford their fuel bills this winter. In December of 2002, just a few years ago, the price of a gallon of gas was $1.48. It's now $3.09. Five years ago, in Vermont it cost a family about $600 to heat their homes. Now, it's about $1,500.

Our current energy policy of spiraling costs, environmental degradation, and increasing dependence on people who are not particularly our friends is weakening America, harming our environment, and stretching the budgets of our families.

Mr. Speaker, this bill addresses each and every one of these problems. It's fiscally responsible. It starts by repealing some, but not all, of the big oil and gas tax giveaways and reinvests that money to ensure energy independence. It increases fuel efficiency standards, and this is probably the single most important provision of this bill. The last time this Congress increased fuel efficiency standards was 32 years ago, and since that time the American auto industry has lost market share. The cost of operating a car has increased. What this bill does, which is historic, is increase the mileage standards by 40 percent so that the fleet-wide average in 2020 will be 35 miles per gallon.

That is the first real step toward fuel efficiency in those 32 years. It's going to save American families $700 to $1,000 at the pump; it's going to produce $22 billion in net annual savings for consumers by 2020; and through the application in this legislation of efficiency standards, which essentially is that you make a toaster that uses less rather than more energy, and other appliances the same, it's going to save consumers $400 billion through 2030.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is long overdue, and it is a declaration of independence from the old energy policy that had us relying on people who were not our friends to supply us oil that we were addicted to, at prices that we could no longer afford. Today, we are going to turn the corner, and the American people are going to see direct results in our economy, in our environment, and in our security as a result of this landmark legislation.

I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Hodes).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Mr. Markey.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

(Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Texas was expressing his concern about the impact on American families with the ever-escalating cost of gasoline, the ever-escalating cost of home heating fuel. Certainly you are no stranger in your job to the impact of that on our budget, trying to find money for the low-income heating assistance program. All of us have constituents that experience the kind of pain the gentleman from Texas is describing.

The problem is the policy we have pursued has resulted in endless consumption, endless escalation of prices, and constant dependence on the Persian Gulf folks who are not really our friends. If there is a metaphor for what has been the American energy policy through many administrations, one of dependence, of drilling and drilling, consumption and wastefulness, it was a photograph that appeared in the New York Times in April of 2005.

At that time there was an emerging sense that the cost of energy was having an enormously negative impact on our families. The cost of gasoline had risen over $2 a gallon. That price now seems quite wonderful; but in an effort to deal with it, the President of the United States invited the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia to Crawford and invited him there for discussions. And the picture on the front page of the paper was of the President of the United States and the Crown Prince holding hands going into the President's home to discuss energy policy. And the request by the President on behalf of the American people to the Crown Prince was that they raise production, in order, theoretically, to lower prices. Well, you know what? That's the same policy that we've pursued for generations, raise production, drill more, leave control in the hands, many times, of foreign countries that have very little regard for the long-term interests of the American people.

It's a policy that has not worked and is running into the dead-end reality that there are limits on how much fossil fuels we can drill. There's damage to the environment, and the cost is ever escalating as the demand for this commodity increases with the growth in economies in India, China, and the rest of the emerging world.

That was a photograph of dependence. This energy bill is about turning the corner and being the self-confident Nation that we should be, that within our own borders, with the resources and technical skills of our people, with what can be done in the agriculture sector, the engineering sector, that we can actually take resources that are immediately available to us, that are renewable, and we can transform them into the energy that our families need to drive their cars to and from day care, to get to and from work; that we can transform that into the energy that our industries need in order to produce, manufacture, and create jobs for the American people.

And the side benefit, and a central goal, is that it can, as it must, dramatically reduce the carbon emissions that are polluting this world and threatening our planetary future. That is a real crisis that requires immediate action.

We have a responsibility to the families that the gentleman from Texas mentioned to do everything that we can to make it affordable for them to do what they have to do to raise their families, to get to work. And we all jointly have a responsibility to the environment because it is our obligation, very simply, that we leave this planet as clean, hopefully cleaner than, as when we found it. The path that we're on has been one of further degradation. The path we're choosing is one of renewal and redemption. This is good for jobs. It's good for the environment. It's good for securing America's foreign policy independence.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 877

Offered by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 4. That immediately upon the adoption of this

resolution the House shall, without intervention of any point

of order, consider the resolution (H. Res. 479) to amend the

Rules of the House of Representatives to provide for

enforcement of clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the House

of Representatives. The resolution shall he considered as

read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on

the resolution and any amendment thereto to final adoption

without intervening motion or demand for division of the

question except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and

controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the

Committee on Rules; (2) the amendment printed in section 5,

if offered by Representative Boehner of Ohio or his designee,

which shall be in order without intervention of any point of

order or demand for division of the question, shall he

considered as read and shall be separately debatable for

forty minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent

and an opponent; and (3) one motion to recommit with or

without instructions.

Sec. 5. The amendment referred to in section 4 is as

follows:

Strike all after ``That'' and insert the following:

(1) Clause 9(a) of rule XXI is amended by striking ``or''

at the end of subparagraph (3), striking the period at the

end of subparagraph (4) and inserting ``; or'', and adding

the following at the end:

``(5) a Senate bill held at the desk, an amendment between

the Houses, or an amendment considered as adopted pursuant to

an order of the House, unless the Majority Leader or his

designee has caused a list of congressional earmarks, limited

tax benefits, and limited tariff benefits in the bill and

amendments (and the name of any Member, Delegate, or Resident

Commissioner who submitted the request for each respective

item in such list) or a statement that the proposition

contains no congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or

limited tariff benefits to be printed in the Congressional

Record prior to its consideration.''.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

I thank the gentleman from New York.

There is a reason, Mr. Speaker, that all of the Senators from the New England States, all of the Members of Congress from the New England States join in support of this resolution. Their legislatures and their governors all support this, as well as the legislatures and the premiers in the provinces of Canada that have been mentioned. That is because we need each other in a moment of weather disaster.

As the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) referred to, there was a severe ice storm in 1998 and this response that we had in those New England States, with the help of the provinces, was helpful to alleviate some of the suffering, but not all. This is fundamentally important in order that we be able to cooperate to the mutual benefit of folks in the New England region and in the Canadian provinces. I want to express my gratitude to the Foreign Affairs Committee, my gratitude to my friend from Texas. I am sorry that Texas isn't part of this because then we would really be in good shape.

And I want to thank Mr. Crowley and the members of the leadership staff and the staff of the Foreign Relations Committee for moving this forward on such an expedited basis.

The more we can cooperate to help each other, the better all of us are going to be. And as my friend from Texas would say, ``That's just the way it is.''

We must all do our best to prepare for the most serious emergencies that can harm our communities. As those who live in the Northeast know, extreme weather is not uncommon in New England, or in the eastern provinces of Canada. Together with our Canadian neighbors, we have endured catastrophic blizzards and ice storms over the years that have closed roads and highways, shut down power for extended periods, and stranded travelers and rural residents for days, or longer. During these events, we turn to our first responders and our emergency management professionals to provide assistance and secure public safety no matter how grave the danger, and no matter how challenging the task.

The IEMAMOU compact was created in response to the devastating ice storm of 1998. In January of that year, an unprecedented 3-day ice storm paralyzed portions of the northern New England States and the adjacent Canadian provinces, causing massive damage to the electrical and transportation infrastructure. Millions were left in the dark for days and even weeks, leaving more than 30 dead and shutting down normal activities in large cities like Montreal and Ottawa. Following this devastation, the governors and premiers of those regions affected recognized the need for greater cross-border emergency cooperation, and they directed their emergency management leaders to develop and create a memorandum of understanding on these issues that benefit all parties north and south of the border. The IEMAMOU compact was the result of this collaborative, international process, and now stands as a model compact for cross-border mutual emergency assistance.

The compact allows for international sharing of resources and expertise in times of extreme emergency or disaster. The IEMAMOU compact meets these needs with a thoughtful and forward-looking outline of how to address issues that face first responders and their managers in times of cross-border emergency.

This international compact provides a legal framework for cooperation and mutual assistance between the States of Vermont, New

Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The compact requires each participating member, whether State or province, to formulate plans and programs to facilitate international and interstate or provincial cooperation in case of natural or manmade disaster, technological hazard, or civil emergency.

All members of this compact have agreed to its terms and join in requesting Congress's consent for the agreement. Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have joined the IEMAMOU compact, and many of these States have passed legislation adopting the compact under State law. The premiers of Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Labrador, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have similarly approved of the compact. The IEMAMOU compact has been functioning in principle for more than 5 years, as the emergency management leaders from each member State and province meet twice a year. Planning among the constituent members of the compact is also ongoing. This compact works well and should be supported by Congress.

The IEMAMOU compact is an international agreement between States and a foreign power, and it cannot have the full force of law without the formal approval of Congress. The U.S. Constitution requires that ``[n]o state shall . . . enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power'' unless with the ``consent of Congress.'' U.S. Const. Art. 1, Sec. 10, cl. 3. The joint resolution introduced today provides this necessary consent, and would give legal force to the compact. Congressional approval of this compact would also provide jurisdiction for Federal courts to resolve any disputes under the agreement.

This joint resolution is vitally important to the New England States and our Canadian provinces to the north. Congress should support their cooperative, international leadership in creating and implementing this unique emergency management compact. The Governor of Vermont supports this joint resolution as do the leaders of the North East States Emergency Consortium, which represents each of the New England States in the compact.

It is time to take action and pass this joint resolution without further delay. The IEMAMOU compact provides invaluable international cooperation and mutual assistance in times of natural disaster and extreme emergency. This compact works well for New England and the eastern Canadian provinces, and it stands as a model for emergency management planning and cooperation across this country.

Mr. Speaker, I am here to say thank you to the good work of the committee, Republicans and Democrats, but also for making an adjustment in the bill that is going to make a real difference to small Vermont insurers.

This bill calls for a study instead of an imposition of an obligation for the NBCR. That's the right thing to do. Second, it lowers the trigger when the TRIA program will kick in from $100 million to $50 million. That is enormously helpful to cash-strapped companies that are on the small size.

So, I thank the chairman, I thank the members of the committee, Republican and Democrat, on behalf of small businesses and small insurance companies.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 846 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, this point of order is really essentially about whether or not we are going to consider the rule and, ultimately, the Energy Independence and Security Act. In fact, I would say that it may well be an effort by folks who are opposed to the legislation to find a way to kill the legislation itself. We believe that this legislation should proceed.

The fact is that the other side had absolute control in this body or had a majority in this body for 12 years, enjoyed control in both bodies and in the administration for the past 6, for most of that 6, and did not come up with an energy policy that did anything other than raise the cost of oil, home heating oil, gasoline, increase our dependence on foreign oil, weaken our national security and contribute to global warming. This legislation is about changing the direction of American energy policy, and the issues that have been raised in this legislation are ones that have been debated outside of this body for several years.

The legislation now brings to this body for its consideration such topics as increasing fuel efficiency, energy efficiency, green buildings, cellulosic agriculture-based energy efforts that will be vital to the farm sector and rural sectors of our economy.

So we believe that the House is going to have an opportunity to vote on this point of order and reach its judgment about whether it wants to proceed on the important question of changing the energy policy in this country.

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

I am not aware of any earmarks in the bill. I'm completely unaware of any earmarks in the bill. There is CBO information suggesting that the unfunded mandates, which is a separate one, is not within any of the rule provisions as it applies to the public sector, maybe as it applies to the private sector.

I am going to yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor). But before I do, I would like to thank the gentleman from Arizona; I would like to thank him for the good work that he has done on earmarks that he did when he was a member of the majority and now as a member of the minority.

But I would also remind the gentleman that, in fact, under the leadership of the current Chair of the Appropriations Committee, there has been a massive change in direction on earmarks. In fact, it's been a reason why some of the budget bills took longer than last year because there has been an exhaustive effort to go through and identify anything that can be called an earmark to allow Members who wish to address it to raise their points.

What I've said to the gentleman is that we are unaware of any earmarks in this legislation. And I appreciate your late-night work at finding provisions that, as you have presented them, you're characterizing as possible earmarks. I am aware of absolutely no earmarks.

The so-called unfunded mandate, there is language in a letter, Mr. Speaker, from the CBO that suggests that there may be a slightly above the threshold under the rule, but that's a decision that this body can make and will make. It's incidental, not significant, to the overall policy.

So having said that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Castor).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time we have remaining on our side.

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

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

I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona for his comments and his arguments here on this point of order, and also for the work that he has done.

I happen to believe that process does matter, but I also think substance matters, and they have to go together. Ideally, when we're working in a perfect world, they do. But one of the major reasons that we don't have an actual conference committee report is because our friends in the other body refused to go to conference, refused, refused to go to conference to discuss our energy future, Mr. Speaker. How is that right? Is that a proper use of process?

The reason we are here and the way that we're here is because there has been a decision made by the majority of the American people that they want a new energy policy, and the basic question for this body is whether we want to give that new energy policy or we don't.

The best process is going to get the best bill, but it takes cooperation on both sides. And if we have, in the other body, a refusal to even go into conference, it leaves leadership in this body with a single choice: do nothing and capitulate, or move ahead.

On this question of earmarks, we have given you as much assurance as we can possibly give you that there are not earmarks in here. We have the CBO letter about so-called unfunded mandates in the private sector. That's going to be a decision for the body.

I urge all Members to vote ``yes'' on this motion to consider.

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

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 846.

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 846 provides for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 6, the Energy Independence and Security Act. The rule provides for a motion by the majority leader to concur in the Senate amendments with the House amendments printed in the Rules Committee report. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, controlled by the majority and minority leaders, or their designees.

Mr. Speaker, many Members of this body have worked long and hard to change the direction of energy policy in this country. I can't mention them all, but I would be remiss not to pay special acknowledgment to the Speaker, to Mr. Dingell, and to Mr. Markey.

Mr. Speaker, this House in a very short time will have an opportunity to turn the page on generations of energy policy. Perhaps the best way to characterize what has been the U.S. policy on energy is captured by looking at a photograph that serves as a metaphor. What it shows is the United States hand in hand with OPEC producers, on whom we have become increasingly reliant and dependent, pursuing an energy policy of drill- and-drill, consume-and-consume, spend-and-spend; all with ever- escalating and budget-busting expense inflicted on our families and businesses; all with reckless denial, reckless denial, to the environmental damage that we are doing by this policy to the Earth we all share; and all with cavalier disregard to our national security by depending on regimes that are not our friends.

Mr. Speaker, this bill brought before you does two fundamental things in changing the direction of energy policy. It says that we are going to consume less by taking practical steps, long overdue, to increase mileage standards, to allow American families going to and from work, picking up their kids, going to daycare, bringing them to soccer games, to travel in safe vehicles manufactured by American workers that get 40 percent more miles per gallon. Mr. Speaker, that will save the average American family $700 to $1,000 a year.

Second, by making a strong national commitment to renewable energy, to having energy that we produce, that we keep our American dollars and our American jobs here at home, and by investing in cellulosic ethanol, wind and solar and technologies that have shown promise to give us the energy we need, the jobs we require and the environmental improvement that is essential, this turns the page on what has been an overdue time for change in our energy direction in this country.

Mr. Speaker, the current system just ain't going to work. The ever- escalating cost to our families is not sustainable. In December of 2002, the price of a gallon of gas was $1.48. Today it is about $3.09. Five years ago it cost an average Vermont family about $600 to heat their home during the winter. It is over $1,500 to $2,000 now.

The environmental damage is indisputable. With 4 percent of the world's population, we are still consuming about 20 to 25 percent of the world's energy, and we generate roughly 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year.

Mr. Speaker, we can't afford to be sending so many American dollars abroad; $500,000 every minute from the pockets of American consumers and American businesses go to countries that provide us with the oil that we need, when they are not particularly good friends of ours. That is $500,000 every minute, $30 million every hour, $5 billion every week.

This energy bill turns the page from a country that has been excessively dependent on oil consumption to a country that is going to be self-confident in its people, in its resources and its ingenuity, to take on the energy challenge and turn it into energy opportunity.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Giffords).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Shea-Porter).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Hodes).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from South Dakota, a woman who has been a leader on this issue for years, Ms. Herseth Sandlin.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hall).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

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

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

(Ms. HARMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

I thank my colleague from Florida (Mr. Diaz- Balart), appreciate his arguments, and will close on behalf of our side.

There are two arguments that I heard in the course of this debate. One was about process and procedure. I happen to believe that process and procedure is important. It's important not in its own right; it's important for what it can do to help us in this body create better legislation. But process can be abused. It can be abused when the goal is not to make a better bill; it's to obstruct the passage of any bill. And the choice that had to be made by leadership on this side, particularly in view of the decision in the other body to refuse to go to conference, was whether to accept that use of process that obstructed consideration of energy legislation this country needs or to move ahead. They made the right choice.

Second, this legislation, a thousand pages, as Mr. Diaz-Balart and others mentioned, they had some fun holding up the bill. Mr. Speaker, the vast majority of that 1,000 pages contains provisions that have been considered in many cases passed by this House of Representatives. What this bill is is a compilation of the work that many people in this body have been doing for years. What's different is that it is actually coming to the House floor for a vote.

Substantively, this legislation does turn the page on energy policy. I showed a picture in the beginning. It's a metaphor really for the energy policy that we have had in this country for generations. It's the American administration hand in hand with OPEC leadership, OPEC countries, pursuing a policy of drill-and-drill, consume-and-consume, export our dollars and import their oil.

If we turn the page, we are going to have a new picture. We are going to have a picture of the American Congress and the American administration hand in hand with American farmers who are driving their tractors, creating energy alternatives. It is going to be a picture of the American Congress with young engineers who are creating better, more efficient appliances. It is going to be a picture of the American Congress and American families who are driving to and from their soccer games, to and from work, to and from day care in safe vehicles, manufactured by American workers, that get 40 percent higher mileage, saving that family $1,000.

We know, we know that this is a hat trick. If we change our energy policy and we act like a confident Nation, not a dependent Nation, we can protect the planet, reverse global warming. We can create good jobs and keep American dollars at home, and we can increase our national security by reducing our dependence on regimes that have no particular interest in the security of the United States but whose primary interest is in the dollars from American consumers and American businesses.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 846 Offered By Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida

Strike all after the resolved clause and insert:

``That upon adoption of this resolution, the bill (H.R. 6)

to reduce our Nation's dependency on foreign oil by investing

in clean, renewable, and alternative energy resources,

promoting new emerging energy technologies, developing

greater efficiency, and creating a Strategic Energy

Efficiency and Renewables Reserve to invest in alternative

energy, and for other purposes, with Senate amendments

thereto, shall be considered to have been taken from the

Speaker's table. A single motion that the Mouse concur in

each of the Senate amendments with the respective amendment

specified in section 2 of this resolution shall be considered

as pending in the House without intervention of any point of

order. The Senate amendments and the motion shall be

considered as read. The motion shall be debatable for one

hour equally divided and controlled by the Majority Leader

and the Minority Leader or their designees. The previous

question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to

final adoption without intervening motion or demand for

division of the question.

``Sec. 2. The amendments referred to in section I are as

follows:

``In lieu of the. matter proposed to be inserted for the

text of the bill, H.R. 6, insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

I thank very much my colleague, Mr. Mahoney, for his excellent work on this legislation and Mrs. Capito for her excellent work on this bipartisan legislation.

It is incredibly important to America's seniors, Vermont's seniors, that they have security in housing as they age. And that is a challenge because we are getting more folks older and incomes are not keeping up. H.R. 2930 addresses the issue in a timely and overdue way.

It improves HUD's section 202 program, providing low-income elderly households access to affordable places to live. It is the only program that provides housing exclusively for the elderly. Established in 1959, it makes capital grants and project rental assistance available to developers so they can build housing that is affordable to low-income elderly households. Over 320,000 housing units are currently available.

But it is not enough. There are 10 seniors waiting and in need for every housing unit that is available, and approximately 3.6 million of our seniors across the country in every State live in poverty. This bill is going to help make a down payment on what needs to be done. The U.S. population is aging; 12.4 percent are over 65, but in 18 years that is going to be 20 percent. We are going to need 730,000 units of housing. So I thank the sponsors, the leaders, to begin the process of moving forward.

I want to mention just in a very practical way something that Mrs. Capito said. Housing is a partnership. What it does is unleash the activities of volunteers in our communities and housing advocates, and they brought this to our attention.

Grand Way Commons in Vermont, opened by the Cathedral Square Corporation, is going to have a housing project that is going to help 63 families, seniors, have access to housing, and they are combining it with services from United Way, from AARP and from the Vermont Nurses Association.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a strong vote in support of moving ahead for senior housing.

Mr. Speaker, Thanksgiving Day, as my colleague just mentioned, is next week and we have the threat of another Presidential veto to deny 10 million children across this country of all races, all poor, access to health care.

The President has become a born-again fiscal conservative, disregarding any requirement that we pay for the war and disregarding the fact that we are paying for children's health care.

On Thanksgiving Day, all of us are thankful, those of us who have health care, and we are determined that the children of this country will join the Members of Congress in this country, government employees, and citizens across this country who do have access to health care.

The President has refused to meet with congressional leaders. And, by the way, this is bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats in this body stand united in wanting to insure our kids, and the only obstacle is the Presidential veto.

This may well, Mr. Speaker, turn into a bit of a pile-on. There were a lot of new Members in the class, and Dean Aguillen was the person that greeted us. And if there was one person that we met who seemed to have worked harder than the Speaker, it was Dean.

And I remember every single one of us, as new Members, being anxious about what our place was going to be, how to find our way. We were very anxious about committee assignments, about how you become an effective and contributing Member of the House. And, Dean, you were terrific in just giving us calm advice, getting us together to work together, giving us some reassurance that we needed as new Members of Congress, that, in fact, it wasn't an accident that we were elected, and helped all of us find our way. And you've been the same way all of the time that we have been here.

In politics so much of the interactions that we have are transactional, and all of us all of the time are trying to make them a bit more than that. And, Dean, you really helped provide the glue that made this class such a memorable experience for all of us who are Members of it.

I thank you for the wonderful contribution you made to me and to all of us in our entry into the United States Congress.

One of the ongoing challenges of democracy is to maintain an economy that creates opportunity for everybody, at the low end of the ladder, as well as at the top.

What our Ways and Means Committee has done, in two areas, is recognize that we have seen our economy start skirting so that the wealthy are doing very well, the middle class are falling behind, and the poor are barely hanging on. And in two areas, trade and taxes, the Ways and Means Committee has brought legislation that basically says we're all in it together.

On trade they want to have a policy that shares the benefits. They aren't just concentrated at the top, and that shares the pain. And on taxes, they're asking the question and giving us the opportunity to present a tax policy that respects work as well as capital, that reduces rather than increases our debt, and accepts the reality that one taxpayer's tax preference is often another taxpayer's tax burden.

What is a fact is that the gap between the wealthy and everyone else is widening. We can ignore that or we can acknowledge it. This legislation is middle-class tax relief. It acknowledges that the middle class has been working harder, paying more in taxes, getting less in government services and falling farther behind.

One of the things that pays for this is by going after a glaring loophole. We've heard people talk about the ``carried interest.'' But there's one other provision in here that is long overdue for remedy. It's how a corporation doing financial advising is treated differently than a partnership.

It was a New York Times story, Mr. Speaker, that spoke about Goldman Sachs that did great work, earnings of $3.4 billion in one quarter. They paid $1.1 billion in taxes. They paid the corporate tax rate. Good corporate citizens. A private equity partnership, the Blackstone Group, doing the same work, had revenues of $1.1 billion. They paid $14 million in taxes, or 1.3 percent.

This tax bill says tax fairness requires that those two entities be treated the same, that they pay their fair share before we start asking middle-class working families to pay more.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3685, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Unfortunately, in 31 states, it is still legal to fire someone because that person is gay, lesbian, or bisexual. In 39 states, it is legal to do so if the person is transgender. I am proud that Vermont already protects individuals against employment discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity. Vermont's 1992 Human Rights Law included sexual orientation protections in public and private employment, as well as public accommodations, education, housing, credit, insurance and union practices. In May of this year, Vermont included gender identity protections in employment, public accommodations, and housing. I applaud Vermont for these important steps and we must do the same on the national level.

When making employment decisions, employers should look at an individual's qualifications and the quality of the work they produce, not their sexual orientation or gender identity. The public strongly supports this notion.

Many employers have already acted on their own. Approximately 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies. More specifically, 49 of the Fortune 50 companies have a policy against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Progress is being made on the gender identity front as well. Approximately 25 percent of Fortune 500 companies include protections against gender identity discrimination in their corporate policies.

Where employers do not act, however, the Federal government must step in and extend this protection to employees across the country. Employees are currently protected from discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, national origin or disability.

If not enacted today, I believe this Congress will soon realize that gender identity protections, like in Vermont, are also necessary and I stand ready to join my colleagues in taking that next step.

The decision before us today is whether or not we take a giant step forward. Whether or not we as a Congress want to protect the millions of gays and lesbians across the country from employment discrimination. This legislation is a perfect example of how this Congress has made a commitment to a new direction. This new direction embodies the values of equality and fairness, making sure that workers, children, families, and communities can fully participate in the successes of our economy. This bill would have never seen the light of day in past Congresses.

I am glad that the rule makes in order the amendment by Representative Baldwin to include ``gender identity'' protections in the bill. I urge all my colleagues to support the rule, support the Baldwin amendment, and support the underlying bill.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Washington is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 793 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Washington

In section 1 of the resolution, strike the sentence which

begins ``Amendment number 3 in the report of the Committee on

Rules''.

Madam Speaker, 1 year ago the American people went to the voting booths and voted for a new direction. This decision was not only asking for a new Congress, but asking Congress to head in a new direction. One area: Make America safer.

The last Congress ignored the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. This Congress is implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Our ports and skies are safer. Our first responders have better access to emergency communication. We are also recognizing very straightforward and directly that the cost of the war must include the cost of caring for the warrior, and that is why we have passed the largest increase in the veterans health care budget in the history of the Veterans Administration.

And finally, with cop-on-the-beat oversight, we have uncovered the scandal of tens of billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse by companies like Blackwater and Halliburton that have benefited enormously from our appropriations.