Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once wrote that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. Mr.…
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once wrote that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Mr. Speaker, our friends on the other side of the aisle have today trumpeted forward an energy bill which they claim will promote America's energy independence. As the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee noted, this is a serious issue. But for those of you who are inclined to actually keep track of these things, this is actually the fourth time that the majority has advanced this particular flawed proposal in one form or another. That to me is a foolish consistency, or just like a broken record, this bill clearly is not playing with the American people.
We fear that it will harm consumers, both individual consumers and companies, and it will also hurt the competitive position of the American economy. At a time when that economy is teetering on the lip of a recession and we are passing through this Chamber stimulus legislation, Washington ought to think twice before we go forward with a bill like this instead of embracing an energy policy that meets the needs of our economy now and that anticipates the challenges of the future.
It is clear today that the majority have not chosen this necessary path. In reality, Mr. Speaker, our friends on the other side of the aisle have presented the House Chamber with a placebo that will ultimately reduce domestic energy production, will punish American energy companies that do what we want them to, and that is invest their profits in exploration here at home, will encourage greater dependence on foreign oil, and will potentially damage America's manufacturing base.
This bill is not a serious solution. It is ``energy policy-lite,'' and it is clearly intended to appeal more to the blogosphere than to market forces. The Democrat solution to America's energy crisis is to single out what they claim are the five largest oil and gas producers for a tax increase.
The fact is, Mr. Speaker, this legislation is not likely to impact oil producers' profits in any way, shape, or form. It is also not limited to the five largest producers, as they claim. The one thing you can be sure that this bill will do is raise prices at the pump for American consumers and create a looming sense of uncertainty which will compound the forces increasing prices today in the marketplace.
Furthermore, it creates disincentives that will erode the supply of domestic natural gas and oil and increase our country's energy imports. While H.R. 5351 not only forces our country to become more dependent on foreign oil, it will also force America's working families to bear the brunt of increased energy costs. The effects of high gas prices will ripple through the economy, increasing prices on everything from electronics to school supplies.
H.R. 5351 is also, I am afraid, an assault against America's manufacturing base. Using nearly one-third of the Nation's energy both as fuel and feedstock, energy production is the very heart of American manufacturing. With such an energy-intensive sector, raising energy prices will make domestic manufacturers less competitive in the world market, forcing more of our good-paying manufacturing jobs to go overseas.
Mr. Speaker, I have long advocated for a comprehensive energy plan that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and increase Americans' access to clean, affordable, and dependable energy for their cars, their homes, and their businesses. Yet, here again, Mr. Speaker, this bill is moving in the wrong direction. It throws effective incentives for producing renewable energy out the window and replaces them with backward and broken provisions.
In this bill, the wind credit gets a substantial modification that will dramatically reduce its effectiveness for some of its most successful consumers. This will eliminate a critical incentive to increase renewable energy sources, one that has worked.
Mr. Speaker, this version of the Democrats' energy bill is also in an odd way hostile to domestic not only economic interests, but I would argue foreign policy interests. This bill raises taxes on American oil producers while cutting a break for the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, CITGO. In effect, Mr. Speaker, this legislation will take away incentives that have proven to bolster domestic energy production right here at home, while giving more American dollars to, I guess we would call him a tin horn leftist dictator who has threatened to sever Venezuelan energy supplies destined to the United States. Clearly, America's best interests are not in the heart of this plan.
This bill further repeals the domestic manufacturing deduction for domestic oil and gas companies, but allows all other oil and gas companies to receive a 6 percent deduction. This creates a situation whereby foreign-owned companies can claim the U.S. domestic manufacturing deduction, but certain U.S. employers can't.
H.R. 5351 is simply not the answer. It wasn't in any of its three previous incarnations, and it isn't today. This legislation threatens America's investment, threatens Americans' jobs, threatens the American economy, and puts the consumer at a disadvantage.
Mr. Speaker, I urge that we defeat this here today.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds simply to point out to the other gentleman that some of the provisions that he cited were actually originally written into the law during Republican Congresses when we were in the majority and when we were fighting against their opposition to pursue these important conservation measures.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady).
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on both sides.
Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California and a senior member of the Ways and Means committee, Mr. Herger.
Mr. Speaker, I would first like to yield myself 30 seconds to clear the record.
It has been intimated here that somehow Hugo Chavez's CITGO does not get a special break, and yet the definition in the bill, I think, clearly excludes it. Basically this bill would repeal the special domestic manufacturing deduction for major integrated oil companies, but under the strict definition included, CITGO is not defined as a major integrated oil company since it does not produce crude oil itself. Based on this, CITGO would continue to receive the domestic manufacturing deduction while a number of U.S.-based companies will not.
With that I will retain the balance of my time but yield 3 minutes to a very distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and ranking member of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).
Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 6\1/2\ minutes to a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) for a unanimous consent request.
(Mr. SHAYS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to a great leader on energy policy who is recognized on both sides of the aisle in this Chamber, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).
(Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I'd yield myself 30 seconds to simply point out to the gentleman from North Dakota, who I know is an authentic and sincere advocate of the wind energy credit, that in this bill there is a cap on the wind energy credit which will have the effect of undermining the benefits for many wind energy credit participants. And this is extremely important. By putting a cap on this credit, it will have the effect of discouraging many from participating in the wind energy credit, and for a district like mine that produces windmill technology, this is a real cause for concern.
And with that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), who has been a strong advocate on energy policy.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining on each side?
I wonder if I might invite the gentleman from New York to perhaps proceed.
Mr. Speaker, now it is my privilege to yield 3 minutes to a truly distinguished expert on energy policy that serves on the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes).
Mr. Speaker, with the indulgence of the other side, I would like to reserve our time.
Mr. Speaker, I will just yield myself 1 minute to set the record straight.
The underlying legislation is not going to, as the last speaker suggested, reduce the dependency of the U.S. on foreign oil. In fact, every analyst who has looked at this suggests it will increase the dependency on foreign oil. It certainly in the short run, courtesy of its $17 billion in tax increases on energy production, will increase prices. And that's because the tax increases that are in here are not taxes on profits.
We've heard a lot about oil company profits, but in fact what we are taxing here under their bill is any investment in enhanced production. In other words, any time an oil company takes their profits and invests it in new production and doing what we would expect them to do, we're going to hit them over the head. And this should be a cause for concern because we've heard some rhetoric about how energy costs have gone up, but since they took the majority, gas prices have gone up 30 percent. And under the spot market, a barrel of oil has gone from $55 to $100 a barrel. That is not a favorable trend.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds simply to note that the Senate has already passed legislation which, unfortunately, has not been brought up by the other side. I attempted to offer that version as an amendment to this legislation, and I'm afraid the Rules Committee did not make it in order.
If we really wanted to move something to the President's desk that would work, the majority had the opportunity to do that and has been quick to fritter it away.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 4 minutes to a gentleman who has been a true leader on energy policy in this Chamber through many sessions, who will be retiring at the end of this session, but today I think we have an opportunity to hear him on energy one more time, the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery).
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I was very impressed by the last speech, and I wish I could be as charitable about the underlying product or about the effort that we are making on the floor today. I do want to congratulate the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee for having given our Select Revenue Subcommittee the opportunity to explore through hearings what our tax policy should be at energy and policy, and I am hopeful that the day will come when those hearings will yield the results that we would hope. I am afraid today is not likely to be that day.
The crisis we are facing is a real one. Mr. Speaker, we are facing a rising global demand for energy of all sorts as the economies of China and India grow. We are seeing the phenomenon of peak oil playing out. Clearly, we are not going to see the growing reserves that we have enjoyed in the past, and increasingly many of the remaining reserves are being mediated by state-owned oil companies with ideological or nationalistic agendas.
Our consumers, both our individual consumers and our corporate consumers, are facing the consequences of high prices, and yet we are imposing on our production artificial restrictions on new production. That is the wrong policy at a time like this. And we are facing aging energy infrastructure, whether it is a power grid that frankly is facing brownouts or refineries that are now at 92 percent of capacity. So if any one of them breaks down, we face a shortage in energy.
These are real problems. And coupled with them is the legitimate concern about externalities, the fact that greenhouse gases from the consumption of fossil fuels are having an uncertain impact on our climate. And yet in the context of all of that, H.R. 5351 is simply not the answer, Mr. Speaker. It wasn't in any of its three previous incarnations, and it is not now. It is bad energy policy. And it is bad tax policy. There are parts of it that represent a continuity with the policies of past Congresses, and I salute the other side for including the extenders. But just like a car with an empty gas tank, this legislation is a nonstarter. It is not going to go anywhere in the Senate. It is not going to get on the President's desk. And today I would ask all of those who join me with these concerns to join in voting against this wrongheaded bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.
I am in its current form.
Mr. Speaker, when the Democrats took control of this body, prices at the pump were about 30 percent lower. The price on the spot market for a barrel of oil was $55, not $100 the way it was last week. They promised to address the energy crisis that has plagued the economic stability of this country and seek lower prices at the pump for American consumers.
Unfortunately, the bill that stands before us today fails to accomplish this goal and fails to meet the needs of the American people. By taking away the very tax incentives that helped promote oil and gas exploration here at home, this bill diminishes domestic companies' opportunity and incentive to produce gasoline. This in turn will raise energy costs for cash-strapped consumers.
While the majority party has come to believe that handing out new tax credits and new bonding authority to Governors and mayors is a coherent energy policy, there are many of us in this Chamber who are a little skeptical on that point.
These dulcet-sounding bond programs lack effective safeguards to ensure that the money from the newly created liberal slush fund would go toward environmentally sound projects that will promote or improve energy independence in America.
This Rube Goldberg device can't be seriously expected to help the average American cope with today's high energy prices. What's more, these things certainly do nothing to help consumers cope with tomorrow's higher energy prices that the tax increases incorporated into this bill will certainly generate.
This legislation will not help Americans who carpool to work and will not help working moms driving their children to school. It will not bring down home heating costs for families struggling to make ends meet during this winter season, and it will not lower the cost of fertilizer for farmers.
Mr. Speaker, our motion to recommit will help ease the burden of economic hardship for many of these working families. This motion will strike all of the tax increases from the bill at the time when the economy needs more innovative solutions rather than simply stacking tax increase upon tax increase with no help for working families. It will strike the massive haircut that this bill gives to the most effective renewable energy policy in this code, the wind credit. The bill risks undermining the success of the wind credit, which has been the most promising source of alternative energy. This motion to recommit restores it to its full value.
This motion also rids the underlying bill of the egregiously wasteful bond program that, in our view, is nothing more than a waste of taxpayer dollars with no real potential oversight.
We also eliminate something that I know is dear to some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, and that is the tax incentive for people who ride their bikes to work, and I am sure I will hear about this from my paperboy.
This motion represents a much more rational approach for moving American energy policy forward. As we all know, the pro-growth tax policies enacted by Republican Congresses have been a source of fertility in the American economy, helping tens of millions of taxpayers; and for that matter, millions who don't pay taxes but receive refundable tax credits from the IRS every year.
While Washington Democrats have continued to demonize tax cuts for only helping the rich, the facts speak for themselves.
This motion to recommit preserves two critical pro-growth policies and prevents tax increases for many working Americans.
First, it would prevent the current $1,000 child tax credit from being slashed in half in 2011 through Democrat inaction.
Second, it would prevent a substantial increase in the marriage tax penalty which is set to occur in 2011. According to the Treasury Department, allowing these tax incentives to sunset will force more than 6 million additional taxpayers to become subject to the individual income tax, and 116 million families will have an average tax increase of more than $1,800.
Sunsetting the $1,000 child tax credit and keeping the marriage tax penalty on the books will, without a doubt, subject millions of families to being hit with serious tax increases.
What does the majority's inaction on these tax reforms mean? It means higher taxes on low-income families with children and higher taxes on married couples. What does passing the energy bill in front of us mean? It means higher energy prices across the board and greater dependence on foreign oil. What does passing the motion to recommit mean? It means preventing tax increases.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of the motion to recommit and against this badly flawed underlying bill.
Parliamentary Inquiry
Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.