Floor Statements

A few weeks ago, I was in my office and a respiratory therapist had come into the office. He was talking about one of the patients that he had who came up and asked him if she could have a stronger medicine because what she was using simply did not work for her.

So he said, Well, why don't you show me how you're using it. She showed him how she used it, and he said, Is that the way you always use it? The patient said, Yes. Then he said, Well, let's try it one more time--except this time why don't you take the cap off first.

Now, sometimes I think in the policies that we develop here in the United States we have the same process--we go through the motions but we simply don't flat out take the cap off first. One of the things we need to do to solve our problem is simply take the cap off.

We have had an energy policy in this country for the last 40 years. It's basically been, we develop nothing in the United States and we insist on living on cheap foreign oil. The problem is, doing nothing in the United States for 40 years has put us into a situation that is very tenable. The other problem is there is no longer cheap foreign oil.

We have just recently voted on this floor on a budget--a budget outline. A budget outline that, quite frankly, taxes too much and spends too much and borrows too much. We've all heard that before because, to be honest, whether you talk now about the budget itself or the phrases of taxing, spending, and borrowing, they're basically a redundancy. They are indeed the same thing.

What we have also done in this House is make a major paradigm shift. For the last 20 years, we have been functioning under the basic philosophy that the individual is significant and important. The individual has a worth that is divine. That once you empower that individual and give that individual options, you're ennobling that person.

Well, the budget we just passed changes that basic philosophy. It changed that basic philosophy to say instead of empowering individuals, it is now the role and function of the Federal Government to solve people's problems. The Federal Government must now be given the power because the Federal Government now becomes the sole solution to the issues and needs of individuals.

Those of us in the West, members of the Western Caucus, have a different point of view because we basically trust people. We recognize that one of the most important things that should be given to any individual is options and choices.

People of the United States must be given options and choices so they can make a decision on how they want their life to develop. States should be given options and choices, regions should be given options. Whenever we try to establish a one-size-fits-all system from Washington, what we do is limit the ability to empower individuals to make decisions for themselves and to change their own lives.

When I was growing up, the only kind of music you could buy were on vinyl records. If you wanted a particular song, you had to basically buy the entire record.

With new gadgets today, even though they have become much smaller than this one that I still have absolutely no idea how to use, with gadgets like these today you can actually download the one record you want. You have a choice. You have options.

And it seems one of the ironies of our life today is that in every facet of human life, options prevail. People have choices--except when it comes to

dealing with the government. When that takes place, there is only one choice given: it is the Federal Government's choice.

We are moving dangerously into an area where that becomes the predominant philosophy and the predominant result. Actually, the last bill upon which we voted today, that was exactly the philosophy behind that bill.

It resolves itself also in the way we look at our energy policy and our energy future. We could solve many of our problems if we just had a wiser energy policy. I recognize that there are many people that said the budget we just did is not specifics; it's just broad parameters and directions for the future and whatever. But the basic problem remains that when we talk about people and we insist that our policy as a government should be to give options to people, then we will come with an entirely different approach and a strong and intelligent and rational energy policy for the United States that can open up the opportunities for--I don't care whether we're talking about cap-and- trade or oil leases or oil shale or the energy war on the poor or the myth of green jobs--what we need in each of those areas is to have the government open up options for individuals.

One of the good things about my party is that in every one of these issues we are presenting alternative Republican options.

We are trying to take the cap off to try and solve problems by looking at the issue in a new way and, in a new degree, based on options.

One of those that has been introduced is the no-cost stimulus bill. A conservative estimate of the no-cost stimulus bill will say that this particular measure, whose goal is, once again, to increase the options that America has with its energy policy, would create at least 2 million new jobs and would introduce at least $10 trillion of economic growth into our economy. It would reduce the cost of living for individuals, and it would do it with absolutely no tax increase.

Now, I know we have had a lot of people talking in the last few weeks about the idea that the majority of Americans, if our future path goes true, would not face a tax increase. In fact, for many it would be the indications of a middle-class tax cut. I want you to know that I have an element of skepticism with that, because I clearly remember the last time a President and Congress promised me a middle-class tax cut, or at least no increases of middle-class taxes.

At that particular time I was a school teacher making less than $30,000 a year. And I guess I should have been grateful that the Federal Government in their wisdom would have classified me as one of the rich in America; because in that particular year, when I was offered the opportunity and the guarantee that there would be no increases but instead there would be a decrease in middle-class taxes, that is the year I faced the largest tax increase I have ever faced in my life. My wife had just taken a second job, and everything that she brought in that year was used simply to pay for the tax decrease that I had been promised.

I guess it goes back to the original concept of how income tax was developed. You know, when income taxes were first established, the idea was that somebody else would be taxed to pay for everything. The idea was that only .5 percent--so you know something has changed over the years; .5 percent of your income would be taxed, but the first $3,000 were excluded, which was meaning basically everybody in America who was a middle-class worker was excluded from taxes. This was going to be a tax on only those rich people.

Ironically enough, 80 percent of the people who would be impacted by the first time we instituted an income tax in this country actually lived in only four States. And, ironically enough, those representatives from those four States were the ones who voted against instituting an income tax. And, ironically enough, in the debate on the Senate on that installment or beginning of an income tax, the actual debate that took place was a Senator stood up and he said, once we have an income tax, the government will be more responsible for the way it handles other people's money.

I think you have seen some changes in that; which is, once again, why I am so insistent that the no-cost stimulus bill is one we should be considering, because there is zero tax increase to the taxpayer, as opposed to the other budgets we are looking about that simply tax too much, spend too much, and borrow too much.

The No-Cost Stimulus Act treats States fairly. It deals with increasing our net wealth in this country by the use of royalties. If that bill were put into effect, just in the Alaska coast alone there would be $95 billion of new corporate tax, not imposed on the company, but developed by the expansion of that company. There would be $114 billion in new royalties that would be coming in and used in this particular country. It would create, just in that one area of Alaska alone, 730,000 new jobs; versus the bill we just passed, which has a specific $80 billion tax on the oil industry alone, which creates no new jobs, which provides no new income. But that tax on that company is going to be passed on to middle-class taxpayers in this country.

Because, you see, we were talking to an oil executive the other day, and he simply said: It is obvious. If we tax a business, like this $80 billion tax on only the oil industry, they are going to pass it on to consumers. That is the way it will always be.

Sometimes we play games here in the District of Columbia where the idea is, we are not going to tax people, we will just tax the business; which business then passes that on to the people in the first place. And how is that going to come? I promise you, it is not going to be shown simply at the pump.

Of every barrel of gas and oil that is produced, not all of that goes for energy consumption. A barrel of oil produces exactly 44.68 gallons of product. Of those 44.68 gallons, 19 of them will eventually become gasoline running your cars; nine will be diesel, a fuel; three will be jet fuel. The rest goes to other kinds of products that people use all the time.

We think about oil and gas increases as something that only deals with transportation issues. But when I get on the next airplane, if I get a new Boeing 787 or any of the newer planes, you have to realize that one of reasons these planes are becoming more fuel efficient is because they are lighter weight, which means they are now using composite material. Over 50 percent of the entire airplane of the Boeing 787 will be composed of composites, and all of that composite is made from natural gas.

When you sit on an airplane, you are sitting on natural gas. If you go out to your farmer, or even in your back garden and you need to put some fertilizer on that, realize that fertilizer is a byproduct of natural gas. When we fail to develop natural gas in this country, we put farmers at a disadvantage to the point that even today we are importing fertilizer from Russia because we are not doing enough to help ourselves.

Five percent of the global natural gas consumption goes to ammonia, which is the basic product used in fertilizer.

Whenever you pick up one of those electronics that you play with, when your kids start playing with it, they are made of lightweight plastics. That is oil and a natural gas. All of those are developed that way. If you get tired of watching your kids play with those electronics, or you get tired of listening to me speak tonight and you decide to go take an aspirin, I hate to say that, but that is oil and natural gas. What you don't know is that aspirin is derived from hydrocarbons that are found in every barrel of oil.

If you want to have Kevlar to protect our soldiers or our police, you are going to make that stuff out of oil and natural gas. If you are walking around right now, you might look at your shoes and figure out that the stuff that holds them together comes from oil and a natural gas. If you are the tying them, the strings are a petrochemical compound. In fact, the soles are probably going to be imitation rubber, all of which comes out of a barrel of crude oil. Even the shoe polish you use comes from oil and natural gas. If you have a PVC pipe in your basement, that comes from petrocarbons. If you use a ballpoint pen to write a letter--in fact, I have in my hand a list of 84 examples of products that utilize oil and natural

gas as the basis of those products, everything from golf balls to pantyhose to perfume to dentures.

And how are the companies that are now being hit by an $80 billion oil tax going to recoup that? They are passing it on to anyone who uses golf balls or pantyhose or dentures or perfumes, or who writes with a pen or sits on plastic or who wears shoes or who flies in an airplane. That is a tax on all of us when we increase the cost of living.

And how do we solve that problem? Well, we need to look around and simply decide that, as a policy, we are going to take the cap off the medicine, we are going to think of new options, and use what we have to solve our problems, to make our life better, and to solve our budgetary problems, because we have the capacity to do it. We just are refusing to do it right now.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, if I may, I would like to yield some time to the gentleman from Louisiana, who has come up here and done such a great job in his first year as a Member of the House of Representatives. He also comes from an extremely significant energy region, which is going to be impacted not only by the budget we just passed but also by the energy policy decisions we make in the near future.

If I could yield to the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Fleming, I would appreciate it.

I appreciate very much the gentleman from Louisiana taking some time here and going through and reminding us of options that we do have as a country, and how we should be developing those options. Gas is one of them. Oil is another one of those. We have a whole bunch. And I appreciate his leadership, as well, on a no-cost stimulus bill which has about half a hundred sponsors here in the House already.

One of the problems we do have, though, is we need to be realistic on how we are going to get from here to there. One of the options we always talk about is renewable energy. It is an important option to have. It needs to be developed. But we also have to be realistic on how we can actually get there. According to the Department of the Interior, the EIA, they have tried to estimate where we will need to be in the year 2030. And they estimate we will need about an 11 percent increase in the total amount of energy that we will be consuming by the year 2030. And if you look at where we were back in 1980 and where we need to go 50 years from that into the future of 2030, even if we were able to double the increase of biomass and renewables and double the percentage of nuclear that we are using, and making the assumption that we can actually squeeze a little bit more out of hydrogen power, this clearly shows you where we will be. The bottom three strata all are fossil-based fuel. We will not be able to turn ourselves over into that kind of alternative energy supply by ourselves. There needs to be some kind of impetus to do it. And as the gentleman from Louisiana easily said, if it is going to be a tax policy, that retards the ability because businesses will not be entering into the exploration and development. What we need to do is have a royalty policy, which simply means we are still going to be needing oil, gas and coal in the future, but if we use the royalties that are developed from the expansion of these areas and put them into a trust fund so the United States can use it to develop the alternative sources, we can dramatically change these strata coming in here, and we can do it in a logical and realistic way, which is, once again, what the no-cost stimulus bill tries to do.

What we need to do is simply say, look, there are easy ways for us to move into a better direction if we actually use the resources that we have at hand to help build our fossil-fuel resources to help pay for the renewable resources that we need to have. It is a simple process. We should be doing it. But we are not doing it right now, which is why the American people are probably saying, take the cap off, and use the medicine the way it was intended to be used.

We have one of those other problems that goes along, I will illustrate by being very parochial right now. My State of Utah has a whole lot of public land that has a whole lot of natural gas and oil developed. Recently, the Bureau of Land Management went through a 7- year review for land management policies in the State of Utah. I want to emphasize that again. Seven years of review to come up with a land management policy. What they came up with is actually less area developed that is usable for resources than they had 50 years ago when we first came up with this process of having land management policy plans.

They actually, in this recent one, took 3 million acres out of potential production. Yet there was a cry that took place that said maybe we are trying to drill for oil and gas too close to national parks. Now, I want you, if you have a chance, to see very carefully here, this is Arches National Park outlined in green. The areas in purple around that are what actually the BLM in their land management plan, that took 7 years to develop, took off the table so they could not have any kind of natural oil or gas exploration done in those areas. Now so, far so good. But when they decided to actually produce the other leases and put them out for bid so that private industry-- especially as was mentioned before, we think of big oil companies like Exxon or Mobil. Ninety percent of all the oil and natural gas that is drilled in the United States comes from small companies, names that you don't know, people that have less than 500 employees. These are the people who are dealing with these particular lease issues. When those were presented, the Secretary of the Interior decided to remove 77 leases from the table from development with two arguments. Argument number one was we didn't spend enough time to study it. He claimed that there had been a rush to judgment. Now I find that difficult because it took 7 years for the local BLM to do their work and come up with a system that was not only signed off by the BLM but also signed off by the National Park Service and also was

signed off by the State of Utah. And I especially find it interesting when we passed a $1 trillion stimulus bill in this House even after we guaranteed that we would have 48 hours to look at it and we actually ended up having between 4 and 8 hours to look at it, that was okay. But 7 years was a rush to judgment.

The second thing he said is, well, these leases are too close to existing national parks. Now I pointed out where Arches is. And I pointed to the purple that were taken off. The stuff that is brown is existing leases right now. The stuff that is pink were leases that had been let, and the Secretary of the Interior decided to let them go through. The ones that are in red are the ones he said were too close to the national park. This one up here is in red. This all was allowed. The pink and the brown is in existence. And this is too close to the national park, even though the other leases are not. This one over here, once again, in red, was denied, taken off the table, even though this one was allowed and these are existing leases that take place.

If I were to say ``this is irrational,'' I don't think I would be too far off the point. If I were to say that the reason these red spots were taken off is because they were subject to a lawsuit instituted by a special interest group, I would be closer to the point. The bottom line is this was not a rush to judgment. This was a 7-year, carefully hatched plan that had been reviewed by everybody in hundreds of town meetings with thousands of comments. And they are not too close to the natural beauties of the national parks. They are, in fact, miles away from them with areas that are currently being leased and developed much closer to these who are.

What is the net result of this? The net result is the State of Utah lost $3 million last year to be put into their education system simply because those were off. And unfortunately, because of the State Trust Land system that we have in the West, many of these areas that are red have State Trust Lands abutting them that are also sterile now and not able to be used to develop funds that we need desperately in the State of Utah for our own kids.

Sometimes I'm amazed when we talk about how the impact of what we do with our oil and gas leasing and our land plans, and we don't take those ancillary effects into account. For example, this is a simple chart that compares the salaries of teachers in Montana and Wyoming.

Montana is the one at the bottom. Wyoming is the one at the top. And if you ask yourself, why is Wyoming starting their teachers at 20 grand a year more than Montana, it's because Wyoming is developing their resources.

There are other spin-off effects. If I want to have decent colleges, or a K-12 system in the State of Utah, I need to develop these resources and not have them capriciously taken off the table because it was a rush to judgment or they are too close to a national park.

Now, those are some of the problems that we simply face. Like, when I was first elected to the legislature in the State of Utah, that was clear back in 1978, we had a policy at that time called a recapture, which means if you put property tax on property in the State of Utah, whatever it raises, there is a minimum the State will guarantee. If your local district cannot raise the minimum school level by local property taxes, the State will subsidize it.

In the seventies, late seventies, when I started, and early eighties, when I started, one of the unique concerns was we had a recapture, which meant there were three school districts in Utah that not only could raise enough property tax revenue to meet the minimum school level, there was enough to be taken away and given to the other districts to help the State out, which meant that every taxpayer in the State of Utah benefited. And the reason we had recapture was because there was energy development. Since the early eighties there has never been a recapture. There is nothing even close to a recapture today. And if I wanted to do a recapture, I need to develop these resources, which the BLM, Bureau of Land Management, after a 7-year study, justified. And unfortunately, because of actions of this administration, they are now taken off the table, and we are still struggling.

And what is really sad is the next time, at a different location, there was a lease sale. It was the worst attended, the lowest productivity lease sale we have had in the history of those sales because, simply, business saw what happened in the State of Utah and realized they're not going to take the chance of developing and putting their resources in an area where the Federal Government simply might change their mind.

All we need to do to solve our problems is say, look, take the cap off the medicine. It'll solve the problem. Some people say, well, we're developing too much land.

I like this comparison. If you see how much land was developed in the Clinton administration, and how much was developed in the Bush administration, I would love to go back to the years of the Clinton administration when we were actually developing more land and developing more leases for energy resources to help us meet the needs of the country. We're actually decreasing in all those areas, not increasing at the same time.

And as you noticed, as I said, the reason these were taken off the table is they were subject to a lawsuit. One of the things we have also found is a significant problem is, simply, we have become litigious- happy in this country.

We are actually up, according to the Department of the Interior, 100 percent in the amount of permits to drill that have been applied. The wells that are completed are up 100 percent. But the environmental lawsuits are up 700 percent in the same area. That's why Utah lost those $3 million, a 700 percent increase from the year 2000 in the amount of lawsuits that are given.

In 2008, off the coast of Alaska there were 487 leases that were let, and there were 487 lawsuits that were filed immediately afterwards. 50 percent of all the leases for energy development in the inner mountain west are right now involved in some kind of lawsuit. We can never develop our energy independence and our domestic energy policy, which will help solve our problems, if we have to continue going through this process of having continuous lawsuit after continuous lawsuit.

And who are the people that are being hurt by it? Every American that will be paying more for their airplane tickets and their ball point pens and their shoes and their fertilizer, because we're adding more taxes on the oil industry, and every kid that goes to school in the West, because we cannot afford to fund the program because the money has been taken out because we simply have decided not to take the cap off and use the resources we have to help solve our problems. We can create jobs and we can stimulate this economy if we just do things in a logical and rational way.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have been joined here by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, another great new Member of the House of Representatives who is adding a great deal to the style of this body and the substance of our debate by his understanding of the issues. And even though Pennsylvania is considered an eastern State, we consider him a westerner because he faces the same issues in his part of Pennsylvania that we face in the State of Utah, maybe just with not quite as much public land, but the same issues.

I wish to yield time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).

I appreciate Mr. Thompson from Pennsylvania for going through many of the significant issues that have to be addressed and that can help us solve our budgetary problems if we just provide people options and take the cap off and let them use the medicine.

He did mention one of those, which is cap-and-trade. Now, we did a great deal of talking this week about how we're not going to raise taxes on middle-income individuals, but we've already talked about how the $80 billion tax increase for the oil industry alone is going to be passed on. Cap-and-trade, which the gentleman also mentioned, has the same individual effort. It has been estimated that cap-and-trade will cost about $1.9 trillion, and that comes out to an average per household of just under $2,000 a year for the next 8 years.

For those people who are now going to have to come up with that under the cap-and-trade approach, they either have to make $2,000 a year more every year or find some way of cutting back. To help them out, the Bureau of Labor has come up with some statistics that show what the average family does spend.

For example, on all of their meat, their poultry, their fish, eggs, dairy products, and fruits and vegetables, the average family will spend about $1,700 a year. Well, that's not quite enough that they'd have to cut. For all furniture, appliances, carpets, and other furnishings, the average family spends about $1,700-plus a year. If you just do clothing, the average family spends $1,800 a year. For electricity and energy needs, the average family spends a little over $1,700. In property tax, the average family hits again $1,700.

Those are some ways that people could actually afford the cap-and- trade or cap-and-tax program because--I'm sorry--whether we say it's a tax increase or not, it's going to cost average Americans.

I'll yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

I appreciate the gentleman from New Jersey for pointing that out because, once again, we provide options for people. We take the cap off the medicine, and we can still solve all of our own problems. Let me talk very quickly about two final points:

One is the concept that we can change to green energy jobs. I call it the ``myth of green energy.'' This administration has praised Spain, and has said that they should be an example we should follow as a country who has achieved long-term growth, going down a massive subsidization of green energy jobs.

The only thing I worry about, according to their most recent studies of what has taken place in Spain, is that their green energy efforts simply have hindered their way out of their current economic crisis because, for every green energy job that was produced, it required a subsidy between $30,000 and $100,000. The total cost to Spain was $36 billion. The energy increase to Spain was a 31 percent increase for average people in Spain for their energy increases. I hate to say this, but for every energy job that allegedly was created, there were 2.2 jobs that were killed as a result of them. This is actually a job loss.

One of the problems we have in doing that is, simply, there is no definition of what is a ``green job.'' In reality, as we found once again in Spain, clerical work, bureaucratic work and administrative jobs are now considered green jobs. The net effect, though, still in Spain is, for every job they created, they lost 2.2 jobs.

Now I would like to just say in some conclusion to this--and we could go on and talk about a lot of other things--that there is the issue of offshore drilling in which the previous administration had a 60-day comment period. This administration has decided to put in an unprecedented 6-month comment period as if we don't know what we're doing already.

There is the issue of oil shale in my State, and once again, this administration has decided to stop the development of leases and the development of resources for oil shale. In conservative estimates, there is three times the amount of oil potential just in the States of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming than there is in Saudi Arabia.

But I want to remind people of why we're talking about this issue of energy as it relates to the budget at all. One of the things we as a government ought to do is try to avoid pain. I realize that there are some people who have said it's a shame to waste any crisis, but one of the things, maybe, that we should be trying to do is to prevent future crises.

I think some of us can remember back to last fall when gasoline was

over $4 a gallon and how terrible the situations and lifestyles were back then, which have now been placed on the back burner because it's not so frantic and not so necessarily needed, because we faced one of the unique phenomena that has happened only once in the world, which is that the entire world dropped their consumption of oil. We are now consuming 1.4 million barrels in the world less than we did last fall when it was $4 a gallon. Our experts tell us that that will probably continue through the year 2009, but come 2010, it's going to go right back up. Since the United States has yet to solve its energy production problems--not for the short term, not for the long term because we refuse to take the cap off the medicine and make options for people--we still import 40 percent of our energy from foreign countries. We are still bound and determined to do whatever Hugo Chavez wants in some particular way.

For whom are we fighting? Remember last fall for whom we were fighting--for the people in my State, for the kids who need their education, for the 1,100 airline employees who were laid off when 100 planes were taken out of one company's system, for the Ethiopian cab driver here in Washington, D.C. who told me that he had to drive 2 hours every day longer to make up because of the high cost of energy and that, for the first time in his life, he was not able to be home when his kid came home from school, for the father in Virginia who refrained from going to fathers' and sons' activities because he couldn't afford the cost of gas, or for the Wisconsin high school that tried to have a fashion show to show kids how they could dress warmly in fleeces and in zipped sweaters and try and compensate in that particular way, or for North Dakota where they cut their schools back to 4 days a week, or for a district in Iowa that decided the only kinds of trips they could go on were going to be athletic events--no more choir, no more field trips, no more junior high trips whatsoever, even for the American Defense Department, which saw its energy budget go from $3 billion to $13 billion a year just because of the increase of gas, or for the church in Vermont that found itself with a $10,000 increase in its electrical bill out of the blue, or for the nurse in Chicago who dropped cable television in an effort to try and solve her problems, or for the elderly people who no longer went on trips, or for the guy in St. Paul, Minnesota, who only went out if he were in his electric wheelchair because he could recharge it for free in his apartment.

In this country, when we talk about energy policies, we talk about them as if they were some ethereal concept that was out there, an abstract concept. It's not. When we talk about our energy policy, we are talking about how people cook their food and how they heat their homes, and we create jobs because of it. For every dollar that is spent on energy for those people who are in the most vulnerable situations, for those who are in the lowest half of our economic stratum, for every dollar they have to spend on high-energy costs, it was a dollar they couldn't spend on a luxury like Hamburger Helper.

It is energy that is the great social equalizer. It is energy that creates economic opportunities, and this country has more energy imprisoned than most countries have. All we need to do is to try to tap into that potential, for when prices increase--and they will again-- jobs will be lost; income vanishes; social programs suffer; America suffers at the same time, and it hurts those who are on fixed incomes and those who are on the poverty level the most. That's 45 million people who are on fixed incomes. You see, if the social and economic elite of this country can easily solve this problem, if you're rich, the high cost of energy is nothing more than an inconvenience.

We had Presidential candidates who would fly around the country in three different jets one day, and it was okay. All they had to do was buy a carbon offset for it. We have a former political leader whose home consumes 20 times more energy in one day than an average family will consume in a year, and it's okay; he can just buy an offset. It's like going back to the medieval time period. An ancient duke or earl, if he did something wrong, could go out and buy an indulgence, and his life style would go on the same without any kind of impact.

If you're rich, that's what the energy crisis means to you, but if you're poor, that's when you hurt. That's when you have to decide whether you're going to pay for gas or for heating or simply for food. That's who gets hurt the most. Eleven percent of a rich person's income goes for energy consumption. For anyone at the poverty level, 50 percent goes for energy consumption.

This country has the ability of solving that problem. Think of all the great inventions this country has done. In 1784, we came up with bifocals; in 1805, refrigerators; in 1849, the safety pin; 1867 was a great year because this country came up with the typewriter, barbed wire and toilet paper all in one particular year. And we can't come up with a solution to this problem?

We can if we, once again, unlock the potential within every American and offer them options and then give them rewards for those options.

England had no idea in the 1700s of how to chart the ocean, so they asked for a competition, for somebody to come up with the answer. In 1714, a clock maker came up with the system of longitude and latitude that we are still using today. Napoleon didn't know how to feed his troops. He came up with a competition, and in 1810, the concept of vacuum packing that we use today was developed. Even Lindbergh, when he flew across the Atlantic, was responding to a competition established by a newspaper.

All we need to do is unlock the potential of Americans. We have the potential. We need to have options. We need simply to have the government take the cap off the medicine so America can grow. If we do that, we can solve our energy problems. We can have energy solutions into the future, and we can solve our budget problems all at the same time. They are interrelated, and this is where America simply needs to ask their government to take the cap off.

Let us grow. Let us succeed.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your patience, and I appreciate the time. I yield back.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak in favor of this amendment.

This amendment simply gives the Secretary of Agriculture some flexibility to work in relationship with State directors to try and solve problems that exist.

In 2007, in my State of Utah, there was a half a million acres that were burned. Four-fifths of that was on Federal property. Unfortunately, fire, being stupid, didn't know enough to stop at the Federal line, and it actually did impinge on private property. There has been too much private property lost. There have been too many young lives that were lost in those fires. We need to have a solution to that.

The States of Colorado and Utah have been working on this program, and it has been effective. It's been effective in saving lives. It's been effective in saving property. It's been effective in alleviating the amount of fuel, the intensity of the fires and, over time, that simply helps our forest, it helps life, it helps the environment, it helps clean the air, and I thank the gentleman from Virginia for actually presenting this amendment. In Utah it

works. In Colorado it works. It can work in other places as well.

Madam Speaker, this new bill and the amendments to the bill cover 177 different issues, 100 of which were obviously never discussed in the House before. I think it is important to note that the chairman of this committee, Mr. Rahall, the Democrat chairman, would not have done this. On each of the issues we actually did discuss, he went through regular order. There were hearings. There was a markup. They brought them individually to the floor for debate.

This bill is in this condition not because there were Senate filibusters, for indeed some of these provisions have sat over in the Senate for as long as 2 years. This bill--this concoction--is here simply because the Senate failed to do their job. They did not hold hearings. They did not hold markups. They did not bring these issues to the floor in a regular manner. They lumped them all together.

And now it is almost humorous to watch the contortions that the Democratic Party is going to go through to try and stifle any kind of debate or change in this bill. Originally it came to us as a suspension in a situation in which it could not be amended, could not have a motion to recommit, even though it did somehow get an amendment on it. Now it is coming back to us in a version of amendments to another Revolutionary War bill. They actually had a Civil War monument battlefield bill over there with a Republican sponsor. They could have at least made those amendments to that bill and appeared bipartisan. But nonetheless it is now here to us as the form of amendments with a closed rule so we can't talk about them again.

Now one of the amendments that got into this bill, even though it wasn't actually supposed to get into the bill, dealt with hunting rights. Mr. Hastings of Washington talked about that issue very briefly. Hunting is not the same thing as the second amendment. And we have special interests that went before a maverick judge who ruled that 8 months of study is not the same thing as a quick review. It is not long enough. And therefore that judge, in her own right, changed National Park Service policy that was designed to create consistency and created instead chaos.

If the Park Service rule had been left in place without this judge playing around with it, all public lands under the Department of the Interior would be treated the same way. The Bureau of Land Management does not prohibit against lawful concealed carry anywhere that it is allowed by States. The Forest Service doesn't do it either. Only the Park Service. And the Park Service changed their rule to make it in compliance with everything else and bring consistency. This judge changed it to chaos.

Now when we think about national parks, we think about Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce. But the National Park Service controls lands, they control roads and walkways. It is impossible to drive or jog without going in and out of Park Service land which is never signed or notified, so no one really knows whether you are actually legally carrying a concealed weapon or not. We have had people who have been arrested, entrapped, on Park Service land for carrying a concealed weapon where if they had gone a couple of blocks further, they would be in Virginia territory where it was legal. That is ridiculous. That is silly.

Yet this provision is now done by judicial fiat, which means that the hunting amendment that was put in by the Democrats in the contortion of trying to get this bill through is now meaningless and it is insignificant, which is why Representative Hastings of Washington has an amendment to reverse that decision and bring consistency back to the Department of the Interior.

This is the proper time. It is the proper venue. It should have been made in order. It would have solved the problem.

I introduced another amendment in there to simply take four amendments that were passed by this House on the floor, bipartisan amendments, Republican and Democrat, that were voted in a bipartisan way and rejected by the Senate simply because the Senate said they didn't have the time to review what the House did. These were short amendments. If you wrote small, you could put them all on one page. It is wrong that the Senate rejects the work of this floor. This side of the Capitol is just as important as that side of the Capitol.

It is just as important as that side of the Capitol. And what we do should be respected. That amendment should have been put in order so that what the House passed and what the House said should be part of this particular bill if indeed it is going to pass. There is no reason why we should have our amendments taken out and let the Senate simply do what it wants to because the Senate failed to work in an orderly process while they had these bills for years and years.

Mr. Speaker, I suppose it is a sense of poetic irony that Mr. Holt's language was removed when you amended his bill. I hope you can fix that at some time.

You have a pattern of individuals coming down here, speaking of good parts to this bill. There are good parts to this bill. I actually have two measures in here that, I think, are good to this bill, but it doesn't cover up the fact that, within that, there are some problems in this particular bill.

It does not cover up the fact that there are heritage areas when the Department of the Interior specifically asked us to wait until they could come up with rules on what heritage areas should be and how they should be constituted, because the way we are doing it right now is chaotic. There are elements in here that create national parks which I will visit when they include a baseball stadium, and not until.

Those national parks were actually rejected by the Park Service because they have enough of this generic portion. It did not meet the standards. It was expensive. Even though at one time they said that they might be comfortable with it, last night, in talking to a reporter, they once again stood by that analysis of that park, especially when we have $9 billion of needs in the rest of the National Park System that is yet to be met. I reject it when, in fact, some judge includes the fact that 8 months of study and of public input is not long enough or that NEPA actually has more importance than the second amendment.

I actually want to speak a little bit differently right now. I want to explain to my good friends who live east of the Rocky Mountains why I feel so passionate about this particular bill.

This is a map of the United States, and everything that is colored in red is owned by the Federal Government. You will notice it is all concentrated in the West. Even though most of our forest land is in the East, the Forest Service land is all in the West.

Does this make a difference to people? In a way, I think it does because this map illustrates the difference in education.

The States in red are the States that are having the most difficult time raising money to fund their own public education system. As you know, there is a strong correlation between the amount of public land and the difficulty in funding education. In Utah, it is a common statement. We will always simply say: The reason we are having such a hard time in funding education is we do not control enough of our land.

If the Federal Government even paid at the lowest tax rate for the land that it owns in the State of Utah, that would be $116 million every year. That does not count government funding; it is just for the education portion--$116 million that we would get every year. When decisions are made in the Department of the Interior that take leases off the land, that is a $3 million cut to education in the State of Utah, not only counting the State trust lands that develop money for education but above those lands that now become sterile at the same time.

The New York Times recently wrote an article in which they compared a school district in Utah and one in Wyoming, across the border. The one in Wyoming is awash with money, and will get more money in the stimulus package than the district in Utah. They said: Well, that is simply an anomaly of the distribution formulas that we use. I really don't care about the distribution formula. The amount of Federal money that goes to education in Utah only rates at about 7 percent. What is significant is why the State of Utah has less money to begin with, and it goes back to the issue of resources.

This chart shows you the difference in teachers' salaries between the two States of Wyoming and Montana. Wyoming starts their teachers at $20,000 a year higher than Montana's. Why? Because Wyoming is much more aggressive at the way they develop their resources. Even though this particular bill, once again, takes resource land off the table in Wyoming, threatening them, acknowledged by the chairman who says it is not a problem, it could, indeed, be a problem, but for us in Utah, well, this is a problem that we still face.

This is the State of Utah. Everything that is a color is owned by the Federal Government. Now, this is the problem that we simply have. The problem we simply have is that two of the three most important decisions recently made by the Interior Department also affect the resources that are in Utah that we need desperately to fund our education system, but when you create more wild and scenic areas in the West, you make it much more difficult for us to fund our education system. When you create more wild and scenic areas in the East, you cut into the PILT money that goes into the West, which is necessary to fund our education system.

We have yet to discuss the fundamental issue of the role of Federal ownership of this land--if it is, indeed, appropriate, if it is right, if it should be more or if it should be less or if it should be balanced between the West and the East.

I'm sorry for my experience in the legislature in Utah. We have difficulties in Utah in being able to fund our roads and to pay for our colleges and to pay for our public education, and it goes back to this basic fact: We are not just creating nice, pretty vistas again. We have an ancillary harm that takes place to real kids. I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker. My kids in Utah are more important to me than a park that is created that the National Park Service does not want. It is more important to me than a wild and scenic river that is created when it violates the standards of the Wild and Scenic River Act. My kids are more important to me than heritage areas that are chaotically done because my kids' future is harmed by these decisions. Even though those who create these decisions are well-intentioned and well-meaning, my kids' decisions and my kids' futures are still controlled by what Nelson Rockefeller used to say is the deadening hand of bureaucracy.

I realize that this particular bill has had more procedural twists than Lombard Street, but at the same time, there are many provisions in this bill that would easily pass if they stood alone, and there are provisions in this bill that would not. There is no reason we need to lump all of these things together.

Mr. Speaker, Satchel Paige used to say, ``Just throw strikes. Home plate don't move.''

We do not need to have this omnibus bill to go through these particular procedures, and my kids are worth fighting for: They are worth fighting the provisions of this bill that would not pass if they were standing on their own. That is the problem. That is the problem, and that is why I am passionate.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we all know the old story of the newlywed couple whose wife on her first meal that she prepares of a cooked ham presents the ham, and the two ends have been cut off.

When her husband asks why, she says, ``I don't know. That's the way my mother did it,'' and when the mother-in-law shows up, they ask why, and she says, ``I don't know. That's the way my mother did it,'' and when the grandmother finally arrives and they ask why she cut the ends of the ham off, the grandmother simply says, ``I have a small oven. A full ham won't fit.''

There are many things we do in government that are traditions that are as totally illogical as cutting the ends of the ham off. Only in a Federal court in this United States can we find a special interest group that can track down a maverick judge that contends that 8 months of study by the Department of Interior is, in fact, a last-minute review and because, in January of this year, the Department of Interior and the National Park Service finally updated its rules to allow concealed carry on national parks lands and make it consistent with our policy of concealed carry on all public lands.

You see, the national forest does not prohibit someone with a valid concealed carry license from going on public lands. The Bureau of Land Management, which manages some of our national parks, does not prohibit a valid concealed carry permit for going on their lands. Even President Clinton gave an executive order saying that our policies should reflect the State prerogative and authority. Only the National Park Service has tried to prohibit that practice, and the National Park Service is not just things like Yellowstone. It is virtually impossible, or at least it will challenge you, to try to get from Virginia into Washington, D.C. without either driving or walking on National Park Service land. You go in and you go out. There are no signs to tell you what you were doing, and indeed, law-abiding citizens have been

entrapped on park service land, carrying a concealed weapon permit, where if they had gone a couple of blocks further and had been back in Virginia, they would have, indeed, been legal. That is illogical and it is also unfair.

What we should do is what the National Park Service decided to do in January and simply say State laws will be the ruling procedure. If it is legal for a concealed carry in this State, it is legal on all lands that are owned and controlled by the Federal Government, not just some lands ``yes'' and some lands ``no.''

Mr. Hastings of Washington has an amendment that should be put on the bill that will be before us tomorrow to clarify once again that the policy of the United States should be consistent on all of their lands, not on some ``yes'' and some not on the others. It was an amendment that would bring respect back to the policy and the consideration and the study done by the Department of Interior, and it would reject an outstandingly flawed decision made by a judge that actually creates chaos rather than solving this particular problem.

It is important that the Rules Committee does open up this particular bill for allowing the Hastings amendment so that we could actually debate this issue on the floor, because this is the proper time; this is the proper vehicle, and it is the right time for us to have consistency on our public land policy, not chaos in our public land policy, created by a judicial decision.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this bill and yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 182, expressing support for the designation of the week of March 1 as School Social Work Week to promote awareness of the vital role that school social workers play in schools and in the community as a whole and in helping students to prepare for their future as productive citizens.

From time to time, students face certain challenges in achieving academic success. Emotional, social and behavioral problems can be serious impediments to learning and can have a harmful effect not just on the individual student but others in the school setting. Schools, families and communities must work collaboratively to assist students with achieving positive academic and behavioral outcomes. School social work services provide a comprehensive approach to meeting the needs of students through early identification, through prevention, intervention, counseling, as well as support.

School social workers are trained, qualified professionals who meet State requirements to practice social work specifically in a school setting. They provide direct services to students who experience academic and social difficulties while developing relationships that will help to bolster self-esteem and reward positive behavior. School social workers support teachers by offering options for addressing students' needs and by participating on the student support team. They also work with students and their families and communities to coordinate services.

According to statistics by the National Mental Health Association, 17.5 million children are in need of some kind of mental health services, and these workers address those needs. School social workers help students who otherwise might not receive services due to inaccessibility or lack of availability of services. I commend these dedicated professionals for the

service they provide in our school setting, and I ask my colleagues to support this resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

For some inexplicable reason, I have no one else here who is requesting time.

May I inquire of the gentlewoman if she is ready to close.

In that case, I urge support of this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 77, a resolution recognizing and honoring the 145th anniversary of the signing of the law that established collegiate programs at the excellent institution of higher learning, Gallaudet University.

It was on April 8, 1864 that President Abraham Lincoln signed a Federal law authorizing Gallaudet University to confer collegiate degrees. The signing of this law finally gave deaf students an opportunity to pursue a higher education in an environment specifically designed to meet their communication needs. Gallaudet is still the only institution in the world that focuses on education programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing students from preschool through the doctoral level.

As of the 2007-2008 academic year, Gallaudet enrolled over 1,600 students. These students have the opportunity to choose from more than 40 undergraduate majors and have the opportunity to take advantage of a state-of-the-art facility. Additionally, each of these students who graduates from Gallaudet will receive a diploma that has been signed by the sitting President of the United States.

I extend my congratulations to Gallaudet University on the 145th anniversary of its creation, and wish all of Gallaudet's faculty, staff, students, and alumni continued success in their endeavors. I ask my colleagues to support this resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

We do not.

Mr. Speaker, with my profound respect for this particular institution and for the job that they do in creating a service for a specific need that is out there, I urge the support of this resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 1105, FY2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act:

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Economic Development Initiatives

Name of requesting entity: Syracuse City Corporation, UT

Address of requesting entity: 1787 South 200 West, Syracuse, Utah 84075

Description of request: $95,000 for the Davis Economic Technology Cooperative Master Plan, a comprehensive economic development plan for areas within the communities of Syracuse City, West Point City, and Clearfield City, Utah

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure and certification information for requests I made which are included in the text and/or report to accompany H.R. 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009. I certify that neither I, nor my spouse, have any financial interest in these requests, and certify that, to the best of my knowledge, these requests: (1) are not directed to an entity or program named or that will be named after a sitting Member of Congress; (2) are not intended for a ``front'' or ``pass-through'' entity; and (3) meet or exceed statutory requirements for matching funds (where applicable).

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: COPS, Department of Justice

Name of requesting entity: Kaysville City, Utah

Address of requesting entity: 23 East Center, Kaysville, Utah 84037

Description of request: $300,000 for law enforcement communications and operations technology

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: OJP--Byrne Discretionary Grants

Name of requesting entity: Clearfield City

Address of requesting entity: 55 South State Street, Clearfield, Utah 84015

Description of request: $200,000 for technology to combat gang activity

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Bureau of Reclamation, Water and Related Resources

Name of requesting entity: Park City

Address of requesting entity: PO Box 1480, Park City, Utah 84060

Description of request: $200,000 for water feasibility study

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy--Solar Energy

Name of requesting entity: Salt Lake County, Utah-- Address of requesting entity: 2001 South State Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84190

Description of request: $618,475 for the Energy Efficient Buildings Project

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Small Business Administration

Name of requesting entity: World Trade Center Utah

Address of requesting entity: 175 East 400 South, suite 609, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

Description of request: $385,000 for the World Trade Center Utah to connect the Utah and Intermountain business community to the people, companies, data, and government agencies which make up the fabric of global commerce, through training classes and cross cultural seminars, identification of new market opportunities, creating access to trade missions, and facilitating export financing, controls, and distribution.

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Economic Development Initiatives

Name of requesting entity: Clearfield City, UT

Address of requesting entity: 55 South State Street, Clearfield, Utah 84015

Description of request: $380,000 for the purchase of blighted lands for use in the development of a private/public project known as West Phase I, a downtown redevelopment project within the city.

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: National Park Service Statutory or Contractual Aid

Name of requesting entity: Ogden City, Utah

Address of requesting entity: 2549 Washington Blvd, Ogden, Utah 84401

Description of request: $300,000 to implement the Crossroads of the West Historic District.

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Environmental Protection Agency STAG Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Project

Name of requesting entity: Washington Terrace, UT

Address of requesting entity: 5249 South Pointe Drive, Washington Terrace, Utah 84405

Description of request: $1,240,000 for water and sewer infrastructure replacement project

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Fund for the Improvement of Education

Name of requesting entity: Open Content Foundation at Utah State University

Address of requesting entity: 1750 North Research parkway, North Logan, UT 84341

Description of request: $190,000 for curriculum development and textbook materials for Utah's ninth grade core curriculum.

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Fund for the Improvement of Education

Name of requesting entity: Weber State University

Address of requesting entity: 3850 University Circle, Ogden, Utah 84408

Description of request: $143,000 for a teacher training initiative to prepare teaching assistants to become teachers.

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Health Resources and Services Administration

Name of requesting entity: Intermountain Healthcare

Address of requesting entity: 36 South State Street Floor 22, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

Description of request: $476,000 for the Patient Safety Initiative, including purchase and implementation of electronic medical records and equipment

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: FTA Bus and Bus Facilities account

Name of requesting entity: Cache Valley Transit District

Address of requesting entity: 754 West 600 North, Logan, Utah 84321

Description of request: $475,000 to construct a new multi-use facility for the transit district

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: FTA Bus and Bus Facilities account

Name of requesting entity: Cache Valley Transit District

Address of requesting entity: 754 West 600 North, Logan, Utah 84321

Description of request: $475,000 for Cache Valley Transit District Hybrid Bus Fleet Expansion

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: FTA New Starts/Fixed Guideway account

Name of requesting entity: Utah Transit Authority

Address of requesting entity: 669 West 200 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130

Description of request: $81,600,000 for a 44 mile commuter rail project linking Weber County to Salt Lake City

Requesting Member: Representative Rob Bishop

Bill number: H.R. 1105

Account: Federal Highway Administration--Federal Lands account

Name of requesting entity: Brigham City, Utah

Address of requesting entity: 20 North Main Street, Brigham City, Utah 84302

Description of request: $285,000 to complete construction on the Bear River Access Road to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.

Mr. Speaker, when I was teaching government, I taught my kids that a suspension was one of those noncontroversial bills for which it could be brought to the floor with a limited amount of debate and no opportunity for amendments.

We have, today, a suspension that is over 177 different measures, over half of which have never been discussed in either a House or the floor committee meeting till this morning. Twenty-three were never discussed in any committee hearing over in the Senate. When the true costs are extrapolated out over the time of the authorization, it will be close to $8 billion to $10 billion. And 37 times the description of provisions in this bill were called controversial, but that's okay, this is a suspension.

It doesn't matter that this bill has been criticized by the American Motorcyclists Association for taking millions of acres of land out of use for millions of people who want to use recreation, or been criticized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Even ESPN criticized this particular bill. That's okay, though, this is still a suspension.

We have been told that there is a $9 billion backlog in needs in the national parks. In the stimulus bill, apparently $2 billion was put in there to meet the needs of the national parks, and now we exacerbate the problem with another 8 to $10 billion in this particular bill.

This is the visitors' center in the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. This is a brilliant place to go. They have been able to take away part of the mountains so a kid can go in there and actually see within the mountainside the fossils that are still there and see what scientists say is the beginning and be able to put them together. Unfortunately, no one has been able to access this building for the last 10 years because we don't have enough money to fix this building, which has been condemned.

Rather than fixing these types of buildings, within the bowels of this bill is a $34 million earmark to create a new national park in Paterson, New Jersey, which will protect such natural wonders as a condominium, a butterfly garden and a microbrewery. This is a park that was not requested by the National Park Service or not recommended by the National Park Service. Nonetheless, we are putting $34 million into that while these structures that we currently have in our national park system go vacant. That's okay. This is still a supplemental.

We will spend $110 million on heritage areas. Eleven lucky heritage areas will get Federal money to assist them in economic development and tourism development. If you don't happen to live in one of those lucky eleven areas, you will be losing tourists and losing economic development and having the wonderful opportunity to have your taxes pay for that approach.

In rough economic times like we have, this is brilliant policy by us. That's okay, it's still a suspension. Falls River in Massachusetts will have the lower Taunton declared a wild and scenic river.

The Wild and Scenic River Act was there to protect areas from development. By law or statute, you cannot have anything other than a needful building within a mile of the bank of a wild and scenic river.

Now, the last time that we were here, I went off, probably in excess, about showing ugly pictures in Falls River, Massachusetts. I shouldn't have done it. It's actually a very pretty community. The sponsors of the bill actually came back and showed pretty pictures of Falls River, Massachusetts.

The point is, it doesn't matter whether there are ugly pictures or pretty pictures, doesn't matter whether you think it's a cynical effort to stop production of some port or whether you believe the spin that this is for economic development. Regardless of whether you take any of those stands, all of those are not the purpose of a wild and scenic river.

This is Falls River, Massachusetts. These are not needful buildings within a half-mile of the bank. Regardless of how you look at that particular issue, it violates the spirit and the letter of the Wild and Scenic River Act. And it violates more than that, because it simply says the rule of law can be put apart that any time a majority comes on this floor and decides to vote for an issue that can now replace the standard of which we decide to deal with.

We have a problem with the great obstacles to our border control and border security. Within the bowels of this bill is another bill that will make it more difficult for border security, even on bicycles, to try and patrol Federal lands. Those are problems within this structure, and we are told that it's still a suspension.

We have about 12 Members, I counted, on the floor, engaging in this debate. Soon there will be 400 more coming through these doors without having heard the discussion, without having heard the debate and thinking this is nothing more than a suspension. We do need regular order.

Now, I want it very clear not only do I not own monkeys, but Mr. Rahall is not to blame for this. Chairman Rahall has done a perfect job on the House. Even in the bad bills he has brought forward, he at least went through regular order. This is a byproduct of the Senate. This is a product of the Senate, and the Senate should be ashamed to try and compile 177 different bills into one omnibus package. And we should be ashamed of actually debating it as a suspension.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in this House we passed a monkey bite bill, and whether one agrees with me that we spent millions of dollars to create a bureaucracy that does not solve the problem is insignificant.

What is significant is one considers the time we spent last year and this year. It is arguably the case that we have spent more time on this floor talking about monkey bites than we have in talking about a $400 billion spending package.

The President was exactly right last night when he said Americans will work their way through the situation, but history will judge whether the actions of this House have hindered or helped Americans in that quest to work their way through this situation and, indeed, the verdict may be mixed. But history will not forgive us if we abdicate our responsibility to be representatives of the people and know the details of the bills that come to the floor.

History will not forgive us if we simply declare an emergency and then wave our hands as billions and billions of American tax dollars just simply pass us by. Shame on us.

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

The distinguished gentlelady from Guam has adequately explained this

particular bill. I, personally, have no further comment, but I wish to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson) to speak to this particular bill.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren).

Mr. Speaker, it's my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

If the gentleman from Puerto Rico is not complete, I would be happy to yield him 1 minute.

I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe).

May I inquire if there are any other speakers that the gentlelady from Guam has.

So that we can maintain this in some kind of order, I do not have any other speakers. I would just like to say in conclusion

that we start a process here today which is somewhat strange as we enter into this next week. We have eight bills that are coming up from our particular committee--seven of which I actually support, including this one--and yet we are now committing them over to the death now of the Federal graveyard known as the United States Senate, where they shall probably languish for the next 2 years, only to be resurrected in the 112th session of Congress in some kind of omnibus form. We're doing probably the son of S.R. 22 even as we speak.

However, having said that, I appreciate the words that have been spoken about this particular bill.

And I would be willing, Mr. Speaker, to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Guam if she would like to conclude on this debate, and then that would be sufficient for me.

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

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

This time, I do rise in opposition to H.R. 80, known as the so-called ``monkey bite bill,'' which we discussed again last time.

Just to clear the deck and make sure that everything is up front, I own no monkeys. I am annoyed by rally monkeys at ALCS series games. Other than that, there is no personal interest here. But it is amazing, at a time when we are suffering economic pain--in fact, I find it somewhat incomprehensible that we are again debating an issue that clearly falls under the jurisdiction of State fish and wildlife agencies. In fact, 40 States already prohibit ownership of monkeys or require a license or permit in order to own a monkey. This is not within the realm of what national government needs to spend its time.

As tragic as the incident in Connecticut was earlier with that 200- pound chimpanzee, Travis, there is nothing in this legislation that addresses the ownership of monkeys. There is nothing that would have impacted that particular occurrence, unless the monkey was willing to chase the woman from Connecticut over to New York State. Then maybe there would have been some nexus for which this bill would yield because this bill only deals with interstate shipment of monkeys.

In 1975 the Federal Government prohibited the importation of nonhuman primates into the United States. There is no legal way to import a monkey into the United States for more than 30 years. So what, pray tell, is the overriding need for this legislation, which, once again, does not prohibit monkeys from biting; we're only prohibiting them from shipping them over States? If a person is bit by a monkey, it will only have any impact if that hand of the kid goes across the State line and then when withdrawing the hand, the monkey follows it back into a different State. Only then would there be some kind of nexus with this.

It was stated that there are 15,000 monkeys in the United States. The vast majority of those are not pets but used in other facilities. It was also stated that there are dozens of incidents of monkey bites. Well, I hate to say this. It's kind of like President Adams once said, ``Facts are stubborn things.'' In the decade from 1995 to 2005, there were only 132 documented incidences between captive primates and humans. Of that total, only 80 involved pet bites. That's 8 bites per year. If you really wanted to do something about protecting Americans from pets, go after dogs. You send 100,000 people to the hospital every year from being bitten by a pet dog. That maybe would have some relevance to what the Federal Government is trying to do.

They also at some time will say that these nonhuman primates transmit disease. Once again in the 110th session of Congress, the expert testimony found that there is no documentation of pet primates being a threat to public safety.

There is, though, a cost to this legislation. Regardless of the fact that the issue is minimal, the problem is minimal, the problem could easily be handled on a State-by-State basis, we will still appropriate to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or we will demand the Fish and Wildlife Service cull out from their budget $4 million to hire additional staff to conduct interstate inspections and investigation to enforce this law. On a per basis, that translates to a half million dollars per monkey bite. It is not surprising, therefore, that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife testified in opposition to this bill. They have better uses of their time and their money.

So I urge my colleagues to resist this effort to try to make sure that everything in life is always fair and equal and controlled from these hallowed Halls of Washington and vote ``no'' on H.R. 80.

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

I would be happy to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun), which was not where the dogfighting took place. That was Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, once again we look into what we are doing here in Congress in terms of the relationship of how we spend our time and what is most productive for our constituents and the people of this great country.

The gentleman from Georgia, I appreciate him implying that I have a heart. I don't think my kids would concur with that decision, but it happens to be there.

What we are talking about, obviously in this particular bill, is simply the cause-effect relationship between a piece of legislation and the impact of that piece of legislation. It is true that there are 15,000 chimpanzees in this country, the overwhelming majority of which are not owned as pets. They are in labs. They are in zoos. Those chimpanzees are specifically excluded by the language of this particular bill.

We are only going after a small section, a small issue, and yet the so-called harm that's caused does not have a relationship to the bill in front of us. This is not dealing with bites. It's not dealing with ownership. If we are talking about ownership, that could be a legitimate nexus.

This is simply importation and a Federal framework that goes a roundabout way and is not a way to actually come up with issues that solve the problems, especially when a State can do it just as easy as we can. Everyone's personal safety does not have to be guaranteed by a statute that comes from this Chamber of ours. There are other opportunities to deal with that.

What we should be dealing with are the key issues that affect this country. The last time this bill was before us on the floor, it was one of those things where we refused to try and talk about significant issues at the time and instead dealt with issues like this. Not that this is an insignificant issue, but this is dealing with a small area of American life where we are faced with vast issues, and yet we still refuse to deal with them.

It's almost like the end of whenever we left last week. It was the end of a TV season and we are starting over again, and yet we ended that TV season on a very high note of passing a bill of anywhere between 800 billion to $1 trillion with almost no discussion and time to debate it. We were promised 48 hours to talk about the stimulus bill.

Actually, I guess I misheard because I am older; it was actually 4 to 8 hours that we had to actually read about and learn about that stimulus bill before we jumped into the debate on this floor. And yet this week we come back for our new season, and we are doing the same thing again. We are faced with huge economic issues and huge bills coming down the pike, and yet, instead, we are not spending our time discussing those issues. We are spending our time discussing whether a prohibition of trade is the same thing as the prohibition of biting.

Yet, look at what is coming before us. We are going to be talking about an omnibus bill, an omnibus appropriations bill, hopefully sometime this week. Only a few moments ago, the text was finally available, even before it goes into the Rules Committee tomorrow.

Why are we not looking at that text and going through that? That is a $400 billion piece of legislation on top of the $1 trillion stimulus bill, on top of the $800 billion we did in bailouts, on top of $200 billion for Freddie and Fannie and AIG, et cetera, et cetera, on top of maybe some $70 billion we are going to be using for the housing market, on top of another 5 to 10 for another omnibus land bill which may someday come here.

All of these things are adding up, and yet we are not prioritizing the time of this Congress to deal with those. There is every indication that the omnibus spending bill that will be coming before us this week will come under a closed rule, which could indicate that there would be absolutely no debate on the floor of that bill. Not only are we not spending our time dealing with prioritizing what is important, we are not even allowing us, when we actually get to that point, to do it.

Last year, for the first time in the history of this Congress, there was a closed rule on an appropriations bill. That has never happened before, and that is not the way these types of things should take place. That's what we should be talking about today. That's what we should be talking about. How are we doing? How is the spending that we keep going through, an 8.7 percent increase in discretionary spending, how is that going to have an impact, how will the housing decisions we are going to be making soon?

That's where we should be spending our time. That's the discussion. I think, perhaps, if that were the discussion, maybe this room would be fully occupied by Members trying to find out where our future will be.

What we are doing simply right now is galumphing towards some goal in which we will have almost minimal time to discuss the main issues, but we are spending a lot of time dealing with bills that have been passed before, and dealing with bills once again that don't have a cause- effect relationship, which is why the entity that would be responsible for actually, actually supervising and enforcing this bill are opposed to it, because of that minimal nexus of cause-effect relationship. Now, that's the issue that we had before us.

We should, as a Congress, be trying to prioritize our time so we are dealing with the important issues that have an impact for all Americans and have an impact for the future of this country. And until we can do that type of prioritization, we are missing our goal and missing our mission here as Members of Congress.

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

The gentleman from Oregon has said many things with which I totally agree.

First of all, I didn't actually set the schedule. The Speaker sets the schedule. I do have two bills on the schedule, and I agree, those bills are not crucial to the value of this country. This country will survive without my bills.

Actually, if we are living in the proper world, since both those bills, as many of these passed last year, the Senate should have dealt with them last year and got them over and we would be done with it. That's one of the problems; we have to deal with the other body. There is kind of a difference between my bills and this one as well. Mine don't cost anything.

Mine also have the Federal entity that's involved in the Federal enrollment in support of those, and there is, I think, a cause-effect relationship that happens to be there. Having said that, it still doesn't change the fact that we are facing significant issues that we won't be addressing this week dealing with the economy, and dealing with how we are treating our fellow citizens in this Nation, and dealing with how we are going to ask taxpayers to pay for what we are dealing with, whether it's $1 trillion for a stimulus or a $200 billion bailout for Freddie and Fannie or $4 million a year to enforce a bill that could be done by the States and doesn't necessarily solve the problem that is supposedly the reason for the bill's introduction in the first place.

So I hope that we can move on to more significant things, and I hope that we are allowed on the floor the time to talk about more significant things in the future. And, yes, I would include my two bills as insignificant in that pantheon of issues which Congress should be debating.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill has been adequately explained by the other side and we support this legislation.

I reserve my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, if today someone says the word ``Geronimo,'' it evokes thoughts of an icon of popular culture. It is unfortunate that in the reality of this Apache warrior's life and death there is not more interest of the importance for him than simply the pop culture that was developed during World War II.

It was in fact in 1940, the night before the first mass jump, that paratroopers at Fort Benning were watching a 1939 movie named, oddly enough, ``Geronimo,'' in which the actor playing this hero yells his name as he leaps from a cliff into a river. Thus was born the phrase that has become known to more people than the actual life of the Native American leader we call Geronimo.

This resolution notes the treatment of Geronimo and the Apache people at the hands of both the Mexican and the U.S. Governments. It should serve as a lesson that government is often prone to error, incompetence and corruption, and that the larger government grows in size and power, the more pronounced and frequent these errors and misdeeds and mistakes indeed are made.

It should make us shudder to think in a matter of weeks how this Congress has spent more than $1 trillion of borrowed money to grow the size and power of the Federal Government. Today we see problems in this country, problems of poverty, problems of joblessness, hopefully not a massive increase in homelessness, but sometimes hopelessness, and that is a sure sign, and the question is whether big government actually is helping to overcome those issues or is a hindrance to the people in their ability to overcome those particular issues.

This resolution I hope will inspire fresh thinking about the direction of our government with respect to all American citizens, Native Americans and non-Native Americans alike, and hopefully will inspire us to consider the road we as a country are taking, and if it is indeed to require greater responsibility for individuals, does it help with individuals being able to succeed on their own. That is the course, that is the question, and I think this resolution does move us in that direction to ask those kinds of pertinent questions that are important, not just for this specific individual, but pertinent for all of us.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

It is my pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

May I ask how much time is remaining.

I would be willing to say a few words, and then we are done.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate once again Representative Grijalva for introducing this particular resolution. I am supportive of this resolution, as was Representative Broun, and as, I think, everyone who has spoken for it.

It does, I think, do several things for us that are very positive. One is asking us to reconsider and to rethink the issues that have created the situations that happened around the life of this

great man. Also, it is asking ourselves if we are doing those same issues today in a different sphere, in a different element. It is one of the reasons I have the same concerns the gentleman from Georgia has as to the direction in which we are going.

We will be talking about an omnibus spending bill that will go on to an omnibus bailout bill that will go on top of an omnibus stimulus bill. We will be talking specifically about the foreclosure of homes and home prevention plans. I think there are some questions that we need to make sure that we have added so that there is ample time to discuss just as we have had ample time to discuss this resolution. These other issues need that kind of time.

Whatever plan we have for homeowners, what will it do for the 90 percent of the homeowners who are playing by the rules and paying by the rules? What will our plans do to compensate banks for bad mortgages they should never have made in the first place? Will individuals who misrepresented their income or assets on original mortgage applications be eligible to get taxpayer-funded assistance under these new plans? Will we require mortgage servicers to verify income and other eligibility standards before modifying existing mortgages? What will we do to prevent the same mortgages that receive assistance that are modified from going into default 3 or 6 or 8 months later? How do we intend to move forward in the drafting of this legislation? How much time will we have on the floor to discuss the details of this legislation? Will we have a chance to provide alternatives?

In every issue we have had so far, there are grand alternatives that are out there, very little time to discuss what those alternatives are. That is a need that we have to do so we don't proceed down the road to make mistakes as was done in the past by a government to this particular individual.

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