Floor Statements

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

As usual, the gentlelady from Guam did an excellent job in describing this particular bill.

I want to thank Chairman Rahall and Chairman Grijalva for the hearing last year. This bill did pass the floor on a voice vote, and yes, this is not one of those landmark decisions that is going to be recorded in the annals of congressional history. Some people may think that this is a trivial issue with the amount of land that we are talking about. Unfortunately, if you live in a State where 67 percent of the State is under the control of the Federal Government, these kinds of land conveyances become very important and become vital to small communities like Mantua that need this particular land.

The land that was given to the Forest Service was given almost 60 years ago for the whopping price of $1, and in that period of time, basically, the Forest Service forgot they had the land. It was lost. It was not part of their inventory. It has never been used. It is surrounded by land that is either private or in control of the city already, so the land actually has limited value for the Federal Government, but has a major value for public purposes by the City of Mantua.

Part of it borders the cemetery, and they are in desperate need of expanding that cemetery. They are also in desperate need of creating a new fire station, which not only would supply the needs of the town but would also supply the needs of the national forest there in Box Elder Canyon at the same time, as well as a new town hall. It is for that purpose we have tried to see if this land conveyance can be done for a simple and easy purpose since we are dealing with public purpose for public purpose. It is merely who owns that land that is somewhat different. This is a piece of legislation of which the Forest Service is supportive and the city is supportive, and I appreciate the kind words that were said about this particular bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

No, Mr. Speaker.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Once again, I appreciate the kind words of the gentlelady from Guam. I also appreciate the help and assistance of the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Rahall, and of the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Grijalva, in moving this bill forward.

This is another bill that was discussed in the last session and was passed over there. Part of it was actually incorporated into the one by the Senate. The other part was not. This needs to finish off the process. It has the support of the entire Utah delegation, which happens to be bipartisan this time. It was suggested by the Adjutant General of the Utah National Guard as well as by the Governor of the State of Utah. It deals with long-term growing pains of the Utah National Guard facilities, their Camp Williams headquarters in Utah.

As we discussed, part of the issue is that the State of Utah has outgrown the amount of land it owns within the camp for which there can be buildings. What we are asking in this land transfer is to make sure that the land would always stay where it is. It would be for military purposes, but land that belongs to the Bureau of Land Management would be transferred to the State for the building of facilities at the Utah National Guard, specifically for Utah National Guard purposes. It has to have that kind of purpose with it. This land transfer would allow the Utah National Guard to fulfill its military mission in land that is presently part of the camp, but technically not under the ownership of the State of Utah, for the sole purpose of building military infrastructure.

With that, I appreciate the kind words that have been said, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Actually, for the gentlewoman from Guam, I have no other speakers on this one. Do you have any other speakers?

Then I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 637. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This was sponsored by the distinguished former chairman of the House Water and Power Subcommittee, Mr. Calvert of California, and will help resolve water supply shortages in southern California by authorizing limited Federal assistance for water recycling projects in the Cities of San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.

Historic drought and litigation to protect a three-inch fish will lead to decreased water deliveries in southern California, and as a result, less imported water will be recycled in the coming year. However, water recycling is a long-term necessity for southern California and other arid regions of the West. So all of these projects together will help ensure that there will be no such thing as wastewater.

So I urge my colleagues to support this bill. It deals with water, fish--and no swallows.

I reserve the balance of my time. However, I request once again of the gentlelady from Guam if she has other speakers.

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

I thank you. I thank the gentleman from Texas for allowing me to have a few words on this body about this significant issue, which is tomorrow's vote on the stimulus package.

I, like many people, perhaps I'm a little bit older than a lot of people here, but I was born in the early 1950s. This was the Eisenhower era when the United States was taking its role as the true leader of the world. It was an era of optimism. It wasn't always smooth sailing at all times, because we clearly remember the economic conditions when Ronald Reagan became President equaled and surpassed the situations we are facing today. That was an era when mortgage rates were 20 percent, and inflation was 14 percent. Unemployment was in the double digits throughout this entire country. And yet, at that time, in the 1980s there was something within the core value of American citizens that allowed them to respond and to rebound and to solve that problem.

And, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Burgess of Texas, I am convinced that within the core value of Americans today we still have that which it takes to respond and rebound to face this situation where we are and to move forward in a positive way. We will succeed at this time. There is nothing that will hold us down.

The only question that we really have is the vote tomorrow. Is that something that helps propel us to the solution of this dilemma, or is it one that actually hinders us in reaching that solution?

I am still confident Americans can do it because Americans have always been underestimated.

In the 1700s, the theory in England was that these colonies had their atmospheric conditions, they said, which meant that anything over here would be in a permanent state of decay and deterioration. Nothing permanent could be built in these colonies. Now, as somebody who actually grew up and lives in the desert part of America, with these atmospheric conditions, of which they mean humidity back here, I have to agree there is some truth to that.

The bottom line is still, when Alexander Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers, he challenged Americans to respond to that image that the Europeans had of us and to build a system of government that would transpire anything in the transatlantic community, and we responded with a divinely inspired Constitution.

After the Civil War, months after the Civil War ended and Lincoln was assassinated, there were many people who thought: Will violence be the way of life on this entire continent? But Americans responded, and we built an empire from coast to coast.

During World War II, Hitler thought that this Nation was too weak in our democracies and in our traditions to ever respond militarily to the danger that he sent, but the greatest generation responded to the greatest challenge, and we did greatness, not only out of one plank but in the Pacific theater as well.

In the 1970s, when we were facing the same kind of economic difficulties we are facing today, there were those people who said we should just cut our losses and run, that the U.S.S.R. would always be superior to us in our manufacturing and material bases. We can never succeed with them. Just make the best deal possible. Once again, Americans responded, and we won the Cold War. Americans will respond to this particular challenge as well.

Now, I understand how difficult it is for people. I'll take that back. Having grown up in the '50s, I don't understand how difficult it is for people who have been in the condition of losing their jobs, but I do want this body to know that my father was 26 when the Depression hit. He was a young father with a new family, and he lost his job. It was doubly significant because his brother had been his employer and had to let him go. So he moved back to Utah, and for 2 years in the height of that Depression, he did not have full-time employment. He had odd jobs. He was doing the best he could. He was growing a large garden to feed his family, which I used to hate because, when I was younger, I had to weed that thing, but that was what he went through.

I do admit his first real job in 2 years was a New Deal program. He became an administrator in the CCC program and then in the PWA and then in the housing authority.

My father also told me to be wary of the government jobs like the one he had because, as he said, ``When the government program ended, so did my job.'' What he really needed and what he eventually attained was a real job in the real world, which even though the programs he had under those entities no longer exist, the job he was doing afterwards is still being done by somebody else today.

As my father advised me, our goal has to be looking to find a way to stimulate real employment. A stimulus bill is always a risky thing to do. Most stimulus bills always work after the recession is over, and by putting money into the economy, a stimulus bill does something that spurs it on, but for the government to get that money, it has to pull it out in the form of borrowing, which spurs it down. A tax increase is also counterproductive, but a tax decrease, especially to small business, which creates 50 percent of the jobs in this country, would not have a negative aspect, but would have a positive stimulating aspect into what we are trying to do. Those are the kinds of jobs my father told me we should venerate and that we should try and do.

Now, the question we have is the same thing that President Obama said when he spoke to us that first time when he reached out to us. He said his economic advisers told him that a stimulus bill correctly structured could have an impact that is positive on our economy. The question we have to ask is: Is the bill that we will be voting on tomorrow correctly structured?

I think what we have found with the other versions of that bill is, the longer people look at it, the greater their questions as to: Is this really something that will produce jobs for real Americans or are we simply spending money on government growth? Are we wasting the money in short-term employment and not building long-term employment?

As the gentleman from Texas has already said, we were promised 48 hours to look at it or it was intimated it would be 48 hours. Obviously, I'm getting older, so I must have misunderstood. It was not 48 hours to look at it. They probably said we would have 4 to 8 hours to look at it. In that regard, it will probably be accurate.

As a history teacher, I am reading a book about the Depression, which scares me to no end. Contrary to what many people think, Herbert Hoover was an activist President. He was excited when the crash hit because it was his opportunity, in his words, to reshape government. The first thing he did was pass a government stimulus bill. To add other ironies to the situation, because it was a worldwide situation, other countries were sending a lot of bullion into the United States, but the Federal Reserve thought it would be inflationary, so they specifically instituted programs to make sure that that money would not be circulated and that it would stay put in special places. It's kind of like when the bailout money was supposed to go out to try and circulate money through the economy. Instead, it has stayed put in place and has not gone down to community banks and to credit unions and to small people who need those types of loans.

Now, I still think there is hope because there is an alternative out there. The Republican Party has placed an alternative whose goal is not just to create or to save 3 million jobs but, by using principles that we know to be true, to create 6 million real jobs, long-lasting jobs in the sector that will remain the private sector.

I am pledged to try and see if we can actually pass that because that is something that would provide relief to this country. That is the way Americans can respond to win in this situation. Otherwise, we will still ask the question: Did we craft this stimulus bill correctly? I think the more we look at it, probably after it has passed, the more and more we will answer, no, we did not. We blew a wonderful opportunity that we had.

I thank you for allowing me the chance to say a few things about this particular bill. I yield back to the gentleman from Texas.

If you have, Mr. Gohmert, the gentleman from Texas, just a moment on the last chart you brought up, because it does deal with my State. And I appreciate you bringing that issue up because it was one of the surprises we had when the new Secretary of Interior, Mr. Salazar, did indeed take off from potential leasing those particular areas.

What I'd just like to speak to you specifically about this particular issue is when he said that the Bush administration rushed to sell these leases, they were in a hurry to get them done, nothing could be further from the truth.

These leases are part of a resource management plan which had been in effect for 25 years, and we were trying to update them for the first time in 25 years. Each one of these leases went through 7 years of study, hundreds of town meetings, thousands of inputs from individuals. Now, I'm sorry. If 7 years is a rush to judgment, something is wrong somewhere.

What we are talking about here are decisions that were made not only by Federal BLMA employees as to the viability of these lands, but also the State of Utah. So the State Fish and Wildlife chairman was in charge of signing off on all this. The State Historical Preservation officer was in charge of signing off on all these particular leases.

When they were announced after 7 years of study and, might I add, there was not one acre added to this management plan that had been in the management plan 25 years. The Park Service objected to a few acres around the national parks. Those were withdrawn by the Bureau of Land Management.

So these acres are not around those national parks. These acres--77 leases--these acres were the product of a lawsuit by special interest groups that were pulled off the table by Secretary Salazar, not because it was a rush by the Bush administration, but it was a 7-year planning session. These are all miles away from any kind of natural splendor in the State of Utah. And that is why it is so astounding.

I am amazed that if you actually look at the number of leases that were done--you probably cannot see this on the camera--but, starting with the Clinton administration, every year we offered 3,300 leases; 3,800 leases, 30,000 leases, 3,300 leases. And, when Bush took office, the number went down to 25, 16, 14, 15.

The average number of leases in the 7 years of the Clinton administration was 2,900 year. In Bush, 1,900 per year. The Clinton administration offered more opportunity for exploration of natural resources than the Bush administration did. And when we say this is a rush to judgment, he was paying off rents at the last minute, it is flat out not true.

What happened is the Secretary of the Interior in a knee-jerk reaction to special interest groups pulled off land that should never have been pulled off because it was land that had been thoroughly vetted, and the only changes in the land plan was to make it more environmentally sensitive as to landscapes, noisescapes, lightscapes, and disruption of the surface property.

This is my territory. I know about it. And I am incensed that this was done, because there is no rational reason for it.

I yield back to the gentleman from Texas.

I appreciate the opportunity of being here. I appreciate being able to catch the last of the gentleman from Texas so I could add in, especially as he talked about my home State.

It's unusual because, to be honest, most of everything we are talking about in this Nation and in Congress is the stimulus bill. Everything is about the stimulus bill. And it's appropriately so.

It seems to those who are cynical here in Washington that we are trying to push the stimulus bill through as fast as possible in, as the cynics would say, an effort to try and stop people from seeing what is actually in there, because the more we look at it, the more problematic the entire bill comes.

But today I wish to talk about a different bill, as ominous as the stimulus bill. In fact, it is called the Omnibus Land Bill of 2009, which will be coming up this week. And if you think the stimulus bill is being rushed through Congress, the way this omnibus land bill is being pushed through Congress makes the stimulus bill look like it's absolutely plodding through this process.

The omnibus land bill that will be up sometime this week, supposedly, is over 160 different bills wrapped into one gigantic bill. Seventy- seven of those bills have never been discussed in the House. There has never been a hearing, nor a markup in committee, a vote on the floor, of over half of those particular bills, which means if I was allowed this hour to talk about every one of these bills, I would have to take around 20 seconds apiece to go through everything that is in this particular omnibus land bill.

And one must have to ask very simply, Why do it so quickly? What is the speed? At least in the stimulus bill we can say there is an emergency that we have to do something, but we can't do it here.

So I intend to speak about this omnibus bill and say why there are some problems, even though I fully admit there are some very, very good bills in the omnibus bill. I should know that two of them are mine. And they are very good bills.

Chairman Rahall of the Resources Committee has some bills in here that we have talk about on the floor and in committee. They are very, very good bills.

But still, 77 of them are bills that the Senate decided to put into this package without the House having any kind of input or hearing into this process.

So I am going to be talking about the problems of this bill and the process of it, the cost of it, as well as the content that happens to fit into this particular pattern.

Now a lot of people here in this House have been former State legislators. That gives us some ability to help as far as understanding the process of what is going on. But it also helps us to

understand there are other ways of doing things. I have to admit, in most State legislatures, this type of bill would not be allowed to come to the floor. Most States have germaneness laws, which simply say for every bill, it is one topic area, and that is because every bill deserves to be discussed and voted on its merits and not lumped together with something else to help it through the process.

Indeed, if you have an omnibus land bill that creates a new Under Secretary of Energy, one can logically say what does that have to do with a land bill, and they would be correct. No State would allow this tragedy to take place.

One of the senior Members of this body is purported to have said, I have yet to ask him if it is true or apocryphal, but he is purported to have said that if I allow you to create all of the policy decisions, and you allow me to make all of the process decisions, I will screw you over every time, which simply means whenever we play fast and loose with the rules of the game, our process, there are going to be winners and losers. We are playing fast and loose with the rules of this particular game.

In the retreat that the opposition party, Democrat Party, just had, they made a statement. The spokesman for the Speaker said both the Speaker and leadership agree that it is preferable to use regular order, especially in nonemergency cases, and that has always been the intent.

This is not an emergency bill, but we are not going through regular order or using the process allowed. And someone would simply have to ask, Why? Why are we allowing the Senate to send over a blob of bills in which every case possible, when there was a Senate version, the House version was dropped and the Senate version was put in there? Why is it that House amendment after House amendment discussed on this floor, passed on this floor, both Republican and Democrat, were simply eliminated by our friends on the other side of the body? Why is it that they said discussing House amendments would take too long?

Some of the bills placed in this package have been sitting over in the Senate for 2 full years, passed in this body 2 years ago, and one would simply have to ask how long does it take for a Senator to read an amendment and why should we have a flawed version? What is the rush on this particular bill and who are the losers if we place this process in this particular order.

One of those answers is, well, taxpayers. This bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, has somewhere between a $7 billion to $10 billion price tag. In the stimulus bill, depending on how it ends up, there was $2 billion put in for the National Park Service to try to put a dent in the backlog of National Park Service projects. I understand why that is there, and it is definitely needed.

In my State, where they have those leases that were dismissed, unfortunately, is Dinosaur National Monument. This is the Visitor Center. This is one of the coolest places I have ever been. You go inside, and they have scraped some of the dirt off the side of the mountain and you can see embedded in the rock, fossil remains of almost any dinosaur you want. It is a fantastic site, and this Visitor Center is condemned and closed for years because the Park Service does not have the money to fix it.

I understand why you would want to add $2 billion to try to get at what is estimated at around a $9 billion backlog. But what I don't understand is as you are trying to solve these kinds of problems and putting money in the stimulus bill, why do we then pass an omnibus land bill that adds another $10 billion worth of backlog on top of what we already have? Why are we trying to expand and divert the resources that we have instead of taking care of what we have first? That would simply make sense. It is, indeed, countereffective.

Why in this land bill is there a place for a national park back east that will include, among the splendors of this park, a condo, a microbrewery and a butterfly garden which was not recommended or requested by the Park Service. Politically, we put this national park in there. When we have these kind of legitimate needs, why are we expanding it in this particular way?

This bill includes another 10 heritage areas at the price tag of $110 million. Heritage areas, when originally established, were supposed to be for areas that had cultural and historic significance, and they were supposed to be for a short time so there would be enough incentive of Federal money to allow locals to take over and run those areas effectively to promote tourism. However, what we have seen in the past in another omnibus bill passed last year, as well as in this bill again, is not only those heritage areas coming back, but instead of allowing them simply to lapse, having been given the boost, we are extending them and their time period. We are reauthorizing them. And what is so amazing is we reauthorize them with more money than they asked. If the ask was for $10 million, we gave them $15 million. And for what purpose?

The founder decided it was supposed to be for a short period of time. We are now using these as economic development to attract tourism. That is nice, but the question is why should a taxpayer in South Carolina or Texas be required to put his tax money into economic tourism development in New York State? There is nothing wrong with competition and helping tourism, but why compel taxpayers to help the competition out? This is doing nothing more than diverting our resources.

We had a nice lady come before our committee wanting a new heritage area in her home State, actually crossing into two States. And I asked her please tell me what it is about this Federal designation that would make it possible to make this heritage area more attractive that you can't do either by the State itself or by interlocal cooperation? Is your State not able to hire docents to lead people through? Are there not enough buses to bring kids there? What do you need?

To be very honest, as well as the lady tried to answer, she never said there was anything except the added respect and impetus that having this as a Federal designation would give it. And as soon as she said nothing more than the fact that this would add extra prestige to this area, one of my staffers leaned over and said, ``Nope, the lady is wrong. There are 15 million reasons why this area needs Federal help. Each of those reasons is green, and it has a picture of George Washington on it.''

I don't have a problem with heritage areas; I do have a problem with diverting our resources at a time when we need to focus them on what we already have at hand, and this bill before us will not do it.

Why the rush? Why not put this through regular order? And more importantly, who loses? And I'm sorry, but I think the taxpayers of this Nation lose.

There are recreation restrictions in this bill. The American Motorcycle Association and a broad coalition of recreation advocates have said the 80 new provisions in this bill that deal with their particular recreation opportunity will close more than 2 million acres of public land to ever allowing them to recreate on them again. These groups' members include millions of off-highway enthusiasts, vacationing families, and small businesses involved in the system. And what they have pleaded with us to do is, quoting from the letter that many groups signed, ``It is our sincere hope that this Congress will develop a thoughtful approach to managing our public lands more than simply eliminating public access and creating additional layers of bureaucracy. Continued reasonable access to public lands is vitally important for current and future generations.''

There is nothing wrong with that, so why not do it? Why the rush for this particular bill? And who are the losers other than Americans who enjoy recreating on public land.

There is another provision in this bill which deals with the State of Wyoming, where the delegation is not united, which will take 3 million acres of land that has energy potential and take them off from development forever. Within this, and there is some disagreement as to the total number, but there may be as much as 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 300 million barrels of oil, in a tri-State area where there is about $800 billion worth of oil shale, whatever the numbers are with which you wish to agree, it is the equivalent of 15 years of American energy production that can be used in this particular area; and the question is, Why do we rush? Especially when the delegation is not united on this

point, why do we rush this bill through and who becomes the loser?

This is only one of 19 provisions in this particular bill where areas are removed from potential energy exploration. Who are the losers? Well, I hate to say this, but as we had the energy debate this past year, it is very clear that it is poor people who are the losers. If you are rich, and I am not saying that anyone in this room today is rich, but energy prices are merely an inconvenience. If you are a poor person, on the poverty level, 50 cents of every dollar has to go to energy. Those are the people who have to decide whether they get energy or a tuna casserole, and leave those luxuries of Hamburger Helper behind. Those are the people who are hurt when we rush to judgment and pull more acreage of energy production off the table. That is not the way that this is supposed to be done.

If I can have you look at this chart for just a moment, it simply talks about the salaries of teachers in the State of Wyoming where we are now going to take 3 million acres of energy off the table, and the State of Montana. The higher one is what are paid teachers in Wyoming for every area. It shows bachelor's degree, bachelor's with experience, master's, and master's with experience.

The red is what is paid in Montana. You can see there are 20 grand extra that you can get for teaching in Wyoming. And the question I hope everyone asks is, Why?

It is very simple: because Wyoming develops their resources. If a State wants to be able to fund their education system to pay for their highways, to have a good college system, and they do not develop their resources, there is no hope.

When Mr. Gohmert talked about what the secretary did by taking those leases off the table, the State of Utah, now trying to balance their budget with a negative tax flow, lost $3 million overnight. That is $3 million which could have gone to their education system and was no longer available simply because the secretary decided to play games with special interest instead of going along with the process that took 7 years to develop.

This chart is also one of my favorites. It is the famous blue chart. The area that is shaded in blue in each State is the amount of that State that is owned and controlled by the Federal Government. And I think you can see some amazing similarities. Obviously, Nevada and Alaska have almost 90 percent of their State owned by the Federal Government. At the lower end, New York and Rhode Island have less than 0.4 percent.

That is amazing because those of us who live in the Rocky Mountain West know what it is like to have an absentee landlord, or slumlord, as we call it, the Federal Government in charge of our land.

Compare this chart. The States in red are the States with the most difficult time paying for their education. I hate to say this, but you can see a one-to-one correlation between the amount of Federal land a State has and the inability to fund education. One of the things that we are finding as a phenomenon in Utah is that almost every article that talks about the difficulty of funding education in Utah will always say, well, of course, we are a public land State and there is so much in Utah that is untaxable. Obviously, we will have a difficult time. And it is true.

But that's not the way it has to be. If the Federal Government paid taxes on all that land at even the cheapest rate, Utah would get $116 million every year at the lowest possible tax rate for education alone. About $800 million nationwide for education alone if the Federal Government simply allowed themselves to pay for the amount of land that we have taken off the table and controlled and then still treat those States almost in a position of slavery.

Once again, why the rush? Why the rush to pass this bill? And who loses: kids, schools, and States.

More and more land is going to be eaten up in this bill. Already, the national government owns 650 million acres. I hate to say this, but already there are 708 wilderness areas in the United States. That is about 107 million acres, three more added in this bill, making it 110 million acres. That is roughly, if you were trying to figure something out, if you take the States of Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, that is how much wilderness we already have in this country. So the question ought to be how much do we really need? How much should we be adding? Especially when one considers, according to the Congressional Research Office, there are only 108 million acres developed in this country. Urban-suburban areas come up with 108 million acres. This bill will create 109-plus million acres of wilderness.

The question is why the rush to judgment, the speed for passing this bill? And once again, who loses? Those wonderful heritage areas don't count, I might add. The National Park Service said to have a heritage area, it should be something historically significant. By definition in the Parks Service, that means a cohesive, naturally distinctive landscape. I hate to say this, Tennessee, the entire State, is a heritage area. I want you to tell me what is the cohesive, naturally distinctive element from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains that ties Tennessee together in one of these national heritage areas? What I think I'm saying is I know who the losers are. And those are the people who are funding this system.

We have concerns of private property with this bill, simply because every element to try and protect private property was stripped in the Senate. There are very few people who know that the Secretary of the Interior, who is one of the few cabinet members, maybe the only cabinet member, that has the right to condemn property. Why? Why is that in there? Why is that provision given to him? Why is it that when we try to bring this up and everybody says, no, no, no, we will put protections in the law, this was one of the laws we passed already, but what we tried to say is when you talk about protections that we're putting in the law, nothing will supersede the underlying code we have which says that nothing contained in this section shall preclude the use of condemnation, which is the power the Secretary of the Interior has. We tried to limit and soften this. And fortunately, this House went along with many of those amendments. The Senate took them all out. Why the speed? Why the rush? And who becomes the losers?

Oftentimes, we were told that if you create a heritage area, again, not a park but a heritage area, okay, there will be no kind of overt control on the people who have private property in those heritage areas. There was one that we passed last year that deals with property very close to the Capitol here. And the guarantee was that at no time would this interfere with local government or private property rights. And yet within 6 months of the passage of that bill, the leaders and organizers of that heritage area were already meeting in a letter that came out in the Gettysburg Times with three local communities to revise their outdoor signage codes. In essence, what they said is that the heritage area gave them extra teeth with outdoor sign regulations along the corridor. And they used them. One of the councilmen, actually a supervisor in one of the townships, quite simply said, this is an amazing process we are now stuck in. This township voiced apprehension about the agency's or this heritage area's agenda and whether the group plans to lobby for further land-use regulations along the corridor. My question is, he said, what is next? When we originally passed this, it was with the understanding there would be no usurping of local government control. This is trying to change our zoning. And the guy fears that new signage regulations would curb commercial development in his township.

Now all these things need to be worked out. The House, to its credit, and Chairman Rahall, to his credit, tried to work through those issues. The Senate pulled them all back and sent us this omnibus bill with individuals without any sort of protection whatsoever. It's called ``regulatory taking.'' What is worry to me is what we should be doing is making sure that every person who has private property in a potential heritage area is notified by the government that they will now be included in the heritage area and they should know what that entails. And yet when we tried to put that specific language in, it was rebuffed. But that

should be the very minimum, because that is exactly what happened. And those people with private property, they are the losers. And why once again, why the speed and the rush to pass this particular bill?

One of those elements in there is one we have talked about a long time before. The good old Taunton River. The Taunton River project in Massachusetts has 35 miles of the upper Taunton which clearly qualifies as wild and scenic rivers, and 7 miles in the lower Taunton, which doesn't. Now I spent a lot of time on this floor talking about that bill, so I don't need to rehash everything. But the issue at hand is simply this, 40 years ago, we wrote a wild and scenic river bill for the purpose of allowing protection for scenic, recreational, geological, fish and wildlife, historical and cultural endeavors and to protect them from development. That is the purpose of a wild and scenic river.

Now when I came in here last year arguing about this particular bill, I showed you a lot of ugly pictures found in Taunton River. I was overly rambunctious in my rhetoric. Fall River is not an ugly city. It is a very attractive one. In any city you can find bad pictures. I found ugly ones. The sponsor of this bill found pretty ones. The issue, though, is not is it ugly or pretty. The issue is if there is any construction, it no longer qualifies as a wild and scenic river. By the definition of law, if it's a wild and scenic river, within one-half mile of the bank, there can be no construction, only needful building. Look at this. There are nice homes and docks. There is a maritime museum. There are condominiums. There is commercial development. There is industrial development. All of that precludes this from ever being considered. Once again, the parks department did not recommend this as a wild and scenic river. They said in the report it was controversial. It was problematic. It would solve some political problems. But it's not what was at hand.

And why am I railing against this provision? Not because I don't like the people in this area, even though I have received a signature of petition from 1,000 people from Fall River and the community in Massachusetts who are objecting to this procedure, but because of what this does to the rule of law. Look, we have all these great lawgivers around us. Hammurabi was the first one. And the addition you have, the importance you have of law, is you have down in writing what is the standard of conduct. And when a standard of conduct can be changed by simply a majority vote, all of a sudden, the reason and purpose for having the law in the first place become moot. It becomes harmful. Who we are harming by passing this is not just the people in this area, although they recognize that. It's harming all of us because what we are doing is saying, we will make a definition of what a wild and scenic river is, and whenever we can get enough votes on this floor, we will throw it out and do whatever we wish to do. And that is the exact opposite of the way a civilized society should run itself.

Why the rush to judgment? And why, for heaven's sake, are we doing this? And who becomes the losers? Not just in the specific area of Massachusetts, but in this Nation, who becomes the losers? That is us. There is a National Landscape Conservation System already under internal investigation. I don't expect anything to come from that. But we should at least wait until the internal investigation is done before we move forward with anything.

This bill codifies that. And it puts 28 million acres, most of it in the West, with another layer of bureaucracy to administer. That is not a new administration, it's an additional administration. And I'm sorry, as somebody who lives in the West, I can tell you that will make a difference to those of us who live in the West. This new document now allows the Federal Government to regulate such wonderful things as, get ready for this one, smellscapes. I don't know how you judge smells in a public park. I don't know why you would want to judge smells in a public park. But that is the power we are giving. Why the rush to judgment? And for heaven's sake, who loses in this particular process?

We have one other element that is in there, too. We are now going to ban people from finding fossils on public ground. This is a bill that was heard in committee but was never heard on the floor of this House. This House did not pass that bill. It was not passed in the Senate, either, until it was added, once again, as another add-on to this particular omnibus lands bill. But before me, I have this statement of the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences who are objecting to this bill, not that this bill can't be worked out in some way, but that this bill does not do it. They talk about section 5 paragraph 3 that talks about locality and localities not being released, which is the exact opposite of what paleontological science should do, about section 8 where you are supposed to identify a fair market value for anything found, which you cannot do, about section 7, where people cannot support a false record or label or identification on something, and when you find it, you don't know what it is, it cannot be done, and section 9 where vehicles or equipment may be taken away for any kind of violation of 5, 8 and 7, which cannot be done.

The problem the experts are pointing out is the bill is unworkable. Why is it added? Why is there a rush to pass this bill? And who obviously loses in this process? I could talk about things that make this bill as uncomfortable as the stimulus. I could ask why, in this omnibus land bill, will we spend $12 million to give the Smithsonian the chance to build a new greenhouse in Maryland to develop orchids? Why are we giving $5 million to a tropical botanical garden in Hawaii and Florida that already brings in $12 million a year at a $4 million profit with $59 million of assets? Why do they need another $5 million from taxpayers? Why are we spending $4 million, this is a wonderful one, to find nonlethal efforts to prevent predatory behavior by wolves, $4 million to create wimpy wolves, and $1 billion to save 500 salmon in California? There are only 500. We are spending $1 billion. I certainly hope these fish are never on the Oceanaire menu, because at this price, that is $2 million a fish to be developed.

Why are we doing that? Is it because, as some of the myths say, if we don't pass this now we never will? No. Is it because this bill has been fully vetted? I have just gone over that. It hasn't been. It hasn't been in this body. Is this bill having solid bipartisan support? Then why are there over 100 organizations, from the chambers of commerce to recreation bodies to land-use bodies to public entity bodies, who are in opposition, not only to the content but especially to the process of this particular bill? And we should pass it because it is noncontroversial? Look, in the Congressional Research Service, the research arm, whatever that is, 37 times it uses the words ``controversial'' to describe provisions in this bill. This is not a bill everyone has signed off on and everyone agrees to and it doesn't do any harm.

We are breaking procedural processes. Bad procedure creates bad process and bad product. Why? Why is there a rush? Why not allow this to go through regular order? There is no emergency status on this bill. And once again, since we are rushing through the process, who wins? And more importantly, who loses? And there are a whole lot of people who lose. I would like this body, rather than passing this bill, to go through and cull out the provisions that truly are nonpartisan and noncontroversial. And there are a whole bunch of them, most of which have passed this body at one time or another. I would even be willing to go out and put in the bills that passed this body over my opposition because at least it was done fairly.

But more importantly, I would like us to do something proactively, establish private property protections, so that anyone that may be included in the broad grasp of the Federal Government, whether it be in the area of a national park or one of the newly created heritage areas in which they don't know what is about to hit them, give them the right of protection, take away the power of the Secretary of the Interior to condemn property, allow individuals to be notified if they are going to be included in any kind of park service area, especially heritage areas, and make sure that people have options and true transparency. What we need to have is a comprehensive energy policy so we are not taking 19 little areas here and there, piece by piece,

and taking them off the plate, but rather having it be a part of a logical program of how we are going to become energy self-sufficient in this country first and then deal with these land issues.

Why do we not establish a heritage criteria so that before any other group decides to create this area of getting more Federal money so they can promote their own tourism at the cost of other taxpayers elsewhere, there is a criteria of what is and what is not a true heritage area?

And why don't we help kids with the program that we once introduced called ``Apple'' which simply said in all those Western States whose land is now controlled by the Federal Government and was never intended to be, if you read the enabling acts of every Western State except Hawaii and California, and California's was done by a law 2 years later, that land was supposed to be given to the Federal Government until such time as the Federal Government shall dispose of it, and five percent of the proceeds of those disposals was supposed to go to the State for a permanent education trust fund.

And I have a bill called the Apple Bill, which simply says, look, if the Federal Government isn't going to live up to what they said in law, let the States pick 5 percent of their public lands to be used for the sole purpose of funding education in the States. And then the disparity between public land States and nonpublic land States will not be so glowing, and that my kids will have a chance at a decent education, and my colleges in my State will be funded. And since I'm an old public school teacher, so that my retirement will actually be there when I need it. I have some selfish motivations as well because, you see, in all these bills going through here, if you ask who are the losers, I am. My State is harmed. My kids are harmed. My education system is harmed. And why, for heavens sake, the rush to judgment?

Now, Mr. Speaker, unless the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) would desire a postscript--can I ask, can I inquire just how much time is left?

I have talked longer than I have ever done in my life, and hope never to top that record again. But I do have a moment if the gentleman from Texas would like to add a postscript.

Reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert). Once again, I think we need to--in fact, the gentleman from Texas probably knows there is a new word in our vocabulary now called ``ping-ponging'' which is the process of eliminating conference committee and just pinging the bill back and forth between Houses, without ever having to involve the minority in any of those messy discussions. That's a new term.

But, once again, I would just like to conclude by asking the Speaker to do what her spokesman said when she said both the Speaker and leadership agree, it is preferable to use regular order, especially in non-emergency cases, and that has always been the intent.

Putting this bill on the floor without going through regular order, without allowing a committee to look at it, without allowing, if it comes on a closed rule, comes under suspension, that's a violation of the process.

And once again, I don't mind losing quite as much if the process is open and fair. And that's what we're asking for.

This is not an emergency bill. We're asking for an open, fair process.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I know the staff will be very happy since I appear to be the last speaker of the day, and a chance for you to actually get home at a reasonable hour.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, last night was another BCS bowl game. I congratulate two fine educational institutions and football teams, Florida and Oklahoma. Florida won a hard-fought and deserved victory. However, there is still only one ranked undefeated team in the Nation, and, yes, I am an alumnus of the University of Utah, the two- time BCS buster.

The problem is clearly the BCS. According to the BCS, a system with one too many initials, having a tough competition and going undefeated is not good enough. Using the BCS system, Germany won World War II, Hillary Clinton is still the leading Presidential candidate and winning all your games is apparently not the same thing as--winning all your games.

With no intention of disparaging a wonderful Florida football team and program, I still have to commend the achievements of the University of Utah. They are commendable, and I wish to recognize the Nation's best undefeated team. Certainly with the BCS, this Nation can do a whole lot better.

Thank you. I appreciate that pass-off very quickly here.

The comments of Congressman Gohmert about General Brown, I think, are appropriate as a beginning for this entire discussion about the stimulus. As he has been sacrificing his all for this country, it is our job to try and make sure that there is a country that is worthy of that sacrifice and that commitment that he will have.

I just want to talk very briefly because we have some great experts here on the economy of this country who will say something.

Just on a personal approach, I am one of those who was a product of kind of a ``yours and our'' family. My father, who was a newlywed with a young son--my oldest brother--during the Depression, lost his job during the depths of that Depression, and my mother was a recent widow with two young sons under 5 with no job at the same time. My father went for 2 years during the depths of the Depression without a full- time job. I realize the difficulty in talking to him of what he went through and of what the family went through. Indeed, he was saved by the creation of a government job during that time period.

I came around about 20 years after this event, and my father always cautioned me at the time that the government job that saved him was a temporary job, that when the government decided to close the program, the job went away at the same time, and he was back to the same issue of finding a job that had been created on the economy, an economy created job.

So, as we deal with the stimulus issue, I recognize that this stimulus package that we have without any details--it's just a concept still floating around--that is taxpayer-funded can have a profound effect on individuals and can have a profound effect on the economy, but if it is to be successful in the long term, it must be successful in encouraging and in stimulating private-sector jobs in the economy. That's the long-term solution.

One of the former leaders of this body once said, ``Between invention and innovation, you have to have investment, and investment only happens if there is an expectation of return.'' If we do not include as part and parcel of our attempt to reinvigorate this economy an aggressive tax reduction policy, not only for individuals but for business, we do not promote that expectation of return. An aggressive tax reduction policy for the business sector will provide stability to the business and will encourage them to reinvest real money into real long-term jobs that will not be dependent on the taxpayer largess to take place.

I think, just from my personal experience and from the experience and insight my father told me, that is what we have to look at as we look into this overall package. I would add just one last comment as well.

You know, we talked a great deal about energy a while ago. I hope it was not one of those things that we mentioned in August so we can check it off the box because gas prices are down again, but the reality is OPEC has already voted to cut oil production. Chavez has said he needs the cost of a barrel of oil to double if he is going to continue on with his foreign involvement policies and practices. If this country wants to have a good economic future, we have to have energy security that is self-sufficient. If we cannot in all of our efforts to try and build a healthy economy secure our economic future, we will never secure long-term economic health.

With that, I appreciate the opportunity of being able to just interpose myself in this discussion of whatever this stimulus package may be since there are no details with it yet.

I would yield back to the gentleman from New Jersey, and I appreciate the words of the gentleman from Texas as an introduction to this, and I look forward to the rest of the discussion.

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure and certification information for a Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Request that I made and which was included within the text and/or report to accompany H.R. 2638, the ``Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2009.'' I certify that neither I, nor my spouse, have any financial interest in this request, and certify that, to the best of my knowledge, this request is (1) not directed to an entity or program named or that will be named after a sitting Member of Congress; (2) is not intended for a ``front'' or ``pass-through'' entity; and (3) meets or exceeds statutory requirements for matching funds (where applicable). Please note that while publication of this disclosure information prior to the floor vote was intended, such was not possible because House Democratic Leadership chose to circumvent regular order under the House Rules last September when the bill was voted upon in the House by waiving the normal layover period between the time of filing of the report and a floor vote on the same in order to rush the bill through to a vote with minimal public scrutiny.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01).

Bill Number: H.R. 263--The Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2009.

1. Project: Distributed Environment for Critical Infrastructure-- Decision Making Exercises for Increasing Cyber Security.

Bill Number: H.R. 2638, the ``Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2009.''

Project Amount: $3 million.

Account: Science & Technology; Research, Development, Acquisition, and Operations.

Requesting Entity: Utah State University Space Research Foundation.

Receiving Entity: The Cyber Conflict Research Consortium (CCRC); an affiliation of academic and non-profit institutions, including Miami University, Norwich University Applied Research Institutes, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, University of Nevada at Reno, and Utah State University Space Research Foundation.

Address: CCRC Team Leader, Norwich University, Applied Research Institutes, 57 Old Freight Yard, P.O. Box 30, Northfield, VT 05663- 0030.

Project Description and Justification: Funding would continue work begun in FY'08 with the Department of Homeland Security on completing full-scale development of the Web-distributed Environment for Critical Infrastructure Decision-making Exercises (DECIDE). This project is the only high-level governmental program designed to minimize threats and risks of cyber attacks against the U.S. Government and key economic sectors which rely on electronic data bases, such as financial markets and banking institutions. Funding would continue development of core software components and demonstration to government entities and private-sector institutions concerned about following a coherent and coordinated plan to counter the serious and growing cyber-attack threat.

Matching Funds: Not applicable.

Detailed Spending Plan: Not applicable.

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to recognize Shelley Clarke, the president and CEO of Goldenwest Credit Union, headquartered in my district in Ogden, UT, on her recent election to the board of directors of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, NAFCU.

For the past 30 years, Mrs. Clarke has been a part of the Goldenwest community, having started her career as a teller, working on the front lines helping customers with day-to-day transactions. She now leads more than 220 employees as CEO of Goldenwest Credit Union. As the president of Goldenwest she has focused on the personal and professional development of her employees, as well as providing helpful and personal service to all Goldenwest's members. This combination of member and employee satisfaction has been instrumental in Goldenwest's growth in recent years.

This dual commitment has also garnered much recognition for Goldenwest including distinction as Utah's ``Best of State'' in the credit union category for 2008 as well as the ``Best company to work for'' by Utah Business Magazine. Mrs. Clarke operates Goldenwest under the mantra ``credit unions are organizations of people, not dollars.'' This belief is displayed in the community outreach Goldenwest provides through their sole sponsorship of the annual ``5k For Schools'' fundraiser as well as being the highest corporate donor for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

Mrs. Clarke's personal commitment to the community is also reflected in her chairmanship of the Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce.

It is because of the good work of Mrs. Clarke and others like her that credit unions enjoy the success they have today. Such service is the hallmark of our Nation's credit unions and I know that she will bring this dedication to her service on the NAFCU Board of Directors. I wish Mrs. Clarke the best.

Mr. Speaker, I guess I stand as someone who also voted against that infamous bill, happily so, because it did not solve the problem.

One of the things we should be here to do is try to solve the problem, regardless of whether there is some archaic rule that prohibits that solution from taking place, which is exactly what happened on that particular piece of legislation.

There are two numbers that I want to once again reiterate, talking about what Mr. Walden from Oregon was saying, 52 and 4.

This chart, everything that is blue in this chart is the amount of land owned by the Federal Government in each State. The 52 refers to those of us who live west of the Rocky Mountains. Fifty-two percent of everything west of the Rocky Mountains, the Speaker understands this very clearly, is owned by the Federal Government.

You will notice that Montana and California don't have a whole lot, so the rest of us pick up that slack, my State about 80 percent, Nevada about 90 percent.

Those of you who live east of the Rocky Mountains have 4 percent of your land owned and controlled by an absentee landlord known as the Federal Government. It becomes more insidious. If you were to take the 13 States that have the most difficult time in funding their State education programs, the slowest growth in their State education programs, you will find 11 of those 13 States also are in this infamous blue block found in the West.

The East, in all due respect, does not get this situation, they don't face it, and neither does the Democratic Party. The two solutions that we have right now, the best solution would be to give the land back, but the best solutions we have are PILT, Payment in Lieu of Taxes, for county governments and Secure Rural Schools for the school sections of these particular areas.

This program, Payment in Lieu of Taxes, was started when Nixon was president and was flat-lined in payments of 100 grand a year until 1994 when the Republicans took over. Every year since that time, the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program has increased its percentage and increased its actual amount of funding, not ever reaching the full authorized amount, which it should have been, but it increased every year until this year.

Secure Rural Schools has found the same source of problems. This year, there has finally been the problem of facing it.

Now, this is essential to us. Schools are running in the West because of this money. Counties are functioning in the West because of this money. A gentleman from New England took recreation in my State, went down kayaking in Black Box, which was a mistake.

Three weeks later the county was able to recover his body. In this tragedy, unfortunately, it also consumed every dime they had set aside that year for their emergency funding processes.

Now, the problem for those in the West, when it comes to our schools and our counties, is we don't have a tax base to get this money back. It is controlled by the Federal Government, which is why PILT and Secure Rural Schools are essential for those of us who are in the West.

That's where the frustration of yesterday comes in. The Senate passed a tax extender, I think it was 93-2 was the vote, which does fund Secure Rural

Schools and PILT. I want that bill over here so I have the opportunity to vote for it and solve the problem.

But we were told it could not be added to the House version, because it did not have an offset. It violated PAYGO.

Now, here is where I become confused, because before us right now we have another bill of all sorts of spending that also does not have offsets and violates PAYGO. Now, that's okay. Those of us in the West are simply saying, this is important to us, and it should be done.

I have another problem in, as you mentioned, the Green Schools Initiative in this bill.

Let me just say, the Green Schools Initiative, because I was on the committee of jurisdiction, that particular program adds construction money to local districts for their schools. The original sponsor of that bill had a program involved in there so they could allocate and find out what school districts needed the assistance.

In the State of Utah, we have an equalization formula. The school districts that either have a high number of students, and, therefore, it is difficult for them to keep up with construction, or had the oddity of all their schools have been built at the same time, therefore, they all fall apart at the same time. There is extra funding from the State that goes to those districts.

In the formula put into the school bill that is now part of this, it does not in any way, shape or form follow any need for school construction. It follows only title I funding, which means in the State of Utah, that has tried to solve the problem with equalization, not one district that has a need for extra school construction money will get one dollar from this program. It goes to the districts that don't need the money, because it's a poorly written, poorly planned bill.

That's why those of us in the West are confused and complaining. This program is essential for us. Those of you living east of the Rocky Mountains don't understand the significance of it.

It could have been included in this bill, and should have been included, and it's not. At least let us vote on the Senate tax extender, which does include it.

I appreciate the consideration that has been done. The issue is solving the problem. This vehicle would solve the problem. The Senate bill would solve the problem.

Unfortunately, the bill to which the gentleman refers only has Secure Rural Schools and did not have PILT even though it was supposed to. Now, we have two problems. We need both of them solved. They both interrelate.

Madam Speaker, consistent with House Republican Earmark Standards, I am submitting the following earmark disclosure and certification information for 14 individual project appropriations requests that I made and which were included within the text and/or report to accompany H.R. 2638, the ``Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing 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, this request is (1) not directed to an entity or program named or that will be named after a sitting Member of Congress; (2) is not intended for a ``front'' or ``pass-through'' entity; and (3) meets or exceeds statutory requirements for matching funds (where applicable). Please note that while publication of this disclosure information prior to the floor vote was intended, such was not possible because House Democratic Leadership chose to circumvent regular order under the House Rules requiring a 24-hour layover period between the time of filing of the report and a floor vote on the same. Instead, they chose to file the report disclosing which projects were funded along with the amounts late last evening, and have scheduled a floor vote today on the bill.

I look forward to the day when House Leadership will adhere to their earlier promises of open and fair debate, adequate review periods for legislation, and following the House Rules under regular order.

Requesting Member: Rob Bishop (UT-01).

Bill Number: H.R. 2638--The Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2009. Fourteen total projects were included at my written request which qualify as earmarks under Republican Conference guidelines as follows:

Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a unique situation as I rise to speak on something that I consider to be extremely significant, and it seems as if it has almost bipartisan and bi-House support for doing this at the same time.

We throw around a lot of numbers in this floor, and I think there's only two that I would like to emphasize right now, 52 and 4. 52 and 4. Because one of the situations that we have in this particular issue is that if you live east of the Rocky Mountains, only 4 percent of all of it is owned by the Federal Government; and 52 percent of those of us who live west of it is owned by the Federal Government, which creates a unique and significant problem.

Mr. Speaker, if I could, for a moment, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Madam Speaker, there is a song in a Broadway musical that reads ``there's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend.'' That signifies, I think, what this House has been doing this last week.

There is a real energy crisis that's harming people. There was a real energy solution, an all-of-the-above, that was not allowed the courtesy of an open debate. Instead, we passed a pretend bill that pretended to open up the offshore when it did not, that pretended that the oil in ANWR does not exist, that pretended that coal and nuclear is not a part of our solution, that pretended that there is enough money to develop alternative sources when there is not, that pretended to be a serious solution, but all it did is allow anybody, whether they voted for or against it, to go home to his or her district and say, ``I did something on energy.''

We were on the cusp of doing something great, but instead, the reality is all we did is legitimize the cynicism people have of this particular body. We could have done so much more. The fact that we did not is a sad indictment of the process of this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, when I was a young legislator in Utah, I was told that oftentimes the process we use in creating legislation is more important than the actual words of that legislation. Thus, here in Congress we have established a concept of regular order so that fair and competent legislation is brought forth that eliminates unintended consequences of poorly written provisions. So we in Congress review.

And yet, by mutual understanding, the bill we have before us has had no public hearing, no committee work, no review, no amendments by Republicans or Democrats, rank and file, no reading of this bill since it was printed after everyone had left last night. It's not a comprehensive solution. It has the appearance of competence but is not a real solution to meet the needs of real Americans. It does not work.

Let me give you one small example. The section on oil shale I originally thought was one of the bright lights in an otherwise dismal bill. And I'm sorry that my colleague--no, my colleague from Utah is still here. I congratulate him on his work.

It removes the prohibition of oil shale development that this body callously placed in last year's appropriations act, despite a chorus of bipartisan opposition to do such. But rather than simply remove the prohibition and move forward, it replaces it with a mandate of States' actions to pass a law to allow it to take place, something I personally like, something I think the industry would support, but which also has potential of constitutional implications.

There are other areas of this bill which have even more constitutional implications. And since this act has no severability clause, it simply means if one part of this bill goes down on constitutional issues, the entire bill goes down.

Rather than just take out the prohibition, it's almost as if we put in the margin a big sign that says, ``Look here to sue,'' so that outside agencies can do in court what some people have said they would like to do on the floor, which is not have a real solution.

I am saddened because we could have done so much more. We could have done so much better, and instead, we will vote on a hollow shell of a bill.