Floor Statements

Madam Chairman, first of all, I wish to thank the two gentlemen from California, Mr. McKeon and as much as I hate to, Mr. Miller as well, for continuing to work on this particular bill. To say that this bill that is before us today is vastly better than the one that came out of the committee is definitely one of the understatements of the century, and so I appreciate their efforts to continue to try to make improvements on this particular bill.

I still have some problems. You know, this is the era of the NBA draft, and every team that's involved in the NBA draft is going through all of the data. They are going through all the pictures, they are going through the reviews, and they are checking the schedules of all the players. Not one of them is basing their decisions on a couple of comments in the yearbook written in the high school year of one of the kids.

Unfortunately, this bill is based upon a GAO report that is spotty at best which dealt with anecdotal evidence, several deaths of teens that were reported in this program. My office received a very emotional call from one of those who was cited, one of the programs that was cited, saying that the death had been found to be an accident, but GAO had never asked them about it. In fact, the GAO investigator admitted the eight anecdotal cases that were brought before us, only one resulted in any kind of criminal activity which simply meant either these problems were dealt with in a professional way or the legal system failed us miserably.

The GAO investigator admitted not knowing how many problems existed and the depth of the problem, if there was any, because no official study had been done on those particular areas.

Instead, perceptions were made on these particular programs which are designed to help troubled youth, youth in difficult situations to begin with.

One of the studies I did see indicated that in a study that was done, wilderness programs like this designed for troubled kids estimate about 1.1 injuries of all kinds per 1,000 days of participation. High school football camps have 19.7 injuries per 1,000 days of participation. In fact, even average kids living at home who have a driver's license are estimated at 4.5 accidents per 1,000 days.

We are dealing with a situation here which is more anecdotal than actual, and we are still coming up with a bill, much better than what we had in committee, but still has a few problems. Subsection (J) still insists on a sex offender registry that is yet to be up and running. Subsection (M) deals with parental requirements in which the parent is supposed to give information yet there is no enforcement mechanism to ensure the parent actually gives that particular recommendation. So there is still work that needs to be done on this.

Perhaps I can end with a quote from a parent whose daughter was actually in the same program as one of those who testified in front of the committee in which she said: Improvements can only happen when they are based on reality rather than generalizations and politics.

The reality is that there are three basic approaches to residential placement of youth, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses and a different route to improve each. First, there are juvenile justice institutions; second, treatment facilities including psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment centers; and the third general type are those that we refer to as parental-choice schools and programs.

We can and need to do better, but a solution will come about from reasoned discussions and step-by-step improvements that address the real problems in each type of approach. I am dubious that the Federal Government has the ability to improve the situation. This is partly based on what I have seen in the committee hearings where the emphasis was on wringing political condemnations, blurring boundaries and appealing to ideology and biases, and partly because of chronic problems existing in the current public-funded and controlled programs.

In short, this is an approach in which the States, especially my State, are actually solving the problem in a better way right now. We do not need the Federal Government to be involved in this particular program.

I am told that one of the quirks of the system we have right now is in the State of California. Anyone who is age 14 or older can check him or herself out of a situation or a program, which may be one of the reasons why programs in other parts of the country have almost 30 percent of their residents in these parent-type choice programs coming from the State of California. Maybe in the future we should work on how California deals with the situation internally instead of having a one-size-fits-all program here when the States are close to the problem and actually have stepped up to the plate and are doing a better job in trying to emphasize and control these programs than anything that we can do here on the Federal level.

With that, once again I thank the chairman and the ranking member for improving this bill from where it was.

Madam Speaker, I rise this evening to express my appreciation to a fine public servant and military officer, former Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael T. Moseley who recently resigned on orders from the Secretary of Defense.

There are a few lingering questions regarding the scope and unfortunate timing of this unprecedented decision to dismiss both top Air Force leaders at the same time only days before the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was scheduled to issue its decision in the hotly contested $40 billion tanker program. The dismissals also come during a time of war and great stresses on Air Force personnel. No one will argue that it is not within Secretary Gates' authority to take that drastic and unprecedented action even if some of us question whether or not it was really the right thing to do given the totality of circumstances. Every military and civilian officer knows that they serve at the pleasure of the President and that they stand to be dismissed for any reason whatsoever. As professional leaders, General Moseley and former Secretary Wynne accepted that fact.

Unfortunately, the entire record of their decades of public service, notable achievements, and personal sacrifices for our country, are at risk of being lost or pushed aside due to media focus of these recent headline-grabbing events. And I regret that a handful of individuals, including Members of Congress, may be tempted to seize upon Secretary Gates' action to somehow legitimize unrelated claims in areas of disagreement with these two Air Force leaders. That would be patently unfair and unjust, and I feel an obligation to remind us all of a few points.

With particular regard to General Michael T. Moseley, it would he hard to find a more competent and experienced Air Force Chief since the service's inception over 60 years ago. Having entered the Air Force in 1971, he rose quickly through the ranks and his competency as a top F- 15 pilot led him to command responsibilities at the U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School. In addition to other command responsibilities in different parts of the world, General Moseley served as the combat Director of Operations for Joint Task Force-Southwest Asia. Like no other Air Force Chief in a generation, General Moseley demonstrated that he knew how to command air power during combat operations. Between 2001 and 2004, he served in combat, having commanded coalition air forces in Afghanistan and Iraq that employed greater precision and air- ground coordination than ever before. With advanced post graduate degrees as well, he is regarded by many as a military scholar and historian, which has given him a level of rounded perspective that has benefited the Air Force.

He served as both Vice-Chief and Chief of the Air Force during very tumultuous times in the Air Force. He became Vice Chief in 2004, and confronted with extremely challenging budget and personnel cuts posed by the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and still additional cuts mandated by the Administration, General Moseley helped to steer the Air Force through some very tough times. In so doing, and to his great credit, he always put the airmen and their families first. He recognized that our Nation unwisely took a ``holiday from history'' in the 1990s by delaying and deferring aircraft modernization, and as a result, our pilots are having to fly aircraft that are on average nearly 40 years old. We have F-15's literally flying apart in the air due to age and corrosion. We have F-16s that are nearing the end of their service-life. We have 40-year-old tankers, and 50-year-old bombers.

We have third-world nations that are fielding fighters that are, or soon will be--peers to our fourth-generation fighters. At the same time, our Administration has not been as committed to recapitalizing our fighter fleet with the F-22 and F-35 in the numbers necessary to meet validated military requirements as it should be. The Nation has taken for granted our traditional air superiority. General Moseley was right to have pointed out these vulnerabilities.

We never know in advance where our next adversary will spring from and what the origins of conflict will be. We must be prepared and strong across the full spectrum of air based threats, from both asymmetric threats and resurgent adversarial nations. General Moseley understood this very well.

Even as military operations continue in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force is called upon around-the-clock to undertake combat operations, and targeted air strikes, or to fly troops and cargo in and out of theatre, or provide intelligence platforms, and the list goes on and on.

Our ground forces have come to rely on our United States Air Force mainly because--they're so capable! That's no accident. General Moseley understood this, because he was there, actually commanding airmen in fighting operations!

It's because of visionary leaders like General Moseley that the Air Force is reliable. It takes almost 20 years to develop, test and field a new advanced weapons system like the F-22 and F-35. If we take more ``holidays from history,'' then we leave our Nation and future generations at great risk of falling behind the technology curve.

In 1938, U.S. defense planners considered the venerable P-51 (Mustang) fighter aircraft too insignificant for full funding and production to replace the more vulnerable P-38 Lightning aircraft. Once World War II was underway, it took the U.S. a few years to ramp-up production of the P-51 in sufficient numbers so that it could be useful in Europe to establish air superiority against the Germans. Back then, we were able to recover the shortfall over a few years' time. In these modern times with technology development increasing at exponential rates throughout many third-world and hostile nations, we no longer have that luxury.

Just like we're learning with the sky-rocketing costs of oil and gasoline--even if we were to immediately increase U.S. domestic production of oil resources, you can't just turn the spigot on tomorrow and have the oil flow. It takes years to do that, just as it does in the weapons procurement world. General Moseley understood this and was it forceful and persuasive advocate for modernization. This advocacy is something which, though he was absolutely correct on the facts and merits--earned him criticism when he should have found support.

General Moseley was also forward-thinking in recognizing the seriousness of the military and national security implications posed by the growing cyber security threat. His leadership resulted in the launching of the Air Force's Cyber command initiative. More than any other military department or agency of the federal government, Moseley did more than just wring his hands about the threat. He took concrete actions to demonstrate that he recognized its seriousness. He should be commended for that vision. He oversaw the dramatically-successful and historic deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in combat, and also instituted training to help instill a ``warrior ethos'' through training in hand-to-hand combat, survival and evasion skills required by the types of conflicts demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I am proud of General Moseley--that his sense of responsibility to the Air Force's overall mission led him to voice legitimate concerns on matters like the serious deficiencies in Aircraft Modernization with Congress, even at risk of his career. To me, that is real integrity. When we have hearings on the Armed Services Committee, what we're after is the real truth--unvarnished and unblinking. We're not looking for the sanitized version of the truth.

The Secretary of Defense cited a failure of leadership within the Air Force with regard to its nuclear mission. Those are, indeed, serious charges and certainly corrections within the Air Force as to procedures must continue to be made. But I want to point out that many of the systemic problems in the nuclear area mentioned in the Admiral's report are not General Moseley or Secretary Wynne's fault. The Department of Defense and the Administration share in the responsibility for the impacts of both Budget cuts and BRAC mandated targets of the past. Those cuts clearly de-funded and de-emphasized nuclear matters. Cuts in the ICBM modernization budgets and programs that were not necessarily the Air Force's preferred choice have also taken a toll in these recent incidents, and those budget cut impacts must also he acknowledged and corrected by this and future Secretaries if we are truly going to address shortfalls in nuclear surety matters. I know first-hand because during my six years in Congress, I have had to request that funding be added to the budget to cover documented shortfalls in Minuteman III modernization programs.

In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I want to conclude by thanking General Michael Moseley and Secretary Mike Wynne for their dedicated public service to our nation and our fighting men and women. From where I sit as a Member of the Armed Services Committee, I believe that both of these Air Force leaders can hold their heads high. I believe they are men of great personal integrity. I wish them both well in their future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to express my appreciation to a fine public servant and military officer, former Air Force Chief of Staff, General Michael T. Moseley, who recently resigned on orders from the Secretary of Defense.

The timing of this unprecedented decision to dismiss both top Air Force leaders only days before the decision on the tanker program, and during a time of wartime stress on Air Force personnel, is unfortunate. Nevertheless, every military and civilian officer knows that he serves at the pleasure of the President and can be dismissed for any reason. As professional leaders, General Moseley and former Secretary Wynne accepted that fact.

Unfortunately, the entire record of their decades of public service may be at risk of being pushed aside.

In particular regard to General Michael Moseley, it would be hard to find a more competent and experienced Air Force chief since the service's inception over 60 years ago. Entering the Air Force in 1971, he quickly rose through the ranks, and his competency as the top F-15 pilot led to command responsibilities around the world. Like no other Air Force Chief in a generation, General Moseley demonstrated he knew how to command air power during combat operations because he led coalition Air Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq that employed greater precision and air-ground coordination than ever before.

He served as Chief of the Air Force during a very tumultuous time. He confronted the challenging budget and personnel cuts posed by the Quadrennial Defense Review, as well as additional cuts administered or mandated by the administration.

He helped to steer the Air Force through some tough times, and in so doing, and to his credit, he always put the airmen and their families first. He recognized that our Nation unwisely took a ``holiday from history'' in the 1990s by delaying aircraft modernization and, as a result, our pilots are flying aircraft that average nearly 40 years of age. We have F-15s literally falling apart in the air. We have F-16s that are nearing the end of their service-life. We have 40-year-old tankers and 50-year-old bombers.

And we have Third World nations that are fielding fighters that are, or soon will be, equal to our fourth-generation fighters. And, at the same

time, we have not committed to recapitalizing our fighter fleet of F- 22s and F-35s in the number necessary to meet validated military requirements. It takes almost 20 years to develop, test and field a new advanced weapons system. If we take more ``holidays from history'' we leave our Nation and future generations at risk. This Nation has taken for granted our traditional air superiority. And General Moseley was right to have pointed out these vulnerabilities.

We never know in advance our next adversary. We must be prepared and strong for both asymmetric threats as well as resurgent adversarial nations, and General Moseley understood this very well.

The Air Force is still called upon around the clock to undertake combat missions, targeted air strikes, deliver troops and cargo and provide intelligence platforms.

Our ground forces have come to rely on the Air Force, mainly because, well, they're so competent. And that's no accident. General Moseley understood this because he was there actually commanding airmen in combat operations.

General Moseley recognized the national security implications posed by the growing cybersecurity threat. He did not just wring his hands. He took concrete actions to establish the Air Force Cyber Command Initiative. He oversaw the historic development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in combat, and also instituted training to help instill a ``warrior ethos'' in the Air Force. He should be commended for that vision.

I am proud of General Moseley. His sense of responsibility to the Air Force's overall mission led him to voice legitimate with Congress on matters like serious deficiencies in aircraft modernization, even at the risk of his career. To me, this is real integrity. When we have hearings on the Armed Services Committee, what we're after is the real truth, unvarnished and unblinking. We're not looking for a sanitized version. General Moseley was an advocate for modernization, and this advocacy is something which, though he was absolutely correct in both fact and merit, earned him criticisms where he should have found support.

The Secretary of Defense cited a failure of leadership within the Air Force in regards to its nuclear mission. Those are indeed serious charges, but the Department of Defense shares the responsibility through the impact of both budget cuts and BRAC mandates. These cuts clearly de-funded and de-emphasized nuclear matters. Cuts that were not the Air Force's preferred choice have taken a toll, and those budgets cuts must be acknowledged and corrected by this and future secretaries if we are truly going to address shortfalls in nuclear surety matters. I know that first-hand, as even I have had to request funding additions to cover documented shortfalls in the Minuteman III modernization program.

So in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank General Michael Moseley, as well as Secretary Michael Wynne, for their dedicated public service to our Nation and our fighting men and women. From where I sit as a member of the Armed Services Committee, I believe that both these Air Force leaders can hold their heads high. I believe they are both men of great personal integrity, and I wish them well in their future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to yield myself such time as I may consume and I would like to raise a few issues that give me pause.

As a matter of full disclosure, neither I nor any member of my family own a pet capuchin, a howler or a spider monkey. However, I admit that I'm not particularly fond of those annoying rally monkeys that seem to show up during the American League baseball playoffs.

This legislation would amend the Lacey Act to make it a Federal crime to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase a nonhuman primate pet in either interstate or foreign commerce. This measure contains the distressing trend of federalizing yet another issue that clearly falls under the jurisdiction of State fish and wildlife agencies. In fact, more than 40 States already either prohibit the ownership of monkeys or require a license or permit to own them.

It also begs the question of why is there an overriding need for this legislation? According to the proponents, nonhuman primates attack people and spread deadly diseases. Yet there have only been 132 documented incidents over a 10-year period where nonhuman primates have injured a human primate. Of these incidents, 80 involved primate pets, not covered by this bill, or less than eight attacks per year. By contrast, man's best friend sends more than 100,000 people to the hospital each year, not to mention the numerous romps in the yard ruined by the discovery of a substance left by the neighbor's schizophrenic canine friend.

Furthermore, we heard testimony before our committee that there is no documentation of pet primates being a threat to public safety. In fact, there have been no instances where a captive nonhuman primate pet has caused a disease transmission or human death. While I am not a betting man, the chances of being bitten by a pet nonhuman primate in this country appears to be about one in 38 million.

Since this is hardly a public safety issue, I wish to address this body--or direct this body if there are any Members of the body actually here--to the cost of this legislation. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it will cost $4 million a year for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who opposed this bill, to hire additional staff to conduct inspections and investigations to enforce this act. On a per incident basis, this represents about a half million dollars in U.S. public taxpayer money per bite. At that rate, I hope I can apply for the job.

At a time when our national debt is approaching a staggering $9 trillion, certainly it is legitimate to ask whether this is a wise use of taxpayer money, especially in light of the fact that the States have been and are quite capable of regulating the nonhuman primate pet trade now and in the future. Maybe we should actually spend more of our time with the human primates' energy issues instead of the nonhuman primate pet trade nonissue.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I do have a few other speakers.

I will yield as much time as the lady wishes to consume to the gentlelady from the State of North Carolina.

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to yield additional time to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland).

I think I am ready to finish out here.

One of the problems that we have had over the past is an effort, as we try to look at energy independence, is to find some kind of scapegoat, someone whom to blame, usually a corporation. The reality is that is not what we should be doing. What we should be doing is finding commonsense solutions to the problem.

Oil companies already are putting billions of dollars into research, but for every one of those holes that are drilled, there is always a delaying concept that sometimes will last between 7 and 10 years for environmental engineering studies, permitting, and then even comes the litigation and the regulation on top of that.

The bottom line is still, on our offshore coast, 85 percent and onshore 67 percent of all our land is permanently locked away where there is no way of getting to the resource assets that are there. That's the reality of what's taking place.

May I also address this bill specifically as well. The gentlelady from Guam has given seven examples of situations and problems with nonhuman primates, monkey bites. Unfortunately, every situation that was given was already covered in existing law, and the bill before us would in no way cover any of those situations.

This deals simply with transportation. It doesn't deal with the situations that were brought up. Once again, this bill does not fit the examples that have been brought up as to why the bill should be there.

The bottom line is still the Department of the Interior is opposing this bill because they say it is new enforcement mandates. They're enforcement mandates in areas they have not been historically responsible because their area is in the area of wilderness and wildlife conservation. This does not meet it.

And indeed, the Interior Department once again said that this bill is coverage that is duplicative of existing laws. And that's one of the reasons why we have a problem with this particular bill, in an area to try to expand what we're doing in an area which ought not be expanded because local governments and States have a better way and can easily, easily solve this particular problem without the extra expense to the national taxpayer.

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

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

The gentlelady from Guam has adequately explained this bill. I'd like to commend congressman Denny Rehberg and his staff for their diligence in this particular bill; grateful for all for allowing the conveyance of this 10 acres of excess Forest Service land to the community of Jefferson County, MT to be used as their cemetery.

I join the gentlelady from Guam in saying that I am glad that we can finally put this issue to rest in peace.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to yield, before I make my statement, to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. David Davis), the sponsor of this particular resolution, as much time as he may consume.

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

I rise also in support of House Resolution 1247 which endorses the goals and ideals of the American Bald Eagle Day, or American Eagle Day.

226 years ago the Second Continental Congress decided to use the image of the American bald eagle on the great American, great seal of the United States. Since that time, the image of this majestic bird has graced our art, our culture, currency, stamps, headbands, and rubber things you put around your wrist. It's been the subject of more than 2,500 published books, making the bald eagle the most extensively studied bird in North America.

While we estimate there were nearly 500,000 bald eagles on this continent, this species was particularly devastated by a reproductive failure. In response, Congress did enact the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and the bird was listed on the Endangered Species Act.

From its all-time low of 417 nesting pairs in the continental United States during the Lyndon Johnson administration, extraordinary conservation efforts have saved the bald eagle since that time, and we have witnessed a significant population increase.

Today, there are just under 10,000 breeding pairs in the lower 48, not to mention to 30,000 bald eagles living in Alaska. By any objective stand, the recovery of the bald eagle has been remarkable and sadly, one of the few success stories of the Endangered Species Act, an act that obviously needs significant reform.

The Secretary of Interior has removed the bald eagle from the Federal list of threatened endangered species, and there is no question that the bald eagle will continue to inspire millions of America, but it symbolizes fundamental values of this country: courage, freedom, patriotic spirit, and of energy development.

Under the terms of House Resolution 1247, the people of the United States are encouraged to observe American Eagle Day on June 20, to provide educational information about the bald eagle and our Nation's wildlife resources. And I also urge a ``yes'' vote.

And I want to commend and compliment the author of this resolution, Congressman Davis of Tennessee, for his effective leadership in proposing this celebration of American Eagle Day.

I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize the gentlelady from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for what time she may choose to consume.

Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may wish to consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

May I inquire how much time is left for the bald eagle to discover oil?

Let me yield myself as much time as I will go through here.

We're now looking at a whole bunch of issues that deal from an Endangered Species Act that has few examples of success--this one happens to be one of those few--to an energy policy that we have developed over the last 40 years which can only be described as discombobulated.

It seems there are a group of people who control this floor whose past policy towards energy development and energy independence was to blame Big Oil, and now that prices of gasoline are at $4 a gallon, $1.75 more than when this Congress started, it seems now we try to have an expanded policy which is to blame Big Oil and allow lawyers to sue OPEC to give us more oil.

Simply, it does not come back to the reality of the situation that we have locked resources within this country, both onshore and in this country, that can produce our own energy independence.

We have laws that already say if you have a lease, you have 5 to 10 years. The Secretary of the Interior has power already under law that if he thinks that is not being used properly, they have power to abrogate those contractual leases. However, for each one of those, we have 7 to 10 years of regulation, litigation and study, including an Interior appropriations bill that will be coming to the floor either this week or next week, which expands those restrictions and expands the moratorium that we have.

The bottom line is 30 years ago this country was producing about 11 million barrels of oil a day, and our need was 17. We had to import. Today, we produce about 8 million barrels of oil a day, and our need is 20, which means we have to import more.

We have a 22 percent reduction in production in this United States, and we're the only country in this continent that does that. Mexico has increased. Canada has increased. We have decreased our energy production, even though our needs have come up.

The chart you were looking at is somewhat skewed because it deals with only the offshore, and there's a difference to land that's documented and open and not opened to lease. The bottom line is, offshore, there's 1.7 billion acres of area that we could do to produce energy. We are doing 68 million acres. That leaves 1.6 billion acres still undiscoverable, locked away, not usable. That's 85 percent of everything we have.

The gentleman from Vermont was correct in which he said speculation is indeed driving the cost of oil, but the speculation is driving the cost of oil because the speculators believe this country will not continue to produce, that we will decline in our production. And until we have a policy that says we are going to increase our production, speculation will continue to increase, and those costs will increase.

What this Congress has to have is a comprehensive policy that says we will do more for conservation and we will do more for production of all sources of energy, alternative as well as carbon-based, and we will come up with new and innovative ways of delivering that energy. And until this Congress actually sits down and says we will have a comprehensive energy policy, all the data, all the instructions, everything else we're talking about is nothing more than useless rhetoric.

Interesting facts, totally irrelevant to the needs of the time. The needs are people are suffering now, and we need to do something to help those people who are suffering. And we have to have a comprehensive policy which does include increases of production of all sources of energy.

The gentlelady from Guam will be happy to know, I'm the last speaker on this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution that was introduced by our colleagues from southern California.

The Orange County Water District has experienced rapid changes since it was created in 1933. It once relied on pumping ground water for agriculture, now it uses a combination of sources, including imported and recycled water, for its urban needs. Due to environmental litigation, the Orange County Water District will more than likely experience significant imported water cutbacks, leading to higher water costs that will be passed on to the consumers.

These same water reductions are forcing family farmers to fallow ground and let their crops die. The situation is so dire the Governor of California, Governor Schwarzenegger, last week declared parts of California under a state of emergency. These same family farmers are experiencing higher costs of living caused by the high cost of water as well as the high cost of gasoline prices. It is almost a perfect storm, and yet we have done nothing to help them to reduce those gas and oil prices.

This resolution is a nice reward to Orange County Water District for its hard work over the years, but Congress' time actually should be spent in devising energy solutions because, once again, real people are suffering and real needs are there.

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

I yield such time as he may consume to another of the good representatives of southern California, the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The gentlelady from Guam has, once again, in her role as the bill manager, adequately explained the legislation that has been introduced by our colleague from New Mexico, Tom Udall. And it is also supported by our committee colleague, the ranking member on the Energy and Mineral Resources subcommittee, himself an expert on energy, Steve Pearce. Both of them are trying to seek to provide alternative water sources to communities in eastern New Mexico.

One thing that is not contemplated in this bill is, of course, how much energy it will take to pump the water over almost 100 miles of pipeline. Water pumping costs for this project will require massive amounts of electricity. It is unclear on how we, as a country, are planning on generating that electricity in the future. But since commitments have been made to work on specific committee report language involving land owner rights and military contributions to this particular water project, we certainly have no objection at this point to this bill and would also urge a favorable vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support for the bill that was introduced by our committee colleague, Doug Lamborn of Colorado. The Leadville Mine Tunnel was supposed to be used for a nearby Federal water project but has ended up becoming a public danger. It has been on the verge of bursting and sending what is presumed to be chemical-laden water toward local homes. The Bureau of Reclamation owns the tunnel and must be responsible for resolving the situation. And that is what this bipartisan bill accomplishes.

The Leadville Mine, addressed in this bill, was used during World War II and the Korean War to supply critical metals to help our Nation. Years ago, our Nation smartly invested in mining our natural resources. Yet today, the mining industry is under attack by some and by many. And the net effect, of course, has been to outsource U.S. jobs to countries that have commonsense environmental regulations and an increase in consumer prices to those here at home. It would be nice if Congress would promote our own mining industry and not destroy it by 1,000 cuts. America does deserve better.

This bill, though, solves a particular problem that is faced in Colorado. It is a bipartisan bill. And I urge its adoption.

Once again, I have no other speakers on this particular bill. Does the gentlelady have any other speakers?

I will yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, gas prices have finally hit $4 a gallon. That's $1.71 higher than when we first met as a Congress, and the Speaker said she had a secret plan to lower those costs.

Yet rather than talking about energy issues, we are talking, spending time to find scapegoats to blame for those costs, not realizing that for every dollar that goes up in energy costs, jobs are lost, income is reduced, our social programs are harmed and people simply suffer. We should be fighting for these issues, for the 1,100 people that worked for American Airlines but were fired because they couldn't afford the gas for 100 planes; for the Washington, D.C., cabbie who, for the first time in his life, cannot greet his kids at home when they come home from school because he has to work 2 hours a day longer for the same amount of money; for the Virginia father who can no longer attend his father-and-son outing because he can't afford the gas to go there.

People are suffering, and, instead, we are here on the floor dealing with congressional minutia. We must be dealing with legislation to improve conservation, improve production and improve innovations of how we deliver those fuel sources to the people. Otherwise we will become, as John Adams said, one useless man is disgraced, two are a law firm, and three or more become a Congress.

The people have had this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, before I give my opening statement, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Brown).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Sali).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest).

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

So here we are debating a bill under a rule which we all know should have best been under a suspension. It's not a perfect bill. If they accept an amendment later on, it will be a perfect bill. But for any imperfections that are here, this bill has far better drafting, far better intent, far more bipartisanship than perhaps some illogical partisan gamesmanship that produced vociferous debate under suspensions yesterday.

But one would wonder why we are taking time on the floor to consider a bill which was passed out of the Resources Committee by a voice vote and a bill in which I intend to vote in favor? What is it about this bill that is actually so important that we are talking about it rather than other more pressing national issues such as an energy crisis? Why does such a relatively innocuous bill take precedence over finding solutions to gas prices that are now around $4 a gallon and probably going higher?

It must be that this bill accomplishes something so dramatically important that we are foolish to consider other issues, such as national security or our deepening dependence on foreign oil.

This bill deals with an area that includes no Federal waters. There are no Federal assets that are a part of it. It could easily be done with an inter-local cooperating agreement, which many States in the West use. Instead, the Federal Government is involved in that. Despite that fact, I still intend on voting for this particular bill.

This is a recreational bill. This bill provides moneys for trails, maps, signs, and all the nice things in the quest of healthy outdoor recreation in the Chesapeake Bay region. This program was originally authorized in 1998 as a 5-year program, and then reauthorized for another 5 years in 2002. And now the authorization, not for the program but for the appropriations for this program, are set to expire and the proponents are offering this legislation to authorize funding this program for eternity.

There will be no caps on the funds that can be appropriated for this program, no time limit. Maybe this is such a big priority for the Democratic majority because the National Park Service testified this program has received $7.7 million in earmarks since its creation. Maybe the Democrats wish to preserve a conduit for earmarks masquerading as a recreation bill. This is what takes precedence over national security and the energy crisis here on the floor of the House.

Yet, I don't object to the earmarks that were made for this particular bill, even though some of them are different. Part of the money that goes to this particular bill or has been earmarked in the past has been $20,000 dollars for a Native American interpretive brochure. I don't oppose that. Funds go into this for a Dino-Mania! Camp-In so that people can delve into the world of dinosaurs as your family spends the night in a Virginia Living Museum, explore how big some dinosaurs were, find out what might have caused their extinction, and it also comes with an evening snack and a breakfast.

My favorite, the Tree Spirits. The ancients believed the trees had spirits, and if you look hard enough, you see them in this woody bark. This workshop will focus on the old beliefs to trees, their meaning, their practical purposes. Fathers and sons will join the rangers on a hike as we scavenge the materials to make our own Tree Spirits for you all.

I actually don't object to that. I still intend to vote for this particular bill.

Nature hikes, picnics in the park, learning about ecology are causes to champion, and I'd be happy to support those things, but this bill doesn't solve the major threat to those activities. How will one be able to afford to get to these outdoor locations, enjoy these earmarks when the gas is too expensive to allow them to travel anywhere. At this point, Americans are not working to live, they are working to pay for the gas to get to work and back home. With gas at $4 a gallon, weekend family visits to the Chesapeake are becoming less and less of a possibility.

Unfortunately, our unwillingness to address the dramatic spike in energy prices today hurts American families, not only by putting some recreational activities beyond their reach, but by wrecking the household budget for basics, such as food, electricity, and medicine. Some people talk about our goal should be to get revenge on companies that produce energy, but such a program does not add one barrel of energy to meet the demands of the present time.

The Resources Committee, from which this legislation originated, is the same committee that has jurisdiction over domestic resources, resources on public lands, such as the Outer Continental Shelf and ANWR. It's past time for the Resource Committee to stop in its quest to become merely a ``Recreation Committee.'' This country has locked up more resources in America than other nations have in their entire country. America is blessed with a wealth of natural resources and historically we have had the unique ability to develop and continuously improve the technology needed to use these resources.

We have faced and overcome bigger challenges in the past, but we in Congress must act now to meet the critical energy needs of today. We need to stop creating obstacles to domestic energy production so the American people can get to work and solve the problem. That should be the priority of the people, that should be our priority as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am happy to yield 4 minutes to the newest member of the Virginia delegation, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman).

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

Mr. Speaker, if you recall back to the movie ``The Natural,'' if you remember there is that one wonderful scene where this mythical team, the New York Knights, have called in a psychologist to talk to the team to try to get them out of their losing slump. And as they are sitting there, talking to these ballplayers he says, ``The mind is a strange thing, men. We must begin by asking, what is losing? Losing is a disease that is as contagious as syphilis. Losing is a disease as contagious as the bubonic plague, attacking one, but infecting all. But curable. Now I want you to imagine you are on a vast ocean. You are on a ship at sea gently rocking, gently rocking, gently rocking, gently rocking.''

In that scene Roy Hobbs, now in disgust, breaks out of that and leaves this therapy session, because he recognizes that the solution to their losing season is not sitting there talking philosophically about it, but actually going out on the field and doing something.

We today in the issue of energy are in the mode of simply talking about it. All we are doing is coming here and talking about these theoretical approaches, gently rocking, gently rocking. We are talking about building straw men that we can then knock about, whether it is big oil or a so-called bubble, or yesterday someone said the reason we are paying so much at the pump is because of Enron. Ken Lay has somehow reached up from the dead and somehow hiked up the price of gasoline. And our only solution to this entire situation so far is we have passed a piece of legislation that allows lawyers to go out and sue OPEC, in the hopes that maybe they might give us some more energy money.

It is almost as if what we are trying to say is we are going to have everyone sit down and listen to a psychologist that will try and convince us that freezing in the dark can be an enjoyable thing if we just have the right attitude towards it, because losing is simply a mind game and it is contagious.

What Roy Hobbs did is the exact opposite. He left that stuff. He went out on the field, he knocked the cover off the ball, and when they actually started doing something, that is when this mythical New York Knights team started to win.

If we want to solve the problem of energy for American citizens, we have got to stop, quit talking about it and our secret plans and coming up with these mythical enemies which we want to attack, and we simply have to go out and do something. And that means production now. We cannot sit here simply idly by while American people are suffering without actually doing something in reality. And that means yes on conservation, but it also means we have to increase production. If we don't do that, recreational opportunities like this particular bill have no purpose and have no meaning. There is nothing left for them to do.

If I could give a few statements that have been given by people who live in this area and who will be impacted by this particular bill and what they are

saying about the energy issues and how it impacts and affects them.

``Repercussions,'' a quote here, ``from the escalating price of fuel are felt everywhere. Sportsfishing is no exception. Neither is the business of chartering, headboating or commercial fishing. The same applies to businesses associated with fishing. One big tackle shop proprietor told the other day, `I have four people and myself working now and not a single customer in the shop. Haven't seen one in 10 minutes.'''

``Alex DeMetrick reports gas prices are soaring, having an impact on those who depend on boats and the Bay to make a living. Naming a work boat the `Last Penny,' which may have been a stab at some kind of subtle humor, it is striking a little too close to reality at the fuel docks around the bay as diesel is now at $4.50 a gallon and climbing. `Gas is doubling and the price of seafood is going down,' said one of the watermen who works there. `Working the water takes constant moving, but with crabs spotty and fuel high, watermen are trying to conserve. They are hurting us bad,' he says. `It's almost double in the past year, so it is taking a right good bite out of us,' says another one of the watermen who works there.''

Over at Dredge Harbor, New Jersey, another one of those people who work there said high gas prices are also affecting his customers. ``Instead of taking four trips down the Chesapeake Bay, they now might take two trips this year, and most of their customers use their boats as homes afloat so they can conserve as much fuel as possible. High prices are somewhat affecting the sales.''

Another one of the reports from this area, ``Elevated prices are causing some charter fishing captains to want to jump overboard.'' As one said who owns a yacht yard, he is selling gas for $4.20 per gallon at his fuel dock, and he has noticed fewer and fewer small power boats on the water.

What we are simply doing as we go along with this, there are other people that simply say, ``Now I can see no way of getting over the hump of fuel costs. We have got good fishing, but we have fewer and fewer customers. With gas prices going this way, we are simply losing the opportunity of using this resource for the purpose in which it was therefore designed. High costs not only affect the fishing industry on the water, local businesses are also feeling the gas price pinch. A local tackle shop simply said, `I still got people working there and no one is coming in there.' Gas prices are dipping into his resources and his ability to make a living.''

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have?

One of the things we have to deal with if we are actually going to deal in a proper way with the reauthorization of this entire program is to understand that if we are going to have these types of opportunities, either for people to recreate, people to learn, people to enjoy, people to enhance their entire environment, we have got to be able to get them there. Kind of like today. We seem to be needing to get people up from the White House, in which case they are walking because we can't afford the fuel to put them on buses to get them here. Therefore, things change because of those circumstances, and it is one of those concepts in which we are working.

If we really need to be serious about this, we have to realize that our energy crisis today is limiting the ability to experience this type of an environment, this type of attitude and this process. And if we want to make full use of the Chesapeake Bay resources that are there, we have to make sure that real people have the opportunity of going there and experiencing it. Because when we talk about oil prices, we are not simply talking about some concept, some ethereal project that is out there. We are talking about real people, how they live, how their jobs work, how they get to the chance to recreate and make their lives fuller and better. And that has to be an integral part of this discussion, ought to be an integral part. In fact, it is a more significant part of this discussion on a bill that still is a decent bill that should have been done as a suspension, not as a rule here on the floor.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I would still like to try and reemphasize as we are talking about this particular bill is this bill deals with the reauthorization of the appropriations concept. This is not about cleaning up the environment. Several of the speakers who have spoken today talked about the necessity of environmental protection. This is not the EPA's program. This is a wholly separate issue and a separate concept.

One of the things that we should keep in mind is the purpose and the concept of an authorizing committee, is an authorizing committee should be reviewing what we are trying to do at periodic bases. That is our purpose.

One of the things in this particular bill that is a problem, is problematic to the future, is that it rejects the ability of Congress to take periodic reviews of this particular program. When it was first initiated in 1998, there was a 5-year statute in which we would then review it. In 2002 we reviewed it. We are now looking at a bill that I think we are all going to agree is needed to go forward, but there still should be some kind of review.

It should not be forgotten that when we voted this particular bill in the Resource Committee on a voice vote, there were six other bills at that time similar in scope, similar in fashion, similar in funding, but each of them had a periodic review attached to it. So a bill by Mr. Udall, a bill by Ms. Baldwin, a bill by Mr. Bilbray, by Mrs. Bono Mack and Ms. Bordallo, all of them had the responsibility of allowing Congress to do what it is supposed to do and try to take some kind of review at regular basic intervals.

That still is the wisest approach to it. It is one of the few flaws that I actually find in this particular bill, and it is one of those flaws that probably should be addressed.

We talked about the kinds of grants that have been awarded in the past. There are $7.7 million worth of earmarks not asked by the agency that have been added to this. We have added grants in certain years that have been, for example, $34,000 for the Chesapeake Bay Marine Museum, $21,000 for the Stratford Hall Plantation; $12,000 for the Mason Neck State Park; and $18,000 for the Annapolis Maritime Museum. I am not objecting to these as being inappropriate. In fact, I could probably argue they were appropriate and they were needful. They are useful. But I am

saying that what Congress should do if we actually fulfill our responsibility is make sure that we look at these on a periodic basis, and that should be part of the statute. That is what we commonly do in most pieces of legislation, and it all should be part of this legislation at the same time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, one more time, if we can try and emphasize the point of this.

This is still a decent bill. There are a few flaws, but it is a decent bill and I support it going forward with this particular bill. There are still some changes I would like to see in that bill.

Also, we must realize, though, that if we are talking about the overall use of this bill, we are taking time on the floor when we should be talking about much more significant and vital issues than this particular bill.

Having a rule on this bill is a strange use of the time of Congress, especially when there are much more significant issues that need to be debated and discussed at this particular time. And even though I plan on voting for this bill, it is one of those things that is still sad that we are as a Congress not addressing the core issues for which the people have sent us here and not looking at what should be the core issues for which the people have sent us here.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk made in order under the rule.

Mr. Speaker, the amendment that I proposed here was actually proposed in the committee as well, and it is an amendment which in all sincerity is an effort to try and make a good bill into a very, very good bill. It has no intentions whatsoever of trying to derail the path of successful completion of this particular bill, but actually solve a problem and present a sense of comfort that might not necessarily be there as the bill proceeds to the other body.

We are dealing, obviously, as some people have--not here on the floor, for all of us here on the floor who are Members, but some people have said that this is simply a sunsetting provision. It is not that. This program is not going to be sunsetted. But there is an authorization of appropriations which desperately needs that time to be looked at.

My amendment is designed to bring this bill in line with all the other bills that we have passed out of the Resources Committee this year. Typically

in the Resources Committee we review authorizations on specific periods of time. For this reason, I anxiously anticipate the support of Democratic colleagues, because this is good government. It is a fiscally responsible amendment.

My amendment reauthorizes the review of this program after 5 years. This is a compromise between the National Park Service request, which was no authorization at all. They were fine about technical assistance, but they suggested there should be no more grants given to this program, as they said this program has matured enough and don't need any more, and the bill's sponsor who was asking for an eternal unending authorization of appropriations. Five years was good enough the first time this program was authorized, it was sufficient when this program was reauthorized, and it ought to be a sufficient time for Congress not to abrogate our responsibility but do our responsibility to review the programs that we authorize and how they are being funded.

There is a reason we add these positions to bills. As I told you in the committee, the very committee that sent this bill out, there were six other bills in a similar status; and on each of those six bills we put in this process so that the committee could review that authorization and the funding source and what those programs were doing at 5-year intervals. Some bills we have passed out have no time limits, but in every situation they have funding limitations that are put on them. This particular bill in the course it is drafted right now has no funding limitation nor any review process to it. And that is where it can be improved.

There is a reason we add these provisions to bills. Without them, programs have a tendency of languishing, depending upon Federal funds, where we want them to encourage recipients of these funds to use them wisely and to have an incentive to produce results. When programs expire, we have a chance to reevaluate them and conduct this oversight. That is our responsibility as an authorizing committee and as Congress as a whole, and we should not abrogate that responsibility. Without my amendment, we are relinquishing our oversight and leaving it simply to appropriators.

Already this program has received, as I said earlier, $7.7 million in unrequested earmarks. This bill also eliminates the annual cap on the funds that are eligible to be received. I understand that this has been an excellent conduit for earmarks, but let us not lose the fiscal responsibility that we have to do and get away from simply handing out a blank check.

I mentioned earlier parts of the program that are funded, somewhat sarcastically, I admit. They do sound on the surface humorous. I am not opposed to what they are doing; I am not opposed to those programs. I am simply saying that Congress should have the responsibility of looking at those at a regular period. That is our job.

It is nearing impossibility for the average family to drive to any of these recreation areas; much of the responsibility for that lies here in Congress as well. Despite that fact, the other side of the aisle is unwilling to increase oil and gas reductions. I hope they will cut the taxpayers at least a small break by accepting this good government amendment, and allow us to review how the money is spent on a periodic basis as we traditionally do in most bills that come out of this committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate one more time the opportunity of talking about this.

It is one of the fundamental elements that we have as the concept of good government that Congress should exercise its right of oversight on programs. Even if we authorize a program, however good it should be, there still should be at a regular basis an oversight. It is not threatening to a program. It is the responsibility of Congress.

We do have a bunch of programs that simply run without that kind of oversight. Some programs whose authorization has lapsed still function on. That is not the concept of good government. We have things especially in our area, Coastal Zone Management, Endangered Species Act whose reauthorization has lapsed, still functions on under their authorization by the appropriators, but it needs to be reviewed by the Appropriations Committee. That is its purpose.

We have some programs that are permanent, that have no oversight whatsoever: Defense, food stamps, child health care, school lunches. But, once again, in each of those areas what Congress should be doing is exercising our responsibility, and simply saying there is nothing that we should pass that shouldn't ask Congress to relook at a bill and relook at a program, and evaluate the essence of that program if it is still the most significant thing we should be doing. Or perhaps our priorities have changed. That should not be seen as an attack on the bill, it should not be seen as something that is negative or unfriendly. It should be seen as something simply as reauthorizing and re-recognizing what we are supposed to be doing. That is our job as representatives of the people, is to constantly be looking at what we have authorized, reevaluate, and reappropriate. And we are doing something in this particular amendment in an effort to do that at a 5- year basis. That is not illogical. In fact, that is the norm. That is rational. That is what usually happens in these particular situations, and it is what should happen in this particular situation. Again, it is nothing again to try to harm the bill in any way; it is simply an effort to try to move us forward to make sure that Congress does its job, and does its job on a regular, appropriate level. That is why we are here. We should not abrogate that responsibility. We should accept that. We should embrace it. And we should try to move forward from that position.

I apologize for trying to elongate this in some particular way. I think I have said repeatedly what the crux of this issue is. This is not a proposition from Liechtenstein; this is simply the concept of, do we periodically review what we authorize. It is a plus thing that we should be doing.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I have to join with Representative Kildee in thanking you for being here and being part of the system and for the service that you have rendered. I hope it has been profitable for all of you as it has been profitable for us as we benefited from your particular system here, and I hope it also spurs you to have a continued interest in government and in politics. I realize that is not the norm.

When I was born, my father was mayor of the community. I always saw him involved in politics. I thought every family did that. What I found out, quite frankly, is that it is atypical. But what I hope for you is it is not atypical, and this spurs you on to continue to want to study, to participate and be a part of government.

The brilliance of our system of lay government is that common people can come together and you don't have to be trained to do this job. I know the way we do it, you think probably we should be trained. But, at the same time, common people can talk about issues and can make decisions for themselves.

We are both old teachers. As a history teacher, I now get to talk about F-22s and F-35s and public land policy and can do that because that is the way the system is designed. And through all of the flaws and the bumps and the grinds, the bottom line is still our system works.

I encourage you as you go back there to finish your education, become involved in your communities, become involved in your political parties, become involved in the system, and keep that encouragement, that interest alive. The future of this country depends upon you doing that.

So thank you for being here.

Could I also ask that Representative Foxx from North Carolina, who is a member of the board, come and express her opinion as well.

Just stay involved, stay active, and stay the overachievers you are. Thank you for your service here. We have appreciated you.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the recognition and the opportunity to say a few words on the topic that has been talked about here on the floor repeatedly as well as by our constituents on almost a daily basis.

For those of you who may not have heard it originally earlier this morning, I want to harken back once again to that old movie, ``The Natural.'' As you will remember, the fictional team--the New York Knights--in an effort to try and stop their losing streak, brought in a psychologist to speak to them, to the team.

As he was sitting there, talking to them, he simply said, ``The mind is a strange thing, men.''

We must begin by asking what is ``losing.'' ``Losing'' is a disease as contagious as syphilis. ``Losing'' is a disease as contagious as the Bubonic plague, attacking one but infecting all. Now, imagine, if you will, you're on a ship at sea on a vast ocean, gently rocking, gently rocking, gently rocking, gently rocking.

At that stage, Roy Hobbs, not being able to take it anymore, realizing the possibility that actually winning a game has nothing to do with talking to a psychologist or to a psychiatrist at the team meeting but that it has everything to do with performance on the field, just bolted out of the room and ran up there because he couldn't take it anymore.

What Roy Hobbs realized is, if you are going to be successful, it has got to take action. You have to do something. There are too many people on this floor who have been talking and talking about energy. There are too many people who have tried to find scapegoats to blame for the energy situation we are in. They blame Big Oil. They tell you we're in an energy bubble of some kind. Yesterday, someone even suggested that Enron was the reason. The only thing we have done under the auspices of the majority party so far here is allow attorneys to go and sue OPEC countries so they'll give us more oil. Now, that is like talking to them and simply saying, ``Lack of energy is a disease.''

Imagine you're on a ship, on a vast ocean of oil, gently rocking, gently rocking, but are not doing anything to get the job done. Indeed, if we continue on that pattern, we can be living in reality the words of the book, which are simply ``how we get along by freezing in the dark.''

See, what Roy Hobbs understood in the movie was that, if you want to win, you don't get there by talking about it. You have to get out and do something. He went out on the field; he was given a chance to play, and he pounded the crap out of the ball. In so doing, he was able to be successful, and the New York Knights started to win, to win more than they ever had again.

One of the things this party is talking about is, if given the chance to play one more time on the field, we will go out there, and we will do things. We will promote action. We will not be satisfied with simply the psychology of saying, ``We will freeze in the dark and accept it and be happy about it.'' We will produce energy to eliminate the need for the consumption. Because you see? It is, indeed, an attitude. Our attitude should be that we are not accepting the status quo and that we are not going to be satisfied until we have a new goal in this country, which is to be energy-secure and energy-independent. That has to be our goal and that we are going to do things now to do it.

I hate to say this, but I am one of those who strongly supports American energy production. There was a time, if you actually admitted that in public, it was kind of like you're in favor of drowning kittens, but with gasoline's now costing $4 a gallon and being likely to rise, people's attitudes have now been changing. Some people used to say, if you were for American energy production, you were merely a shill for Big Oil. Unfortunately, there are still people who are saying that, but that's not the reality.

Who I am fighting for are the people who are being impacted by our energy crisis. I am fighting for the thousands of natural gas users in my home State of Utah who are going to be asked to pay next winter to heat their homes at an increased cost of around 36 percent. It will be the largest increase in their ability to heat their homes in the history of this country.

I am fighting for 1,100 citizens who lost their jobs last week and for the countless others who are going to pay increased ticket prices with the airlines because United Airlines announced it was cutting 1,100 jobs and was removing 100 airplanes from its fleet because it could not contain the spiraling oil fuel prices.

I am fighting for an Ethiopian-born, Washington, D.C. cab driver who for the first time since his kids started school was unable to greet them when they came home from school because, every day, he now has to work 2 hours longer just to make the same daily income he was making before this energy, gas price spiked.

I am fighting for people like Christine of Utah, who is actually selling her plasma now to make ends meet with this high-energy demand.

I am fighting for dozens of citizens in my State who are reportedly selling their jewelry, electronics--even one gold tooth--in order to cover the high cost of gasoline.

I am fighting for a young father in Virginia who was not able to attend his father-and-son outing last month because the cost of the gasoline to go there was too excessive.

I am fighting for the students in Nevada's Clark County School District who are facing a 62 percent budget overrun solely because of the amount of gas it takes to run the school buses in that county's district.

I am fighting for citizens in my home State who choose to risk imprisonment in order to fill up their tanks. One Utah minivan and truck driver, a minivan and truck that belong to the Alpine Medical Equipment Company, had his gas tank drilled, and the sole motive was to steal the gas in his tank.

Because of that, there were 30 needy people who did not receive their scheduled deliveries of oxygen tanks, wheelchairs and beds at their homes on that particular day.

Now, to my Democratic colleagues, I want you to notice there was no mention in that litany of people of Exxon or of Shell or of Conoco or of BP or of Chevron or of all of the other Big Oil scapegoats that we often hear about. But let me make no mistake. I do support these entities because I am for a fair and level-headed recognition that our main focus, that our main mission in this country, must be to deliver and to develop cheap, affordable energy for American citizens. They are not public enemy number one nor should we try and push off on scapegoats the inability to do that. We have the ability. We have the resources. That's why we're fighting today, and I will not cower in support of average Americans who need this kind of support.

Now, in so doing, the Western Caucus, of which I am a member, will be introducing a bill that is trying to do what needs to be done, which is to make sure that we have a comprehensive approach to energy development. Conservation is a key element in meeting our energy needs, but that alone will not solve the problem. Production of all means of energy because there is no one, single, silver bullet is a key element. That alone will not meet the needs. Innovation is also needed, innovation in some kind of effort that, when we have the new sources of energy that we can develop, we need to be able to deliver those sources of energy.

So the three elements that have to be in any particular bill and will be in a comprehensive American energy act are the concepts of pushing conservation, of pushing production and of pushing innovation, not necessarily in any particular order. All three of them have to be there if we are ever going to meet the needs of the American people. It has to be there.

There are some who would like to try and single out some particular area. There is a city in France that is kind of going back to the future. In fact, what the city in France did is they got rid of their entire municipal fleet, and instead of their municipal fleet of automobiles, they bought horse-drawn carriages. They are called eco- friendly, horse-drawn carriages. Each one of those fleets costs $17,000. They feature disk brakes, signal lamps, removable seats. That's how they're trying to solve their energy problem.

Now, the only thing I will caution once again, when we try to go backwards into history to try to solve our problems rather than using modern technology, is that, in 1900 in New York City, just before the automobile was introduced and everything was once again with those eco- friendly, horse-drawn carriages, New York City produced 90,000 tons of horse manure every year, not to mention the millions of gallons of horse urine every year. I'm sorry. That had to be disposed of, most of it in the water.

What they found in New York City is that it was impossible to get rid of all of the horse droppings, and therefore, there was on the streets a fine mist, a mist that was always in the air, and there was an endemic tuberculosis problem to the point where environmentalists in New York City, when automobiles were finally introduced, were happy because, for the first time, they could limit the amount of horse-drawn carriages and could actually improve the health of citizens in New York.

Sometimes, trying to go back in history or try to find a cheap, easy way is not the solution. The solution is technology. Technology can present solutions to all of our problems. Sometimes it's a long time in coming, sometimes it comes as rapidly as new cell phone plans.

Consider in 1900 what Jules Vern must have thought as he predicted in the future in his writings. Did he ever realize we would go from radios to iPods, from antibiotics to organ transplants? Do you think he actually envisioned the concept of bottled water? All those things are results of technology.

New technology will allow us to better use our existing energy resources, and that technology, which has to be part of this equation, the innovation part, has to be both in the public and the private sector. We need a major overhaul of the way Washington manages our input. We cannot solve all our problems by bringing in a bunch of experts to sit in a room in Washington. We must reach out with an aggressive national research effort.

One of the reasons we want to produce more energy in the United States is because the royalties we use can, and in this bill, will be funneled back into research so that technology can find even better ways of doing things. We also have to realize that as we are looking for that, it has to be market-driven. We cannot have an over-reliance on old technologies and uneconomical resources simply because they happen to be politically successful here in Washington.

The best way to destroy this effort of using technology is to allow government to pick winners and losers. It has to be done through the concept of the private sector. Federal mandates and massive government programs will not solve the problem. Certainly we will have government- funded labs. But they cannot be the only solution. I do not believe it is the only, nor is it the most practical way of solving our problem. If we want to think of how we can spur on innovation, what we have to do is tap the greatest resource this country has, which is the American people.

Just think of what American people have been able to do in history. In 1784, we invented bifocals, something I still don't use; 1794, the cotton gin, and it changed the world; 1805, Americans invented refrigerators, and the next year, coffeepots; 1837, it was power tools; 1849, the safety pin; 1867, the typewriter, which revolutionized the way information is handled; 1867, it was barbed wire, which enabled us to secure the West. Even more important, and also in 1867, we invented for the first time toilet paper.

In 1888, it was revolving doors. Three years later, it was escalators, which evolved into the Ferris wheel the next year. In 1903, crayons; 1905, windshield wipers; 1930, Scotch tape; 1945, microwaves; 1955, nuclear submarines; 1957, polio vaccine; 1970, optical fiber; 1972, the artificial heart. It continues on and on.

Clearly, a country creative enough to come up with bifocals, the first oil well, the first blue jeans, the first telephone, the first crayon, not to mention airplanes, lasers, computers, everything else, is capable of developing the next source of energy and the technology to develop and deliver that energy.

If we look at history, it's likely that we would have even begun it before we imagined it today. How are we able to do that? By doing what our bill proposes to do and presenting prizes for technological breakthroughs in innovation.

I remind you that the British government offered a prize in 1714 for a device capable of measuring longitude, and John Harrison, a clock maker, got 20,000 pounds for devising the first accurate and durable chronometer that transformed the way we traveled across the oceans. In 1810, the first vacuum-sealed food was produced, after 15 years of experimentation, because Napoleon offered 12,000 Francs as a prize. We still use that technology today.

Will the Speaker be kind enough to tell us how much time remains.

In 1909, the first flight across the English Channel was spurred on by a prize from a newspaper. Charles Lindbergh made his flight, nonstop flight from New York to Paris because there was a prize offered. And a $30 billion aviation industry sprang out of that. The British Spitfire, which saved England in the Battle of Britain, was developed as a result of the Snyder Trophy, a prize for technological development.

The United States Government also offers prizes today with its NASA Centennial Challenge Program, and it reaches out to nontraditional sources of innovation in academia, in industry, as well as the public.

Americans have always looked to ourselves for solutions. If we just have the confidence in American ingenuity, American creativity to deal and to overcome our problems and to insist that we do it now, we do not wait, I am confident that we can do that.

As I said, in all sincerity, if we are to solve the problem at the gas pump

today, there are three elements that have to be there. We have to be able to produce more, to conserve more, and especially to innovate.

I am happy to be joined by my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) and ask him if he would join us and talk about one of these areas which is extremely important to him, and he knows so much about it, that is the production end that has to go along with the increased technology for the innovation, as well as conservation. But without production, we cannot make it fit.

I am sure if we can have one of our good pages bring the easel and the first of the charts here, it can illustrate exactly what we are talking about as we move forward in this particular piece of legislation in an effort to try and make sure that we have a complete and rational policy towards energy production and solving the problems of people; letting them have their lives back with cheap and affordable American energy.

Would the speaker yield for a question?

It is my understanding that in the natural forests of the United States, owned by the United States, we grow about 40 billion board feet of new growth a year.

We have about 20 billion board feet of new death a year.

It's my understanding the Forest Service is only removing about 2 billion, not 20 billion, but 2 billion board feet a year. Is that not a potential plus for it, and is it also not true that this Congress prohibited any new development in that area?

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, who has done a great job in explaining the reality of the situation that we have and the reality of what our future can be if we are willing to take to the field right now and do it. So we are fine.

What we hope to do when we do a comprehensive bill is actually provide 12 steps that will fit what Mr. Peterson was talking about and the three goals: Increasing our conservation, increasing our production and increasing our innovation.

Those 12 steps are very simple.

First is increasing American natural gas. As Mr. Peterson just told you, we could heat 100 homes for the next 30 years with the natural gas we have available but not yet developed in this country alone.

Step two, increase American oil resources that we have in this country. We have increased the amount of oil we import seven times since the 1970s, and we decreased our exploration and production of American oil in the 1970s because of American policies, government policies. And the only thing we need to do to increase that so we can recover American oil supply is change American government policies.

Step three, look at coal, American coal. We have 200 to 300 years' worth of coal undeveloped, unsecured in this country.

Step four, develop American oil shale. 70 percent of all the oil shale in the world is in three western States in the United States, where there is more undeveloped oil than underneath the entire country of Saudi Arabia.

Step five, increase affordable and clean nuclear fuel. Since the 1970s, we have had no new nuclear power plant built, while our friends in France in that same time period have built 58 plants. That has to be part of a future solution.

Step six, we have to invest more in renewable sources of energy: Sunlight, wind, rain, tide, geothermal heat. All of those have to be increased. Right now, only about 7 percent of the total energy consumption comes from renewables. We are not going to solve the problem by this source alone; but if we could increase that, double it to 15 percent, 16 percent, 17 percent, we would

go a long way toward doing that. And part of the way of doing that is government policy again. When we try to improve our solar and wind power plants, if we would simply extend the investment tax credits by another 5 years we could start moving forward dramatically today in that particular area.

Step seven, greater efficiency and conservation, and especially giving incentives for the government to do that, for individuals, business, as well as government. And the reason I actually put business in there, they are already doing it. The U.S. steel industry today uses 45 percent less energy to produce 1 ton of steel. The U.S. forest and paper industry today uses 21 percent less energy to produce 1 ton of paper. We have the technology to do that. What the American government needs to do is to provide rewards for individuals and the government to do the same thing that the business community has taken on as a means of being profitable.

Step eight, we increase our gasoline refinement capacity. We all know we produce in the United States about 17 million barrels of oil a day, but our consumption need is 21 million barrels of oil today. And we all know we haven't built a new refinery since 1976; and only 23 years ago we had 324 operating refineries, today we have 148 operating refineries. And for those who are operating, they are still only marginal because the market does not bear them. What we have to have is increasing supply of American oil going to American refineries; we need, and this bill calls for, an additional 10 new refineries immediately built on property owned by the Department of Energy to do that part.

Step nine, to adopt common sense regulatory relief. Department of Interior suggests that we have about 80 billion barrels of recoverable oil and natural gas that are locked away because of regulatory controls that Congress has put on those areas. Our need for standards don't have to be sold out, but they need desperately to be reformed simply so we can make decisions faster, because we need relief now, not sometime in the future. That time was long ago. We need it now.

Step ten, we have to improve our transmission and energy infrastructure. We have 5 million miles of electrical distribution lines; we have 1 million miles of natural gas pipelines, and they are incredibly outdated and they do not supply America's needs. We have to improve those. If we are going to improve them with ethanol and we are starting to unload ethanol, we have to have blending terminals. We don't have it. Department of Interior has right now been tasked with trying to develop energy corridors for the future, and there are people trying to stop them from at least identifying where we will have energy corridors for the future. That cannot be. We must identify them, and they must be useable.

Step 11, we have to restore our domestic energy workforce. I hate to say this, but there are 90 percent fewer petroleum engineers and geoscientists who are graduating now than 20 years ago. Unfortunately, our workforce for the future and how we develop technology to innovate is simply not there. We have to provide some incentives, some rewards, some scholarships to develop that workforce. It has to be part of our program.

Finally, step 12, we have to tap American innovation to develop our new energy technologies. And I mentioned how we did that, the same way we have in history: We prepare and provide rewards for people in America who can solve our problems.

Now, as I said, one of the things my party is willing to do is move forward directly on this. Just like Roy Hobbs in The Natural realized sitting there listening to a lecture on the psychology of defeat does not produce a solution. Getting out on the field produces a solution. And what the Republican party wants to do is to get out on the field and make it happen, do the work now. And this comprehensive bill is one of those that have to take place.

We are ready to move forward with an attitude that it can be solved, it must be solved, and we have the capacity to do it. And our goal will be to become energy independent and energy secure now, not in the future, but now, in our lifetime.

I keep coming up here every day looking up at the top of this building with a quote by Daniel Webster up there which simply reads and tries to exhort to us: Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its power, and see whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered.

We have the capacity and the ability to do something worthy to be remembered, and the Republican party wants to get on the playing field to do that. That is our goal, that is our destiny. The American people deserve it. And we can't wait; we have to do it now.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I appreciate the comments that have been made so far. I'm reminded by President Reagan, who once said there you go again, and some of those statements can apply here.

But one statement was they aren't accurate, but what we are talking about here in this part of the discussion deals with how real people are impacted in their daily lives.

We no longer are talking about energy consumption as an ethereal process or whether it meets different needs, kind of a policy concept. We're talking about how people, real people, bake their food, heat their homes, and how they keep their jobs.

For every dollar that there is an increase in oil prices and gasoline prices, it simply means that jobs are lost, that revenue does not flow here. Social Security programs are diminished, and the overall quality of life is diminished. We're talking about real people and how real people are impacted.

For every dollar a poor person or a middle-income person has to spend on increased energy consumption, that's a dollar they cannot spend on luxuries like tuna casserole. This is what we're talking about. If you're extremely rich, you can try and buy your way out of it like an old medieval duke buying indulgences from the Catholic church. But for middle-income people and poor people, we are talking about how they live their lives, and we're talking about a country that has more energy potential locked up than other Nations have in their entire countries.

That's the concept that is here, and yet we always come back to picky little reasons why we can't develop the source, renew that source or build on that particular source as well.

We can't develop in ANWR because even though the Carter administration set this particular piece of property aside for energy development because it offends somebody. We can't have windmills off the coast of Massachusetts; it doesn't look right. We can't drill off the coast of Florida because it might offend the tourists someway.

We all have picky little reasons on why we can't do it, and the net product is we harm our own people because we don't have a policy that provides a positive reinforced policy, a strong program that will encourage conservation but also encourage production of every source of resources that we have at our disposal.

It has to happen and it has to happen now because we're dealing with real people.

We're also dealing with the security of this country. Early on this floor, they talked about an element of section 526 that was passed in the energy bill which simply had the proposal of cutting out the needs of our military in their advancement for alternative synthetic fuels. That's one of the things we're looking at. Five years ago, it cost us $2 billion a year for petroleum for our military. Today, we're talking about $12 billion a year. We cannot do that any longer. Those are the issues we have to have.

We have to realize that what we're talking about is real people.

Who we are hurting are real people, and those people who are in the middle income and those people who are on the edges of our society and those people on fixed incomes, which is about 45 million Americans, those are the ones who get hurt first.

And the more we talk about the philosophy, what should or should not be done, and the later we decide to take as our policy statement that we will become energy secure and energy independent and we will develop all the resources we have at our disposal to become energy independent, that's when we actually decide to try and help people.

I thank the Speaker for his indulgences.

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

This is, to be honest, a very sad day on this bill today on the floor. As an educator, I simply understand the need for secure rural schools funding. As a westerner and someone who served for a long time in the State legislature, I understand what payment in lieu of taxes, or PILT, means to western counties.

Unfortunately, though, this bill that is before us today did not get here through regular order. This is not the same bill we discussed in committee nor is it the same bill that I and some others cosponsored. It appears almost as if political games are now being played in an effort to pass this particular bill, which breaks new ground. The precedent has always been, in dealing with secure rural schools and PILT, that we have dealt in a bipartisan manner in an effort to find legal and politically feasible solutions to pay for secure rural schools and payment in lieu of taxes. We have always addressed these two issues in a bipartisan manner, always, until now. H.R. 3058, this version of it, has broken that covenant.

When a version of this numbered bill was passed in the Resources Committee, two promises were made to the Republicans who cosponsored it, Mr. Walden and me and others. The first promise was that PILT would not be decoupled from secure rural schools. I cannot stress enough the importance of PILT funding being coupled with secure rural schools, as was promised. Even the majority leader in the Senate has said this is the key to the success of this piece of legislation. And yet this promise was broken.

Second, the offset using the 1998/1999 lease moneys was supposed to be taken out by the time this came to the floor. This set of money, which has already been spent three times on three different bills, not the same pot of money, the exact same dollars which have been spent, is not going to be a solution to this. The gentleman from Oregon suggested last night that there might be constitutional concerns and we should not listen to those. I have some sympathy for that approach, but the fact of the matter is his speech last night was to the wrong audience. It should be to the lower courts, who have already ruled that this pot of money is not accessible to us.

In 2006 we passed the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act. Using these fees for that was justifiable. Using it in this bill is not justifiable. Those fees for the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act was to fund programs and projects related to conservation of OCS-related resources. It was to increase America's energy supply and encourage domestic energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf. Because we are no longer using that and have now taken them to a different level, it will be a breach of the oil and gas leases and designed to punish energy companies and discourage much-needed domestic oil and gas production. This bill sends now a message to every energy company in America that Congress will not respect lease contracts and will result in less oil, less gas production, which I certainly hope is not the objective of the Democratic Party.

We need to have a different way of paying for this bill that does not include an energy price-increasing bankrupt offset. We need a genuine offset that will pay for both PILT and secure rural schools without making America's energy more expensive, less available. And to be honest, if the court upholds their ruling that they already had, if the other courts do, there won't be any money for secure rural schools in this project anyway.

Now, I know there will be people who will tell us this is merely a bogus placeholder. We don't really mean to use this money as the bill progresses through, which simply shows that perhaps PAYGO is nothing more than an accounting game or scam as we're looking at it, and that all we need to do is give a blank check over to the Senate, pass it along, and they will fill in some reasonable way of funding this particular bill. We will abdicate our responsibility of coming up with legal, legitimate, responsible legislation because somewhere down the line, someone else will do it.

If the Senate, indeed, has a secret magical formula for funding this bill, why wasn't it in the farm bill? Why wasn't it in the extension of the Rural Schools Act? Why did the Senate not put it in a bill and send it over here? Or why did the sponsor not negotiate with the Senate to insert it in this bill so we could discuss it in the House?

The promise was before this bill to the floor there would be a legitimate source for an offset. It is not there. Instead, we seem to be playing a game of political gotcha, which is so sad because there was a compromise that could have funded this bill and done it in a legally effective way. It was presented by the National Education Association on behalf of schools. It was supported by the consortium of counties. It was supported by energy producers that would have fully funded PILT, fully funded the secure rural schools, expanded energy options. It would have given States control over sand and gravel for beach replenishment, over the viewshed, States control over their offshore renewable energies, would have funded energy and minerals higher education program, and be done with real money, not the funny money in this particular bill. It is language that is similar to a bipartisan bill passed in the 109th Congress which was supported by Mr. DeFazio and 39 other Democrats in a bipartisan way.

The question that we have to ask ourselves today is why are we confronted on suspension with a bill that has a phony PAYGO offset, money that we know is not there? Why are we presented with a suspension bill that has already been rejected by the Senate, that has already been rejected by the administration? Why instead did we not agree to go with the compromise approach, which would have had real offsets and provided real solutions to fully fund our schools, to fully fund PILT, and not to have to take it out of the hide of anyone who stops at a gas pump this weekend? Now, that's what we should have done, and we didn't do it. And that's why this is a very, very sad day on a bill that was not discussed in committee.

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

As we now talk about a bill that a commitment was made but does not exist anymore, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle).

I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

May I inquire how much time is left.

With that, I would yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Resources Committee, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady).

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) who has worked tirelessly on this issue in a bipartisan way in the past.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to myself the balance of our time.

I appreciate Chairman Rahall from the committee coming down here earlier to speak on the bill. When this bill was under his control, he treated us with kindness and consideration.

In the tornado of words that we have heard here today, there is one thought that still comes through: We need a permanent solution. This bill is half a bill without a permanent solution and without an offset that is legitimate. The counties, the education community, and the energy companies presented a real solution that would really pay, not a phony placeholder, but real money that would pay for full tilt, full secure rural schools, a real solution to real problems. This bill is the wrong bill, the wrong process, at the wrong time, and should be defeated.

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