Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of raising the minimum wage for America's neediest workers, and I am proud that our Speaker, Speaker Pelosi, and Chairman Miller have chosen this in the first 100 hours to help America's workers who have not been helped for a long, long time. It has been 10 long years, and America's workers need a raise.

I think this debate really does crystallize the differences between our side of the aisle and our Republican colleagues.

I have heard some arguments here this morning that government should not intervene in the market. But I want to remind my Republican colleagues that these workers are completely powerless to improve their situation.

The age of globalization has made these workers less powerful than they were 10 years ago. According to the Economic Policy Institute, of the nearly 7 million workers directly affected by the minimum wage, 80 percent are adults, 54 percent work full time, and 59 percent are women. The reality is that working families are struggling every day to try to make ends meet.

Look at it this way: In 1997, these workers made $206 a week for working 40 hours. In 2007, they are making the same $206. The problem is that while in 1997 it may have got that worker close to the poverty line at the end of the year, now they are $5,000 below the poverty line because the cost of living has gone up 26 percent.

That is why I encourage my colleagues to join us in supporting the Fair Minimum Wage Act.

Mr. Speaker, on November 15, 2006, I had the opportunity to address the 2006 National Rail Symposium, presented by Citizens for Rail Safety, Inc. at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Attended by rail worker union representatives, rail industry experts, transportation scholars, and local and Federal political leaders, the symposium served to further highlight the glaring gaps in America's rail security and specifically, bring attention to the lack of basic emergency and antiterrorism training for our Nation's rail workers.

Notably, the symposium marked the release of a key rail security study prepared by the National Labor College (NLC) entitled: ``Training in Hazmat and Rail Security: Current Status and Future Needs of Rail Workers and Community Members.'' As noted by the NLC, our Nation's rail workers currently lack basic and necessary emergency prevention and response training, particularly with respect to Hazmat incidents, and must work in rail cars and on rail tracks, yards, and basic infrastructure that are poorly secured.

The NLC's study comes on the heels of a 2005 rail worker safety report prepared by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Rail Security Conference, entitled ``High Alert: Workers Warn of Security Gaps on Nation's Railroads.'' Based on over 4,000 surveys completed by members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division, the report reveals that 84 percent of the rail workers surveyed indicated that they had not received any or additional terrorism prevention and response training within the last year and that 64 percent indicated that

they had not been trained on their role in their railroad's Emergency Action or Emergency Response Plan.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate myself with these reports, as well as the goals of the National Rail Symposium, given the importance of providing our rail workers with adequate emergency, anti-terrorism, and security training. For this reason, I have also urged my colleagues to adopt H.R. 4372, the Rail Worker Emergency Training Act, which I have introduced in the 109th Congress. This bill would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop comprehensive rail worker training guidelines that address several key areas, including critical infrastructure and equipment security inspection, hazardous material storage, transport, and monitoring, and evacuation procedures. In addition, the bill would require rail carriers to develop a rail worker training program based on the Secretary's guidelines and to train all of their workers within 1 year.

In closing, I would like to commend Citizens for Rail Safety, Inc. and the National Labor College for their efforts to heighten security and preparedness on our Nation's railways.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Thompson, for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in regards to the conference report to accompany H.R. 4954, the SAFE Port Act.

As representative of the Port of Boston--I'm pleased that today's conference report takes important steps towards better safeguarding our Nation's 361 sea and river ports--through the authorization of significant increases in port security grants for each of fiscal years 2007 through 2012, meaningful port worker security training provisions, and substantive container screening and scanning improvements.

At the same time, I must say that I'm disappointed that the agreement under consideration does not include the language to strenghten rail and transit security passed by the U.S. Senate during its consideration of port security legislation.

By including language to authorize $1.2 billion for freight and passenger rail security as well as $3.5 billion for mass transit security in a ports bill, the Senate clearly recognized that rail and mass transit have also been grossly underfunded, this in the face of repeated terrorist attacks against rail and transit systems worldwide-- from Paris, Tokyo, and Moscow to Madrid, London, and most recently, Mumbai.

In furtherance of the Senate's action, just yesterday the House passed a motion to instruct the House conferees to accept the Senate's position on rail and mass transit security by a margin of 281-140. Regrettably however, the rail and transit language did not make it into this conference report.

Mr. Speaker, while this agreement is a good start towards securing our seaports and the international supply chain, I think we've missed a major opportunity to afford rail and transit similar respect.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of a man who has dedicated the past 43 years to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as an employee of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).

Robert O'Gara, the son of Michael and Anna O'Gara, was born on October 28, 1941 in South Boston, Massachusetts. In 1962, after graduating from South Boston High School, Robert joined the MBTA as a Junior Clerk working out of the Everett Repair Shop. Robert developed a reputation for exceptional craftsmanship and a meticulous attention to detail. For the next decade, Robert restored trains at the Everett Repair Shop until he moved to Riverside Station as a Riverside repairman. Once he began working at the Riverside Yard, Robert took his dedication and hard work to a higher level and would place vehicle history on the dash of every vehicle sent in for repair. These notes, dubbed ``O'Gara Grams'', allowed repairmen to thoroughly inspect each train in order to ensure peak performance.

Along with being a committed employee, Robert is a devoted husband and father. Robert has the enormous pleasure and tremendous good fortune to be married to his wife Mary of 38 years. They are the proud parents of eight children and the grandparents of seven adoring grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct honor to take the floor of the House today to join with Robert O'Gara's family, friends and brothers and sisters of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to thank him for 43 years of remarkable service to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I urge my colleagues to join me in celebrating Robert's distinguished career and wishing him a happy and full retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of James Joseph Rush, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Trial Court and to commend him for 43 years of dedicated service,

The son of John and Mary Rush, immigrants from County Mayo, Ireland, James was born on February 9, 1931 in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood, As a youth, James was very active in the Sacred Heart Church in Roslindale, MA, and served as the first president of the Boston Archdiocesan Chi-Rho Association.

After graduating from Roslindale High School, James enlisted in the United States Navy and served his country honorably from 1951 to 1955. During his tenure James served onboard the USS John W. Weeks, DD-701.

Upon completion of his distinguished service to our country James attended Boston College and graduated from the Carroll School of Management with a bachelor of arts degree in 1960. After graduation, James began a career in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Trial Court as a probation officer overseeing juveniles. Following this position James was assigned assistant chief of probation until 2004 when he was named the chief of probation in the West Roxbury Division of the Boston Municipal Court.

Along with providing distinguished service to his country and State, James is also an active member of his community. A faithful parishioner at St. Theresa's in West Roxbury, James has served as a eucharistic minister for many years. James is a past president of the St. Theresa's School Parent-Teacher Association, has served on the parent advisory board of Catholic Memorial and is a member of the Boston College Alumni Association. James is also a member of the John G. Williams Council of the Knights of Columbus in Roslindale, MA.

Mr. Speaker, throughout his career in the Massachusetts Trial Court and his volunteer work in the community, James has served as a mentor and role model for Massachusetts youth. Above all of these accomplishments the title James cherishes most is that of husband and father. James has the enormous pleasure and tremendous good fortune to be married to his wife of 36 years, Virginia; they are the proud parents of six wonderful children and the grandparents of four adoring grandsons.

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct honor to take the floor of the House today to join with James Rush's family, friends and contemporaries to thank him for his remarkable service to the Massachusetts Trial Court. I urge my colleagues to join me in celebrating James' distinguished career and wish him a happy and full retirement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of a man whose professional life has been dedicated to improving the lives of working men and women in Massachusetts and across our nation. Tommy Harrington is a remarkable labor leader with a long and illustrious career in the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Massachusetts.

Tommy joined the Carpenters Apprenticeship Program in 1966 after graduating from Boston Trade High School. During his tenure, he held several prestigious positions in Carpenters Local 33, the Massachusetts State Council of Carpenters and the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. In 1989, after twenty-three years in the field as a carpenter and Union Steward, he became a Business Agent for Local 33. In 1990, he was elected President of the Massachusetts State Council of Carpenters, an office which he held until 1993. Following this esteemed position, he became the Business Manager of Local 33 and was elevated to the position of Financial Secretary.

In September of 2001, Tommy reached the pinnacle of his career when he achieved the position of Executive Financial Secretary-Treasurer of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters. Tommy's personal integrity, hard work and determination illustrate the best qualities of those who serve the working men and women of this country.

Although he has held many of the most official positions in Local 33, Tommy is best known for the personal relationships he cultivated with the men and women he worked with on a daily basis. Anyone who has had the privilege to call Tommy a colleague or friend knows that he is one of the most thoughtful, caring and compassionate individuals, always putting the safety and welfare of his union carpenters and their families first.

Tommy has also set an example as a model citizen. His civic involvement can be seen in the numerous causes he has actively supported. Tommy has worked tirelessly on behalf of the pine Street Inn and Rosie's Place volunteering his time and energy. He has participated in charity events for organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston and the South Boston Health Center.

Despite his various accomplishments, as his friend I can honestly say that the title that Tommy has always been most proud of and which he cherishes most, is the title of husband and father. Tommy has had the enormous pleasure and tremendous good fortune to be married to his wife Ginny for over thirty-five years. They are the proud parents of two lovely and adoring daughters, Heather and Cindy.

Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct honor to take the floor of the House today to join with Tommy Harrington's family, friends and brothers and sisters of labor to thank him for forty years of remarkable service to the American Labor Movement. I hope my colleagues will join me in celebrating Tommy's distinguished career and wishing him good health and God's blessing in all his future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my strong opposition to the Oman FTA. This is deja vu: last summer we were working against CAFTA . . . now we have the Oman FTA.

What we have here is identical language to the problematic and inadequate language that was contained in CAFTA and NAFTA before that. Most shocking, the administration has slipped language into the Oman FTA that will threaten U.S. port security. As you know, Mr. Speaker, I represent the Port of Boston. To me, this FTA really hits home and is particularly disturbing.

The simple fact is that under this agreement, if an Omani company sought to acquire landside services at U.S. ports and the U.S. government took action to stop or limit that acquisition, the Omani company could sue the U.S. government for violating its FTA rights. The challenge would then be decided by a U.N. or World Bank tribunal.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service released a report a couple days ago that confirms that the Oman FTA would make it harder to protect U.S. ports. The CRS report makes clear that the Oman FTA would create a new right under an international trade agreement, which would require the United States to allow any Omani company to provide ``landside aspects of port activities.''

The CRS report further confirms that Dubai Ports World, DPW, could use the U.S.-Oman FTA to obtain this new right guaranteed by an international trade agreement to buy U.S. port operations. All DPW would have to do is create a subsidiary in Oman. DPW already has commercial operations in at least 10 countries. It would not be hard for DPW to meet the Oman FTA's standard--any business established in Oman is eligible to take advantage of the benefits of the agreement. Only businesses with ``no substantial business activities''--a very low threshold--are excluded.

Mr. Speaker, not only does this FTA pose homeland security concerns, but instead of enforceable labor provisions with teeth, this free trade agreement suggests only that Oman adopt and enforce its own labor laws. It offers no assurance that existing labor problems will be resolved, and allows labor laws to be weakened or eliminated in the future, with no possibility of recourse.

In Oman, their 2003 labor laws remain in serious violation of the International Labor Organization's most important and fundamental rights: freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively. There are no independent unions in that country. In fact, Oman not only fails on labor rights, but on all human rights!

The Bush Administration State Department's 2006 ``Trafficking in Human Persons'' report downgraded Oman to a ``Tier 2 Watch List'' country, just one step above the countries with the worst human trafficking records. In 2005, Oman was only on ``Tier 2'' of the State Department's human trafficking list, meaning that Oman's trafficking practices and regulations worsened from 2005 to 2006.

We talk a lot about the war in Iraq, and the President of the United States has described it in many cases as an effort to export democracy. Well, I have got news for you; you do not export democracy through the Defense Department.

This is where you export democracy, in our trade agreements, through our Commerce Department. Democracy is all about opportunity, and we should, in our trade agreements, give these foreign workers an opportunity to stay in their own country, to buy goods from us that would create a good dynamic by creating jobs in this country. Democracy is about opportunity, and if we are really serious about exporting democracy, it starts right here. It starts with our free trade agreements.

Join me in voting ``no'' on the Oman Free Trade Agreement.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak out of order.

Mr. Speaker, lately it seems that the national debate over the next move in Iraq has become bogged down in a way that really reflects the military struggle itself. The administration has dug in, believing that simply staying the course, we can simply outlast the military insurgency.

Conversely, there are some in my party who, angered understandably by war under false pretenses, are seeking a pell-mell evacuation complete with a publicly announced evacuation date, which I think makes the withdrawal of 136,000 troops more dangerous and more difficult.

But, Mr. Speaker, drawing upon the lessons of history, I would like to propose a third way: creating a mechanism to more effectively empower the new elected Iraqi Government, which will allow for a gradual but permanent U.S. troop reduction.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to talk about a process that we went through in my office after five visits to Iraq to try to find a model that would allow us to shift the governmental operations in Iraq away from the U.S. military and to their new government. And the example that we came up with, that has been used by this government in the past, is actually the model that was developed during the Second World War.

In 1944, after driving Japanese forces from the Philippines with the help of the Filipino resistance, the United States military, like today in Iraq, found itself in complete control of the Philippines, over 7,000 islands. It found itself in complete control of the basic services that government would provide in the Philippines. And because of the recent occupation by Japanese forces, there was no incumbent government in the Philippines that could take the responsibilities for these government operations.

So, by default, the U.S. military took over these government operations; and while U.S. policy at the time strongly supported Filipino independence, the military had no choice but to temporarily exercise control under the fragile circumstances.

Clearly, that situation could not endure indefinitely. And what Congress did next, in 1944, under the tutelage of John W. McCormack and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration, and later the Truman administration supported, was instructive and I think worth repeating.

In 1944, this Congress passed and the President signed the Filipino Rehabilitation Act, which created a national commission comprised of three appointees each from the White House, the Senate, and the House, and their mission was to plan and coordinate and oversee the transition of government operations away from the U.S. military and over to the newly forming Filipino government.

Of course, there are certain arguable differences between the situation in the Philippines in 1944 and Iraq in 2006. However, after my five visits to Iraq and dozens of meetings with General George Casey and top generals in his office and in the field, as well as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, I believe the critical weakness in our current strategy is this persistent inability to empower the new Iraqi Government.

With this in mind, I recently introduced the Iraq Transition Act of 2006, H.R. 5716, drawing from the Philippines model. And I give credit to those in 1944 who devised this. This is not original thought; this is borrowed from their example.

I have proposed the establishment of a national bipartisan commission comprised of appointees, again from the White House, the Senate, and this House, whose specific and targeted purpose would be to help facilitate the orderly, deliberate, and expeditious transition from U.S. military control to Iraqi civilian control of operations of government in Iraq. It is important to remember that the transition to civilian control in Iraq is a political process, and while I have many times witnessed the excellence with which our military has performed in Iraq, I also believe it is a strategic disservice to the military for us to add political reconciliation to the massive burdens of security and reconstruction that they are now shouldering.

Simply put, the newly created Commission on Iraqi Transition would be held directly responsible for working with the military leadership and the Department of State to accomplish the transition to Iraqi civilian control of government operations in Iraq and to regularly report its progress to the Congress, the President, and the American people.

While this approach may not satisfy the ``stay the course'' advocates or those who would prefer to announce a specific date for withdrawal, I believe it offers a responsible and workable plan for two important reasons.

In closing, firstly, this bill introduces a level of direct accountability to the political transition process that does not now exist and has made measuring progress extremely difficult. And secondly and lastly, it has precedent and success to support it and offers the best opportunity for the earliest withdrawal of U.S. forces, while leaving the Iraqi people with the greatest chance for preserving their newly found democracy.

I look forward to working with my colleagues.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

First of all, I would like to thank Chairman Wolf and also Ranking Member Mollohan for accepting this amendment.

This amendment is being offered by myself and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella). It basically restores $12 million to the Bulletproof

Vest Partnership Program and also reduces contributions to the International Organization funds within this bill by a corresponding amount.

Since the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program's inception, over 11,500 jurisdictions have participated in purchasing over 450,000 bulletproof vests nationwide. Almost every congressional district across this Nation has benefited from this program. I know in Massachusetts alone law enforcement agencies have purchased over 34,000 vests since its inception.

Mr. Chairman, there is some urgency here on this matter because, unfortunately, it is estimated now that over 200,000 vests may need to be replaced that were previously issued due to the results of tests showing that a substance called Zylon has been used in previous vests and those have been shown to fail. So there is the need to get out and replace those vests that are now in service.

Mr. Chairman, the bottom line is that, according to President Tom Nee of the National Association of Police Organizations, almost 3,000 law enforcement officers have survived shootings thanks to bulletproof vests. We know that body armor can save lives. The problem is that many towns and cities in our districts and across the Nation are struggling with the costs. With budgetary constraints at the State and local levels, many communities are simply unable to purchase this life-saving equipment on their own.

With this program, by sharing that cost with the Federal Government, communities do have the opportunity to buy bulletproof vests for their law enforcement officers and thereby provide some protection for those in dangerous professions.

Mr. Chairman, Members on both sides of the aisle understand that our State and local law enforcement professionals should be fully equipped, and that is why I ask my colleagues in the House to support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella).

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

Offered By: Mr. Lynch

Amendment No. 10: Page 26, line 6, after the dollar amount,

insert the following: ``(increased by $30,000,000)''.

Page 26, line 16, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(increased by $30,000,000)''.

Page 39, line 21, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(reduced by $15,000,000)''.

Page 39, line 25, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(reduced by $15,000,000)''.

Page 40, line 2, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(reduced by $15,000,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Kolbe for his great work on this bill, and also Ranking Member Lowey. I will not take the 5 minutes that I am allowed under the amendment process, but I do want to take a few minutes just to talk about what is going on here.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment that I have offered proposes to confront the related threats posed by improvised explosive devices, also known as IEDs, as well as land mines, which are being used against our men and women in uniform and against innocent civilians in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

My amendment seeks to accomplish this by dedicating $5 million for the State Department account for nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, demining, and related programs. This $5 million will be offset by shifting the same amount from the Export-Import Bank's administrative expense account, which is currently funded at $72 million.

Mr. Chairman, like a lot of Members on both sides of the aisle, I have recently returned from my fifth visit to our troops in Iraq and I have also spent some time in Afghanistan. On all of my visits to the region, I have been accompanied by strong representation from both parties, and one issue that has emerged and has grown more lethal is the threat to our men and women in the military, to nongovernmental agencies, to coalition contractors, to the press, and to innocent Afghani and Iraqi citizens is the threat posed by these so-called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

While some IEDs are triggered remotely with basic electronics, such as portable phone stations or garage door openers, in many other cases, we are finding that these IEDs are being triggered by a simple contact strip concealed within a narrow section of split holes that is concealed in cracks in the roadway or have been covered by a thin layer of dirt just below the surface of local roads. They can be detonated by pressure of a passing vehicle or with as little pressure as a child's footstep. These latter types of devices are much more similar in their nature and use to land mines.

Moreover, as time goes on and as the casualties grow, we are finding that many of the land mines previously planted by Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan have been recovered by the insurgents and are now being retrofitted to serve as components in these more lethal IEDs.

Like most of my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, I have made more than a few visits to Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital. We have all seen the devastation and the damage and suffering that these IEDs have brought to the very best Americans and their families. In my last visit with General Casey in Baghdad, he estimated that approximately 50 percent of our monthly casualties in Iraq are the result of these IEDs. So the importance of what we are doing here, reducing these threats, should be obvious to everyone.

In closing, with today's news that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been eliminated and the last of the new Iraqi ministers has been selected, it is my greatest hope that we have now reached a point at which we can begin to transfer governing authority and responsibility to the new Iraqi government and to bring our troops home. But regardless of the rate of progress, these armaments will still remain a lethal threat to our troops and to innocent civilians. By transferring this money, this $5 million, we can expedite the process of recovering and disposing of these lethal land mines and potential IEDs before additional life and limb is lost.

I do appreciate the courtesy that Chairman Kolbe and Ranking Member Lowey have afforded me, and I am thankful that they have accepted this amendment.

Offered By: Mr. Lynch

Amendment No. 6: Page 4, line 10, after the dollar amount,

insert the following: ``(reduced by $10,000,000)''.

Page 38, line 20, after the dollar amount, insert the

following: ``(increased by $10,000,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, together with Mr. Holt of New Jersey and Mr. Castle of Delaware, this amendment seeks to increase the amount appropriated by H.R. 5441 for rail and transportation security grants from $150 million to $200 million.

The $50 million added to the rail security grants is to be offset by a novel idea today, which is to decrease by $50 million the amount appropriated for the Office of the Under Secretary for Management.

Mr. Chairman, we are grossly underfunding rail security in this country at a time when it should be a major priority. There is an old saying that states that Congress is always fighting the last war. If you look at the area of transportation security, we have spent $22 billion on aviation security, 97 percent of the transportation money, and only 3 percent of transportation security money on rail. So 97 percent, $22 billion, on aviation, and about half a billion dollars on rail security. This flies in the face of experience.

As you look around the world today, the pattern of terrorist activity has been markedly against rail systems. If you go back to 1995, the Tokyo rail system was attacked by sarin gas. The Algerian rebels attacked the Paris subways. Going further, the Chechnyan rebels attacking the Moscow subways, the attacks in Madrid against their commuter rail system, many, many attacks on bus systems in Israel and, most recently, the London attacks against their subway system.

So there is a definite repeated pattern of conduct of these terrorists to attack rail systems. We need to be aware that they are looking at attacking our rail system. You would think that we would take appropriate steps to address that, given the fact that five times as many people travel by rail as travel by air.

Rather than addressing that woeful state of rail transit security funding, the current administration has actually sought to further shortchange these critical transportation systems. Most recently, the President's FY 2007 budget request allocated only $37 million to the Transportation Security Administration for non-aviation transportation security. That is less than 1 percent of TSA's budget, 1 percent for rail. Moreover, the President again proposed the outright elimination of rail and transit security grants.

Accordingly, I would like to first commend Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Sabo for their great efforts to preserve separate funding for rail security. However, I am greatly concerned that rail and transit security grant funding has remained at $150 million under the past two DHS appropriations bills. In addition, I am equally concerned that the bill under consideration today proposes to appropriate the same $150 million for FY 2007.

Mr. Chairman, for these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support our amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment simply asks that the Energy Department develop a plan to respond to potential disruptions in worldwide oil and natural gas production and distribution.

Throughout the last year, we have witnessed a 38 percent spike in the price of crude oil and concurrently a sharp rise in the average cost of gasoline to American families, reaching over $3 a gallon. In recent weeks, crude oil prices have risen to over $70 a barrel.

Among the chief factors that have been cited in the cause of the recent spike has been increased worldwide consumption and demand as countries such as China and India have experienced significant economic growth. China alone over the past 4 years is responsible for 40 percent of new demand around the globe.

However, it is the United States that remains the world's leading oil consumer, consuming over 20 million barrels a day, while producing only about 7 million barrels a day. Notably, our high oil consumption, coupled with the weakened reserve position, means that the United States for the most part will continue to rely on world markets for its crude oil supply. Currently, 70 percent of U.S. oil consumption is projected to be satisfied by imports of crude oil and petroleum products by the year 2025.

Regrettably, our growing dependence on foreign oil not only poses a substantial risk to our economic security but may also serve to compromise the effectiveness of American foreign policy, as high domestic demand leaves the United States susceptible to the threat of hostile oil-related political reactions by foreign governments in oil- producing countries.

Iran, for example, is the second largest producer within OPEC and has repeatedly issued thinly veiled supply interruption threats in response to our efforts to curb that country's uranium enrichment program. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, whose country is the United States' fifth largest source of crude imports, has asserted the possibility of retaliatory actions stemming from his opposition to U.S. policy.

It is clear that our overall economy is severely impacted by the spikes in crude oil and the prices of gasoline. The growing uncertainty of the oil reserves available to the United States is also greatly called into question. As long as we as a Nation continue our addiction to foreign oil, we will be beholden to the actions of these rogue states.

Last week, in a Government Reform Subcommittee, we heard the Under Secretary of Energy say that in the event of any disruption of any of these major players around the globe that supply us with oil and natural gas, we would have to immediately go to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to satisfy any shortage. That is not a good long-term solution.

We have had threats in the past. We had Arab oil embargoes in this country back in 1973, and we had a plan in place to deal with that shortage. Right now, according to the Secretary of the Energy Department, we have no surplus reserves. We have no untapped reserves in the event of a shortage.

This amendment would call on the Energy Department to develop such a plan to deal with these contingencies, to deal with reallocations and to deal with the crisis that would develop in the event that any of these countries discontinued their supply of oil to the United States.

Mr. Chairman, I realize that you can only do so much in any one bill, and I thank the chairman and the ranking member for all their good work on this bill, but this is something that needs to happen, and I just ask the chairman and the ranking member to work with me to force the Department of Energy to develop this plan.

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

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to thank Chairman Walsh and I want to thank Mr. Edwards of Texas for their great work on behalf of veterans. I know that their attempts here have been to provide as much support as possible for men and women in uniform.

My amendment, Mr. Chairman, acknowledges that the Department of Veterans Affairs is the largest single provider of medical care to people with hepatitis C and liver disease in the United States, and I have introduced this amendment because I believe that the VA can and should be in the lead on research areas associated with hepatitis C and liver disease, and, importantly, the VA should be at the cutting edge of research and work and collaboration with the NIH to ensure that strides that both agencies have made in this area can be shared, and so that our veterans have access to the best technologies and treatments available.

Mr. Chairman, right now, because of the great work being done by Dr. Joseph Vacanti of Harvard Medical School and Bioengineering Networks and MIT and Draper Labs and others, we are at a critical point in developing amazing and revolutionary technologies and procedures, including constructing an artificial liver assist device by which new microfabrication techniques will allow us to grow liver replacement tissues from our own cells, minimizing the risk of organ rejection and completely eliminating the need to wait for compatible organ donors.

Right now in America, we have 90,000 people waiting for organ transplants. We have 18,000 folks waiting for liver transplants. For veterans with liver disease, Dr. Vacanti's work means the possibility of living a full life with hepatitis C without worrying about getting on a list for liver transplant. We now have an opportunity to revolutionize the way in which we treat liver disease, and this research needs to be funded.

Mr. Chairman, I realize the great work that has been done by Chairman Walsh of New York and Mr. Edwards of Texas, and I realize there are limits to what we can do on any one bill. So I am going to pledge my support for this bill, I am going to agree to withdraw my amendment, but I just ask the chairman and the ranking member to continue to work with me on this.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.