Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would again say thanks to the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for their work on this issue and for the time that they are yielding.

I first became acquainted with Taiwan when I flew there. I was stationed in Southeast Asia in the military Air Force, and we had missions in and out of Taipei and other airfields, and I began to have a love for the Chinese people there in Taiwan.

After I came back to the United States, I met a good friend who had come from Taiwan and opened a small restaurant in my hometown of Hobbs, New Mexico. Joe Ye and his wife and their son have been long friends of our family. We have had many deep discussions about the future of Taiwan.

So it was with some alarm that I went to Beijing and heard meeting after meeting where the leadership of that country began to say that Taiwan needs to understand that they should voluntarily admit to being part of mainland China. And then the question arose, What if they don't voluntarily do that? The response was always a very unanimous, straightforward, Then we will do it for them militarily.

Those things began to alert me that we have in the future very difficult questions that we need to answer among ourselves here about our old friendships. If we do not have the internal strength, the internal courage, if we do not have the political will to stand by those countries that have stood by us, to remember those old friends from afar, then this Nation will indeed begin to undercut the basis of friendship for many countries, because each one of us is measured by how we live our lives and how we act. And our government, no less, is measured by the way it responds. If we respond to old friends by walking away, by turning our back, by not letting them come here to visit, it is one of the most insensible and insensitive things that we can do.

I really appreciate the work of both parties. Again, this is a good bipartisan

effort to express the sense of this Congress that we will remember our friendships and that we will honor those relationships, that we do understand the importance of the future and the past as we consider who we will spend our time with. And we as a Nation must understand that our government's actions are reflecting every day a value system. Those value systems should reflect what we, the American people, would have, not what seems politically correct or convenient at the moment.

That is not the way I want to be judged, and I don't think it is the way that people in this House want to be judged. I urge all Members to support this resolution to send a loud message to our friends in Taiwan that we do remember you and we do welcome you.

I thank the gentlelady from Florida for yielding time and also thank Mr. Lantos.

Mr. Speaker, we have to ask ourselves exactly why would we be interested in this particular thing today. Some might claim that it's an old circumstance, that it existed too far in the past. Others might say that it simply is not our right, not our position, to enter into the discussion.

As far as it being too far in the past, many times I go into the district of New Mexico, the Second District of New Mexico, and I bump into people from the Vietnam era, people my age. I was there in the 1970s, I flew in Vietnam. Many, many have hearts broken by the way a Nation treated them, and just a word of encouragement, just a word of saying welcome home, brother, brings tears that flow down men and women's cheeks from long ago past.

We have a responsibility to impact those circumstances which were not right, which were not just, and no better person than Mr. Lantos to be talking about this today, because he understands that. He's a steady, quiet voice for reason. Regarding Ms. Lee, who is with us today, I would remember the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who said that the simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the entire world.

He went on in that same talk to say that one person of truth impacts the whole world. So I think that we are called to quietly visit with our friends, the Japanese, and I think they are very good friends. I think that we, as good friends, should quietly say, Friend, it's time to acknowledge; it's time to apologize; it's time to speak. Because the healing just doesn't occur on the recipient's part, on those persons who were wronged; the healing begins in the heart of those who have perpetrated the actions. Admission brings a certain humbleness that each one of us begins to recognize that we are not above righteousness, we are not above rightness, that we are not above justice, truth. No single one of us is.

So if we find ourselves at this curious point saying to a long-time trusted friend, It's time to acknowledge; it's time to apologize; it's time to recognize what we have done and to change, it's not a very harsh statement. It's not one taken in anger, but it is one taken with the noblest of objectives, and that is the recognition and the healing of a long-overdue act.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3067, the Small Public Housing Authority Act.

Like many of my colleagues, I represent a rural district where most of the Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) operate in small communities. These small PHAs face excessive paperwork requirements and outdated regulatory burdens which undermine their ability to provide affordable housing to underprivileged families.

Currently, all PHAs are required to submit both 5-year and annual plans to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD. However, these PHAs do not have the time, staff or resources to complete these annual plans and often have to hire expensive consultants to help complete these annual plans.

I am pleased that my friend, Mr. Neugebauer from Texas, has taken the steps needed to alleviate this burden on small PHAs by introducing H.R. 3067, the Small PHA Act. This legislation will bring long needed regulatory relief to small PHAs by exempting those with 250 or fewer public housing units and Section 8 vouchers from the requirement of submitting an annual plan to HUD.

Today, I urge my colleagues to once again support regulatory relief for small PHAs by supporting H.R. 3067.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this legislation today. Many have stated it well, that discrimination is not the subject here tonight. It is the end of the statute of limitations which is at issue.

I would like to just make a point that often we're accused in Congress of appealing to the special interests, and I can't tell what the motivation is on this particular piece of legislation. It could have been narrowly scripted to where it applied only to the person that was being affected, to where the question of whether or not it applies to the full statute of limitations really would not even be a question.

I can tell you that on Thursday of last week we sat in the Resources Committee, and we heard testimony that talks about the Hard Rock Mining bill that is coming up to regulate Hard Rock Mining. There is a provision written by a former Clinton solicitor who is now working for a special interest group. That provision in that legislation we read says, ``Notwithstanding the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in High Country Citizens' Alliance v. Clarke,'' and then it goes on to say that all the decisions in court are going to be set aside, and we're going to allow this group to go back to court once more.

Keep in mind that the district court found against the group, then the appellate court found against the group, and finally, the Supreme Court said we will not hear the case. So all three levels of judicial review had been listened to and turned down, and yet this Congress, this majority, says we're going to set it aside. That was last week Thursday.

Last week Friday, we had the Imams case, the John Does. You will recall that how innocent people who report suspicious behavior would be taken to court. Three-quarters of this House voted against that, and yet the House's leadership found it necessary to strip the provision out in conference. That provision was stripped out, and that provision was added then only under great pressure from this country.

And now we're at this case. It would have been possible and could have been possible to narrowly craft this legislation to where the question did not come up. I feel that it is the special interests of the trial lawyers who in each case would have had open venue, open access to many millions of Americans which was at stake, and I feel that's what's like at stake here.

It is not good for American business. It is not good for American competitiveness. I'm deeply opposed to this legislation, and I thank the gentleman for yielding

I thank the gentleman from Utah and recognize the hard work of my friend from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva).

I think that we all agree patently that the underlying bill is not a problem. The problem is a very simple sentence that my friend from Utah would have included: no Federal funds may be used to condemn land, carry out the purposes of this act, or the amendment made by subsection B. It is a very simple amendment, one that is very clear.

One would have to ask: Are there circumstances where we would be concerned about confiscation? Is it a valid concern? Has it been done before? Is it a worry that land owners or property owners might have to fear that confiscation would actually reach in and take their property and wrestle it away from them? That is the essential question before us.

As the chairman of the Parks Subcommittee last year, we had the opportunity to listen to people along the Appalachian Trail. The Friars case was most prevalent. It is not the actual condemnation; it is the threat of condemnation that is the tool that is most often used; that we begin to persist from the Federal Government that we are going to take your land; that we can; that you need to just get along. So we have seen up and down the Appalachian Trail problems that come when land owners get in the way of a very strong central government.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to be in Shenandoah National Park. I was amazed at the boldness of the park superintendent there. The entire visitors center was filled with stories of exactly the same thing, where a too strong Federal Government came in and began to take people and move them off the land because they were just so inconvenient. These constitutional rights of private property ownership were so inconvenient that we simply confiscated their land and moved about 4,000 families out of that whole Shenandoah area.

Confiscation is a very real thing to people of New Mexico. The White Sands missile range extends for 100 miles north to south, 40 miles east to west. Ranch was confiscated because the Defense Department felt like it wanted to create a training base. Now, all of us in the area support the training base. We support that it is the largest overland missile training proving ground in the world. We are able to do magnificent things there. But we cannot turn a blind eye to the way that parcel of land was put together, by taking people and evicting them off their land.

Recently, I had the opportunity to stumble across one of the books that people in dire frustration write in their home. No major publisher would pick it up and do it. It wasn't very well written, maybe. But it was published on a small printer or maybe even one of the old copying machines that we used to have in high school, but it talked about 50 years of confiscation there in that one section of New Mexico.

So, yes, we do in this country face a problem of a too strong central government. I don't know if it is going to be a problem; Mr. Bishop alludes to the fact that we have land owners there who are expressing their concern of what is going to happen to them. None of us can say what any bureaucracy would do in the future. All we can do is offer the security of this one simple sentence: no Federal funds may be used to condemn land to carry out the purposes of this act or the amendments made by this subsection (b).

Now, there are those who completely oppose this kind of restriction. Recently, I volunteered to help with the Continental Divide Trail that runs north-south, through the United States. It starts at the Mexican border, goes all the way to the Canadian border, and runs all the way north to south through New Mexico. That trail was originated in 1978 language, but in the intervening years not one mile across private property had ever been gotten. I volunteered to take that task on, but the one reassurance people wanted was, don't let them come and take my land later.

I am sympathetic to the rights of private property owners. I think that we all should be, because private property ownership is at the heart of the success of our democracy and this Republic that we represent people in. Private property ownership is the basis of our Constitution. It is the basis of the economic way of life that we have in this country, and we should jealously guard it even to the point of putting in simple language like that that Mr. Bishop has suggested. It is not an unreasonable request.

And, no, it is not some scheme rigged up to make it look like someone didn't get their job done. It is simply the people out West, where 60 and 70 and 80 percent of our States are owned by Federal Governments. Those people out West have a different view than those people on the east coast where almost nothing is owned by the Federal or State government. And we out West say, please, just take the time to put in this one simple sentence, to take the precautions that would protect the constitutional rights and liberties of our residents. It is not an unreasonable request, and we simply ask that the bill be voted against because of that one provision that is missing. I thank the gentleman for yielding

Would the gentleman yield?

The gentleman understands, I mean, it is a very straightforward, transparent thing that we're suggesting. What was offensive about this particular amendment that simply says no Federal funds may be used to condemn, and it just gets really clear, because again, those of us in the West, maybe we're overly sensitive, but so much land has been taken from us that it is, it is a point at which we begin to resist. Why wasn't that amendment simply agreed to?

I appreciate the gentleman's comments. And if he would yield further, just point out that, again, we have had so many people come and testify about the Appalachian Trail that came through there, and I wouldn't call it systematic, but enough to where we began to feel, I began to feel uncomfortable with a too-strong National Park Service that was very energized about just getting this little parcel here, and it would make things fit so well that they began to really use their power in a way that was distressing. And that's, again, it's a very simply straightforward, transparent piece that is the problem.

We've got some magnificent vistas out West that might not equal what you're talking about, but we share our love for those things, and it's unfortunate that this bill is kind of the focal point for this particular dispute. But again, it's certainly nothing to do with the gentleman's underlying assumption or his belief that this river is worth protecting, but is instead one that we're expressing our concern as cleanly as we can that a government can be too strong and too large and too heavy-handed. And we worry about that.

But I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi and gentleman from New York (Mr. King) for their work for homeland security because it is truly a bipartisan issue. It was my privilege to serve on the committee with both of them in a previous Congress, and I miss that service during this current Congress.

I rise today to compliment the majority for yielding to the will, the will of the American people, because the provision that does protect John Does from lawsuits was curiously stripped out of the conference report previously. I'm pleased, though, that today's final conference report includes those provisions protecting John Does from lawsuits for reporting suspicious activity.

In March, Mr. King and I teamed up as the House passed the sense of my Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act as the motion to recommit to the Rail and Transportation Security Act, H.R. 1401, by a 304-121 margin. Again, that was 304 ``yeses'' to 121 ``noes.''

Today, we finally adopt and send this provision, along with this bill, to the President, something that is not only a right step but a critical step.

This provision will make America safer, will make Americans more aware

of terrorist activity and will show the terrorists that we are standing strong in the war on terror.

Ever since 9/11, law enforcement agencies have been telling the American people that they should immediately report suspicious activity that they see. Citizens are on the front line of our domestic war on terror. Our Founding Fathers declared eternal vigilance be the price of liberty.

It was Brian Morgenstern, an alert American, who stopped the Fort Dix terrorists by speaking up and reporting what he saw on videotapes.

It was an alert ambulance crew in June who noticed the Haymarket car bomb in London, England. However, terrorists and their supervisors are trying to use our freedoms against us.

On 9/11, the hijackers knew how the crew on the plane would respond and used that knowledge against them to carry out their attacks. Last November, 6 imams who behaved in manners and methods similar to those 9/11 terrorists were reported to authorities. Now, those six imams are using our courts to terrorize the Americans who reported their behavior.

The John Doe provision in this act will simply help stop this terrible shakedown of alert and responsible Americans. If we are serious about fighting terrorism, if we are serious about protecting Americans and asking them to help protect each other, then we need to pass the provision that is in this bill today.

I know most Americans were shocked to know that this simple, commonsense issue became an issue of partisan sniping. We should have never had to fight over this provision.

Today, we're going to make a choice. The Israelis said it best, There's no room in the world for political correctness. Today, we're going to make that choice, choosing political correctness or securing the American people. We will tell the trial lawyers you cannot terrorize Americans in our courts.

Vote ``yes'' on this conference report. I thank the gentlemen both for their work.

Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order. Are we requested to address our comments to the Chair?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and it is always imperative that we discuss issues that are brought forward.

Members of Congress often point to other countries who abridge treaties, who abridge contracts of our companies working in those countries, and they claim foul. Recently Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil industry and the electricity and oil companies. Yet the people who work for oil companies that are U.S. oil companies trying to push back that takeover were told why shouldn't we do that, your own government is doing it; we have the right.

They are referring to the language that is in this bill that affects the offshore leases, the '98-'99 leases. The Washington Post described the actions that were taken back on H.R. 6, which are very similar to these actions, as ``heavy handed.'' The stability of contracts, this heavy-handed approach, an attack on the stability of contracts would be welcomed in Russia, Bolivia, and others have been criticized for tearing up revenue-sharing agreements with private energy companies.

Mr. Speaker, we are doing things that affect oil companies and energy prices to Americans. I oppose this rule because it violates the rule of law.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his discussion on energy security.

And for my discussion tonight, I would like to begin at the same point that my friend from Ohio from the other side of the aisle began. She was quoting accurately an oil industry study which says that supply cannot keep up with demand, that prices are going to be high, that supply is going to be tight, and that is for the foreseeable future through the next decades.

Now, the response that we had in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was literally to, number one, recognize that it is not possible to convert overnight; so we had incentives there for the very hard-to-get oil and gas. That is the deep, the very deep, ultra-deep, and then offshore.

Now, the offshore platforms are extraordinarily expensive. They maybe look something like this. Our friends from Louisiana would recognize many of these, and California. These units cost over $1 billion to $1.5 billion. We don't invest in them easily, but they produce a tremendous amount of energy. It is the belief of those who are concerned about the energy business, concerned about the fact that prices are high, that supply is low, they really only have two choices if prices are high and supply is tight. You can lower demand, which Americans have not seen to want to do, or you can increase supply.

So these units here, we had great incentives for those, and we felt like that would bridge us during the years to where consumers would begin to consume differently.

But I would ask our average listener, how many people do you know who actually put biodiesel in their car or their truck? How many are using any fuel other than straight gasoline? We have got some of it augmented by ethanol. But how many cars really do significantly reduce the consumption?

If the answer is not many, then you would be concerned about the time to convert. And we have had testimony in our Resources Committee where both sides of the aisle say we are probably on a 20- to 40-year conversion that you and your family probably will not drive a different car for 20 to 40 years that has a different power source than what it has got right now. So we either recognize the truth in the matter and we encourage supply while we are converting to those renewables, and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 had great stimulation. I think the difference, though, is that when we are confronted, as business- supporting conservatives, with the idea that the oil industry study says the supply is limited, it cannot keep up with demand, that we probably should increase supply.

Our friends on the other side of the aisle, and I would quote, said that we are going to reinvent our economy in the first decade of this century.

Now, it is not possible to reinvent an economy in 2\1/2\ years because we are already at year 6\1/2\. It is just not possible to reinvent an economy in 2\1/2\ years, and that becomes the great disconnect on the discussion.

I would like to spend the rest of my time talking about the energy suggestions that our current majority has. We have recently marked up H.R. 2337. We have recently passed that out of the Resources Committee. And I will tell you that we need to make one point perfectly clear, that H.R. 2337, the Rahall energy bill, which is intended to be a piece of the package that is brought to this floor, will cost Americans jobs. It will increase the cost of natural gas and gasoline. And it is going to stunt the growth of the alternative and renewable energy industry.

H.R. 2337 is called the Energy Policy Reform and Revitalization Act. It could be called the ``American Job Outsourcing Act,'' it could be the ``Chinese Full Employment Act,'' or it could be the ``Funding Mechanism for Hugo Chavez,'' but to declare that it is the ``Energy Industry of America Revitalization'' is intended to be a stretch of the facts.

During congressional hearings in Congress, we've heard a lot of testimony from witnesses talking about the impact of our actions on the cost of energy. So I would refer to another chart which simply talks about the cost of our energy is going to be increasing dramatically. We have received this testimony that the cost of energy probably will go up to a 23 percent increase in some areas, 29 percent on the California coast, 32 percent in the Texas region, 21 percent in the South, and in the Southeast, 19 percent; 20 percent in New York. So you see significant energy increases because of the increasing consumption of natural gas.

One witness, Paul Cicio, testified that America has lost 3 million manufacturing jobs to overseas competition due to this kind of energy increases. It is an important point because we need good jobs in America. High-tech industries and high-tech manufacturing are the future of our economy, yet they're tremendously energy dependent. You can't put a server farm in Washington or San Jose unless you have the energy to power it. You can, however, put it in Beijing because the Chinese are committed, like one of my friends said, building 544 coal- powered plants over the next 10 years to ensure they have enough cheap power. Cheap power is the key to keep their economy moving forward.

At the hearing we talked about, a couple of months ago, how Dow Chemical was going to build a $22 billion facility in Saudi Arabia because of the price of energy here in the U.S. And yet, what we're doing is restricting our access to energy here in the U.S. while we're not restricting the overseas, ensuring that we're going to import more energy, ensuring that jobs are going to continue moving to those cheap sources of energy.

American prices are simply too high, and we're doing nothing about it. And

the renewables, though they have promised, the renewables are far, far into the future, decades into the future, where they begin to affect us.

We can see that energy prices are already high and headed higher. The projections show that they're going to be 20 to 30 percent increases, which drive these billion dollar projects overseas.

I would comment that the Dow Chemical plants in both China and Saudi Arabia are going to take 10,000 jobs, those are 10,000 jobs which would be in the hundred thousand dollars range if they're here in America, and yet because of the low energy prices overseas compared to here, we're going to export those jobs. And it simply does not make sense.

Since 2000, our offshore gas production has dropped 40 percent. Our next chart will show that production decrease. It's very difficult to see, the yellow line is on the top, moves along here. And we see the energy decreasing as it moves across the chart.

We would recognize that onshore gas is actually a flat stable line, but the offshore is decreasing rapidly. And yet the Outer Continental Shelf, where we have great potential large, large resources, we're restricting access to those areas. Meanwhile, in the Rocky Mountains, where we restrict access there, those are fields which already have been drilled, so it's not as if they're pristine. We just are limiting our access to our own resources, which then compounds the problem that Ms. Kaptur started out with initially. Prices are high, supply is tight. And we're seeing that supply gets tighter, and we're going to then increase the price.

Another thing that H.R. 2337, the Rahall energy bill, is doing is limiting shale completely. We're restricting the regulatory framework that was supposed to be out already and saying that it won't come forward. And without regulation, the industry is simply going to die. Now, that's important because in the long term, the 20 to 50 year term, shale causes America to be the Saudi Arabia of energy. If we consider just oil, Saudi Arabia has the dominant amount of energy in the world. But when we consider shale, the U.S. then becomes the dominant energy producer, and yet we're killing that industry completely.

We're in the shape that we're in today because of our decisions over the past 30 years. We chose not to build new refineries. We have chosen not to have nuclear energy. We have chosen not to drill more in this country, but instead, to restrict access on Federal lands, and so we simply have a problem of tight supplies and high prices. And those are going to continue for the foreseeable future.

Now, what does 2337 do regarding renewable energy? We hear our friends on the other side of the aisle talk about the need for renewables, but this bill begins to hurt the renewables. It begins to restrict the renewable energy development, also. It just doesn't make sense.

But we heard from four Democratic witnesses at one hearing that coal cannot be a part of America's energy future if we're to combat global warming, but according to the bill H.R. 2337, it's about the only energy source left because of restricting oil and gas in 2337. We also give deep restrictions onto the wind industry so that the Wind Energy Association came out opposed to the bill saying it cripples our industry.

The bill places new costs and restrictions on the solar industry, requiring new labor provisions, per acre fees, and purchasing restrictions. So this bill harms domestic oil and gas production, reducing domestic production, increasing our reliance on foreign oil, but it also begins to limit our development of the alternative energy sources, but even worse, the most restrictive thing for alternatives is that there were corridors that were implemented in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Those corridors recognize that places where renewables are created are not where the population is generally. New Mexico is one of the few States that would be self-sufficient on wind, yet we can't consume all of the wind energy that we would produce there. And so there were corridors that were lined up to take the renewables from where they're produced maybe in New Mexico to Los Angeles or New York, wherever, and yet those energy corridors receive a death blow in this bill, H.R. 2337, which again is passed out on pretty well party lines and is coming to the floor of the House as a part of Ms. Pelosi's energy package. And yet you have to ask, where is the energy in the bill? Because I see where the limitations on oil and gas are; I see where the limitations on shale are; I see where the limitations on wind and solar are. Exactly where is the energy production going to come from?

I guess with the carbon sequestration that is in the bill, to the dismay of our friends on the other side of the aisle, it's going to ensure that coal is our only source of fuel for the future. But they're also trying to limit its use.

Finally, regarding royalties. This bill attempts to capture royalties owed to the American Federal Government. Like the chairman, I strongly believe that American taxpayers should receive the royalties that are due. Nevertheless, we differ when it comes to the method of collection.

I support a Royalty in Kind program where we simply declare the number of barrels produced. We can meter that, it's very easy. We don't have to calculate the price because the price changes every day. And so the take to the Federal Government changes every day if we're contemplating dollars, but Royalty in Kind is very simple, but it also puts a lot of accountants out of business, puts a lot of tax lawyers out of business. And so we could call the provisions here where we kill the Royalty in Kind program in 2337, the ``Tax Lawyer Full Employment Act.'' Because that's what it's going to do, it's going to put people in the courts saying, now exactly what was the price on November 7 of 2001 when you sold that gas? It would be so much easier just to take the meter reading, take the government's percent, and put it into the government's coffers.

In our legislative hearing on this bill, leading Members on the other side of the aisle chastised our royalty regime saying it parallels countries whose corrupt governments are blowing up the rigs. That was a quote. Then they're moving to this country to exploit our low rates. But how ironic is that? You wish for the U.S. to set an example for the world on climate change, but want to follow the lead of Venezuela and Nigeria on royalties.

I support increasing production that will bring good, safe jobs and energy to America. I support efforts to keep the ``American take'' as a portion of energy development to a reasonable level that ensures companies have the money to provide safe working conditions, keep their facilities up to date, and reinvest in development and exploration.

Finally, we had comments all through the time that the royalties received by the U.S. Government are so much lower than Russia, so much lower than Venezuela. Yet I would like to share a final chart with you that shows some of the problems.

This picture is in Russia. And I will guarantee you that you will see no oil field in America like this. The opponents on the other side of the aisle of the level of royalties that we take currently simply want to make a moral equivalency between the kind of government and regulations that allow this, and the government and regulations in this country which have produced one of the strongest energy economies in the world, which have produced the most dramatic economy of American exceptionalism in the world, and yet they're trying to unravel that and undo that.

I would hope that we all would look at the energy suggestions from our friends on the other side of the aisle, that we would carefully evaluate the fact that the supply cannot keep up with the demand, that prices are going to be high, and the supply is going to continue to be tight unless we do something about it.

I thank the gentleman for yielding tonight and appreciate the discussion on both what we've done in the past, and what we're looking for in the future according to 2337.

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

I rise today to support H.R. 1980, the Housing Assistance Council Authorization Act of 2007, and would like to compliment the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa) for his work on this and also Chairwoman Waters for bringing this important initiative for rural communities to the floor today.

This legislation recognizes the work of the Housing Assistance Council in providing housing opportunities for low-income families in rural communities, and most of the Second District is rural communities in New Mexico. There are many others across this country, but we feel the direct impact in New Mexico.

Although HAC has received funding through HUD appropriations since the early 1980s, the program has never been authorized. This bill would formally authorize assistance councils, which is important to ensure the continued success of the program and long-term goal of aiding individuals in low-income housing.

The Housing Assistance Council is unique in nature and the only nonprofit designed to help improve rural housing. HAC should be particularly praised for its work on self-help housing initiatives, which promote personal stability and financial responsibility for low- income housing.

Again I want to thank my colleagues for acknowledging the Housing Assistance Council's important contribution to affordable housing for rural communities, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1982, the Rural Housing and Economic Development Improvement Act of 2007. RHED is designed to provide grants to Indian tribes, State housing finance agencies, State community or economic development agencies, local nonprofit organizations and community development corporations.

H.R. 1982 was introduced in response to the administration's budget proposals for the fiscal year 2008, which zeros out the RHED program by consolidating it into the Community Development Block Grant program,

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

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

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 408 to honor Cathedral Square Corporation in respect to their 30 years of dedicated service to providing quality, affordable housing for seniors and individuals with special needs.

The United States must take care of its seniors and individual needs. I appreciate the work done by the Cathedral Square Corporation over the last 30 years to provide the most quality assistance to our seniors and special need individuals.

I thank and congratulate the CSC on reaching their 30th anniversary. And I encourage my colleagues to support the resolution.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the ``Native American Economic

Development and Infrastructure for Housing Act of 2007.'' I am joined in this effort by my colleagues, Chairman Barney Frank, Representatives Dale Kildee, Dan Boren, and Rick Renzi who I want to thank for their support.

This legislation will help Native Americans build stronger and better communities all across America. The demonstration project embodied in this bill will help Native Americans build not only improved neighborhoods, but the economic infrastructure to support those communities in some of the most rural and impoverished areas in America.

Currently, communities that receive direct funding from the Community Development Block Grant program may borrow or issue bonded debt for up to five times their annual CDBG allocation. This is known as the Section 108 loan guarantee program and encourages economic development, housing rehabilitation, public facilities and large-scale physical development projects.

Title VI of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self- Determination Act, NAHASDA, is similar to the Section 108 statute and allows tribes to borrow or issue bonded debt for up to five times their annual NAHASDA allocation for housing purposes only. The Title VI program has been underutilized in part because the eligible projects are strictly limited to activities that do not generate sufficient income to pay back these loans.

We all know that economic development and infrastructure needs are acute in Indian Country. This legislation gives tribes the same access to vital economic and infrastructure resources that non-tribal communities currently use.

Under this program, an applicant would have to demonstrate to the Secretary that 70 percent of the benefit of the proposed project would go to ``low-income Indian families on Indian reservations and other Indian areas.'' This is similar to the CDBG program, which requires that 70 percent of a project's benefit be for low- and moderate-income families, and ensures that proposed projects meet the need of the communities we all seek to support.

I urge my colleagues to join us in sponsoring this legislation so that we can support the efforts of local tribal communities as they work to improve their infrastructure and economies and to increase opportunities for Native American families.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her yielding and for her work on the issue and thank the majority party for their work. We're involved in a very serious discussion here.

I was in the Air Force in 1970, in Reese Air Force Base in Texas in pilot training, and the Shah of Iran's son was in the class right behind me. I didn't know much about the Shah of Iran, coming from Hobbs, New Mexico, but we began to watch and began to visualize as he left training, and those Iranians who were in the training class with me left and went back home to Iran, what their life was like flying jets in the Middle East. And then in 1979, the Shah was suddenly out of power, just like that. The ayatollah came to power and instituted a tremendous repressive regime that continues to this day.

Now, the question that our friends on the other side of the aisle fail to ask is what is their plan to see that our friends in the Middle East have stability because, in fact, they're balancing the terrorists in their own countries every day. They're balancing them using our force and our will and our promise to help.

So what do our friends in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, what do they do? When I went to Israel earlier this year, Israel simply said they fall. If you leave Iraq, those nations fall.

Now, it's an uncomfortable truth, but somehow we're not going to talk about some uncomfortable truth these days. It's an uncomfortable truth that the entire Middle East is facing a problem of stability. If the entire Middle East faces a problem with stability, the entire world has a problem of stability because, if the Middle East exports about 25 to 30 percent of the world's oil, which it does, then the world oil market becomes destabilized, the world economy becomes destabilized, and in the end, the terrorists win because they have destabilized the world rather than defeat any of the forces in the world. That's been their long-term plan, to export instability, and they have been doing a very good job of it.

Now, the President after 9/11 said we're going to fight a war on terror that simply does three things: we're going to take away the training camps, we're going to choke off their funding, and we're going to take the fight to them. Now, you can agree or disagree that Iraq is a place of combat with the terrorists, but it looks like to me that the terrorists from all over the world are coming in there. Iran is providing terrorists and weapons, Syria, other nations; and so whether or not it appears that the war is there, our soldiers believe that they're actually fighting al Qaeda.

So the President's plan has definitely uprooted the training camps. We've begun to squeeze off the funding to the al Qaeda troops, to the terrorists worldwide, and we have taken the fight to them. But now then, when we retreat, when we come home, the question that has failed to be asked by our friends who have this resolution calling our troops home, it fails to ask what do we do for world stability at that point. It is a serious omission. It's not accidental.

I appreciate the gentlelady for yielding.

I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we are told today that it's time to refocus on the war on terror. Yet as I read this bill, and I would encourage each one of you to go online and read H.R. 2956, I see no refocus on the war on terror.

I see nothing in H.R. 2956 which describes the threat from radical jihad. I see no plan.

We are told that we need to communicate with the White House, that we need to send a bold message to the President. I am sorry, he's right down the street. It's the people who are causing terror, worldwide terror, that the communication needs to be sent to.

Now, I can't tell you exactly what our troops are feeling as we debate these measures.

I can tell you that I was in Vietnam flying missions in Vietnam at the time that Jane Fonda gave aid and comfort to our enemy, and a time that this Congress was withdrawing support from that war. And I can tell you what soldiers at that time felt. They felt dismay. They felt betrayal. They felt like we had been led down a path.

If this were really an attempt by our majority party to deal with the situation that they are concerned about, it should have an immediate withdrawal date. But it lacks that because it's a political tool rather than an attempt to refocus on the war on terror.

I can tell you that it does not ask key questions, key questions like, how will unilateral withdrawal prevent al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other terrorist operatives already in Iraq from establishing robust training facilities from which to plan and execute additional strikes against the United States?

It fails to answer the question that both Israel and Jordan have asked when they said that unilateral withdrawal, much like the Democrats' plan, would have a devastating consequence on their countries and the region as a whole.

What impact will our unilateral withdrawal from Iraq have on the safety of regional allies, such as Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait? Those questions go unasked and unaddressed in H.R. 2956, because this is not a plan to refocus the war on terror. This is a plan to withdraw and hope that we can retreat home without anyone following us.

It just won't happen that way. The terrorists will come with us as we retreat.

I urge defeat of H.R. 2956.

I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

I did make my living in oil and gas. I never owned one oil and gas well; but I will tell you, we went down holes. We were plumbers, and we fixed the oil wells and so I have seen the cost and difficulty of producing energy from a very close point of view. My wife and I employed 50 people in a small company that simply repaired oil weapons.

Reasonable people can have different points of view, but I have watched the trajectory of the Democrat energy bills, first H.R. 6, the energy bill that came through our Resources Committee and now this Interior Appropriations. And I will tell you that from my point of view, the Democratic energy agenda is anti-American energy. It insists that we import more. It is going to send more jobs to China and it is going to make life harder for Americans.

The motion to recommit simply says let's have the secretary certify. If you reasonably believe that I am wrong about my assumptions, we are going to send this back to the secretary to certify that nothing in this bill will reduce the amount of domestic energy or result in increased imports. I think if you believe in your bill, you should not be afraid to cause that review by the secretary and that certification that we are going to protect consumers. Because every one of us hear from consumers every day, our constituents, that the price of gasoline is too high. It is too high because of the policies that we in America, we in this American government have caused.

Section 115 is a very simple section. It is the only research and development section for ultra-deep oil. I can tell you that the deeper you go, the more expensive oil is to get. And it is not for the big companies, it is for the small companies that can't have research and development. The only research and development money that is available for small companies is in section 115. It has been taken out of every other section.

Shale oil is title VI. Shale oil is two times all the reserves of oil and gas in the entire world. Two times. It would make us self- sufficient, and yet we are removing shale oil.

My friends, these are the reasons that I believe the policies that are being promoted are anti-American and pro-import, will send jobs to China, and will make life harder for Americans.

The Washington Post, in review of the very first shot of this Democrat energy agenda, H.R. 6, The Washington Post said, ``This is something Hugo Chavez would be proud of.''

My friends, we are not on a track to make life easier for Americans; we are on a track to make life very difficult for the American economy and the American consumer.