Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I'm proud to be on the floor tonight speaking on behalf of the Western Caucus. We, in the West have been working for 2 years now--for a year and a half--to help the Obama administration out with their tasks.

In September of last year, September 11, President Obama said that he would keep trying every new idea that works and listen to every good proposal, no matter which party comes up with it. And so 4 days later, on the 12th of September, last year, we in the Western Caucus, Senator Barrasso and myself, sent a letter to President Obama outlining the ``Jobs Frontier Report''; but, to date, we have not yet heard from the administration.

In that jobs report we have, basically, 40 different pieces of legislation that create American jobs, utilize American energy, and also stop regulations that are in the process of killing, during this year, 3 million more jobs.

So at a time when the Nation is faced with 8.2 percent unemployment, continuing over 8 percent, month after month, for one of the longest periods of time in our history, the administration seems pretty flat- footed on ideas, and so we in the Western Caucus felt like we could assist in that. That's our business. Many of us are familiar with the industries, we're familiar with the job creation that can go on in the Western States. And so we felt that we were offering help to the administration but, to this point, they've been completely unresponsive.

If you go on our Web site, you would be able to see the ``Jobs Frontier Report.'' We've got the cover of it depicted here, and it simply describes in that report the 40 exact pieces of legislation that have already been written and submitted in order to create these jobs.

Now, it would be important to understand that all of these jobs, not one of them requires Federal input, no Federal expenditure, no Federal stimulus, no tax to the American people. And, instead, we're simply trying to solve the problem with the free market that has caused this country to be so great in the past.

We are faced with unemployment in the West that is actually much higher. It's 10.1 in percent in the West, which tells us that the accusations that there is a war on the West, a war on jobs in the West by the administration are verifiable in the unemployment figures.

We have other documentation. Gas prices have doubled since 2009. The public lands are facing increasing restrictions.

The President has recently stated that the oil production is up in the U.S. Well, he stated a correct thing; but what he should have been, from his perspective, talking about is it is all produced on public lands. And when we analyze that, we find out, in 2011, that oil based on public lands, produced on public lands, actually decreased by 14 percent, and that the gas production, natural gas production, decreased by 11 percent.

And so when Secretary Salazar levies his charge that the facts don't speak for what our position is, maybe we could redirect the Secretary to go to the Web pages for the government that would describe exactly what we're showing here, that the oil production that is occurring to increase our total production is occurring on private lands. It is not occurring and is, in fact, decreasing on public lands.

That's because the government is slowing down the permitting process. They're finding new and restrictive ways to implement requirements on people who would be creating jobs, who would be drilling for oil; and each of these processes simply strings out our investment.

We had testimony earlier today, the House and Senate Western Caucus came together, had testimony from two different panels; and one of the panelists explained that they had bought--they had paid for these leases on public land, but they, in fact, then turned them back because the requirements turned it into a proposition that they had not bid on at all.

So we continue to find these case examples of too much interference, too much regulation, causing the energy sector to slow down in certain areas on public lands therefore creating more unemployment and creating a bigger gap.

I'll finish one thought, and then I'm going to yield time to my friend, Congresswoman Lummis from Wyoming, who is a member of the Western Caucus and is the vice chairman of that. We were in the hearing together earlier today.

But at this time in our Nation's history, almost everyone agrees that the greatest threat that we face is the continuing debt and the year- after-year deficits.

There are only three ways that you can solve deficit. If you're spending more money than you're bringing in, as a family, well, you've got a couple of choices. Number one, you can go out and get a second job or retraining to where you make more income so you can increase your income.

Number two, you can cut your expenses down; or, number three, you can borrow money to make up the differences.

The Federal Government is faced with the same conclusions. It either needs to increase revenue, that's by raising taxes; or you can increase revenue by growing the economy, that's creating more jobs.

Secondly, you can cut spending. Thirdly, you can borrow.

Unfortunately, the Federal Government goes one extra step that most families, some families actually resort to, but it's against the law for families. It's perfectly legal for the government. But the fourth thing is to print money. And it's that printing of money, that debt which is not being able to be repaid that is the great threat to the country.

If we were to look across the West and see where we've choked off jobs and put those people back to work in the hundreds of thousands of jobs, then each job would do two things. First, they would cut the cost of the government because those people come off unemployment, welfare, food stamps; but then, secondly, they go to work and start paying taxes. So you have a squeeze from both the cost end, because the government is spending less money; but you also have an increase in revenue so your costs and revenue move together when we create jobs.

That's the reason that the Western Caucus is concentrated on jobs rather than a taxation policy or a borrowing policy and especially not on the printing-of-money policy.

So at this moment, I will yield time to my good friend, Cynthia Lummis, from Wyoming. We welcome you tonight and thank you for being willing to speak on behalf of the Western Caucus.

I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming for her presentation and the facts that she presents.

One of the things that people constantly say who are opposed to oil and gas, to energy coming from America, is that it's impossible to drill and remain environmentally sensitive and safe. I think that those people are simply not looking at current technology.

It is possible with today's technology to drill up to 7 miles horizontally. That would be like drilling from here in this room here across the Potomac River somewhere out into Crystal City and putting a drill bit through a window that's maybe this large.

So what we're able to do is drill down 3,000 or 4,000 or maybe 5,000 feet, turn horizontally and drill and hit the zones of production. It is possible in today's technology to preserve almost the entire footprint of whether we're wanting grass lands or forest lands or whatever. We almost don't have to disturb those because the drill bit actually will be so far beneath the surface, we don't have to go in and clear locations like we did 15, 20, and 30 years ago.

You can also take one well, drill it straight down and then come off that and put multiple well bores so that what used to be spread on a quarter-acre or quarter-mile spacing or half-mile spacing might now today be one well for any number of the distributed wells.

So the environmental impacts of drilling today are probably less than in any other technology.

Wind energy, for instance. Wind is very large in New Mexico. They've got these miles and miles of wind generators standing in the air. Very large footprint. New Mexico is very capable of producing a lot of wind, but one of the problems is that the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't shine all the time.

We had in Arizona recently--one of the operators of a wind farm said that they get about 12\1/2\ percent reliability, that is about 12\1/2\ percent of the time they're getting generated power out of the wind, and it's somewhat higher in Arizona for solar, about 25 percent of the time.

So when people are talking about converting from oil and gas to wind and solar, and I think every one of us believes that we ought to be using all of those forms of energy, but we have to understand that if we go to 12\1/2\ percent reliability, that's the amount of time that when you flip the switch that you're going to have power.

I think most of us are living lives that we demand and need power immediately for use of home appliances, for use of our computers. In manufacturing, you don't want power that is just available part-time. Generally, manufacturing is expensive and competitive. We're trying to keep our manufacturing jobs here, and the last thing we want to do is tell manufacturers you've got to shut down for 10 hours today because the wind is not blowing. The modern economies absolutely demand the predictability of good power when you flip the switch to turn on equipment or to turn on things in your home.

It is possible to provide those energy resources at the same time that we protect the environment. In my father's generation, there were lots of problems. In my generation, I watched as major companies began to clean up things that had originated back in the twenties and the thirties. So it's necessary for us to say that every single one of us wants to see the environment clean. They want clean water. They want the soil to be clean and clean air. And it is possible to achieve both because of the technologies that we have today.

I would draw our attention next to the fact that this administration has been saying that they want an all-of-the-above energy policy. At the same time, then, they're increasing restrictions on public lands and access to public lands. They're making it more difficult for the producers of both coal and electricity generation. They're making it so much more difficult that everyone in the West is struggling under the load.

The reason that the West has to deal with the problem more than the East is that the Western lands are so much more owned by the government. State government and Federal Government own such a large proportion of the land in the West that it's incomprehensible to States back East exactly about the problems that we face. But whether it's endangered species, whether it is restrictions, whether it is EPA, all of the agencies play a part in slowing down the process.

Recently, our administration--through Mr. Abbey at the BLM--said that we really want the BLM across the Nation to lower the time required to give permits. In fact, that time is still abysmally high at over 200 days.

I see my friend from Utah (Mr. Bishop) standing ready to speak. At this time, if he is ready, we'll yield time to Mr. Bishop, and we appreciate your presence on the Western Caucus.

Mr. Bishop is the past chairman and still a respected person on the House Western Caucus. Thank you for being here tonight, and we appreciate your participation on the caucus.

I thank the gentleman for his comments and would, again, accentuate both his points and the gentlelady from Wyoming's about the administration's current war on the poor. We have heard repeated comments from the administration and their representatives that we need to get the price of gasoline up so that people will consume less, that, yes, the price of electricity by our policies will necessarily increase dramatically. The price of electricity increasing, the price of gas increasing, punish the poor terribly. Why would we have policies that are so unfair to the poor? It defies imagination.

Also, following up on my friend's comments about the Secretary saying that it is impossible, just not feasible, even unimaginable that people in the States would take better care of the property than the Federal Government has, I would simply direct the Secretary's attention to those massive forest fires in the West. They are managing our forests in order that they would burn down. They and the Federal Government have choked the bureaucracy full of people in order to manage these resources, but, instead, they manage them in a process that ultimately sees that they will burn down. It's not a question of if but when.

The final comment I'm going to make, and then I'm going to yield to my friend from Colorado, but the President recently asked for $52 million to crack down on speculators, which he claims are the cause of high gas prices. $52 million to crack down on speculators.

Now, speculators, you have to understand that they make their money by guessing which way the market is going to go. Right now they see a government that is choking down access to supplies, so they scratch their head and say, We think maybe the price is going to go up and so they speculate and buy on the assumption that the price of gas is going up, the price of oil is going up, and lo and behold, they're making money.

But if the President were to announce today that he was going to open--and people sincerely believed him, that he was going to open access to Federal lands, those same speculators who today think the price is going to go up would begin to say, Oh, I better buy down, because if I bid up and the price falls, I'm going to lose money. So those speculators would begin to drive the price down.

But he doesn't need $52 million. All he needs to do is give one sentence from the White House that the war on the West is ending and we're going to open the West oil production up again. That would do the trick; no $52 million putting us deeper into debt. It simply makes sense to us from the West because we see it day in and day out.

We're joined tonight by our good friend, Doug Lamborn, from Colorado, and welcome here. It's nice to see you, and we appreciate your participation in the Western Caucus. We appreciate you being here tonight.

That is absolutely true. One point that is often omitted by the opponents of fracking is that the people who most want fracking not to communicate with the fresh water are the oil companies themselves. They drill this million-dollar well bore, then they run casing in the well bore. They put cement outside that casing in order that they can have a nice tight well bore in order to produce the oil that allows them to pump the oil out expeditiously. And when they frack, they frack thousands of feet below the water zones. They're usually right up at the surface. And for contamination to occur, that pressure that is pumped down in the thousands of feet lower in the well would have to come outside the well bore, outside the cement around the casing, all the way to the surface, and then contaminate the water up there. In doing that, they have ruined the entire well bore.

So the companies themselves are watching to see if there's any drop in pressure. That's when you know that you've got something bleeding off. They shut everything down. They patiently look at it. The oil companies, again, are the best custodians of the

water because they don't want to ruin the well that they have spent drilling and a lot of money in completing.

I notice that my good friend, Mrs. Lummis, is back at the podium, and would yield more time to her at this point.

I thank the gentlelady.

Before I yield time to my good friend Mr. Bishop again, I'm reading in today's quotes that Interior Secretary Salazar said that House Republicans live in an imagined energy world. I appreciate his concern and his criticism. I consider it as constructive. But think about this imagination.

The President in March of 2012 said: We can't just drill our way to lower gas prices. We can't drill our way to lower gas prices. That's a viewpoint that could be considered legitimate, except that about the same time he's calling for Brazil and Saudi Arabia to increase their drilling in order to get the prices down so that people in America don't have to pay as much at the pump.

Now, I'm not sure what imagined energy world says that it will cause the price of gas to go down if they drill in Saudi Arabia and Brazil, but it won't cause the price of gas to go down if they drill over here. That, to me, argues that it is that that is instead an imagined energy world.

The Secretary goes on to talk about that these members of the Republican Party are members of the Flat Earth Society in a demeaning term. Now, in my county, you can see from one end to the other, miles and miles; and if you turn and look east, you can see all the way to Dallas 300 or 400 miles away. I do live in a flat part of New Mexico and can see across the line into Texas. And so he speaks in demeaning terms about flat Earth, and yet he's very happy to have all the production of oil and gas that comes from there.

So the flat-broke administration is criticizing the Flat Earth Society. And of the two, I would rather live on flat ground than be flat broke. And so I would yield to my good friend, and then I will close out.

I thank the gentleman.

Senator Hatch is going to introduce this week the West Act, which is a combined 10 bills that we have previously sent from the House of Representatives that are sitting dormant drawing dust in the Senate, and so he is going to lump them together and push them out. Those are a part of our ``Jobs Frontier Report.'' And those acts do things like H.R. 1229, Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act, that's by Representative Hastings; H.R. 1230, Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act by, again, Mr. Hastings; H.R. 1231, Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act; H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, and that's by Mr. Gardner from Colorado; H.R. 1837, the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act by Mr. Nunes of California; H.R. 872, Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act by Mr. Gibbs; H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Prevention Act by Ms. Noem; and, finally, H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act by Mr. Upton.

Now, just talking among friends, I would feel that the Secretary of the Interior exposes a little bit of thin skin. These are credible debates that we're having in America right now, whether we should use foreign oil or oil produced in this country, whether we should export our jobs overseas to produce energy or whether we should get them here.

I read where Mr. Salazar says that the fact is most of the Outer Continental Shelf resources are open for business, he says. Well, then, give us the nod, and we'll simply pass those first three bills: Putting the Gulf Back to Work Act; Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now; and Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium. If it's already the case, then just humor us, nod your head, and nothing will be changed since it's already open for business, and if the President would tell the Senate to go ahead and pass just those three bills, we could send them up to the President, and we could have plenty of jobs starting out and plenty of American production.

Again, I would look back at the price of natural gas. When the administration says that you can't drill and come up with lower prices, the price of natural gas a couple of years ago was in the $12 range. Today, the price is about $2.50. Now what caused the price to go from 12 to 2? When the price is going up, the President says, I need $52 million to control the speculators that are driving the price up. But when the price goes down, somehow he's not saying we need to give you $52 million back because now those speculators are driving the price down.

This view of energy in the White House, originating with the Secretary of the Interior, somehow doesn't get the fact that the reason the price of natural gas has fallen from 12 to 2--and that's a very steep decline--is because we have drilled our way into lower prices. We've increased the supply enough through more jobs and more production that world demand is kind of swamped with the supply. It's, again, an economic equation of supply and demand.

I think that's the greater impact in the price of gasoline today. The supply and demand of oil and the supply and demand of natural gas controls that. We have drilled our way to success in natural gas because companies went everywhere drilling on private lands.

But now, then, the administration is saying we need to curtail all that production here because it's not going to lower the price; we need to the control the speculators. These are simply inconsistencies that are punishing the American public. They're punishing the American public and especially the poor in the American public by higher gasoline prices and by higher electricity costs. It's making it to where families just can't get by, to where they can't make the payments for the month. And poor families everywhere are having to make choices to buy energy or to live in cold, live without air conditioning, and to not be able to drive and see their grandkids.

What kind of choices are those? Those are not the choices that I think most Americans want. I think most Americans like our lifestyle. Our lifestyle is based on two dominant things--the cost of food and the cost of energy. And when we drive both of those costs up through overregulation and through government limitations, then we're doing a disservice to the American public.

Every single person in America wants to see our land protected, they want to see the workers protected, they want to see soil, water, and air protected; but they also are desperate to see jobs created. It's within the power of this body, it's within the power of the Senate, and it's within the power of the President to create those jobs, to create the answers for an America that is tired, for an America that is scared, and for an America that is worried about its future and the future for her children.

It's within our power in this town to reverse those things, to stop the war on the West, to start making sense in public policy, to start making decisions that create solutions--real solutions for not just jobs, but for careers where people can plan their lives, they can set aside to buy a house, or to send their kids to school. That's the America that all Americans want across party lines, across racial lines. People for generations have come to this country for that promise, for that hope, and that opportunity. It starts with us in this town. It is time for us to put aside the differences.

We ask the Senate to pass the West Act; and, Mr. President, we respectfully ask for you to sign that act to bring jobs to the West and bring prosperity to the Nation.

God bless this country, and God bless each one of the taxpayers.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 2 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, April 25, 2012, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this legislation, H.R. 5.

One of the most trusted sources of information in my Mom's life-- she's in her eighties--is her physician. We just got a history lesson, a civics lesson, from our friends across the aisle just a moment ago expressing how the Democrat Congress passed, the Democrat Senate passed, and a Democrat President signed into law a bill that puts into place ways to control the costs. It took $500 billion from Medicare in order to pay for the bill that they passed. Then in addition to the civics lesson, we were given a political reality that the Senate is not going to take the bill up--therefore, we should not be discussing it.

I think, for the peace of mind of people like my mom who are going to have the IPAB, this independent board, inserted between them and their doctors--Mom won't even get to talk to her doctor if this board decides she can't. The scheduler will simply say you have to come back next month or next year, and we're told we shouldn't bring that up because it might scare seniors. Seniors have a right to be scared. They have a right to wonder.

If some board does not even answer to Congress, it can change laws without coming to us, and it can write its own rules; and we're to be told that we should not be discussing this issue because it might frighten seniors. It just might, and they very well should be told.

The Obama health care legislation did not bring one new doctor into service, but it brought millions of new patients in. The real truth is that we have increasing demand for doctor services because of these new patients and no new supply. You're going to have to limit it somewhere. They wanted to hide this limitation under the IPAB. We're simply saying, let's restore the relationship between 86-year-old moms and the doctors. Let's get rid of the IPAB. This bill would do it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1837. The Nation is faced with trillion-dollar deficits, persistent unemployment above 8 percent, and we continue to use the Federal Government to kill jobs and to export them to China.

You can take a look at what the President recently did regarding the Keystone pipeline. You can look at the export of the rare-Earth mineral mines to China.

But this is the one that is most offensive, this exporting of our agriculture products. San Joaquin Valley used to place vegetables, safe vegetables grown in America on store shelves across the country. Today we import vegetables from countries that use pesticides that are disallowed here.

We have an unsafe food supply. We have more people out of work, and we have deficits because we don't have tax-paying citizens.

This bill simply is a commonsense, bipartisan solution that puts people back to work, provides a safe food supply, and makes America more sound. It's common sense. We should vote for it.

Less than 1 month ago, Kathleen Sebelius issued a finding that said that every insurance company in the country would have to offer insurance products, some of which would offend the faiths of many people. This is against our Constitution, and it is against the rights of conscience of a free people.

Mr. Speaker, across religious lines, the people of New Mexico and the people especially of southern New Mexico--Catholic, Protestants and people of no religion, people across cultural lines, and people across racial lines--are gathering this Saturday: this Saturday to protest, this Saturday to stand and say that the government needs to back up out of our church.

This is not a Republican issue. This is not a Democrat issue. This is an issue of the Constitution and of a freedom-loving people.

So I encourage all who are across this United States to begin to organize and stand in the streets to tell the government that enough is enough. We are meeting this Saturday, March 3, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, from 1:00 to 2:30. It will be a very large gathering. There will be speakers from both parties and from all faiths.

We think that it is time for Americans to be united together again, as one people, against a government that has become too strong.

Thank you. I would gladly be from Arizona, except I'm representing New Mexico, and I'll stick there for awhile.

My father worked for the oil industry my entire life. We grew up in the oil industry in southeast New Mexico. Back in the late seventies and early eighties, the company that my dad worked for, Humble, and later Exxon, began to tell all the employees that oil would be out, that it would be finished in eastern New Mexico and that they would need to get their affairs ready to be transferred somewhere else.

Now, my dad retired in the late eighties, and the oil fields are still viable in Lea County, New Mexico, because of increasing technology. The ability to drill laterally has really revolutionized the ability to produce energy, and also the 3 D seismics have been very effective at finding now sources of oil. So basically what we're finding is that the old estimates of how much oil was left in the U.S. have been grossly inadequate. With the new finds all the way across the country, this Nation could be self-sufficient in oil, except there are people here in Washington who absolutely do not want us to be self- sufficient. They want the pressure on the economy. For some reason, they believe that we should have a level playing field with the European countries that have to import all of their energy.

I think that America should be allowed to develop its resources that it's blessed with. I believe that the American people should be allowed to work in careers and in jobs that pay good money. Other people in Washington think that we should shut down all of the timber production, all of the oil and gas production and all of the mines and convert over to hospitality jobs. The hospitality jobs do not pay

enough. They're fine jobs, but they don't pay enough to raise families. So we have these different visions of America where one says we're going to shut off the resources, we're not going to develop them, and the other group says, yes, we must have American energy, we must have American jobs, and we must improve the economy.

We're facing times when our budgets are completely unworkable. This coming year, we're looking at $1 trillion in deficits. We're going to spend about $3.9 trillion, and we're going to create revenues of about $2.9 trillion. Now, people at home can do the math. That's a deficit of $1 trillion, $1.1 trillion.

Now, a magical thing happens when we start creating jobs in America. People are saying, Can you cut your way from 3.9 to 2.9? I don't think that we have to do that. Every time that you put someone to work, they come off of food stamps and they come off of unemployment, so the cost of government begins to decrease with every job you create. Additionally, those people will pay taxes. And so if we would allow the jobs to be created, they would be forming daily. If we would just open the doors to energy production in this country, then we would see our economy moving toward balance, and that's what we desperately need. We need our checkbook balanced, because that's the only way we're going to sustain the economic future of this country.

Now, people just can't believe that Washington would put oil and gas off-limits completely. They can't believe that the country's leaders would make life that much more difficult for them to pay their bills, to send their kids to school, and to feed and clothe their children. They can't imagine policymakers in Washington who would willingly do that. And yet you have repeatedly heard the President and his staff say that we need the price of gasoline to go up, we've got to figure out how to increase it. Well, they've figured out how to increase it, and that's simply to limit the drilling of it.

I think this year's elections will pin on the cost of gasoline and the functioning of this economy. People across America are desperate for job creation, not just any jobs, not just minimum wage jobs, but those jobs where you can get in it and make a career, like my father who worked his whole life in the oil and gas industry. It was a good living for his family. That's the sort of jobs that Americans are looking for, and that's the sort of jobs that we can create.

But how are American policymakers putting the oil and gas off-limits? For instance, shale. America is the Saudi Arabia of shale oil. And yet in 2007, the Pelosi House passed a bill that put all of the shale production in Colorado completely off-limits. That's just wrong. We should be exploring every opportunity for energy.

Another way that they're limiting the production is that they're just not processing the applications to drill. So you have a lot of people who would invest a lot of money right now creating jobs, but the Federal Government will not process the application for permits to drill on Federal lands. Much of the West is Federal lands. New Mexico is about 33 percent Federal lands. Other States have as much as 80 percent Federal lands, and those are being completely eliminated from oil and gas production, from mining, from timber and from other jobs that could be created.

And so we find an administration and a mindset in Washington that says we're going to starve America for jobs, we're going to starve America for energy, and we're going to send those jobs overseas. I think that Americans are waking up and realizing that it does not have to be that way. We don't have to be paying $4 for gasoline.

People here in Washington routinely say that we cannot drill our way out of the problem. I hear that a lot. But if you look at the cost of natural gas, the price of natural gas today, you'll see that it has diminished tremendously because we have drilled our way out of the shortage that existed just 4 or 5 years ago.

The price of natural gas spiked around $10. Today it's less than 4. We have to understand that you can produce more energy, you can get the cost down, but a government has to stand aside and let the people work.

I just returned from Vietnam, a known communist country, and yet they're hungry for production of energy. The Communist Chinese are looking for new oil and gas supplies. They're drilling just 47 miles off the coast of Florida, and yet this country will not let American firms drill 45 miles off the coast of Florida. So we continue to see policies come out of Washington that are strangling the economy for oil and gas and driving the prices up.

It's just not the oil and gas, though. The sad thing is they're doing the same thing to electricity. Two electricity generating stations in New Mexico are being told to shut down energy production. We suffered rolling blackouts just a year and a half ago, and we're being told to shut down electrical generation? These are not generators that would not produce. These are generators that they're saying, well, they might be contributing to some pollution. They can't prove it.

The standards that they hold us to need to be measured by a computer, because the naked eye can't see the difference in the haze that they're trying to demand the improvement of. So, again, we see policymakers who are willingly making life more miserable and more difficult for the average American.

The Republicans in Congress today are speaking up for the average homeowner, the average person that goes to work every day, does their job, goes home and raises their family. We need to support those kind of people, and I compliment the gentlemen, both of them, especially the gentleman from Colorado, for leading this fight for lower energy prices. It's a commonsense thing, and we need to back him up.

I have not seen the comment, but it's standard that comes from some here in Washington. You have people who are saying, They should develop their resources, but, oh, we should not develop ours. It's that mindset that is killing American jobs. It's that mindset that's killing American energy, driving prices up.

The American families are struggling. Hardworking families are struggling under the demands of just raising their families. And it is abysmal that Washington policymakers in either body are having that kind of mindset.

Across the West, we see a continuing failure to give access to public lands. That's one thing that we're fighting in the Western Caucus. I would refer any of the people in this body or any of the people watching this program to go online, take a look at the Western Caucus, the Jobs Frontier--over 40 pieces of legislation that would bring on jobs, each one of them designed to bring on jobs with no government investment. That would all be private money creating private jobs. Also, there are bills which are designed to stop the government from killing 3 million more jobs this year. So the Western Caucus is hard at work trying to preserve the economy of the United States. And I appreciate you bringing that up.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and thanks for his leadership on this work.

To adequately assess exactly what the effects are going to be of increasing the CAFE standards from 35 to 54 miles per gallon requires that we take a look at the increase that we had just in 2007, the increase that moved us to 35 miles per gallon. We had testimony that declared that at least one auto manufacturer would go out of business, would file bankruptcy if that law was actually implemented. That was because we do not have the technical capability to enforce and to build the vehicles that would take us to 35 miles per gallon. In order to reach that objective then, the auto manufacturers were going to have to arbitrarily price their lower mileage vehicles--they raise the price on them to drive demand down. That is, they'd sell fewer. It's not that we're actually increasing the mileage; it's that we're selling fewer of the larger vehicles, vehicles like pickup trucks that are used in the oil field, on ranching operations. So we wanted to depress down the demand for them while simultaneously adding stimulus to the lower cost vehicles. Now, the problem with that for a business is that the profits are made from those vehicles that are like pickup trucks and the SUVs.

So this government was in the process of mandating that the manufacturers would build fewer of the high-profit vehicles and more of the low-profit vehicles. That's the only way they could comply with the government standards. And it was therefore going to decrease profits enough to put at least one of the manufacturers into bankruptcy. As it turned out, two of the three manufacturers in America filed for bankruptcy, two of the three.

The taxpayers went in and had to bail them out.

When the President in his State of the Union last week talked about not bailing out companies, he spoke out of the other side of his mouth later in the speech by saying that the company we bailed out in General Motors was such a great success. It is not a great success when taxpayers have to subsidize the processes declared by the U.S. Government. If that is what happened when we moved the mileage from 20 to 35 miles per gallon, imagine the distress in the auto industry when we move it to 54.

The Prius does not even qualify. It does not reach 54 miles per gallon. The Toyota Yaris only gets 38 miles per gallon. The technology does not exist. The same geniuses in the White House that brought us Cash for Clunkers, are now going to bring us 54-mile-per-gallon requirements for fuel standards.

The reason that the United States economy is faltering and suffering is because of what is happening by government agencies. The unfairness for the lower-class people in this country is ghastly.

The President stood on this floor last week and talked about fairness to everyone, economic fairness. Let the President hear his own words. He made fun of one of his agencies that declared milk to be a hazardous substance. He made fun of the regulation which got so much attention that it was rolled back. Let the President make fun of this regulation, because it is going to kill the car manufacturers. They cannot make cars that go 54 miles to the gallon.

For those who say just make the rule, and they will develop it, I simply say let's pay our EPA workers, all of those involved in this process, let's simply start paying them with General Motors' stock. Let them find out in their own lives exactly what the value of their opinions and their designs are.

The final problem with the implementation of this rule is the constitutionality. Our Founding Fathers set up a system of checks and balances. The President would sign legislation. The Senate and the House would pass the legislation, but they had to pass exactly the same bill. No one House, no one branch could dominate the others. What the President is doing is taking his beliefs, his agendas outside that set up by the Founding Fathers that would guarantee voters would have input. He is moving it into extraterritorial agencies that have no controls by the taxpayers and no controls by the voters.

The President should be ashamed of what he is suggesting. The President is causing our Constitution to be set on a shelf. The Constitution is here not for the rich; the Constitution is here for the poor. The Constitution is that which gives the poor standing in this country. The rich can always have their way; the powerful can always get their way; but the Constitution defends and protects the poor. When the President crassly sets aside the Constitution, he is working against the fairness economically and the fairness constitutionally of this Nation towards 99 percent of its inhabitants.

I think that it is time for this Congress and this House to stand up and tell the President no more, you will bypass the Constitution no more. We need to mean business, and we need to back our words up with actions.

I thank my friend from Texas.

Thanks to the gentleman from New Jersey for leading this issue. The value of a Nation is measured in its willingness to speak for the most fragile among us.

In the United States, it is punishable by 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine to destroy an eagle egg, an embryo. If you destroy a human embryo, it is not only fully legal, but it is federally sanctioned. The Nation needs to pause and ask itself about these convoluted values.

It does not pass without note that Roe vs. Wade, 39 years ago, was passed in 1973. It was the same year that the Endangered Species Act was passed protecting the eagle eggs. So at the point that this Nation was fully sanctioning the destruction of human embryos, it was fully protecting embryos of other species.

I'm fully confident today that this tragedy is going to be reversed because I hear young men and young women across this Nation who are looking at the scientific evidence to understand that it is more than a blob of tissue, but this is human life that we're ending.

We see the decline in the value of the human in our culture because of decisions that this Nation's policy leaders have made, and I see young people across this land beginning to stand up and let their voices be heard. And when we speak with one voice, Washington listens. And in this case of protecting the human life, it is time for Washington to listen.

Mr. Chair, on rollcall Nos. 864, 865, and 866 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Amendment No. 4 Offered by Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas

I thank the gentleman from Virginia for bringing this forward to us.

The American debt was downgraded about 2 months ago; that is, we're approaching junk bond status in the minds of certain debt raters. It's not just that we have a $15 trillion debt--that's significant--but we have no apparent means or way of paying it off.

Our deficit--that is, the shortfall this year is $1.5 trillion, which will be added to that $15 trillion during the course of spending the money. This is not just that we are in debt. It's that we're broke. And also the raters have seen that we have gone to Social Security. Both parties for the past 70 years have taken every cent out of the Social Security lock box and spent it. So it's not just that we're in debt $15 trillion; it's that we have taken everything out of the piggy bank and we've spent that.

And to my friends who are saying we could continue to borrow money, that's also very inaccurate. We could borrow money when we ran deficits of $300 billion. That was the amount that we ran during the last year of President Bush, $300 billion. We can borrow that in the world. But when we went to the trillion-dollar deficits under President Obama, there is no nation in the world capable of lending $1 trillion. China cannot lend $1 trillion. Their total economy of $6 trillion. So the raters looking at our economy say, not only are they broke, but they have no apparent way to pay it back. It's time to say that to the American people.

So this resolution is very simple. It simply says that Washington is going to do what you do as the American family. In order to pay off your bills, you tighten your belt, you live within your means. That's what we're suggesting with this balanced budget amendment, that we live within our means, that we do not spend money that we don't have.

H.J. Res. 2 is a commonsense solution to a serious problem that America faces. I will support it and urge support.

I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding.

Every day in my district in New Mexico, people ask: What's gone wrong with the American economy?

What's gone wrong with the American economy is that the Federal Government spends $3.6 trillion a year and it brings in $2.1 trillion a year.

So they ask then: Why are the revenues to the government down? I said: Well, because jobs are down.

They want to know why jobs are down. And I can point to the resistance to this bill and explain why jobs are down.

This is a very commonsense bill. It says we're going to take almost twice as much land and exchange it to a private company, from a private company, would give them half as much land and let them have a copper mine there. The Americans are currently importing about 32 percent of all the copper that we use. This one mine, if the resistance were dropped and were put into operation, would provide 25 percent of the domestic copper demand for the next 50 years.

Why would we be contesting this? I've heard my friend on the other side of the aisle say it's because there are robots working in the mine. The mines I go in--and I will guarantee you this mine is going to be conducted with engineers, with mechanics. It's going to be conducted with blue-collar labor down the hole working in the mine. They've got better machinery than they did a hundred years ago. They're not there working with pick and shovel. But these are real jobs--1,200 to 15,000 jobs long term, and 2,000 to 3,000 construction jobs. It's a $4 billion increase in our economy and we can't get agreement.

This town talks so much about jobs on both sides of the aisle, and we hear the President moving around the country. I haven't heard the President once come out and say: At least free up these 1,200 jobs. I will sign this jobs package. Instead, he wants to raise taxes to increase jobs. That's his idea.

This is a private investment in a private land where they create a lot of long-term jobs. More than that, they make it self-sufficient.

Now, the price of copper is almost four times what it was 10 years ago. The most recent report is that people are stealing copper bells off of churches and cutting them up and selling them. Copper is in that great a demand and we still find resistance from our friends on the other side of the aisle for creating these jobs, and no one in the American public seems to understand why.

What is this about? It's about agenda politics. It's about saying that we're not going to let any development of resources go in the West. The West has had its timber jobs choked off. It's had its mining jobs choked off. It has resistance to the oil and gas jobs, and there are people who are trying to shut that industry down. They're trying to shut the coal mining jobs down. The West is starving for jobs. In fact, we in

the Western Caucus have recently put out a report highlighting all of the many ways we can create jobs now, called the ``Jobs Frontier.'' I would recommend people go to it. This is one of the bills in the ``Jobs Frontier.''

I heartily recommend that we pass H.R. 1904.

Will the gentleman yield?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If the gentleman from New Mexico would answer a question, it's my understanding that we have rock climbers who are always out there, hikers up in there. That would be the equivalent of allowing people to rappel down the side of the Washington Monument, but I've never heard an objection from anyone to exclude those kinds of activities. And so it comes across just a little bit strange that we would talk about limiting one activity, while people are crawling and rappelling down these sites already.

Mr. Chairman, it is interesting to listen to the arguments. To listen to the arguments that were given just now on why we should support the Markey amendment, you would believe that Republicans have set up this massive scheme for avoiding payment for royalties.

Now, this law has been in place on the books for a very long time. But additionally, I remember that the Democrats were in control, for 2 years, of the House, the Senate, and the White House, and they elected not to pass this royalty bill because they knew it would damage the economy.

Like the gentleman from Arizona just said, this is a single attempt to kill this one bill. Twenty-five percent of the Nation's copper needs could be met for the next 50 years, and they're trying to kill the bill. That's what defies explanation.

I am pleased to rise in support of H.R. 2447, introduced by the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown), which would right a wrong of the segregation era by awarding Congressional Gold Medals collectively to the so-called Montford Point Marines, our country's first black marine unit.

Earlier this month, the country honored the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for his leadership in the civil rights movement.

In their own way, these African American men, 20,000 of whom trained in a segregated boot camp in North Carolina, fought for civil rights and equality even as they fought for peace and freedom in World War II. It was unfair for them to have to wage the first battle while waging the second to defend us all.

While it is interesting that these brave men were not even the first African American marines, at least a dozen served with honor, fighting alongside white marines during the Revolutionary War.

One, John Martin, a slave, was reportedly recruited without the knowledge or permission of his slave owner. But after the war ended, both the Marines and the Navy were disbanded. And when the Marines were reformed in 1798, the right to fight for their country in the Marines was taken from black Americans. Service by blacks was barred, supposedly based on British naval tradition.

Nearly 200,000 black Americans fought in the Union Army in the Civil War, and black soldiers served in the Army during the Spanish-American War and World War I, but the Navy at the time had a policy of not using blacks in combat roles, although plenty served in support roles.

In recognition of the heroism of the men who took their boot camp at Montford Point, we should immediately pass this legislation. Marine Commandant General James F. Amos has worked tirelessly urging Congress to recognize the Montford Point Marines with a Congressional Gold Medal, as it did a half decade ago in recognizing similar trail-blazing World War II military service by the Tuskegee Airmen and the Nisei soldiers.

Mr. Speaker, this bill has more than 300 cosponsors, of which I am one. The staggering number represents a fitting recognition of the bill's importance, and I urge its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2527) to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in recognition and celebration of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to add extraneous material on this bill.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, baseball truly is the American sport. From the earliest age, we begin enrolling our children in pee-wee baseball leagues. We take our children to games where we enjoy a day at the ballpark eating hot dogs and Cracker Jacks. That is because baseball is America's national pastime, and that's why I'm proud to ask for consideration of the bill before us.

H.R. 2527 was introduced in July, on the same day as the 50th Congressional Baseball Game, by Mr. Hanna for himself and 296 others, including myself. This bill was also introduced for Mr. Barton and Mr. Doyle, who managed the Republican and Democrat teams in the 50th Congressional Baseball Game.

H.R. 2527 gives special recognition to a place that honors baseball, a game which, since the time of the Civil War, has occupied our leisure hours. The bill calls for the minting and issuing in 2015 of a limited number of gold, silver, and so-called ``clad'' coins commemorating the 75th anniversary of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

The Hall of Fame and Museum opened and admitted the inaugural class of ballplayers in June 1939 as war clouds gathered over the world. In the 72 years since its opening, the Baseball Hall of Fame has served as a home base, detailing the rich history of our national pastime. More than 14 million people have visited the Hall of Fame.

This commemorative coin program, which will be conducted at no cost to the taxpayer, will also operate in accordance with all the statutes covering these types of coin programs at the U.S. Mint. Further, the program has the potential to raise several million dollars to help finance the operation of the Hall of Fame through surcharges on the sales of these coins. Notably, to claim the surcharges, the Hall of Fame must raise matching funds from nongovernment sources.

The bill ensures that all three coins will have common designs. For example, the bill requires that the reverse side--sometimes referred to as the ``back side''--of each coin is to be in the image of a baseball. The bill further requests that the U.S. Mint try to produce the coins in such a way that it makes the reverse side rounded, like a baseball.

The passage of this bill, the commemorative coin bill, is one of those exceptional pieces of legislation that brings the House together in bipartisan fashion. Particularly at this time, a bill that can garner nearly 300 signatures of support from House Members on both sides of the aisle is a good thing.

I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this bill, and I urge all the Members to support this coin act today.

U.S. House of Representatives,

Committee on Ways and Means,

Washington, DC, October 24, 2011.

Hon. Spencer Bachus,

Chairman, Committee on Financial Services, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Bachus: I am writing concerning H.R. 2527,

the ``National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin

Act,'' which is scheduled for Floor action on Tuesday,

October 25, 2011.

As you know, the Committee on Ways and Means maintains

jurisdiction over matters that concern raising revenue. H.R.

2527 contains a provision that establishes a surcharge for

the sale of commemorative coins that are minted under the

bill, and this falls within the jurisdiction of the Committee

on Ways and Means.

However, as part of our ongoing understanding regarding

commemorative coin bills and in order to expedite this bill

for floor consideration, the Committee will forgo action.

This is being done with the understanding that it does not in

any way prejudice the Committee with respect to the

appointment of conferees or its jurisdictional prerogatives

on this or similar legislation in the future.

I would appreciate your response to this letter, confirming

this understanding with respect to H.R. 2527, and would ask

that a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter be

included in the Congressional Record during Floor

consideration.

Sincerely,

Dave Camp,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hanna).

Mr. Speaker, after last night's game in the World Series, most Americans understand that ``T'' is for Texas.

I yield 3 minutes to the manager of the Republican team, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Mr. Speaker, the competition between the gentleman from Texas and the gentleman from Missouri notwithstanding, the bipartisan-- tentative bipartisan--effort is moving slowly forward.

I would yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gibson).

Mr. Speaker, the original sponsor of the bill, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hanna), would like to go into extra innings. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1904, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act. It's one of the 40 bills that we have highlighted in the Western Jobs Caucus Frontier Report. The Jobs Frontier is our report of 40 different bills that will create jobs immediately.

I find the conversation curious. For my good friend from Florida, I wonder, the administration has just approved for the sale of Cirrus Aviation, that will be producing airplanes in this country owned by a foreign country, and so maybe the argument could be made, well, maybe those jobs aren't created and run by robots. So I now would direct our attention to maybe Daimler, Toyota, and maybe Honda. All have manufacturing facilities here, and I know they use robots, and I don't see the gentleman from Florida trying to shut them down.

What we're doing at this point in our history is driving the unemployment off the scale high because we're making ludicrous arguments against jobs creation bills across the spectrum.

In 1993 the U.S. accounted for 20 to 21 percent of all mining exploration. Today we are at 8 percent. It's because people have blocked the new mines throughout the West.

All we're trying to do here is make a land exchange, and the company giving up land is giving up twice the amount of land they are receiving in order to account for the value of the copper underground. We're trying to put about 1,500 long-term mining jobs in place in Arizona. Those jobs are going to be in the $60,000 to $85,000 a year range. They'll pay taxes. They'll come off unemployment. They'll come off of welfare and food stamps. So we cut the cost of government simultaneously with increasing the revenues. That's a business model that always succeeds.

The price of copper is what's driving this to be a mine site that is now economic. Previously, 10, 15 years ago, the price of copper was about 75 cents. Today, it's almost $4. So it's those economics that are encouraging us in this country to start producing from mines where we have not previously. This mine, by itself, would account for about 25 percent of the production in this country, needed in this country, for the next 50 years.

It's a good project. Let's approve the rule. Let's get on to debate of the underlying bill.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of the underlying bill,