Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I demand the question of consideration.

I ask for a division on that vote, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, today, I proudly rise to honor and congratulate some spectacular student athletes from Georgia's Sixth District. This past month one of our hometown high schools brought home the State football championship.

After an inspired season that united our community, Roswell High School awed all of Georgia with their first State football title in 36 years; and because of the passion and commitment and intensity shown by the players, coaches, classmates and the community alike, this season will forever be marked in history.

The Roswell Hornets won the 5A State championship in what was an extraordinary example of both skill and athleticism. These talented young men showed what is possible with hard work and unyielding determination.

These student athletes will always cherish the memory of this season. The players, their families and their classmates who cheered them on will always look back to the 2006 season as a source of pride, accomplishment and satisfaction. Roswell High School learned more than how to win a championship this last year. They learned what happens when everyone comes together in pursuit of a dream.

I know that the House of Representatives joins me in congratulating Roswell High School from Roswell, Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I am so honored and pleased to be able to come to the House floor once again with another version, another edition of what we call the Official Truth Squad.

The role of the Official Truth Squad is to attempt to try to bring some honesty and factual information to the floor of the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, as you well know, oftentimes that is difficult to find. Today was no exception on the floor of the House as we tried to, through the debate we had, make sure that facts were being presented and information was reliable upon which people make their decisions was being presented.

I am honored by the leadership on the Republican side of the aisle to come to the floor tonight and share with the American people and talk about issues that are of great concern, some of which have been dealt with as recently as today.

On the Official Truth Squad, we have a favorite quote which comes from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was a United States Senator from New York. He said, ``Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts.''

Mr. Speaker, no place could that ring more true than right here in the halls of Congress. We get a lot of opportunity to observe process here. We talk about process a lot. We talk about rules a lot. Many people say, what difference does that make? What difference do the rules make? And a lot of people, many people, say, on my side, say you don't want to talk about process. It is difficult for the American people to understand or appreciate.

But what process does in a democratic institution, and this being the finest democratic institution in the world, the people's House, what process does is allow all voices to be heard and allow all points of view to be heard.

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, if you think about it and if my friends on both sides of the aisle would think about it, we all appreciate that we don't have Republican challenges or Republican problems or Democrat problems or Democrat challenges. We have American challenges, American challenges that are best solved when we all work together and come up with the best and most correct solution for our Nation.

But, sadly, Mr. Speaker, we haven't had much of that with this new Congress. That is, the opportunity to have input into the process. Again, the reason that the process is so important, because if you lock people out of the ability to have input into the process, then what happens, the individuals, the citizens, the American citizens that those people represent, those people who are locked out of the process, those American citizens are without a voice. They don't have a voice in the process.

Mr. Speaker, I think that is not only unfair, it is undemocratic, and so I would respectfully suggest to my friends on the other side of the aisle that they ought to look at the rules that they have adopted and they ought to look at the process that they have gone through for these first 3 or 4 weeks that we have been in Congress and try to be true to their principles, or their stated principles, and make certain that all folks are able to be involved in the process. Because it makes a difference. It does indeed make a difference.

Today, we took up on the floor of the House what was called a continuing resolution. It was, in fact, an omnibus bill. It was a spending bill.

The last Congress, the one that was in place prior to the beginning of this month, the House did its job from a financial standpoint relatively efficiently. We passed all of our spending bills, appropriations bills, to try to figure out how to spend the hard-earned money from the taxpayer. We got our business done pretty quickly.

The bills that we sent over to the Senate sat there and sat there and sat there. Consequently, what happened

was we came to the end of 2006 and there was no agreement between the Senate and the House about those appropriations bills. So what we passed was a continuing resolution.

Mr. Speaker, the continuing resolution that we passed, which was truly a continuing resolution, which just meant that you continued to spend the same amount of money in the programs that were in place in the Federal Government; and to do that it doesn't take much language. In fact, the bill was two short pages. If you had a little larger page, it would be one page. Because all it says in legal terms is we will continue to spend the amount of money that we spent last year. That bill runs the government spending through February 15.

So something else had to be done; and the other side said, we will do a continuing resolution. We will continue spending money at the same rate on the same programs because their committees haven't got up and running. They cannot figure out exactly what the process ought to be to allow people to have input into it, so we will just have a continuing resolution. So they presented their, quote, continuing resolution.

Well, Mr. Speaker, that continuing resolution I have here, this H.J. Res, is 137 pages long.

Mr. Speaker, that is a fact. It is not an opinion, that is a fact.

Now the continuing resolution that could continue the spending for our Nation, responsible spending at the lowest possible level given the amount of spending that has occurred over the past number of months of this fiscal year, could just be continued with a two-page resolution that says, yes, indeed, we will continue that spending.

In fact, what the majority party has done is passed a 137-page omnibus bill. It is not a continuing resolution in spite of what they say. The reason that is important is the process was not in place to allow input by almost anybody. Not just Republicans, but Democrats as well, and certainly freshmen Democrats, had no input into the process.

What is in this bill is all sorts of special spending, picking winners and losers and rewarding friends in this bill that the other side, the Democrat majority side, says is just a continuing resolution.

Well, Mr. Speaker, we have some principles on our side, and one of them is that no process deserves more public scrutiny than the way in which the hard-earned taxpayer money is spent. No process deserves more scrutiny than the way in which hard-earned taxpayer money is spent.

In fact, what happened today is the spending or the concurrence by the House of Representatives, the vast majority of them being Democrat, that we would spend $463 billion, that is with a ``B'', Mr. Speaker, $463 billion on the omnibus bill that they have presented.

And there are so many things that we would like to talk about tonight that relate to process and to policy, and I am pleased to be joined by good friends who will highlight some of those items.

A member of the Official Truth Squad, a Member who brings highlight and honesty to our deliberations joins me this evening, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn). I appreciate your being with us, and I look forward to your comments.

Thank you so much. I appreciate your perspective and your insight and your wonderful words about accountability, because that is really what it is all about, Mr. Speaker. It is about accountability. It is about holding people here in this House accountable for what they said they were going to do.

Elections are wonderful things. Every 2 years, the American people get to go to the polls and they get to say we like how things are going and we want to support that or we think there ought to be a change. In November of last year, the American people voted for change, but I do not believe, as I know my good friend from Tennessee does not believe, that the American people voted for higher spending or greater deficits, which is what the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives today adopted.

I do know also that they did not vote to decrease money for our armed services, for our military men and women who are working as hard as they can, day and night, to make certain they keep us safe. In fact, what they have done indeed with this bill that was adopted today is to decrease the amount of revenue available for our fighting men and women and especially the base realignment and closure which is what gives the efficiency to the system.

Nobody knows about that better than the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee than my good friend from California, the honorable Duncan Hunter, and I appreciate so much his taking part in this hour this evening. I look forward to your comments.

I thank the gentleman for his insight. Nobody knows more about these issues than you and I. I appreciate you bringing that perspective.

You mention a number of items. You said there was barely a mention about this. I was listening pretty closely. I didn't hear a single word about it from the other side that talked about the cuts that are in place.

And that things were skipped over quickly. They were. We had 1 hour of debate on a $463 billion appropriations bill. Phenomenal. Phenomenal when you think about it.

Please.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Those are facts.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask to insert in the Record the letter from Lieutenant General Melcher.

Department of the Army, Office of the Assistant Secretary

of the Army,

Washington, DC, January 31, 2007.

Hon. Duncan Hunter,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Hunter: Sir, you recently requested a

quick summary of Base Realignment and Closure impacts to the

Army as proposed in the Joint Resolution H.J. Res. 20. The

attached information accurately portrays these impacts. The

following identifies key Army concerns:

Army will not begin with approximately $2.0 B of our BRAC

program which is a key enabler to grow and position the Army;

this leaves more than half of our FY07 BRAC program (56%)

unexecutable

Operational impact on the Training, Mobilization, and

Deployment of Forces in support of the Global War on

Terrorism

Unravels the Army's synchronized stationing and BRAC plan--

puts growth of the Army, stationing, and BRAC at risk .

Delays transformation of Reserve Component--has operational

consequences

Breaks the Nation's obligation to provide Soldiers and

Families adequate quality of life--affects the All Volunteer

Force

Delays capital investment and inhibits economic

development--affects local jobs and growth across the U.S.

(over 80,000 jobs)

Limits predictability and military construction acquisition

efficiencies--results in higher construction costs

I trust this information is helpful.

Sincerely,

David F. Melcher,

Lieutenant General, U.S. Army, Military Deputy for Budget,

Assistant Secretary of the Army, Financial Management and

Comptroller.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to highlight a statement in a letter from the Office of Management and Budget from the Executive Office of the President about these BRAC closings, because I think that it highlights one of the very egregious activities that occurred in passing this omnibus, this appropriations bill, that the Democrat majority did today.

It says, quote, the President's budget requested $5.6 billion to implement the recommendations of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

That is something that all of us had voted on here on the floor of the House.

The administration strongly opposes the committee's reduction of $3.1 billion from the President's request.

Remember, this is $3.1 billion cut out of a $5.6 billion appropriation.

This will, quote, significantly delay BRAC implementation, increase the risk that the Department of Defense would not meet its statutory deadline to implement BRAC, reduce BRAC savings, delay or postpone scheduled redeployments of military personnel.

Did you hear that? Delay or postpone scheduled redeployments of military personnel and their overseas stations to the United States and negatively impact many specific plans in response to BRAC.

So, in addition to the challenges and the difficulties that we have in trying to make certain that our men and women have anything at their resource to be able to fight this global war on terror, I doubt that anybody on the other side of the aisle, when they ran for office last November, said, boy, I sure want to cut the military's budget as they fight the global war on terror. I doubt that happened, but, in fact, that is exactly what happened on the floor of the House today.

What we are here to do today, as The Official Truth Squad, is to make certain that we hold people accountable. There are people watching. There are people listening. The American people know that there are two different philosophies of how government ought to work. We have a philosophy that it ought to be efficient, that it ought to be as small as possible, that it ought to respect individuals, that it ought to strongly support the global war on terror in our military.

Our good friends on the other side of the aisle oftentimes talk like that. But when it gets right down to votes, that is not how they vote. We are here today to bring some facts to the issue and some accountability.

I am so pleased to be joined by my good friend from Texas, who was past budget chairman for the Republican Study Committee during the last term and this year has assumed the helm of the Chair of the Republican Study Committee, I think one of the finest groups of individuals in this Congress, the individuals who are as concerned as anybody that I know about economic responsibility, financial responsibility, and accountability for this Congress.

I thank you for joining us this evening and look forward to your comments.

I appreciate the gentleman from Texas so much for his wonderful cogent comments. And talking about the individuals on the other side of the aisle, who have indeed said one thing and then come here and done another, one would think that they are beginning to foster a culture of hypocrisy. That kind of has a little ring to it that rings true on the other side of the aisle.

I do want to thank you as well for your comments about tax revenue. Sometimes a picture tells a better story than words, although your words were cogent and so appropriate.

But this graph helps me understand the benefits of tax decreases, Mr. Speaker. When you decrease taxes, which is what we did here in Congress in 2001 and 2003, this line here is revenue to the Federal Government and what happened was that the revenue was going down, but we decreased taxes appropriately, as the gentleman from Texas said, and what happens is that the revenue goes up. The Federal Government, in fact, gets more revenue because there is more economic activity, more economic vitality.

We have touched on so many things tonight. My good friend from Virginia has joined us. We are running a little short on time, but I do want to make certain that you get an opportunity to join us for the Official Truth Squad and make some comments possibly about BRAC.

My good friend from Virginia, Thelma Drake, is just so wonderfully active here in Congress and so cogent and appropriate on issues of the military, representing the military installations in southeast Virginia.

So I welcome you and look forward to your comments.

Thank you ever so much, Congresswoman Drake. We appreciate your heartfelt words and the message from your constituent and that perspective on what truly is a portion of this global war on terror. The incredible importance of making certain that we as a Congress and we as a people support our men and women at every turn. So I thank you very, very much.

And that highlights what happened today on this floor about the appropriations bill, the omnibus bill, that the other side of the aisle, the Democrat majority, passed. And, in fact, what they have done is made it more difficult for our military to function. We have heard a letter from a lieutenant general in the Army about that. We heard from our own administration about that, about how it makes it more difficult. And we heard from our good friend from Texas about the Olympics award that the Democrats won today by spending more money in 1 hour than any Congress in the history of the Nation. And, again, it would be humorous if it weren't so serious, Mr. Speaker. It would be humorous if it weren't so serious.

And I am so pleased to be joined by a good friend from Florida, Congressman Mica, who has some interesting perspective on what went on here today on the floor of the House.

I appreciate your coming and bringing some accountability to what occurred today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida. I appreciate so much his emotion and his passion and his perspective.

As you are living through these times, it is oftentimes difficult to get people to pay attention to what truly are historic occurrences, and I share with you that disappointment and sadness. I truly do.

Having served in a legislative body at the State level and seeing how bipartisanship can work and seeing how democracy truly is supposed to work, this has been a disappointing month. It has been a disappointing month, because most of what you can talk about in terms of getting your arms around where the problem is is process. I talked about that at the beginning of this hour, Mr. Speaker, and I mention that the reason that process is so important is because that is what enables the minority to have participation. But not just the minority. It enables every single Member of this House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, as you well know, every single Member represents approximately the same number of people. We go to great pains to make certain that districts are basically of equal size every 10 years through the census process and through redistricting; and we do that because each individual in this body, each Member of this body, represents basically the same number of people and therefore should have essentially the same say in the process and in the deliberation.

Some folks have called this month the death of deliberation, and that truly has been. That is disappointing. That is very saddening for all of us whose constituents, whose American citizen constituents who go to the polls and vote, do indeed express their will to us.

If we are unable to express their will through this process here, then they are muted, they are silenced, they are disenfranchised; and that, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest is an unfair process, is a wrong process and is an undemocratic process. It doesn't have to be that way.

So I encourage my good friends on the other side of the aisle, and I know some of them are feeling pained by some of the decisions that their leadership has made over this past month, and I encourage them to continue to work for a process that will allow for the inclusion of all.

Because, as I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, we do not have Republican challenges or Democrat challenges, we have American challenges. The American people send us here to take care of those challenges and put forward the best solutions, and the best solutions come when all of us are involved in that process.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in a very positive way as we move forward and do what is best and what is right on behalf of the American people.

I want to thank my leadership once again for the opportunity to spend this hour on the floor of the House, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding on this extremely important issue. I, too, rise with great respect for the individuals who are Delegates and our Resident Commissioner. I also want to make it certain that I state up front that we commend all of the men and women who fight our battle in this war on terror with the recognition and appreciation that those men and women serve in a voluntary capacity, and our hearts and prayers go out to them and their families.

I do want to say, however, Mr. Speaker, that this process is a remarkable abuse of power. I oppose the rule and the underlying bill on the basis of both process and policy, which I believe to be flawed, and also because it is remarkably unconstitutional.

I am oftentimes reminded of the Lewis Carroll book, and sometimes I feel that way: Just because you say it is so doesn't make it so.

Individuals who promote what we are doing right now believe, in fact, that they can just make up rules at a whim. In fact, we are tied by the ultimate document of our Nation, and that is the United States Constitution. It makes it very clear in that Constitution, Article I, section 2, that the House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the people of the several States. It doesn't say territories, it doesn't say the Delegates of the territories, it doesn't say Resident Commissioner.

I might, indeed, support a move for statehood for any of those entities. However, this is an unconscionable action. This is a violation of the public trust, and it is a clear abuse of power.

Under this strategy, under this Democrat plot, the majority party could seat anybody, anybody, in the House. Who is next? Who would you like to seat next? Howard Dean? He has a significant constituency. Why not have Howard Dean have a seat in the United States House of Representatives and a vote in the Committee of the Whole?

Mr. Speaker, the American people are disgusted with this level of arrogance and the abuse of power that this demonstrates. I urge my colleagues to defeat this rule and to defeat the underlying bill. We will ultimately see the final defeat of this in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I just wanted to appreciate the gentleman for placing items in the Record. I would point out that the majority leader has stated that the Republicans have described this as a power grab. In fact, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and USA Today describe it as a power grab.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation.

Mr. Speaker, what if I were to tell you that non-Members of the House of Representatives were about to be given a vote right here in the House? You would say no, can't happen, right? Well, hold on, because it's about to happen and it's about to happen this week.

This week is a remarkable week; it should be a time of great anticipation, the State of the Union, we've got incredible and remarkable challenges that face our Nation. But at home, when I go home, people are kind of wondering out loud, what's going on up there in Washington? There is skepticism about the Six for '06, you know, the things that the Democrat majority adopted in their vaunted first 100 hours, albeit under an unfair process and with no input from either their new Members or the minority. Really a clear abuse of power. But the explanation was, well, we ran on these issues, everyone knew they were coming, they endorsed them in the election.

Now, regardless of the truthfulness of that statement, most folks just kind of shake their head, and most in the press have given the Democrats the benefit of the doubt, and that's all right. There is a basic sense of, you know, it's tough to believe that they would violate so many principles coming right out of the chute.

And then yesterday we had a suspension bill; that is a bill that is brought to the floor of the House that requires a supermajority, two- thirds, in order to pass. And by tradition, it is brought to the floor because it has got an overwhelming amount of support, with the full knowledge of both the majority and the minority. And yesterday, a bill that virtually everyone here supports, removing Federal pensions from Members of Congress who are convicted of a felony, was brought to the floor and amended or changed twice within a few minutes before even reaching the floor. Now this is fairly esoteric stuff; however, it is important because it demonstrates the unfair process, the abuse of the rules and the abuse of power.

And now we have another in what seems to be this daily event of power-hungry Democrat majorities to give non-Members of the House a vote on this floor. It is a move that they tried the last time they were in control, a move that generated some interesting headlines-- ``Have the Democrats No Shame?'' ``The Democrats' Greedy Power Grab,'' ``Power Grab in the House.'' And these are from the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post, not this year, but in 1992.

Now the issue is whether or not to allow non-Members of the House of Representatives, specifically the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico, and the Delegates from Guam, the Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia and American Samoa the privilege to vote during the Committee of the Whole on this floor of the House. Mr. Speaker, this is outrageous; it is an incredible, phenomenal move in both process and in substance.

Once again, now becoming the routine, this bill, scheduled to come to the floor of the House tomorrow, has had no committee hearing, no debate, no opportunity to amend, no democracy. I assure you, this is not the kind of change that the American people voted for last November.

The Constitution states that the House shall be composed of, quote, ``Members chosen by the people of the several States,'' not Delegates representing non-State territories. It is an unconstitutional power grab, a plan that runs roughshod over the constitutional principle of one person, one vote. One of these territories has 57,000 residents, compared to the 650,000 in my district. These individuals could vote to raise your taxes, Mr. Speaker, without paying taxes themselves.

Clearly the plot by the Democrats is to slip this through during the week of the State of the Union when they think no one is paying attention. This is an unconscionable action, it is a violation of trust and a clear abuse of power.

Under the Democrat plot and logic, they could seat and allow anyone that the majority desires in the House. Who's next, Mr. Speaker? Howard Dean? Does he get a vote in the House?

The American people are disgusted with this level of arrogance and abuse of power.

The oath that all of us took just a few weeks ago, we all pledged to uphold the Constitution of the United States; this proposal belies that oath.

I urge my Democrat colleagues to regain some sense of propriety, some sense of history, some sense of rectitude. When you trample on the Constitution, when you use the Constitution as a doormat and not the foundational document of our wonderful representative democracy, you do great harm to our Nation.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in support of H.R. 511 introduced by Mr. Sam Johnson of Texas, which says that we ought to pledge the faithful support of Congress to members of the United States Armed Forces serving in harm's way.

Madam Speaker, there are a lot of things we can disagree on on this floor of the House, but cutting funding for our troops ought not be one of them. As many others have done, I have also visited Walter Reed and talked to the brave men and women who have served there, not just from my district, from my State and around the Nation. And when I ask them, is there anything that we can do for you, the vast majority of them say, Congressman, just let me get back to my unit.

Madam Speaker, that sense of duty, that sense of honor, that sense of commitment and that sense of patriotism is something we in Congress would do well to emulate. This resolution says that members of the United States Armed Forces have served honorably in their mission to fight terrorism and protect the greater security of the United States, that these members of the Armed Forces and their families have made many sacrifices. This resolution, Madam Speaker, deserves our support.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I want to thank you for your leadership and your organization of this hour, and day in and day out of working here in the Congress to represent your constituents in Tennessee, but working so diligently on behalf of the hardworking American taxpayer out there, making certain that their interests are upheld here in the House of Representatives.

I appreciate you bringing up the issue of health care. There are a couple of things that I would be interested in talking about today. But the issue of health care is near and dear to my heart. As you mentioned, I am a physician, or was in my former life before coming to Congress, spent over 20 years in the private practice of orthopedic surgery outside Atlanta.

One thing that I knew for certain and that my patients knew for certain was that when doctors and patients are able to make health care decisions, then good decisions get made. When insurance companies or government inserts themselves into those decisions, then most often, most often those decisions do not resemble the kind of decisions that individual persons would make in very personal health care decisions that they have.

I appreciate the comments that you made. I would like to commend the President for putting on the table what I believe will be discussed tonight in his State of the Union; that is, the individual tax deductibility of health insurance. I have been a longtime supporter of the right of individuals to have the same kind of benefit that employers do in the purchase of health insurance.

So I am pleased that we have heard that that is indeed going to be a possibility brought forward by the President this evening. It would give so many people an opportunity to purchase health insurance that right now are not able to do so financially. So I look forward to that proposal coming forward tonight. And I would be happy to yield back to the gentlewoman and talk about some other issues if you so desire.

Sometimes it is hard to get your arms around what do you mean the government being involved in the process.

I would suggest to my colleagues here and others who are listening that we already see the inroads of some government decisions. One of them is what sounded wonderful at the time, the HIPAA legislation, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was supposed to make every individual citizen in this Nation make their health records more secure and private. In fact, what that bill has done is make that information less private and more available to more individuals than ever before. That is because, as you well know when you go in to see your doctor, the first thing you have to do is sign a ream of documents. You feel like you are in a lawyer's office. You sign a ream of documents.

What you are doing when you sign those documents is providing so that the physician, when he or she shares your medical information with anybody, isn't liable for violating HIPAA. Medicine is a collegial activity. It requires that Dr. A communicate with Dr. B who communicates with Dr. C, and they get together and come up with the best solution for anybody's health problem.

When you are not able to share that information, the quality of health care goes down. What has happened because the government had this brilliant idea to get involved in the process is to say we will make it so that your information cannot be shared with anybody unless you give your permission. So because Dr. Smith doesn't know when he or she is going to run into Dr. Jones to discuss that case, it is imperative that every single patient sign away their right to any privacy so the doctor can communicate when that time arises.

What the government has done by putting these rules in place, which sounded wonderful, but what the government has done is made it so every single patient in this Nation, their medical information is less private and less secure than it was before governmental intervention.

If the gentlewoman would yield, I appreciate that description of a free market private system health care. I call it patient centered when I am talking about private because it means that patients are empowered to do what they feel is appropriate in their instance.

When you have a medical problem or when somebody else has a medical problem, their decision about what they want to do to treat that may not be what mine would be or my family's would be. It is only when individuals get to make those personal decisions that we are able to make certain that patient-centered health care exists.

When we try to describe what the future may be if our friends on the other side of the aisle had their way and put in place a government system that they tried to do in the early 1990s, all you have to do is think about the last time you were at your doctor's and you needed a test or an X-ray or some type of procedure done. Well, it is very likely that discussion and education that you got as a patient with your physician didn't last terribly long and you came to an understanding and agreement about what would happen next.

What you may not have known what happens next is one of those employees in that office then gets on the phone and talks to the insurance company to make certain that it is okay. Most often we have gotten that process down to be relatively streamlined. But can you imagine if we put the government in charge of health care and you had to get on the phone and get the government's permission, Washington's permission, so you could have an MRI or biopsy or some other procedure? That is what is looming.

The problem is now just time and inconvenience. The problem is that if you, in order to have that happen and to be effective from the government, from Washington's viewpoint, if you were not to follow those rules, there would be significant punishment. In fact, you would violate the law.

So what we saw in the early 1990s in the proposal that was put on the table, if you as a patient or a physician were to do something that wasn't allowed by the government, that would be a crime. It wouldn't just be a bad decision; it would be a crime.

So what our friends on the other side of the aisle are in fact proposing in the small print, and I know they like bumper-sticker politics, I know they like to give these glorious titles to things, and they sound wonderful, but when you get down to the fine print, what you see, especially in the area of health care that I feel so passionately about, when you get down to the fine print, what it means is that patients and doctors will be exposed to criminal violations if they don't follow what Washington says they ought to do. That concerns me very, very greatly; and I know it does you.

I yield back.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and her leadership on this issue.

The issue we are talking about is House Resolution 78, H. Res. 78. As the gentlewoman mentioned, it was just brought up as a possibility that we would be voting on it this week this past Friday. I would venture to say, Mr. Speaker, that in your race and I know in my race and I doubt in anybody's race around this Nation, save possibly the elections in the territories, did anyone ever address the issue of Delegates voting on the floor of the House of Representatives. I can honestly say I don't know of anybody who used that as an issue that they ran on in November.

We all appreciate that the American people were interested in change when they voted in November, but I'm with you: I don't think that the American people were interested in this kind of change, this kind of change that I believe to be unconstitutional.

When I go to schools, middle schools and high schools, around my district and I talk to students and we talk about the process of government, oftentimes I will ask them a question: Can we make any law we want in the House of Representatives? Can we make any law in Congress we want?

Sometimes you will get some folks that say yeah; but most often the young men and women and boys and girls in my district and I know across this Nation know and understand and appreciate that the guiding principles that we follow here are defined in the Constitution. I know that it is challenging sometimes for people to be held to make certain that they follow the Constitution, because there are some really stiff rules in this Constitution.

But one of the ones at the very beginning, article I, is about the legislative branches, as you well know, Mr. Speaker, and I believe article I was about the legislative branch because the Founders knew the incredible importance of the representative branch of government, the legislative branch of government. And section 1 is about all powers being vested in the House and Senate. Article I, section 2 states: ``The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the people of the several States.''

It didn't mention anything about territories, Delegates from territories. I am so pleased, and we are really aided by the representation in the committees by the Delegates from the territories, by the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico, by the Delegates from Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa, and by the Delegate from the District of Columbia, but clearly they do not represent States.

In this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, when we gather as a Committee of the Whole or as the House of Representatives, it is clear that the Founders and that our Constitution states that an individual to vote in that instance must be a Member of the House and a representative of the State.

I thank you so much for yielding. And I appreciate your bringing up that point because it is so important and really so basic to our Nation.

Our Nation began for a variety of reasons, but not the least of which is that our Founding Fathers believed that they were being taxed without any ability to have representation in the body that was deciding whether or not to tax them. They had taxation without representation.

Well, this is really turning it on its head because, as you mentioned, the individuals, the people in American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, wonderful people that they are, but they are not obligated to pay any Federal income tax. None. So what we would be doing would be allowing Members, individuals in this House of Representatives who would be described as Members, to vote on whether or not to raise income taxes, but not be affected personally and not have the people that they represent be affected. So that would be representation without taxation. And I simply believe and I think that our constituents believe across this Nation that that is fundamentally wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

And I want to get back for just a moment to the issue of one person/ one vote, because when people say, well, it does not make a whole lot of difference if the districts are a little bit different size. What difference does that make? But, again, our Founders knew and understood wisely that every Member of this House of Representatives ought to represent essentially the same number of people so that when individuals at home, citizens at home, vote for their representative, their vote counts basically the same as every other citizen of this Nation. And when you have districts that are one-tenth the size of other districts, which, as you mentioned, American Samoa has a population of about 57,000, 58,000, and most of our districts are around 650,000; so that means that every person in American Samoa who votes, their vote counts 10 times, 10 times the amount that your vote and my vote and every other American citizen's vote counts. And that, Mr. Speaker, and ladies and gentlemen, and colleagues of the House of Representatives, one, is not fair; and, two, it is not the way our Founders envisioned anybody voting in this House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. And it is so important. And I appreciate your bringing up Congressman Johnson's resolution. I spoke for a brief moment on the floor earlier about that as well.

And I know that in this Chamber we can disagree about a lot of things, and we should. Our system works best when ideas are exchanged and the best solutions rise to the top, because it really

is a battle of ideas. But in this instance we can disagree, as I mentioned, about many things, but we ought not disagree about whether or not our men and women in harm's way, our troops who are defending liberty truly around the globe, ought to receive every single resource that they need in order to defend themselves and to defend us.

I know that many folks go to Walter Reed and visit some of those brave men and women who have been injured in battle. I have had the opportunity to do that, and I was struck always by every conversation that I had with some of those men and women who have come back, some with devastating injuries, truly. And I am just so humbled by those conversations that I have with those brave soldiers and warriors because I would try to close every conversation and ask them what it was that we could do to help. What can I do to help? And virtually every single one of them said without fail, Congressman, if you can do one thing, if you can do just one thing, please, please let me get back to my unit. And that kind of enthusiasm, that kind of commitment, that kind of sense of duty and honor and patriotism is chilling. It really is.

There are incredible stories that each of them tell, but also I believe those men and women serve as a guidepost for us. And, in fact, we ought to look to them and look to their courage to have the courage that we need in order to support our men and women who are in harm's way.

And I am very hopeful that this House of Representatives will support Congressman Johnson's resolution because it truly speaks for, I believe, the vast majority of the American people who want to make certain that, regardless of how you feel about this conflict, we as a Congress state clearly that we will make certain that we provide all of the resources necessary for our men and women in harm's way.

Mr. Speaker, thank goodness that the 100-hour agenda is over. Maybe now we can get down to doing some real work on behalf of the American people.

The celebration by our friends on the other side of the aisle is for a victory of form over substance. In just 2 weeks, they have passed a watered-down 9/11 Commission recommendations package, killed working- class jobs by imposing an unfunded mandate upon small businesses, limited choice in health care by forcing the government to fix prices and decrease the availability of medicines for seniors, pulled a bait- and-switch by misrepresenting their promise to cut student loan interest rates while offering no real relief to students; and finally, amazingly, fostered greater reliance on foreign oil by raising taxes on domestic oil production and exploration.

The American people know the difference between campaign rhetoric and good policy, and they demand that the majority honor an open, honest and fair legislative process, one that produces positive, principled and bipartisan solutions. The American people expect no less and deserve more than has been delivered so far.

Mr. Speaker, today the majority party will increase taxes on American oil companies and, hence, on all Americans. And they will increase our dependence on foreign oil. This will complete the sixth item of the majority party's initial agenda. This is the sixth time, but certainly not the last time, that Democrats will put forth a policy that fills a sound bite, but not sound policy. And according to a Democrat clock that stops and starts when it is politically convenient, they will be completed within 100 hours.

While those from across the aisle will pat themselves on the back, this is no cause for celebration. Adopting legislation without allowing consideration by any committee, or even a single amendment, is not a reason to celebrate. Applying the rules of the House only when they serve your purpose are no rules at all. And a blatant disregard to follow through on promises made in November shatters the trust of the American people and is no reason to celebrate.

This is the people's House. It thrives when ideas are wrestled with and challenged. The best ideas and solutions then rise to the top.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are watching. Doing anything less is no reason to celebrate.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, on this vote that just occurred, when the clock expired, the yeas were ahead of the nays and the majority of the Members were voted.

According to H. Res. 6, a recorded vote by electronic device shall not be held open for the sole purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote.

Would the Speaker agree with me that this vote then was in violation of the rules?

Further inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Can the Speaker tell me how often the majority party will hold open votes on issues regardless of the result?

Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, under what rule are we considering

Further inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Does the rule under which we are considering H.R. 6 allow any amendments to H.R. 6?

Mr. Speaker, because of the rule being adopted on the floor, I demand the question of consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the prior order of the House, would it be in order to call up H.R. 475 at this time?

Further inquiry, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the prior order of the House, regarding H.R. 475, is it correct that it allows for just 15 minutes of debate on each side, that is, 30 minutes total?

Further parliamentary inquiry.

Is the Chair aware of any other legislative business that we are doing today?

Is the Chair aware of any further legislative business that we are doing today?

Further inquiry, Madam Speaker.

We do indeed understand the majority's desire to have a 5-day workweek, but is 30 minutes of work on a Friday considered a full day?

Madam Speaker, I move to call up H.R. 475.

I thank the Chair.

Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Speaker, under what rule are we considering H.R. 5?

Further inquiry, Madam Speaker.

Does the rule under which we are considering H.R. 5 allow for an amendment to H.R. 5?

Further inquiry, Madam Speaker.

Can the Chair explain how a motion to recommit will be in order given that the committee hasn't met, formed or adopted any rules?

Further inquiry.

Can the Chair tell me whether or not the committee reported the bill out?

I thank the Chair.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the time to discuss this matter.

Madam Speaker, the speeches and claims that we have heard from the other side sound so wonderful. They sound so good. If only this bill did what they say.

Madam Speaker, this bill is the hollow fulfillment of a solemn promise. It is the epitome of form over substance. And, Madam Speaker, it would be humorous if it weren't so serious. It would be humorous if it didn't increase the hopes and dreams of young people around this Nation only to callously and knowingly dash those hopes and dreams.

A couple of specific items. This really is bait and switch. Supporters of this bill contend that a borrower with $13,800 of subsidized debt will save up to $4,400. This assumes that they will see 4 years of loans made at the 3.4 percent rate. Under this legislation, however, no borrower will get more than one year of the 3.4 percent rate. And what happens in 2012? The rate goes right back up to 6.8 percent. Bait and switch. It is a shell game. It will result in damaging cuts to the program that has worked well for the vast majority of colleges in this country and in my own district, and not one single new undergraduate will be helped by this legislation. Not one. It is the fulfillment of a hollow promise. Very, very sad.

And it is the principle. Finally, as matter of principle, Madam Speaker, this proposal is a political gimmick. The majority proposes to rob $6 billion from the private sector loan programs, programs that work to not only offer and provide funding for college but also use market competition to drive down rates and offer borrower benefits the government can't match. And what will they do with the money? They will lower some rates for a short time on some borrowers who have in common only the fact that they have either graduated or left school and don't need the help as much as those who may lose the benefits and services that were cut in order to lower the rates.

It is a shame that those of us who desire to have a real debate about government's role in assisting middle class students achieve the American Dream of higher education are instead asked to support an expensive counterproductive cut in a student loan program that is working. Madam Speaker, this would be humorous if it weren't so serious.

I strongly support financial assistance for students who are in true financial need. Sadly, H.R. 5 is not a bill that will accomplish any of that.

I urge my colleagues to support a commonsense recommit that will indeed help students who are in financial need, and oppose the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the leadership for allowing me to host this hour this evening, an hour once again of the Official Truth Squad. The Official Truth Squad is a group of individuals who got together almost 2 years ago now, and we are somewhat frustrated and concerned about the level of not just rancor here in Congress, but the level of disinformation and the kind of information that was often being put forward in support of certain legislation that, in fact, well, Mr. Speaker, just wasn't true.

So what we did is to get together, primarily, a group of freshmen from the last Congress and put in place this Official Truth Squad. Our goal, our purpose, is to raise the level of the rhetoric, to be a little more positive than is usually the case here in Washington, and to use facts. To use facts. We have a number of favorite quotes, but one we like to use frequently is one from former United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who kind of crystallized what is a real concern here in Washington, because everybody throws around their own opinions. But his quote was, ``Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts.''

We think that it is extremely helpful when we are talking about issues to talk about facts, because if we are not using facts to base the decisions we make here in Washington, if we are not using facts to reach the conclusions, then it is very likely that we will not reach the right conclusion.

I have said before, Mr. Speaker, that in my former life I was a physician, and I knew if I didn't use facts and I didn't make the right diagnosis, it was virtually impossible to formulate the right treatment plan and then have the patient get well. So we can look at that as an analogy for what we are trying to do for our Nation, which is to make the right diagnosis, to formulate the right proposals and plans and policies and put them in place so that the patient that is our Nation survives and thrives and does well.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to have the opportunity once again tonight to host an hour of the Official Truth Squad; and I will be joined by a number of colleagues, and we will address two or three issues this evening. We are going to start by talking about what many people have discussed around the Nation, and it has kind of captured the attention of many in the media, Mr. Speaker, and that is this issue of the 100-hour agenda that the majority party, the Democrats, have.

It is curious to look at that for a variety of reasons, but we will look specifically at the amount of time and kind of what they have been doing with that 100 hours.

Secondly, we will talk about the issue of student loans. It is a bill we had here in Congress today, and we are trying to have facts back up policy as it relates to how best to provide appropriate loans for students who are trying to reach that American dream all across this Nation.

Thirdly, we are going to talk a little about energy policy, something that I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, needs a lot of facts brought to the table.

The common theme that I think people will appreciate if they are truly interested in looking objectively at these three issues, and so many others here in Congress, the common theme about these three issues tonight, I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, is broken promises. Broken promises.

In fact, when you look at these issues independently, I think you will be able to see as we go through them the broken promises that have occurred just in these first 2 weeks in Congress.

And why is it important, Mr. Speaker, for promises to be kept? Well, you know, we hear all the time from the other side that people voted last November for a change. And they did vote for a change; there is no doubt about it. There were a lot of things we in the majority could have done better. But people across this Nation based their votes upon information that they had. They based their votes upon what they were being told and what they were being promised by the other side. So if those promises aren't kept, then that is important.

It is important for a variety of reasons. One is that the policies that were promoted and were espoused as being the be-all and end-all for our Nation aren't being carried out by the majority party. But as important as that is, Mr. Speaker, maybe even more important is the fact that when people go to the polls and they vote, and they rely on what Members of Congress who are ultimately successful have told them they were going to do, and then those things aren't done, all that does, Mr. Speaker, is breed a cynicism and a disgust with our form of government and our Representatives, and makes it so that it is extremely difficult to move forward in a positive direction for our Nation.

I want to talk a little bit about the 100-hour clock, and then we will have some others, I know, who will be interested in speaking about that. There has been a lot of talk about this 100 hours, this wonderful 100 hours in which the Democrat majority was going to get all these grand things done. And it was promised, it was promised, this 100 hours.

Now, what we have seen over this period of time is that that 100 hours has changed. Initially, the first 100 hours was going to be, to quote the Speaker on October 6, 2006, she said, ``In the first 100 hours the House meets after Democrats win control,'' and then she went on to describe what they were going to do. The first 100 hours the House meets after Democrats take control.

Then it soon morphed into, well, it will be the first 100 legislative hours. On December 1, after the election, when they began looking at what they were going to do and how they were going to make it happen, they said, on December 1, 2006, ``In our first 100 legislative hours in office we have a bipartisan and an achievable plan.''

Mr. Speaker, as you well know, that kind of went by the wayside as well. And when we called them on it, we said what 100 hours is it, the new majority leader, Mr. Hoyer from Maryland, put it best when he kind of talked about, well, we will try to do it in 100 hours. Maybe we will get it done, maybe we won't. But then he said, ``It all depends on how you are counting 100 hours.''

And he is right. He is right. It all depends on how you are counting the 100 hours. If you have the desire to deceive the American people and turn the clock on and off whenever you want to, then you get to about 33 hours, which is what the Democrat clock tells us they have taken.

This is our third week, Mr. Speaker, our third week here. So what does that mean? It means that we are working about 10 hours a week. About 10 hours a week. I think the American people are working a whole lot more than 10 hours a week. A reasonable amount of time, given that we have been sworn in for about 14 days, 2 full weeks, a reasonable amount of time may be 80. And that is about the sense of how many hours we have in fact been in session.

As of 7 p.m. tonight, Mr. Speaker, we will have been in session 81 hours and 53 minutes. So that is a reasonable estimate. But the total, if you really keep track of 100 hours, the total time as of noon today was 336 hours. As of noon today, 336 hours.

Now, people may say, well, that doesn't make a whole lot of difference what the time is. But, Mr. Speaker, it does, because the promises were made and the promises have been broken. Again, as Mr. Hoyer says, it all depends on how you're counting 100 hours. Kind of reminds me of the quote about the definition of ``is,'' doesn't it, Mr. Speaker?

We are so pleased to have many members of our conference who want to take part in the Official Truth Squad, and tonight we have a new friend to me and to our conference, Congressman David Davis, the gentleman from Tennessee, who is a freshman. This is his first term in Congress.

He began a small business, a very successful individual back in Tennessee, and he has great perception on the processes of legislation because he, like I, served 8 years in his State legislature. So I am very, very pleased to welcome Congressman Davis to the

floor this evening to share a few words with us about the first 100 hours, the first couple of weeks, and his experiences.

I welcome you and would be glad to yield.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for participating this evening, and I appreciate your perspective. You have come with a wealth of knowledge and information, especially in the health care issues, but also your legislative experience. And I think you are right. I think that the American people did indeed vote for change. And you outlined a number of the issues that I suspect, had the other side run, during the campaign, on those issues, that the vast majority of the American people, Mr. Speaker, would have said well, that is not what I mean.

To not reveal to the American people what kind of votes are occurring in committee? That is not democracy in action. Doing away with the super majority. We know why they did away with the super majority don't we now, because they are about to raise taxes tomorrow, and they couldn't have done it if it required a super majority.

To have the United Nations have some significant control over portions of U.S. foreign policy, that is not the kind of change that the people were interested in.

And you used one of my favorite lines, and that is that the special interests that you have are the constituents that you represent. And it is so true, that when people in this Chamber talk about special interests, the fact of the matter is the only special interests we ought to be concerned about are the constituents that we represent.

And so I can't thank you enough for your participation tonight and the wisdom that you bring and the truth. We don't call it the Official Truth Squad for nothing. And you spoke words of truth and good fact and we appreciate that.

I want to move on, Mr. Speaker, to a couple of other issues. But before I do present a specific issue, I want to highlight some comments and a quote that come from our Speaker, from the new Speaker, that she made during her address to the first session of this Congress. And I think it is important for the American people to be reminded the difference between word and deed. People can say a lot of things. But the actions are what speak louder than words. And these are the words that she used on that first day. ``Let us join together in the first 100 hours,'' there it is again, ``to make this Congress the most honest and open in history. This openness requires respect for every voice in Congress. As Thomas Jefferson said, every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. My colleague elected me to be Speaker of the House, the entire House, respectful of the vision of our founders, the expectations of our people and the great challenges we face. We have an obligation to reach beyond partisanship and to serve all Americans.''

Well, Mr. Speaker, those are wonderful words. Would that they were true. Would that they were true.

And so that brings us to the issue of student loans, the issue that was on the agenda for the House to deal with today. And I am sorry to say, Mr. Speaker, that what we have here is just one of a repeated series of broken promises. This is another broken promise by this majority party.

What did they promise? The promise was, this is a quote from their own publication. ``Our new direction plan will slash interest rates on college loans in half to 3.4 percent for students and to 4.25 percent for parents.''

What is the reality? Well, the reality, Mr. Speaker, is that instead of cutting rates in half across the board, the Democrats, what they did was phase in a decrease in rates over a 5-year period of time, and only for subsidized loans going to undergraduate students, not the statement that was given, not the promise that was given to the American people.

And Mr. Speaker, remember when promises are made and promises are broken, it does a disservice to all of America and it creates a distrust in our institution. But more importantly, this whole issue of decreasing student loan interest rates, once the fixed rate for this one category, just one category, reaches 3.4 percent, which occurs in July of 2011, it doesn't get there until July of 2011, but once it gets there it is only in effect for 6 months. The fixed rate returns to its original rate on January 2, 2012. Mr. Speaker, that is a broken promise. That is a broken promise if I ever saw one. And what it means is that the American people decrease their trust. They loose their trust in their leadership. And certainly that is what is happening right now across this Nation as this Nation sees the broken promises that are being piled up one after another.

I am pleased to be joined by another good friend and colleague, a member of the Official Truth Squad coming to the floor and assisting in bringing truth and facts and information to the American people, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee, who has again had a wealth of experience here in Congress, but also wonderful experience back home, and looks out for those special interests that she has, and that is her constituents at home. I welcome you this evening and yield to you and look forward to your comments.

Will the gentlelady yield for just a moment?

I appreciate that because I think it is important to highlight that. But I think that what you said, I don't want folks to miss the fact that, and I was stunned when I learned this with the bill that came to the floor today, and I suspect you were as well, and that is that the bill that was on the floor today by the Democrat majority will not assist a single undergraduate student in this Nation. Not one. Isn't that the truth? And I yield back.

I thank the gentlelady for participating tonight and for bringing wisdom and truth to us in this Chamber.

I think the part of the challenge that we have is, this really is a difference in philosophy. It is about who ought to be in control. You highlighted that extremely well, talking about the importance of what we on the Republican side believe, and that is that students and parents ought to have the resources in order to make decisions, not government making decisions.

What we have seen in this very short 100 hours, depending on how you run the clock in these first couple of weeks, what we have seen is a clear example of the government controlling all aspects of our life from student loans to prescription medication to all sorts of things, wage and price controls.

This chart here is the exact chart that determines the definitions that were provided in the legislation that was on the floor tonight or today for student interest rates.

Right now, as you know, Mr. Speaker, they are at 6.8 percent, and that was fixed appropriately, our side did that last time, in order to make certain that we had more students eligible for student loans.

What happens over the ensuing 5 years with the bill that was passed today by the Democrats? You can see that next year the rate goes down to 6.12 percent, then down to 5.44 percent and on down until you get to 3.40 percent. But again that is only for 6 months. What happens after that 6 months? What happens on January 1, 2012? Goes right back up to 6.80.

So the frustration and the disconnect that people hear at home when they think that they have been told something that would occur, but in fact, that is not what is going to occur at all, in fact, they have been sold a bill of goods. It is another broken promise.

I think it is very destructive to all of us, all of us on both sides of the aisle, when people aren't able to trust what the Members are telling them in terms of what they would do would they be given the opportunity to lead.

We are joined again this evening by another dear friend, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx from North Carolina, who is a stalwart on the Official Truth Squad, and she brings such wonderful wisdom. In this instance, she probably has more knowledge about this than virtually anybody else, that is because she was a college president back in North Carolina.

I welcome you and thank you for your participation tonight. I look forward to your comments.

I thank you so much for your wonderful words of wisdom and sharing your personal story. It really is extremely helpful and pertinent and apt.

You call this a travesty. It really is a travesty, because what has happened is that the hopes and dreams of so many Americans have been raised by the rhetoric that we have heard from the other side. In fact, if you look at this again, and you see over a 5-year period of time, the rate decreases for a mere 6 months to 3.4 percent and then shoots right back up to 6.8 percent.

It really isn't fulfilling a promise; as my good friend from North Carolina said, it is breaking a promise. I think that the American people are paying attention, and over a period of time, this will just add up to their frustration about this kind of hypocrisy and this kind of leadership.

My good friends on the other side of the aisle, for the past 2 years or so, have been talking about what they call ``third-party validators'' to make it so that they can cite individuals that are saying that what they are contending is the case.

We have got some third-party validators on this. I have before me a couple of quotes from some articles written in some very prominent newspapers yesterday and today. The first is from today's Wall Street Journal. This is about these student loans. It says, quote, ``The ostensible goal is to make college more affordable, but such a move could well wind up having the opposite effect.'' This bill, that is, could wind up having the opposite effect.

Further, in the absence of all of this subsidization, colleges would have to be more cautious about raising tuition because their customers would be affected more directly.

The biggest winners from this latest subsidy will be the relatively well off professors and administrators who run higher education. ``Ultimately increasing the government's role is a recipe for making college less affordable.''

Then from the Christian Science Monitor yesterday, from a gentleman who is quoted here, Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of financialaid.org for students. He says, ``It's a great sound bite, cutting rates in half, but it is an incredibly expensive proposal with very little student aid benefit.'' ``Very little student aid benefit.'' ``Congress would be better off spending the money on something else, like increasing the Pell Grant,'' which isn't increased with this bill, offered to the neediest students as aid that graduates don't need to pay back,'' Kantrowitz said.

Mr. Speaker, really it is just another broken promise, and it is truly, truly a shame to have this be one of the hallmarks of these first ``six for six,'' these proposals that come forward. And virtually every one of them doesn't live up to the promise that was made.

Would the promises that were made be the proposals that I would bring to the floor? Well, not likely, Mr. Speaker. But I do believe that it is important that promises that are made for our constituents be promises that are kept when you are in control, in power, in Congress. Otherwise, we do a discredit and disservice to our entire electoral system.

How are the American people supposed to be able to decide for whom they should vote, if regardless of what an individual says it is not what they do? I believe in an individual's word, and I believe it is important that individuals make honest comments when they are running for office. In fact, that is not what we have seen to date, Mr. Speaker, and that is very, very troubling, to me and to many of my constituents and many folks around the Nation.

I want to switch gears a little bit now, Mr. Speaker, to the issue that will be on the floor tomorrow in the United States House of Representatives. It will be H.R. 6, a bill that has to do with energy policy, national energy policy.

The upshot of the bill is this: Mr. Speaker, as we talked about before, it will be the first time that the Democrats have very directly raised taxes on the American people. It took them 14 days to decide that they were going to do it, not a long time. But who are they going to raise taxes on?

Well, the Democrat energy plan that will be introduced tomorrow, and I will have some information on it, will be a tax increase on American oil companies. Yup, they are going to tax American oil companies because there is a lot of sentiment and anger out there about energy prices. But what happens to foreign oil companies? Not a thing. Not a thing, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, you talk about a travesty. That is a travesty. This bill tomorrow will drive up our dependence on foreign oil.

Again, I want to go to some third-party validators. An article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday talked about this bill and said if you increase the cost of domestic oil production by $10 billion, you are ensuring that U.S. imports of OPEC oil will rise and domestic production will fall.

Mr. Speaker, I think it ought to be a goal and my constituents back in the Sixth District in Georgia believe that

we ought to be utilizing American resources for Americans, having American energy for Americans. There is a three-pronged way to do that: Conversation, utilizing resources and alternative fuel. What we are doing is increasing the amount of foreign oil being used. It doesn't make any sense at all. It doesn't make any sense at all.

The Wall Street Journal article goes on to say the House energy bill is nearly a carbon copy of California's Proposition 87. That 2006 ballot initiative would have taxed California's home-produced oil in order to subsidize green technology alternatives.

California is a fairly liberal State, the home State of our Speaker. Maybe that is where they got this idea. California is a fairly liberal State, but even those voters understood that Proposition 87 would have damaged the State's home oil and gas industry, increased foreign oil consumption and raised the energy bills for State residents, and it was clobbered at the polls.

This is a quote from the Wall Street Journal. ``The House will plow ahead anyway, but let's hope the Senate has more wisdom.''

I include a copy of that article for the Record, Mr. Speaker.

[From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 16, 2007]

The OPEC Energy Security Act

House Democrats have finally released the details of their

``Energy Security Bill,'' which will be voted on this week,

and they must be cursing their rotten luck. Just when they

want to stick it to Big Oil for alleged price gouging, oil

and home heating costs are plunging. Never mind; this was a

campaign theme amid $3 gasoline, and a detail like $2 gas

isn't about to stop Democrats now.

This bill is said to promote America's energy independence,

but the biggest winner may be OPEC. This is a lengthy,

complicated bill, but the central idea is simple: Raise taxes

on domestic oil producers and then spend the money to

subsidize ethanol, solar energy, windmills (so long as

they're not on Cape Cod), and so on. But if you increase the

cost of domestic oil production by $10 billion, you are

ensuring that U.S. imports of OPEC oil will rise and domestic

production will fall.

The bill also includes a ``Strategic Energy Efficiency and

Renewables Reserve'' fund for alternative fuels. That sounds

a lot like the Carter-era Synthetic Fuels Corporation--one of

the more notorious Washington boondoggles of all time, having

spent $2.1 billion of tax dollars on alternative fuels before

declaring bankruptcy. Today there is no under-investment by

the private sector in alternative energy. The research firm

New Energy Finance has found that between 2004 and 2006

investment in alternative energy doubled to $63 billion.

Venture capital funding of green-energy technologies has

quadrupled since 1998.

The Democrats also insist that the big five oil companies

have received sweetheart deals from the government that have

ripped off taxpayers. So let's take a closer look. The most

controversial issue involves $6 billion in royalty payments

that oil companies are said to owe the government for oil

pumped from federal waters. The facts suggest otherwise.

These were leases for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico

signed between oil companies and the Clinton Administration's

Interior Department in 1998-99. At that time the world oil

price had fallen to as low as $10 a barrel and the contracts

were signed without a requirement of royalty payments if the

price of oil rose above $35 a barrel.

Interior's Inspector General investigated and found that

this standard royalty clause was omitted not because of any

conspiracy by big oil, but rather because of bureaucratic

bungling in the Clinton Administration. The same report found

that a year after these contracts were signed Chevron and

other oil companies alerted Interior to the absence of

royalty fees, and that Interior replied that the contracts

should go forward nonetheless.

The companies have since invested billions of dollars in

the Gulf on the basis of those lease agreements, and only

when the price of oil surged to $70 a barrel did anyone start

expressing outrage that Big Oil was ``cheating'' taxpayers

out of royalties. Some oil companies have voluntarily offered

to renegotiate these contracts. The Democrats are now

demanding that all these firms do so--even though the

government signed binding contracts.

The Democratic bill strong-arms oil companies into

renegotiating the contracts or pay a $9 per barrel royalty

fee from these leases. If the companies refuse, they lose

their rights to bid for any future leases on federal

property. So at the same time that the U.S. is trying to

persuade Venezuela and other nations to honor property

rights, Congress does its own Hugo Chavez imitation.

Are American taxpayers worse off because of these leasing

agreements? Hardly. It's fortunate these contracts were

issued when oil prices were so low, because the oil

discovered from those leases will do precisely what the

Democratic energy bill will not: reduce U.S. dependence on

foreign oil. One of the largest oil deposits in the Gulf was

recently discovered as a result of these leases.

Democrats also want to raise about $5 to $6 billion by

snatching away alleged tax breaks for Big Oil in the

Republicans' 2005 energy bill. Sorry, that isn't true either.

The Congressional Research Service reports that the net

impact of the 2005 energy bill was to raise taxes on the oil

and gas industry by $300 million. Nor does it make sense to

repeal a domestic oil company's eligibility for a 2004 tax

cut that reduced the effective corporate income tax rate to

32% from 35% on U.S. manufacturers. This tax cut increases

the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers that are now

penalized by a U.S. corporate tax rate that is among the

highest in the industrialized world. Our objection is that

every U.S. company should pay the same, lower rate.

The House energy bill is nearly a carbon copy (if we can

still use the word ``carbon'' in polite company) of

California's Proposition 87. That 2006 ballot initiative

would have taxed California's home-produced oil in order to

subsidize ``green technology'' alternatives. California is a

fairly liberal state, but even those voters understood that

Prop 87 would have damaged the state's home oil and gas

industry, increased foreign oil consumption, and raised the

energy bills of state residents. It was clobbered at the

polls. The House will plow ahead anyway, but let's hope the

Senate has more wisdom.

Mr. Speaker, I want to also refer to some good work done by the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is a group of individuals who talks about responsibility, talks about making certain that individuals have opportunities to succeed in our Nation, and they came out with a memo to Speaker Pelosi citing this bill that is coming on the floor tomorrow, H.R. 6, saying that it risks making energy more expensive.

There are a number of quotes I would like to refer to, Mr. Speaker. First, it says, ``The public has responded with anger to recent high energy prices,'' and that certainly is true as I go home and hear what folks are concerned about, especially when gas was up around $3 a gallon people were very concerned, and understandably so, and home heating oil and all the like increasing, and that puts many individuals in significant trouble.

It goes on to say, ``Doing something about energy prices is understandably high on the agenda.'' No doubt about it. ``Unfortunately, the wrong approach to meeting Americans' energy needs is H.R. 6. H.R. 6 will at best do nothing to reduce gasoline prices, and could actually increase them over the long term.''

They go on to describe very clearly the consequences of what this will do, increasing taxes on the American oil companies, which will drive America to be more dependent on foreign oil.

Mr. Speaker, that doesn't make any sense. When I go home and explain things like that to my constituents back in Georgia, they say, well, why in Earth would you do something foolish like that? And all I can tell them is, well, it appears to be that the other side thinks that hollow rhetoric is what the American people want, that they aren't interested in real substance.

This Heritage Foundation memo goes on to say, ``The underlying assumptions that the domestic oil and gas sector is currently undertaxed may have been popular campaign rhetoric, but it is not supported by the evidence. Total income taxes paid by this sector reached a record $71 billion in 2005, the last year for which there is data available. This is up from $48 billion in 2004 and $32 billion in 2003.''

So, Mr. Speaker, what we see is that as revenues increase to oil companies, taxes increase, the amount that they pay in taxes increases as well.

What happens with H.R. 6? ``Most importantly, H.R. 6 will cause harm in the long run by discouraging investment in new domestic drilling for oil and gas.''

If you tax something, you get less of it. That is an economic principle that my friends on the other side of the aisle seem not to appreciate. If you tax something, you get less of it.

``America's demand for energy is growing, along with its economy.''

Again, that is the three-prong approach needed for energy: Conservation, utilizing responsibly American resources, and then alternative fuel.

But I think it is important, as this memo goes on to state, that we learn from history. The bottom line is that H.R. 6 will raise taxes and will reduce domestic supplies of oil and gas, it will increase imports to fill that void, and it will ultimately increase prices for consumers at the pump and for energy supplies.

How do we know that? Well, this is the lesson of the infamous windfall

profit tax on oil firms that was imposed under the Carter administration in 1980. It was repealed ultimately under the Reagan administration in 1988. But, Mr. Speaker, people around the Nation who knew what was happening at that time will recognize, and this will kind of ring a bell, it will remind them of what happened in 1980.

This goes on to say, ``In 1980, anger at Big Oil,'' and a lot of people were mad at Big Oil over high prices, ``led to this punitive tax, the windfall profit tax. But America learned the hard way that this approach does not benefit the American people. According to the Congressional Research Service, the windfall profits tax reduced domestic oil production between 3 and 6 percent.''

Mr. Speaker, let me say that again. This tax, similar to the one that the House is about to vote on tomorrow, reduced domestic oil production between 3 and 6 percent. It increased oil imports between 8 and 16 percent. This made the U.S. more dependent upon imported oil. We ought to take pains to avoid repeating that energy policy blunder.

This goes on to say, ``The best thing that can be said for the proposed tax changes and royalty relief provisions in H.R. 6 is that they might not be large enough to seriously reduce domestic energy production, in which case they would not cause much harm. But even so, they set a bad precedent, and if repeated in subsequent bills, could do as much damage as the infamous windfall profits tax.''

So if the past is any guide to the future, most of the money in H.R. 6 will be wasted. On the other hand, these tax revenues, if left in the hands of the energy companies themselves, will be reinvested. And how do we know that? Well, in 2005, the energy industry reinvested $131 billion, $131 billion, an amount that at that time actually exceeded and was higher than their net income of $119 billion for the year.

So what is the better way? Well, as this memo goes on to describe, Mr. Speaker, ``The better way, the real answer to high energy prices, is not to tinker with tax and royalty rates on existing domestic energy supplies, but it is to expand those supplies so that more oil and gas become available. Recent Department of Interior studies conducted pursuant to the 2005 energy bill confirm that the United States has substantial oil and natural gas deposits.'' Without a doubt. ``These studies also show that much of these offshore and onshore resources are off limits due to legal and regulatory constraints.''

This next sentence, Mr. Speaker, kind of caught my eye. ``In fact, America remains the only nation on Earth,'' the only nation on Earth, ``that has restricted access to a substantial portion of its domestic energy potential.''

We are the only nation on Earth that does this. And why we think that there is no connection between that and us being more reliant on foreign oil today than we ever have been is beyond me. It doesn't make any sense. Again, Mr. Speaker, my constituents back home don't think it makes any sense either.

In the early seventies, when we all waited in those gas lines and pounded our fist on the dashboard and said never again, we will never be this reliant on foreign oil again, and all of us who can remember that vividly know that sense of emotion and know that sense of frustration as the gas shortages in the early seventies occurred.

But the dirty little secret, Mr. Speaker, is at that time we were about 25 percent reliant on foreign oil. Now we are about 60 percent reliant on foreign oil. And if the Democrat majority has its way, we will be even more reliant on foreign oil, because what we are doing is punishing American companies who assist us in trying to have a greater production of American resources.

This article goes on to say, ``Reducing the restrictions on domestic exploration and drilling, not rewriting the Tax Code or revising royalty agreements,'' as in the bill to be dealt with tomorrow, ``will allow for greater supplies and lower prices in the years ahead, and by expanding the resource base it would lead to far greater increases in tax and royalty revenues than H.R. 6 ever could.''

So if my good friends on the other side of the aisle are truly interested in having more money, more taxes to spend as they see fit, to increase the power of government, they would be well advised to allow for increasing production, which would increase the ability for them to receive greater tax revenue. This should be the main focus of any genuinely pro-consumer energy policy; that is to not tinker with the tax policy and the royalty policy.

Again, a good energy policy, a quality energy policy, is one that we dealt with last year in Congress, Mr. Speaker. It was primarily three- pronged. One, it dealt with conservation. This bill tomorrow doesn't do significantly anything with conservation. And it encourages Americans to do all they can to conserve, because certainly all of us can do more to make certain we are not utilizing resources that are so, so precious.

Second is to make certain that we utilize American resources responsibly. Again, Mr. Speaker, as I said before, America remains the only nation on Earth that has restricted access to a substantial portion of its domestic energy potential.

Finally, the solution in the long run and the long term is, indeed, alternative fuel, and we worked diligently to try to make certain that we had resources that would be put forward for hydrogen fuel cells and encouraging inventiveness on the part of the American entrepreneur, because I know, as I suspect you do, Mr. Speaker, that when the American entrepreneur puts his or her mind to it, there is nothing that they are not able to do.

So tonight, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have had this opportunity to come before the House and to share with this House and with you, Mr. Speaker, and with the American people three issues: the issue of process here in the United States House of Representatives, the 100- hour clock; the issue of student loans, the interest on student loans; and the issue of energy policy.

I mentioned at the beginning, Mr. Speaker, that the common thread between those three issues tonight, that the majority party has brought to us, are really broken promises. It made multiple promises on the campaign trail, and it truly is a shame that promises kept on the campaign trail do not appear to be promises that will be kept in their majority in Congress.

I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the American people are understanding this. When I go home, I hear people's frustration about a lack of leadership, the broken promises that have occurred even in this short 2 weeks in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, we are a wonderful and great Nation, and it is an incredible privilege to represent my constituents in this House, this House of Representatives. I know that the challenges that we face as a Nation are not Democrat challenges and they are not Republican challenges. They are American challenges, and when we work together, we come up with the best solutions.

So I would encourage the Speaker to reread her words of the comments she made to this Chamber, to this United States House of Representatives on that very first day. I look forward to the day when we do, in fact, have the most open and honest Congress. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, we have not reached that day yet.

Mr. Speaker, today we will take up the Medicare prescription drug program, a program where costs were $13 billion lower than projected in 2006; needed life-saving drugs are available; and 80 percent of the beneficiaries are supportive and satisfied with the program.

So what problems are the Democrats trying to solve? Theirs is really a solution in search of a problem. The Democrats think that Washington can make better decisions than the American people about very personal medical matters. And what happens when the government gets more involved? Things become more bureaucratic and more expensive.

As a physician, I know how difficult it is to take care of patients, oftentimes because so many non-medical people are making medical decisions.

If H.R. 4 is adopted and becomes law, Washington bureaucrats will decide which drugs will be available for patients, not from a scientific or safety standpoint but purely based upon money.

That is not the way we ought to be making health care decisions. Those decisions ought to be made by patients and doctors.