Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and thank Members on both sides and staff for working on this vital issue.

I want to take a minute or two to tell the Members that there will be an amendment coming up during the amendment process offered by Mr. Blumenauer and myself to deal more effectively with how the Federal Government determines taking into consideration future effects of climate change on the American taxpayer and homeowners. I would urge all of my colleagues to vote for the amendment.

The amendment does basically two things: Are we, as a Federal Government, providing incentives to put more people in harm's way in coastal areas and are we adding cost to the Federal taxpayers as a result of that; and are we incentivizing ecological degradation?

I say that because there are maps on coastal areas and there are maps on flooding and there are maps on predicting storms that are all based on history. Nothing is projected into the future with an understanding of what global warming is going to do.

Let me tell you how it has impacted my district in the Chesapeake Bay. Poplar Island for decades was a popular place for many people in Maryland, including Presidents of the United States. It was 1,500 acres. It is now 5 acres as a result of sea level rise. We are now restoring that island with dredged material.

Holland Island, 350 people lived on Holland Island. It was 5 miles long and a mile and a half wide. It is down to 100 acres today, and nobody lives on Holland Island.

Barren Island was 582 acres. It is down to 120 acres now.

Areas in my district, Blackwater Refuge, for example, in Dorchester County, loses 120 acres a year due to sea level rise and exacerbated erosion problems.

It is not taken into consideration by the Federal Government, by FEMA, or anybody else, to project those natural causes that are occurring right now. In the Chesapeake Bay, sea level used to rise 3 feet every 1,000 years. In the last 100 years, it has risen a foot and a half. It is important for us to take these things into consideration.

I urge Members' vote on Mr. Blumenauer's amendment when we come to that point in the debate.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the question: Is ingenuity dead in America? I don't think it is.

If we look at the bottom of the bottomless pit, the bottom of the bottomless pit which we assume is an oil well, we will not find oil, we will find ingenuity. This is an issue of how America can rise to the occasion, provide for better national security, provide for a dynamic economy based on new technology, provide for a sound environment, and provide for the question of morality in this issue to our grandchildren.

Ingenuity is not dead in America. Vote ``aye'' on this amendment.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do is, to my colleagues, and certainly to the Speaker, if anybody else is listening, there is a lot of information out there about climate change. There is a lot of information about how it's going to affect the globe and how it's going to affect the United States.

If there is any book that I have ever read with the written and pictorial word of that is ``Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming is Changing the World,'' Gary Braasch.

What we need to do on this issue is understand a quote given by Norman Cousins who wrote the book 30 years ago, ``Human Options.'' And in that book there is a quote. That quote is, ``Knowledge is the solvent for danger.'' And you put that quote next to another one by Thomas Jefferson, which says, ``ignorance and a free society and a successful society are not compatible.''

What we have here is a study to understand the concept of where human activity is not compatible with eons of nature design and its impact.

Let's learn about that information. Let's vote for this amendment.

Madam Speaker, please let the record show that had I been present for rollcall vote No. 763, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I want to say as a marine combat veteran 40 years ago in Vietnam, I sometimes wonder, as I look around this Chamber, which Members would I follow into combat. Those of you who are sitting here now, those of you who are sitting here now, are you competent enough to lead soldiers into this very difficult human endeavor?

The troops are doing a stunningly competent job and they continue to do so. Are we as Members of this House doing a stunningly competent job to be thoroughly informed about the problems of the war in Iraq and the Middle East?

Part of our competence must be to understand the psychological and physical stress our soldiers in real combat must endure. Experience in combat, those of us who have been there, know how valuable that is to one soldier and the next soldier. But we as policymakers must come up with a policy, and we weigh that experience that is necessary with the physical and psychological endurance of those soldiers that is necessary.

Respecting the troops means we are responsible and competent in developing a policy that is worthy of those young men and women. I urge support for this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I want to stand and thank Mr. Mollohan and Mr. Frelinghuysen for bringing forward this comprehensive piece of legislation. And in particular, I want to thank both of these men for recognizing the work of the Ocean Commission and the Pew Oceans Commission in understanding the world's oceans.

There's $4 billion to NOAA in this legislation, $4 billion. To some folks it might sound like a lot of money, but that is actually a very small sum. We appreciate that sum, but it's a small sum considering what's at stake.

Three-fourths of the world's surface is covered by oceans. It governs our everyday weather. It governs the climate. It is the source of air we breathe. It is the source of food for much of the world's population. Coastal communities, the economy, literally of all our coastal communities are dependent upon the health of the oceans. Our national security is dependent on understanding the nature and changes of our world's oceans. Literally, life on this planet is dependent upon our knowledge of the world's oceans. And this $4 billion given to NOAA will be to do more research to understand more effects and to implement better policies dealing with the pervasive dead zones; red tides; coral reefs, which is a predominant area where fish spawn; fish habitats; the acidification of the world's oceans as a result of CO2.

Now, the acidification of the world's oceans, that's what happened to the northeastern forest as a result of acid rain from sulfur dioxide from power plants. The same thing as a result of global warming is having an effect to the world's oceans. Because of human activities and its degrading effect, now with climate change, NOAA needs the dollars and the tools to make the oceans resilient.

I urge an ``aye'' vote on the legislation.

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do is have a colloquy with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) to inquire about some of the comments that have been made here tonight so I can better understand Congress's role in this particular judicial decision, court decision, conviction in Texas, just to give me a little comfort in trying to understand our role in this case and whether or not it is appropriate.

Can the gentleman from Texas tell me, after the incident occurred with the border agents and the drug dealer, who brought that information to the U.S. attorney in the very beginning? Does anybody know that?

So that's not clear.

Did the border agents supervisors, or do you have any idea who spoke, if there was, in fact, a grand jury, to determine whether or not there was enough evidence?

Under those circumstances, with the supervisors aware of the actions of the border agents, the defendant subsequently was found out to be wounded, under those circumstances, in a Federal court, did the prosecutor take into consideration those mitigating circumstances that border agents are often, and in your case, in the area where you represent, a very dangerous situation? This was a known drug smuggler. He had smuggled in $1 million worth of drugs. He had, apparently, a violent past.

What sentencing guidelines did the prosecutor use to give these border agents 11 years and then 12 years?

Has there been an appeal filed on behalf of the defendants?

And it is also under appeal to determine whether or not the sentencing guidelines that we passed in the House applied in this case?

Was it the intent of this Congress that that particular statute be applied to a peace officer or a border agent in defense of the country, the border or his own life?

I thank the gentleman for answering the questions.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The question before us today is if failure in Iraq is not an option and staying the course is not working, what are our options? It is vital that we focus our attention this morning and this afternoon on that question, then formulate an integrated set of proposals that include the basic premise that a stable Iraq and a stable Middle East is in the vital interest of the United States and the international community, also taking into consideration here the military's assertion, through General Petraeus, that the war cannot be won with a military alone. An integrated set of proposals for an overall strategy then must include, which is in this bill before us today, diplomatic efforts, political efforts, economic efforts, social, humanitarian, cultural, and a military component. We must also garner the constructive engagement of all of Iraq's neighbors.

When Nixon went to China, the domino theory of Vietnam became irrelevant. When Nixon went to China, there was a Sino-Soviet split that advantaged the United States. If we go to Iran, al Qaeda in Iraq will be irrelevant. If we go to Iran, the idea of a spread of terrorism, of those problems in the Middle East will be eliminated.

The idea that this piece of legislation moves forward in the next step of the Iraq Study Group is, in my judgment, on the right mark. It is profound. And I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding and for bringing this legislation to the floor.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to thank the subcommittee, the chairman, and the ranking member for their support of the existing program to eradicate nutria. It is Public Law 108-16. It is called the Nutria Eradication and Control Act. I also want to thank the chairman and ranking member for the amount of money that they have put into the National Wildlife Refuge System.

This particular program, the Nutria Eradication and Control Act, has spent over the last 10 years over $1 million to eradicate this invasive species on a National Wildlife Refuge in the State of Maryland which involves 27,000 acres. It also has been helped by the USDA APHIS program.

This program to eradicate nutria on 27,000 acres in the State of Maryland and surrounding private lands has been one of the best invasive species eradication programs in the United States. There are 16 other States where nutria pose a problem. So the precedent where we have eradicated this nutria on 27,000 acres at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding areas shows that the project is a success.

The Interior appropriation bills we are considering today includes generous increases in the National Wildlife Refuge System, and I support all of this money. But, Mr. Chairman, I would like to have some type of dialogue and colloquy now that, as we move this process through the House and through the Senate, there is a recognition that this program has been successful, that it needs to continue in other areas around the Blackwater Refuge so that other States, 16 more, understand how this program, how it works in difficult terrain, in marshland, in swampland, can be successful in their areas.

So I would ask that the chairman, I know there are difficult choices, there are budget problems, but as we move this process through, that the nominal funding, this small amount of funding that we will need to continue this program in the State of Maryland, be considered.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and look forward to working with him.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

And I also want to thank all of you for coming down here this evening for a thoughtful dialogue on the issues of war and peace that confront this country and literally the rest of the world.

I would just like to speak to the issue of Iraq in the context of where we are in the world today. This is not our grandfathers' world. This is not our parents' world. This is a new configuration that can't be compared to World War II or even the Cold War. This is a world that is now filled with tiny splintering, struggling countries and cultures. The Soviet Union is gone. Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, we see a great deal of struggling third world countries, cultures, people trying to find their place, their niche.

One of the countries, the United States, has a golden opportunity to integrate ourselves with the rest of the world to encourage peace and security. And if we notice around the world, the world is integrated right now. The world is integrated globally. It is integrated economically with trade. It is integrated politically. It is integrated when there are disasters. We saw what happened with the tsunami to countries like Sri Lanka and Thailand and India and Indonesia when the world responded. The integrity of the world's compassion for these people was extraordinary.

The world is also integrated with disease. Whether it is Ebola, malaria, bird flu, TB, you name it, the world is integrated.

And one of the ways I think to solve the problem, besides solving the problem of Iraq on the House floor the way we are doing it tonight with a discussion, is to integrate our integrity with the great land mass that is around this great globe. The integration of integrity.

I want to make a quick quote by a former artist, media person, diplomat named Norman Cousins, who wrote a fabulous book called ``Human Options.'' In the book is one extraordinary quote, ``History is the vast early warning system.'' And if we look at how we dealt with the Soviet Union over decades of time, it was step by step by step with dialogue. What did we do with China over decades, even after China said that they would like to destroy the United States, even if it wiped off half the population of China? It was step by step by step of dialogue. What did we do with the Cuban Missile Crisis? It was dialogue. Unfortunately, we never had a dialogue with Ho Chi Minh. We lost probably a million people on both sides of that conflict.

What is the issue here with Iraq? It's a dialogue with the Iraqis, it's a dialogue with the Sunnis, the Shi'as, the Kurds. It's a dialogue with the Syrians, the Iranians. It's a dialogue with the Middle East. It's a dialogue with the international community to integrate ourselves to make a commitment to the politics, to the economics, to the security of all the peoples of the world.

So, there is hope. There is movement. And the way to solve one conflict is to understand the nature of the culture. Talk first, for as long as is necessary. And that dialogue got us out of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Nixon went to China. Kennedy did not bomb Castro in Cuba. That can work today.

I will close with this comment from a book I recently read by Anthony Zinni called ``The Battle For Peace.'' And Anthony Zinni described the Cold War

where one man is in a room with a cobra alone for decades, and the man wakes up one morning and the cobra is gone, but the room then is filled with bees; a whole different set of circumstances. And you don't deal with the bees the way you dealt with the cobra.

I thank all you gentlemen for coming here tonight for this integrated dialogue so our integrity can mesh a little bit better and we will find a solution.

I think when you generate ideas like we're having tonight with this decision, people are free to have an enthusiastic conversation where we can see each other's individual ingenuity. And then it is that collective ingenuity, that individual collective ingenuity that spawns these kinds of ideas that solve problems.

I couldn't agree more that the Iraq Study Group reassemble to evaluate where they were just 6 months ago in their recommendations to where we might want to be in September or sometime this fall is an excellent idea. And I am pretty sure that those men and women would come together to do this second reevaluation.

The other thing is, I think we, as members of our group here, Members of Congress, we need to do some preparation ourselves prior to whatever that announcement, whatever that assessment is going to be in September, we have to have some preparation for what we think the status of the conflict in Iraq needs to be.

And the third thing, while we are preparing for this report by General Petraeus, while we are encouraging the Iraq Study Group to reevaluate the status, as General Petraeus will, I really think it's important for us to continue to pursue a dialogue with all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria.

Now, we all know that the Ahmadinejad administration, if I can say that, has said some pretty pointed, scary, threatened things. But it is my understanding that the Iranian people do not see the world, do not see the United States through Ahmadinejad's eyes. The Syrian people, the parents, the fathers, the people who want good lives for their children, the Chamber of Commerce in Damascus wants to have a relationship with the United States. There are many, many business people, many, many people in Iran that want a relationship with the United States.

So as we are preparing for this discussion in September, where we are with the surge and where we are with the conflict, let's get the Iraq Study Group together. Let's prepare for that statement so we understand where we think we should be. And then let's continue to pursue, however difficult it is, this dialogue.

I thank the gentleman.

Just very quickly on the comment from the gentleman from New York, Syria is basically a secular country. It is not an Islamic state. It is secular. They feared al Qaeda and the Taliban, and they don't want al Qaeda in Iraq creating chaos. Al Qaeda was basically the enemy of the Iranians. It was the enemy of Iraq. It was a disruptive factor in the Middle East.

So careful analysis of each country, using the best diplomats in the world that the United States has, has the potential for unraveling this very difficult, chaotic situation. We know we need a military presence in the Middle East, we know we need a political presence in the Middle East, and we know we need an economic presence in the Middle East. With the emphasis on the politics and the economics with the Middle Eastern countries, I think we can back our way out of this chaos.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 424 I was inadvertently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for being generous with his time. I also want to sincerely thank the gentleman from North Carolina for his effort to resolve the issue successfully and for bringing those of us who are speaking here this morning together and for organizing this time.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote for this resolution for many reasons that I will explain, but this resolution is not a retreat from Iraq. This resolution is understanding the new phase that we find ourselves in with the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. So it is a step forward in the right direction.

I want to begin by commending our American troops and the intelligence community for their bravery, their professionalism and their stunning competence in Iraq and Afghanistan under very difficult circumstances. Those young men and women have eliminated terrorist training camps and gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his band of terrorists, who for years have brutalized the Iraqi people and many people, many thousands of people in the region.

They have eliminated the potential for weapons of mass destruction, these young men and women, and we are proud of that. The Taliban is disbanded and al Qaeda is on the run. These are our troops and the intelligence community.

Where are we now? We find ourselves now, the war on Iraq, and the global war on terrorism, in a new phase, the President understands that phase. The Congress is grasping with that phase. We now know the war in Iraq is in a new phase, and a global war on terror continues, so how do we respond?

How do we approach this new phase? Let's look at the recent past. Let's go back to the 1950s. President Eisenhower said, for the United States to be safe and secure we need a strong military, the best intelligence, and consensus and dialogue.

President Eisenhower implemented all of those practices, especially after Nikita Khrushchev pounded his shoe at the podium of the United Nations and pointed to the Western diplomats and said, ``we will bury you.''

Eisenhower's response? He invited Khrushchev to the United States for a dialogue.

President Kennedy was told there were armed nuclear warheads in Cuba. What did President Kennedy do? Proceed with dialogue and talking with the Soviets. We did not go to war. Nixon went to China.

Who during that period of time did we not have a dialogue with? It was Ho Chi Minh; 53,000 Americans died in the Ten Thousand Day War. Hundreds of thousands were wounded, and millions of Vietnamese were killed. What if we had a dialogue with Ho Chi Minh about ending the French colonial period and encouraging Vietnam to have self- determination, that which we fought for in World War II? What would have happened?

Fifty-three years of dialogue with North Korea just now may be yielding results, 53 years of dialogue. Ask yourself this question. Is a century of dialogue without resolution better than one day on the battlefield? Don't be quick to answer that, but ask that question to yourself.

The world, rich and poor, the people of the world, are intimately familiar with American history, especially with the following man. They know the words of Thomas Jefferson. ``We hold these truths to be self- evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.''

They know Lincoln's words, ``with malice toward none and charity for all.'' They know Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, words, ``You should be judged by the content of your character.''

America is the race of races. The melting pot has become a common heritage with the world's people. Our enemies are ignorance, arrogance and dogma. Monstrous certainty has been and is the tragedy of mankind. The new phase of the war in Iraq and the global war on terror not only includes the military, it not only includes the intelligence community, but in this instance it must include a surge of diplomacy, to integrate the Middle Eastern countries in a diplomatic dialogue about the stability of the region, including reconciliation, economics, trade issues, medical and educational exchanges, et cetera, et cetera. This must be and is a necessary part of that complete strategy to make America safe and secure. The blueprint, the starting point, is to vote ``yes'' today on today's resolution.

The second phase of that is to understand the words which is the blueprint for this new phase, the Iraq Study Group. What do we do with U.S. troops in the Middle East? There are strong recommendations for that. What do we do about training and equipping the Iraqi Army and making them prepared? That is in the Iraq Study Group.

What is the framework for cooperation with the Iraq people, the Iraq Government, and the problems with sectarian violence? That is in the Iraq Study Group.

What about a new diplomatic initiative with all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria? How about consultation with Congress? Vote for this resolution, and we can move on to end the violence, the sectarian chaos, the foolish, bitter electronic exchanges between countries, electronic exchanges, instead of face-to-face conversations.

That effort, fully implemented, will bring our troops home sooner. They will have a brighter future, and the generations to come for the people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We as Members of Congress are at the controls. We are able to control the policy. How? With our vote. Do we know how to use the military? Do we know how to use the intelligence community? Do we know the possibilities of consensus and dialogue with all the countries of the region? If our young men and women are brave enough to go into Iraq and Afghanistan, then we as Members of Congress must be brave enough and informed to start a dialogue in Damascus, in Tehran, in the entire region, to hasten peace.

The first step is an ``aye'' vote on this resolution.

I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) for yielding and for having this time we can discuss these issues of energy, its ramifications to national security, the environment and to the economy. I would like to reiterate some of the comments that Congressman Bartlett has made as far as energy use, and it is

a single issue, energy use, the ramifications of our energy use now is to our economy, to our national security and to our environment.

Our energy use is dependent on fossil fuel, and our whole economy then is dependent on fossil fuel. Our national security to a great extent is the ramifications of national security are as a result of where we get our fossil fuel sources from throughout the world, and fossil fuel burning has a pretty big impact on the environment. So our energy policy affects our economy, affects our national security and affects our environment.

Each of these, because it is fossil fuel, because like Mr. Bartlett said, two-thirds of our energy sources for oil come from foreign sources, that makes our economy fragile. That makes our national security much more difficult, and the ramifications to our environment is that it degrades our environment.

What I would like to discuss here is the legacy of oil to our environment, and the environment, in particular, is our climate. The air, sea and land, upon which life exists on the planet depends to a great extent on the atmosphere, and the atmosphere, in order to support life as we know it, as Mr. Bartlett described, has a certain heat balance to it in order for life to exist.

That heat balance that we talk about is the greenhouse effect which keeps the planet and its heat at a certain temperature in order for us to live, vegetation to grow, life in the sea to exist and life on the land.

The greenhouse effect is as a result of the chemistry of the atmosphere and the chemistry of the atmosphere, whether it is carbon, whether it is methane, whether it is oxygen or whether it is water vapor, does hold the heat of the sun's rays enough for us to have life the way we know it, the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect has had huge fluctuations over the eons of time that the earth has existed. We have ice ages, we have warming trends. So throughout earth's history we have had a natural range of fluctuation to the temperature, to CO2, to other greenhouse gases. That is a natural range. No huge rapid fluctuations in that natural range of chemicals that make up the atmosphere to hold on to the greenhouse effect.

The question is, when we debate this issue in Congress or in other political situations, are humans impacting the climate? Are humans the cause of a warming trend?

Well, let us take a look at that. Right now, is there a warming trend? I would say that every single scientist in the United States, throughout the planet who is a meteorologist or an atmospheric chemist or anybody in that scientific community, every single one of them will say that, yes, we are in a warming trend and we have been in a warming trend for the past 10,000 years.

If you could go back 10,000 years using ice cores drilled into the glaciers in Greenland or the Antarctic, then you could see that 10,000 years ago, as Mr. Bartlett mentioned earlier, the temperature of the planet was about 5 degrees centigrade cooler than it is now, and the value assessment of that is evaluated by the makeup of the chemistry of the atmosphere 10,000 years ago.

One of those elements in the atmosphere was carbon dioxide. If you look at carbon dioxide, you would see that 10,000 years ago, there was about 180 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Now let us come ahead almost 10,000 years to 1890 or 1900 and you evaluate CO2 in the atmosphere at that point. You would see that in 10,000 years, you increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from 180 parts per million to 280 parts per million. It took the earth in its natural range of fluctuation 10,000 years to increase 100 parts per million of CO2.

Now, let us project the next 100 years, which is essentially the industrial age. We have increased another 100 parts per million. We are now at 380 parts per million. So what took the natural forces in a natural range of fluctuation over a period of 10,000 years to increase 100 parts per million, in the industrial age we have done it in 100 years.

Now some people will say that has nothing to do with human activity, that is volcanoes, that is the natural decaying of matters, that is nature producing that 100 parts per million. The answer to that is this. You can distinguish between the kind of CO2 that comes from volcanoes or forest fires or other natural sources from burning fossil fuel. Every human being has their own DNA marker.

You can tell one human being from another human being by their DNA. Carbon dioxide has a DNA; it has a marker. It is a radioactive isotope, so you can determine where this CO2 in the atmosphere comes from. Is it coming from your automobile, or is it coming from a volcano in southeast Asia, or is it coming from a forest fire in California or Brazil?

The radioactive isotopes are markers for CO2. It is very easily discerned that an extreme increase in CO2 has come from human activity. What do we see as a result?

We see warmer air temperatures and warmer sea temperatures. What are some of the results of that? Sea water is warming; the atmosphere is warming. Fuel for hurricanes is warm air and warm sea water. So we are seeing a fairly dramatic increase in stronger hurricanes.

What are some of the other implications of increasing temperatures as a result of burning fossil fuel, human activity? That is sea level rise.

Sea level rise from the melting of the Arctic ice, Arctic glacier such as Greenland and the Antarctic has the potential, in this century, to raise sea levels by 3 feet. What will that do to New York or Baltimore or Miami or all the other low-lying communities throughout the world, the Thames River in London? Sea level rise would flood the City of London. Coastal erosion, coastal communities. The insurance industry in the United States, as a result of climate change, global warming and potential increasing violent storms and sea level rise, and the insurance companies in the United States are beginning to stop their homeowners insurance coverage for these communities at risk along the gulf and Atlantic Coast. The insurance companies of the United States and Lloyd's of London, the only reinsurance company that I know of in the world that is continuing to cover these homeowners, have doubled, tripled and quadrupled their premiums to look at the risk.

The other problem with increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gases is what it does to the actual chemical make-up of our oceans. Our oceans have a certain balance in their Ph. It is just a little bit above 7, and it has been that way for aeons of time. How long have the sharks been in the ocean? You hear on shows in television that sharks have been around for millions of years. Other creatures on our planet have been around for millions of years.

Some of the best habitat in the world for ocean creatures are coral reefs. Increasing CO2 into the atmosphere and the world's oceans have absorbed fully half of the CO2 that we have put into the atmosphere. The result of that, the legacy of oil, burning fossil fuel, is it makes the oceans more acidic. Ocean chemistry would change, be more acidic and more corrosive. It could destroy the vast resources we get from coral reefs by destroying the very fabric of the beginning of the ecology of the world's oceans.

Warmer temperatures we have already begun to see cause more forest fires, more infestations, more problems with agriculture. Weather patterns become more violent in some places. They become more unpredictable. The storm cycles are more violent and unpredictable. Shifting vegetation zones, we have already talked about sea level rise, habitat loss.

The Arctic ice cap at the top of the world in the last 50 years has lost 40 percent of its ice volume, 40 percent. The list of dramatic ramifications of not addressing one of the problems of the legacy of oil and our dependence on it is climate change, is global warming.

What are some of the answers to this? Well, Mr. Bartlett has made some comments about this, but we have a bill on the Senate side, on the House side. Mr. Bartlett is a cosponsor. John Olver from Massachusetts is a cosponsor. A number of our colleagues have gotten on this bill to try to understand the nature of this problem, at least part of our dependence on fossil fuel, which is global warming, climate change.

We think the debate is over. The debate is over because the science is clear that human activity is causing the climate to change and all those other problems or ramifications of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We need to take action now to stop global warming. We subject our economy, our national security, our way of life to great risk and catastrophic harm. We have a bipartisan bill that will reduce the Nation's greenhouse gas emissions substantially and in a timely fashion.

We have a series of Fortune 500 companies from Alcoa to BP to Caterpillar to Duke Energy to DuPont to a number of environmental groups that support the Federal Government making a goal of reducing greenhouse gases by the year 2050 to 70 percent below 1990 levels, creating a regulatory structure to do that.

Then these companies that I just read say that the market can resolve the issue. It would create a cap and trade program with large tax incentives to unleash the ingenuity of the American free marketplace to capture the technology, which will make us much more economically viable to use efficiency, technological advances, alternative fuels. This will reduce over a period of decades not only our dependence on fossil fuel from foreign sources, not only improve our economy, not only improve our national security situation with the rest of the world, but drastically begin to improve our environment. The U.S. can take the lead in finding solutions to this seemingly intractable problem.

The Federal Government sets a goal with the regulatory structure, the market produces the results, and human ingenuity, once again, solves some of the problems. I want to thank Congressman Bartlett for the time and for his enormous interest in this issue and his skill and expertise.

If the gentleman would yield just for a second on the issue of the Gulf Stream and the conveyer belt. As Mr. Bartlett described the conveyor belt, it is part of this whole system of the climate that we are used to, because it creates this heat balance that humans over the last thousands of years have become used to in North America and especially Europe and England.

Mr. Bartlett talked about Ireland being just about on the same latitude as northern Labrador, but has a much warmer climate. That is partly based on the fact that ocean currents bring warm air to that particular region.

With global warming, the ice cap on Greenland, which is about 600,000 square miles. The ice cap about 20 years ago was melting at a rate of about 20 cubic miles on an annual basis. About 5 years ago, it was melting at the rate of about 50 some cubic miles.

Today, it is 80 cubic miles of free water flowing into the northern part of the north Atlantic Ocean, putting what Mr. Bartlett described, more fresh water, less likely to sink or drop and create the pump that drives the conveyor belt.

So the unexpected climate changes, instead of the potential for a much warmer climate in Europe, especially northern Europe, there is a slight chance because of global warming that you could have a much colder climate in northern Europe, the British Isles as a result of the fresh water pouring into the north Atlantic from the melting of the glaciers to stop this conveyor belt from functioning, the unpredictability of this climate change as a result of our dependance on foreign sources of oil and burning fossil fuel.

Mr. Bartlett and I have been down there twice, the first time I went was probably about 10 years ago, and the supply ship to get to McMurdo station had to break ice. I believe it was about 12 miles from open water to McMurdo. And then after the ice shelf or that huge chunk of the glacier broke off about the size of Delaware, it was close to 30-something miles that they had to break that ice from open water all the way to McMurdo station. So a few degrees, a few changes have some pretty significant dramatic events.

On just a lighter note, on one of those trips, I can't remember which one it was, we went to watch the penguins. The first time I was in the Antarctic they didn't have that far to go to get to open water. The Adelie penguins, the second time, as a result of the increasing ice because it was blocked, had to go miles and miles and miles, and unfortunately it really reduced the population of those Adelie penguins in that part of the Ross ice shelf.

I have sort of a summary, I guess you could say, a Global Warming 101 Introductory, which will take about 10 minutes, so I am not sure how you want to proceed. Do you want me to just give this sort of a 10-minute introduction to global warming, or break it up with your dialogue?

Congressman Bartlett is talking about peak oil, the idea that our energy from oil is a finite resource, it is limited. And what I would like to do, in conjunction with that, is to give a perspective on one of the legacies of the age of oil, and that is global warming, heating the planet, upsetting that delicate balance between what the Earth has been used to for thousands of years, and the natural range of fluctuation in the climate, to what we have done in less than 100 years as a result of burning fossil fuel, oil in particular.

So here is how I would like to proceed. Number one, the Earth has a livable climate. The biosphere, which is the area of the planet that contains life forms that we have become familiar with is possible because of something called the greenhouse effect.

Now, in our atmosphere, we have oxygen, water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, a number of different chemical mixes which provide us with the air we breathe and the type of atmosphere that produces, in part, the climate that we have, hence the greenhouse effect. It is warm enough and cool enough for life, as we know it, to exist.

Now, one of the most important greenhouse gases, other than water vapor, other than oxygen, other than methane--all of these contribute to the greenhouse effect--is carbon dioxide, or CO2.

Now, even though carbon dioxide is less than 1 percent of the makeup of our atmosphere, it is critical in the heat balance of our planet. Now, that sort of gives us an idea of the importance of these greenhouse gases and the importance of carbon dioxide.

Now, is the Earth warming? There is no question, everybody would say yes, the Earth is warming, and it has been warming for the last 10,000 years. It has been warming for the last 10,000 years because that was the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago, and sea level has been rising, and the planet has been warming all of that time.

It is warming, in part, because there is an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Ten thousand years ago, and you can evaluate this by looking at ice cores and checking the bubbles out, and see what the content in our atmosphere of CO2 was by looking at those bubbles in ice cores from Greenland or the Antarctic, and CO2 was about 180 parts per million in the atmosphere 10,000 years ago. CO2, a greenhouse effect, or a greenhouse gas, was at 180 parts per million 10,000 years ago.

If we move forward almost 10,000 years to the year 1890, in 1890, CO2 in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million. It took just about 10,000 years for CO2, a greenhouse gas, which helps the balance of Earth's climate, it took almost 10,000 years for it to increase almost 100 parts per million.

Now, let us look at the year 2000. In the year 2000, CO2 was 380 parts per million. In effect, the natural causes before the Industrial Age were really in full swing. The natural causes gradually warmed the planet over 10,000 years very slowly.

What we have seen in the last 100 years, actually, about the last 50 years, is a dramatic increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, something like we have not seen for hundreds of thousands of years and perhaps millions of years. So CO2 in the atmosphere right now is 380 parts per million. We haven't seen that much CO2 in the atmosphere for 800,000 years. Now, as a result of this, we are going to see some changes in our climate.

Let me make this last comment, though, about CO2 in the atmosphere, about the heat balance, about how the greenhouse gases intermix with the atmosphere. Human activity, burning fossil fuel, has put into the atmosphere in a little more than 50 years what the natural processes took out of the atmosphere, and it took more than millions of years to effect. In less than 100 years we have changed the atmosphere more than the natural processes of the Earth have changed the atmosphere in millions of years.

Now, what are the ramifications of this? Well, warmer seas and warmer temperatures. If we want to associate

that with hurricanes, we have more frequent, stronger hurricanes as a result of that. Warm seas are fuels for hurricanes.

What is that doing to our economy? What is that doing to our coastal communities? What are some of the other implications?

Well, one other significant implication is sea level rise. If you went to Ocean City 10,000 years ago, and we know Ocean City in Maryland was not there 10,000 years ago, if you went to Ocean City, where Ocean City was supposed to be 10,000 years ago, you would have 75 more miles to go before you got to the ocean; 10,000 years ago you would walk from Alaska to Russia, easily, there was a land bridge, a wide land bridge.

Today we know that you can't. That is because sea level has been rising, and it has been rising because of the natural consequence of global warming, but now there is a significant change. For example, the temperature has increased, sea level temperatures have increased. In the last 20 years we have lost 40 percent of the volume of the Arctic ice. The Arctic ice cap, we have lost 40 percent of the volume of that.

Let us take a look at Greenland. In Greenland, it has 630,000 cubic miles of ice, Greenland, 630,000 cubic miles of ice. If that were all to melt, sea level around the globe would rise 23 feet.

Now, we know that Greenland's ice shelf is melting. Recently it was discovered that it is melting 10 times faster than anybody could have ever anticipated. A few years ago, it was losing about 80 cubic miles of ice a year, a few years ago. Today, just a matter of a few years later, it is losing now, and it is accelerating, 80 cubic miles of ice are melting every year.

When I say melting, it is not dripping. This is running off. In fact, the greatest contributor to fresh water to the world's oceans is not the Nile River, it is not the Amazon River, it is ice melting, pouring off the ice shelf of Greenland.

What is that going to do to our coastal communities, our coastal economies? What happened in Katrina, in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama? What is happening in a fairly more frequent occurrence to States like Florida or South Carolina, or even States like ours, the State of Maryland? What other changes might there be?

CO2, carbon dioxide, is being absorbed at an increasing rate by the world's oceans. How will the oceans change as a result of this absorption of CO2? It will become more acidic. The ocean chemistry will actually change in the ocean, and it will become more corrosive.

What is the problem with an acidic ocean that is more corrosive? Some of the best habitats in the world for the world's most abundant fisheries are coral reefs. Coral reefs cannot survive in an acidic ocean. A whole host of ocean creatures will be disrupted in their process to reproduce or in their process to exist at all. There will be warmer temperatures in the atmosphere, increased forest fires, increased infestation, increased invasive species, changing in agriculture practices, changing in weather patterns. There would be more significant rain storms, more significant snow storms.

Storm cycles would be difficult to predict, shifting in vegetation zones, habitat lost for a whole range of flora and fauna species and 40 percent of ice lost in the Arctic ice shelf right now, and accelerating, may be gone by this midcentury, a whole range, including polar bears or endangered species.

The coastal economy, the coastal economy in the United States is 50 percent of our GDP, 50 percent of our GDP. The likelihood of sea level rise as a result of all of this is going to be between 1, and more likely, at least 3 feet, that will clean out, wipe out, disturb, destroy most of the coastal cities in the United States on the Atlantic and gulf coast.

We are looking at New York City, Boston, Wilmington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, coastal areas from Maryland down to Florida, including Miami. Much of the peninsula of the State of Florida will be under water, not to mention, if you look at the State of Maryland, much of the peninsula, the Delmarva peninsula.

The natural range of fluctuation has been disrupted by the burning of fossil fuel, by oil, a limited resource, the end of the Oil Age and what are the consequences, the last 100 years of the Industrial Age, the age of fossil fuel, the natural range of fluctuation for CO2, methane gas.

The temperature range in the last 10,000 years has been fairly close and predictable. Now, imagine a straight line, and what does a hockey stick look like? We have corresponded the increase in CO2 with the increase in atmospheric temperature, the increase in land temperature, and the increase in sea level temperature. All of this corresponding to the increase in burning fossil fuel, and as a result, the increase of methane carbon dioxide.

I want to end with a quote from a gentleman called Norman Cousins, who had an illustrious career in journalism and in politics. Norman Cousins says, ``Knowledge is the solvent of danger.'' And the key to the successful understanding and opportunities for a brighter outcome with what Congressman Bartlett is talking about as ``peak oil,'' the end of the age of oil, and its consequences in global warming, the key to understanding and finding a solution is knowledge.

Mr. Bartlett, thank you very much for the time.

Madam Speaker, please let the record show that had I been present for rollcall vote No. 20, I would have voted ``aye.''