Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 123) providing for correction to the enrollment of the bill H.R. 5946.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

This resolution corrects the text of H.R. 5946, Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 2006. The Senate amendment to that bill included a provision not in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Resources, and with the passage of this resolution, that provision will be deleted when the bill is enrolled.

And, Mr. Speaker, the Magnuson-Stevens Act is an act 30 years old that manages the Nation's fisheries out 200 miles. It is a bill that deals with an industry that is nearly $100 billion annually. And what we have done with this bill, with the Members, with the chairman of the Resources Committee, Mr. Pombo; with the former chairman of the Resources Committee, Mr. Don Young; Mr. Rahall; Frank Pallone; Jim Saxton; and a number of Members; and I also want to compliment the staff on the House side, the staff on both committees, personal staff. And those people who helped us with the Senate, they have made a bill that is going to be successful, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, because this act enables the management of a public resource that is worth about $100 billion to be integrated with fishermen, with processers, with distributors, with university scientists, government scientists, council members, and private citizens. The bill goes a long way to sustain and restore the Nation's fishery. It ends overfishing, rebuilds depleted stocks, improves safety and life at sea, protects fish habitat, enables us to better understand the ecology of our oceans, improves the management of our councils, fairly and equitably deals with overcapitalization, and numerous other provisions.

This is a good piece of legislation. It further restores and goes a long way into enabling us to carry out the traditions of Senator Magnuson and Senator Stevens.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this most sustainable fisheries act.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 5946) to amend the Magnuson- Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to authorize activities to promote improved monitoring and compliance for high seas fisheries, or fisheries governed by international fishery management agreements, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5946, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 2006. I want to thank Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye for their hard work in getting this authorization to the Senate and to the House. I also want to thank Chairman Richard Pombo, who has been a champion for the recreational and commercial fishermen of this Nation. We will miss his leadership greatly. And I want to thank and support all the other Members and their staff that have been involved in this process.

At this point I will insert in the Record an exchange of letters between Chairman Pombo and Chairman Boehlert regarding this bill and between Chairman Pombo and Chairman Thomas regarding the polar bear provisions

contained in title IX, originally part of H.R. 4075.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Resources,

Washington, DC, July 13, 2006.

Hon. William M. Thomas,

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means, Longworth House Office

Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: I ask your cooperation to help schedule

consideration by the House of Representatives of H.R. 4075,

the Marine Mammal Protection Act Amendments of 2006, during

the week of July 17-21, 2006. I have proposed an amendment to

this bill which includes text from S. 2013, the United

States-Russia Polar Bear Conservation and Management Act of

2005. The Committee on Ways and Means has a jurisdictional

interest in this Senate bill because of its inclusion of

trade measures.

My staff has worked with yours to develop a mutually-agreed

on text for this amendment, and I have enclosed this

amendment for your review. I ask that you not seek a referral

of H.R. 4075 based on the inclusion of this language to

expedite Floor scheduling. Of course, this action would not

be considered as waiving or affecting your jurisdiction over

the subject matter of the amendment, nor as precedent for any

future referrals of similar measures. Moreover, if the bill

is conferenced with the Senate, I would support naming Ways

and Means Committee members to the conference committee for

the trade provisions. I would also be pleased to include this

letter and your response in the Congressional Record during

consideration of the bill on the Floor.

Mr. Chairman, I have been very pleased with the tremendous

degree of cooperation between our two Committees. Your staff,

especially Angela Ellard and Steven Schrage, has been

responsive and thoughtful, and my staff very much appreciates

their support and teamwork. I hope that you will give my

request serious consideration and I look forward to your

response.

Sincerely,

Richard W. Pombo,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank Jim Saxton from New Jersey for his work on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the chairman of the Resources Committee, Richard Pombo.

Thank you, Mr. Pallone.

I want to yield now to the part of the country that has the largest fishery, to Congressman Don Young.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

I want to thank Mr. Rahall and his staff and the Members on that side of the aisle, and Mr. Pombo for his effort, Mr. Young, and Mr. Jim Saxton, and certainly the staff behind me for all their work.

This is not a perfect bill. There is no utopia in the legislative process. Through consensus and dialogue, we have tried to integrate the ideas of the Members, and we feel very strongly that we have come up with a bill that will improve, sustain and restore the ecology of the Nation's oceans.

I urge my colleagues for an ``aye'' vote on this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for allowing us to have this debate today.

The human condition on the planet requires that there be strong military power under certain circumstances, strong intelligence under certain circumstances, strong sanctions under certain circumstances, and strong dialogue.

The President recently spoke to the Iranian people through The Washington Post. Here is what he said: ``I would like to say to the Iranian people, we respect your history. We respect your culture. I recognize the importance of your sovereignty, that you are a proud nation. I understand that you believe it is in your interest, your sovereign interest, to have nuclear power for energy. I would work for a solution to meeting your rightful desires to have civilian nuclear power. I will tell the Iranian people that we have no desire for conflict.''

If we hope to convince our allies and the international community that we are serious about resolving this matter diplomatically, the U.S. must open direct diplomatic channels with Tehran.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank Mr. Porter for the legislation; Mr. Osborne, Mr. Davis, and the staff for bringing this to the floor and for bringing it to the attention of the Members; and, Mr. Speaker, to the general public at large.

The community service for youth across this great Nation is, I think, for the most part, doing one of the best jobs it can for the youth of America who are homeless, who each day, instead of a bright, sunlit opportunity, they find despair, and they do not know what hope is. They do not know what joy is. But they probably know what a prison cell looks like at a very young age.

What this legislation does, and what we all should continue to pursue, is dedicate our words to the front line of service that Mr. Davis was talking about and Mr. Osborne has mentioned, those people who are mostly volunteers that provide the shelter, provide the hope, provide the work for these people who are homeless.

And what we hope this resolution will do, and what we should continue to work towards, is to create a better framework for homeless youth, that more people will get involved. The community service, the front line service, can be expanded to an immense pool of people that will spend just a very small amount of their time on a weekly or monthly basis if they go out into their community and find out where a homeless shelter is and then visit that homeless shelter and talk to those youth and give them hope and give them opportunity and let them know that someone cares about them. Create a Boy Scout troop for juvenile delinquents. Create a Boy Scout troop or a Girl Scout troop for people who are homeless, who are living in homeless shelters.

Almost 40 years ago, my brothers and a couple other people who had not gone to college, we all got out of the service. We had just gotten out of Vietnam, and we got involved with a minister and a lawyer that created a Boy Scout troop for people who committed felonies. We created a Boy Scout troop for juvenile delinquents. And the way to get in that Boy Scout troop was that you had to have committed a felony or you had to be homeless or one of those categories. And it transformed their lives.

This Sunday in my district, we are going to have a picnic for 30 homeless children and, if they come, their parents. And what we are going to do is we are going to walk through the woods, we are going to feel the cool shade of the forest, and we are going to identify trees and we are going to talk about nature's design. Then we are going to take them on a short canoe ride and walk them on the beaches of the Sassafras River. But we are going to show them that in their dreary, hopeless life, there are magnificent opportunities.

The people on the front line need help. There is a massive amount of opportunity out there for people to see something that they don't see every day, to find out where a homeless shelter is in your community, and then go and talk to the people who service those homeless shelters, talk to the people who fund those homeless shelters, and talk to the people who are in those homeless shelters and provide them with dignity, respect, hope, and opportunity. It is a matter of initiative, ingenuity, courage, and compassion. And it can all be done.

And I want to thank Mr. Osborne, Mr. Davis, and Mr. Porter and his staff for this great resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 362) to establish a program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United States Coast Guard to help identify, determine sources of, assess, reduce, and prevent marine debris and its adverse impacts on marine environment and navigation safety, in coordination with non-Federal entities, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 362.

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

Mr. Speaker, S. 362, the Marine Debris Research, Prevention and Reduction Act, was introduced by Senator Inouye of Hawaii and was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate in July last year.

The bill would enhance the Federal Government's capabilities to remove and prevent the creation of marine debris that is derived from ocean-based activities. Marine debris degrades very slowly, is highly buoyant and can be carried thousands of miles by ocean currents. Marine debris poses significant entanglement threats to many marine organisms, including fish, crabs, birds and marine mammals and can have serious consequences on human health.

The bill would require the establishment of a Marine Debris Prevention and Removal Program with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to coordinate that agency's existing activities and requirements to reduce the impact of marine debris on the environment and navigation safety.

The bill also would require the Coast Guard to implement measures to improve compliance and enforcement of laws and international agreements regarding the discard of plastics and garbage from vessels.

The bill also amends current law to reactivate the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee, rather than establish a new interagency forum, as was proposed in the Senate-passed bill.

The bill before us today is the result of extensive consultation between the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Resources. The bill has strong bipartisan support, and I expect the Senate to act quickly to send this legislation to the President.

S. 362 will significantly improve the Federal Government's programs to prevent and remove marine debris without creating unnecessary, duplicative programs.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, especially the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for his work on this issue.

To use another term, marine debris is trash and garbage which is massively discharged into our oceans. Some of it is degraded within a few days, others will last for hundreds if not thousands of years.

As Mr. Pallone mentioned, the Ocean Commission dedicates an entire chapter to the problems of marine debris. This legislation, with the help of the staff on the Transportation Committee and the Resources Committee, will go a long way to solve this problem.

Mr. Speaker, I urge an ``aye'' vote on the legislation.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to a couple of items here. One, to the gentleman from California, Mr. Farr, as far as who has the prettiest district in the country, I would like to invite Mr. Farr from California to ply the placid waters of the Sassafras River and enjoy either a dawn or sunset in a canoe as we go past the marsh and beautiful forested areas along the coastal Chesapeake Bay. He just accepted my invitation, so I appreciate that.

I also have some understanding of where Mr. Farr comes from, as far as dealing with the organic act and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including what we can call the wet side and the dry side of NOAA. As we move forward with this legislative agenda and this process with the bill that Mr. Vern Ehlers brings to us today, I want to say two things as far as this bill is concerned.

Number one, Mr. Ehlers has not only worked for 6 years on this issue, Dr. Ehlers has worked 10 years on the idea that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that was created by executive order in 1970 by President Richard Nixon needs, as Mr. Boehlert defined, a specific direction and order prescribed by the U.S. Congress, so that it has a definitive, objective goal that Members of Congress can pursue a specific oversight agenda for. Dr. Ehlers has worked very strongly with both sides of the aisle to bring this bill before us today.

Now, there is a small piece that we can add to this as the process continues, as Dr. Ehlers said. We will add the fisheries and the oceans side of NOAA as we move along. But this bill before us today is a piece of legislation that provides the direction that Congress needs to set goals and be a part of the agenda of an administration to ensure that the Nation has the kind of satellites to give us the kind of weather reports that will enhance local reporting and save literally billions of dollars on our understanding of weather patterns, of hurricanes and things of that nature. It also has an understanding of the coastal ecology in this particular part of the bill.

What this bill does, and we will include as soon as we can the oceans part of this bill, but what this bill does is literally recognize that there are trillions of dollars tied up in satellite communication, in the private sector communication of satellites, and a whole host of other areas that will give us an understanding of marine research, of how the oceans affect the climates.

I urge my colleagues, as we move along in this process, this bill that Dr. Ehlers, in a bipartisan fashion, has brought to the House floor today be voted on.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to make a comment on the chairman and the ranking member of this committee, that they have done a stunning job given the allocation.

What I would like to do with this amendment is to explain why it is important to take $738 million out of the space exploration program in NASA, that is the program that will send the man to the Moon and a man to Mars, and put that money into the National Ocean Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Ocean Atmospheric Research Service of NOAA.

The Ocean Commission, commissioned by Congress, the members were appointed by the present President, Mr. Bush, recommended 200 items to be done with the world's oceans as ocean policy for the United States. They recommended that we put in $3.9 billion to implement those recommendations.

Well, we know that the budget is tight. The problem, though, is this particular appropriations bill provides for $300 million below the President's request for 2007, $300 million below the President's request, not even coming anywhere near, not even approaching the $3.9 billion. If you look at the budget for NOAA in 2005, we are, with this bill, with this budget, putting in $800 million less than the 2005 budget.

With the 200 recommendations to be implemented with the $3.9 billion that this commission recommended, we are attempting to resolve the issue of most of the world's largest fish, like you see here, 90 percent of their population is gone, 90 percent.

By the year 2050, the coral reefs that are healthy in the upper picture will look like the below picture. By the year 2050, we could have 60 percent of the coral reefs completely diminished. That doesn't even come close to the severe problems along U.S. coastal areas, the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida, the south Atlantic.

In this picture you see the dead zone, which is about a third of the area of the Chesapeake Bay. Our coastal areas are being depleted. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this amendment to take $738 million out of the manned space program to Mars and the Moon and put that amount of money into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Chairman, I am not sure if I have any other speakers on the floor. I would simply say that, out of about approximately $16 billion that is spent on NASA and less than $4 billion spent on ocean issues, that is a pretty big disparity.

We need to spend the $16 billion on NASA, and probably a lot more. But, in my judgment, the Moon will be there for a long time. Mars will be there for a long time. And I don't want to take the money out of needed science programs, but the world's oceans are being degraded. They are being degraded in a number of ways by human activity that is not compatible with nature's design and the bulging population and acidic problems in the ocean. Because of burning of fossil fuel, the coastal areas are being inundated with our populations and being polluted. It is time that this country looked at this world, this Nation, and came up with a comprehensive, well-funded ocean program.

I want to thank the gentleman from Maine for speaking on behalf of this amendment. I want to thank the chairman for the time and his comments.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As we debate the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism, there will be strong, heartfelt feelings and expressions on this House floor. Let us, however, as we debate have a powerful sense of resolution, a powerful sense of urgency, a powerful sense of urgency to end the war and to end the war successfully.

A stable, free Iraq, a stable, free Afghanistan will be a blessing to the Iraqis, a blessings to the Afghanis and a blessing to the region and the world at large.

The war on terrorism is the next stage of the Cold War. Civilized people who believe in the rule of law, justice, equality and freedom cannot allow self-anointed fanatics to rape, pillage and murder at will around the globe.

A great Islamic theologian once said, ``One hour of justice is equal to a hundred-year prayer.'' The world wants to hear from us. It is our job to end the war in Iraq successfully. The United States, with the assistance of and for the good of the civilized world, can and will defeat terrorism. This debate is our hour of justice.

General Eisenhower said, ``The emphasis of the military is on authority and obedience; the emphasis on public office is communication and consent.'' As we craft this resolution, I urge you to keep these themes in mind.

And as we will eventually walk across the graves in Arlington Cemetery, listen to these words: ``We are the dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved. And now we lie in Flanders Field.'' Let us work together through this debate to figure out how to end the war.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I think there are two things both sides of the aisle can agree with today. Demand is up. We look at our country, China, and India, and the price is up. Those are two things we all agree on.

What we don't agree on, I guess, which is why we have this debate this afternoon, is supply. The United States Government, including the Army Corps of Engineers, recently completed a study saying that peak oil is real; supply is down. Drilling for oil in ANWR, regardless of how much limited supply is there, will not, will not bring the price down.

The world burns, burns, 25 billion barrels of oil a year. We burn it.

ANWR will bring us about 5 billion barrels. That will postpone the world decline in oil reserves by only 2 or 3 months. Once we burn it, and the key word here is burn, once we burn it, it is gone. What is at the bottomless well? It is not oil. As some of the speakers have said, it is ingenuity, it is intellect, and it is initiative.

What else do we have oil use for? We have it for pharmaceutical products and medical products. We have it for plastic products. We have it for asphalt and the fabric of this civilization, and we are burning the legacy of our children's future.

Let us hold this one area for its pristine beauty and oil reserves for our children's future.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen from Utah for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the rule and I rise to support the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to speak to at this point is in the underlying bill there is a provision which states that this body, that there is a sense of Congress that we should recognize that there is an ongoing problem with the amount of carbon dioxide, CO2 that is being emitted as a result of burning fossil fuel and that the United States should take steps to reduce that emission of CO2.

Now, carbon dioxide makes up a fraction of less than 1 percent of the atmosphere, and yet that one element in the atmosphere, less than 1 percent, a fraction of 1 percent, pretty much determines the heat balance or the climate of the planet.

CO2 is increasing, especially over the last 100 years, as a result of burning fossil fuels. We are having a dramatic impact on the heat balance of the planet. Let us just look at some simple scientific observations.

This is data that is conclusive among the scientific community. 10,000 years ago we were at the end of the last ice age, and we can measure the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere 10,000 years ago. It was 180 parts per million. 180 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere 10,000 years ago.

Now, let us fast forward almost 10,000 years. It was 280 parts per million 100 years ago. So almost 10,000 years it took to increase CO2 into the atmosphere from natural processes 100 points, from 180 parts per million to 280 parts per million 100 years ago.

Now, let us fast forward 100 years to today. It is 380 parts per million. So what took 10,000 years to increase in the last 100 years, we have done that that fast, from 280 parts per million to 380 parts per million in just 100 years.

What we are saying is that dramatic increase is attributed to human activity burning fossil fuel. That dramatic increase has resulted in glaciers receding traumatically around the planet, the warmest 10 years on record from the 1990s. Hurricanes are getting stronger and more fierce, and all we have to do is take a look at what happened in New Orleans, lower Louisiana, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Florida, et cetera, et cetera, because the atmosphere is warming as a result of an increase in

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to

thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for his work and the staff on the hard work they have done on this bill. Based on the limited allocation that they have received, I think they did a pretty good job.

Mr. Chairman, I want to speak specifically to a provision in the bill that I support, and I want to thank Mr. Dicks for putting the provision in the bill, and I want to thank the chairman for allowing it to stay in the bill.

Basically, the provision I would like to speak to is the sense of Congress in this bill that deals with the fact that this Congress should pay attention to, work with, and try to understand the increasing amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and what does that mean.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, while it represents a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the whole atmosphere, is the chief gas that determines the heat balance; it determines the climate. And there is a scientific consensus that within the last 100 years, especially within the last 50 years, human activity burning fossil fuel has put huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus debilitating or changing that heat balance that we have known for a long time.

An example: 10,000 years ago, at the end of the Ice Age, it is calculated through analysis that there was 180 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It took 10,000 years for that to go up 100 points. 10,000 years. Now, in the last 100, but especially in the last 50 years, it has risen 100 points. So what the natural environment did in 10,000 years, human activity burning fossil fuel has done in less than 100 years.

Now, what does that mean? Does that mean whoever talked about global warming is crying Chicken Little, the sky is falling; don't worry about it, nothing will happen? Or does it mean we need to pursue knowledge?

What it means is, that increase in carbon dioxide in less than 100 years that took the natural process 10,000 years to produce, this U.S. Congress, this government should pay attention to that issue. And the sense of Congress contained in this legislation should remain in this legislation.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Greenland is an interesting place because you can go back several hundred years. People were tracking the increasing or decreasing glacier ice cap. So there is a very accurate record. We saw some 20 years ago that the ice cap really significantly began to melt and about 20 cubic miles of ice was flowing into the North Atlantic. Today, that has increased to 53 cubic miles of ice cap on Greenland flowing in the form of water, melted water, into the North Atlantic. The rate we are going, we are going to lose the Greenland ice cap. When we do lose the Greenland ice cap, sea levels will rise 23 feet around the globe.

New York City. Boston.

Mr. Chairman, I thank and appreciate the gentleman from Alaska for the time.

The issue that we are debating here, this sense of Congress, is to ask the Members of Congress to take a look at a potential problem of global warming that human activity is causing by burning fossil fuel and adding increasing amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere that helps with the greenhouse effect.

Carbon dioxide makes up less than 100th of 1 percent of the atmosphere, a very, very tiny amount. Yet that tiny amount has a large impact on the heat balance or the climate of the planet, and so if you can take an analysis, which we can, without dispute from the scientific community, over the past 10,000 years, you can actually go back 5 million years, but if you look at the last 10,000 years, we have increased in CO2 by a natural amount from 180 parts per million of CO2 to 280 parts per million. It took 100 years to increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by 100 parts per million.

But then if you look at the last 100 years, especially the last 50 years, we have increased it by another 100 parts per million. Now, that is a tiny amount. It is another very small percentage. It took 10,000 years to increase it by 100 parts per million. It took really less than 100 years to increase it another 100 parts per million, which can be directly attributed to human activity burning fossil fuel.

Now, it is still a very tiny amount. Even if the human input to the increasing CO2 is only 4 percent, when we are working at levels of hundredths of a percent, that 4 percent is significant.

So we are seeing, as a result of the change in increase in CO2, warming temperatures of the atmosphere, warming temperatures of the oceans, receding glaciers, and that is not to scare people.

We, as adults, always want better science for our students in our schools. We need better science here on the House floor. If you look at the Greenland ice sheet 25 years ago, 20 cubic miles of that ice sheet was flowing into the North Atlantic. Today, just a few decades later, 53 cubic miles a year of the Greenland ice sheet is flowing into the North Atlantic, and like the gentleman from Wisconsin said earlier, if the Greenland ice sheet were to go, and it is growing, we should recognize a potential for a 23-feet increase in the sea level.

So, all we are asking for on the House floor is let us look at the data. Let us acknowledge our future.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do for my colleagues is to demonstrate the 1987 manual of the Army Corps of Engineers to determine what is a jurisdictional wetland that is associated with navigable waters, which gives the Army Corps of Engineers, through the Clean Water Act, as passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President. The Clean Water Act is to make sure that waters of the United States are clean, and the Corps of Engineers determines what are waters of the United States. So the experiment is as follows.

Gravity pulls water downhill. So the 1987 manual of the Army Corps of Engineers, to determine what are waters of the United States so that the Federal Government can protect those waters from pollution, determines that in three ways.

What is the soil type? What is the vegetation in that area? And what is the hydrology of that area? If it meets that criteria and it comes under their jurisdiction, it means that no matter where that water is, if it runs downhill and eventually gets miles away to a stream or a tributary that runs into navigable waters or the seas, that what you do in that isolated wetland, if the hydrology is such that it moves with gravity, will eventually pollute the navigable waters or seas of the United States.

And so the Federal Government has decided to use its resources in a reasonable, practicable way, based on the 1987 manual, to ensure that waters of the United States, of which we all depend, are not polluted. And in most instances, I represent an agricultural district with a lot of wetlands, on the Delmarva Peninsula. Those areas in my district, an agricultural community that depends on agriculture, that depends on silviculture, that depends on the fishing community to harvest their striped bass or eels or catfish or whatever, we have understood the compatibility of human activity with nature's design. And we want to ensure that that is still in law and that our waters of the United States can continue to be protected.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk for 5 minutes on this issue known as climate change. Are humans affecting the climate or is it the natural influence of natural variabilities?

Mr. Speaker, if people will look back into their middle school and high school years, they will remember their silence class, their geography class, maybe their geology class, and they learned that the planet Earth over millions of years varied in its climate. Sometimes we had very warm periods and sometimes we had very cold periods. Sometimes the tropics were as far north as Canada and sometimes ice ages covered much of North America. But the point is, what do we remember about the details and the facts on how they occurred?

I think maybe Jay Leno should ask that question in a ``Jay Walking'' exercise, ``What do you know about climate change?'' Well, in past eons of times, tens of thousands of years ago, millions of years ago there were very few human beings on the planet and those human beings were not burning fossil fuel.

Today we have six billion people on planet Earth and many of those people are burning coal, natural gas, oil, gasoline. They are burning for their energy sources fossil fuel. And the fossil fuel that we are burning in the modern era of time is putting more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere in decades than the natural variabilities of planet Earth locked up over millions of years.

Why is fossil fuel important when we are looking at the issue of climate change or global warming? When you burn fossil fuel it puts into the atmosphere a gas known as CO or carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the chief element, the chief gas, in the atmosphere that controls climate, that controls the heat balance. We call this the ``greenhouse effect.'' Sunlight comes in, but because of COG, some of it cannot be radiated out so we have had a pretty good of balance of climate on the planet, at least for the last few thousand years.

Now, how much COG is in the atmosphere that has this huge effect on the climate?

Less than 1 percent of the atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide. Way less than 1 percent of the atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide, but it has a huge effect. So you can see that any variability in carbon dioxide will have quite severe consequences on the planet.

How much CO2 was in the atmosphere 10,000 years ago, at the very edge of the end of that Ice Age? Ten thousand years ago, there were 180 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thousands of years later, with a warming trend, a natural warming trend on the planet, almost 10,000 years later, it was 280 parts per million.

Two hundred years ago on the planet, during the early American days, there were 80 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere. One hundred years ago, that increased by a small fraction; 100 years ago, there were 290 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Now, this sounds like a lot of calculations and a lot of numbers. 100 years ago, 290 parts per million, heat balanced because of CO2. One hundred years later, now, we are talking about 100 percentage points, 100 parts per million difference over 10,000 years.

What happened in the last 100 years? We are at 380 parts per million in the last 100 years. What normally would take 10,000 years to happen in a natural variation, variability, fluctuation, we did in 100 years. The estimate will be, by the year 2050, we are likely to be over 500 parts per million. That means we have had more of a dramatic increase in CO2 that controls the climate in 100 years than happened 5 million years ago.

The Earth is warming because of the increase in CO2 because of the burning of fossil fuel. The hottest years on record have happened since the 1980s. The major institutions of science in the United States have concluded that the matter of climate change is settled. Human activity is having an influence on the planet.

Mr. Speaker, today, along with my distinguished colleagues, Representatives Ehlers, Bartlett, Leach, Farr, Castle, and Shays, I am introducing legislation to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which provides the U.S. with authority to manage fisheries in U.S. waters. Our bill would enact critical updates to our current national fishery policy management that will ensure sustainable fisheries well into the future. I urge my colleagues to join us in cosponsoring H.R. 5051.

Both nationally and globally, our fishery resources are stretched to meet increasing demand--Americans alone now consume over 4 billion pounds of seafood annually. Fishery management has improved greatly since the enactment of the Sustainable Fisheries Act in 1996. Yet too often, we continue to experience overfishing and overcapacity--too many boats and too few fish--throughout our Nation's oceans--a situation that is not sustainable over time. In national policy, we must make the sustainable harvest of our living marine resources and the ecosystems on which they depend our highest priority.

I commend Chairman Pombo, Mr. Frank, and Mr. Young for their introduction of a comprehensive Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill, and I believe its close alignment with S. 2012 is a solid step forward in improving the health of our Nation's fisheries. However, I believe recent advances in marine science and a greater understanding of our complex ocean ecosystems can help shape an even stronger bill. Our bill proposes to move fisheries management in a positive step toward ecosystem management, incorporating our vastly increased scientific understanding of ocean ecosystems and the rapidly developing body of experience in this approach gained by the Regional Fishery Management Councils in projects around the Nation. It would require the administration to develop comprehensive guidelines, with the councils, to support the drafting of Fishery Ecosystem Plans. Science on ecosystems is very advanced, to the extent that over 200 scientists signed on to a scientific consensus statement on ecosystem management organized by the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) on March 21, 2005.

For stocks that are designated as overfished, our bill proposes to require overfishing to end by a date certain. Currently, and as a result of a ruling by a Federal district court which held that overfishing could occur during the rebuilding of the stock, overfishing is a continuing problem for stocks in many parts of the Nation. Out of 175 stocks in the Nation about which the status is known, 53 are overfished. Rebuilding time frames for some species have reached over 40 years in length, during which overfishing may continue under current law. However, the administration supports ending overfishing by a date certain, well within a time in which Regional Fishery Management Councils could act, so that rebuilding time frames become less contentious. The Pombo-Young-Frank bill extends the rebuilding time frame for fisheries from the current 10 year limit under a wide range of circumstances, but does not address overfishing at all. This approach takes us backward, not forward in ensuring sustainable use of our fisheries.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is very controvertial, as my colleagues know. The Senate, in its Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill, requires the administration to work between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the White House Council on Environmental Quality to better integrate the process required by NEPA and the process required by Magnuson-Stevens for its Fishery Management Plan process. Given that the Resources Committee has held only one hearing on this issue, I believe this is the best approach. Providing the Secretary of NOAA with the authority to waive NEPA for Fishery Management Plans, as the Pombo-Young-Frank bill proposes, is too broad to capture potential pitfalls about which we are only beginning to understand.

Finally, the most important aspect of fishery management is the containment of annual harvest limits within boundaries that support sustainability of fishery stocks. The number of overfished stocks demonstrates our failure to achieve this important limit. The Senate has been engaged in a productive negotiation over this issue--how to establish accountability for the administration and the Councils and to support stronger science in setting and achieving such limits. The Pombo-Young-Frank bill does include many provisions to strengthen the state of fishery management science and the use of science in management decisions, but does not address the need to ensure that fisheries are not stretched beyond the scientifically established limits it provides. While I believe neither the House nor the Senate has achieved consensus on this issue, our bill includes such accountability.

It is our intention to constructively contribute to the coming debate in the House over national ocean fishery management by stressing policy to strengthen the conservation of ocean fish resources while supporting the extraordinary efforts of our administration and Regional Fishery Management Councils. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor H.R. 5051 and join us in this critical policy debate.