Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank both the chairman and the ranking member for this bill, especially for its Iraqi dollars, because this bill analyzes microscopically the kinds of equipment that is needed there now, and then surgically targets those dollars in a vastly efficient manner for our troops.

The bill also deals with healing the wounds of both mind and body of those soldiers who are returning. The bill also deals with small businesses being able, through the H-2B process, to hire legal workers. And the bill also deals with enhanced technology for the tsunami situation that we saw so much, months ago.

I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) for the legislation, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the $17 million included in the Supplemental that we are considering today, which will support the expansion of the U.S. Tsunami Warning Network. These funds will help NOAA to procure and deploy tsunami detection buoys in a system designed to provide continuous tsunami warning capability for both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the United States. Detection is a critical part of a warning system which I hope will ultimately include a comprehensive approach to educating communities about, and preparing them for, tsunamis.

Comprising 70 percent of the Earth's surface area, our oceans support a growing source of protein for many developing countries, promising sources of medicines, and efficient transport of goods between continents and among nations. They also strongly influence our climate and weather and provide economic and unmeasurable quality of life

benefits. For proof of this, one only needs to know that the U.S. coasts support over 50 percent of the U.S. population and comprise only 17 percent of our land base.

When South Asia was struck by tsunami waves on December 26, the world's interest in tsunami detection and warning systems was heightened. The impact of these waves was felt around the world, and the tragedy of its immediate effect on Indian Ocean coastlines has painfully exposed our lack of ability to provide early warning and coastal community education and support. Many lifelong residents of Indian Ocean coastal towns fear the sea--the primary source of their livelihoods for generations. It is critical that individuals in high- risk areas are educated about and prepared for tsunamis before they strike. Coastal communities need assurance that technology exists and will be applied to increase warnings for such events and to prepare them for evacuation to avoid catastrophic loss of human life.

In contrast, developed nations use increasing technological sophistication to acquire from the sea its bounty--with little thought for the long-term sustainability of this activity. In time, without increased understanding of our ocean ecosystems and the impact of our harvest and extraction of its resources, developed nations may also come to fear the sea. The antidote to the disease of fear is understanding. New technologies have already led to enormous advances in our understanding of the coastal and marine environment. However, advanced sensors have been deployed only on relatively small scales, and the systems that are deployed have not been coordinated into an integrated system that will optimize our understanding of the oceans.

Since the U.S. hosted the Earth Observation Summit in July 2003, we have been working with our partner nations to adopt a comprehensive, coordinated and sustained Earth Observation System to collect and disseminate data, information and models for more effective and responsible use of our resources as well as to inform decision-makers about impending disasters. Most recently, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy made an integrated ocean observing system a top recommendation in its report, An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century.

Our space exploration and our weather programs show that when our scientists and the Nation support a program and devote time, money and, most importantly, the human mind into these types of endeavors we are highly successful. The ocean, however, is often referred to as the last frontier, a place where we continue to find new organisms and species and where we still struggle to understand the profound implications for climate changes and more direct impacts of the oceans on our human habitats.

There is perhaps no more motivating event, no louder a voice for attention and understanding than having the ocean engulf human habitats. Our failure to fully develop and utilize our technology to understand our oceans has many more implications, including the potential for permanent damage to fragile and complex ecosystems that have generously provided us with food, medicines, recreation, and other benefits. We are now awake to the power of the ocean, and it is my hope that we will use this opportunity to move more quickly toward integrated data collection and dissemination systems, as well as intensive education of coastal communities, to ensure that we and future generations can look to the sea for inspiration, sustenance, and life-giving support.

I strongly support the inclusion of these funds to increase global monitoring capacity and public awareness about tsunamis and other disasters, particularly if they add to capacity of ocean monitoring as part of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

Mr. Speaker, I am only going to speak for just a couple of minutes because the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) has a fascinating story to tell, one that richly deserves everybody's attention.

But, just briefly, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) will talk about energy, peak oil. As the demand increases enormously, the supply of the fossil fuel that we are using continues to decrease. We know that energy is power, and energy is what drives the Nation's economy. And we have assumed for a long time, for decades anyway, that energy supplies have a bottomless well. And that is correct. The energy source at the bottom of the well is bottomless. It is endless. But what is at the bottom of that well is not oil. It is not even natural gas. It is not coal. What lies at the bottom of the bottomless well is our intellect, our logic, our knowledge, our know-how.

We used to the light our homes with whale oil. They did not stop lighting homes because we ran out of whales, thank goodness; but we transitioned to a number of other things. We used to use just wood all over the world, and thank goodness we transitioned from wood to coal because we were tearing our forests down, and there are a lot better uses for wood than to burn that wood.

We transitioned for our transportation needs and many other needs from coal to oil, and oil is a lot cleaner and it is a lot more efficient. Then we went from oil and we found that natural gas is cleaner yet and more efficient than oil. We also began to realize that coal has more hydrogen than wood. Oil has more hydrogen in its content than coal. Natural gas has more hydrogen than oil. The transition through our energy sources has not come about because we ran out of those energy sources. It has come about because we got a little smarter. Our intellect, our quest for knowledge, our curiosity about something that is better overtook the status quo.

And when the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) talks about peak oil, not only do we need to move away from the status quo when we hear his words about fossil fuel; it is essential. There is a sense of urgency to move away. In all our measurements of oil or natural gas, whenever one looks at a heater in their home, whether it is their oil furnace, a Carison heater or whatever it is, it is measured in Btus.

I want to show a number. This is a 1 with 15 zeros. That is 1 quadrillion. In 1910 we used 7 quadrillion Btus in the United States. In 1954 we used 35 quadrillion Btus, energy demand increase. Right now we use 100 quadrillion Btus, and that is not slowing down.

What we need in this country is logic and intellect to move us away from an energy source that has now lost its usefulness for a number of reasons. It is putting carbon dioxide into our atmosphere faster than we have seen that infusion of carbon dioxide in the last 400,000 years, and our supply is diminishing quickly as our demand is increasing even faster.

There are a number of energy sources. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) will talk about some of them. We will have these on a number of occasions. We are looking at nuclear. We are looking at solar. We are looking at wind. We are looking at hydrogen. We are looking at a number of alternatives. But before we have the technology to move into those alternatives for energy security, which means energy independence, the transition has got to be vastly improved efficiency for oil, for natural gas, to move into biofuels, and I am not talking about ethanol, which is corn which will feed the world. I am not talking about biodiesel, which is soy beans, which is used to feed the world. What I am talking about are other sources like certain grass or poplar trees, which farmers

can grow, which they can use to produce.

So peak oil, the transition to a new energy source, has got to come now. We cannot wait a decade. It is vastly important.

I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) for yielding to me and I urge the Speaker to listen to the words of the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleague, Representative Vernon Ehlers, in introducing a pair of bills that comprehensively address the growing problem of aquatic invasive species in the United States and its territories. These foreign invaders, from Sea Lamprey in the Great Lakes to Asian Carp in the Mississippi to Moon Jellies in the Gulf to Rappa Whelk in the Chesapeake Bay to Zebra Mussels across the U.S. and hundreds of other plants, fish, and invertebrates, cause significant economic and ecological damage throughout North America. In recent estimates, invasive species are demonstrated to cost the U.S. at least $138 billion per year. Forty-two percent of the species on the federal threatened and endangered species lists are negatively impacted by invasive species. Once established, invasive species displace native species, impede municipal and industrial water systems, degrade ecosystems, reduce recreational and commercial fishing opportunities, and can cause public health problems.

Aquatic invasive species are a particular problem because they readily spread through interconnected waterways and are difficult to treat safely. Hundreds of exotic species arrive in U.S. waters every day through a variety of pathways such as ballast water, hull fouling, aquaculture and the seafood trade. Without effective federal policies to prevent and control these introductions, we willingly surrender our valuable resource assets to these invasive species.

The National Aquatic Invasive Species Act of 2005 (NAISA) will address these problems by: (1) Establishing a national mandatory ballast water management program, (2) Requiring ships to have an Invasive Species Management Plan that outlines ways to minimize transfers on a ``whole ship'' basis, (3) Creating a ballast water treatment technology certification program, and (4) Including incentives for ship owners to install experimental ballast treatment technology.

NAISA would also prevent invasive species introductions from other pathways by: (1) Identifying and managing pathways that pose the highest risk of introducing invasive species, (2) Creating a screening process for planned importations of live aquatic organisms, (3) Supporting development and implementation of State Aquatic Invasive Species Management Plans, including early detection, screening and rapid response activities at state and regional levels, (4) Conducting ecological surveys for early detection of invasive species and analysis of invasion rates and patterns, (5) Making available federal funding and resources for .rapid response to introductions of invasive species, (6) Preventing inter-basin transfer of organisms by increasing funding and resources for dispersal barrier projects and research, (7) Establishing environmental soundness criteria to ensure all prevention and control measures enacted do not further harm the environment, (8) Creating education and outreach programs to inform the public on preventing transfers of invasive species by proper cleaning of recreational boats, and proper disposal of nonnative organisms for home aquaria, (9) Conducting research on high-risk invasion pathways and alternative prevention and control technologies, and (10) Making available $170 million in federal funds for aquatic invasive species prevention, control, and research.

Congress has addressed this issue in two past legislative initiatives: the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990 (NANPCA) and its reauthorization as the National Invasive Species Act of 1996 (NISA). Spurred by the growing concern over the zebra mussel invasion in the Great Lakes, NANPCA created a multi-agency task force, the Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force, to address the issue of aquatic invaders and empowered the Coast Guard to develop guidelines for ballast water management for the Great Lakes. In 1996, Congress expanded the ballast water guidelines to a national voluntary program to be made mandatory if compliance is not sufficient.

While these laws made some progress, they have not yet solved the problem of aquatic invasive species introductions. For example, the national ballast water guidelines have seen low compliance. In addition, the only prevention option currently available to ships, ballast water exchange, has varying effectiveness that is difficult to measure, causes vessel safety concerns, and is not appropriate for coastal voyages. Development of new methods of combating transfers of organisms from ballast water has been slow due to the lack of a ballast water standard and low funding for development of new technology.

We need improvements in current law. Our bills have been carefully researched and subjected to broad stakeholder review, and we believe the public and industry stakeholders will support both. We are drastically underinvesting in research and efforts to prevent, control, and eradicate aquatic invasive species. We don't get a second chance to prevent an invasive organism from taking hold in our waters. Our bills would make the U.S. proactive in saving its citizens billions of public dollars by allowing us to stop future invasions while effectively controlling and eradicating current invaders.

I urge my colleagues to support the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act and comprehensive prevention, control, and eradication of invasive species in the U.S.

Mr. Speaker, in just a few minutes, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) will address the House for some period of time talking about energy sources, oil in particular, and the fact that many experts say that oil production, especially in the United States, but actually throughout the world, oil production of conventional oil under current patterns is expected to grow at a rate much faster, that means the use of oil by the world community is supposed to grow much faster than oil discovery production.

What is clear, because we are not sure exactly when that peak will come in oil production, some say it is peaking right now, some say it will peak in 10 years, the amount of oil we get out of the ground will exceed the demand; but what is clear is that at some point in this century, world oil production will peak and then begin to decline. There is uncertainty about the date because many countries that produce oil do not provide credible data on how big their reserves are.

But more uncertainty calls for more caution, not less; and caution in this case means working to develop alternatives. When production of conventional oil peaks, we can expect a large increase in the price up to the price of the substitutes, whether so-called unconventional oil or renewable fuels. Although increasing domestic production may ease oil dependence slightly, the United States is only 3 percent of the world's estimated oil reserves and uses 25 percent of the world's oil.

I want to explain just from the perspective of the United States the huge increase in energy demand in the last century. I am going to use the word ``quadrillion.'' Quadrillion is a number. If I put 1 followed by 15 zeroes, I have the number quadrillion. To measure energy use in a country, we use BTUs, British thermal units. A new furnace, whether oil or natural gas, you see the BTU to determine how much energy it is going to use. When you use BTUs to determine how much energy a country uses, you use a short term for quadrillion called ``quads.''

In 1910, the United States used 7 quads of BTUs. That is 7 quadrillion BTUs. In 1950, the United States used 35 quadrillion BTUs. In 2005, the United States uses 100 quadrillion BTUs, and we are accelerating that. We are increasing demand for oil for our energy needs. The world right now, 2005, uses 345 quadrillion BTUs, an enormous amount of energy.

We know today that our appliances, whether a washing machine, a refrigerator or dishwasher, we know they are much more efficient than they ever were, certainly 20, 30, 40 years ago; and yet we are using more electricity, not less. We know that automobiles and trucks and our transportation is much more efficient than it was 20 years ago, and yet the demand is increasing. We burn more coal, more natural gas. Each home, as efficient as each home is today, burns much more oil and electricity because of the demand on energy needs. We are not decreasing by getting efficient. Because our demand is greater, we are using more and more.

The question is if we are increasing demand and production is going to peak now or in the next decade or two and our production goes down while the demand goes up, especially with oil reserves, are we at the early stages of the twilight for oil as an energy source? And if we are, what do we do?

Well, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) will speak on a number of aspects of oil production decline. We will talk much further about the details of the solution to the problems of

our energy decline, but I want to close with two last things: How do we harness a new alternative energy source and make it replace what we have been using for more than 2 centuries? How do we do that? We do it with initiative, ingenuity, intellect, vision, and leadership. Remember when I said quadrillion was one with 15 zeroes and talked about how much energy we use, and right now it is 100 quadrillion BTUs, we are not too far away from understanding how to separate hydrogen and oxygen; that is heavy hydrogen from oxygen in seawater.

If we can slow light down 186,000 miles a second to zero, we can stop light, we can put information in a molecule, we understand the human genome, we will be able to use our ingenuity to tap 10 trillion quadrillion quads of BTUs in seawater. Our energy demand is increasing; oil production is decreasing. With intellect and leadership, we can transition to a new fuel source.

If the gentleman will yield, another analogy I heard recently about the efforts to bring out ever-increasing and diminishing oil reserves and how that simply is not going to work for sustaining our energy needs, this particular physicist gave an analogy that compared the oil to a lion in Africa taking the energy of catching two gazelles to catch one gazelle. How long would that lion last? It takes the energy of catching two gazelles to only catch one, but he needs it to sustain himself, and that simply is not going to work.

I want to compliment the gentleman from Maryland, and I would like to be a part of the extra hour that we will do maybe this week to show what the alternatives are, simply because our energy requirements are increasing, they are not decreasing, and they will continue to increase.

Political parties are not going to let the grid go cold, but what do we do when we rely on oil and natural gas as the predominant energy source for this country? We have to simply find alternatives.

If I could just say briefly, there are two problems with our dependence on oil, and the gentleman has laid those out exceptionally well tonight. Part of the first problem is trade deficits and national security because of our oil dependence. When the price goes up, because we do not have most of the reserves, when oil peaks, we have no control over that. There will never be a decrease in demand. There will always be an increase in demand, no matter what happens, and our energy hunger is gargantuan.

The other problem with our oil dependence is that we are burning fossil fuel. We are returning to the atmosphere carbon that has not been there in this amount for millions of years, and what we are burning in decades it took the natural processes millions of years to lock away.

One other comment about letting the market forces deal with this fairly eminent problem. The global marketplace deals with the CEOs that are rightly so in the business to make a quick profit. The international marketplace is when nations get together, discuss an issue and they find mutual benefit to these vast problems. Vast solutions are available through what the gentleman has described so well tonight.

If the gentleman would yield for a second, first of all, I want to compliment the gentleman on this fascinating factual presentation which leads me to what I want to say.

The gentleman said something earlier about finding solutions to the problem is going to be similar to the Manhattan Project or similar to placing a man on the moon within a decade when President Kennedy made that statement, and it is that kind of leadership from this Congress, from the administration, to incentivize, to create the kind of inspiration from the general public, to put these forces together to make it all work.

If the gentleman would yield just for a second, I am sure he knows, but the general public, I do not think realizes it is not necessary to be sitting right on top of a volcanic area, an earthquake zone to get geothermal energy. We on the Eastern Shore of Maryland have a number of schools that are actually providing heat for those schools from geothermal energy. Some of these things are sort of a hidden secret. But it is the classical conventional wisdom that keeps us from exploring some of these things a little bit further. And I think the gentleman is bringing those out tonight.

It is actually bringing water up from the surface, from the subsurface. The water is much warmer further down.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 50 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, March 15, 2005, at 9 a.m., for morning hour debates.

Mr. Speaker, the Republicans have been in the majority for basically 10 years, and we have done a number of very positive things. What I would like to speak to this august body about tonight is an issue of oceans.

In 1994, when the Republican majority took over, they began to reorganize the committee process. At that time, they wanted to make it more applicable to the Members to represent their districts, to represent their regions and to be more efficiently organized, to spend the taxpayers dollars wisely.

What we did, however, was to consider that we will continue to reorganize the process as the years went by to ensure that Members had an opportunity to serve on the committee that not only represented their districts, but that also represented their desire to be a visionary Member of this Congress.

One of the committees that was eliminated was the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee that dealt with oceans issues, fisheries issues, the Great Lakes and things of that nature.

The reason that one single standing committee was important was because there are billions and billions and billions of dollars that are generated in the U.S. economy as a result of the world's, and especially the jurisdiction of the oceans, that fall in the United States, of the oceans, whether that is trade, whether that is commercial fisheries, recreational fisheries, marine habitat, the weather, the climate, the rain that sustains the country. All of these issues are dealt with because of ocean and Great Lakes issues.

The committee, however, was reduced to a subcommittee and put under the jurisdiction of the Interior Committee which was renamed the Committee on Resources.

There is still a great deal of effort to put forth a good ocean policy by the Federal Government. However, since the full committee was reduced to a subcommittee, much of the jurisdiction was taken away. On the House side, there are 19 full and subcommittees that deal with a myriad of ocean issues; and, as a result of that, even though committees work well together in their area of jurisdiction, the issues dealing with oceans are relegated to a very small piece of any one single committee, even the Committee on Resources, where that full standing committee became a subcommittee.

Because the issues are so fragmented, there is no one particular center of gravity to develop policy, in my judgment, for the U.S. ocean policy.

What I am suggesting that we do in the next Congress is that we create a standing committee that has full jurisdiction over the oceans, that takes that $120 billion annual economy that is generated by oceans, that deals with the commercial fishing activity from Alaska to Hawaii, to the Pacific, to the Gulf of Mexico, to the Atlantic Ocean, an area whose jurisdiction is larger than the 50 States combined. We take all of those issues and we combine it into one full committee, and that one full committee will have jurisdiction over the issues that are dealt with as far as the oceans are concerned.

Let us just take commercial fishing activity, for example. Everybody has gone into a store and purchased fish. Everybody has gone into a restaurant and ordered fish. That generates billions upon billions of economic activity. But 75 percent of the commercial fish caught in U.S. waters spawn in tidal estuaries, and one of the problems with tidal estuaries is they are being polluted. They are being fragmented. They are being dammed. They are being degraded in a whole host of ways. And there is not really one single entity in the Federal Government that can work with the State government, the private sector and various groups to take a look at the loss, which is as much as 20,000 acres on an annual basis.

So just on the perspective of an economic agenda I feel confident that an oceans committee, which would be the center for the perspective on developing coordinated U.S. policy on oceans issues, is vital in the next Congress.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues, when this comes up for an issue, to vote favorably in this direction.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 3479, the Brown Tree Snake Control and Eradication Act of 2004, introduced by the distinguished gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo), has wide support.

This particular species, the brown tree snake, has been an awful nemesis on Guam for 50 years. It has virtually eradicated all of the local bird population that nests on the ground. It has been a problem for many decades, and the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo) has been relentless to bring that to our attention to do something about it.

This particular bill offers a number of approaches and solutions. It broadens the level of Federal involvement and research in the brown tree snake programs in Guam. It requires the establishment of predeparture quarantine protocols so the brown tree snake does not go anywhere else in the South Pacific. It declares that the brown tree snake is nonmaleable, thank goodness for that; clarifies the role of the brown tree snake technical working group, and authorized an enhanced level of Federal financial assistance. So basically the gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo) has created a structure upon which it is possible, and many people thought it was impossible up to this point, to actually eradicate the brown tree snake.

In my district in Maryland we have had a problem with an invasive species called the nutria, a rat that weighs about 30 pounds, from South America. It has been a significant problem for about the same period of time, but because of a similar proposal structure, Federal involvement, State involvement, and so on, we have neared the time where we are eradicating that particular species.

So I want to compliment the gentlewoman from Guam. We will work with her until the day that there are no brown tree snakes in Guam at all.

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

Mr. Chairman, the issue here is not about the manufacturing extension program, the issue is about the dollars. When we talk about the issue of dollars, we talk about the practicality of the limited resources in the Federal Government that are distributed over a wide range of areas.

All of us collectively agree that the Manufacturing Extension Program is fundamental, it is good, so our argument is, let us make sure that we get this bill passed. It is $470 million over 4 years, a 200 percent increase.

It will increase the ability for production, for efficiency in energy costs, for marketing strategies, for new technologies. It will dramatically increase the base of the manufacturing sector in this country by pulling together the collective ingenuity of partnerships from the Federal Government, one is one-third, the State government, which is one-third, and fees, which is one-third.

So I urge my colleagues, let us vote to ensure that we have a program that is reality, and not have a program in hopes of having a program, but in fact does not actually pass.

So I reluctantly urge my colleagues to vote against the Democratic amendments and vote for the base bill.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise for the purpose of entering into a colloquy with the chairman. I would like to draw the attention of the chairman of the subcommittee to the proposed reductions in the appropriations for NOAA of nearly $400 million.

The appropriation subcommittee over the years, including this one, has been very supportive of the issues dealing with the oceans and those issues that surround our oceans, our exploration, and our coastal problems. I also understand the delicate balance and appreciate the difficulty faced by the subcommittee in allocating limited funds across the board when there are so many pressures. Our oceans and coasts support over 2.8 million jobs, generate over $54 billion in goods and services, and are the most popular destinations for recreation and tourism in the United States.

But I can see next year some major initiatives dealing with the oceans in this particular Congress as a result of the Ocean Commission Report. Some of the more pressing needs include an integrated ocean observing system, ocean science and exploration. We currently know more about the Moon than we know about our oceans. It is important for us to adopt the principles of ecosystem management for our oceans and coasts and focus on control of marine and coastal aquatic invasive species.

So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to work with the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf) as we move the process along, knowing the difficulties of a limited budget, so that we can continue to fund adequately the science and the kinds of science that NOAA needs.

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman. I look forward to working with the gentleman from Virginia and his fine staff.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleague, Representative Ehlers, in introducing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Act at the request of this Administration. Our Subcommittees in the Science and House Resources Committees share jurisdiction over authorization of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, programs and I'm proud to say we work well together. Our joint introduction of a NOAA organic act is just one step in our commitment to work together to solidify and better support NOAH agency functions.

NOAA performs a number of vital services to the nation, including the monitoring and management or our oceans, monitoring meteorological trends, and making life-saving storm predictions. Its job is to bring together many pieces of complex oceanic and atmospheric systems so that we can best understand and utilize them as good stewards. Our very lives, particularly along the coasts, depend upon many of NOAA's functions and our future, especially as we observe the impacts of atmospheric, surface and ocean warming trends, rests on how well we support this work. NOAA's work emphasizes an ecosystem approach and enables the U.S. to best manage our place in the global environment as well as the impacts of global changes on us. This effort, given its many and diverse pieces and constituents, needs strong and central leadership and coordination, just as steering a ship requires a captain and a plan.

Because NOAA does not have a single organic act that requires the agency budget, as a whole, to be authorized on an annual basis and because many NOAA programs are authorized under different public laws and committees of jurisdiction, NOAA programs may be authorized at different times. NOAA's functions, in the contexts of many laws with varying purposes, are difficult to oversee and for the agency to fulfil under these circumstances. In light of these challenges, NOAA has done well, and by crafting an organic act for the agency, the Administration has taken the first important step toward the leadership we need to strengthen NOAA's role.

As one of the key recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, this effort is a necessary component to improving our ocean management. I look forward to working with Representative Ehlers and my colleagues on both the Resources and Science Committees and the Administration with this important legislation and on continuing to pursue and create greater central coordination of ocean policy issues.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), chairman of the subcommittee, in relationship to an invasive species issue in the State of Maryland.

Invasive species all across this country have wreaked havoc on a number of ecosystems from California to the Great Lakes to Florida to numerous areas of the east coast. One of the specific invasive species that we are dealing with in Maryland is called a nutria. It looks exactly like a rat, only it gets to be about 30 pounds.

This was to a certain extent brought to the United States with the blessings of Fish and Wildlife Service to add to the trapping economy with possum, groundhogs, and a number of other species for their pelts and for their meat. Nobody liked the pelt of the nutria. Nobody liked the meat. And all of a sudden this particular species became invasive and has destroyed tens of thousands of acres of wetlands across the United States, nearly 10,000 acres of wetland just in the State of Maryland. We have been very successful in eradicating nutria in a specific wildlife refuge in the State of Maryland that covers about 28,000 acres, eliminated the nutria there, with the Federal, the State government, the local governments, and the private sector. We need to do it on about 80,000 more acres in the State of Maryland to completely eradicate the nutria in this part of the country, which will set up a type of trapping system that can be used in other parts of the country. In this Interior appropriations bill, however, there is no money. It has been zeroed out. We have spent about $6 million over the last 6 or 7 years. And I would like to ask the chairman if at some point we could work on bringing some dollars to keep this program, very successful program, continuing.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman very much. This is a fine example of a great, successful program; and we will work with the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

America mourns these past few days the passing of a true American, one who reflects not only the values of the country in the 21st century or the 20th century, but Ronald Reagan had inherent in his body and his soul and his mind and his heart the idea that each of us has a passion for freedom, that each of us has a sense of urgency for justice.

Jefferson will be remembered for many, many things; but we will all remember those words, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.''

And Lincoln will be remembered for many, many things, but we will all remember those words after the Civil War: ``With malice toward none, with charity for all, let us work together to bind up the Nation's wounds.''

And a century later, another American that reflected the true values of our country said that ``you will not be judged by the color of your skin, but by the content of your character.''

These men through the centuries brought America together. They united America. They had a vision for America.

Ronald Reagan will be remembered for many, many things, but we will all remember with a sense of seriousness and joy when he said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.''

So what Mr. Reagan was trying to do was to impart that passion for freedom, that urgency for justice, not only for Americans and the vast array of cultures that we have here but for the rest of the world.

Mrs. Reagan, the Reagan family, America, President Ronald Reagan will be missed, but always remembered.

Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do to the Members assembled here tonight is to give a perspective on whether or not to some degree the climate on the planet is changing based on observational techniques by U.S. scientists.

What I would like to do as far as this perspective is concerned is to say about 500 years ago people thought the world was flat until there was observations and exploration. And through those techniques, Columbus, for example, it was discovered that the Earth was round. Galileo, the scientist, said that the Earth revolved around the Sun. As a result of that, he was put in prison and his life was threatened because at the time the religious doctrine was that the Sun revolved around the Earth because it was not mentioned in the Bible that it was the other way around. But then through certain techniques and observation, scientific discoveries, more information being disseminated, we realized that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

The other interesting perspective about 100 years after Galileo was a man named James Usher, a bishop in Ireland, said that the Earth was formed in 4004 B.C. but that was before we had the science of geology, geologic techniques. And through a series of information-gathering, it was discovered that the Earth was several billion years old. In fact, we did not realize how old it was in the extent of the universe until the Hubbell spacecraft.

Now we have this thing called climate change. And there is a great deal of discussion on that, whether or not there is climate change or whether there is not climate change, can humans impact the Earth so that the actual climate will change.

What I would like to go through very briefly are some observational discoveries about planet Earth. For example, the oceans cover 70 percent of the surface. The oceans store 1,000 times more heat than the atmosphere. The ocean transports about 50 percent of the energy it receives from the Sun. It transports that. That means if you look at

the heat that hits the equator, and the oceans have a current and they move that, that heat is moved to the northern latitudes and that moderates temperature so that it is not that cold. In the northern latitudes, the high latitudes, since the ocean currents move back the other way, some of that cold is moved down toward the equator, and it moderates the heat at the equator.

As a result of those ocean currents, the Earth, as we know it now, 21st century, has a heat balance that we are used to. But that heat balance throughout the geologic time has changed many, many, many times.

So what are the observations of the ocean? There is increased salinity as a result of some of the warming trends that the Earth has experienced in the last 100 years, and there has been a warming trend. There might be some dispute about how that warming trend has impacted, but there has been a warming trend.

We could look at some of the impact of the warming trend since in the last 50 years we have put more CO2 back into the atmosphere than what it took nature millions of years to lock up in the form of CO2 trapped in fossil fuel deep under the ground. If you looked at a map of the United States at night, you could see all the lights, you would see one long consistent trail, which actually is about 24 hours, from Florida to Maine of automobiles on Route 95. From Florida to Maine we would see this crease.

You will see it in all the major cities, whether it is Miami, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, et cetera, et cetera, and New York City certainly, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Houston, Dallas. We are spewing more CO2 into the atmosphere than the Earth's ability to absorb that and process that so we have that same balance.

We have seen a change. This kind of change in the balance or the makeup of the atmosphere has not been seen on planet Earth based on scientific ice core analysis for 400,000 years. So we see a salinity change around the equator in the ocean currents. We see elevated evaporation rates around most of the oceans because of the warmth, warming trend. We see increasing freshening of the ocean water in the northern latitudes, consequently changing the direction of these currents. And through these observations, we find some interesting perspectives that need more research on climate change.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation to reform the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) to clarify that human introduced exotic avian species are not covered by the provisions of this landmark law.

The United States is currently a party to four international treaties to protect and conserve populations of migratory birds. Two years after the signing of the first treaty with Great Britain, Congress enacted the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This act is our domestic implementing law and it statutorily commits this Nation to the proper management of certain families and species of birds.

After reviewing these treaties, it is clear that the list of covered species is not exhaustive, there is an inconsistency between migratory and nonmigratory birds and no distinction is made between exotic and native species.

Despite this fact, for over 80 years, there has never been a debate over whether exotic species should be protected under this act. Federal wildlife authorities have consistently treated exotic birds as falling outside of the provisions of the MBTA.

However, three years ago, a U.S. District Court of Appeals Judge, in the Hill v. Norton case turned this policy on its head by ruling that exotic mute swans, which are native to Europe and Asia, are covered because they are in the same avian family as native tundra and trumpeter swans.

As a result, neither the States nor the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can effectively manage mute swans. This species contributes to the degradation of Chesapeake Bay habitats by consuming large amounts of submerged aquatic vegetation and has destroyed nests and young of Maryland-stated listed native colonial waterbirds: least terns and black skimmers. The population of exotic mute swans has dramatically increased in the Chesapeake Bay from five birds that escaped captivity in 1962 to more than 3,600 today. There are more than 14,000 mute swans living in the Atlantic flyway.

As a result of this Federal court decision, an argument can now be made to apply the MBTA provisions to other introduced, feral populations of exotic birds, such as, Eurasian collared doves, house sparrows, English starlings, Muscovy ducks, pigeons and a host of other species. These species were introduced by humans after the enactment of the 1918 Act and to varying degrees they are extremely destructive to the ecosystems in which they reside. Pigeons, or rock doves, are alone responsible for up to $1.1 billion annually in damages to private and public property. They are the single most destructive bird in the United States.

On December 16th of last year, my Subcommittee on Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans conducted an oversight hearing on exotic bird species and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. At that hearing, a diverse group of witnesses testified that Congress must reform the 1918 statute. For instance, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service testified that ``affording the protection of the MBTA to introduced birds that are not native to the United States is ecologically unsound, contrary to the stated purposes of the MBTA and contrary to efforts by the Federal government to control invasive species''.

It is my firm belief that it makes absolutely no sense to spend millions of dollars trying to control nonnative invasive species like the snakehead, brown tree snake, nutria, mitten crab, asian carp and zebra mussels, while at the same time expending precious resources to achieve the same conservation standards afforded native species under the MBTA for introduced avian species. States are ready to work with Federal and local governments to control populations of exotic birds. Following this hearing, the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which represents all 50 States, submitted a statement indicating that ``The Association would strongly support congressional intervention to clarify that certain exotic species of birds are not covered under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act''.

Exotic, invasive species are having a huge impact on this Nation's native wildlife and fisheries, economic interests, infrastructure and human health. In fact, it has been estimated they are costing our economy about $100 billion each year.

Mr. Speaker, I have carefully read the testimony and concluded that we can not idly sit by and allow exotic species to undermine the fundamental core of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act which is to conserve native species. My bill is a simple common sense solution. It will restore a nearly century-old policy that reserves the application of the MBTA to native species. It will again allow Federal and State wildlife biologists to effectively manage exotic species at levels that do not conflict with the Federal and State obligations to conserve native species and habitats.

My bill has been endorsed by a number of governmental, conservation and environmental groups including the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the American Bird Conservancy, the Izaak Walton League, the Maryland Ornithological Society, Environmental Defense, the Nature Conservancy and the National Wildlife Federation. I urge my colleagues to join with me in support of the Migratory Bird Treaty Reform Act of 2004.