Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding. I will be back later today to manage the time during general debate and consideration of amendments as the ranking member of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. But I come today to speak briefly on the rule for my only negative comments today because it is ironic that on the same day, at the same time that the House joins in a bipartisan way with a record commitment to our veterans and our military construction and installation needs around the world, that we also are making history by the consideration of this rule, which is unfortunate.

I even know that there are members of the majority who think that it is unfortunate that we are here very late in July, basically clamping down on the process in order to achieve an objective. I understand why, but I regret it, and I know certain members of the majority regret it as well.

The main thing though is I come in opposition to the rule but in tremendous support of the bill. My hat is off to Chairman Edwards, my subcommittee chairman, who has been an excellent partner. I will come back to this later in the day. And Chairman Obey and Ranking Member Lewis, who

have worked on this bill very, very well, because the House will sometime today or tomorrow make a historic commitment to every man and woman in uniform, those serving now and those that have served in the past. I think that is great for the United States of America at a time where we have a war on two fronts.

I just shook Holly Petraeus' hand here in the Capitol today, the spouse of General Petraeus, David Petraeus, perhaps the greatest military general in the modern era of the United States of America.

These threats are real, the enemy is vicious. Our challenges are many. And we do come together today on this bill. I am grateful for that. I wish it was being considered in another way because this rule is not in keeping with the traditions and the history of this committee and the House.

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

Mr. Chairman, oftentimes in life it's more important what you do with your second chances than what you do the first time around. Neither Chairman Edwards, who spoke so eloquently in a comprehensive way about this bill and his commitment to our veterans, our men and women in harm's way and their families--neither he nor I took advantage in our younger years of serving in the uniform of our Armed Forces. However, fate has it that we would have a second opportunity to serve by serving those who are serving us, past and present, through this bill; making sure that those great American patriots, past and present, have what they need--and are entitled to and deserve because of their commitment to this great Nation.

It is the highest compliment of my professional life to serve as the ranking member of this subcommittee. I want to thank Chairman Lewis-- former Chairman Lewis, now Ranking Member Lewis--for this privilege because without him and his support I wouldn't be here. I want to thank Mr. Wicker, who was the ranking member of this subcommittee last year, and I want to thank whoever helped him become a Senator to open up this subcommittee opportunity for me, and for Chairman Edwards, who, as you just saw on the House floor, is a class act, with a true commitment to the men and women in uniform and a determination to do whatever is necessary to honor their commitment.

And I can report today, as I did at the full committee, that when I go home and people ask me in 2008, in my new position, are we honoring our Nation's veterans and the men and women in uniform serving in an asymmetrical war on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, with head trauma and IED injuries and amputations--double, triple, extraordinary injuries--stress from unfair deployments, unsustainable deployments, stress on the family, are we honoring our commitment to them? And I don't think a few years ago, regardless of party, that the answer to that question was yes. We had problems at Walter Reed, we had problems at Fort Stewart, we had problems across the board.

We still have many challenges. The deployment ratios have got to continue to improve. But I can tell you in this bill there is a bipartisan commitment to honor their commitment. And I believe we are making great progress at ensuring our men and women in uniform and their families have what they need and deserve, and when they come home as veterans, that we take adequate care of them--not adequate, but responsible care of them. And I think we're making great progress.

I want to thank the majority for doing something that people in the hinterland wouldn't even understand, but they put the Military Construction bill back in with the Veterans bill where it belongs. When I served on the subcommittee 10 years ago, this was not the case.

But when the Military Construction bill funds quality of life needs and child care centers and polytrauma centers and housing needs, the veterans piece being in with it in the same bill allows the continuum of care to come together so that we can look at the whole picture from today's men and women in harm's way and what their quality of life needs are--which is number one for us--all the way through the end of their life as a veteran with our VA system. It needs to all be together.

That was an amazing success, bringing Military Construction and Veteran's Care back together--my hat's off to the Speaker for doing that, first and foremost, for Chairman Edwards for his leadership, and for Chairman Obey for his commitment.

I do agree that over the 100 hearing hours Chairman Edwards and I had a hands-on with these amazing Americans, we produced a work product, this bill--at roughly $48 billion for the VA and $25 billion for the military construction needs around the world--that is very strong, and an encouragement to all those in harm's way today and those that have been in harm's way in the past.

I will say that the President's budget request for veterans was a record level. Now, the chairman said that it wasn't enough, and I agree with that. And we did increase it by $3 billion, but it was at a record level. So today there is an encouraging bipartisan proliferation to see who can do more for our Nation's veterans. And that's a good thing for our Nation's veterans, that we're in competition to see who can do more for the men and women coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and those that have served in the past.

But I was blown away over the last few months with the quality of the servicemembers and veterans. First, we hear from the chiefs of the respective services, the top enlisted personnel, the commanders from around the world, like the Commander of CENTCOM, who is now General Petraeus, with two wars under his command in Iraq and Afghanistan, we hear from all these leaders about the needs on the ground and what investments they need the Congress to make for them to do their job successfully. And then from the military families, that talk about the stress felt when we had a 15-month in, 1 year out deployment, now it's back to 1-1, it's going to 2-1. We need to get to 3-1 to make it sustainable, meaning 1 year in theater fighting, 3 years back in a noncombat station. This is so important that we work towards these objectives and that we honor this commitment.

Now, on the subcommittee, we've got extraordinary support. Former chairman of the full committee, who will speak in a minute, Bill Young from Florida, sits with us every hearing, hands on, fully engaged. Ander Crenshaw from Jacksonville, Florida, who will also speak, John Carter, from Texas, Kay Granger from Texas on the Republican side. I want to compliment not just Chairman Edwards, but Sam Farr, the vice chairman; who was really engaged, and a man who understands the world; he does an outstanding job.

You mentioned all the staff, I won't repeat their names, but both sides of

the aisle, just outstanding work. Members of the subcommittee--Mr. Mollohan, Mr. Boyd, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Bishop--everyone's engaged on your side; and contributed to great bipartisan cooperation. And the quality of these people that are serving in uniform and their families is just extraordinary.

What we heard this year is that the value of the dollar is really hurting us around the world. Our money that we're investing won't buy what it used to buy all over the world, and that's a big problem. And we've known that it was getting worse, but it's really causing a budget pinch for our military construction around the world.

We heard, as we've continued to hear--which has held up the appropriation process--that energy costs are unsustainable. That's a huge burden on this budget. We're trying to help with those needs.

Most importantly, though, we heard about the stress of the deployments from the families, that they're unsustainable, that they put a huge burden on the servicemembers and families. That's why these child care centers and these housing issues are so important and we have prioritized in this bill.

I want to say one word of caution, because whether it's a $3 billion increase in VA or $13 billion increase in VA, the Veterans Administration is a long-standing bureaucracy. It is very large. And I have traveled, I've been to the sites, I've worked with the VA for a number of years, and they're not as efficient as they can be or must be. Money is not the only issue. I'm grateful that we came together to give them more money, but I want to make sure, and so does Chairman Edwards, that each and every year we hold them more accountable, and the subcommittee takes a greater hands-on role at looking for efficiencies. We worked with Ranking Member Buyer this year on the Authorization Committee on ways for the VA to recapture more third- party payments that they're entitled to to help with their bottom line; things like that we must do because the VA has to be more efficient and more accountable because they are a government bureaucracy. So it's not just money, it's oversight. And I believe we share that commitment.

I think Secretary Peake is doing a very good job as the Secretary. Sometimes these positions are political; I don't think he is, I think he's hands on. He understands the VA system from a health care perspective, which is possibly the most important piece of it. I just want to thank everyone. Again, the staff has really produced a great bill.

Member projects in this bill mirror those included in the House Armed Services Committee's bill. The projects all are authorized. We married them up, so there's no Member-advanced initiatives here that don't meet all the tests of authorization. That's important. So that makes this bill special.

It is special, too; we're the only Appropriations bill that's going to move off the House floor before we go home. I wish they all would have. But we're closing on a positive note because this bill is positive for our men and women in uniform. And they're out there facing the threats that are out there. And it's like never before. It's asymmetrical.

I don't know what's next, but I hope and pray we can bring them all home very soon. But as long as they're in harm's way and as long as they're willing to volunteer to serve, Chairman Edwards, you and I are going to work together, in this second chance of ours, to serve those who serve us. And we're going to honor their commitment fully. That's what this bill is about.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida, who has a tremendous record with our Nation's veterans.

Mr. Chairman, I recognize for 2 minutes the gentleman from Jacksonville, Florida, an extremely active member of the subcommittee, Ander Crenshaw.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the ranking member of the Legislative Branch appropriations subcommittee, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to a great patriot, the gentleman from the State of Arizona (Mr. Franks).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume for the purpose to close briefly by saying that Chairman Obey said something at the full committee that I want to paraphrase and restate in the context that we all know that those who do not learn from history, are destined to repeat it.

One of the lessons of Vietnam is that regardless of how you feel, especially as a policymaker, but even as a citizen, about the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan, or any war, it's so important to appreciate fully the men and women who are engaged in that war on our behalf. Regardless of how you feel about the mission, it is so important for our Nation to appreciate and support and fund and resource the needs of our men and women in uniform and our veterans.

I want to say tonight I grew up a Democrat. I am a Republican today. But we should, and are, meeting at the water's edge on this issue of resourcing the men and women in harm's way and supporting the veterans when they come home for the balance of their life.

This is a lesson of history, of modern history. We saw it and we are making that right. So even though many of them do not support what we are doing in Iraq, or maybe even Afghanistan, this bill supports those who are fighting, and their families. And that is important.

In closing, I do want to recognize by name again the extraordinary staff. They call these people the front office staff. Rob Nabors and Jeff Shockey at the highest level. This committee staff is bipartisan. There happens to be a majority staff, Carol Murphy, Donna Shahbaz, Walter Hearne; the minority staff, Martin Delgado, Liz Dawson, and Kelly Shea. Mr. Edwards has John Conger, I have Amanda Schoch. They have done a remarkable job day in day in day out to bring us to this today because this is a great work product. Not all bills that come to this floor are, but this is. And it's right. I urge its passage.

I thank you for the time on the general debate. We have got 37 amendments. The hour is getting late. Let's get on with it.

I yield back the balance of our time.

If the gentleman will yield, I thank the gentleman from California for raising this issue before the House tonight. As the gentleman has seen firsthand, dealing with this multiyear, multibillion-dollar BRAC process, some of the business plans that were initially adopted have changed. He is doing everything he can to make sure that the Department of Defense sticks as close as possible to those plans. I join Chairman Edwards and commit to working to ensure that we conduct proper oversight of the BRAC process.

I want to thank the chairman for this commitment to fully fund the BRAC process, which was a major point of discussion throughout our 100 hours and 19 hearings this year, to make sure BRAC is fully funded on time.

I am grateful the gentleman from California has taken this initiative tonight.

If the chairman would yield.

I just want to say, in all fairness, Mr. Chairman, the Chair allowed the reader to read past this point with people on their feet for the colloquy, with an understanding on both sides that the colloquy would go first and then we would start this point in the bill.

The reading was an accidental reading, not that someone wasn't here ready to offer the amendments. Mr. Burgess was sitting right here. And points of order are going to be raised against both. So, with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, if we can get on with it, we will dispose of it quickly.

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

I do want to point out, in follow-up support to the gentleman's amendment, about how important it is for us to advance alternative sources just across the board throughout the military. The Military Construction bill is kind of a small piece, frankly, of the energy utilization across the entire Department of Defense, but it is something that we clearly should come together on.

The military is a tremendous user of energy, we all know that. There is no question that we can do better there. And this was an excellent amendment offered by a gentleman who's got just tremendous history here with the Veterans Committee and a great patriot. So I think we want to encourage all of those type uses as we move forward.

We're coming together here on the bill tonight, I think we're making great progress. Over the next 2 to 3 hours I think we can get through the rest of the sections of this bill. Certain Members are working out agreements as I speak right now, and so we're trying to draft this language. And I'm kind of keeping the ball rolling now, as you can tell, so that we can get this language drafted. I think we're making the progress that we need tonight.

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

Well, I was prepared to perfect your amendment, if it's ruled in order, with the words ``at VA medical facilities'' to make sure that it complied with the letter of the law. But I think it's an outstanding amendment. And I would like to see it see the light of day, but I understand there may be a point of order reserved.

Will the chairman yield?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to compliment you on your statement. And, again, we are bipartisan partners here. But I would point out that had we not had the preprinting requirement that was talked about earlier that we're living under, the fluidity of modifying amendments or amounts on the floor is part of the way that the appropriations process works.

We do have a great bill. But the neat thing about appropriations is when you bring a great bill to the floor, the Members of the House, all of them, do have the ability to make changes or make improvements or make suggestions, and, frankly, that is what the gentleman is trying to do. So I want to make that point, and to say that it's not late. We can start talking about how late it is, but this bill has been ready for the floor for 35 days. So as far as I'm concerned, we are not late tonight. We have got plenty of time to debate these things. So I don't want to--especially these gentlemen, the chairman and ranking member from the Veterans Affairs Committee who want to bring these ideas to the floor on an appropriation bill, that's kind of the nature of an appropriations process. It is an open process. We do have a great bill. I don't think it's a perfect bill not subject to amendment by the Members of the House.

Mr. Chairman, point of parliamentary inquiry.

Will you restate how far you've read?

No objection.

Will the gentleman yield?

I, too, want to commend Mr. Stupak and Mr. Barrow, two of the finest Members in this House, outstanding, a perfect example of how Members that aren't on our committee can bring improvements to the floor for the bill. Certainly we'll work with you the whole way. We'll support your amendment subject to the chairman and his call tonight. But we will work together with you either way.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief.

My amendment is very simple. It says that the VA can not modify current standards that are used to make special monthly benefit payments and therefore protects that benefit payment for U.S. veterans who are eligible for it.

Earlier tonight the chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee offered and withdrew two amendments that would have decimated the information technology budget at the VA to fund a new entitlement program for Filipino veterans. Had those amendments passed, it would have stopped key VA initiatives dead in their tracks.

We're trying to get the VA to streamline operations, reduce the time it takes to process claims, and increase interoperability between VA and DOD medical records, not to mention that the VA is going to need all of the $2.4 billion that the President requested to help it roll out or new GI Bill.

Earlier in the year the chairman of the authorizing committee tried to pay for this bill by proposing to cut special monthly pension benefits to U.S. veterans currently receiving these benefits. Now, let's be clear here. We support those Filipino veterans who fell alongside U.S. forces in World War II. But to provide them with a new benefit to be paid for out of an account that our veterans will immediately feel the impact of is wrong.

An ``aye'' vote on my amendment will tell our veterans that their benefits will not be cut and let them know we are trying to do everything we can to get their claims processed as quickly as possible.

I yield back.

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

I, too, rise in opposition to this amendment. And Mr. Chairman, now it is late. It's 12:30, we've got two more amendments. I will speak, and then I assume Mr. Hensarling will speak.

But let me say briefly why three senior members of the Appropriations Committee from our side--Mr. Wolf, Mr. Kingston and myself, people I believe have very high integrity--offered a proposal to have a 6-month moratorium, no earmarks from either side, while we establish a select committee to reform the way that earmarks are carried out because the earmark system is broken, and there have been abuses on both sides. And I do think that job one is to define what is an earmark. Because under article I, section 9 of the United States Constitution, the Congress does have the authority and the responsibility to direct the funding on behalf of the taxpayers, not the unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch. And this is now way out of kilter, but there have been abuses and it needs to be cleaned up. So we said we should have a time out, let's redo this.

I'm hopeful that this still happens because both major Presidential candidates have indicated they would like to see sweeping reforms in this process. But you've got to define what is it and then go from there, and then change the rules for everybody--authorization committee, tax, trade, earmarks from the executive branch, anywhere would all come under the same rules, both bodies, bicameral, sweeping reforms. Let's start over and define what is a congressional direction that's acceptable.

But I think these gentlemen tonight have picked the wrong bill to come and attack on earmarks. Let me tell you why. One of the problems with earmarks out there is there's a cottage industry of lobbyists bringing requests to the Congress on behalf of clients. Are there lobbyists on MilCon earmarks? There is no lobbyist for a National Guard or a Reserve or a military base asking for money from the Congress. Are there campaign contributions flowing based on earmark requests from the National Guard, the Reserve, or military bases? No.

Now, I don't know where you get your numbers, but let me tell you that there's not a request in this bill in my district, but there's one in my State, and it's in a Democratic Member's district, Mr. Davis. He may be on that vulnerable list, but he ain't vulnerable. I would say at 9 percent approval we are all vulnerable. What kind of a rating is that, vulnerable?

Now, my name was also on that request because it was my State and protocol is we put our names on it. But it's not in my district. So facts are whatever you present them to be, but the military construction bill is a perfect example of where the Congress has the right and the responsibility to say this needs to be done.

We are the ones who had the 19 hearings about quality of life in child care centers, not the executive branch. They don't have any hearings. Why do we even exist to have hearings if we're not going to say these need to be funded?

Let me tell you I was born at Fort Benning. My dad was on active duty. They needed a new hospital. Mr. Bishop is going to get nailed for getting an earmark because he represents Fort Benning, and he probably went to this subcommittee of Appropriations because he represented Fort Benning, Mr. Flake. Duh. That's how the numbers work that way. Good gracious.

Defeat this, but then reform the process. Clean up the mess. But coming through here with a chainsaw on everything, treating them all like they're the same thing is no way to run a train.

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

Madam Speaker, as a leader on earmark reform among House Republicans, I am committed to honoring House Republican rules that provide for greater transparency. The Fiscal Year 2009 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriation Act contains the following funding that I requested:

Requesting Member: Rep. Zach Wamp.

Bill Number: H.R. 5658.

Account: Military Construction, Army National Guard.

Legal Name Requesting Entity: Tennessee National Guard.

Address: 3041 Sidco Drive, Nashville, TN.

Description of Request: $10,372,000 for the construction of a new Army National Guard Readiness Center to replace the inadequate Readiness Center that was constructed in 1954. The existing facility has numerous health and safety issues as well as significant electrical code issues, and ADA violations. The new facility will house the 20th Troop Command, and the Company Headquarters of the 1175th Transportation Company. This project is in the Army National Guard's Fiscal Year 2012 Future Year Defense Plan.

Offered By: Mr. Wamp

Amendment No. 36: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as a cosponsor of H.R. 4789.

Mr. Speaker, tonight I come to the floor to honor a great American hero, Corporal Jason Dane Hovater, who gave his life 10 days ago in defense of the United States of America in Afghanistan. Corporal Hovater was killed when 200 militants with machine guns, rocket- propelled grenades and mortars attacked his outpost. Thankfully, they were beaten back after a fierce firefight that lasted hours. But nine American soldiers lost their lives.

Besides Corporal Hovater, First Lieutenant Jonathan Brostrom of Hawaii; Sergeant Israel Garcia of California; Corporal Jonathan Ayers of Snellville, Georgia; Corporal Jason Bogar of Seattle, Washington; Corporal Matthew Phillips of Jasper, Georgia; Corporal Pruitt Rainey of Haw River, North Carolina; Corporal Gunnar Zwilling of Florissant, Missouri; and Private Sergio Abad of Kentucky, with the C Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, these nine patriots gave it all they had. And they laid down their life for our Nation.

Yesterday morning, I had the privilege of being with Corporal Hovater's family at the Holly Gamble funeral home in Lake City, Tennessee.

I was with Jeanna, his wife of only 19 months. They only had 6 weeks together before he went to train, before he spent 16 months on the ground in Afghanistan. He was set to come home 1 week after his death.

I met his mother, Kathy; his father, Gerald; his sister, Jessica; his brothers, Joe and Jesse Darrin; Sean and David. They're very active at the Lake City Christian Fellowship where the memorial service was held Monday night. It was a praise service. You see, he was a worship leader. His family is very involved in this ministry. When I met his family, it was like no other time that I have spent with a family of a wounded or slain soldier. Unfortunately, he was the ninth soldier from Tennessee's Third Congressional District, and every time we've lost one in the last 4 years, I have had the privilege of being with the family and presenting them a Bible engraved in their memory. But this was unusual. In this family's eyes, all of them, all of them, was the love of their Lord.

The humility, the genuine appreciation of our Nation, they honored their son. They believed deep in their soul that God was with him when he was conceived, throughout his life, God was with him when he died on this Earth, and he is with God today. They believe deeply that this is what God ordained for him, to lay his life down voluntarily for our country. I had the privilege to say to them, thank you from a grateful Nation, from every one in the Congress and the executive branch, to thank this family for this extraordinary sacrifice and to share with them that every time freedom has been handed from one generation to the next, it has been by the blood of these American patriots who are willing to stand between a threat and our civilian population and pay the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

Corporal Jason Dane Hovater is an American hero in every sense, and we thank him so much for his sacrifice. And we thank this extraordinary family for their witness and their testimony and their faith and their goodness and their trust in God Almighty that Jason is in his arms and they will see him again. I felt it. We love him, and we are so grateful in east Tennessee that they gave their husband, their son, their brother, for all of us. And with his eight comrades, we honor you on the floor of the House tonight and we thank you for standing up for us and giving us, as Abraham Lincoln once said, ``your last full measure.''

We honor you, Corporal Hovater, as a great American patriot and hero. We will always remember, and we will never forget.

Well, I thank Dr. Gingrey, and I thank Mr. Hall for his unique insight.

It is a privilege to come tonight. I think Mr. Hall is right. There are a lot of people of good will in this body that really want to do something about this. As a matter of fact, the heat is on.

I had a Democratic colleague tell me recently that he was on an airplane and a guy came up to him and said bring down gas prices. And the guy was pretty upset, as we see often now at home. And the Democratic Member said, don't you think if we could do something quickly we would? And that really is the response that a lot of Members give.

And politics sometimes gets in the way of progress. But I have got to tell you that it is important the votes you cast, and it is important when you try to push a legislative initiative, and when things are vetoed and do not go forward, there are consequences. And we find ourselves in that mess today.

I don't come to the floor to blame anybody. Frankly, I come to the floor to offer solutions. And I think the blame game has got a lot of people really dissatisfied with the Congress to begin with. But these solutions really need to be debated and voted on. That is what we are really trying to press is for more legislative activity around new energy sources for Americans.

Now, for the last 8 years, I have had the privilege of co-chairing a large bipartisan group in the Congress called the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus. It is well over half the House. I know both these men, I think, are on the caucus. But it is about 60 percent Democratic Members, 40 percent Republican Members.

And I have to tell you, from our perspective, conservation is kind of job one. I say conservation is not for wimps; it is for warriors. Not everybody is going to put the uniform of our Armed Forces on, but everybody can help our country in a mighty way by increasing efficiency and conserving as they can. They can weatherize their home and save electricity. They can cut back, and they can go to a more efficient vehicle, and they can be smart about how they consume energy. And as we reduce demand prices will come down, and every American has a patriotic obligation to push for efficiencies and conservation, and that really ought to be job one. And we all need to say more about that because it is real.

The number one energy source over the last generation in this country, is conservation, if you just calculate all of the energy and how much we have saved since the 1970s when we conserve and create efficiencies. That is important.

Now, there is an irony here, and that is the Energy Policy Act that was signed into law almost 3 years ago this week, EPAct, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, was a Republican bill with a Republican Congress signed by a Republican president.

And everybody trashes the President and the Vice President for knowing a lot about the oil and gas industry. But the truth is, and I was there and wrote what was called the Energy Efficiency

Cornerstone Act with some industry groups for the renewable and energy efficiency organizations. That was rolled in. And if you were in the wind, solar, biomass, geothermal or renewable energy sector, you loved that bill, and you said, this is the best bill that has been signed into law for us in a long, long time.

But as Dr. Gingrey said, those tax credits to incentivize the investments in those new technologies have expired. Some of them may still be going on, but most of them have already expired. They were 2 years.

Now, if you are in the majority in the Congress today, you have a majority in the House and the Senate, and you believe in those things, why in the world have you not not only extended them for another 2 years, but extended them for 5 years or 10 years?

There is an article today that the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is frustrated that he can't get the votes in the Senate to bring this up.

You talked about Congressman Bartlett from Maryland. I am the original cosponsor with him of the extenders for these tax incentives for renewables and efficiencies without any tax increases. Just extend them. If you believe in them, extend them. Don't worry about the budget consequences because it will stimulate. And right now the cost of energy is so heavy we can't afford not to. As a matter of fact, we can't afford to do a lot of things now because of the cost of energy. We really can't afford any more time delays, any more recesses, as Dr. Gingrey says. And these investment tax credits are important.

The industry groups will tell you give us a 5-year investment tax credit and you will see major investments. If you really believe in those things, to the new majority, and I am not blaming, I am just saying, let's get on with it. Bring it up now. Time is of the essence.

The gentleman talked about nuclear. And yes, Yucca Mountain is out there, and yes, you can take the spent fuel from nuclear and you can bury it, but that is a long now protracted process that is involved in a legal dispute.

What does France do? Because they get 81 percent of their electricity from nuclear they reprocess the spent fuel. They are not as afraid of it as we are. Now, listen, the French have not been accused of being overly courageous here of late. Yet, here, they have more courage than we do. Actually they are smarter than we are on energy utilization. They go 81 percent nuclear, and they reprocess the spent fuel and turn most of it back into energy. And they have half as many nuclear reactors as we do. We are at about 105 reactors. They are at about 53 reactors. They have one reprocessing facility, therefore, we would need two. We have the technology to do it. I represent the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We can demonstrate for the country right now, and TVA is prepared to show we can reprocess the spent fuel and stand up nuclear.

And the gentleman is right. It is 8-12 percent right now, reactors on-line of our total electricity capacity. It needs to be at least \1/ 4\ nuclear.

Now they're going to come up, the Democrats, in a few minutes and talk about Boone Pickens. Okay. He's an oilman who now says 25 percent wind. Great. He shows us where they can be put. Great. What they're not going to tell you, as he also says, is go after all of the oil and gas capacity in this country that you can because we have to have new energy, okay? We can go in all of these renewable and efficiency areas, but it's still not enough given the demand. The demand is way up.

We've had a robust economy for 15 years in this country. I know it has sputtered of late, but because of that dynamic economy and because of the demand in India and in China and in other parts of the world, the demand exceeds the supply globally, and the price points are now unacceptable and unsustainable. We have got to have some new capacity as well. The Outer Continental Shelf, way out in the ocean where you cannot see it, should be a no-brainer for people if the State says ``okay.''

So that's what Senator McCain has proposed is let the States decide. That's a good idea. If South Carolina wants to do it, let them do it. If Florida doesn't want to do it, don't let them do it, but get out of the way with the global moratorium.

The President released the executive moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf exploration. Now the Congress should do it. That's another thing that the Speaker ought to bring to the floor. Let's lift the moratorium. Things have changed.

When President Clinton vetoed ANWR in 1996, 70 percent of the American people thought that we should preserve all of that Alaska wilderness and not drill. Today, it's the other way around. Seventy percent of Americans say let's get on with it because we can't afford gas. We need help.

Senator Obama says it's going to be 7 years before you can pull any of it out. How much worse off are we going to be in 7 years if we don't get started now? We need all of the above.

Let me tell you that I know a lot of Democrats want to go ahead and start drilling. They want the votes, but they won't let us have the votes. Today, here at the Capitol, in Washington, there were dozens of protesters who were holding up signs, saying, ``Do not drill. Protect our coastlines. Protect our wildlife area regions.'' I've got to tell you that they are now in the minority in this country. The American people don't want them up here protesting our going after American energy for American citizens. We have to do all of the above.

I just want to close on a couple of new technologies that have great potential out of the Silicon Valley, which has, frankly, led the world now for a long time on things like information technology and which has really helped the U.S. economy and our exports.

There is a company called Bloom Energy, and they've developed a solid-oxide stationary fuel cell. It looks like the HVAC system in your home, and without a transmission system at all, it creates electricity. Now, it obviously has to have some feedstock going in, but it can run off a host of feedstocks. It can run off natural gas. It can run off of ethanol. It can run off of solar in some applications. This is a unique, new technology.

We're trying to demonstrate that solid-oxide stationary fuel cell here at the Capitol because all of these lights are on today as a result of a fossil-fired, dirty powerhouse here in Washington where we actually pollute in Washington about as bad as anywhere in the country. There's not much efficiency here. The lights stay on all the time. It's really ridiculous. The Democrats have a greening initiative for the Capitol, but it mostly involves light bulbs. We really need to get serious about it and take some of these buildings off that fossil powerhouse and move into solid-oxide stationary fuel cell-type technology.

Plug-in hybrids, we need them. Get them to the marketplace. Biodiesel, ethanol, new fuel mixes, get on with it. Wind technologies have tremendous potential in the Northern and Central United States.

As the gentleman from Georgia says, the right approach is everything. Don't pick winners and losers. Don't leave anything off the table. They did that in California with electricity, and the lights went out. You can't regulate yourself into a solution here. You can't tax your way into a solution here. We have to have a robust agenda, and it is time for Democrats and Republicans to come together and get this done.

I thank the gentleman for coming again tonight, for giving us the opportunity to talk about what the solutions are, and then let's get on with it. The American people are tired of waiting.

I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, if I may, let me tell the Members that for 37 years we've had this tradition in a bipartisan way of Members and former Members getting together, but this is the first year that we brought in this extraordinary charity, the Disabled Sports Foundation. And these wounded warriors, mostly amputees, that got joy out of playing golf with us on Monday, we raised a lot of money for them. This was so important.

We took the venue to Army-Navy Golf Club, where they are under construction with renovations. The PGA of America cosponsored it with us. The co-chairmen from the former Members were Ken Kramer and Dennis Hertel. We had 33 Republican Members and only eight Democratic Members--that's one reason the trophy is back over here this year--but y'all had a conflict, so you do have an excuse this year. But next year we should really bring people together to help these wounded warriors.

I want to say Steve Buyer was the low gross on the Republican side for the whole House, and Gene Green from the Democratic side was the low net. Republicans reclaimed the trophy.

The big winners are these disabled athletes who are great American patriots. We honor them. We had fellowship. We came together. And the full House joins us in our salute to all these men and women in uniform that are disabled.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I especially thank the author of the resolution, Mr. Farr of California, for his leadership and insight here in the Congress. It's a privilege to serve alongside him. A very thoughtful man.

I want to join the chorus in praising these firefighters and encouraging others to answer this extraordinarily difficult call to public service every time that one of these fires encroaches on areas where people live and work. But I do find it ironic, having been here for 14 years, from time to time these issues cross over with each other because, frankly, the nexus between the environment, which is a part of these fires; energy, which is also a piece of this; and national security is the most important challenge of our generation, this nexus. And they are connected.

Over the last 14 years I have had the privilege, even with Mr. Farr, to travel to places like Yellowstone and Yosemite Valley and the Olympics in Washington State and actually see with the stewards of our public lands, which represent over one-third of the land mass of the continental United States, is government-owned land, and actually be there with the Forest Service, the Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management personnel, many of whom are registered foresters, who will say that one of the biggest problems with the creation of these fires is the dead and dying timber which we have refused to clean out in terms of our stewardship of the forest. You can't just leave this forest alone and let all of this timber become just a matchbox on the ground without huge problems with the fires.

So the mindset that says leave all forests alone and do not touch them, even to the point of not cleaning up the dead and dying timber, which creates with any kind of a spark these out-of-control fires that come into California into the areas where people live, the mindset that says, for whatever reason, do not touch these forests, is a flawed mindset that causes these fires.

The best thing we can do for the firefighters is to try to mitigate the fires with good forestry practices, good stewardship, and logical environmental response. I consider myself a very logical and rational lawmaker on issues of the environment. But that is the same mindset that says under no circumstance do you take a piece of land in the middle of the Arctic tundra and not explore for oil and gas there.

That is the same mindset. It's a flawed mindset. That is why we have the energy pinch. It's a mindset that says States cannot even go into the Outer Continental Shelf, if they want to, and explore oil and gas resources, when in fact we should leave that up to the States.

So here we are, kind of feeling the pinch and the adverse consequences of extremist environmental policy, whether it's fires, whether it's energy sources. We have to come back to a rational, logical modern approach.

Now I am very much part Cherokee Indian. The Cherokee National Forest is in my district. The Cherokee used to intentionally burn the forest. Why? Because it helped the nutrients in the ground. It became more robust. It's a natural cycle. They intentionally did it.

Speaking of good forestry practices, they were not only not afraid of fire, they used fire for the right purposes so that the forest wouldn't get out of control and just burn wildly.

It's that kind of thinking, long-term stewardship, that we need to get back to so that the political winds of the day do not stymie us on good management practices with our forests or good energy policy as a Nation so that everything is not off-limits to the point that the lights go out in California or we are paying $4.50 for a gallon of gas.

These are unacceptable outcomes when all we have to do is take a reasonable, responsible approach from the center of America, representing average people, and saying, We are all for stewardship, we are all for participating in global warming, but we don't want to do it at the expense of our future. Our economic future, our quality of life, all these issues come together.

So I would implore the leadership--I understand the Speaker of the House yesterday said in fact the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, does need to be released so that we can increase some supply of oil. I am glad to

see these steps are taken finally to recognize that supply and demand are at stake here, they are at work here, and that we need to increase the supply of oil and gas in this country. Not that that is the cure- all, end-all, but it's one of many things that we need to do in an all- of-the-above approach to energy, which is connected to the environment and good long-term stewardship for our country.

I thank the gentleman for the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support H. Con. Res. 195, a resolution designating June 2008 as National Dysphagia Awareness Month. First, I would like to thank my colleague, Congressman Gene Green, for being the lead cosponsor of this resolution and for his efforts in helping move this resolution forward. Congressman Green is a strong advocate on healthcare issues in Congress and I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with him on the vital issue of raising awareness about dysphagia. In addition, I would like to thank the Dysphagia Awareness Society, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the American Occupational Therapy Association for their grassroots efforts in building support for the resolution. It truly has been a collaborative effort for an important cause.

Dysphagia is a medical condition incorporating any difficulty with swallowing and affects as many as 15 million Americans. Dysphagia can be caused by any condition weakening or damaging the muscles and nerves used for swallowing, including strokes, nervous system complications, and head injuries. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 1 million people in the United States annually are diagnosed with dysphagia. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, an estimated 60,000 Americans die annually from complications associated with dysphagia.

Dysphagia awareness is particularly important to my home state of Tennessee, where stroke incident rates are relatively high. Dysphagia affects a significant percentage of stroke survivors due to weakness in the muscles of the throat and mouth traditionally caused by strokes. Dysphagia can cause additional life-threatening complications for these stroke survivors, such as pneumonia, malnutrition, dehydration, and airway obstruction.

In addition, complications due to dysphagia increase health care costs by resultant hospital readmissions, emergency room visits, extended hospital stays, the necessity for long-term institutional care, and the need for expensive respiratory and nutritional support. Including money spent in hospitals, the total cost of dysphagia to the health care system is well over $1 billion annually.

Unfortunately, the condition of dysphagia is vastly underreported and not widely understood by the general public. Observing June 2008 as National Dysphagia Awareness Month would raise public awareness about dysphagia and the need for early detection and treatment.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support the passage of this important resolution.

I thank the gentleman.

I just want to say as I begin that the gentlelady from Texas said that this money goes to the White House. Thankfully, this money goes to the men and women in the uniform of our Armed Forces who volunteered to stand between a threat and our civilian population.

And I want to commend everyone in the House for bringing us to this moment, because the traditions of this great country and this Congress are to meet at the water's edge at a time of war. And we have learned the lessons of history. And we know that it's important to fund the men and women who are in harm's way with the resources they need.

The particular piece that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and I have worked together on are the issues of quality of life. And let me tell you that this supplemental appropriations bill meets those quality of life needs on military housing, the child development centers for the families that are so critical, the medical treatment at places like Walter Reed that we have read and heard so much about and polytrauma rehabilitation centers.

We know that asymmetrical warfare has caused critical problems that must be addressed. People ask me and Mr. Edwards often, are we doing what's right for our men and women in uniform? This bill helps us to do that in a significant way and meet the needs of our veteran population. It meets the needs of barracks that we know and have heard about. And it fully funds what we need to on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission so they can meet their schedule which we were not meeting. This is so important.

And then this issue of GI benefits for education. Of course the men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve this benefit. For weeks we've all been writing about how this is so appropriate. And today we come together. So I applaud everyone, most of all those volunteers in our military, who have agreed to answer our country's call and stand in harm's way. My nephew, who just got back from Iraq, and my other nephew who is a marine on his way to Afghanistan, and all of the other brave Americans, we're answering their call today. They answered our call.

We meet together to do what is right for our country thanks to the leadership in the majority and the minority for finally coming together and doing what is right. This is a good bill. Let's move it forward. And let's honor our commitment to our men and women in uniform.

I thank the gentleman, and I'll try not to be long. But I do want to start by saying that I seek not to blame anyone, because one of the things that I'm the most turned off by in the modern era of American politics is that everybody wants to blame everybody. And Democrats always say Republicans are wrong. Republicans always say Democrats are wrong. The truth is, neither party has a whole lot to brag about, and more and more people are being frustrated or becoming frustrated with the two parties.

But I will say, on this particular issue of energy, it's important to realize that talk is cheap. Words are not worth much. And votes really do matter. And the positions you take really do have consequences, and we have to actually discuss that as we look at solutions, because what I want to talk about is solutions; not blame, but solutions to these major problems.

In my 14 years of service here, this issue now stings and hurts more than any issue that I've seen. And I've served through impeachment, through the Iraq war, through the awful response to Katrina, and I would say that more people are angry and upset and concerned about $4.05 gasoline than anything.

And it's easy to say, I told you so. The gentleman from Pennsylvania can definitely say I told you so because I've served with him for 12 years, and he's been talking about supply of oil and gas and the consequences of us not going after it and becoming more independent ourselves for the whole 12 years; a very powerful and effective voice.

I too have a long history of talking about the problems that are going to be associated with the energy crunch and was very concerned following September the 11th that we would end up here tonight. I do think that the nexus between national security, energy and the environment is the most important challenge of our generation because they're all connected now inseparably.

It's ironic that the left wants to promote legislation and conversation about global warming and climate change because actually that will further restrict our access to energy, and everybody knows that. And it will raise prices. It will increase regulation. It will actually compound this problem. Yet they're promoting that agenda at the same time that they're retreating from energy capacity. And these votes really matter.

Now I come at this with 10 years of service on the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, 8 years of service as the cochairman of the Renewable Energy Caucus here in the House, which is a bipartisan thing; the Representative that represents the premier energy research facility in this country, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And I want to start by saying that conservation is a very important piece of these solutions.

As a matter of fact, conservation is not for wimps, as some people would have you believe. Conservation is for warriors, in my opinion. Not everyone is going to put on the uniform of our Armed Forces. We should be grateful to everyone who does. But not everyone's going to do that.

But every person in this country can contribute to our national security by becoming more energy efficient, by conserving, by trying to be more efficient in their daily life, and there are a lot of ways to do that.

And I rolled out at the National Press Club, with some outside groups, some very effective outside groups, the Drive Smarter Challenge. You can go to drivesmarterchallenge.org, and you can save yourself hundreds of dollars by following simple instructions of how to conserve gasoline without cutting back on your travel. Obviously the speed limit and how much you travel would be a good step. But there a lot of other things you can do with your automobile, depending on how much gas it uses, to save and conserve, because even in small ways, if we reduce the demand, and the supply stays the same, the price will come down. Demand and supply are connected to each other.

I'm also very, very much about new technologies. As I talk about these solutions, understand that I'm here tonight, not because these solutions are all technology-driven or conservation-driven, but I'm here tonight because we have to go forward with an all-of-the-above strategy. We can't afford to leave anything off the table. We can't afford to pick winners and losers.

As a matter of fact, I can give you a good example of picking winners and losers in the energy sector because in California, they said, we're not going to use all of the resources for electricity production. We're going to mandate that a certain amount of our electricity has to be produced by these sources. They picked winners and losers. And guess what happened? The lights went out. They didn't have any electricity.

That's the problem with picking winners and losers. We have to have an all-of-the-above strategy.

I'm here tonight, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania laid out earlier, because we have to increase capacity. We have to go after these resources from the Outer Continental Shelf, from ANWR.

I've been in Congress 14 years. I've cast 24 votes to increase capacity for oil and gas in this country. Twenty-four votes. As has been said ad infinitum now, and I'm not a partisan guy--I don't want to blame anybody--but these votes matter. And almost every time the Republicans vote for new capacity, and almost every time the Democrats vote against it. Even today, it happened again. And 2 weeks ago it happened in the Senate again.

This is one of those issues that I don't want to be too partisan, but you can't deny there is a huge difference between increasing capacity. Frankly, even the wild-eyed environmentalist has to recognize that this is painful to regular people. And you've got to get off of your crusade to save every tree, you know, to save every form of wildlife at the expense of our human beings who can't pay their bills and they can't buy gas.

Be reasonable, people. That's not happening today.

But there's a tremendous amount of new technologies. I would argue that we can literally grow our economy, a manufacturing-driven, export robust U.S. economy, by being aggressive in this energy sector, because we have the innovation.

What does everyone around the world still emulate about our country? We would like to say it's our privilege to vote. That's important. But they don't all emulate that. We'd like to think that they all would freely worship as we do, and I cherish that. But they don't all emulate that. We would like to think we all have freedom of the press.

The one thing they emulate is our private sector, our capitalistic, free enterprise, innovative sector. We have that.

How did we balance the budget in the late nineties? I was here. Four straight years. People think, oh, you cut spending. No we didn't. We slowed the growth of spending, yes we did. We didn't cut spending. But revenues surpassed expenses principally because of one sector of our economy that roared, information technology. We led the world. Microsoft is an example. There are many others. We led the world. Revenues surpassed expenses.

That can happen again in this sector if we will lead and not be in retreat and not regulate, not limit, but expand, go after it, create new technologies, increase capacity. Be competitive.

As the gentleman from Pennsylvania said, it's important.

Now, I have had the editor of Automotive News say that we're going to be driving electric cars. That might be true. Ion lithium batteries have some potential. GM and Toyota say that next summer they're going to have plug-in hybrids. But I will also tell you that Volkswagon, which is a premier automotive interest in the world, can make a three- cylinder diesel engine, lightweight, gets 50 to 60 miles a gallon so biodiesel, biofuels, as long as they're cellulosic in nature and not corn based, are very important developments as well.

I will tell you what I don't think the Congress ought to do is pick winners and losers. I think we ought to have an all-of-the-above strategy. Let the market determine which one gets their best and first. Let consumers choose and promote them all. Let the marketplace decide. Let me say that if we do end up plugging our cars in, though, we don't have the electricity capacity to keep them running. We have to have nuclear energy.

The numbers--81 percent of France's electricity is generated by nuclear power. They have 53 reactors; we have roughly twice that many. They don't bury their waste, which we propose at Yucca Mountain. They reprocess their spent full turning most of the spent waste back into energy. Why don't we do that? Because we're still stuck in a Three Mile Island time warp mindset that it's somehow not safe, and it is. And there is no evidence that it is not. And we've not had any nuclear incidences. We have 53 nuclear reactors. It is emissionless.

You want to reduce the carbon footprint? Promote nuclear. If you want to reduce the carbon footprint in a meaningful way and you're against nuclear, you're disingenuous. I don't care what your name is. You're not living in the real world, or you're playing politics. We need nuclear.

Now, another new technology is the stationary solid oxide fuel cell. What is that? Well, it's developed out of Silicon Valley. Partnerships around the country. We have a 100-kilowatt system now being demonstrated in the Tennessee Valley. It looks like the HVAC system in your home, but here is the special element of a solid oxide fuel cell: It makes electricity, but it's not on a transmission grid. That's pretty cool in the world we live in today because without a transmission grid, you can't shut down the electricity through a terrorist incident because not everyone is connected to the grid.

And in this stationary solid oxide fuel cell, which is also emissionless, reducing the carbon footprint, it does have to be fueled in one feedstock. It's an HVAC system with fuel cells that creates 100 kilowatts of power which is roughly a 30,000 square foot building. Office building, commercial center, several houses. But you have to have a feedstock, but it will run on anything, just about. It will run on natural gas, it will run on solar in some places, ethanol, different feedstocks.

But that's an important development. It has got tremendous electricity potential especially if we start plugging in our cars and we need this new electricity capacity.

I believe we ought to look at a follow-up stimulus bill that directs resources to people that are stuck. And I'll tell you in the south, if you're on the lower income, you probably have a very inefficient vehicle and you probably drive a long way to work and you're stuck; and those are the people that our next economic stimulus ought to help. We ought to figure out a way in a bipartisan way to get them some resources to move to more efficient transportation, one way or another. Because people right now, they can't trade that big car. They can't get for it what it's worth, and then they don't have the money to go to a more efficient car. We should help them.

In closing, let me just say words are cheap and votes really do make a difference, and the votes for energy capacity have been really important in the past, and they're even more important today; and they're going to be even more important tomorrow. And this is where we have to bring this Congress together.

And the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate is way out of touch with reality unless they get serious immediately about increasing capacity because if we made moves that were published around the world that we're going back in the energy-production business, prices would come down overnight, not because the energy is there overnight, but because they know we're going in the right direction because right now we're going in the wrong direction.

We need help.

Madam Speaker. I rise today in support of worksite physical activity. On Wednesday, April 23rd, I had the distinct honor of opening a session on Capitol Hill that focused on the importance of worksite physical activity and how such activity benefits individuals, society, our economy and our government. There were a number of congressional offices in attendance, but the session covered such an important topic I wanted to share a bit of it with my colleagues here today.

The session, organized by the non-profit group, Partnership for Prevention, featured speakers from the Center for Disease Control, the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity, the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association and Erickson Communities.

The reason for the session was simple--obesity in this country is rising with nearly 67 percent of all American adults being classified as obese. Health care costs associated with diseases in which obesity is a contributing factor are rising, with costs increasing over the thirteen-year period from 1987 to 2000 by between 16 and 30 percent for such diseases as diabetes, arthritis, hypertension, cancer and heart problems. Obesity costs employers more than $117 billion annually in sick leave, medical costs, lost productivity and labor replacement costs. And the government spends more combating these diseases through our federal medical programs.

Given how widespread and deeply disturbing this issue is, all of us have a role in combating obesity. Individuals need to exercise more. Companies need to provide more help for workplace fitness and we in government ought to both promote physical activity and eliminate any barriers that might exist that prevent that at the federal level.

The speakers addressed each of these issues, with many interesting and important facts, but the one that stuck out in my mind was a simple one. For every $ that a company invests in a workplace fitness program, it gets back $3.48 in reduced health care costs, lower worker absenteeism and increased productivity. That is a great return on investment. It is why so many companies have invested heavily in workplace fitness.

Sadly, we in Congress have not yet done our part. There are still too many barriers within the federal legal code to the promotion of workplace physical activity. Two pieces of legislation currently pending before the House, H.R. 1748, the Workforce Health Improvement Program Act, and H.R. 245, the Personal Health Investment Today Act. would eliminate federal tax barriers to the active promotion of physical activity. I and a number of my colleagues in the House, from both sides of the aisle, support these bills and we are working to get them enacted. Just as companies and organizations like the ones at the briefing have stepped up, I hope Congress will do the same.