[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 38 (Thursday, March 30, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H1621-H1623]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BONIOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I ask for this time for the purposes of 
inquiring from the majority about the schedule for the remainder of 
this week and the following week.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio).
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Bonior) for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that the House has completed 
its legislative business for this week. The House will not be in 
session tomorrow. The House will meet next for legislative business on 
Monday, April 3 at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour, and 2 p.m. for 
legislative business. We will consider a number of bills under 
suspension of the rules, a list which will be distributed to Members' 
offices tomorrow.
  On Monday, no recorded votes are expected before 6 p.m. On Tuesday 
and the balance of the week, the House will consider the following 
measures, all of which will be subject to rules:
  H.R. 3671, the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Improvement Act of 
2000;
  H.R. 2418, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network 
Amendments of 1999;
  H.R. 3660, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2000; and
  H.R. 1776, which, I might add, is a signature bill for the entire 
House of Representatives, the American Homeownership and Economic 
Opportunity Act.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if I can ask my friend, 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio) a couple of questions. Does the 
gentleman anticipate any late night sessions next week?
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
say to the gentleman from Michigan that the only anticipation of a late 
night possibly would be on Thursday, and that would be as a result of 
1776, the American Homeownership bill, which will be on the floor that 
afternoon and perhaps evening.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, what about next Friday?
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we are looking at a busy week, and we will 
know later next week if we will be in for sure for legislative 
business. Right now I think Members should expect to have business on 
Friday, but we will know by midweek whether we will actually have to be 
here for legislative business.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, will the Coverdell voucher bill be brought 
back to the floor next week? If it will be brought back, can we 
anticipate that the Rangel-Johnson substitute will be made in order on 
school modernization?
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the 
gentleman is referring to the education savings accounts, which would 
bring opportunity through investments, public investments, in 
individual investment accounts that would become available. We are 
going to continue to have a dialogue about that.
  We, obviously, ran out of time this week with the supplemental taking 
up so much time on the House floor, rightfully so. Of course, next week 
is very busy. I would suggest that we are not optimistic about it 
coming up next week, but it is not out of the question.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, will that give us the opportunity to offer a 
school modernization bill?
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman, I hope the gentleman 
will be discussing this also with the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Dreier),

[[Page H1622]]

and the Committee on Rules certainly would come to the floor pursuant 
to a rule. I am sure it will be a fair and responsible rule.
  At that point I am sure we will be in a dialogue and the gentleman 
will be in dialogue with the House leadership, Republican leadership to 
ensure that we have a means of addressing the gentleman's concerns.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman suggesting that we will 
have a means to address this issue on the floor if, in fact, you bring 
up the education opportunity savings act as the gentleman described it?
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I 
am sure that the gentleman from Michigan and the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the Democratic leader, will have a discussion 
with the Republican leadership and, in particular, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Dreier) and the Committee on Rules is expected to, if 
we do have the time, to take up the education savings account, report 
out a full, fair, and responsible rule. I hope the gentleman will be 
satisfied with that outcome.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, that is encouraging to hear that we will 
have a full, fair, and responsible rule; and we look forward to seeing 
that.
  Finally, as the gentleman from New York knows on March 31, tomorrow, 
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve authorization expires, and given the 
success of Secretary Richardson, who is talking with many of our 
friends and allies around the world to increase production of oil so 
that we can bring down the price of gasoline at the pump and the 
heating oil prices, given his great success and the announcements that 
have been made over the last couple of days, why would we not want to 
reauthorize that before we left here?
  It seems to me that the reserve is a very important piece in this 
whole energy battle that we are engaged in. I would like an explanation 
from the gentleman on why we have failed to bring this up for 
reauthorization before we left here.
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman that the subcommittee 
chairman, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), has been working with 
committee Democrats to try and find a common solution, resolve mutual 
problems. I think it is fully the intention of the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Barton) and the House to try and find a resolution of these 
concerns so that we could reauthorize the Strategic Petroleum Oil 
Reserve, and at the same time address the high price of oil which, the 
gentleman correctly notes, has caused a great amount of discomfort or 
worse for people through home fuel oil and also at the gasoline pumps.
  I guess we are going to continue to see that Members will work 
together in a bipartisan fashion at the committee level. If those 
issues are resolved, I think we can be much more optimistic about 
seeing a reauthorization on the floor.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to ask my friend, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio) or my friend from California (Mr. 
Dreier), is it Glendale?
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, no.
  Mr. BONIOR. Is it Pasadena?
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, no.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, what is it? Will the gentleman tell me?
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, it is San Dimas.
  Mr. BONIOR. It is right next door, either one of those places.
  Mr. DREIER. It is not Mount Clements either.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, would either the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Lazio) or the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) apprise me if 
my colleagues are familiar with the bill H.R. 1649 that was introduced 
by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) and the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Armey) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay)?
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I cannot say.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, what is the bill?
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, it was an act that was introduced to abolish 
the Department of Energy. I guess the reason I raise it, and I raised 
it in connection with the failure to reauthorize the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve, is that when we look at both of those issues side by 
side running away from a very important issue that the American people 
are concerned with right now and then not wanting to authorize the 
Department of Energy, if actually wanting to abolish it, I just want to 
try to figure out what is happening on your side with regard to the 
energy policy.
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, as the 
gentleman knows, over the last year, the prices per gallon increased 
from about $10 per barrel to over $30 per barrel before there was any 
decisive, even comment or any action by the administration.
  Now we are beginning to see some of the supply interruption. Perhaps 
we have some more relief as a result of some of the oil-producing 
nations agreeing to increase their output. That will probably have more 
of an effect by increasing output and using our influence, our 
diplomatic efforts to ensure that our allies and friends increase oil 
production, than anything particularly we might do with the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve. But I also would say to the gentleman that I think 
it is the intention of working through some of the common interests in 
a bipartisan way and actually reauthorizing the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve.
  Mr. BONIOR. Can we expect that to maybe come to the floor soon?
  Mr. LAZIO. I would say to the gentleman that I think that probably 
depends on whether both Democratic and Republican Members can find 
common ground to allow that to come to the floor. But there are people 
that have concerns obviously about both oil prices and with the 
reauthorization.
  Mr. BONIOR. One of the ways we can find common ground is first to 
understand and agree upon the fact that we should not abolish the 
Department of Energy. Would the gentleman agree that that is probably a 
reasonable place to start, that we should not abolish the Department of 
Energy?
  Mr. LAZIO. If the gentleman will yield further, I would say that the 
issue of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the success of the 
Department of Energy through the many difficulties that it has had over 
the last couple of years, especially given some of the national 
security issues that have risen are two different issues. So I would 
not want anyone to believe that the flow of oil, or the interruption of 
supply, would have anything to do with this legislation that the 
gentleman is referencing.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend from Mt. Clemens for yielding. I would 
say that I do not see a correlation between the existence of the 
Federal Department of Energy and the need to bring about a diplomatic 
strategy to work with our friends in the Middle East and members of the 
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to bring about some sort 
of stabilization and a lowering of price and an increase in the supply 
which obviously is something that we seek.
  I will tell the gentleman personally, I do not see a correlation 
between the existence and the perpetuation of the Federal Department of 
Energy and the need for the administration using, as President Bush did 
in the early part of the last decade, putting together a 28-nation 
coalition to liberate the people of Kuwait. I do not think that it is 
necessary for a Federal Department of Energy to exist to pursue the 
goal that we all want to address right now, and that is to bring about 
a lowering of gasoline and fuel prices for the American people.
  Mr. BONIOR. Is the gentleman suggesting that he would agree with H.R. 
1649 and his colleagues, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) and the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kasich), to abolish the Department of Energy?
  Mr. DREIER. If the gentleman will yield further, I will tell him that 
in the committee on which my friend used to sit, we are clearly more 
than willing to look at a wide range of legislative proposals that come 
forward; and we are happy to look at that one if a committee were to 
report it out and they would bring it up to our committee.
  Mr. BONIOR. It is interesting, I might say, Mr. Speaker, and I will 
not belabor this, although I do want to yield to my friend from 
Massachusetts, that in the 5\1/2\ years that my colleagues have been in 
the majority here, they have failed to pass any legislation to protect 
our energy security and to

[[Page H1623]]

give consumers and commuters and truck drivers and Northeast homeowners 
and farmers any protection against these volatile oil prices.
  Now we have got this bill that wants to abolish the Department of 
Energy right on top of what I think is a significant, positive effort 
on the part of the administration and Secretary Richardson of getting 
the OPEC countries, as the gentleman from California just mentioned, 
and the non-OPEC countries like Venezuela, Mexico, and Norway to 
increase production by almost 2.8 million barrels per day which will 
and has brought down already the price at the pump.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the point that the gentleman from Michigan is 
making is a very valid one. The Senate finished consideration of EPCA, 
the Energy Policy Conservation Act, last September. The Committee on 
Commerce in the House finished it last September. So it has been 
sitting somewhere between the House and the Senate languishing for 6 
months right through this entire energy crisis. So the issue is why can 
we not, especially those of us in the Northeast who are very much 
dependent upon imported oil, know that the President as of midnight 
tomorrow night still has the authority to deploy the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve that is our weapon against OPEC if he deems it to be 
necessary?
  Why would we have allowed that authority to expire tomorrow? We could 
have passed it out of here this week, to give the President that 
authority. We deal with nations. These are the heads of governments 
that make these decisions. There is no free market in oil in the world. 
It is all done by governments acting as a cartel. If it happened in any 
industry in the United States, the Antitrust Division of the Justice 
Department would break it up. It is illegal. So our President has his 
own oil field, it is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to deploy, to use 
as a weapon, a bargaining tool with these other countries.
  That has helped. That has helped a lot in terms of Secretary 
Richardson's ability to be able to use that as part of the leverage and 
getting the highest possible number of barrels as a concession from 
OPEC over the last couple of weeks. The President is saying, ``I won't 
deploy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve if you give us a million, a 
million and a half, two million barrels of oil a day.'' As of tomorrow 
night, the President's authority to use this expires and all we are 
asking is when on the schedule will that bill be brought up so that we 
can give back to the President this leverage he needs in any 
negotiations with OPEC?

                              {time}  1445

  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, let me just comment briefly, and I think 
the gentleman from Massachusetts will understand that last year, 
September 30, 1999, we passed and sent to the President our Energy 
Conservation Policy Act. It was on the day that it expired. So we, with 
great alacrity and interest, submitted it to the President; and I think 
the gentleman from Massachusetts realized what the President did, he 
did not sign it. In fact, he waited 5 days.
  So the fact that this expires is not a major crisis, and I think he 
realizes that from the President himself not signing it when we gave it 
to him last year.
  To answer the gentleman from Michigan as to the point about the 
Department of Energy, the Department of Energy had nothing to do with 
the cost per gallon of energy either going from 72 under the Carter 
administration, the Democrat administration, down to 25 and lower; and 
now it is going up, notwithstanding the fact we give billions and 
billions and billions of dollars every day. Even the Secretary of 
Energy, Mr. Richardson, said we were caught napping.
  So after sending billions and billions of dollars year in and year 
out to this Department of Energy, there are people in Congress, 
including myself, who felt that perhaps this agency should be reformed. 
It is an institution that should be changed. It is an institution that 
is not meeting the demands. I think Secretary Richardson would probably 
agree today, since he admits that ``we were caught napping'' after all 
of this money we spent. I think most people in the House agree that the 
Department of Energy needs to be restructured.
  So that is my comment. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comment. I 
would just say in response to his last comment, though, that I am glad 
the gentleman now on his side is moving away from the question of 
abolishing the Department of Energy, because as the gentleman knows, 
the act that I referred to, that I cited, is called the Department of 
Energy Abolishment Act. The gentleman says he just wants to reform it 
now. So it is good to see there is some movement away from abolishing 
the department, which has, among other things under its jurisdiction, 
oil conservation programs, research and renewable energy conservation 
and research programs; and I could just go on and on and on, and I will 
with the help of my friend from Massachusetts.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I again thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I think people have to understand that part of the Contract with 
America is the pledge to abolish the Department of Energy. So the 
Department of Energy, in 1995, 1996, 1997, they were just fighting to 
exist, not to put together an energy policy that would make us 
independent of OPEC. Here we sit on the day before the President's 
authority expires, and we still have not produced a bill out here that 
we can vote on that can give him that authority to continue to keep 
that leverage strong against OPEC.
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. LAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for both of their 
comments, but I would not want the House to be left with the impression 
that somehow it is the House that conducts diplomatic efforts; it is 
the House that is involved in negotiating with oil ministers; that it 
is the House that has the discretion through Executive Order to release 
all or any part of the Strategic Petroleum Oil Reserve.
  Let us see if we cannot work together in a bipartisan fashion to 
actually come to a solution on this reauthorization; and hopefully, 
jointly, we can keep the pressure on the administration to continue to 
use more diplomatic efforts to increase production, because in the end, 
I think that is the best solution for American consumers and for 
businesses.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I think due to the spirit in which that was 
given we accept that, and we thank the gentleman for his constructive 
comments; and we look forward to working with him in the weeks ahead.

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