[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 70 (Monday, May 21, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H2378-H2385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA'S ENERGY CRISIS AND THE DEATH TAX
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments just made by the
gentleman from California.
I cannot believe the comments that I heard in the last 30 minutes
from the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and the gentleman from
California (Mr. Sherman). I have great respect for the gentleman from
New Jersey (Mr. Pallone). He and I have
[[Page H2379]]
shared this floor many nights on special orders. I have never heard the
kind of comments that I heard this evening from my colleague, the
gentleman from New Jersey. Let me quote exactly what he said.
Referring to the President of the United States, the gentleman from
New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) said, ``The only reason that the crisis exists
is because,'' referring to the President, ``he is getting special-
interest money.''
If the gentleman from New Jersey is suggesting, and I am not sure, I
do not think he is, I think this is way below the gentleman from New
Jersey; the gentleman from New Jersey is, in my opinion, a man of great
integrity; but if he is suggesting that the President of the United
States has accepted bribes from an oil company, he has an inherent
responsibility, in fact, he has a fiduciary responsibility, to tomorrow
morning go immediately to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to
the U.S. Attorney's Office and present the evidence that he has against
the President of the United States for bribery.
Short of that, he should never, ever make those kind of remarks on
this House floor, at least in my presence. There was no justification
whatsoever, and I second the gentleman's remarks.
This floor is an exercise of freedom of speech. This floor, Mr.
Speaker, is for us to debate among each other. I know that tempers get
short once in a while. I know we all believe intensely in our
positions. But before Members allege what is considered to be a high
crime, to me almost equal to crime of treason, and that is acceptance
of a bribe, Members darned well better have their evidence before they
do that to a colleague or to a President of the United States. That
evidence, in my opinion, is not in existence.
Let me conclude those comments by telling Members once again, I do
not think that is what the gentleman from New Jersey intended. It is
what he said. I do not think that is what he intended, because, as I
said earlier, in my opinion, the gentleman from New Jersey, while I
rarely agree with him, I consider him a gentleman. I consider him
professionally to be a man of integrity. But his comments this evening
were out of order.
Now let us talk about the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman). Of
course, the gentleman makes these remarks because he is unrebutted for
an hour. The gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), all of us, we
know on my side of the party we have some very partisan politicians. On
the Democratic side of the party, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Sherman) is among the most partisan politicians in these Chambers.
Now, there is nothing wrong with that. But I ask Members not to come
to these Chamber floors and pretend, or we should be very clear so we
do not pretend exactly where a person's position is politically. The
key here is to plan for the future of California. The key is not to
spend one's entire time up here trying to insinuate that the President,
and let me give a few quotes from the gentleman, that they want to
eliminate conservation.
I defy the gentleman from California to show me one Congressman,
Republican or Democrat, show me one Congressman who wants to eliminate
conservation. Just show me one, I say to the gentleman from California
(Mr. Sherman). There is not anybody on this House floor, there has
never been anybody on this House floor, and I doubt that there is ever
going to be anybody on this House floor that wants to eliminate
conservation.
That is the kind of exaggeration that creates the partisan battles,
or certainly does not move us forward in a positive direction to plan
for California's future.
Now let us talk about the accusations that somehow President Bush is
responsible, because after all, he has been in office 120 days or
something, a little over 100 days, that somehow he is responsible for
the problem in California.
I say to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), he sounded like
a defense attorney this evening: Blame everybody; make sure the
gentleman's client is protected and without blame, but blame everybody
else. We are not going to get anywhere around here doing that.
Let me point out, there are 50 States in this union. There is one
State suffering rolling blackouts, one State. It is California. There
is one State in the last 10 years that has refused to allow electrical
generation plants to be built in their State. That is California. There
is one State in the Union out of those 50 States that has refused to
have natural gas transmission lines. It is California. There is one
State that allowed deregulation, allowed the price caps to come off
electrical generation companies. It is California. Now they are
beginning to reap some of what they sowed.
I heard comments, and let me find it here, that we have been told,
apparently by the administration, we have been told to do everything
possible to make California suffer. I say to the gentleman from
California, I do not know one person on this floor, Democrat or
Republican, that really, truly wants California to suffer.
I know a lot of Congressmen like myself that would like the
leadership, the Governor of California, to quit blaming everybody else
and to help pull himself up by his bootstraps. But I do not think
anybody in here has said California ought to suffer. We want California
to learn from its lessons, and frankly, we are all learning from the
mistakes California made with deregulation. We are all learning from
that. There would have been other States that would have deregulated,
but they did first, and there are some problems with it.
{time} 2045
What we wanted to do with California is help, but you cannot help
shift all the blame to Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., California,
should not be the solution for your problems. In California, you need
to lift yourself up. You need a governor who is willing to say, all
right, we will put in generation facilities. All right, we are going to
have to pay the price, even though it is expensive. We are going to
have to pay the price to allow electrical generation plants to go in
there.
Let me tell my colleagues I have been to California. I think it is a
beautiful State, by the way. I like California, but I have been to your
airport and I have been to your hotels. You do not hesitate to raise
the price for tourists to pay for your stadiums down there and for your
recreational facilities.
I have gone to your airport and they add some kind of tax. I feel
like I am getting gouged. Let us take a look at what we are trying to
accomplish here. What we want to do is help plan for California's
future, but have the direction come from your governor of that State.
The governor of your State's time would frankly be much better spent,
instead of this blame game, getting down to brass tacks and figuring
out how to get a gas transmission line into that State, how to build
some electrical transmission lines in that State, how to build
electrical generation facilities in that State.
It would be a very serious mistake for any of my colleagues on this
floor, it would be a very mistake for us to really want California to
suffer. It would be a serious mistake for anybody on this floor to turn
their back on California. It would be a serious mistake not to look
into the allegations that perhaps somebody intentionally violated the
law by withholding a supply.
But with that said, it would also be a serious mistake not to allow
some electrical generation to be built in that State of California. It
would also be a serious mistake for us to say that we do not need to
look for more supplies.
I wanted to bring a chart up here. This is growth in the U.S. energy
consumption and it is outpacing production. This is what happened to
California years ago, drip by drip by drip. California under its
leadership, these are not the people, these are the people's elected
representatives, continued to oppose, while demand went up, supply was
stagnated in part because of the fact they will not allow additional
supply sources to come on board.
The result is exactly what is happening, and, frankly, we have to
take a serious look at it across the country. We are all going to
benefit from California's ills in that we will learn what not to do. I
do not think a State should deregulate their electrical business. I
think it is a mistake.
I have been opposed to deregulation. Here is our problem: This is the
energy production. At this career's growth's
[[Page H2380]]
rate, that green line, that is our energy production. It is flat. This
is our energy consumption. This is the gap. This is the projected
shortfall.
Now contrary to what the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) said
I do not know one Member of Congress in here who is opposed to
conservation. But the reality of it is conservation cannot fill that
entire gap. Look where we are. Conservation can make a big hit there.
Mr. Speaker, I gave a speech on this floor last week suggesting
everything from checking the direction that your ceiling fans are
turning to only changing your vehicle oil in your engine every 6,000
miles instead of every 3,000 miles. But the fact is, conservation
helps, and it is important. It makes common sense. It is good practice
for future planning in this country.
Conservation ought to be adopted on a permanent basis, but we also
have to face the reality that even with conservation, you still have a
gap in there. We have to produce more.
You say well, it is these big oil companies. And I cannot tell my
colleagues how many times I heard the gentlemen say big oil company,
big oil company. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) said it.
The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) said it. The gentleman from
California (Mr. Sherman) said it.
I will bet my colleagues that all three of them this evening right
now as I am speaking are probably driving home in a car. I doubt they
walked. When they get home, I will bet you they turned the lights on in
their house. If it is hot, I bet they have the air conditioning on. If
it is cold, I bet they have the heater on.
My guess is that my three colleagues are going to also take a shower.
My guess is it is not going to be with cold water, they probably will
have warm water, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
We get into this problem of exaggeration when you keep talking about
big oil and special interests money. We want to help plan for the
future of this country. We do not want to leave California abandoned
out there.
California, by the way, I say to colleagues is, I think, it is the
third or seventh, I think it is the third strongest economy in the
world, what is bad for California frankly in a lot of cases is bad for
the other 49 States, but by gosh, California has to help pull the
wagon.
They cannot ride the wagon all the time. They have to help pull the
wagon, and what I mean by that is, you cannot continue, California, to
depend on your neighbors for electrical generation, for natural gas
transmission, for electrical transmission.
I am not asking you to carry an unfair burden, California. I say to
the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) I am not asking the
gentleman to carry something unfairly. I am just saying, by gosh, if
you want to sit by the campfire at night, you ought to help gather the
firewood.
Instead of sitting by the campfire and saying well, keep the fire
warm but by the way let us not use as much firewood, well, then maybe
you ought to move away from the campfire instead of enjoying the
comforts of the campfire to continue.
I say to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), if you want to
enjoy the comforts of the campfire, by gosh, you can help gather some
wood and you can throw a log on once in a while. I do not think we need
a bonfire out there. I think we can have a campfire.
I was surprised by the partisan remarks that were made this evening.
And by the way, on the tax bill that passed out, judging from the
remarks of the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), this is a
Republican bulldozer going through the U.S. Capitol.
Mr. Speaker, that tax plan is going to be passed on a bipartisan
basis. Many of your colleagues, I say to the gentleman are going to
vote for this tax bill, and they ought to vote for this tax bill.
Many of your colleagues in the United States Senate, my guess would
be, will be voting for this tax bill.
This is a bipartisan vote we will be taking this week. Why? Because
it needs a bipartisan solution. What about the energy problem? That
needs a bipartisan solution.
Let me point out, that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) was
talking about how somehow the President was responsible for the
shortage of supply and power that may occur up in the Northwest. He
spoke, first of all, of the Western States. I can tell the gentleman
from Washington I am from a Western State.
As the gentleman knows, I represent the mountains of the State of
Colorado. So the gentleman does not speak for the entire Western United
States, but your problem in Washington State is not Washington, D.C.,
although Washington, D.C. is a problem for a lot of things. Your
problem in Washington State is something the President does not have a
lot of control over, and that is rainfall.
Take a look. In fact, I have a poster here to give the gentleman an
idea. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) speaks about the
Pacific Northwest, the second worst drought on record. That is not the
doings of President George W. Bush. The gentleman or the gentlewoman
that made that, if you have direct contact with them, you are doing
pretty good.
This is the second worst drought on record, and that is why the
mighty Columbia River is way down. That is where your power shortage is
coming from. It is not because Washington State refused to put in
transmission lines like California.
It is not because Washington State refused to build generation
facilities like California. Washington State, in fact, was prudent, and
Washington State did not deregulate their electrical generation. So for
Washington State, it is an act of nature that is creating some
problems.
By the way, I think these problems are nationwide frankly, and the
other 49 States, we actually are going to be fine with electrical
supply here in the next year or so. We have a lot of facilities that
are going on online.
My point, before I move on to the death tax, that I am saying to my
colleagues is nobody on this floor really wants to abandon California.
Sure, we all get upset with California. It is like as I said earlier,
if you are going out camping and you set up a campfire and you have one
member of your camping team that is not bringing any wood to the fire
but continues to sit around and enjoy the fire, does not help cook
breakfast but continues to eat breakfast, does not help wash dishes but
continues to use the dishes, yes, you get upset with them.
But does that mean that you abandon them somewhere in the mountains?
Of course, you do not. You try and sit down with them and say, look,
you are not doing your fair share. We need to plan for your future and
our future.
That is what we are saying to California. We want to plan with you,
but, by gosh, you have to do a little self help. And one of the best
things you can do for self help is get your governor off the airwaves
and tell the governor in the State of California to sit in the office,
put some pencil in paper and let us have some conservation. By the way,
California does exercise good conservation.
But there are some other things we can do. Let us get the governor
from California to approach us on a nonpartisan basis and come up with
some solutions.
Mr. Speaker, it appears that my colleague from South Dakota would
like to speak on this topic before I move on to the death tax.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).
Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, before the gentleman from Colorado (Mr.
McInnis) moves on to the death tax, I would like to echo a couple of
things that he was saying. And I too was in my office and I heard much
of the discussion of our colleagues on the other side prior to the
gentleman assuming your discussion here on the floor.
I just wanted to point out that this is the President's energy
proposal. It is about 170 pages long and I will put that next to the
last administration's energy proposal, which I cannot find, oh, that is
right. They did not have an energy proposal for the last 8 years.
This President has assumed leadership, has taken the initiative, has
put together a comprehensive, specific and detailed plan to help
address this country's energy problems.
And as the gentleman from Colorado noted earlier, you know we come
over here a lot of times and things get a little hot from time to time,
but this is
[[Page H2381]]
not a partisan issue. This is not a Republican problem or a Democrat
problem. This is an American problem.
President Bush has laid out an American solution. My colleagues came
out here and talked a lot about how it is heavy on oil, on fossil
fuels, and that sort of thing.
But if we look at the proposal specifically in here of the 105
specific recommendations in the President's plan: Forty-two of those
recommendations have to do with modernizing and increasing conservation
and protecting our environment; thirty-five of those recommendations
have to do with diversifying our supply of clean, affordable energy and
modernizing our antiquated infrastructure; twenty-five of the
recommendations help the U.S. strengthen its global alliances and
enhance national energy security; twelve of these recommendations can
be implemented by executive order; seventy-three of them are directives
to Federal agencies, and 20 are recommendations that are going to have
been acted on by Congress.
This is a specific plan and the balance of this plan, in fact, almost
half of the entire plan with respect to the recommendations have to do
with one conservation or other alternative sources of energy.
I come from South Dakota. We care a lot about ethanol. We think
ethanol is an important part in the solution to this country's energy
future. But we also understand that it is a bigger and more
comprehensive issue that is going to require an increase in supplies
not just of ethanol but of many of the other sources of energy that we
currently depend upon in this country.
But the point I would make to the gentleman from Colorado and just
agree with what he has said earlier is that this is something and South
Dakota cares deeply about what happens in California. California I
think also has been there for South Dakota in the past.
But if you look at the record of this Congress in reacting to
problems that have been created over a long period of neglect, and I
will use the example when I came to Congress in 1996, it was 2 years
after the 1994 Congress came here.
But we came here to try and deal with what had been 40 years of
overspending by Congresses that were controlled by liberals. We had
this huge debt and deficits piling up year after year after year. Well,
after a 5-year period now we have basically gotten our fiscal house in
order.
Welfare reform was another example of something that had been ignored
for years and years and years. We had a welfare program that was
spending billions and trillions of dollars and not solving any of the
problems. And so we came here, came up with welfare reform proposal
before my time. Actually that happened in 1995 or 1996 before I arrived
on the scene. But, nevertheless, it was a solution to a problem that
had been created by years and years and years of neglect.
Social Security and Medicare, the Federal Government and Congress had
for years and years and years been spending that. We have now walled
that off as of the last 3 years since we have had control of this
Congress and addressed a problem that had been ignored and neglected
for years and years and years by our friends on the other side.
This is a problem that has been created by years of neglect. We have
before us this proposal. I hope that this Congress will act on a number
of these recommendations, a proposal which is comprehensive. It is 170
pages long, which is detailed, which is specific, and which is balanced
in the approach that it takes.
{time} 2100
It calls on the need for the best and the brightest in this country
in the area of coming up with solutions that are conservation oriented,
those solutions that deal with renewables like ethanol and wind and
other things that are important to my part of the country, and creates
tax credits and tax incentives for development of those types of energy
alternative energy sources, and, yes, also look for more supply because
we just flat have to. If one looks at our growing dependence upon other
sources of energy from outside this country, we have no alternative.
So the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is exactly right. I am
disappointed to hear the rhetoric and the tone that is already
occurring on this floor, because we have a responsibility as the
Congress of the United States to work and to solve what is an American
problem. It is going to afflict everybody in this country.
I have been to the gentleman's district in Colorado. I know the
people that he represents care deeply about the price of gasoline. That
is about all I hear about in South Dakota these days. We have to come
up with solutions.
That is what this plan, the President has given us an opportunity to
work with something. This may not be the final product. We are going to
work through the Congress. This is open to discussion and to debate.
But to hear the other side get up here on this floor time after time
after time, speaker after speaker after speaker, and show no evidence
or no inclination or no desire to work in a bipartisan way, to try and
take a plan that has been presented by the President of the United
States, the first plan that we have seen, I might add, in many, many
years through the administration, the last two 4-year terms of that
Presidency in which their party controlled the White House, we now have
a President who has taken leadership, who has taken the initiative to
present a detailed and specific plan.
They may not like everything in here. I may not like everything in
here. But the reality is we now have a framework and something to work
with that gives this country some direction in the area of energy
policy, something that has been frankly lacking and absent in the last
8 years.
I, like the gentleman from Colorado, am not going to sit here and
tolerate and listen to people get up here and rail on and on and on
when this is a proposal that we have in front of us to work with and,
as I said earlier, in contrast to the one that we had the last 8 years,
which could be the equivalent of my empty hand, because we have not had
a proposal. We now have some specific direction.
We have a responsibility as a Congress to work together as
Republicans and as Democrats to try and solve the energy crisis in this
country. It is something that affects everybody in America. It affects
their pocketbooks in a very profound way.
The people in Colorado that the gentleman represents, the people in
South Dakota that I represent, we have a responsibility and an
obligation, I believe, as the Congress of the United States to come
together and to work in a constructive way, not in a destructive way
where we sit there and point fingers and holler and talk about
contributions from oil companies and how the special interests are
running this debate.
They know better than that, and the American people know better than
that. I believe the American people are going to rally behind the
efforts that are being made for the first time in a long time to
address what is a serious and perplexing and chronic problem in this
country that is desperately in need of a solution. We need to work
together toward that end.
I am glad that the gentleman from Colorado is here and is pointing
out some of these issues and look forward to working with him as well
as with my colleagues on the Democrat side, many of whom have gotten up
tonight and had nothing to offer but criticism.
Yet, I hope that, when it is all said and done, that we can come
together and work in a constructive way for the betterment of America
and do something that is meaningful in terms of addressing what is a
very, very serious crisis, an energy crisis that is affecting every
American no matter where you live. Whether it is in California or
Colorado or in South Dakota, we all need to work together to try and
solve this problem.
So I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado yielding to me and look
forward to working with him as we begin the process of trying to
implement solutions to this very serious problem.
Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. Just
to reiterate a couple of things, it is the first energy policy we have
had in 9 years. Why? Because we need to plan for the future of this
country, and we need to have some type of blueprint. We need to put
things up on the table
[[Page H2382]]
for discussion, not for obstruction policy or strategy, but for
discussion. That is exactly what this energy plan does.
I should say that the remarks, first of all, I want people to know
that, as we talk about this side of the aisle, the Democrats, obviously
I am a Republican, the Democrats, we have a lot of Democrats who are
working very constructively to help us put this plan together. We have
a lot of Democrats that want to work with us. But what we have heard
this evening is the liberal side of that party. All we heard was a
partisan attack.
Now, I realize that they are not going to join our efforts, which, by
the way, is a bipartisan effort, both Republicans an Democrats, to put
an energy policy into place. But at least they should refrain or at
least adjust the tone of their attacks that frankly cannot be
substantiated.
I mean, we heard comments tonight, I heard that this plan calls for
the complete, mind you, complete destruction of the Arctic National
Wildlife in Alaska, that it wipes out all types of conservation, wipes
out all efforts at conservation. I mean, these kind of exaggerations do
not get us anywhere.
What does get us somewhere, frankly, are the Democrats and the
Republicans, and there are a lot of them who are doing it as we speak,
are sitting down with this administration, coming up with a policy to
plan for our future.
One other point I would make, and then we probably ought to move on
to the death tax. But the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune)
brought up the dependency of this country on foreign supply of energy.
I mean, if one wants to put our environment at risk, and, by the way, I
am very sensitive about that, as my colleague knows, my district is a
beautiful district as is his; but if one wants to put an environment at
risk, if one wants to put the future generations of this country at
risk, one continues on the policy of increasing our dependency on
foreign oil.
Maybe the gentleman would like to comment on that. But I am telling
my colleagues, his point, that is the most dangerous thing we have got
out there. This thing in California is going to work itself out. Our
situation, we actually have lots of electrical supply coming on for 49
of the 50 States here in the next year and a half. This is going to
work out. But the kind of the iceberg under the water is this continued
inching up and dependence on dependency on foreign sources for our
energy needs.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. McINNIS. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Colorado is absolutely
right. Again, as he noted, he has an absolutely spectacular landscape
in his district. Like my State of South Dakota, most of the people in
my State care very deeply about the environment. Most of them tend to
be very conservation oriented to start with. That is part of the ethic
that comes in places like South Dakota.
Yet we have a very, very serious crisis. The gentleman from Colorado
has hit it exactly on the head; that is, the fact that today we are
dependent to the tune of almost 60 percent of all of our oil coming
into this country, or oil that we use in this country is coming from
sources outside the country. That is something that we cannot sustain
and that grows every year. It has grown actually, I think, since
President Clinton took office. It was about 40 percent. It is about 60
percent today.
So as I said earlier, we have had basically 8 years of neglect where
essentially Saddam Hussein has been Secretary of Energy in this
country. That has to change. That is exactly, I think, the realization
that people in this country have come to.
It certainly is, I think, evidenced in the President's proposal which
acknowledges the fact that we have to do something to increase our
supply in this country, and we have to do it in an environmentally
friendly way. The new technologies that enable us to develop some of
those oil resources I think are remarkable and will make a profound
difference in where we head in the future.
But the gentleman from Colorado is absolutely right. This crisis
exists today. If we do not as a country become energy independent,
become energy self-sufficient, find more and more ways of producing
more energy in this country, and if we have to continue to depend upon
very unreliable and unstable areas of the world, I think for our energy
supplies, we are going to be in a world of hurt down the road.
So I look forward to the opportunity again to work in a bipartisan
and constructive way to try and solve this problem. It is a problem. It
is a crisis. It needs to be dealt with. The President has laid down the
first marker. He has put something on the table. We may not all like
it. I mean, the Democrats may come in here, and they may not like every
aspect of this; but at least we have a plan.
It is comprehensive. It is specific. It is detailed. It addresses
conservation. It addresses renewables. It addresses development,
exploration in a balanced and reasonable way of our oil resources. That
is where we start. Let us get to work and start attacking this problem,
because it has been overlooked for far too long.
I know the gentleman wants to get on and discuss the death tax.
Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's time this
evening. I say to the gentleman from South Dakota, it is kind of fun,
because when we speak about conservation, there are lots of neat
things. I told my staff over the weekend, I said, why do you not all
put your heads together over the weekend, each one of us, including
myself, let us come up with 10 separate items of what we can suggest to
our constituents of ways we can conserve and make them as painless as
possible.
For example, as I mentioned earlier, most car manuals, the engineers
that design the cars, build the cars and test the cars, in most car
owners' manuals, you will find you should change the oil in your car
every five or 6,000 miles. Yet, if you pick up your newspaper and
advertising, you will see the quick lube outfits and so on market you
and convince the American public that you need to change your oil every
3,000 miles. You do not have to change it every 3,000 miles. Follow the
owners' manual. That is painless. Not only is it painless, you can put
money in your pocket.
So I just did this to reiterate the emphasis of the gentleman from
South Dakota on what the President has said about conservation.
Conservation can begin to close that gap that we have right here in the
blue that the gentleman spoke of. If we continue to allow this to go
without additional supply and without conservation, our dependency on
foreign oil, of course, increases.
So I will wrap it up with that. Again, I appreciate the gentleman's
time.
Mr. Speaker, I intended to come to the House floor this evening. Last
week, I had, really, the privilege to meet two wonderful and very, very
brave families. Ken and Bambi Dixie from Parker, Colorado. Ken and
Bambi lost their two youngest sons tragically as a result of a
poisoning last year, as a result of carbon monoxide coming out of the
back end of a houseboat, as a result of a defect that could have been
avoided, should have been avoided, should have never existed in the
first place. Their friend Mark Tingee and his wife, Polly, were also on
the boat at this time that this horrific tragedy took place.
Now, why are they courageous? A lot of us in this country have
suffered tragedy. I do not know a lot of people that have suffered
tragedy as the Dixies suffered. But, nonetheless, the courageousness of
this couple was that they were willing to come out and relive this
tragedy over and over again last week here on Capitol Hill with
testimony in hopes of saving some lives this summer so that, when
people are recreating out there in the lake, they are not poisoned as a
result of houseboat usage, on improper venting on carbon monoxide.
So tomorrow evening, Mr. Speaker, I hope to have an opportunity to
address my colleagues and go in some detail. I hope they listen because
the message we need to take back to our constituents about the
possibility of this defect, the existence of it, and the tragic results
of it is very important. Thank goodness we had somebody as brave as the
Dixie family and as brave as the Tingee family to come forward. So I am
going to speak on that tomorrow night.
[[Page H2383]]
I want to spend the balance of my time talking about the death tax.
When I take a look at our tax system in this country, I am not sure one
can find a tax that is more punitive, that is more unjustified than
what is called the death tax.
Now, the death tax is imposed upon the assets or the property that an
individual has accumulated during their lifetime. Now, this is property
upon which taxes have already been paid. This is not property where,
for some reason or another, taxes were evaded or taxes were avoided.
This is property in which taxes have already been paid. In other words,
the due tax owed to the government has been paid.
The tax bill, zero, until the moment of your death. Upon the moment
of your death, the government comes into you, to your property, to your
future generations, and as a punitive measure takes your property or
takes a good share of your property if you qualify for the death tax.
Now, the death tax came about theoretically to help finance World War
I. But where you really see the fundamental origins of the death tax is
when this country was moving towards kind of a socialistic angle, and
they were angry at the Carnegies and they were angry at J. P. Morgan
and they were angry at the Rockefellers. They said we should go and
redistribute wealth. That is what really started this ball rolling.
But now what has happened is a country, which is the greatest country
in the history of the world, our country, now our country is one of the
leading countries in the world, discourages small family farms or
family businesses from going from one generation to the next
generation.
Now, why do I say small? Because it was with some interest I noticed
that the father of Bill Gates, Mr. Gates we will call him, it is not
Bill Gates, I am not sure he agrees with his father, but Bill Gates,
Sr., very, very wealthy man spoke about how important it was to keep
the death tax in place.
Do my colleagues know where he spoke from? He was speaking from the
foundation offices. What does that mean? Well, the foundation was
created to help avoid these death taxes. So the wealthy, some of the
wealthiest people in this country have already pretty well protected
themselves against this punitive measure.
It is the small. It is the small kid on the block. It is the farmer
or the rancher or the contractor who has a bulldozer, a dump truck and
a backhoe; and, all of a sudden, one day, they are doing business, and
because of some tragedy, he loses his life or she loses her life. The
next day, the next generation is being taxed, so that they cannot
continue the business.
{time} 2115
The wealthy families in this country, and I have no objection to
wealth, I think that is one of the great incentives that has made this
country a superpower, but the fact is the wealthiest people of this
country have prepared for the death tax. They have teams of lawyers and
they have done estate planning, but there are a lot of families who
have not had either the resources or the knowledge of the tax law to be
able to help protect the next generation.
I was asked a question not long ago when I was down in Durango,
Colorado, and they said, you know, in this country, nobody should have
the right to inherit. Well, I guess if there is not a will, there
should be a right to inherit, it should not go to the government.
However, although you may not have the right to inherit, you certainly
ought to have the right to bequeath, to give this property to people of
your choosing, and most of the time, all of us would like to give that
property to our children.
I will tell you about my personal experience. A goal of my wife and
myself, our dream in life is to give something to our children. Not
just give it to them, they are going to work hard, and they have worked
hard. In fact, I graduated two of them from college last week. I have
the other in college. I am pretty proud of them, as my colleagues are
of their children. But during our life, we hope to give them some kind
of a little start like my parents helped me. They gave me a lot of
love, and that is what we are giving to ours. My father and mother had
six children. My mother and father worked very hard in their careers
and they were able to provide a college education to their children,
and then we were on our own. All of us want to do that. And why should
a death tax step in; why should the government come in and destroy the
opportunity for one generation to help the next generation?
I thought I would just read a couple of examples here. Years ago, Tim
Luckey's great grandfather started a farm in Tennessee. When his
grandfather and then his father inherited the farm, both of them paid
inheritance tax. Someday Tim hopes to inherit the farm, and when he
does, he will have to pay the tax again. Notice I say ``again.'' If
party A owns a farm and dies, and party B inherits the farm, then party
B pays those taxes. But if party B all of a sudden dies, say a year
later in some kind of accident, the property now is inherited by C, and
the property is taxed once again. There are multiple layers of tax on
that property.
And I am not talking about like Mr. Gates and some of his cronies
that signed that letter. We are not talking about the super wealthy. We
are talking about a lot of people in this country today, farmers and
ranchers and small business people. They have paid their taxes and they
are going to be punished as a result of this death tax. But we are
about to eliminate it. That is the good news, both Democrats and
Republicans, not the liberal wing of the Democratic party. I did not
say all the Democrats. I understand that. But the conservative
Democrats and the Republicans have all joined together. We are in the
process of beginning the repealing of the death tax, and that is part
of that tax package that is going to go to the President by Memorial
Day.
Brad Efford owns a lumber yard in Columbia, Missouri. He pays $36,000
a year just for a life insurance policy so his children can inherit the
yard unincumbered. What is interesting is the untold number of
businesses, as this article goes on, the untold number of businesses
that prior to an owner's death are sold precisely to avoid the death
tax. By selling before death, a small business owner may avoid the
death tax in exchange for paying a capital gains tax at the rate of 20
percent.
That is important to know. What we are saying is if you have the
business upon your death, we are going to grab it, or force you to sell
it. Or if you like to, you go ahead and go out and sell your lumber
yard, or we are going to force you to go out and sell that small
contracting business you have.
When I was in Durango, Colorado, speaking to this group, where the
question, do you have a right to inherit came up, another couple, who
were interior decorators, and they were pretty proud of the business
they had built up, it was a wife-and-husband team, they had put
together apparently a fairly lucrative interior decorating business in
this small town of Durango. What the couple did not realize is that if
either one of them were killed in an accident, and the business went to
the remaining spouse, or if both of them were killed, let us say both
were killed, as happens in this country or throughout the world, if
both of them were killed, that interior decorating business they worked
so hard, if they had a couple of children beginning to learn the
business, that business would evaporate because of the need to pay
those taxes.
Let me read a couple other letters. I am very sensitive about what is
happening to our open spaces in the State of Colorado, up in our
mountains. Here is another letter. ``The fate of 1,810 acres of ranch
land featuring stunning views and prime elk habitat north of Carbondale
will be determined at auction. The ranch now belongs to the son and
daughter of the owner. The estate taxes are basically forcing this
sale. They were just raising cows on it, but with the value of the land
as it now is, we can't afford to raise cows. We have to sell the land
just to pay the death taxes.''
Let me go on. This is from Anthony Allen. Mr. Allen writes: ``Mr.
McInnis, I am writing to encourage you to keep the repeal of the `Death
Tax' on the front burner. As an owner of a family business, it is
extremely important that upon our death, the business will be able to
be passed to our daughter and our son, both of whom work in the
business, without the threat of having to liquidate to pay inheritance
taxes
[[Page H2384]]
on assets that have already been taxed once. Of all the taxes we pay,
this tax is truly double taxation.'' It is punishment.
``I am aware that several wealthy people, i.e. William Gates, Sr.,
George Scoros, have come out against the repeal of the death tax. This
is one of the most self-serving demonstrations I have ever seen. They
have theirs in trusts, foundation, offshore accounts and will pay no
taxes,'' or limited taxes. ``Whatever their political motivations are,
they certainly don't represent or speak for the vast majority of
business owners or farmers in this country.''
Now I have heard some people say, well, look, only the top 2 percent
are going to pay this tax. But look what it does to a community, and I
could give hundreds of examples. Go into a community like the community
in my district, when we had a person who was the largest employer, the
largest contributor to his local church, the largest owner of real
estate, the largest bank accounts in town, and they hit that family
with the death tax.
Do my colleagues think that money that went to the government stayed
in that small community in Colorado, where previously it had helped the
church and the bank and the people with jobs and the real estate
market, et cetera, et cetera? No, that money is transferred. The bulk
of it goes straight to Washington, D.C. for redistribution somewhere in
the country. And I would bet money that not one single penny goes back
to that community. So no one should be bamboozled on this top 2
percent. Take a look at what it does to families.
John Happy writes this letter. John, thanks for writing. ``Dear
Scott: I wish there were some way I could help get this death tax
eliminated. It is the most discriminatory and socialistic tax
imaginable. I can't, for the life of me, understand how this tax was
ever passed in our system to begin with. How can anybody advocate
taxing somebody twice? I don't care,'' and this is his quote. This is
what John says. ``I don't care if it's a millionaire or a pauper, it is
not the government's money. The taxes have already been paid.'' It is
not the government's money. The taxes have been paid. ``Why should a
family working for 45 years and paying taxes on time every year be
forced into this position? Sincerely, John.''
Marshall Frasier writes me a letter. ``Dear Scott: I was encouraged
by the President's fight on the death tax and the repeal of that. We've
operated a family partnership since the 1930s. My parents died about 5
years apart in the 1980s and the estate tax on each of their one-fifth
interest,'' listen to this, ``the estate tax on each one-fifth interest
was three to four times more than the original cost of the ranch.''
Three to four times more than the family member paid to get their share
of the ranch. ``Eliminating the death tax and reducing tax rates will
go a long ways towards helping retain open space, providing jobs, and
allowing one generation's business to go on to the next generation.''
You know, this is a great country we live in, but the United States
of America should have the policy of encouraging family business to go
from one generation to the next generation. The United States of
America is about to adopt a policy to repeal the death tax so that one
family can have their dreams alive so that upon their death, no pun
intended, that upon their death, the next generation can carry on for
maybe the next generation. It is fundamentally important for the
foundation of our country that we encourage family activities, family
businesses to go from one generation to the next.
Let me go on to another one. This is a college student who writes me
this letter, Nathan Steelman. ``Dear Mr. McInnis: I am a college
student at the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo, which is in
your district. My parents and grandparents are involved in a typical
family farm, a farm that has been in the same family for 125 years.
``My grandpa is 76 years old, and he is in the last years of his
life. My parents have been discussing the situation for the past
several months. My parents worry about this death tax. They worry about
how are they going to keep the farm running once grandpa passes away.
The eventual loss of grandpa will trigger this tax upon my family. My
parents hope they can pay the tax without selling part of the family
operation that they have worked so hard in maintaining over the years.
The outcome doesn't look very good.
``Farmers and ranchers are having a tough enough time keeping family
operations running the way it is. Statistics show that 70 percent of
all family businesses do not survive a second generation, and 87
percent don't survive the third. My family, Mr. McInnis, has worked
very hard to keep the family farm running this long. We feel as if we
are being penalized for the death of a family member. From what I
understand, the opposition is concerned about what many of the
individuals who are affected by the death tax are those with very
wealthy businesses. Statistics show, however, that more than half of
all the people who pay death taxes had estates worth less than $1
million. My family falls in that category. It just doesn't seem fair to
me, Mr. McInnis.
``Mr. McInnis, my family's farm is not located within your district,
but when I moved to Pueblo, I felt like I needed to express concerns to
somebody. This death tax should be abolished.''
Chris Anderson, another young man. ``I'm 24 years old. I currently
run a small mail order business. I'm not a constituent of yours, I
reside in New Jersey. However, I listened with great interest as you
spoke on the death tax not long ago. In all likelihood, I will not face
the problems you are outlining, at least not in the near future. I am
not in line to inherit a business. My families have no wealth. However,
I'm soon to be married, and I look forward to having a family, and
perhaps one day my children will want to follow in my footsteps. I hope
and pray they will not face the additional grief caused by this death
tax.
``A 55 percent tax is at best a huge burden on a family business and
the loved ones of the deceased. At worst, it can be the death blow that
ruins what could otherwise have been a future for another generation.
``This letter is not a plea for your help. I just want you to know
that although I'm not a victim of this tax, I appreciate the effort
against it. I firmly believe, and have always believed, that success in
family is firmly rooted in our country. I spent a few years working for
a small family business, not just myself, but several workers depended
on the income they derived from that business. So it's more than just
the owners, it's also the people that work for these businesses. Hope
your constituents recognize how important this is to repeal the death
tax.''
Well, Chris Anderson, I have got good news for you. Chris, we are
about to do it.
{time} 2130
The President's tax plan has by now passed the Senate. It will come
to the House tomorrow, and we will put some conferees together. This
marks a special moment for those of us who care about a future
generation and those of us planning for our own family future. We are
about to see the death knell of that unfair and punitive death tax.
It is about time. It is about time that this country finally
recognized what a rotten policy it was to put a tax in that taxed you
upon your death, that prevented in many cases small farms and small
businesses from going from one generation to the next, that sent out a
terrible message, a message that suggests that the transfer of wealth
is what creates capital, instead of the innovation of products. I am
pleased to be a part, and I congratulate those Democrats that have
joined us.
Mr. Speaker, by the way, I want the gentleman to know that by
Memorial Day all of us on this floor will have an opportunity to once
and for all repeal the death tax. I urge every one of my colleagues to
vote to get rid of that death tax. If you do not, I hope that you have
a good reason why you decided that this country should continue to tax
somebody upon death.
Mr. Speaker, my time is about up. Let me conclude with three quick
remarks: One, I am pleased we are getting rid of the death tax.
Number two, to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), and the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. Inslee), partisan,
[[Page H2385]]
highly emotionally charged statements of special interests, et cetera,
et cetera, are not going to help California. We have to come together
as a team to help California, and we are willing to do it as long as
you are willing to pitch in. If California wants to pitch in, we ought
to help them out of this situation.
Finally, colleagues, I hope tomorrow you have time to sit and listen
to my remarks about the Dixie family and the terrible tragedy that they
went through; but the bravery and the courageousness that they, along
with the Tingee family, have been able to show as an example so that
hopefully this tragedy will not be repeated this summer as that tragedy
unfolded last summer for the Dixie family.
____________________