[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 96 (Wednesday, July 11, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3951-H3957]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             NIGHTSIDE CHAT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kerns). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.


                    Honoring our Fallen Firefighters

  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few moments of my 
Special Order to address a very sad situation that occurred yesterday 
in Winthrop, Washington State. As my colleagues know, this time of year 
is the time of year in our Nation across the Nation that we face 
horrible forest fires. Most of the time, we are able to conquer those 
fires through the able leadership of the Forest Service, the BLM, our 
professional fire departments, our volunteer fire departments and 
volunteers across the country. But every once in a while the fire gets 
the best of us, as it did in Storm King Mountain in Glenwood Springs, 
Colorado, the town that I was born and raised in.
  I was in Storm King at the time of the incident and I remember the 
situation very well. I remember the horrifying fire that took Storm 
King Mountain. I remember the horrible tragedies and the tears of the 
young children and the widows and the mothers and the fathers and all 
the families and the friends and the shock of that community. We had 
hoped that Storm King Mountain in Glenwood Springs, that the incident 
would never repeat itself, but we knew at some point in time that it 
would, because it is almost like part of a fate of fighting fires. Over 
a period of time, we are going to have casualties. It is a war of its 
own, really. We think about it, thinking about a fire that is 
unpredictable, in some cases; some cases it is predictable, an enemy 
that has no discrimination as far as who it picks to destroy. We see it 
destroy animals, we see it destroy mountains.
  We know that basically, it is a force that can erupt, just like the 
force erupted yesterday. Yesterday we had a fire of about 5 acres and 
we had what we call the blowup. The thing that scares anybody dealing 
with fires, the worst condition that we can have are the conditions 
that accumulate in the incident called fire blowup. That means we have 
low humidity, we have very dry timber, and we have a wind that is 
unexpected that comes in. This fire which burns 5 acres over some 
period of time exploded from 5 acres to 2,005 acres in a matter of 
moments. These firefighters that lost their lives yesterday, 4 of them, 
had no chance. By the way, I understand we lost another firefighter who 
was a pilot on a slurry bomber at another fire; not this fire, but at 
another fire somewhere in the northwest as well.
  So my words of honor this evening are for all 5 of those 
firefighters. But I am only knowledgeable on the incident of the 4 
firefighters who lost their lives yesterday. I would like to mention 
their names. Tom Craven, Tom was 30 years old. He was from Ellensburg, 
Washington. Karen L. Fitzpatrick. Karen was 18 years old, of Yakima. 
Devon A Weaver. Devon was 21 years old of Yakima. Jessica L. Johnson. 
Jessica was 19, of Yakima.
  Tom, Karen, Jessica and Devon 2 days ago were alive. Two days ago, 
when our country called upon them to respond to a fire, they did so 
without hesitation. Now, despite the young age and, in fact, this was 
one of the first fires, or not the first fire for one of those 
individuals, despite the age, they received training. And at some 
point, one has to fight their first fire. At some point, one has to 
pick up actual field experience.
  Almost every firefighter we have had in the history of this country 
gets through those first few fires. In fact, almost all of our 
firefighters are able to retire, or at least leave it without a 
fatality. But that was not meant to be the case for these 4 young 
people. We lost a lot of spirit. We lost a lot of youth. Two days ago, 
we did not have families in mourning, we had families who were excited 
that their children, in most cases, and I am sure in this case, were 
doing what they dreamed of doing for a long time, and that is going out 
and taking on fire, and going out and helping our country in a time of 
need. Going out and literally saving communities, saving animals, 
saving vegetation, saving our mountains. We have seen it. We have seen 
it throughout our country, what these people do. I saw it at Storm King 
Mountain in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, about 7 years ago.

  So my comments tonight are intended to be in honor of these 4 
firefighters. In fact, I expand that beyond those 4 firefighters to the 
fifth firefighter who I understand lost their life yesterday, to all 
firefighters across the Nation. To those firefighters who today cannot 
of course hear these words because they are camped out on the side of a 
mountain fighting a fire somewhere in Colorado or fighting a fire in 
Oregon or Washington or out there in California. These are gutsy 
people, and they carry out a mission that takes a lot of risk. They 
know the risk. They go into it with full knowledge. But I guess if one 
is a young spirit, one always goes into it thinking, I can overcome, I 
can get by it, but they did not get by it, and we should recognize them 
for the hero status that is properly bestowed upon them.
  I can say to the families of these 4 deceased, our Nation, the United 
States of America, owes your family a great deal of gratitude, that we 
consider these lost firefighters heroes, the way the word ``hero'' 
should be used, not for some celebrity sports figure, but for a figure 
to me that is much more of a hero than any movie star or sports figure 
could ever be, and that is these 4 young people who gave their lives 
yesterday for the United States of America.


                      Energy Crisis in California

  Mr. Speaker, I would like to move on to my topic discussion. As 
usual, as my colleagues know, we have had preceding speakers here on 
the floor, and it was interesting when I listened to my good friend, 
the respected gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) and the respected 
gentleman from California (Mr. DeFazio). Both, most of the time, seem 
to be fairly knowledgeable on the subjects that they address, but I 
have disagreements with the statements that they made this evening. I 
was surprised that the gentlemen from California, when they talked 
about the energy shortage that they have had in California, as has 
become typical with some of the people out of California, blame 
everybody else; blame everybody else.

[[Page H3952]]

  If we listen to the gentlemen from California this evening, or if we 
listen to the gentleman from the northwest, one would think that 
everybody in this Nation is to blame for the shortage, the energy 
crisis that they have experienced in California, that the blackouts in 
California have nothing to do with the political leadership of the 
State of California. That the energy blackouts in the State of 
California have nothing to do with the fact that they have not been 
able to build a power generation plant in California for years and 
years and years. The fact that they have an energy crisis in California 
has nothing to do with the attitude of some people out there in that 
State that say, do not build in my State, do not build in my backyard. 
We do not need electrical generation plants. We do not need gas 
transmission lines in our State. Let the other States generate it and 
we will buy it from them.
  It was interesting to hear that the gentleman in the northwest is 
blaming what he calls the greedy companies. Well, I have seen plenty of 
greed in my life, and perhaps that is one of the contributing factors, 
but do not continue to run away from the fact that it was poor policy 
in California. I say California versus the northwest, because in the 
northwest it was not necessarily poor policy. In the northwest, they 
have a minor problem. The Columbia River is going dry. They have had a 
drought. They did not get the rain or the moisture that they expected, 
so they were not able to generate the hydropower which, by the way, is 
very clean power, a very clean way to generate energy. So the northwest 
is a little unique.
  But let me focus in on California. They did not have a river go dry 
on them. What happened out there is that they refused to accept the 
responsibility, especially the political leaders in California, to look 
to the future, to have a vision for the future, to know that they have 
to provide energy for their constituents.

  Now, I also heard the gentleman say, whacko environmentalists, that 
those who have criticized the State of California say it is because of 
whacko environmentalists. Well, there are some whacko 
environmentalists, there are some whacko developers. But putting that 
aside, the fact is that California has got a lot of balanced, 
reasonable environmentalists who understand the fact that they need 
clean generation of power. But the leadership in California, whether it 
is at the local level or the State level or the governor's level, have 
refused to allow it to occur. They kind of brought it upon themselves.
  Mr. Speaker, I know that the gentleman from California says he was 
tired of hearing people say, California brought it upon themselves. 
Well, let me say how interesting it is that out of 50 States, 
California stands alone. Do they in California not think that the 
political leaders in California had a little something to do with the 
problems that they are facing out there?
  Now, my colleague mentioned, well, several of his colleagues have 
said, the heck with California, that is their problem, let them suffer. 
That is not the attitude of this Congressman. I think California is a 
very important State in our Nation. I do not think we can just walk 
away from California. But it is awful frustrating for those of us who 
want to help the State of California to see that there are those in 
California who are too stubborn or too lazy or have an idealogical 
philosophy that they will not even pull themselves up by their own 
bootstraps, that some in California will not provide self-help. That is 
what the problem is. We cannot walk away from California. This is a 
nation. This is a nation of 50 States. We are like brothers and 
sisters. We are tied together. It is a good union of being tied 
together.
  But the fact is, when somebody is not pulling their load, we have to 
be frank about it and say, you are not pulling your load. It is like 
pulling a wagon up a hill. If we have somebody that is supposed to be 
pulling and they continually jump in the back and ride the wagon and 
you say to them, hey, Johnny, you got to get out of the wagon, you got 
to help pull it. Johnny gets out and says well, the whole reason I have 
to get out of this wagon is because the rest of you are not pulling 
hard enough. That is exactly what California is saying and that is 
exactly what some of my colleagues from California, especially the 
gentleman who spoke earlier, and that is a good analogy. We have said 
to the gentleman from California, look, we are not going to let the 
wagon go, we still have to get this wagon to the top of the hill, but 
you have to get out of the wagon and help pull the wagon up the hill. 
Do not just sit there and complain about how abused you are because the 
rest of us asked you to get out of the wagon to help us pull the wagon 
up the hill. Get out of the wagon, get off your duff and help the rest 
of us.
  Mr. Speaker, ever since I was young my folks took us camping. My 
district is the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, born and raised, multi-
generations in Colorado. My folks had a little rule. That is, if you 
went camping with them and you wanted to enjoy the campfire in the 
early mornings when it was quite chilly, as we know it gets, my 
district is the highest in the Nation, so it gets cool there in the 
mornings, or cold. So if you want to enjoy the camp fire, guess what 
you got to do? You got to help gather the firewood.
  In California, it is the same thing. If you want to have enough 
energy, not just for this generation, but for future generations, you 
got to help gather the firewood. You got to help build electrical 
generation facilities. You have to plan natural gas transmission lines 
in your State. You have to be serious about conservation. To 
California's credit, let me say that this energy problem that we have, 
conservation can make a big dent in it, and California does deserve 
credit. In the last couple of months, the citizens of California have 
been responsive to conservation issues, although I am concerned that as 
this energy problem begins to resolve itself, people will put 
conservation along the side. I think in this Nation, all of us, every 
American, needs to adopt conservation on a permanent adoption basis.

                              {time}  2245

  Conservation is important. But California, do not expect the rest of 
us not to be frustrated if they are not going to help themselves get 
out of this mess. Do not continue to blame the President. That is what 
Gray Davis, the Governor out there, did for some period of time. When 
he found out that was not working, he blamed the greedy companies down 
in California. Then he threatened to seize the companies, like it was 
some type of socialistic government that we operate in this country. 
Everything except themselves they have blamed for this crisis.
  I am saying to the leaders and I am saying to the Governor of the 
State of California and I am saying to my good colleagues here on the 
floor from California who are taking these issues up about how badly 
treated California is, we want to help, but they have to help, too. 
Simply going up and saying, ``In 2 weeks I am going to show up in San 
Diego and cut the ribbon for a power generation company, now pat me on 
the back, and by the way, you are responsible for our power crisis,'' 
that does not cut it, California. We want to help, but they have to 
help themselves.
  How do they help themselves? The entire Nation can help itself with 
conservation and alternative fuels, those things. But alternative fuels 
really are something of the future. Today if we took all of the 
alternative energy in the world, all of the alternative energy in the 
world, and we put it all into the United States of America, we are 
talking about 3 percent of our power needs, 3 percent of our energy 
needs.
  So clearly, alternative energy is going to be what the generation 
behind myself, my children's generation, my three kids and their 
generation, they are going to be primarily dependent on that like we 
are dependent on fossil fuels for our generation, and the two 
generations preceding us were dependent upon it.
  That is going to be important. But in the meantime, what do we do for 
the current generation? We have to do a couple of things. California 
has to allow generation facilities to be built on a reasonable basis.
  The gentleman from California, as supported by the gentleman from 
Oregon, seemed to suggest that we set aside, or people on both sides of 
the aisle say that the suggestion is that we set aside their 
environmental regulations and safeguards and build generation 
facilities wherever we want. They want to sound like heroes, that, ``We

[[Page H3953]]

are not going to let these environmental regulations be set aside. Why 
should we destroy our environment, like everybody outside of California 
wants us to do?''
  That is absurd on its face. We can build generation facilities that 
are balanced. We can build generation facilities that have an 
acceptable impact on the environment. I am not asking, and I do not 
think many of my colleagues, are asking for the State of California to 
drop all of their environmental laws. I do not know anybody in here who 
really is calling the mainstream environmental community in California 
wackos. I do not think they are wackos at all, and that is a direct 
quote from the gentleman from California who had spoken previously, 
about an hour ago.
  What we are saying to California is, hey, there is a balance with the 
environmental regulation. There is a balance with the zoning. They are 
going to have to have a power line in somebody's backyard in order for 
everybody's backyard to enjoy power. They have to be reasonable.
  It is unreasonable for California to be the only State in the last 
10, 15, 20 years that has not allowed an electrical generation power 
facility to be built in their State. California, is it not a little odd 
that they are one out of 50? Is it not a little odd that they are now 
the one out of 50 that is suffering the crisis out there?
  The rest of the country is not in an energy crisis. Now, we have 
gotten a very clear warning, no doubt about it, but we are not in an 
energy crisis. Why? Because the other States have taken a more 
reasonable approach than has the political leadership of the State of 
California.
  I am telling the Members, in my opinion, the Governor of California 
has taken absolutely the wrong direction on how to solve the problem. 
First of all, about 2 or 3 or 4 weeks ago, maybe 5 weeks ago, at the 
height of the market, the Governor finally decides he is going to sign 
long-term contracts, so he has bound the people of California into 
long-term contracts at the highest possible price that we have seen in 
any number of years for electrical power. So if they think they are 
going to get rate relief in California, citizens of California, through 
my colleagues here, they are not.
  The second thing is, the Governor of California has tried to say to 
the people, let us put on price caps. In other words, they say, let us 
artificially lower the price of the power. Let us not have them pay 
what the power actually costs to produce, the price that allows for 
some margin for reinvestment for the next generation, but let us 
subsidize the power price by either selling bonds, which is what the 
Governor of California has done, he has indebted in billions, by 
billions of dollars future generations to pay for this generation's 
power.

  If I was talking to the Governor, I would say that that is the wrong 
approach. First of all, this generation ought to pay for this 
generation's power. Furthermore, this generation has an obligation to 
exercise some type of leadership, some type of responsibility, some 
type of vision for the next generation. We need to start planning for 
their energy needs.
  California can join in and do it with us. Let me reiterate, I do not 
think California should be left alone. California, if it were a country 
of its own, would be the sixth most powerful country economically in 
the world. California has a lot of American citizens. It is a big part 
of our Union. It would be a deep, deep mistake for anybody on this 
House floor to turn their back and walk away from California.
  But it is not a mistake for anybody on this floor to look at our 
colleagues from the State of California and say, quit blaming everybody 
else, Governor. Quit blaming everybody else, newspaper editorials out 
there. Accept some of the blame. Consider and accept the fact that they 
have to have self-help, and let us move forward as a team.
  That is my message to California: We want to help them pull the wagon 
up the hill, but they need to help us pull the wagon up the hill. For 
10 or 15 years they have gotten a free ride by riding in the back of 
the wagon. Now all of a sudden it is time for them to come up and help 
the rest of us. When they do, they are going to find out, just like I 
found out, when we help gather firewood at the campsite we get to sit 
by the campfire. But if they are not going to help gather firewood when 
they have the capability to gather firewood, then they should not sit 
by the campfire and enjoy the benefits of that fire.
  Let me talk just for a moment about conservation, because while we 
are on energy, I think it is important that we discuss conservation.
  I had a fascinating thing happen to me not long ago. I was talking to 
a young person. I would guess the person was 23, 24 years old, and 
seemed to me to be very, very bright, very capable. I got to talking, 
as I often do with that generation, and saying, what are you going to 
do? What is your career orientation?
  This particular individual said to me, well, my orientation, my 
career, is how do we get energy out of the ocean. How do we get energy 
out of movement? Every time there is movement, as those who have 
studied physics and so on know, every time there is movement, there is 
energy.
  In this particular thing, she said, I think there is energy in 
movement. How do we become more expedient, more efficient at being able 
to take movement, seize energy from it, and utilize it for or energy 
needs?
  It was not long after I visited with this young person that I ran 
into a gentleman. He was in the energy field. I was telling him about 
it. He reached in his pocket and he said, let me show you what she is 
talking about. I have one right here. See this?
  Members are not going to be able to see my demonstration, other than 
the fact that they are going to have to take my word that it is 
occurring. If the Chamber, Mr. Speaker, was dark, we could see the 
demonstration.
  This is simply a strip of material encased in a sheet of plastic. It 
has two wires going to a miniature light bulb right here on top. This 
is the miniature light bulb. What this person did to me, he said, this 
could capture energy from the waves. He began to go like this, showing 
movement. Now, Members are not able to see this because of the distance 
away from this, but I can tell the Members that as this moves up and 
down, this little light right here goes on. That is what is generating 
electricity, this simple movement.
  This gentleman said, just imagine if we could put this in the ocean, 
where we have natural, continuous movement, we could generate 
electricity. I thought that little thing right there was fascinating. I 
think that is what is the ticket for the future. That is what our 
generation has an obligation to try and help the future generation, 
encourage that generation, and then the generations that are not yet 
born to become dependent upon, to be more creative than using fossil 
fuels.
  But at the same time, we as a generation have an obligation to accept 
the responsibility that fossil fuels are what we primarily depend upon 
right now.
  I heard my colleagues earlier criticizing the Bush administration 
about the energy policy. Ironically, I would mention that the Clinton 
administration and Clinton and Gore had no energy policy for 8 years, 
had no vision into the future about what to do in regard to energy. The 
only one who has come up recently, stepping forward, stepping out of 
the line to take a leadership role, has been President Bush.

  I notice that they criticize right off the bat the fact that the 
President, in his budget, has cut some funds for some research. Let me 
tell the Members, this is an old-time Washington, D.C. trick. Every 
program in the Federal budget has a good name to it. It is either for 
the children or it is for the future or it is alternative energy.
  Why does every program have a good name to it? Because it is hard to 
cut it. It is hard to take money out of it. Once we create a program 
back in Washington, D.C., we can pretty well be assured that program 
has a life, a long life of being able to use taxpayer dollars.
  The first thing that happens back here with the special interests, 
and special interests that go the entire band of interests, these 
special interest groups, the first thing they do when they get a 
program, and this includes Federal agencies, the first thing they do 
when they get a program put into place is to put a protective shield 
around it, in case somebody ever comes and says, look, what is the 
bottom line? Tell me, what are we doing for accountability? Tell me 
what the results

[[Page H3954]]

are. Oh, we would like to do an audit to see if you are doing what you 
said you are going to do. What kind of results have you given us for 
this money?
  Then they can immediately deploy their weapons, the weapons of 
special interest. That is to say, how dare you ask a question about 
whether or not, for example, money is being spent efficiently on the 
school lunch program? You must want children to starve. It is the same 
kind of thing we are seeing here. We have research programs that we 
have funded for years, year after year after year on energy, and the 
bottom line is the results are not there. They are not there.
  The minute we go up to them, as the President has done, and said, 
look, we are going to have to not take the money away and use it for 
some other purposes, use it for highways or something, we are going to 
put this money and put it into research we think is going to make a 
difference, the first thing they do is run to the local or national 
media and say, my gosh, the President is proposing that we cut 
research. How terrible, in an energy crisis. This is a President who 
only wants oil drilling. He wants to cut our research dollars.
  At best, at best that is a misleading statement. That is giving them 
the benefit, here. In fact, most of these programs, when we go after 
accountability, they are well-designed to do whatever is necessary to 
protect that program and keep that program alive.
  Let me talk for a moment about the energy policy of this country. I 
mentioned earlier that President Clinton, the former President and the 
Vice President, they had no energy policy. We need an energy policy. 
What happened in California, what happened up in the Northwest, now, 
the Northwest was primarily because of the Columbia River, but what 
happened in the Northwest was a warning shot to all 50 States. It was a 
warning shot saying to us, hey, one of these days we are going to face 
a real energy crisis. One of these days, we had better be prepared for 
it, because we are not going to get a second chance. We have to be 
prepared with energy alternatives.
  What do we need to do that? We need to have some kind of energy 
policy. That is exactly what the President has done. Now, Members may 
not agree with the policy. Members may not agree with elements of the 
policy. But I think every person in this country should agree with the 
fact that we need a policy.
  Now, it is debate on this House floor, it is debate that really 
should start in the kitchen of every household of this Nation, as to 
what kind of energy policy should this country have; what kind of 
components should we put together so that our Nation as a unified group 
of 50 States has a policy that will allow us to get through future 
energy crises, that will allow us the kind of vision, leadership, and 
responsibility that is necessary for future generations, that will 
allow us to propel our economy and keep it strong, that will allow us 
to do all of these things that energy allows us to do?
  Let us look at some of the elements that I think are important for an 
energy policy. First of all, there is discussion and debate. What 
President Bush has done is a favor to all of us by stepping forward and 
putting an energy policy on the table.

                              {time}  2300

  And by saying we ought to put conservation on the table, and we ought 
to put alternative energy on the table. We have to talk about supply. 
We have to talk about exploration. Put it on the table. We have to talk 
about what areas of the country should or should not be explored for 
fossil fuel or should or should not be explored for other type of 
energy recovery. At least the discussion has begun.
  Now, that does not mean that we have to adopt everything they have 
put on the table. That is not what it means. But what it does mean is 
that we have an opportunity now to start to put this policy together. 
So discussion is an important benefit of what the President's energy 
policy has put forward.
  Now, let us talk about some of the other elements that are obviously 
very important for any energy policy. First of all, we have to ask what 
is it that every American could do? What could every American out there 
do to help our Nation on an energy policy, to help our Nation through 
these energy problems, to help our Nation assure future generations 
that an energy crisis is not going to be something they have to worry 
about?
  The first thing every American can do, every American that is capable 
of moving and thinking, is conservation. Even simple conservation. Now, 
there is a lot of conservation that can take place in our Nation 
without an inconvenience to our lifestyles. Let me give a couple of 
examples. Turn out the lights when we leave the room. Now, that sounds 
kind of simplistic. Sounds like, gosh, that is so basic, of course we 
turn off the lights. But what difference does it make if I walk out of 
the room over here and I have the lights off for 2 minutes? I am going 
to be back there in 2 minutes anyway. Imagine the difference if every 
American that is using lights right now as I speak shut off their 
lights for 2 minutes. How much energy would we save? How much 
conservation is that? It is significant.
  And let us put that together with a little less idling of our cars; 
maybe turning our air conditioning a little higher, at 70 degrees 
instead of having it set at 68 degrees; maybe in the winter having the 
heat set at 68 degrees instead of 75 degrees; maybe just simply 
checking our ceiling fans to make sure they are turning in a clockwise 
direction or motion so that they draw the cool air up and help cool our 
homes; maybe going to our car owner's manual and determining that we 
only need to change the oil of the engine of our car every 6,000 miles 
instead of every 3,000 miles, as the people out there that market oil 
products are trying to get us to do. There are a lot of ways that 
average Americans, every American, can help conserve energy, and that 
is a very critical part of an energy package.
  I think it is important for all of us to assume that we have an 
obligation to help with that. All of us have that obligation. But that 
is only a part of the energy package that we need for this country. 
What other element should be in that energy package? Well, of course, 
alternative energy.
  As I mentioned, I was fascinated by this little device, this device 
that I showed my colleagues earlier, which seizes energy from motion. 
That simple motion turns this little light on. That motion, through the 
physics and all the other engineering, we need to have that. We need to 
have research. But when we put research aside for alternative energy, 
we need to be able to have accountability from the people that we give 
this money to. We need to know that our research is at least moving us 
in the right direction. We need to know that the people doing this 
research have oversight. Because we do have an obligation not just to 
throw money at anybody that says I have an idea for future alternative 
energy, so give me money, Federal taxpayers.
  There are a lot of scams that take place out there, and most of the 
people getting scammed in this country are taxpayers. And most of the 
scamming is done by special interest groups who know how to give a 
program a great name and then take gobs and gobs of money without 
results. So while I say research is very important, it has to be 
research that means something. It has to be research that is going to 
come up with a result or at least move us towards the path of a result.
  So we know we need to have conservation. We know we need to have 
research for alternative fuels. We also need to face the fact, as I 
said earlier in my comments, that if we took all of the alternative 
energy in the world, all of it, whether it is wind power, whether solar 
power, whether it is some other type of generational electrical power, 
even like this little device, if we took all of it around the world and 
directed all of it to the United States of America, it would only 
supply 3 percent of our needs.
  So we need to face the fact that as we put this energy policy on the 
table and we are crafting what a future energy policy should look like, 
we need to face the fact that we are going to have to drill for oil. 
We have to come up with additional fossil fuel until that point in time 
that we have conserved and reached alternative energies so that we can 
lessen our dependence on fossil fuels. If we do not do that, the demand 
for fossil fuels still exists.

  So how do we fill that gap? I will show my colleagues. On this chart

[[Page H3955]]

right here, this is oil field production. This is the oil that we are 
now bringing out at the 1990-2000 growth rates. It is flat. It is 
actually not flat, as we can see from the angle of my pointer. It 
actually is declining. Our oil production is declining. Yet if we look 
at the red line to my left, we will see a line that is labeled oil 
consumption, and we see that that is going at an angle up and the oil 
production, field production, is at an angle going down. That means we 
have a projected shortfall. That is the blue.
  How do we make up the difference? How can we possibly have oil 
consumption up here when we have energy production down here? Does not 
make sense, does it? Well, it does. Because what fills that blue spot 
on this chart, what goes in there and fills that big hole is foreign 
oil. Foreign oil. Our dependency on foreign oil.
  Remember the other energy crisis? Many are too young to remember, but 
the energy crisis in the early 1970s is when we were 40 or 30 percent 
dependent on foreign oil. Today we are over 50 percent dependent on 
foreign oil. This gap right here is becoming larger and larger and 
larger. We need to begin to close oil consumption through conservation, 
and we need to bring up our energy resources through not just 
alternative energy but also through our own resources so that we become 
less dependent on countries like Iraq and so on.
  So in my opinion an energy policy needs to be put together by this 
Congress. And we should commend the President. We do not have to agree 
with all the elements of an energy policy, but certainly everybody in 
these chambers should commend the President for at least stepping 
forward and saying, number one, we need an energy policy, which is a 
dramatic change from what we have had over the last 8 years under the 
previous administration; and, number two, we need to put an energy 
policy together that makes sense on a number of different fronts: 
Conservation, alternative fuels, research, and further exploration of 
fossil fuels.
  Now, there are some other areas that an energy policy brings up 
debate on this floor: Nuclear. Nuclear energy. Now, probably some of 
the most socialistic liberal groups in the world are the Europeans. 
Guess what, they have a 70 or 80 percent dependency on nuclear plants. 
The problem with nuclear, of course, is disposal. It burns cleanly, but 
we have disposal issues. Maybe we ought to put more of our research 
money into disposal.
  Then there is hydropower. That is the energy of movement from water 
as it drops from a high point to a low point, and we grab that energy 
as it comes down to spin a turbine to create electricity. The most 
beautiful thing about hydropower is we do not have to use gasoline. We 
do not have to fuel it. It is a natural occurrence of energy. We are 
capturing that natural occurrence of energy. Hydropower is by far the 
cleanest energy that we have out there, and it uses a renewable 
resource.
  The energy that we use to run our cars, called gasoline, is not 
renewable. It has become more efficient, and frankly it has to become 
more efficient than it is today, but it is not renewable. Hydropower 
provides us with a renewable resource.
  So my concluding remarks regarding energy this evening, before I move 
on to my other subject, are this: Number one, we heard previously 
comments from my colleagues from California and the State of Oregon.

                              {time}  2310

  My message to the State of California is we are not turning our backs 
on California. We cannot. You are like a brother or a sister. We have 
50 states. We all stick together. But the fact is, California, we 
cannot afford to have you riding in the back of the wagon anymore. We 
cannot continue to provide your energy or if we do, you will have to 
pay the price that we need to get to provide it for you. You need to 
get out of the wagon and help yourself.
  California, you have to help 49 other states that are not in the same 
predicament you are in for good solid reasons. You have got to help 
them pull the wagon. You cannot continue, California, to sit in the 
back of the wagon and point at everybody else and blame them for the 
fact that you are going to have to get out of the wagon and help pull 
too.
  California, the frustration that some of us have on this House floor 
is the frustration that you do not want to seem to use self-help. In 
the last 15 or 20 years you have not wanted any self-help. You have 
refused to allow generation facilities in your State. You have not 
allowed gas transmission lines in your State for probably 8 or 10 
years. You need some self-help.
  California is too important to walk away from, even if they were not 
the economic power base that they are in this country. Even if it was 
the smallest State of the union like the State of Wyoming for 
population, we could not afford to walk away from California because we 
have an inherent obligation to the citizens of America to help our 
fellow States. But we also have the right within the realm of fairness 
to say, hey, if you are going to sit by the camp fire, you help collect 
the fire wood.
  Now, from these chambers we should be open to some type of energy 
policy. The President has got to start it. He has put some ideas on the 
table. He does not live or die by those ideas, but he has exercised 
vision for this country and leadership in saying that at least begin 
the debate, Congress. Let us put an energy policy together, Congress. 
We cannot afford, as we have done for the last 8 or 9 years, not to 
have an energy policy. So at least give credit to the President for 
stepping forward and putting an energy policy on the table.
  Now, it is up to us to add or delete. In the elements of that, number 
one, look at conservation. Number two, look at exploration of fossil 
fuels and other ways it can be picked up. Number three, ask the 
legitimate question: How dependent should we be on foreign oil? Is over 
50 percent a safe number? Should we continue to buy in that quantity or 
should we begin to accept a little of that obligation or a little of 
that reservoir ourselves to go into our own resources? Those are all 
questions that I hope we have good healthy debate on.
  I know next week in several of the committees, including the Ways and 
Means Committee on which I sit, we are going to have that kind of 
debate.
  So energy is an important thing in this country.
  Let me conclude my energy remarks with one final caution. We have 
seen in the last three or four weeks, although it may not be seen at 
the local pump, it should be seen at the local pump. If not, there 
should be questions asked. But the price of gasoline in this country 
has dropped dramatically in the last 3 to 4 weeks. We now have a 
position where demand has dropped in part to conservation and supply 
has increased, so price has dropped.
  I am a little concerned that as prices finally begin to drop at the 
pumps out there as they should, as heating and air conditioning bills 
begin to drop as they should, as our electrical generation facilities 
around this Nation become on line, and by the way, if every generation 
plant currently on the drawing board today is constructed we will have 
a new one line every day 5 days a week for the next 5 years so we will 
have adequate electricity, we are going to be put back into that 
comfort zone. We will not only not be facing an energy crisis, we will 
have energy comfort.

  As we go into that it would be a very serious mistake, probably for 
our generation, certainly for the next generation, to believe that, 
one, we do not need to conserve; that, two, we do not need to look at 
alternative energy for the future; and that, three, we do not have some 
kind of obligation to continue to meet this generation's needs by 
looking at our resources located within the boundaries of this country.
  Let me move on from that.
  Mr. Speaker, I had a discussion last night about public lands in the 
West, and I had some questions come up today which I thought would be 
worthy of clarification.
  As many of my colleagues know, this is one of my favorite charts. 
Why? Take a look at this. This chart shows the people of America that 
there are distinctions, there are differences between the eastern 
United States and the western United States. Let me just point out a 
couple of them.
  First of all, water. The State of Colorado, and my district is this 
color, the poster here to the left. My district is about 64,000 square 
miles. My district is larger than the entire State of Florida. This is 
the highest point in the

[[Page H3956]]

United States right here. As a result, we have water and lots of snow. 
Our State provides water, just the Colorado River, which goes like 
this, that river alone provides drinking water for 25 million people. 
But that water comes from snow melt. Colorado, this State in the center 
of the United States, has no water. It is the only State in the lower 
48, Colorado, that has no free flowing water that comes into its State 
for its use. The only State out of the lower 48.
  When one takes a look at water in the West, you have the western 
United States, a chunk about like this, that is over half of the United 
States, yet that area that I have just pointed out that I have the 
pointer on, while it consists of over half the land of the United 
States, it only has 14 percent of the water in the United States. We do 
not have much rainfall in the West. In the East, people sue each other 
to shove water, make sure that water is diverted over to their 
neighbor's property.
  In the West, out in the West, life is written in water. Water is like 
blood in the West. We are an arid region. I had not seen a heavy rain 
until I came East. Our rain in Colorado is cold and does not last a 
long time. Once in awhile we get some heavy storms, but generally we do 
not get much rain. We depend very heavily in the West on water storage 
because for about 6 to 8 weeks, we get all of the water we could 
possibly ask for generally, and that is in the spring runoff as the 
high snows begin to melt and come down. But the rest of the year we do 
not have that kind of water. Even that 6 weeks, it is not on a 
consistent basis. Some years we have more snow, and some years we have 
less snow.
  So in the West, we are dependent on water storage. In the West we 
have Hoover Dam with Lake Mead and we have the Glen Canyon Dam with 
Lake Powell that provides 80 percent of our water storage. Our water 
storage is necessary to get us from year to year. It is not nearly as 
critical in the East as it is in the West. In fact, primarily a lot of 
your water storage facilities in the East are flood control. You have 
got too much water.
  Our water storage facilities in the West are also flood control, but 
primarily utilized to store these waters. That is the difference 
between the East and the West. Let me tell you another difference 
between the East and the West, and that is public lands. Follow my 
pointer over here to the left. In the early days of our country, our 
population really was on the East Coast like this up in this area. And 
our Nation began to acquire through the Louisiana Purchase and the 
Missouri buys and things like that large chunks of land out here. In 
the East our political leaders decided as we grow this great Nation of 
ours, we have to figure out how to get ahold of this land and put 
people out on this land. You see back then, simply having a title, 
having a piece of paper that said you owned the land, it did not mean a 
hoot.

                              {time}  2320

  What you needed to do if you wanted to own the land is you needed to 
possess it probably with a six shooter on your side. That is where the 
old saying came from, ``Possession is nine-tenths of the law.''
  So they came up with a problem, how do we influence people to move to 
the West? West being just Kentucky, out here in the Virginias. How do 
we get them to move west? Somebody came up with the idea, ``Let's do 
what we did in 1776.''
  What did they do in 1776? We all remember that date. What did they do 
in 1776? Believe it or not, the government decided, hey, let's give 
land to deserters, or people who will defect, soldiers who will defect 
from the British army. As a reward we'll give them land if they will be 
defectors. So let's deploy the same type of strategy, not for defectors 
but since land seemed to work pretty well then, let's give away land. 
Let's tell people that if they move to the West, we will give them 160 
acres. We'll call it the Homestead Act.
  Here is kind of a demonstration of it. In 1862, this is later on, 
because for a while, we could not get the Homestead Act because the 
North and the South were constantly fighting because they did not want 
too much of a population in one area that might go slavery or might be 
opposed to slavery. But in 1862 the U.S. Congress passed the first of 
many homestead laws that opened settlement of the West. The law 
provided that anyone was entitled, either the head of a family, 21 
years old or a veteran of 14 days of active service in the U.S. Armed 
Forces, and who was a citizen or had filed a declaration intending to 
become a citizen could acquire a tract of land in public domain not 
exceeding 160 acres. It included federally owned lands in all the 
States except the original 13, Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, 
Tennessee and Texas. The land was often desolate without trees, wood or 
adequate water. Many homesteaders' homes were made of sod bricks from 
their land. It was a tough life. How do you get people to go out there 
and live a tough life? You gave them land.
  Well, there happened to be a problem. As people began to come out 
here, they took up those offers of homesteading and they settled. This 
is where they settled. All of a sudden when they hit, including the 
eastern district of the Third Congressional District of Colorado, word 
got back to Washington, D.C., these people aren't settling here. 
They're either turning back and going back into the main part of the 
United States or they're trying to go up and around and come out here 
on the coast of California where you see this large white patch, but 
they are not settling in this area. That set off alarm bells in 
Washington.
  Remember what I said. In order for us to grow this Nation, we had to 
have people in possession. So this great Nation of ours that owned 
these large, hundreds of millions of acres out here but nobody was on 
them to defend them. Nobody was possessing them. So in Washington, the 
alarm bells went off. We have got to get people into these lands. 
Somebody said, well, 160 acres in eastern Colorado or Nebraska or 
Kansas or out here in Missouri, 160 acres is enough to support a 
family.
  They said, well, in the mountains, at those high elevations, in a lot 
of cases, 160 acres, it won't even feed a cow.
  What do we do? Somebody says, I'll tell you what we do. Let's give 
the people 3,000 acres. Let's give them several thousand acres, 
compared to the 160 acres where the ground is much more fertile and 
where you can support a family.
  Somebody else said, we can't do that politically. There's no way that 
we can give individuals thousands of acres each. Somebody else came up 
with an idea and they said, you know what we ought to do, just for 
formality, let's go ahead and keep the title to all this land in the 
Federal Government, let's just allow the people to use the land. That 
is where the concept of public lands came from, and that is where the 
concept of multiple use came from and that is where the sign that I 
grew up, when I would go into the forest or Federal lands and, by the 
way, in my district almost every community in my district is completely 
surrounded by public lands, when we went on those public lands, there 
was a large sign there, ``You are now entering the Roosevelt National 
Forest, a land of many uses.'' A land of many uses. That is just what I 
have here to the left of my chart.
  What has happened is of late, we have organizations like the National 
Sierra Club who would like to take down the water storage project at 
Lake Powell which consists of about 40 percent of our water storage in 
the West. We have groups like Earth First that are coming out and 
trying to educate people out here in the East that in the West all this 
land, the reason it was never put into private ownership was so that it 
could be conserved for all future generations and not to be used by the 
people in the West and really we ought to get rid of the concept of 
multiple use.
  What they do not tell you is there were some lands, like right up 
there, the great Yellowstone National Park, Teton National Park, 
fabulous areas. Everybody should go see those areas. Those were set 
aside specifically as national parks and so on. But this land out here 
was never intended to be a land with a no trespassing sign on it. It 
was thought to be a land that could support life, a land of which the 
people could have multiple uses, whether it was recreation, whether as 
we know today protection of the environment, whether it was farming or 
skiing or having a highway or having a power line or having your home 
or being able to go out and hunt or fish, just watch, be a wildlife 
watcher. That is a big difference between the East and the West.

[[Page H3957]]

  In the East they do not know what public land is in a lot of States. 
In the East not a lot of people understand the issues and the 
differences between water in the East and water in the West. In the 
East if you are going to build a power line or something like that, you 
go to your county planning board. Here in the West, our planning board 
is right back here in Washington, D.C. So you can see why the people of 
the West get a little sensitive when people in the East start dictating 
the terms of which the people in the West must live under.
  And so my purpose here tonight, after my discussion last night, was 
not an attack on the East obviously, but to help my dear colleagues 
from the East, so that you can talk to your constituents and say, you 
know, life in the West really is different. I mean, they are Americans, 
we are one country, but we need to take into consideration public lands 
and private lands. We need to take into consideration the different 
water issues of the West, compared with the water issues of the East. 
We need to take into consideration the fact that in the West, they deal 
with much different geographic differences, or elevations even, than we 
do in the East. And as you begin to look at those things, as you begin 
to hear our side of the story in the West, a lot of you begin to say, 
wow, I did not realize that. I did not know that. Gosh, that map that 
you showed us this evening really does show something that we ought to 
think about, something we ought to consider when we make legislation 
off this fine floor of the House of Representatives.
  So my purpose again to reiterate tonight is simply to demonstrate 
that there are differences that we must consider as we have legislation 
dealing with everything from water to public lands.
  Mr. Speaker, let me very quickly end my remarks as I started my 
remarks, and, that is, I wish to honor this evening four firefighters 
who lost their lives yesterday in service to their country. Those 
firefighters were Tom L. Craven, 30 years old, of Ellensburg; Karen L. 
Fitzpatrick, 18 years old, of Yakima; Devin A. Weaver, Devin was 21 
years old, of Yakima; and Jessica L. Johnson, who was 19 years old, of 
Yakima.
  If some of you colleagues have just come in towards the end of my 
remarks, let me tell you that 2 days ago, these four young people were 
called to service to fight a fire, a fire that started at five acres 
and within minutes moved to 2,500 acres. From five to 2,500. These 
firefighters and some of the others that managed to survive on that 
fire experienced the horror every firefighter has, the bad dream that 
every firefighter has, and that is called a blowout. These four people 
fit the classification of the definition of the word hero as we see it 
in our dictionary, as we feel it in our mind, as we think about it in 
our emotions.
  In my concluding remarks tonight, I would ask that this body and 
every citizen in America, all your constituents, extend their 
sympathies and their prayers to the families of these firefighters who 
lost their young loved ones, and also, it also gives us a little time 
for consideration. The next time you see a fireman, whether it is a 
volunteer fireman, professional fireman, a police officer, an EMT or 
just the local volunteer from the community that helps us take on the 
battle of fires which we face every summer, pat them on the back, tell 
them thanks, tell them we care about them.
  But tonight, colleagues, before you go to sleep, if you say prayers, 
and I do, if you say prayers, say just a little prayer for those 
firefighters who gave their lives in the last 24 hours as the duty of 
their Nation called.

                              {time}  2330

  They answered that call. They fulfilled their duty and they are now 
part of history. I ask for your consideration and your prayers.

                          ____________________