[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 37 (Tuesday, April 9, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H1136-H1139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SENSIBLE ENERGY POLICIES AND PRACTICES

  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 as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised by some of the 
comments of the previous speaker. Who does not want peace? But this 
speaker criticizes the administration because they have not engaged in 
diplomacy? I wonder what the speaker would recommend after September 
11. Should the United States of America have called bin Laden and said, 
``Let us engage in diplomacy''?
  I would say, with all due respect to the previous speaker, take a 
look at the history of dealing with Yasser Arafat. Take a look at how 
many administrations have tried to engage, have come up with different 
types of agreements. The only common denominator we see throughout that 
history of engagement is Yasser Arafat. Take a look at every 
administration.
  I am amazed that one would have the gumption, I guess we would say, 
to stand up here and criticize this administration because they are not 
engaging in ``diplomacy.''
  Some Members of Congress, some of us sometimes, and I refer to all of 
us as Members of Congress, since when do we know all of what is going 
on in the Middle East? Maybe before we are so critical of the 
administration in the height of a crisis in the Middle East, maybe we 
ought to learn a little bit about what goes on behind closed doors, 
what are those negotiations that are taking place.
  What do we expect Israel to do? What we would do if suicide bombers 
kept coming into our shopping malls or came over on Passover? That 
bomb, that suicide bomber on Passover would be like coming into America 
on Christmas Eve and blowing up Santa Claus. What do we think the 
response of that country is going to be?
  Every nation in this world has an inherent, an inherent right, in 
fact, an inherent obligation to protect their population, to protect 
their people.
  What do we think the United States of America, and I refer to the 
previous speaker, what do we think the United States of America would 
do if somebody started walking into our shopping malls with suicide 
bombers? Do we think we would engage in a diplomatic fashion with the 
aggressors? No, we would not engage with them, any more than we would 
engage in diplomatic discussions with bin Laden.
  Once we knew that bin Laden was the person who was in charge, who 
coordinated, who ordered that devastating blow against our Nation on 
September 11, I did not hear one American, with the exception of maybe 
a couple of Congressmen, I did not hear one other American say, gosh, 
we ought to dial up Mr. bin Laden and we ought to sit down with him and 
have some diplomatic discussions with him.

                              {time}  2100

  My gosh, Mr. bin Laden, look what you have done. You have killed 
3,000 people in America. You have killed hundreds of people from 80 
separate countries. You have killed men. You have killed women. You 
have killed children. You have killed mothers. You have killed fathers. 
You have killed sisters. You have killed brothers. But, Mr. bin Laden, 
let us sit down and have a diplomatic discussion with you, because if 
we do not sit down and have a diplomatic discussion with you, we must 
not be as the previous speaker said, ``engaged,'' and that is upon the 
premise which the previous speaker criticizes this administration. 
Look, I think before one criticizes the President or before one 
criticizes Colin Powell or before one criticizes the efforts, one ought 
to know what is going on behind closed doors. What are the facts? What 
kind of contacts have they had? And regardless of where you stand on 
the issue, what country in the world can continue to sustain suicide 
bombers coming in with devastating blows against their innocent 
population? These are not military strikes. These bombers do not have 
enough guts to meet at the O.K. Corral and have a showdown on Main 
Street. Instead, they sneak in the back door of a department store and 
blow it to smithereens.
  I heard on Public Radio the other day, Public Radio had this long 
discussion about a Palestinian woman who was pregnant and who was about 
to deliver, but she could not deliver because the Israel military had 
occupied the street and they could not get an ambulance to her so she 
had to deliver in her home. Not once during that discussion on Public 
Radio, not once did we hear any kind of discussion about that pregnant 
mother that was blown to smithereens by a suicide bomber, no chance at 
all. We have got to be a little fair in our approach here.
  I am amazed, to me, the more and more I hear the anti-Jewish 
rhetoric, the anti-Israel rhetoric, I would like to ask any of you who 
are perpetrators of that kind of comment, what would you do if somebody 
walked in one of your relative's house and blew it to smithereens? Do 
as the previous speaker said? Call them on the phone and say let us 
have some diplomatic engagement or be subject to criticism because you 
went over and you tried to eliminate the person who has done everything 
they can to destroy you.
  I am no expert on the Middle East. I read about it every day. I spent 
time today flying on the plane, most of my time; my reading was on the 
Middle East. I grab all the information I can about the Middle East. 
But I am awful careful before I jump out and criticize the 
administration on their policy on the Middle East unless I think I have 
got a better answer. And, frankly, I do not know what the solution in 
the Middle East is. But I do not think the solution is to criticize our 
leaders because they have not sat down so-called sat down and had 
diplomatic engagement. Anybody that alleges that there has not been 
diplomatic engagement in the Middle East shows a very clear 
demonstration of a lack of knowledge of history. There has been time 
and time and time again of diplomatic engagement in the Middle East.
  Of course, everybody wants to settle it peacefully. We would like to 
have settled issues peacefully prior to September 11. But sometimes the 
aggressor offers you no choice. Do you realistically think that on 
September 12 America thought that one of the options we had was to sit 
down with bin Laden and to have ``diplomatic engagement'' with this 
villain, with this man so full of hatred that he killed thousands of 
innocent people with one strike? And if he is alive, you can be sure he 
is not thinking about diplomatic engagement. He is not thinking about 
anything to further his religion. He is thinking about an evil strike, 
how else can he get back at the United States of America. Tell me what 
the mind was, what kind of sound minds of these suicide bombers or 
these perpetrators, for example, on September 11. They did not target 
one specific group. They did not care whether they were Muslims. They 
killed Muslims in those towers. There were people of the Islam faith 
that were killed. They killed people of 50 different nationalities from 
80 different countries. They did not discriminate between men and 
women, between children and mothers and fathers and so on.
  Sometimes I am surprised at the remarks, although having been here 
for a few years I am getting kind of used to it; but sometimes I am a 
little surprised at the remarks made on this House floor, and 
especially to have in my opinion to stand up here at the height, hours 
after they have just had

[[Page H1137]]

another event in the Middle East and to have some who would describe it 
as audacity to criticize this administration because they have not sat 
down and held hands and talked peace. Again, it shows a complete lack 
of knowledge of the history of the Middle East.
  I think all of us would be much further ahead, and I think it would 
advance the interests of this country and advance the interests of our 
constituents if, when we discuss a subject like the Middle East, at 
least we have some extensive background in it, at least we come in with 
some historical knowledge of the subject of which we offer ourselves 
experts. I think we ought to have that responsibility.

  I do not think we ought to come in here half-cocked and start 
criticizing the administration in the Middle East hours after what is 
alleged to be, I do not know what is on the TV, alleged to be a 10-
year-old suicide bomber, a 13-year-old suicide bomber. Tell me how you 
can sit down with people who would take a young child, strap bombs on 
them and throw an ambush in against another country, and you tell me 
about diplomatic engagement. Talk to me about a bomber that goes in on 
Passover, which again is like Christmas Eve, like blowing up Santa 
Claus at Christmas here in the United States, tell me how many people 
would be excited to have diplomatic engagement with those kind of 
people.
  Let us be honest about it; there are evil people in the world, and 
there are people that have to be dealt with on their own terms. There 
are a lot of people in this world that they do not like this touchy-
feely stuff; they do not understand that kind of thing. They understand 
strength and they understand fear. And if they can get fear over 
strength, that is exactly how they weaken the strong.
  Now, I do not mean to get all riled up up here, but I think all of us 
have an obligation whether the administration is Democrat or 
Republican, I think we all have an obligation before we criticize the 
administration within hours of a suicide bomber, that we learn a little 
information instead of standing up here and saying no diplomatic 
engagement. What we need is engagement, engagement.
  Give me a break. Look at the history of the Middle East. We are 
trying to figure out the answer. There is engagement 24 hours a day 
over there in the Middle East. Some of the brightest scholars our 
country has ever produced have not figured out what to do in the Middle 
East. I would be awful careful. I would be a little cautious about 
criticizing people who are a lot more engaged in the Middle East than 
those of us sitting on the floor of the House of Representatives. That 
is not to take away the right to question, or the right to visit with 
these people or understand that history and then have a debate here. 
But gosh darn it, we ought to learn a little bit more about the subject 
before we pretend to be expert on the floor.
  I listened to the gentleman from Florida's (Mr. Weldon) discussion, 
who was two or three speakers back. I commend what the gentleman said. 
I think a lot of what the gentleman said, a lot of what he pointed out 
was accurate. How do you address the situation where somebody 
continually sends suicide bombers, not against your military targets, 
but against your shopping malls, against your citizens, into 
restaurants, one of them was a wedding reception? I think the 
gentleman's points were pretty valid.
  The Middle East is a tough situation. Afghanistan is a tough 
situation. OPEC, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas) said it 
very well. Take a look at OPEC. OPEC, so-called allies of ours, OPEC 
has taken every advantage they can to manipulate the price of oil so 
that they can take a lot of those revenues, frankly, and direct them 
against U.S. interests. Now look, it is a free market system. We are 
capitalists, and OPEC has a right to do that. But we should not just 
sit by and be idle.
  What happens? Take a look at the old Adam Smith theory. If you come 
into a community and you have a product that people need, but you 
continue to gouge the people and gouge the people and gouge the people, 
and you have a capitalistic society like our society is, what happens? 
Somebody in that community is going to say, you know something, the 
gentleman's product over there, the product he is selling, he is 
gouging us on it. I think I can get a product that offers the same 
benefits his product does. I can sell it at a cheaper price. I will not 
gouge the people. I will sell more of the product, and in the long run 
I will actually make more money.
  I think that kind of leads us into a discussion I wanted to talk 
about this evening and that is energy and production of energy in this 
country. I have heard, and unfortunately, without trying to be too 
partisan, but it is reality, it is kind of a general philosophy of the 
Democratic side, well, what we need to do is more alternative energy 
methods, and we need to conserve more, but no more exploration or limit 
the exploration. Let us go into conservation and alternative energy.
  I agree with two of the three points that the Democrats are saying. 
In fact, a lot of what they have said on the first two points were 
presented by the Republican side. Number one, of course, we ought to 
look for alternative energy. That is exactly what happened in my 
previous example here. The guy comes into town. He starts gouging on a 
product. The people in the community start looking for alternatives so 
they are not subject to the rule of that individual. That is exactly 
what we have to do with energy. I wholeheartedly endorse, 
wholeheartedly endorse that we look for alternative methods of 
production of energy. But that does not mean we should go on some white 
elephant chase.

  We hear continually if you do not subsidize this or you do not 
subsidize that, you do not support alternative energy. The fact is it 
has got to make some sense. It has got to have a realistic chance of 
succeeding, and then I think the government should get behind it.
  We have been able to develop a lot of things throughout the history 
of our Nation. Our Nation is one of the greatest nations in the history 
of the world because of our innovative capabilities, because of our 
innovation. And when the challenge is in front of us, we can accomplish 
that. Even that said, it will take some time. Twenty years from now, 30 
years from now I project that people back then will look at the way we 
transmit electricity through wires and say, Why did they ever use 
wires? They will have some other type of system to transmit 
electricity. They will look back at what we had today and say, Wow, 
what an antiquated way to provide our energy. Their furnaces will 
probably be the size of a drinking cup. There are lots of things that 
will change in the next 30 years, but it will take time.
  In the meantime, conservation alone, which is very, very, very 
important, will not fill the gap between oil needs and oil production. 
What fills that gap right now is OPEC. And the less we are able to 
produce out of our own resources, the more we have to buy from OPEC. 
The more we buy from OPEC, the more we feed this problem in the Arab 
countries, the more we provide resources for these countries to turn 
around and use them against us and the more susceptible we become to 
their whims.
  For example, yesterday, Saddam Hussein, our old pal over there in 
Iraq, a guy who poisons his own populations, decides on a whim we will 
stop, no more production for the United States and Israel, no more oil 
for the next 30 days or until Israel pulls out of the occupied lands, 
whichever comes later. You know, what we have become is dependent on 
madmen like this. The tail is trying to wag the dog. That is exactly 
what is out there.
  That is why unlike people who say, look, the only way out of this 
energy crisis is conservation and alternative energy, the fact is there 
is a third element, and that is you have got to continue to produce 
resources until these other two completely fill, or significantly fill, 
that gap.
  I think the easiest thing every one of us can do, every person in 
this Nation can do is conservation. And it is really easy to do. There 
is a lot of conservation that can take place without an inconvenience 
to your life-style. There is a lot of conservation that we can do that 
is of no pain, no economic pain to you. As I just said, no 
inconvenience to your life-style. But we have got to do it. All of us 
can participate in it.

[[Page H1138]]

                              {time}  2115

  For example, a hot summer coming up. Instead of having the air 
conditioning set at 68, see if you can get by with 70. Just think, 
across the country if we had everybody doing that, trying not to idle 
your car so much, if we just walked out of the room and shut the light 
off after we left the room, think how much electricity we could 
conserve.
  Take a look at water, and water is a sensitive area for me. I come 
from the West. My district is Colorado. It is the only State in the 
Union where all of our free-flowing water goes out. We have no water 
coming in. Conservation benefits us a lot but conservation alone will 
not fill the cup that we need filled.
  Conservation, we have got a bucket and we have got to go get so much 
water in that bucket to feed our cows or we have problems, and we do 
not have an alternative yet that is going to fill up much of the 
bucket. It puts a little water in the bucket. Conservation puts a 
little more, but the fact is we have got to drill a well. We have got 
to get some water out of there or we cannot feed the cows. That is as 
simple as it is.
  So what I am urging my colleagues to do is let us accept the reality 
that we have to look for production. We have to continue to produce 
from our own resources, while at the same time urging our constituents 
and the citizens of this Nation to conserve, while at the same time 
supporting, giving incentive and encouraging alternative energy 
production. There are lots of exciting things out there, but we are not 
there yet but we will be there.
  I want to tell my colleagues about an experience. I wish I would have 
brought it today. Oh, probably a year ago, I was on an airplane and I 
sat next to a young person, very bright, very capable, it seemed to me. 
She was about, I guess, 21 years old. I asked her what she was 
studying, what she wanted to do, and she said what she wanted to do was 
study energy and how to capture energy in ocean waves. There is energy 
that is produced every time that water moves. I thought that was pretty 
interesting.
  Then pretty soon she says, look, pulling out a little piece of paper 
about this long, probably about, oh, an inch and a half long, and 
probably a half an inch wide, and at the end of it, it had two wires 
and on the end of the two wires, it was connected to a small light 
bulb. I do not know what was in the paper material, but there was some 
kind of material that would conduct power, electricity, and she would 
wave it like this and the light would come on. She said, there is so 
much energy in the world that we are not capturing. She said, we think 
that if we can do that, we can really supply lot of energy needs for 
our country.
  I was pretty excited about it, and that is how our energy is going to 
be produced one of these days. But in the meantime, do not pretend that 
we are not relying upon oil. We have got to have those resources. And 
if you are going to be one of those that do not think we need to be 
relying on oil, who objects across the board, not to a specific area, 
where digging oil, for example, might be objectionable to the 
particular environmental conditions around that particular site, but if 
you are one of these people that just across the board opposes that 
kind of production, then you ought to not just talk the talk, you ought 
to walk the walk. Quit driving your car, quit riding your mountain bike 
that is made of different resources. I mean, everything we have is 
reliant on that product, our medicines.
  I ride a mountain bike. That is why I used it as an example. I could 
not have my mountain bike if I did not have those kind of resources 
available. I could not have the vehicle that we need to get around on 
our roads in Colorado. We would not have heat, et cetera. My colleagues 
know the story.
  Obviously it is a reasonable approach to take, but it is not a 
reasonable approach to say stop oil production or no more oil 
production or do not even bring up the debate of exploring more oil in 
Alaska. Or, if we do bring up the debate, let us debate solely on a 
motion, not on facts. Unfortunately, on the House floor, a lot of the 
decisions we make are driven by emotion.
  Has anyone ever wondered when they look at legislation, I do not care 
whether it is at the State level, maybe even the city level, I have 
never worked at the city level, but at the State level or the Federal 
level, has anyone ever noticed that legislation always has a great name 
to it? Save the animal organization, save the planet, or save small 
business, et cetera? There is a reason for that, because a lot of the 
debate on this floor and a lot of debate in the legislative arenas 
throughout this country are based on emotion.
  There are times that while that may be appropriate, there are times 
where we have an obligation as elected representatives of the people, 
we have an obligation to stand back and make a decision based also on 
facts. What are the realities that we are dealing with? If 
something has not brought it to our attention in the last 48 hours, 
when a renegade country like Iraq that is obviously producing weapons 
of mass destruction for use against one target, the United States of 
America, decides they are going to stop their oil production, maybe it 
ought to wake us up a little more and say we ought to be ready for 
this.

  What if that oil embargo begins to spread throughout the Middle East? 
The United States must become less dependent, not more dependent, on 
foreign oil resources, and the only way we can do it is to continue to 
advance our technology to develop the resources that we have, while at 
the same time figuring out alternatives for the future, while at the 
same time encouraging our populations to conserve.
  As I said earlier, we do not have to go out to our constituents and 
ask for a great sacrifice for them to conserve. There are a lot of 
things a lot of us can do in our everyday living that can help conserve 
energy that will not impact us at all, like turning off the light 
switch. I mean, even if we do not run the water the whole time we brush 
our teeth, put the toothpaste on the toothbrush, put a little water on 
there, brush our teeth, have our water off, then have the water on, the 
average person runs, by the time they are done brushing their teeth, if 
they brush their teeth for the 2-minute prescribed time to keep away 
from the dentist, how many gallons of water run through the sink, if 
one has the faucet on? Two or 3 gallons of water for someone to brush 
their teeth.
  These are the kind of things if we just turn it off while we are 
brushing, brushed and then turned it back on, we would probably use 
less than a tenth of a gallon. Those are simple things. They did not 
impact us. Our teeth are not any less clean and we feel better because 
we have helped with a challenge that our country faces.
  There are a number of obligations that as Congressmen I think we owe 
to the people that we represent. One of them is the future, to secure 
this Nation for the future, and it means not only secure the Nation in 
the future for energy, not only to secure the future generations for 
things like education and health care and a good economy and a 
government that does not override the ability for individual freedom, 
the right of private property ownership. These are all elements that 
are very strong that I think have to be passed to the next generation.
  I also I think what must be passed to the next generation is the 
necessity to be strong, strong in security for our people, and a part 
of that is assuring that we have the natural resources to defend 
ourselves against blackmail by a country like Iraq, against security 
threats by renegades like bin Laden.
  On September 11, a lot of people said what a huge hit against the 
United States. Obviously it was a horrible, horrible disaster for the 
United States of America. But take a look at the things that went 
right. It did not cripple the United States of America. Oh, sure it 
hurt us, and many, many, many families suffered horrible tragedies. Our 
country suffered but our country did not buckle.
  Our country responded because previous people, people ahead of us 
that served in Congress, prepared this country over decades, prepared 
us in the sense that we have a strong National Guard, prepared us in 
the sense that we have a strong Army and Marine Corps and Air Force; 
that we had the capability through our intelligence services to figure 
out who did this grievous act to us; that we had the hospital 
facilities and the EMTs and the firefighters and the police officers 
and the local organizations and the statewide organizations and the 
monetary contribution

[[Page H1139]]

of our citizens to keep on our feet. We kept on our feet. They did not 
knock us off our feet. They broke a rib, but they did not knock us off 
our feet.
  That is because the great leaders of this country have prepared this 
country in the same sense that we have to prepare this country for the 
future, and that is the capability to sustain an attack, to be able to 
turn around and stop the attacker in a military sense.
  What is going on in the world today is tragic. What is going on in 
the Middle East, obviously. I mean, I wish my colleagues knew the 
solution. I am not sure anybody has got it figured out there yet, but 
the reality of it is that no matter how long we pray, I know it is very 
helpful, and I do it a lot, no matter how long we pray, no matter how 
much we hope, and touchy-feely things we do, the reality of it is the 
world will never know total peace, but we can go a long way towards 
that.
  The best way we can go towards that is to negotiate from a position 
of strength, and that is exactly what the United States, its leadership 
in the past, they have placed our country in a position of strength, 
and that is the obligation that every one of us on this House floor has 
to future generations, to continue to keep this great Nation of ours in 
a position of strength, to allow this great Nation and its future 
generations to go forward from a position of strength.

  From a position of strength this great Nation has helped hundreds of 
millions of people throughout the world. From this position of strength 
our Nation can help many, many other nations throughout the world. We 
can help escape poverty. We can help escape tyrannism. We can help 
escape communism. And we can go on and on, but it all starts with the 
core of our strength. We cannot help our neighbor if we are not strong.
  We need to be strong. We are strong, but we need our commitment to 
stay strong. That means a strong defense. That means a strong 
educational system. That means a strong welcome system. It means a 
strong energy policy. Working together, I think we can continue the 
strength of this great Nation.
  So I look forward to working with my colleagues in the future, but 
let me summarize by saying a couple of things. Number one, I think it 
is a mistake for my colleagues to take this microphone, as I witnessed 
this evening, and criticize this administration for not being 
diplomatically engaged, as if diplomatic engagement has not taken place 
in the Middle East for decades.
  I am amazed that while we have a great deal of knowledge available to 
us, while we can have classified briefings, and many of us receive 
classified briefings on countries of our choice and so on and so forth, 
our level of knowledge and our level of expertise on the Middle East, 
for example, is somewhat limited. I would venture to say that the 
administration, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, obviously 
the President, have a little bit more access and a little bit more 
knowledge of what is going on over in the Middle East minute by minute. 
We simply have not been able to make ourselves available to that.
  So before we criticize the persons that have the knowledge, before we 
are so critical from the House floor, my colleagues ought to learn a 
little bit more exactly what is occurring. Because while we were 
speaking this evening, bullets have flown over there, and it is amazing 
that while machine gunfire is taking place, while allegedly 10-year-old 
or 13-year-old suicide bombers are running in to kill one side or the 
other, it is a little surprising to hear one of our Congressmen or the 
Congress as a whole maybe, which has not happened, I guess particular 
colleagues of mine, to stand up here and say, well, we have not 
diplomatically engaged. If any of us have a better idea that is going 
to work, not just to get publicity back in our district, if someone has 
really got an idea that is going to work, if they think they have got a 
solution for it, advance it. Do not wait till nighttime on special 
orders to come down here and say, well, how easy it is to criticize you 
because you are not a diplomatically engaged administration, and what 
we ought to do, hope for peace, that is how we solve the situation in 
the Middle East.
  We want peace. All peace-loving Americans want peace, and I am 
quoting directly from some of the previous comments. Well, that is a 
nice statement to make, but how are we going to solve the problem? What 
are the nuts and the bolts of the solution? When we have a crisis like 
the Middle East, I get a little impatient, as I would hope my 
colleagues get a little impatient, with one of us standing up here and 
constantly criticizing the administration but never coming up with a 
solution of their own.

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. Speaker, the easiest thing in the world is to criticize. The 
toughest thing in the world is to lead. I have seen a lot of criticism, 
but I am not sure how much leadership I am seeing. I am trying to learn 
everything I can about the situation in the Middle East, and I hope 
that the administration is doing the right thing; and I have placed my 
faith in this administration, as I have placed my faith in the United 
States. I think we are doing the right thing with what we have and what 
we know.
  I hope that our common sense leads us to some type of solution; but I 
can tell Members this, it would be a cold day in Members-know-where 
before I would jump up and make the criticisms while the guns are 
firing. I think we need to be a little more supportive.

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