Congressional Record, Volume 151 Issue 144 (Thursday, November 3, 2005)

[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 144 (Thursday, November 3, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H9627-H9633]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page H9627]]
AMERICA'S IMMIGRATION POLICY

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for
60 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, before I pass this microphone over to
my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr.
Hayworth), I cannot help but express some of the frustration with
sitting here and listening to this. I am really grateful that the
American people do not have the same sentiment that I have heard
tonight on the floor of Congress.
When I go to the coffee shop and to the break room in my district, I
do not hear anything like this rhetoric that I have heard here tonight.
When I hear that we have cut food stamps, I was involved in that. We
did not cut food stamps. What we did was we changed the regulations so
you have to be on some other kind of benefit so there was less fraud.
There is $1 billion of fraud going into the wrong people in food stamps
just in the last year that I have a report. We only touched about 20
percent of the fraud, Mr. Speaker.
Fuel prices. Help us open up drilling on the outer continental shelf.
Help us drill in ANWR. Let us develop the energy that we have in this
country, and we will not be looking at $3 dollar fuel. We know who is
to blame. It is the environmental extremists. And if Exxon Mobil made
$10 billion in the last quarter, let us take a look and see where they
invest it. If they invest it in that drilling, the American people will
reap the benefits.
There are a whole series of things here tonight, Mr. Speaker, and
that frustrates me greatly. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the
immigration issue.
I would ask my friend, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) if
he would pick that issue up.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Iowa; and before I
get to the topic at hand, I, too, would like to offer a few
observations about the preceding presentation in the people's House.
Those who have heard me speak from time to time know that quite often
I cite the observation of that great American author, Mark Twain, who
said, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. In the preceding
hour, here on the floor of the people's House, we may have heard from
the, quote, 30-Something Coalition, but it was that same old something,
those tired and shop-worn charges, those assertions that the American
people can only regard, to put it diplomatically, as unrealistic.
We heard a Member from Florida talk about cuts in school lunch
programs. We heard a Member from Massachusetts repeat what was a
blatantly false charge about Medicare withering on the vine, when in
fact the discussion had to do with the bureaucrats in a four letter
organization felony as HICFA.
Indeed, there are fundamentally different ways to address the
challenges we confront. My friends on the left honestly and sincerely
believe that Government is the answer; and though their rhetoric is
devoid of it, they seem to be concerned with budgets that affect the
care and feeding and the propagation of Washington bureaucrats and the
employees' unions they engender rather than solving real problems
affecting real people.
It is somewhat mind-boggling to hear the same old charges; and it is
interesting, the selective memory of those on the left. For it was one
of their celebrated leaders, John F. Kennedy, who said a rising tide
lifts all boats, who said that by reducing taxation across the board
and allowing the American people to save, spend and invest their own
money economic prosperity can result.
And that is not a partisan argument, nor was it the sole domain of
Jack Kennedy. Indeed, whether it was Calvin Coolidge or Jack Kennedy or
Ronald Reagan or, more recently, George W. Bush, working with this
governing majority in Congress, letting the American people have and
keep more of their own money to save, spend and invest, we in fact have
had an economic rebirth through the difficulties of 9/11, through the
challenges posed by the natural disasters.
The American economy continues to grow. Are there challenges? You
bet. Are there challenges we confront in energy? Absolutely. But the
key is, as I was happy to offer, tax credits for solar energy in our
sweeping energy bill, as many of us have embraced and asked us to take
a look at new technologies, neither do we abandon the notion of
maximizing existing supplies, using rational conservation and moving
forward.
Of course, it cannot begin to compare with outlandish charges. This
gets to the crux of the challenge. We have an awesome responsibility.
It is to help govern this country. Our friends on the left, be they 30-
something, or 40-something or 50-something, or 60-something, choose not
to join us in governing. They choose to carp and complain and issue
malicious and libelous charges. They offer no plan. They offer
complaints.
In stark contrast, our governing majority has a plan to bring budget
reform that results in real savings. And yet, even as they decry what
they call fiscal irresponsibility, they attack the reform process that
results in real savings.
One note about the incorrect information on student loans. We
actually increased money going to students. We tightened down the
margins on the lenders. We do not hurt the students. But, of course,
our friends on the left always equate compassion with the amount of
money taken from the American people to go to Washington bureaucrats;
and I believe, regardless of the age, regardless of the time, that is
precisely the wrong formula. Just as they mistakenly address compassion
by the number of people on welfare. No, true compassion is the number
of people who leave the welfare rolls and go to work.
And for those who cite curious cases played up in the dominant media
culture about CIA agents who send spouses on trips around the world to
offer talking points in a partisan campaign and somehow defend that and
seem to act as if there is no connection between the former, thank
goodness, the former dictator of Iraq who now sits in a prison cell
awaiting trial and other perpetrators of islamofascism, for those who
would so readily forget the lessons of 9/11, we say to the American
people, yes, the challenges are grave. We live in challenging times.
But we dare not shrink from the challenge and make the curious
divorcement of, oh, yes, we support our troops but not the conflict.
As one observer explained, that is like saying, gee, I support a
football team. I just do not want them to win the game.
Were it so simple to compare war to a game, but we know something far
more serious is at stake. We know over very national survival is at
stake; and we believe that we should support our troops, yes, and work
for an outcome that results in victory.
That brings us to the subject at hand tonight, our border security
and our national security. And despite the prattlings of the preceding
hour, in many ways our Commander in Chief has answered the call in the
wake of 9/11.
But when it comes to the border issues, the fact is the record is
troubling, and it results in constructive criticism. Just as many
within our party offered constructive criticism about the selection of
a Supreme Court judge, reasonable people can offer constructive
criticism.
Item. Congress Daily, this morning, Thursday, November 3, Homeland
Secretary unveils border security initiative. Homeland Security
Secretary Chertoff Wednesday rolled out a multi-year plan to secure the
Nation's border and reduce illegal immigration, dubbing the proposal as
the, quote, enforcement complement to President Bush's temporary guest
worker program.

{time} 2130

Constructive criticism number one, in accompanying documents released
yesterday in Houston, Texas, Secretary Chertoff said his Department had
a 5-year plan to gain operational control of the borders.
Mr. Speaker, the American people and our Nation cannot wait 5 years
for operational control of our borders. The attacks of 9/11 came almost
a half decade ago. Are we then to wait 10 years in wartime to secure
our borders? That is wrong. That is the wrong time table. Border
security at once because border

[[Page H9628]]

security is synonymous with national security.
The other troubling aspect of the dispatch in this morning's Congress
Daily, the enforcement complement to President Bush's temporary guest
worker program.
Mr. Speaker, I have introduced, and my colleagues who join me tonight
on this floor have sponsored, the Enforcement First Initiative. The
American people demand enforcement first. Call it putting the cart
before the horse, but those who talk about a guest worker program have
it exactly backwards. What we should do is enforce existing laws, close
loopholes and then and only then engage in a debate about guest worker
programs.
Indeed, this debate about border security, national security, illegal
immigration, and the euphemism that accompanies it of undocumented
workers, an Orwellian turn of phrase if there ever was one because many
of these alleged undocumented have documents galore, and should we also
point out that under the existing framework we have visa programs
literally from A to Z under the existing legal framework, but again
back to the situation at hand.
A fair question could be posed in this fashion: If people are not
obeying existing laws, what makes us think they would obey any new
laws? So Enforcement First offers a comprehensive approach saying that
this government shall enforce existing law and that we shall work to
eliminate loopholes that exist that result in the gaming of our system,
that result in the drain on taxpayers and that deny this fundamental
truth that even those who may profoundly disagree with us who preceded
us here in the well certainly have to embrace and that is that this is
a Nation of laws.
Therefore, if we are a Nation of laws and a Nation of immigrants,
immigration should occur within a legal framework, not through the
machinations of illegal schemes and scams that threaten our national
security.
Why do I say that? Well, one need look only so far as the testimony
in open session in the other body from our former colleague Porter
Goss, now Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, joined by
others, who offered the testimony that their major concern is that
someone meaning to do harm to this Nation might utilize our porous
border to do so, to come here illegally. Indeed, we have seen other
reports that al Qaeda operatives and others who embrace Islamofascism
have instructed their minions on a mission in this hemisphere to seek
to gain entry to the United States through our porous southern border.
The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in testimony
before a House subcommittee chaired by our friend, the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Culberson), confirmed the gentleman from Texas's (Mr.
Culberson) assertion that illegals who come from nation-states
embracing Islamofascism have attempted to gain entry into our country
by blending into the mass exodus north of illegals and utilizing
Hispanic surnames.
Mr. Speaker, I offer these words not to sow the seeds of panic, but
instead to offer a renewal of a sense of purpose in the wake of 9/11,
mindful of the challenges a sovereign Nation of laws confronts. We must
have heightened border security. It leads to greater national security.
There must be internal enforcement. There must be a closing of
loopholes, and that is the idea behind the notion of Enforcement First.
So, Mr. Speaker, I say respectfully and diplomatically to the
Secretary of Homeland Security, enforcement is not a commitment to a
guest worker program. Enforcement is the long overdue step to protect
our Nation from external threats in a time of war. And then once we do
that, we can effectively discuss a guest worker program.
My friend from Iowa who was very gracious to yield time. I will
remain, but I want to yield back to him because other friends join us
tonight during this hour.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona
(Mr. Hayworth) for his eloquent presentation on a lot of things that
ail us that we heard about here tonight and also the border control and
the immigration issue and the future of our country.
As I listen to that group that comes here nearly every night, and it
was interesting to see the gray hair amongst the 30-somethings that we
had, it is extraordinarily depressing to hear that viewpoint. I
happened to at random bounce across some Web pages that must be the
perpetrators of that kind of thought process because it just does not
connect with the rational reality of what is going on here with our
authorization bills, our appropriations bills, the responsibility that
we have, the fiscal responsibility, the vision we have for America. And
I do not think that you could read the facts and connect the lingo that
is coming from the other side and measure the two together. But it is
depressing and I think sometimes that if I felt like that I do not
think I could get out of bed every morning and go to work in this place
and drag everybody else down when we are trying to lift this country
up.
Their vision seems to be, I will say, surrender and get out of Iraq,
turn that over to Zarqawi, let that be a terrorist center for the
world. Let them come in here and attack us whenever they want. Do not
take any self-defense mechanism. Soak the rich. Starve the businesses.
Get rid of the jobs. And the list goes on and on and on of the
lamentations that we heard.
We are an optimistic party. Even though when they say the name of our
party it comes off as profanity, it really is an optimistic party. We
have always reached for the stars and brought this country forward. The
tax cuts that we did turned this economy around from the depths of
September 11's trough and, in fact, this year we have $274 billion in
additional revenue beyond what was calculated by CBO and anticipated
because of the tax cuts that we provided, and we need to make them
permanent.

On the immigration issue, which is our subject here tonight, that is
important to our national security issues, the issue of the citizenship
and immigration services and the job that they are supposed to be doing
and the great difficulty they have in carrying out that task, the
internal problems that they have, we have the gentleman on my left from
Virginia (Mr. Goode), and I would be happy to yield to him.
Mr. GOODE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King),
and I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) for their
comments here tonight. I certainly learned a lot from both gentlemen
and appreciated what they had to say, particularly on the immigration
issue.
I want to talk a little bit before talking about illegal immigration
about something that occurred just the other day in the Rayburn
Building. We had a meeting of the Immigration Reform Caucus, and both
the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) and the gentleman from Iowa
(Mr. King) are members of that and it is chaired by the gentleman from
Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), who has done yeoman's work on behalf of that
group.
We were anticipating hearing from someone from the U.S. Citizen and
Immigration Services. Now, as you know, the Department of Homeland
Security is the secretarial agency, and underneath that agency is the
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. And they are charged with
doing a number of different programs, one program of which is the FAST
program. And that is involving temporary adjudicators that have been
hired to make citizenship and permanent residency decisions. And I
agree that the backlog is long and needs to be addressed. But I want to
emphasize, I think it is better to take extra time, make sure the
investigations are done, have law enforcement personnel there with the
investigations to make sure no criminals or terrorists or others that
would do us harm come through one of these programs.
Another program is the Focus program, and that involves segregating
and reviewing hundreds of pending applications for immigration benefits
where there are specific concerns about potential ties to terrorists or
terrorist organizations. And this gets us to what occurred in the House
office buildings just the other day.
I was coming to the Immigration Reform Caucus meeting anticipating
hearing from a law enforcement officer at that meeting and voicing his
opinions and letting us have the opportunity to ask questions about the
agency and about how they handle these

[[Page H9629]]

programs where they make decisions on permanency, residency,
citizenship, and granting decisions for these persons who want to come
to the United States of America. The handlers of that person would not
let us ask questions.
I hope that situation can be rectified and that the Immigration
Reform Caucus and other members on different committees will have the
opportunity to ask the questions that we want to ask, because, while
illegal immigration is probably the number one problem facing the
United States of America, we need to be sure that legal immigration is
handled in the appropriate way and that programs like FAST and programs
like Focus have the appropriate oversight and that the right questions
are asked.
I would like to take a few minutes now to focus on the illegal
immigration problem. I want to thank, again, the gentleman from Iowa
(Mr. King) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) for being here
tonight talking about this issue. They have been in the trenches for
months and years, and this problem is not getting any better. It is
only getting worse. But I am thankful because more Members of the House
of Representatives are focusing on this problem. We have more Members
than ever before introducing legislation addressing different aspects
of the problem.
Today, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) introduced
legislation that does many things. It is backed by groups such as the
Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform; and having mentioned
that group, I would also like to thank U.S. Border Control for their
efforts in combating illegal immigration, Numbers USA for their efforts
against illegal immigration. But our focus today was on a fence all
along the southern border.
We have a fence now between California and Mexico south of the city
of San Diego. That fence has provided a great barrier to drug
smuggling, to terrorists coming into this country, and to stopping the
illegal crossing.

{time} 2145

We were able to see a picture of pre-fence days and then see a
picture of post-fence days. The fence has improved the environment
significantly in the San Diego area, and it has enhanced our border
security.
What we need to do now is extend the fence from San Diego to
Brownsville. There would be port of entries along the fence, but, by
doing this, the security that the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth)
talks about that we need in this country would be significantly
enhanced.
There were a number of other aspects of this legislation. Currently,
we have a policy by the Department of Homeland Security and its
immigration services of basically one of catch-and-release. That means
if you catch someone in this country illegally, because of a lack of
facilities to house all of them is a factor, I also think it is a
philosophical not wanting to carry out what I believe the law should be
in this country, differences among some of us and some of those
carrying out that law, of just letting the illegals go. If this
legislation passes, those illegally in the country will be committing a
violation of law, and they can be caught and detained, not caught and
released.
Another aspect of this legislation focuses on the diversity visa
program, and that program has been in effect since the mid-years of the
Clinton administration, which pushed for it. We had hoped that this
program would end within a few years. It has rocked on, and this would
end under this bill.
We would also end the 245(i) practice. And now what does 245(i) mean?
That means if you come into the country illegally and you get the right
letter from an employer or you get the right letter from a relative,
that means you can stay here by paying $1,000. We need to end that
practice. 245(i) encourages persons to come across the border
illegally. They say we will not have to go through the process. We will
not have to be checked out. We will not have to have our background
checked. We will not have to present our records and be analyzed before
we get into the United States. We will just walk across the border.
Or if they are already here, say we will not have to go back. We will
get a 245(i). We will just pay a little extra money, and we will move
to the head of the line, and that is unfair. That is unfair to those
that wait in line, and it is unfair to the millions of Americans that
pay taxes.
Another aspect of this legislation, which is an attempt to compile
many different items of legislation into a single bill, some of them
are part of legislation that the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth)
has sponsored, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), and I could list
others, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Deal), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr.
Sullivan), and I could go on and on. It captures and borrows from these
bills, and I have to mention this because I want to salute the
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).
One of his measures says if you are an employer and you hire
illegals, then you cannot deduct the cost and the taxes paid on those
illegals from your Federal income tax return, and that is the way it
should be. The legislation further emphasizes that there shall be no
earned income tax credit for illegals. There will be no credit for
Social Security for the time that you are illegally in this country.
Under the current situation, if there were to be an amnesty, and I
vigorously oppose the amnesty because it only encourages more illegals
to come across the border, if there is an amnesty, you will not be able
to go back and recapture the time that you are in the country
illegally.
It also focuses on the practice that some who come from across our
southern border want to have children in this country. They want to
create an American baby because, under our current law, anyone born in
the United States of America is an automatic citizen, and that helps
those illegally here stay in this country. Under our bill, coming
across the border and having a baby of illegal aliens who did not go
through the proper process will not grant that child automatic
citizenship.
So this is indeed a comprehensive measure that will address illegal
immigration, and it is my hope that we will be able to get legislation
to the floor of the House of Representatives, hopefully before
Christmas, if not, certainly by the first part of next year, so that we
can take a stand and send to the American people the message that we
are serious about stopping illegal immigration.
We do not want amnesty for illegals. We want to preserve and protect
the United States of America. We want border security; and, as the
Congressman from Arizona says, we want enforcement first.
If we do that and if we can get the other body and if we can get the
executive branch down the road from the United States Capitol to come
along and get on this train, America will be safer, will be more
prosperous and will be more of a land of opportunity for the hard-
working and tax-paying citizens of this country.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia
(Mr. Goode) for his presentation and with clarity I appreciate.
I want to add that we are taking a look into the functionality and
the failure to function in citizenship and immigration services. It is
this Congress' responsibility to have oversight. It is this Congress'
responsibility to investigate. If we believe there is impropriety in
some place, lack of efficiency, we are to bring this all together. This
is our responsibility to the taxpayers of America, and it is our
constitutional duty.
Because there are a couple of minders there that will not allow an
individual to speak, then that does not mean that we are going to back
away from this. It just means we are going to resolve the situation
eventually in the appropriate fashion, with patience and
professionalism. That is the perspective that I think we need to take a
look at with this.
I want to touch back on an immigration issue, but the moment that I
do that, I want to transition over to the energy policy. So, in the
interim, I would be happy to yield a few minutes to the gentleman from
Arizona for his concluding thoughts with regard to immigration.

[[Page H9630]]

Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Iowa, and I look
forward to hearing from our colleague from Pennsylvania who, again in
stark contrast to those who preceded us in the well, takes a thoughtful
look at the challenges we confront and offers some common-sense
solutions, especially in the realm of natural gas and where we are
headed as a Nation in terms of energy exploration for existing
technologies and, quite frankly, bringing on-line new technologies to
deal with energy.
But as I heard both my colleague from Virginia and my colleague from
Iowa talk about the spectacle that occurred in the hallway of the
Rayburn House Office Building yesterday, I just was astonished by the
seeming triumph and insensitivity of the bureaucracy.
Two minders accompanying a law enforcement officer essentially to put
him on notice that his role in his employment with the Federal
Government could very well be threatened. We have visited totalitarian
nations where there are minders who follow us, some very cleverly
concealed, some as hotel personnel, but to see that spectacle in this
grand republic and see it utilized really to try and supercede the
legitimate questions of constitutional officers was very disappointing.
I would echo, Mr. Speaker, the words of my colleague from Iowa, there
will be oversight. Count on it. The Congress will live up to its
constitutional responsibilities. I will put those Washington
bureaucrats on notice, those who believe they can get in the way of
constitutional officers doing their jobs, that the people will demand
answers through their constitutional representatives. But we understand
the answer, in summation to our challenge for national security and
border security, it is enforcement first. It is not amnesty. It is not
the embrace of putting illegals in the front of the line and making a
mockery of an orderly, lawful, immigration process.
Borders are necessary. There is graffiti written in Spanish on one of
the borders adjoining my State which reads, Borders are scars upon the
earth. Mr. Speaker, borders are not scars upon the earth. Borders are
reasonable and necessary to maintain the sovereignty of nation states;
and, as the poet wrote, good fences make good neighbors.
I salute the gentleman from Virginia joining with the chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee with the True legislation today. I am
pleased to be a cosponsor. I thank my friends from Virginia and from
Iowa, others within the Immigration Reform Caucus. I thank them for the
time, and I look forward with interest to hearing from our colleague
from Pennsylvania with references to the challenges we confront here
early in the 21st century for this Nation's energy needs.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona and
the gentleman from Virginia on this enlightening discussion we have had
on immigration. I am quite pleased that an individual from Arizona
would have the phrase, good fences make good neighbors. I thought that
was an Iowa phrase.
I want to point out, too, that when you build a fence or a wall to
contain people, if you do that to keep them from leaving a place like
it might have been East Germany, then that is wrong from a
philosophical standpoint. If you have a place that is such an
attraction that you build that fence to keep them out, that is a moral
thing to do. There is a big difference.
So, the fence in Israel, for example, between the West Bank and
Israel proper, that is a fence to protect the people from the folks on
the other side that want to come across with bombs. It is not immoral
to build a fence to protect yourself from people that are assaulting.
In fact, the southern border in the last year over 1,159,000 illegals
that were collared at the border, so to speak. We heard T.J. Bonner, a
border patrol, say here a couple of days ago that approximately 4
million came across the southern border during that period of time and
we collared 1,159,000. Of those 1,159,000, all but 1,640 of them
promised to go back. We cannot verify that any of them went back, but
we did actually adjudicate 1,640 of the 1,159,000 to go back to their
home country.
So we have got a very small percentage here. The catch-and-release
program is real. I got into a little buy-in when I made that statement
that it was a seven times catch-and-release program before they were
adjudicated for deportation. Some of the bureaucrats took issue with
that and wanted to have a meeting. So they brought eight of their
people into the room, and the first statement was I am wrong, we need
to retract the statement. An hour and 45 minutes later, they admitted
that, even though that was not the written policy, it was the practice,
and in fact, it might be more than seven times catch-and-release. That
is how bad it is.
I want to say just a couple of words about the new IDEA bill that the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode) mentioned that I have drafted and
that we have significant cosponsors on.
It is clear for us, build a fence on the border, beef up the border
patrol, but we need domestic enforcement. We know that the
administration has not sanctioned a single employer for hiring illegals
in the last year. That is an issue that needs to be enforced as well.
But, on top of that, how do we dry up the jobs magnet? How do we get a
policy in place and get some administration agency that actually is
willing to enforce that policy?
So I looked around the country, and I thought who really are the
junkyard dogs of bureaucracy? Who likes to go to work and who does
their job? Who has a reputation that you know they are going to follow
through? The times I have been audited I can tell you it is the IRS. So
I said, well, let us see if we can find a way to get the IRS into this
game and enforce this illegal immigration.
So that is where the idea comes from to remove Federal deductibility
for wages and benefits that are paid to illegals. Let the IRS come and
do a normal audit, and if the employer uses the InstaCheck program so
they can verify over the Internet in an instant whether that employee
is legal to be hired, go back on the Social Security Administration
database and Department of Homeland Security database, come back with a
positive hit, hire that person.
We put safe harbor in the bill. If you are a responsible employer,
you use InstaCheck, the basic pilot program to verify the
employability, then the IRS will not touch you on that hire. But if
they run the numbers when they do the audit, use the InstaCheck, and it
finds out that the Social Security numbers and the identification does
not match anything, then the wages and benefits that you spend on that
employee become not a deductible expense but taxable income.

{time} 2200

So, for example, if you are a corporation and in a 34 percent tax
bracket and you are paying $10 an hour to illegals, the IRS will come
in and say, well, no, that $10 an hour is not a deduction. We are going
to tax that at 34 percent, and we are going to add the interest and
penalty on there. Now that becomes about a $6 an hour penalty on the
$10 an hour person, so now the illegals cost you $16 an hour. In
theory, a least, a legal employee that you could hire for $16 an hour
becomes a rational decision.
As that happens, then the illegals that are here working at this
discount rate because it is rational for employers to hire the
illegals, they are cheaper for a lot of reasons, it becomes rational
instead to say, no, sorry, I cannot put you to work because the IRS
sometime in the next 6 years can come back and audit me and I will have
to pay the bill. So I might as well pay it to somebody who is here
legally for the right reason.
This changes this great migration of four million people pouring
across our southern border, and it sends them back again. Because what
are they going to do if they cannot get employment here? It is a jobs
magnet.
New ideas. It is one piece of many things, as Mr. Goode spoke about
and Mr. Hayworth did. So I am part of all of this. I want to stand here
with it. If we have any more ideas, I want to hear them all. We need
them from the American people. The American people are the ones who
will move this Congress, so they need to write letters and send the
message, and this Congress will hear you.
So I thank the gentleman on the immigration issue tonight. I also had
two

[[Page H9631]]

subjects in mind that I feel is important to bring up, and energy is
the other one.
As we listened to the minority party on the other side do their 60
minutes of nightly lamentations, we heard about the cost of gas, the
cost of energy, and I did make a few remarks about how we can help that
cause. But I would point out that I represent maybe the number one
corn-producing congressional district in America. If you are going to
raise anything, you have to have nitrogen fertilizer to do that. All
crops take nitrogen. Corn takes a lot of nitrogen. About 90 percent of
the cost of nitrogen fertilizer is the cost of natural gas.
Natural gas has gone up 400 to 500 percent over the last 3 years, and
we see the cost of natural gas going in the area of $14.50 per million
BTUs. We look around the world, and Mr. Peterson will give us more
details on this in a moment, and we see not far away, natural gas
coming out of Venezuela of $1.60 compared to the U.S. at $14.50.
The other day they said they were going to go ahead and build the
natural gas pipeline from Alaska down to the lower 48 States. It is
4,700-some miles from the north slope down to Kansas City, the heart of
America. Up there, there is 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that
we know of. There is probably more in ANWR that we will open up, and
hopefully we will drill there for oil as well. So, 4,700 some miles
from the north slope of Alaska to Kansas City. Build the pipeline down
to the lower 48, and we can get 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Venezuela is making fertilizer and selling it to us now off of gas
that costs about $1.60. Russia is doing the same thing off of natural
gas that costs us 95 cents. We are losing our fertilizer industry in
America. It does not take very much to control food production if you
have control of the fertilizer itself.
But down there in that gulf area, for example, all that gas in
Venezuela, Venezuela is 2,700 miles from Kansas City, for example. So
that gas is closer. But closer than that yet is all of this natural gas
that we have on the Outer Continental Shelf of America, with 200 miles,
406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Now, tell me, would you go to Alaska for 38 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas and build a 4,000-some mile pipeline to get it down to the
lower 48? Would you go to Venezuela and ship that gas in as liquified
natural gas and go through the exchange process and the plants at the
terminals that it takes to handle that? Or would you just go down there
nice and close, where we already have a system all set up, and plug
right into that existing massive quantity of 406 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas that we have on the Outer Continental Shelf?
To continue to be hostage to energy prices at $14.50 per million BTUs
when the rest of the world is getting along on numbers like 95 cents or
$1.60. China is up to about $4 something. But we are at a great
disadvantage. And if we only open up this natural gas marginally, we
will only lower the price marginally and we will still pay a great
price economically, because we know that energy is the price of
everything we have and everything we own.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield to the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), who is really the lead on
this issue, and I am very happy and proud that he has taken this issue
to this Congress.
Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Iowa, the gentleman from Virginia, and the gentleman from Arizona for
the good job they did bringing up the security issue of this country.
The number one issue is immigration enforcement, protecting our
borders, and handling that issue in a much better way than we have
historically done in this country.
But the economic issue facing this country is the price of energy and
the availability of energy. Natural gas is the clean fuel. It is almost
the perfect fuel. It is what we heat our homes with. It is what we heat
most of our schools, our hospitals, our YMCAs, our churches, our
colleges, our universities. Most of our small businesses and mostly all
commercial businesses run on that. Many, many industries use it in
many, many ways. So 25 percent of the energy in this country is natural
gas.
We have heard a lot of discussion about oil and gasoline prices. In
fact, on the evening news the American public understands the issue
pretty well because it is reported well. But natural gas is not
reported well. It is not talked about and not understood much.
Gasoline prices were double, they were at their peak after Katrina.
Natural gas prices were 700 percent what they were 5 years ago. Now
that is just a huge increase. A gallon of milk would be $28. I think we
would have panic in this country if a gallon of milk were at $28, yet
there is no panic in the country about natural gas, except from those
who use a lot of it, but they are having a hard time getting government
to listen at any level.
You just heard my friend from Iowa talking about the fertilizer
industry and the tremendous amount of energy that is used for
fertilizing natural gas. Petrochemical is one of the best-paying
industries we have left in America. All the chemicals we buy at the
hardware and grocery store, all the chemicals we use in the
manufacturing process, one of the basic ingredients is natural gas.
Plus, natural gas is used to heat those products and make them in the
first place. Most petrochemicals, 40 to 50 percent of the cost of
production is natural gas, thus putting them at a huge competitive
disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.
Polymers and plastics. We all know how polymers and plastics are such
a major part of our life. Almost everything we touch has polymers and
plastics as a part of it. Even for you ladies, skin softeners and
makeup, the basic ingredient for skin softeners is a product derived
out of natural gas.
We heard about the plight of the farmers. The farmers have a real
energy issue, because it hits them from when they plant, it hits them
when they harvest, it hits them when they dry their grain, using
natural gas usually. They just get hit again and again, and it has been
very difficult for them to be profitable.
Why is natural gas such an issue? It is not a world price. When we
pay $60 in this country for oil, the whole world does. When we pay $65,
the whole world does. But when we pay $14.50, we are at 12-something
today, we are an island to ourselves. The rest of the world is much
cheaper. Europe is under half what we pay. Now, our big competitors,
Japan, Taiwan, and China, they are a third of what we pay. When you add
cheap labor to those countries and the ability to engineer, they are
bright countries, very sophisticated countries, they have learned from
us. When you give them another advantage of the energy they use to make
products, and especially products that consume a lot of natural gas,
you give them this huge advantage.
The rest of the world is under 2. As my colleague said, Russia is 95
cents, and I think North Africa is 80 cents. How can our employers and
our companies compete when energy is a large part of their cost and
they have to compete with other countries? They cannot. Our large
employers are hanging on hoping government will do something about this
crisis, and something major. Not tinker, but something major, and soon.
Soon.
If we do not, I think Representative Pearce said a few weeks ago here
on the floor that we are going to solve this, that we are going to
change this, and we can do it now and save a million or two jobs in
this country, some of the best jobs we have left, or we can do it later
and hope we can recover, and many of those jobs we will never get back.
How did this happen? Well, for decades, natural gas was two bucks.
Oil was $10. Nothing could compete with that. Renewables could not
really grow because those prices were so cheap that nothing could
compete. That went on for decades.
Ten years ago, a major shift in policy also happened. Congress
legislatively for a time permitted natural gas unlimitedly to be used
to make electricity. We used to use make about 6 to 7 percent of our
electricity with natural gas, and it was only allowed at peak power.
That is early in the morning and into the evening, when we use more
electricity than we normally do. You can turn a gas plant on and off,
but you cannot do that with coal and nuclear, so gas was allowed to be
used for peak power.
Well, they took the prohibition away about 10 years ago; and now 25
percent

[[Page H9632]]

of the electricity in this country is made with natural gas.
Well, there were those who predicted that if we did not open up
supply that would cause a shortage down the road. And when a few years
went by, that is exactly what has happened, because we have it locked
up.
How did it get locked up? Well, there was a moratorium many years
ago, about 25 years ago, put on by President Bush. It was supposed to
be a temporary moratorium where we would have an inventory and that
inventory would take a few years. But then he did not win reelection.
President Clinton came in, and he extended the moratorium through 2012,
and our current President has not touched it.
Shortly thereafter, Congress placed a moratorium on the OCS. So now
we have a Presidential moratorium and we have a legislative moratorium
that has been preventing the production of natural gas on the Outer
Continental Shelf for about 20 some years.
Now, what is the Continental Shelf? Well, the first three miles of
our offshore is owned by the States and then from 3 to 200 miles is
owned by the Federal Government. So 200 miles is what is called the
Continental Shelf, and that is where many countries produce a huge
amount of their energy because there is lots of it there.
Now many feel that that 400 trillion cubic feet that was mentioned is
way underestimated. Because the work that was done was over 30 years
ago, and the measuring devices we have today, the seismographic
instruments, are so much more accurate. But government has prevented
that from being done.
We actually had a bill that the State of Florida prevented from
passing so we could not measure. In fact, the current energy bill had a
measurement in there but did not have funding in it, so it was a paper
measurement, which I do not know how you do that. We were not going to
be able to spend any money. But they are protesting that measurements
not be done today, the State of Florida.
Now Canada, a very environmentally sensitive country, the U.K.,
Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand and Australia, they all
produce both gas and oil. We are only talking about natural gas, but
they produce both gas and oil on their Continental Shelf, and that is
really where most of the world does it.
Now what is the advantage of that? I think my friend from Iowa said
that very well. It is where the population is. As you go up and down
our coastlines, and 85 percent of our coastline today is part of the
moratorium. We only have 15 percent we produce in. That is where the
population is. We do not have to build 5,000 mile high-pressure
expensive lines. You just hook into the cities where the population
base is and then hook into the system that is already serving them that
comes in from Texas and Oklahoma and the gulf, and the system is hooked
together. It is by far, by far the best place we can produce and
produce quickly.
Now why are we doing that? Well, number one, it is the Florida
delegation; and the government of Florida has had a huge influence in
this body. They have actually prevented it, and they are currently
opposing all measures to open up the Outer Continental Shelf.
We have the Peterson-Abercrombie plan, and I think my friend from
Iowa is a sponsor of that, and what we want to do is to move the
moratorium. We want to give the States control of the first 20 miles.
You can only see production for about 12 miles. So, after 12 miles,
even from a tall building, you cannot see it. So we will say, all
right, States can control 20 miles, both gas and oil. From 20 miles
out, gas will be open for production in all the Outer Continental
Shelf. And Florida will be included. They should help out, too. And
then oil would be left up to the States, and they could petition the
Department of the Interior to remove the moratorium on oil if they so
chose to.
That gives us a huge opportunity to produce the gas that is needed,
in my view, to give our industries and give our citizens the ability to
have affordable natural gas to heat our homes, to run our businesses
and fuel the big industries that are going to leave this country.
There has never been a natural gas production well that has ever
harmed a beach or that has ever been a problem even on land. A natural
gas well is a six-inch hole in the ground. You put a steel casing in
cement at the bottom and at the top, and you let gas out into a
pipeline.
This is not a threat to any environment. It is not a threat to
creatures. In fact, in the gulf, the best fishing is where we produce
both oil and gas, and all the fishermen will tell you that.
I keep hearing about all this potential pollution. And then someone
said the other day in a debate it would be 7 to 10 years before we
could get production. It will take a few years, but it will not take 7
to 10 years. That was a very inaccurate statement.

{time} 2215

Now, what is interesting about Florida, which is really the
opposition here, they use 233 times more natural gas, they are huge
users, than they produce; and they sit in the best, most fertile fields
of the country. All around them are huge fields of natural gas and some
of the best natural gas, and they are not only not wanting us to
produce it, but they have actually prevented us from leasing tract 181,
which was not under moratorium and that was scheduled to be released
under the Clinton administration to be leased and has not been leased
today due to much of the protesting of Florida. And that is unfair to
the rest of this country.
I love my friends from Florida who are here. They are great people.
But the Florida government leadership, the Florida State government
leadership, in my view, has been very wrong on this issue and has not
only prevented production off their shores but has really prevented
production that was very vital to this country's economic future and
prevented us from having the gas reserves we need so that prices could
be normal. If natural gas prices were normal, we could be expanding the
use of it.
I have a bus system in State College, Pennsylvania that is all
natural gas. Today they are paying a premium to do that. In all the
cities all of our buses, all of our school buses, our transit systems,
all of our taxi cabs, our short-haul vehicles, our service trucks could
all be on natural gas, and we would have cleaner air in the cities, and
some of those cities could reach clean air attainment.
Natural gas can be the bridge to our future. It can be the bridge to
renewables or a bigger part of our energy portfolio. There are so many
ways natural gas can displace other fuels, especially oil and our need
for oil. It can displace the need for more refineries if we fuel part
of our transportation system with clean burning natural gas.
And one other fact on Florida, 75 percent of the electricity they use
is generated by natural gas, and that is because just recently they
tore down their coal plants and went to natural gas.
I want to share with the Members, though the Florida delegation and
the Florida State government is vehemently against any change, here is
what the Associated Industries of Florida said recently in a letter to
MMS, the Mineral Management Service: ``We appreciate that MMS is going
to be reviewing all of the current OCS areas, including the areas that
have until now been off limits due to the moratorium, which include the
Atlantic, Pacific, and Eastern Gulf of Mexico regions. Research
documents that these areas hold substantial undiscovered but
technically recoverable energy resources that will be absolutely
critical to America's national security and to the continued growth of
our economy and to securing jobs for virtually every sector of our
economy.''
Now, the Associated Industries of Florida gets it. They go on to say:
``If America doesn't look to expanding exploration and drilling in
these OCSs, then America will unnecessarily pay a high price,'' like we
are today, ``and incur a heavy burden. The U.S. Energy Information
Administration forecasts that by 2025 petroleum demand will increase by
39 percent and natural gas demand will increase by 34 percent.
Higher energy prices have exacted a toll on our economy already by
slowing our growth from between .5 percent to 1 percent based on pre-
hurricane prices. Farmers have paid $6 billion more for energy in the
last 2 years. Natural gas costs for the chemical industry in America
have increased by $10 billion since 2003. And of the 120 chemical

[[Page H9633]]

plants being built around the world with price tags of $1 billion or
more each, only one is being built in the United States.
``As a result, Associated Industries of Florida recommends to the MMS
that expanded lease sales are important to our country, to our
citizens, and to our way of life. To not utilize all of our available
energy resources, when it can be accomplished in an environmentally
sensitive way, would be a disservice to our country. We need to ensure
that we have a bright future by adopting an expansive OCS leasing
program.''
Osram Sylvania, a big company that owns a lot of plants in this
country, here is what they said: ``In the past 5 years, we have seen
natural gas prices escalate from $3 per MCF to well over $10 on the
spot market. As compared to natural gas costs in 2000, our bills in
2005 will be $24 million higher.''
Mr. Speaker, again, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

____________________