[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 10 (Wednesday, February 1, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H139-H145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kuhl of New York). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, as always, I profoundly appreciate the 
privilege to address this body and on a subject matter before us that 
we have not had the opportunity to debate and deliberate within this 
Chamber and one of the broader subjects that I would like to address in 
this upcoming 60 minutes, Mr. Speaker, is the President's State of the 
Union address last night. I have a copy in my hand here, the one I took 
notes on as he spoke in this Chamber last night.
  Before I move into that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a 
couple of subject matters that were raised by one of the previous 
speakers and point out that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 
this seems to be something that is debated across this country 
intensively by the mainstream media. It fits within the same category 
of the PATRIOT Act which we extended at least from this floor today.
  I sat through in the Judiciary Committee at least part if not all of 
the 12 to 13 hearings that we had, and we asked continually, give us 
some names, give us some specific examples of someone who had their 
rights trampled or abused or usurped under the PATRIOT Act and I say 
also under FISA. The criticism continues, Mr. Speaker, but I still 
continue to ask, name the case, name the individual, give me the 
circumstances by which these laws that have protected us so well have 
been abused by anyone this administration or the opening by which that 
might be done. I have not heard that answer, and I continue to ask that 
question.
  This country has not been attacked because we have been prudent in 
our surveillance. This surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act has been used by many Presidents and only challenged 
now after it was brought forward in the New York Times, the very 
morning that there is a PATRIOT Act vote in the United States Senate. I 
would question the motives of that newspaper that sat on that story for 
a year. We need to continue to ask that question and what was the 
motive of the paper, and by the way, what was the motive of the Members 
of this body and the other body when they had been briefed on FISA and 
those kind of foreign intelligence surveillance, they did not seem to 
have an objection when they were briefed. They only had an objection 
when they were briefed by the media. We have a larger responsibility 
than that, Mr. Speaker, and I would point that out.
  Also, one of the previous speakers addressed the issue of ``our 
addition to foreign oil.'' I would ask those people, help us use this 
domestic supply of energy that we have. Let us unlock ANWR, let us 
unlock the Outer Continental Shelf. Let us develop these domestic 
supplies of renewable energies that we have. Let us join together in a 
bipartisan effort to grow the size of this energy pie.
  So those two in response to the previous remarks that were made, Mr. 
Speaker, and then I would also address the idea, the President covered 
a whole series of subject matters last night. Our national defense is 
one. Energy is another. Education is another.
  Of course, one of the key components to our national security is 
immigration, border enforcement, and here with us tonight to address 
the border security issue and border enforcement and I expect will have 
some kind words to say about our brave border patrol is the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Keller) to whom I would be pleased to yield to.
  Mr. KELLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

  Mr. Speaker, I have just returned from the Mexican border and I am 
here to report my findings.
  We were 5,000 feet up in the mountains along the border California 
shares with Mexico at 2:00 a.m., freezing in 30-degree weather with the 
wind howling in our faces. Eight shivering young men, illegal aliens in 
their late teens and early 20s, sat on the cold ground in handcuffs, 
grateful to be caught. One of them pleaded with the border patrol agent 
to find his girlfriend Maria who was still stuck on one of the cliffs.
  Illegal aliens, like the ones I saw in handcuffs, continue to enter 
the United States from the Mexican border at the rate of 8,000 per day. 
Today, we have 11 million illegal aliens in the United States.
  Illegal immigration presents a huge problem. That is why I decided to 
spend a week along the southern border to see firsthand how bad the 
problem was and what Congress could do to fix it.
  Last year, our border patrol agents arrested 1.2 million illegal 
aliens attempting to enter the United States from Mexico. 
Significantly, 155,000 of those arrested were from countries other than 
Mexico. They included illegal immigrants from Iran, Iraq and 
Afghanistan. Our porous Mexican-U.S. border offers the perfect cover 
for terrorists, especially since tighter controls have been imposed at 
airports.
  This poses a very serious national security problem, according to CIA 
Director Porter Goss. I personally spoke with border patrol agents who 
had apprehended suspects on the terrorist watch list.
  One night while I was riding along with the border patrol two 
illegals from Pakistan were captured. One convicted sexual predator was 
caught trying to cross, so were wanted murder suspects, drug dealers 
and smugglers.

[[Page H140]]

  I was impressed by the bravery of the border patrol agents who 
escorted me. I saw a border patrol supervisor get out of his vehicle, 
pull an illegal alien off of a 10-foot wall and arrest him despite his 
violent attempts to resist the arrest.
  The border patrol agent I rode with told me he had been shot at on 
several occasions. Twenty-three of his colleagues have been killed in 
the line of duty since 1990. For example, border patrol agents Susan 
Rodriguez and Ricardo Salinas were gunned down by a murder suspect. 
Agent Jefferson Barr was shot to death by a drug trafficker.
  If the job of a border patrol agent sounds dangerous, imagine the 
risk to people who actually live along the border.
  I sat down in the living rooms of four different families who own 
ranches along the border. One couple, Ed and Donna Tisdale, documented 
on home video 13,000 illegal aliens crossing their property in one year 
alone. The Tisdales had their barbed-wire fences cut by illegals, 
running off the family's cattle. When their dogs barked to scare off 
intruders, the dogs were poisoned.
  Another rancher told me about numerous break-ins at his home while 
his family slept, as illegal aliens tried to find food and clothing. 
One morning his daughters had gone out to feed their pet bunnies, only 
to find them skinned and taken for food by illegal aliens trying to 
escape to a nearby highway.
  The economic impact of crossers who are successful is catastrophic.
  Illegal immigration costs taxpayers $45 billion per year in health 
care, education and incarceration expenses. The cost of the estimated 
630,000 illegal aliens in Florida is about $2 billion a year, meaning 
every family in my congressional district pays a hidden tax of $315 
each year, and yet still faces depressed wages because of illegal 
immigration.
  So how do we fix the problem?
  First, we need to crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal 
workers. Jobs are the magnet drawing illegal aliens across the border, 
and the United States House of Representatives has acted to make it 
mandatory for employers to check the paperwork of new hires or else 
face stiff penalties if they do not. Now it is up to the Senate to act.
  Second, we need to complete construction of the double fence for 700 
miles along the border near populated, urban areas. San Diego saw a 
steep reduction in crossings, from 500,000 down to 130,000, when the 
double fence was completed there.
  Third, where mountains and rugged terrain make completion of a double 
fence impossible, we need to have a virtual fence. Congress needs to 
appropriate more money for infrared cameras that enable agents to see 
the entire border.
  Finally, we need more border patrol agents. Although Congress has 
tripled the number of border patrol agents since the late 1980s, more 
are still needed.
  Mr. Speaker, one million illegal immigrants come to America legally 
each year, and my staff members spend the majority of their time 
helping those who want to come to our country to work hard and play by 
the rules.

                              {time}  1900

  We are protected from dangerous people entering the country at our 
airports. IDs are checked against the terrorist watch list and baggage 
is screened. Well, who is doing the checks on the 8,000 people who 
arrive here illegally every day? Who is our last line of defense? It is 
a Border Patrol agent in a green uniform working alone.
  At 2 a.m. tonight, after all of us are asleep, he will be working 
somewhere near the top of a cold 5,000-foot mountain along the 
California-Mexican border. He will get a radio call telling him to 
approach a group of illegals who have been spotted by an infrared scope 
and are located near the top of that mountain. He will track their 
footprints in the dirt and make his way toward them. As he approaches, 
there is something he doesn't know: Are these illegal aliens a group of 
harmless teenagers who are scared and freezing, or are they heavily 
armed and dangerous drug traffickers, like the ones who have killed so 
many of his colleagues?
  Either way, he will approach them, because it is another day on the 
job. Mr. Speaker, I have a message for that Border Patrol agent working 
tonight: the United States Congress knows you are there, we appreciate 
your service, and help is on the way.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida. I 
appreciate his travel down to the border. I have done that on occasion 
myself and traveled the border at night and flown in helicopters and 
had my meetings with the Border Patrol down there. It wasn't quite as 
eventful as yours appears to have been, Mr. Keller; but for those of us 
in the House of Representatives who have not gone down and had personal 
experience on the border to see how it functions and how sometimes it 
doesn't function, I think it is important for us to take that visit and 
do that.
  The statement that was given that there were 1.2 million stopped at 
the southern border last year, of course we know that is a rounded 
number. The number in a little more precise term is stuck in my head: 
1,159,000 illegals, and I say collared at the southern border in the 
last year. And of those, there were only 1,640 that were adjudicated 
for deportation. The balance of them, in summary terms, were released 
on their promise to return to their home country. Many of those who 
were other than Mexicans, the 155,000, were simply released into this 
country without an expectation of going back to their home country.
  In that haystack of humanity, the Border Patrol has testified before 
our immigration subcommittee that they believe they stop one-third, 
maybe one-fourth, of those illegal crossers. So we know that that 1.2 
million multiplied times three or four gets you in the neighborhood of 
how many actually came across and how many came in here and 
successfully completed their crossing and stayed. That numbers 
approaches, I believe, 4 million in the last year.
  That 4 million-strong haystack of humanity includes people looking 
for a better life, but also in that are the needles in that haystack 
that are terrorists, drug dealers, criminals, rapists, and people who 
wish this country ill will, along with a pretty good sized portion of 
them that simply see the United States as a giant ATM, who come here 
seeking their fortune and then wire the money back, go back and 
withdraw that money from their banks and live happily ever after.
  That number, in 2005, when the report comes in, will be very near, if 
it does not exceed, $30 billion wired south of our border, $20 billion 
into Mexico and another $10 billion into the other Central American 
states. That is a huge number. We say we cannot get along without this 
economy, but the illegal labor in this country is generating about $76 
billion in wages. That $76 billion amounts to 2.2 percent of the wages 
that are earned in the United States, even though they are 4 percent of 
the labor force.
  So the argument we cannot get along without the illegals is a 
specious argument and is just plain false. We will find a way in this 
country. There are 7.5 million people being paid not to work, on 
unemployment. There are another 5 million that have exhausted their 
unemployment benefits and are still seeking work. So there are 12.5 
million people in this country looking for work. And of the 11 million 
illegals in this country, 6.3 million illegals are in our workforce. So 
the 6.3 million that we have to replace if we shut off the jobs magnet 
could come from the unemployed and that 12.5 million that I stipulated.
  Additionally, there are 9 million young people in America between the 
ages of 16 and 19 that are not in the labor force, even in a part-time 
job, for whatever reason. There are about another 4 to 4.5 million 
between the ages of 55 and 69 that are not working that might be if we 
didn't have penalties in there for their work. So you begin to add that 
up, and it is 13 million added to the 12.5 million. So there are about 
25 million people in this country that would be sitting there to fill 
the 6.3 million vacancies if we shut off the jobs magnet. So one in 
four. And that doesn't include the 51 million between the ages of 20 
and 64, between those ages, that are simply not in the workforce 
because they are retired, they choose not to work, or whatever the 
reason might be. That takes us up to 76 million in a potential 
workforce to tap into or to replace 6.3 million.

[[Page H141]]

  I do not think we have examined those numbers or we wouldn't be 
having the debate we are having, Mr. Speaker.
  I want to take this opportunity to yield some time to the gentleman 
from Texas, who had spoken to us a little earlier about the immigration 
issue. I appreciate his stance on the energy issue. In fact, we have 
stood on this floor a number of times and joined forces together. I 
joined forces with Mr. Poe of Texas in cosponsoring his bill that opens 
up the Outer Continental Shelf to both gas and oil drilling. So I yield 
to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time and the work of the 
gentleman on numerous issues, the first of course being the overriding 
issue of our Constitution, a document you keep in your pocket every day 
in case someone wants to question you on what it says and what it 
doesn't say. I commend you for your strong stand on the Constitution.
  And on the issue of border security being a national security issue, 
because it is a national security problem. It is unfortunate that so 
many Americans are oblivious or refuse to believe the problem that has 
been discussed tonight by our friend from Florida and yourself.
  And then there is the issue, of course, of offshore drilling. We have 
heard even tonight in this Chamber a discussion about the importance of 
having our country not be dependent on other countries for our energy. 
We are held hostage to some extent to Third World countries that really 
determine how we are to obtain much of our oil and natural gas. And 
there were some concerns mentioned tonight that folks in the Northeast 
are needing home heating oil and we can't depend on foreign countries. 
Well, we don't need to depend on foreign countries. We don't need to 
depend on the Middle East as much as we are.
  We hear the rhetoric in Venezuela from the president there, his anti-
American comments and how he threatens every once in a while to cut off 
the oil supply to the United States; and Bolivia, with its new 
president, is talking about doing the same thing with natural gas to 
the United States. Once again, the United States appears to be held 
hostage by Third World countries on our energy.
  So what do we do about it? Well, the President mentioned last night 
several proposals of how we have to go to alternative energy sources, 
and we need to do that. But we need to take another look at where we 
drill, why we drill, and why we don't drill. We will start with the 
offshore drilling.
  I have here a chart that explains where we drill off the coast of the 
United States and where we don't drill. We drill in my home State of 
Texas, and we're glad to drill offshore. Texans know the importance of 
drilling offshore. We drill offshore from the State of Texas; we drill 
offshore from Louisiana and the State of Mississippi. This blue area is 
the only place we drill offshore, because the rest of the Gulf of 
Mexico, Florida, the entire east coast, and the sacred west coast, if I 
can use that phrase, we don't drill because there are prohibitions from 
drilling offshore.
  We need to lift the prohibitions in this entire red area. Not the 
environmental regulations, but the overall prohibitions from drilling 
in these entire areas. There is much oil in the Gulf of Mexico. There 
is much oil on the east coast and off the west coast, and we don't 
drill there for reasons that I think are a myth. The myth is we can't 
drill offshore safely, that it is an environmental problem.
  Mr. Speaker, that is a myth because we can drill offshore safely. Let 
us just go back recently to two hurricanes that hit this area, this 
blue area. Hurricane Katrina and then the forgotten hurricane, 
Hurricane Rita, that came right through this entire area. In this area 
we not only drill offshore but we have refineries.
  My home State, Texas, right here, this district I represent, 
southeast Texas, 23 percent of our gasoline is refined right here in 
this area where Hurricane Rita came through and shut down our 
refineries for a period of time. But during all of the conversations 
and discussion and moaning and groaning about the disaster of 
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we heard little, if any, talk about 
offshore drilling and the danger and the leakage from crude oil coming 
up from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico because of these two 
hurricanes. Because it didn't happen. There was very little 
environmental impact with the hurricanes that came through this area, 
because we do drill safely offshore.
  That should tell us a couple of things. First, these rigs offshore 
that shut down, and some were damaged, caused little or no economic or 
environmental impact in the gulf coast. Second, since this is the only 
place we drill offshore, someone should realize that maybe we should 
not depend on this entire blue area, hurricane alley as we call it, for 
our offshore drilling.
  With Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many of these rigs were shut down 
and some of our refineries were closed down. All of that takes place in 
this one blue area. We are dependent not only on foreign oil but in our 
own country we are dependent on this little area of offshore drilling. 
So we do need to expand. We need to use some common sense and drill 
offshore safely in this entire other region where there is much crude 
oil and much natural gas.
  We don't do it because people are concerned about the environmental 
impact. This is actually one of those myths that has convinced so many 
people in this House and many Americans who are afraid we can't drill 
offshore safely.
  Where do these offshore oil spills come from? Pollution from crude 
oil in the Gulf of Mexico? Well, 63 percent of the crude oil that comes 
to our shorelines in the Gulf of Mexico is from nature itself, as this 
chart shows. Sixty-three percent comes from the natural seepage of 
crude oil from the bottom of the ocean. That is where most of the 
pollution comes from.
  Second, 32 percent comes from those boats, the shipping industry that 
patrols the Gulf of Mexico. Three percent comes from those tankers that 
are bringing crude oil from other countries, like the Middle East. And 
only 2 percent of pollution, if we use that phrase, in the Gulf of 
Mexico from crude oil comes from, yes, that is right, offshore 
drilling.
  Now, most Americans are unaware of this. Most Americans think it is 
just the reverse. They think the crude oil drilling offshore causes 
most of the pollution, and that is not true.
  No one wants polluted beaches. No one wants an unsafe environment. I 
certainly do not. No one does that advocates offshore drilling. So the 
environmental impact is very small if we drill offshore. We can do so 
safely.
  They drill offshore in the roughest waters in the world, and that is 
the North Sea, and they do so safely. Most of those people that are 
drilling there are from Texas to begin with, and those folks that know 
how to drill offshore safely drill all over the world. Yet we have a 
mindset in this country that we shouldn't drill in these sacred areas 
because of the environmental impact.
  So that myth needs to be denounced as a myth and we need to take care 
of our own selves, be self-sufficient, because there is plenty of crude 
oil here, on the east coast, the rest of the Gulf of Mexico, and there 
is also much natural gas resources that we are not tapping into as 
well. Not to mention going up here to Alaska, to ANWR, another place 
where we ought to drill, because we can drill in that area safely.
  Hopefully, these two bodies will agree to drill in ANWR. Because 
gasoline prices continue to rise. Home heating oil prices continue to 
rise. Natural gas prices continue to rise. The answer is not to look to 
more foreign countries. The answer is to drill safely, environmentally 
correct, around the United States coastline.

                              {time}  1915

  Just to mention one other thing, when an oil company goes out here 
into the Gulf of Mexico and wishes to set up a new rig, they obtain a 
lease from the Federal Government. They pay for that. Those leases 
bring in millions of dollars to the United States Treasury that we 
lease to oil companies for permission and the right and privilege to 
drill offshore. That is a source of revenue. So more leases bring more 
revenue to the national Treasury. We talk about the deficit and 
government spending. Revenue can be obtained from these oil companies 
that drill offshore.

[[Page H142]]

  So it is a situation where I believe more Americans need to be aware 
that we can do so safely. We have seen hurricanes hit these oil rigs 
with minimal damage to the environment. We know there is oil and 
natural gas out here, and if we do not take care of ourselves and 
become more dependent on ourselves for our own energy, crude oil and 
natural gas, gas prices will rise, crude oil prices will rise, home 
heating oil prices will rise, and natural gas prices will continue to 
rise, and without doing so there is really no answer. We need to do 
both. We need to look for alternative sources such as nuclear energy, 
as the President mentioned last night. We also need to drill where we 
have oil and natural gas available.
  I appreciate the opportunity to make these comments. Hopefully 
working together we can solve our own energy and not be held hostage by 
other countries.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, as I look at the gentleman's lower 
chart, Pollution from Oil, and it shows 2 percent of the pollution from 
oil comes from offshore drilling and the balance from the composition 
that the gentleman describes. For the record, I ask what percentage of 
pollution comes from natural gas? Does any come from drilling for 
natural gas? Is there any example of a natural gas spill offshore 
anywhere in the world that has damaged a beach anywhere?
  Mr. POE. That does not occur. When a natural gas well is drilled, it 
does not cause pollution. So another reason we should obviously be 
drilling offshore for both of these commodities.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Poe's presence here.
  I did see natural gas boiling up out of the water, and I saw it on 
fire when I went down to visit New Orleans in the early part of 
September. There was a great visual for what happens if you happen to 
get a natural gas leak coming down from 8 or 10 feet of water, and it 
might come from 1,000 feet of water, the natural gas boils to the top. 
If there is a spark it burns. It burns without a lot of heat. If there 
is no spark, it dissipates into the atmosphere. I do not have the 
statistics how much gas just percolates up through the ocean floor, but 
my understanding is that it is a significant amount. Do you have any 
background on that?
  Mr. POE. I do not have the statistics either, but natural gas is even 
less of a pollutant than crude oil. Of course there is natural seepage 
with natural gas just as there is with crude oil from the bottom of the 
ocean. That is the way nature has been doing business for a long time. 
I do not have the statistics, but it would be interesting to find out 
what they are.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. We are looking at the distribution of that large 
volume of natural gas that comes out of Hurricane Alley. We are 
supplying some of those gaps in that need for natural gas through 
liquefied natural gas that comes over on tankers, and then we have to 
run it through a plant and convert it back to our gas form and deliver 
it through our pipelines. It is essential from our cost to be able to 
take natural gas as close to the demand as possible and tap into the 
nearest supply so we do not have that expensive transportation and 
compression that goes on into the Middle East, bringing it in and 
converting it back to a gas in the Untied States. It is an expensive 
proposition.
  When I see that red map with leases all around the shore of the 
United States, that is all accessible to the population centers of the 
United States which are our coastlines. It would be a natural to tap 
into the gas that is within 200 miles of its demand as opposed to 
several thousand miles across the ocean. Would you comment on that?
  Mr. POE. Certainly. We bring in liquefied natural gas from the Middle 
East. It is converted and used in the United States. We need that 
process as well, but it makes a lot more common sense to use the 
resources we have, our own natural resources, to satisfy the need for 
energy in the United States and continue to develop other alternative 
energy sources as well.
  To me it defies common sense that we do not drill offshore. We can do 
so safely. We have proven that. The best experts in the world on 
drilling offshore from the United States, they go to other countries 
and contract out and drill for other countries. Hopefully we can change 
the mindset in this country.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Poe.
  I would like to pick up on that framework that has been laid out by 
the gentleman from Texas and talk a little bit about the national 
security of our energy situation. As I listen to the rhetoric that 
comes out of the Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, for example, it is a bit 
difficult to believe he is a friend of the United States. It is hard to 
think that he had our best interests in mind even though he did donate 
some natural gas for heating over in Massachusetts. I would think their 
politics might be a little more sympathetic than they are in Texas or 
Iowa.
  But as I look at that, I question the motives and I see the dollars 
that have flowed into that administration in Venezuela, and I look 
across to the Middle East where we are buying that liquefied natural 
gas, and everybody in the Middle East is not our friend, and they do 
not have our best interests in mind either. But the wealth of the 
United States of America is being spent in purchasing expensive energy 
resources from overseas, expensive supplies of energy, and we are 
enriching people who do not have our best interests in mind in the 
Middle East as well as in Venezuela and other parts around the world.
  What kind of a nation would sit on all of that oil that we have up in 
ANWR, and I have been up there and looked at that? The gentleman from 
Texas spoke about the environmental friendliness and the safety we have 
with our oil drilling offshore. I would point out the record of 
developing the North Slope oil that started in about 1972. Up there 
when you look at the hundreds and perhaps thousands of wells that have 
been drilled in that area and the millions and millions of barrels of 
oil that have been pumped down the Alaskan pipeline, and you fly over 
from the air and you look for that environmental wasteland that 
supposedly is up there, all I see is green tundra. And I see a white 
50-inch pipeline that goes across the country, across the Yukon River 
and on down to Valdez. We flew over at about 1,500 feet in altitude. 
They told me we were over the North Slope oil fields, and I looked out 
the windows and cast my eyes below and said, Where are the wells? I 
have worked in the oil fields and have been up on the derrick and I 
know what it looks like. I expected to see pump jacks like you see in 
Texas or Oklahoma. I saw none of that in Alaska. All I saw was a white 
rock pad about 50 by 150 feet, maybe 3 or 4 feet up off that Arctic 
tundra sitting there waiting in case there needed to be some work done 
on that well, which would take place in the wintertime on an ice road, 
the same way the drilling took place in the wintertime on ice roads and 
ice pads.
  It is environmentally friendly because there is not a disturbance to 
that environment when it is not frozen solid. When it is frozen solid, 
they build ice roads and come in, they set the work-over rig on that 
rock pad and pull out a submersible pump, put it in the well and have 
it ready to go. It pumps oil into that collection system, which I do 
not see either from the air.
  I do not know how it could be any more environmentally friendly. The 
threat that it would reduce the caribou herd, for example, I happen to 
know in 1970 they did a census. They counted every caribou, citizen or 
not. There were 7,000 head of caribou on the North Slope, and that is 
an American herd. Today there are over 28,000 head of caribou in that 
same place. We surely did not damage their environment.
  Those who watch that herd will tell you that caribou cows get up on 
top of those rock pads and have their calves instead of dropping them 
in the ice cold water. They will have them in the spring when the 
permafrost starts to melt. That is one reason they survive better. 
Another reason is they have a place to get up out of the wet, and the 
wind blows the flies away. The wind dries off the calves, and they will 
dry off and live better and do better. So we see a population that has 
multiplied four times in caribou.
  If you go over to ANWR, there is not a resident caribou herd there, 
notwithstanding as many times as you have seen the commercials on 
television. It is not a pristine alpine forest. There is not a single 
tree in that entire plain

[[Page H143]]

where we would like to drill for oil. Not a single tree.
  In fact, I have a picture of the furthest most northerly spruce tree 
that is there. It is about 600 miles further south. I point out for 
people who did not take 8th grade science and geography, that the 
circle around the globe known as the Arctic Circle, that is the line 
that has been drawn around the globe north of which trees cannot grow. 
So the commercial do not destroy the trees in ANWR is a phony 
commercial. The commercial that it will disturb the caribou herds is a 
phony commercial. If anything, it will enhance the caribou herd on the 
North Slope. There is no resident caribou herd in ANWR which lies just 
to the east of the North Slope, identical as far as I can tell in 
ecological regions, at least close to that same kind of climate and 
ecological region, but they do have a caribou herd that comes in from 
Canada. They come in and have their calves and when the calves are 
strong enough to walk, they walk back to Canada. I do not think any 
thinking person thinks they would be disturbed if we drilled some wells 
up there and pumped a million barrels a day on down here to the United 
States to take the pressure off the foreign oil.
  That is one thing with drilling in ANWR. There is a lot of gas in 
ANWR. There is gas developed on the North Slope. That gas that sits 
there now, we need to build a pipeline from the North Slope on down to 
the lower 48 States. There is 38 trillion cubic feet of natural feet 
developed and ready to tap into up there. There is more gas up there 
not developed, and that reserve has not necessarily been identified in 
its volume.
  But if you recall the map of the coastal regions of the United States 
that was done in red, the undrilled portion of our Outer Continental 
Shelf, there are known reserves out there of 406 trillion cubic feet of 
natural gas. The United States consumes 22.5 trillion cubic feet of 
natural gas a year. That chunk up there on the North Slope, there is 
more up there than the 38 trillion, but just by comparison, 38 trillion 
cubic feet of natural gas in the North Slope of Alaska, and 406 
trillion cubic feet offshore of the United States.
  Those huge supplies of natural gas, the ability to deliver a million 
barrels of crude oil a day coming out of the ANWR region, all of the 
oil that is in that red area of the map along with the natural gas, and 
this Nation goes anywhere else in the world to purchase at a high price 
energy that enriches people that sometimes are our sworn enemies, and I 
would say the leader of Iran would be one of those, and the leader of 
Venezuela has been swearing at us for some time, and he is convincing 
me he is our enemy, too. So we enrich them and sit on top of our energy 
reserves. I would declare that to be a form of economic suicide, to pay 
a high price for energy when we have it right underneath our very feet 
and not tap into it and instead enrich our enemies.
  Those are big things that matter in a big way. This Congress cannot 
seem to get together on the obvious. As I listen to the gentleman from 
Washington in the previous hour speak about us being addicted to 
foreign oil, I think we have been intimidated by the cult of 
environmental extremism. The idea that we are going to do something to 
tap in our energy that is going to upset this Mother Nature that some 
folks would like to convert back to pre Garden of Eden, and when I say 
that, that would be back before Adam and Eve walked on this Earth. All 
other species are fine, but this human species should not compete with 
other species on this Earth, and I will tell you that as I read it, we 
are put here to have dominion over all those species, plant or animal. 
They are here for us to use respectfully and to manage, and we do do 
that, and we are better than we were 30 or 50 years ago, and we will be 
better in another 50 years.
  We have been extraordinarily effective and prudent in our care with 
our environment, and no one can point to a single natural gas 
environmental damage of any kind, and certainly your illustration of 
the very small percentage of oil pollution that comes from spills 
should tell us that if we were going to do anything, we should shut 
down the boating in the gulf as opposed to shutting down the drilling 
in the gulf.

                              {time}  1930

  I would open them both up because I do not see that there is a big 
problem there. I see that I have here tonight the gentleman, Mr. 
Shimkus, who has, I know, a passion in his heart for ethanol. And I 
want to make that endorsement before I hand this microphone over to 
him, in that I come from a district that may well be the one that has 
its ethanol production build out, all the corn we have to supply turned 
into ethanol, and we are now an energy export center; and I look for 
that kind of development across the entire Corn Belt. And I would be 
happy to yield as much times as he may consume to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I thank my colleague and friend from Iowa. And we have 
made great strides. We appreciate Iowa's efforts because so much corn 
has gone to Iowa ethanol production; Illinois corn is now going to the 
feed lots in Texas, which used to be, which your corn used to go to. So 
when my producers are looking at the static cost of a bushel of corn, I 
always tell them, where do you think you would be without new demands 
going to ethanol?
  I have a flexible fuel vehicle. It runs on 85 percent ethanol. And I 
had one in the last Congress, 2 years ago. I could not fill it up 
anywhere in my district. Now I can go all throughout my district, go to 
a regular retail pump and fill it up with 85 percent ethanol fuel. And 
it is usually, on average, 20 cents cheaper a gallon. So we are making 
great strides. It is a great story to tell, especially in this area. 
And as much as, you know, we are from Illinois, you are from Iowa, by 
definition you have to be supportive of ethanol. And we are. The 
President addressed it last night. And we also acknowledge the fact 
that there are other ways you can produce ethanol, and we want to 
encourage that because we want all the country to have the benefits 
that we are having and the country would have based upon energy 
independence. And that is where this debate has to be.
  But I am not here to talk about ethanol tonight. I am here to talk 
about another overlooked resource which we use partially, not to its 
fullest extent, and that is coal. Now, we all know that we use coal to 
generate electricity. And a lot of people do not realize that 50 
percent of the electricity generation in this country is from coal. And 
there are new technologies out there that will help us use clean coal 
technologies, as the President addressed last night. We want to 
encourage that. We also address that in the energy bill.
  Clean coal technologies, the products of research and development 
conducted over the past 20 years, include more than 20 new lower cost, 
more efficient and environmental compatible technologies for use by 
electric utilities, steel mills, cement plants, and other industries. 
Coal already generates more than half our Nation's electricity, and it 
is the largest single source of the overall domestic energy production, 
more than 31 percent of the total.
  When we talk about energy, though, we sometimes get confused, because 
energy is lot of different things. Energy is electricity generation. 
But energy is also fuel. So we have to be careful that we clarify for 
this debate all the benefits.
  In looking at coal, we have over 250 years of demonstrated reserves, 
right now, untapped, 250 years' worth of demonstrated reserves. Coal is 
a readily available domestic resource.
  Furthermore, new clean coal technologies, such as the gassification 
combined cycle, IGCC, which a lot of people know about, coal to liquid 
and coal to gas technologies. And this is not pie-in-the-sky stuff. The 
German Army, in World War II, used technology called fissure tropes to 
take coal and to turn it into fuels to run and operate the German war 
machine. Fifty years ago.
  So what we are proposing and continuing to make sure that we 
understand it in this arena is that we can take these 250 years' worth 
of accessible coal reserves and continue to use it for electricity 
generation, but also use it to make fuel. And it is a cleaner process. 
So the debates we have had on the floor of the House is, part of it, 
the refinery issue.
  We are addicted, I would say, I would agree with the President, we 
are addicted to crude oil from imports. So how do we address that 
addiction? One

[[Page H144]]

way we address it is make sure we have our local reserves. That is 
going the renewable fuels debate. But it also means that we take coal 
and we can, through current technology available today, we can turn it 
into gas, which addresses our natural gas challenges, which are really 
affecting manufacturing and home heating costs for the average 
consumer. And we can take coal and we can turn it into fuel.
  Now, in a best-case scenario, we take that coal, liquid fuel, and 
then mix it with a renewable fuel and then we have a lot more 
independence. You have the reserves of coal, you have the local 
refinery. So you have the coal mine, you have the coal mining jobs, you 
have the refinery, you have the building the refinery, you have the 
refinery jobs, and then you have the transportation to the retail 
location, all in the cycle within the United States, not dependent on 
any other foreign source.
  We have been talking and we are encouraged with our discussions with 
the administration, and we want to continue to push this issue because 
I think the public really does not appreciate the great reserves that 
we have.
  The Illinois coal basin, if you look on a geological map, is 
basically the State of Illinois minus Chicago and Cook County. It also 
bleeds into western Kentucky a little bit, it bleeds into southwestern 
Indiana, but it is the outline of the State of Illinois. That is where 
an abundant access of coal is. And of course we know the other great 
coal producing States, Wyoming, Montana, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky; 
and so there are people willing, ready and able to take, to get back 
into this arena.
  But there are always additional challenges that have to be faced. The 
existing obstacles to move this forward are as follows: there is a high 
capital investment to begin with. The disadvantage of the environment 
that we are in today is that we are paying 60 to $65 a barrel for crude 
oil. There was a time, in my lifetime, when it was $18, and they were 
capping marginal oil wells because it cost more money to get it out 
than you could sell on the market. It is good for the consumer, bad for 
oil exploration. Now at $65 a barrel, you have the opportunity to say, 
if there is a consistent market signal, that that $65 is going to be 
here for years to come, that the market will say there is a good 
possibility of return. I am going to make this billion dollar capital 
investment. Can the Federal Government help? What can we do because of 
this high capital investment for the plants?

  The capital costs of the plants could be reduced by the experience 
gained in the actual construction and operation of commercial 
facilities, in addition to a focused effort by Congress and the 
administration to address the risks and capital hurdles for new 
development.
  Perceived environmental concerns. My colleague who is leading this 
Special Order addressed that. Environmental concerns will be addressed 
by using clean coal technology, IGCC, to reduce emissions of the 
criteria pollutants. In addition, indirect liquification of coal 
processes produce clean zero sulfur liquid fuels. We have a debate of 
high sulfur fuels. We passed regulations that are going to affect the 
trucking industry. Low sulfur fuels can be produced through coal to 
liquification, and that addresses one of our major concerns.
  You know, to conclude, and maybe join with my colleague in other 
energy debates, because it is, you kind of develop expertise or a forte 
based upon the area in which you live, or maybe the committee on which 
you serve. I am very honored and pleased to serve on the Commerce 
Committee; and I, in my 9 years, I have served on the Energy 
Subcommittee. So we have seen this coming, these hurdles that we have 
in front of us. And we finally were able, after many, many years, to 
pass a comprehensive piece of energy legislation; but we have to do 
more.
  I want to bring to my colleagues attention the benefits of coal, not 
just for electricity generation, but for coal to gas, coal to 
gassification, coal to liquid technology and its use. Coal to liquid 
technology provides geographic diversity for domestic refining 
capacity, not all situated in the South on the gulf coast. It could be 
in the Midwest, could be in Iowa, could be in Illinois and improves 
national and economic security by lessening dependence on foreign oil 
and substituting plentiful, more affordable U.S. coal.
  Coal to liquid technology also allows for the capturing of carbon 
dioxide emissions which serves as a bridge to a hydrogen fuel future 
through polygeneration, which is the linking of multiple types of 
plants into one such as the coal production of liquid fuels, 
electricity hydrogen; and that is what the President is proposing, and 
that is what we are excited about in the whole future gen proposal.
  See, we are going to capture carbon dioxide, and through this process 
you can reinsert it back into the ground; and if you have an area like 
southern Illinois where you have marginal oil wells, that is going to 
help the additional oil that is left that is hard to draw out of the 
ground to be drawn out. So we have great opportunities in the future.
  You know, coal has been given a bum rap for a long time. I think what 
those of us who believe in coal and those who invest and take risks and 
capital expenses want is just to know what the playing field is so that 
we can allow technology to meet the standards and there is consistency 
in regulations.
  You know, the problem is when there is inconsistent rules and no one 
knows what the rules of the playing game is that the risk is higher. If 
you are going to invest billions of dollars, you want to lower the 
risk, you want to know what the rules are. We are now at a point with 
technology and the work we have done through the Department of Energy 
and clean coal technology research programs that we can get there with 
clean coal tech for electricity generation. We can turn coal into gas 
which will affect our natural gas crisis, and we can turn coal into 
liquid fuels which will help to decrease our reliance on foreign oil. 
So with that, my colleague, I appreciate the time.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), 
and I appreciate that presentation. I always learn from these things 
this evening. And I look across at Illinois and we have a friendly 
competition in corn production, soybean production and sometimes 
football, basketball. And I look at the coal production you have and 
the oil and I think you have gas wells there too running in conjunction 
with it. It looks like Illinois has a little head start on Iowa when it 
comes to exporting energy and we are focusing our energies in that 
fashion too to develop that energy.
  I would like to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, a concept and it is a concept 
I would like to try to sell to America, that we can begin to think 
about our energy in a little bit different fashion, and that is we need 
to grow the size of the energy pie. And if you just think in your 
mind's eye, and I will put a chart out here sometime within the next 
couple of months that demonstrates this. But there are pieces in every 
pie, and whether you slice up six, eight, or 10, but just draw that 
circle in your mind's eye and think there is a piece there for coal and 
there is a piece for ethanol and a piece for biodiesel and a piece for 
hydrocarbon-based fossil fuels, both gas and diesel fuel and our oil 
that we draw out of that.
  There is a piece for natural gas that is energy. There is a piece for 
nuclear power, hydroelectric and there is a piece for solar. There is a 
piece for wind. There is a piece for hydrogen. And I am probably 
forgetting two or three pieces out of this energy pie that we have. But 
the more pieces we have, the more alternatives we have, the more 
options that consumers have, and the less dependency we have on foreign 
oil and foreign energy, and then of course the larger those pieces of 
the pie are, the more supply there is of energy.
  And with supply and demand of course the rule is that then the value 
of the cost of energy will go down if we can grow the size of the 
energy pie, adjust the proportion, the percentage of the pie that are 
those pieces, those components of the different kinds of energy so that 
it reflects the resources we have in this country, the development of 
those resources, those being coal, nuclear, ethanol, biodiesel, natural 
gases sitting in the offshore and crude oil that sits out there 
offshore, drilling in the ANWR, the development of natural gas 
resources up in the north slope of Alaska, that the natural gas that is 
across this country underneath public lands, that we have not talked 
very much in the last year in this Congress about natural gas 
underneath

[[Page H145]]

public lands; but the statement has been made on this floor and it is 
in this Congressional Record that underneath public non-national park 
public lands in the United States there is enough natural gas to heat 
every home in America for the next 150 years.
  And we can drill it and we can tap into it, but we cannot build the 
roads and the collection system to deliver and distribute that gas 
because of other environmental infringements and obstructions. And so 
if we can do things to develop energy that are compatible with the 
environment, then we have to get away from this cult of environmental 
extremism, and we have got to get together here and save this economy 
from America and not commit this economic suicide of purchasing from 
our enemies, enriching our enemies so that they can buy weapons and 
hire terrorists and send those people to bomb us, but instead provide 
that independence for ourselves.
  And that is the biggest piece about this energy that I think needs to 
be laid out here. If we can go at it on all fronts, and I think that 
the natural gas offshore would be the thing that would reduce the 
overall cost of the United States the most.
  We sit here in the United States of America and the heartland of it 
and Mr. Shimkus and myself, in particular, are in the middle of the 
Corn Belt. And everything you raise takes nitrogen to produce it.

                              {time}  1945

  And we purchase nitrogen fertilizer. It takes more nitrogen for corn 
than any other crop that I know of. And 90 percent of the cost of that 
nitrogen fertilizer is the cost of the natural gas that is converted 
into that nitrogen fertilizer. We have nearly lost the fertilizer 
industry in America because we have not developed our natural gas in 
America. And that fertilizer industry is going offshore in places like 
Trinidad and Tobago, and those are American interests, and I am 
grateful for that. But they are also going to Venezuela and Russia. And 
we are sitting here paying $15 for natural gas, and they are paying 95 
cents in Russia so they can ship fertilizer to us. It will not be long, 
if we keep down this path, before the entire fertilizer industry is 
gone and we will see a fertilizer cartel pop up in Venezuela and 
Russia. And if you think it was a tough deal when you saw an oil cartel 
seek to control the price of crude oil and gasoline in America, think 
what it would be like if somebody has control over the cost of the 
production of our food in the United States of America.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to recap. I started out by addressing 
the President's State of the Union address, and he covered a lot of 
subject matter. We have addressed the energy intensively, and I do not 
think we mentioned that he addressed the initiative to develop ethanol 
out of cellulose. Wood chips, stalks and I think cornstalks, fiber like 
switch grass. There is a lot of energy there, and we are on the edge of 
being able to open up that technology. And if we accelerate that he 
believes, and I have no reason to disagree with his statement, that we 
could have ethanol production out of cellulose competitive with our 
current ethanol production within 6 years. That is good for all of us 
that can raise fiber of any kind. And it can convert waste products to 
put that in your gas tank at E85 levels, as Mr. Shimkus said. And I 
certainly support his initiative on clean coal, as the President spoke 
to that as well.
  But the point that he made last night that has not been said here, 
the central point to his speech that I want to make, is that we fight 
to win in this War on Terror. And it is the most essential battle that 
we have as our national security. One of the things we are susceptible 
to, of course, with that is our dependence on that oil. We can get away 
from that, but we will still be threatened by our enemies from abroad.
  We fight to win. We are winning. And the people on this side of the 
aisle stood and cheered when the President said that; the people on the 
other side of the aisle sat on their hands. And when the President said 
the decisions will be made on whether we deploy troops back out of Iraq 
by commanders in the field, not by politicians in Washington, D.C., 
people on this side of the aisle stood and cheered; people on the other 
side sat on their hands, Mr. Speaker. And when he said we stood behind 
our military, then we kind of got some support from both sides, but it 
was reluctant on the one side. And I wonder about that. I wonder what 
kind of sentiment would not be 100 percent behind every man and woman 
who wears a uniform and puts their life on the line for our freedom and 
for our safety. I think that is an absolute commitment that we have 
made. We have had that debate in this Congress. We have endorsed the 
President's authority to defend our interests in Iraq and around the 
world. He has done that. And I am grateful to every man and woman who 
has gone out there and put their lives on the line and those especially 
who have given their lives for our safety and our freedom.
  It is going to be a long row to hoe to get to the end of this War on 
Terror. But the freedom that is coming in places like Afghanistan, the 
freedom that is coming in places like Iraq can be the lode star for a 
free Arab world. We never go to war against another free people, and to 
the extent that freedom can be promoted throughout the world, that is 
the extent by which all people on this globe are free from that curse 
of terrorism.
  So I would ask us all to join together in that cause and let us open 
up this energy we have in this country so we are not hostage to those 
countries. Let us not enrich them. Let us enrich this economy here in 
the United States of America and promote the freedom that comes from a 
free economy.

                          ____________________