[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 11 (Friday, January 19, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H777-H782]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     THE REST OF THE STORY WITH REGARD TO THE DEMOCRATS' 100 HOURS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
half the time remaining before 2 p.m. as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, as always, I am profoundly pleased and 
honored to have the privilege to address you on the floor of the House 
of Representatives here in the United States Congress.
  I have had the interesting observation here as I listened to the 
speakers that come from the other side of the aisle that there is 
another story, the rest of the story is out there, and a number of 
things need to be discussed, and one of them is what did we actually do 
here in the first 100 hours, as was referenced by at least three of the 
speakers.
  In the first 100 hours, the point was made that they kept all of 
their promises that they would keep within the first 100 hours. We are 
going to disagree as to how we define that and what the results of it 
were, and I think it is appropriate in this democratic process that we 
have that is framed under this constitutional republic that we are, 
that we talk about and have open dialogue and debate. And that was one 
of the casualties, I would point out, Mr. Speaker, to this accelerated 
100-hour process.
  The 100-hour promise was something that sounded good politically. It 
had a nice ring to it. The bell tolled 100 hours, so therefore the 
image of accomplishing these things for America was going to get done 
in 100 hours.
  Well, 100 hours can be counted a lot of different ways, and some 
people would have thought that at midnight, December 31, when you heard 
the band strike up Auld Lang Syne, then the 100 hours would begin and 
this harder working than ever Congress and more ethical than ever 
Congress and more open and more democratic than ever Congress was going 
to go to work, and in the first 4 days and 4 hours would accomplish 
these things.
  No, I did not actually make that point either, Mr. Speaker. I think 
it is appropriate for us to have a real legitimate method of keeping 
track of the 100 hours. If that is going to be the one

[[Page H778]]

promise that is sacrosanct, to accomplish these six things in the first 
100 hours, then a legitimate clock is a good way to measure that.
  So I put up a legitimate clock and kept track of the first 100 hours. 
And I am going to make this concession at this point, Mr. Speaker, that 
these six bills, H.R. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, were passed off the floor of 
this Congress within the first 100 hours of a legitimate clock.
  My legitimate clock, and I am going to post this up here for the 
benefit of the people who are observing this process on the floor, Mr. 
Speaker, I would point out that a legitimate clock would be a clock 
that calculated from the moment we gavel in, the gavel in in the 
morning, the opening prayer, the pledge, and off into this process of 
floor action, until we gavel out in the evening; set your stop watch, 
click it on in the morning when the gavel gavels us in, shut it off in 
the evening when we gavel out, and then keep track of the hours.
  If the 100 hours is sacrosanct, if all of the other promises were 
subordinated to this one, 100-hour promise trumps all, then let's watch 
that clock closely, because everybody is eager to get to an open 
process in this Congress.
  And I point out also, Mr. Speaker, this first 100 hours has not been 
an open process. There has not been a legitimate hearing. There has not 
been a legitimate subcommittee meeting. There hasn't been a legitimate 
full committee meeting. There hasn't been an amendment accepted. There 
have been requests to offer amendments. There hasn't been an amendment 
that has been considered in this Congress. And there has not been a 
legitimate Rules Committee process that would set the parameters as to 
what amendments might be considered on this floor, how this debate 
might move forward.
  So the open dialogue and debate, especially my sadness goes out to 
the freshmen who haven't had a voice in this process. That has all been 
subordinated to this 100-hour promise, get these things done in the 
first 100 hours and then give us a little break, Mr. Cooper from 
Tennessee says. Cut us a little slack on that one. We are going to get 
around to be an open process. We are going to get around to be a more 
fair, a more Democratic Congress than we have been.
  Well, there is nothing that can be done about it, so I am going to 
take the gentleman from Tennessee at his word, and many other gentlemen 
and gentleladies from across the majority party, including the Speaker, 
at her word. Now, there are some reasons not to take her at her word, 
but I am going to take her at her word on this 100 hours.
  So the clock has now ticked, Mr. Speaker, and I have had the 
stopwatch on it all along, from gavel in the 110th Congress to gavel 
out, a real legitimate means of checking the time, and it turns out to 
be this. Real clock, 100 hours ticked over at 11:44 a.m. today Eastern 
Standard Time. That was when the 100 hours was up. I would have liked 
to have heard a bell or whistle or maybe a cannon go off that says now, 
let's deploy out to our hearings and committee rooms and subcommittee 
rooms and let's start to consider bills and amendments and let's start 
having an open debate process and let's start to bring the brains of 
all of the people that have been elected by the 300 million Americans 
to bear here so that we can use the resources of the knowledge and the 
information base from all of our districts to improve legislation. 
Because if you don't do that, then there is this thing that always 
shows up in legislation called unintended consequences.
  One of the unintended consequences has emerged here easily, and that 
was the unintended consequence of the political price, at least, that 
had to be paid for exempting American Samoa from the minimum wage. 
$3.26 an hour is something that has been labeled sweatshop labor by 
many people on the other side of the aisle as they demagogued the issue 
when they were advocating for an increase in the minimum wage. But when 
it came time to actually put it into play, there was an exemption for 
American Samoa.
  I happen to have a soft spot in my heart for American Samoa. My 
father spent some time there 60-some years ago during the Second World 
War and spoke fondly of American Samoans, the people, their heart, 
their happy spirit, and I appreciate the gentleman who represents 
American Samoa here on the floor of Congress. But that was an 
unintended consequence, I believe, that they had to pay politically, 
because we didn't have an open committee process.
  But the real 100 hours clicked over at 11:44 a.m. Now we are at about 
102 hours, as I check this clock, Mr. Speaker. But the odd part of it 
is that there is real time, and then there is Pelosi time, Mr. Speaker. 
And her clock has only clicked over to 42 hours as of 11:44 this 
morning. I don't know if she shut it off or not. I don't know how they 
are actually keeping hours.
  We have been checking with her hours on a regular basis throughout 
the work here in this 110th Congress to try to understand what their 
rationale is for when they turn their clock on and when they turn their 
clock off. And they refuse to give us a single criteria of what that 
measure might be.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I can only conclude that this 100-hour clock was if 
things got bogged down here, was going to have to be a clock that would 
run out of time when the six pieces of legislation, H.R. 1 through 5, 
were passed, if they needed to stretch it that far, and that the rules 
could be changed along the way and when the clock was clicked on and 
off. I have tried my best to divine the rationale that only gets you to 
42 hours, when we have gaveled in and gaveled out now to about 102 
hours.
  But I do know this: This is going to be the hardest working Congress 
in history. That was a point also, Mr. Speaker, and at least a harder 
working Congress than the 109th. And you are going to measure that by 
being here more days. We are going to do 5 days instead of 2 or 3 days. 
Actually, I am thankful, Mr. Speaker, because I wanted to do 5 days 
here.

                              {time}  1245

  I would like to do 5 or 6 days here, and I would like to do it for 2 
or 3 weeks in a row, hard and intense. I want Members in this town so 
that I can network with Members of Congress and that my staff can 
network with their staff and we can get things done.
  I will point out that the individual Members are far more 
representative of their district if they have access to other Members 
of Congress and more days to carry on that kind of network and dialogue 
and debate and deliberation and information sharing than if there is 
only going to be a gavel in here for 2 days or perhaps for three. No 
matter how busy we are back in the district Members of Congress are 
more effective when they have longer periods of time here, and I would 
submit give us some time, Mr. Speaker, to go back to the district so 
that we do not lose touch with the soul of the people in our district.
  We have got to have the feel of the rhythm. We have got to know what 
the economy is doing. We have got to know the rhythm of the issues that 
come up. We have got to have town meetings so that people can stand up 
and have their voice represented here in Washington.
  So I am glad we are here more time, but the way it is calculated out 
by the Pelosi clock is this hardest working Congress may be hardest one 
in history, actually has only by the Pelosi clock worked 4.2 hours a 
day. Now from an administration that ran on a campaign of harder 
working, these are days that we have gaveled in. This is not any kind 
of stretch. We were here for 10, 11 days actually pounding this out of 
actually being in session, Pelosi clock only clicks over 4.2 hours. 
That is not a lot of time, and there are not too many folks in my 
district that can work 4.2 hours a day on a 5-day week or a 2-day week 
or a 7-day week and still feed their family.
  So what is the measure going to be? I have said often the people in 
the district need to measure this by going to the polls.
  But what got accomplished in these 100 hours that are, gavel in to 
gavel out, real clock or the 42 hours of Pelosi time, what got 
accomplished? Six pieces of legislation. She met that goal within a 
legitimate clock. Should have just had a legitimate clock. It all would 
have looked even better, but here is the cost to the country as this 
points out.
  This is my infinity piece, Mr. Speaker, in that we cannot quite 
measure this cost to the country because it has

[[Page H779]]

gone on too far and it has been too much.
  H.R. 1, cost to the taxpayers of about $6 billion, and this is the 
cost of some of the changes that were passed that were the 9/11 
commission's recommendation, not the promise of all of the changes 
recommended, but some of the changes recommended, and most of this is 
the additional cost of examining every piece of freight that comes in 
from overseas. But it does not include the recommendation of the 9/11 
Commission to set up a committee that is going to bring all of our 
homeland security appropriations process under one set of scrutiny. 
That was a recommendation, too, of the 9/11 Commission. That one was 
ignored.
  So all of the recommendations? No. That was a promise. The reality 
was spend more money, $6 billion, on something that is right now 
impossible to achieve, and we have set up a system that has done a very 
good job to inspect these freight-sealed containers in foreign ports 
before they are loaded on ships so we know what is coming here.
  Second item, H.R. 2 was the minimum wage passage. 25.8 million small 
business owners in America who create three out of every four new jobs 
are now being told you are going to have to give a $2.10 raise to all 
of your employees, and I have been an employer for over 28 years. I 
have met payroll for over 1,400 consecutive weeks. I have never paid 
anybody minimum wage, but I met the payroll, and I know this, that we 
pay on merit. So we have different levels of our wages depending upon 
the job they do and the level of their efficiency and their proficiency 
within the job. But my lowest person on the totem level, the one who is 
entry-level wages, if I give him a $2.00 an hour raise or a $2.10 an 
hour raise, I guarantee you every employee is lined up outside my 
office wanting their wages to go up $2 an hour, too, all the way up to 
the top of the chain, including everybody but the CEO who has to then 
take it out of whatever your net profits are.

  So you make a decision. Do I have as many people? Do I go buy a 
machine to replace some of these laborers? I am going to be innovative 
here. I cannot afford to give this raise to everybody because I cannot 
compete with my competition and sometimes my competition is illegal 
labor which makes it all the harder because there is not going to be a 
limitation on wages paid to illegal workers. 25.8 million small 
businesses punished in that.
  Meanwhile, the representative from American Samoa stands over here at 
this microphone within the last hour and a half and makes the argument 
that the economy in American Samoa cannot sustain the minimum wage. 
Now, why is it that Democrats can understand supply and demand and the 
empirical rule of supply and demand in minimum wage law that if you 
raise wages it will cost jobs? Why is it they can understand it when 
they have got it in a microcosm of American Samoa, about 60,000 people 
there, but they cannot understand it when it is infused out across an 
economy of the United States of America that is 300 million people? You 
take it out of that 300 million people and take it over here and say 
here is what happens in American Samoa, what is the impact? The impact 
is 5,000 more jobs lost in American Samoa by some allegations. Could 
understand that in a microcosm, but not in a broader sense of the 
overall economy.
  That is a scary thing to think about people in charge that do not 
understand the basic elements of free enterprise and supply and demand 
and the market system.
  H.R. 3 forces taxpayers to pay up to $135 million to fund research 
that takes innocent human lives, the embryonic stem cell research 
mandate. Right now there is no prohibition in America against doing 
embryonic stem cell research with private dollars or with public 
dollars of any kind out there. We just were not going to appropriate 
your Federal tax dollars to do this. So, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is 
immoral to compel taxpayers to fund scientific operation that ends 
innocent human life for the sake of someplace down the road 50 years 
speculating that someone's life would be improved.
  There is not a sound basis for this science. This turned into a 
political argument. It is not a scientific debate. This has already 
been lost by that side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, long ago, within the 
last year or two, with more mountains of real scientific evidence 
building up that cord blood stem cell research, or that also amniotic 
stem cell research, much of that far more promising. If embryonic stem 
cell research had merit, it would attract private investment dollars. 
It is not. That is why they have got to come here. They have turned it 
into a political argument, not a scientific argument and refuse to 
debate the science of it. That is the cost of $135 million to taxpayers 
that will be spent to take innocent human life.
  I have, Mr. Speaker, held those little snowflake babies in my arm. I 
looked Sam and Ben in the eye and I looked David in the eye here a year 
ago, giggly, laughing, bubbly little children that were for 9 years 
frozen, and now they are happy, human lives that are enriching the 
lives of everyone around them. Parents who could not have children are 
now parents of real children they nurture and love. These are also 
adoptable embryos.
  Next, H.R. 4, Part D, the prescription drug that commands the Federal 
Government to negotiate the value of prescription drugs. There is 
nothing government can do to improve Part D that was passed here a 
couple or 3 years ago. The cost of that has gone down. It was projected 
to be $43 billion a year on average. Now, it is down to $30 billion a 
year on average. We would have never passed a Medicare policy without 
including prescription drugs if we had anything more than aspirin so 
awful back in 1965, but because there has been profit in the 
prescription drug industry, we now have a broad array of innovative new 
drugs that save thousands and thousands of American lives and improve 
the American lives. That is because of research and development that 
has been invested.
  This will shut down some of the research and development, and it is a 
mandate that puts the Federal Government in the business of these 
negotiations. The Federal Government does a lousy job of that. I mean, 
look at the price of hammers and toilet seats. You can look for the 
same kind of thing to be what you get with prescription drugs. Only 
research and development slows down, gets shut down, and that means the 
progress in health is diminished.

  H.R. 5, cost to taxpayers, $7.1 billion, and it will not help 84 
million Americans with current student loans. $7.1 billion. But that 
$7.1 billion translates into higher tuition rates, Mr. Speaker, higher 
costs for education. When I have high school students who will say to 
me in an auditorium what are you going to do to lower my tuition costs, 
I ask them, what are you doing to shop for the best bang for your 
tuition dollar? Are you looking at the cost of the richest institution 
versus the private school versus the community college? Are you paying 
attention to take some college courses while you are in high school so 
you can shorten up that window of time to get your 4-year degree? A lot 
of them will look at me and say, well, I never thought of that; I never 
thought I had to be the invisible hand of the consumer when I went to 
college.
  It never occurs to them they can have more to say about the cost of 
tuition increase if they are smart consumers of that education and 
higher education. So this will raise the price of tuition, and 
ultimately, it does not help the problem. It makes it worse because 
everybody will pay more tuition, and some, a few, a small few will get 
a short break for a narrow window that looks to me like it is about 6 
months over a 6-year period of time.
  H.R. 6 increases our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and hurts 
families and seniors with higher energy prices. We finally after years 
of struggle, Mr. Speaker, last year marginally opened up some of our 
drilling offshore in the 181 area down off of the Florida panhandle 
coast. We have 406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the outer 
continental shelf known reserve. That is just the stuff we know, and we 
have not been able to drill and explore to the fashion we need to.
  We have a lot of oil on the outer continental shelf as well. The 
political barrier to going into that natural resource has been 
foreboding because there is an environmental political caucus over here 
that if anything comes up and they say, oh, that is a green issue, 
their brain shuts off, the

[[Page H780]]

curtains come down over their eyeballs. You cannot talk to them anymore 
because it is a green issue, and they are going to vote green.
  For example, a lot of them belief that ANWR is this pristine, arctic 
wilderness that somehow or another if we go up there and drill an 
environmentally friendly well will be destroyed forever and the tourism 
dollars for the Eskimos would never show up. Well, truthfully, and they 
know they have to live there, tourism is never going to be their 
salvation. What if we drilled an environmentally friendly well in ANWR 
of Alaska and no one came there to see it, then my question is, like 
when a tree falls in the forest, if no one hears a noise, did it make a 
sound? Well, if you drill an environmentally friendly well in ANWR and 
no one looks at it, did it damage the scenery? Not if nobody's looking, 
Mr. Speaker.
  But even if someone is looking, even if thousands are looking, no, it 
does not damage the scenery. I have challenged the greenies on this 
side of the aisle. We can fly you over the north slope of Alaska today 
and challenge you to point out the oil fields. I can fly you over them 
at 4,000 feet, and you can look down there, and unless somebody is 
giving you a crib sheet, you are never going to know it because these 
are not derricks sticking up in the sky. These are not pump jacks 
pumping oil out of the ground, leaking oil and spilling it into the 
soil, that idea of the old wildcat days you see in the movies from 80 
years ago in Texas.
  No, these are well casings that have submersible pumps in them. You 
do not even see their collector pipes that go on off over to their 
refinery. This is as an environmentally friendly as it gets. We need to 
open up all of these resources, and instead, this energy initiative 
that passed here, H.R. 6, cuts down on the amount of energy available 
to Americans that can do no other, and it changes the deal, Mr. 
Speaker. It changes the deal.
  Where I come from, if you are going to put your capital on the line, 
a deal has to be a deal. When you look somebody in the eye, whether or 
not you shake their hand and you say I will do that for X money, that 
is a deal. We buy cattle out of the window of the pickup on main street 
of our towns, two or three pot loads of cattle. Yeah, that is fine, I 
will take these because I trust you. You keep your word; you will bring 
me what I want.
  We should do the same thing out of this Congress, but the system that 
is set up out there and the conditions by which some of the findings 
that are off in the gulf coast, and I am thinking of Chevron that has 
that field, appears to be something that will increase U.S. domestic 
oil supply by 50 percent, when that finding is opened up, those kind of 
deals now are no longer a deal with this piece of legislation because 
it directs a renegotiation of those leases to punish the very people 
that are producing the supply of oil that is driving down the price, 
that has taken us from $75 a barrel down to $53 a barrel. The more that 
is on the market, the lower the price gets.
  Now a deal is not a deal out there in the gulf coast, Mr. Speaker. A 
deal gets changed, and H.R. 6 says to government, go force, I say this 
force, renegotiation of those leases because the hook in that is that 
if you do not renegotiate then you will not be eligible for new leases 
in areas that might be the most massive oil find in the history of 
America.

                              {time}  1300

  This is debilitating, and the argument was made a little bit ago that 
they have reduced the dependence on foreign oil. Good night, Mr. 
Speaker. It couldn't be any more off than 180 degrees by our measure. 
It has increased our dependency on Middle Eastern oil and it has 
reduced our availability of oil and gas onto the domestic market, when 
we can be pumping it out right between us and Hugo Chavez. It is going 
to slow down that development.
  And that is just some of the things on my mind as this 100 hours 
concludes. I hope the Speaker keeps her promise now and we can come 
back to work, I think on Monday, and we can gavel in here, and some of 
these freshmen can have a voice in this process. Not a single freshman 
has introduced a single amendment. They have not had a bit of impact on 
one word of all of this legislation that has come through. No freshman 
has changed one word in anything that has been passed in these first 
real 100 hours or the 42 hours by the Pelosi clock.
  I know there is a lot in the gentleman from New Mexico, and I am very 
interested in hearing it emerge here on the floor of this Congress, Mr. 
Speaker. So I would be very pleased to yield so much time as he may 
consume to the gentleman from New Mexico. And I would point out that we 
are splitting the time between now and 2:00.
  Mr. PEARCE. I would thank the gentleman from Iowa, and consider his 
comments to the fullest.
  I would congratulate my friends across the aisle for their attempts 
at activity in the first 100 hours. The truth is that, like my friend 
from Iowa, I am in business. My wife and I had a small business that we 
bought in, and we had four employees; 14 years later we had 50 
employees. We sold that business when we came here. But I understand 
the creation of jobs and I understand the impact of taxes, the impact 
of what we do here in Washington. And I like the idea that we would 
move to bold action. I like the idea that we would compel these United 
States to be different and new and think differently. But I will tell 
you, there are some things that in the last 2 weeks have concerned me 
greatly.
  Several years ago I had the opportunity to visit Egypt. When I was in 
Egypt, I noticed that almost every building had rebar and unconstructed 
pieces on top. So I mentioned to a friend of mine who was in the 
embassy that, why are all the buildings unfinished here? His comment 
was that they do not tax the buildings until they are complete, and so 
no one ever finishes their house, their home, the building they live 
in. The top floor is always under construction. And if they get that 
floor finished, they continue on and put rebar out onto a new addition 
that may never actually take place.
  The truth is, that is a great example of one of the fundamentals of 
economics: The things that we tax more of, we have fewer. We tax 
complete houses, so in Egypt we have fewer full, complete houses. That 
same principle works here.
  Now, yesterday on the floor of the House we heard much language that 
certainly appeals to many people in this Nation, that we are going to 
get back at those big greedy oil companies, that we are going to tax 
the people who have taken advantage of the American consumer. I would 
just point to the photograph on my right, this is what we are taxing. 
If the principle holds that we have fewer of what we tax, then we would 
understand that there are going to be fewer of these monstrous oil 
rigs. This is about a $1 billion to $1.5 billion project that sits out 
either in the Gulf of Mexico or off of the California coast and they 
produce tremendous amounts of oil.
  I am from an oil producing State, New Mexico, but our oil wells are 
single wells coming up out of the ground. This one may have 20 or 30 
wells that diverge out once it gets under the ocean. Our single wells 
may produce 50 barrels a day, and that would be a good well in New 
Mexico. These billion dollar investments might produce thousands or 
tens of thousands of barrels of oil per day. So like my friend from 
Iowa said, they contribute greatly to lowering the price of oil and, 
therefore, lowering the price of gasoline.
  Now, in our friends' enthusiasm across the aisle to raise the taxes 
on those oil companies that have produced so much, what they are 
actually going to do is raise the taxes on these facilities so that we 
produce fewer of these and fewer gallons and barrels of oil and gallons 
of gasoline, which means simply that the price is going to go up at the 
pump.
  Now, I am struck when we are faced with the comments that my friend 
from Iowa made; I am struck by the comments that he found issues in 
almost every bill that were like this, that had been poorly thought out 
yet not subject to the full complement of congressional hearings that 
they should have gone through, not subject to any amendment. And as I 
am thinking about his observations, I am drawn to a comment in the 
Detroit Free Press, and I would submit for the Record this entire 
document. But let me highlight this one quote. This is

[[Page H781]]

Mr. Dingell speaking, talking about the new greenhouse special 
committee that is being suggested by the new Speaker. And Mr. Dingell 
says, ``We should probably name it the Committee on World Travel and 
Junkets.'' Mr. Dingell told the Associated Press, ``We are just 
empowering a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs to go around and make 
speeches and make commitments that will be very difficult to honor.''

              [From the Detroit Free Press, Jan. 19, 2007]

                   Dingell Is Overstepped on Climate

                            (By Justin Hyde)

       Washington.--The battle among House Democrats over global 
     warming heated up Thursday as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 
     announced the formation of a special committee to hold 
     hearings on climate change, a job that had been under the 
     watch of U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich.
       Dingell, who has long opposed tougher fuel economy 
     standards because of concerns about their effect on Detroit 
     automakers, will still maintain significant control over any 
     global warming bill through his chairmanship of the House 
     Energy and Commerce Committee. He has already asked former 
     Vice President Al Gore to testify on climate change and told 
     members last week that climate change would be a top priority 
     through a series of hearings to be held soon.
       But the special committee reflects concern by Pelosi and 
     other Democrats who want fast action on global warming that 
     Dingell might object to provisions they support. Many House 
     Democrats support setting higher fuel economy targets on 
     vehicles as part of any effort to reduce carbon dioxide 
     emissions linked to a warming of the Earth.
       Dingell said he had not seen a detailed list of the 
     committee's responsibilities.
       Pelosi's move increases the likelihood that Democrats will 
     propose far tougher constraints on greenhouse gas pollution 
     than the Bush administration wants. She also has outflanked 
     for now--and angered--a few Democrats who head important 
     House committees.
       ``We should probably name it the committee on world travel 
     and junkets,'' Dingell told the Associated Press. ``We're 
     just empowering a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs to go around 
     and make speeches and make commitments that will be very 
     difficult to honor.''
       Pelosi announced Thursday that she would form a Select 
     Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which 
     would hold hearings and seek suggestions for ways to address 
     climate change. She said Congress needed the committee ``to 
     communicate with the American people on this important 
     issue,'' and that Democrats would come up with bills by July 
     4.
       ``The science of global warming and its impact is 
     overwhelming and unequivocal,'' Pelosi said in a statement. 
     ``We already have many of the technology and techniques that 
     we need to reduce global warming pollution, and American 
     ingenuity will supply the rest. With this new select 
     committee, we demonstrate the priority we are giving to 
     confront this most serious challenge.''
       Pelosi and her aides did not disclose who would head the 
     committee or how many members it would have, but no members 
     of Dingell's Energy and Commerce Committee will apparently be 
     included. While the committee will hold hearings around the 
     country, Pelosi told members Thursday it will not have the 
     ability to write legislation--the key power of the Energy and 
     Commerce Committee.
       What concerns Dingell and his allies is that Pelosi is 
     using a select committee rather than a simple task force to 
     highlight climate change. Under House rules, a select 
     committee will have to be created by a House vote, and Pelosi 
     aides say the committee will have Republican members--
     features that sound more like a legislative body than a 
     Democratic communications tool.
       The California Democrat has long backed environmental 
     issues and has asked Dingell and other committee chairmen to 
     submit their ideas for climate change legislation by June 1.
       But once the select committee issues its findings, Pelosi 
     could rely on that for legislation or use it instead of what 
     Dingell's committee produces.
       Energy issues already appear to be the hottest topic on 
     Capitol Hill. House Democrats celebrated the end of their 
     100-hour legislative blitz by passing a bill raising about 
     $15 billion in fees and royalties from oil companies. The 
     revenue is aimed at financing research for alternative fuels 
     and energy conservation.
       President George W. Bush's aides have said energy issues 
     will play a key role in Bush's State of the Union address on 
     Tuesday.
       White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters Thursday 
     that the President's speech would address the ``needs of 
     security and, at the same time, also the environment.''
       U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, a Menominee Democrat and member of 
     Dingell's committee, said the select committee could be 
     useful to ``highlight the importance of global warming'' and 
     that it won't prevent Energy and Commerce from holding its 
     own hearings.
       ``However, the legislative writing ability has to remain 
     within the Energy and Commerce Committee,'' Stupak said. ``If 
     suddenly there was a special committee . . . that had 
     legislative writing powers, I'd be very concerned because 
     that's a direct assault on a sitting committee.''

  Now, when I see our friends who I know don't intend to undermine the 
economy of this country make decisions like they did yesterday, I am 
concerned that Mr. Dingell is very accurate, that we have empowered a 
bunch of enthusiastic amateurs, that they do not understand the full 
consequences of their actions.
  If we look at the Tunagate scandal where we have now exempted from 
all of America just one piece of America, SunKist and Del Monte as the 
parent corporation; every corporation in America, according to the 
minimum wage law, must, whether they can afford it or not, pay a new 
higher minimum wage. That is the potential of the majority. And yet 
they came in, the Speaker gave an exclusion to one company, one company 
based in her district.
  Now, we have heard a lot about the ending of special favors and 
ending the culture of corruption, and yet one of the first things we do 
is get a special interest. That does not speak so well for the full 
intent to follow through in this new beginning that we have been given.
  I would also point out that one of the greatest arguments made in the 
renegotiation, allowing government to negotiate the prices on medical 
prescription drugs, I would point out that one of the harshest 
criticisms of this bill yesterday, the energy bill, H.R. 6, was that 
government negotiators failed to get it right; that government 
negotiators failed to put the provisions in. They did not even ask the 
oil companies to put those provisions into the contracts, and yet it is 
the same type of negotiator who we are going to turn loose and say that 
now we are going to get better prices than what the private negotiators 
have. I simply don't believe it. I voted the other way. But we will see 
if our enthusiastic amateurs have gotten it right, or if we in fact do 
not increase revenues to the Treasury and in fact begin to limit access 
to prescription medications, which is what I have been told.
  For an example, we can go and look at the Veterans Prescription Drug 
List, and we see that I think the number is only 30 percent of the 
drugs that have been introduced in the last 5 to 10 years are actually 
on the list for veterans. They don't have the same access that people 
on the Medicare prescription drug program do. So that would be a 
terrible shame if, in their enthusiasm to create a better plan, our 
friends have instead created a worse plan. I am certainly willing to 
work with them and see, but in the meantime I do worry.
  Now, there is a piece of the legislation yesterday that we all must 
read. If you have access to your computers, you can always look up H.R. 
6, and go to page 10. That is section 2, title II, and we are under the 
section 204 and we actually then begin a long series of pages and we 
come to page 10 under section 204, item C. And I will read this, 
because you as colleagues will find this stunning that it is actually 
in print. That transfers item C, line 4, page 10: A lessee shall not be 
eligible to obtain any economic benefit of any covered lease or any 
other lease.
  So President Clinton's team had negotiated bad leases, and now our 
friends are saying that those bad leases must be stopped. We simply 
need to stop them. We don't need to unravel them. We don't need to go 
through the thorny process of making it right for both sides as we 
unravel. We simply are going to punish you by not allowing you to 
derive any economic benefit from this type of installation. I will tell 
you, that undermines the full faith and credit of the United States. If 
we cannot depend on the word of the United States, then what do we 
have? I would draw parallels to things that other countries have done.
  In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez in 2001 raised the royalty rates from 1 
percent to 16 percent just like that. Now, I will tell you as a 
business guy, if you know that a cost is going to be 1 percent or 16 
percent, it is sort of irrelevant, but you must know that the cost is 
steady. When he raised those rates just at a single point with no 
ability to redesign these types of infrastructures, then he severely 
limited the interest of people to invest in that country, and certainly

[[Page H782]]

that is exactly what is happening. Foreign firms are already curtailing 
their investments in that country.
  So in Venezuela we see that there is an attempt to change existing 
contracts, very similar to the way that we changed yesterday on the 
floor of this House of Representatives, and it has affected the desire 
of people to invest in Venezuela.
  In Bolivia we have the same thing. The Bolivian government threatened 
to expel oil companies from that country in 2006 if they did not agree 
to new government terms on existing contracts. What has happened? I 
think you could forecast what has happened. What is done is that 
foreign investors are now beginning to reconsider whether or not they 
will actually be a part of the Bolivian economy or not. This is the 
thing that all shareholders, they will live with any certainty in life, 
but they will not live with uncertainty. And when we begin to change 
the contracts, they begin to pull their investments out and go to 
places where certainty is more of a potential.
  In Russia we have seen the same thing. Companies such as Shell, 
Exxon, BP have had valid oil and gas leases in Russia for years. 
President Putin had a number of government agencies threaten to pull 
these leases for a number of suspect reasons. By threatening to pull 
these leases, Shell was forced to give up assets that were worth 
billions of dollars. So we see in Russia this attempt to maneuver 
contracts, to manipulate contracts much as what we did yesterday, and 
the effects are very bad. Long term, Russia will not have people who 
are willing to come and invest in that country.
  In 2001, I had the opportunity to go as a company; my wife and I had 
a small company that dealt in oil and gas, repairs of oil wells. Russia 
was looking for such capability. So in 2001, I went with a team of 
people who did various different projects. We were the ones who did 
down hole repairs on oil wells. They took me, they showed me files of 
maybe 6,000 or 8,000 wells that were simple to correct, yet they in 
their technology in 2001 did not have access to even the basics that my 
father had seen here in the United States in the early 1950s when he 
was working in the same industry. My father retired from Exxon; his 
whole life was work.
  So when I went back, I showed him the videos of the equipment that 
was in Russia in 2001. He said, ``Son, in 1950 we were more advanced 
than what we are seeing here.''
  When countries are unwilling to allow people to have stable returns, 
it doesn't have to be high returns, low returns, but there must be 
stability and there must be predictability. When countries do not allow 
that, there will be no investments. And so here Russia was with over 
6,000 wells asking me in 2001 to come and fix because they did not have 
anyone that was capable of fixing them.
  I determined that the environment was very, very unsettling in 
Russia, so we actually opted not to become a part of the team that went 
there. There was a company that was about 10 times our size located in 
Abilene, Texas. They did go. That was about maybe a $50 million 
company, maybe a $100 million company. Within 2 years, they were 
selling everything at bankruptcy because the Russians, as you can 
predict, said, ``No. These assets are going to belong to us.''
  So this contracting problem that was attempted to be cured yesterday 
in legislation I think is going to be, instead of a fix, is going to 
cause prices to be higher at the pump, investments to be less, and at 
the end of the day we are going to wonder if maybe we did not empower a 
bunch of enthusiastic amateurs to go around and make commitments on 
behalf of the Federal Government. We shall see. I wish my friends well.
  I would say that I am not the only one who wonder about the 
contracts. Just day before yesterday the Washington Post had an 
editorial which declared that these elements that are included in the 
bill, the ones that begin to undo the contracts that we voted on 
yesterday and pushed by the majority in this House, the Washington Post 
declared those solutions to be ones that Russia and Bolivia would be 
proud of.
  Now, that is not exactly the new direction that the American people 
were promised as we came into this session. So I would encourage my 
colleagues to please open the process up. With debate in committee, 
these shortcomings in bills could have been brought out. The rough 
edges could have been knocked off the bills. Instead, we have been 
faced with bills that have no amendments allowed, no debate in 
committees, no consideration in committees. And so I worry that our 
friends are circumventing democracy.

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for bringing 
his expertise to the floor. I listened with fascination to the Russian 
narrative. That is one I wasn't aware of. I look forward to looking 
into that in further detail in the future.
  I see we have some freshmen who have come to the floor, apparently 
poised to proceed with a Special Order over the next 60 minutes. I 
trust this is in a great celebration of the first 100 hours and the 
accomplishment of the 100 hours now being in the Congressional Record, 
and you are here to celebrate you are finally going to have a voice in 
this process. Maybe next week one of you can offer an amendment and go 
to a subcommittee meeting and go to a hearing or do a markup, and you 
can get into the Congressional Record some of the things you promised 
your voters you were going to do.
  I have to believe you didn't think you would be muzzled for the first 
100 hours, and you thought there would be a process for you to be 
allowed to offer amendments, engage in debate, go to subcommittee and 
committee meetings, and maybe even go before the Rules Committee and 
make a request and have it granted that you could bring your pet issue 
to this floor of Congress and actually accomplish the things that you 
pledged you would do.
  If any of you have had any of that voice up to this point, I think it 
would be interesting to hear that. I suspect, no, you are full of 
frustration, quietly, and now we are going to hear your voices, full 
throated, maybe in the next hour, hopefully next week. Pelosi time only 
says 42 hours. I am not sure if you are going to give that chance.
  Please make that request so we can go to real-time. Congratulations, 
you got it all done in the first real 100 hours. You didn't need Pelosi 
time. I want to hear your voice in the amendment process. Welcome to 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this great honor to speak to you this 
afternoon. I also thank the gentleman from New Mexico.

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