[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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