[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 83 (Tuesday, May 20, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H4206-H4209]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       ADDITIONAL TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS

  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass 
the Senate bill (S. 3029) to provide for an additional temporary 
extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small 
Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the Senate bill.
  The text of the Senate bill is as follows:

                                S. 3029

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. ADDITIONAL TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF AUTHORIZATION OF 
                   PROGRAMS UNDER THE SMALL BUSINESS ACT AND THE 
                   SMALL BUSINESS INVESTMENT ACT OF 1958.

       (a) In General.--Section 1 of the Act entitled ``An Act to 
     extend temporarily certain authorities of the Small Business 
     Administration'', approved October 10, 2006 (Public Law 109-
     316; 120 Stat. 1742), as most recently amended by section 1 
     of Public Law 110-136 (121 Stat. 1453), is amended by 
     striking ``May 23, 2008'' each place it appears and inserting 
     ``March 20, 2009''.
       (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) 
     shall take effect on May 22, 2008.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from 
New York (Ms. Velazquez) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New York.


                             General Leave

  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from New York?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, today we will consider a short-term extension for 
programs in the Small Business Act and Small Business Investment Act. 
The measure extends the authorization of the Small Business 
Administration and these programs through March 20, 2009. This measure 
will ensure continued operations at the agency.
  The legislation comes before us at a time when the American economy 
is facing many challenges. Fallout from the subprime crisis is driving 
a tightening of the credit market, the average price of a gallon of gas 
is almost $4, and unemployment is rising.
  Entrepreneurs can help reverse these trends, if they have the proper 
tools. Throughout the 110th Congress, the Committee on Small Business 
has been working to improve and revitalize the economic environment for 
business activity. With nearly 20 bills passed out of the House, these 
reforms have been a collaborative and bipartisan effort. With the input 
of Ranking Member Chabot and other Members of this body, this has 
included major changes to SBA programs which affect millions of small 
businesses.
  We have already passed measures into law that will help small 
businesses cope with rising energy costs, as well as become part of the 
solution. The President also signed a bill earlier this year that 
provides needed assistance to veteran business owners. And just last 
week, the House and Senate cleared a package to strengthen the SBA's 
disaster relief initiatives, which failed so many Americans during 
Hurricane Katrina.
  The House has also reported legislation that is awaiting Senate 
action. These include reforms to streamline the SBA access to capital 
initiatives, improve contracting opportunities, and increase the 
outreach of entrepreneurial programs. We will continue working with the 
Senate to get these reforms signed into law.
  This extension would allow the chamber to move its own versions, 
setting the groundwork so we may work out any differences. In the 
interim, and in the midst of a weakened economy, it is essential that 
these programs continue to serve small firms. The SBA is the sole 
Federal agency charged with assisting these entrepreneurs, and this 
bill allows the agency to continue to meet their needs.
  I urge support of the bill.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of this particular 
legislation, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The bill is very simple, Madam Speaker. It extends the authorization 
of all programs authorized by the Small Business Act, the Small 
Business Investment Act, and any program operated by the Small Business 
Administration for which Congress has already appropriated funds. This 
extension will last until March 20, 2009.

[[Page H4207]]

  The extension is necessary because authorization for various programs 
operated by the Small Business Administration ceases on May 23, 2008, 
so in just a couple of days.
  Working in a bipartisan effort with Chairwoman Velazquez, as she 
always does, she's reached out many occasions to work in a bipartisan 
fashion in the committee. The committee has ordered 15 bills to be 
reported out of the committee, all of which have passed this body, the 
House of Representatives.
  The most recent action taken by the House was the recent passage of 
legislation to extend the Small Business Innovation Research Program. 
With the passage of this bill, the House has finished all the necessary 
work to reauthorize all of the programs overseen by the Small Business 
Administration.
  Even though the House finished its deliberations, we operate in a 
bicameral legislative system, of course, and time is needed for the 
legislative process to run its course and enable the two bodies to 
resolve any disagreements on the best way to move the Small Business 
Administration forward and helping America's entrepreneurs. That work 
simply cannot be completed by this Friday, and given the upcoming 
legislative work on appropriations matters, it remains unclear when the 
two bodies will be able to commence deliberations to iron out their 
differences.
  As a result of the need for following regular order and ensuring due 
deliberation of important issues to the American economy, I would urge 
my colleagues to suspend the rules and pass S. 3029.
  However, there are additional items that I believe this House should 
address when it comes to small business. We're looking at access to 
capital in the Small Business Administration, and that is one of the 
areas that small businesses all around the country struggle it, with, 
access to capital.
  Taxes is another big issue, and that's why I believe that the tax 
cuts that we pass should be made permanent because many of the people 
who would benefit from those, that tax relief are small business 
owners, and they hire about 70 percent of the new workers in this 
country. So I believe we should make those tax cuts permanent.
  Regulatory reform needs to happen. Small businesses continue to be 
overregulated, as many parts of our economy are. Health care is 
important. That's why we believe that Association Health Plans should 
pass. We ought to make sure that businesses are able to provide health 
care for their employees.
  But there's one area that this Congress, I believe, has been woefully 
remiss in not addressing, and that's the area of energy, the fact that 
whether it's natural gas to heat our homes in the wintertime, or 
whether it's filling up one's gas tank at all-time record highs of 
almost $4 a gallon, it's absolutely unconscionable that Congress has 
not acted in a responsible manner and a bipartisan manner to actually 
do something to bring those gas prices down. Why are we seeing these 
gas prices at all time highs?
  Well, we are far too reliant upon foreign sources of energy. Is there 
anything we can do about this? Absolutely.
  I've been in Congress for 14 years, and I've voted 11 times to allow 
us to explore and drill and go after energy up in Alaska, in ANWR, 
where we believe we have up to 16 billion barrels of oil which is being 
kept off-limits.
  So we're essentially handcuffing ourselves and saying, you can't go 
up there at all, even though most Alaskans are all for it. They believe 
that we should be able to go up there, as do most of their 
representatives, as do an awful lot of Members of this House. And we 
had the votes in previous Congresses to pass that here in the House. As 
I say, I voted for it 11 times. But we didn't have the votes over in 
the Senate.
  But I just think it's absolutely outrageous that we've kept 16 
billion barrels of oil off-limits. And that's only the start. We've 
also kept the entire Outer Continental Shelf off-limits. We think we 
have 86 billion barrels of oil there, and trillions of cubic feet of 
natural gas to heat our homes in the wintertime, which we've kept off-
limits.
  Now, we're not going to go after it, but Cuba has entered into an 
agreement with China to go after this oil out there that we ought to be 
getting. And so they're going to take advantage of it and we're not. 
And that's one of the main reasons that we see these high gas prices 
out there, because we have to buy the oil from somewhere, so we 
continue to buy it from some of the most unstable parts of the world, 
like the OPEC countries especially in the Middle East.
  We're also buying oil from Venezuela. Hugo Chavez is down there, 
really a bitter enemy of the United States, yet we're forced to buy his 
oil. We buy oil from Mexico and Canada, Nigeria and other countries 
around the world as well. But we ought not to allow ourselves to be so 
dependent on foreign sources of energy.
  We ought to go after those areas that we have control over, that we 
don't have to ask anybody's permission. But this Congress has kept that 
oil off-limits, and that's one of the main reasons we see prices as 
high as they are right now.
  In addition, if we had the crude oil here, which we don't, but if we 
had it, we can't refine it quickly enough to be able to put it into our 
cars. Why? Because we don't have enough oil refineries in this country.
  Back 30 years ago, which is the last time, more than 30 years, 32 
years ago is the last time we built an oil refinery in this country. 
The regulations now make it virtually impossible to build an oil 
refinery. So we ought to change those regulations. We ought to make 
sure that we do it, you still build these refineries in an 
environmentally safe manner, just as we go after the oil in ANWR and 
the Outer Continental Shelf in an environmentally safe and friendly 
manner. But those are the types of things that we need to do. But 
because we take no action in those areas, we haven't built an oil 
refinery in this country in over 30 years.
  We've put nuclear off-limits, no more nuclear power plants about 20 
years ago. France can produce 75 percent of their electricity, 
completely, safely. But we can't do that in the United States? I don't 
think so. I think that's just a very bad policy that we enacted about 
20 years ago, making it impossible to build nuclear power plants. We 
need to change that.
  Finally, we need as well to make sure that we have sufficient dollars 
going into research so that we can go after the cutting edge types of 
energies that are going to power us in the future, solar, wind, 
biomass, hydrogen fuel cells that we may be able to power our cars by 
in the future.
  But most of these things, for the most part, are in the future. Yes, 
we do have wind now. But we're talking about less than 1 percent of the 
power in this country. So we have to have energy going in; we have to 
have sufficient dollars going into those technologies of the future.
  But the bottom line is that at this time oil is one of the principal 
ways that we power our automobiles and other important things in this 
country. And when we put that stuff off-limits and we continue to buy 
it from foreign sources, we're going to continue to see these high 
prices. And that's just wrong.
  The American people are suffering right now. We should have taken 
this action a long time ago. But since we didn't, we need to do it 
immediately. And that's what really bugs me when I hear people talk 
about, well, even if we opened up ANWR now, we're not going to have 
that oil for years. Well, that's why we should have opened up ANWR a 
long time ago. But we can't go back and undo what was, we can't go back 
and do what we didn't do back then, but if we passed it now, a lot of 
the price at the gas pump is reflected in speculators, what they think 
oil is going to be like in the future. If we opened up ANWR, I think 
you'd see an immediate effect on the prices at the pump that we would 
pay.
  People are sick and tired of the high prices we're paying. It's time 
that Congress act, and we ought to act sooner rather than later.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, if the 
ranking member is prepared to close.
  Mr. CHABOT. I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).
  (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

[[Page H4208]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Eleven minutes.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, this short-term extension is important. 
It's just too bad that we couldn't extend the low cost of energy that 
we had 18 months ago. Eighteen months ago the price of a barrel of 
crude oil was $58.31. Today it's $128 a barrel, a $70 increase.
  What's important to small businesses is the cost of doing business. 
And the increase in energy cost, the increase in liquid fuel cost, the 
increase in electricity cost, bears a disproportionate share of the 
cost today, more so than 18 months ago.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. WU. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I would be honored to yield to my friend from Oregon.
  Mr. WU. Would my friend care to cite to us the price of a barrel of 
oil when this administration took power in 2001?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. It was $27 a barrel when this administration came in.
  Mr. WU. Would the gentleman care to cite the price of a barrel of oil 
when the war in Iraq began?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Do you know what it was?
  Mr. WU. I was hoping----
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I will debate this issue. This issue is about supply. I 
don't care who's responsible. This issue is about bringing more supply 
into the market. When a barrel costs $128 versus $58, this is what you 
get: You get gas prices that were at $2.33 when this Congress got sworn 
in to prices today that are $3.80 because we will not expand our 
supply.
  Now, if you add climate change, my friend from Oregon is a good 
friend of mine, and I know he's concerned about climate change and 
global warming and a cap-and-trade system, conservatively, that's going 
to add 50 cents to a gallon of gas to comply with climate change. So 
today the average price $3.80, plus 50 cents, $4.30.
  Now, I think yesterday in Chicago without the climate change gas tax 
increase, it was $4.50 a gallon.
  So the debate is when are we going to say that it's okay to do these 
things? When is it okay that we can take coal and turn it into liquid 
fuel? When is it okay to go off the Outer Continental Shelf and harvest 
those billions of barrels of oil, those trillions of cubic feet of 
natural gas? When is it going to be okay to say let's continue to move 
aggressively in cellulosic and biofuels, coal-to-liquid, OCS, wind, and 
solar?
  In 20 years, we're going to increase our electricity demand by 50 
percent. We have to bring on more supply. We have to bring on more 
baseload supply because in rural America, which I represent, in over 30 
counties it takes 2\1/2\ hours to drive from one part of my district to 
another. We don't have mass transit. We don't have light rail. In fact, 
it's an agricultural economy. It runs on big diesel trucks to haul the 
cattle, to haul the horses, to haul the hay. Diesel prices have 
doubled.
  And so because of that, what we're trying to say is it is time that 
we start addressing and bring this to the floor. The chairwoman herself 
said in her opening statement, We have brought policies here, this 
Congress, to lower the cost for small business. That's kind of like the 
Speaker's promise in 2006, We've got a plan to lower gas prices. It 
didn't happen. It went up.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I would be honored to yield.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. H.R. 6----
  Mr. SHIMKUS. It's a failure.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. You know why? Because your President, our President 
refuses to implement the provisions, at least the one that would lower 
the cost of loans for small businesses.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. When your party will come to the floor and debate 
bringing more supply to the market, we can negotiate. But when you say, 
We're going to solve our 50-percent increase in demand on energy with 
solar and wind, it just doesn't pass the laugh test. We just can't get 
there.
  We've got to expand nuclear power. We've got to expand coal-fired 
power. We've got to turn coal into liquid fuels. We've got to bring on 
more supply. Yes, we can do it. I've got it here. In fact, Illinois is 
going to be a great wind power State.
  Mr. WU. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. WU. I look forward to debating the gentleman from Indiana on this 
issue. As you know, this Congress has acted on every item that you have 
cited except for drilling on the Arctic Wildlife Reserve. We've acted 
on every other single one.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Do you know how big the Arctic Wildlife Refuge is?
  Mr. WU. I believe it is a very, very short-term supply.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. No. Do you know how big it is?
  Mr. WU. It is a very large expanse of land.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. It is the size of the State of South Carolina.
  Do you know what the drilling platform is?
  Mr. WU. Would the gentleman care to--I mean, we're asking----
  Mr. SHIMKUS. We're debating back and forth.
  Do you know how big the drilling platform would be?
  Mr. WU. It would be a substantial size.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. No, it would not be a substantial size. It would be the 
size of Dulles Airport. It would be like putting on a football field a 
postage stamp. That's the perspective. That's what gets lost in this 
debate. We can do it.
  You know what? If you look at the OCS here, we do drill in the 
western gulf. Remember when Katrina went rolling up the gulf and we saw 
that big picture, tell me the environmental disaster that occurred with 
those derricks in the western gulf with Katrina rolling over the top of 
them. Can you name one? There wasn't one.
  Mr. WU. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. WU. I do believe that the oil derricks, as Katrina came through, 
were evacuated and covered, and the people who were responsible for 
those rigs did do a good job in Katrina, and I would be happy to 
concede that to the gentleman.
  But I also want to mention to the gentleman that experts ranging from 
the CEO of Exxon to academicians on the topic all estimate that the 
current price of a barrel of oil should be about $60 a barrel. Instead, 
it's twice that price.
  Let me just finish my statement.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I'm not going to argue. It's my time. I will debate, but 
I won't argue. It's my time.
  Mr. WU. And most individuals agree that there are three reasons why 
the price is $128 a barrel rather than $60 a barrel. The three reasons 
are our presence in Iraq, instead of lowering the price of oil, it 
increased the price of oil; the permission from Wall Street to 
speculate on a purely financial basis in commodity futures; and the 
third reason is the lowering of the value of the U.S. dollar. Two of 
those policies are intentional policies, and the third policy was 
passed by the Republican Congress.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. And because I'm enjoying this type of debate, I will 
concede the dollar price.
  But let me tell you why, if we had our own resources, if we were 
drilling our own oil, isn't it criminal that we're relying on imported 
crude oil to fund our energy needs? Wouldn't it be better to use 
American dollars to drill on American soil in American land on American 
OCS? Then we wouldn't have to worry about the dollar, because an 
American dollar is an American dollar is an American dollar. And we 
wouldn't have to worry about our trade imbalances because we import all 
of this crude oil.
  Now, to point two, the speculators. Do you know why they're bidding 
the price up? Because we won't open supply. They're taking a position 
that I am going to bid this up, and you know what? Those dummies in 
Congress, they're not going to open up more supply. So what I hold is 
going to cost more in the future. It's a futures market. It's risk 
management. They're betting about our inability to go here. Billions of 
barrels of oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. We won't go 
there. They're betting against us going there.
  Mr. WU. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I'm from Southern Illinois. It's the Saudi Arabia of 
coal, 250 years worth. Fifty percent of our electricity that we 
generate today is by coal. We could also use that coal as the South 
Africans have done for 40 years. The Germans did it in World War II. 
Take that coal and turn it into liquid fuel.

[[Page H4209]]

  We have had four budget airlines go broke. Why did they go broke? 
They couldn't afford the price of aviation fuel. How did South African 
airlines fuel their jets? Coal-to-liquid technology. Taking South 
African coal, turning it into aviation jet fuel. That's what our 
competitive advantage is. Our advantage is using our natural resources. 
Not assuming that our natural resources are an environmental hazard.
  That's our policy. Don't go after our natural resources. It's an 
environmental hazard. Most countries say go after your natural 
resources; it makes you stronger. It makes you more competitive. It 
lowers the cost of doing business. It creates jobs. Look at the jobs 
that would be created here in southern Illinois. Build a coal mine, 
that creates jobs. Operate the coal mines, that creates jobs. Build a 
coal-to-liquid refinery, jobs. Operate the coal-to-liquid refinery, 
jobs. Build a pipeline, American jobs. Low-cost fuel, American jobs.
  For every dollar a barrel increase on aviation fuel, do you know how 
much it costs us taxpayers? $60 million just to fund the Air Force.
  So this policy of no supply hurts the taxpayers. And we have to pay 
for it. We had the authorization bill of the Coast Guard. For every 
dollar increase in diesel fuel, do you know what it cost the Coast 
Guard to operate and make sure our shores are protected? $24 million 
for every dollar increase.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Ohio has 
expired.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Madam Speaker, let me just say in closing that I, too, 
am concerned and outraged about the fact that we are dealing with an 
energy crisis that is impacting small businesses, but more important is 
the fact that we passed an energy bill that has provisions that will 
provide low-cost loans for small businesses to be able to cope with 
energy and the gas prices, and yet the President refuses to implement 
the program.
  So I would ask the gentleman, Mr. Shimkus, to join with me in asking 
the administration and asking the President to implement this provision 
contained in a bill that was overwhelmingly supported, a bipartisan 
bill, the energy bill.
  And then the gentleman comes here and gives this great speech about 
energy prices, and yet whenever there is an opportunity for the 
gentleman to support legislation that would provide relief to small 
businesses and consumers, he votes against it. Even today on the Gas 
Price Relief for Consumers Act, Mr. Shimkus voted against it.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentlelady yield?
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Not on this point. I will not yield.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. You're referring to me. I would be happy to debate if 
you're going to bring my votes to the floor.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Reclaiming my time.
  You had a lot of time. You claimed a lot of time.
  The gentleman voted against this bill.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Will the gentlelady yield?
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. I will not yield at this time.
  So, Madam Speaker, I will ask that the Members of this House support 
the reauthorization of the Small Business Administration, and I will 
invite everyone who is concerned about energy prices to come and 
support the bills that we pass that would provide relief to consumers 
and to small businesses.
  You should put your money where your mouth is.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez) that the House suspend the 
rules and pass the Senate bill, S. 3029.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the Senate bill was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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