[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 101 (Wednesday, June 18, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5565-H5572]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRAGEDY IN IOWA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for
60 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a profound privilege
to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States
Congress.
I come here to the floor, and first I can't begin this discussion
over the next 60 minutes without first taking up the issue of the
natural disaster tragedies in Iowa. From my history and experience, I
go back a ways working with the natural environment and the natural
disasters we have had. I remember a tragic tornado at Belmond, I lived
through the 1993 floods, and when my equipment and my livelihood was
under water, I went to eastern Iowa and down to Keokuk to help out down
there because it was the only thing I could do to improve the situation
because mine was not in a condition where it could be helped, at least
for a few days.
As I lived through those experiences and as the Katrina hurricane
came up and in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, for example, I was
one of the first Members of Congress to arrive down in New Orleans. I
made multiple trips down there into the heart of it. I have something
like 3,600 pictures taken of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath when New
Orleans was full of water. I have been on the ground and in the air,
and I have slept on the Red Cross cot and I looked the people in the
eye who were underwater and still suffer from that tragedy. I am not
without experience.
Personally, I lost a considerable amount in the floods of 1993; but
also I have the experience as a Member of Congress who has gone into
these disastrous areas in the world. And Hurricane Katrina being the
heart and the worst of it.
[[Page H5566]]
And yet when I look at Iowa today, and just having come back from the
location last Friday morning where I visited where our four Boy Scouts
were killed by a tornado and 48 others were injured, they rose up and
did everything that they could do. They did everything they could do
from a training perspective, and they did everything that they could to
prepare. They did everything they could to take shelter with the
shelter that they had that was available. And in the aftermath of that
disastrous tornado that brought about the four fatalities of the Boy
Scouts, they conducted themselves with utter heroism.
I stood on the site and listened to the stories from a number of the
people on the location. And think of this, Mr. Speaker, 1,800 acres in
the loess hills of Iowa, a very remote wilderness Boy Scout camp
location that has been used for a number of years as a training
location for first aid, first responders, and survival where the Boy
Scouts have been trained.
And the tragedy of this is that the Boy Scouts are generally some of
the first ones to arrive to help sandbag and help prepare for a flood
or a disaster. They are some of the first ones to be there and stay
there and help clean up in the aftermath. They are some of the first
ones to arrive in the aftermath of a tornado or another natural
disaster to help clean up, and they are leaders in their own right as
youth, and they are also leaders in training for their adulthood. And
these were the elite of the elite. These were the stand-out Boy Scouts
who were there. There were at least 93 at the location on the night of
the tornado.
The shelter that they had available to them was small, round little
pup tents that were pitched up the finger valleys of what we call the
bluffs. It's the loess hills of Iowa. Some of the reporters called it
mountains, and I think I am flattered by that. Come see the mountains
in western Iowa. They are beautiful. They are about 300 feet high, but
they look like mountains on the horizon.
When the storm came, the Scouts had a very short window of notice and
warning. The visibility lookout across the horizon didn't exist for
them because they were in the valley and the tornado that came first
set down on the ranger home, and destroyed that home. There was no
basement, no shelter for the wind, slab on grade with a large fireplace
built into which the tornado knocked down on top of the ranger and his
family. They were trapped underneath the rubble. It was three small
children, wife and husband, so five of them were trapped under the
rubble of cement blocks and stone that was the former fireplace that
collapsed on them.
And the tornado went from there up the valley and kind of jumped
around the finger a little bit and set right in on the shelter house
that 40 or 50 Scouts had gone to as quickly as they could when the
weather got bad. The tornado picked up a pickup truck and blasted it
through the chimney and the fireplace and on through the building, and
it landed on the other side. The vehicle was about 100 feet on the one
side of the building which I think was south and it landed about 150
feet on the other side of the building. That knocked rubble down on top
of the Scouts, and that is where the fatalities took place. And that is
where most of the injured of the 48 who were injured out of the roughly
93, and that were taken off for medical care.
The Scouts came out of that rubble. Some of them went immediately to
the aid of those who were hurt the worst and did the triage that their
training had taught. Some ran half a mile to the ranger's house where
they could hear the children screaming from underneath the rubble, and
pulled that rubble and saved them from suffocation that ultimately
would have taken place. The ranger and his wife and children did walk
away, although a couple were severely injured. It was a very sad
situation with a very heroic reaction.
Some of the Scouts then reached to help each other. Some of them went
to the first aid kits that they had been issued 2 years and 2 months
earlier when they were on the same location and there was a surprise
drill that was called by and initiated by the Boy Scout leaders and by
the EMT workers from the neighborhood. They joined together at 5 in the
morning and they converged on the 1,800 acre Scout camp and simulated a
disaster that very much was like the real disaster that came 2 years
and 2 months later.
The Scouts had their training. They were trained to react quickly.
Many of them did. Some of them ran up the hill to a storage shed where
they went in and got a couple of all-terrain vehicles and chain saws,
and came back down the hill and began sawing the trees out of the way
so emergency vehicles could get in. Other Scouts performed first aid
with the kits they had been issued 2 years and 2 months earlier. They
were saving lives all across that area.
The bottom line of it, Mr. Speaker, that the Scouts and their
Scoutmasters and the EMTs that converged on the area within 7 minutes,
and I would submit that is within 7 minutes even though the nearest
town is at least 7 miles away, they saved Lord knows how many lives.
But each move they made before the tornado hit and each move that they
made after that was as good as it could have been. Sometimes it's just
not enough. Sometimes even though everybody does everything right,
there still will be loss of life. And four Scouts were called home who
will be remembered for all time, especially on that location.
I can't say enough about the job that they did, their training and
the EMTs in the neighborhood, all of the emergency responders, the law
enforcement personnel, the fire departments, the urban teams across the
State, everyone that converged on that location began to arrive 7
minutes after the tornado hit. The Scouts were already sawing logs and
timber off the pathways so emergency vehicles could go up. Within 2
hours, everyone who was injured and needed medical care was off the
site and under medical care at some of the local medical facilities and
hospital. Some went to Omaha, and some went to Sioux City. But the
largest share went to Burgess Memorial Hospital in Ottumwa. And those
that arrived there, I can just sense the tone in the voice of the
medical workers there. The thing that they had trained for, one of the
things they had feared and trained for all their lives had visited them
on that evening last week.
They mustered through the cause and provided the best quality medical
care possible and took care of the patients, the 20 patients out of the
48 that arrived at Burgess Memorial in Ottumwa, and also Mercy Hospital
in Sioux City and down into Council Bluffs and Omaha. Everyone stepped
up to the task. I think they can be very proud of the way that they
reacted to a tragedy, Mr. Speaker.
{time} 2045
And it is a tragedy that will be remembered in Boy Scout lore for all
time. If there is a silver lining behind this cloud, the silver lining
is that the training that they had, the deja vu experience that was
visited upon them last week was one that had a maximum amount of
training available. And one of the Scouts said, I think, the most
heroic thing when he said, if this had to happen anywhere, it was a
good thing that it happened here where we were trained to deal with it.
That's a courageous statement, Mr. Speaker. And I can't attribute that
because I don't actually know the name of the Scout, but all the Scouts
out there, I think, expressed the same sentiment. And I'm proud of the
work that they have done. I congratulate them. My heart, thoughts and
prayers goes out to them, to their families as they grieve for the lost
ones. And as they put this back together, all of us will join together
in that part of this recovery from the disaster, as bad as it is. I'll
certainly be supportive of constructing a memorial on the location
where we lost the four Scouts.
Fortunately, the ranger and his family all came out of it in at least
reasonably good health and are in the recovery mode today.
But I look across the State, Mr. Speaker, and it's a tough battle all
the way across Iowa. And we've had more loss of life due to weather and
natural disasters than ever in my memory. I believe that number now,
through the course of this, comes to 20 lives that have been lost in
the culmination of the tornados, the one especially that hit
Parkersburg, the one that hit in Monona County that took the lives of
the four Boy Scouts.
If you add to a number of other disasters, weather-related, that have
come
[[Page H5567]]
across the State, and look at the State of Iowa in your mind's eye, Mr.
Speaker, we're fortunate in western Iowa that we're not in worse
condition than we are. The Missouri River and its tributaries, by the
nature of their grade, come up fast when it rains and they go down
fast. We've had some severe flooding in western Iowa, but it doesn't
sustain itself over the days and weeks in the same fashion that it does
in eastern Iowa.
Des Moines, central Iowa, downstream from the Saylorville Reservoir
and downstream from the Raccoon River, they've had some record flooding
in that area; not as bad as it was in 1993, in some locations actually
worse. But for the breadth of it, not as bad it was in 1993, which was
a 500-year flood event.
But over as far as one goes east in Iowa, and especially in
Congressman Loebsack's district, Cedar Rapids and in the Waterloo,
Cedar Falls and Iowa City area, the Cedar River especially, but for the
Iowa River, the all-time high was set, I'm not certain of the year, but
in this flood, this new 500-year event that came back to visit us 15
years after the last 500-year event, Mr. Speaker, set an all-time high
there near Iowa City or near the Iowa River that was 3\1/2\ feet higher
in its crest of the water flow elevation than ever before. 3\1/2\ feet
higher, Mr. Speaker. And that eclipsed a 500-year event in order to do
that.
But in Cedar Rapids it was more difficult. It was 11\1/2\ feet above
the previous high water mark. 11\1/2\ feet, Mr. Speaker. That is a
huge, huge amount, a wall of water that has inundated the Cedar Rapids
area.
And I will say that we've been through some floods before. And we're
watching as this crest has moved its way down the Mississippi River.
And the Mississippi River is pushing at some all-time highs, and
marginally has eclipsed those all-time highs.
But what we've learned, in 1993 we rebuilt some levees. We built some
up. We tried to prepare ourselves, mitigation for future floods, and it
wasn't enough, especially in the Cedar Rapids area. It wasn't enough in
the Iowa City area. It wasn't enough in some of the smaller town areas
and some of the other tributaries, as well as the Cedar River and the
Iowa River.
But I want to compliment the Iowans in the eastern part of the State
as well, because they did everything they could to get ready. And
during this crest and the aftermath, I have every confidence that they
have done and will do everything necessary to clean up from it and to
bring the resources that are available to them to bear, to pump the
water out, to let gravity feed it down, to clean up the muck and the
silt, and to go into the buildings and take out the drywall, and haul
out the appliances that have been flooded out and redo the flooring,
redo the walls, rebuild.
In some places houses are entirely gone, washed away, Mr. Speaker,
washed away and crushed into bridges where they were trapped until they
could be pushed further downstream. Some people's homes just simply
washed away.
We've seen this kind of tragedy across the country time and again,
and I alluded earlier to my experience at Katrina. And this experience
in Katrina, compared to Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, all of Iowa, tells me
that the vast areas of New Orleans, some of those that are not rebuilt
yet may not be rebuilt, even after we're finished rebuilding in Iowa.
But I call upon Iowans, and I have every expectation and all
confidence that they'll step forward and get this work done, and
they'll do it with volunteer forces. They'll do it with contract
forces, and we will do it together by using the resources that are
available to us in the most responsible fashion.
And we do need help, Mr. Speaker. I don't know how much this flood
has cost. I know that we appropriated tens of billions of dollars to
New Orleans and Katrina, and I have been one of the critics of how that
money was spent in some cases, in fact, some will say in many cases,
and they may well be right.
I pledge, Mr. Speaker, that I'll also be looking to Iowa and asking
and making sure that the utilization of the resources that are
available to Iowans to recover from this disaster are used with every
bit of the frugality and responsibility, as if every dime was our own
money reinvested into the future. And I will spend my time overseeing
this.
I will defend the interests of the taxpayer, and I will protect the
needs of Iowans to have a chance to recover from this.
The cost of these disasters are far greater than we can withstand
within the State itself. To give an example, we're looking at an
initial component of this of perhaps $2 billion. It will go beyond
that, we think. And there's not much to quantify it. This is a guess
number, Mr. Speaker.
But to put it in perspective, the Iowa budget's around $6 billion. It
was 5 when I was in the Iowa Senate. It's probably above $6 billion
now. And so it gives you a sense that this disaster is significantly
greater than at least a third of the Iowa budget, at least a third of
Iowa's budget, and perhaps well more than half of it, maybe even more
than a year or two of the Iowa budget. We will have to see.
But I'm going to ask that Iowans use these resources that we provide
here in Congress in the most responsible fashion, and step up and do
what they do.
We don't have a problem with looters. We only have a problem with how
we organize all the volunteers that show up. That's the right kind of
problem to have. That's the proudest kind of problem to have.
And I'm looking forward to an opportunity to roll up my sleeves and
get into the middle of this, because when you get into a situation like
this, Mr. Speaker, the thing that makes me feel the best is if I can
just do something, if I can put my hands on some work and just get in
there and do something to help everyone else. That's what I think is
the sentiment from the Iowa congressional delegation.
We stood here on the floor tonight, and Congressman Boswell asked for
a moment of silence from this Congress. I appreciate the leadership on
that, and I appreciate that we're all here together in it. We will
stand together.
And so I thank all the support that's here, Mr. Speaker, and we will
be doing our share of this work confidently. We appreciate all the
thoughts and prayers and the efforts and the support that have come,
that will be there.
And now, Mr. Speaker, I must transition into this issue that is a big
and broad and lasting issue for the United States of America, and
that's the issue that's been discussed by the previous speakers in the
30 Something group. I will give them credit. They come to this floor
regularly, consistently, and have done so for years, and they've made
arguments that I've consistently and regularly disagreed with for
years, Mr. Speaker.
I first take issue with the gentleman from Ohio's statement that
drilling for oil is a dead end.
Now, only here on the special orders, in the rather silent nights
after the general session of Congress has wrapped up, can you get by
with a statement that drilling for oil is a dead end. How can that be a
dead end?
We drilled for oil all over the Middle East. The Hunt Brothers went
to Libya and developed the oil fields there. They were nationalized by
Qadaffi when he took power in Libya, however many decades ago that's
been. It's been a while. Drilling for oil in the Middle East wasn't a
dead end.
Drilling for oil in Venezuela hasn't been a dead end. Hugo Chavez is
getting rich off the oil they've drilled for in Venezuela.
Drilling for oil in Russia hasn't been a dead end. They're exporting
oil into Europe and other parts of the world, and their cash flow is
looking pretty good right now.
Drilling for oil in Canada hasn't been a dead end. They've discovered
a massive amount of oil supply in Northern Alberta called the tar sands
or the oil sands, depending on how you want to label that, Mr.
Speaker. The Canadians are happy that they've drilled for oil, and they
will be soon exporting tar sands oil down to the United States.
And Union County in South Dakota, the Elk Point region just across
the river from Sioux City, Iowa, passed a resolution here within the
Primary Day, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June, that
endorsed the idea of building a new oil refinery, first one since 1975
in the United States. Who would have thought that it would be, Mr.
Speaker, in South Dakota?
[[Page H5568]]
But in South Dakota it's most likely to be. The highest hurdle has
been reached. There may well be other regulations that have to be
circumvented or resolved. But in the end, it's most likely now there
will be a new refinery at Elk Point, South Dakota; a new refinery with
billions of dollars invested in it that will have a pipeline coming
down from Northern Alberta with the tar sands oil in it, oil sands oil.
They will be refining that crude oil into gas, diesel fuel, engine oil
and all the other products that come out of that refinery, setting up
pipelines and distributing that oil across the country.
Drilling for oil wasn't a dead end and is not a dead end in Canada.
And, in fact, if you'd asked the people in States like Texas, Oklahoma,
California, Long Beach area, for example, Pennsylvania, drilling for
oil was not a dead end in Pennsylvania whatever year that was when it
was discovered some time I think previous to the first half of the 19th
century.
And drilling for oil in the north slope, Mr. Speaker, was not a dead
end. We went up there in 1970 to drill for oil and build a pipeline
from the north slope of Alaska down to the Port Valdez. The right-of-
way was 600 miles from Fairbanks north. And the environmentalists went
in with a court injunction and blocked the development of the oil
fields and the pipeline on the north slope of Alaska. That happened in
1970. But, in 1972, they had made their way through the quagmire of the
environmentalist lawsuits, resolved all of that, opened up the oil
fields in the north slope of Alaska and the pipeline, built the
pipeline and opened the oil fields. And by 1975, we're pumping oil down
to the Port Valdez.
Now, today, we're hearing: It's a dead end to drill for oil in ANWR,
a dead end to drill for oil in the Outer Continental Shelf, a dead end
to drill for oil on the non-national park public lands of the United
States of America. Drilling for oil, Mr. Speaker, is a dead end.
Where are you going to get your gas from? I didn't hear you advocate
that you want to come to Iowa and buy up all the ethanol that we're
producing, so I don't know what you're going to put in your gas tanks,
gentlemen. Your cars have to run on something unless, of course, it's
your proposal that you're going to park them. And I can understand why
you'd want to do that if you represent an inner city urban area that
has access to publicly funded and subsidized mass transit.
In fact, when I look at the 18.4 cents a gallon that is a Federal gas
tax that each of us pay when we fill up our tanks, we stick the nozzle
in and we squeeze the handle, and when a gallon runs out we know we're
paying 18.4 cents in Federal tax money on gas.
And a lot of us spend 20 or more cents to the State as well for our
gas tax. We're willing to do that because it's a user fee, Mr. Speaker,
and we're willing to do that because the consumers believe that 100
percent of that money goes to build and maintain our roads. Users fees,
drive on a road, you wear it out. You need a new road, you've got to
build a new one. You need to rebuild the roads that you're driving on
because the surfaces wear down and the grade undermines, and you need
to reshoulder and you need to reshape and you need to upgrade. 18.4
Federal cents per gallon goes to that. 20-some State cents in many
States go to do that.
But the consumers aren't thinking that 17 percent of that Federal tax
dollar goes to subsidize the mass transit of the constituents of the
people that come down here on this floor and say: Drilling for oil is a
dead end. We don't need any more gas in this marketplace, at least we
don't need any more American-produced gas in this marketplace. No, uh-
uh. Somehow there is a solution by demagoguing the oil companies.
Well, did they think, Mr. Speaker, that if 15 percent of the gas
that's consumed in the United States, the gas that's delivered in the
world--put it that way--comes from private companies like Exxon,
Chevron, Texaco, and the balance of that comes from nations that own
the oil industry, nationalized oil industry, and so what point is it in
not demonizing the countries that are part of the OPEC, the oil cartel,
but demonizing the private companies that are putting more and more
product on the marketplace, helping to keep the price of gas down?
What sense does it make, Mr. Speaker, for the Speaker of the House
and other leadership and committee Chairs to argue that we should bring
windfall profits taxes against the oil-producing companies when their
return on investment is less than 10 percent, down towards 8 percent?
Why is it, if Exxon is returning 8 percent on their capital
investment, why would we want to say to them, that of all of the
trillions or, excuse me, all of the billions of dollars that you have
invested, you ought not be able to make 10 billion a quarter? With your
capital investment being what it is, what is an inappropriate return on
investment?
{time} 2100
Would you want to bring all of the companies down here? How about
just the Fortune 500 companies that got a greater return on the
investment, Mr. Speaker, than Exxon in particular. Chevron is another.
Why don't we bring a bill under that same logic, the logic of the
Speaker from San Francisco, that we should put a windfall profit tax on
any Fortune 500 company that makes more than 8 percent return on their
investment of their capital. Now, that would be a consistent logic. It
would be illogical, but it would be consistent with the logic of the
Speaker.
It's not the case. These oil companies are helping us keep our prices
down. I don't know if they're gouging or not. But if you think they
are, get in the business and produce some energy.
But let's point our finger over at the countries that have
nationalized the oil. Khadafi in Libya has nationalized the oil on the
Hunt brothers. They're setting prices. They're together. They're a
cartel. And by the way, you cannot legislate against that. You have got
to find competition that competes directly against it.
Mr. Speaker, I don't know where to go in the world with the global
demand on energy the way it is that we can line up with a country or
two or five or ten and say, Why don't you just sell all of your oil to
the United States? This is a global market. This is a global
marketplace that has driven the oil price up to $139 a barrel and the
price of gas up to $4.08 a gallon, average regular retail in America,
$4.08.
Mr. Speaker, I made the statement some time back a year or more ago,
So what is the solution for $3 gas? And my answer was, Well, $3 gas.
Surely if gas is $3, the people that are blocking the development of
energy here in the United States are going to get out of the way and
join with those of us that believe that energy should be cheaper, not
higher.
But what do they do? Mr. Speaker, they come to the floor and they
make statements like, Drilling for oil is a dead-end. Now who in
America would buy a line like that? ``Drilling for oil is a dead-end.''
Drilling for oil has produced all of the gas that we're burning in
America. It's produced all of the gas that's being burned globally.
It's produced all of the diesel fuel that's being burned in the United
States and globally, and it's producing all the hydraulic oil and all
of the other hydrocarbons that are out there into the marketplace.
Drilling for oil is not a dead-end. Drilling for oil is what launched
the industrial revolution, lifted us into this modern era, and allows
us to travel globally and do business and see the world. It's an
entirely different place than it was when we were sitting on the back
of a horse or walking behind the tail of one, Mr. Speaker.
And by the way, the Earth was a very dirty place back then. Let's
just say 108 years ago at the turn of the previous century back when it
was horses doing this instead of the internal combustion engine, you
know, things fall out from underneath the tail of a horse and they
pollute the street. And they walked in the mud, and the garbage got
dumped out of the windows, and we didn't know a lot about medicine or
water quality or air quality. We burned a lot of coal, and we burned a
lot of wood, and the air wasn't very clean, and the water wasn't very
clean. And we didn't have very much for sewers, if they existed at all.
We didn't have a lot for modern health care.
We lived in the squalor of animals and people walking through their
own waste and refuse. And somehow, they thought the Earth was in the
balance back in those days, Mr. Speaker. And I will submit that the
Earth is much closer to being in the balance today. The technology has
moved us forward,
[[Page H5569]]
the internal combustion engine and the development of oil supplies
globally and cheap oil and cheap gas and diesel fuel globally has
lifted us out of that mucky quagmire of animal and human waste stirred
up in the streets of America and around the world, put us up on paving
and moves us across the highway at 75 miles an hour in some of the
States on the interstate and allows us to get in a jet plane, and the
Speaker herself to fly from Washington nonstop all the way over to her
digs over there in San Francisco any weekend she chooses, every weekend
she chooses because what? Because companies like Exxon, Chevron,
American companies went out there and drilled for oil and explored for
it in the United States, offshore in the United States, offshore around
the world, places in deep water. They developed technology, and they
brought this oil to the market.
And if we say to them a deal is not a deal, we want to go after your
profits because we think the number's big, even though it's a smaller
percentage of the return on the investment, if I'm on that board of
directors, I have to think maybe we should not be investing the capital
of our stockholders and more and more energy and more and more oil
because the Congress will take our profits away from us. A deal is not
a deal with this leadership, Mr. Speaker. And I would expect oil
companies, if this persists, to invest some of their capital some place
out of the reach of the deal changers, those that don't keep their word
that are leading some of the issues here in this Congress.
I also would take us to an issue that has popped up in the news in
the last today and in previous days about an effort on the part of some
of the Democrat Members of Congress that believe that we should
nationalize the oil industry in the United States of America.
I mentioned earlier that Khadafi nationalized the oil industry in
Libya. He took over the oil fields that were delivered by the Hunt
brothers and others. He took over the facilities they had developed and
confiscated their capital. And that is also what happened in Venezuela
when Hugo Chavez took over.
Well, there's some fellow travelers here in the United States.
Congress, Mr. Speaker, fellow travelers with the people that have
nationalized the privately owned oil industries developed within their
countries, fellow travelers that agree and believe in that. And not
necessarily submitting who the traveler is, I will just say this: That
gentlelady from California, Ms. Waters, advocated that we should
nationalize our oil industry.
Now, she is not a lightweight in this Congress, Mr. Speaker. I know
her well. I have served on the Judiciary Committee with her for 5\1/2\
years. Here is what she said. She said this at a subcommittee hearing
with the oil industry present, and to them she said, This liberal will
be all about socializing, would be about basically taking over and the
government running all of your companies.
Mr. Speaker, an allegation and announcement of a position to
nationalize the oil companies in the United States. Take them over by
the United States government? That is not just socializing them, as Ms.
Waters said, that is--that's Communism, that's Marxism, that's
confiscation of real property in the United States of America that's
protected by the United States Constitution.
And, not to be outdone, Mr. Hinchey made the statement in a similar
period of time that he would be for nationalizing the refineries in the
United States.
Now, I would like to think that we're a long, long ways from being so
desperate that we can't drill for oil as Mr. Ryan says. He says it's a
dead-end. Drilling for oil is a dead-end, Mr. Ryan. But if there's any
oil coming out of those wells--and I would yield to anybody that wanted
to challenge my statement--if there's any oil coming out of those
wells, then this Congress, according to Ms. Waters and Mr. Hinchey and
who knows how many others, would want to nationalize those oil wells,
those oil fields, that real property that's held by the shareholders,
the retirement funds, the pension funds of the workers and the union
people in the United States, nationalize that, and the government's
going to run it? How good? As good as we run Social Security? As good
as we run health care? As good as we run the welfare program here in
the United States? Confiscate real property? Kick aside the
Constitution?
Maybe if you're not enthusiastic enough about that as a Member of the
other side of the aisle, you might want to go with Mr. Hinchey and let
the oil companies own their oil wells but nationalize the refineries.
Mr. Speaker, that is a chilling message that does affect our markets
and does not make energy cheaper. It makes it more expensive.
Nationalize our oil industry, Ms. Waters, Mr. Hinchey, and who knows
how many others.
The statements made by my predecessors here in the special orders
about drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf towards Cuba. I listened
to those statements as they were made, and I actually wrote down, What
is your point. What is your point in bringing up the issue as to
whether the Chinese are or aren't drilling offshore and does anybody
have any information about whether there is an agreement?
We know that the Chinese have their industry and their technology in
China. I, Mr. Speaker, have seen it. I have seen the capital
investment. I have seen the development. I do not know if there is a
signed agreement, a handshake with Castro, or if there is activity down
there. I haven't gone down there to look. I haven't flown over the
area. In fact, I would be a little bit concerned about doing so because
it might well bring out some opposition.
But my question is, What is your point? Are they, Mr. Ryan, Mr.
Altmire, the balance of you that have been standing here on the floor
making these statements about drilling for oil is a dead-end, I guess
then I can take it that you make your criticism about maybe China's not
drilling offshore in Cuba. Maybe they are. I don't think we know. But
are you for or are you against drilling the Outer Continental Shelf?
Whether or not the Chinese are drilling there may not be material. But
I believe that we ought to be there.
We ought to go halfway to Cuba, and we ought to punch in a wall of
wells all the way along there, if there's any oil there, we ought to
punch those wells in. We ought to get the oil. We ought to take the
natural gas. And we ought to drill our way back coming back towards
Florida.
And it makes no sense to set aside the Outer Continental Shelf
towards any of these States and even say to the states, Well, it's your
resource. Let us know if you want to drill there and maybe Congress
will react towards that or the President will and someone will come and
punch a hole in there and bring some gas or oil up below the ocean's
floor.
When Ronald Reagan claimed 200 miles out in the Outer Continental
Shelf, he claimed that for the United States of America, Mr. Speaker.
He didn't claim it for Florida or California or Louisiana or Virginia
or New York or Massachusetts or Maine. He claimed it for the United
States of America. Three miles offshore? That's State ground. That's
fine. I will concede that point. But from 190 from--3 miles to 200
miles, 197 miles, that's all resources of the American people.
We have to defend those shores with our military. We have to guard
our ports. We're doing that federally. The States do not have a claim
to the resources offshore. And if they object outside of three miles,
I'm wondering what their objection will be. But I bet it will not be to
seeing $2 gas again. I bet it won't be to maybe seeing $1.70 gas again
or maybe even less.
So maybe, Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of solutions. There are a lot
of solutions that are there. I agree that this should not be--I agree
with Mr. Altmire this should not be a game of ``gotcha,'' but I fear it
is a game of ``gotcha'' because I sit here and listen to this, and for
the 5\1/2\ years that I have been here, it's been a constant mantra of
running against George Bush.
I just left the President where he's giving a speech uptown, Mr.
Speaker, and he will be retired January 20 of this upcoming year. I
stand with the President on these energy issues. I stand with the
President on the Middle Eastern issues. And at some point, the 30-
Something group, the Democrats, the liberals, the progressives, the
socialists, the Marxists, and the Communists are all going to have to
figure out that George Bush is not running
[[Page H5570]]
for reelection. He actually said tonight that he will be retiring and
going back to Crawford, Texas. Maybe watching the Rangers on TV. And I
salute him for his service to America.
But you're going to have to find a different person to demonize, 30-
Something group, and you are going to run against the new agenda that's
coming.
And you're standing here on this floor tonight defending an untenable
position, an untenable position that says drilling for oil is a dead-
end. How can that be? Drilling for oil has opened up our economy, our
industry, and has opened up the world to a modern era.
So, Mr. Speaker, I bring some things to the floor here that are quite
interesting, I think. And this being the first demonstrable chart, take
you back to 2001, January. President Bush was sworn in to office. Gas
was $1.49, Mr. Speaker. And as you can see the increase in gas prices
throughout this period of time from 2001, the 6 years until 2007. Now,
this was not adjusted for inflation, I would add. This is just dollars.
So if you adjust this for inflation, this curve is going to look
flatter than it is.
But if you see, this is a very flat curve, adjusted for inflation
flatter yet. On the day that the gavel was passed in this 110th
Congress to Nancy Pelosi, gas had gone from, by then, from $1.49 in the
Bush administration to $2.33.
{time} 2115
That was about when Speaker Pelosi said she's going to do something
about gas prices, and I think she meant it actually because every bill
that came to the floor of this Congress made energy more scarce, and
you have to believe the law of supply and demand.
And so as each bill that came to the floor of Congress made the
regulations more stiff, made it more difficult to go out and explore
for more oil, discouraged the investors from research and development
and oil exploration, piece by piece by piece, plus the threats, of
course, and the tax increases that are flowing along the way and
Chairman Rangel's position that he never met a tax cut that he didn't
want to kill--and to extend any of the Bush tax cuts, which were the
salvation of our economy beginning May 28, 2003, was abhorrent to Mr.
Rangel. He didn't quite say so in his first interview or his second or
his third, but after the reporters put together his answers and non-
answers, throughout out a whole series of interviews across the media
circle, the investors in America came to the conclusion that there
would be no tax cut preserved at the end of the Rangel tenure.
And when that happened, you can see that conclusion. If you look at
industrial investment, you can see that that investment tailed off
sometime about mid-February right over here shortly after Nancy Pelosi
took the gavel behind me, Mr. Speaker. That industrial investment
tailed off because the cost of capital went up. The cost of capital
went up because the investors could see that there were going to be tax
increases that were triggered in and kicked in along the way.
That has initiated a decline in this economy that's been significant.
The decline in the economy, it started with less industrial investment,
was followed by the sub-prime loan problem, was followed by the lack of
consumer confidence, and by the way, coupled with a weaker dollar, a
weaker dollar that has driven up also the cost of this energy. But here
we are, gas is $2.33 when Nancy Pelosi took the gavel, right where
you're sitting, Mr. Speaker, and today average retail regular gas
prices in America, $4.08.
This short little period of time from 2007 until 2008, let's just say
17 months, maybe 18 months, gas has gone from $2.33 to $4.08. What do
we get? What do we get but promises, and we get rhetoric on the floor
that says drilling for oil is a dead-end. Well, I don't think it's a
dead-end, and I don't think it's the whole solution, but I think we
should drill ANWR. I believe we ought to drill the Outer Continental
Shelf. I believe we should drill the non-national park public lands in
America, and we ought to open up every logical place we can and put
more energy on the marketplace.
There's no reason to save it underneath the crust of this earth when
you are paying this kind of price, because we're transferring our
wealth to the Middle East. We're transferring our wealth to companies
that are not our friends. We transfer that wealth. They turn it into
military power, they turn it into economic power, they turn it into
political power, and they buy people off to become our enemies. They
buy countries off to become our enemies. Our geopolitical influence is
diminishing as our treasure is exported to foreign countries. That's
just the oil I'm speaking of, Mr. Speaker.
We also have a deficit of trade that runs about a minus $717 billion
a year right now. That deficit has flattened out a little bit, but it
still has a transfer of our treasure to other countries where we owe
them debt, and this cannot go on in perpetuity. But the Pelosi energy
plan is, well, let's take the $2.33 gas--she promised she was going to
take the prices down--let's get it up to $4.08 and then send somebody
to the floor like Mr. Ryan who says drilling for oil is a dead-end.
Nancy Pelosi, ask your constituents to believe that. Mine are not
going to be so easily persuaded.
Now, drilling in ANWR, what does it look like? Here's a map, Mr.
Speaker, of the United States of America. A lot of us have seen this
map because it shows how big Alaska actually is. And I say this to
needle my Texas friends. If we split Alaska in half, Texas would be the
third largest State. Well, you can see by this map that comes close at
least, if not true.
This little area up here in the northeast corner of Alaska, that's
ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And if you look a little
further up here, this is the region that's in yellow that is the
coastal plain that's in question.
Over here along this area about in there is Dead Horse. That's mile
post zero of the Alaska pipeline. It's up there very near the Arctic
Ocean. The Arctic Ocean runs right along here, Mr. Speaker, and the
Dead Horse access, mile post zero, and then the pipeline runs across
Alaska like this. I think it's here, maybe here. There, the oil goes
onto tankers and is floated on down and around to refineries on the
west coast of California and points beyond.
To deal with an issue that I continually am asked about, and it's
been alleged on this floor that the allegation that this oil from the
north slope of Alaska is shipped to Japan. Not true. It was true back
in about 1985 for a short period of time because the economics worked
out better that way, Mr. Speaker. Hasn't been true since then. Hasn't
been true for at least 23 years.
This oil that comes out of the north slope of Alaska, pipeline down
here and tankered on down, goes to the United States of America. In any
case, that's what would happen with this oil that would be developed
here on the north slope of Alaska.
Now, if you've seen an advertisement that says that we shouldn't
drill in ANWR because it is a pristine, alpine forest, or they're
showing you a picture of fine, evergreen trees and tell you let's not
disturb the native area up there because it's pristine wilderness, I
will submit, Mr. Speaker, that this area in question, the north slope
and east of the north slope, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is
right on the Arctic Ocean.
I take us all back to something we all should have learned in eighth
grade; that is, the Arctic Circle, which runs around here somewhere in
Alaska, the Arctic Circle is the line, by definition, north of which
trees can't grow. So why would we buy a negative commercial that tells
us that we shouldn't be drilling in a pristine alpine forest? We can't
go back to our eighth grade training and understand that this is an
arctic coastal plain.
On its warmest days, with 24 hours of sunlight, it melts down towards
the permafrost a foot to 18 inches. It has some tundra there. Tundra,
by the way, can be reconstituted. We aren't going to tear it up. We
would do this all on ice roads over the top. The ice melts and
everything goes back to the natural way. But if a machine falls off of
an ice road into the muck a foot to 18 inches down to the permafrost,
gets pulled back out, can smooth that all over, the seed is there. In 5
to 6 years, the tundra is grown back. I've seen it, Mr. Speaker. It's
not a belief that's not founded. It is one that I have observed.
I've also heard the testimony of the Native Americans that live up
there that want to drill. Drill ANWR. Drill ANWR. Get the oil in the
pipeline,
[[Page H5571]]
bring it down here, and bring it around to the refineries. This is not
a pristine wilderness that can't be replaced, but it's not one that's
going to be disturbed either.
This is a coastal, frozen tundra about 9 months out of the year or
more that has a regular topography that's flat. It's got a few little
potholes and sink holes in it. A little bit of green grass grows out of
that tundra in the summertime. This works get done when it's all
frozen.
There isn't even a native caribou herd there, Mr. Speaker. There is
in the north slope. By the way, that herd was 7,000 in 1970, and it's
over 28,000 head today because we did this work up in this area in an
environmentally friendly fashion. And if it had not been done in an
environmentally friendly fashion, if there had been a desecration of
the environment, if there had been a significant spill, if there had
been disrespect towards wildlife or loss of wildlife, I have every
confidence that the people on this side of the aisle would have been
here with their posters and their pictures, and they would have
embellished it to no end because I don't believe that you believe that
we should lower energy prices.
You've finally convinced me after 18 months, a year-and-a-half of
this 110th Pelosi Congress, that you want to see energy prices go up,
not down, but you believe that if you can drive gas prices up from
$2.33 a gallon to $4.08 a gallon to $5 a gallon to $6 a gallon, maybe
all the way up to where it is in Europe today at $10 a gallon, the poor
people will have to stop burning gas first. But a lot of people will
stop burning gas or at least burn less of it, and they will get on
their bicycles or walk or they will get on the mass transit that's
subsidized by the people that are buying the gas, and there will be
less combustion in the internal combustion engine, and there will be
less emissions out the exhaust pipe. And less emissions out the exhaust
pipe in your myopic mind saves the earth, saves the planet from what
you believe is an impending global warming holocaust.
That's your motive. You would shut down, slow down dramatically, and
ultimately shut down the economy of the United States of America, the
very well-being of our people. The wealth that's created and
regenerated here, that provides all of our creature comforts and our
technology and our medicine and our creativity and our art and our
sciences, that would all be diminished, all be shut down. You'd hand
that all over to the Chinese and to India and to other developing
nations and let them develop the industry. We would sit here and curl
up among ourselves and spend our $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10 for gas, ride
our bicycles and sit around and say, isn't it wonderful now. Drilling
for oil was a dead-end, but we didn't drill. We didn't go into ANWR.
We've got an awful lot of oil up there, enough oil up there to produce
at least a million barrels a day for a good, long time. We save that
all back and handed our economy over to who? Handed it over to the
Chinese, handed it over to India, handed it over to developing nations.
Mr. Speaker, a logical thinking nation cannot come to that
conclusion, and I am quite concerned that we're not here building
together a comprehensive energy plan and driving it with the leadership
of the people who have been elected for our judgment and who have
access to more information than anybody in the country collectively.
We're not putting a plan together. We're reacting. We're scooting ahead
of the hottest criticism there is, trying to hang on to some
congressional seats but still move us off to the left and hand this
country over to the people that believe in green, the people that are
extreme environmentalists.
I'll point out, also, Mr. Speaker, I've spent my life in soil
conservation. I've built more miles of terrace than anybody in the
United States Congress. I've done more waterways. I've protected more
soil than anybody in Congress, and I've also planted an awful lot of
trees and many of which I'll never get to sit in the shade of. I
believe in soil conservation, water conservation, and quality. It's my
life. I've demonstrated it. I believe in protecting this environment.
But I do not believe in disarming our economy. I do not believe that
this equation that's being pushed forward here on global warming is one
that will sustain it. I'm particularly suspicious when one of the
scientists that back in 1970 signed on and was a leading advocate that
there was going to be an ice age that was just around the corner, an
impending ice age, at least one of those scientists that was a leading
thinker, giving us the scare about a glacier coming down to wipe out
our corn fields is now on the global warming side.
I think history will only tell, and we can't affect this climate
enough to make it worthwhile for us to unilaterally disarm our economy
when the Chinese and the Indians are building more and more generating
plants, burning more coal, polluting more air. We can't put a dent in
it, Mr. Speaker. But some of the things that we can do, we can look at
this problem, what we have, from a more comprehensive perspective.
This, Mr. Speaker, is our energy production chart of the United
States of America. Now, we need to be talking about all of the sources
of energy that we have. And if you look around the chart, you can see
that this is gasoline here in this robin egg blue color; diesel fuel,
here; kerosene and jet fuel down here in the white; other petroleum
products which might be asphalt and heavy oils and engine oil, those
kind of things right here; and then natural gas, a lot of natural gas
in yellow. Coal, Mr. Shimkus loves that coal, and I support him and
clean burning coal. Let's put that on the market. We've got a lot of
it.
Here's our nuclear. 11.66 percent of the energy. This is all the
energy consumed in the United States. Actually, all the energy produced
in the United States. 11.66 of it's nuclear. Even though we haven't
built a nuclear plant since 1975, still, of all the energy, 11.66
percent of it is nuclear.
Here's our hydroelectric. We haven't done much of that either, 3.41
percent for water going down the rivers. We're using that to spin
generators. And I think that's a green energy. It's renewable energy.
It doesn't get categorized as such.
Here's your geothermal, a little bit; wind, a little bit, half a
percent. Here's solar, tenth of a percent. Here's ethanol, three-
quarters of a percent, and we're producing a lot of it, 9 billion
gallons of it last year, but it's three-quarters of 1 percent of all
the energy that is produced in America.
{time} 2130
Biodiesel; one one-hundredth of a percent. Biomass; some of that's
wood burn, 4 percent.
So you see, Mr. Speaker, here is a chart of the energy that we're
producing in America. And now, the number down here, 72.1 quadrillion
Btus. Just remember the 72.1 because that's really what's operative,
Mr. Speaker. And now, that's what we produce.
Here's what we consume. This chart, Mr. Speaker, is the Energy
Consumption chart for the United States for 2007. You see roughly
similar proportions of the energy sources that we have. You'll see that
motor gasoline is a larger percentage of the overall energy consumption
chart; 17.44 percent of the gas consumed; and down on this chart, it's
8.29 percent of our production. So we're importing a lot more gas than
we're burning. If you go to the diesel fuel, that number is 8.84
percent of the energy consumed as diesel fuel, we're producing only 4
percent overall.
So if you look at this chart, you will see that the diameter of this
chart represents the amount of Btus that we are consuming in America.
That's 101.4 quadrillion Btus. Just remember, we're producing 72.1
quadrillion Btus, we're consuming 101.4 quadrillion Btus. So just round
that off into we're producing 72 percent of the energy that we're
consuming.
And now here's another little chart that shows you, Mr. Speaker. And
this is the Energy Production chart set on top of the Energy
Consumption chart. So you can kind of wind this up and see our natural
gas, the size of the natural gas production on the smaller circle
versus the natural gas consumption on the larger circle. We can turn
this over to nuclear and see what percentage of our production is
nuclear versus the percent of our consumption that's nuclear. Turn this
around and you can kind of see.
But the main thing that this illustrates is the smaller circle is
proportional, Mr. Speaker, to the amount of energy we're producing. The
larger circle is proportional to the energy we're
[[Page H5572]]
consuming. And so I will submit that each of these pieces of the pie--I
will just turn this over so the coal lines up for Mr. Shimkus--each of
these pieces of the pie needs to grow out to the limits of the diameter
of this circle so that together we're producing as much energy, or
more, than we're consuming. And then we can engage in this and change
the size of these pieces so that we can prioritize the use of our
energy.
And I would submit that this natural gas product that's here, the
yellow, let's produce a lot more of it. Let's use less to generate
electricity; let's use more to produce fertilizer and use it in
industry where we produce plastics, et cetera.
But this is where the picture is for the solution. We need more coal,
more natural gas. We need more other petroleum products. We need more
diesel fuel, more motor gasoline, more biomass, solar, ethanol,
biodiesel, wind, geothermal, et cetera.
Mr. Speaker, might I request how much time I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 4 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's just enough time to
demonstrate what corn is.
Mr. Speaker, this may be a first on the floor of the United States
Congress. In this Ziploc bag is corn. Now, there's a little bit of a
misconception out there. There's an argument that we shouldn't turn
this into ethanol because people will say, well, that's food. Well, I
have chewed on this corn, but we grind it up and feed it to livestock.
This isn't human food as we know it. We do convert some of it to syrups
and 299 other products, value add. But what happens is we'll bring a
bushel of this corn into an ethanol plant, we'll run it through that
plant. A third of the volume that you see here will be converted into
ethanol. About the same amount of it is wasted when you feed it to
livestock anyway, it just isn't usable, so that turns into
CO2. And that's a waste product right now with ethanol.
The other third of it turns into this; this is a fine product called
dried distiller's grain. This is actually high-protein, dried
distiller's grain, Mr. Speaker. This gets fed back to livestock. So
I'll come down at another time and I'll demonstrate what you do with a
bushel of corn. It produces three gallons of ethanol. Half of the feed
value in that, at least, goes back to the livestock in the form of
dried distiller's grain that I have in this hand. And this food-versus-
fuel argument does not hold up right now; it may for the '08 crop, it
doesn't for '07.
We've produced more corn than ever before in 2007; that was 13.1
billion bushels. We exported more corn than ever before; that was 2.5
billion bushels. We converted more corn into ethanol than ever before;
that was 3.2 billion bushels. And 1.6 billion of that went back to
livestock in the form of feed, so you add that back in. And the amount
of corn that was available for domestic consumption was 9.0 billion
bushels of corn from the 2007 crop. That's more than ever before, Mr.
Speaker. And the average amount of corn available for domestic
consumption for the other years in the decade was 7.4 billion bushels.
So there was 1.6 billion more bushels available for domestic
consumption, the prices somewhat higher than they ever were before;
part of it is a weak dollar, part of it is global demand; part of it is
we exported more meat than ever before. And our economy has been
rolling and booming.
We have to figure out how to come to grips with this. Ethanol isn't
the only answer, drilling is not the only answer, but $4.08 gas surely
is not the answer, Mr. Speaker. And anybody that thinks that drilling
for oil is a dead end I think has a dead idea. And the American people
are going to stand up and say, Drill ANWR, drill the Outer Continental
Shelf, drill the non-national park public lands. Let's have all the
energy and all these categories that we have. Let's drive down these
prices. Let's boom our economy. And let's get on with where we need to
go as a country.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your attention this evening.
____________________