[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 9, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H6238-H6243]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5811, ELECTRONIC MESSAGE 
                            PRESERVATION ACT

  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on 
Rules, I call up House Resolution 1318 and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 1318

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 
     5811) to amend title 44, United States Code, to require 
     preservation of certain electronic records by Federal 
     agencies, to require a certification and reports relating to 
     Presidential records, and for other purposes. All points of 
     order against consideration of the bill are waived except 
     those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule XXI. The amendment 
     in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on 
     Oversight and Government Reform now printed in the bill shall 
     be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against provisions of 
     the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall 
     be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, to final 
     passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of 
     debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and 
     Government Reform; and (2) one motion to recommit with or 
     without instructions.
       Sec. 2.  During consideration of H.R. 5811 pursuant to this 
     resolution, notwithstanding the operation of the previous 
     question, the Chair may postpone further consideration of the 
     bill to such time as may be designated by the Speaker.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Holden). The gentleman from Vermont is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I 
yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart). All time yielded during 
consideration of the rule is for debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks and insert extraneous materials into the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Vermont?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 1318 provides a closed rule for consideration of 
H.R. 5811, the Electronic Message Preservation Act. The resolution, as 
you know, provides 1 hour of debate controlled by the Committee on 
Oversight and Government Reform. The rule makes no amendments in order 
because no amendments were submitted for consideration.

[[Page H6239]]

  H.R. 5811 is an important bill introduced by Chairman Waxman that 
modernizes the requirements of the Presidential Records Act and Federal 
Records Act to ensure that vital government records are preserved for 
historical posterity.
  The Electronic Message Preservation Act will make certain that we 
retain important Presidential records by directing the Archivist to 
establish standards for the capture, management, and preservation of 
White House and Federal agency e-mails. The Archivist of the U.S. will 
set new standards for tracking Federal e-mail records and annually will 
certify whether the records management controls put in place by the 
President meet those standards and comply with the act.
  The bill will protect American history so that we will not lose 
important records in an antiquated record system that exists now, but 
it will also guide and enforce document retention policies within the 
executive branch.
  The bill is very necessary. Through its investigations, the Oversight 
and Government Reform Committee discovered that in one instance the 
current White House had lost hundreds of days of e-mail, and in other 
instances allowed numerous White House officials, including Senior 
Advisor Karl Rove, to use Republican National Committee e-mail accounts 
for government business--improper, obviously. E-mails sent by White 
House officials over these RNC accounts related to official government 
business, and potentially hundreds of thousands of these e-mails have 
been destroyed.
  In addition, the White House did grossly mismanage its own e-mail 
records and ignored concerns that were raised not by Congress, but by 
the National Archives, about the way it was storing e-mails.
  Further, the current print-and-file record retention systems are both 
unreliable and not in step with modern advances in technology. For 
example, when President Bush came into office, the White House had an 
automated system in place for archiving e-mails, but in 2002, the White 
House decided to abandon this archiving system and replace it with an 
ad hoc manual system, doing so in an electronic age. White House 
officials were warned by the technical staff of their own White House 
staff and by National Archives that this ad hoc manual system for 
managing e-mails presented an obvious threat and serious threat of 
losing records. And the White House's own technical expert said the 
system was, to use the word of that expert, ``primitive'' and carried a 
high risk that ``data would be lost.'' Yet, despite these warnings, the 
White House has still not put into place a reliable, up-to-date system 
for preserving e-mails.
  This bill will change that. It will require the Archivist to 
establish specific standards for the management and preservation of 
electronic messages, including the capability to retrieve messages 
through electronic searches. These standards will help prevent a 
situation like what is happening under this administration. H.R. 5811 
directs e-mail records to be stored electronically and removes 
ambiguity in the current law that was established before we even had e-
mail.
  The bill and the manager's amendment were approved by voice vote in 
the committee because it is timely and it's necessary. I urge the 
passage and a ``yes'' vote on the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would like to 
thank my good friend, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), for the 
time; and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  During an interview last week, the distinguished majority leader, Mr. 
Hoyer, said that he is opposed to a lame-duck session, and that he is 
committed to adjournment sine die by the previously announced date of 
September 26. If the majority decides to follow that commitment to 
adjourn the 110th Congress on September 26, then Congress has only 7 
weeks of session left to complete its work for the year.
  And so as Congress begins its last 7 weeks of work before recessing, 
what important pieces of legislation are at the top of the majority's 
priority list? Well, maybe it's passing the 12 appropriations bills 
before the end of the fiscal year, or maybe energy legislation to deal 
with the record gasoline prices consumers are paying each day. No, Mr. 
Speaker, they've decided that those problems can wait for another day, 
for another Congress. Instead, their legislative priorities are to 
designate a 600-mile historic trail and to require preservation of 
electronic records.
  I spent most of last week meeting and speaking with constituents in 
my district about the issues that matter to them; and, Mr. Speaker, no 
one mentioned anything closely related to these two bills. These bills 
may be important in their own right, but there certainly are other 
issues that are much more pressing issues that we should be debating, 
that we should be dealing with.
  When Americans are paying over $4 per gallon for gasoline, we should 
be working on legislation to lower gasoline, increasing domestic energy 
exploration, and reducing our reliance on unstable foreign energy. 
France produces approximately 80 percent of its electricity from 
nuclear power, and yet the United States has not built a new nuclear 
plant in about 30 years.
  Why does the majority refuse to consider legislation to deal with our 
energy and other serious problems? According to an article published in 
the newspaper The Hill on Tuesday, the majority, and I quote, ``has 
scrubbed the floor schedule of the energy legislation that it vowed to 
tackle after the Fourth of July recess.''
  Why doesn't the majority schedule energy legislation for debate? 
Maybe it's because they don't have a real plan. If you read the rest of 
The Hill article, you find out what a Democratic aid called the 
majority's plan: ``Right now, our strategy on gas prices is to drive 
small cars and wait for the wind.'' That's most unfortunate. That 
``non-plan'' ignores the urgent call of Americans for Congress to pass 
serious energy legislation.
  I know the majority will claim that they expect to take up energy 
legislation soon and the committees of jurisdiction are considering 
possible legislation, but they already pulled legislation they expected 
to consider after the July 4 recess, and we still have to consider 12 
appropriations bills, housing legislation, the Medicare payment fix for 
physicians, an alternative minimum tax fix, and numerous conference 
reports. That doesn't leave much time for energy legislation. Maybe if 
the majority had different priorities, we would be considering energy 
legislation today instead of legislation designating a 600-mile 
historic trail and legislation requiring promulgation of regulations to 
preserve electronic records.
  I wish to take this occasion to congratulate the majority on breaking 
their own record of most closed rules. The proposed rule we are 
considering now marks the 59th closed rule of this Congress, the most 
of any Congress in the history of the Nation. It didn't have to be that 
way.
  Before the new majority took over control of the House they laid out 
their promises for a more civil, more open, and more transparent House 
in a document entitled ``The New Direction for America.'' The document 
provides clear guidelines for how legislation should move through the 
House. One of the promises made in the document is that ``bills should 
generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full 
and fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that grants the 
minority the right to offer its alternative, including a substitute,'' 
yet here we are with a closed process that doesn't allow Members from 
either party the ability to offer amendments.
  The majority continues to break their promise on allowing an open, 
full, and fair debate and their promise to consider energy legislation 
after the July 4 recess. So much for their promises.

                         Energy Bill Out of Gas

                   (By Jared Allen and Mike Soraghan)

       House Democrats are in a bind on the focal point of their 
     energy plan.
       Worried that a floor vote on any energy-related measure 
     would trigger a Republican-forced vote on domestic drilling, 
     the leadership has scrubbed the floor schedule of the energy 
     legislation that it vowed to tackle after the Fourth of July 
     recess.
       Just before leaving for their districts, a number of House 
     Democrats called a press conference to declare victory on a 
     number of energy bills--including overwhelming passage of a 
     bill to rein in excessive oil market speculation.

[[Page H6240]]

       Democrats declared victory on a bill they failed to pass on 
     the suspension calendar--their ``use it or lose it bill'' to 
     force energy companies to either start drilling on their 
     federally leased land or give it back--saying they had put 
     176 Republicans on record as siding with the oil companies 
     over consumers.
       And they vowed that the bill, the centerpiece of their 
     energy message, would be back.
       ``We've taken some bold steps this week, and we're going to 
     build on that [after recess] with the bills we take up,'' 
     Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman John Larson (Conn.) said at 
     the press conference.
       But, as of Monday afternoon, neither ``use it or lose it'' 
     nor any other energy measure had been scheduled for floor 
     action this week.
       Democrats said they were simply taking a different approach 
     to passing their top energy-related priorities.
       Nadeam Elshami, spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 
     (D-Calif.), said energy activity this week is taking place at 
     the committee level, noting that there are four hearings 
     planned on the issue of speculation in oil trading.
       ``Different members have different ideas,'' Elshami said. 
     ``We'll bring forward the best piece of legislation based on 
     the recommendations and hearings we are having this week.''
       Republicans pounced, saying Democrats were backtracking 
     after realizing they would be unable to defeat a Republican 
     vote on increased domestic oil drilling in new areas.
       ``It's panic time for Democrats,'' said a senior Republican 
     aide. ``They are on the wrong side of three-quarters of the 
     American people who support increased production of American-
     made energy.''
       While Democrats were in their districts advocating their 
     plans to end gas price-gouging, rein in speculation, pass 
     ``use it or lose it'' and even call for President Bush to 
     release millions of barrels of crude oil from the Strategic 
     Petroleum Reserve (SPR), Republicans were touting polls 
     showing that a healthy majority of Americans now support 
     increased domestic energy production.
       That is proving to be a particular concern for Democrats in 
     that any non-suspension-calendar energy vote would be subject 
     to a Republican alternative, almost certainly calling for 
     offshore and Arctic drilling, that would very likely pass.
       ``If we could send deepwater drilling over, it would pass 
     the Senate,'' said a Republican leadership aide, highlighting 
     just how much an energy vote could backfire on Democrats.
       A senior Democratic leadership aide acknowledged this week 
     that there are plenty of members of the majority caucus ``who 
     want to drill and want to drill where Republicans want to 
     drill.''
       Even if Democratic leaders could beat back a GOP motion on 
     drilling, the vote could be used as political ammunition 
     against their vulnerable members this fall.
       The Democratic setbacks come after they scored a political 
     victory this spring when they overwhelmingly passed an SPR 
     bill over initial White House objections. But Republicans now 
     claim they have the upper hand, noting that Sen. John McCain 
     (R-Ariz.) is citing drilling repeatedly on the campaign 
     trail.
       Further complicating matters for Democrats is the growing 
     number of pro-drilling Democrats who are becoming 
     increasingly worried that voters might throw them in with 
     their anti-drilling leadership.
       One pro-drilling Democrat predicted that the backlash 
     against Congress for gas prices could rival the outrage 
     voters felt about the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
       Another, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.), is frustrated at 
     not being listened to.
       ``My concern with my leadership is that they're not letting 
     all the people in the room to present the facts,'' said 
     Melancon, a proponent of more offshore drilling. ``Where are 
     all the pro-oil legislators? I'm not in the room. I don't 
     know who is. My feeling is we are not being all-inclusive to 
     pass legislation that can get through the Senate and avoid a 
     veto.''
       For now, though, there will be no legislation to pass, as 
     the only energy-related action this week will occur at the 
     committee level.
       Republicans may try to continue a strategy they 
     demonstrated before recess by forcing drilling votes as 
     energy amendments to bills being considered at the committee 
     level, including appropriations bills.
       And Republicans may go one step further by trying to get 
     amendments added to the energy and water appropriations bill, 
     a likely contender to see the floor this week.
       ``We're going to demand a pro-production energy vote before 
     Congress goes home for the month of August,'' said House 
     Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.). ``We've 
     tried to highlight efforts to solve America's energy problem 
     a thousand ways to Sunday, and [Democrats] keep pulling them 
     from committee, pulling them from the floor and kicking the 
     can down the road.''
       Exactly when Democrats will change their present course and 
     bring an energy bill to the floor remains uncertain.
       ``Right now, our strategy on gas prices is `Drive small 
     cars and wait for the wind,' '' said a Democratic aide.

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to 
the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we're talking about e-mails. We're talking 
about the rule on e-mails for Federal agencies, for the White House. 
But the truth is, the e-mails that keep coming in are desperate. What 
we saw in the last week were people running out of gas in greater 
numbers than ever before.
  The Democratic Party, the once proud party, always talked in terms of 
helping the little guys. The little guys are suffering. The little guys 
are hurting. We're losing union jobs because our energy has gotten so 
expensive in this country and we're overtaxing some of the people 
providing the jobs.

                              {time}  1100

  Gas is going from $4 to $5, and this Congress could make a huge 
difference, and we're talking about e-mails. The e-mails say we need 
help, do something. And we can. And I know that we have some courageous 
Democratic friends across the aisle that want to do something and could 
do something, but the Democratic leadership seems vested in this idea 
that really we won't say it publicly but $20 a gallon for gas would be 
a good thing because people would quit driving and that would save the 
planet, not realizing when you tank an economy, people quit caring 
about the environment, as they should, because they're worried about 
having food, having shelter, taking care of their families. And we 
could help them if we bring the right bills to drill now, to mine what 
we have.
  Those of us who believe in God have got to believe God is sitting 
there going, Look at what all I gave you in the way of natural 
resources. And yet the last bill to come out of our Natural Resources 
Committee this last month was to put our last best source of uranium 
off-limits for some made-up, contrived emergency that doesn't exist. I 
think the bill will end up being unconstitutional, but it still shows 
we're still putting our resources off-limits.
  If you're worried about killing caribou, we have seen that when we 
put a warm pipeline out there in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness 
area, then the caribou thrive. They go mate around the pipeline. We're 
up over ten times the number of caribou we used to have. If you're 
worried about killing fish off the coast by drilling, we have seen in 
Texas it creates artificial reefs, and that's where people go fish now.
  We can help the people and the environment if we will use what we 
have got because in the years to come, the archivists are going to come 
pull e-mails and see that the number one concern of people right now in 
this country was energy and all we wanted to talk about was e-mails and 
scenic trails when they haven't got gasoline to drive to those trails.
  Let's help Americans where they need help. Let's do the right thing. 
Let's work on energy and producing what we have got.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance 
of my time.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to 
the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).
  (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up with my colleague from 
Texas since we are talking about e-mails, and I, in essence, concur 
with him. The number one message we are getting back from our 
constituents is high energy prices. And when the historians go back to 
reclaim our files to write some analysis on what this Congress did at 
its hour of need and we make sure they can pull our e-mails, they are 
going to find us inundated with ``energy prices are too high,'' and 
then they're going to look at the record and ask, well, how did 
Congress respond? And for the first 18 months of this Congress, and we 
only have about half a year left, we have done nothing.
  This is the problem: $23 a barrel when Bush came into office, $58 a 
barrel when the Democrats assumed the majority. I didn't check the 
market today yet. As of yesterday, it was $140 a barrel. What we are 
saying here is the trend line is bad, and what we are saying is the 
trend line is not sustainable

[[Page H6241]]

if we want a middle class in this country, if we want people in rural 
America to live in rural America.
  In rural America I represent parts of 30 counties of Southern 
Illinois. We have to drive many miles to get to health care. We have to 
drive many miles to get to our primary schools, our secondary schools. 
We have to drive big trucks because we're hauling seed, we're hauling 
feed, we're hauling livestock. They're working trucks. They can't 
operate on an electric engine, a plug-in type of vehicle. Now, that may 
be good for some parts of the country. It's not good for rural Southern 
Illinois.
  So here we are on the floor just back from a week at home, the 4th of 
July break, thinking that it's time to roll up our sleeves and work to 
help address the concerns because we know they are going to take a 
while to fix. It's not like we can snap our finger. A lot of times we 
get asked, what can we do immediately? What can we do immediately? One 
of the answers is to lower the Federal gas tax. That's something we can 
do immediately. What is another thing we can do immediately? Well, the 
public has to conserve. The individual has to do something immediately, 
and they're doing it. We are driving fewer miles today but we're paying 
more. Does that make sense? Drive less, pay more? That's as bad as 
drive small cars and wait for the wind. The other policy is drive less, 
pay more. That's not a good energy policy.
  So we're ready to come back. We're ready to be open. We are ready to 
be accessible. Compromise on this floor. Bring some supply to the 
debate. Bring some efficiency. Bring some renewables. Let's strike an 
agreement.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield the 
gentleman an additional 1 minute.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. There is a great example of that, Mr. Speaker. My friend 
Peter Roskam from Chicago, he has a bill called the Vision Act, which 
uses the royalties of the Outer Continental Shelf, uses the Federal 
money and then plows it into renewables--solar, wind, electric--because 
it's all going to cost money.
  So here's the problem. Here's the solution: The Outer Continental 
Shelf, coal to liquid, solar, wind, renewable fuels. All the above, 
that's our policy. American-made energy translates into American-made 
jobs, which lowers prices for everyone. And the point should be made. 
It's the middle class, the lower middle class who are exponentially 
harmed by higher energy prices. They can't afford the new technology. 
They can't afford the new cars. They have to buy the used car off the 
lot that gets poor gas mileage because they are trying to make ends 
meet.
  We are on the right side of this issue.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's time has expired.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield the 
gentleman 1 additional minute.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I thank my colleague.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, another great opportunity, and I will mention it 
in 1 minute. The United States has the largest reserve of recoverable 
coal in the world. Why not take that coal, create United Mine Worker 
jobs recovering the coal, build a coal-to-liquid refinery, turn that 
into jet fuel, gasoline, diesel fuel, build it in the central part of 
the country where the coal fields are so it's not disrupted by the 
storms in the gulf coast, pump it to our airports so that they have a 
competitive product versus crude oil jet fuel so that we don't lose our 
budget airlines.
  Four budget airlines have got bankrupt. Four budget airlines. That 
means ticket takers, stewardesses, pilots, baggage handlers now without 
a job. Why? High energy costs. And we come to the floor with a national 
historic trail and protecting e-mails and 15 suspension bills.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance 
of my time.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Again, I thank my friend from 
Vermont for his courtesy in yielding the time.
  Mr. Speaker, Americans are now paying over $4 a gallon for gasoline; 
yet the majority fails to bring legislation to the floor to lower gas 
prices or decrease our dependence on foreign sources of energy. It is 
time for the House to debate ideas for lowering prices at the pump and 
addressing the skyrocketing cost of gasoline. So today I urge my 
colleagues to vote with me to defeat the previous question so this 
House can finally consider real solutions to rising energy costs. If 
the previous question is defeated, I will move to amend the rule to 
allow for consideration of H.R. 2208, the Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Act. This 
legislation would encourage the use of clean coal-to-liquid technology, 
authorizing the Secretary of Energy to enter into loan agreements with 
coal-to-liquid projects that produce innovative transportation fuel.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the 
amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the 
previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, by voting ``no'' on 
the previous question, Members can take a stand against these high fuel 
prices and for doing something about them. I encourage a ``no'' vote on 
the previous question.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time, and I'm going to approach the podium to use some charts.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill is about the preservation of electronic 
records. The debate has turned into a discussion of our energy policy. 
And there are two reasons why we would be discussing energy instead of 
the substance of the actual bill. One is that our friends on the other 
side don't have anything to say about the importance of the 
preservation of electronic records. Two is they want to use the 
opportunity of floor time to make a case, their case, about energy. I 
intend to respond to both of those issues.
  First of all, I want to go back to what this legislation is about. 
It's about the preservation of the historical record for the American 
people. It's also about the preservation of the records of the 
administration so that in the future when any Congress wants to hold 
any President accountable, there will be documentation of what has 
happened in that administration.
  It is extraordinarily important that this Congress restore its 
constitutional function of insisting on accountability for the American 
people. We have three branches of government, and one of them has been 
asleep for the 6 years going into the year 2006, and that was Congress, 
the legislative representative of the people of this country, who 
demand and are entitled to accountability. If you do not have the 
preservation of the records of their government--these are not records 
belonging to the President. They're not records that belong to the 
executive branch. It's not for them to decide ``yes'' or ``no'' that we 
will preserve these records. This is a right of the American people. 
It's their property. And what this electronic records preservation does 
is say that you cannot use the paper system that doesn't work in an 
electronic age in effect to conceal from the American people what you 
did. It is overdue. And to take this debate and inject into it another 
topic, as important as energy is, is to trivialize the fundamentally 
important responsibility that this Congress has to the American people 
to restore oversight and accountability.
  This government has make enormous mistakes and justified them by 
concealing information from the American people. What do you need to 
know more than what happened in the pathway to the war in Iraq? If the 
truth had been out there for the American people and for many in this 
body to know what the President knew and when the President knew it, 
what the administration knew and when they knew it, we would not be in 
this catastrophe for the American people called the war in Iraq.
  So this legislation that says that e-mail records are going to be 
restored and retained electronically is of profound constitutional 
importance to the continuation of Congress in its role as the overseer 
and protector of the American record and the American taxpayer. So on 
its merits, this legislation should be considered as of absolute

[[Page H6242]]

vital importance to the people of this country. And we have heard no 
objections, and, indeed, this legislation was passed by voice vote.
  Now, since the issue was raised, since the debate on this profoundly 
important question of constitutional oversight has been hijacked to 
turn it into an energy debate where it really doesn't belong, I am 
nevertheless going to respond to the arguments.

                              {time}  1115

  You start by this proposition. Implicit in many of the arguments that 
my friends on the other side made was that those of us on the 
Democratic side somehow don't understand the pain that the American 
consumer is experiencing with these record high gas prices.
  I have got to just speak about Vermont. What I hear about from 
Vermonters is fear. I've never heard this. And gas prices are tough. 
They are trying to figure out how to get from here to there and pay for 
it. They've got cars that they don't get great mileage. They are 
doubling up. They are doing what they can. But, bottom line, the thing 
they are terrified about and they have real anxiety is how are they 
going to heat their homes next year.
  We have to heat our homes there. And, folks, when they see that gas 
delivery truck show up, and last year it was like $2.50 a gallon, it's 
going to be $5 a gallon next year, and these families don't have the 
money to pay $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 to fill up a tank. They don't know 
what they're going to do. And we are going to see Vermonters who are 
doubling up. Generations are going to be living together because they 
don't know how they are going to pay that bill.
  So, believe me, there's not a single Member in this House, Republican 
or Democrat, who doesn't profoundly understand the impact that this is 
having on everyday people, on our small businesses, on our economy.
  So we can go back and forth with the accusations and we can go back 
and forth with the slogans, or we can acknowledge the obvious. The 
obvious is we have to do everything that we can in the short term to 
try to bring relief at the pump, to try to bring pressure off the small 
business and the consumer. Anything in the short-term that we can do, 
we should do, and we should do it together. But we also have to move to 
a long-term energy policy that no longer allows oil to have an iron 
grip on our future. That is what Americans know.
  Short-term, what are some of the things we can do? We have done them. 
We stopped filling up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It will reduce 
demand by 70,000 to 90,000 barrels a day. Second, we are considering 
legislation for the oil companies to use the leases they have, or lose 
them.
  There's this debate about bringing production online. Obviously, 
supply is an issue here. In the world, we pump about 86 billion barrels 
a day. We consume about 87 billion barrels a day. But the fact is that 
the slogans that I am hearing about just opening up other offshore 
areas in ANWR totally ignores the current reality, and that is that the 
oil companies, that are very good at what they do, have leases, 
existing leases that they pay good money on, on 68 million acres of 
land. That land, their leases, their leases exceed by 2\1/2\ times the 
area of the State of Ohio, the Minority Leader Boehner's district; 2 
times the State of Illinois; 2\1/2\ times the size of Pennsylvania. 
These are leases on Federal lands, onshore and offshore.
  What are the oil companies doing? Not much. They are producing oil on 
a fraction of the leaseholds that they have.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. No, I won't.
  In reality, if there was full production on all the areas under 
lease, it could produce 4.8 million barrels of oil a day.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentleman yield for debate on these lease 
issues?
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I am going to take my time. Thank you.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. So you don't want to debate the lease issue.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Vermont controls the 
time.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  That could produce 4.8 million barrels of oil a day. Yet the oil 
companies are not drilling where they have leases to do so. Instead, we 
are turning this argument into the prospect that we may be able to 
drill in the future on other places where there aren't leases, waiving 
away what will be the long-term problems of trying to make that come 
online, and the fact that it would probably save about a penny and a 
half a gallon in 10 to 20 years. That is not fair, direct honesty in 
the debate for the American people.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentleman yield to debate? You are talking 
about debate.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I thank the gentleman, but I intend to finish. 
I control the time.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. So you don't want to debate the lease issue.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Vermont controls the 
time.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. So what do we have? We have a situation where 
the oil companies are not drilling where they can, and we are saying to 
them, Drill where you can. We also have a situation where the oil 
companies, the longer they wait, the more they make. If you're sitting 
on leases and oil in the ground, under the sea was $35 a barrel when 
you bid that lease, then it went to $75, then it went to $100, and now 
it's $140 a barrel, you're making money just having that in the bank. 
So the oil companies, the longer they wait, the more they make.
  We know that oil company profits are exploding.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Would the gentleman debate the oil profits issue? Will 
you debate me on the energy debate?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois is not 
recognized. The gentleman from Vermont controls the time.
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  The oil companies have made $125 billion. Record profits again this 
year. How are they spending that money? Are they investing in 
refineries, are they investing it in renewable energy, are they 
investing in drilling rigs or offshore facilities to drill in those 
areas? No. They are buying back their stock.
  The oil companies, energy producers, should be part of the solution, 
and they should be using the technical ability that they have, the 
extraordinary skills that they have and the extraordinary profits that 
they have to help us find a way to an energy independent future, and 
it's not happening.
  We know that, bottom line, everything we can do short-term, we can 
do, but the idea that we can do instantly something is a stretch. But 
what we can do, we should do.
  On speculation, we are considering legislation now, and as we speak, 
the Chair of the Agriculture Committee, Mr. Peterson, is conducting 3 
days of hearings to try to squeeze the speculator instead of having the 
speculators squeeze us; on not filling up the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve and topping it off.
  I am demanding of the oil companies that they start producing oil in 
those 68 million acres where they actually have leases and the right to 
be producing that oil. They could produce 4.8 million barrels of oil a 
day. Do you know what we produce domestically right now? Five million 
barrels of oil a day. It could lead to a doubling of the production.
  So the fact is there are things that can be done that we are 
promoting that they be done aggressively. We are insisting that the oil 
companies be accountable to use and produce on the leases that they 
have, yet they refuse to do it. And we have been consistently and 
aggressively moving for a new energy policy that is going to create 
green jobs, that is going to give us much greater independence in 
foreign affairs, and is going to help us clean up our environment.
  A confident nation is one that faces directly the problems that it 
has. And when it comes to the question of energy, what symbolized for 
me the energy policy that this country has had was a front page picture 
of the President of the United States, hand-in-hand with King Abdullah 
of Saudi Arabia as they were about to go into a meeting. In the custom 
of the Arab States, they walked into that holding

[[Page H6243]]

hands. The purpose of that meeting was for the President of the United 
States, the greatest country on Earth, to implore the King to increase 
production of oil.
  You know what? A confident nation, a nation that takes on the 
challenge of solving its own problems, does not go hat in hand to 
others and ask them, who are not our friends, incidentally, to solve 
our problems. We take that challenge on ourselves. We take it on 
because it's our responsibility. We also take it on because we know 
that in the doing of it, we are going to create jobs, clean our 
environment, and give us much more latitude in foreign policy.
  So this debate on energy, misplaced as it is in this matter of 
electronic records and restoring the responsibility of Congress to the 
American people to conduct oversight and to preserve a historical 
record, important as that is, the argument on energy, the question of 
energy is the profound question that this country faces economically 
for the next generation, and the challenge will be whether we are 
willing to face that squarely and take it upon ourselves to solve our 
problems, or we are going to continue to be dependent on oil companies 
that have not played on behalf of the American people and on foreign 
countries that are not our friends; Venezuela, Middle East States, 
Russia. We have to take on this challenge ourselves.
  Mr. Speaker, I will just close by saying, going back to this bill, 
that it's an extraordinarily important bill, not just so that we can 
preserve records, but that we in Congress can restore confidence to the 
American people that we are a cop on the beat.
  This bill makes significant and long overdue changes to document 
retention systems that were outdated and inefficient. The vast amount 
of government business that is currently conducted over e-mail requires 
that we update the law regulating record retention. Government e-mails 
should not be deleted or destroyed, as they are as important in 
revealing to the public and historians as paper documents, and we all 
know that.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on 
the rule.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of 
Florida is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 1318 Offered by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart Of Florida

       At the end of the resolution, add the following:
       Sec. 3. Immediately upon the adoption of this resolution 
     the House shall, without intervention of any point of order, 
     consider in the House the bill (H.R. 2208) to provide for a 
     standby loan program for certain coal-to-liquid projects. All 
     points of order against the bill are waived. The bill shall 
     be considered as read. The previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the bill and any amendment thereto 
     to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one 
     hour of debate on the bill equally divided and controlled by 
     the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Energy 
     and Commerce, and the chairman and ranking member of the 
     Committee on Science and Technology; and (2) an amendment in 
     the nature of a substitute if offered by Representative 
     Dingell of Michigan or his designee, which shall be 
     considered as read and shall be separately debatable for 40 
     minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent and 
     an opponent; and (3) one motion to recommit with or without 
     instructions.
       (The information contained herein was provided by 
     Democratic Minority on multiple occasions throughout the 
     109th Congress.)

        The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

       This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous 
     question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. 
     A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote 
     against the Democratic majority agenda and a vote to allow 
     the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an 
     alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be 
     debating.
       Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of 
     Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the 
     previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or 
     control the consideration of the subject before the House 
     being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous 
     question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the 
     subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling 
     of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the 
     House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes 
     the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to 
     offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the 
     majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated 
     the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to 
     a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to 
     recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: 
     ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman 
     from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to 
     yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first 
     recognition.''
       Because the vote today may look bad for the Democratic 
     majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is 
     simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on 
     adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive 
     legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is 
     not what they have always said. Listen to the definition of 
     the previous question used in the Floor Procedures Manual 
     published by the Rules Committee in the 109th Congress, (page 
     56). Here's how the Rules Committee described the rule using 
     information from Congressional Quarterly's ``American 
     Congressional Dictionary'': ``If the previous question is 
     defeated, control of debate shifts to the leading opposition 
     member (usually the minority Floor Manager) who then manages 
     an hour of debate and may offer a germane amendment to the 
     pending business.''
       Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives, 
     the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a 
     refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a 
     special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the 
     resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21, 
     section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: Upon rejection of the 
     motion for the previous question on a resolution reported 
     from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member 
     leading the opposition to the previous question, who may 
     offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time 
     for debate thereon.''
       Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does 
     have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only 
     available tools for those who oppose the Democratic 
     majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the 
     opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I yield back the balance of my time, and I move 
the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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