[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 9, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H7858-H7859]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE AMERICAN ENERGY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Boehner) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Well, Mr. Speaker, let me say ``welcome'' to my Democrat 
colleagues. ``Welcome back to the House.'' You all left here without a 
vote on the American Energy Act, and as I look at this week's schedule, 
it looks like we're going to take another week of vacation because 
there is not much on the schedule.
  While you all were out, I and my Republican colleagues were here each 
and every day with the lights dimmed, with the microphones off, with no 
one in the chair, and with the cameras off. We were talking to the 
visitors who were coming through the Capitol about our plan to produce 
all of the above.
  You know, the American people are tired of high gas prices. Small 
businesses are having a difficult time with high energy prices. We've 
got school districts around America that are trying to figure out how 
they're going to operate their buses this fall with the prices of 
gasoline and of diesel where they are. Yet Congress has failed to act. 
What we've been proposing for the last 3 months is the buildup of do 
all of the above. We need to have more conservation in America, and we 
need to have the incentives to produce more conservation. We need 
renewables.
  To my colleague from Washington who was just here, I'm in full 
support of all of these renewables, but many of them are not going to 
be ready next year or the year after or, for that matter, some of them 
not for 10 or 20 years.
  So, in the meantime, we've got to find a way to produce more energy 
now, and that means using coal in a clean way whether it's coal to gas 
or coal to liquid. We can use coal, and we're the Saudi Arabia of the 
world when it comes to coal, and there is no reason for us not to use 
it in an environmentally sensitive way. We also need nuclear energy, 
the cleanest form of energy. Today, it's a 15-year process to get a 
nuclear permit and to go through all of the steps. It costs billions of 
dollars, and maybe at the end of 15 years you will get a permit to 
actually operate.
  Even if we do all of that, we've not done all we can do to maximize 
our energy security and to maximize the amount of energy we can produce 
to take a big step toward energy independence. That's why producing 
more American-made oil and gas in an environmentally sensitive way has 
to be part of this bill.
  Now, this bill has been out there. It does all of the above, and I 
think the American people are demanding that we do all of the above, 
but the Speaker, before she became the Speaker, promised this would be 
the most open and accountable Congress in history. In that light, I 
respectfully ask the Speaker: When will you give the American people a 
vote on the American Energy Act (H.R. 6566), our plan to do all of the 
above? Will it be on the floor this week?
  There are rumors floating around that we could have an energy bill 
this

[[Page H7859]]

week. Nobody has seen one yet. It hasn't been scheduled, but these 
rumors are out there. If we're going to have a vote on a little bit of 
the above or on some of the above that the majority might produce, why 
not give a large group of Members in this House who want to do all of 
the above just a chance to have a debate and to vote on our competing 
proposal?
  That's what we're looking for. We want a fair and open debate. We 
want a chance to have a vote. Anything less than that, frankly, is 
unacceptable, and the Republicans in this House will continue to force 
the Democrat majority to allow a vote on doing all of the above because 
it is what the American people want. It is what they sent us here to 
do, and we are not going to leave until it gets done.

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