[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12594-12597]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE REPUBLICAN HOUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) is recognized 
for half of the time until midnight as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, tonight we are going to talk a little bit 
about the accomplishments of the Republicans in the House of 
Representatives, accomplishments that are going to help us bring jobs 
back into America.
  Over the last generation, our government has consistently created 
policies that have prevented us from keeping jobs in America. The 
Republicans in the House have come up with a plan to change that 
environment so that we can quit the outsourcing of jobs and start the 
insourcing of jobs. We have divided the issues that have been created 
by the Federal government into 8 categories. Each one of those 
categories or issues is going to get a week of our time, a week of 
dedication to deal with this issue, bring important votes to the floor, 
and change the environment and bring more jobs into America.
  We started out with health care the week of May 11, health care 
security. We then went to bureaucratic red tape termination, life long 
learning. This week was energy self-sufficiency and security. We have 4 
more topics that deal with ending lawsuit abuse.
  Now, under health care security we passed flexible spending accounts 
to

[[Page 12595]]

allow employees more choices in their health care. We passed medical 
malpractice liability limitations to lower the cost of health care by 
lowering the liability insurance. And we also passed the Small Business 
Health Fairness Act which allowed small businesses and other 
associations to bond together to go out and purchase from health care 
providers and thereby lowering the cost of health care in the United 
States.
  We went on to bureaucratic red tape termination, and we dealt with 4 
bills with Occupational Safety and Health or OSHA. We had small 
business day in court for OSHA. We had OSHA Review Commission 
Efficiency Act. We had the Independent Review of OSHA Citations act. We 
had the OSHA Small Employer Access to Justice Act. And then we 
completed that week with the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvement Act.
  We went on to lifelong learning the next week. We talked about the 
Teacher Training Enhancement Act, the Priorities for Graduates Studies 
Act, Back to Work Incentives Act, and we completed that week with 
workforce Reinvestment and Adult Education Act and having the conferees 
appointed as well.

                              {time}  2310

  This week we passed three pieces of additional legislation: the 
Energy Policy Act of 2004, the Renewable Energy Project Siting 
Improvement Act, and the U.S. Refinery Revitalization Act. Fifteen 
pieces of legislation have been passed. It is part of the plan that we 
have that is part of the aggressive nature that the House has taken on 
to bring jobs back to America.
  Next week, we are going to be dealing with research and development.
  Our opponents on the other side of the aisle, the House Democrats, 
have come up with an answer to our agenda. They have an alternate 
agenda, and that agenda is very interesting. It is on their Web site. 
It consists of 28 proposals compared to our 8. Thirteen of those 
proposals call for more government spending. Seven of those proposals 
call for more government regulation. Eight call for some outlandish 
schemes such as textile summits, other conferences, more lawsuits and 
targeted tax credits.
  The business environment today has been forced to outsource jobs 
because of government regulations, because of government red tape, 
because of government policies, and the Democrats think the solution is 
more government. I think that that is wrong.
  I have a quote here, Mr. Speaker. It starts out by saying, America 
must get to work producing more energy. The Republican program for 
solving economic problems is based on growth and productivity. A large 
amount of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores 
untouched because the Democrats seem to believe the American people 
would rather see more regulation, taxes and control than more energy. 
That quote was made by Ronald Reagan, July 17, 1980.
  The problem is pretty much the same because we have not gotten any 
bipartisan support on trying to create jobs and improve energy 
sufficiency in America.
  I have a chart here, Mr. Speaker, that talks about America's energy 
security, a lesson of supply and demand. We can see clearly on this 
first part of the chart that supply, which is the manufacturing of 
petroleum and coal product jobs, have gone down since 1995, and we are 
here at 2003. The consumer price index of energy prices has continued 
to go up.
  You can see there was a dip that came down some in the recession, but 
our demand has continued to grow, and the reason it has is because our 
economy is growing. The reason our economy is growing is because of the 
tax relief that has been passed by House Republicans and signed by the 
President into law. So we have been fighting this battle for some time, 
and let me just show one other chart here before we go on to another 
speaker.
  This is what the House Republicans have done to provide America with 
a comprehensive energy plan. It starts out on January 1, 2001, and 
indicates on January 3, George Bush takes office. Then we can see that 
we have made several efforts. President Bush released his energy plan, 
delivered it to Congress. We responded by passing a House energy bill 
for the first time. We set up another second passage over on April 11, 
2003, almost a year and a half later. We passed it a third time on 
November 18, 2003, and yesterday we passed it for a fourth time. Each 
time it has been stopped by the Democrats. We have not had the ability 
to get it to the President's desk, but the result of not having a 
comprehensive energy plan is it has driven gasoline prices at the pump 
from below $1.50 up to in excess of $2.
  It is time for us, Mr. Speaker, to move on with the energy policy and 
get a plan passed and to the President so that we can lower energy 
costs and create jobs.
  I have with me a gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) who is going to 
address some additional issues about bringing jobs back to America as 
related to energy policy, and I yield to him at this time.
  Mr. CHOCOLA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, 
and I thank him for his leadership on this very important issue that I 
think is crucial to our economic security and job creation in our 
country.
  As we focus this week on energy and its role in ensuring our economic 
security, I remind my colleagues, as my friend from Kansas just did, 
that the House of Representatives has passed three energy bills before 
this week, since 2001, all with the aim of exploring and increasing 
domestic energy production in hopes of staving off the type of energy 
crisis we face today.
  Even though the employment rate has gone down significantly, and the 
economy as a whole is showing clear signs of improvement, the greatest 
impediment and risk to sustaining our growing economy is the rising 
cost of energy. Energy is the lifeblood of the American economy, and we 
can ill-afford to ignore the pressing need to pass comprehensive energy 
legislation. We cannot wait for another blackout of the kind that we 
saw last August or for another spike in gasoline prices that we see 
today.
  Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that we act now. The energy conference 
report the House has passed is a jobs bill. We call a lot of things 
here in the House of Representatives job bills, but this bill clearly 
fits the description. It is estimated that 838,500 jobs will be created 
if this energy policy is actually enacted. From natural gas and coal, 
to nuclear and renewable energy exploration and expansion, our domestic 
energy reserves will be a dramatic boost to the American workforce.
  The rising cost of gas prices is just one of the most visible 
consequences of lacking a national energy policy, and it is a stark 
reminder of our need to utilize and explore our domestic energy supply. 
By hindering exploration and utilization of our country's energy 
potential, we continue our reliance on foreign energy sources. Since 
2001, the United States has sent over $300 billion and countless 
American jobs to OPEC and other foreign Nations to meet our energy 
needs here at home. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 
America loses 12,389 jobs for every $1 billion we spend on imports. 
This translates to 1.7 million jobs America has sent overseas for oil 
every single year.
  This legislation will help ease our dependence on foreign oil by 
requiring 5 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be included in all 
gasoline sold in the United States by 2015. This increase in the use of 
ethanol will save 1.3 billion barrels of oil by 2016, and improve the 
trade deficit by $28.5 billion over the next 15 years, and adds $135 
billion to the American economy by 2016 through increased agricultural 
demand and new capital spending, and generate $32 billion in income for 
American consumers over the next 15 years.
  Along with oil, natural gas has been an indispensable energy source 
in this country. Natural gas is responsible for 20 percent of our 
Nation's energy production and is expected to play an increasingly 
important role in addressing our Nation's future energy needs. Yet the 
volatile price of natural gas over the past new years is constricting 
our economic growth. For example, an estimated 85,000 jobs have been 
lost by the

[[Page 12596]]

U.S. chemical makers since U.S. natural gas prices began to rise in 
mid-2000. Over the past few years, our reliance on natural gas has left 
our small business community susceptible to the fluctuations of the 
natural gas market, and it is hurting our economy and our workforce.
  Mr. Speaker, I find it ironic that last August, on the same day that 
we saw a blackout in parts of the Midwest and the northeast, I chaired 
a hearing in my District, in the 2nd District of Indiana, on natural 
gas prices. At that hearing, we heard from school districts, we heard 
from businesses, we heard from social service organizations about the 
devastating effect that the rising cost of natural gas has had on their 
endeavors. Probably one of the most interesting things I learned during 
that hearing is that here in the United States, in our non-park, non-
wilderness lands, we have enough natural gas to supply 100 million 
households for 157 years.
  I would like to share just one quick story about a company in my 
District called Koontz-Wagner Electric that testified at that hearing 
and talked about the impact that the rising cost of natural gas has. 
They utilize natural gas to run the energy needs of their plant and 
much of their equipment, and this year, they saw an increase of $60 to 
$90,000 above their expected levels in natural gas costs. That is money 
that could have been invested in their business, could have helped 
create jobs, but instead went to pay for the energy costs that made 
them less competitive in the global economy.
  Just last week, I spoke with a fertilizer company, one of the largest 
employers in one of the counties in my District, and they have seen 
their main input cost, $90 percent of their cost is nitrogen, and over 
the last 2 weeks they have seen their nitrogen costs increase by 15 
percent, putting their company and their employees at risk. They have 
seen that not only in the last 2 weeks, but week after week they have 
seen double digit increases in their most important costs, again, 
putting their company at risk.
  But there is a solution, and it is enacting a comprehensive energy 
policy in this country. A comprehensive energy bill includes such 
provision as the creation of a natural gas pipeline from the Alaska 
North Slope to the lower 48 States. This pipeline will improve access 
to natural gas and promote competition in the exploration, development 
and production of natural gas to help secure our Nation's energy 
future. This legislation also provides for more natural gas exploration 
and development by providing royalty relief for deep and ultra deep gas 
wells in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Improved access to 
North America's abundant natural gas resources will help to reduce high 
utility bills, create jobs and provide more than $500 million of 
increased revenues for the U.S. economy.

                              {time}  2320

  Mr. Speaker, as I said, energy is the lifeblood of our economy. We 
can no longer afford to ignore this pressing need. We must remain 
committed to pursuing a comprehensive energy policy in order to reduce 
our dependence on foreign oil, lessen the cost of gasoline and home 
utility bills, and help create more jobs right here in America.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) for 
bringing this Special Order to the floor to talk about this very 
important issue. I urge my colleagues to support enactment of this 
energy policy.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. 
Terry).
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight 
on energy week in the House of Representatives. Frankly, it feels a 
little bit like the movie ``Groundhog Day.'' I think we have been 
through this at least once before. Each time we go through it we have 
an opportunity to improve it, and each time we also feel a little bit 
frustrated that others in this Capitol do not share the same passion 
for a comprehensive energy policy.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) opened up with a 
discussion about the impact of higher gasoline prices on a timetable 
starting when President Bush was sworn in and gas was about $1.35 a 
gallon. I think it is $1.32 on the chart here. Because of the inaction 
of being unable to produce a comprehensive energy policy, what American 
citizens have seen is continuous rise and spikes in gasoline prices, 
and this has certainly captured the headlines and the lead-off stories 
on national news as we pay record prices across the Nation, seeing a 
little bit of relief.
  But as we focus on gasoline prices, probably the more devastating 
aspects to our family budget and our economy is frankly the increase in 
price of natural gas. Alan Greenspan has spoken several times that the 
increase in natural gas prices has become a drag on our economy. So let 
us work through that a little bit. H.R. 6 that we have passed in the 
House of Representatives four times provides incentives for additional 
exploration within the continental United States. There is a lot of 
discussion about drilling in Alaska, but ANWR is not part of H.R. 6, 
but we provide incentives for exploration in the continental United 
States, as well as a new pipeline to run from Alaska to the continental 
United States, and that is one of the issues being stalled here.
  What we need to realize is natural gas provides America about 25 
percent of its current energy needs and is used by almost two-thirds of 
American households. That is right. That is for cooking, appliances, 
that is for heating our homes. But what many do not realize, as this 
chart shows, not only for electrical generation and residential use, 
but industrial use, as the gentleman from Indiana mentioned. Natural 
gas is used in the production of food to fertilizers, from cars to 
clothes, from aluminum to electronics. Natural gas is so essential a 
raw material that it is a basic element in many common products such as 
paints, fertilizers, propane, film, medicines, and almost all power 
plants which have been built in the last 15 to 20 years use natural gas 
to generate electricity.
  What is great about it is it is low emission. It is a clean fuel to 
use. Here in D.C. when we walk around downtown, there are bright buses 
which pass through which say ``Using Clean Natural Gas.'' Yes, we use 
it in transportation as well.
  The issue with the price of natural gas is just basic high school 
economics: It is supply and demand. Over the last, and here is a chart, 
it talks about just a few years ago natural gas prices were pretty 
stable around $1.50 CFM.
  This chart here actually is wrong, and I need to take a second to 
correct it because it shows that it tops off at about $5, but just 2 
weeks ago it was trading at $6.70 and it is now trading above $6. In 
other words, Mr. Speaker, the price of natural gas is off the charts, 
and we are not doing a darn thing about it.
  Now the soaring natural gas prices, let us talk about the ripple 
effects that it has through our economy. It is putting a pinch on our 
families. As I understand from our local gas utilities, it is costing 
the average family in my district several hundred dollars a year just 
in additional heating and utility costs. But let us talk about what it 
is doing to our economy and jobs.
  The U.S. chemical industry has cut at least 90,000 jobs because of 
the high price of natural gas. Several plants have closed and moved 
their doors overseas. Yes, overseas. Now let us talk about why they are 
moving overseas. Why do our farmers now have to import fertilizer and 
pay twice as much as they did 3 years ago? Let us look at this. In the 
United States because of our demand and lack of supply, we are paying 
about $6.50 CFM. We can go down to Mexico and Central America and pay 
less than one-sixth. What is a business to do? When we criticize 
businesses for moving offshore or out of America, yes, it frustrates 
every one of us that those jobs are moving out, but let us look at some 
of the causes and deal with that. What is a manufacturer going to do 
when the basic input, as the gentleman from Indiana said, when it is 
about 90 percent of the input costs for fertilizer, what is that 
fertilizer plant going to do? They are going to go where it is a 
cheaper price and reduce

[[Page 12597]]

their costs dramatically and sell it back.
  I believe these natural gas prices really provide an unfair 
disadvantage to our American manufacturers, and we need to do something 
about it.
  The Energy Policy Act which the House passed once again yesterday 
would boost natural gas production by removing barriers and creating 
sensible incentives. It would increase the depreciation period of 
natural gas pipelines from 20 to 15 years. It would increase energy 
conservation and efficiency by 50 percent over 5 years, and it would 
relieve pressure on natural gas markets, diversifying our energy 
portfolio by increasing power generation from clean coal, fuel cells, 
microturbines, emission-free nuclear power, and renewable energy 
sources. By adopting this balanced plan, we would increase natural gas 
supplies and save U.S. customers approximately $1 trillion in natural 
gas costs over the next 20 years. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I said $1 trillion.
  Now, it is time that we stop holding Americans hostage, our economy 
hostage. Let us fight some of the root causes of our loss of 
manufacturing jobs and pass a comprehensive energy bill.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. 
Terry) for that very important information about how we are going to 
bring jobs back to America by passing comprehensive energy policies 
that will lower costs for natural gas and make it more economical to do 
business in the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) to 
talk about bringing jobs back to America with a comprehensive energy 
policy.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. 
Tiahrt) for bringing this issue in front of the body.
  Mr. Speaker, there are two things that our standard of living in 
America is based upon.

                              {time}  2330

  Our standard of living is very high in this country because of two 
basic, essential facts. First, we have affordable food and, second, we 
have affordable energy. Both of those things determine how we live our 
everyday lives, how much we have got to spend on our kids' school 
clothes, how far we have got to spend on the schools that our kids go 
to, those things are determined by the basics that we do not have to 
spend more than a small amount of our income on either food or energy.
  Mr. Speaker, House bill 6, the energy bill, really begins to address 
the fact that jobs are being sent overseas because of high energy costs 
but it also addresses the more relevant fact of the cost of energy in 
our homes. I had some high school students in my office today. They 
asked, what is your position on drilling in ANWR? I said absolutely, 
that I supported it in my campaign, and that I have supported it since 
I got here. They asked, why would you do that? And they seemed to be 
asking it in good faith. You could tell that they had had discussions 
in their school and they were asking for my opinion because they had 
received the other side. I said, it is very simple. You hear your 
parents talking about how much it costs to fill up their car with 
gasoline, about $40 to $50 to $60 now depending on what size tank you 
have. I said, you have heard your parents talk about it. Yes, yes, it 
is very much higher. The fact is that we are talking about supply and 
demand and they were a little curious about that. They did not really 
understand it fully. I said, it is simply like cell phones. When cell 
phones first came out, the supply was very limited so you might pay 
$450 or $500 for a cell phone but today they will give them to you just 
to get the business. That is because as the supply of cell phones has 
increased, the price has gone down. Petroleum is exactly the same way.
  If in 1995 President Clinton would have signed the ANWR drilling bill 
that was put in front of him, both House and Senate in 1995 passed that 
bill, if he had signed that, today we would have 1.5 million new 
barrels of oil coming down the Alaska pipeline and into our shores. 
What our attempt is today to lower the price of gasoline in our cars is 
we have gone to the Saudi Arabians and we are asking them on bended 
knee, we the United States is asking Saudi Arabia on bended knee to 
increase production by somewhere between 1 and 2 million barrels per 
day. We know that at that figure, the price would come back down to 
what Americans are used to paying for a gallon of gasoline. But 
instead, President Clinton vetoed the bill that was passed by the House 
and by the Senate, he vetoed the bill, so today instead of having the 
1.5 million barrels that we are asking the Saudi Arabians for, that 1.5 
million barrels would have been produced on American soil and with 
American jobs, instead it is being produced somewhere else and then we 
have the higher energy costs and we are more dependent on foreign oil.
  My friend from Nebraska talked about the high price of natural gas. 
There are some very compelling things in the price of natural gas. It 
is being pushed up because the Federal Government is requiring that 
many of our electrical generating plants convert from coal into the 
clean-burning natural gas. The Federal Government demands that we 
convert electric plants over to natural gas, therefore, pushing the 
demand up while at the same time the Federal Government at the 
insistence of some of the extreme environmentalists is beginning to 
limit access to the natural gas drilling that is available. The 
drilling that they are stopping, the drilling that the extreme 
environmentalists are stopping is not in pristine areas. They are 
exactly in areas on Federal land that have been drilled before. There 
is no reason to say that we cannot drill there except the extremists 
believe in their heart that America has too much.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, to wrap up as our time expires, we call our 
plan to bring jobs back to America ``Careers for the 21st Century.'' 
This week we have been talking about tonight is the energy self-
sufficiency and security. Next week we are going to talk about research 
and development.

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