[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12829-12836]
[From the U.S. 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

[[Page 12830]]

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.
  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

[[Page 12831]]

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 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.

[[Page 12832]]

  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?
  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

[[Page 12833]]

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, 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.

[[Page 12834]]

  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 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.

[[Page 12835]]

  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, 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

[[Page 12836]]

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 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.

                          ____________________