[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24801-24802]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1645
                 IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM MUST BE STOPPED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I appreciated what my colleague just said 
about the banks, and one of the things that I think we ought to focus 
on in addition to that is that we are not energy independent and we're 
not allowed the drill off the Continental Shelf or in the ANWR in 
Alaska or do other exploration for a number of reasons, not the least 
of which is, quote-unquote, environmental.
  But at the same time we won't allow offshore drilling here, we just 
gave Brazil $2 billion so they can drill off their shores. It just 
doesn't make any sense to me. We ought to be spending that money here 
at home exploring for oil so we can move towards energy independence. 
We have a 400- or 500-year supply of natural gas and we have plenty of 
oil if we just could go get it, and we can do it in an environmentally 
safe way.
  Now the reason I bring that up is because one of the big problems we 
face is we get 35 to 40 percent of our oil from the Middle East, and 
one of the big problems facing the United States and the world right 
now is Iran. Iran has been developing a nuclear program, a

[[Page 24802]]

nuclear weapons program for some time, and our position in the United 
States now, under the new administration, is to try to work with them, 
to talk with them to stop them with their nuclear development program. 
And if they don't, we're going to try to get a sanctions bill passed.
  Now, we have a bill sponsored by the chairman of the International 
Relations Committee, Mr. Berman, that has over 300 cosponsors--I happen 
to be one of them--and we believe we ought to bring that bill to the 
floor as quickly as possible to try to put pressure on Iran to stop the 
development of the nuclear weapons program.
  But the administration, I think, has suggested we should wait. They 
were trying to bring China and Russia on board, and China and Russia 
are not going to be on board. So we should do it by ourselves and we 
should do it expeditiously.
  Let me tell you why I think it's so important. If Iran continues down 
this path, Israel--whom Iran has said they want to destroy--will have 
no choice but to defend itself. They cannot let Iran develop a nuclear 
bomb and a delivery system. If they do that, they will be able to 
destroy Israel and millions of Jews in Israel in a very short period of 
time. It will be another Holocaust.
  So what will happen? If they get too far down the path, if we don't 
put pressure on them to stop--and they don't stop--I believe Israel 
will have no choice but to attack Iran. And if they attack Iran, that 
could end up in being a major conflagration in the entire Persian Gulf 
area.
  Now, why is that important to us? We get 35 to 40 percent of our 
energy from the Persian Gulf area. If that goes up in smoke, we will 
lose 35 to 40 percent of the energy that we have in this country 
because we're not energy independent.
  The lights that we have, the gasoline in our cars, the fuel we use to 
heat our houses, everything that needs energy will suffer, and we will 
have severe economic problems if this problem isn't dealt with before a 
tragedy occurs over there.
  This really bothers me. We tried to work with North Korea some time 
ago during the Clinton administration. We even had an agreement with 
them that they would stop their nuclear development program if we gave 
them some things, and we did. And what did they do? They lied and they 
went ahead with their program, and they are a nuclear power. They're 
using missiles that would be intercontinental in scope, testing them 
over the sea of Japan right now. And they've done that a number of 
times.
  So we have to worry about them. We have to worry about North Korea 
and what they're going to do next. Can you imagine what it will be like 
once Iran develops a nuclear weapons program? They are committed to 
destroying Israel. They are committed to forcing their view of religion 
and religious beliefs on much of the rest of the world, and it could be 
a real problem for us. They don't like America very much either. And so 
we have a myriad of problems facing us if we don't get on with putting 
as much pressure as possible on Iran and doing it right now.
  As we speak, they're developing their nuclear weapons program. They 
said they're going to let U.N. nuclear experts come in and police the 
area and see what they're doing. I don't believe that. I believe they 
will let us see one or two spots, but they're going to go on with their 
nuclear development program.
  We must put pressure on them now. We must put pressure on them 
immediately, because if we don't, we're toying with a major problem, a 
major economic problem for America as well as a possible holocaust in 
that part of the world in the very near future.

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