[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12041-12042]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              HOUSE PLANS VOTE ON PRESIDENT'S ENERGY PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, we have had an extensive 
debate today on the floor centered around American energy and American 
jobs. It is interesting in how this discussion has unfolded over time. 
Many times we on this side of the aisle are accused of repeating over 
and over and over different issues, and I suppose to a certain extent 
that is true. But one of the reasons why this effort is done on a 
regular basis is because the genius of our Founding Fathers was such 
that they created a government where there was a division of powers, 
and we all know that, the three branches of government. But the genius 
of our Founding Fathers was even greater than that in the fact that 
they created the legislative branch, and they divided that power. They 
divided that power between the House and the Senate.
  What that simply means, Mr. Speaker, is that before any legislation 
can pass, any law that's put on anybody in this country has to pass 
both Houses of the Congress. Now, I recognize I'm a Member of the 
people's House. There has been no Member of this House in the history 
of our country that was not elected to this House.
  On the other hand, the Senate is a different body, as we well know. 
The Senate is made up of only two Members from each of the States 
regardless of population. Because we come from different 
constituencies, one a smaller constituency within a State, another from 
a whole State like the Senate is, you are bound to have different ideas 
as you approach legislation. But again, the genius of our Founding 
Fathers was to say, okay, before anything can become law, both Houses 
have to act on that legislation, and it has to pass both the House and 
the Senate without a comma being different. Therein, of course, lies 
the challenge.
  So we have been accused here many times of passing the same type of 
legislation, at least on the same issue, and passing it over to the 
other body. But what we have found, unfortunately, in this Congress is 
that the other body has simply not acted on a lot of pieces of 
legislation. Now, I'm not saying they should pick up, although it would 
be nice if they took everything that we passed and say it is a 
wonderful idea, pass it over there, and send it to the President. Well, 
they don't do that.
  But one of the functions that they could do and they haven't done is 
pass legislation, albeit different than what we have. And then, of 
course, we have a mechanism to work out the difference. But in many 
respects, Mr. Speaker, not even that has happened. In other words, they 
haven't passed legislation where they may have a disagreement with us 
that we can work out the differences. So that leads to a lot of 
frustration, obviously, on our side of the rotunda; but we feel it is 
important as the Republican majority to continue to make the case in 
what we believe in.
  I might mention also that the House is controlled in the majority by 
the Republicans; and, of course, the Democrats control the Senate. So 
there is a difference. So that's why we continue to send legislation 
over to the Senate, and we hold out hope that maybe one time they will 
take up legislation, maybe on the same issue, and we can go to 
conference and work out whatever differences. So that's why we continue 
to bring this legislation to the floor. I look forward to a time when 
the Senate will, in fact, act.
  Now, let me talk then about this piece of legislation that we had on 
the floor today and why it was brought to the floor and how the process 
is going to unfold tomorrow. As I mentioned in my opening remarks on 
debate, the President, any President, by the way, is required to submit 
a 5-year energy plan on the Outer Continental Shelf, the OCS, and 
submit it for a 60-day review by Congress.

                              {time}  1900

  That clock started ticking in June last. So we felt it was important 
because I, for one, and a number of my colleagues on the House Natural 
Resources Committee, in fact, throughout

[[Page 12042]]

this Congress, felt that the President's plan was inadequate and that 
there ought to be an alternative to that plan. Thus, we had a markup 
several weeks ago on the plan that we had before us today. We are 
debating it tonight now. We've gone through the debate, we've had the 
amendment process, and we will vote on this bill tomorrow.
  But what is missing in all of this equation was simply that there is 
no effort to defend the President's plan. As a matter of fact, in the 
debate that I had heard from the other side, rarely did I hear anybody 
say that the President's energy plan was a good plan. So, tomorrow, 
there will be on suspension legislation that I reluctantly will offer 
that is essentially the President's energy plan. We'll have a vote, and 
tomorrow the House will have an opportunity to say ``yes'' to this job-
creating bill that we had on the floor today or the President's plan. 
There will be a distinct choice that Members of this body will have an 
opportunity to vote on.
  I certainly hope that they'll support this job-creating plan, 
American-energy-creating plan that we debated today, and I hope that 
they will reject President Obama's plan.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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