table so it's a clause eight of rule twenty the on vision unfinished business is the question on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal the question is on agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal so many hours in favor will say i that the business and order under the calendar wednesday will be dispensed with i wednesday april eighteenth object the speaker objection is heard mr speaker i actually manage consents that when the concurrent resolution is there objection object objection is heard mr speaker woman from oregon i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order to action the record thank you the gentleman from pennsylvania arrives mission to revise if there are more for one minute without objection gentleman's recognized for one minute the speaker i rise today to honor and celebrate the bishop guilfoyle high school girls basketball team from altoona pennsylvania for their record breaking season which ended with a pennsylvania interscholastic athletic association class a state lady marauders who finish the season with an impressive thirty one and one school record and accompany their first state title in fourteen years coached by coach mark michel of the team's graduating sixteen years led by senior forward mary for a thousand points score also playing their last game according carroll heather craig ashley helsel rachel salvina danny williams and also special no allie williams a freshman on the waiting rodgers scored with thirteen points to finish with ten rebound in the championship game i'm extremely proud of the hard work and dedication of these young women from guilfoyle and congratulate the team and  coaching staff and their fans on a storybook year and it is or championship i yield back speaker today i asked my colleagues to join me in honoring the life of another when he to her who passed away earlier this month after a courageous battle with lung cancer when it is passion for education and her commitment to students enrich the lives of many people in our congressional districts her efforts and dedication to public service leave a legacy that will continue to benefit my hometown and the nation when needed joins pleasanton school system after leaving her job as a probation officer to care for her children at home she was looked into the amador district board in one nine hundred seventy nine and was among the first trustees elected to the pleasanton unified school district but the position which she held for the rest of her career although when he does efforts won her many awards it was her ability to inspire others with her passion for learning that separated her from her peers i asked my colleagues to join me in honoring the memory of mr speaker the days of tax and spend are back the new reform budget passed by the house just a few minutes ago actually is for more taxes more spending so americans need to get out their checkbooks because they're going to be paying more because here's the deal this budget will increase tax rates on all americans who pay taxes because the tax cuts will expire it will cut the tax credit for children by half and it will punish married people because it'll tax them more because they choose to be married and it will also tax americans when they literally packs them to death this bill is the largest tax increase in american history earlier more this fat and sassy bill increases wasteful spending we ought to be cutting taxes cutting wasteful spending because that's the american way that's the right way because americans pay they always pay and they're going to pay a lot more and that's just the way it is i yield back for what reason is generally from texas right which my father in law philip ferguson lee was an active and proud member of the honored with a congressional gold medal i thank all of my heart representative congressman charlie rangle senator levin and all of the participants who commemorated and celebrated brave men who sacrificed their life in world war two but yet treated worse than that the soldiers who are captured held here in the united states in spite of color and racism they rose to the highest occasion that is why i am so proud to be part of this majority that supported an emergency supplemental that would signify out troops and bring them home  success and a budget today that was voted with the largest amount of dollars for veterans in the history of the united states thank you to my father in law philip ferguson lee and all of the  receive the congressional gold medal but more importantly they are proud to be americans world war two veterans who never never denied their leadership in the united states of america god bless them and god bless the united states of without objection request is granted for what purpose of the gentleman from indiana arise mr speaker i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders here too for there turned into the following members may be permitted to address the house for five minutes to revise and extend their remarks and include their in extraneous material mr cummins for five minutes mr hill for five minutes miss mccarthy for five minutes mr shift for five minutes mr sarbanes for woosley for five minutes mr de fazio for five minutes ms norton for five minutes and jackson lee for five minutes without objection so ordered we will find on the seas and the oceans we shall fight with growing strength in the air we shall defend whatever the cost may be we shall fight on the beaches will fight on the landing ground will fight in the fields and in the streets we will fight everywhere and we will never surrender these are the words of steroids to churchill showing the dedication to terminations of our military warriors who fight for liberty they never give up and of course they never give an army staff sergeant terence dunn was one of those soldiers calling apostasy to texas home staff sergeant dunn finally graduated from pascagoula high school in mississippi in one thousand nine hundred seven and high school he was always known as the student helping others and one hundred ninety one staff sergeant dunn enlisted in the united states army he volunteered to serve this country and to become a part of an organization that accomplished great things for him army was his life for sixteen years staff sergeant dunn devoted his life to protecting the united states and its citizens from those who wanted to destroy us freedom and liberty he was always taking time to make sure that his arni army uniform was in perfect shape and he was proud of his service and one of the first letters he sent to his mother after enlisting into the united states army he told her that he was a real soldier and he loved staff sergeant dunn was routinely away from the comforts and luxuries of home in texas he served two tours of duty in germany bosnia africa south korea and of course two tours of duty in iraq he was committed to the service he of committed to the american people he was committed to his family and he was committed to his due as most military soldier staff sergeant dunn was a very humble person about his service he considered it an honor family was one of the most important things to staff sergeant done he was the youngest of six children he was close to all of his brothers and sisters and his numerous nieces and nephews even while amid the cannons of battle he would call home to his family and check on them to see how they're can sure they were ok staff sergeant dunn was coming home to texas in april next month after finishing that second tour of duty and that land far far away that we call our rock he was assigned to the two hundred  tenth brigade support battalion second brigade combat team cancer mountain division he was a mechanic for the united states army and responsible for serving servicing vehicles and redoing army tanks he was also task was fixing any broken equipment because he was a technological wiv he could fix anything to his fellow soldiers they called him the done a man something needed done done a man did it and it was given to him to do because they could always count on staff sergeant done on february second of this year staff sergeant dunn called home to one of the sisters checking on the status of the folks back home with all the dangers of the iraqi desert his mind was always on his family his sister had no way of knowing that that would be the last time that she spoke to her brother this is a photograph of staff sergeant dunn taken shortly before his life was stolen from him because several hours later on patrol in baghdad and i e d an improvised explosive device hidden by faceless enemies that will not come out and fight was exploded detonated sergeant dunn's patrol vehicle killing this american warrior he was thirty eight years of age sergeant dunn is the eighteenth american warrior associated with my southeast texas congressional district killed in this war in the deserts of iraq and afghanistan for his bravery and service to his people staff sergeant john was awarded the purple heart and a bronze star he was brought home to louisiana his birthplace and staff sergeant dunn was carried by his fellow soldiers the army honor guard and he was laid to rest with full military honors session or just don was an american patriot that's a word sometimes we don't like to use but he was he was proud to be a patriot he was a hero to his family his fellow soldiers and to us he served his country for sixteen years in the accomplish great things in the united states army and remember mr speaker he like all the people in iraq and afghanistan fighting for this nation and for the iraqi people are volunteers they asked to join the fight so god bless the dunn family and god bless staff sergeant done he fought for our nation he defended their party and lands far far away and he never surrendered in the words of george or will we sleep cycle in our beds because  mr speaker today i had the opportunity to introduce i think a very important bill and this bill for those who are listening in your offices i hope other members of congress who have not gone home yet w take the opportunity to review this bill and join me as a co author of the bill during the campaign last year there were many issues that we talked about energy independence health care the nation's budget but one that emerged as a very very important issue was the issue of ethics in the house of representatives people were very disturbed at all the scandals that were going on in this great body and they told me over and over and over again that congress needed to clean up its act and they are right we did and we do it pains me that the american public does not have a whole lot of faith in this institution because i love the house of representatives is indeed an honor and privilege for me to serve in this great chamber in spite of all the arguments that we have here from ocracy works i remember mr speaker that dick gephardt once told me that the arguments that we have here in this great body is a replacement for war and that in fact is the case this system even while they get ugly at times is a great system that we have in this great country we love our country and we love our government because the government is here to serve the people and when that doesn't act right we need to do something about it we need to restore the confidence of the house of representatives back to the people of the united states and in that i introduced a bill to try to store that confidence again vote the american people this bill that i've introduced will replace the present ethics committee as we know it today right now the ethics committee consist of sitting members of congress and it's very difficult for colleagues to investigate fellow colleagues naturally very difficult this bill will replace that committee system with former members of congress who are not lobbyist giving people like all let's say leave hamilton an opportunity to serve in this capacity who can kind of take a step away from the members and do the investigations that have to be done so that we can restore honor and integrity to this great body i think it's a good idea i've talked to several members and already have several members who have become co authors with me on this important piece of legislation that will be six members appointed by the speaker on the democratic side and six speakers appointed by the republicans by the majority leader on their side they will serve no longer than three terms because they will have the opportunity to do the job that city members cannot do and so i think it's a very important piece of legislation we need to make sure that the people who are on this committee have institutional knowledge of this great body and as former members who are not lobbyists they have that institutional knowledge to do the work that has to be done that's so difficult to be done now so i hope those who are listening in on their television sets in their offices here in washington d c take the opportunity to call my office to get on this bill and start the process  claire column entitled the third third is believed to be the longest running uninterrupted features column on aging in any major newspaper in america nothing in the last twenty two years not illness surgery birth death computer up cations hurricanes nothing stops claire mitchell from offering her unique weekly perspective on the aging of america week after week claire's column has offered us wisdom guidance insight and gentle chuckle her book a collection of her columns was entitled seeing the world through rose colored by focal tony waning playwright tony winning playwright carol conceived a musical based on claire's line at our age we don't buy green bananas but clair mitchell has been far more than a columnist she's been a public relations person who represented everyone from ann landers to eleanor roosevelt she marched with dr martin luther king jr she had her own radio show and she was an artist a minute before mainstream america understood what that meant claire was a coordinator of women concerned for broward county's human relations division for ten years and a co founder of the older women's league she was chosen feminist of the year by the broward commission on the status of women and was inducted into the broward county women's hall of fame and through it all she has been a devoted wife and mother in her column marking her eighty fifth birthday recently claire offered this observation today i am a woman of eighty five asking the same question everyone asks following such a statement where did the years go by answering with a lot of living each day on each occasion when there was a question of whether to do something i chose yet no regret for what i did just what i didn't do when others hesitate did i volunteer mostly it was the right decision leading me to an activity that i enjoyed this has been the underlying message with the speaker of each of claire mitchell's weekly writing for the last twenty two years keep living every day to its fullest no matter what age you are with that it's easier i paid tribute to claire mitchell who shoulders are strong enough to have supported thousands of women by sharing with them her pearls of wisdom this is true for i also rise today in recognition of national women's history month as we wind down to the last day of this month on saturday march thirty first first let me start off by saying how honored i am to be a part of the hundred tenth congress which both ninety women members serving in both the house and the senate with this year's theme of generations of women moving history forward it is my honor to recognize some very special women in my district the twentieth congressional district of florida who have done and continue to do their part to advance the women's movement today i cross with difficult tensions to a particular group of women who volunteer their time at the jack and jill trials and center in fort lauderdale florida the jack and jill children's center is a nonprofit organization that provides family oriented early childhood education and support to strengthen working families the center has a volunteer grandparent program whose mission is to engage older adults in volunteer services to meet critical community needs and enrich the lives of volunteer jack and jill clan parents have the important job of interacting with little children whether the time choose serving meals patting back that now time or sitting with a child and practicing writing their name these grandparents provide each child with a special relationship that he or she may not otherwise with this exact of the grandparent program is a feature is attributed to its mutually beneficial nature to both the participants and children who receive the care many of the programs grandparents are working with their own grandchildren who will grow up in a loving loving educational environment fostering a stronger sense of community work ethic and successful life these amazing women  myrick early and got any well it's mostly in victor garber are good elizabeth dorothy johnny daniel maria monte margaret lewis and alberta brown they collectively averaged seventy five years of age and have been an active participant of our south florida community all of their lives some of whom even attended grade school together are providing a better life for our nation's working single and low income mother jack and jill grandparent program is moving women's history forward with the speaker our speaker nancy pelosi exemplifies that a woman can do a job that any man can i thank her for her service to our nation and thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell america about some of the women in  mrs mccarthy from new york without objection ladies organize for five minutes to this afternoon to complete what has been an important journey that this house has taken as i do that might i also make mention and celebrate that this is women's history month and salute the women members of the united states congress and particularly salute and offer my admiration for our new speaker of the house nancy pelosi the same time i want to pay tribute to my mother i believe the jackson and my late aunt and all the women in my family and also m especially pay tribute to the sheer ols of the eighteenth congressional district they are certainly strong and they certainly have invested not only in houston texas the kind of strength that women have exhibited exhibited as strong americans i'm also quite enthusiastic about the fact that we will soon have the bus of an early suffragette in legislation that just passed and was signed by the president that i authored along with senator clinton and the other body and that is the bust of sojourner truth and a woman's suffrage it we have come a long way but we have a long way to go so i simply wanted to capture a very briefly the journey that we took last week this body voted two hundred eighteen votes for the emergency supplemental that would set our timeline to bring our troops home men and women who have been on the front lines in iraq who will come home now with dignity and success because the military benchmarks have been met saddam hussein of been the polls there's been no travel through the week we've passed hurricane recovery legislation that was never passed in the last congress and now we have a budget that depends on merica it promotes up firefighters and law enforcement officers it provides middle class tax credits like the child tax credits a marriage penalty relief it fixes and look forward to fixing the alternative minimum tax it protects the middle class it engages working america by providing health care for all of america's children fifty billion dollars in this budget and what concerns me just as speaker is although i believe in democracy what concerns me is when my friends on the other side of the aisle continue to play procedural game you just saw just a few minutes ago the objection to setting the time for us to come back after the work recess the repeating of the revolving of votes over and over again dilatory tactics so that this body cannot move forward and pass legislation albeit that over the last ten to twelve years that i've been here under this majority they couldn't get after the tragedy of nine eleven a real nine eleven bill passed we did it in the first twenty days they couldn't cancel medicare prescription drug bill that wouldn't hurt the senior citizens who are still trying to find out how can i pay and leap over the donut hole they couldn't do it and we are doing it all over and over again monies would come back into the federal government because of the poor structure of the exchequer the state health insurance program for children they weren't prepared to fully fund it and we are the collapse and debacle of leave no child behind that disrespect teachers and takes learning away from children they could not fix it but we are going to fix it so my instruction to my friends as we go home for passover and easter and other religious holidays that we will commemorate a season  come back with the attitude of working for america and not for yourself come back with the attitude of being respectful to the process of democracy the majority represents the american people now and american people want change not declaring they want b partisanship not divisiveness and when you have a budget that fully fund defense but yet allows us to be able to be compassionate with the heart and support the american dream then gently with the dilatory tactics  speaker i thank you for allowing me this time i hope when we return we will be the bipartisan congress and move america forward the democrats have taken the leadership we're doing the right thing and all that and i want to thank them for all their work i yield back mr schiff california mr sarbanes maryland under the speakers and i was policy in january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from florida mr me is recognized for sixty minutes as a designee of the majority leader thank you so very much mr speaker is honored to address the house as you know the working group to come to the floor to share good information with the members and make sure that we're all informed on what's happening in this new direction congress also takes for us to understand our future we have to go into our past and we try not to dwell on that too much but when there's examples of leadership and courage we want to identify and eliminate the  leaders shifted many that a majority of members of the house have already taken today's vote the passing this budget resolution by the house is a perfect example of our priorities as we move through the process as you know they will become will come a time when the senate and the house will get together in conference and we will send our our budget to the president and hopefully we can all come to common ground on behalf of not only domestic priorities but also and to national priorities and how we're seen in the world this is a friday for us here in congress because this is now the clo legislative business and it's we're going to be all for the next two weeks from washington d c but we'll be back in our districts working very hard talking with our constituents many members will take this opportunity to share with the members of their community and their districts of the accomplishments that they've been able to make in the last two weeks and they've been quite historical i think with the emergency supplemental even going back to that ten cents a week old and something that we've already s and a bipartisan way i think that's a testimonial to what this hundred tenth congress is going to be about and what we continue to work very hard and making sure that the american people have a chance to see exactly how hard we've been working i think i'm going to have to get my chart that talks about the days that leave work the resolutions that we passed the suspension deals that we've passed compared to previous years and i think it's important when people look at their members of congress and say well are you actually working on my behalf or are you actually what i'm hearing you know from  hundred one congress that it was there were times that you spent more time high out of washington and he's spent in washington and many of our members are hungry to see their constituents because we've been here majority of the leaks working on the side day work week and out of that five day work week there's been a lot that has been accomplished so i'm going to talk about the not only the resolution but i'm also talk about the effort of bipartisan votes that have taken place here on the floor and the accomplishments of being here in washington d c and having hearings i think that's important i think that the american people need to be fully aware we talk about iraq in the same light we're talking about the work just on the twenty ninth which is today the total deaths in iraq three thousand two hundred forty three that's a ten to ten am numbers wounded return back to duty thirteen thousand four hundred seventy three that number continues to change mr speaker and wounded not returning back to duty is ten thousand eight hundred forty one  why do i get those numbers out i give those numbers out to make sure that all of the members understand that this work is very very serious this number is changing because just today an armed services committee we had a a hearing on on guantanamo that has a connection to the efforts against terrorism throughout the world but oversight accountability hearings on iraq of one hundred four at the last documented number i know and we get back to the break this calendar will be updated although we have a  issues of cleaning up washington d c making sure that america is safer hearings that we've had making sure the american dream is possible for everyone and we've had a number  mr speaker of bipartisan votes here on this floor that really meant a lot to americans and we start looking at the the issue of the minimum wage when you have eighty two republicans  voting under the new direction congress and democratic control congress voting for an increase in the minimum wage that means that there's been the will and the desire to do so over the years but they haven't had the opportunity to do and it is that leadership to to move in that direction also making college more affordable when you look at one hundred twenty four votes that have taken place you have some republicans one hundred twenty four republicans that have joined democrats and voting insight and the vision of this new direction congress in allowing members of this time receive those on something that will be beneficial to their constituents but also meeting merchants the needs of the country and iraq and afghanistan and i think it's very very important that we understand that when we go on break there's going to be a lot said because we won't be here in washington have the opportunity come to the floor of course it ministr will have you know two weeks of an opportunity to speak from the podium without a response or an official response outside of member sitting press releases out but when you look at this resolution it makes sure we have in place of dealing with the veterans issues we have in place making our commitment as it relates to defending the homeland i see in the homeland security committee and we start talking about making sure that the levees are in place that we never see another katrina in our lifetime not under our watch and holding our commitment to the to the men and women in the gulf coast i think it's very very important and something that we have to continue to work on another piece of legislation we passed within the last two weeks a wounded warrior assistance act and response not only to the scandal walter reed but also make sure that we can assure the troops and veterans that they will receive quality care this is a bipartisan piece of legislation something that we should be very proud of the american people should be proud of and will continue to move in that direction of being of grass of on these issues when you deal with the issue of u s troop readiness i met with the command sergeant major of the army reserves just today mrs speaker in my office and he talked about a number of the issues that are still not being addressed on behalf of reservists but i can tell you that was that the refreshing part of that conversation was that i could go to the wounded warriors at wounded warrior assistance act of of two thousand and seven to say that help is on the way i was able  to point to the concurrent resolution that we that we passed our first action in january but we put three point six billion dollars in the veterans health care so that his soldiers when he goes out in the field to speak to the soldiers he can say that and new day is coming i talked about the budget resolution prior to this budget resolution passing here on the florida largest increase in investment in veterans assistance health care assistance or in the v a period in history of the v a i was able to talk to him and under those terms and under that flag of accountability oversight and making sure that we are accountable to the men and women there serve our country and i can tell you that it was received with with great appreciation from him i think it's important as we start looking at that action of growing the economy that's in this budget and it's going to be very very helpful to us all making sure that our economy is is moving in the right direction and will be here for all levels of economic classes we started we start looking at the children that are being assisted through this budget as we continue to march through this process as you know they'll be a house and senate conference they'll be members pulling and different directions to make sure that the priorities are met when it's all said and done children are being protected and i know that speaker will be having a summit on children  coming up pretty soon that will allow us to even further look at the needs of children in the united states of america what does this mean to economy mr speaker means an awful lot means if you have healthy children you have less days you have fewer days of parents having to take off work to take them to the doctor or to stay home and try to do what i call drugstore medication going to see what they can buy over the counter to be able to get that makes at that to help their children rebound from whatever health element that i may have but with this budget that we passed and making sure that every child in the united states of america have an opportunity a universal health care something is very very important i can from a state twelve percent over twelve percent of the kids are without health care i think is very very important that we focus and stand behind our commitment to america's children and making sure that we provide the funding to make sure that they all have universal health care and it's going to be good for our economy it's going to be more days the children will be in school and we have healthier children we have healthier families and we have healthier economies i mean a healthy economy chip you look at the investment of what we just made here on this vote here on the floor two thousand and eight that's twenty twelve you'll see in the billions of dollars that the republican budget or the president's budget is two point billion dollars increase over the next up and up until twenty two thousand and twelve but then if you look over a little further you'll look at the budget resolution we just passed and that's a fifty fifty billion dollars increase as we move into two thousand and twelve so we've already laid out that we have the will and the desire to do so and that we're ready to do it and we will be finding necessary resources to do it doing it without without going into without going into deficit spending and that's something that we have passed on the pay as you go if you're going to if you going to if you're going to propose and you're going to pass  you're going to definitely have to show how we're going to pay for it and i think it's also important as we look at the genda and we have a number of third party validators that have endorsed this budget we have a select committee of what we can have committees outside of the budget would select committee on energy independence and global warming panel created to inform congress and the public on energy and the pen climate change as well as developing policies and initiatives to assure progress made and made to reduce dependency on foreign oil this is so very very important mr speaker not only do we have this select committee out there in this budget it reflects our values and investing in the midwest versus the middle east it's a lot cheaper believe me and those numbers that i've read out at the beginning of how many men and women will never come home to their loved ones how many of our of our  men and women that won't be able to return back to battle i think it's important for us to understand that we not only have to conserve but at the same time make sure that we put our money where our mouths are when it comes down to reflect on what not only happened just a few minutes ago but what happened last friday i continue to come back to that since the president is saying that he wants to veto the emergency supplemental and i think it's important that we just look at that just for a moment i was on the floor last night and mr ryan was here and we had an opportunity to talk about what the president really meant when he said that he wanted to veto the emergency supplemental for for our men and women in uniform and i can't and i couldn't help but reflect he's going to veto something and six years of him being in congress or being a president a second since i've been in congress now going to five years i've never heard a president say that i'm a veto something i wonder why well members will make other members vote for the president's priorities the majority was on the republican side and in november the american people said i no longer want that kind of democracy i no longer want the president to be for his original thought to be carried out by the congress without review we have another chart and i want to i want to make sure that we get that chart the one it talks about how many bills we passed i had  here last night maybe in the back or something and staff can grab it for me it was from the clerk's office because it talked about the days that we worked to this point the bills that we passed to this point because i think it would be very very revealing th congress last session did very little and when i mean very little they had very few hearings on many of the issues that are before the congress were taking a lot of time not only members of congress but also the staff here in the house of representatives on both sides of the aisle because the days have been accelerated and the fact that we are actually having to have three committee meetings in a given day leave alone subcommittee and i think it's important we're going to have an active and functional and infor government that we have to go through the steps and making sure that we're making sound decisions that's ok when you're looking for others to tell you what you should be doing this is my new favorite chart mr speaker because as you know in a working group we love third party validators and we love to give accurate information now and act personally love to give accurate information and i don't i don't ever come to the floor and share with staff or friend how can i go to the floor and g an accurate information you know please help me do that some of the debate it took place here on the budget i was really shocked that a fact that some members would come to the floor and say something that we all know that's not true but this is true hundred eighth congress one hundred one congress and this is one hundred tenth congress this is what i'm you know that was known as the do nothing congress that was with the media called it and a new direction democrat and new direction democratic congress that's what we call only ninety roll call votes that were taken every close out this month they'll be a hundred and eighty nine roll call votes that have taken taken under this congress under his working very functional very informed congress because the fact is the fact is the speaker that we've taken the time to go to a committee to have staff research and have witnesses come to us and share with us where we're going congress seventy two that we voted on democratic controlled congress and then it goes on and on and on and i think it's important even days in session twenty six compared to last year under the republican controlled congress forty eight on the democratic controlled congress why is this important we have two wars going on we have children without health care we have veterans that are waiting six seven months to be able to see a specialist at a v a we have better v a clinics that are open only once or twice of mom why is this important this is important because we have small business men and women in america trying to figure out trying to trying to trying are based on hypotheticals it's important for us to be here members to understand these issues and so as i speak on the importance of of what we've done and what the president is talking the emergency supplemental bill and things that oh well it'll be you know it's those folks in congress is holding it up no we've done our work you have you will have a bill on your desk and i urge you not to veto it on behalf of the people that are counting on us to stand for them it's not us and them it's all of us we're all americans and if there's some things an emergency supplemental that the president disagrees with the sign take those disagreements but don't hold up the necessary resources from the men and women that are in a forward area especially in afghanistan if this is a political conversation i would say this president veto it you have to lie in that bed and those that voted against the emergency supplemental would have to line added to put i would be speaking as some sort of hardcore partisan which i'm not i'm a member the us congress and i think it's important that we look at it americans look at it the same way it's not an issue if you're republican or independent saying well you know democrats no no the people that will suffer the most by the president saying he's going to veto are going to be the men and women in uniform the veterans that have been waiting on accountability out of this congress and it's in an emergency level those americans that have been waiting because of natural disaster and they're in emergency state they're ready for their part they're ready for their economy to kick in so they can start providing for their families it's going to be those individuals that are going to suffer so let's take the personalities out of it you have to be for the emergencies that are facing this country emergency supplemental is very very important to this country and should not be allowed to be used as a political football so i would ask for the president to reconsider his original thoughts of voting against vetoing the emergency supplemental i think sonia there's going to be a discussion this is speaker as it relates to the budget resolution we just passed they'll be threats in rumors of threats about what the president won't stand for but there has to be a paradigm shift because the american people have made a paradigm shift in november you had republicans and independents voting for democrats because they wanted to accountability they wanted oversight they wanted to move in a new direction and they wanted to make sure that they had a government that important provisions rejecting the president's policy that have them pursue for more than four years now let's just say this very quickly is the closing of this letter because you know we can go on from the beginning but we talk about  introduce the record entered this into the record last night and it's no need to do it today but i think it's important that everyone understands where we're headed and what we've then we know the past four years that there's been not one to escalation levels of u s troops and iraq and we know a third one just took place recently and asked escalation of troops in every last escalation is shown the same very little as it relates to making sure that iraq is a safer place to be and it's still a very dangerous place person is asking for more time but usually when you do when you have three strikes you're usually out but as we start looking at this it's important that the members pay very close attention that it's in the american people and it goes furthermore to say that the provisions of based on statements by general for and other senior military leaders that there's no military solution in iran no military solution in iraq so to say that one hundred forty plus thousand troops two hundred thousand troops though are going to get to the bo line is the more the more and more the better that's not necessarily what the military commanders have said what is the iraq study group say they say we have to find a diplomatic resolution and that we have to find some sort of redeployment plan of u s troops that can't be there forever great britain has already said that they're pulling out other they may call the coalition of the willing but i must add that you would assume that great britain would be the second largest coalition in iraq right now no it's actually u s contractors it's almost being led the whole a burden is said that they're going to move their headquarters overseas to  try to contain a civil war but rather a bipartisan bipartisan majorities in the house and senate the least strongly that the u s mission should be a transition to a counterterrorism force and that's what we must do and i think it's very very important that this message is loud and clear and i don't think that that the will of the desire of the majority members of the house and the will of the desire of the majority members of the senate will change on this issue because polls have indicated not only the poll that was taken in january because that was all about iraq and some other issues in accountability and ethics but the poll that was just taken over the weekend of how t american people felt about the action of this congress there with this one hundred eighty years and what took you so long well the thing that took us so long was not necessarily this congress is a rubber stamp congress so someone please floor you and beg you call the white house and tell the president can either get out of washington post and i give you a copy and tell the president just because you say it doesn't necessarily mean the american people are going to follow you i'm saying that you know they're holding money you think the american people don't believe for one minute when you have emergency supplemental what accountability measures in it following what the department of defense deployment rules and regs of men and women when they circulate out of theater you have bureaucrats right now in the pentagon that students enlisted reservists in some instances national guard return back home their turn around within one hundred fifty days and going back into the ater for another twelve fifteen months of their soldier seven to seven to ten months of their merengue they're an air force that may go from three to four or five or maybe up to a year not because no one believes that that's the case and here's a president on the front page you know trying to play the blame game and point fingers that's not what this is about and the reason why i'm speaking very in a in a  very firm voice on this issue is that this is not politics this is saying let's work together let's make sure that this is not about a stare down of who's going to slant first it's not about it's not about who you know talk to tail in the de lay eggs and who won because we all win and we give the men and women what they have to do so this has accountability measures in saying that troops will not be deployed outside of what the department of defense own rules and regulation obviously they've been defending those rules how do you say to a soldier or marine an airman a sailor that we're going to get into rules when it works for the benefit of the pin is on or the administration when it comes down to what you're supposed to do or not been anything new that you're going to hold you to that we're going to hold you to the nine of what you're supposed to do that is not american that is not there so this congress has stood up on behalf of those individuals and said that we're going to hold not only department of fence feet to the fire but the ministration feet to the fire on this issue in law and this emergency supplemental you don't spend the money these are rules you're going to live by also goes in and talks about the whole issue of readiness making sure that our men and again i told you that i met with the sergeant major the highest enlisted man or woman an army reserve just this morning and there he was sharing with me the level of training that his men and women in reserve units have not received because of the fast rotation the lack of emphasis on training and readiness this is fresh information this is not fresh we already knew this but he just validated even more that just coming and saying this is an issue we just passed this budget so you know it's a you know the president i'm going to move in a new direction and making sure that our men and women have what they need and they're trained that's something that we need to talk to him about we need to talk to him about it we don't need to say you're wrong or do it you know we want to watch you want to see you do it if you do it it's going to cost you politically this is beyond pot we're far beyond politics right now it goes further into increasing the v a and assisting those men and women that are coming back and it also looks at states that are that kids their children we three reflect in our budget when we want to do but we're children the money will run out for children's health care in certain states here in this country if this emergency supplemental doesn't go through and i think it will happen prior to the next budget act when the bill i know mr ryan came down  was getting ready to to join me but i think that i don't want to move into the second and he shared with me that he wanted to share with you but as we start to continuing to look at the president and hopefully moving into the i'm not going to take a thunder but as we start to look at the interest payments on the debt of what is happened in the past and where we have to have the paradigm shift and where this budget resolution starts paying on the debt right here in the billions and this is what the congress invested in education and truth education next to that investment in veterans and the billion the very low billions under one hundred billion versus the debt homeland security you know a lot of chest beating going on down here on the floor of our homeland security protecting the homeland that's kind of one of those things mr ryan it comes in behind i love the troops protect the homeland protect the homeland previous congresses previous budget chairman and committees did not set their priorities give them a good speeches look down here homeland security that's the investment that's made in homeland security versus paying down the debt why is this chart important to write it's important because our priorities are now changing to no deficit spending pay as we go and that's going to be painful mr speaker i mean tell you right now our really feel the pain it's going to be painful gentleman but if we're going but if we're going to make sure that we do what we're supposed to do as members of congress and we whole our word as members of congress tom democrats and soundman all members of congress then we will pay because foreign to foreign debt this administration and republican rubberstamp congress previous previous it is congress put on this country on the back to this country will have other countries looking us under a different light mr ryan is and you probably did i probably borrowed twenty dollars from me every now and then but i'm  candy i give you here's a hundred and i'll pay you pay you on friday on pay day in the month and i see you two weeks after that payday and i'm coming i'm going to you know this right i want to talk to you about what you thinking in your mind it's not what i want to talk to you about or the paper that i'm put in front of you you think you are a holy you owe me money a happy you come to me with a straight face and start telling me which is what i should be doing which you think you want to talk to me about well start on foreign debt hill we'll get we'll get it but we have we have a we love start here and i can we going to be viewed on the world stage how do we rebound from that here's my chart right here we can chart people in business china japan leading the pack there u k the caribbean taiwan opec countries that include iran i mean include iraq to iran venezuela you look at korea hong kong and germany now again mr bryant how do how do we look these countries in the eye and say we want you to do this a certain way when we owe them money so how do we get ourselves out if we get mr speaker that was a joke but as i listen to the debate over the past couple of days we heard a lot about you know we got to do from our republican side you know this is about the kids and you've got to do this for the kids and everything i'm thinking to myself as i'm listening to this debate that it was the republican congress since one nine hundred ninety four opposed as post bill clinton when they got out of control in the last six years with president bush republican house republican senate republican white house that garnered almost three trillion dollars more of debt for our country as you just pointed out now if you're concerned about the kids the first thing you don't want to do is leave them in a worse position than even you're in and quite frankly if we keep going down the same road that that that the republican led congress and president steered us down that's a road of debt and deficits and borrowing money from china and japan and opec countries and some of our best emergency supplemental bill for iraq and afghanistan and for our veterans on a veto it is something he never said before mr speaker all the while all of this debt was being built up on the future generations of americans and our children and grandchildren that are children of republicans and democrats and independents and those that are thinking about voting present never once said how many of the two a matter that every bill that was passed and rubber foreign nations there's some we have issues with ominous sign a matter of fact science so many bills on can i have another piano ran out of now to say that i'm going to veto something that has accountability measures in it the problem is not additional dollars for the merchants the needs of americans this is speaker the problem is the fact that the congress if it after for now five years in iraq that will no longer going to be the say nothing here nothing do nothing congress that we're going to have a say and we are representing we're sitting here and federalize the people of united states of america to make sure they have a voice and that we have accountability appreciate and one of the other critiques we heard last night and today and about the democratic budget is more government spending they want the government to spend the money instead of the resolution continuing resolution from last year for veterans spending that increase is government spending because we've got up on health care because it was for veterans because it was the government that sent the veterans out now i'm not saying that every dollar the government spends was good but i remember last year under the republican budget and the year before under the republican budget passed by a republican house passed by a republican senate signed by a republican  white house that gave fourteen or fifteen billion dollars in subsidies to the oil companies that was government spending and our friends on the other side weren't very critical when when public tax dollars was going the corporate welfare for the oil companies when they were at the time of the greatest profits they've ever made that's government spending and what we're doing not raising taxes same revenues as the president's budget had we're going to reprice or ties that money and we're going to take that money and we're to spend it on our veterans we're going to invest that money in education and increase the pell grants almost forty six hundred dollars we're going to take that money and cover thousands and thousands and thousands of more kids under the s chip program the state children's health insurance program that's the difference between these two budgets and when the president says he's going to he's going to veto th supplemental bill that's going to get us out of iraq you know what else he's vitola mr meek we want over this one point seven billion dollars increased over the president's recommendation for veterans health care that's in the supplemental bill that he says he's going to veto one point seven billion above the president's request for defense health care for our soldiers president says he's going to veto that five hundred million dollars in there for post traumatic stress disorder for the soldiers coming back president says he's going to veto that five hundred million dollars in there for brain injuries and we've both been up to walter reed visiting the soldiers with the brain level of brain injuries that we've never seen in combat five hundred million president says he's going to veto that almost a billion dollars in that supplemental for children's health insurance president says he's going to veto that that's what the president saying he's go veto mr meek so you know we hear a lot about government spending when they hear a lot about the kids you can't send these kids off to war and in many instances adults off the war and then when they come back your argument special interest tax breaks and subsidies to big oil to a number of other high level connected plugged in i know them kind of coke and direct access to the capital direct access to the white house signed a bill and didn't even blink an eye and in this emergency supplemental which is a true emergency mr speaker our men and women need what they need in the field now not next week not two months or three months now now and the real issue is the fact that we're helping in carette seeing the lack of oversight the lack of will and a desire to correct the issues that walter reed hospital which when our troops are injured in a feel some of my lost mr and i've been through the whole track of what happens to a man one of our men and women that are injured in the feel their deal they're dealt with in a field hospital then shipped over to germany they spent some time there their men are back over here to walter reed hospital this new democratic congress that we have here now prior to the walter reed story coming out i need to get my chart on walter reed prior to the wall to re story coming out this congress to the merchant through the continuing resolution that we passed at the end of january because the rubber the rubber stamp worked on some day hundred one congress did not finish the appropriations bills we re prioritize their priorities lost her legs because this country asked her to go and flying a foreign land and iraq and its whole story here to newsweek cover newsweek comes out every week guess what actually say this as they the number of their the newsweek magazine and time magazine a number other weekly periodicals and daily so that we can archive what has happened in the past so we can have a better future this is in right now we're doing an emergency supplemental is a better future for the very people that we're trying to help and for the president say well you know i'm concerned about other things that are in the bill well he wasn't concerned when it was ok for big oil he wasn't concerned about that that's  being that upset i'm so glad we live in democracy and that i'm able to say to i am very concerned and you know one thing because there was an american people to walk up early one tuesday and stood in line at seven am and voted for some representation and m issue of what's in the deal with actually an emergency supplemental and we talk about the accountability measures you can't help but get passionate about in this speaker i mean the vows an intern someone working in the congressman's office and it's he or she voted against the emergency supplemental i would have to get my american spirit will have to come out i mean i know i you know i love the congresswoman congresswoman but this isn't just the right thing to do with the problem so know what we are now looking not only what the supplemental but the the budget that the president presented now we the democratic budget increases the pell grant to at least forty six hundred dollars from a little over four thousand now and as you said we're constrained by the three trillion dollars in debt that was created over the past six years by our friends in the republican party but this democratic budget rejects all of the things that the president recommended here's what the president wanted to do for higher education he wanted to eliminate the perkins loan program i am he wanted to eliminate the federal supplemental opportunity grants and he wanted to eliminate  assistance partnerships that he wanted to completely eliminate and now we're competing with one point three billion people in china and over a billion people in india the key component to economic growth in america in the next decade or two or three or four or probably for the existence of this country is to invest in education and when you look at what the democrats have done in the first one hundred hours we cut student loan interest rates and half are both parent loans and student loans and here we are in our budget and we raised the pell grant in the in the c r as well and here we are raising again the limit for the pell grants a forty six hundred dollars that's investing in education and when you look at the billions of dollars we're going to put in the children's health care to make sure that every kid in the united states of america has access to health care those are investments that are going to pay off in the long term and that's going to lead to a strong america strong economic growth in our friends on the other side and i don't want to talk too much about this but it's been levied against us that the democratic budget is somehow going to raise taxes we have the  for policy economic policy and we have the concord coalition three independent folks who have said we're not raising taxes and i'm going to tell you why we're not raising taxes right now we're going to fix the alternative minimum tax it's been creeping into the middle class and we're going to provide twenty three million americans with a tax cut because we're not going to allow the a m t to go in and creep into their tax levels not only does a budget not raise taxes we include tax relief with the child tax that stays on marriage penalty relief stays on ten percent bracket tax deduction stays on and  state and local taxes all in this bill and i want to say one further thing on the tax issue mr make that the same people claiming that the democrats are raising taxes are the same people that said that there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq they were the same people that said that it would only cost us fifty billion dollars in iraq and were already is a five hundred billion dollars mark they were the same people that said we would be greeted as liberators they were the same people that said they'd be handing roses out to the americans same people same president that said mission accomplished you know the same person that said we're in the last throes vice president comments on the war so they're the same people saying that we're raising taxes and all i want to do to say to the members is this the american people can reserve judgment on whether or not this budget out that we know it doesn't but they can reserve judgment keep your zero six tax returns keep your zero seven tax returns make copies of them and next january and february march april when you get your taxes back you compare your own way tax returns to your zero six year old seven and you will see that there is absolutely no difference and then you can add that those comments that we've been getting here mr make over the past couple days you can add that to the column of weapons of mass destruction and last throes and mission accomplished  that comment on the taxes and put it in the column of the list of all the other issues that have been and some ways misrepresented here on the house floor and across the country so i'm proud of this budget i'm proud that the democratic budget invest fifty billion dollars to cover children i'm glad we're investing in the veterans health care and those are things that need to be done there are those aren't things that individual families can do those are things we can only do collectively mr make as a society as a community and i'm so proud that you've had the opportunity to come down here and lead this debate as we're beginning to wrap up mr meek i think it's important to say that the democrats have heard the call from the american people in the november election the country wanted to go in another direction and that's that's really what we've done the my friend you know mr ryan i'm you know it's  very interesting and i'm glad you know my grandmother used to say sometimes things like our grandmother used to say sometimes i'm so glad that i live long enough to say that sometimes even in the you know as i go from day to day you know you know not to say thank god for life i mean that's was you to say was i am glad god allowed me to live long enough but i'm so glad that god allowed me to live long enough to see the paradigm shift that is now taking place here in washington d c see accountability see a new direction see oversight and see us sharing in that accountability sharing and making sure that we have you know making cuts and and having to reform to leave give us the opportunity to lead and now that leadership is happening so mr ryan key pointed out this keep sharing good accurate information let's continue to cite the congressional mean to go to the congressional record let's continue with our third party validators because we love third party validators and the credibility and integrity of the hundred ten congress will live on in a bipartisan way mr ryan well i think the american people  will be very glad when they see this budget they're going to be very glad over the past couple weeks and really over the past hundred days of all of the accomplishments led by leader pelosi speaker pelosi and  freshman members in the different aspects of our of our caucus i've never been prouder to be a democrat than in the last couple of weeks on this floor and to pass that resolution last week that's going to get us out of iraq responsibly invest in our veterans make sure they get the kind of health care that they need the first hundred hours where we began to bring some fiscal discipline to the house cut student loan interest rates in half our parents student loans invested in alternative energies invested in the stem cell research some some great advances creating new sectors raising the minimum wage all of this that was done in the first hundred hours and then you add to that the supplemental and in the one point a billion dollars for vets in the additional one point seven billion above the president's request for health care for our soldiers and you add this budget mr make fifty billion dollars it's going to go to the poor kids to make sure that they get health care so they can go out and get up on their feet and go to school healthy ready to learn and move forward and get a good job and pay taxes in advance their families forward break the cycle of poverty these are the kind of investments that we're making an increase in the pell grant the forty six hundred dollars key investment so i'm proud of what's been going on here and it's been a pleasure to rekindle this time to debate that that we have and i really final four where florida gators and the ohio state buckeyes may have a rematch and well i'm just not a rhino everybody in ohio is looking for some revenge well mr ryan i just want to say that the past will speak to under the speaker's announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from maryland mr bartlett is recognized for sixty minutes as the designee of the minority leader as you know then to revise and extend without objection mr speaker i come to the floor today to address two very timely items one is a just released report by the government accountability office entitled crude oil uncertainty about future oil supplies makes it important to develop a strategy for addressing a peak and decline in oil production this report was released today in those cars friends set two o'clock today and so we want to spend some time discussing this report but this is also the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the bipartisan campaign  wanted to take a few minutes to talk about this bipartisan campaign reform act this is the fifth anniversary and two thousand and two with evaded this when we debated this law there were those who looked upon our deliberations as in consequential because they thought that either the president would veto the bill or the supreme court would overturn the law indeed the president didn't veto it because he said that the supreme court would probably overturn at least a major part of the at least a very important part of that law except the president signed the bill and the supreme court upheld it as it turned out the vice president campaign reform the act has great consequences the erosion of americans first amendment rights to freedom of speech with regard to speech the first amendment to the constitution simply states congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to titian the government for redress of a grievance is i think it's just a moment mr speaker to reflect on how we got here in this country and in which our founding fathers wrote this first amendment to the constitution our founding fathers came here primarily from the british isles and the european continent and they change here the to amendments and deed in the first of an that they address their concerns both for the tyranny of the church should make no law or affecting an establishment of religion don't make a state religion and furthermore let people free to worship where they wish and the tyranny of the crown because they wanted to make sure that the people could could say whatever they wished about government was political speech that they most wanted to protect and to understand that you have to go to the second amendment and the second amendment again was to assure that our people would never ever be persecuted across by a central government because they said that every citizen had the right to be a member of the militia and to carry a gun and that they said that this was an ordered says the cure for freedom in our country that every person should have the right to carry a gun so this was a milou in which this amendment was written and the speech of our clowning bothers down the most precious what's political speech and it's just this speech that this unfortunate legislation they nizar people of all rights derive constitutionally the framers devoted little formal recorded debate to freedom of speech it was not until the twentieth century that supreme court actions began to address the definition of free speech until that time the only limitations placed on speech or the press involved slander or libel they felt they didn't have to talk about a cause that was generally understood how important that right was to the people freedom of speech did not generate great debate amongst the founders ugly that this spring it was so basic no link that event or independent editorials were needed one can only surmise that by its prominent location on the bill of rights of the founders agreed that freedom of speech was an obvious right of any citizen the bill of ri designed to address protect rights seems so important that it was necessary to explicitly restrict the government usurping these rights of the people our government serves the people not the other way around you might wonder about that from some of the laws we pass here the concept of freedom of speech depends on truth and opinions expressed openly and honestly by an individual or in association with others like groups is a right of our  founders reserved for us here in america we cherish being allowed to question our government to criticize our government and advise our government and those individuals who are elected or appointed leaders of our government freedom of speech does have limitations you can't falsely shout fire fire in a crowded movie theater to falsely cause panic you can't threaten violence or use fighting words to invoke violence you can't knowingly lie or libel though here there is a higher standard for p and part the decision states discussion of public issues and the debate on the qualifications of candidates are integral to the operation of the system of government established by our constitution the first amendment affords the broadest protections of such political expression in order to assure the unfettered interchange of ideas for their bringing about a political and social changes the zire by the people not my statements the statements of the court they via partisan campaign reform act of two thousand and two chips away at the  interchange of ideas the buckley decision strove to ensure of all the provisions of the campaign reform act i am most concerned with the chilling effect it inflicts on labor unions trade associations and nonprofit organizations these are asians that individuals choose to join the restrictions of these organizations on behalf of their members to engage in issue advocacy under this law must be addressed and reversed the authors of this legislation were so unsure of the campaign reform acts constitutionality that the severability clause was inserted which provided that if any provision of this act is held unconstitutional the remainder of the act would not be affected mr speaker this is hardly the language of a steadfast law but rather language use when treading on shaky constitutional grounds when forging a do dimension or direction of law this change in the wrong direction limits freedom of the leave it needs to be reversed before more laws limiting freedom of speech are adopted and particular bipartisan campaign reform act limits a citizen's freedom of speech and freedom of association by banning specific groups and issue advocacy for elections at precisely the time when that advocacy is most advantageous to effect change in government this is the time when voters are most focused on government and whether they are satisfied with their elected representatives specifically this law bans unions or grassroots organizations and trade organizations from using their general treasury funds to broadcast issue advocacy and advertisements thirty days before a primary and sixty days before a general last year in my home state of maryland due to a september primary date these votes for a band ninety days from advertising before the general election mr speaker few people were thinking about the general election ninety days before that date fortunately there are two courses of action which are currently being taken as in pass congress is i am offering the first amendment restoration act h r seventy one this act simply repealed the most under receptions the vice president campaign reform act of two thousand and two which consort citizens free speech by lifting the current ban on electioneering communications thirty days primary and sixty days before a general election this legislation hopefully may not be necessary on april twenty fifth the supreme court will hear the arguments in the case of wisconsin right to life versus t l had been running grassroots lobbying ads about the filibusters of president bush's judicial nominees the ads informed citizens they could call wisconsin senators called and feingold and ask them to oppose the filibusters this ad did not state the position of either senator or on the filibuster since senator feingold was in a candidate that the r t l had to stop its ad many days before the november election because of the campaign finance reform act which banned electioneering communication center two thousand and six a federal district court in d c held that the ads were constitutionally protected i hope so the case was appealed to the supreme court and members of congress have intervened in the case so that they could argue that the government has every right to restrict foundation of our government and exactly what i found in ca there's tried to protect in this first amendment the people are sovereign and the government may not silence their criticism that is what led to the first amendment mandate that congress should not restrict the people's expression association and dition i understand the goals of my colleagues who support the campaign reform act disclosure and transparency i support these goals this closure how much money was being spent by phone friends parents in identifying the citizens groups which were sponsoring any electioneering communication but i maintain that this disclosure is not for the government to demand from the people but rather for the people to demand from the government disclosure and transparency are better served when it's the government official who should disclose his votes both on the floor and committee his earmarks and his direct campaign contributions over which he exercises complete control it is up to the public to decide motives of elected officials motives of citizens should not be suspect we cannot be afraid of honest debate citizens have the right to express themselves individually or by association the rights of the citizen must be paramount that is why i rise today to speak on this fifth anniversary of victor and to urge support of h r seventy one to repeal its electioneering communication provisions i hope the supreme court will rule these provisions as unconstitutional mr speaker there's another very important thing that happened today as i mentioned as i began and that is the g a o the report is dated february two thousand and seven but it was embargoed until today until our press conference which which released it and i have several charts here from that report and i think that might be a good way to begin because discussion let's look at the first char now i've been to the floor number of times before and i've shown other versions of this stein phenomenon and that is the reality that our country a number of of oil engineers and executives in san antonio texas on the eighth day of march just a little over fifty one years ago and one thousand nine hundred fifty six he predicted that the united states w industrial revolution was in full swing and shell oil company told em to hover it that he should not give that speech because he would certainly embarrass himself and them because he was employed by them he gave the speech anyhow and for fourteen years he was a pariah and then on schedule as he predicted in one thousand nine hundred seventy we reached our maximum oil production and he had indicated that at that point about half of all the oil that we would ever produce would have been produced and the second half which is reasonable would be harder to get and therefore with the produce more slowly it would be downhill after that you notice a little bump on the downhill that little bump of that huge supply of oil  the united that the world would be peaking about now and the question i always ask myself if anything ever it was right about the united states and he gave us the basis of his analysis which was very logical if he was right about the united states and since the united states is obviously a microcosm of the world why shouldn't he be right about the world and if he was right about the world should we have been doing something and  the patient of reaching a maximum oil production of the on which additional oil production with the impossible prices would rise oil sixty five dollars a barrel today and production would inexora decline there's nothing that we have done in the united states to stop that we have drilled more oil wells in the united states than all the rest of the world and still we have not stopped that downward slope just that the next chart that they showed is an interesting contrast and this is a chart from our energy information agency and in spite of the fact that they know seeing however it was right about the united states that we did peak in one thousand nine hundred seventy and in spite of the fact that they know that he predicted that the world should be peaking about now and there is every indication that he may have been right they still are forecasting that the total production of oil which is now they have about eighty it's really i think about eighty five million barrels a day with nothing to go up and up and they have this  clear through two thousand and thirty now they do show that the non apec nations are peaking and will follow that it's true most of those matter fact have peaked and they are falling off but they made their all production will simply go up and up the chances of that is true by the way dr la a rare who has written a couple of books on this subject says it's absolutely impossible considering the vastly improved techniques we have for finding all they are predicting that we will find as much more oil as all of the reserves now known to exist in this country they're going to find at least that much more oil the next chart  is a compilation of a number of of authorities and there for the actions of when peaking will occur some of them have very narrow projections a number of people think that peaking has  already occurred others have gross uncertainty in their predictions give me any time between now and the next century but if you look at the preponderance of these most of these authorities believe that seeking will occur or could occur before twenty twenty now of course this kind of a consensus by the world's leaders is grossly inconsistent with the charge that we just saw where our inner for nation agency reserves by political risk they point out in this very good report and they have their very credible organization which is why i asked them to do this report a bit more than a year ago and i'm pleased that it's out now because they do have a lot of credibility and when the g a o speaks people tend to to listen they know that there are a lot of uncertainties about when the peak will occur and probably the biggest uncertainties have less to do with how much oil is under the ground rather with and so they list here the high political risk the medium political risk and the low political risk you see here that about two thirds of all the oil in the world is in countries where their judgment and the judgment of experts which they quote either high risk or medium risk indeed the night before last when anglin and iraq were kind of yelling at each other over the sailors that iraq has taken the oil jumped up four dollars now it quieted down by yesterday morning and saw oil was up only a bit more than a dollar yesterday but this shows the volatility of the market relative to the political uncertainty in these in these areas the next truck is a really interesting chart and it shows another risk and that is and vestment risk of venture capital is unwilling to invest in places where they may lose their capital a country for instance which now will permit the venture capital but tomorrow they decide they're going to nationalize all the oil fields and then you've lost all of your investment and so they are listing this by high and medium and low by the way for about a third of all of the places that oil comes from there is no foreign investment also no foreign visibility we just have to go by fa there reserves because they won't let our people then you can't make any investments there but i think you're about eighty five percent of all the oil in the world yes in their view high and medium risk so when you add the political risk in the investment risk you have a lot of uncertainty as to how much you're going to be able to produce in the future and this is added to the uncertainty of how much is there and when we will in fact reach that maximum capacity for producing oil the next chart is an interesting one and i should have brought another one that shows it in a very quite that way by showing what the world would look like if the nations a size was determined by how much oil they have and of course we are worse than that because saudi arabia has many many times as much oil as we we represent a fourth of the world's economy and we have two percent of the world's oil we use of course of the world's oil import almost t two thirds of what we of what we use here they have the oil in the non opec nations and the oil in the saudi arabia look of big saudi arabia is and then the rest of the opec nations and then they go with a lot on this stuff over here so you can see who else is involved in the opec nations notice that what the over three fourths of all the oil is controlled by opec nations and  of fourth of all of that oil comes from saudi arabia alone the next chart is a really interesting one and this shows the two bars here and one these are the top ten companies on the vases of oil production and reserve holdings now these reserve holdings are sort of if the the cause for most of these countries are little or no transparency and they really won't  let us look at their at their data but we do know who is producing oil and here we see that they guys like exxon mobil and royal dutch shell and b p and so forth are producing twenty two percent of well and saudi arabia a bunch of national companies are producing seventy eight percent of the oil but look at the next borrower that shows you who owns the oil ninety eight percent of all that oil is owned are big guys here that are pumping it they don't own any of it they have leases they don't own the oil the oil is all owned by mostly opec middle east countries and there they have the top and it got out of the shaded grey because luke oil i don't know if luke oil is private or whether it's whether it's a nationalist a huge oil company and and russia well this points to the problems that we have and these problems encourage thirty of our prominent citizens  boyden gray and jim woolsey and the farland and twenty seven others a couple of years ago to write a letter to the president with these facts in mind saying mr president the fact that we have only two percent of their own reserves of oil and we use twenty five percent of the world's oil and import two thirds of what we use and as the president says much of that from countries that don't even like us read down that list this represents a totally unacceptable national security risk and mr president we really need to do something about that well the next chart is the one that i stop with a couple of weeks ago when i was on the floor here and i want to spend the rest of the time that we have today and talking about this chart and indeed we could spend a couple of weeks talking about the chart because what this looks at is the a potential alternatives to these fossil fuels i would like to mention that there are several groups that have common cause in this area al gore came to the congress last week i believe it was and testified before obviously aipac committee room he believes that we have indeed i think a majority of of our citizens and a majority of scientists now believe that we have global warming you may or may not agree with with whether our earth is warming or not but if you believe that  that we have a national security risk because they get too much oil from overseas or if you believe that it simply may not be there because we the world will peak out there won't be enough oil because the demand keeps going up at about two percent exponential growth then you would want to do anyhow exactly pretty much exactly the same things that those people who believe that we have global warming want to do they want to get away from the fossil fuels because what we're doing is using these fossil fuels is releasing carbon dioxide that is but locked up by nature for a very long number of years and we are now releasing that over a very short time period we have about eight thousand years of recorded history in the world and the age of oil from the something that first barrel of oil to pumping the last economically feasible barrel of oil will probably be about three hundred years we're about one hundred fifty years into the age of oil in another hundred fifty years we will probably have transitioned out of the age of oil and gas and coal this is a relatively short time in the history of the world that i mentioned before with the knowledge that was right about the united states and we knew that of a certainty by one thousand nine hundred eighty because when we were already ten years down the other side of hubbert's peak and the reagan administration my second most favored president decided that the thing to do which by the way was totally the wrong thing to do the thing to do was to encourage to give our oil people a profit motive to go out and find oil now you can't find oil that's not there and you can't pump oil you haven't found because they were encouraged to drill and drill they did we now have five hundred and thirty i'm sorry we have zero and then we get the numbers correct five hundred thirty thousand operating or oil wells in our country that is more oil wells than drilled in all of the rest of the world that drilled and drilled and if you have a plot that compares drilling with production you will see that there was little or no increase in production as a result of this drilling because it was one hundred eighty were already ten years on the other side one hundred speaking you can't pump was not there and then seeing how it was right and we couldn't reverse that by drilling more wells so now we are faced or will vary very shortly in the future with the reality that we can't pump more oil that we will have reached peak oil and as you saw a majority of all the experts in the world believe that the that is either present or imminent so they were going to look for alternatives to this now i know that for the last several years we have had some programs in congress where we have been sponsoring green things like corn ethanol and so forth and this is supposed to free us from our large dependence  on fossil fuels there are some finite resources these our cost will fuels but they're not the oriole that we ordinarily or gas or coal the ordinarily exploit and they are exploitable and we will get some energy from them how much is yet to be determined let me mention some of those there are the tar sands in alberta canada these are huge reserves they represent as much potential of oil as all the known reserves of oil in the world perhaps more than that so why should we worry since there's that much there they are now aggressively exploiting those fields they have a shovel that lifts a hundred tons of the time they dump it into a truck that hauls four hundred tons and they haul it to a big cooker where they cook it and this oil which is too stiff the flow now is heated up so it will flow and some some short chain volatiles are added to it so it will continue to flow when it is when it is cooled and they are now producing about a million barrels a day boy a million barrels a day i can hardly count to a million that sounds a lot like a lot and it is a lot but it's just barely over one percent of the eighty four or eighty five million barrels a day that our world produces and our world consumes and they are using enormous amounts of energy from what we call stranded natural gas natural gas is stranded when it's in a place where there aren't very many people and since natural gas is hard to transport it's very cheap there and so we say it's stranded so they have some cheap gas there and they're using this gas and i' told everything you're told is not true but i'm told that they may be using more energy from the natural gas and they're getting out of the oil but from a dollar and cents respected and makes good sense because it takes them somewhere between eighteen and twenty five dollars a barrel to make the oil and it's selling that i think for about sixty five dollars a barrel so that's a pretty good markup but the profit ratio you really should be looking at is the energy profit ratio how much energy you get out per unit of energy that you put in and they may be getting out less than they put in they know that what they're doing now is not sustainable for two reasons one is the natural gas there will not last i mean to be talking about natural gas we have peaked and natural gas in our country that stunned us it was a couple of years ago we reached our maximum production of natural gas we thought that was way off in the future but reached out a couple of years couple of years ago they know the natural gas will run out so they're talking about building maybe a nuclear power plant there to get energy to cook this oil that another problem looms this vein if you can think of it as a vein is now near the surface or on the surface and so they're in effect mining it with huge pits and they have a huge lake they call it the paling lake it's really pretty knoxy stuff their environment is very concerned about it but soon this vein will duck under and overlay and economic that it won't be able to take off that overlay so what they're going to have to do is to develop it in site to and that yet don't know economically whether that's doable or not so although there are potentially enormous amounts of energy available there how much can we really get out net energy now we may be getting out less than nothing that energy it putting in more energy from natural gas and we're getting out of the oil of the natural gas is stranded it's hard to ship in eight or less and in high demand and so it makes a dollar and cents sense to do this then we have the oil shales and they're a little different they're not just a very heavy oil it's bound in iraq and it can be released with heat and pressure and these reserves primarily in colorado and utah  perhaps as large as the tar sands in alberta canada so why aren't we sand going about our future since we have a lot of this in our country none of this has really been economically exploited so far in the last few years shell has conducted an interesting experiment there they have gone in and drilled a number of holes and problems and those those to kind of make a pros and vessel because they don't want this oil they're producing to leak out to contaminate awkward for years and then they cook it for a year drill some other holes in the middle and cook it for a year and they have gotten meaningful amounts after some process and because it doesn't start out as a oil they get some meaningful amounts of oil from it but you know how much can we surge that you know how much will it cost to build what is really the energy profit ratio from that of the news accounts of this have been much more optimistic than the shell oil scientist who gave a report in denver colorado a couple of years ago that i attended and he said i think that it would be two thousand and twelve or thirteen before they even knew whether the economically feasible to develop those oil shales the way they a developing them potential is an enormous amount of energy there let me note also that there's an incredible amount of energy in the tides the mon lives the whole ocean but two or three feet i carry two five gallon buckets of water and they're heavy this is a lot of energy so why should we worry about the future we got all that energy from the tides the reason the worry is that it energies out there but it's frightfully difficult to harness that there's an old adage that says energy to be constant to the useful must be concentrated and it's certainly not concentrated in the pods and we have huge engineering problems and getting energy out of these oil shales it may be there but it's not something you would want to bet the ranch on the third one is called and if there will be people tell you don't worry about our future we have two hundred fifty years of coal at use right that is true but be very careful when people say at current use rates because if we increase our use of coal only two percent and i submit that we'll have to ramp up its use more than that as we run down the other side of hubbert's peak and more and more energy is needed but if we increase our use of coal only two percent that two hundred fifty years shrinks to eighty five years you have to understand that at two percent increase it doubles that is compound an exponential compound and it doubles in thirty five years it's four times bigger and seventy years it's eight times bigger in one hundred five years the phenomenon albert einstein said was the most powerful force in the univers was asked after the discovery of atomic energy dr einstein what will be next and he said well the most powerful force in the universe is the power of compound interest and that's what we have here in this  well but for most of our uses we can't use co