to extend certain trade preference programs and for other purposes pursuant to the rule the gentleman from michigan mr levin and the gentleman from california mr herger heechul control twenty minutes and the chair now recognizes the free treatment to certain exports from the libya colombia ecuador and for he a t p a program is a program that has been working has benefited the region by providing much needed economic development to these four countries there's also some evidence that it's helped create some alternatives to the illegal drug trade importantly and i emphasize this this is all been accomplished in a way that is more complementary than it is competitive so there have been economic benefits for the four nations and for our nation in fact if you boiling oil products the u s has a trade surplus with the region we export about thirteen billion dollars to these four countries and they export about three billion to  beyond the numbers the composition of the trade is also complimentary with agriculture it's the seasonal nature of the tray crops from these countries tend to be imported when the u s crops export to us apparel made with those u s him puts in fact u s exports of yarn and fabric to the region were one hundred eleven million in two thousand and seven up from fifty eight million in two thousand and two the only apparel that comes in duty free that is not made with us yarn in fabrics is made with materials that we don't have in our country i pin the cotton in a parka it's the complementary nature of this trade that is generated widespread support for the extension of this program including support from the business community and the labor community concerns have been raised about whether ecuador and bolivia are living up to their a t p legations and treating u s investors fairly and the answer is and i wanted to be clear that the administration has the authority to revoke a t p a status to any country failing to meet any of the a t p a criteria and there is a broad range of them including those related to the treatment of investors if this program is not extended it would be mutually just advantage is to both the united states entities for countries i want to emphasize as i did some months ago when there was a an extension we're talking today about the andean trade preference act we're not talking about any other f d a whether the colombia korea or any other place agreement must be decided on its own merits in any respect therefore it would be counterproductive to vote against extending the indian trade preference act i strongly urge time for the implementation of the u s perro trade promotion agreement and for congress to consider the u s colombian trade promotion agreement the short duration of the expansion signifies that congress is concerned with that the terror it ing investment climate for us investors in ecuador and bolivia and that these countries must quickly and completely comply with their international obligations with regard to investment disputes by the andean trade preference program provides important economic benefits to export others in bolivia in colombia ecuador  peru it is not a substitute for moving toward a reciprocal arrangement that also provides benefits to us and exporters congress has already taken the first step in this process bypassing the u s peruke trade promotion agreement now congress must take the next step the passed a us colombian trade promotion agreement madam speaker  speaker i rise to support of shaping globalization to ensure that its benefits are shared more broadly particularly for the vulnerable living in america or in developing countries president kennedy said that american apathy quote would be disastrous to our national security harmful to our comparative prosperity and offensive to our conscience close quote his observation rings true today perhaps more than yesterday globalization is not helping the poor around the world as much it is helping the rich we have a moral obligation to adjust our trade and development policies to reverse th situation the bill before us would extend the program that's an enabling developing countries within our own hemisphere to diversify and grow their own economies the andean trade preference program has enabled the creation of jobs in peru colombia bolivia in ecuador by reducing import tariffs on american bound products from these countries these economies are doing well in part because of the partnership achieved through a t p a so it's important that we extend this program in order not to undo the progress that has been achieved in what can be very economically and political fragile region of our hemisphere this extension while import is a baby step it is imperative that this congress this year examine the need to reform our trade policies to ensure we provide maximum opportunity to the poorest of the world's poor one of six joe in africa where the majority of the world's poor live will die before age reaching age five on a continent where hunger is a key factor in more deaths than those caused by all infectious disease the united states in agreeing to the millennium development goals in two thousand committed to fully opening our markets to less developed countries the least developed countries it's been eight years it's time to act the african growth and opportunity act and the general system of preferences continues to fall short i'm really disappointed that we could not achieve bipartisan consensus on making some modest improvements in g s t and a goal within this bill but i'm confident we'll reach consensus in the future this just better speaker i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from the catholic bishops this letter encourages us to pass the bill before us and pass legislation to improve our trade policies with least developed in conclusion the contrast between the lies led by those in rich countries and those in poor countries is only less scandalous than this congress is apathy if we fail to act i'm looking forward to working  on renewing america's leadership and promoting development around the world the first step in that process is passing h r fifty to sixty four which is before us today i yield back amounts of my time without affection and submission  fan the gentleman from california madam speaker at this time i yield three minutes to the gentleman from illinois mr weller an active member of the ways and means committee and very active in trade particularly in central and you madam speaker and i rise in support of this important legislation bipartisan legislation i notice a ten month extension of the existing trade preferences we grant our friends bolivia ecuador through in colombia what's important about this ten months is it gives a sample opportunity for our friends in peru to work with us to implement the recently ratified through u s trade promotion agreement gives us the opportunity over the next ten months to move forward on ratification of the u s colombia trade promotion agreement of course colombia being our most reliable partner for the united states and latin america but today we want to talk about trade preferences for the andean region you think about it two million families today are watching the united states congress two million families and the four countries in the andean region have jobs and livelihoods depend on the trade preferences trade preferences go away the livelihood for those two million families goes away peru eight hundred thousand jobs have been created by trade preferences colombia six hundred thousand jobs ecuador three hundred fifty thousand jobs bolivia up to one hundred fifty thousand jobs directly and indirectly are created as a result of the andean trade preferences and you think about it what's the alternative this region which is seeking opportunity and thanks to the u s congress and the bush administration we work to create these trade preferences the alternatives if they lose their jobs are become part of the wave of illegal immigration as they seek economic opportunity or to become involved in illicit activity such as the growing of coca and involved the narco trafficking networks they don't want to do that they want good honest jobs and the trade preferences give them that this past week i was part of a bipartisan delegation visit in ecuador in bolivia with my friend eliot engel and others it was a bipartisan delegation we saw firsthand how regular folks little people workers small businesses men and women typically those who in the past have been denied economic opportunity because of the trade preferences the opportunity to export to the u s market have economic opportunity of alo ecuador we met with a woman's cooperate tivo where they they made sweaters and textiles for the u s market we visited those who are involved in call production for the for the purpose of making chocolate and or creating organic chocolates that we consume they can sell in the u s market we of course visited organic coffee growers and we saw how they could take advantage preferences creating jobs in ecuador in bolivia we visited a textile factory jobs and economic opportunity in the point is easily well made without the trade preferences those jobs go away and what's the consequence to america or another wave of illegal immigration people seeking economic opportunity the temptation to become involved in and the growing of coca other crops that are used for narcotics what's really important i think to note is when we talk about what we as americans can do to help lift up our neighbors the trade preferences really work they come at little or no cost to the united states but they create tremendous amount of opportunity in democracies of bolivia ecuador frewen colombia andean trade preference act for another ten months to our friends and allies in bolivia colombia ecuador and better to at some point we're going to find that this congress will move closer to a bipartisan trade agenda because for many years it was absent but i think you see in the seeds of this legislation and the previous actions on the proof free trade agreement the opportunities for us to not only move towards a bipartisan trade agenda but quite honestly a nonpartizan trade agenda where what we're talking about is an american trade agenda that promotes the interests of our workers and of our industries and so that when we reach a hand out to our neighbors whether in our hemisphere or otherwise we're doing this in a way that promotes not just competition healthy competition among our friends but it also makes it possible for us to move forward the thing that will keep the engine of american ingenuity going and so as we try to figure out how to open the doors to the markets of the world to our interests so that our american workers can continue to produce more goods and good goods of excellent quality we will be able to open our door to the goods of other countries where based on a fair trade agenda we can do so and feel comfortable that we are bringing in quality goods that are safe and reliable here in the u s for  whether you're with the labor movement and the a f l cio has come out and supported this extension or whether you're with the u s chamber of commerce which has also come out in support of this i think what we're finding is that the seeds can be planted for us to move forward on trade in a way that leaves out the word party affiliation completely and lets us talk about how the trade agenda for this country for america will be not only advance the benefit so many people in this country who work i believe that this is a chance for us to show our friends in bolivia why they are better that we want to strengthen our friendship with them that we want to increase our ties with our for what purpose the gentleman from california madam speaker i yield now at this time three minutes to the gentleman from texas mr brady again an active member ways and means and the trade  proof to have the transition time to knock the free trade agreement we just worked some porton to buy additional time for us to discuss in ultimately pass climbing free trade agreements and i think it's important for our friends in bolivia next door to understand that that these preferences are temporary that we want a full trading partnership with them in it is important that they take concrete steps to move toward the types  hope was to create jobs away from drug trafficking in these countries and it is worked millions of jobs have been created benefiting not just the indian reason region but the american workers as well but this bill is no substitute for a treaty free trade agreement with colombia today we are allowing these countries to sell duty free almost without restrictions into the united states competing against our workers we're doing that to help pull them pull them toward democracy to stimulate their economy to move them away from trafficking and it is working but what we want ultimately is to a trade we want to believe our factory workers our plant workers our steel workers in texas for example today they can go down to the store and buy products from colombia bolivia ecuador but when we try to sell the products they produce overseas we're not allowed to the barriers exist how is that fair trade how is that fair to the american workers it is to me irresponsible for us to not take up the colombian free trade agreement this is a country with a growing economy a strong ally the united states made remarkable progress on labor violence they are in the midst of a civil war and present your you're a bay is taking commendable steps strong leadership steps to to solidify that country to bring democracy and rule of law to prosecute those violators done remarkable markel progress in the quelling violence against labor leaders and indeed unions productive unions in colombia support this free trade agreement for those who believe america is going it alone far too much in this world it is the com principle we would go it alone without columbia that we would leave them walk away from our commitments in that region it is vital both from an economic standpoint and bille from a security standpoint that we take up and pass the colombian free trade agreement this year with that mr speaker  and bolivia i want to thank chairman eleven and chairman wrangle the dean of our new york delegation for their leadership on this issue this is certainly a bipartisan issue and it's a very very important issue  am the chairman of the western hemisphere subcommittee of the house foreign affairs committee and as chairman of that subcommittee and i believe that the extension of the indian trade preferences is crucial in promoting the development of the economically and politically fragile andean region while at the same time supporting united states geopolitical goals a t p da has been enormously successful as all my colleagues have stated having created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the and region every job created in the andean region as was mentioned before is another potential illegal immigrant remaining in their home country without the extension of a t p d a these jobs which are in sectors that do not directly compete with us jobs will be eliminated i just returned just a few short days ago from leading a bipartisan congressional delegation which included ecuador and bolivia in fact madam speaker i'd ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter that the five of us who were on the trip center around to the rest of our colleagues supporting extension of the andean trade preferences assigned by myself mr weller mr mr green and mrs fox we visited on the trip with produces of flowers broccoli coffee cow and other products and without the andean trade preferences workers in these sectors with undoubtedly lose their jobs leaving them with little option outside of the illegal drug trade or illegal immigration to the united states in bolivia which is the poorest country in south america my delegation met with textile workers whose jobs would also be eliminated without an extension of eighty p d s a many of these workers are indigenous women who are among the most historically marginalized members of society in bolivia and throughout the andean region i truly fear that without the extension a many of the unemployed in the andean region would turn to drug cultivation after they lose their jobs the endian preference program was originally created not only to support economic development in the region but also to divert illegal coca manufacturing towards legitimate industries using these trade preferences as a tool in the drug war is no less important today indeed it is more important well i've been a longtime supporter of a t p to a meeting first hand with the people in ecuador and bolivia who are directly impacted by these crucial trade preferences renewed my commitment to it having visited colombia twice in the past four months i am also convinced that that country along with peru would have a great benefits from this bill we need to be engaged the western hemisphere if we don't we do so at our own peril and so i urge my colleagues overwhelmingly in a bipartisan fashion to please vote for this bill and send a very strong message to our friends in latin america that the united states is a good partner and we can be counted on in time of need it helps them it helps us it's a win for both of us on her i yell back have on our side and i'll close and yes thank you and at this time i yield two minutes to my good friend the gentleman from california a member of the foreign affairs committee i mr royce because a man from california is recognized for two men thank you while i support this legislation we should be doing better much better and unfortunately madam speaker unfortunately many in the majority are undermining our interests throughout the andean region there is no excuse in my view for bottling up the colombia t p a which should be on this floor it's a much better proposal than what we're debating today without the colombia t p a or did nine american businesses and workers greater access to colombia with this legislation say american exports will continue to pay tariffs to colombia eighty percent on be fifteen percent on tractors so unlike the colombia t p a which slashes colombian taxes on our exports this bill does nothing to increase u s exports to colombia or to the three other countries ng it includes it's ironic that many whom routinely attack trade agreements are giving colombia preferential treatment and getting little interest in return when there is so much opportunity with the colombia t p a we could get on a two way street one that lifts american workers as well we could also have a deal that stronger on labor protections but the but many in the majority are settling for less and far less at that and then there are strategic interests in colombia it's our closest partner in a very important region colombia is locked in a deadly struggle with will financed forces undemocratic terrorist and drug trafficking forces its government has made great strides against the narco terrorists and improve the economy for millions it has significantly reduced violence against labor leaders this is major progress for colombia the colombia t p a is the next step for our partnership instead with our inaction we're kicking colombia jeopardizing our regional standing this bonnie thank you madam speaker i yield just time two minutes to the gentleman from indiana mr burton a ranking the braking member of western hemisphere subcommittee on the foreign affairs committee feeling and i want to associate myself with the remarks just made by mr royce of california i think he made the case very well for the colombia free trade agreement colombia's been a great friend of ours under present your e bay and we ought to be doing more to make sure that that government down there is stable and that the trade with us improves right now we have about a two point five six billion dollars trade deficit because they have access to our markets but we don't have access of theirs because of tariffs likely shit and if we pass a colombian free trade agreement it will be a two way street that'll help them and help us create more jobs in the united states as well as more jobs in colombia but there's more to it than that right now there's a threat from the far guerillas in colombia and right on the border is a venezuela and president chavez of venezuela has recognized the fark down there and is kind of working with those people and i think that is a peril that the faces of colombia  over the long haul and having a strong free trade agreement that will create jobs in a stronger economy in colombia i think will be one of the things that will help stop the terrorists down there the far guerillas elan and and those who may be coming out of venezuela so i think this is a very good first step tonight we are extending the trade preferences for the next nine or ten months and i think that's all right but we need to get on with the business of making sure we pass a free trade agreement be a vital component of our efforts to promote peace prosperity and stability in south america and it should be extended the man speak or listen to that debate today i was reminded of an old adage that says political friendships follow the trade lanes consider colombia the success of this program there demonstrates just how critical trade is today to creating friendly and democratic allies in tribal regions but there's more that we can do and should be doing we must act quickly to approve the colombian free trade agreement not only to meet our international obligations but to strengthen our economy by boosting u s exports to latin america last year alone my home state of illinois exported two hundred fourteen million dollars in merchandise to colombia ranking net its fourth among the states more importantly illinois exports to colombia grew up one hundred thirty six percent between two thousand and two and two thousand and six these trends are not unique for all of our economic troubles u s exports continued to drive profits and job growth according to the treasury department's latest economic update real exports have risen seven point seven percent in just the last four quarters a free trade agreement will promote even faster growth by giving us exporters duty free access to colombian markets the same access that our colombian exploiters already enjoy to the u s at the same time it will strengthen our friendship with a vital ally and provide for stronger protection of the rights of laborers in that region madam speaker the bill before today before us today is a good first step i commend the chairman and ranking member of the ways and means committee for their bipartisan efforts and urge my colleagues to support this bill but i also ask my colleagues to keep in mind that action today must be followed by action tomorrow we must work as quickly as possible to pass the colombian free trade agreement in the coming months but that i would yield back from california thank you madam speaker at this time i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from california the ranking member of the rules committee someone who's been long active in the area of trade mr dreier moving forward this very important ten month extension and obviously it is clear that we are using this time to talk about the importance of coming together in a bipartisan way working democrats and republicans to ensure that we're able to proceed to deal with both the economic as well as the national security implications of ultimately seeing us put into place the colombia free trade agreement and one of the great misconceptions around here and one that unfortunate has been spread very widely madam speaker is the fact that many people say that the government of colombia has been involved in killing labor leaders i mean i've heard that said on many occasions and i think it's very unfortunate that that and things close to that have gotten out there when in fact we have seen since two thousand and two a fifty percent increase in the level of funding for the fiscally a which is the entity that is spending a great deal of time prosecuting those who have been responsible for killings of those labor leader similarly it is important to note that there are roughly fifteen hundred labor leaders who get protection provided by the government of colombia they are working to ensure the safety of those labor leaders number one and number two they are working to ensure that they bring to justice those who might be responsible for any of those killings there is no desire on the part of the government to do that the government has done everything it possibly can to demobilize the paramilitaries the fark the lan and others who have been involved in the narco trafficking and other criminal activity that has taken place in the country there is no nation on the face of the earth in a five year period of time has gone through a greater transition than colombia has and the leadership that present your rebate and so many others in his country who are dedicated to the future of that nation have i believe laid the groundwork for us to ensure the strength of the relationship between our two countries and to deal with the national security implications i just say in closing madam speaker i truly do believe leave that this will help us stabilize this very important part of the western hemisphere and i think my expired and one from california thank you and i thank my friend from california today we're voting on the and the end preference but the u s colombia t p a is far superior to the andean trade preferences in several very important ways the andean trade preferences program provides duty free access for imports from colombia but examples in which imports from colombia receive duty free access to the u s markets and the significant tariffs u s eric borders currently face which would be unaided upon implementation of the u s colombia t p a u s wheat fruits and vegetables so i being meal paper products aircraft turbans diesel engines and tractors passing the u s colombia t p a would level the playing field for us ex borders however the longer we wait the worse the situation becomes currently several countries including argentina brazil and chill a had preferential access into the colombian market canada and the you are posed to complete trade agreements with colombia that would provide their businesses with a competitive advantage in the colombian market all of these countries are major competitors with us asked x borders failure of congress to pass the u are clear the u s colombia t p a is far superior in every way to the andean trade preferences program and congress should use the next ten months to pass the agreement for the benefit of u s businesses and u s workers are you have today is a ten month extension and i very much urge its passage i simply want to emphasize that every program has to be considered on its own merits this is a continuation of a preference program that has been mutually beneficial this is not involving an f t a with any of these countries being in the affirmative the rules are suspended the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table without objection the title is amended  the chair laid before the house the following enrolled bill senate twenty five seventy one and act to make technical corrections to the federal and sec decide honor of coming to the floor of this house to congratulate cincinnati's elder high school for winning the ohio state division one football championship two years in a row quite an accomplishment today i want to rick recognize and command elder high school seniors matt brandon and ben combs and a group of about a dozen fellow elder students for doing something every bit as worthy of recognition these young men on their own initiative raise the necessary funds to ship care packages to elder alumni who are serving our nation in uniform overseas in the words of matt brandon quote i want to help people who are risking their lives for us unquote such patriotism should be an inspiration to us all and elder high school can be proud that they are educating and instilling in their students the highest values thank you elder panthers well done for your back to bounce by  there further one minute requests for what purpose it's a gentleman from texas right now speaker i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders heretofore entered into the following members may be permitted to address the house revise and extend their remarks include the material mr brown from georgia today for five minutes a self mr pole march fifth for five minutes mr franks from arizona on march fourth and fifth for five minutes and mr hayes to day for five minutes with for what purpose this is gentleman from pennsylvania writes madam speaker i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders here to four entered 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 conyers of michigan and mr  feb twenty fifth and the balance of the week under the speaker's announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven and then three previous court of the house the following members are recognized for five minutes each mr conyers of michigan mr franks of arizona madam speaker i request permission to speak out of order and take mr franks this time without objection thank you madam speaker it is written that governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed that when any form of government becomes destructive to these ins it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new government speaker this eternal statement from the declaration of independence clearly states the united states right of self determination we use this natural right to break away from great britain that a speaker last week kosovo unilaterally itself an independent and sovereign state and the announcement has ushered violence in the region and opposition from the country it broke from serbia following kosovo's declaration of independence the united states was one of the first world powers to grant official recognition to the self declared independent kosovo since then several other countries have followed of course not everyone agrees that kosovo may unilaterally declare its independence from serbia certainly serbia objects at the same time russia china and spain have shared their strong opposition to the declaration each of these countries are struggling with their own separatists communities they are afraid that kosovo unilateral declaration will encourage succession this groups in their own country to rebel and declare themselves independent and sovereign states when we start meddling in the internal of errors of international nations like serbia madam speaker consequences are sure to follow and let me be clear i'm not talking about a people rising up and overthrowing a civil government but of people separating themselves from a civil government and forming a new nation the question is do all peoples have this right of separation and as the united states support that what position will the united states take as other peoples may decide self determination separation and independence by recognizing kosovo the united states is setting a precedent and it needs to take that position very seriously because there are consequences is the united states willing to offer recognition to baskin catalan people of spain if they declare independence architect  they did break away from russia or how about tibet if they decide to leave china separatist communities across the world are interpreted the actions of the united states in kosovo to suggest that america supports movements of self determination a columnist for an african newspaper recently wrote an article titled kosovo the precedent that will inflame africa this journalist predicts that the kosovo recognition will ignite a revival of secessionist groups across the african continent will the united states be prepared to deal with that if it happens and what will we do what we send troops will be sent aid to these movements we've got folks from the state of montana here in the united states saying they're going to secede from the union if the supreme court rules a certain way on gun ownership is self determination allowed in montana looking at our country's history it's pretty clear that the right of self determination of a people is expensive and it has costs if it weren't for the courage and self determination of our country founders would still be a colony of great britain but the united states has been consistent on the right of self determination for example in the eighteenth sixty's the united states rejected this determination here at home more than six hundred fifty thousand americans were killed during the war between the states when the south claimed the right of self determination and then the north went to war to prevent it and prevent southern independence independence is a serious and volatile matter thomas jefferson said what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not worn from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance let them take up arms these are strong words madam speaker from the author of the declaration of independence is this statement u s policy it may very well be the case that the united states position in kosovo will encourage more turmoil throughout the world what will the united states do then is united states going to choose either to fully support or fully oppose a right of self determination for other peoples or as a united states going to continue down its path of inconsistent foreign policy on self determination people with aspirations of independence all over the world are watching the united states and trying to interpret what our foreign policy is they need to know what our position is own independence and the american public needs to know where we stand on independence for other peoples and that's just the way it is i yield back the remainder of intently to the remarks just made by my friend from texas and i want to say that someone who has supported the independence of kosovo for the past twenty years i couldn't disagree more i'm proud of the united states for supporting and encouraging the independence of kosovo i'm proud of the bush administration for doing the right thing in kosovo i'm proud of the united states standing on the side of freedom and self determination and independence and i'm proud that the united states understands that the people of kosovo are entitled to the same kinds of freedoms that we had for ourselves in our own revolution more than two hundred years ago  no i don't think that every independent or separatist movement in the world is entitled to declare independence but i think that we need to look at everything in terms of its context the former yugoslavia broke up there were several components of the former yugoslavia we now have several independent countries of macedonia and croatia and slovenia and many other montenegro and kosovo also as part of the former yugoslavia is entitled to that same kind of independence and self determination we remember with the leader the former leader of serbia slobodan milosevic a set out to ethnically cleanse his country of albanians to  commit genocide against the albanians in kosovo to drive them out to indeed burn practically every albanian home in kosovo when they were driven out and it was only because of the courage at that time of president clinton and the united states where we helped and bombed and prevented genocide that that was prevented so i think the situation in the former yugoslavia in kosovo is unique i think that serbia relinquished any kind of claim to kosovo by the way their former leader milosevic persecuted and committed genocide against the albanian population self determination for the people of kosovo is the right thing to do the united states and the european union have stood strong in supporting kosova independence and kosovo indeed will be a strong ally of the west of the united states of the european union the people of solve love the united states they trust us they care about us they know where they are for them and i want to tell you a someone who has been so involved with this issue for the past twenty years there is no better friends that we have across the world the united states has than the people of kosovo so i am very very proud that that is a new nation i am very proud that the united states has recognized them and i indeed would urge all freedom loving countries in the world to recognize the people kosova we in this wonderful democracy are so blessed and so fortunate to live in the united states and we have principles for which we stand and those are the same principles that the people of kosovo are standing for and looking at us to follow exactly what we've done in terms of democracy so i hope to go to kosovo in the very very near future to celebrate with the people there and i want to say one other thing because so will be a multi ethnic state and that means that minority rights have to be protected in kosovo and there are some who are concerned about serbian orthodox churches and that minority rights including serbs need to be protected  t agree those churches need to be protected minority rights need to be protected i am confident that the leaders of kosovo will protect those charges will protect those rights will protect the rights of all kosovar whether they be albanian serb or others and the people understand that i know the people of kosovo and i know they understand that and so i just want to very very strongly state that i am proud to be a friend of the people of kosova this congress has been a friend of the people  government it's been a friend of the people of kosovo and i think we as americans can hold our heads up high and say that the idea those to which our revolution was fought more than two hundred years ago and i say my ideals of the revolution for the new thank you madam speaker better speaker i stand once again before this body with yet another sunset morrill it is feb twenty seventh two thousand and eight in the land of the free in the home of the brave and before the sun sets today in america madam speaker almost four thousand more defenseless unborn children will have been killed by abortion on demand just today that is more than the number of innocent american lives lost on september eleventh only it happens every day it is now been exactly twelve thousand eight hundred one thousand days since the travesty call roe versus wade was handed down since then the very foundation of this nation has been stained by the blood  almost fifty million of its own children some of them missed madam speaker cried and screamed as they died but because it was amniotic fluid passing over the vocal chords instead of air we couldn't hear them all of them had at least four things in common they reached just a little babies who had done nothing wrong to anyone and each one of them died a nameless and lonely death and each of their mothers whether she realizes it or not immediately will never be the same and all the gifts these children might have brought to humanity are now lost forever yet even in the full glare of such tragedy this generation clings to blind invincible ignorance while history repeats itself and our own silent genocide mercilessly annihilates the most helpless of all victims to date those yet unborn madam speaker perhaps it's important for those of us in this chamber to remind ourselves again of why we're really all here thomas and thomas jefferson said the care of human life and its happiness and not its destruction is the chief and only object of good government the fourteenth amendment capsulizes our entire constitution it says no state shall deprive any person of life liberty or property without due process of law madam speaker protecting the lives of our innocent citizens and their constitutional rights is why we are all here the bedrock foundation of this republic is that clarion declaration of the self evident truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by their creator with the owner of the rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness every conflict and battle our nation has ever faced can be traced to our commitment to this core self evident truth it has made us the beacon of hope for the entire world it is who we are and yet madam speaker another day has passed and we in this body have failed again to honor that foundational commitment we fail our sworn oath and our god given responsibility as we broke faith with nearly four thousand more innocent american babies who died today without the protection we should have given them but perhaps tonight madam speaker maybe someone new who hears this sunset memorial will finally realize that abortion really does kill little babies that it hurts mothers in ways that can never be expressed and that twelve thousand eight hundred  thousand days spent killing nearly fifty million unborn children in america is enough and that the america that rejected suman slavery and marched into europe to arrest the nazi holocaust is still courageous and compassion enough to find a better way for mothers  their unborn children than abortion on demand so tonight madam speaker may we each remind ourselves that our own days in this sunshine of life are also numbered and that all too soon each of us will walk from these chambers for the very last time and if it should be that this congress is allowed to convene on yet another day to come may that be the day when we finally hear the cries of the innocent unborn may that be the day when we find the humanity the courage and the will to embrace together our human and our constitutional duty to protect the least of these our tiny american brothers and sisters from this murderous scourge upon our nation called abortion on demand it is february twenty seventh two thousand and eight madam speaker twelve thousand eight hundred one thousand days since roe versus wade first stain the foundation of this nation with the blood of its own children this in the land of the free and the home of the brave thank gentleman's time is expired mr de fazio of oregon mr jones north carolina mr burton of indiana mr brown of georgia mr hayes of north carolina one of the speakers announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from pennsylvania mr murphy is recognized for sixty minutes as a designee of the majority leader thank you very much mr speaker and thank you again to the speaker of the house suppose you for giving the opportunity to thirty something working groups come to the floor once again to talk about some of the great progress that we believe this house is making on behalf of constituents the american people we're going have an abbreviated edition of the thirty somethings today and i'm going to turn it over to mr meek in a moment but suffice it to say that once again i think we did some justice when it comes to energy policy  on the floor this week we passed once again a bill that will extend enormous tax benefits to thousands of americans in even more small businessmen the people who profit from those business who work for those businesses so they can invest in the new american economy that is the green economy and do it through no additional cost to the taxpayers by simply repealing billions of dollars that we've given to the oil industry under the republican congress and turn those tax subsidies around to average consumers and average small businesses who are now going to do right by this new renewable economy that we are building it's the start it's not everything we have an energy policy but we're beginning will be a very important measures that passed today on the house floor was an energy bill and i think that renewable energy conservation tax act and i think that is important as we look at this piece of legislation because it's actually paid for and we pay for it with the sestak previous congresses gave big oil companies those subsidies that they didn't ask for maybe they didn't ask for because i had a chart mr murphy and previous congresses that i used to bring to the floor talking about the meeting that vice president dick cheney had in two thousand and one and in his office with all of the major oil executives and then i and then that chart it showed how the profits went up from that point on profits is not a bad word but when you look at it especially how the big oil companies increase prices on the s on on on on individuals that were not only paying taxes us taxpayers that were paying for the subsidies that they were getting but also was paying more at the pump and it's so very very important that we identify that and reverse that and this piece of legislation that we passed today actually does that h r fifty three fifty one so many times in america americans they look at congress and they look at what we do and how we do it and they don't quite understand why it's happening to them twice a year subsidizing big oil companies being why are they paying more for oil or for gas and what we've done in this congress even in  on making sure that cars can go further with less we've also stood under the banner of investing in the midwest versus the middle east and i think that it's important that we continue with that theme in today's legislation that passed the floor continues that thing that thing i talked a little earlier about the big five oil companies that recently reported record profits in zero seven exxon earned forty forty point six billion dollars allowed largest corporate profit in the history of the united states of america some of that came about because of the tax dollars being generated back in two dollars a day didn't have to spend and usually with profits in any business you take those dollars out to be able to do better and to do more in the future well we don't have a problem with that happening that we don't want to be on backs of u s taxpayers i think also mr murphy one other point i want to  make you know with the economy now and how these energy prices continue to squeeze american families and i think that it's important that you we think since august when the house took up its bill and the price of oil  has risen almost twenty five twenty five cents per barrel which is a new record high two hundred in and two dollars per barrel today gas is up seventeen cents a gallon in the last two weeks and up seventy five cents from a year ago gas prices also doubled on home heating oil costs in a triple down american families since two thousand and one we start looking at those statistics we have to do something about them in today's legislation does something about mr murphy i'm proud that i'm a member of the hundred tenth congress that's bringing that turning this ship around as it relates to how the u s taxpayers view congress one and two making sure that we can reverse some of those cake and ice cream giveaways that were given under the republican led congress and i encourage the members to continue to head down its track of assisting us families a thirty something working group we work hard towards promoting that kind of philosophy not only within the capitol building but what actually makes it here on the floor and back in our districts to talk about the good things that we are doing that's going to assist us families at their dining room table and when they get together for a little league games or whatever the case may be talking about gas prices talking about what we're doing talking about making america more greener talking about investing in the u s so that we can have u s jobs so with that mr murphy i want to yield back the time that you give but i think it's important we continue to head down this track even though we've had some object objections from the other side of th this is the right thing to do because we're onus that the american people are not the big oil companies thank you very much mr meek i want to i want to just quickly let people know what this legislation does that we've passed you talk about the amount that invests in this new economy but let's talk about how it does that eight billion dollars in this new bill in long term clean renewable energy tax incentives for electricity produced from sources varying from wind  solar to geothermal biomass hydro power ocean tides landfill gas overnight this bill is going to invest in these types of renewable energy sources that are going to power the next economy and we know that energy independence doesn't come easily i mean we have become addicted over a long period of misguided and shortsighted federal policy so that we have an unreliable and unsustainable reliance on dirty energy on energy produced by oil produced by gas powered plants produced by coal powered plants and you don't change that overnight it takes time now government can't do it alone we can't just solve son decide that we're going to take the generosity of the federal government and start buying up renewable energy completely replace those old dirty sources but we can do is use a little bit of federal incentive to give reason for private individuals and private businesses to make those choices themselves and that was that's what we've done here my office went through a long and important process of becoming carbon neutral becoming energy independent and how we did that was you brought in some energy auditor's into our office we assessed our carbon footprint and then we found a number of ways a myriad of differ efforts that we could undertake in order to reduce that carbon footprint everything from changing all the light bulbs in our offices to putting on automatic timers where we could to making sure that we're printing on both sides of the page we try to reduce our carbon footprint as every individual household can do as most businesses are doing seeing that they find that not only the right thing to do by our environment but the right thing to do from a cost standpoint as well but even after doing all of those things mr speaker we still found that we had an amount of pollution from old dirty your sources that we couldn't completely eliminate and so we did was we went out to offset that remaining dirty carbon footprint by purchasing tax credits for renewable energy basically going out and purchasing and putting renewable energy out there on the grid to make up for what dirty energy remain in office and what we found for us was that it still cost a little bit more to purchase those renewable energy tax credits those renewable energy credits than it would have to have bought oil or gas or coal credits but it's not four times as much not three times as much as not twice as much it's still a little bit more expensive for an individual homeowner or an individual business to purchase renewable energy but it's getting less expensive every day why is that because the economy those that invest in fuel the economy from an economic standpoint are figuring out that there's money to be made in renewable energy that there is a demand for it and every cent that they can lower the cost of that renewable energy resource the more profit there will be built in because of the greater utilization and so that's what we're attempting to do here rather than putting eighteen billion dollars into more tax subsidies more regulatory subsidies for the oil industry we're saying let's take that eighteen billion dollars and let's put it in to tax subsidies for homeowners and businesses and local and state governments to make up that little difference between the price of old energy and the price of new energy and that small little incentive not just makes the difference in terms of the bottom line for that particular company or that particular homeowner but then starts to increase the volume of renewable energy that we're purchasing starts to create more capital for those companies that are doing the research and development into renewable energy so they can advance their efforts to create newer cheaper technologies that's how we're going to grow this renewable economy and for some reason for a very long time for the twelve years that the republicans controlled this house and in particular for the past seven years the six of it where the president served along with a republican house they didn't get it they didn't get that you can start to incentivize and create this new renewable economy this green economy not with the large s of the federal government but with targeted direct incentives to make up that small difference between old energy and new energy and this is about building that new economy but this is also about trying to write some wrongs that this congress has perpetuated upon the american people for far too long i hope that people will look at the facts that underlie this chart that stands in front of me beside me right now the price of gas now this is looking at increases in commodities and profits from two thousand and one to two thousand and eight which just happens to be the period of time that this president has been in office one hundred thirteen percent increase in the price of gas much of that is in the last few years more and more motorists more and more commuters have found it almost impossible to make their budgets me now the gas prices seem to be staying above that three dollars per gallon level a two hundred thirteen percent increase in the price of home heating oil we all feel this one we my wife and i are flabbergasted on a weekly monthly basis as we look at the amount that we're paying to heat our own very small and modest home even with all of the different improvements we've tried to make regarding the efficiency and he deficiency we along with millions of other american homeowners have an old house we can't make it completely totally  energy efficient and so we are paying through the nose as are millions of other american homeowners for this two hundred thirteen percent increase in heating oil profits the price of crude oil has gone up two hundred fifteen percent during that time and all the while during that same period of time over the last seven years the profits of american oil companies have gone up three hundred and ten percent there are many things in this world in a seven year span that increase threefold wages for many average americans are lucky to creep up by one percent a year profits for most american businesses in particular those small businesses and medium sized businesses that power our economy are lucky to grow by five or ten percent every year even in robust economic times three hundred  ten percent growth in profits over a seven year period is unheard of and when those profits are derived in large part due to federal policy through the eighteen billion dollars in fell the tax breaks that have gone to the oil companies it should have a long time ago caused this congress to step back and ask why well there are a lot of different reasons and i'm not here to suggest that there was a in oil subsidies are the sole reason why you see a three hundred ten percent spike in oil company profits we have increased demand around the globe for oil not just here in the united states but in india in china in developing nations but i also posit tha another reason is not just because of the subsidies that we've given these industries but because we have also done almost nothing here in this congress before the two thousand and seven congress was sworn in to really start to work with the competitors of the oil industry to try to give at least the same benefit that we give the oil industry to the solar industry the wind in the street the geothermal industry the title industry all of the other energy competitors who ultimately will make sure that we never see another three hundred ten percent seven year growth in profits and i think a lot of us are really excited about the direction we're going with energy policy it's not just the bill that we passed today which shifts that eighteen million eight hundred billion dollars in  oil company energy profits to incentives and tax subsidies to individuals and small businesses and governments that are prepared to do the right thing and invest in renewable energy  sources this is also about what we've done to increase fuel efficiency of vehicles the first time in thirty years this congress has passed and signed by the president an increase in fuel efficiency standards so that the average fleet sold here in the united states will now have to be up around thirty five mile per gallon standard still not what it could be but a lot better than the level that we've been sitting at for the last thirty years a new investment in green technology and green jobs grants now going to businesses and nonprofit organizations that are going to do the training necessary to teach a whole new workforce how to compete and how to win in a renewable energy economy and legislation that will say no more going to the store and looking at one product that's energy star energy efficient rated and other products that hasn't had any improvements on it in the last twenty years now every appliance every microwave every toaster that you buy by virtue of legislation passed in the house and senate signed by the president will make sure that appliances that you buy are going to meet the highest energy efficiency standards and we still have to go farther there's still so much more we can do we can pass a renewable energy portfolio standard to say that fifteen to twenty percent of the energy produced in this country comes from renewable energy sources we should pass a cap and trade system that limits the amount of pollution and carbon that we  into the air but these are monumental steps forward that would have never happens if we didn't have a change in control of this congress because you've got a whole new group of people here mr meyer and i are the two members of the thirty something group that are part of this new class of freshmen members of congress but you have a new group of members here in particular this freshman class that really had a sense from spending the last two years in two thousand and five and two thousand and six out campaigning for office but just frankly being on the outside of this institution for all of our lives that the public got that the public understood that it was about time that we started shifting our resources both privately and publicly into or knew of the economy they understood that energy independence is the holy grail of federal and state energy federal and state policy period because it's not just about energy prices  by investing in renewable energy increasing volume increasing research and development that you will eventually drive down energy prices it's also about the environment we could talk for another hour about the benefit that investments in renewable energy will do to the air that we breathe around us what it will do to combat the glowing trend towards the warming of this planet it's also about our economy as we've talked about and we may not make rubber balls in this country like we used to we may not have the large volume manufacturing base that we did twenty thirty fifty years ago but we can be the center of research and development for renewable energy folks out there know that it's about national security as well they know that by creating a dependence on domestically produced oil rather than on foreign produced under messick we produced energy rather rather than on foreign produced oil that we will make decisions with regard to international policy based not on our national energy interests but on our national security interests and behalf of the thirty something working group we're pretty excited about the bill that we were able to pass today as we are about the entire trend that's happening here in congress with regard to energy policy we have farther to go but the reason that we as a thirty something working group talk about this is because the investments that we make today will pay off in ten twenty thirty in forty years when our future children and grandchildren are living in this world they might not have to deal with the consequences of a congress that ignored the energy crisis in this country if we make the right decisions over the next several congresses so i appreciate as we always do the opportunity for the thirty something working group to come down here we it's a busy day and evening here so mr meek was only able to join us for a short period of time mr omar had to leave before the hour started we know when we  come back to this floor next week we will make sure to have the full contingent of thirty somethings down here on the floor we miss miss wasserman schultz as well but with that mr speaker again i thank you for the opportunity to speak for the floor today i think the just under the speaker's announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from texas mr conaway is recognized for sixty minutes as design any of the minority leader full and fair disclosure i grew up in west texas home to much of the the only gas production from perm from the permian basin and i now have the high honor of representing much of that region in congress my dad was in the oil business had a service company for the last twenty five years of his career so i had a lot of gas clients in my professional career and so i hope the fact that i have some background and experience in this area does and almost every legitimate projection of energy usage in this country over the next twenty plus years shows that crude oil and natural gas will continue to be a vital part an important part of the energy complement for this country for the next twenty plus years as i mentioned there are no breakthrough technologies there are no scientific advances that anyone can anticipate today that would reduce our dependence they particularly as it relates to driving cars and trucks and airplanes on all crude gas we don't produce enough of it domestically to meet the needs of our existing only gas  so consequently we import sixty plus percent of the crude oil natural gas and gasoline products that we will use every single day and that percentage is growing unfortunately most commentators and i agree  with believe that the this importation of crude oil and natural gas from foreign sources coming from countries that whose leadership hate us whose political schemes are directly opposed to what we would want to do  is not in our best interest and represents a strategic vulnerability that our country has to other parts of the world that in many instances can be far less stable than you would want to count on so given the fact that we will be using crude oil and natural gas for the next twenty thirty plus years and that we don't produce enough of it ourselves it would seem that it would be in our best interest to promote policies that that encourage a exploration of areas in this country which we currently either by law or by executive order prevent our crude oil and natural gas exploration companies from having access to promoting policies that to the extent that is safe and sound  reducing and eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic red tape you can look at the reasons we're not built a refinery in this country proud number of years is because of the long lead times it takes to get that done the approval bureaucratic nightmare the companies have to go through all of the money they invest on the front end they don't get to return on that money until the plants built and done and log you extend that timeframe between when you start to when you actually on this floor from time to time today may have been one of those times but we on this floor from time to time put in place new laws new regulations added taxes and other burdens on the domestic and international oil and gas companies  we are in effect i believe cutting our nose off to spite our face because increased domestic production offsets the need for additional imported crude oil natural gas now no one that i'm  with any rational thought thinks that we can produce enough domestic crude oil and natural gas to completely wean ourselves from international imports or foreign imports of crude oil natural gas so it's not about totally doing away with those but at least putting ourselves in a position to make ourselves less dependent on those foreign sources of crude oil and natural gas the you know my colleagues earlier this is the sector they were talking about the high cost of gasoline and gasoline is high here in the united states it is higher in other parts of the world than it is here in united states with that scant comfort to the consumers and the is not much comfort as they is that happens so i understand that high cost of diesel whether it's producers or farmers or long distance truckers whatever it is adds to their operating costs the cost of gasoline of course is taking an increasingly larger share of the family budget as that number goes up and that's something that should be concerned all of us the bad news is that over time those costs will simply continue to get higher short of a world wide recession in which demand for crude oil and natural gas was dramatically lessened or reduced we are going to continue to have increases and the price of crude oil increase in the price of natural gas and that of course will be reflected at the pump now our job should be to try to minimize those increases or delay those increases as long as we can  smooth them out as best we can to allow consumers and businesses to make the combinations they need to to begin to live with these higher gasoline and diesel prices then that we current experience is a big jump that we've seen over the last four years from thirty bucks a barrel to you know today i guess one hundred plus dollars per barrel has had a an impact surprisingly limited impact to the extent that  the economy that we've enjoyed over the last several years has not gone down as much as most folks were predicted with a rapid increase in crude oil and natural gas prices but nevertheless families are paying more out of their family budget each month for gasoline and that's not going to get any better we can make it worse with the policies that we passed on this floor to the extent that we make it more expensive to find to produce crude oil and natural gas we will add to the costs and the ago it's hard to believe that today it's ten times that number but there's the yoyo effect with respect to crude oil natural gas prices we've seen those prices go up and down dramatically over the last  forty years i think the difference this time in this run up is that china and india are much greater consumers of crude oil than they were in the late ninety's and so we're able to see a price drop to ten dollars a barrel i don't think anyone realistically expects that to happen because you've got additional consumers in the market and those consumers are china japan as i mentioned i was in china last april and was told that  thousand new cars a day are being added to the traffic pattern in beijing alone a similar statistic for shanghai these are cars are people are switching from one car to another these are folks who are getting off their bicycles and beginning to drive automobile so this is a net plus an increase in the demand for crude oil and natural gas that has not been there before so while the prices are high you know there will fluctuate some but i don't think we'll ever go back to the levels that we've seen five six and seven years ago the people who produce crude oil and natural gas those companies are vilified in the press and sad to say with our presidential candidates  from time to time as well as members of the of this house come to this floor and will say some pretty outrageous things about the companies that supply us with the level of crude oil natural gas we have today at these prices as if they  some sort of a you know a bad you know bad person when we make critical statements critical state was about corporations and let's take exxon mobil for instance because they're the easiest target having just released earnings this past week or so earlier this month showing that they had set a record for two thousand and seven profit of some forty point seven billion dollars that is a huge number in any comparison except perhaps maybe the total federal budget or ruthless these words have been used by some of my colleagues to describe exxon mobil and that's unfortunate now i'm not an apologist for exxon mobil they're a corporation and if they've done something wrong  they should be you know help to the to high standards of conduct but to the extent they have played the rules and played the game within the rules that are set for them the fact that they have been successful the fact that they have  done well should not be held against them simply because the fact that they've they've done this well they are not price gouging their prices are set in the international market just like everybody else is and the fact that they are big helps them do things that smaller companies simply cannot do the investments the billion dollar investments that are necessary to explore for it to produce crude oil as some of the more remote areas of this world require huge investments and it takes big companies to be able to do that in the fact that exxon mobil is in that arena and is successful at it should not be be denigrated the way it is here some of the bad things that exxon mobil does if you think that making money in the a sizable production of piece i don't have the exact percentage of total worldwide percentage that that is off the top my head but i think production is about eighty million barrels a day exxon mobil's about four  owned by by the governments are much bigger producers of that the exxon mobil out of that forty point seven billion dollars that they earned in two thousand and seven they paid out seven point six billion dollars in dividends to their shareholders now when we did a great corporations it's easy to do because we don't put a face on the corporation we just think of it as a as an entity but the truth of the matter is corporations can't do anything without people pulleys and directors and others at exxon mobil so when we make negative and ugly comments about this corporation or any corporation we're in effect talking about  the people who work there exxon mobil has some eighty two thousand employees worldwide that's eighty two thousand families who who feed their families feed their kids and from hard work in successful work at exxon mobil eighty two thousand families who own homes eighty two thousand families that you know try to find a way to send their kids to college and pay for health care and take care of the things that they need to do to put this is on the children and all those kinds of things that families do those people are no different than anyone else working in america around this world they've got the exact same cares in and responsibilities that every parent has and so to denigrate the corporation and by extension these eighty two thousand people is  really unfair hidden in the conversation about the profits that actually mobil made of some forty point seven billion dollars was the fact that they paid some thirty two billion dollars in taxes thirty two billion dollars in taxes now if you add it up the bottom fifty percent of all taxpayers individual taxpayers united states i think that number some twenty seven billion dollars and so exxon mobil single handedly paid as much in taxes as the half of the individual taxpayers the united states actually paid more than that that half and so as you talk about all the  things that that exxon mobil has done they're guilty of some pretty rotten stuff creating eighty two thousand jobs paying out seven point six billion dollars in dividends to their shareholders creating the wealth that relates to the shareholders the shareholders have bought stock in this company they bought it expecting to be able to sell it at some point time in the future as for a profit which is is not bad because when they sell that they'll pay you no on that the seven point six billion to the extent it went to taxable entities and not to retirement plans or retire race you know those tax payers pay taxes on that seven point six billion so there's an additional seven point six the eighty two thousand employees that share what that are u s citizens pay individual income taxes on their salaries as well and they're paying the payroll taxes and exxon mobil's matching those payroll taxes in a responsible way so as you as you see the comments made about the amount of money that exxon mobil has made please put it into context with the amount of money they have to invest in order to do that t return of shareholders investment is in line with with other u s corporations and other industries within the united states it should be a good investment and should create wealth for the shareholders that they're able to  take advantage of owning that stock having bought of coke for the price is lower than what they can sell it for and so as you hear comments negative comments if it's about the breaking of a law or something like that fine this will deal with that but if it's just  the fact that they're big and the fact that they've found a lot of cruel natural gas and produced a lot of cruel natural gas then those are misplaced and when you make those comments about what exxon does within the rules you criticizing people you're criticizing eighty two thousand folks around this world who are going to work every single day trying to do the best job they can at providing a resource and a commodity that all of us enjoy each and every single day i did not mention the fact that exxon mobil refines five point six million barrels a day worldwide and some almost one point seven million barrels a day here in the united states so again jobs are created you know up and down the  stream with respect to the oil gas business and as you look at energy policy i think that our we spend a lot of time in this hall talking about what we should be doing and yet we don't listen to each other very well in terms of what the impact is of what we're trying to do and consequently we don't have in place a rational policy for what we should be doing in this country there  broad areas of energy that we talk about that we should talk about separately one is electricity generation and the other is crude oil and natural gas that is used to drive our cars with respect to electricity  we've had you know dramatic event in florida yesterday where we had a blackout an infrastructure failure overload of some sort that you know got quickly corrected but it was electricity that's just the nature of the beast now we should be doing all we can to conserve we should be doing that you know using smart appliances a smart light bulbs and doing all those kinds of things but the truth of the matter is as the population united states increases we need more energy more electricity to be able to meet the needs of this increased population whether that is lighting their homes air conditioning their homes providing the electricity to power the businesses in which they will work that is going to be demand that  is there and is growing if we don't continue to invest in generating capacity then we're going to get caught in a circumstance where our demand has rahner outstripped our ability to  d generating capacity to be built in california but yet the demand for electricity continue to increase and they got caught in a circumstance where the demand was higher than the supply and they had a dramatic increase in price circumstances have a dramatic effect on individuals as well as businesses because when you're putting your your monthly budget together or your monthly bill your business plan for your company you try to estimate what your costs are going to be over a near term term circumstance and you ought to be able to predict reasonably close what your energy costs would be over the next four five or six months and when you get sharp spike increases as worse as we've seen in california than that wrecks have a dollar in the family budget but also with businesses that are subject to passing on those electrical costs through their products or services also really to to consumers so as we look at the electrical side of this thing  we should be promoting wind as we see in west texas and solar and hydro hydro power all of these alternative and green sources of electricity should be promoted as well but the growth in that nucular that is used to general electric g e those are the three main backbone of the of the current grid and so as you look at those plants they are all getting older every single day we've recently had the nuclear regulatory commission has been able to go through a second round of of licensing for existing plants and has been able because of the the good maintenance and upkeep in the proper operating procedures plans that have been in place at the your plans have been able to extend the useful life of those other current complement of plant plants we have for another ten or fifteen to twenty years which is important because the time frame in which a lot of that production that production capacity was built they're all going to fall off the grid it and of relatively short period of time which means the supply is going to dry up if we don't create additional sources of electrical generation that could be c g for domestic sources of domestic gas and because domestic gas is natural gas is it's hard to import it's going to those prices and cost of general electric using natural gas will continue to go up faster than the cost of using nucular the backbone of the grid for certainly my lifetime and perhaps even my children's lifetime and beyond will have to be nucular and clean coal burning technologies and i don't think that there's any really released a cli any other way to generate electricity on the scope that we're going to have to generate it on and and get it done if you don't acknowledge that you put your head in the sea and then you develop policies that will not promote a rational orderly thoughtful process of how to provide electricity for this country over the next fifty or sixty years and that is you know unfortunate circumstance that we see ourselves and none of the alternative sources  can can fully replace everything that's going on and yet we seem to be placing great reliance our hope that we can develop these alternative sources green sources of electrical generation in time to offset the loss of the nuclear power plants that  would show whether or not you had a exposure to radiation that it was inappropriate we actually as a part of that tour when into the storage facility for the spent fuel rods the spent rods that they've used over the years to to create the nucular reactions and i admit to being a little apprehensive you simply walk through this door and you're standing in front of what appears to be a giant swimming pool at said that this spent fuel is stored under water like that it is in an open arena pool i would have been a little bit skeptical about how safe that was but our nucular and stree is a safe industry and a problem for disposal and storage and that's the that's the case but you have to weigh that against the way electricity is produced everywhere else if we continue to use coal until we learn how to capture the side a small relatively containable and handle spent fuel that we have to deal with and so you look at the at the two and clearly given the emphasis on global warming and climate change you would  who proponents of that argue that c o two and climate change is the single thing the single biggest thing threatening our lives well if if c o two is the the biggest threat to our way of life why not deal with that by using nucular nucular waste has got to be way down the list of things that are dangerous for us to deal with i'm not a pollyanna understand that when you build a nuclear plant that is subject to being somebody is target to do something stupid but we are you know going to get done a good job of the last seven years since nine eleven protecting the nuclear plants will get better at it and assessing the risks to those power plants understanding what the opportunities are some bad guys might want to do at a nuclear power plant but  getting exposed to it just probably not a good use not a good word but at least understanding it becoming less or more informed about you know how the nuclear power plants work and how well the controls are in place them the systems they have in place for electricity and approaching that in a rational thoughtful manner is going to be in all of our best interest and yet there are still an awful lot of people out there who are apprehensive to the point of not wanting to use nucular because they believe that the risks are too great and we need to have these conversations between the folks who believe it's too risky and the experts who understand exactly what it is and how it works and where those risks are and where those risks aren't to get those to come without incident and certainly we're as good as the french are doing things i would expect and should be able to handle nuclear power in ways that are responsible both to the areas that where the plant would be as well as to how we handle the spent fuel in the waste that that is a that is an issue in and where we store that all those kinds of things can't be solved and should be solved if we  help us understand that so mr speaker the national energy policy we've got several attempts at it over the years we currently don't have one that's rational i don't think we continue to to penalize the the coal and natural gas industry we had it taxes as we did this afternoon with red tape with regulation that prevents them to from being efficient we lock away vast areas of the united states to prevent domestic production of crude oil and natural gas we don't have a thoughtful rational approach to electrical generation and how we're going to get that clearly clean burning coal and nuclear have to be exploited and explored when they walk into a room and flip the switch on expect the lights to come on they don't know how that happens but they expect it to happen and except for yesterday afternoon in florida most all the time it does when it doesn't happen like what happened yesterday in florida it shows how vulnerable we are to not having electricity what impact that has you saw the the traffic grids the traffic parking lots across florida because the lights went out traffic lights went out you couldn't move traffic the way it normally moves and all people trapped in elevators and all that kind of anecdotal excitement that happens when that goes on helps give us a little bit of a sense of what a world without all the electricity that we need to  produce and to use is not readily available at our fingertips at the at the flick of a switch with respect to crude oil and natural gas production again as i mentioned earlier we are going to be using it for a long long long time if it's imported from countries that are not operating in the same thought patterns that we are with respect to human rights in and women's issues and other kinds of things if it creates a vulnerability a strategic vulnerability to this country to import crude oil natural gas then it seems logical to me that we would put in place policies and regulations that would promote the domestic production of crude oil and natural gas as opposed to hindering that  natural gas the mechanics of it all a gas company typically says that when you find do the exploration process the drilling and in finding it you come up to understand that there's a  reservoir of crude oil or natural gas underground through scientific estimates from petroleum engineers you can develop what that the value of those reserves are once you've once you've drilled the well we've got to produce those typically what happens  provision in particular then go to the bank and with the reserve reports that shows what the what they think the estimated value of that crude oil and natural gas is in the ground they go to the bank use that those reserves as collateral to borrow additional dollars to drill with and to explore that field further or to to increase production and so each dollar that go somewhere else other than back into production is is a multiple of that dollar that it's not used to explore for enter produce crude oil and natural gas most of the independence that i represent west texas or drilling are trying to drill in the in the united states show that independence is that term is defined typically reinvest six hundred percent of their profits back in the ground in other words they borrow six times as much money as they earn in a year in order to continue to grow their reserve base to replace the production that they've already produced and to continue to do the things that they do best measure well companies such as exxon mobil are generally well above a hundred percent probably a hundred seventy percent of their profits distinction but in between that they all produced and around the world versus domestic production as porous creating supply against the demand that is out there and there's a growing demand as well the  so a broad based national energy policy that encompasses electricity production how we drive cars and in fly planes and trucks those kinds of things i think is awfully important that this congress come to grips with i've not mentioned conservation but that is a huge piece of the pie as well we can use less per person than we currently are and that's less electricity and certainly less gasoline as are cars  introduced a bill that would create a public private partnership in order to help remind consumers that they have a direct role in energy uses in this country the partnership would point out things that that we can do individually by choice to reduce our own demand our own use of the gasoline is example and it doesn't have to be draconian i'm not talking about giving up your automobile and ride a bicycle to work at that's not rational we're not going to do those kinds of things but there's some small things that each one of us can do and choose to do on our own that would have a dramatic impact across the system as an example if we would arrange our affairs next week to use one gallon of gasoline less than we used this week that would have a dramatic effect if everybody started to do it if the millions and millions of consumers and drivers out there would just simply use one gallon less us see a dramatic increase in inventories when ima tori's go up the folks who are in the business of retailing gasoline are very price sensitive and their prices move around up and they do that they also come down but if their inventories begin to grow unexpectedly because we just simply use a little bit less individually but collectively across all the united states you see a big rise in him a tory now that does two things one you'd say the cost at one gallon gasoline and at three fifty a gallon you may think well it's not all that much but if you look at the impact that that savings would have across the system it's say that three fifty per person but you would also see a drop in the price of that gasoline because of supplies in the inventory would go up and that message you would collectively all of us would be better off now how do you save a gallon of gasoline you know you do some simple things like you keep your tires aired up to the proper limit you take the extra weight out of the trunk of the car so you're not hauling it around you think each day about what are the trips i am i going to make today how can i drive a few miles less today than i drove yesterday and just be smart about it you can be a  safer more polite driver in the extent that as you accelerate your car if you're not aggressive accelerating if you don't slam the accelerator down or race away from red lights and stop signs if you drive a little friendlier than some of us are used to that uses l gasoline away so there are a lot of things that you and i can choose to do does require a government mandate and to require bureaucracy to minister it's just simply all of us working in our own best interest to to save a little bit of gasoline and again you know one gallon this week less than i use last last week would have a dramatic impact on the on those prices and we would all collectively benefit because we would be doing what we ought to be doing that is conserving the resources that we've been  that we've got responsibility for same thing applies with with electricity you know using less electricity you can do a lot of things that we all can do that too to reduce the growth in the demand for electricity again you're not going to read at night by candlelight or campfire lanterns we're not going to do those kinds of things but we can have a dramatic impact on electrical usage i had a client when i was with pricewaterhouse back in the early seventies recognition equipment recognition of quitman made some pretty at that time sophisticated optical readers and they had a very complicated cost accounting system in which they would allocate their indirect costs heating and air conditioning lighting and all those kinds of stuff what allocate those to their products that were being produced as you remember in seventy three we had our arab oil embargo and prices shot up from the three dollars  barrel to thirty bucks a barrel there was a big push on to use less electricity use less energy r e i went through a through their plant and did everything they thought they could do rationally to reduce their electrical usage things like they went to every other light in the hallways and all kinds of things they were able to so to so dramatically reduce their electrical generator usage that it screwed up  messed up their indirect cost alex patient to their products and they had to go back through and readjust the the amount of money that they were applying to to come up with the cost of the products through their process so you know we can do those kinds of things if we have to typically when we have to is when the prices get so exorbitant that we are forced to do it we can choose to do those things ahead of time without being forced to i currently represent a chain of convenience stores in west texas that i know the folks who run it and we were talking about gasoline usage they make a lot of money selling gasoline at these convenience stores the when the five point two years ago when price first are to go over three bucks a gallon they could see a dramatic difference and a change in the consumer patterns when the price of gasoline was above three dollars versus when it was below consumers would have me react to that now we've become desensitized and less sensitive to the three dollar number and that new number is somewhere north of that where we would feel the pain enough that we willing to make some changes in our own personal life to do that we don't have to wait for that price to go up in order to motivate us to to do those guys of things there's plenty of should be plenty of motivation for us to be able to put in take the kinds of conservation steps that each one of us individually could do as a free will choice that would help this issue tremendously as we move forward so in conclusion mr speaker there are no magic bullets there's no magic wand that we can wave across this problem and instantly fix it it requires thoughtful compromise across a lot of folks who are in this arena folks who have legitimate concerns legitimate worries legitimate issues that we're doing  working through those working off a seance science looking at rational approaches to things and not taking the extremes is going to be important as we as a society continue to move forward with a with a with an energy policy that makes sense calling at each other names talking about the producers of crude oil and natural gas like exxon mobil and some very unflattering terms is town or productive to the system and beating up exxon mobil makes absolutely no sense if you think that the product that they are producing is something that we need now you may not like the prices that they're producing it at but they can you know there's eighty two thousand people who work for exxon mobil or human beings and when they hear their company denigrated by folks in this chamber and presidential candidates and others because they have been successful working within the rules or within the laws that says a really bad message to folks you're providing a service describe this problem this isn't it this is not a republican issue it's not a democrat issue this is an issue that's important to the to every single american out there it's one that deserves our best thoughtful consideration it deserves us listening to each other and hearing the concerns each of us have and in working toward a solution and actually putting on a play so with that mr speaker i yield back the balance of my time thank you and under the speaker's announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from florida mr kline is recognized for sixty minutes a certainly a campaign of change and bring some new ideas new energy and energy is going to the subject tonight because a lot of us have a lot of it and all americans are looking for some new ideas on how to solve our problems with energy and how to move our country forward and the reason it's particularly important today is because today this house chamber took a bold new step and we passed the renewable energy and energy conservation tax act of two thousand and eight and as i said the for many of the freshmen a million members democrat and republican ran on a platform of change and new ideas energy is that idea it's that platform it's that something that i think all of us and if you're old enough  remember the manhattan project i know i'm speaking to people who are listening in this chamber tonight that are familiar with the manhattan project it was a great ingenuity that americans came together and knew what they had to do in order to win world war two it was done in secret but it produced the results that were necessary to save lives at the end of the day and more recently again a number of years ago but more recently we had something called the sputnik that russia sent up a little tin can that went up into space and for those people who are alive at that time they were frightened rightfully so that the russians had gotten ahead of us and had put something in space that could potentially give the russians the control the soviet union control of the space above our heads and maybe they would rain down on us weapons and have other kinds of threats against the united states and john f kennedy president kennedy at that moment time when americans looked up and saw that can that little flash in the sky and realize that it wasn't united states that put that up there but a country that at that time was viewed in competition and the cold war was just developing what happened at that moment was john f kennedy said we we are going to take this moment capitalize on that concern and channel that into a new program a space program that was going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and boy that was something that was incredible it was unheard of could we do it i mean the moon is up there and that's something that well it would take a great amount of technology and science and maybe it was a dream that it was that the philosophers and other scientists years ago could happen to actually accomplish that in ten years and lo and behold in one thousand nine hundred fifty nine in july and i remember the moment i was it i was in  camp at that time a member watching with my friends in july of one thousand nine hundred fifty nine americans put a man on the moon and landed a man on the moon what an incredible accomplishment and today we're still receiving the dividends from a space program that has just had so much impact not only in american ingenuity in terms of the space program and all the great things that have come out of that but in consumer products microwave ovens a whole lot of other things that we take for granted today that came out of the science and the math and the scientists and all the great things that won our schools to create the future leaders in the science program space program that has just continued to to through today this is that moment this is that time when americans need to seize this crisis that has been developing for quite some time and we need to do something about it and there's three groups of people in the united states that are all coming together behind renewable energy and making sure that america becomes energy self sufficient over the next number of years we've had a many we have that many people in this country there from the environmental community that for years have said the pollution caused by various types of fossil fuels have clouded our air and damaged and polluted our waters and snarling united states but it's throughout the world environmental community has been very concerned about this and has tried to build bridges and coalitions and they've really worked hard on that and they are now joined by two other groups all americans joined in the notion that as a matter of national security nice certainly believe this and i know the speaker does too and many of the men and women in this room and most americans understand this that for too long we in america have made foreign policy decisions based on where the next drop of oil is coming from and one of the steak what a mistake we've done it over and over and over again and whether it's dealing with iran in our past history dealing with iraq presently in the venezuela or any number of other countries in the middle east some of whom at best at best may not be our friends and at worst our enemies and yet we continue every time you go to the pump you're putting money in a not in the thick of american company but you're putting money that is really getting into the pockets of some of the owners of these oil wells and these countries that are damaging our interests and in many cases are funneling against the terrorists and the people around the world they're really putting our men and women at risk whether it's in iraq or anywhere around the world this is a very dangerous prospect and it's unacceptable the third group of course and i think this is one of most exciting things is the new economy that is developing out of this energy discussion th job opportunities that great innovators the scientists the american men and women at our universities our business entrepreneurs that understand that not only is this good for america in terms of our environment alief our national security we can be very successful at it from a business point of view we can create new technologies we can do lots of things that create jobs great revenue create income make our standard of living higher and greater and we can not only take that and build for america this can be the next boom economic boom that exports our technology our products or sciences to other countries around the world it's pretty exciting and i really just believe very strongly that the grow great notions that have come out of today's bill recognize the fact that you know a few years ago when president bush was inaugurated as president all was at twenty six dollars a barrel think about that twenty six dollars a barrel today it's hovering around one hundred dollars a barrel and i know that every american should say shame on all of us not only as elected officials as american consumers shame on us for allowing that to happen at such as the political thing that's literally our responsibility we  all responsible to make a decision and make a difference here so what we've done today and i'm joined by other members of our our freshman class and others and we're going to talk about this for a few minutes is a bill that does what we are talking about it puts the emphasis it puts the incentives economic and otherwise into the science the technology of renewable renewable energy sources and whether it's wave power wind power could be any combination of coal or nuclear and yes i hear from so many people that some of these have issues technology issues safety issues and they may and it's up to us to solve those let's think big i'm not here to advocate for any one of these alternatives i think all of them have possibilities and we're going to make sure that all have the necessary safety and necessary science that goes with them before we move in any direction but this is the time for us to focus all of our energy our attention our resources and making sure our country is energy independent and today is the first step that we're going to do that and i look forward to working with all of our colleagues in the senate hopefully get our president to go along with us because i know america is ready willing and able to accomplish this goal now i'm joined by a good friend congressman ellison now congressman ellison has been  a very outspoken person on the importance of energy independence and i'm going to turn it over to him to get his thoughts on today's action well rather than implying thank you and your introduction was excellent because it really does set the stage for this new energy future that america's walking into today the house considered h r fifty three fifty one which would end unnecessary subsidies to big oil companies and invest in clean renewable energy and energy efficiency it's similar to the house bill passed the renewable energy and energy conservation tax act passed as part of a bipartisan pie partisan energy package it august two thousand and seven and i just want to merican is to know that when you sit this class this hundred tenth congress this freshman class here in washington you expected that we would take a step in four in favor of our energy future and i want you know that we're doing that we're stepping into that energy future put in innovation putting incidence in the hands of people who are going to make the difference and we are putting the best interest of the american people forward you know as i think about our energy future i think about every time i see walking to the to the p represented clients every time i go to the pump i'm reminded of why we need a new energy future i remember back in two thousand and one when i would be able to put that gas pump in the tank and i think i was are somewhere around a buck fifty a gallon well that's not so today you and i both whether you're in florida or minnesota whether you're in california or or arizona you're probably paying and some words north somewhere  north of three bucks somewhere close to three bucks and that is double of what i remember pain and that's wrong and this is especially at a time when we are seeing energy prices go up food prices go up because it costs money to get food from one place to another and we see family budgets being pinched we're in the middle of this this sub prime mortgage crisis and it's time when the that we get a handle on our energy future get  hanlon not only the on the issue of global climate change not only on the issue of pollution but on the issue of cost of the american consumer that we get our hands on top of this important issue so let me just as i hand it back you represent a client of me just say that the big five oil companies recently reported record profits in two thousand and seven exxon mobil earned forty point six billion dollars the largest corporate profit in american history these profits well you know i just want to say that the american taxpayer were paid a whole lot more and and it might be going pretty good for some folks but a lot of the rest of us are hurting so let me toss it back to you represent of klein and thank you f leading us leading the charge today on this new energy future thank you congressman and appreciate your time you come from the midwest and obviously dealing at this time of year you know you're with the oil costs for people that have to heat their homes and he drive  cars this is a very serious issue and you know as we take a look at some of these charts that we have here you know we already talked about the fact that we have back in january of two thousand and one it cost dollar forty seven for a tank of gas today it's three dollars and thirteen cents now the inflation rate has gone at that pace flesher mr pickup now but nothing like this and i have to tell you something in where i live in south florida it's not three thousand and thirteen cents it's higher than that but i mean a quarter three thirty represent if would you you know for a moment sure what does this mean that's what it means to at the pump but what does it mean in terms of food prices in the prices of other things because you've got to ship this stuff right absolutely absolutely as a matter of fact you know when you hear and we had a discussion our financial services committee today i'm on the financial services committee with you and we heard mr bernanke who is our chairman of federal reserve who's really trying to do the best that he can under difficult circumstances and to talked about six months ago we talked about the fact that you know with a sub prime crisis problem a couple other things but that all the other indicators inflation and cost of living where we're you know pretty pretty ok well guess what today we see the things that really affect families we talk about families when it's on a wall street return what it really costs to live day to day you have to pay your money you look through a checkbook if you have a checkbook your monthly expenses your mortgage or your rent the cost of utilities of gone up because oil prices go up the cost of food extraordinarily inflation big inflation costs of food a gallon of milk vegetables fruits cereals all these kinds they all have gone up gasoline now cost fifty sixty dollars a tank to pay in the kind of car you have or how big the tank is and you know something for people that are earning twenty thirty forty thousand dollars a year pretty hard to make ends meet pretty hard to make ends meet and for people on minimum wage even worse so i think that this is a real economic issue for people at this moment that we have to solve and there's a mission short term issues that we put in this bill and there are some longer term issues that we start out talking about today let me just talk for a second congressman about the bill itself and  talk about what it does first of all it extends the tax credit for solar energy and qualified fuel cells we start talking about some of these renewable energy ideas i happen to be from florida so i'm a big fan of solar but you know something the state of washington with all the rain that seattle gets actually does more solar and other states than florida does but i do nationwide there are opportunities to do solar solar power has been around for a long time many countries depend on solar's the state of israel and the middle east big portion of their electric grid is supported by solar power technology just has to make some changes in the battery in the capacity in the storage and things like that but these are all solvable problems we put our mind to and so again investment tax credits using the federal government to stimulate market which is exactly what we want to incentivize the science and the business development we're authorizing over two billion dollars of new clean renewable energy bonds for public power providers and electric electric cooperate is again encouraging through markets through incentives our utilities to start to convert over to clean renewable energy products and fuels we extend we create a new production tax credit for alcohol produced for fuel in the united states now we all know about corn ethanol corn based ethanol well brazil large industrial country largest industrial country in south america one hundred ninety million people they are now energy independent this is not an eight million person country this is a country that put its goal on the line about a generation ago and said we're going to do it a whole lot of different types but they use sugar based ethanol as one way of doing it we extend bio diesel production tax then extend the tax credit for purchase of fuel efficient plug in hybrid vehicles extend the energy efficient commercial buildings the duction all these things are designed to create market you know we don't have to have the federal government involved  n this other than to say create market you know federal buildings let's make them energy independent and by doing so as taxpayers we're getting a better cost for our utility and we're also creating the products and instead purging the development of products that are going to save money so these are the kinds of things that are in this bill and a whole lot of other things we've already done we've increased the the cafe standards that's for the fuel miles per gallon in automobiles for the first time in thirty six years imagine congresses of the last ten twenty years that haven't touched that technology has grown but no no commitments so i'm really proud that we work together in a bipartisan way to do this and president bush has gone along with i want to present bush has not gone along with and i hope he does right now is this notion of fifteen billion dollars or so of tax rebates or incentives to oil companies for more oil drilling you know god bless the oil companies they're doing just fine a matter of fact i think there's a chart that we have here an oil company profits this is not question of bashan all come are entrepreneurs  winner stan what that means but at the same time a little a little fairness here it's not this one of the other one left there right there this is a chart that shows the major oil companies united states in two thousand and two thirty billion dollars of profit in two thousand and four one hundred nine billion dollars of profit two years later two thousand and seven one hundred twenty three billion dollars of profit that's a lot of profit that's more money than any other company in the history of the united states has ever made now i'm not even going to knock that but what i will say is american taxpayer doesn't have to put fifteen billion dollars of additional taxpayer money on top of that and when you hear our friends on the other side of the aisle say oh well if you take away the the incentives that the federal government is giving them or you can do is raise the price of the pump excuse me lots of profit here to to to generate more oil wells and things like that and they're going to do it because it makes good economic sense and let them do it that's good i just don't think we have to put some frosting on the cake or i'd rather take our taxpayer money and put it toward development of energy independence congress well well let me just lynn my voice and agree with you i do believe that that the energy company the oil companies do not need any more help from the american taxpayer it's time to really repeal these tax breaks and in credits and i'm glad that we've done so i just want to say that you know one hundred tenth congress this this congress that you and i came in  freshmen as as majority makers you know really has been productive in the area of energy i'm so glad that one of within the first hundred hours and i know congress will klein you'll remember the first hundred hours that you know we passed a bill to do to repeal the tax breaks to the big oil companies and and to incentivize production of clean and renewable sources and then of course it wasn't just last year that we passed the bill for cafe standards so many congresses so many years passed so we had no cafe standards to speak of no and not knowing creases in the cafe standards now we're at thirty five miles per gallon i think we should look at this not as some great victory but as a start down the road of progress and then again today we passed this i think historic bill and it signals change it signals change it signals that the united states congress is serious about renewable future it's signals of change that we can have a future where we can have air that we can breathe where we can have we can be at peace with our environment and not warm up the globe to the degree that we know no life can live on it or that the changes in the in that in the world temperatures will be so drastically changing that we can't sustain life as it exists now and i think that we can also live in the future we will we can get around and get around and have transportation that is affordable and and make some sense and actually is is something that we can all live with and all participate in but i think that these changes that we've seen in the hundred to the congress you know the hundred hours cafe standards and then today signal that we are going in the right direction we need the american people to continue to fuel the movement that we're on and one thing we're doing here tonight is trying to let you know what we've done and then ask for your continued participation because the american people are demanding change and i think that one hundred tenth congress is giving it to you let me just say that those those statistics that were just shown about oil profits earned i just i just think it's very important to bear in mind that you know as oil profits have been skyrocketing the average person that we've seen increases in prices of everything from food to fuel and we've also so seeing inflationary tendencies and we've also seen increase in unemployment weird time where clean renewable energy in a new a new path towards energy is something that everyone needs and it's something that i think our entire society our entire economy oil companies included need to take a part in and need to look at the tremendous bounty they have received from being able to be an american corporation and saying that look you know we're going to do something to participate i would like to see our oil companies take some of their own profits and invested into renewable energies i'd like to see them take some of the great bounty they've received and make a commitment to the american people to get into a green future so again what we see today is signaling change sending us in the right direction and i look forward to going much much further thank you congressman and i just want to touch on if i can because you  these bloated budgets president signing them going deeper and deeper into deficit and obviously there are a lot of very expensive things going on right now but no lack of discipline in terms of control of our fiscal house and you know i've got kids congressman you have kids we all have children grandchildren parents whatever why would we as a country want to continue to put ourselves father and father in debt and that's the direction we've been going i'm very proud to say that this congress in the first week we go it's a simple principle pay as you go it's no different than when i had a business i couldn't that could mean my payroll you make cuts ok you can't spend more than that coming in maybe can borrow a little bit but you have to pay your debt service you just can't keep borrowing in the case of federal government printing money so the good news is this congress is showing fiscal discipline for the first time in a long time and i'm committed to i'm a fiscal discipline person a hawk if you will and i know you are as well congressman and as we go through this process this bill is fully paid for and the rule that we have paygo is that no bill can pass unless it is fully paid for so that means no speculation that the budgets going to grow by three percent next year and we'll have the money next year money's going to appear out of nowhere the money has to be in the budget to make cuts somewhere else or prioritize something and that's exactly what budgeting is all about and proud as donnelly a democrat but as an american as a member of this congress that's the direction we want going to take time to dig out of this hole a start this particular piece of legislation is paid for and the way it's been paid for isn't partaking the the subsidy i mentioned a few minutes ago which is billions and billions of dollars and saying instead of just giving it's an oil companies more all drilling  is always going be a part of our national energy policy but it it can't be the only and just to give more money in flushing that way let's bring it in and so we've taken money from one source and put it in what i believe and i think many of us believe is a higher  priority of renewable energy sources and moving in that direction and you know i'll just share this with the real quickly because i thought it was quite unique you know a lot of the stuff that we passed out of here in washington is viewed sometimes a partisan way most things done in a partisan but there are different different groups that have different positions on a different opinions i'm going to read there's a very long list of other read just a handful of the supporters the organizations that are supporting this energy legislation is i think it speaks volumes of coming from different points in the country and how important it is we have the american institute of architects american society of heating refrigerant air conditioning engineers the audubon society dupont big manufacturer friends of the earth's environmental greenpeace the home depot florida power and light a big producer in my state of electricity may see s mitsubishi electric and electronics usa national association of home builders nasser's lowe's national association industrial offices p g and e corp target corporation wal mart yahoo and i can go on there are pages and pages of groups that are behind us environmental all the way on one end or wherever you want to pla to large industrial corporations and entrepreneurs and innovators and venture capitalists and scientists and universities on the other and that to me is the ideal position you want to be and you want to have a an ownership of an idea and we've taken into context all the various ideas and brought in a piece of legislation that is good for everyone not perfect and we continue to build on this but it's an excellent first step congressman well let me just say that i agree with you when people you know we've got understand that when you don't when you borrow all this money to fund the government you've got to pay that back and that payback accounts for a part of your budget which squeezes out other things you might really want to do so pay as you go has a whole lot of merit and i'm glad we're not adding already to the enormous debt as you know when the when this president came into office he inherited a fairly significant budget surplus but that's yesterday you know one of the things i want to mention congress was klein about this important bill is that provisions are critical to creating hundreds of thousands of good paying green collar american jobs this issue of jobs green collar jobs is critical green collar jobs are jobs perhaps in the construction industry where people would help retrofit old buildings in order to make them more fuel efficient for example green roofs on buildings more fuel efficiency in buildings construction jobs jobs that people can earn a good wage when i think it's important to understand that part of the new energy future that we're talking about takes in consideration not just the scientists who are going to be working in labs and not just the folks who are going to be working on the policy issues but actually hardworking americans who work every single day to put food on the table for their families the green collar job is something i think we have to pay close attention to and it is you may know our our our farm bill actually included a provision about green collar jobs which is very important and i was happy to be a part of that the preservation of existing jobs relies on these green collar jobs as well a recent study showed that allowing the renewable energy incentives to expire would lead to about one hundred sixteen thousand jobs being lost in the wind and solar industries through the end of two thousand and nine now this is a big deal because if we incentivize the production of great clean renewable energy of wind of solar of biomass of code generation of other forms of energy production it has the effect of spinning off more and more employment and of course as i lead in before the first part of creating a green future for america is in conservation that which we say we never have to use energy to fuel and so in this area of conservation as i mentioned before all kinds of jobs in the area of construction in the area of so many things that would work allow people who to make a good honest living and at the same time preserve our energy future and make our economy cleaner and make our economy one in which everybody can even avoid the health risks associated with some of the burning of hydrocarbons so again green collar jobs a big part of what we did today big part of what we've been doing and i'm proud to be associated with that well i agree with you and if you think about the bills that we've passed this one one the other one the other bill we passed in addition to increasing the fuel efficiency for automobiles which i think is long overdue is also also creates changes in specifications of light bulbs dishwashers refrigerators freezers these are products all of us have in our home many of them are very inefficient they may be older or they may just not be efficient to start with and what we've done is as the products are now going to come out of the market they're going to have to have a greater fuel efficiency standard greater efficiency standard for the amount of power that they use that is a very important thing because now what we're saying is with light bulbs or any other thing any other thing that uses electricity out there that over time we're going to be able to save massive amounts of power and the amount of power that we save directly goes into the amount of fuel and pollution and hydrocarbons and all the rest of the things that are produced this is something that americans are asking for and as competition comes into play more and more companies will be producing these the prices will come down the normal competitive forces work so the fact that you know if you hear about one company right now that it manufactures a refrigerator that you know uses thirty percent less power but it costs you a thousand dollars more we're not going to buy it some people may but it's not going to have wide market appeal but it will when you have ten companies producing it and they're all in there trying to make it better than the other come just like any other product that comes to market we know that happens with t v s and even with you know the flat screen t all coming down in price now and d v d s and v c r s and all those kinds of things it's the same concept the american american people want products are going to be efficient cars they can save money in the long run if you can pay for it over the next three years in savings that's a wonderful thing but i think it's very exciting because you know we're in there to promote the general idea of renewable energy and you know there are so many different parts of the country is not one answer for an for all this but there's so many different parts of this country where there's lots of great research going on right off the coast of florida where i live is the gulf stream you may be from over the gulf stream it's a you know a current that developed off the coast the united states and goes all the way up north i am told by the scientists who are working on this right now that the power of the gulfstream if harness with various types of turbans and things like that it has instruments have to be generated have to be environmentally friendly and all the rest and all this is under development that over time they believe that that power can generate enough electricity to power half of florida's power needs wow i don't know if that's going to happen but i like the idea people are thinking and creating and innovating we have enough coal in the ground in the connell united states to power this country for decades to come but there are problems with coal some of it is high sulfur and it creates pollution problems but there may be technology that can be developed to scrub the coal and again that's there needs to be this emphasis to say we're not just going to accept the fact that this is a coal that we're going to continue to pollute we're going to find a solution here there are solutions to every problem and as i said before it's not only united states because we can do all that we want to do in terms of leading the world in dealing with these environmental issues and energy energy solutions but there are other countries china and some other countries that are huge power users and use huge thought fossil fuel users that we can create something that's cost effective environmentally friendly will create a better life for everybody we're going have a huge market to sell that sell those products too so i'm just very excited and you'll probably hear my voice because i've been talking about this for many years but i'm so happy to be a part of congress with our freshman class democrats and republicans and members  been hearing loud and clear from people back home all over america that they want change and this is one of these areas that allows such opportunity for us to come together as a country solve a problem create jobs fix congressman hall from new york congressman paul has a long history before he got to congress of having a tremendous amount of interest in energy and he has some personal experiences in working in his own community on an energy issues and i'm glad you joined us for this discussion we've been talking about the bill the landmark bill that we passed today and what a great thing it is for america and how we're going to take many many more steps for but please give us your thoughts kind of all thank you my colleagues colleagues and  this is a important step we took today simply put our success in ending our addiction to foreign oil and fossil fuels is going to determine whether or not america will continue to grow and prosper in twenty first century there's perhaps no other issue that could have as much of a profound effect on our economy as our ability to meet this goal of producing our own energy and new breakthroughs in ways of developing energy we've seen the terrible toll that the economic downturn has taken on working families over the past few months skyrocketing energy costs have made the burden her just become to bear and at the same time wages have stagnated growth is far from certain oil is over one hundred dollars translating into homes in my district that are literally burning up their savings every time they burn oil to heat their homes and i would remind those of you who don't know that you can call up your loading local law distributor of heating oil if  soy biodiesel blend and that's that many barrels of oil less have to come into the country from unstable parts of the world failure to take swift swift aggressive action which simply results in more of the same and i think that the house is taking leadership which i'm proud of all of the government can join us in this leadership toward clean energy technology the renewable energy and energy conservation tax act which we passed today will provide the kind of market incentives and financial support needed to usher in a clean era a new era of clean energy technology and innovation that will create jobs here and hance our security retrieve our balance of payments deficit protect our environment and create thousands of green jobs and i just want to point out too that some people might see this might read this especially with the connotations that have been attached to the word tax and think that this is something that it's not actually what this what this bill did was to take back a tax giveaway that was given by a previous congress to the oil companies who are reporting even you know week to week now we seem to hear about new record profits being set by companies which are breaking their own record  national indebtedness and the balance of trade deficit that is being fed and exaggerated by our addiction to oil i would prefer that we do on the direction of the bill we passed today which will support new technologies to power our homes business economists and vehicles and the vital tax incentives to spur renewable energy generation the production of  kinds innovative technologies like plug in hybrid cars i'm driving american made union made detroit hybrid four by four which i hope soon i'll be able to convert into a plug in hybrid in fact there's a popular things the thing that got adults on their feet was the student's presentation from newberg free academy newburgh new york of the solar racing team and they had a  beta vehicle that ran on solar energy was a little bit larger than this oval table sitting here looks like a sort of like a flying saucer that was it had a seat that a student could crouch in and just barely get behind the steering wheel and it was covered entirely with is covered entirely with solar panels and has batteries to store the energy in it and it won or chide for first place in a race from houston texas to newburgh new york two thousand miles on the highway in a car powered by solar power and electricity generated therefrom and built by the bushies vocational tract high school students who know how to put together machinery and weld and so on and working with the advanced placement math and science kids who know how to calculate how many square inches of solar panels you need to produce the sufficient amount of electricity was it was the kids who got the adults excited and and i i ran into constituents of mine who are leaving they're saying why don't the big auto companies do this with the resources they have why can't government and center buys this sort of thing with the resources that government has  and i'm happy to say that we're taking a big step in that direction today and i encourage our colleagues in the senate to follow suit and to join us just as we can in the front page of the new york times a major story about when boom in texas which is the now the leading state for installed when technology and none other than t boone pickens the oil tycoon was quoted if i could paraphrase him a saying he's as excited now about wind power as he ever was about any oil field he ever discovered and that warms my heart to hear a guy like mr pickens recognizing the the the financial value which also translates into the jobs value a boost to our economy that can come from wind and solar and geothermal and low head hydro electric power and all the other biofuels and all the other things that we're trying to incentivize and give tax credits for in this legislation so i'm just thrilled to be here to talk with my colleagues about it and and to be here today to vote on it because i see it is moving from the lose lose lose energy policy of policy of the past or unfortunately still the president presents the fortean slip a president where we send billions of dollars a day to the oil potentates in the middle east young mostly men but some women in those parts of the world being taught among other things to attack u s interests or israeli interests or or  seen as as fighting against america and then for the privilege of doing that and also funding as tom friedman likes to write in his columns we we pay for our troops to go and try to defend our interests and at the same time we get to borrow the money from the chinese for the whole endeavor because we don't have it and so for all of this trouble and all of the expense of this lose lose lose policy we also had asthma and emphysema epidemics in our inner cities acid rain oil spills etc the when when when policy would would put us back in control of our own foreign policy put us back in control of our own economic policy would make us once again leaders in the technologies that we should have been leading in all along like hybrid technology or our wind and thin film flexible solar technology and so on so i'm i'm glad to see is moving toward the win win w and i thank my colleagues and yield back well i i hope that as as we're all discussing this today it's clear that the level of deep understanding of this issue from my colleagues here and many on the floor of the united states house of representatives today really gives you the sense that we're moving in a direction that's been well thought out than deliberated carefully as i said before you've got a remarkable group of people from one end of our country the other the business community the environmental community have come to embrace this and break down this it's either good for the environment and bad for the economy or you know bad for for jobs and good for the environment at that's a fallacy it's a false statement it's a myth the misstatement and it's just wrong what approach it but it's been that way for so many years people seem to position it that way in the political environment it's not yes you may very clearly made a case today it's a win win win good for the environment good for our economy and people's lives and really solves a national security problem that we should have never been in but has now become to the point where we live we have to listen to  countries that are deciding our future and as i said previously in this chamber all it's going to take is one super tanker to go down the straits of hormuz in the middle east and we're going to worldwide energy crisis we can't allow that to happen we cannot allow that to happen we're not going to solve it overnight we have to take all the necessary steps but today through your efforts mr hall and mr ellison and so many people in united states house of representatives and so many americans who came forward and said take these ideas and put them in legislation and collaborate together work with democrats republicans people from all walks of life to come up with something that is innovative exciting forward thinking progresses this is what we have today and i think the gentleman from new york for great insight and great thought because you are truly one of the architects of a great piece of legislation today michelle so i know you are ready to add something to mr hall's comments as well that's right and i do thank you i am going to have to take my leave shortly after i make remarks but i want to thank you for holding down tonight mr klein you've done a good job as usual but i just want to say that as i listen to mr hall make comments about young people who are involved in innovation and creative use of their talents and skills you don't remind me of the fact that this bill that we pass today plus the bill we passed one hundred hours plus the believe passed the farm bill on the energy bill we've already passed our is a policy that all americans can get behind whether you're a young person in high school trying to figure out how much how much of the surface of your of your solar vehicle needs to be in panels so that it can run efficiently or whether you're a person working in a n n a company or whether you are a person who is just that we're trying to earn enough money to make a plan really this is a bill that meets the needs of many people which is why it's good legislation you ran off a list of supporters of the bill but i also you know i just want to point out that whether you're a  mom and dad or whether you're home depot or even dow chemical or the sierra club or the united steelworkers or the national farmers union this is good legislation this is that legislation america can get behind and so i think i look forward to a more renewable greener future that we all can participate in and i just want to say finally to our oil companies that have made such monumental profits of the last numbers of years  i do hope that you all look within yourselves and take some of those profits that you've been able to get based on you being an american company and invest in america thank you thank you congressman and again minnesota is well served by a great leadership there and you know it's funny as as the gentleman was talking about children i look back and think when i was growing up and you drive down the road and people would just when they were done with a bag of food they were just thrown out the window a can of soda thrown out the window cigarette thrown out the window just on any side road you just see garbage and it wasn't until our kids started saying what are you doing why  this and then the whole notion of recycling and how that became built in but it wasn't from parents that came forward our grandparents it was children learning in school learning about their environment learn about how important was to to preserve and protect and clean up and not add to pollution and things that cause environmental problems those are the things as the changes seat belts another example i mean seatbelts children were taught about it we as adults many people didn't do kids and i think our younger generation today is a generation as i started today's conversation this is the calling of this generation the calling of our young people to call upon our adults our grandparents everyone in america to say this is something that is so important to the united states and so many levels we've been discussing that we're going to have to do it and it's the generation that's in school today that's in college today that are young adults that are driving and realize that you know they have a lifetime to leave live and that lifetime needs to be on a planet that is clean has fresh air that's fresh water and all the things that are important at the same time we can live in a country in the produces high quality jobs and creates all sorts of products and services that can be done i was in a while last week in west palm beach i was at a an office building that's a green building certified building now some people don't know what that is and i'm learning about this  we go but this is a building that is designed from top to bottom it's energy use it's it's it's the whole construct of the building is such that it is really designed to save energy to create a much more productive environment so it's not just the energy sob it's the whole environment of working and living and all those kinds of things and we fascinating because you know a lot of people said well not going to go there cost a lot more you know something if you build it from the ground up doesn't cost so much more and there's a lot of savings to be generated out of these types of buildings savings of water in the plumbing savings of energy in the lights and electricity in the heating and ventilating and air conditioning all very important lots of opportunities market is being created the support is there the people least not this building and things will slow to floor right now but this gentleman who did who speculated on this building he's finding tenants because they're saying you know something makes sense it's good for my corporate image it's good for my employees for our production we're going to save money in the long run why not and there are lots of ways to retrofit buildings too that i know the gentleman is very familiar with so these are the kinds of things that i know are very important to all of us that are created and encourage in this bill and other bills and of course as we move forward we're going to look for ideas from our constituents our business people our scientists our kids as to one of the things we can do as a country some but through legislation some that just through talking about it moving it forward so these are the things that i am now we're joined by another member who is so active and i know his campaign was heavily involved in environmental and energy issues and it's the gentleman from california the golden state mr mcnerney and if you please the join us and give us your thoughts on today's legislation and i feel about the issue well thank you my good friend from florida you know i have to say that i spent my career developing wind energy technology and i got started when i was in college because of a few things that motivated me we had the oil embargo of one nine hundred seventy three we had exciting technology that was that gave us the motivation to move forward to develop these new technologies and i can tell you the first time we put a window together we brought the investors in and we turned on the machine and the when the blades flew everywhere we had to run for cover every bit of that technology which was improved over about a twenty year period until today we have the most one of the most economic forms of new energy technology in the world it's growing by leaps and bounds all over the world and i think there's a very to what's happening today right now we have a national security issue we have very exciting technology taking place all over this great country there's economic security at stake and now we also have a new element it's global warming and so the motivation is there of a problem is that the companies can't move forward without long term planning and part of that long term planning is knowing what your rate of return is going to be and if we can't if we keep if we don't move forward with production tax credits and investment tax credit then the investors don't know what to expect so they're not going to get in the game and this has happened to our country repeatedly in the last twenty years whereas europe has kept a very steady plan a very steady investment incentives and they are way ahead of us in terms of where newble it in g technology in terms of production in terms of employment and now it's our turn to catch up a five year extension is just exactly what we need and i'm so happy that the house i'm so proud of the house for coming together and moving forward with this legislation and it's going to keep us competitive it's going to create jobs throughout our great country in rural areas that have been depressed it's going to create jobs in cities but in manufacturing so this is the kind of legislation that i was sent here to produce this kind of legislation my colleagues all agree with me that's so important  our country and i think the house did a wonderful job today it's going to help our country long long into the future and it's going to also benefit our national security as i mentioned before because we are importing about eleven million barrels of oil per day into this country that's a tremendous amount of money going overseas that's a tremendous amount of the carbon dioxide going in the air so we're motivated by national security are motivated by economic security  and we're going to fight global warming and we're going to adapt and we're going to move forward with a new technology creating the kind of country that we want for our children to live in and my good friends from new york you look like you're ready to suck i'm always ready to talk my friend  was thinking as you speaking about how institutions starting with the united states government and and state and county and local governments can all do their part and we've done our part by voting today for this legislation by voting actually earlier in the session last year two in the transportation infrastructure committee we voted out legislation to put solar panels on the south facing wall department venner department a symbolic step forward as well as a practical one because the the south facing wall was designed in the seventy's when the department of energy was first created to be at the proper angle for  generate the best and most power from the sun and it's that kind of investment that government can make is that kind of investment that states can made i i met today with for that probably third time with representatives of new york state's energy research and development authority about ideas like putting infrastructure on the new york state thruway service stations a whole route that goes from buffalo across to albany and down to new at least of vehicles been sold us flex fuel vehicles to american citizens by t v commercials saying you're doing something green when you buy them but here in new york state where i you know this is one thousand nine hundred new york state that i represent i got a call  we got a call in our district office from a lady saying i just bought a flex fuel vehicle we're going to get some flex fuel and our staffer had to say there's one pump in albany and another one in westchester somewhere and congressman markey told me that in massachusetts  pump for the whole state for he eighty five and one hundred forty thousand flex fuel vehicles on the road so when you start pulling the string through the through the to the string of demand through the tube and and make sure that there's more supply created by creating the demand i would hope that the arlington high school action club which i just met with last week who was in the middle of the project right now for putting solar panels on the roof of their school a new wing of the school school bus fleets for post office trucks for town highway department trucks county and state highway any any entity of government or private enterprise like  fed ex or trucking companies that use a lot of diesel fuel can just as well burn if i can burn twenty percent biodiesel at home they can probably burn it in their diesel trucks and there are so my musician friends willie nelson  r bonnie raitt have been driving for years tour buses and trucks all over this country on biodiesel and definitely can be done and i just think that each of us as americans should look at this as an opportunity to lead and to do our part to push this revolution forward and to push this new policy into being and government can't do everything it certainly can't do everything all at the same time but together we businesses government and individuals can make the decisions on a day to day basis to vote with our dollars for those new forms of energy were available whether it's by flipping our electric bill over and voting for wind in new york state were allowed to do that were allowed to choose whether it's wind or hydro or whatever form of electrical generation we choose whether it's by asking for biofuels whenever we can get them by driving most fuel efficient car you can in the most fuel efficient way i might add but at any rate it's there's nowhere to go but up and in the process we will regain our sovereignty we will not somewhere down the road we will not have to worry about speaking honestly to the saudis or other non democratic governments about human rights just as we don't have to worry about we won't have to worry about speaking honestly to the chinese tainted toys because we're afraid we won't get the oil from one or get the debt floated by the other so it's it's getting ourselves back on our feet economically and and diplomatically and energy wise and i yield back to gentlemen i thank the gentleman from new york for the the technical and energy and to help us move this in the right direction for a close the gentleman from california well thank you very much you know what what we're just seeing now is june from new york's new york showing his excitement about the future of energy technology in his own district and i've seen this with representatives from new york off from alaska well a new represented we're going to have in two thousand and nine from alaska from from california where i live from all over the country from the great plains even south where they don't have wind they're always cloudy there but they have bio mass so everybody can get excited everybody can take part our whole country can move together forward together in such a way that benefits all of us and it helps our national security so i'm looking forward to opening up a whole new economy the naysayers are saying we can't afford what's going to happen with global warming i can tell you we can more more than afford it we can't afford not to going to create jobs it's going to create security it's going to create a great future for our country and i feel back to my friend from florida and i thank the gentleman from california actually calling those in the other body the senate to think also boldly about energy independence and help us pass this bill as fast as possible and when the senate passes a energy bill we as americans urge the president of the united states to sign it quickly and to join together with all of us this is the calling of our generation and the time is now and i thank the gentleman i thank all of our members of the house represents first for those who support the bill today and courage others to get a long ride and i turn it back to mr speaker thank you thank you the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn mr speaker i move that the house can do now adjourn the motion