Date: 2007-01-18
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. at this time I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for the time. Fairness. openness. sunshine. transparency. bipartisanship. those are just some of the words that the new majority used to describe the way they were going to run the. 110th Congress. But today. as we begin debate on the sixth bill of the Democrats "100 Hours for 6" or 100 hours agenda. we have seen all too clearly. Mr. Speaker. the truth about those promises. They have been. at best. hollow promises. On Tuesday of this week. the Committee on Rules met to take testimony and report a rule on the legislation that has been brought to the floor today. Before any testimony was even taken. the distinguished chairwoman of the committee announced that the committees majority would report out a closed rule.. After the chairwomans declaration. there really was not any need for testimony or debate on any amendments. The Rules Committee had been closed for business. The majority had already made up its mind to block amendments despite any merits of all possible amendments that could be brought before the committee. Mr. Speaker. it is difficult to see how you can claim an open and transparent process when you block all amendments before they are even brought before the committee. During consideration of the bills that comprised the Contract with America in 1995. we Republicans allowed consideration of 154 Democrat amendments. 48 Democrat amendments eventually passed the House and were included in the Contract with America bills that passed the House of Representatives. But that is not what we see happening today. Mr. Speaker. Today as we consider the last of the new majoritys 100 hour agenda. we have not had the chance to debate one amendment. not even one. From either party. they have been consistent. they close out their Members as well. They promised openness. they promised transparency. Some openness. some transparency. According to the majority leaders office. Mr. Speaker. we have over 65 hours left in the socalled 100 hours for 2006. The reality is that we have more than enough time. more than enough time to debate some thoughtful amendments. What does the majority plan to do with the rest of their 100 hours? Are we to expect more closed rules? The 100 hours for 2006 campaign .means that six people make all the decisions. apparently. I would imagine it is the Speaker. the majority leader. the whip. the caucus chairman and two others. six for 06 and six for 07 and six for 08. but then the American people get to speak again. Now. Democrats claim that Congress already debated the bills last year. the bills that are being brought forth to the floor. While it is true that some provisions have come before the Congress in other legislation in previous Congresses. provisions that may be in legislation brought before us under these closed rules that shut out all the amendments. there are many aspects of the bills. including the bill today. that have never seen the light of day. Even more important is that our 54 new colleagues. they were not here for any of our previous debates. Four committees of jurisdiction have jurisdiction over the bill that the majority brings to the floor at this time. Ways and Means. Resources. Budget and Rules. Yet the majority did not allow any of those committees of jurisdiction to hold any hearings or debate the bill. I am honored to serve as the ranking member on the Rules Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process. which has jurisdiction over parts of this underlying consideration. The subcommittee has never held a hearing on the bill. The majority decided it was better if the bill never saw the light of day in any committee process. I think it is important to recall why we have committees. why we have a committee process. The committee process allows Members to understand the merits and implications of bills and to vet. refine and amend legislation. Completely shutting out committees of jurisdiction is certainly not healthy for the democratic process. This year we have already seen what happens when you bypass the committee process and blindly bring legislation to the floor. We get outcomes. such as the one in the minimum wage bill that ends up exempting companies from paying the minimum wage in American Samoa. If it had gone through the committee process. at least we would have known about that aspect of the bill. If we had held hearings on the underlying bill before us today. we would learn some of the consequences of this bill. For example. some bill would cut back on incentives for domestic production of oil and gas. Those incentives are aimed. and the existing incentives. are aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil by encouraging domestic exploration and production of oil and natural gas. Removal of those incentives will drive up the cost. obviously. for those who search for oil and gas and thus increase our dependence on foreign suppliers. such as Venezuela and Nigeria. Those countries. I would maintain. are not reliable sources. In the case of Venezuela. its government is clearly antiAmerican. Do we really want to rely on those countries? Apparently the majority today is saying yes. Republicans are committed to increasing clean energy supplies and increasing our domestic energy sources. Since 2001. we have seen the investment of nearly $12 billion to develop cleaner. cheaper and more reliable domestic energy sources. This includes the development of biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol. advanced hybrid and plugin. hybrid electric vehicle technologies. hydrogen fuel cell technologies. wind and solar energy. clean coal and advanced nuclear technologies. You know. we hear my friend from Massachusetts talking about the fact that some tax breaks or unfair tax breaks were given to the oil and gas companies. It is interesting. because I was seeing a report from the Congressional Research Service that talks about despite the fact that there has been a lot of talk and there continues to be a lot of talk over the tax breaks given to big oil in the energy bill that we passed in 2005. in reality. that energy bill substantially raised taxes on the oil and gas industry $300 million. There was a $300 million tax increase. according to the Congressional Research Service. while at the same time. giving more than almost $9 billion in tax incentives for alternative clean and renewable energy resources. The bottom line. Mr. Speaker. is that we should not be considering closed rule after closed rule after closed rule and systematically bypassing the committee process. This constant bypass operation that our friends on the other side of the aisle have become enamored to. the constant bypass operation. it really constitutes an affront. I would say. to the democratic spirit as well as. obviously. to the promises that were repeated and repeated by our friends on the other side of the aisle before they arrived and constituted and instituted the continuous. constant bypass operation. bypass the committees. bypass the Members. bypass the possibility of amendments. and go straight to the floor with legislation that no one has seen. That is not healthy. That is not healthy. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker. at this time I reserve the balance of my time.