Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, before giving my special order on cancer, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) to speak about a good friend of mine and his and this entire body. Tribute to Ron Lasch

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Yes. I am absolutely confident within 5 to 10 years it will be possible to take my brother's own bone marrow cells and probably grow him a new liver and put his own new liver into his liver; but that may be 5 or 6 years down the road, or 10 years, and right now he is counting weeks if we are not able to help get him an option. But we looked at transplants. We looked at Johns Hopkins, we looked at M.D. Anderson in Houston, we looked at Baylor Medical in Dallas, we looked at University of Pittsburgh. I mean, he has checked that option as late as last week, and it just does not appear that that is in the cards. But that would certainly be an option if it were not a metastasized cancer, if it were what is called a hepatoma, which is an original cancer in the liver. I think that would have been a very viable option 3 or 4 months ago.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to join in the accolades for Ron. There is a phrase that a lot of us use called ``institutional memory.'' Ron Lasch is the institutional memory, at least on the Republican side, of the procedures here in the House. I think it is well-known that I am a Congressman who lives in Texas and visits Washington, and I try to find the first plane out of town after the last vote. I used to check with Trent Lott when he was the minority whip and then Newt Gingrich, and now that we are in the majority I will check with Tom Delay or Dick Armey. But when I want to really know, I will go to Ron Lasch, and he always knows when we can leave. So, in typical fashion, he has gone on leave to take his vacation. He is not officially gone yet, but we are not expecting to see him on the floor very often anymore. So I join in accolading Mr. Lasch as a friend of mine. I do not know him as well personally as the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), but he is certainly a good man. The Devastation of Cancer Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to talk about a terrible word, a terrible six letter word, it is one of the most frightening words in the English language, and that word is cancer, C-A-N-C-E-R. If you have ever been in a doctor's office and had that word spoken in a personal way, or been with a loved one when that word has been spoken about their physical condition, it sends chills literally into your heart. Cancer kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, and millions worldwide. In this Congress we spend billions of dollars researching cures for cancer. In this Congress in and the last Congress we passed close to a dozen bills to try to address what can be done to seek redress for the disease. It is a disease that knows no socioeconomic boundary; it knows no geographical boundary. It is literally a six letter word that chills us to the very core of our souls. Most of us, fortunately, tend to look at cancer more academically or in a statistical sense, and we do not have to address it in a human sense. But there are times when we do. Now is one of those times. I want to humanize cancer on a very personal basis this evening. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), who was just here, informed me that his brother John Kolbe died of liver cancer last year. We have in this body the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) who lost a daughter to cancer within the last year. We are not used to congressmen and congresswomen and senators and public officials really being looked at as real people. Most of the time the general public looks at us as some sort of a political icon or something, but we are real people and we have real families, and, for some of us, we have medical problems that border on the tragic. I have a brother, John Barton. John is 43 years old. He is a District Judge in Fort Worth, Texas. He is married. He has two beautiful sons, Jake and Jace. Jace is about to have a birthday, July 22, a beautiful wife, Jennifer, an outstanding career in the community. About a year-and-a-half ago John Barton was diagnosed as having a cancer behind his nose, the ethmoid sinus cavity. The particular kind of cancer he was diagnosed with is a very rare form of cancer called a squamous cell carcinoma. At that time he was given little chance to live more than 6 months to a year. Obviously, he was very concerned, his family was very concerned. We were able to get him in touch with some of the leading medical experts in the United States, and, thanks to the good work of the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), who is a subcommittee chairman of one of the Committee on Appropriations subcommittees, he had been able to get money invested in a special kind of proton beam accelerator at Loma Linda out in California. They had had some success in treating cancers that were inoperable. John's cancer behind his nose, between the optic nerve and the olfactory nerve, the decision was made that it would be very difficult to surgically remove it, so they agreed to try to treat him with this proton beam radiation. Again, I cannot say enough about the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) and the work he has done to provide the funding for that facility. It bears his name, the Jerry Lewis Treatment Facility. My brother went out there; and in May of last year, John was given a clean bill of health, that the squamous cell cancer in his ethmoid sinus was gone. We literally thought that it was a medical miracle and religious miracle that he was cancer-free. He went back to Texas and regrew his hair, regained weight, was living a normal life, and in January of this year, January of 2000, he got to feeling a little bit under the weather and he went in to see the doctor and they took a blood sample and his liver function was off the chart. So they did a medical biopsy of the liver and found out that he had dozens, if not hundreds, of liver cancer tumors in his liver. They performed a round of tests, and first it was indeterminate whether this was a new cancer or a metastasized version of the cancer that had been in his sinus. Finally, the doctors decided that it was a metastasized squamous cell moderated carcinoma from the ethmoid sinus, and they gave him 3 to 6 months to live in February of this year. We had gone through this the year before; and so again, John was in shock and his mother and his wife and myself as one of his brothers, his brother Jay, his sister Jan, his friends. So John decided to try to seek both spiritual assistance and medical assistance. He has gone through a number of treatment options. He has been treated with at least four different kinds of chemotherapy and was in an experimental protocol that we thought might help him; but last week, his liver bilirubin level, which is a measure of the efficiency of the liver, and for you and I, a normal bilirubin count would be one, my brother's is over 20. Life cannot be sustained at that level. So I take the floor this evening to ask my colleagues if they are aware of a treatment somewhere in their district, somewhere that there is a researcher doing research on metastasized cancers that migrate to the liver, call me and I will get in touch with my brother's doctors. In Texas, there is a famous Texan named William Barrett Travis who was commandant of the Alamo, and he was surrounded by 6,000 to 8,000 troops under Mexican General Santa Anna. Things looked hopeless and Colonel Travis sent out a letter that is famous all over the great State of Texas that says, ``To all freedom-loving people of the world, please send aid with all dispatch.'' So I am here this evening on behalf of my brother, John, to ask all freedom-loving people of the world if you know of something that might yet help him, I would certainly appreciate hearing from you to see if we may yet be able to help him. I see my good friend, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), who is a cancer survivor, on the floor. Before I talk a little bit more about my brother, I would be happy to yield to her if she wishes to speak. I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina to give us some words of wisdom.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 1304.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, the NERI R&D program at DOE is an innovative program to spur new thinking at DOE labs, the nation's universities and in industry. The NERI program represents a revitalization of the Department's nuclear energy research program. Begun two years ago, these awards also represent excellence. Out of 120 proposals received by DOE, only 10 were selected, including one from Texas A&M University. Through NERI, the Department has ushered in a new management approach to long-term nuclear energy research that applies the competitive, peer-reviewed selection of investigator-initiated R&D proposals. Through NERI, the Department has initiated an R&D effort focused on resolving barriers to the future expansion of nuclear energy--including proliferation, economics and nuclear waste. Through NERI, we are maintaining our seat at the table of the international discussion on the future of nuclear energy. This is critical if we are to participate in discussions on clean air, climate change and energy security. Advancing the state of nuclear science and technology, resolving key technology issues, and engaging the international community will all contribute to enabling the United States to reassert its leadership role in the development of nuclear energy technologies. I am therefore pleased to support NERI and oppose the Foley amendment that would eliminate this vital program at DOE.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for offering this amendment. It is similar to an amendment that we reported out of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power on a bipartisan basis. Mr. Chairman, it was debated and voted on in the House, and passed I think in the neighborhood of 400 votes for and five or six votes against. It is an amendment that is in conference now with the Senate on the reauthorization of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the Energy Policy Conservation Act of 1992. It is a classic compromise in that it has the heating oil reserve in the Northeast, which would be filled most likely with fuel oil. It has for the Southwest in the production region the ability for the Secretary of Energy to purchase stripper well oil, which is oil that comes from wells that produce less than 10 barrels a day when the price of oil falls below $15 a barrel on the world market, if that would ever happen again. So we get something for the production sector; we get something for the consuming sector. It is bipartisan. It passed the House overwhelmingly earlier this year. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend again the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood) for offering it tonight, and I hope that we would adopt it unanimously.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 196 I was unable to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.'' Amendment No. 20 Offered by Mr. Traficant

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 197 I was unable to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.'' Amendment No. 13 Offered by Mr. Stearns

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 195, I was unable to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 194 I was unable to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.'' Announcement by the Chairman Pro Tempore

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong support of this bill. It is not a perfect budget process reform bill, but it is the most perfect budget process reform bill we can get to the floor, and I am for it. A lot of the talk we will hear against it is really inside baseball against the prerogatives of certain committees or, in some cases, perhaps certain specific Members. I think the fact that we have to have a joint resolution signed by the President early in the process is a very positive step. We have sat around here, those of us that have been in the body a number of years, and watched President Clinton demand more spending to sign the appropriation bills, or watched President Reagan or Bush demand less spending. Why not bring the President and the Congress together at the beginning? In terms of the emergency day fund, how many emergency supplemental bills have really been just about emergencies? Not very many. This bill has a real definition and actually does try to budget for emergencies. I think that is a very positive step. It does not have the 2-year budget biennium that we hope will be passed on the amendment, but if we pass that, that will be a good step, and I will speak later on other amendments as they come forward. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my support for H.R. 853, the Comprehensive Budget Process Reform Act, introduced by Congressman Nussle. As a cosponsor of this legislation, I am very glad to see this important measure considered here today. The American people are sick and tired, like I am, of the same old budget story coming out of Washington at the end of every year. The process in which we now fund our government has become one big staring contest--waiting to see who will blink first. Each year, hot political issues and scare tactics are used to hold up and stall the federal budget process so that at the end of the year some can attempt to cater the final budget numbers to be most appealing to their constituencies, regardless of whether or not the spending direction and levels are good for the country as a whole. This political game must be ended and sanity must be brought back to the federal budgeting process. Since joining Congress, I have been a strong supporter of budget process reform. I believe that budget process reform is an essential key to reaching and maintaining a balanced budget. Passage of meaningful process reform would leave its mark on this Nation for generations to come. In fact, I have introduced budget process reform legislation in this Congress, H.R. 2293, the ``Budget Enforcement Simplification Trust'' Act, or the ``BEST'' bill. This legislation, along with H.R. 853, recognizes the need for discipline and order in making spending and revenue decisions at the federal level. There are many issues that H.R. 853 addresses that should be central to any budget debate. For example, I support the idea of a joint resolution. A joint, rather than the current concurrent, resolution would bring the President into Congressional budget deliberations and make him accountable for its success or failure. And, because the President would have the authority to veto an unacceptable resolution, a joint resolution would require Congress to pay attention to Presidential concerns. Unlike the current budget process, this new framework would make both the Executive and the Legislative branches stakeholders in the resolution's outcome and require them to agree on overall spending and revenue levels, annual deficits, total debt levels, and on the allocation of resources among budget functions and committees. I understand that an amendment will be offered today to strike the provision in H.R. 853 that changes the budget resolution from a concurrent resolution to a joint resolution. I would hope that my colleagues would oppose this amendment and keep this important provision in the bill. I am also grad to see included in H.R. 853 the creation of a Reserve Fund which would replace the ``emergency'' supplemental appropriations bills which have become a catch-all for non-emergency spending schemes. Disbursements will be only for certified natural disasters with tough procedures to ensure spending on only its designed purposes. An ``emergency'' should not be defined as a requirement lacking budgeted funds. Congress has become too reliable on labeling increases in spending as an ``emergency'' designation, when in fact, the emergency at hand does not coincide with the spending levels considered. H.R. 853 also budgets for insurance programs on an accrual basis, which is the budget records net cost or receipts on a present value basis at the time the government commits to provide insurance. While I did not offer a similar provision in my BEST bill, I also see merit in this responsible treatment of insurance program transactions. While Congressman Nussle's bill, H.R. 853, contains many similar provisions to my BEST bill, there are a few differences in the two. One main difference is the fact that my budget process reform bill calls for a biennial budgeting process, while H.R. 853 retains the annual budget and appropriation process. I do want to elaborate some on this distinction between the use of biennial budgeting as compared to an annual budget and appropriation process. Today, an amendment will be offered by Rules Committee Chairman Drier that will establish a two-year budgeting and appropriations cycle and budget timetable. I appreciate the efforts of Chairman Drier in working to offer this important amendment and feel that this will go a long way to make an already good bill even better. I urge my colleagues to support his amendment. There are many sound arguments as to why and how biennial budgeting would help make the federal budgeting process more reliable and sensible. First of all, budgeting for a two year cycle would force Congress to be more careful in their spending habits and encourage members to be more responsible in the amounts and directions in which they allocate taxpayer dollars. Far too often, pet projects are added on to annual appropriations bills at the last minute, usually without the proper scrutiny of Congress. With one budget process every two years, the opportunities for that kind of spending would be cut in half. Federal agencies would also be more efficient and cautious in how they use their funds because of the length and stability of their funding over a two year cycle. In addition, Congress would be able to exercise better oversight over these government agencies and programs to ensure that the financial commitment involved is sound fiscal policy for the country to undertake. However, the most important aspect of biennial budgeting in my opinion is not what enacting it would do for Congress, but rather what it would allow Congress to accomplish. Each year, both parties state the many goals and accomplishments they hope to pass in order to improve the life of the American people. And each year, achieving these goals are becoming more and more difficult because of the time that is required to be spent on the annual appropriations process. Imagine how productive Congress could be if instead of having to deliberate over every dollar the government will see that given year, we could commit more time to the different issues that most of us came here to work toward. I want to spend more time helping small business and small communities by cutting taxes and wasteful spending in our government and pushing for legislative proposals that give more freedom for the American people to work toward a better tomorrow. I think every Member would tell you that he or she would like to have more time and resources to pursue the types of issues that they were all sent to Congress for in the first place. Biennial budgeting can help to make that happen. Again, I applaud this House for taking up budget process reform legislation here today. It is time for Congress to free up this process and allow this body to stand for more than annual appropriations battles. It is time for us to start spending our time and the American taxpayers' dime more wisely.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the University of Texas and Texas A&M have been playing football for over 100 years. It is one of the most intense athletic rivalries in the Lone Star State. In 1909, students at Texas A&M began a tradition that we now call bonfire. They went out and gathered old packing crates and pallets and trash and limbs from the community and built a bonfire to testify to their undying commitment to beat the University of Texas in the annual Thanksgiving football game. By the mid 1940s, what had been basically an exercise in getting some logs and some trash and had grown into quite an operation, and the 2 years that I worked on bonfire in 1968 and 1969, the stack, the height of the bonfire reached 109 feet. It is not unusual today for a bonfire at Texas A&M before the University of Texas football game to weigh over 2 million pounds, to have 5,000 to 7,000 logs and to be in the 70-foot to 80-foot range. Because of some accidents and concerns about environmental issues beginning in the 1980s, the administration at Texas A&M put a limitation on the number of logs, the height of the stack, the diameter of the stack. This past November, I believe, on November the 18th, two days before the game, the bonfire collapsed, killing 12 students and injuring 27 others, a terrible, terrible tragedy by any definition. As a consequence of the bonfire collapse and the injuries and the death, the administration at Texas A&M put together a Bonfire Commission to go out and investigate the causes of the problem and to determine what, if anything, should be done to correct the problems, and whether to even have a bonfire. This is the report that was released last week. It is approximately 2\1/2\ inches in diameter. It does not make any recommendations to the administration at A&M to do, but it does determine what caused the collapse. The chairman of the commission is a distinguished engineer named Leo Linbeck from Houston, Texas, and the commission members are Veronica Callaghan, retired major general Hugh Robinson, Alan Shivers, Jr., William E. Tucker, the consultants are McKinsey & Company, Fay Engineering, Packer Engineering, Kroll-O'Gara and Performance Improvement International. It cost about $2 million. They interviewed several thousand witnesses. They have over 5,000 pages of documents. The conclusion of the Bonfire Commission is that the bonfire collapse was because of structural failure, the weight of the logs on the top stacks became so great that it forced a pressure down into the first stack, that created a lateral pressure that forced the logs on the bottom stack to come out, and there was a catastrophic collapse. They investigated, researched whether human factors such as alcoholic consumption, horseplay played a role in the collapse, and the answer is no; although, there was some of that, and it should be prohibited. I think the Bonfire Commission has done a commendable job. They have been very extensive. I have glanced at the entire report. I have actually read page by page approximately half of it. And as a professional engineer myself, not a civil engineer, not a structural engineer, obviously, I am convinced that the commission has done its job in determining the causes of the problem. The President of Texas A&M, Dr. Bowen, has said that he will consider this report and decide in the next 2 months whether to allow the bonfire tradition to continue or not, and if he makes a decision on whether to allow it, under what conditions it will be allowed. This report makes no recommendations about whether it should or should not be continued, but it does point out some things that I think are worth highlighting. Number one, one obviously need to have structural integrity of the bonfire. One needs to have professional oversight of the bonfire. Under the tradition of Texas A&M, it has all been done by students. There was no written design, it had to be certified as having structural integrity. Each bonfire student leadership looked at what was been done the year before and then decided what to do this year. I cannot tell Dr. Bowen what to do, but I would certainly think that some of the things he has got to consider is have a design that is actually on paper that has been certified as structurally sound by professional engineering groups, and then make sure that there is oversight to see that the design is actually implemented. Speaking only for myself, I can certainly understand if Dr. Bowen decided not to allow the bonfire to continue, but I would hope that he will allow the tradition to continue under very restrictive and overseeing regulations.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this tax limitation constitutional amendment. I want to commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), representing the Fifth District of Texas, for his excellent leadership this year. I have been able to listen to some of the debate this year. Certainly I have led the debate in prior years for the proponents of it. I have a few simple things to say in the 2\1/2\ minutes that I have remaining. First of all, my constituents want tax limitation. I have never attended a town meeting, a public forum of any sort where this issue came up that less than 90 percent of the people there did not say they wanted this in the strongest possible terms. I just did my taxes. I sent a check in to the Internal Revenue Service early this week. I know for a fact that our taxes are too high. In spite of the robust economy that we have, taxation of the American people is at an all-time high. If we include State and local taxes, there are people in our country today that are in a tax bracket approaching 60 percent of their income. At the Federal level, taxation is well over 20 percent. And that is just on income taxes and does not include Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes. The Tax Limitation Amendment is fairly straightforward. It would take a two-thirds vote to pass a tax increase. Two-thirds is a larger fraction than one-half. It does not say we cannot have tax increases, it does not say tax increases will never be necessary; but it says there should be a national consensus of a supermajority that a tax increase is definitely needed. We should look at spending decreases; we should look at efficiency before we look at increasing taxes. I would remind Members in this body that the original Constitution had 100 percent, a 100 percent prohibition against income tax increases, because income taxes were unconstitutional until early in this century when the 19th amendment made it constitutional to pass an income tax. Since that time, the marginal tax rate on the American public has gone from 1 percent to 38 percent. That is a 3,800 percent increase. So to put it simply, a tax limitation works. There is no better time to pass a constitutional amendment making it harder to raise taxes than right now when we are in a budget surplus. The opponents of the amendment do not say that it would not work. They are opposed to it precisely for the reason that it would work. I hope we can get a two-thirds vote necessary to pass this to the Senate today. If for some reason we are not successful, this amendment will come back. The more the American people know about it, the more it becomes a part of the lexicon of the political process, and the greater the likelihood that we will pass this. Again, I want to commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), and others for their strong leadership on this. I will vote for it and encourage every Member of this body to vote for it.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 2884.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2884) to extend energy conservation programs under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act through fiscal year 2003, as amended.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, this bill is on the suspension calendar because we think that it has broad bipartisan support and should be an automatic ``yes'' for all the Members. We have worked very hard to reach a compromise both at the policy level and at the political level, and I hope that if and when we have a rollcall vote on this that people would all vote ``yes'' for it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the minority staff and the minority leadership on the Subcommittee on Energy and Power as well as the full Committee on Commerce, and the majority staff on the same committees for working to put this bipartisan compromise together. I want to also thank the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley), who was unavoidably detained and could not be on the floor this evening for his support of this very necessary measure. Mr. Speaker, what we are doing right now is we are authorizing the Energy Policy and Conservation Act through the year 2003. This is an act that was first put on the books in 1992. It includes necessary legislative language for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is vital to our Nation's security. I think it is a very worthwhile piece of legislation. It is a clean reauthorization of the existing act, with two exceptions, and I am going to very briefly touch on those. Under current law, oil that is put into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has to be purchased from foreign oil sources. It cannot be purchased from domestic sources. The bill, as reported from the committee, included a provision that would allow the Secretary of Energy the discretion, would not mandate but would allow the Secretary of Energy the discretion, if world oil prices fell below $15 a barrel, to purchase oil from stripper wells. Stripper wells are wells that produce less than $15 per barrel. So this provision would allow the Secretary of Energy the discretion to purchase stripper well oil from domestic sources and put them in the reserve. The oil in the reserve today currently has an average acquisition cost of $27 per barrel. So this provision would be just slightly more than half the current acquisition cost. What it would do, in strategic terms, is allow a domestic resource, these small wells that are barely producing much oil, to stay in production and not be shut in. Once these stripper wells are shut in, very few of them ever come back. If we had had this provision in the law 2 years ago, and if the Secretary had used the discretion to implement it, it is estimated that between a half a million and a million barrels of oil would still be being produced today in the United States that is not currently being produced. So we think this is a valuable addition to the SPR and is a worthwhile amendment to come out of committee. The other amendment that we are adding on the floor this evening that was not put in in committee is at the request and suggestion of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), who is on the floor, the Secretary of Energy at the Department of Energy, and the Clinton-Gore administration and affected Republicans in the Northeast. It reauthorizes the refined product reserve and it also changes the trigger mechanism for the refined product reserve on a regional basis so that one could get a declaration on a regional basis, like we had the heating oil emergency in the Northeast several months ago. If the Markey language had been law at that time, and if we had had refined products in a reserve, a regional declaration could have been declared by the President and that fuel oil could have been drawn down for homeowners in the Northeast. So this is, at the top end, I think, a good amendment in a good piece of legislation. It was not put in at full committee but it has been added at the Committee on Rules and is in the bill that is before us. So, to summarize, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2884, as amended, is an excellent piece of legislation. It has two additions, one addition when prices are low and, in addition, it would help us when prices are high. So I would hope the House would pass this by unanimous consent. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 95, supplemental final passage, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I applaud the enthusiasm of the Committee on International Relations to bring forward something to at least focus the Nation's attention on the energy price increase we have had in the last 3 or 4 months. I cannot applaud, though, their work product. I am going to oppose the bill. I am going to insist on a point of order on the amendments that should have been before the subcommittee that I chair, the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the Committee on Commerce. I want to point out one fact. In the fiscal year that just ended, the United States of America gave directly in foreign aid, military aid, economic aid and food aid to the OPEC nations $197.9 million. Based on $30 per barrel for oil, that is less than one day's supply of imports of oil to this country. So if the amendment as reported out of the Committee on International Relations had kept the teeth in it and if the President of the United States had dictated that all of our aid be suspended to the OPEC nations that have engaged in their cartel, it would have impacted the cartel by one day of oil imports to this Nation. I hope we will oppose the bill and work for responsible solutions.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the pending legislation before the Congress. I am the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Power that has jurisdiction over this issue. I have held numerous hearings on this issue. I have been in Nevada several times on this issue. I have met with State officials, local officials, and county officials in Nevada on this issue; I have met with the Nevada delegation on this issue. And I want a solution to the problem. I do not believe that there are any Members more committed to a long-term solution to our nuclear waste disposal issue than I am. Having said that, I think the Clinton administration has been absolutely opposed to any reasonable approach to this for 8 years. It appears they are going to succeed in stonewalling a solution in the next year. I think the world needs to know that since 1998, Federal law requires that the Federal Government take title and take responsibility for the nuclear waste that is in existence from our civilian reactors. The Clinton administration has not done so. They are in violation of Federal law. They are subject as we stand on the House floor to billions of dollars of penalties. Having said that, if we are going to pass legislation, I think what we ought to do is solve the problem. I give Senator Murkowski all the credit in the world in the Senate for trying to craft a political compromise that might not be subject to a presidential veto. He tried very hard. Unfortunately, he was not successful and in so trying to reach that compromise, he watered down the bill so much that it solves none of the major policy issues that need to be solved. Let us go through those. Number one, we actually have to have the funding to build the repository. We have put about $15 billion into the nuclear waste fund since 1982. There is still in the neighborhood of $10 billion in the fund. The House bill with the support of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher), the leadership on our side, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) and myself, we solved it. We free up the nuclear waste fund to be used to build and operate the nuclear waste depository. The Senate bill does nothing on that, so you are not going to fund the program. You cannot build a depository with $400 million a year. The Senate bill is fatally flawed on that one issue alone. What about interim storage? Again since 1998 we are in violation of Federal law. The House bill does two things. It actually funds the building of an interim storage facility that takes the waste beginning in 2003. It also incorporates the Secretary of Energy's recommendation on the take-title option in place. The Senate does neither of those. It strips out the take-title option, and again it has no funding to build an interim storage facility. It has something called early acceptance in 2007 which again will never happen because the funding is not there. So it fails on the interim storage front. What about the radiation standard? The House again responsibly sets a responsible radiation standard. We put the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in charge of that standard. The Environmental Protection Agency has been sitting on their hands for 18 years claiming vaguely some sort of jurisdiction but doing nothing about it. The House takes the responsible position. The Senate tries but what they basically do is prevent the EPA from issuing a standard for 18 months which punts the issue into the next administration, so the Senate bill fails on that. What about the transportation issue that the gentlewoman from Colorado spoke about? The House has a very responsible transportation plan that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) have worked on in past Congresses. The Senate sets up a cumbersome mechanical process, requires 3 years of specific training by the Federal Government in each State, which is I think inviting endless litigation and appeals by the State governors. I would have to say the Senate fails on that issue. So if we look at it on policy issues alone, I do not believe one independent, informed observer who has followed the issue for the past 15 years would say the Senate bill solves the problem. In fact, I would say just the opposite. They would say the House has acted responsibly, has a solution that would work. The Senate in trying to craft a compromise that the President might accept had to so back away, in my opinion, that the Senate bill even if the President were to sign the bill, which he says he will not, does not solve the problem. So the responsible policy vote in my opinion is a no vote on the Senate bill. I want to commend the House leadership for trying to bring the issue to the floor. I believe that they have tried to act in what they think is the best interest of the House, but they have not put the best policy option on the floor. We should reject this, bring up the House bill, then try to go to conference with the Senate. I reluctantly rise in opposition to S. 1287. I certainly agree with bill supporters that our Nation needs a comprehensive nuclear waste solution. But this legislation does not go far enough to address the critical issues that would actually get spent nuclear fuel out of our communities and where it needs to go, and in proper time. Probably everyone who votes yes today would also vote in favor of H.R. 45, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1999. In fact, the House bill would receive even more support, likely constructing a bipartisan veto- proof margin of more than 290 votes. On April 21 of last year, for example, the House Commerce Committee passed H.R. 45 on a bipartisan vote of 40 to 6. I thank Chairman Tom Bliley, Ranking Member John Dingell, and my other committee colleagues for their work across both sides of the aisle. On February 10 of this year, the Senate passed this legislation, S. 1287, by a vote of 64 to 34. I applaud the Members of the other body, particularly Senate Energy Committee Chairman Frank Murkowski, for their efforts to get a strong vote. The Senate took a different approach in its efforts to find a comprehensive solution, and came close to a two-thirds vote, but the Senate vote at least makes clear that a significant majority in Congress supports nuclear waste legislation. The current administration, however, flaunts the bipartisan will of the Congress with a series of irresponsible veto threats and coalition- breaking efforts. When the Commerce Committee passed H.R. 45 by that overwhelming 40 to 6 vote, the administration chose not to work with us--instead it said it would veto our bill. When the Senate neared the magic 67 votes necessary to override, the only contributions from the White House were a moving of the goalposts and, yes, more veto threats. I applaud Speaker Hastert and the Republican leadership fro their continued support of nuclear waste legislation. I understand the constraints on time here and in the Senate that permit us to consider only the Senate bill, without amendment. I do not question the intent in scheduling this bill for floor consideration. I only wish President Clinton and Energy Secretary Richardson offered a genuine willingness to work with the Congress in a House-Senate conference committee. Instead, this administration continues to stonewall progress toward a real solution and even obstruct our own efforts to find a compromise. Three times Federal courts have ruled that the administration is violating Federal law by ignoring its legal duty to begin acceptance of spent fuel in 1998. Despite these rulings, over the past 8 years the administration has never once offered a solution to the nuclear waste disposal problem. Instead, the administration has focused its energies on obstructing reasonable congressional solutions. Perhaps a real solution will have to wait for a future administration. When we face an administration so completely uncooperative, we should not lower our sights and pursue the lesser bill. The House bill, H.R. 45, would provide for a safe and licensed interim storage facility while the permanent site is completed and tested. H.R. 45 would move the Nuclear Waste Fund off-budget, a crucial step to ensure funding for the completion of the work at the depository. Our funding solution ensures that the ratepayers, in return for the $15 billion they have already paid to the Nuclear Waste Fund, get the repository that the Federal Government promised to them. If we do not fix the funding arrangement, the general taxpayers will eventually get stuck with the costs of nuclear waste disposal. Even Secretary Richardson testified that the permanent repository program faces a serious funding shortfall in the coming fiscal years. H.R. 45 provides a safe and efficient intermodal transportation to the Yucca Mountain site, avoiding shipments through Las Vegas. H.R. 45 requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue a radiation protection standard, finally placing that rulemaking in the proper hands. By requiring a cessation of lawsuits after performance by the Department of Energy, H.R. 45 would instill incentives for utilities to settle outstanding cases and get the waste on its way to the repository. Finally, the schedules in H.R. 45 are realistic and achievable in large part because it provides a secure source of adequate funding for the entire program. By contract, the schedules in the Senate bill (2007 for early acceptance, 2010 for the permanent repository) will never happen without sufficient funding to meet those deadlines. Looking forward, this administration claims to support nuclear energy, yet it refuses to take the number one step to regain the nuclear power option. Much is said about our dependence upon foreign oil, yet this administration continually tries to find new ways to use the Clean Air Act and other laws to block domestic fossil fuel development. If we solve the nuclear waste problem, we remove the major impediment to constructing new nuclear power plants and at the same time can provide the Nation with a zero-emission source of power. While the debate on nuclear power's future is for another cay, our current situation cannot be ignored. Spent nuclear fuel continues to accumulate at reactor sites around the country, and the financial liability against the Federal Government grows larger every day. But let no one doubt the readiness of my Energy and Power Subcommittee, the Commerce Committee, the House of Representatives, or the U.S. Congress to address the nuclear waste issue responsibly and on a bipartisan basis. I promise all of my colleagues that I will return here to stand on the floor in support of comprehensive nuclear waste legislation when we can make good public law. Unfortunately, that will have to wait for a day when we have the votes in both Chambers to override a Presidential veto in both Houses, or better yet when we have a President who will work in good faith with a bipartisan Congress to solve this vital issue.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) and the Committee on Rules for this rule. They have improved the bill. Unfortunately, they did not quite improve it enough. They did not kill it entirely, but the rule is a fair rule. It is an open rule if the amendment was pre-printed in the report. I will be on the floor speaking against many amendments that were not, raising points of order. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) and I asked that the bill be jointly referred to my committee and my subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the Committee on Commerce, so we could do many of the things that Members have been coming to the floor talking about with such emotion. Unfortunately, that was not made in order so we have to deal with the issue before us. I want to point out a few basic facts in the one minute that I have left. First of all, the price of oil is going down. The New York market, spot market today, is $27.50 a barrel. It was $32.42 a barrel about a week ago, so it has fallen about 22 percent. We expect when OPEC meets in Vienna next Monday, which I asked to go to take a group of Congressmen on a bipartisan basis, and the Secretary of Energy said I should not go, just to give that little fact, we think they are going to announce increased production quotas and that the price will fall further. I also want to point out that the underlying theme of this bill is that somehow if we rattle our saber the world will quake in fear. Let me point out two facts. The United States has 21 billion barrels of proven reserve out of the 1,033,000,000. That is about 2 percent. We produce about 8\1/2\ million barrels a day. We import about 8 million barrels a day. The amount of foreign aid and military aid that we give to the OPEC countries is less than $200 million; $197.9 million. That is one day's imports, less than one day's imports. This bill, even if it were to pass and have teeth, would do nothing but alienate our allies.