Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. We do have a serious issue here, Mr. Speaker. We have known for several years that we needed to fix the current system for physician reimbursement. We also have known that in some of the other issues that have been put into this bill, that there are areas of reform that need to be implemented. One of the things that I have worked on for over 12 years is a competitive bidding process for durable medical equipment which is supposed to go into effect July 1 of this year. The pending bill has a moratorium on that implementation I believe for 18 months, which I think is ill-advised. But I do think that when each of us gets elected to this body, when we go out and campaign and ask for Members and voters to support us, we don't say: If you vote for me, I will go to Washington and I will make sure that I have no input into major issues, and when they are put up at the last minute I will go vote ``yes'' on the suspension calendar. That is not what we say. This is a serious issue. There are serious issues that need to be addressed in this bill. I am not sure this bill is even a House bill. My understanding is that it is a failed version of a Senate bill that has been patched together for purposes of a vote today just in case there is not a bipartisan compromise later in the week, as Congressman McCrery spoke about earlier. Process does count. Policies are better if there is bipartisan input and you go through the give and take of subcommittee, full committee markup where stakeholders and Congressmen and women on both sides of the aisle can be involved. That has not happened here. Again, this is a multibillion-dollar bill. Even if it were to be passed, it only has the effect for the rest of this year and the next calendar year. It is not a permanent fix. It doesn't address long term these issues. And all of the groups that are supporting the bill today that have been enunciated by the majority, when they have been in to see me they are talking about a permanent fixes, they are not talking about a temporary quick fix, patch it, go on down the road, kick the can fixes, which is what this is if it were to be implemented. So I really hope that we can vote against this. Since it is a suspension vote, it only needs 146 ``no'' votes and it would fail, and then we could work together to perhaps on a permanent way fix some of these in a bipartisan way. So I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to yield 2 minutes to a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, can I inquire as to the time remaining on the four sides.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I think we are entitled to cabal about the process. We represent about 48 percent of the American people and have had absolutely no input into a multi, multibillion-dollar temporary fix. This would only go into effect for 1 year. It doesn't solve the long-term program. So I think we are entitled to a little caballing, as they said. I want to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close if everybody else is prepared to close. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, again, I have missed the legislative hearing on this issue in the last 18 months. Maybe they had it in the other body, but we haven't had it here. The actual bill that we are addressing, we got it at 10 minutes until 10 this morning. This is the same group that passed a farm bill that left out a complete title, and we are passing a 278 page bill that the original substance I think we got Friday or Monday, the technical corrected copy we got at 10 until 10. I may be mistaken, but I believe if we had a process that worked and had enough time to think about it, if we had actually been holding hearings and substantive markups and all that is on the books of how the Congress is supposed to work, we would probably have a bill for the suspension calendar that both parties could work for. But the way our friends in the majority are operating these days, the proof is in the pudding. I would strongly recommend a ``no'' vote, and then let's do it right. Let's do it right so we can vote for it.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 6331, the Medicare bill that is put before this Congress today on a suspension vote. Somehow I missed it, but I didn't see the notice of the legislative hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on this. I didn't see the notice of the subcommittee markup on this bill. I didn't see the full committee notice to have a markup. I didn't get any notice of the technical corrections of the bill, which we received at 10 minutes until 10 a.m. this morning. The majority seems to be under the mistaken impression that the less input and the less Republicans know about major bills, the more likely we are to vote for them. Well, I have a news flash. When we were not a part of the process, when we don't have any input into the policy, there is over a 95 to 100 percent we are going to be ``noes'' regardless of the substance of the bill. On this particular bill, had we had some input, we would have strongly opposed the cuts to Medicare Advantage. A large number of us would have opposed the delay in the durable medical equipment competitive bidding that's supposed to go into effect on July 1 and, under the current bill, is also delayed for 18 months. There is obviously a need to fix the current physician reimbursement system. We have been in session now in this Congress almost 18 months, perhaps longer. You would think that in that time period, there could have been some legislative hearings. There could have been some draft proposals floated. There could have been some markups and some discussion and some give and take, and we could have found a compromise that would pass on the suspension calendar. But that has not been the case, as it was not the case on the CHAMP Act that my good friend from New Jersey just referred to. So, Mr. Speaker, on this particular piece of legislation for this morning, I would strongly urge a ``no'' vote and ask all Members of this body that believe in regular process and give and take in policy reform to vote ``no,'' and then sometime when we come back after the July 4th work period, perhaps we can work together to do what needs to be done. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose H.R. 6331, the Medicare bill put before this Congress today on a suspension vote. While I a agree that we should do something to address the Medicare physician payment cut that will take affect in just a few days, I do not support cutting Medicare Advantage to pay for this short-term fix. This legislation cuts close to $50 billion from Medicare Advantage, a program that benefits seniors in every State and a program in which our seniors are deeply satisfied. I believe people benefit when they have the kind of choices that only market competition can provide, and that certainly includes choice in health care. As we have seen with the Medicare Part D drug benefit, when an entitlement program is subjected to market forces, everyone is a winner. The taxpayer gets lower spending in an entitlement program; the beneficiary pays lower premiums and co-pays; and we get to provide broader access to affordable and accountable health care for our seniors. Yes, it is true that this bill provides temporary relief for payment cuts for physician services for the next year or so. So I guess as Members we can rest assured that this problem will disappear for the next 18 months. But what else have we signed on to if we are to pass this bill today? We have signed on to massive entitlement expansion through the revisions to the low-income subsidy and Medicare savings program. We have signed on to eliminating private, fee-for-service Medicare Advantage plan options that are currently available in 48 States. We have signed on to significant cuts in payment to all Medicare Advantage plans that work with teaching hospitals across this country. And last but not least, we have signed on to a process by which our own committees are now rendered useless in this Congressional body. Over the course of the past year, there has not been one single Medicare hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Not one. I guess the doc fix is so important that it justifies taking a significant, political, and complex bill straight to the floor under a vote by suspension of the rules. That means no consideration by the committees of jurisdiction and no amendments on the floor. For an issue that the Democrats like to consider bipartisan--avoiding a physician payment crisis--one has to ask, why not work with Republicans to enact something earlier and more meaningful? We know why we are here today. If the Speaker is able to jam this down our throats today, we know that it will hit a brick wall in the Senate. How do we know this? Because this bill is just about like the one that recently failed in the Senate. And, the President has indicated that he will veto it, in the unlikely event that it passes both bodies. So, we see that today's vote for a physician payment fix is merely the political exercise Republicans must endure so that Democrats may turn to their constituents when they return for the holiday next week and say, ``See, I tried to help you but those abominable old Republicans, why they just wouldn't let me. They don't even like puppies, I heard.'' This bill temporarily stops the hemorrhaging, but it does not fix the long-term problem of physician payment. And the cure is likely worse than the illness--the doc fix is at the expense of our senior who enjoy their MA benefit. I oppose this bill. I oppose the process--no committee hearings; no committee markups; no mention of the word Medicare in our committee at all. Last year, I decried the politics of some of debates we had, and I was told that politics is a good thing for this body. Well, we're all elected to these seats, so we know a thing or two about politics, but at some point the people who elected us expect us to quit politicking and start governing. Too often this new Democratic Majority lacks the ideas they need to govern, and so they revert to politics. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) be allowed to control 10 minutes for debate purposes of the time that I control.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5669, the ``Poison Center Support, Enhancement, and Awareness Act of 2008.'' I would like to thank my friend from New York, Mr. Towns, and, my friend from Nebraska, Mr. Terry, for introducing this important legislation, and I want to thank Chairman Dingell and Subcommittee Chairman Pallone for working in a bipartisan manner as we moved this bill through the Energy and Commerce Committee. As our primary defense against injury and death from poisoning, poison centers are a vital part of our healthcare system in the United States. Few people realize that poisoning is the second most common form of unintentional death in the United States. In 2005, there were over 26,000 deaths in the United States caused by the ingestion of poisons that resulted from approximately 5 million incidents of poison exposure. And without question, the number of deaths and debilitating injuries resulting from poisoning would be significantly higher if it weren't for the strong network of poison centers we already have, and with passage of the legislation before us today, I am confident that we can make a great program even better. Again, I thank my colleagues for their efforts on this bipartisan bill.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today, H.R. 3058, represents a thinly veiled attempt to create a partisan fight over a nonpartisan issue. For several years now, Members from both sides of the aisle have struggled to find a way to pay for the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools program. We have found such a compromise in Congressman Walden's substitute to H.R. 3058. But that is not what we are voting on today. The Walden compromise that has been approved by the stakeholder organizations contains reauthorization of both Payments in Lieu of Taxes and the Secure Rural Schools program which are so vital for people whose counties are majority owned by the Federal Government, and thus don't have the property tax base to support education. But that is not the bill we are voting on today. The proposed Walden compromise addresses our growing energy crisis by expanding state control and protection of the outer continental shelf, and by producing new energy in the deep ocean. It provides funding for front-end engineering and design grants for coal-to-liquids, oil shale, tar sands, carbon sequestration, and enhanced oil recovery. Congressman Walden's compromise proposal contains provisions that have been previously debated on this floor, passed by this body, and approved by the administration. But that is not the bill we are voting on today. The bill we are voting on today breaks contracts that were negotiated in good faith between the previous administration and American energy providers. The bill we are voting on today has prompted a veto threat, and will probably not even make it through the House today. If the majority wants to make this a partisan vote, so be it. That is their prerogative. But let me make one thing clear; the superintendents of Groveton, Crockett, Latexo, Grapeland, Lovelady, and Kennard Independent School Districts do not care about partisanship. The reality of what we are doing today is that these, and thousands of other school administrators, are going to have to cut jobs and programs as they see their revenues shrink drastically. All for the sake of making a political statement. When Congress decided to take land out of the tax base of thousands of rural counties in order to create our National Forest System, we made a promise to help cover the cost of education. We have a chance to fulfill this promise by taking up the Walden compromise for Secure Rural Schools and PILT reauthorization. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the political stab before us today, and I urge majority to bring to the floor Congressman Walden's proposal as soon as possible. Our rural communities depend on it.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. We have a demand-driven price because we do not have on the world markets enough cushion to dampen the speculation, so the American consumers are having to pay right now on average right at $4 a gallon. I don't know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I don't think American voters and the American citizens are going to be really happy if, in the face of these higher prices, our decision as a Congress is to just shake our fists and say we have the ability to sue the foreign cartel which we call OPEC. So I have the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee. I have been working for the last 6 months with a group of Republicans both on and off the committee. Several weeks ago, we put in a package of 15 bills. These bills, taken together, would produce more American-made energy for American workers and energy consumers. They run the gamut. I'm not going to go through every bill right now, but we look at the oil and gas industry, the coal industry, the nuclear power industry, the alternative energy industry. You name it. We take a look at it, and do something to bring into play American-made resources for American energy consumption. I would encourage all of our Members of Congress to take a look at these bills. We are going to try to get them to the floor as quickly as possible. I certainly think that if we are naming post offices and are commending watermelon festivals and things of this sort that we certainly can find room to have some real energy bills on the floor and to have a debate and to, hopefully, pass those bills to the other body. At this point in time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my good friend from Ohio, Congressman Latta. Congressman Latta comes from a distinguished family of congressmen. His father was the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee when I was a young pup. Our current Congressman Latta has come to Washington with the same common sense that his father exhibited 20 years ago. So I would yield as much time as he may consume to Mr. Latta of Ohio.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio's insightful comments. As he has pointed out, it's not a lack of American energy; it's a lack of willpower on this floor to develop that energy. What we need is American-made energy for America's families and factories. To talk a little bit more about that, I want to recognize the distinguished conference secretary of the Republican Conference, the gentleman from Williamson County, Round Rock, Texas, Congressman Carter, for such time as he may consume.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Thank you. I would now like to yield such time as he may consume to Mr. Gingrey of Georgia, a physician, who, before he became a Member of Congress, was a baby doctor and delivered over 5,000 American lives into our great Nation, and is concerned about their future and wants to make sure they have affordable energy. Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Round Rock. Mr. Speaker, can I inquire how much time we have remaining in our Special Order, please?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, most Americans think that Members of Congress are somehow privileged and above the ordinary everyday concerns of the constituencies that we represent. I think all 434 of my House colleagues know that that's not true. By normal standards, we do get a very adequate salary, $162,500 a year, but out of that we have to pay our expenses of living in our districts and here in Washington, D.C. We have the same expenses that every other American family has. This morning, before I left to fly to Washington, DC, I opened our credit card bill. We have a MasterCard. And on that bill we put most of our gasoline expenses and our routine living expenses. And my wife, Terry, has been working very, very hard this year to minimize the amount of expenses on that credit card. And we've both made an effort to make sure we only put things that we have to put on the credit card. So the vast majority of our MasterCard is now for gasoline. And I just happened to look down the list of all the gasoline expenses from the early part of last month to right now, and it added up to over $600. Now, $600 is not an extraordinary amount, but a year ago that same amount of gasoline would have been about $300, maybe $350, and 2 or 3 years ago, it would have been about $150. And now it's over $600. And that's not taking any trips. That's not driving to see our families. That is my wife and my step-daughter and my day-to-day drive to work, drive to school, drive to the grocery store, do all the things that we do in everyday living in central Texas. Now, as I said earlier, I make a very adequate salary and my wife makes an adequate salary. And it pinches us, but we can afford it. But what if my wife and I were on an income of, say, $4,000 a month, $48,000 a year? Having to spend $600 a month for gasoline just to go back and forth to work and to go to school and to go to church and to go to the grocery store would be a real struggle. So we have a situation today where the new Democratic majority in the House has come in promising to bring energy prices down and a new commonsense plan for energy. Here we are, with approximately 5 months to go in this session of Congress, at least through the election in November, and energy prices are up almost 200 percent, gasoline prices, since the day that our Speaker, Mrs. Pelosi, took the gavel from Mr. Hastert. And the response to the higher energy prices, at least so far, has been, at best, symbolic. We passed a bill giving the right to sue OPEC. OPEC supplies about 40 percent right now of our energy, our oil, so we're going to sue OPEC if that bill were to become law. Several weeks ago we passed a bill suspending shipments of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; that's about 60 to 70 thousand barrels of oil a day. There were great predictions that day that passage of that one bill would bring prices down $25 a barrel, and I think one Member said 50 cents a gallon. Well, the day the bill passed, oil prices went up almost $2 a barrel. And a week after that, they hit an all-time high of $135 a barrel. They have now come down a little bit, but they're still, I believe today's price is about $127 a barrel. So I think it's fair to ask my friends in the majority, where is our energy policy to really bring energy prices down for America? I'm not happy that in my little part of America I'm having to spend over $600 this month when we pay our MasterCard bill just for gasoline. And if the projections are true, later this summer I may have to spend seven, eight, even nine hundred dollars a month just for basic transportation in Arlington, Texas. Most people think that we're helpless, that we can't do anything about these high energy prices, that they're almost like one of the Ten Commandments. Luckily, and hopefully, the truth is not that; we have tremendous energy resources in this country that have yet to be developed. We can do something about these energy prices, and we can do it with made-in-America energy. We've been debating whether we should drill up in Alaska and ANWR for the last 20 years. We actually passed a bill and sent it to the President that would have allowed that in 1996. The President at the time, President Clinton, vetoed that bill. Had he not vetoed that bill or had we been able to override his veto, projections are that ANWR would probably be producing in the neighborhood of two to three million barrels of oil per day right now. I say projections because you never know until you actually drill the wells and start to produce the oil. But there are huge oil reserves in ANWR. And the minimum assumption would be half a million barrels a day within 3 to 4 years of the go-ahead to begin production. And that's just one oil field. If we want to go off the coast of California where we drilled the original offshore oil wells, where you still have oil seeps that naturally come to the surface, where you do have some producing platforms that were in existence prior to 1968, it's estimated that we probably have three to five billion barrels of oil available right there, and that we could produce another half a million to a million barrels just off the coast of California. If you want to go to the east coast, where we've done almost no exploration at all because of various moratoria, if the Gulf of Mexico is any indication, we probably have billions and billions of barrels of oil reserves and natural gas reserves off of that coast. We know that there is oil and gas off the coast of Florida that's not being drilled right now because of a moratorium. Interestingly, the communist Chinese are drilling off the coast of Florida through a lease arrangement with Mr. Castro and the Cuban dictatorship in Cuba. It would be ironic if the communist Chinese ended up getting more oil and gas off the coast of Florida than Americans do. If you don't want to drill offshore, what about onshore lower 48? We have probably two trillion--trillion is a thousand billion--we have two trillion barrels of shale oil reserves in Wyoming and Colorado. In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, we passed a procedure to inventory those and to do an expedited permitting process of the Minerals Management Service so that they could perhaps come into production, but on the floor of the House last year this Congress put a moratorium on implementing those rules. So we're putting our shale oil reserves off limits. So it comes as no surprise, if you look at all these areas where we've put the stop sign up, that oil production in the United States is going down. At our peek, we produced over 10 million barrels of oil per day in the United States of America. At one time we were the number one producer of oil in the world. That's down to a little less than six million barrels a day. We use the equivalent of nine to ten million barrels of oil per day just for mobility purposes. We're only producing in the neighborhood of six million barrels. We have tremendous energy reserves in this country. And if we want to bring these prices down, we don't have to look overseas to the Middle East, we don't have to beg OPEC, we don't have to sue OPEC, we do have to take our energy future into our own hands and begin to produce more American energy. It's more than just oil and gas, obviously. We have tremendous coal resources in the United States. We have somewhere between 250 and 400 years of coal reserves. We've got lots of research being done to convert that coal to a liquid, a diesel-like fuel that we could use to fuel our transportation fleet. When we had the debate on the so-called energy bill last year in this Congress, the rules were set up so that no amendment on coal-to-liquids was made in order in the Energy and Commerce Committee, the committee of principal jurisdiction, nor in the Rules Committee, nor on the floor of the House of Representatives. So we passed an energy bill which I voted against because there really wasn't any energy in it. It had no coal in it. It certainly had no oil or gas drilling in it. It was basically a mandatory conservation bill. So my statement to the American people this evening, Mr. Speaker, is pretty straightforward. We've got tremendous energy resources in this great Nation of ours. We've got the ability, within a reasonably short period of time, and I would say that would be 2 to 4 years, maybe 2 to 5 years, if we made a decision in this Congress to produce some of the energy reserves that we know we have, we could, in all probability, double the amount of oil that we're producing right now. We could certainly increase it by three to four million barrels a day, if not double it. And if we did that, energy prices would come down. On the world market, oil is a fungible product, which means it can move anywhere, it's a commodity. We have the ability, worldwide, to produce on an average day around 85, 86 million barrels of oil. Unfortunately, the demand for oil is about 85 or 86 million barrels per day, give or take a million barrels or so. So we have a situation where you don't have a cushion, you don't have a capacity cushion. And the econometric models have shown that if you don't have about a 5 percent cushion, which would be about four or five million barrels a day, that price is going to tend to spike upwards. And that's what we have today.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentleman. I want to point out he needs to change his sign. He has his ``9'' upside down. If you subtract 5 cents from $3.98, you get $3.94 or $3.93. You don't get $3.63. He has his ``6'' and ``9'' down there.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I think you begin to get the point we are trying to put across this evening. America has got great energy resources. We are not using those resources right now. For various political reasons, we have put them off limits. We are not allowing any exploration or production in ANWR in Alaska. We are not allowing any exploration or production off the West Coast of the United States. We are not allowing any exploration or production off the East Coast of the United States. We are not allowing our shale oil resources to be developed in the interior of the United States. We are not developing our coal resources with the clean coal technology that the gentleman from Ohio spoke about. So we are a victim of self- inflicted wounds in this country. I would like to say that it can't get any worse, but it can. I was just on a congressional delegation that visited Europe. We went to Slovenia and to Italy to interact with the European parliament and then toured some NATO bases in Italy. They are paying the equivalent of $9 a gallon for gasoline, $9. So even though we think $4 a gallon is way too high, there are other parts of the world that are paying double what we are paying. If our energy prices continue to go up, there will be consequences. General Motors just announced yesterday they are closing four of their automobile assembly plants in this country. Ford Motor Company, one of the icons of American industry, their stock is selling at almost an all-time low, at least a modern era all-time low. They just divested part of their company. They sold it to an Indian automobile company. The higher prices go, the more uncompetitive America is in world markets and the more Americans are thrown out of work. It is kind of a self-propelling cycle. We need to do something about it. The good news is that we can do something about it. We have the ability more than any other Nation in the world to produce our own energy for consumption here in the United States. American-made energy for American families and factories is a doable deal. It is not a pipe dream. But we have to start in this Congress. Now, we have a package of 15 energy bills that have been introduced at various times in this Congress. They are active. They have bill numbers. The Speaker of the House and the majority leader and the chairwoman of the Rules Committee and the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee could schedule these bills for committee action, could schedule these bills for floor action and bring them to the floor. It wouldn't bother me a bit if the Speaker wanted to bring these to the floor under an open rule; let Members of both political parties go to the Rules Committee and have amendments made in order. Let's have a full, fair, open debate in committee, the Rules Committee and on the floor of the House of Representatives. Some of these bills would probably pass on a suspension calendar if they were brought to the floor. Some of the bills would be very controversial. The access bill, opening up ANWR, H.R. 6107, would be a close vote, no question about that, but I think a majority of the House of Representatives would vote in the affirmative to let us develop an energy resource that could have as much as 10 billion barrels of oil in it. On a daily basis that would be somewhere between 1 and 2 million barrels per day with existing technology, if we were to make the decision to let that go and to start producing it. We have a shale oil reserve bill. We have an alternative fuel for defense and aviation bill. Mr. Gingrey talked about that. We have a- coal-to-liquids bill that is Mr. Shimkus' bill that has a Democrat sponsor, Mr. Boucher, the subcommittee chairman of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee. We have a renewable fuel standard bill that would take the renewable fuel standard back to the 2005 Energy Policy Act. We have a bill to encourage new refineries, Congresswoman Heather Wilson's bill. We have a bill on speculation that was introduced by myself. We have a boutique fuels bill, H.R. 2493, introduced by our Republican whip, Mr. Blunt. We have a bill that provides for some tax provisions by Mr. Terry of Nebraska. We have some bills on nuclear energy. We have an Outer Continental Shelf bill that has been introduced by Congresswoman Myrick of North Carolina. I could go on and on. The point I am trying to make is we have American energy resources that could be developed and I think should be developed. We are not hopeless, we are not helpless, but right now we have a majority that, for some reason, has decided that it is okay for American citizens to pay these high energy prices, and, as I said earlier, if we sit here on our hands and do nothing, the prices are going to go up and up and up, which is not a good thing for our economy. Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, we are planning a series of special orders. We are going to continue to try to educate the American people on the energy situation. But we are not just out here complaining and whining and bemoaning our fate. We have a positive solution that, if implemented and sent to the President and signed into law, would begin to bring immediate results in the terms of additional energy resources and lower energy prices. Let's work together. As Daniel Webster says in the saying above the Speaker's rostrum, let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote its great interests, and see whether we also in our day and our generation can do something that will be seemed worthy to be remembered by future generations.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee. Before I speak in favor of the Ryan motion to instruct conferees on the budget, let me give you a post-SPR suspension update. The price of oil went up $1.73 on the mercantile market yesterday after we voted to suspend shipments into the SPR. At some point in time I sure hope it does come down and we'll work together, hopefully, in a bipartisan basis to bring oil and energy prices down. But our symbolic vote yesterday had the opposite effect of what it was intended because prices went up. Let me speak now in favor of this motion to instruct. I would point all the Members in the body to the quote above the Speaker's rostrum by Daniel Webster. It says, the very first part of that quote, ``Let us develop the resources of our land.'' And this motion to instruct is a direct descendant of that sentiment. We are not helpless, we are not hopeless in this country in terms of energy. If we will develop the resources of our land, we could, in all probability, within 5, maybe 6, 7 years, double the amount of oil or oil equivalent that we're producing right now in the United States. We're currently producing somewhere between 6 and 7, maybe a little over 7 million barrels. As Congressman Young has just pointed out, if we were to drill in ANWR, it would start out with a production capacity, in all likelihood, of about 300,000 barrels a day. And in the optimum case, it could be ramped up to about 2 million barrels a day within 5 or 6 years. We have over a million barrels a day of production off the coast of California. We have 2 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in the shale oil deposits in Wyoming and Colorado. We haven't even inventoried what is off the coast of the east coast of the United States. We have the Chinese drilling between Cuba and Florida, and yet we're not allowed, because of moratoria, to drill there. So we're not hopeless. We can also develop our coal resources. Congressman Shimkus has a bill on coal-to-liquids that is very helpful, and yet we stand here and refuse to adopt any supply-side policies at all as prices go higher and higher and higher. If you live in an urban area where you don't depend on an automobile, you may not feel those high prices. But if you live in a suburban or rural area, well, you have to drive to work and drive to shop. If you work for a trucking company, if you work for an airline company and you see the price of diesel and the price of aviation fuel go higher and higher and higher, you feel it. It's not an academic exercise. This motion to instruct simply says let's have some domestic development of our resources. Let's try to bring those prices down not with just the conservation component, but with the supply component. And with world markets where they are today, production of oil is somewhere around 85 million barrels a day. The consumption of oil is somewhere around 85 million barrels a day. The demand for oil in the United States in the last 2 months in a row has gone down, but the demand for oil in the rest of the world has gone up. And it's gone up more in the rest of the world than it's gone down here in the United States. But if we were to be producing another 1 million, 2 million, 3 million barrels of oil a day in the United States, that would create a cushion that would take some of the heat out of the market and the price would go down. I can't imagine any Member of this body that doesn't have a constituency that's concerned about higher food prices, higher energy prices, and higher prices of living. Let's vote for the motion to instruct and try to get a supply component to our energy policy.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am going to recognize Mr. Shimkus, a member of the committee. But before I do that, I just want the record to show that the last day that I was chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the price of gasoline in my district was $2 a gallon. Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) for 3 minutes, a member of the committee. (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it's a unanimous consent request, and the body can work its will by unanimous consent at any time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am not asking that we withdraw the bill. I am just asking unanimous consent to add this to the bill, and we shared the language with the majority staff.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?