Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished member of the Rules Committee for yielding to me. I have, in the 23 years that I have been in this body, engaged in, I would say, approximately two dozen, maybe three dozen, debates on various energy bills. Almost every Congress we have some sort of energy bill that comes before this body. I have to say that my heart is sad today because, in the debate so far in this Congress on energy legislation, it has been fairly one- sided. It has been the majority trying to put their blueprint for America on energy in the committee and on the floor and in the Rules Committee with really no input and no debate from the minority party. I understand that the majority in the House has the right to work its will. We are not the other body, the Senate on the other side of the Capitol. We have a Rules Committee that is two to one plus one. We stack the deck so that the majority can make things happen. And that's a good thing. But the majority has responsibilities. One of the responsibilities is to hear the minority and give the minority the opportunity to have input and to have a debate and have their ideas voted on. In this Congress on energy legislation, the only Republican amendment that has been debated on the floor of the House is the motion to recommit. In the last energy bill, we were given a motion to recommit and we offered a full substitute that had clean coal technology, alternative fuels technology, that had some real energy, had some supply incentives. That motion to recommit was defeated, but at least it was debated. The rule before us today does not give the minority an option to have a motion to recommit. The rule before us today does not give the minority an option to have a substitute amendment. Once again we are on the floor of the House with one of the major components of our economy, energy legislation, and it is the majority way or no way. Well, I hope we would vote this rule down and go back to the Rules Committee and let us have either a Republican substitute, a Republican motion to recommit, some amendments, the Shimkus amendment on alternative fuels, the Upton amendment on renewable portfolio standards. They were all offered in the Rules Committee last night. They are substantive and real. They would improve the bill if they were allowed to be made in order. But this rule once again is a closed rule with one amendment, a Democrat substitute, no motion to recommit. The underlying bill is over a thousand pages. The underlying bill had not been seen in public until about 8:30 last evening. Obviously you can't digest a thousand-page bill overnight. I have been reading the table of contents trying to look at some summaries what is in the bill. Most is recycled. It is things that have been here before, but there are some new things. There is some provision for the State of New York, for example, in the tax title that diverts State income taxes that would normally be paid to the Federal Government, they are kept by either the State or the City of New York, and it is worth about $2 billion. There has been no debate on that. Now, I've got to give Chairman Rangel, I would assume I would give him credit for easing the tax burden of the people of his city and the people of his State. But there's not been a public debate on that. That's just a little $2 billion deal in the tax title of the bill. It may have showed up, it may have been there all along, but I just saw it reading through the summary about 10 minutes ago. So I don't think, if you're going to have a major policy debate on energy, which is worthwhile, and if the majority wants to change the energy policy, that's worthwhile too. But there ought to be a real debate and there ought to be real amendments, and we ought to let this body vote. This rule doesn't do that. This rule doesn't do that. And most of the things that are being extolled in the bill are things that were in the energy policy act 2 years ago. They're being extended. They're being expanded. That may or may not be a good thing, but we ought to have a debate about it. Do we really want to put a 36-billion gallon mandate for renewable fuels that can't be met by the current technology on the backs of the American people? This bill does that. I'm all for renewable fuels. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 had an $8- billion gallon mandate for renewable fuels. The market is exceeding that. But it's a stretch to go from 8 billion, which is current law, to 36 billion. And the technology doesn't currently exist. So maybe we ought to have a debate, maybe we ought to have some off-ramps, some triggers that we set the goal, but make sure that we have the ability to meet that goal before we put that mandate in. On the renewable portfolio standard for electricity generators, it only applies to investor owned; doesn't apply to nonprofits and to co- ops. I don't think that's a good idea. It doesn't allow all forms of renewable. For example, new hydro is not included as a renewable. You know, some sort of a clean coal alternative which would be an alternative form is not included. It's very restrictive. The wind part of this bill, we're for wind power. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 expanded the tax credit for wind. This bill rescinds part of that. So there's a renewable form that they're being regressive. So just in summary, I would hope that the majority understands that being in the majority gives you the right to set the agenda, but it shouldn't give you the right to stifle debate so that the minority has absolutely no input. And in this bill that's before us today, the minority in the House of Representatives has had zero, nada, zip, no input; and that's not good for democracy. So I hope that we'll defeat the rule, take it back to the Rules Committee, let's have a debate. Let's have some amendments made in order and then bring a real energy bill that's bipartisan back to the floor of the House of Representatives.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. I respectfully disagree with our distinguished majority leader. The bill before us is a change. It may be historic, but it is not positive. We are moving from a market-based energy policy, which has served this country well for over 150 years, to a government-mandated energy policy. We are mandating 36 billion gallons of biofuels which don't exist and probably won't exist. We are mandating that 15 percent of all investor- owned utilities be generated by renewable means, where in some States that is physically impossible. We are mandating that we improve automobile fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon by a date certain, which, if that is technically feasible, it is going to be very expensive and probably raise the average price of an automobile several thousands of dollars. We are mandating all of these things in the interests of energy security, which is a noble goal. I think we would be better off developing the domestic resources of our great land, just like it says up there in the quote from Daniel Webster, instead of engaging in government mandates which will raise costs and probably not increase supplies.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Education and Workforce Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3403, the ``911 Modernization and Public Safety Act of 2007.'' Each time a new communications technology arrives on the market, we must adapt our 911 system and our laws to accommodate it. In 1999, Congress passed the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act to ensure that emergency 911 calls made from wireless phones would go to the nearest Public Safety Answering Point or ``PSAP''. Today, Voice-over-Internet-Protocol is revolutionizing the way we communicate by adding the flexibility and innovation of the Internet to the traditional phone call. However, unlike wireless carriers, VoIP providers have no rights to interconnect with the 911 infrastructure and only a handful of 911 centers were prepared to receive VoIP calls, until recently. This left VoIP providers with no easy way to deliver 911 or E-911 service to their subscribers. After people using VoIP phones were unable to call 911 when they needed help, the FCC responded in June 2005 by requiring VoIP providers to incorporate E-911 capability into their service. While this forced VoIP providers to deploy E-911 access to almost all of their subscribers through commercial agreements with third parties, the FCC did not have the authority to address all of the important issues. That is why the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed H.R. 3403. This bill seeks to better ensure that consumers using VoIP service can access enhanced 911 emergency services. It puts VoIP providers on the same legal footing as wireless carriers and gives providers the same access as wireless, at the same rates, terms and conditions. It gives VoIP carriers and PSAPs receiving the VoIP 911 calls the same liability protection that is afforded to wireless calls. The bill allows VoIP providers to join wireless carriers in a narrow exemption from the Customer Proprietary Network Information Laws, so that they can transmit customer name and location information during an emergency call. The bill also allows the FCC to delegate to states enforcement of regulations implementing VoIP 911, without disrupting the interstate nature of VoIP service. In addition to ensuring the success of VoIP E-911, H.R. 3403 takes strong steps to improve our 911 system going forward. First, the bill will stop states from raiding their 911 funds by prohibiting states from spending the 911 line-item fee they collect on phone bills for any purpose other than improvements to the 911 system. Second, the bill directs the E-911 Coordination and Implementation Office to develop a nationwide migration plan to an IP-enabled network. An Internet-based emergency network will enhance public safety by allowing for greater flexibility in the types and amount of information that may be transmitted to emergency service providers. Finally, H.R. 3403 alters an existing grant program to allow PSAPs to obtain federal funding for IP-enabled emergency networks. H.R. 3403, the ``911 Modernization and Public Safety Act of 2007'' is about public safety. I want to praise the work of the bill's sponsor, Congressman Bart Gordon, who has provided strong leadership in addressing the VoIP E-911 challenge. I also commend the House co-chairs of the Congressional E-911 Caucus: Congresswoman Eshoo and Congressman Shimkus, for their determined work to advance all 911 issues. I would also like to thank the Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Mr. Ed Markey and the chairman of the full committee, Mr. John Dingell, and their staffs, for their leadership and commitment to working with our side in a bipartisan fashion on this bill. H.R. 3403 is an important piece of legislation and I urge my colleagues to vote for it to become law.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, the former chairman of the Agriculture Committee, one of the senior members of the Judiciary Committee. I want to, in a somewhat milder vein, share the concerns that Mr. Goodlatte shared about the process. When I agreed to be the principal Republican sponsor of this legislation, I asked and was told that there would be a committee markup in the Judiciary Committee and that there would be amendments made in order. So I was a little bit surprised last week to find that this was going to be on the Suspension Calendar and expressed that surprise to Ms. Wasserman Schultz and her staff. Having said that, there have been bipartisan discussions, negotiations. There have been changes made in the bill as originally introduced. It is a good bill. And I am proud to be the senior Republican sponsor. This bill needs to be passed. I will agree with Mr. Goodlatte that it's not a perfect bill, and I'll agree that had there been a committee markup or a subcommittee markup and a bipartisan markup amendment process, some of the issues would have been addressed a little bit differently. I'll agree with that. But having said that, let's look at what's positive in the bill. And let's compare the bill to current law. There are over 3 million images of child pornography on the Internet right now. Three million. And in the last Congress, as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, under my direct request as chairman, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held nine hearings on the problem of Internet child pornography. And it's more than a problem. It is a vicious, malicious, virus, viral disease that has the potential to destroy our children. And at some point in time we have to do something. And this bill, the PROTECT bill that's before us this afternoon, is a good first start. We found out in our hearings last year that the various State and Federal agencies didn't have enough resources. We found out that they didn't coordinate. And so this bill before us, as my good friend, Mr. Goodlatte, has pointed out, it does set up a new special counsel office in the Justice Department. And normally that would probably not be a good thing to do. But in this case, given the lack of coordination under current law, at a minimum, I think it's acceptable. And I personally think that it's commendable. We give additional resources. Not one witness in our hearings last year said that there were sufficient financial resources. The bill before us authorizes, over the course of the next 8 years, over 1 billion additional dollars to fight this infestation of child pornography. It sets up an additional $400 million to increase funding over the next 8 years for the Federal law enforcement agencies: the FBI's Innocent Images Unit, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the United States Postal Service. These are the Federal agencies that are at the forefront in investigating Internet child pornography. The bill also authorizes increased funding for new forensic computer laboratories. One of the things that we found out is that there just wasn't enough law enforcement laboratory capability in terms of forensics to track down the information that was being provided by the agents in the field. This bill recommends and authorizes an additional $7 million each year for 2008 through 2015 for new national forensic computer laboratories. We also found out, as I pointed out, that some of these task forces that have been set up and are well intentioned simply didn't have the resources that they needed. So the bill before us authorizes over $600 million over the next 8 years on a staggered basis for these Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC, task forces. That is a huge improvement over the current situation, and I don't think any Member of Congress is going to oppose that. This bill provides additional funding for Federal and State law enforcement, greater coordination of the overall United States law enforcement effort at both the State, Federal, and local level. It establishes a Special Counsel office that I have already talked about. And I want to comment on that. I agree with what Mr. Goodlatte said that the current task force in the current system in terms of allocating resources is doing an acceptable job. So the Special Counsel will coordinate with them. The Special Counsel will have the ability to sign off, but it doesn't have the ability to unilaterally decide where these additional funds are going to go for the very reasons that Mr. Goodlatte said in his statement a few minutes ago. The bill before us brings additional resources that are vitally needed to the fight against the scourge of child pornography on the Internet. Almost all of us have children or grandchildren. And when you go on the Internet today and you type in www.snowwhite.com, you may well get a pornographic child pornography site. Now, that's unacceptable. It's unacceptable to every Member on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the other body, our friends on the other side of this Capitol. This bill before us may not be a perfect bill, but it is time to act. It is a good start. Anything can be improved. Again, I respect the process questions that have been raised. I have some of those same questions about some issues under the committee that I serve on as jurisdiction. But in this case it really is time to protect our children. It really is time to move forward. And if we have a roll call vote, I hope every Member of the House of Representatives votes ``yes'' on the PROTECT Act because it is a huge step forward in protecting our children. I thank my good friend Mr. Goodlatte for yielding to me. Thank you, Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz, for your hard work and dedication to this bill. Almost 2 years ago, the Energy and Commerce Committee began a wide- ranging investigation of Internet child pornography. During our investigation, we had nine hearings and interviewed numerous witnesses involved in the fight against child sexual exploitation: Federal and local law enforcement, Federal and local prosecutors, victims, educators, Internet service providers, and financial institutions. This investigation helped expose the epidemic that is Internet child pornography. At that time, we learned that the Internet contained approximately three million images of child pornography. Law enforcement testified to the Committee that the images were becoming increasingly violent in nature, and that the victims in the photos were getting younger, some as young as 2 years old. Although law enforcement is working to tackle the epidemic of abuse that exists on the Internet, their resources are taxed, because predators around the world are working just as diligently to continue flooding the Internet with images of child sexual abuse. I am proud to be the lead cosponsor of the PROTECT Act, because this bill provides the resources that are so desperately needed by law enforcement to take the fight to those predators who seek to exploit and abuse children, often for their own financial gain. We will never win the battle against the sexual exploitation of children unless we arm law enforcement with the necessary resources and tools to bring these predators to justice. First, the PROTECT Act authorizes, over fiscal years 2008 to 2015, $400,000,000 in increased funding to the Federal law enforcement agencies--FBI's Innocent Images Unit, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the United States Postal Service--that are at the forefront in investigating Internet child pornography. The funding is directed for the hiring of additional, full-time agents to work child exploitation cases. The bill also authorizes increased funding for forensic computer labs. One of the key findings in the Energy and Commerce Committee's investigation of Internet child pornography is that law enforcement investigations were often hampered by the backlog at forensic computer labs. This backlog sometimes made it difficult for law enforcement to identify predators or obtain subpoenas in a timely manner--a delay that endangers the welfare and safety of the victims of Internet child pornography. To address this problem, the PROTECT Act authorizes $7,000,000 for fiscal years 2008 to 2015 for new regional forensic computer labs. The Energy and Commerce Committee's investigation also found that just as important as the Federal law enforcement effort against child pornography is the effort of State and local law enforcement, in particular, the effort of the state Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC task forces. In fact, 70 percent of the cases involving the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet are prosecuted at the state level. While the Department of Justice has provided funding for these ICACs through a grant program, the funding nowhere near matched the needs of these state task forces. Now, through the PROTECT Act, these task forces will finally receive the support they need. The bill authorizes over $600,000,0000 in new funding for ICACs over fiscal years 2008 to 2015. I believe the PROTECT Act's formula for allocating this funding among states strikes the right balance between ensuring a stable base of funding for the individual ICACs and giving the Justice Department the flexibility to direct funds based on need. Not only does the bill provide additional funding for Federal and State law enforcement, it also provides greater coordination of the overall United States law enforcement effort--Federal, State, and local--to investigate and prosecute child sexual exploitation crimes. The bill establishes a Special Counsel office within the Justice Department that is charged with coordinating the efforts and strategy of the Department of Justice and Federal and State law enforcement agencies when investigating child exploitation crimes. While I do not believe that the creation of a new Federal office is always the best solution to a problem, in this instance, I believe that this office will help to ensure that the various law enforcement agencies are receiving the assistance they need and are coordinating their investigations in a way that ensures their valuable resources are not being wasted. This bill brings incredible resources to bear in the fight against child sexual exploitation. We must ensure that the efforts of predators are more than matched by an aggressive law enforcement strategy to bring these criminals to justice. Our children deserve nothing less. For this reason, I urge my colleagues to support the PROTECT Act and make the Internet a safer place for our children.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for giving me a few moments to speak on this bill. I want to congratulate the sponsor of this bill, as well as the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials on coming to agreement on this legislation. Their consensus work is the culmination of 6 weeks of talks among majority and minority Members and staff as well as affected private stakeholders. Significant improvements have been made that make this legislation workable from a realistic and practical standpoint. I support these changes and urge my colleagues to do so as well. A hearing before the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials made clear the serious domestic health concerns that elemental mercury pollution presents when it is mishandled in other, less developed countries. Specifically, this form of mercury converts into neuro-toxic, methyl-mercury that comes back to the United States in the form of tainted fish and polluted air. This legislation attempts to break this global transport cycle by banning the export of elemental mercury in 2010. It does not cover coal exports and is not intended to cover fly ash exports from coal combustion, or elemental mercury in manufactured consumer products. This bill also, importantly, assures that domestic stocks of elemental mercury--which currently are a valuable commodity--have some place to safely go. Under the consensus language we are considering, the Department of Energy--which has experience storing elemental mercury--is directed to set up a domestic storage option that will open when the ban commences. Further, the legislation does not preclude private storage solutions. I am glad that this bill allows enterprising folks to facilitate good environmental policy. In addition, I am pleased this bill recognizes that we should not punish people who do the right thing. Under the legislation we are considering today, private entities wishing to take advantage of the DOE-sponsored storage option must pay DOE for the privilege, but in return are indemnified against any environmental damage that is caused once DOE takes possession of the elemental mercury. This is common sense policy and a key feature of ensuring that the proper handling and safe long-term storage of elemental mercury occur. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the Energy and Commerce Committee has produced another example of compromise, bipartisan legislation. It represents serious give and take by all parties. I hope that efforts like this will continue to be more the norm than the exception throughout this Congress. I urge all my colleagues to support H.R. 1534.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, to close the debate on the minority side, I'm very pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished minority leader from the great State of Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I reserve that time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I think I only have 2 minutes left.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the order of close.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health, and I ask unanimous consent that he control the minority time for the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. I want to talk about enforcement of this 300 percent above the poverty line. The people that wrote the bill claimed that we have got this hard cap above 300 percent in terms of family income. But if you look on page 76 of the bill, the first part of it, starting with line 5, says, ``no payment shall be made under this section for any expenditures for providing child health assistance or health benefits coverage for a targeted low-income child whose effective family income would exceed 300 percent of the poverty line.'' That sounds okay, but then here is the gotcha, beginning on line 13, ``but for the application of a general exclusion of a block of income that is not determined by type of expense or type of income.'' So you leave it up to the States to say you can't have an income level over 300 percent, but you can deduct $20,000 for a housing allowance or you can deduct $15,000 for shelter or whatever. So what you've got here is the classic bait and switch. I would say that the majority has listened to some of the concerns of the minority, but you're not really ready to address them substantively. You put the right verbiage in the first paragraph and then you take it away in the second. At some point in time we need to sit down together and really work these things out to make sure that you not only have the verbiage, you also have the enforcement. Now when that day comes, we will have a bipartisan bill. But that day is not today.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, could I ask the amount of time remaining on all sides.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I'm reminded of a homeowner who is getting ready to sell their home. It's a little older shop and it's shopworn and has not seen its best day. So they have a building inspector come out to inspect the home before they put it up for market. And the inspector gives the report, and the inspector says, ``You've got some major termite damage in the walls, and I think you need to really rebuild the walls.'' And the homeowner says, ``We'll paint over it.'' He says, ``Your plumbing is all rusted out. I think you really need to replace the plumbing.'' And the homeowner says, ``We'll paint over it.'' Then he says, ``I think your insulation and your electrical system's very frayed and you need to replace it.'' And the homeowner says, ``Well, we'll paint over it.'' What we have here today is basically the same bill that we had last week where we sustained the President's veto. Our friends on the majority side of the aisle have just painted over it. Now, they are saying the right rhetorical things. They're saying that nobody above 300 percent of poverty is going to get a benefit, but they then disregard the enforcement mechanisms that would enforce that. They say in section 605 that no illegal alien is going to get a benefit, but then they change the enforcement mechanisms so that if somebody has a Social Security card and a name to it, that's all they have to do to prove citizenship, and the Social Security Administration, rightfully so, says that is really not a proof of citizenship if you are able to get a Social Security card. And they claim that they're going to take the adults off the program within a year, but according to the CBO, at least a half million adults are still going to be on the program in 5 years. So it's the same bill with a little bit different paint. In Texas we have a saying, ``You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.'' This bill is a pig. It may be a good pig. It may be a nice pig. It may be intended to be the right kind of pig. But it's still a pig. Vote ``no'' on the bill.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished policy chairman of the Republican Conference, Congressman McCotter.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. In its current form I am.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I appreciate my good friend, Mr. Dingell, asking that the motion to recommit be read. I did the same thing in committee on the 593-page bill, so I think payback is fair. So I don't have a problem with that. I hope that the Members in the Chamber actually listened to the reading of the Clerk, because those that did will agree with me on the following things. First of all, we have taken the 293-page bill that we got at approximately 7 p.m. last evening and left most of it untouched. We have changed approximately 15 pages of a 293-page bill. We have listened carefully to our friends on the majority side at what they say they want, and we have tried to implement those changes in this motion to recommit. We start out with the fact that our friends on the majority side agree with us that SCHIP should be for the poor and the near-poor in American society. This motion to recommit eliminates the loophole for income-disregards that would allow States to actually cover children and families in all probability well above 300 percent. So we have an elimination action in this motion to recommit that would eliminate that loophole. We also believe that before you go above 200 percent of poverty, you should cover the children below 200 percent of poverty, so we have a requirement in the motion to recommit that States cannot go above 200 percent of poverty until they have covered at least 90 percent of the eligible SCHIP and Medicare children below 200 percent of the poverty line. We take statements like Chairman Rangel of the Ways and Means Committee and Chairman Dingell of the Energy and Commerce Committee at face value when they say they don't want illegal aliens to be covered in the bill. We put a requirement in the motion to recommit that applies the same citizenship documentation requirements for SCHIP as we have for Medicaid in the Deficit Reduction Act and applies those to the 16 States that it does not currently apply to. We also take the majority at their word when they say that they really want SCHIP to be for children. The motion to recommit would take all adults off the program within 1 year except for pregnant women. We would continue to cover pregnant women under the SCHIP program. We have a concern about when you begin to go above 200 percent of poverty that you actually begin to crowd out the private insurance market, so we do have a requirement in the motion to recommit that if a State wants to go above 200 percent of poverty, they have to have, they must have, a premium support assistance program that would give those families that have private insurance the option to continue to receive the private insurance, and they get premium assistance from that State government. Finally, the motion to recommit has been scored by the CBO as saving at least $10 billion from the pending bill. Also, in full disclosure, I need to point out we do not change in the motion to recommit the pay-for, so the portion of the underlying bill that does have a tobacco tax, we do not touch that. We don't try to move it up, we don't try to move it down, we don't try to substitute for it. The motion to recommit that we offered in August had that same provision, but I think in the interests of full disclosure, we need to put that on the table. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, we are here once again on an issue that should have been solved, like, March of this year. An emergency meeting of the Rules Committee was noticed at 7:30 last evening to be commenced at 8:30. That meeting lasted until midnight. Dr. Michael Burgess, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, attended with me to represent the Energy and Commerce Committee in the negotiations before the Rules Committee. He offered an amendment to this bill and was told it was not in order because he didn't get it in time. Didn't get it in time. An emergency meeting that is noticed at 7:30, that starts at 8:30, that lasts till midnight, Dr. Burgess shows up with his amendment and is told, I am sorry, we can't have your amendment in order because it wasn't in time. We didn't even know there was going to be a meeting until 7:30. Once again, we have a closed rule, which means there are no amendments made in order. Once again, we have a bill that was not seen, at least by those of us on the minority side, until approximately 7 to 7:15 last evening. Once again, we have a bill where there have been really no bipartisan negotiations. There have been some consultations with certain members of the minority party, I have to admit that. I don't know what the distance is from here to there, but I am going to guess it's about 12 feet. Let's see. It's 18 feet. Now, if I really wanted to negotiate, and I was in the majority, I would say, let's get together and talk. I would reach out to my left and I would reach out to my right, each of us come about 9 feet, we could negotiate. But here is how the Democrats do it. They haven't even said we wanted you to negotiate, but if they did, they head out the door. They are going around the world to meet us halfway when they could just do it 9 feet apart. I don't understand that. Let's vote the rule down. Then let's get together and really negotiate. Now, I want to give Ms. Slaughter some credit. She was born in Texas. Her instincts are right. We did get a motion to recommit today, for the first time. When we get to the motion to recommit, we are going to have an opportunity to put forward a proposal that is positive for SCHIP that has been put together by the Republicans. I will tell my friends on the majority side, it's not going to be a gimmick. I think it will say ``forthwith,'' which means if we adopt it, we vote on it. So I look forward to the debate, and I look forward to the motion to recommit. If we really want a bill the President would sign, I would say vote for the motion to recommit. But right now, vote against the rule so we can get some amendments made in order and have a real debate.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on one aspect of H.R. 1483: the effect of the designation of National Heritage Areas on the development and siting of needed energy infrastructure. Some of these National Heritage Areas fall within National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors that were recently designated by the Department of Energy. Development and siting of new electric transmission was an important part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and the designation of National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors is a critical component in getting that new transmission built. Originally, there was concern that the designation of National Heritage Areas could impede the development of new energy infrastructure, even if that infrastructure were in a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. Bipartisan compromise language that has been added to the bill, along with language in the Committee Report accompanying H.R. 1483, makes it clear that the designation of a National Heritage Area should not impede the development of necessary energy infrastructure. Specifically, I understand that compromise language has been added to clarify that nothing in the bill ``alters any duly adopted land use regulation, approved land use plan, or other regulatory authority (such as the authority to make safety improvements or increase the capacity of existing roads or to construct new roads) of any Federal, State, Tribal, or local agency, or conveys any land use or other regulatory authority to any local coordinating entity, including but not necessarily limited to development and management of energy or water or water-related infrastructure.'' I believe that this language and the accompanying report language makes it clear that a State public utility commission or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should not consider the fact that an area is a National Heritage Area as a basis to deny siting of energy infrastructure. I commend the bill's authors for including this important clarification.