Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that we have an additional 10 minutes on this amendment equally divided by the minority and the majority because we have lots of speakers on both sides.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and I yield myself 2 minutes. First let me say that we're not opposed to all renewable portfolio standards, but we are opposed to this one for a number of reasons. First of all, it only applies to investor-owned electric utilities. It doesn't apply to electric co-ops. It doesn't apply to municipal utilities. It just applies to investor-owned electric utilities. That's one of the reasons that the Edison Electric Institute is opposed to this amendment. It doesn't meet the standards that have been put out for renewable portfolio standards. It should apply to all utilities. This one doesn't. It should complement and not preempt State programs. This one doesn't. It should be technology neutral. This one is not technology neutral. It should provide credit for early action. This doesn't do that. It should allow for a national trading mechanism, including standardized monitoring, verification and distribution of credits. It doesn't do that. And it should include specific provisions assuring cost recovery for retail electric providers. It doesn't do that. It doesn't include nuclear as a renewable energy, and we think that it should. We think all hydros should be included. This one doesn't. So, it is certainly worthy of debate, and I support it being made in order to be debated on the floor, but I would hope that we would oppose it when it comes time for the vote. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Oregon (Mr. Walden), a member of the committee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from the great State of Oklahoma (Mr. Boren).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. We have had a good debate, Mr. Chairman. It is an issue that needs to be debated. But the amendment reminds me of a Hollywood starlet, and the authors remind me of a Hollywood cosmetic surgeon. This amendment has been nipped and tucked so much that it is hard to recognize the original amendment. It is still not ready for its screen test. I would hope that we defeat the amendment so we can then work together on a bipartisan basis on a renewable portfolio standard that could be supported. If you included nuclear power, if you included all sources of biomass, if you included the entire United States of America, and you didn't exempt one from the other, if you included municipal utilities like the Los Angeles Power and Light Utility that Mr. Waxman spoke about, you might have a basis on coming to an agreement that could be agreed upon by both sides of the aisle and some of the people that are now opposed to it. But this particular amendment needs to be opposed for all of the reasons that people like Mr. Boucher has said and Mr. Stearns has said and Mr. Ross and Mr. Boren and others have said. So I do hope when it comes time for the vote that the House rejects this amendment so we can work in the future on something that might be supported. I ask for a ``no'' vote.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the Keystone State of Pennsylvania, Mr. Clean Energy, Mr. Peterson.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. All right. Then I would yield myself 5\1/2\ minutes, with the understanding, I want to make sure before I do this Mr. Boucher or Mr. Dingell or some member of the Energy and Commerce Committee is going to speak after I speak. Is that correct?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. What is the intention of the controller of the time for the Energy and Commerce Committee on the majority? Are you about to yield back? Are you going to reserve?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Then, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of the Energy and Commerce time on the minority side until the end of the general debate.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. My understanding on the rule was that we would go by committee, and the first committee would be Energy and Commerce, but Mr. Miller is the chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee

Mr. BARTON of Texas. So, could the Chair indicate what the order is?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would claim the time for the Education and Workforce Committee since the Education and Workforce Committee is not here.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I am not a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, so I have a parliamentary inquiry. Are we on the Education and Workforce time at this time?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), a distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, when Mr. Dingell uses Energy and Commerce time, then I will use Energy and Commerce time, but at this point in time I will reserve the time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, first let me say some positive things. I want to commend Chairman Dingell and Subcommittee Chairman Boucher for the number of hearings that they have held on this issue in this Congress and this committee. I want to commend them for the draft that they circulated earlier this year in which they attempted to put forward a bipartisan energy bill that actually had real energy in it. Unfortunately, the draft that Subcommittee Chairman Boucher circulated was hijacked. I am not sure what happened to it, but it just kind of disappeared. We had six committee prints that were marked up at subcommittee and full committee. They were artfully crafted in such a way that no amendment that dealt with energy was germane to the committee prints. As I said at the full committee markup, I am in awe of the parliamentary expertise, but I was not in awe of the substance of the actual amendments or the actual committee prints. This is the first Congress that I have served in in which there has not been a bipartisan approach to energy policy. In all the previous Congresses that I have served in, whether you had a Democrat majority or a Republican majority, when it came to energy policy, we tried to be bipartisan. For some reason, so far in this Congress that has not been the case. If you look at the complete text of the bill that is before us, you see things in it that have never been seen before in an energy bill. There is some sort of a Clean Energy Foundation that is appropriated $100 million that apparently has the authority to enter into contracts, perhaps even binding contracts, with foreign governments. That is not from the Energy and Commerce part of the bill, but it is in one of the titles in the bill. We don't have anything on clean coal technology. We don't have anything on oil and gas. There is in the Energy and Commerce section of the bill, there is something to try to clarify the loan guarantees with regard to new construction of nuclear power plants which was considered in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. There are some sections of the bill that deal with building codes, and one could argue that section of the bill preempts State and local building codes. I'm not sure that is the kind of energy policy that we really want to implement, where Washington knows better than your local government what the building codes should be. There is a provision that says ``by date certain''. I think the date certain is 2050, that every building in America has to, on a net basis, consume no energy. There are some exclusions based on reasonableness, but there is no exclusion based on cost, including the building that we are currently in, the Capitol of the United States of America. Can you imagine what it is going to cost if this bill becomes law to make the U.S. Capitol on a net basis use no energy? I am not sure it could even be done, but if it can be done, it is going to be enormously expensive. For some of the reasons I have already outlined, the administration has said they are going to veto the bill. So this is really an exercise in sterile futility because this bill isn't going anywhere. I am not even sure it will be attempted to be conferenced with the other body. This is not the way I conducted energy policy when I was chairman of the Energy Committee. I believe it is probably not the way that the current chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee really wants to conduct energy policy. This is really a political exercise to give some Members of the majority party a forum to put forward their pet ideas and pet projects. But it is not good for the country, and it is not good energy policy, and it should be defeated in the strongest possible terms. Mr. Chairman, U.S. reliance on unstable foreign sources of oil is at an all-time high. The world price of oil set a record just this week. Refinery capacity is shaky and shrinking fast, and I remind everyone here for the umpteenth time that no new refinery has been built in America in more than 30 years. Americans want to know when we will start producing more of our own energy at prices that real people can afford to pay. I want to know how much ordinary Americans have to endure before the Democratic majority takes any action that actually matters on cutting fuel costs to working people? Take natural gas. It used to be cheap, but now it's expensive and we burn too much of it for the purpose of generating electricity. That's a big part of the reason that it costs so much to heat and cool a home, but people also pay extra in the products and services they buy because pricy electricity drives up manufacturing cost. Sometimes it even drives industry and jobs out of the country. Coal is our Nation's most abundant energy source, but the Democratic leadership doesn't see it that way. They are mostly interested in astonishingly costly and barely viable energy sources rather than the cheapest and most abundant, and it will be ordinary working Americans who will pay the cost of their policies. Don't get me wrong. Windmills and solar arrays are worthy of our support, but so is the cheapest and most abundant fuel we have. Yet coal, whether it's clean or liquefied or both, is just not on the Democratic majority's political agenda at any cost. Even the energy efficiency parts of the Democratic bill are more sticks than carrots. For example, nearly everybody thought it would best if air conditioners and furnaces were built to match specific regions' particular energy needs. Who hasn't noticed that the summers in Texas are a little different than the summers in Maine? I'm here to tell you that the winters are different, too. Most of us thought that buyers should get to decide on the heating and cooling equipment that works best for them. But instead of giving consumers information and choices, we're going to punish retailers who have the gall to let their customers decide what they need and want. In the view of the Democratic majority, Washington knows what's best. In 2007, our America faces energy challenges on every front, but on this sorry day, we're not going to do anything about them. We are engaged here today in what is laughingly called a debate about an energy bill. This is hardly a debate, and this is certainly not an energy bill. I hope we can stop this nonsense and start over and get it right. I urge my colleagues to take every opportunity today to achieve that noble goal. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time at this time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Okay. Hey, if you've got the time, I've got the bill.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in serious opposition.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, we don't oppose the amendment and seek no time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, as our distinguished majority leader and the Speaker leave the floor, I would point out that the vehicles that they drive with their security detail wouldn't qualify for low-greenhouse-gas- emitting vehicles. I am not sure that we would want to put them in a low-greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicle at this point in time given the security needs and the needs for rapid acceleration in case there were some sort of an emergency. Again, there is nothing wrong with the intent. But in application, all you have to do is go out outside this Chamber right now and look at some of the vehicles that are strategically placed and look at the security personnel that are inside those vehicles. We need to be practical as we pass some of these legislative items that are under consideration today. This particular amendment, given the current technology and the state of the market, is not practical to be broadly applied. If there are low-greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicles, and again, I point out we don't have a current definition, but if there are, and a Member of Congress wants to lease them or purchase them for personal use or lease them for government use, there is no prohibition against that. But we certainly don't need to mandate it. Mr. Chairman, again, I would strongly oppose the adoption of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of the time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for my good friend from Missouri, who I believe was born in Texas. In fact, I think the gentleman was born in Waxahachie, Texas, so I have utmost respect. Mr. Chairman, I have a GM assembly plant in my district in Arlington, Texas. The lease car that I use in my district is produced there. It is a GM Tahoe. It is a very good vehicle. It is made with union labor, which would make all my friends on the Democratic side happy. I am very happy with it. It has the engine in it that at a certain speed and under certain conditions, four of the eight cylinders stop working so you get increased fuel efficiency. But I don't believe it would be certified as a low-greenhouse-gas- emitting vehicle. In fact, I am not sure that we have a definition right now in current law of what a low-greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicle is. I certainly respect the gentleman from Missouri's intent on this. But I think it is premature. I think we need to wait a number of years. Let's see exactly how some of these new vehicles that are currently in the research phase turn out. I drove another GM product around the Capitol not too many weeks ago that runs on hydrogen. That particular vehicle is not available for lease or sale right now. When it is, it probably will be a low- greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicle. But it is probably 5 or 6 years away from being able to be purchased or leased. Mr. Chairman, again, we understand the intent of the amendment. The intent is noble. But the application and practice, I think, would be impractical at this point in time. So I strongly oppose the amendment and hope that we defeat it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment simply to ask some questions, though I will not be in opposition at the end.