Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I sincerely respect the intent of the authors of the amendment. I am just trying to point out that even on a cursory examination, there are things that were just kind of hastily put together. They have not been vetted. The underlying bill has been through countless hearings. The Energy and Commerce markup took 3\1/2\ days. The base text is the conference report from the last Congress that was extensively reviewed both inside and out of the conference. At this stage of the game, to adopt this, even as well intentioned as it is, would not put the Congress in the best light. So I really would hope that we would vote it down. I do want to say one thing about the gentleman from Michigan's amendment on Great Lakes drilling. He offered his amendment in committee. We had a fair debate on it. It was rejected. I do not remember the vote. It was a fairly close vote, but it was rejected. Then we took a Rogers of Michigan amendment as a substitute that gives the States the right to ban drilling if they wish. It is my understanding, and I could be incorrect about this, that Michigan wishes to ban drilling in the Great Lakes and Ohio perhaps does not. I did not learn whether New York wanted to or did not want to. I think that Canada does allow it. But the base bill allows a State the right to ban drilling on their portion of jurisdiction of the Great Lakes if they so wish.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I would be happy to have a colloquy with the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would ask to engage in a dialogue with one of the authors of the amendment, if they wish to do so. I am not being facetious about this. I want to let the gentleman from New York know right up front. I have spent the last 10 minutes actually trying to look at the amendment to try to get a sense of it. It appears to me that most of it is the Dingell electricity substitute. Would the gentleman from New York agree with that?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means that has jurisdiction on tax issues.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. On the Johnson amendment immediately prior, I was in mild opposition. On this amendment, I want to be recorded in strong opposition. Here is the amendment. It is 124 pages. It may be great. I do not believe it is, but I have to stipulate it is possible. There has been no hearing on this, no markup on this. Most of the amendments before the body today, there may be a paragraph, a page, most of them are amendments that were at least debated in one of the committees of jurisdiction. This is a 124-page amendment which, I guess, Members could say is a substitute for the entire bill. There are 50 pages of efficient standards in this amendment. Then there is the Dingell electricity substitute, which we have already had a debate on earlier today, and then at the end there are another 30 pages of tax credits. To top it off, we have some sort of a scheme to fix the price of oil. What is not in this amendment is anything that would increase production, anything that addresses clean coal technology, I believe, or hydrogen research or any of those things. Again, I will stipulate this is probably a well-intentioned amendment. It is certainly lengthily drafted, but I cannot conceive at this stage of the game after all of the hearings and the markup and the amendments we have already had in this Congress and the debate that went on in the prior Congress, in the conference report that this House voted on two times, that the House would accept this amendment. With all due respect to the authors, I would urge a strong ``no'' vote on this on a bipartisan basis because I do not think this amendment is right for inclusion or substitution for the underlying bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green), one of nine Democrats on the Committee on Energy and Commerce who voted for this bill in committee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Chairman, how much time does the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) have?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman well knows, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) offered an amendment in the committee that struck the participatory funding language from the conference report, but at that time, I assured the gentleman from Georgia and the gentleman from Mississippi and several other interested Congressmen in the committee that when we go to conference with the Senate, we will work out language that is fair and balanced and protects the rights of the incumbent local utilities and also the independent power producers to find a fair and balanced way in which to build and maintain the transmission system for our great Nation's electricity grid.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. But we are going to have two votes?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Would the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) yield to me 1 minute?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume for the purpose of responding to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) and also to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from New Hampshire. First, let me simply say I understand the concern of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) about the situation in the power markets in California 4 to 5 years ago, and I know she feels more needs to be done. As we speak, there is litigation in process to have more done in that area. I will say on the record, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars have been reclaimed, indictments have been brought, cases have gone to court and convictions obtained and people sent to jail for some of the transgressions the gentlewoman alluded to. While it is obvious that she feels more needs to be done, I think it does need to be stated on the record that quite a bit already has been done. Madam Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Madam Chairman, first, I rise in opposition to the Dingell substitute. I do want the record to show that I supported at the Committee on Rules that it be made in order so we could have a full debate. The Dingell substitute, if it were actually to be implemented into the bill and become law, would go far beyond anything currently being considered in the electricity sector. It would increase the fines already under the bill that go up to $1 million. The Dingell substitute would take that to $5 million and in some cases $25 million. I will admit with the gentleman from Michigan that the current fine is insignificant. I think it is $5,000, and we need to increase that. So the bill takes it to $1 million. The Dingell substitute would take it to between $5 million and $25 million. The Dingell substitute does not repeal PUHCA. The bill before us does repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act, but the bill before us keeps in order the reporting requirements under PUHCA so the SEC would have the ability to maintain analysis of records and things like that of the companies that are subject to PUHCA. The Dingell substitute would require retroactive refunds for market- based rates. It would go back into contracts that have already been executed and electricity is being consumed and money for that electricity has been paid, and for the first time create a retroactive refund. I think that is unwise and unnecessary. Basically, I would say that the Dingell substitute is well intentioned; but in some cases it goes too far, and in some cases it is silent on the underlying bill. I would hope we would oppose it and keep the base text of the bill that is before us. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), a member of the committee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me this time. First, let me say that I do oppose the Markey amendment, but I want to say that the letter that was just read is totally legal. He has got every right if he wants to use something to try to raise money. He did not send me that letter. Had he sent it to me, I would have had to reply in the negative that I could not make the contribution. But I recognize his right to do it in that manner. I oppose the Markey amendment because I want to pay less for gasoline in Texas. I would like to tell the Members that my great State is self- sufficient in energy production and self-sufficient in oil, but it is not true. We are the largest producer of oil of the 50 States, but we are also the largest consumer. ANWR has the potential to produce up to 2 million barrels a day for 30 years. And depending on one's point of view, that is a lot or a little. If one wants to say it is a lot, it is more than we import from Saudi Arabia. If one wants to say it is a little, it is less than we use in a year in this country. But 2 million barrels a day for 30 years would lower prices for every American at the pump. I would point out that in terms of the environment, we have been producing successfully in Prudhoe Bay for almost 30 years without any harm to the environment, as the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) showed in those pictures when he was up here right before me. My district produces substantial amounts of oil and gas. We are producing 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas every day. That is one half of a trillion cubic feet a year. I cannot tell the Members how many hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day, but we are producing significant amounts of oil. We are producing it through the water table and supplies of many of the cities that I represent. We are producing it from underneath downtown Fort Worth, Texas. And we are doing it in a safe and environmentally effective fashion. We could do that also in ANWR. I strongly support the gentleman from California's (Chairman Pombo) amendment that would allow it. I want to thank our colleagues in the other body for already agreeing in the reconciliation instructions, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the Markey amendment.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. You could classify this amendment as the darn-the-people amendment, and we are going to tell them what they want to do, not what they really want to do. We are going to tell them that they have to do something whether they want to or not. I would list as Exhibit A the parking garage of the Cannon Office Building or the Rayburn Office Building or the Longworth Office Building. There are cars and trucks on the market today that meet the standards that would have to be met if this amendment were to become law. I doubt that the congressional fleet meets that standard, because we, like everybody else, want some convenience and want some power under the hood. But if you want a car or truck that gets 35 or 36 miles a gallon or 40 miles a gallon or more, you can buy it today. How many of us do that? I have had one vehicle that my son actually bought; it was a Nissan Sentra. It probably got 35 miles to the gallon on the highway. When he got through with it and bought himself a little bit bigger, more fancy vehicle, he let me drive it, and I brought it up here, used it as my car for a while. My staff was so embarrassed: it did not have an air conditioner; it was a standard transmission. I could hardly get them to get in the car. But I did have one vehicle in my life that would have met the standard that is in this bill. I represent an assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, a UAW plant. I doubt very many of those folks actually vote for me because I am a Republican and most of them are not, but they have a right to make the Chevrolet Tahoes and the Cadillac Escalades, because a lot of Americans want to drive that vehicle. I am not going to go down and tell them, you cannot make that vehicle because it does not meet these fuel-efficiency standards. Let the market decide. If America wants more fuel-efficient vehicles, they are available in the marketplace today. We do not need a government fiat telling them that that is the only vehicle that they can purchase. Vote against this amendment.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in mild opposition to the Johnson amendment.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I said mild opposition because it is exactly what it is. I chair the committee of jurisdiction that would have this amendment, and we have been working with the Congresswoman from Connecticut to try to perfect her amendment. She has been very gracious to come up to me on the floor, and then her staff and committee staff have been working, and we really thought that earlier in the week or late last week we had an amendment that everybody could agree to. For various reasons, that was not agreed to, so we have the situation today. At the close of this debate, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers), a member of the committee of jurisdiction, is going to offer a perfecting amendment to the Johnson amendment. I am going to support that at the appropriate time. We support the goal of the Johnson amendment. She is trying to get consumers fair and accurate information when they go into a showroom or are thinking about purchasing a new vehicle. She states, and I agree, that the consumer has a right to know what the fuel economy is of that particular vehicle; and under current law, the way the tests are conducted, there is some discrepancy, as she has pointed out in her statement in support of her amendment. Having said that, there are those that have reviewed her amendment and think that it could be a backdoor approach to CAFE standard increases. We just had the debate on the Boehlert-Markey amendment. I voted in the negative on that, and I think when that rollcall is called, the majority of the House is going to be in the negative. So I know that is not the intent of the gentlewoman's amendment, but there are some that think it could be. We are going to oppose this amendment and support the gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Rogers) amendment in the nature of a substitute or amendment to the Johnson amendment. I think at the end of the day, the House is going to work its will, and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) is going to be happy and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers) is going to be happy and the consumers of America are going to be happy when they go into showrooms a year or two from now and see these new window labels that show what the fuel economy is. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry, since the Rogers amendment, which is next in line, amends, or perfects, the Johnson amendment, does the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers) have to seek recognition to offer his amendment before the close of debate on the gentlewoman from Connecticut's (Mrs. Johnson) amendment, or does he wait until her debate concludes and then offers his amendment?