Charlie Bass

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, today I commend and congratulate the Iraqi people on the occasion of the election which is going to be held there tomorrow. This election represents not only the successful liberation of the Iraqi people from decades of tyranny and oppression but it also is a great leap forward in solidifying democratic institutions in Iraq. Perhaps more than our Constitution, our flag or our national anthem, it is our elections that best display the enduring success of our American democracy. From the formation of political parties and ideologies to spirited debates on critical issues, it is the symbolic act of casting ballots that continues to make our democracy a beacon of freedom and prosperity to the global community. The Iraqi people will now have the opportunity to comprehend what Americans have learned over two centuries, that nations are more stable and more peace loving when a multitude of voices share in its operation. I am confident that democracy will continue to flourish as Iraqis make their opinions heard, rally in support of their visions, and experience for the first time the many liberties that Americans hold dear.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I am planning to speak in opposition to the bill, but I thought that I heard the gentleman say a minute ago that he planned to oppose it. Is that correct?

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding. I rise in opposition to the bill. We passed a bipartisan campaign finance reform act 3 or 4 years ago to close huge loopholes in campaign spending, including the soft money loophole. Now the Internet is becoming an increasingly important medium for campaign spending and advocacy. According to some surveys, 37 percent of the adult population and 61 percent of Americans use the Internet to determine how they would vote in an election. Now I do agree with my friends on the other side of the aisle that, had this bill gone through the regular order, we probably could have worked out some compromises that would have protected the rights of individuals and bloggers and so forth, but we do not have that ability at this point, so it is either an up or down vote on a complete exemption. In the absence of this compromise, we have to depend on the FEC for regulation. Because if we do not and if this bill passes, we will in effect have an exemption to BCRA that will allow for unlimited advertising and advocacy over the Internet. I do not believe that bloggers or individuals will ever be fined by the Federal Election Commission. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill when it comes up later today.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material therein.

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 220) recognizing America's Blood Centers and its member organizations for their commitment to providing over half the Nation with a safe and adequate volunteer donor blood supply, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 220, a resolution recognizing America's Blood Centers and their member organizations and their commitment to providing over half the Nation with a safe and adequate donor blood supply. Each year more than 4\1/2\ million Americans need a blood transfusion; and for many, donated blood will be a lifesaver. One out of every three people will need donated blood in their lifetime. For many of us, we do our part by participating in blood drives, but we do not fully recognize the significance of our action. What can take 15 minutes to donate a pint of blood can literally save the life of a mother, a next-door neighbor, or a child. An ample blood supply is also critically important to ensuring we are prepared to respond to health care emergencies. I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany) for offering this resolution. This is a great resolution, and I urge all Members to support it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany).

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 485) supporting the goals of Red Ribbon Week.

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Res. 485.

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 485, which would resolve that the House of Representatives support the goals of Red Ribbon Week during the week of October 23 through October 31 in order to commemorate the services of DEA Special Agent Enrique ``Kiki'' Camarena, who died in the line of duty in 1985 while engaged in the battle against illicit drugs. I also understand that Red Ribbon Week encourages children and teens to choose to live a drug-free life, and I understand also that this resolution encourages all people of the United States to promote drug- free communities and to participate in drug-free prevention activities to show support for healthy, productive, drug-free lifestyles. We know ultimately that education is the answer to drug abuse amongst children. As the father of a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old, I can assure you that education is key. What Red Ribbon Week does is recognize nationally the importance of keeping our youth off of drugs, and I am particularly pleased that we are commemorating this year and through this resolution Special Agent Enrique ``Kiki'' Camarena. Mr. Speaker, this is a great resolution. I urge Congress to pass it.

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, this is a great resolution. I urge the Congress to adopt it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida for yielding me this time. I think I will thank him twice during this speech for what he has been able to do, which was to bring this bill to the floor quickly, along with my friend from Illinois. As he mentioned, the American Spirit Fraud Prevention Act will double the penalties that the Federal Trade Commission can levy against individuals who commit fraud during times of Presidential emergencies or disasters if the offending action is associated with our response to the disaster. This would be the third time that I have introduced this bill. It has passed Congress on two previous occasions, and I sincerely hope that it will pass again today. Americans have opened their hearts and their wallets over and over again in the last 4 or 5 years, donating $2.2 billion in the wake of September 11; $1.3 billion for the tsunami victims; and as of now, over $1.7 billion for Katrina aid. In 2004 alone, charities raised $248.5 billion in the United States. Americans should be proud that we can come together as a country over and over again even though oftentimes we have to dig a little deep in order to help people who are in trouble. My hometown of Peterborough got together and adopted a town in Mississippi. We will raise close to $50,000 for this little town in Mississippi by the end of this week. I think that is enormously admirable. The money contributed is carefully accounted for, and it goes to the exact place it needs to go. However, there is fraud. I understand that the Nation's first Internet charity fraud case involving Hurricane Katrina has been uncovered. An individual has been charged and a Federal indictment is pending for creating a consumer Web site that asked that donations be made on line, purportedly to support humanitarian airlift operations to get victims out of Louisiana. Two people in Los Angeles set up a table outside a big box department store in Burbank and displayed fliers that read, ``Help now. American Red Cross relief for Hurricane Katrina.'' It had no connection whatever with the Red Cross. Now, as was mentioned before, Federal officials do have some power to prosecute those engaged in fraud, but if we double the penalties at times when Americans are most likely to be wanting to give without doing the proper research that is necessary before any gift is made, I think we will create an extra element of deterrence. I want to thank again my friend from Florida and my friend from Illinois as chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection of the Committee on Energy and Commerce for allowing this bill once again to come to the floor of the House. I want to thank Chairman Barton and Ranking Member Dingell as well. Mr. Speaker, it is time to pass this bill out of the Congress, pass it through the Senate and send it to the President's desk. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the committee and in the House and the Senate and White House to make sure this happens quickly.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I would only point out that this bill, with the exception of one and maybe two changes, has already been debated by this House. I appreciate the fact that my friend from Florida would be concerned about it being a closed rule, but this is certainly not the first time that we have considered this bill. I think I have voted on it a number of times in the past. The fact of the matter is all this bill does is the same thing the last version did that we voted on before and the one we voted on before that: it protects licensed and law abiding firearms and ammunitions manufacturers and sellers from lawsuits that seek to hold them responsible for the crimes that third-party criminals commit. It does not hold harmless unlawful, non-law-abiding arms manufacturers and sellers; but it simply allows for some immunity from the frivolous lawsuits that gun manufacturers have faced now for many years. Thirty- three States, including my home State of New Hampshire, have passed similar legislation at the State level. Indeed, the argument is brought up that this does set a precedent of providing special protection to a segment of the industry; and I say, you are right. You are absolutely right about that. And sad to say, I wish this bill was not necessary. I wish that there were not adventurous trial lawyers that see deep pockets as a new way to line theirs. I wish we had not reached the day that we have to protect, as we may later on this week, restaurants and public schools from frivolous lawsuits related to obesity claims; but the fact of the matter is we need to do that. We need to do that because there is no direct connection now between gun manufacturers and crimes that are committed with guns unless there is negligence of one sort or another. I urge my colleagues to support this bill because it is a sad reality that legitimate industries in this country need special protection against entities that are looking to make money, to provide new sources of revenue outside of the tax base, and other ways of looking for people that can afford to settle on cases that they would never ever settle on under any other circumstance. This bill has been debated. This is a good bill, and I urge the Congress to adopt it when it comes up on the floor.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time, and I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) for working so hard to accommodate those of us who represent the northeastern part of this country in this bill. I rise in strong support of this legislation, and I do so having worked hard to make sure that those of us who represent the northeastern part of the country are satisfied with what we have before us today. I wish to make three points. The first is that the issue of new source review is gone. It is a debate for another day, and I think that is an enormous improvement to the bill. The issue of pollution in this country needs to be addressed, and the Clean Air Act definitely needs to be amended, but I felt for a long time a refinery bill was not the place to do that, and I commend my leadership for being able to work that out. As the gentlewoman from New Mexico mentioned in her speech, there is a wonderful provision on price gouging that will protect consumers against price gouging from the refinery on down. The third point is that the only cost in this bill is the cost associated with increasing the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve from 2 million to 5 million barrels a day, which is critical to the northeast. The bottom line is, if you are satisfied with higher gas prices, if you are satisfied with the concentration of refinery capacity in hurricane-prone areas, if you are satisfied with the fact that we have not built a new refinery in so many years, if you are satisfied with the status quo and if you think your constituents are satisfied with that, if you think that 2 million barrels is enough for the Northeast Heating Oil Reserve, if you think this bill is going to cost money even though it will not, then vote against it. But this is your opportunity to support an energy bill that you can tell your constituents will help, over the short term and the long term, provide gasoline and heating oil to your constituents who need it badly.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, September 8, 2005, I regrettably missed recorded vote No. 464, on H. Res. 427. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on this measure.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, in the 11 years that I have been in Congress I have been in Washington at 5:20 in the afternoon on Friday exactly twice. The first was when the Federal Government was shut down in 1995, and the second was last year in early October when we passed our omnibus bill on a Saturday morning and everybody stayed here Friday night. I go home on weekends. I am here today because my friend, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), reserved this time to talk about one of my highest priorities, which is the development of alternative energy resources. Now, he is right. I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and, as such, we have jurisdiction over energy matters, shared with the Science Committee, a little bit with the Ways and Means Committee. And it is a high priority. I voted against the energy bill last year when it came to Congress. I voted against it in the committee. And I did so because I felt that it really did not reflect a balanced approach to the development of our Nation's energy resources and energy priorities. You know, energy is not about Republicans or Democrats, about conservatives or liberals or moderates, or whatever. It is not about philosophy. It is really about region. But what binds all of the regions of this country together is our understanding that we have to have a cohesive and balanced energy program that gives every region of the country an opportunity to participate in what becomes a national role, where we are less dependent on foreign oil, where we are economically competitive, both nationally and internationally, and every region of the country has the opportunity to develop its own resources and do so on a level playing field with every other region of the country. Now, you say to yourself, well, why did not a single Senator from northeast of Pennsylvania vote for the energy bill last year? The answer is that the energy bill did not really address what was important for northeastern States. I am pleased to say that the energy bill that we sent to the Senate and that is currently under consideration in the Senate in a somewhat different form, but the differences will be worked out in conference, is much more balanced and I will tell you why. For one thing, it has a significant section added to the bill that would provide for rebates for the installation, purchase and installation of solar, wind, and biomass, heat and electricity generation systems, on a residential and light commercial basis, and authorizes for appropriation $1 billion for that purpose. Now, in the Northeast we do not have oil wells and gas wells. We do not have significant hydro, although we do have some. We did not have the kinds of energy resources that other parts of the country have, but we do have solar, we do have wind, and we have enormous biomass. In the 1970s when we had the great oil embargo and the gas lines, there was a big push for renewable energy. The Energy Research and Development Administration, ERDA for short, became the Department of Energy, and we had a national energy policy at the time. And there was a big push to develop biomass. But what it turned into essentially was the marketing of solar equipment that did not work particularly well, even though you got tax credits for it of biomass boilers that basically ran on logs that you shoveled in, two or three times a day. It was unreliable. It was dirty. And after a few years most of these systems were discontinued. The 21st century is different. I come here today as a convert, because I myself a year and a half ago converted my house from oil to wood pellets. My house, which is not small, used to burn about 3,000 gallons of heating oil a year. Over the last 14 months, I have burned 165 gallons of oil. I have burned approximately 15 tons of wood pellets. I have a boiler that, unfortunately, I had to buy; it was imported from Denmark, had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean. It was not cheap. But what it demonstrated was that for a Btu cost of about 90 cents per gallon, I can heat my house with a system that is so sophisticated that nobody in the house knows that I am heating with wood. Everything is computer-controlled. Everything is automatically fed. It is clean. It is carbon neutral. And it is a resource that comes from essentially my own backyard. It can work in every household in America where you have access to these resources. The problem is we do not have any manufacturing capability in this country, because there is no demand. We are a country that has based our energy policy on nothing but oil, gas, and coal and the development of it. Little wonder that my region of the country is 85 or 90 percent dependent on number 2 heating oil in the winter time. We do not have those options available to us. But what this energy bill does is create the opportunity to develop demand for biomass, demand for wood energy. Also in New Hampshire, an old coal-fired plant over on the Piscataqua River, the Shiller plant, is in the process of converting from coal to wood chips. I believe it is on the order of 200 megawatts. It is a very large facility. We are on the way to changing some of our energy resources in the Northeast, which will change the mix of the dynamic and end our dependence not only on foreign oil, but from oil everywhere else in the United States. I believe that we can, if we pass this energy bill, have a meaningful plan to develop the kinds of energy resources that we need in this country; wind, solar. Solar is no longer a bad roofing job, it is a technology that can really provide heat and electricity for houses all over the place, even in the North, where the sun is low in the winter months; that we can develop low-head hydro in an ecologically acceptable fashion so that we can have microenergy development. I have a constituent who is developing a very efficient sterling engine that could be utilized for water distillation, for electricity production, running on anything that produces heat. This is the kind of technology that we need to promote in America, that we need to promote through legislation, that we need to promote in order to lessen our dependence on traditional energy sources and imported energy resources. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) for giving me the opportunity to bring to the Congress my commitment to this important priority. If we as a Congress can do what is right with the energy bill, Americans will be better off for many years to come.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, June 23, 2005, owing to an important family matter, I regrettably missed recorded vote numbered 306. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on this measure.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, June 23, 2005, owing to an important family matter, I regrettably missed recorded vote numbered 307, on the Bradley amendment to H.R. 3010. This amendment would add critical Federal support for grants to States to carry out the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. As a constant and long time supporter of meeting the Federal Government's share of IDEA funding, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on this measure.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, June 23, 2005, owing to an important family matter, I regrettably missed recorded vote numbered 305, on the Obey amendment to H.R. 3010. This amendment would restore critical Federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As a constant and long time supporter of public broadcasting, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on this measure.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, today we will take up H.R. 810, the stem cell research bill; and I agree with the distinguished majority leader. The debate that we have today will be about life and death. It will be about the lives of many millions of children who have diabetes, who want to live a fulfilling life and have hope for finding cures at some point in the future, about those who are paralyzed, about those who have congenital heart problems, about those who suffer from cancer and Alzheimer's and other diseases, debilitating diseases. We need to give the scientific community an opportunity to address these important issues and to do so in such a fashion that is ethical, that has adequate government oversight, that does not allow other countries around the world to take over. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 810, with its 200 cosponsors, will pass today because America wants to find cures for these diseases and not leave it to other countries around the world. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the House to support H.R. 810.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, a ``yes'' vote today is a vote for progress, for reason and for sound research. Mr. Speaker, it is conservative to conserve, and this bill utilizes stem cells that have already been discarded, discarded because in most cases those who undergo in-vitro fertilization have excess fertilized cells available. Their only choice today has been for freezer storage, putting them up for adoption or discarding them, yes, into hospital medical waste. Now we will add a fourth option, and that is to allow these embryos to be used for scientific research, to find cures for diseases that have afflicted Americans, a large portion of Americans, that threaten the lives of young people. This is not about life, this is about saving life, and it is important that the Congress make this statement for a brighter future for many, many Americans.

Mr. BASS. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. BASS

Mr. BASS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.