Brian Baird

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, we have a lot to do today in the House of Representatives, as we do every day; and we will undoubtedly talk about a number of matters of great importance. But as we do, we should not forget that thousands of miles from here, thousands of families are mourning the loss of their children, their husbands and wives in Russia to a brutal and horrible terrorist attack. I would ask this House to think about that as we go about our business, to extend our heartfelt sympathies and condolences, and our steadfast determination to assist our friends in stamping out this horrific kind of attack. Whatever the political grievance, whatever the disagreement there can be, there must be no excuse for this sort of barbarity. Our hearts go out to our friends, and we share in their profound sadness in Russia.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding me this time. My friends, surrounding us here are profiles of the great law givers. There are two Americans up there, Jefferson and Mason. Mason did not sign the Constitution at the Convention. He did not, because it did not have a Bill of Rights in it. Jefferson, on his epitaph, looked at as one of his proudest accomplishments, was the establishment of the clause providing for religious freedom in the State of Virginia. We have 900 dead Americans in Iraq, thousands more wounded, we have a $600 billion deficit, we have 3 million Americans without jobs, 37 million kids are born in poverty in this country, and we are here today proposing to try to take away one of the three pillars of a three- legged stool that has made our country so strong for so many years. Do not do this. A three-legged stool cannot stand. A society that does not have a judiciary to protect the rights of the minority will ultimately degenerate, and we must not let that happen.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to extend my gratitude to Congressman Mark Souder and former Superintendent of Ft. Clatsop Memorial, Don Striker.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I appreciate the discussion here. I absolutely agree. I want to underscore that. The gentleman, I could not agree more; it must not reside with one person. Frankly, not because we feel that way, not because we cannot think of who that one person would be, but because the Constitution of the United States of America has never said that the President or a designee of the President can delay an election. That must reside with Congress, if anything is going to happen to elections. But I really do want to underscore, what is the purpose of an election? The purpose of an election is not simply to say we had an election and someone was declared the winner. The purpose of the election is to understand the will of the majority of the American people. If events, be they natural or terrorist, in some way distort the ability of us to accurately glean and determine the will of the American people, then that is to be of profound consideration. My concern, again, is we must first and foremost ask ourselves what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the will of the American people is accurately recorded and counted, not what mechanisms are in place so that at the close of business on November 2 we can all declare we have had an election. That is all I am trying to say here. I absolutely applaud the gentleman for saying no one person must make this decision. If nothing else than that, I would vote for this resolution. But I think we must step back after that and say, What mechanisms do we have in place? If on Election Day something profound has happened, be it terrorist or natural, that we reliably can reliably say we do not have an accurate count at the end of this day, should we move forward so that we can say, We had an election; or should we have some mechanism in place to ask ourselves, Has this mechanism of an election been valid? And if it has not been valid, then it behooves us and it is our duty to the American people and the voters to say, We are going to do something beforehand to make sure it is valid and not leave it up to chance. That is all I am trying to say. So if we pass this, let us please continue this discussion, and ask if something does happen that interferes with your right to have your vote counted and accurately represented, we have some mechanism to anticipate that.

Mr. BAIRD. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut for yielding me this time and thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney). I want to raise a question here because, first of all, I absolutely agree that the executive branch must not be given the authority or must not assume the authority to change our elections. On that I one hundred percent agree. That must be the purview and the prerogative of the United States Congress. But I just want to raise a question. The issue really is not the holding of elections. The issue is whether or not in the elections everyone's vote gets counted, and we must be very careful in our rhetorical concerns to not just say they will never disrupt the elections but to instead ensure that terrorists not allow individual votes to not be counted. We have seen elections in which individual votes were not counted, and that is the threat to the democracy. And I mean this very seriously. It is quite plausible to imagine scenarios wherein we go forth with an election, but individual votes are not counted and thereby the election of an individual as President of the United States or as Members of the House or Senate does produce an outcome, but the outcome is not based on a fair and full counting of each of our votes. And that is my concern. And my concern, frankly, is I think we are moving this forward too fast. My own preference would be to follow something along the lines of what Norm Ornstein recommended, and that is appoint a commission to study in the interim what the possible scenarios are and what our opportunities are because if, for example, one State, let us say California, is attacked by terrorists and the number of the votes are not in some way able to be tallied, are we today setting a marker in the ground that says it is better not to count the votes of the State of California or to only partially count those in order that we can say the election was held on time? Quite frankly, I am not comfortable with the results of elections where we have said what matters is that we say we have held the election rather than we say what matters is every single person's vote is counted. It is that principle on which the integrity of a democratic Republic depends, not merely holding elections on a designated time. So I will very likely vote for this, but I will do so with reservations. And I would suggest that if we do pass this resolution, we not assume that in so doing we have solved this problem. Nor do we assume that in so doing, we have assured the American people that their votes will be counted. Because the American people say not that we must hold the election on the first Tuesday of November. What they say is, most important is my vote must count. In the past it has not counted, and it must count ever after.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Guam for yielding me this time, and I thank my friend and colleague from Arizona as well for his support. This is a very exciting day. As we all know, 200 years ago today, as we speak, Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery were in the middle of their epic journey, actually in the early stages; and what a journey it was: thousands of miles of territory unexplored by U.S. citizens prior to that point and terminating, I am very proud to say, actually in my district on the west coast. And as the Members know, the Pacific Northwest is rich in history pertaining directly to Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery and to the many tribes that greeted their arrival. The Lewis and Clark National Historical Park Designation Act will redesignate 560 acres in Washington and Oregon states as the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park and will make this a unit of the National Park System. The acreage will include Fort Clatsop National Memorial; the Megler Safety Rest Area, which was then called Clark's Dismal Nitch; Station Camp; and Cape Disappointment State Park. I want to take just a second to talk about Station Camp because it was a miraculous place. Lewis and Clark were facing horrific weather. If we read their journals from the time, the rain was pouring down, their clothes were rotting off their bodies, their canoes were capsizing frequently, and they were really at a critical point. They sent a group to the coast itself to look out over the ocean, and they had hoped perhaps they might see a ship there. There were none. Ships had been plying those waters for some decades, but they thought perhaps we will get lucky and can take a ship back. No such luck. The question then arose: Where shall we winter over? Will we winter on the Washington side, what is now the Washington side, or on the southern side, what is now Oregon? How did they resolve this debate? In true democratic spirit, they had a vote. But what is so remarkable about this vote is the record in the journal indicates that Sacagawea voted, as did York, who was Clark's slave at the time. So here we were 60 years before emancipation, 100 years before suffrage. We took a vote, and the African American and the woman, a Native American, were included in the vote. And that happened at Station Camp. So this commemoration and designation will allow visitors to the area to fully appreciate the richness of this courageous journey and the heroism that these early explorers showed. I believe inclusion of these sites as part of the National Historical Park represents the best means for comprehensive interpretation of the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the Pacific Northwest and will continue to relate the importance of the Corps of Discovery's journey long after the bicentennial commemoration has passed. Fort Clatsop National Memorial, located near Astoria, Oregon, marks the spot where Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery spent 106 days during the winter of 1805 through 1806. That memorial was established by an act of Congress in 1958 and is the only unit of the National Park System solely dedicated to the Lewis and Clark expedition. During the bicentennial years, the National Park Service estimates that well over 1 million people will visit Fort Clatsop and the surrounding area. In fact, the memorial has already begun to notice a significant increase in visits; and to accommodate all of these visitors, to enhance visitor experience, it is vital that Fort Clatsop finish its expansion efforts immediately. The inclusion of these sites is timely considering the bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery is already under way and the preparations are being made in southwest Washington and northwest Oregon for the Destination Pacific Signature Event in 2005. In addition to preserving and enhancing the historic value of these sites, inclusion with the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park will bring important economic benefits to local communities that, quite frankly, have struggled with the decline of major industries and with high unemployment of late. I would like to express my profound gratitude to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) and his staffers, Jim Zoia and David Watkins; the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) and staffer Frank Vitello. The gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu) has been instrumental in this, as have members of both delegations and both sides of the aisle. This is truly a bistate, bicameral regional effort. And I also express my appreciation to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton in the administration. The Secretary herself visited the area not long ago and has been a stalwart advocate. And, finally, Chip Jenkins, the superintendent of the park; David Nicandria of the Washington State Historical Society; and my own staffer, Ms. Paula Burg, have done outstanding work. I thank my colleagues for their consideration in support of this legislation.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague for yielding me this time, and I understand that the chairman of the committee would be willing to engage in a brief colloquy.

Mr. BAIRD. I thank him for that, as this is an issue of great importance to fish processors and the economy of my region. Mr. Speaker, my concern is that small fishing ships are now required to transmit electronically information about the contents of their cargo 24 hours before docking in a U.S. port. This requirement and several others are causing a great hardship for small, independently operated fishing vessels. As a result, the vessels are docking in Canada and processing fish there, thereby costing jobs in an area where we greatly need those jobs. As a result, Washington State is losing more jobs, and fish processing jobs; and I would ask and hope that we can work together to address this issue immediately.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful to that, and there is some urgency to this, so I look forward to working with the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) on this; and I thank him for his indulgence.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, although I am not sure it is at the desk.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. It was my understanding the amendment was here, and I apologize for the confusion. Mr. Chairman, it was my intent to withdraw the amendment, but I wanted to rise today to discuss a program fraught with waste. It was created with noble intentions but is poorly constructed and implemented, and as a result has facilitated, I think, abuse of an otherwise well-intentioned program. I am referring to the Livestock Compensation Program, which provides Federal funds to compensate livestock producers for financial losses stemming from natural disasters. I strongly support the intentions of the LCP, and I applaud the Secretary of Agriculture for creating the program. However, when it was created in 2002, it was designed to provide payments to compensate for drought damages, and then Congress expanded the program in 2003 to provide payments for all natural disasters. Congress only authorized the program until 2003; and, consequently, the LCP is currently dormant. However, we can be assured that the Secretary and Congress would likely be pressured to reauthorize the program during the next significant disaster, which is, unfortunately, an inevitability. While I support the intentions of the LCP, the authorizing legislation and accompanying regulations contained a massive loophole. Essentially, it was this: the LCP did not require eligible parties to demonstrate any actual loss to receive Federal assistance. As a consequence, ranchers who resided in regions affected by natural disasters, but whose property was completely unaffected, were able to march down to the local FSA, provide documentation simply that they owned livestock, and receive a check for as much as $40,000. They did not have to demonstrate that their farm or ranch had been harmed; neither did they have to demonstrate that their livestock had been harmed. Apparently, FSA simply wrote checks without asking the relatively simple question: What sort of damages did you sustain? To this day, we have no idea how much money was wasted because the government failed to ask this question. We do know, however, that the program distributed a total of $1.1 billion, including $234 million for disasters other than drought. We asked the USDA Inspector General to investigate the program; and, indeed, they suggested it was in need of reform. That is why I am calling this to the attention of this committee. I believe we ought to address this. My understanding is that the amendment was likely to be ruled out of order, and I do have now available a copy of the amendment, so that I would have had to withdraw it. But I would ask this committee to consider this. This is a program that may have been well intentioned, but has been abused. If it is extended further, we need to make sure that money only goes to people who have suffered livestock loss. We talk a lot about waste, fraud, and abuse in this Congress. Here is a clear-cut case of waste. I do not think it is intentional fraud, but it is clearly waste and possibly abuse, and so I think we should address it. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his indulgence, and I submit for the Record a copy of the amendment I had intended to offer. Amendment to H.R. 4766, As Reported Offered by Mr. Baird of Washington Page 79, after line 16, insert the following (and make such technical and conforming changes as may be appropriate): Sec. 759. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to make payments pursuant to the Livestock Compensation Program to persons who do not incur a financial loss resulting from the natural disaster with respect to which such payments are otherwise available.

Mr. BAIRD. And my understanding is that it may be ruled out of order; but if I may, I would like to speak to it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I think it is being brought to the floor. If I might ask the gentleman if we could bring it back up in a few moments, I would appreciate it. My understanding was it had been submitted. Apparently, somehow, it did not get here.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Chairman, I think they are bringing it, but I am not sure of the status.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to offer my support for H.R. 1856, the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research Amendments Act of 2004, authored by my colleague and friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers). I thank my colleague on the Committee on Science and my colleague on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), for working with me to develop language that will move the research results of this program from the laboratory and the field closer to their application. I would also like to thank the members of the Committee on Science for their support and help in this effort. Since the inception of this program in 1998, we have developed a better understanding and appreciation for the dimensions and complexity of harmful algal blooms and hypoxic zones. We have made progress in identifying harmful species and in providing timely information to fisheries and recreational managers to prevent human health problems. However, we have not been very successful in developing and implementing management strategies or technologies to reduce the frequency or the intensity of the blooms. Harmful algal blooms are not just an unpleasant nuisance. They are hazardous to human health, damaging to fish and wildlife, and they are economically devastating to the coastal communities that depend on coastal resources for their livelihoods. The razor clam fisheries, for example, along the coast of Washington have experienced three extended closures in the past 10 years. Each one of these represents the loss of over $10 million to coastal communities in my home State. I can tell my colleagues that local restaurants, hotels, and the tourism industry depend on the annual influx of clam diggers; and when the beaches are closed, they lose millions of dollars in important revenue and jobs. Also, Washington State's Hood Canal region of the Puget Sound has experienced harmful algal blooms that threaten to create an ecological dead zone. Due to the proliferation of harmful blooms, levels of dissolved oxygen in Hood Canal have declined during the past several years to such an extent that many fish, shellfish, and invertebrate species are threatened. Indeed, last fall, two dozen species of fish washed up on Hood Canal's beaches, unable to survive in the oxygen- depleted waters. In an effort to protect Hood Canal's increasingly threatened ecosystem, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has been forced to close much of the canal to fishing, costing rural Washington communities valuable jobs. Oxygen levels drop during the summer, and State officials expect significant losses as this summer continues. Our States need funding to implement plans to identify and eradicate the causes and to prevent such blooms. We must act now to clean our coastal waters and restore the ecological and economic health of our fisheries. I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 1856. And again, I commend the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Ehlers) for his leadership on this issue. Mr. Speaker, we have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 301 which recognizes the goals and ideals of the World Year of Physics. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for bringing this resolution forward. I also personally want to say how much I enjoy serving with the gentlemen on the Committee on Science and what a rewarding experience it is to have two physicists on the Committee on Science itself. Some of the more esoteric details we often turn to these gentlemen to help us understand. Physics, of course, is the discipline that underpins all of science in some way, and so much of our technology deals with the most fundamental understanding of the properties of matter. Emerging fields such as nanotechnology, information technology and biotechnology are substantially based on the results of fundamental discoveries in physics. The General Assembly of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics unanimously approved the proposition designating 2005 as the World Year of Physics. This will be the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's remarkable series of scientific papers on the photoelectric effect, the size of molecules, Brownian motion, and, of course, the theory of relativity itself. This makes 2005 an appropriate year to recognize the importance of physics to the advance of civilization and the important role physics plays in social, cultural and economic development in our society and throughout the world. Mr. Speaker, I commend this resolution to my colleagues and ask for their support for its passage by the House. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, on Friday, June 18, 2004, I was unable to participate in legislative business due to an important, longstanding commitment in my district. Had I been present for legislative business on June 18, 2004, I would have voted ``yea'' on House Amendments 580, 581, 585 and 592; and would have voted ``nay'' on House Amendments 578, 583, 584, and 589. In addition, Mr. Speaker, I would have voted ``yea'' on final passage of H.R. 4567, the Fiscal Year 2005 Homeland Security Appropriations Act.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, because I believe it is important for this institution to express its ongoing support of Israel, because I believe that withdrawal from Gaza is an important step towards peace in the region, because I deplore the attacks of terrorists on innocent civilians, I intend to support this resolution. I do want, however, to express two concerns: First, I believe Mr. Rahall expressed a number of important considerations and I believe those should be taken under the deliberation of this body. Second, in this resolution it commends principles outlined in the President's letter. And I just would express one reservation about an element to the President's letter. The President wrote, ``The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan.'' Now, I think the President has put forward some sound points, but we have many friends and allies within the region even and internationally, our friends in Egypt and Jordan and elsewhere who may have some good ideas. I believe that it would be a mistake for us to say or assume that only our Nation can put forward a good plan and that all other proposals will be rejected. I would encourage the President and this body to consider various options.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. I want to thank my friend for raising this issue and for his leadership on this and my friend from California as well. What I would like to do is do two things: First of all talk a little bit about the impact of this terrible practice on the people of my district and relate a couple of stories, and then contrast that impact with what the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said about this incident. First let me talk a little bit about schools. I visited a number of schools in my district during the height of this crisis and asked them what the impacts of these terribly increased energy rates were. These were the things I was told. First of all I was told of one school district that had scheduled to purchase new textbooks for their kids. These were not because they just were whimsically buying unnecessary books. I saw the books that they were using. These were books that were almost a decade old. As you can imagine after that much use, the binders were torn up. The books were really not serviceable, were not up to date. But because they could not afford to pay their energy bill, these school districts were having to forgo the purchases of new textbooks. In addition to that, I visited some of the classrooms. Some of the classrooms were functioning with only half of their lights on and the kids were literally told you need to wear extra sweaters and coats to school because we cannot afford to heat your classroom because of these energy rates. I talked to senior citizens who told me, Congressman, I am not necessarily going to be able to pay my rent because of the increase in power rates. We had utility districts that saw almost a 100 percent increase in power rates for residential customers. I talked to farm product producers, refrigeration houses, et cetera, who said they were almost faced with bankruptcy because the cost of operating their facilities had gone up so high that they were not able to make ends meet. On a much larger scale, we had an aluminum smelter that had produced some of the highest quality aluminum in the world that was forced to shut down and is in bankruptcy now and is being parted out, basically scrapped out. We had 700 or more workers directly affected who lost their jobs, their health benefits, in some cases their retirement benefits because electrical prices went through the roof. In the backdrop of that, of schools not ordering textbooks and turning off their lights and turning down their heat to levels that the kids were cold, in the backdrop of senior citizens who could not pay their rent, in the backdrop of small businesses and farmers who were forced to close their doors, in the backdrop of more than 700 jobs permanently lost, I want to share with you a statement by the individual who could have stopped this but did not. Pat Wood, the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said this on March 4, 2002 in an interview in Business Week: ``I view Enron's collapse as an affirmation of the efficiency of energy markets.'' I am going to say that again. ``I view Enron's collapse as an affirmation of the efficiency of energy markets,'' said Pat Wood. He continued: ``Here was a player who because of bad investments in noncore businesses, managerial shortcomings and--to be charitable--accounting obfuscation, became tainted and lost creditworthiness. Yet, with few exceptions, energy customers have been able to work through those problems without any real significant impact.'' Let me say that again. The head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who refused to act when Enron was manipulating these prices, who was recommended by the top guns at Enron, said even as people throughout my district, throughout the West Coast were losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their businesses, said, ``With few exceptions, energy customers have been able to work through these problems without any real significant impact.'' My good friend from Washington commented earlier, and I was in the room with the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) when we talked to the Vice President of the United States. We said, Mr. Vice President, the economy of the West Coast is being devastated by these incredibly increased power rates. We said, Mr. Vice President, wholesale markets have gone from $30 a megawatt hour to $3,000 a megawatt hour, a 100- fold increase. There is no justifiable mechanism that causes such a basic commodity as this to increase 100-fold. Everybody is complaining now about gas prices going over $2.50 a gallon. I share that complaint. But if it were a 100-fold increase in gas prices, gas prices would be $250 a gallon. That is the kind of price increase we sustained in electrical wholesale markets. The Vice President of the United States of America did nothing to stop that. The head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did nothing to stop that. As businesses closed, our constituents lost their jobs and our school districts went broke, they did nothing to stop it. It is shameful, if not criminal.

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I would just add to this that when appropriations runs around in this Congress, we often, all of us, send out press releases to our constituents. We help get X amount of dollars to come back to our district for a school or a highway or you name it. But I wonder why my friends on the other side of the aisle have not sent letters back to their constituents saying because of our inaction in 2000 and 2001, billions of dollars were taken from people's pockets, from their families, from their schools, from their businesses and given to large energy corporations. Because whatever they may bring back to their district, Mr. Speaker, they have allowed to be taken out. Because of their inaction, because of the inaction of this administration, because of their actions in allowing this deregulated debacle to move forward, billions of dollars have been taken out of hard-working Americans' pockets, put into large corporations who have broken the law, rewritten the law to their own advantage. It has been cynical. It has been destructive. The one final thing I would say is, and it is a little bit of a deviation, but there is a pattern here. It is not only a pattern evident in the energy bill. We saw in the Medicare bill, which was also written to a large degree by special corporate interests and some of our own colleagues who helped write that legislation are going to work for those special interests, to prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from negotiating lower drug prices. When I tell this to my friends back home in town meetings, they sometimes do not believe it. They say, Do you mean to tell me that the very people who benefit, who raise our prices on energy or on pharmaceuticals are writing the laws and Congress is doing nothing? And the sad truth is we are doing worse than nothing. We are enabling this.

Mr. BAIRD. I want to underscore exactly what you said and how prescient and remarkably so that the individual cited in the recording said, ``I'm betting on a $1,000 per megawatt cap'' because that is exactly the cap that was proposed. Let us put that cap into context. Again, the average cost before this crisis was $30 a megawatt hour. So the cap on $1,000 is a 30-fold increase. A 30-fold increase if applied to gasoline would be over $75 a gallon today. $75 a gallon. Not a tankful but a gallon. That is the kind of cap they were talking about. How remarkable. And I do not think it really is remarkable that they would speculate on precisely the cap that was put in. Let me line this trail of evidence further. The Vice President of the United States has claimed executive privilege and has denied this Congress and the American people access to the names of the people with whom he consulted in crafting his energy bill. How is it that Enron traders would so accurately predict the level of the cap that would be put on in the energy bill? How did they know that? And how coincidental that the Vice President of the United States will not give us the list of those names. He is consulting with the very people who are manipulating the energy markets at the very time they are doing the manipulation and he is refusing to do anything to stop that manipulation. And the people of the United States are being hammered and losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their businesses, and the people who are doing the manipulation are talking to the Vice President about what the energy bill should contain and he is going along with them and he is refusing to stop them, and now is it any wonder he refuses to tell the American people with whom he was speaking. I want to walk through, if I may, a little bit about how this dynamic works. Here is the situation our local utility districts were faced with. Normally they could go on the spot market and buy energy in a shortfall for between $30 and maybe up to $60 a megawatt hour, but somewhere in that ballpark. But when prices spiked to $3,000 a megawatt hour, that is a 100-fold increase, so think about that for a second. If you have a commodity that goes up 100-fold, then in 4 days of purchase you have blown your entire annual budget. In 8 days of purchase, that is 2 full years of your budget. So the utilities were left with a Hobson's choice. I personally believe Enron, et cetera, created this choice for a very clear motive. What they did by letting prices spike to $3,000 a megawatt hour was they then had the utilities over a barrel and they said, ``Here, we've got a choice for you. If you don't want to risk that $3,000 per megawatt hour, why don't you just lock in prices at, say, $250 a megawatt hour,'' roughly the same level that that quaint trader said he would shove somewhere up some grandmother's anatomy. The utilities had no choice. Either you buy $250 a megawatt hour and lock it in for the long haul, thereby forcing your ratepayers to pay as much as eight times the normal going rate, or you run the risk of $3,000. So some of our utilities had no choice but to lock in these long-term contracts because they had to protect themselves against the risk of these outrageous short-term power rates. We are still paying the cost of that today in Cowlitz County, a county in my district that saw that aluminum smelter close, saw the loss of more than 700 jobs, is one of the leading counties in my State in unemployment, or had been. It is a wonderful county with hardworking, decent people. Their public utility district saw 97 percent rate increases. The Social Security COLA runs somewhere between 2 to 4 percent a year, depending on the year. If you are a senior citizen on a fixed income and you have to heat and light your home, when the Social Security COLA increases 2 or 3 percent but your power rate increases 97 percent, how do you possibly make ends meet? And how does Pat Wood, the head of the FERC, say most consumers have gotten through this without any difficulty? And, frankly, how does the Vice President of the United States sleep at night? Two questions that I hear from my constituents all the time. First, where is the money? Who profited from this? Where did the money go when these rates went through the ceiling? And the second is, why does someone not go to jail? People ought to go to jail for this. They clearly broke the law. They clearly defrauded the public. They ought to go to jail, and those who profited from it ought to pay back the money. And one final thing. I can tell them where part of the money went. Part of the money went into campaign contributions. Part of the money went into campaign tricks to help the very people who refused to regulate this market get reelected, and here I am sorry to say that as these energy markets went through the roof and were manipulated criminally, we received almost no assistance, virtually no help from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They said, no, we are going to let the market take care of itself. We are not going to intervene. Indeed, there was a certain condescension on their part that how dare we try to control these markets. And let me point out that regulated cost-based pricing was the model that worked in this country for many decades before Enron, et al. persuaded various governments and the administration that we ought to deregulate the markets, and they took advantage of that. They helped write the law. They then took advantage of that, and they deceived the public in the process, and our friends on the other side of the aisle were silent, in fact, blocked our efforts to try to impose regulations.

Mr. BAIRD

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the legislation that I put forward, actually it would obviate, not necessarily override. I really want to underscore that point. The chairman has repeatedly, really since day one of this, I think, misrepresented this. He misrepresented it in his opening comments. He said the question before us, in essence, is whether you will have an elected Congress or an appointed aristocracy. The true question is, will you have any Congress or not? Not my bill, not the bill of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), not the bill of the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), not the bill of Senator Cornyn, not any of the bills put forward would in fact ban elections, as the chairman repeatedly says. It is deeply frustrating to me to have a matter of this importance be misrepresented. No one disputes, and I firmly agree with you, that the mechanism to replace House Members should be direct election, ideally, and we should have them as promptly as possible. But if we are so concerned about an aristocracy and appointment not responsive to the people, are you not equally concerned that a party mechanism for selecting a candidate implies in itself some degree of potential beholding to those who appoint it? Is the gentlewoman concerned about that at all?

Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman for her time and appreciate her engaging in this colloquy. I sincerely do. Mr. Speaker, the reason I asked the gentlewoman to respond is this is what we really need to do with this bill. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) would claim that he brought this up at our request. In fact, we did not request this fashion of bringing this legislation up. What we requested was that all measures to provide for continuity be brought up for debate, including my own, the bill of the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the bill of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), the bill of the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), the bill of Senator Cornyn in the Senate, two Republicans on that list, by the way, several Democrats, that they all be brought up and we have full discussion. I would note for the record that I see on the House floor now about six colleagues, maybe seven. Two things concern me about that: first, if we really take this seriously, I believe we ought to all take it seriously. I do not think for a second my bill is perfect. I think there is merit to the other legislation. But I do not think we are going to get to a solution unless we grapple with this issue, unless we take it seriously. The second thing that concerns me is let us suppose this random group of survivors here, this six or seven on the floor, are the group of survivors. Under the Constitution, that is not a quorum. The Constitution, in my judgment, is rather clear that a quorum is a majority of the Members, but House Rules state it is a majority of those chosen, sworn, and living. Importantly, would the people of the United States of America believe that the seven or eight of us here now, relatively randomly chosen if we were survivors, are consistent with the representational nature of this body? It is not just the people's House because it is directly elected, it is the people's House because it deals with proportionate representation. It is the people's House because of prompt reelections. Would the eight of us here right now be sufficient to send this Nation into war? Would the eight of us be sufficient to impeach a President? Would we be sufficient to select one of our own as the Speaker of the House, who would then become the President of the United States? I noticed in her comments, in response from my friend from Michigan, not once did she truly address what happened in that 45 days. We talked about the elections, and I appreciate the importance of that. Let me, if I may, address some of the myths that have been perpetrated by the opponents of this bill. First of all, the myth that we have already solved the problem. We have not solved the problem. We have provided for special elections in 45, possibly as long as 75, days. But this notion that it was an elected House, not an appointed House that passed legislation, is rather absurd, when the choice is there might be no House at all to pass legislation. Secondly, this notion that continuity is somehow not urgent, that we do not have to move forward with this. It has been 3 years. On September 10, 3,000 of our fellow citizens had no idea they were living their last day, yet they were. The notion that temporary appointments somehow subvert the right to election. Again, and I underscore it, nothing in any of the legislation put forward would take away the people's rights to election. When the chairman said, and I thought it was rather remarkable, that my legislation explicitly in the Constitution authorizing the Congress to deal with the matter of incapacity, that that takes away our right to deal with incapacity, I found that rather absurd, to say the least. The legislation before us says that Congress can deal with incapacity statutorily. How does that ban our right to do so? The myth, which is just so remarkable, that the appointees would be irresponsible to the general public does a profound disservice to the existing Members of the House of Representatives. Indeed, I find it an insult. To believe that the people that sent us here with the authority to send their children to war, as we have chosen to do, to tax them or give them back their taxes, to impose any number of legislative remedies and sometimes problems on this country, but then the moment it comes time to make one of our most profound decisions, who would replace us in a catastrophe to carry on this institution, that moment, suddenly we lose capacity of our senses. It not only insults us, it insults those who we might nominate to replace us. By coincidence, not 30 minutes ago I met with Don Bonker, a gentleman who represented my district a little over a decade ago, a distinguished statesman with outstanding international skills. Do we seriously believe that if I nominated Mr. Bonker to be my replacement that he would act irresponsibly to care for this country? And if you believe that impeachment is a worthwhile check on the abuse by the executive, why do you not also believe that a subsequent election would be a worthwhile check on Mr. Bonker's conduct if he were to act irresponsibly? The inconsistencies and illogic are breathtaking sometimes. I want to do one other thing. My friend, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Snyder) is here; and I want to compliment him. It is rare in this body I find that we acknowledge that there may be a shortcoming in our own legislation and that an opponent of that legislation has pointed out a shortcoming. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Snyder) came to me this morning, raised an issue; and I think he has a good point. I would like to be able to fix that. I would have liked the process such as we propose in the original rule where you debate things and then have time to amend it. I doubt that is going to be allowed. But I will say, and I appreciate the gentleman very much for raising the shortcoming, I will in future drafts, if we have the opportunity, endeavor to fix that. But I would also say right now that, even with the shortcoming, I believe with all my heart that the bill we have before us today is superior by far to the status quo. So while I expect fully that we may not pass this bill, I will intend to bring it up with modifications.