Chris Cannon

Mr. CANNON

Mr. CANNON. Madam Speaker, I yield for so much time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo).

Mr. CANNON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. On Tuesday, the life of an Alexandria, Virginia, police officer was spared because he was wearing a bulletproof vest when he was shot in the chest. The officer was shot during a traffic stop on Interstate 395 just outside of Washington, DC, by a man who later took his own life. Fortunately, the officer is expected to make a full recovery. There are more than 900,000 State and local law enforcement officers who risk their lives every day to keep our community safe, yet we often lose sight of how quickly something as routine as a traffic stop can turn deadly for a police officer. Each year approximately 16,000 State and local officers are injured in the line of duty. In 2007, for instance, 55 police officers were killed by firearms in the line of duty. Thankfully, many police officers and sheriff's deputies are saved each year by bulletproof vests. The Bulletproof Vest Partnership was created by the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 1998 as a Department of Justice program to provide funding for bulletproof vests and other body armor to State and local law enforcement. Since 1999, 40,000 State and local governments have participated in the Bulletproof Vest Program. The program, administered by the Office of Justice Programs, has awarded Federal grants to support the purchase of an estimated 1.5 million vests, including over 800 vests to law enforcement agencies in my home State of Utah, making my police and many police around the country safer. H.R. 6045 reauthorizes the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program through fiscal year 2012. This legislation enjoys broad bipartisan support and endorsements from a number of law enforcement organizations, including the Fraternal Order of Police. It is important that we reauthorize this simple and effective program to protect our men and women in law enforcement. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CANNON. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CANNON. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. CANNON

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentlewoman from California has eloquently set forth the facts, the simple facts that relate to why we are here today. This is a profoundly important piece of legislation because it transforms a wrong in American history. I would just like to say that one of the profoundly important things in our time, one of the things that I am most proud of and most pleased with, in fact one of the things that gives me the greatest pleasure in life, is the fact that we are in a time when a person's ethnicity is less important than his or her capabilities. I think it is time that we ask the President to pardon Jack Johnson, because he represents some of the difficulty in our past. I am impressed that he was killed in a car accident after he sped away from a restaurant that refused to serve him. Every American today is uncomfortable with that. It was a standard at one point in time. It is not the standard in America today, something that I think is wonderful in our country. At a time with other crises going on around us, I am pleased to ask for our colleagues to support this bill and do something right, or recognize that some wrong was done in America and do something about that. I support the passage of House Concurrent Resolution 214, which calls on the President to grant a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson for a racially motivated conviction for violating the Mann Act. Jack Johnson was the first African American boxer to become the heavyweight champion of the world. But the Mann Act conviction diminished Mr. Johnson's athletic, cultural, and historic significance and tarnished his reputation. Jack Johnson was born in Galveston, TX, in 1878. The son of former slaves, Johnson grew up poor. He attended school only until the fifth grade and began boxing as a young teenager. By 1902, Johnson had won at least 50 fights against both white and black opponents. However, his efforts to win the heavyweight title were thwarted as world champion Jim Jeffries refused to face him. In 1905, Jeffries retired from the sport rather than give Johnson a title fight. In 1908, Johnson finally won the heavyweight title when he knocked out Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia. However, Johnson was not officially recognized as champion until 1910, when he bested Jim Jeffries who came out of retirement specifically for the fight. Johnson went on to defend his title a number of times. But in 1913, at the height of his career, the boxer was convicted of violating the Mann Act--a law that outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for ``any immoral purpose.'' After his conviction, Jack Johnson fled the country and spent several years abroad as a fugitive. In 1915, he lost his title to Jess Willard in Cuba. Five years later, Johnson returned to the United States, surrendered to authorities, and served 1 year and 1 day in prison. He was never given another shot at the heavyweight title, and he never cleared his name. He died in a traffic accident in 1946 at age 68. He was furiously speeding away from a restaurant that refused to serve him. In 2004, filmmaker Ken Burns initiated the movement for a pardon after producing a documentary about Jack Johnson's life. That year, the Senate approved Senate Resolution 447, an earlier version of today's resolution, by unanimous consent. In 2005, a bipartisan group of Senators, led by Senator McCain, wrote a letter to the President to request a pardon. The letter stated that a pardon ``would be a strong and necessary symbol to the world of America's continuing resolve to live up to the noble ideals of freedom, opportunity and equal justice for all.'' Although it has been over 90 years since Jack Johnson's conviction and over 50 years since his death, a Presidential pardon would be untimely but still just. I join my colleagues in supporting this resolution and ask that the President grant a long-awaited pardon to Jack Johnson.

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CANNON

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would just like to thank the gentlewoman from California for taking the lead here today on this issue. It is an important issue, and she has laid out the facts behind the need for this today. We live in a world of very quickly transforming technology. The courts sometimes have difficulty keeping up with that, and we have to act to create the legal environment for the courts to appropriately act. This bill does that. I encourage my colleagues to support it when it comes to a vote. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4120, the Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act of 2007. The House passed this legislation in November of last year to combat the pervasiveness of child pornography on the Internet. Child abuse and exploitation are among the most heinous crimes committed in this country. And in recent years, the Internet, with its virtually unregulated access to information and to people all over the world, has become a foul source for this type of criminal activity. However, in many instances, Federal prosecutors are prevented from seeking justice. In a decision by the 10th Circuit United States Court of Appeals in United States v. Schafer, the Court ruled the transmission of child pornography on the Internet did not satisfy the interstate requirement in child pornography laws. H.R. 4120, the ``Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act of 2007,'' responds to that decision by expanding jurisdiction for prosecuting Internet child pornography crimes. This bill allows the government to prosecute cases when child pornography or is transmitted ``using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce.'' This is the broadest assertion of interstate commerce power that Congress can make consistent with the Constitution. H.R. 4120, as passed by the Senate, includes provisions similar to H.R. 4136, the ``Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography Act of 2007'' which also passed the House last November. This language closes a loophole used by child pornographers to circumvent the law by expanding current child pornography statutes. Current law prohibits the ``possession'' of child pornography. This law pre-dates the prevalence of the Internet in transmitting child pornography images. Today, a pedophile can access child pornography and view it but, under the current statute, may not be criminally liable for possessing it. This provision will prohibit accessing such content with the intent to view it and will no longer require an offender to actually download the material. It is no longer sufficient to warn our children to not talk to strangers. With the expansion of the Internet and other technologies, we must now find new ways to protect our children from the dangers of the world. H.R. 4120, the ``Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act of 2007,'' provides law enforcement important tools for combating these heinous crimes. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. CANNON

Mr. CANNON. Madam Speaker, consistent with the Republican Conference standards established earlier this year, I submit the following information regarding the Metals Affordability Initiative that I support. Bill: H.R. 5658, Duncan Hunter Defense Authorization. Account: Air Force Research, Development, Test and Evaluation. Legal name of receiving entity: Metals Affordability Initiative Consortium. Address: MAI Program Management Office, Pratt & Whitney, c/o Thomas Rupprecht, Mail Stop 114-45, 400 Main Street, E. Hartford CN. Anticipated sources of the funding for the duration of the project: MAI operates under a Technical Information Agreement (TIA) with a total project cost cap of $75,000,000 through FY 13. AFRL has budgeted approximately $13.5 mil through FY 2011 from limited discretionary funds for developing advanced structural metals technology. Percent and source of required matching fund: MAI participants cost share 10 percent on AFRL-directed Type I projects and at least 25 percent on industry-directed Type II projects, funded by congressional directions. Justification for use of federal taxpayer dollars: The mission of MAI is to maintain U.S. leadership in the strategic aerospace metals industrial sector by using technology innovation to maintain global competitiveness while improving performance and increasing affordability of weapons systems. This sector includes the entire domestic specialty aerospace metals industrial manufacturing base, representing all elements of the supply chain, which produce aluminum, beryllium, nickel-base superalloys, and titanium. MAI is a model for government/industry collaboration. MAI programs have already accomplished 47 current or planned technology insertions into military systems. MAI provides innovation, rapid development and implementation of new metals technology. Many of the MAI programs impact sustainability of the aging Air Force fleet. The authorization provided for in this bill will allow for the initiation of 6 new programs, as well as sustaining ongoing programs, directed at sustainment and life extension, fuel savings/energy management and access to space.

Mr. CANNON

Mr. CANNON. You know, looking at that chart is actually a little disturbing, because unless we produce a great deal more natural gas, our current reserves being diminished, or diminishing, we have to import a lot of natural gas. So if we're not going to do coal power plants, if that chart, instead of widening for coal, shrinks for coal, then you have to widen natural gas, which means you're going to have to import a great deal of natural gas.

Mr. CANNON. These traders are betting that Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries won't act contrary to their own interests and allow the price to keep going on up, and that's why you get the speculative bill that we had today.

Mr. CANNON. What would happen to the $120, now pushing on or moving toward $130, per barrel of oil if we had 1 million additional barrels of oil production a day?

Mr. CANNON. Those speculators have virtually no downside. The upside is limited only by what they are willing to guess on in the future. So to bring that oil price down, I think we need to bring some new sources on or make it clear we are going to bring some new sources on. I think, like the gentleman, that would cause these prices to plummet.

Mr. CANNON. I actually used to be a lawyer, and I can't imagine a legal theory upon which you sue a sovereign country. I can imagine a legal theory upon which you react to Congress, And you know what that is? Vote for someone else.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. We agree on that point. I think that for the first time in maybe our tenure in Congress, we're going to see a huge increase in the Natural Resources Committee markup of an energy bill to see if we're going to actually drill in ANWR, if we're going to drill in the Intercontinental Shelf and loosen up our drilling elsewhere around the country. But that sort of begs the question, right now we're talking about various kinds of oil and gas. Let me put some context here. In our conventional oil resources we have about 50 billion barrels that we know about. That includes 10 billion in ANWR. These are in the United States of America. We have some oil sands. Those are very difficult to develop in America. They're very different from the oil sands in Canada where each grain has a little molecule of water so the oil comes off the sand with just a little bit of heat. We have about 100 million barrels of oil on the Outer Continental Shelf, and all of that adds up to about 200, 225 million barrels of oil that we have available to us today in the United States. Think about that. 225 barrels of oil. We now have, and I'm going to pull up a chart here. We have in oil shale about 1.4, 1.3, let's see, that's ``trillion'' barrels of oil. I'm sorry. That's not ``billion'' barrels of oil, that's ``trillion'' barrels of oil in Colorado. In Utah, we have about 800 million barrels of oil and Wyoming about 500 million barrels of oil. Those are millions. We're not talking about a lousy 225 million barrels in all of our other resources. We're talking about 2.6 trillion barrels of oil that are available to America today in oil shale. Now, let's pull up the map, if we can here. This is a map of Utah. Idaho is over in the corner, southeast Wyoming and northeast Colorado, and you can see the dark green are areas with more intense reserves of oil shale and that the lighter green are areas where you have not quite as dense oil shale. And these are the areas that have the oil that we were just talking about, 1.2 trillion barrels in Wyoming, 800 million barrels in Utah. These reserves are different, and the way to get them out, the way to get the oil out is going to differ between those. Let's talk for just a moment about why we can be actually talking about producing oil out of shale today whereas it did not work in the past. In the old days, and over here you see on the side it says ``past oil shale efforts,'' we used heat to convert kerogen. We broke the shale up and put it into a rotary kiln, and then heated it up. The problem is you needed enough heat in that rotary kiln to get the kerogen out, but at the same time, that was hot enough so that the rock melted into itself; and so you would have to shut the operation down occasionally and go in with sledge hammers, literally, and knock the rock out that had melted into itself. Today you use chemistry and minimal heat to convert the kerogen to oil. That's a profound difference, and there are about six different companies, four large companies and two small companies, that are using different kinds of technology to get with a smaller amount of heat to convert that kerogen to take it out of the shale. Kerogen, by the way, is a lot like diesel fuel and comes out of the system, very close to that. Needs to be cleaned up a little bit. It's like JP-8 diesel fuel. In the old days, we mined this. We had a strip mine or room and pillar mining, and then we brought the shale to the surface to be processed. Today, the focus is on in situ recovery and conversion. Back in the day, low-quality energy, intensive product, or low- quality energy, intensive product to refine; that is you had to put a lot of energy in it and it was hard to refine. And today you have high- quality value product with minimal cost to refine, and then we were focused on the resource back then, and now we're focused on balanced environmental, technical, and economically sustainable methods. The fact is we've transformed the way we work technologically in the world today, and we can get these resources out of the ground much more cheaply. Let's talk just for a moment about the reserves that we have--or what we use imported to the United States and the world's reserves. The Saudi Arabians have about 264 billion barrels of reserves that we know about. Canada has about 179 million or billion barrels of oil, Iran has 138, Iraq, 115, and Kuwait 102. And the people that supply this oil are Mexico, and these are average barrels per day that we import. So from Canada we import about 2.43 million barrels of oil, from Mexico 1.53, from Saudi Arabia 1.49, from Venezuela 1.36, and from Nigeria 1.13, and then we import a great deal more from other countries who export lesser amounts to us as we go. These are not exactly the kind of people that we want to be relying on except with the exception of Canada perhaps and also to some degree Mexico, and that's improving. And in the last couple minutes we have before we finish this, let me just say that this is complicated. The natural resources is complicated and the technology is complicated, but we've advanced dramatically in our knowledge and understanding of how to do that. We have now, today, for the first time in 30 years a commercial test going on here in eastern Utah of how to get oil shale out of--oil out of shale, and we think that test will be done about September 15, and the projection is we will be able to get oil out of shale for $30 a barrel. Now consider this: Trillions of barrels of oil at about $30 a barrel. That's profound. I think that cost is going to actually go lower than $30 a barrel, and I'm about to introduce a bill that will allow the President to cut through the permitting processes and allow us to develop our oil shale at a reasonable time using reasonable understanding of the technology and the environmental impacts so that we can actually bring that shale to market, bring down the cost of oil, stop funding our enemies in Iran and Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and start producing oil in America.

Mr. CANNON. I would like to speak this evening about energy policy in America, and the sources of energy, and I expect to be joined here in this discussion with several other Members of Congress. Adrian Smith from Nebraska is going to be speaking to us, and I will yield to him very shortly about the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve; John Peterson will be with us about natural gas and the need to develop that resource; Rob Bishop will join us I think shortly to talk about what it means in the human costs to not have the resources that we need. We expect to be joined by Phil Gingrey of Georgia and perhaps John Shimkus of Illinois as well. Let me begin by just saying that the U.S. policy to use corn for ethanol and drive up the prices of grain worldwide and to not develop the resources that we have so richly in America are not morally neutral. They are profoundly wrong. So I hope that after some discussion about these issues tonight, our colleagues in Congress will begin to understand what the resources are and how we can use them. Now I would like to yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith), and when he is finished talking about the ANWR issue, I would like to put that in perspective by talking about what other resources we have and how that fits. But drilling in ANWR is profoundly important. If we had done that some years ago, we would absolutely not have prices over $100 a barrel for oil. I yield to Mr. Smith.

Mr. CANNON. Would the gentleman be willing to answer a couple of questions?

Mr. CANNON. Thank you. They won't be hard. I might point out in Utah we had 76 billion tons of coal locked up by one monument that President Clinton made, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. That is the equivalent, the gentleman mentioned coal-to-liquid, that is the equivalent of 150 billion barrels of oil locked up in a monument. But let me make sure I have these numbers right, because they are actually startling. The whole Alaska National Wildlife Reserve is 19.6 million, almost 20 million acres. That is bigger than most northeastern States.

Mr. CANNON. The Third District of Utah is large as well that I represent, and that is about the size of that. And so we have about 1.5 million acres that were set aside by President Carter and the Congress when the refuge was established for oil development. Now we are talking about 2,000 acres of land to develop oil on. That is the proposal. That yields 10 billion barrels of oil.

Mr. CANNON. That would mean, I think you said, about 1 million barrels of oil a day.

Mr. CANNON. I think that is absolutely right. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. I would like to point out to him, I paid $3.59 for gas the last time I bought gas. That is obscene. It is obscene. If we had been thoughtful about ANWR, if we had acknowledged the desires of the people who live in ANWR, who care about the land in ANWR, we would be drilling there, having minimal effects, and producing a much, much lower price for gas. That is an obscenity that we ought to be rid of.

Mr. CANNON. As you leave, I appreciate that. I drove to a new gas station the other day. I went to the pump and put my card in and got ready to pay for the gas, and as I did that, I reached over to get the gas hose and it said $4.39 a gallon. I was stunned. Then I looked. It was green and I realized that that pump had a diesel handle on it as well. The 15 or 20 percent better mileage you get doesn't cover the extra dollar that you pay, the 25 percent higher prices. So I sympathize with the gentleman. But I would point out that oil shale is essentially diesel fuel and then can be used for that, and if we develop that, it should bring your prices down, Mr. Smith, significantly, and all the rest of the world's as well, which I think is the right thing to do. Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate that. We are now joined by Congressman Bishop from Utah, who agreed to join us despite the fact he is hosting a group of German members of the Bundestag. So I would like to turn some time over to him to talk about whatever he wishes, but probably the human costs of these horrible energy prices and policies that we have in America. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. CANNON. Would the gentleman be willing to enter into a colloquy? We talked a little bit about innovation. I think that in the bill that we are proposing as the Western Caucus, we have some prizes in there for energy efficiency including what is under consideration, a prize for a motor or an engine or gasoline engine that would go say 100 miles per gallon. And the gentleman probably knows this, but the typical engine in America gets about 17 percent efficiency. In other words, you get about 17 percent of the energy out. The highest efficiency are diesel engines on long-haul trucks, which get about 35 percent; meaning 70, 65, or 83 percent is wasted in the process. If innovation would support us in doubling the efficiency of engines, what would happen to the price of gasoline in America and diesel?

Mr. CANNON

Mr. CANNON. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CANNON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I simply want to associate myself with the gentleman's remarks about our friend Ted Kennedy. I'm going to do a Special Order in a little while about energy. I think he would disagree with most of what I say, but he would do it in an agreeable fashion. He has been a good friend and great legislator. And I want the gentleman to know that, with him, my prayers and the prayers of many others on our side of the aisle go out to the Senator in this time of great difficulty.