K. Conaway

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding Member requested funding that was included as part of H.R. 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009. In the Bureau of Reclamation, Water and Related Resources--Rural Water account, $109,000 for improvements to an irrigation canal in Tom Green County, Texas was included on my behalf. The entity to receive funding for this project is the Tom Green County Water Control Improvement District No. 1, which operates and maintains the canal and can be reached at P.O. Box 488, Veribest, Texas, 76886. The canal is 16 miles long and runs northeast from the city of San Angelo, Texas. The funding will be used to complete repairs and upgrade the canals water control systems to help better distribute and conserve water, as recommended in a 2007 report by the Bureau of Reclamation. In the Army Corps of Engineers, Investigations account, $406,000 for a study in the Lower Colorado River Basin of Texas was included on my behalf. The entity to receive funding for this project is the Lower Colorado River Authority which can be reached at P.O. Box 220, Austin, Texas, 78767. The study area is bounded by the Guadalupe, Lavaca, and Colorado-Lavaca river basins on the west, and the Brazos and Brazos- Colorado basins on the east. This study is investigating water resource problems, needs, and opportunities, to determine whether improvements for flood risk management, ecosystem restoration and protection, water quality, water supply and allied purposes have a Federal interest. The funding will be used to complete the Williamson Creek study and continue other interim feasibility studies within the basin. In the Army Corps of Engineers, Operations and Maintenance account, $842,000 for the O. C. Fisher Dam and Lake, Texas was included on my behalf The entity to receive funding for this project is Army Corps of Engineers Fort Worth District. The project is located in Tom Green County, on the North Concho River, near the City of San Angelo, Texas. The funding will be used to for operations and routine maintenance. In the Army Corps of Engineers, Operations and Maintenance account, $2,000,000 for Proctor Lake, Texas was included on my behalf. The entity to receive funding for this project is Army Corps of Engineers Fort Worth District. The project is located in Comanche County on the Leon River, about eight miles northeast of the city of Comanche, Texas. The funding will be used to for operations, routine maintenance, and to replace and repair piezometers. In the Army Corps of Engineers, Operations and Maintenance account, $1,373,000 for Hords Creek Lake, Texas was included on my behalf. The entity to receive funding for this project is Army Corps of Engineers Fort Worth District. The project is located in Coleman County about 13 miles west of the city of Coleman, Texas. The funding will be used to for operations, routine maintenance, and to upgrade hydraulic pumps and controls for flood gates. In the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) account funding in the amount of $206,000 for Animal Fiber Research. The entity to receive funding for this project is Texas A&M University. The project is located at 7887, U.S. Highway 87N, San Angelo, Texas, 76901. The funding will be used to increase profitability of the sheep and goat industries in the United States and Texas while providing U.S. consumers and the military with high-quality animal fibers and meat at internationally competitive prices. Emphasis will be placed on improving wool quality and increasing wool production and also on multi-state collaborations in which sheep and goats will be used to improve rangeland environments through prescribed grazing of invasive species. In the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), Special Research Grants account funding in the amount of $946,000 for the Center for Food Industry Excellence. The entity to receive funding for this project is Texas Tech University, located in Lubbock, Texas. The funding will be used to conduct systematic development and evaluation of production, processing, and preparation methods of food products (from farm to table) to achieve a safer and more nutritious food supply. In the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) account, to provide partial funding in the amount of $693,000 for Center for North American Studies. Funding for this project will go directly to Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. This funding will assist in the continued development of the center. The focus is to further expand activities in education and training, research policy analysis, and cooperative study as related to trade issues. In the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), Special Research Grants account, funding in the amount of $1,730,000 for the International Cotton Center. The entity to receive funding for this project is Texas Tech University, located in Lubbock, Texas. The funding will be used to support several research projects investigating means of increasing the profitability and sustainability of cotton and other natural fiber production through the development of new uses for cotton fiber among others. In the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) account, funding in the amount of $3,220,000 for the Efficient Irrigation program (both research and extension arms). The entity to receive funding for this project is Texas A&M University. The funding will be used to provide resources for research, training, education, and technical assistance to agricultural and municipal water system operators, teaching them about irrigation system efficiency and about reducing biological and chemical hazards through alternative treatment of water and wastewater. In the Agriculture Research Service (ARS) account, to provide partial funding in the amount of $515,000 for the Great Plains Sorghum Improvement and Utilization Center. Funding for this project will go directly to Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas. This funding will be used to continue to integrate the efforts among the three institutions to develop a series of multi-institutional and multidisciplinary teams that bring together new technologies and knowledge that focus on improvement of profitability in each stage of sorghum production, processing and marketing. In the Department of Education, Higher Education account, to provide funding in the amount of $285,000 for Midland College in Midland, TX for technology upgrades, including purchase of equipment. The funding would be used to for the purchase of new computers, specialized software and multi-media projector equipment as part of the ongoing technology upgrade program. The Advanced Technology Center (ATC), operated by Midland College, offers a wide range of programs that are used by students from elementary schools, high schools and colleges seeking to learn computer and other technical skills, by workers upgrading their skills to retain their jobs or get new ones, by businesses who are training employees, and by individuals. In the Department of Education, Higher Education account, to provide funding in the amount of $95,000 for the Midland Independent School District, located at 615 W. Missouri Ave., Midland, TX for a teacher training initiative in conjunction with Texas Mathworks. Texas Mathworks is a center for mathematics education formed by Texas State University System to develop model programs and self-sustaining learning communities that engage Texas K-12 students in doing mathematics at a high level. Texas Mathworks proves to be an effective model for engaging and retaining students' interest in math and science, enabling teachers to effectively teach it at the highest levels. In the Department of Education, Elementary & Secondary Education (includes FIE) account, to provide funding in the amount of $143,000 for the Wallace Accelerated High School, located at 149 S. Hwy 208, Colorado City, TX, for a charter campus for at-risk students in grades 8-12, including purchase of equipment. The funding will be to support a charter campus for at-risk students in grades 8-12. The campus not only assists students with their educational needs but also in realizing the importance in being a productive citizen within the community and country. In the Department of Justice, DJP-Byrne Discretionary Grants account, to provide funding in the amount of $1,200,000 for the Texas State University Train-the-Trainer (ALERRT) program. The entity to receive funding for this project is the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Program at Texas State University-San Marcos, located at 601 University Drive, San Marcos, Texas. Funding will be used to support the ALERRT program, which was established by Texas State University, to provide first responders with the tactics they will need to effectively respond to active shooter situations. Project funding for the construction of on/off ramps of I-20 for Garfield and Cotton Flat Road in Midland, TX in the amount of $380,000. The funding will be appropriated from the Interstate Maintenance Discretionary account to the Texas Department of Transportation, 125 East 11th St., Austin, TX 78701. The project is included in the I-20 Corridor Master plan and the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. Project funding in the amount of $475,000 to widen the 45 mile section of SH-349 in Martin and Dawson County by two additional lanes as a portion of Trade Corridor 56 designated and funded (1.6 mil) by SAFETEA-LU as a high priority trade corridor. The funding will be appropriated from the Transportation, Community and System Preservation account to the Texas Department of Transportation, 125 East 11th St., Austin, TX 78701. This section of SH-349 is a part of the Ports to Plains Corridor, two National High Priority Corridors and the Texas Trunk System. Project funding in the amount of $190,000 for the Economic Development Initiative that will include streetscaping, environmental remediation, infrastructure improvements and demolition of dilapidated buildings of downtown Midland, TX. The funding will be appropriated from the Economic Development Initiatives account to the City of Midland, City Hall, 300 N. Loraine, Midland, TX 79701. Project funding in the amount of $142,500 for an Economic Development Initiative that will include enhancing an economically depressed area along the North Concho River through downtown San Angelo. The funding will be appropriated from the Economic Development Initiatives account to the City of San Angelo, City Hall, 72 W. College Ave, San Angelo, TX 76903. The City has contributed over $6 million for the project and continues to contribute through a \1/2\ cent sales tax. The initiative includes improving accessibility multi-use pathways, connecting commercial and residential areas and improving river access, lighting, landscaping and other public spaces along the Concho River and downtown San Angelo. Project funding in the amount of $237,500 for construction of a multi-modal terminal that will house customer service centers, administrative offices and development space for the Concho Valley Transit District. The funding will be appropriated from the Buses and Bus Facilities account to The Texas Department of Transportation, 125 East 11th St., Austin, TX 78701. The Texas Department of Transportation has awarded a multi-year $1.5 million grant to support future development and the project received $250,000 in FY08. This project has been authorized by SAFETEA-LU. Project funding in the amount of $190,000 for preliminary engineering, and construction of a transit authority administration facility to manage 8,500 square miles of regional public transit system. The funding will be appropriated from the Buses and Bus Facilities account to The Texas Department of Transportation, 125 East 11th St., Austin, TX 78701.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your indulgence this afternoon. Earlier this afternoon, this House passed the single largest spending bill that has ever come across the work activity of this body. There was tepid applause on the other side of the aisle for the passage of this bill, I think in recognition that none of us really know if it will work. Most of us on our side of the aisle don't believe it will work, believe it was the wrong issue to do, the wrong way to address a very serious issue. Americans all across this country are suffering: people losing their jobs, losing their homes, struggling to make ends meet. All of the things that go on during a recession. These are serious times. My colleagues have been up here all day stating over and over ad nauseam the lack of consideration given to our ideas on how we could have made this better, the overall lack of consideration considering the substantial size of this particular bill that was given over the last 2 weeks. You hate to use a phrase that's been worn out, but ``rush to judgment'' comes to mind when you look at the activity that went on. This House voted earlier this week--it was a unanimous vote--which doesn't happen except on post office namings--a unanimous vote that we would have 48 hours to look at this bill, that our constituents would have 48 hours to look at this bill, that America would have a chance to see what we were voting on, and that was unanimous. And, Mr. Speaker, it's totally within your prerogatives as to when things come to the House. That's one of the wonderful things about being Speaker, and it is great to be Speaker. But I'm disappointed that you didn't honor the wishes, the unanimous wishes of 403 of us, that thought we needed 48 hours to look at this bill. The real losers in this bill--and there are lots of losers--but the real losers in this bill are our future children, future generations of Americans who will be forever saddled with the debt that is going to be borrowed to pay for this bill. Tucked away in the corner of one of these bills is an increase in the debt limit to $12 trillion. That debt will never get paid back. I had an interesting exchange with a young fifth grader in Fredericksburg, Texas, last October who asked me the single best question I've ever been asked during a town hall meeting. He said, Mr. Congressman, what's the plan to pay off the national debt? And I was rocked back on my heels because I had never been asked anything that straightforward important, and I had to say, well, young man, there is no plan to pay off the national debt. The money we borrow today is permanent debt. In order to pay debt off, you have to run a surplus. This Federal Government rarely ever runs a surplus, certainly never to the tune of $12 trillion And so future generations will be paying interest not only on this $800 billion but also the $12 trillion that we've accumulated--and there's plenty of blame to go around for that--for the rest of their lives and the lives of their children and the lives of their children because this debt will not get paid off. It is a sad day, Mr. Speaker, for the taxpayers and future generations of taxpayers that my generation, the one just ahead of me and the one just behind me, believe in our core that it is an appropriate way to address problems that we're having by taking money that we haven't earned, that has not even yet been earned by our grandkids and working on problems that we need to solve that are important to us. If the problems are important enough that we need to spend money on them, then we clearly ought to be spending our own money on them and not future generations of Americans. So, Mr. Speaker, just before I yield back, I appreciate the time. I just wanted to express how disappointed I am in the action of the House today in passing a monster of a bill that does not address the jobs that it was supposed to. It simply spends more money and is a legacy, generates higher spending on an annual year-after-year basis because of some of the floors that we've put under many of these problems that we couldn't afford before we did this, and we simply can't afford on a going-forward basis as well.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, I thank my colleague from Missouri for yielding me some time. I want to talk about how we pay for this issue. At least for the last 40 years, maybe a little bit longer than that, the people in charge--currently us--have made an art form out of solving our problems with somebody else's money. You can look at what this Federal Government has done over and over and over. This just happens to be the single most dramatic occurrence of this concept that we have had in history. What we will do to fix a temporary problem: In my view, this recession is temporary. Expanding economies are temporary. We had a pretty good 7- or 8-year run, and we enjoyed that. It ended. This recession will end. It is not permanent. So what we are going to do is we are going to borrow money that, in all likelihood, will never be paid back to fix a temporary problem. So why would you borrow money at this scope and at this scale to fix a temporary problem that never gets paid back? This is what we are doing to our children, to our grandchildren and, actually, to every child yet to be born in America: Because this debt will never get paid off, the interest carried on this debt currently cumulative will be about $12 trillion. That interest carried, whatever it is, will be a permanent burden, as it were, on every child yet to be born. So, when my great grandchildren are in this position, they are going to have to pay the interest on this debt, which means whatever those resources are, those are resources that they will not have available to them to fix their problems. So, as we go about this $790 billion deal, just understand that this, in all likelihood, ought to be considered the fiscal abuse of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to extend my warmest congratulations to the Texas Farm Bureau on its 75th anniversary. The bureau's legacy of service, advocacy and partnership has brought out the best in Texas agriculture and helped to preserve the rural way of life that we so deeply cherish in my district. The people who make up the Farm Bureau have an unparalleled history of making a difference in their local communities. They have helped to make family businesses across Texas more efficient and resilient by sharing the best practices available, providing important services to members that make the most out of their often limited resources. And perhaps most importantly, by giving farmers and ranchers a unified voice, they have guaranteed that they will always have a role in the democratic process. Though the hours are long and the work is sometimes difficult, the work done by the Farm Bureau is irreplaceable. For the past 75 years it has helped millions of Texans better provide for themselves, their communities and their country. Finally, I would also like to offer a special word of gratitude to the past and present leadership of the Texas Farm Bureau. Their ongoing vision for rural Texas is a testament to what can be accomplished when neighbors help one another. Mr. Speaker, it is my great honor to represent some of the many men and women of the Texas Farm Bureau. On behalf of my constituents, I would like to thank them all for truly being the voice of Texas agriculture, and wish them many more years of continued service.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the outstanding achievements and lifelong contributions of three Texans to our Nation's agricultural industries. Recently, Mr. Richard Ligon of Graham, Mr. Woody Anderson of Colorado City and Mr. Sam Curl of Pecan Plantation were each named an outstanding agriculturalist during Texas Tech's College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources annual pig roast award dinner. This award is truly special because honorees are nominated and selected by people who know them best, their peers, coworkers and business partners. These three men are pioneers in their field and throughout their lives they have helped to shape the way we manage the business of farming and ranching, produce food and agricultural products and educate the next generation of leaders in the agricultural community. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to congratulate these men on their well- deserved recognition. It is my great honor to extend on behalf of all Americans who eat food and wear clothes our many thanks for their years of service and tireless innovation. Our lives have all been enriched by what they do and their work.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank my colleague from Tyler and Longview and Marshall and Henderson and all points east of Fort Worth. I appreciate his hosting this hour today. As we talk about President-elect Obama's stimulus package, I am very mindful that he currently has something north of a 65 to 70 percent approval rating. So you really don't want to pick a fight right off the bat with a fella who's in that high regard across the United States. But so I think as a minimum, we ought to give him a chance to begin to put some meat on the bone of all of these great ideas that have been kind of at the--not even the 10,000-foot level but at the 50,000-foot level and looking forward to the actual legislative language as to how some of this stuff is going to work. I applaud him for calling for no earmarks and for transparency and accountability. That's exactly what we want to do. I'm particularly encouraged that Vice President Biden has committed to oversee the spending of every single dollar personally. Given the growing size of this bill, he is going to be one very busy Vice President as he puts his green eyeshade on, his garters, and pulls his sleeves up, gets out his pen, and actually watches the writing of each one of those checks as he committed to doing the other day. I am a bit discouraged, though, that the overall process that was announced yesterday that he believed--our new President believes that he can spend, or we can collectively spend our way out of this current economic recession, depression--whatever you want to call it, whatever title you want to give it--I'm concerned that that's not an accurate way to do this. One way to look at this would be to say, all right. If government spending is a panacea for the economy, if it will build a great economy, then looking at the spending, the government spending for the last 2 years--which I believe this Federal Government has spent more money in the last 2 years than any other 2-year period in history--that certainly didn't drive a wonderful economy. We're in a bad economy right now. So if the premise is government spending builds economies, then we ought to be in a good economy right now. Quite frankly, we aren't in that economy. The centerpiece, as both of our colleagues have talked about, is job creation. And at the end of the day, it really should be about jobs. I participated in a needs assessment in Midland County back in the United Way days. It was a zillion years ago. It was a process where you went through and asked people what was going on in their homes, what was going on in the neighborhoods, in local communities, what were the problems, what were the issues. We culled that down through some science to the top 10 needs for the Midland community. If you looked at those 10, nine of those 10 would have been favorably addressed by a job, by somebody having a job. And so it is--in an arena where hyperbole is the norm, it's difficult to overstate how important jobs are to an economy. And that's just the foundation, the base of those. I would also argue, though, that government jobs--and my colleague and I from Texas have two really good government jobs. These government jobs that we have, we make money at it, and they are here forever. And some government jobs will always be here forever. But the jobs that would be created with the program that's been, you know, kind of highlighted at the 50,000-foot level, those jobs shouldn't be forever. And when you don't talk about forever with a job, then that job is, by nature, temporary; and since it's temporary, it's hard for families to make plans based on a temporary job. It's hard for communities to plan on those--the impact that those jobs have. So that temporariness of those government jobs lends itself to continued uncertainty, to continued anxiety about what happens when this ends, what happens when this is over as opposed to a business that comes into or locates into a community, begins to put down roots and build jobs and build wealth, add to the local tax rolls. All of the kinds of things the private sector jobs do, those have a sense of permanency to them that is just right. That makes sense to us. And I would argue that whatever we do on a go-forward basis, that we focus more on private sector jobs and do whatever we can to avoid creating government jobs because once you put people on the government payroll, it's hard to get them off and it does not build wealth. I would also like to point out that while our current circumstances are dire and difficult and hard and there is a lot of pain in the country right now, it is temporary. As we've seen, expanding economies are temporary. We've enjoyed about a 7- or 8-year good run with the expanding economy. Everybody enjoys that. New jobs are created, new wealth is created, opportunities. Everybody likes that. But those are temporary as we've now seen with this contracting economy. Well, the converse is true as well. Contracting economies are temporary. They may last a lot longer than we'd like, a lot longer than we'd enjoy, but at the end of the day, this world economy, this U.S. economy will turn the corner and will begin to expand. So as we look at what we do to address this issue, let's be careful that we don't take money to be earned by future generations to fix a temporary issue that we're dealing with. I would argue that my colleagues' and my generation, the last 4 years we have elevated this idea of taking somebody else's money--in most instances it's our grandkids and great grandkids and great-great grandchildren's money-- and let's fix today's problems. Which means that we have robbed our future generations of the money that they're going to earn that they should have available to them to address their problems. Because they will have problems. There is nothing we can do today that's going to fix everything permanently, and those future generations have a right to the money they earn by the sweat of their brow. The problem is you and I are spending it. Collectively. There's plenty of blame to go around. This isn't a partisan issue. Democrats, Republicans bear equal blame in this regard that we've constantly become addicted, in effect, to using borrowed money to address issues. And the issue we're going to address over the next several weeks is this economy, and everything I've heard so far is that we're going to use borrowed money. I was in Fredericksburg, Texas, back in October doing a town hall meeting at an elementary school. If my colleagues have never done a town hall meeting in an elementary school, I would encourage it because you get some of the best questions ever from fifth graders. I was doing my best Q&A kind of thing, and this little fella in the second row raised his hand, and I recognized him, and he said, Mr. Congressman, what is the plan to pay off the national debt? And I said, Excuse me? He said, Yes, sir. What's the plan to pay off the national debt? And I said, Young man, that is the single best question I have been asked while I've been in Congress. There is no plan to pay off the national debt. Every dollar that we borrow is, in effect, permanently borrowed forever. Let's just take an example. I'm a CPA so some of this comes a little bit easy to me. We've got $11 trillion in hard debt. Debt we've got paper on, not counting the promises of Social Security, Medicare, and all of that. We've got $11 trillion. In order to pay that off, this government has to run an $11 trillion surplus counting the interest. It's more than that if you've got interest. Given the history of the last 42 years, we've, I think, run surpluses 3 of those years. Thirty-nine of them or forty-one of them, whatever the number is, have been deficits. So if anyone in their right mind thinks this Federal Government, given the propensity we have for spending other people's money, can run a $12 or $11 trillion surplus in order to pay off the national debt, they are delusional beyond all words. Now, at a minimum, the first thing that we ought to do is quit doing what's gotten us to this point. Quit spending money we don't have. You know, it's--across the aisle we've got two seemingly desperate ways of doing things. On our side we want to cut taxes, and the other side spends money but doesn't raise taxes. It ought to be this way: If you're going to spend the money, then have the political backbone to raise the taxes; or if you're not going to raise the taxes, have the political backbone to not spend the money. Well, we've had it on our side where we spent the money and borrowed it, and the other side wants to spend the money and raise taxes. And all we've done is spend money that we don't have. It's not ours. No family gets to do that, no small business gets to do that, no other government entity I'm aware of, other than the Federal Government, gets to do that. My preference, if we're going to have some sort of a stimulus work, would be to focus on tax policy, the money that's earned by good citizens, and that we, at the point of a badge, take away from them. That tax policy ought to be stable, it ought to be predictable, it ought to be put in place. It allows them to keep more of their money and create those private sector jobs. Let's take the example of businesses. Section 179 allows businesses to deduct immediately in the year of purchase a certain amount of money that they spend on equipment that they use in their business. By being able to deduct that, the taxes they would otherwise have paid on that amount of money, they can recycle into their business by hiring new people, investing in new product, investing in new capacity. All those kinds of things. So that, in my view, is a much more appropriate stimulus of the economy than to collect a bunch of money here in Washington D.C. and then begin to try to parcel it out across some of the projects that our colleague from New Jersey was talking about earlier in terms of how that money is going to be spent under the, quote-unquote, stimulus package and the conference of mayors, you know. The shopping list that they've gone through is, in my view, a much better way to try to stimulate this economy. Truth be told, at the end of the day, the Federal Government has precious little to do with whether or not the economy expands or contracts. That's driven by the decisions of millions of Americans to decide whether or not they're going to buy something new, whether or not they're making enough money to be able to afford that, whether or not their business--prospects for their business is good enough that they'll go to the bank and borrow money and continue to begin to turn this corner. Those decisions are made all over the United States, all over the world by good, honest folks and not governments. So we sometimes delude ourselves into thinking that--and most of us are of the kind of personality that we came here to fix stuff; we came here to make this country a better place; we came here to do all those kinds of things. Sometimes it's not our job. Our propensity is that we want to fix stuff, we want to do things to help this country. And when we see a problem as staggering and difficult as this one, we think that there's something we in fact can do, and we feel almost inadequate when we propose not doing something. But maybe in this instance, letting us absorb the pain and understand that in a deleveraging circumstance, when you're paying off debt as we are right now, that that does not grow an economy, but that does lay the foundation for that future economy that will begin to expand that we will all enjoy on a go forward basis. So if anybody remembers one thing I've said today, it is, let's begin to look and lay a foundation for stopping fixing temporary problems with permanent debt that we're borrowing from future generations and are hamstringing them and are hobbling their ability to take care of their issues when they are grown and in our position. So I appreciate my colleague for hosting this hour today.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge an outstanding achievement of one of my constituents, Mr. Richard Leake of San Angelo, Texas. Mr. Leake is a long-serving letter carrier with the United States Postal Service. He was recently inducted into the Million Mile Club of the National Safety Council in recognition of his impossibly good safety record. As the name of the award states, Mr. Leake has traveled over 1 million miles on behalf of the Postal Service and done so without causing an accident. His dedication to getting the job done safely every time sets a standard for professionalism and conscientiousness that I believe we should all strive for. I highlight his accomplishment today to remind us that as we take up the people's business in the 111th Congress, it is possible for us to do our jobs without running over one another. It is a great pleasure to brag on Mr. Leake today, and I am proud to represent an outstanding constituent here in Washington D.C. On behalf of all the residents of District 11 in Texas, I would like to congratulate him on a career well done and thank him for making the streets of San Angelo a little bit safer.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding the four earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2638, The Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009: Requesting Member: Congressman K. Michael Conaway Bill Number: H.R. 2683 Account: Army, Other Procurement Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Army National Guard Address of Requesting Entity: Camp Mabry, Austin,Texas 78763-5218 Description of Request: Provide $2,000,000 to the Texas Military Forces (TXMF) for eight Joint Incident Scene Communication Capability (JISCC) packages required for disaster response. This equipment enables the Texas National Guard Joint Inter-Agency Task Force (JIATF) to command and control its interagency structure in and out of Texas in support of other states under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact. It supports the various disaster command posts including the Joint Interagency Task Force headquarters, each subordinate task force command post, local incident command posts, Emergency Operations Centers, and other multi-agency coordination centers. The JISCC system also uses Department of Defense satellites eliminating the persistent shortage of funds to pay for commercial satellite service. Ten JISCC packages have been authorized in previous years, but currently, the Texas National Guard has only two on-hand. Requesting Member: Congressman K. Michael Conaway Bill Number: H.R. 2683 Account: Army, Other Procurement Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Army National Guard Address of Requesting Entity: Camp Mabry, Austin,Texas 78763-5218 Description of Request: Provide the Texas National Guard $800,000 for the procurement of 700- and 800-Megahertz APCO-25 standard two-way radios for operational and tactical interagency interoperability in their disaster response task force. This project allows the Texas National Guard forces to utilize 700 and 800 MHz trunked radio systems being linked across Texas as established in the State Communications Interoperability Plan. It further fully enables interagency interoperability to coordinate and synchronize interagency efforts to maintain unity of effort. Requesting Member: Congressman K. Michael Conaway Bill Number: H.R. 2683 Account: Army, RDT & E Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Zebra Imaging Address of Requesting Entity: 9801 Metric Blvd., Suite 200, Austin, Texas 78758 Description of Request: Provide $2,480,000 in funding to complete the final phase of a three-year development program to provide a field- deployable version of the Enhanced Holographic Imager (EHI) system. The holographic imager system is used to produce 3-D imagery for the Army's tactical battlefield visualization program, and has proven to be an extremely useful capability for deployed Army and U.S. Special Operations Command warfighters. Over 1700 holographic images were provided to soldiers in theater in 2007. The deployable EHI will produce holograms three times faster than the current system (improving responsiveness to the war fighter) and is transportable allowing the imager to be located closer to the tactical users. Requesting Member: Congressman K. Michael Conaway Bill Number: H.R. 2683 Account: Army, RDT & E Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Tech University Address of Requesting Entity: 19th and University, Lubbock, Texas 79409 Description of Request: Provide $3,000,000 to Texas Tech University to research the use of Compact Pulsed Power as a scientific base for integrating electrical weapons systems onto all-electric combat vehicles. Compact Pulsed Power is the use of targeted electromagnetic radiation to disable electronic devices such as cell phones. Initial research indicates that compact pulsed power technology could be beneficial to the Department of Defense by being able to disable Improvised Explosive Devices used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Texas Tech has developed the technology but needs to field test it in order to deploy it with troops on the ground. An existing lightly armored vehicle such as a HMMWV will be modified to an all-electric platform with an integrated fuel cell and auxiliary battery pack. Two or three types of electric weapon systems (high power microwave (HPM) generator, hypervelocity rail gun, and/or high power laser) will be integrated into the platform. Individually each of these systems is quite complex and the combination of any two of these systems will increase the integration problem exponentially. The information gained from this research could be significant in furthering the nation's defense capabilities.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, yesterday was Constitution Day. On that day, 221 years ago in a cramped hall in Philadelphia, 39 men signed their names to a document that would forever change the course of human events. The United States Constitution is one of the most remarkable covenants ever authored by man. Grounded firmly in the Age of Enlightenment, the Constitution gave physical form to the radical ideas of Montesquieu, Locke, and Paine, who believed that the rights of man come from God and that legitimate governments arise from the consent of the governed. Our Founding Fathers blended these philosophies with common sense and tough compromises to create a new form of government dedicated to the ideas of liberty, the rule of law, civic responsibility, and popular sovereignty. For over 200 years, the ideas the Founders wove through our Constitution have been considered sacred. Each Constitution Day presents us with an opportunity to pause and reflect on the extraordinary document these men drafted to provide us with a unified and stable Nation. In their wisdom, they sought to protect the rights and liberties of individuals by dividing power and authority between the States and the national government. The result is a system of shared roles designed to prevent any one element from gaining too much power. Yet today, the document at the very foundation of our Republic is often considered only as an afterthought during our debates. Even though every Member, staffer, and officer of the House of Representatives has taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution and to bear true faith and allegiance to it, too often we ignore its many constraints on our authority in the name of political expediency. It is essential that we never forget the guiding principles established in our Constitution and that is why yesterday I introduced the AMERICA Resolution, A Modest Effort to Read and Instill the Constitution Again. The AMERICA resolution requires all staff and officers of the House to read the Constitution once a year and encourages all Members of Congress to do the same. Just as we require Members and staff to know how to act ethically, we should require Members and staff to know how to act constitutionally. It is my hope that this small yearly effort will renew and deepen our appreciation for the genius of the Constitution and the divisions and constraints on power contained within it. The AMERICA Resolution is meant to remind lawmakers, and our staff that advises us, to stay within our country's founding framework as we conduct legislative business. Today I call on all Members of Congress to join me and rededicate ourselves to our founding principles of limited, constrained governance as enshrined in our Constitution. By studying our founding document, we will continue the legacy of these great men and their groundbreaking ideas, as well as develop the habits of citizenship that keep the Constitution alive and relevant for a new generation of Americans. I urge you all to join me and support the AMERICA Resolution.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding me time. I want to set the record straight, or at least set a record that says I have complete trust in the chairman of the Ag Committee. Collin Peterson is an honorable man, and when he makes commitments, I think he intends fully to make those commitments. I think we're under a circumstance where he was not allowed to make a commitment that, were it his decision alone, that we would have a resolution of this issue that would be satisfactory I think across the spectrum. I'm a CPA, as is my good colleague from Minnesota, my chairman. One of the things you look for as an auditor in financial statements is consistent application of accounting rules. I want to congratulate this Rules Committee on consistently applying their position of having closed rules on everything of importance that comes down here. It's as if every bill that comes out of the Speaker's office is perfect, and I would argue that no one in their right mind thinks every bill that passes this House, whether it's a Republican bill or a Democrat bill, is perfect. There should be the opportunity to say here's an area in a bill that needs further work. I don't think anybody on the other side of this aisle would say this is the perfect fix to the commodities futures market; it's the perfect fix to make sure that the only thing going on in these futures markets is price discovery, and once this is passed and signed by the President we will never have another problem with it. I don't think anybody's arguing that. So it's twisted, in my view, to say on the one hand, well, it's not a perfect bill and it could be improved, there could be some issues be addressed, and one I'd like to talk about in a second. And yet this Rules Committee, dominated by the Speaker I believe, Madam Speaker, is consistently applying the closed rule concept that prevents other voices, whether they're Republican or Democrat, to come to this floor and say I might have a little bit better idea or better take on something, the will of the House will happen, but let my voice be heard. The process yesterday on this bill that came forth was anything but open. It was very quick. They've not laid a predicate for why it needs to be instantly done today, why we couldn't have been allowed an opportunity to present a motion that would have said we need hedgers in the markets, in this commodity futures trading arena, in order to make this thing work. One of the risks of this bill is that it will exclude traditional hedging operators from being able to provide hedging services to small businesses. Putting these hedge positions in place, if you're a long commodity, is expensive, and you need size and volume to get the transaction costs down. So there's an arena of folks in the market who provide these services on behalf of folks who need to hedge. I think this bill overreaches in its attempt to make sure we don't have undue speculation in the market. That's simply what I'm trying to do, and I've got I think a commitment from the chairman to work on this. I visited with him last night, and I believe he is sincere when he said he wanted to keep this commitment that he and I made on this floor back in the end of July to address this issue. This isn't a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an issue that we all should be able to have an independent view on. The previous speaker mentioned the fact that I voted for the bill, and she's absolutely correct. But I voted for the bill because I made a commitment. I made a commitment with my chairman that said, Madam Speaker, if you will work with me on this, then I will vote for this bill. And so I put my green vote up that afternoon, and I can assure you I had no shortage of the 151 Republicans who voted against this bill come to me and say, Conaway, have you lost your mind? What are you doing? This is not a normal position that you would take. And I said, Well, I made a commitment to the chairman that I would support working forward in this bill as it moved through the process, either through a conference report or whatever, to address the issues that I'm concerned about, and I committed to him that I was going to vote for it. I kept my commitment. And I don't think the chairman was allowed to keep the commitment he made back to me, and that's an unfortunate circumstance, because we only have our word in this arena, and I believe he kept his word as best he could, but I don't think the Speaker and the dominated Rules Committee allowed him to do something that he should have been able to do and I should have been able to make an amendment here to say here's what I think is going on, have the discussion, have the folks who disagree with me come down here and talk about that. That's the way the system is supposed to work. Certainly the way that every high school civics class in the world would argue that the way this floor works is you have an idea and you have folks for it and folks against it and you come down here and challenge it. This closed rule one more time, consistently applied by this dominated Rules Committee, is wrong. It's just not the way to do it. There is no immediate urgency that we've got to get this passed today or tomorrow. It could have come on the agenda tomorrow, and we would have had time to bring this amendment down here. I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule and against this bill. The process is flawed. It does nothing to support energy production in this country, nor will it work.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, I rise to explain my opposition to the Journal vote, rollcall vote 585, earlier today. In my time in politics, I never thought that I would hear any candidate for political office compared to Jesus Christ. Yet yesterday, on the floor of this House, one of my colleagues did just that when he painted the work of Barack Obama equal to the life of my Savior. Madam Speaker, I know Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ is a personal friend of mine. Senator Obama is no Jesus Christ. But it's not just Senator Obama; such a comparison is ill suited for any man, for all of us have fallen short of the standard that Christ set for us. Jesus' example was a life lived humbly and with love for all his fellow men, regardless of their background. As this campaign season sprints to the finish, I implore my colleagues and the candidates in both parties to strive for a higher, more purposeful campaign and rhetoric and to treat opponents in a manner that we ourselves would like to be treated.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I object.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, a son of Burnett County, Texas is going to the Olympics. I rise today to congratulate Leonel Manzano on his outstanding achievement in making the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Team. It seems Leonel was born to be an Olympian. His work ethic is legendary, his character is impeccable, and he can just flat out run. His dedication to his sport has earned him a spot to compete on the biggest stage in athletics and prove to everyone that a young man from a small corner of Texas can be the best in the world. It will be a joy to watch him represent my district, the State of Texas, and our entire country. As Leonel travels to Beijing, he will go with the hope and prayers of the entire Texas Hill Country with him. His neighbors, family, coaches, and even competitors have all helped forge him into the man he has become and we will all be watching in rapt attention when he steps into the blocks. If I could remind Leonel of just two virtues that bring success, it would be to always fulfill your God given talents and never forget to be gracious under pressure. If he can manage these two feats, as he has done so well in the past, he will return home an Olympic hero. It is my honor to represent Leonel, as well as his parents, Jesus and Maria Manzano, here in Washington. I share their pride in all that Leonel has accomplished. As he heads to Beijing, I wish him good luck and safe travels.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman from Virginia and would like to ask the gentleman from Minnesota if, in fact, he would engage in a colloquy with me. Mr. Chairman, many questions have arisen about section 8 and how it addresses bona fide hedging for agriculture and energy commodities. I have asked you to engage in this colloquy to clarify that it is not your intent or the intent of the committee to unnecessarily restrict eligibility for bona fide hedge exemptions. Under your leadership, Mr. Chairman, we have received hours of testimony from dozens of expert witnesses about excessive speculation and the narrowing of hedge exemptions. The testimony about removing eligibility for a hedge exemption for economic risk is at best inconclusive. This is a very technical area. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has a lot of expertise in this area. We don't want to leave transactions that were traditionally considered a bona fide hedge left with no way to manage risk domestically. The CFTC needs discretion in defining what an appropriate hedge is. Though section 8 codifies a portion of the current regulation defining a bona fide hedger, it ignores modern portfolio risk management theories. In doing so, it threatens more than market liquidity. It threatens market function and structure. If granted discretion, the CFTC can more nimbly grant hedge exemptions to those that truly are managing risk. From our conversations, Mr. Chairman, I know that you're very protective of our domestic futures markets and believe, as I do, that the primary function of these markets is accurate price discovery. Is it your intent to arbitrarily exclude traditional market participants?

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman. I would ask for your commitment to work with me as this bill moves forward to come to a common understanding of risk management needs and which market participants should be eligible for bona fide hedge exemption.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to one of the great educators in my hometown of Midland, Texas, Dr. David E. Daniel. David is retiring next month after 17 years as president of Midland College. All of Midland owes a deep thanks to Dr. Daniel, who has worked tirelessly to create a community college that is part of the fabric of the city. His presidency has seen Midland College undergo many changes and emerge as a first-class educational institution. The most visible aspect of Dr. Daniel's tenure is the building boom that has taken place across the campus. His administration built or renovated over a dozen campus buildings to help make more space for students and improve the classroom space at the school. Dr. Daniel has been instrumental in garnering the community support needed to finance this construction. But more important than the physical improvements to the campus has been the culture of success that Dr. Daniel has installed in the school. His philosophy that every person can succeed if they are given the right motivation and opportunity has created a campus atmosphere that puts students first. He has long understood that students are the reason for Midland College, and has never forgotten the trust they placed in him when they enrolled. To be an educator is to be a purveyor of hope to those seeking to improve their lot in life. As Dr. Daniel looks back on his career, I hope he sees the thousands of lives he has touched. He has offered the opportunity of a better of life to every individual who has passed through the doors of the school. I wish Dr. Daniel, my friend, David, my heartfelt thanks for guiding Midland College to such great heights during his stewardship. He has left the institution stronger than when he found it, and forged a deep bond between the school and the community that it serves. Midland College has enriched the city of Midland beyond measure, and thanks to David Daniel, will continue to do so. It is an honor to represent David Daniel and his wife Dee Dee, here in Washington, D.C. As they begin the next chapter of their lives, I wish them the best of luck and the deepest of happiness.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman for his comments and for hosting our hour tonight. We have been talking about this issue of energy and America's need for energy and America's supply of energy for quite some time now, and I hope we are making progress with certainly the American people, Mr. Speaker. I don't know that we are making much progress with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle as we continue to talk about American-sourced energy. Whether that is American-sourced oil production, American-sourced natural gas production, American-sourced coal, coal to liquids, American nuclear, American hydropower, American wind, American solar, American all of the above. And it seems lost on some of my colleagues that there is something inherently bad about American production. Crude oil as an example is a worldwide commodity that nations around the world produce and nations around the world use. And the price is set in the world market, it is not set here in the United States, and the players in the world market pay for that crude oil and there is a big issue with supply and demand. There is a relatively thin difference between total world supply and the total world demand. Currently, the supply is just barely in excess of the demand. And when you have got that thin a margin, disruptions or potential disruptions that are threats to producing areas cause the markets to get anxious about the delivery and the ultimate supply of the crude oil. So, consequently, you see a run-up of prices like we have seen recently, you see a decrease in prices. It makes the price very volatile when the world produces about 86 million barrels a day and uses about 85 million barrels a day, that much of a disruption in any of the major suppliers will cause great anxiety among those folks who have to buy crude oil to run their refineries, those folks who have to buy that product, making sure they have got to it to keep their work in process moving and their production flow going. Recently, Mr. Speaker, we have had an interesting phrase that has been thrown about that I think trivializes and ignores the true depth of this issue, and that is the Use It Or Lose It bumper sticker that served as the in-depth analysis of the problem that we face from some of my colleagues across the aisle. They throw out a figure of 68 million acres that is currently under lease by oil and gas companies as somehow being evidence that we are doing all we can to produce American-sourced crude oil and natural gas. We have got a series of questions that I would like them to answer for us about that 68 million since they seem to have come up with the number and know the most about it. I would like them to analyze that 68 million to tell us how much of that 68 million was leased within the last 2 years. Certainly, no one rationally expects any oil company to be able to go through the bureaucratic exercises that they all have to go through in order to get all of the permissions from some up to 29 Federal agencies that they have to walk the tight ropes to get permission to drill in less than 2 years. I would also like to know the amount of acreage that is currently in the bureaucratic morass that we put in place for all Federal leases, how of much that acreage is simply waiting on a decision from some bureaucrat deep in the bowels of the Department of Energy, deep in the bowels of EPA, deep in the bowels of Washington, wherever they are, to simply make a yes or no decision on a particular permit. Because I think there is a significant layer of that 68 million acres that is hung up with the bureaucrats waiting on their decision. In some instances it is a good-faith delay on the part of the bureaucrats, but I think in many instances it is just simply business as usual to slow play, to not make expeditious decisions on the applications to drill, the applications to conduct seismic, the applications for access, all those kinds of things that go on. A third layer, Mr. Speaker, would be those acreage that cannot be developed because they are currently tied up in lawsuits. The experience of many folks who get a Federal lease one day is to be sued by the Sierra Club and others the next day just on general principles, because the environmentalists don't want us exploring on Federal lands, and so they will file frivolous lawsuits in most instances that continue to tie up acres for extended amounts of time, and don't allow these oil companies to move forward with the progress that they would want to. I think a fourth layer, Mr. Speaker, of the 68 million acres would be those acres on which we are actually conducting drilling operations. There are some 1,800 drilling rigs working in the United States, many of those on Federal leases and offshore, and so there is a significant section I would believe of that 68 million that is actually being worked on and drilled right now that they are trying to determine if crude oil is there in commercial quantities, and we need to know what that is. And then the final layer, Mr. Speaker, or next to the final layer would be those acres on which drilling has been conducted, commercial quantities of oil and gas that have been found, and the operator is simply waiting on those final bureaucratic permissions to run the flow lines, to build the roads, to build the infrastructure needed to move the crude oil and natural gas from the wellhead into markets. And then that final layer, Mr. Speaker, would be those acres that companies have looked at, they are still within the primary term, and they are not actively seeking production on those but they have paid the lease bonus on all of those acres as a permission to take that time, the 10 years on Federal offshore leases, to make their decision. And since they paid the piper, they ought to be able to maintain those leases through their primary term. And so to the extent that we voted that down in the last couple of weeks on this use it or lose it thing, I hope we can put it to bed in its final form. We hear comments from time to time from our colleagues across the aisle that these oil and gas companies are sitting on production and holding it off the market in hopes of, I guess, getting a higher price. That begs the question of: How do oil and gas companies make money? They have onshore hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars invested, offshore billions of dollars invested of their shareholder money and equity capital and in many instances debt that they have invested in these oil and gas leases, and the only way they get any money back, the only way they get a return on those investment dollars is if they produce the crude oil and natural gas that they are exploring or set up to produce. So there is actually no incentive for them to withhold production from the market in hopes of getting I guess a higher price, because the longer they take to produce the crude oil natural gas and sell it, the longer it takes for them to get their money back on the original investment, the lower the return on investment, and it is just bad business to try to do something like that. It is an interesting concept that producers would withhold production from the market and that they get accused of doing that, when in fact if you look at the policies of this democratic majority, most or all of their policies do just that. The Democrats withhold American-sourced crude oil, American-sourced natural gas from the market; and particularly with respect to American-sourced crude oil, they are withholding that off of the market, holding that out of the worldwide supply, they are directing contributing to these higher prices that my colleagues are talking about and the higher prices that result in higher gasoline costs, diesel costs, and ultimately home heating costs this fall. Let me leave you with this one thought, Mr. Speaker. I don't think anybody rationally thinks that we won't be using crude oil in 10 years. So as we look at America's potential for production of crude oil over the next 10 years, why is it not good enough reason to do that simply to replace barrels of oil that we import from countries like Venezuela, like the Middle East, other places where the countries are at best maybe not our allies or in the instance of Venezuela an avowed opponent, why does it not make sense to replace production that we buy from bad guys with production that is produced here in the United States? Because the American production creates American jobs. American refineries create American jobs. So even if that is the only thing we are able to accomplish with all of this effort is to reduce the number of barrels that we buy from other folks, it helps balance the trade, it will strengthen the dollar. It does a lot of good and, to my view, it does limited, if any, harm to produce American crude oil and natural gas. So as we conduct this debate, we do it on a lot of levels, but on one level it simply should say: Look, if we are importing crude oil and natural gas from other parts of the world while we have domestic crude oil that could be produced, we are making a foolish decision and a foolish allocation of resources to do that. So, Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to drop the partisan rhetoric, drop the issue of just simply trying to maintain who gets elected in November, and let's deal responsibly with this issue of high crude oil prices and the resulting high gasoline prices that come with that. So I want to thank my colleague from Texas for allowing me this time to speak.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Ms. Foxx, for the ability to speak on behalf of Corporal Wilson. Mr. Speaker, I stand here today again to ask the Members of this body to honor the life and memory of one of America's fallen heroes. Marine Corporal Alfred ``Mac'' Wilson of Odessa, Texas, served during the Vietnam War and gave his life so that his brothers might live. For his extraordinary and selfless acts of bravery, Mac, as his friends and family called him, was posthumously awarded our Nation's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. Mac died on May 3, 1969, but his legacy endures to this day. His fellow Odessans have asked that we commemorate his sacrifice by designating a post office in his honor. In this way, Mac and his story will always remain a part of the community that he loved. As a fellow Odessan, it is my great honor to play a small part in these efforts. Mac was born in Olney, Illinois, on January 13, 1948, to Edna and Fred Wilson. The family moved to Odessa, Texas, where Mac attended Odessa High School, where he ran track and played football before he graduated in 1967. Mac enlisted in the Marine Corps in Abilene, Texas, in the fall of 1967, on the ``buddy plan'' with his high school friends Johnny Wright, Tom Chapman, and Jimmy Whisenhunt. After completing recruit training at San Diego, and Camp Pendleton, California, then Private First Class Wilson deployed to Vietnam on July 21, 1968, as an infantry rifleman with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. I imagine that March 3, 1969, unfolded like most every other day in Vietnam. There were posts to stand, missions to undertake, supplies to deliver, and jungles to march through. For Mac, I am certain that earning the Medal of Honor was the furthest thought from his mind as his platoon embarked on that day's reconnaissance mission. Yet, his heroics turned the rout of his platoon by North Vietnamese forces into a victory. His uncommon valor saved the life of his fellow marines; and for those men, March 3, 1969, turned out to be a dramatically different day than it otherwise could have been. Mac's Medal of Honor citation details his dramatic and selfless actions, and I'd like to read those into the Record. On March 3, 1969, while returning from a reconnaissance-in-force mission in the vicinity of Fire Support Base Cunningham in Quang Tri Province, the 1st Platoon of Company M came under intense automatic weapons fire and grenade attack from a well-concealed North Vietnamese force, pinning down the entire center column of the platoon. Rapidly assessing the situation, Private First Class Wilson, acting as Squad Leader, skillfully maneuvered his squad to form a base of fire and act as a blocking point while the point squad moved to outflank the enemy. During the ensuing fire fight, both his machine gunner and assistant machine gunner were seriously wounded and unable to operate their weapon. Realizing the importance of recovering the M-60 machine gun and maintaining a heavy volume of fire against the hostile force, Private First Class Wilson, with complete disregard for his own safety, followed by another marine, fearlessly dashed across the fire-swept terrain to recover the weapon. As they reached the machine gun, a North Vietnamese soldier threw a grenade at the marines. Reacting instantly, Private First Class Wilson fired a burst from his M-16 rifle, killing the enemy soldier. Observing the grenade fall between himself and the other marine, First Class Wilson, fully realizing the inevitable result of his actions, shouted to his companion and unhesitatingly threw himself on the grenade, absorbing the full force of the explosion with his own body. His heroic actions inspired his platoon members to maximum effort as they aggressively attacked and defeated the enemy. Private First Class Wilson's indomitable courage, inspiring valor, and selfless devotion to duty upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country. Mac was escorted home by Sergeant Jerry Pruitt, United States Marine Corps, of Odessa, Texas. He is buried in Sunset Memorial Gardens in Odessa, Texas, not far from another Medal of Honor recipient, Army Staff Sergeant Marvin ``Rex'' Young. The Medal of Honor was presented to his family by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew on April 20, 1970, at the White House. Mac is survived by his sister, Sue Wilson, and by her children, Lloyd Whitehead, Vickie Whitehead, Debbie Frasier, Angie Aleman, Robert Wilson Aleman; and Mac's aunt and uncle, Warren Kininmonth and Kay Kininmonth. Mac's mom, Edna O'Neal Wilson, died 3 months after his death, and his father, Fred Wilson, died in 1969. Soon after his death, Mac was posthumously promoted to the rank of Corporal to recognize the exceptional potential that he possessed. In addition to the Medal of Honor, Mac earned numerous other awards and decorations: a Purple Heart with Gold Star, the Marine Corps Combat Action Ribbon, a Presidential Unit Citation, an Army Presidential Unit Citation, a Navy Unit Commendation, Meritorious Unit Commendation, the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam Merit Medal, the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm, and the Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation ribbon bar, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, and a Rifle Sharpshooter Badge. The great British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once said that, ``The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.'' With this legislation, the people of Odessa will always remember the legacy of Alfred Mac Wilson and his noble and heroic efforts without hesitation to serve his country and defend the lives of the men he served with.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Captain Barry K. Caver, commander of the Texas Ranger Company E, as he retires from his long and distinguished career of service to the public. Ranger Captain John Ford once described the Texas Rangers and said of them: ``They knew their duty and they did it. While in a town, they made no braggadocio demonstration. They did not gallop through the streets, and shoot and yell. They had a specie of moral discipline which developed moral courage. They did right because it was right.'' To be a Ranger is to stand in long shadow cast by some of our Nation's most famous lawmen. The tradition of the Rangers is one of intelligence, duty, honor, toughness, and self-reliance. I can think of few better images of the modern Texas Ranger than Captain Caver. I am pleased to call this great lawman a friend, to salute him, and to thank him for his service to the people of Texas. His leadership and experience will be irreplaceable to the Rangers and he will be sorely missed by all west Texans, whether they knew him or not. It is my honor to represent Captain Caver here in Washington. I wish him well as he finds and explores the new challenges in his life.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, I thank the chairman. I appreciate that. I had the opportunity to be in Ireland in May and drove on some bridges that the Romans built. Bridges can last a long time. Properly maintained and properly cared for, they can last a long time. The taxpayers can get all of the money out of them, all of the benefit out of them that they should have gotten when they were originally built. This corrosion effort, I think, is a good part of that. Also want to thank my cosponsors, Mr. Arcuri, Ms. Sutton for their sponsorship of this and look forward to working with the chairman next year. I urge adoption of my amendment. I yield back.

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Chairman, I offer a bipartisan amendment in that it is cosponsored by Mr. Arcuri and Ms. Sutton. This amendment is an effort to encourage States seeking Federal funding to develop plans that will alleviate or avert corrosion on all new bridge construction, as well as major rehabilitation projects. It is a commonsense approach to dealing with an issue, one of the issues that faces our Nation's infrastructure and that is corrosion on bridges. It is perfectly reasonable to ask States seeking Federal funds that build or rehabilitate a bridge to submit a plan for how that State plans to maintain it, specifically the State's plan for preventing and mitigating corrosion. Each year corrosion of our Nation's highway bridges hits the U.S. economy with a hefty price tag. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation Highway Administration report, corrosion costs and preventive strategies in the United States presented to Congress in 2002, corrosion of highway bridges cost the U.S. economy about $8.3 billion annually, with an outlay of repairs of about $3.8 billion over the next 10 years to replace structurally deficient bridges. The bill, this sense of Congress amendment, would seek that, in order to get approval, to have an approved bridge corrosion mitigation and prevention plan, that it would include the minimum items, such as the estimated useful life of the bridge, an estimate of the environmental exposure that would influence corrosion and corrosion mitigation strategies for the bridge, such as environmental type, marine, industrial and rural, rainfall, temperature, freeze-thaw cycles, deicer applications, and other factors that influence corrosion prevention and corrosion mitigation strategies. An identification of the functional classification of the bridge, details of corrosion mitigation and prevention methods that will be used to protect the bridge, including material selection, coating, cathodic protection, design considerations for corrosion, and concrete requirements, details of a project maintenance program for the life of the bridge, a certification that the plan was developed by the State and approved by a corrosion expert, and a certification that each individual conducting inspections of a Federal-aid highway bridge in the State receive training from a corrosion expert. Madam Chairman, this is a sense of Congress in a stand-alone version that a couple of other Members and I have in Congress that will be an actual requirement, and I hope that at some point in the future we can work with the chairman and the committee to look at the idea of whether or not this makes sense; that when you build a bridge, one of the factors ought to be how do you protect it from corrosion, how do we taxpayers get the maximum amount of useful life out of a bridge by protecting it from corrosion, and that this plan be in place so that the builders of the bridge not only will know what the cost of the front end of the bridge is, but what the maintenance costs and protective costs, corrosion protection costs for this bridge would be over its life so that they can budget for that cost and make sure that we have those plans in place. Madam Chairman, I encourage adoption of what I believe is a pretty straightforward commonsense approach to an issue that affects every single bridge of the United States. Whether it is a rural bridge, an urban bridge, a bridge on the ocean or a bridge on the inland seas, has corrosion issues. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the Chairman's kind words, and look forward to working with him. This is a sense of Congress. I hope at some point in time we can actually make it a requirement that the Departments of transportation throughout the United States seriously consider the impact.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today to celebrate the wonderful and full life of Robbie ``Gran'' Juanita Sepolen. In her 105 years on this Earth, Gran was a daughter, a wife, a mother, a foster parent, a student, a teacher, an activist, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, and even a great-great-great-grandmother, and most importantly, she was a devoted Christian. Her accomplishments are innumerable and the lives that she touched along the way are countless. Growing up in Brownwood, Texas, Gran was part of the first graduating class from Brownwood Colored High School in 1918, later named the Rufus F. Hardin High School. After college, during a time of great bigotry against the African American race, Gran overcame those boundaries and shared her love of learning with others as a teacher and librarian in the Brownwood School District. A true public servant, Gran used her rights as a voting citizen to help others find their voice by helping them register to vote. She was active in the senior citizen ministry as well, sharing her love of the arts in senior citizen centers throughout the county. Gran never tired of meeting new people or learning new things, participating in numerous cultural events, and was even crowned the 2001 Cowboy of Color Rodeo Queen in Houston, Texas. While we mourn the loss of such a unique and wonderful woman, we must also celebrate a life well lived and move forward knowing that Gran left footprints on the hearts of all that crossed her path. It is my honor to not only have represented Gran here in Congress, but also to continue to represent all those she inspired during her long life; they are Gran's legacy to Texas.