Vernon Ehlers

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I take four airplane flights a week. As many Members of Congress do, I fly home every weekend, two segments each time. So I am very familiar with security requirements and that what we have had has not worked. Our purpose now is to make sure, number one, that we centralize responsibility; number two, that we have one play book that applies to all the rules, and that that play book works and is kept up-to-date. That means that we should put all the responsibility in one location for all modes of transportation. We need something that is flexible, that is innovative, that can be changed and modified to meet circumstances as they change. We want something that is nonpartisan. We are sorry that the Senate bill became a partisan bill by advocating just one particular position. The House bill will allow the President to choose whether these should be Federal employees or whether these should be contracted out. I just want to say, I believe the bill that will be before us tomorrow is a fair and good way to approach the issue of aviation security. It will get away from partisan wrangling. It will ensure that the traveling public will be safe and secure.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I must confess I feel a bit like an intruder as the only male speaker here this evening. But I did want to express concern and appreciation and also give a little perspective on it from someone who is a bit older than most of those speaking tonight. I remember some years ago when breast cancer was unmentionable, and it was a very serious mistake in our society, because my experience was that up until the 1950s, suddenly someone would die and you would say, what happened, and the response would be, oh, she had breast cancer. There was no discussion of it ahead of time. There was no discussion in the media or among the public about the disease, about its causes, its cures and so forth. I want to rise, first of all, to pay personal tribute to one of my heroes, and that is Betty Ford who occupied the White House, and she was the first American woman who openly discussed breast cancer and opened the floodgates for the women of this country. Ever since then it has been a topic discussed very freely; there is constant information available about the nature of the disease, how to detect it, how to prevent it that simply was not around before that. This is one reason, incidentally, that I nominated her for the Congressional Gold Medal 2 years ago at the same time I nominated her husband. It is the first case in which both a President and First Lady received a Congressional Gold Medal, but I felt she deserved it as much as her husband because of what she had done in the area of breast cancer. I want to mention something else that is rarely known or noticed or discussed, and the gentlewoman referred to it a moment ago in her introductory comments, and that is that men also have breast cancer. It is far less frequent, but almost always undiscovered until it is far advanced, because most men simply do not know that it is a male disease also, and we should be aware of that. One other point I would like to make, and this wanders a bit from the topic, so I hope my colleagues will allow me to do that. But in my work on the State level chairing the Public Health Committee and analyzing the situation, I discovered that prostate cancer for men was at the same awareness level that breast cancer for women was in the 1950s. Men did not talk about it. Men did not get the exam and so forth. I am very pleased that in my position there I was able to get money appropriated to publicize this, to provide for public exams and so forth. We must publicize that in this country as well. This is not a hidden disease, as breast cancer was not, even though we treated it that way a half a century ago. Currently, the fatality rate for prostate cancer among men is greater than the fatality rate for breast cancer among women. We really have a lot more to do in that area as well. So I appreciate the gentlewoman scheduling this Special Order. It is absolutely essential to call attention to the need for more mammograms, more detailed mammograms, and I am pleased as a scientist that we continue to make progress in the quality of mammograms. My wife has kept me fully informed of this, as an experience that used to be very, very painful and not very valuable has now become virtually painless. The quality of the last mammogram she had, as she recounted it to me, was simply exceptional, and I am very pleased to see these continuing scientific and medical advances. I am also very, very grateful that the cure rate is getting so much better. I have so many friends who are survivors of breast cancer, 3 alone just in the past year. I am just grateful that we continue to make advances in treatment and cure as well. So I thank the gentlewoman again for having this Special Order. It is absolutely essential to call attention to this. Let us make sure that all of us work together, male and female, Republican and Democrat, to ensure that we eradicate this horrible disease.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few comments about the terrorist activity going on and recognize it for what it is. Terrorists are nongovernmental groups who are trying to disrupt legitimate governments. They do that, they attempt to do that disruption by terrifying people. Therefore, they are called terrorists. They do this by trying to instill fear, to cause substantial expense to legitimate governments, to disrupt daily life and achieve their goals in that way when they cannot achieve them through legitimate power. We have to keep that in mind in our response. It is very important that we do not become fearful, that we do not become terrified, and that we go about our normal lives. Mr. Speaker, let me speak for a moment as the scientist that I am. Let us keep things in perspective. I am very concerned that our Nation seems to be fearful, extremely fearful of anthrax. Recognize the risk and put it in perspective. Every day of the week approximately 120 Americans get killed in car accidents, and many more injured; yet very few have been affected by terrorist activities. I urge Americans to fly. It is safe. I ask Americans not to ignore the threat of anthrax, but simply be careful.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about terrorism from my perspective, both as a Member of the Congress and as a scientist. It is very clear that the purpose of terrorism is an effort by a nongovernmental agency or group of individuals to disrupt the activities of legitimate governments and to do so by instilling fear in the citizens of that particular government. We have to recognize that that is the main purpose of terrorism. The cause may be hate, the cause may be a simple interest in vandalism, but the purpose is to disrupt and to cause fear. There are various ways to respond to that. One, of course, is a military response, which this country is doing in response to terrorism. But equally important is to defeat terrorism by not letting the terrorists disrupt our country, by not letting them generate fear in our country, but rather by recognizing what their purpose is and to defeat them by not yielding to the terror and to the fear that they want to instill. Obviously, when the terrorists attacked our Nation and killed roughly 6,000 people in a horrible, horrible attack on the New York World Trade Center, we as a Nation became very disturbed, as we have every right to be, and we are responding to that action militarily. But I am concerned about the response of fear that we also see, the fear of flying, the fear of going places, and the withdrawal into our homes. That is precisely what the terrorists want, and I encourage the citizens of our country to overcome that fear. Most of the Members of Congress fly every week as I do. I have found absolutely no reason to be fearful of flying. It is safer to fly today than it was before September 11, because the security is much better. Our latest fear is anthrax. But it is very important to put these issues in perspective, and to look at them from the aspect of relative risk. Every day of the week, every day of the year, 120 people, on average, die in automobile accidents in this country. Very, very few people have died from anthrax; very, very few have died, until September 11, from terrorist activities. And so let us keep that in perspective. We should be no more afraid to fly than we are afraid to get in our automobile and drive. We should be no more afraid of contracting anthrax than we should be afraid of getting in our car and driving. In fact, the probability of incurring anthrax is far less than the probability of winning the Power Ball lottery, and we know that is very very small. Now, why am I saying this? Am I not afraid of anthrax? Yes, I am, but I am not going to live my life in fear of contracting anthrax. It is very difficult to make biological weapons. It is even more difficult to disperse the biological material. In spite of the efforts made by the terrorists, very few people have been injured or have acquired the disease of anthrax. In spite of the efforts of the terrorists, it is simply very difficult to circulate enough biological material that actually causes someone to become ill, particularly to the point of death. There are other fears we might have. I am more concerned, frankly, about chemical terrorism than about biological because it is easier to make and spread toxic chemicals and it is easier to kill a large mumber of people with it. The main point, I want to make is that we should live our lives without fear. We should try to go about our normal paths but to be vigilant. Everyone in this Nation should be watching for terrorists who might be trying to do evil things. They should report these activities to the appropriate law enforcement agency. Do not live your life in fear. Be vigilant but live a normal life and be grateful that you are living in the United States of America, the most wonderful Nation that has ever existed on this planet. Enjoy the blessings and benefits of this Nation. Do not succumb to what the terrorists want you to succumb to. Be brave, be bold, but be vigilant.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1860, the Small Business Technology Transfer Program Reauthorization Act of 2001. I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gonzalez) for their supportive comments on this bill. Approximately 5 years ago, I was chartered by then-Speaker Gingrich and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, to prepare a report on updating the science policy of our Nation and outline where we should be heading. That report came out of the Committee on Science and Technology, was approved by the House of Representatives, and became popular enough that it is now in paperback. In that report, we made a major statement on several issues; one of which was to bridge the so-called valley of death between basic research and applied research so that we could have more ideas flowing out of basic research into applied research and eventually into product development. The program we are talking about here today is a program which can help bridge that valley. We are recommending, based on the success of this program, that it be reauthorized and, in fact, improved. Investment in technology, research, and development and this scientific enterprise is a key component of sustaining the economic growth of the past decade, much of which is based on developments in science and technology. As growth slows, Congress must seek ways to bolster its investment and renew strong economic performance. I am pleased to rise in support of this legislation because it will bring research out of the labs and into the marketplace to help our economic engine roar back to life. The Federal Government funds a wide range of basic research efforts which are carried out by our Nation's research institutions, such as universities, Federal laboratories, and nonprofit research centers. Bringing the successes of these efforts into the marketplace can be difficult for a research institution. They are simply not geared up for this. At the same time, small businesses have a well-earned reputation for introducing new ideas to the marketplace but often lack the resources and the personnel to carry out extensive research and development. The Small Business Technology Transfer program, better known as STTR, helps bridge this gap. This program, which is the subject of this bill, stimulates technology transfer from research institutions to small businesses by awarding grants for collaborative efforts between small businesses and nonprofit research institutions. This award process has three phases. Phase one is a testing stage to determine the scientific, technical, and commercial merit and feasibility of a proposed collaboration effort. Grants are limited to $100,000 during this stage. Projects that successfully complete phase one may be further developed in phase two, with additional funding up to $500,000. Phase three is designed for final R&D efforts and for commercialization of the idea. However, no Federal STTR funding is allowed for this stage. At that point it becomes the responsibility of the company. This program is currently funded through a set-aside of 0.15 percent of Federal R&D budgets that exceed the threshold of $1 billion. Currently, five agencies participate in STTR: Department of Defense; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Department of Health and Human Services, primarily through the National Institutes of Health; the Department of Energy; and the National Science Foundation. The General Accounting Office evaluated STTR in 2000-2001 and found that companies receiving phase one grants felt that both the company and research counterpart contributed significantly to the expertise and implementation of the project. They reported a variety of outcomes, ranging from product sales to project discontinuation. And 99 percent of the grant recipient companies surveyed believed the STTR program should continue. In addition to that, they did a survey of the companies involved to see what the effects were, and they discovered that there is a substantial return on investment. Just the six most successful projects alone accounted for sales of $132 million. That almost covers the cost of the entire STTR program during the first few years. In addition, the top two projects had $115 million of sales. Now, recognize, these sales go on and on for years. These are just the sales for the first year or two. So it clearly is a program that works. It is successful and does improve our economy. This current bill, which I am offering, H.R. 1860, does several things to improve the program. First, the legislation reauthorizes the program through fiscal year 2009 and raises the set-aside percentage from 0.15 percent to 0.3 percent, which will increase the annual awards by approximately $60 million overall. Second, it increases the ceiling on the phase two award from $500,000 to $750,000. This simply reflects the rising costs of doing business since the program's inception in 1992. Finally, H.R. 1860 will, among other things, strengthen the data collection and reporting requirements of the agencies and small businesses participating in STTR and standardize intellectual property rights agreements between the agencies and their partners. That last aspect is very important, because the participants reported a significant amount of their time, money, and effort had gone into developing the property rights agreements between the agencies and the business partners. This bill standardizes that process and will save a considerable amount of time and money, particularly in attorneys' fees and the time of the participants. This bill is a cooperative effort between the House Committee on Science, the House Committee on Small Business and the Senate Small Business Committee. The three committees have worked in a bipartisan, bicameral effort to ensure this important program is reauthorized. In fact, the manager's amendment reflects that cooperation by inserting the text of Senate bill 856, which is almost identical to our bill, as the manager's amendment. I would like to thank the leadership of these committees, Chairman Boehlert, ranking member Hall, Chairman Manzullo and ranking member Velazquez, for their efforts in bringing this bill to the floor. This is a good bill that will improve upon an already successful small business program. It will strengthen R&D partnerships between research institutions and small businesses. It will help America's economy by encouraging new small business ventures, which are a key component of fueling further economic growth. And it will demonstrate the importance of funding Federal research efforts by bringing technology developed in research institutions into the marketplace and creating jobs. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support the bill.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, many of us have been quiet about what has happened this week, but many of us also feel the need to speak. What I say is not in the mold of reviewing it or condemning anything that has happened, but I just want to express some personal feelings about it and also a few opinions. I will not revel in self-misery, although it is tempting to do so, but at least I want to share my experience with my colleagues and the American people. Tuesday morning, as I was listening to the morning news, I heard about the airplane hitting the first tower. It was described as a two- engine plane, and since I am a former pilot, I assumed it was some amateur who had gotten off course, or some kook who was trying to do some damage with a small twin-engine plane. I immediately turned on the television just in time to see the second plane approach, and immediately I knew it was terrorism, because it was obviously a large commercial airliner, and no large commercial airliner would be off course or score a direct hit in clear weather such as that. I immediately headed for the Capitol. In doing so, I drove past the Pentagon. They had just been hit. That confirmed that indeed it was a very serious case of terrorism. The smoke was beginning to billow out. I drove to the Capitol; and at that time, a decision was made to evacuate it. I turned and headed back. It was as I was driving back across the Potomac River and I crested the hill on the bridge, I saw the Pentagon with smoke billowing out of it that it hit me with full force. My immediate response was, what are they doing to my country? What are they doing to our country? It was with horror, disbelief, and shock. It took more than a day for that to turn to anger, although anger was present at the beginning. But this has happened to all the Members of Congress, it is not just me. I hope the American people realize how deeply we feel their anguish, how deeply we feel their pain, and how much some of us have cried; how we hug each other out of a sense of this disaster. It has really hit us hard. Why did this happen? Everyone is asking that. Why? It is very hard to believe, because Americans are good people. They try to do good things in the world. People hate us. Why do they hate us? We cannot comprehend that, but they do hate us. That is why they do these terrible things to us. How can this be? Why do they hate us? Partly because they are enemies of freedom. They cannot stand the fact that we are a free country, and there are dictators in this world and many terrorists who want to rule in an absolute way. They cannot stand to see the success that we enjoy. There are other reasons, of course, other types of enmities that peoples of other nations may have to us, but it does not match the hate and anger that these terrorists have. On the positive side, let me note how much I and all the Members of Congress have been heartened by the reaction of the American people, the greatest outpouring of loyalty and patriotism that I have seen since World War II. There have been people in the streets wanting to do something good, and contributions are pouring in to those who have suffered. There is generosity. People are saying, as the President said this morning during the service of prayer and remembrance, there are people driving from Dallas with skin grafts to help the wounded here, and similarly, from my State of Michigan, and I believe from my hometown of Grand Rapids, driving in because they cannot fly in, driving in with skin grafts so people can be treated and heal. What comes next? We must have retribution. Just in the name of justice, we must have retribution. But let me caution the American people, this takes time. We have a faceless, nameless enemy. The first task is to identify who did this. This has been compared in many ways to Pearl Harbor, but it is very different in one sense. The enemy was clearly identified, and we proceeded for several years to arm to resolve that dispute. This will take an equal amount of time, I am convinced, because it is not just one person. It is not just one terrorist camp, it is a network, I am convinced, that is lodged in a number of nations. We cannot simply knock out one and think we have solved the problem. We are going to have to deal with the entire problem. I hope and pray that God will be with us. I hope and pray that our allies will continue to help us, and that, indeed, we will be able to have justice, we will have retribution and the world will once again enjoy peace.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, in the hours since yesterday morning, my emotions and certainly those of my colleagues in Congress and, indeed, of every American, have ranged from disbelief to shock, anger, and sadness, and then to a determination to see that all those responsible for this reprehensible act be brought to justice, and that we do all we can in our society to prevent a reoccurrence. Since the attacks, I have been deeply moved by the courage of all of those who have been involved in the rescue efforts in New York and Washington, as well as the individual bravery of hundreds of thousands of everyday Americans who have lent helping hands in countless ways. The scenes and stories of the thousands of rescuers who willingly placed themselves in mortal danger in order to rescue survivors, which resulted in hundreds of firemen and police officers ultimately giving their lives in that effort, is something that will stay with me forever. We are truly a Nation of great and heroic people. I know that the thoughts and prayers of everyone in our Nation go out to many people involved in this event: the victims, their families and friends, the rescuers, those involved in the investigation and, certainly, the President on whose shoulders now falls tremendous responsibility. We have many difficult days ahead of us; but this Nation is strong and, by the grace of God, we will survive and grow stronger through this trial, as we have many times before. The terrorists have robbed our Nation of many lives, but we will never let them rob us of our spirit. In closing, let me quote from former President Jerry Ford who made these comments when he received the Congressional Gold Medal last year: ``In the course of some 86 years, I have seen more than my share of miracles. I remain convinced that politics is a very noble calling, one worthy of enlisting the idealisms and commitment of a young America. History tells us that it is only a matter of time before your generation is going to be tested, just as mine was tested by the economic depression of the 1930s, foreign tyranny in two world wars, and the hateful traditions of Jim Crow. To you will fall the responsibility of crafting a political process that rises above focus groups and sound bytes; for supplementing material prosperity with a spiritual purpose and a spiritual goal. But, above all that is new, I hope you never lose the old faith in an America that is bolder, freer, and more just with every passing generation. America is a work in progress, and all of us, past, present and future, have been or will be the torch carriers for liberty and freedom in the 21st century.'' Let us be those torch carriers. May God bless and comfort our Nation and all of our people. Let us follow the path laid out by President Ford. Let us have his hope, and let us all stand firm for our noble cause, let us be workers for justice, and let us be torch carriers for liberty and freedom.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I firmly believe it is extremely important for Congress to increase fuel efficiency standards to improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lessen dependence on foreign oil. I am very anxious to include in this energy bill, HR 4, measures to improve gas mileage in a manner that does not harm the automobile industry of this country. However, the only amendment permitted that addressed fuel efficiency was submitted by the gentleman from New York, Mr. Boehlert. Unfortunately his amendment set impossible time lines, and would have hurt American auto manufacturers. My vote in favor of the amendment was simply a statement of principle. My vote should be interpreted solely as a desire to move in a direction of increased gas efficiency. My vote should definitely not be interpreted as an intent to cripple the automobile industry in its attempt to compete with foreign automakers. I pledge to continue to work towards increasing fuel efficiency, cleaner air and energy conservation. I will also continue to work towards these goals within a reasonable time frame that will help, not hurt, America's automobile industry.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. As he noted, I am a physicist, but I am going to try to keep this discussion very simple and not get into any complicated equations, although it would be fun to do that; but as you know, a physicist cannot think without a chalk board, and so I will not be able to do that tonight. Energy, energy, energy, energy. That is all we are hearing these days, especially on the floor of the House. Tomorrow we are going to hear even more, energy, energy, energy, because for the first time in 20 years we will be talking about a new national energy policy. What is the big fuss? Why are we so concerned about this? What is energy? What is it all about? Let me put it in the simplest terms I can. Energy represents the ability to do work and, to put it in even more simple terms, you get up in the morning, you say, oh, I feel full of energy today. That means you have got lots of vim and vigor, you are eager to work. You can do things. Or if you get up and say, oh, I'm really dragging today, it means you do not have much energy. But where do we get our energy, our personal energy? From the food we eat. We may enjoy eating for other reasons, but the basic biological reason for eating is because we need the energy from the food that we eat. For millennia, the people on this planet did not have any energy other than the energy from the food they ate. And so the work that they did, they had to do themselves, and their work was converting food energy into useful work. Agriculture developed only after people discovered how to use other than human energy, namely, animal energy. As soon as they could use animals to pump water, to pull the plows, to thresh the grain, then we began agriculture, because we had learned how to capture the energy of something other than ourselves. Today throughout this world, over two-thirds of this world still thinks of the most basic form of energy as the most important, the energy in food, because they do not have enough to eat. And without enough to eat, they do not have enough energy to work. Without the energy to work, they have trouble producing enough food to feed themselves. But that brings us into another issue which we are not discussing here. Throughout the ages, we have tried to do work, but to get other things to do the work. First human energy, then animal energy; then when we entered the industrial era, we found ways to use fossil fuels as energy. Extracting the energy which is really stored solar energy within the earth, we found that we could use that energy, whether it is coal, oil, natural gas. We could use that to produce energy which allowed us to do work. Physicists became involved in this about that time. In fact, you would not have had the Industrial Revolution without the work of physicists who developed the three laws of thermodynamics and allowed them to build very efficient engines, steam engines in particular, and that led later on to other engines. That meant we no longer depended on human energy; we no longer depended on animal energy. We then began to depend on energy recovered from artificial sources, fossil fuels in this case. And then later on we developed nuclear energy with Einstein's discovery that E=MC2, in other words, you could convert matter into energy which is what a nuclear reactor does. All of this represents the ability to do work, and that is what it is all about. But how does that affect us today? It affects us in so many ways we do not even begin to realize it. We walk in the house, we flick the light switch, the light goes on, where did that energy come from? Not from the switch, not from the wires, although that transmitted it there. It came from a power plant, either nuclear, gas-fired or coal- fired that converted energy from that form into a very usable form of electricity. Suppose we want to go to the store and get some groceries. It takes very little energy for those groceries to get from the store to our home, because they are fairly light, a few pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds. It does not even take that much energy for us to get to the store and back home. We could walk it if we had to. But we take our car, and it takes a lot of energy to get that car to the store and back. If you do not believe that, next time you go into the store, do not drive your car there, push it and see how much energy you use just moving that car around. That is where our major sources of energy are today, not in feeding ourselves, not in manual work but in all the many things we have to do work for us. Every one of those things cost money. But they are also totally essential to the economy we have. Sometimes we do not realize it, but it is no secret why every shortage of energy was followed by a recession or at least an economic slowdown. This happened in 1973 with the shortage then, in the early 1980s, roughly in 1990, and now today energy prices went up, we now are in an economic slowdown. There is a cause and effect there, because energy is so vital to our economy. We do not even recognize it, but it is and that controls our fates to a large extent. Why is that? Suppose you want to manufacture something. It could be a tin can; it could be a car. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. But in any event to start with, you have to dig a hole in the ground to get at the ore, the iron ore, or the aluminum ore, whatever you may have. That takes energy to dig that hole. It takes energy to take the ore out. It takes energy to transport it to the smelting plant, to purify it and make it into ingots. Once again it takes energy to transfer it to a rolling mill where it gets rolled into steel or aluminum. It takes energy to transport that rolled steel or aluminum to the factory. It takes energy to fabricate it into the tin can or to the car, and then it takes energy to transport the tin can or the car to your home. Every single step of the way requires the use of energy. That is why we are so totally dependent on energy. But why do we not recognize this? For a very simple reason: energy is intangible. We cannot see it, we cannot touch it, we cannot perceive it. It is not like a material resource. In fact, it is totally different from a material resource. And so we are using this energy that we do not understand, we cannot see, and we cannot see the effects of very easily. How do we know it is there? One tangible way is the price at the gas pump. And so we get very upset when that price goes up. That means energy is in shorter supply. Our utility bill is another tangible evidence. But we do not see it and we do not feel it; we do not recognize its effect in our lives. That is why it is so extremely important that President Bush took it upon himself to try to develop a national energy plan. He knows about energy. He has been in the oil business. He understands the importance of energy. I have wanted an energy plan for this Nation for a long time, but it has been very hard to get the attention of the people without a shortage of energy. We had a shortage of energy this year. We still have looming potential shortages of energy, as you can see from this chart that the gentlewoman from New Mexico used; and we have to be aware of that. We have to try to develop new sources of energy at reasonable cost. Energy is so important that we absolutely need a good energy policy. Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will debate such a policy. It has taken months of work, first on the part of the Vice President and his working group, secondly the support and work of the President, and now it is in the hands of the Congress. We have spent months working on it in different committees, conducting hearings, learning from the experts, trying to put together a package that has all the essential elements. There has been a lot of disagreement. There are a lot of different ideas of how to approach it. Some want to drill for more oil; some want to import oil from Canada and natural gas so we can make use of their resources and also from Mexico. Others want alternative sources of energy. Others say, let us conserve more. The point is, we have to do all of the above. The President's energy plan does all of the above. You may still quibble and say, well, there is not enough conservation, or there is too much of this, there is too much of that. That is something we will continue to work on. The important factor is we have an energy plan here before us. It represents the hard work of the administration and the Congress. It is up to us to pass that energy plan, to educate the people of our Nation about the nature of energy and how important it is and how it should be used. I urge my colleagues tomorrow as we discuss this issue that we not lose sight of the main goal, and that is to develop an energy plan and policy for the United States which will benefit every single one of us. So I urge that we all work together and adopt this plan, and I hope the Senate will join us in this so that we can have a good plan for the future and not run into the pit that was outlined by the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) of becoming dependent on Saddam Hussein and other dictators who control oil, and that we can develop low-cost, dependable sources of energy of various types, both new ones and existing ones, so that the people of this country will once again enjoy a good economy.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 100) to establish and expand programs relating to science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I certainly appreciate all the expressions of support for this bill. As my colleagues may know, this bill and the previous one are a product of a number of years of work. But let me reemphasize a few points. For those who think that we are already doing a sufficiently good job on K-12 math and science, I encourage a visit to graduate schools in this Nation. In virtually every graduate school in science and engineering, we find that over half of the students are from other nations. Our students cannot compete against students from other nations in applying for admission to graduate school. If more evidence is needed, just look at the actions of this Congress itself. This year we have approved 200,000 H-1B visas. Why? Because we do not have enough scientists, engineers, technicians, and mathematicians in this country to do the work that we need done to invent, develop, and produce the products that we are making in this country. I could give other reasons why we have problems here. Let us face it, some of the problems are cultural. That is why the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) introduced her bill trying to encourage young girls to go into science, technology, and engineering because there is a culture in this country that women cannot do math or women cannot do science. It is utter nonsense. We are throwing away approximately 40 percent of our potential scientific, engineering, and mathematics workforce with that cultural attitude, that women are not good at science or math or that minorities do not care for science or math. That is nonsense, because in other countries they do; and they become scientists, engineers, doctors, and mathematicians. Women and minorities in this country can do the same. We have to work hard to change that culture, and this bill will move us in that direction. Science is fun if it is understood. Science is exciting when taught properly. And we have to make certain that the students of America enjoy that experience and realize that science is fun. But the cultural issue is still an important one. As a physicist I have often had the experience when I met someone, before I came to the Congress, and they would ask what I do. I would say I am a physicist, and quite often I would get the response, ``Oh, I could never understand all those numbers and symbols; I just could not get math or science.'' For a number of years, I accepted that statement. But then I began to think that was strange. What if I had asked them the question first, what do you do, and they said, ``Well, I am an English teacher,'' and I said, ``Oh, I cannot understand all those letters and words, and so I gave up reading.'' That is socially unacceptable. But by the same standard, it should also be socially unacceptable to publicly profess ignorance of science and math. Everyone is capable of learning some science and math. Everyone should learn it. I think it is extremely important in today's society that people not only understand the writings of Shakespeare and read them, but they should also understand the third law of dynamics; not as a physicist does, I do not expect that, but they should certainly understand what the three laws of thermodynamics mean and why we have an energy crisis today because we have, as a public, failed to understand the implications of the three laws of thermodynamics. Concepts such as this are important, and people should be aware of them and understand the implications of them. These are all purposes of this bill and also of the bill of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert). I am hopeful that these bills will pass into law and that together they will go far to improve the competence of the scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and the lay people of this country so that we will no longer have a shortage of people to work in the technical, scientific industries, that we will train good teachers, and that we will have schools and students that we can be very proud of. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella).

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. EHLERS. I yield to the gentleman from New York. (Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), the chairman of the committee, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall), the ranking member, and all of the members of the Committee on Science for their bipartisan support of H.R. 100, the National Science Education Act. I am pleased that the bill passed unanimously in committee; I am also pleased that the bill is under consideration today. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) in his earlier comments mentioned the importance of good math and science education for national security and prosperity. Let me underscore those comments of the gentleman from Michigan, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Research. First, as to the importance to the economy: during the past decade we had some stunning economic growth and, although many people have taken credit for it, Alan Greenspan correctly pointed out that the real credit goes to those scientists and engineers who developed all of the different ideas and inventions which came to fruition in the past decade. The majority of the growth of our economy in the past 10 years came from developments in science and technology, not from political action. We must recognize the continued importance of science and technology to our economy and the future. We must also recognize, as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) pointed out, the importance to national security. In the war in the Balkans in which our Air Force and our other fighting arms dealt with the Serbian actions in Kosovo, we managed to win the battle without losing a single American soldier, sailor or airman because of developments in science and technology. Laser-guided bomb technology did not just drop into our laps. It was developed through a lot of hard work by scientists and engineers; and if we want to maintain our strength as a Nation in national security, we must continue with good science and math education so that we will have scientists and engineers for the future strength and security of America. There are three main reasons why it is very important for us to have good science and math education, particularly in K through 12. It serves three main purposes. First we need it to prepare future scientists and engineers for further study in college and graduate school. We do well in that right now, better than any other nation; but there is still room for improvement. We are simply not producing enough good scientists and engineers. Furthermore, good K through 12 math and science education provides all future workers the basic technical skills they will need for the 21st century workforce, where nearly every job will have a technical component. Gone are the days when one can ignore math and science in high school and still get a good job. In the future, the good jobs will require people to know the basic ideas of math and science. The third main purpose of K-12 science education is to provide scientific and technical understanding so that citizens may make informed decisions as both consumers and voters. Mr. Speaker, there is a problem in our Nation. The Third International Mathematics and Science Study pointed out that, compared to other developed nations, we are dead last in high school physics, we are close to the bottom in high school mathematics, and we are second from the bottom out of all developed nations in math and science education overall in our high schools. In addition to that, the National Science Policy Study, which I developed several years ago now and which led to the emphasis on this subject, pointed out the vital need to strengthen our Nation's science and mathematics education. The Committee on Science held numerous hearings which served to further examine these problems and develop solutions. We have held many hearings during the past 3 years. These hearings have reinforced the earlier findings and have helped us to develop solutions that will bring needed improvements to our K through 12 math and science classes. A key to all of this, as we soon found out, and as one could intuitively deduce, is that we must have a knowledgeable and well- prepared teacher in every classroom. While there are many factors that impact student achievement, there is no substitute for a knowledgeable and well-prepared teacher. Research has shown that an inquiry-based, hands-on science curriculum, which is also concept based, is a vital component of high- quality science education. However, elementary and middle school teachers often lack the time, expertise, and school resources to implement such curricula. This bill authorizes a grant program for institutions of higher education to train master teachers to have strong backgrounds in math and science so they can provide professional development, in-classroom assistance, and oversight of hands-on science materials to K-9 science, math, and engineering technology teachers. This is the type of support our teachers deserve and should be receiving. During my 30 years of working in higher education and also working in elementary and secondary classrooms on math-science education, I found that the single greatest determinant of success for a math or science program in a school was having a well-trained go-to person in that school, where the teachers could go for help if equipment broke or if they did not understand a concept. They could go there and immediately get help. That is what this program will create, master teachers who will thus serve, and it provides for the training of those master teachers. This bill also creates a program for higher education institutions to provide distance learning opportunities for elementary and secondary students. Distance learning invites exciting possibilities for student learning, particularly for student scientific research. Our Nation's teachers and students will be one step closer to receiving this training experience when this bill passes. Again, I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Chairman Boehlert); the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) of the Committee on Education and the Workforce; the leadership of the House, and of course the ranking member, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall). They have all worked together to produce a good bill, and I am pleased to bring this bill to the floor of the House today.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the Record on H.R. 100, as amended.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I will be brief, because I have a similar bill coming up shortly, and I will amplify my comments at that time. This is an excellent bill. I strongly urge the House to pass this bill and to work diligently with the Senate to make certain that we get these programs passed into law. One of the most important aspects of this bill is that it establishes a competitive merit-based grant program of partnerships between universities and school districts, and they are encouraged to include businesses as well, to improve K-12 math and science education. This is the centerpiece of the bill; it is something that the President recommended early on when he took office, and I am very pleased to see this take place. In addition to that aspect, the bill will enable K-12 math and science teachers to participate in math, science, or engineering research at universities or government or industry labs. That can be a life-changing experience for a high school teacher, or even an elementary school teacher, to spend time working in a well-known lab with a well-known scientist and doing science at the edge of the envelope. Third, this bill establishes a competitive merit-based grant program to set up four university research centers on teaching and learning. This again is ground-breaking work and something that is similar to a recommendation of the Glenn Commission last year. We have to develop better research in teaching science and mathematics as well as other subjects. Reid Lyon at the National Institutes of Health has done ground-breaking research in this, but there is much more to be done and we must involve the universities as well. This provision will go far in that direction. Finally, this bill establishes a program to award scholarships to top math and science majors in their junior and senior years of college with a requirement that they must teach 2 years for each year they receive a scholarship. This is a stroke of genius, because we badly need new, good science and math teachers, and this is one method which will provide some of the world's best. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this bill, and I encourage the House to adopt it. It is an excellent bill.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from New York. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) for his leadership on the Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies in putting together this bill. As a scientist, I am especially heartened by the funding increase provided for the National Science Foundation. This bill funds NSF at $4.8 billion, which is a 9 percent increase, $414 million over the fiscal 2001 funding level. By approving this funding increase for NSF, we in the House make clear our understanding that the type of basic research in science and engineering that is supported by NSF is vital, not only to our Nation's continued economic leadership, but to continued increases in our standard of living and, indeed, to the sustainability of that standard of living. In recent years we in Congress have been committed to doubling the budget of the National Institutes of Health by 2003. We are justifiably proud of that effort. At the same time, we must also be aware that advances in the physical sciences, mathematics, computer science, and engineering are fundamental to the developments in medicine. To give an example, the move to double the NIH budget is motivated largely by the desire to cure cancer, among other serious diseases. However, many of the tools used to diagnose and treat cancer, among them x-rays, MRIs, CAT scans, and radiation treatments, come from the world of physics. Just yesterday I spoke to a research physician who pointed out that much of his research today would have been impossible just 15 years ago. The advanced tools that are now crucial to his work were developed just recently from work done in physics. We in Congress should have the goal of doubling the budget of NSF over the next 5 years through 15 percent annual increases. Overall, scientific and technical progress requires a balance between all of the sciences, which requires that funding for NSF keep pace with the funding for NIH. I applaud the chairman and his subcommittee for recognizing that fact by providing this substantial and well-justified funding increase for NSF in this bill.

Mr. EHLERS. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Chairman. Amendment Offered by Ms. Carson of Indiana

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise with some reluctance to oppose this amendment, and the reluctance is that it is offered by my good friend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley). The gentleman is engaged in a noble cause, but I will oppose it precisely for the reason that has been specified before this evening: This amendment would decimate the National Science Foundation's budget, particularly in the area of polar research and the Antarctic. We discussed just a few moments ago the work of the National Science Foundation and how necessary it is to fund it at a level to keep pace with the funding at the National Institutes of Health, because so much of the work at the NSF is related to the work of the NIH in its battle to fight various diseases such as cancer, diabetes and the many other diseases that they are engaged in fighting. In addition, the National Science Foundation is engaged in many other areas of research. In regard to the polar and Antarctic research which the gentleman from Florida seeks to cut, it is a unique research program that tackles many problems which cannot be tackled anywhere else in the world. For example, these research funds resulted in the first discovery of the ozone hole, which alerted our whole planet to the need to do something about chlorofluorocarbons and led to measures in both industry and government to end our very large use of chlorofluorocarbons; as a result we are beginning to see a shrinking of the ozone hole. In addition, because of the unique position at the pole, this is an ideal spot for astronomy. From that position many stars can be viewed that cannot be seen well from other areas of our planet. The amount that the gentleman is proposing to take out of this research budget is approximately one-third of the budget allocated for that work. That is a severe cut. We discussed earlier the small amount of the increase in the NSF budget compared to the NIH budget and discussed the need to seek a doubling of the NSF budget. We are not even close to doing that this year. If we take even more money out, it would be a serious blow to the budget of the NSF and to the scientific work that is carried out at the National Science Foundation. All of us value that research and benefit from it very, very directly. If I had the time, I could spend an hour pointing out all of the benefits derived from the funds spent on the basic research done by the National Science Foundation. For these reasons, I urge that we vote ``no'' on this particular amendment. I urge even more strongly that the sponsor withdraw the amendment. I think his effort to help veterans is noble, but his funding proposal would cause inestimable damage to the National Science Foundation. Mr. Chairman, I urge the gentleman from Florida to withdraw his amendment so we do not engage in a vote which could be detrimental to the National Science Foundation.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I would like to comment on a statement that appears in the report accompaning this legislation, to the effect that the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) has asked for approximately, $2.5 million, to update and enhance voting system standards. The committee notes they support these efforts but will wait for authorization from the Committee on House Administration, of which I am a member and of which the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is also a member. I have good news for the chairman. I think I can save him some of that $2.5 million, and that is the reason I rise today. I have introduced a bill, H.R. 2275, that would hand this standards-setting duty over to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is the Nation's standard-setting organization. NIST is specifically given the mission of, and is well equipped to, set standards. They would do a very fine job of setting voting technology standards, at considerably less cost, and essentially at no cost to the gentleman's budget. Let me describe this bill a bit more. As I said, the National Institute of Standards and Technology is the Nation's chief standard- setting organization; and they do not just pull standards out of the air. They always work with the user communities. They have a 200-year history of doing this, and do it well. A commission, which would be formed as part of this, would have the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology as the Chair. The commission would also include a member from the American National Standards Institute, which is the private sector arm of standard setting and is well-known. There would be a representative of the Secretaries of State throughout this country, a representative from the Election Directors of the States, representatives from local governments, county clerks, city clerks and so forth, as well as technical representatives, individuals who are in universities and have experience working on voting and voting standards issues. And, of course, I am sure they will work with the FEC on this. This commission would recommend standards. They would establish rather immediate voluntary technical standards; and then, after some time, they would develop permanent standards which are accepted by the user community. These standards would ensure the usability, accuracy, integrity, and security of voting products and systems used in the United States. It is very important to recognize the Federal Government does not control the election apparatus. But H.R. 2275 outlines what we can do to help the city clerks and county clerks, who actually operate the voting systems, and the State authorities who supervise the local systems. Now, why have NIST do this? As I said, because they have the experience. They do this constantly, and I am certain they would do a very good job. Let me add another comment, Mr. Chairman. I understand there is another amendment which will be offered later to include in this bill an extra $600,000 for communities to buy voting equipment. I think that is premature. I do not think anyone should buy new voting equipment until we review, determine, and establish good voting standards. Let me give a specific example of why this is important. More and more of the voting machines are computerized, and yet they do not have any emphasis on security. The average college freshman could hack these systems and change election results. We need far better standards for security, integrity and usability so that any citizen can use them without training and the vote will accurately reflect the intent of the voter. There is a lot of work to be done here. I believe asking NIST to set these initial standards is a good way to start. Additional legislative work that will have to be done will come from the Committee on House Administration and will be done by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Nay), who is chairman of that committee, and by myself as a member, and with the other committee members. There is much to be done here, but I believe having NIST work on the voting standards with the Federal Elections Commission and all the user groups is a very good way to start. And I just want to pass that information on to the chairman, and hopefully help him save some money in this bill.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the legislation. As the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards, which has jurisdiction over NOAA and NIST programs within the Department of Commerce, I wish to commend the new chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and State on crafting this appropriations bill. Most Americans do not realize that NOAA makes up over 65 percent of the Department of Commerce's budget, covering a wide range of programs from studying our climate to mapping the ocean floor. I am pleased to see that the subcommittee has recognized the importance of NOAA and has funded the agency at a level slightly above the President's request for fiscal year 2002. I am also pleased that the appropriations bill increases funding for labs inside of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Over the past 100 years, NIST and its employees have not let us down. It is all but impossible to name a major innovation which has improved our quality of life with which NIST has not had some involvement. NIST Federal laboratories have partnered with industry to initiate innovations for safer and more fuel-efficient automobiles, biomedical breakthroughs like breast cancer diagnostics, refrigerant and air conditioning standards, analysis of DNA, and calibrations for wireless telecommunication systems, among numerous others. Mr. Chairman, I strongly support the increase for NIST labs, and I hope that the chairman will be able to preserve this funding during conference negotiations with the Senate. Mr. Chairman, let me highlight a few key programs that are funded by this bill: the Sea Grant program, which provides grants supporting vital marine research and education programs at universities all across the country; the Great Lakes Environmental Lab, which has a solid history of important scientific contributions and ensures continued high-quality coastal science. It also fully funds the ARGO Float Program, which is crucial to global climate studies which have taken on increased importance to us. In addition, it provides National Weather Service forecasts and warnings which more than pays for itself, monitors the water levels of the Great Lakes, and plays a major change in climate change research. This bill will help ensure that NOAA is able to fulfill its many missions, and that NIST will continue to serve our country well. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma, Mr. Chairman, today I rise to support H.R. 2500, the Commerce Justice State Appropriations Act. Mr. Chairman, by passing this bill the House will take an important stand against methamphetamine production across this country. The drug, Methamphetamine, has become one of the most dangerous items on our streets. This drug is composed of products like rat poison, Comet, bleach, and lighter fluid. This drug can be injected, inhaled, or smoked. People around this country are spending their hard earned money to inject into their veins rat poison and bleach that was mixed in somebody's toilet. The negative effects of this on the human body are horrendous: insomnia, depression, malnutrition, liver failure, brain damage, and death. This terrible drug not only affects those who use it but can also be deadly to innocent Americans whose homes are near these labs. In my home state of Oklahoma in 2000, we had over 1,000 methamphetamine labs explode and need to be cleaned up by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. In 1994, there were eleven meth labs, let me repeat that six years ago there were 11 meth labs in my home state of Oklahoma, now there are over 1,000. And, every time one of these labs explodes families are exposed to toxic and lethal fumes that are disbursed to the surrounding neighborhood. Innocent young children and seniors are rushed to the emergency room to be treated for inhalation of these toxic and deadly fumes. By passing H.R. 2500, the House will fund $48.3 million dollars to state and local law enforcement agencies to help combat methamphetamine production and meth lab cleanup. This money will start to turn back the tide against these labs, and protect our families and neighborhoods. This money will be used to train officers to find these labs and most importantly clean the toxic remains of these labs. Mr. Chairman, I commend you and your committee for including the people of Oklahoma in this Methamphetamine HotSpots program. This money is desperately needed to keep Oklahoma neighborhoods safe. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to stand with me today against this dangerous, deadly drug and support H.R. 2500 the Commerce Justice State Appropriations Act.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding to me, Mr. Speaker. I am very pleased to join him and the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) in a discussion of the Republican energy plan, which is progressing nicely through the House of Representatives, and I hope we will be able to enact it fairly soon. I will be taking a totally different tack in discussing this. This is because of my background as a professor, a nuclear physicist, and also because I have done a fair amount of research on energy over the years. So I am going to deal with the long-term view, but also talk about some basic facts of energy. Part of the reason is that I listened to the previous hour of debate here in which the other party seemed to be implying that the Republicans do not know anything about energy or energy policy. Well, we have just heard from two speakers on the Republican side who know a great deal about energy policy, first about the situation in California, and secondly, about extraction of resources. I am going to talk about it from the standpoint of basic science and what we can learn from that and what we can and cannot do and how that impacts us in the future. I am also going to take a rather long-term view on some of these issues because we have to think long term on this. I do have to say that dealing with energy and public policy has been very frustrating to me because when I was first elected to the Michigan legislature and worked in both the House and the Senate, I tried to work on developing a solid energy policy for the State of Michigan. I could not get anyone interested either in the public or the legislature because we did not have a crisis at that point. Eventually I decided I could better spend my time elsewhere. When I came to the Congress, I tried to do the same, and again no interest. Once the crisis hits, and by a crisis I mean the price of gas at the pump going up and the price of utility bills going up, suddenly everyone is interested then. I am a little concerned now that the price of gas at the pump is going down that the public may lose interest again. But regardless of what they say or do, we must have a good energy policy, and I hope that will emerge from my comments. In the study of energy, one of the first things we encounter is the three laws of thermodynamics. Now, thermodynamics, that very word, means heat going into motion. And that was extremely important about 150 years ago when the laws of thermodynamics were developed because that helped us build steam engines, and not only just build steam engines but helped to build efficient steam engines that led to the industrial revolution in terms of steam engines to do work in the factories and also steam engines to move trains across continents. The laws of thermodynamics, and I do not want to get into a lot of detail, the first one we can ignore, it is very elementary, just dealing with temperature. The second is the law of conservation of energy, which simply says that in a closed system, energy can be neither created nor destroyed but can change form, from one form to another. Well, what are the forms of energy? There are many, but I will just mention a few. First of all, let me explain that energy represents the ability to do work. And so when we apply a force through a distance, we do work. I happen to have here a rather giant rubber band, and when I pull on it, I have to exert a force. I exert a force through a distance. I am doing work on it. I am imparting energy to this. It is stored as potential energy in this rubber band; or at the molecular level it is stored in the molecular stretching of the bonds within the molecules and between the molecules. When I stop exerting the force, it pulls my hands back in. That energy was stored there and it was used to pull my hands back together. But we lost some in the process. As I said, in a closed system we do not lose energy, but we have lost some to heat, that is because this is not a closed system, and that helps to warm the room. In fact, we could easily make a heat machine out of this if we wanted to use it for a heating system. Very inefficient, but we could have one that would just simply stretch rubber bands and the heat generated would result in being able to heat a substantial space. The third law of thermodynamics is even more important than the second, even though the second is extremely important. The third one is the statement that entropy and any reaction, any transfer of energy, always increases. Now, I am not going to get into entropy here. It is a very complex concept. But it basically means every time we transfer from one form of energy to another, the quality of the energy degrades. That means it is less useful. It cannot do as much work. Remember, energy represents the ability to do work, and that is why it is so important to us. We went, as human beings, from the nomadic existence to an agricultural existence, or the agricultural age, when we first learned how to tame nonhuman energy to do work. In other words, animal energy. Before that, humans had to do everything. They tried agriculture and it just did not work that well. There were various agricultural communities, but they all had trouble and many of them failed. Once we had animal energy to use, they learned how to harness domestic animals to do the work, the plowing, et cetera, and agriculture flourished and continued to grow and increase for years. The next big change was when we learned how to use nonanimal energy, that is the industrial age, where we built steam engines and other machines that allowed us to do more work. And the better the quality of the energy, the more work we can do with it. But as I said, the third law of thermodynamics says every time we use energy, it degrades to a lower level. It is not able to do as much work. In a modern power plant, we burn natural gas or burn coal, and that produces heat, which we either use to generate steam or operate a turbine. Out of that we get waste heat. We use cooling towers to get rid of it, but we could heat a lot of homes or greenhouses with that if we chose to. But we cannot get much more work out of it. Eventually, whatever we have done radiates out into space. Now, those are very important concepts because what we have to remember about energy is it is our most basic natural resource simply because we cannot use any of our other natural resources without using energy. If we decide we want to dig a mine in Utah, for example, and extract some materials, and there is a huge copper mine in Utah, as I recall, that takes a lot of energy to extract the copper, to haul it to the mill where it is extracted and smelted, rolled, then transferred to a fabric factory, fabricated, and finally transferred to the consumer. Every single step of the way takes energy, and that is why energy is our most basic natural resource. But it is also our only nonrecyclable resource. The copper that is pulled out of that mine, we can use it, and when we are finished with it in a product, we can recycle it and put it in a different product. But energy cannot be recycled. Once we use it, it is gone. Now, all of these principles make it very important for us to develop an energy policy that recognizes this, and I believe that the energy policy that Mr. Bush has presented recognizes these issues and begins us on the road for a very long-term plan. There are many different ways of obtaining energy. We have talked tonight about retrieving energy from fossil fuels, primarily oil and natural gas. Another fossil fuel is coal, and that is very useful to us. These involve burning these fossil fuels, because they are combustible, and extracting the heat energy from them and converting that into electrical energy or into energy of motion or things of that sort. We also know of other ways of using energy. We have Einstein's famous equation, E equals MC squared, which means that mass can be converted into energy and vice versa. But if we can learn how to convert mass into energy, we get huge amounts of energy out of small amounts of mass. And that is what we have with nuclear power and nuclear weapons. It is just amazing when we consider that the bomb that exploded in Hiroshima had just basically a handful of enriched uranium, of which only a part was converted into energy but was sufficient to destroy a major city; or that a nuclear reactor, rather small, can generate huge amounts of power for a long time out of small amounts of fuel. We also have another means of nuclear energy, and that is fusion, where we combine hydrogen nuclei or Lithium nuclei and extract energy that way, because we lose some mass in the process. And fusion, I hope someday, will be a very good source of energy, but it is a number of years away. But, again, we have to do the planning, we have to do the research, because we cannot recycle energy, and someday we are simply going to run out of the traditional sources. Now, there are other things we can do. People talk about conserving energy. I do not really like to use that term, even though I support it. But I think it is much better to talk about efficiency of use of energy. Because conservation, I find, gives the image of people freezing in the dark. If we are heating our homes and we want to conserve, we turn the thermostat down, turn the lights out, and freeze in the dark. In fact, I remember once I was at an event during the first energy crisis we know about, in 1973, and one of the speakers got up and he was very proud because they turned the heat down to 55 degrees. This is in Michigan, where I live. And they turned most of the lights out, and he told his teenaged daughters that they were not allowed to use hair dryers. They just had to let their hair dry naturally, and so forth. And he went on and on about conservation. I asked him afterwards what kind of house he lived in. He said, well, we have a cement block house. I said do you realize that for a small amount of money you could insulate that concrete block house and still live comfortably with the same fuel bills? He did not realize that. He did not realize, for example, that concrete is not a good insulator. In fact, one-inch of Styrofoam has the same insulating power as four feet of concrete. In other words, by putting just one-inch of Styrofoam around his house, he would have saved as much as having a four foot concrete wall. And if they added a little more insulation, they would have been very comfortable. That is what I mean about using energy efficiently. It is not a matter of using less, it is a matter of using it efficiently. And everyone, I believe, supports efficient use of resources. That is how businesses make more money, by being more efficient in their use of their material resources, human resources and machinery. So I think it is very important that we try to be as efficient as possible in our use of energy. We also have to look at alternative ways of using energy. As an example, hydrogen. I think one of the better developments in automobiles that is coming along the path is the use of fuel cells, where we will be able to use hydrogen, combine it with the oxygen in the atmosphere, and with almost no pollution produce electricity to drive an electric motor. Now, this is not easy technology, but we know it works because we used it on space vehicles, we have used it on the shuttle and other places for energy purposes, and we have trial automobiles which use fuel cells. Right now they are still expensive because they are experimental. But someday, when we get the design down and manufacture them in bulk, I am hoping that we will be able to use fuel cells as a good source of energy. We can either use gasoline in them or some other fossil fuel and preform it, as they say, so that we extract the hydrogen from it and run the hydrogen through the fuel cell and get our power that way. Even better would be if we developed a hydrogen economy, where we develop hydrogen out of our fossil fuel resources, or by electrolyzing water, H2O, remember, and separating it into hydrogen and oxygen, and that way we could, using electrical energy from nuclear plants or other plants, generate hydrogen and pipe it around, sell it at hydrogen stations instead of gasoline stations, and power our automobiles that way. The Hybrid, incidentally, is an interesting way of improving mileage, and again using the energy more efficiently. A couple of manufacturers are doing that now. I expect a few more will be developed. But I regard that as an interim. It is slightly more efficient but not as good as the fuel cell is going to be. We have to look at other possibilities for alternative sources of energy. Solar energy is tremendously promising in terms of its potential. We get as much energy on this earth from the sun per day as we expend from all our other energy sources for quite a number of years. Huge amounts of energy from the sun hitting the earth. The problem is it is very diffuse and, therefore, very low quality, very hard to use. But we are making progress in photovoltaic cells, and I expect in not too many years we will find new homes built with solar shingles on the roof, shingles that will generate electricity and help heat the hot water in the House, help heat and cool the house, provide electricity for cooking, for the clothes dryer, and things of this sort, and with some electronics can actually provide high enough quality electricity to run TVs, VCRs, and so forth. So that is I think a promising alternative that is coming down the pike. I would estimate probably 10 years from now that will be economical. It is not going to be economically feasible to take our existing shingles off and put these others on. That would be costly. But as part of a new building or as part of a required replacement of shingles, it will become economically feasible. We have others. Wind as power, of course, has potential. It is not a stable source of energy. We need an energy storage device or supplementary energy. The same of course is true for solar, but it again depends where one lives. I think it has real promise, particularly for less developed countries. That, incidentally, is one of reasons and the main reason I was opposed to the Kyoto protocol. I think President Bush was exactly right in saying that it is dead because it only put restrictions on the developed nations, not to developing nations. If we do not have some restriction on them or at least tell them at a certain date they have to meet these requirements just as we do, we will soon find all of them putting in highly polluting coal burning plants that produce a lot of CO2, greenhouse gases, a lot of pollutants. Then when we say, there is too much production. There needs to be a cutback. They will say, look, we have all these investments now and all of these marvelous plants. We cannot cut back now. I think if we have an international agreement, if we ever reach one that places restrictions on us, it also has to place restrictions on less developed countries because then they will make investments in alternative sources of energy such as solar, which is certainly the best answer in many places such as Africa and parts of Asia, rather than building these power plants which will create more problems. So I have talked about a whole range of different issues tonight, and I did not get into the specifics of some of our current problems. But I am simply saying that the plan that the Republicans are developing is a good launching pad for the things that I have been talking about that we have to move towards in the future. It contains the seeds of a long term national energy policy and certainly will provide the good short term energy policy that we need right now to address the problems of prices at the gas pump and the crisis in California. One last thought on that. We have to not only consider energy issues as we have talked about now, but we also have to consider the international relations or foreign policy aspects of it. We are 70 percent dependent right now on oil from other countries. As I said earlier, energy is our most basic natural resource. We are at the mercy of other countries because if they cut off our supply for whatever reason, political or war or whatever, we are at their mercy because our industry cannot operate without energy and we cannot produce enough internally instantaneously. That is why it is very important, as the energy plan of President Bush points out, that we must establish our independence from the fossil fuels of other countries. We have to develop our own sources. We have to develop alternative sources so we can truly be energy independent and not depend on the good will of individuals who may not feel very kindly toward us at various times.

Mr. EHLERS

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