Bob Filner

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Some of our colleagues do watch us as we make these statements and talk about the situation in the West, and they say stop your whining. It is your own damn fault. If you did not have these environmental whackos in California and Oregon who stopped the building of power plants, you would not be in this situation. Now I would like to hear what the gentleman says to them, but I say that is the ridiculous argument. Number one, it was the private sector in the West that chose not to build power plants because they had calculated that they had a surplus. They miscalculated that, but that was a decision made in their economic interest, they thought, not because of any environmental regulations. I am going to soon announce in San Diego the building of a new power plant, hopefully about a thousand megawatts, built by a responsible citizen of San Diego who has built power plants all over the country and in fact has won environmental rewards for them. He is going to show that you can follow every environmental regulation that is there to protect us, every permitting policy, build a plant in a rather quick amount of time, and charge what would be the price under previously regulated rates, say a nickel a kilowatt, as opposed to the 40 cents, $1 or even $4 we have been charged. He is going to put a lie to the notion that it was environmental wackos who caused this. We are going to have a plant in San Diego that is environmentally sound and produces electricity in a reliable fashion and at moderate price, at a price we can afford in San Diego. When we have control, I hope the City of San Diego or the County of San Diego will own that power plant. That will give us one-third of our needs and give us tremendous leverage over the whole system. But I am sick of hearing that somehow we caused this thing because we were trying to protect the environment. I know the gentleman has heard the same arguments. I think we have to answer those directly and show that what we are proposing makes more sense to solve this issue.

Mr. FILNER. When I hear those figures, I wonder how these people sleep at night. I can again look at my own district where we have been experiencing these problems now for a year. We have scores of small businesspeople just had to close up. I mean, we have had people in my office in tears that their family businesses that have been in their family for 40, 50, 60 years, they could not sustain electricity cost increases of first 100 and then 200 percent. There was no way. In fact, 65 percent of small businesses in San Diego County, by a recent Chamber of Commerce report, face bankruptcy this year if these prices continue, 65 percent of small businesses. Now, if this were an earthquake or a hurricane or a tornado, the Feds would be in there instantly and offering loans and helpful economic incentives. This is worse than 10 or 20 earthquakes and the Federal Government has not been seen. I do not care if it was the Clinton administration or the Bush administration, the Federal Government chose not to help out. These are incredible human problems. It is not just statistics. When the person on a fixed income whether, they be older or younger, who is faced with a doubling or tripling of his or her utility bills and they have to chose now not between just food and medicine but between food, medicine and a comfortable sleep with air conditioning, this is ridiculous. This is tragic. This is criminal, in my opinion. We have not acted. We have not even had a debate on the House floor about any of the legislation that we have proposed to try to deal with this. The leadership of this House has chosen not to bring up any bill, any bill. We have what is called a discharge petition. That is a mechanism that if a majority of the Members of this body want to discuss a bill, whether the leadership does or not, we can. We have had to go to those lengths to try to get a discussion of a situation which can still destroy the economy of the western States. I do not understand it. I have been struggling to have my constituents' voices heard in Washington, but there seems to be a deaf ear to our complaints. When I listen to the recital of the kind of income that the CEOs have made, I just get madder and madder. Those people ought to be in jail, not receiving these kinds of checks.

Mr. FILNER. It works.

Mr. FILNER. They made almost a billion dollars doing that in the course of the year. By the way, just to emphasize the gentleman's point of the cut in relationship to the community, the five employees I mentioned lived in our area were community members, paid taxes, had their kids go to school. They were let go. Apparently, Duke did not want people tied to the community working in their own plant. There is insult to injury. I would say to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) that in this case I just told him about, the plant was being ramped up and down for profit, which stole a billion dollars out of our economy, is a public plant. Under the deregulation law, the San Diego Unified Port District bought that plant and leased it to Duke and leased it for very, very, let us say, favorable terms. The terms under which they leased the plant they thought they would recoup their investment in 5, 7 years. They got it back in 3 months. That shows what the prices were that they charged. They leased this plant from the public so they are stealing from the people who own this plant. They have violated the lease terms that they were under. They were supposed to operate that plant in a prudent manner. It is a prima facie case that they had not and these employees testified that they had not. I think the Port District, a public agency in San Diego, ought to break that lease, take back the plant, operate it in the public interest. They produce power there for three or four cents a kilowatt. As the gentleman pointed out earlier, a thousand percent increase in the price they were charging us up to $4.00 a kilowatt. So here we have the most obscene price gouging. Duke, by the way, was the one that charged that $4,000 a megawatt, or $4.00 a kilowatt, hour and they did it out of a public plant. I think San Diego consumers ought to demand that that plant be taken back. It is our plant. Let us show that we can produce the electricity at a reasonable rate and still protect our environment. So this is a case study of enormous greed, and I think San Diegans understand that they have been gouged and they are ready, in fact, to embark with a municipal utility district, take over plants such as the one I mentioned, the South Bay Power Plant, and begin to get out of the control of this energy cartel. Let me just conclude this part by saying, the gentleman made the point earlier about how we need renewables. He made the point earlier about how we need conservation. Everybody in California, as I am sure in Oregon, is doing everything that they can to do that. Only the Federal Government can deal with the wholesale prices. Only the Federal Government can regulate that. Our President has chosen not to be involved. Our vice president has refused to listen. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has taken some baby steps in this direction, but the Congress should impose what is called cost-based rates on wholesale electricity prices and refund all the criminal overcharges since last summer when this started. Then we can begin to talk about a national energy policy, and as the gentleman pointed out, the President's plans say nothing about this area.

Mr. FILNER. And they made a healthy profit doing that.

Mr. FILNER. I thank the gentleman from Oregon for yielding, and I thank him for his leadership. I recall over the last few years the gentleman from Oregon talking about the problems with deregulation. Very few of our colleagues listened. But now we are witnessing them, and he was right. And California has been the greatest example of that. He mentioned rolling blackouts. He mentioned manipulated markets. Let me tell you what happened one day in January of this year. We suffered several hours of rolling blackouts in San Diego. That had, just a few hours, a tremendous impact. Companies in production lost millions of dollars worth of production. People who could not deal with the traffic lights off, we had near fatal accidents. People stuck in elevators. The largest company sending people home and not getting a paycheck. At that time, at a time of the rolling blackout, with all these disruptions, the biggest generator in San Diego County was not in operation. It was shut down, not due to any maintenance; it was just taken out of service. Now, we have examples of that all through the last year where production was down, not for maintenance, not for any environmental reason but to bolster the price, because in a controlled market, if you withhold supply, you can increase the price. What occurred in San Diego at what we call the South Bay Power Plant in my district operated by the Duke Energy Corporation, they took generators out of service, not only during the blackout but many times during the year. We just recently had five former employees of that plant who worked there for a total of 100 years. These are not newcomers. They know what is going on in that plant. They testified under oath to a State Senate committee that not only were these generators down not because there was any real lack of need for them, we were in a rolling blackout, but purely related to the price that could be gotten or withheld because of an attempt to raise the price. They testified that the generator floor was in constant contact with the marketing floor of the corporation. And they ramped up and down their production according to the price, not according to the need. They testified that they were asked to throw away spare parts, so it would take longer in any maintenance situation. That leads me to believe that this is not primarily a supply and demand problem, although we have tight supplies and the Governor of California is doing everything he can to increase those supplies; but this was a crisis of a manipulated market brought on by deregulation which the gentleman from Oregon foresaw.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 215, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 214, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, the electricity crisis continues 1 year later in San Diego, in California and the West. Scores of businesses in my hometown of San Diego have gone out of business. People on fixed incomes are suffering because they have to make choices between buying food and prescription drugs and air conditioning. This should not be happening in America. Now, we have called for price controls, we have called for a refund of the overcharges, and people from my State on the other side of the aisle have said, Let the free market work. Price controls don't work. I say to my colleagues, there is no free market. The system is completely out of whack. There is an energy cartel which dominates our lives in California. I want to give you a specific example, Mr. Speaker, of how the market in California is being manipulated by this energy cartel and what we in San Diego hope to do about it. There is a 700 megawatt power plant in my district. We call it the South Bay Power Plant. It is operated by the Duke Energy Corporation. It looks like in the last year, Mr. Speaker, Duke Energy has made close to $800 million off that plant while 65 percent of the businesses in our area face bankruptcy. They paid for the operation of that plant in 3 months for what they thought would take 5 years or more to pay off. Now recently, five former employees of Duke Energy, five former employees of the South Bay Energy Plant, testified under oath, testified with 100 years of experience in that plant, Mr. Speaker, and what they said should be taken very seriously by anybody studying this crisis. They said that the generators were turned up and down not because of the need of the people of San Diego or of California but because of the price at a given moment that the market was bringing. In fact, a 250 megawatt generator was turned off at a time when we had blackouts in San Diego, at a time when people were sent home from their jobs and not getting paychecks, at a time when there were near- fatalities at a traffic intersection because the lights were off, at a time when elevators had people stuck in them. Yet the biggest generator in our county was turned off. These employees further said that they were told to throw away spare parts so maintenance would take a lot longer, supply could be withheld and the prices increased. They talked about how the trading floor where the prices were set for electricity was in direct contact with the generating floor; and so the generators were ramped up and down, as I said, not by the need of California or of San Diego, but by the price that could be gotten. So Duke Energy has stolen $800 million from the citizens of San Diego and of California. They have charged up to $4,000 a megawatt hour for something that cost $30 only a year ago. That, Mr. Speaker, is not the free enterprise system at work; that is stealing from people who could not afford the cost. Now, to add insult to injury, Mr. Speaker, that theft took place from a power plant which the citizens of San Diego own. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we own that plant through the San Diego Unified Port District, a public agency; and that public agency, at very, very good terms for the lessee, leased the plant to this Duke Energy Corporation to operate, as the lease says, in the public interest. Well, that lease has not been operated in the public interest. That lease has allowed Duke Energy Corporation to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from the people of San Diego. Mr. Speaker, since the public owns the South Bay Power Plant, I call upon the San Diego Unified Port District to take back that plant and to operate the lease in the public interest.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, here we are, a year after the electricity crisis hit California and the West. The crisis and suffering continues. And where is the President? Not one item in his energy plan addresses the crisis in the West. And where is FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission? They seem more intent on protecting the industry than the consumers who pay their bills. And where is this Congress? A year after the crisis, we have not yet had a debate on this House floor on resolving the issues in California and the West. The bill that is coming up through the Committee on Commerce does nothing to address this crisis in California. The only way to get a fair discussion on the House floor is to sign Discharge Petition No. 2. That allows and puts in order any bill that really addresses the issues in the West and electricity. It is time to put cost-based rates on the price of electricity and refund the criminal overcharges since last year. Mr. Speaker, let us have a debate on this House floor. Sign Discharge Petition No. 2.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, evidence continues to mount that California and the west coast electricity market has been illegally manipulated, and consumers are entitled to billions of dollars for illegal overcharges since last summer. We just heard about the need for production. Let me tell my colleagues what is happening to plants in California. Last week in sworn testimony to the State senate, three employees of the Duke energy plant in my district in Chula Vista, California, testified that they took the plant out of production for economic reasons. That is to boost the price of electricity at times, including the worst emergencies that were declared in California. At stage 3 alerts, the generators were taken down. They were told to throw away spare parts, so it would take longer to correct any problems that did appear. The manipulation of the market is clear. The illegal manipulation of the market is clear. Mr. Speaker, all my colleagues should sign the discharge petition at the well this morning to make sure that we get a vote on restoring equanimity to the electrical markets of California, and consumers get refunds for illegal prices.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and because of its refusal to allow the common-sense Sabo amendment on truck safety. This gentleman represents a border community. This gentleman represents an area where 30 percent of the trucks cross the border. The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) has filed a complaint on the rulemaking. I will tell my colleagues that I know of the dangers of the trucks to our citizens and to our driving public. I know what happens when uninsured drivers have accidents. I know what happens when trucks do not have brakes. I know what happens when tired drivers are on the roads in San Diego and the rest of this Nation. I will tell the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla) who just spoke and the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) who talks about an administration plan, I live on the border. There is no evidence of such a plan. There is no national standard. I have traveled to Texas. I have looked at our border inspections in California. This is not discrimination against Mexico, Madam Speaker. This is a plea on behalf of the safety of our constituents who would be in danger. I will tell my colleagues every State is left to itself to determine standards of inspection. We heard that the California inspection station in my district at Otay Mesa has a state-of-the-art inspection station, and they do. But do my colleagues know how many trucks they inspect of the 3,000 or more that come across every day? Less than 1 percent. They do not do anything about the insurance of the driver. They know nothing about the history of the driver or their safety or how long they have worked. If you go to Texas, and we were in the district of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla), who just spoke, in Laredo, there is no inspection. In fact, the Department of Transportation of Texas and the local officials in Laredo have great controversy of what kind of inspection should go on. There will not be inspection stations in there under whatever plan, I assume a secret plan that the President has, to inspect in Texas, because they cannot come to any agreement on what could happen there. I tell my colleagues, if the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla) wants those problems in Laredo, that is fine. But let us leave them there and not go to the rest of the Nation where we have problems. I urge a no vote on this amendment. I urge we protect U.S. citizens and the driving public throughout America.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of my constituents, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for his amendment. Mr. Chairman, I represent the southern half of San Diego, California, a district which borders Mexico and which has all of the border crossings for California, at least the great majority. Thirty-five to 40 percent of all truck traffic between Mexico and the United States crosses my district, so I believe we have some sort of experience and expertise with regard to this matter. The distinguished chairman of the subcommittee suggested that we ought to wait for experts to decide this question. Mr. Chairman, my constituents are experts. My constituents will tell the gentleman what it is like to be in an accident with a Mexican truck whose brakes have failed; in an accident where the driver did not have adequate insurance; in an accident where the truck driver was a teenager or who had just driven for 20 hours straight. My constituents are the experts on what happens when we do not have adequate inspection for the trucks to enter into the United States. And it is clear we do not have an adequate inspection system. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) talked about all of the States are ready to do this. I do not see any evidence that they are. If they are, why do they not do this? Twelve thousand trucks are crossing every day. We heard from the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski) talking about the state-of-the-art facility in San Diego where the California Highway Patrol inspects trucks. They are doing this, by the way, with their own funds, no Federal support. There is no Federal support for State inspections, and all States can do what they want. That does not strike me as a way to assure U.S. citizens of truck safety. But the California Highway Patrol has taken on that responsibility, has paid for it, and does good inspections on the trucks they inspect. We think they inspect roughly 2 percent of the trucks that cross the border, and that inspection only deals with the safety of the chassis itself. Very little inspection is done or can be done about insurance. Papers are exchanged, but there is no standard system. There is no way to check those papers. The driver's license may be asked for and the logs may be asked for, but there is no uniformity of those papers. There is no check or way to check on the accuracy of that data. The driver's license may or may not be a legitimate driver's license. Logs are not required to be kept by Mexican drivers, so we do not know how long the driver has driven. We do not know the safety record of that driver. There is no way to hook up the computer systems between our two nations. And even if there was, the Mexican systems do not yet meet the standards that we would expect in a DMV of any State in our union. So even though the California Highway Patrol is state of the art, it is only inspecting a few percent of trucks, and it can only inspect for a few percent of what we would normally require to be inspected. And we are light years ahead of the other States that border Mexico. There is no such permanent facility in Arizona or Texas or New Mexico, and there are no Federal funds to set up these, and there are no standards by which they ought to operate, and there is no agreement on the kind of inspections that ought to be done in those States. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Borski) mentioned that the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the Committee on Transportation and the Infrastructure with our chairman was at various border crossings along the southern border. We were in Laredo, Texas, where there, and in the environs, most of the trucks apparently cross the border. They have not decided what kind of inspections ought to take place. The local border community and its mayor are very adamant about one way of doing it. The Texas Department of Transportation is equally adamant about another way of doing it. Not only do they not have the money to do it either way, but it is going to be years before they decide how to do it. So we are years away from having an adequate inspection system. We need the Sabo amendment in order to protect our communities. Mr. Chairman, I stand behind the Sabo amendment and truck safety.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) for his courtesy. This item, which provides money to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the purpose of establishing cost-base rates in the western region of our electricity grid and to provide for refund of all of the criminal overcharges that California and the West has experienced since last June. Now, we have debated on this floor amendments similar to this. I would just like to add for my colleagues some information. I represent San Diego, California, which was at ground zero for the crisis that we are experiencing in the West and, I predict, soon in the rest of the United States. The experience we had in San Diego is that when our retail market was fully deregulated, and I will say to those who say full regulation never occurred in California, it did in San Diego. Both the retail and wholesale prices were fully deregulated, and I will tell my colleagues that within 30 days of deregulation, prices doubled on all businesses and individuals in San Diego County. At the end of 60 days, prices tripled. There was literally a revolution and panic in San Diego. Businesses closed up by the scores. If you were a small business on the margins and you had an $800 bill for your monthly electricity rates, and that bill went up to $1,500 and then to $2,500, there is no way that you can survive. I will tell the Chairman, a recent report by our San Diego County Chamber of Commerce showed that, and I want my colleagues to listen to this figure, because it is almost unbelievable: Sixty-five percent of small businesses in San Diego County face bankruptcy this year if electricity prices do not come down. Sixty five percent. Now, I will tell my colleagues when a few percent of businesses are wiped out with an earthquake or a flood or a fire, FEMA and the whole Federal Government is into that area. Well, where is the Federal government in California and San Diego when this kind of disaster strikes? Not only are we facing business closings, bankruptcies, but individuals on fixed income cannot afford their electricity bills, big businesses cannot afford the uncertainty about the prices. The biggest employer in my district may close this year, not just because of the potential price increases, but because of blackouts and uncertainty that they cannot keep up their production. This is disaster. The chairman has in the supplemental bill, and I heard his testimony at the Committee on Rules, the first thing the chairman mentioned was that $750 million of this bill was going for increased energy costs. He recognize that the problem in the West is high prices of electricity. There were no lectures in this bill about increasing supply or decreasing demand. The chairman reimbursed the military for their high prices. What about the small businesses in San Diego and California? What about the people on fixed income? We need to bring the prices down. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the Vice President and President have said that price controls do not produce a kilowatt of electricity. They do not save a kilowatt of electricity. Hello, we know that, but the Governor of California has a dozen plants online in California to increase capacity. We are now the number one State for energy conservation in this Nation. We are doing our share to increase capacity and bring down demand, but it is the prices that are bleeding us dry. It is the prices. We paid, Mr. Chairman, $7 billion for all of our electricity 2 years ago. Now last year we paid $27 billion without any increase in demand, though a little increase in cost of production. We have faced bills of between $50 billion and $70 billion this year, a ten-fold increase, a ten-fold increase of prices, with no appreciable increase of demand or increase of cost. That is the problem, Mr. Chairman. The problem is the prices that are bleeding us dry. They recognize the problem by increasing the military expenditures in this field. We need to bring down the prices for the small business people, for the big business people, for the families on fixed incomes, for all families in San Diego, in California, and in the West, and I will bet soon in the rest of the Nation. Mr. Chairman, when we brought to the attention of FERC the increase of prices in San Diego, we charged that the electricity cartel was withholding supply. We charged that they were falsifying transmission data to show that there was a problem with supply. We showed that they were laundering electrons. Do Members know what happened? FERC did an investigation. FERC found, yes, the market was manipulated. The market was manipulated. They found the prices to be unjust, unreasonable, and by Federal power law, illegal. So we have been paying illegal prices, Mr. Chairman, for 1 year. We have been paying illegal prices for 1 year. When FERC did nothing in November, December, January, February, March, April, or May, what did they tell the electricity cartel? Go and rob the State blind. Go and rob the region blind. Go and rob the country blind. That is exactly what is happening. I will tell the Members, whether they are in Florida or Pennsylvania, they are going to face this next. Point of Order

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

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I understand the technical point of order, but my constituents do not understand how a technicality can prevent dealing with this emergency in San Diego and in California. The chairman knows, and I will not bother to ask, but the chairman knows that there are hundreds if not thousands of provisions that have been on appropriations bills since the gentleman's chairmanship that have been passed through this Congress. The gentleman knows that items which are not authorized are approved. I heard the gentleman in an earlier statement saying they were meaningless items in this bill. I do not know about that, but certainly in other appropriations bills they have been significant authorizations. On behalf of my constituents, I would just plead to the gentleman, on a technicality, do not insist on a point of order when we have this emergency that is bleeding us dry. All the small businesses are at risk in San Diego and in California. Please do not send them under.

Mr. FILNER. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 160, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, as we speak, the Republicans are celebrating over at the White House their big tax break plan. These same folks who are celebrating gave great speeches on Memorial Day last week saying how much they supported our veterans. Yet they voted for a tax break plan and they voted for a budget which is an insult to our Nation's veterans. This budget barely keeps pace with inflation from past years. We will have veterans waiting years to adjudicate their claims and 10,000 cases a week are being added to the backlog. Veterans will have to wait months and months for doctors' appointments. We are doing nothing to find a cure for Persian Gulf War illness. We are doing nothing to advance our treatment of mental illness. We are doing nothing for the homeless veterans that are on our streets. Yes, they are celebrating their tax breaks, they passed a budget, but they are dishonoring our veterans. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for such a celebration and we ought to change the appropriations to reflect our real commitment and our real appreciation of our Nation's veterans.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, let me read the press statement of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. He issued a statement on why the Republican leadership refused to continue consideration of what they call their energy emergency relief act. He said, in the face of all of this disaster that is looming, in the face of this incredible price catastrophe for the West, he blames taking the legislation from the table on ``the national Democratic leadership which has exhibited unwillingness to forge ahead without a price caps measure.'' Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas is absolutely right, it is the prices that have got to be brought down. It is the prices that are causing the crisis. And in fact, as has been demonstrated, a price cap would make sure that we had reliable supplies, and not the other way around.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, we have roughly a 45 to 50,000 megawatt capacity to produce. During the winter months that we just experienced, the demand is roughly two-thirds, roughly 30 to 35,000 megawatts. So there is a demand of 30,000, there is a capacity of 50,000; and yet we had blackouts during this time. Why did we have blackouts? We are supposed to have 20,000 megawatt surplus. Well, somehow all of the plants at once were shut down. They had maintenance problems or other problems. Or, and this is why I say it is a price problem, not just a supply problem, they could not get paid by the utilities for their electricity so they just shut down. Mr. Speaker, this is not the promise of deregulation. This is the fact of a manipulated market, that we have blackouts. You know what happened in San Diego, a day's blackout, we had near fatalities at traffic intersections because the traffic lights do not work. We had near fatalities because elevators shut down. And the threat of blackouts means that people cannot have any orderly budget or orderly future, so they were thinking of leaving California. A blackout for a few hours in certain industries means millions of lost inventory and production. So blackouts maybe for an hour or for a day and maybe only once or twice during the winter, but they are catastrophic; and we are looking at the possibility of 30 or more days of blackouts in California for the coming summer.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, we were promised under deregulation competition and lower prices. What it sounds to me that is happening is that the so-called deregulated market, under control of a cartel, has not only increased prices but it has decreased the supply because they are withholding it to create a market where they are getting higher prices.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, we intend to spend the next hour of the House's time in discussing the electricity and energy crises that are confronting this Nation today. This has become the issue that is paramount in the minds of families all over this Nation. Whether they live in California, which as in many other areas has pioneered the problem, where we have an economy that is teetering as the prices of natural gas and electricity and gasoline hit us, hit our families, hit our businesses, people see this crisis spreading to the other parts of the far West, in the mountain States and now to the East. As people contemplate the incredible increases in natural gas, they wonder how they are going to heat their homes come next winter. When American families get on the road and find out they are paying well over $2 maybe even $3 a gallon for gasoline, every family in America, every business in America will know that we have a crisis, and yet it seems this Congress cannot act. It seems that this administration cannot or will not act. People's businesses and homes are threatened. They know that if there were a flood or an earthquake or a tornado, the Federal Government would be in their areas immediately with all kinds of help and all kinds of cameras, and the President would be there and the Federal Emergency Management Administration would be there and everybody would be in there trying to say how do we help in this natural disaster. Well, in California and in Oregon and in Washington, and now many other States, we have a man-made disaster that is worse than all of those others combined. And yet where is the Federal Government, where is the President, where is the Secretary of Energy? Nobody seems to want to act on a crisis that threatens the whole national economy, and people are wondering why. When we look at poll results today, not only is energy the highest economic issue of concern to families all across America, but the approval ratings of officials who are not acting are going down and down. Clearly, the American people want action. They do not see it coming from Washington. Just today, our Committee on Commerce decided that it would not hold a hearing on an electricity emergency relief act. The Republican leaders of this House apparently were afraid to bring this item to a committee and then to a floor vote because they fear that the outcome might not be in line with their ideology. They blame not bringing this up on Democratic intransigence; that is that the Democrats would not look at any bill that did not have anything to say about the prices and price mitigation for electricity and natural gas on the west coast. And I say to the Republican leadership, you are absolutely right. We are not going to consider legislation without that, because it is the prices that are killing us. California and other States in the West are being bled dry by this electricity crisis. The State of California is paying $3 million an hour for electricity. We are paying $70 million sometimes up to $90 million or more a day for electricity; $2 to $3 billion a month. And California State is paying for this electricity because the utilities in California are bankrupt. They have not been able to buy the electricity, so the State has stepped in. Now, the State of California is the sixth biggest economy in the world. But the sixth biggest economy in the world cannot sustain a $3 billion a month drain on its budget, and so the State of California's economy is teetering. And I will tell the President of the United States that if the California economy goes, so goes the rest of the Nation. So it is in our national interest that the problems in California, in Washington, in Oregon, and now in Montana and in New Mexico and Wyoming and in New York, become the interests of all Americans and this administration because our whole economy is at stake here. When we look at the prices that people are paying for electricity and natural gas in California, what we see is an incredible disaster that has taken place and is in motion. In San Diego County, the area I represent, 65 percent of small businesses face bankruptcy this year. Imagine what that means; 65 percent of our small businesses in one county facing disaster. That wipes out all of Southern California. And I predict the rest of the Nation will go next. We cannot sustain this kind of situation. School districts cannot hire teachers because they are paying for their electricity bill. Libraries cannot buy books because they are paying for their electricity bills. YMCA and other youth-serving organizations have to close up part or most of a week because they cannot afford the electricity bills. The hotels in San Diego County have an energy surcharge on their room bills because of the cost of electricity. Restaurants in San Diego have an energy surcharge because the costs of energy are so high. What happens to the tourism industry in our area if we add these surcharges to our bills? San Diego and California, the West, and the Nation are in economic trouble. The Republicans refused to act on their bill today. The President issued an energy plan several weeks ago which does virtually nothing for immediate relief for the west or for the Nation. Mr. Speaker, the President says, well, we can solve the energy problems in California by drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I do not know what one has to do with the other; and even if it did, it would be a decade before we got any oil out of that reserve. We have so many choices, we do not have to wreck the environment, we can do many, many other things; and we will be talking about that during this hour. The President and the Republican Party assume that this is a crisis brought out by a lack of supply caused by environmental whackos in California who overregulated and prevented supply from being brought in. Mr. President, that is flat out wrong. This is not fundamentally a supply and demand problem; this is a problem brought about by criminal manipulation of the market by an energy cartel that is hell-bent on making as much profits as they can make. They have taken $20 billion out of the State of California in the last 10 months, and they are going on to other States. Mr. Speaker, those same companies report earnings increases in their quarterly reports of 300, 400, 500 percent, 1,000 percent. They move up to the Fortune 500 a hundred positions out of the profits that they are making from small businesses going bankrupt and big businesses leaving California. The third biggest business in my district may close up this year because they cannot deal with the uncertainty and the cost of electricity prices. Mr. Speaker, we have to do something about the prices, and that is to bring in what was always the rule under a regulated situation, and that is cost-based rates for electricity: the cost of production plus a reasonable profit. Utilities made a fortune on that kind of pricing; and yet the pricing we are seeing now are four, five, 10 times that, 50 times that at various times during the day. We need cost-based pricing, and we need to have refunds of the criminal overcharges that have taken place. Californians are demanding cost-based prices to stabilize the wholesale market and refunds of the criminal overcharges since last June. That is how to stabilize the situation. The Governor of California is doing everything he can to bring on new capacity. The State is doing everything it can for conservation. We just met a goal of 11 percent for last month, and that is a tremendous achievement for Californians; and I thank all Californians for doing that. But the people of Oregon or California or Washington can do nothing about the wholesale prices, and that is killing us. I speak from experience from California. I see the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) with us, and I hope that he will enlighten us on the issues that this country is facing. If this President and this Congress and this Nation do not wake up, we are going to have economic disaster in the summer ahead. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the former mayor of Cleveland, for his leadership on this issue. We hope that the caucus program can be, in fact, on our agenda at some point in the future. Mr. Speaker, as California experiences this problem, the Congressional representatives all over California have been trying to make sure that our State and our Nation does not go under, and one of the leaders in this effort has been the gentleman from Sherman Oaks, California (Mr. Sherman). We thank the gentleman for his ideas and his energy and his contributions in coming up with a solution. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

Mr. FILNER. We only have a minute left. I want to share with my colleague from San Diego a little frustration. The President visited our city last week. We are in the middle of a crisis. As I said earlier, if it was a tornado or earthquake, he would have been there. He chose not even to come to meet people or the press. He went to one of our great Marine bases, Camp Pendleton. No contact with ordinary people. He said nothing really about the crisis and how he was going to solve it, and people had no opportunity to deal with the President face-to-face. I think this was an incredible abdication of responsibility for a major crisis, and I know those of us from San Diego were especially aggrieved by that.