Wayne Gilchrest

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Greenland is an interesting place because you can go back several hundred years. People were tracking the increasing or decreasing glacier ice cap. So there is a very accurate record. We saw some 20 years ago that the ice cap really significantly began to melt and about 20 cubic miles of ice was flowing into the North Atlantic. Today, that has increased to 53 cubic miles of ice cap on Greenland flowing in the form of water, melted water, into the North Atlantic. The rate we are going, we are going to lose the Greenland ice cap. When we do lose the Greenland ice cap, sea levels will rise 23 feet around the globe.

Mr. GILCHREST. New York City. Boston.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank and appreciate the gentleman from Alaska for the time. The issue that we are debating here, this sense of Congress, is to ask the Members of Congress to take a look at a potential problem of global warming that human activity is causing by burning fossil fuel and adding increasing amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere that helps with the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide makes up less than 100th of 1 percent of the atmosphere, a very, very tiny amount. Yet that tiny amount has a large impact on the heat balance or the climate of the planet, and so if you can take an analysis, which we can, without dispute from the scientific community, over the past 10,000 years, you can actually go back 5 million years, but if you look at the last 10,000 years, we have increased in CO2 by a natural amount from 180 parts per million of CO2 to 280 parts per million. It took 100 years to increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by 100 parts per million. But then if you look at the last 100 years, especially the last 50 years, we have increased it by another 100 parts per million. Now, that is a tiny amount. It is another very small percentage. It took 10,000 years to increase it by 100 parts per million. It took really less than 100 years to increase it another 100 parts per million, which can be directly attributed to human activity burning fossil fuel. Now, it is still a very tiny amount. Even if the human input to the increasing CO2 is only 4 percent, when we are working at levels of hundredths of a percent, that 4 percent is significant. So we are seeing, as a result of the change in increase in CO2, warming temperatures of the atmosphere, warming temperatures of the oceans, receding glaciers, and that is not to scare people. We, as adults, always want better science for our students in our schools. We need better science here on the House floor. If you look at the Greenland ice sheet 25 years ago, 20 cubic miles of that ice sheet was flowing into the North Atlantic. Today, just a few decades later, 53 cubic miles a year of the Greenland ice sheet is flowing into the North Atlantic, and like the gentleman from Wisconsin said earlier, if the Greenland ice sheet were to go, and it is growing, we should recognize a potential for a 23-feet increase in the sea level. So, all we are asking for on the House floor is let us look at the data. Let us acknowledge our future.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do for my colleagues is to demonstrate the 1987 manual of the Army Corps of Engineers to determine what is a jurisdictional wetland that is associated with navigable waters, which gives the Army Corps of Engineers, through the Clean Water Act, as passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President. The Clean Water Act is to make sure that waters of the United States are clean, and the Corps of Engineers determines what are waters of the United States. So the experiment is as follows. Gravity pulls water downhill. So the 1987 manual of the Army Corps of Engineers, to determine what are waters of the United States so that the Federal Government can protect those waters from pollution, determines that in three ways. What is the soil type? What is the vegetation in that area? And what is the hydrology of that area? If it meets that criteria and it comes under their jurisdiction, it means that no matter where that water is, if it runs downhill and eventually gets miles away to a stream or a tributary that runs into navigable waters or the seas, that what you do in that isolated wetland, if the hydrology is such that it moves with gravity, will eventually pollute the navigable waters or seas of the United States. And so the Federal Government has decided to use its resources in a reasonable, practicable way, based on the 1987 manual, to ensure that waters of the United States, of which we all depend, are not polluted. And in most instances, I represent an agricultural district with a lot of wetlands, on the Delmarva Peninsula. Those areas in my district, an agricultural community that depends on agriculture, that depends on silviculture, that depends on the fishing community to harvest their striped bass or eels or catfish or whatever, we have understood the compatibility of human activity with nature's design. And we want to ensure that that is still in law and that our waters of the United States can continue to be protected.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk for 5 minutes on this issue known as climate change. Are humans affecting the climate or is it the natural influence of natural variabilities? Mr. Speaker, if people will look back into their middle school and high school years, they will remember their silence class, their geography class, maybe their geology class, and they learned that the planet Earth over millions of years varied in its climate. Sometimes we had very warm periods and sometimes we had very cold periods. Sometimes the tropics were as far north as Canada and sometimes ice ages covered much of North America. But the point is, what do we remember about the details and the facts on how they occurred? I think maybe Jay Leno should ask that question in a ``Jay Walking'' exercise, ``What do you know about climate change?'' Well, in past eons of times, tens of thousands of years ago, millions of years ago there were very few human beings on the planet and those human beings were not burning fossil fuel. Today we have six billion people on planet Earth and many of those people are burning coal, natural gas, oil, gasoline. They are burning for their energy sources fossil fuel. And the fossil fuel that we are burning in the modern era of time is putting more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere in decades than the natural variabilities of planet Earth locked up over millions of years. Why is fossil fuel important when we are looking at the issue of climate change or global warming? When you burn fossil fuel it puts into the atmosphere a gas known as CO or carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is the chief element, the chief gas, in the atmosphere that controls climate, that controls the heat balance. We call this the ``greenhouse effect.'' Sunlight comes in, but because of COG, some of it cannot be radiated out so we have had a pretty good of balance of climate on the planet, at least for the last few thousand years. Now, how much COG is in the atmosphere that has this huge effect on the climate? Less than 1 percent of the atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide. Way less than 1 percent of the atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide, but it has a huge effect. So you can see that any variability in carbon dioxide will have quite severe consequences on the planet. How much CO2 was in the atmosphere 10,000 years ago, at the very edge of the end of that Ice Age? Ten thousand years ago, there were 180 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thousands of years later, with a warming trend, a natural warming trend on the planet, almost 10,000 years later, it was 280 parts per million. Two hundred years ago on the planet, during the early American days, there were 80 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere. One hundred years ago, that increased by a small fraction; 100 years ago, there were 290 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Now, this sounds like a lot of calculations and a lot of numbers. 100 years ago, 290 parts per million, heat balanced because of CO2. One hundred years later, now, we are talking about 100 percentage points, 100 parts per million difference over 10,000 years. What happened in the last 100 years? We are at 380 parts per million in the last 100 years. What normally would take 10,000 years to happen in a natural variation, variability, fluctuation, we did in 100 years. The estimate will be, by the year 2050, we are likely to be over 500 parts per million. That means we have had more of a dramatic increase in CO2 that controls the climate in 100 years than happened 5 million years ago. The Earth is warming because of the increase in CO2 because of the burning of fossil fuel. The hottest years on record have happened since the 1980s. The major institutions of science in the United States have concluded that the matter of climate change is settled. Human activity is having an influence on the planet.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, today, along with my distinguished colleagues, Representatives Ehlers, Bartlett, Leach, Farr, Castle, and Shays, I am introducing legislation to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which provides the U.S. with authority to manage fisheries in U.S. waters. Our bill would enact critical updates to our current national fishery policy management that will ensure sustainable fisheries well into the future. I urge my colleagues to join us in cosponsoring H.R. 5051. Both nationally and globally, our fishery resources are stretched to meet increasing demand--Americans alone now consume over 4 billion pounds of seafood annually. Fishery management has improved greatly since the enactment of the Sustainable Fisheries Act in 1996. Yet too often, we continue to experience overfishing and overcapacity--too many boats and too few fish--throughout our Nation's oceans--a situation that is not sustainable over time. In national policy, we must make the sustainable harvest of our living marine resources and the ecosystems on which they depend our highest priority. I commend Chairman Pombo, Mr. Frank, and Mr. Young for their introduction of a comprehensive Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill, and I believe its close alignment with S. 2012 is a solid step forward in improving the health of our Nation's fisheries. However, I believe recent advances in marine science and a greater understanding of our complex ocean ecosystems can help shape an even stronger bill. Our bill proposes to move fisheries management in a positive step toward ecosystem management, incorporating our vastly increased scientific understanding of ocean ecosystems and the rapidly developing body of experience in this approach gained by the Regional Fishery Management Councils in projects around the Nation. It would require the administration to develop comprehensive guidelines, with the councils, to support the drafting of Fishery Ecosystem Plans. Science on ecosystems is very advanced, to the extent that over 200 scientists signed on to a scientific consensus statement on ecosystem management organized by the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) on March 21, 2005. For stocks that are designated as overfished, our bill proposes to require overfishing to end by a date certain. Currently, and as a result of a ruling by a Federal district court which held that overfishing could occur during the rebuilding of the stock, overfishing is a continuing problem for stocks in many parts of the Nation. Out of 175 stocks in the Nation about which the status is known, 53 are overfished. Rebuilding time frames for some species have reached over 40 years in length, during which overfishing may continue under current law. However, the administration supports ending overfishing by a date certain, well within a time in which Regional Fishery Management Councils could act, so that rebuilding time frames become less contentious. The Pombo-Young-Frank bill extends the rebuilding time frame for fisheries from the current 10 year limit under a wide range of circumstances, but does not address overfishing at all. This approach takes us backward, not forward in ensuring sustainable use of our fisheries. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is very controvertial, as my colleagues know. The Senate, in its Magnuson-Stevens reauthorization bill, requires the administration to work between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the White House Council on Environmental Quality to better integrate the process required by NEPA and the process required by Magnuson-Stevens for its Fishery Management Plan process. Given that the Resources Committee has held only one hearing on this issue, I believe this is the best approach. Providing the Secretary of NOAA with the authority to waive NEPA for Fishery Management Plans, as the Pombo-Young-Frank bill proposes, is too broad to capture potential pitfalls about which we are only beginning to understand. Finally, the most important aspect of fishery management is the containment of annual harvest limits within boundaries that support sustainability of fishery stocks. The number of overfished stocks demonstrates our failure to achieve this important limit. The Senate has been engaged in a productive negotiation over this issue--how to establish accountability for the administration and the Councils and to support stronger science in setting and achieving such limits. The Pombo-Young-Frank bill does include many provisions to strengthen the state of fishery management science and the use of science in management decisions, but does not address the need to ensure that fisheries are not stretched beyond the scientifically established limits it provides. While I believe neither the House nor the Senate has achieved consensus on this issue, our bill includes such accountability. It is our intention to constructively contribute to the coming debate in the House over national ocean fishery management by stressing policy to strengthen the conservation of ocean fish resources while supporting the extraordinary efforts of our administration and Regional Fishery Management Councils. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor H.R. 5051 and join us in this critical policy debate.

Mr. GILCHREST

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, there has been a great deal of dialogue in the last few weeks about this issue of Dubai Ports World controlling U.S. ports. What I would like to do with this amendment, Mr. Chairman, is to explain what the Dubai Ports World issue is, and in the process, hope my colleagues will vote in favor of this amendment which strikes the section of the supplemental appropriations bill, the section 3011. I would at first like to give some frame of reference as to what it means to be the Dubai Ports World, which basically has purchased P&O, a British firm, that works with scheduling for the loading and unloading of cargo at our Nation's ports. The Baltimore Sun, which is a newspaper in Maryland that represents the Port of Baltimore, one of the largest ports in the United States, says the following: ``Potentially lost in this uproar is a clear understanding of what a stevedore company does.'' Stevedore, that is what the Dubai Ports World is going to do. They are going to employ stevedores. For the record, its employees, of Dubai Ports World, do not touch any cargo. No employee of the Dubai Ports World touches cargo. They are not in charge of port security. They do not oversee shipping manifests. That means they don't know what is in the containers. Stevedores, which is what the Dubai Ports World is going to be, are the middle managers who tell longshoremen, who are Americans, who are employed by the ports, who are employed by the State and local governments that control the ports, the longshoremen are the ones that load and unload the cargo. Dubai Ports World will be able to tell them when that ship is going to dock and how to unload it. USA Today, many foreign companies, including one from Singapore, China and Taiwan, are doing business today at U.S. ports, leasing some terminals, to schedule the loading and unloading. General Tommy Franks, this is what General Tommy Franks says about this particular issue: I personally believe that we have no greater ally in seeking a resolution of problems in the Middle East, the Palestinian issue, the Israeli issue, than we have found in the United Arab Emirates. Finally, Mr. Chairman, this quote, and there are quotes from every major newspaper in this country, this is a quote from The New York Times: ``Dubai is not a democracy, and it is not without its warts. But Dubai is a bridge of decency that leads away from the failing civilization to a much more optimistic, open and self-confident society. Dubaians are building a future based on butter, not guns; private property, not caprice; services more than oil and globally competitive companies, not terror networks. Dubai is about nurturing Arab dignity through success, not suicide. As a result, its people want to embrace the future, not blow it up. Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. We have a difficult, nearly impossible situation in Iraq, difficulties in the Arab world. Who do we need most to bridge the gap of the lack of knowledge? Who do we need most in the Arab world to connect and bridge that gap between the United States and that culture? It is the United Arab Emirates. It is time for us to recognize that this is an ally that we need to integrate with the United States as far as global issues and global terror issues are concerned. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I don't feel like I am a sacrificial lamb, and I am not doing this for any other purpose other than to give our strongest ally in the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates, the dignity that they deserve. There are Americans that feel they can do this in a most positive fashion. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, this is what I would like to conclude with. Dubai Ports World will have no administrative authority over any ports. They will have no security responsibility over any ports in the United States. That is retained by the Federal and State governments, completely. All the longshoremen will still be American longshoremen that load and unload these ships. The Dubai Ports World is an organization made up of American investors, and chief executive officers of the United States are officers in this Dubai Ports World organization. They are a strong ally. Let this vote signal dignity and worth to the United Arab Emirates. I urge my colleagues to vote for the motion to strike.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding. Mr. Speaker, just to support Dr. Bartlett's assertions on peak oil that he has so eloquently and scientifically presented here on the House floor for about a year now, Mr. Bartlett is looking at the security problems of peak oil, the economic viability problems with peak oil, and the environmental problems of peak oil. Dr. Bartlett mentioned a report from the Army Corps of Engineers in which it says in part that we are using or burning in decades, in about the last 50 years, what we have used as far as fossil fuel, especially where oil is concerned, for our transportation needs that it took nature millions of years to lock up. What does that mean? That means that we are releasing into the atmosphere greenhouse gases, in this case specifically carbon dioxide in a few short years, what took the geologic forces of the planet to take out of the atmosphere in millions of years. Is there a potential for climate disruption as a result of that scenario? The answer is yes. Human beings, in the last century or so, or in the Industrial Age, have become a factor in the heat balance of the planet. Heretofore, the only factor that could contribute to the heat balance of the planet, the greenhouse effect of the planet, the warming, the cooling, the various cycles, the storm cycles of the planet, were natural geologic forces. The oceans, the land mass, the tectonic plates, volcanoes, those kinds of massive, natural geologic forces have shaped the way the planet looks today. What we are seeing, and what Mr. Bartlett is talking about in his discussions on energy usage, is that in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution, human beings and their activities are a geologic force, because we are putting into the atmosphere in decades what it took the natural forces millions of years to lock up. We human beings, in our activity, are a geologic force affecting the climate, affecting the atmosphere. If we went back to James Watt in 1769, we would see through various scientific methods that there was about 280 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, 1769. About 100 years later, 100 years after that, 1895, partly because of natural warming, the climate has been warming since the Ice Age, there were 290 parts per million, 100 years after James Watt discovered the steam engine; and we know that the steam engine enabled us to burn coal in greater abundance than we had prior to that.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Bartlett and I a few years ago traveled together to the Antarctic to McMurdo Station and the South Pole. It is a fascinating, majestic place, a little harsh, but nature in the raw seldom mild. I will say it is an arduous trek, even in this day and age, to Antarctica. I want to compliment the gentleman for taking a second trip down there. I will briefly conclude on the correlation of increase in CO2 in the atmosphere that has a direct effect on the heat balance of the planet. In the first 100 years of the Industrial Revolution, CO2 increased by about 10 points, 280 parts per million, to 290 parts per million. If you look at the third generation of the Industrial Revolution, which ends with us, about 100 years from 1890, the latest calculation in 2003 was 370 parts per million. That is increasing. Look at the last 100 years of increasing CO2, which is 100 parts per million increase.

Mr. GILCHREST. I would agree with the gentleman, we continue with a sense of urgency. We should continue with a sense of urgency, that efficiency is one of the components to stave off a really very difficult economic time period if we do not find alternatives to fossil fuel. One last item about the chronology of increasing CO2. As CO2 increases, the temperature of the planet and the corresponding manner has also increased. And if you look at the increases in CO2, they cannot be shown with natural influences of the planet. When you take a mathematical calculation as to the cycles of CO2 in the atmosphere and where it comes from, the natural process will add, and has been adding CO2, over the last 10,000 years. In a corresponding way, the temperature of the planet has continued to increase over the last 10,000 years. But if you take the amount of CO2 with the natural influences, it does not account for the dramatic increase in CO2 that we have seen over the last 100 years. And so if we are looking at environmental conditions, energy independence, economic viability with a positive alternative energy source, there is a sense of urgency that I think Congressman Bartlett has brought to this House and to the Nation. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for yielding.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I want to thank Mr. Weldon from Pennsylvania and all those who have come down here this afternoon to honor just a great lady, a wonderful person. For as long as this building stands, Helen's Cafe will be an intimate part of the U.S. Capitol. Emerson said heroism is the quiet obedience to the secret impulse of character; and whenever we walked into Helen's Cafe, we had that sense. We could look at Helen and our stress would wash away with her smile, our anxiety about partisan politics or legislation or not getting something done would somehow become a little bit more eased. Her remarks at the Members leaning up against that counter talking about this or talking about that would be, ``Oh, Lord.'' I can still hear Helen saying ``Oh, Lord.'' Or if you made a comment about her sandwiches were too expensive, of course they were always a fraction of the price of what they would be anywhere else, but if you said something like that, ``Helen, this is a little pricey, I only got a sandwich and a glass of water,'' she said ``Oh, Lord.'' Her stories about her family and her father and the perspective has been given here this afternoon. But can you imagine someone coming here while President Roosevelt was the President, Richard Nixon and Jack Kennedy were Members of Congress, and, it has already been spoken, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, conflicts around the world with the Middle East, the Persian Gulf war, right on up to the present conflict in Iraq. Her advice to us, and we took it, was, ``You need your rest. Rest yourself.'' Can you hear Helen saying that? ``Rest yourself.'' Or if you had a sandwich and you did not want anything to drink she would go around and get you a glass of water. ``You have to wash that down with something. It is too dry. You need something to drink. You need your nourishment.'' How many times did we hear Helen say that? ``You need your nourishment. You work too hard.'' Mr. Speaker, we still talk about Helen in Helen's Cafe. And Miss Helen, Pat is doing a great job. She is following your suit. She is set in Helen's Cafe because of your gentle, serene example. By the way, I have to say this through the Speaker, if you are heading across the Bay Bridge on that church bus and you are going to do what you like to do in Delaware, you have a standing invitation to stop at my house to play 500 rummy. Now, we might throw out a few pennies there, but there is a standing invitation from all of us. Helen, we wish you Merry Christmas, the best of holidays, and your character, that secret impulse that you left us, will linger here for all time. Thank you, Curt.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Hastings for helping bring this legislation to the floor, and I want to thank him for yielding the time. I will speak now for a few minutes explaining the legislation, and I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that we can have a bipartisan vote to move this task force along so that the myriad of issues that cover a broad range of committee assignments, both on the House and the Senate side, and a broad array of Federal departments and agencies can be viewed with a single entity, this task force, between now and June to understand the comprehensive magnificent work of the people under Admiral Watkins that put together this commission report. The members on the commission are people who have represented and continue to represent the oceans, aquariums around the country, the port authorities, coastal studies, offshore oil drilling, the U.S. Navy, shipping and marine transportation, ocean ecology and fisheries, environmental interests and the banking industry, a broad array of individuals that were appointed by the President, the House and the Senate. The scientists that represent the Ocean Commission Report that worked to develop the recommended policies are scientists from universities all across the country. Their expertise and diverse fields are in marine economics, coastal and estuarine issues, atmospheric issues, Gulf of Mexico issues and the whole array of problems with hurricanes, fishery science, coastal development, physics of ocean currents, oceanography. The list goes on and on and on. They presented this report to the U.S. Congress in September of 2004. In this report, there are 31 chapters. Seven of the 31 chapters come under the jurisdiction of the Fisheries and Oceans Subcommittee on Resources. Seven of the 31 chapters come under my jurisdiction in this Ocean Subcommittee. We have held hearings on our part of the Ocean Commission Report. But 24 chapters lie outside the jurisdiction of that Fisheries Subcommittee. And it is important to get this task force so that all those other committees in this House can view this commission task force from the specific recommendations that the task force will assume from the ocean commission report. What I would like to do is explain to my colleagues, the ocean commission task force makes recommendations in the following areas, which are outside the jurisdiction of the Ocean Subcommittee. Those are: The Congress should establish for better leadership and coordination a national ocean council and a non-Federal ocean council of advisors to view the full range of issues in the departments, the agencies and the executive branch and what goes on in the States and the tribes and the international arena regarding oceans. They make recommendations to improve NOAA, EPA, the Corps of Engineers, the Department of Interior, USDA and the States in their regional coordination. Right now it is severely fragmented. They make recommendations to clarify offshore responsibilities as far as leasing oil and gas, aquaculture, bioprospecting, wind energy, fisheries, just to name a few. They recommend structural changes in NASA, the Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, the National Science Foundation, Aquaculture, Health and Human Services, Department of Justice, Department of State, Department of Labor, Department of Transportation and the United States Agency for International Development. Can all of this be done with one subcommittee or fragmented throughout the course of this Congress? Promote lifelong ocean education, ocean stewardship, science literacy, future ocean leaders, helping to bridge the gap between scientists and educators, a need for qualified ocean science in the classroom, bringing the ocean to the vast array of students across this country. This is the Committee on Education. Better financial technical institutional support for watershed management initiatives through existing Federal and State laws linking coastal and offshore ecosystems. Better financial technical institutional support for all these issues. Something that is dear to our hearts right now as a result of this past hurricane season, several chapters dealing with guarding people and property against national hazards such as hurricanes and floods. And a year ago, a year and a half ago, in the commission report they predicted, right down to the letter, what could and eventually did happen to New Orleans, to coastal Louisiana, to Mississippi. A vast array of information. Managing sediment flows: 30 States contribute sediment in the Mississippi River that eventually goes through Louisiana, Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. How do we manage those sediment flows? Techniques for cost benefit analysis is in this report. Marine commerce and transportation across the oceans, the estuaries, and the rivers in this country. Addressing coastal and water pollution, three major laws, statutes. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, Total Maximum Daily Load Program, Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund, those are outside the jurisdiction of resources entirely. Their recommendations are for dealing with wastewater treatment plants, septic tanks, industrial facilities, agriculture, urban and suburban runoff. Addressing the atmospheric deposition problem: the single biggest issue with many estuaries including San Francisco and the Chesapeake Bay is air deposition. Thirty percent of the problem with degrading the Chesapeake Bay is air deposition. Watershed monitoring: in 1974 we had 500 stations across the country that monitored the quality of water. Today there are 32, from 500 down to 32. The lack of coordination between the State, the Federal Government, and the institutions is appalling. Limiting vessel pollution and improving vessel safety: that is the EPA, the Coast Guard, and the International Maritime Association. How to deal with invasive species with ballas water, marine organisms, major problems in the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and many estuaries around the country. Connecting the oceans and human health: biomedical research, marine bacteria, contaminated seafood, harmful alga blooms, recommendations that can be gleaned from a single perspective with a single entity such as this task force and then legislative recommendations to the myriad committees that deal with these issues. Creating a national strategy for increasing scientific knowledge in ocean science, technology, and understanding the oceans' ecosystem. Collaborating with the international community and funding recommendations for how long this is going to work. The Ocean Subcommittee under the Resources Committee does not have the time or the resources or the people or the jurisdiction to do this. We have dealt in that ocean subcommittee with our jurisdiction regarding the Ocean Commission Report, which is marine debris, fisheries management, marine mammals, coral reefs, agriculture, ocean observing system, coastal habitats, and so on. This report by Admiral Watkins and many scientists around this country deserve to have the United States Congress, this institution, take a comprehensive view of this report, study it for several months, and then make legislative recommendations to this body. I urge my colleagues to vote for the task force. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would just like to respond to my colleague on the other side of the aisle. This issue did not pop up out of thin air. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle know full well that we have been working on this. We have had numerous, numerous conversations since last May on this particular task force. Leon Panetta, who headed the Pew Ocean Policy Commission's report, is in favor of this task force. Admiral Watkins, who worked on the Oceans Commission's report, is in favor of this task force. As a matter of fact, both of those men, Leon Panetta and Admiral Watkins, are urging my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of this. Now, as far as my subcommittee that Mr. Pallone serves on dealing with these issues, this is a commission report that did cost a few million dollars, and it is worthy of our close scrutiny, not having staff make up a bill that we do not know the substance of that bill. This commission report is worthy of our attention, of our observation, of our analysis, of our critical understanding of it. My subcommittee has been dealing with the issues that have come under our jurisdiction. We are working on the marine mammal recommendations, marine debris recommendations, coral reef recommendations, Magnuson Act recommendations. We are doing that and passing that through the subcommittee. But 24 chapters are outside those issues. They deal with the Science Committee, the Transportation Committee, the Agriculture Committee, the International Relations Committee, the Education Committee, the Financial Services Committee. We think, instead of fragmenting this all over again because 30 and 40 years ago we went through this with the Stratton report and there was not any single entity in the House of Representatives that took a critical and analytical view of the Stratton report, we want to do that now. Now is the time to do that. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton).

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GILCHREST. I will tell you this, Mr. Farr: The aspects of Oceans- 21 in your bill that is subject to the jurisdiction----

Mr. GILCHREST. The parts of your bill that comes under my jurisdiction--

Mr. GILCHREST. We have held hearings on those issues. We have. And we have developed from your bill legislation that is moving through the subcommittee, that many of them have already passed the subcommittee and the full committee and are awaiting floor action.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read the first paragraph, because there has been a lot of mention around here about delay and the cost of the ocean commission report. I want to read the first paragraph of the ocean commission report: America's oceans and coasts are priceless assets, indispensable to life itself. They also contribute significantly to our prosperity and overall quality of life. Too often, however, we take these gifts for granted, underestimating their value and ignoring our impact on them. Then our use of the oceans becomes abuse and the productive capacity of our marine resources is diminished. In 6 months, June 30, this bipartisan task force, made up as a reflection of the ratio of Democrats and Republicans in the House, which is standard practice for all committees, will issue its comprehensive report, legislative recommendations, so that each one of the fragmented committees will not have to deal with these issues that they have very little expertise with in any way. This is a bipartisan task force that is funded with its own staff separate from any other committee or influences from any other committee to deal with the issue of oceans, which determine the climate, determine the weather, determine the air we breathe, the food source for billions of people. This is an issue that we can get together on, have a bipartisan working relationship and put aside our partisan bickering, because the oceans are priceless. We have some work to do, and we can accomplish that by June 30.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton).

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this task force creates an opportunity to bypass, eliminate the bureaucracy and fragmentation of the myriad of jurisdictions of this body. This task force creates a new dynamic. It brings people in, Democrats, Republicans. It brings the public into the process. It brings scientists into the process. It brings people who work in all the various marine industries into the process to evaluate, to analyze in a very clinical manner the ocean commission recommendations. This is about specific recommendations coming out of a bipartisan task force with the idea that we eliminate bureaucracy; we eliminate the committee jurisdiction problems and hand to these various committees the specific recommendations that we have evaluated over this 6-month period of time. The subcommittee is moving legislation with the recommendations from the ocean commission report and the Pew Commission report on oceans. We are dealing with what to do about sanctuaries, marine protected areas, coral reefs, marine debris, Magnuson issues, ecosystem management of the fisheries. All of these things subject to our jurisdiction and the rules of the House are being moved through that subcommittee. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the task force.