Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding, and I thank him for bringing this bill to the floor. Drill Responsibly In Leased Lands. The assertion was that Democrats are not for drilling. This gives lie to that assertion. This says, as we have been saying, there are 88 million acres available for drilling right now. Those acres are subject to lawsuit, my friend says. Any acreage would be subject to lawsuits. This acreage is subject to the availability of drills. Black and Decker or otherwise. What an absurd, I say to my friend, assertion. There are no drills available currently to drill in new lands here or other places. The minority leader, I presume, is going to be speaking in some few minutes. He said this: ``They're,'' meaning the Democrats, ``offering excuses designed to get people thinking about something other than drilling. They worship at the altar of radical environmentalists.'' This is, of course, the crowd that said global warming didn't exist until just a few months ago. This is the crowd that has been in charge of the White House for the last 7\1/2\ years. The gentleman from New Mexico says, Gee whiz, let's bring the price of gasoline down. They had an energy policy which they came up with under Dick Cheney. Some people say it failed. I'm not sure the oil companies thought it failed. It was $1.46 when they brought up the policy. It's now $4 at the pump. The oil companies are making the biggest profits they've made in their history. The assertion Mr. Boehner made is, as I said again, that we worship at the altar of radical environmentalists. Let me quote one of those radical environmentalists: ``I have been an oilman my whole life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of.'' That radical environmentalist's name is T. Boone Pickens, and as he said earlier in that statement, ``I have been an oilman all my life.'' He understands very well what can and cannot be done. This bill says let's drill. Let's get American product to American consumers and try to bring down prices. We've also asked the SPR be released. Not all of it. Maintain most of it. Why? To bring prices down, to free the oil that Americans have bought for their use and to bring prices down. With Americans being pummeled by $4-a-gallon gas, it's high time that America did just that. With the passage of the DRILL bill, America will move decisively to increase its domestic oil production. Now, ladies and gentlemen of the House, isn't it an ironic happenstance that the day before we put this bill on the floor, 24 hours before we put this bill on the floor and say let's drill in the National Petroleum Reserve, isn't it ironic that the White House announces they're going to do just that? My, my, my. What an awful idea we had--right up until the time 24 hours ago when the administration decided they would do it. I'm glad they've done it. And if our actions spurred their action, so be it. And we're going to take credit. Because they've been in office 7\1/2\ years. They took it 24 hours ago. What was the reaction of the oil industry? They were happy. Now, nobody is saying if you have land over here you have got to use it before you get land over here. What we're saying is you can't inventory land. You can't inventory acreage. You can't be a huge, rich oil company and want no competition and therefore inventory land. We're saying that. Yes, we are. We think that makes good sense for the American public. Today we call their bluff, I think. Yesterday they saw us. And they said, we'll drill here. Mr. Speaker, 68 million acres of American oil-producing land are sitting leased, available, and idle. There is even more land available for drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, or NPR-A, which we're dealing with today. Combined, we are talking about an area the size of--and all my colleagues listening to this debate and anybody else who is listening to it, they ought to know currently what is available--the area of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and most of my own State, Maryland. That entire area is currently available for drilling, for getting American product to Americans. Let's help the oil companies get that oil out of the ground and get it flowing to the Americans who need it. The DRILL bill speeds up the leasing process in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. It ensures that Alaskan oil will fill American gas tanks. That is, I presume, why, when they knew this bill was coming to the floor, yesterday the administration said they were going to have this land leased. Yesterday. The American public is pretty smart. There's nobody I think that's hearing my voice, wherever they are, doubts that if they just did it yesterday, after being in office for 7\1/2\ years, then maybe, maybe, maybe there was a relationship between Chairman Rahall bringing this bill to the floor and the action yesterday to try to preclude the credit for doing what we think is good policy. Hopefully, we're all going to vote for good policy today and vote for this bill. It calls upon the President to speed up the completion of the Alaskan oil and gas pipelines. That's what it does because we need those lines to get that oil and product, natural gas and oil, to market and to Americans. ``Drill on the leases you have, or let somebody else do it. But don't just sit on them while Americans are paying $4 a gallon. Use it or lose it.'' The gentleman says, well, they're not just sitting there; they're afraid of lawsuits. We may all be afraid of lawsuits. We may never drive our car because we're afraid of an accident or a lawsuit. That's not what they're in the business for, and very frankly, in terms of fear, when you're making the largest profit for a product, you go look for more, unless of course you want to keep the price high and supply down. Why is our plan better than the Republicans'? One, it means more oil. The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, which is already approved for drilling, has an estimated 10.6 billion barrels of oil. ANWR has 10.4 billion. And the information we have is the oil companies aren't too interested in drilling there. Two, our plan means more oil, faster. Unlike ANWR and protected coastal areas, NPR-A plus the 68 million leased acres elsewhere are currently approved for production. And get this, right now, today, available pipelines reach to within 5 miles of the National Petroleum Reserve, and if the pipelines are completed soon, we will speed production up even more. Third, I see no reason to give even more handouts of public land to companies enjoying record profits and billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies unless they are using that which they currently have. Inventorying land, inventorying acreage, inventorying possible oil supplies is not what the American people want. What the American people want is they want production. They want performance. They want prices to go down. That's why we say let's start on the land they already have. Let them eat their vegetables before they think about dessert.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next; and further, when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 22, for morning-hour debate.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Am I correct that if this was forthwith--you said it could be soon. If it was forthwith it could be done now, couldn't it?

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Mr. HOYER. I understand that. My question to the gentleman is, if it were forthwith, what you want done could be done right now, could it not?

Mr. HOYER. I ask my friend the question again. If it was forthwith we could do what you want to do right now, could we not?

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the word ``promptly'' be stricken and that the word ``forthwith'' be substituted in the motion to recommit.

Mr. HOYER. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, you heard me ask the question of Mr. Hoekstra. Wouldn't it be true that if he would use ``forthwith,'' what he wants to do could be accomplished right now? We would all support it. It is a worthy objective. Unfortunately, Mr. Hoekstra, in the same motion where he says I want to do something says but I don't want to do it now; I am not sure when I want to do it. I asked for unanimous consent, and I didn't get to do exactly what I think everybody in this House thinks is a good thing to do, and I will tell my friend we're going to do this. It's a good idea. But the advice you're getting is not good advice. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, ladies and gentlemen on my side of the aisle, this continues to be a political game. If you want to take my words down on that, you can do it. This is not accomplishing the objective. This continues to be a pattern, and the American voters are pretty smart, and they understand when somebody says I want to do something, but by the way, I want to kill the vehicle at least temporarily that accomplishes my objective, at the same time, they think to themselves something is not right. So, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you. We're hopefully going to reject this motion, which sidetracks this important intelligence authorization bill, which everybody has said is an important bill, but I will tell you further, we're going to accomplish the objective of Mr. Hoekstra next week because it's a good objective. But the fact of the matter is we could accomplish it right now if you didn't want to try to make some political point out of it on this intelligence bill, and you can say ``oh'' all you want. You can say ``oh'' all you want, but that is the truth and you know it. You know it in your heart, and you know it in your mind. I urge my colleagues: reject this killing motion. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I want to rise and join my friend from North Carolina in recognizing my good friend. Howard Coble and I vote together about 1 or 2 percent of the time, I'm sure, but he has become a very dear and close friend of mine. Howard, I want to congratulate you on your service to your State and to your country.

Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman from North Carolina yield?

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the chairman for yielding and would observe, as I have before on this floor, that there is no Member of this House who has been involved any more deeply, any more passionately, any more effectively to protect, preserve, and expand the availability of health care to the American people more than my friend John Dingell, the chairman of the committee. I want to congratulate him. Not only has he done that, but his father before him did that as well. Madam Speaker, last week we watched as Senator Ted Kennedy returned from the treatment of his brain cancer to cast his vote in favor of this vital Medicare bill. I don't have to tell you how many of us in both Chambers were moved to see that lifelong crusader for health care come back to cast one more vote for America's seniors. With that as inspiration, the Senate joined the House in voting by overwhelming margins for legislation that would and does replace a 10.6 percent payment cut for thousands of doctors in Medicare with a 1.1 percent increase, a cut that would put at risk coverage and availability of doctors for our seniors. The bill extends expiring provisions and bonus payments critical to rural communities and providers. The bill expands the preventive services that are available to our seniors. The bill phases mental health parity into the Medicare program. And it improves protections and assistance programs for our low-income seniors, about whom all of us are concerned. Three hundred and fifty-five of us in this House voted to pass this legislation. Three hundred and fifty-five in an overwhelming bipartisan vote which said this is good legislation, our people need it, and we're going to pass it. Sixty-nine Members of the United States Senate stood up and supported this piece of legislation. And I was pleased to see so many Republicans lining up with us. This is an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill as it was sent to the President of the United States. Preventing these Medicare cuts isn't a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It's an issue of protecting and preserving the health care that over 44 million seniors count on, depend on, and, yes, deserve. And our message to the President was unambiguous: We will stand with our seniors and our health care providers, our military families and our disabled. And when it comes to protecting and preserving the health care they depend on, we will put aside party politics and we will stand together. Three hundred and fifty-five of us, sixty-nine in the Senate. Today President Bush decided that the overwhelming majority of the Congress was wrong. He will have to explain, however, to America's seniors why he was so willing to stand between them and their health care. But, thankfully, we don't have to take ``no'' for an answer. Thankfully, the Constitution provides us with the ultimate policy- making authority. And I expect, hope, and urge that the 355 of us that stood for this legislation just a short time ago will do so again today, not in opposition to the President but as a proponent of legislation which seeks to solve a problem and to provide health care for our seniors. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to override this misguided veto. And with their support, this bill for our seniors will become law and they will be better for it.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from California (Mr. Schiff), congratulate Mr. Payne for his leadership on this effort, and Mr. Gohmert for his joining in bringing this legislation to the floor. I come from the State of Maryland, and Thurgood Marshall is one of the great sons of our State. But I must tell you something that you will find, I think, ironic. If you go to the State capitol which is the oldest State capitol still in use as a State capitol in this country, and you look on the east front of the capitol and you walk out the front, there is a statue on the east front that overlooks the Annapolis harbor, and that statue is of a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from the State of Maryland. His name is Roger Brooke Taney, the author of the Dred Scott decision. But if you walk out the door to the west and look out on Rowe Boulevard, there is another statue, another Justice, another son of Maryland; and that Justice is Thurgood Marshall. I have always thought it somewhat ironic that juxtaposed in the Maryland State Capitol are these two justices, both of whom were learned, both of whom served their country, one of whom, however, whose judgment was skewed by the times in which he grew up, whose brilliance was diminished by his failure to see the promise of America, and another who--notwithstanding the fact that he was discriminated against and his people were discriminated against by a country that professed a promise of equal opportunity for all. Nevertheless, the love for his country rose above that segregated environment to preach the principles and to seek their reality. Today we recall the life and legacy of one of America's champions of civil rights, Thurgood Marshall. Justice Marshall is, as I have said, one of Maryland's greatest sons. If you come to my office and visit the majority leader's office, you will see, just outside of my door, six portraits of very distinguished Marylanders. One, the first President of the United States, John Hanson. Now, I know that George Washington was technically first President of the United States of America, but John Hanson was the first president of the Continental Congress. You will see others, signers of the Declaration of Independence, but there will be that picture just outside of my door of Thurgood Marshall, because of what he stood for and what his life stands for today. Few lives were as consequential to the cause of American equality, and it's fitting that we pause the work of legislating and remember that life. Thurgood Marshall said that his life-long fascination with the Constitution began in grade school, when, as a punishment, interestingly, as a punishment, a teacher forced him to read it cover to cover. Even then he must have been struck by the gulf between that document's promise of equal protection and the reality of a segregated America, a gulf that turned that promise into a lie for millions of our citizens. Thurgood Marshall spent his career working to restore that promise and dismantling the structures of segregation piece by piece. Nearly two decades before the famous case of Brown vs. Board of Education, he was at the forefront of a legal movement that aimed to chip away at discrimination through the courts. His first victory was also in some ways his sweetest. He convinced the Maryland Court of Appeals to desegregate the University of Maryland law school 6 years after that very school had barred him on account of his race. Over the years to come, he rarely lost a case. In fact, he won 29 out of 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court. Another famous Marylander and his wife, whom I know, is Speaker Jackson, himself a distinguished African American leader of a distinguished African American family. I know so well the Mitchell family, Clarence Mitchell, Jr., the NAACP's representative in Washington, known as the 100th Senator; and Juanita Jackson Mitchell, one of the first African Americans admitted to the University of Maryland law school. Some of the credit must go to Thurgood Marshall and his legendary powers of persuasion. But credit, I think, also belongs to the powerful simplicity of his argument that separate can never be equal, that the Constitution belongs to Americans of all colors. His career as an advocate culminated with Brown, which overturned ``separate but equal,'' and it overturned it for good. Not only did it overturn it finally, but also for the good of our people. Thurgood Marshall later distinguished himself as a Federal judge and a solicitor general before President Lyndon Johnson nominated him as America's first African American Supreme Court justice. President Johnson called the appointment, and I quote, ``The right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man, and the right place.'' Justice Marshall, of course, as we all know, proved him absolutely correct. He served on the Court with distinction for almost a quarter of a century as one of its leading defenders of individual liberty and civil rights. Other civil rights leaders gave us inspiration, uplift and prophetic challenge. Thurgood Marshall added something to that contribution, dogged advocacy and the discipline of the law. As a newspaper editorial put it at the time of his death, ``We make movies about Malcolm X, we get a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King. But every day we live with the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall.'' Thurgood Marshall would be the first to acknowledge just how far America remains from the promise of equality, an equality that exists in fact, every bit as in law. But he would be the last to be discouraged. He said that ``A child born to a black mother in a State like Mississippi, by merely drawing its first breath in the democracy has exactly the same right as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true, but I challenge anyone to say it's not a goal worth working for.'' The great thing that we remember about Thurgood Marshall, as I said at the beginning, is that confronted with segregation, confronted with racism, confronted with a negative reaction to his color, he, as so many civil rights leaders have done in the past, as Nelson Mandela did in South Africa, as so many other civil rights leaders throughout this world have done, he rose above the hate and the division to bring clarity to our Constitution and unity to our people. How appropriate it is to remember Thurgood Marshall on the eve of his 100th year.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Thank you. Senator Reid in the other body has made it pretty clear that he does not believe, again, given the failure to pursue regular order in the Senate, that he will be able to get any bills passed, the Senate appropriations bills. So one of the factors under consideration by Mr. Obey is that if the Senate is not going to consider any bills, that because they cannot get the bills through the House and to the President--of course, the President sent down a number, said, If you go over that number, I'm going to veto all of the bills anyway. And we had real difficulty last year, as you know, with that happening. That's not happened in my career before. I don't mean that a President hasn't indicated he would veto, but there was always room to work on that. But that is one of the complicating factors or two of the complicating factors: the President's position and the Senate's position as well. But I think the major problem is that the regular order Mr. Obey did not feel was being pursued in the committee.

Mr. HOYER. I would not agree with the gentleman. After all, we did pass the Iraq funding, we passed a very substantive supplemental, we passed a GI bill, we passed an unemployment insurance extension. We passed an energy bill last year signed by the President. I think much of what we passed in our '06 that was passed, that got through the Senate, was signed by the President and supported by a significant number of Republicans. Furthermore, let me just remind you, and I'm sure you recall this, that we took 50 hours longer to do the appropriations bills last year than we did in 2006 when your side was in charge. And we had extensive debate. We had 10 open bills, open rules, and we had two rules at the end, because it was clear that we were having great difficulty getting our bills done in a time cramp. Even under those bills, we spent hours debating them. We spent 17 hours on the Homeland Security bill, for instance, and 12 hours on the Labor-Health bill on the floor.

Mr. HOYER. I don't want to get too testy, and you and I are good friends.

Mr. HOYER. But very frankly, it was not a process that we thought was very substantive last year, and every indication that we have received this year, it is not going to be very substantive this year when we consider appropriation bills. Now, having said that, we didn't pursue the regular order on the Labor-Health bill. The gentleman is correct there are five bills which have passed, and I would reiterate that I have not yet, from my standpoint, concluded that we're not going to consider appropriation bills on the floor this year. So I want to make it clear. I'm not sure exactly what Mr. Obey announced. There was an article that said I was supporting Mr. Obey's position. I went a little further. What I supported of Mr. Obey's position was that regular order was not being followed in the appropriations committee, not the representation that you say he made with reference to no bills coming to the floor. I think he's correct that regular order is not being pursued, and very frankly--and I'm going to talk to you about that, talk to my friend about this, because I think it is unfortunate that we have come to this place where the consideration of these bills last year became very politicized, and this year the announcement clearly was very early on out of your conference or your retreat and subsequently that it wasn't going to be a very happy process this year. I don't mean an agreement process. No reason why there should be an agreement. But Mr. Obey has concerns that it would simply be impossible for him to get the bills through.

Mr. HOYER. I just want to say that I understand what you have just said. But, of course, they never did have that until the 2005 bill, or one of the tax bills that was passed around that time. Prior to that time, the manufacturers had that, as you observed, that's correct, but the oil companies were never included in it originally or for long periods of time. They were added just in the last 2005 or 2006 or 2004, I am not sure exactly which bill added it. So it is not as if that had been in place when the tax to which you refer, the incentive to which you refer, was originally included in the code.

Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield on that?

Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield just on that?

Mr. HOYER. You mentioned H.R. 6. First of all, as you heard in my list, we are not contemplating adding that into this legislation that we might be considering. However, let me say this, very honestly. You and I both, I think every Member in this body very much supports the free market system. We have found it provides the greatest good for the greatest number throughout the world. In 2005, you put incentives in the bill, $14 billion worth of tax breaks for oil companies. Oil was then, as you point out, about half of what it is bringing today at the pump. The free market system, in my view, is if you are getting a high price for your product, you try to produce more of it and you try to find more of it. The oil companies are earning the highest price that they have ever received in the history of the sale of oil. That ought to be the incentive, not taxpayers who are paying the highest price at the pump they have ever paid, also having to pay higher taxes because the oil companies are getting an incentive of $14 billion of tax cuts to incentivize what ought to be incentivized by the price that they are getting for their product. I want to say further that the information I have, and I think you will find this interesting, is that Exxon made $40 billion in profits last year. I am informed $32 billion of that profit was spent to buy back stock. Not to do additional research, not to drill in America or any place else, but $32 billion to buy back their stock. Obviously that did have a very good effect on those stockholders who remained because their equity clearly went up. I do not criticize that, but I point it out because it was not spent either to produce more oil product, petroleum product, or to pursue alternative energy sources which we think is important which is what we will use the $14 billion in H.R. 6, whether it was hybrid cars, ethanol research, water, wind, hydroelectric, or from my perspective, nuclear. Let me also say that I understand what you are saying, but when we talk about this 68 million or 88 million acres, let me give you this point. The oil and gas companies hold leases on these 68 million now, land and water. They are not producing on these acreage, and 81 percent, according to experts, of the estimated oil and gas resources on Federal lands and the OCS are currently available for development in these reserves, and they are equal to 107 billion barrels of oil and 658 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. So what we are saying and what we will say in this legislation is that you have about 14 years supply here for America if you would develop this 107 billion barrels of oil or 658 trillion feet of natural gas on the land or offshore that you currently have leases on. So I think this is a good debate to have, and ultimately hopefully at some point in time we will get through the politics of this issue on both sides and we will get to a point where frankly we develop this. But I will also tell my friend that if we focus only on petroleum, we will not serve your young son or my grandchildren--you are much younger than I am--or my grandchildren very well because I will tell you, and as you know, I have a great granddaughter. She is 18 months of age. When she is my age, petroleum will not be her major source of energy. We know that. Petroleum is a wasting resource. By that I mean it is a resource that is going to go away. We don't know how much is left. Experts don't know how much Saudi Arabia still has. But we need to pursue vigorously alternatives while at the same time, as you and I would agree, developing that 107 billion barrels that we have here in this country that are currently available for lease. Frankly, if the companies tell us that they really can't produce from that, then maybe we ought to look at other sites as well. But certainly it seems to us, you ought to use what you have first; and if that doesn't work, we ought to go on to a second or third or fourth site. I thank the gentleman for his tolerance in my taking that time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Before I ask for the next unanimous consent, let me say how pleased I am that Congresswoman Edwards, I think this is her first time in the Chair. She is our newest Member and an excellent Member, and we appreciate her leadership.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning-hour debate.