Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman would yield for a moment, this is a point that is absolutely galling to me, and folks need to understand this. This Congress is pathetic, with a capital P, when it comes to energy policy. We are doing nothing significant to really reduce our dependency on oil and gas. This place is awash in oil. It is a slave to oil. It has not broken its addiction even to the political ties that bind it to the oil and gas industry. As a result, it has done nothing significant to move forward on energy. When we have all these new technologies coming on, solar cell technology which costs 80 percent less than it did 10 years ago, those prices are coming down spectacularly, wind energy that is coming down, has come down 20 percent so that it is competitive right now today in the State of Washington with other sources, has come down 20 percent. Instead of making investment in those technologies, you know what this Congress did? It stood up and gave another multimillion dollar tax break to the oil and gas industry of your tax money, and that is boneheaded.

Mr. INSLEE. I just want to point out the history of our own country is that we will succeed on this because we have succeeded. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, because of what Congress did, and President Carter, we increased our fuel efficiency at least 50 percent. And if we had simply continued on that path, we would be free of Persian Gulf oil today. We could have solved this problem if we had simply continued with that success. But I want to close by thanking you for your leadership on this and by saying that the Democrats are optimistic on energy, Democrats believe in innovation, and Democrats believe in paying for it and not having a deficit. And we are going to do that by closing some of these giveaways to the oil and gas industry. Thank you for your leadership.

Mr. INSLEE. It has been very sad to see technology originally developed in the United States, particularly solar cell technology, now being perfected and commercialized in Germany and other countries. To see that hemorrhaging of jobs is really a pathetic statement of our inaction to have a national energy policy. And we effectively don't have a national energy policy right now, except to just sort of allow the status quo to stumble along. There is one thing that is very clear about energy: Somebody is going to create millions of jobs and millions of dollars, and we want that to be Americans. In the 1960s, they had the missile gap. Remember, during the Nixon-Kennedy debate there was a debate about the missile gap. In a way, we have an energy technology gap right now that, frankly, other countries are getting a leg up on us. And the reason is, is that those countries have developed energy policies that have decided to leapfrog technologies and develop technologies there. We can't allow that gap to continue to widen. And that is why this New Apollo Energy Project, H.R. 2828, if you want to take a look at it, is going to answer this challenge. When Kennedy set us forth in the original space race, it really was not for economic reasons, it was largely not for a job creation program. But if you look at what it did create, can you imagine had he not challenged America to start the original Apollo Project? We would not have a computer industry in this country, we would not have an Internet-based industry, we would not have a satellite-based industry. We would likely probably not have a nanotechnology-based industry. That has been the mainspring of economic development and job creation in this country. So I think the important thing to realize about energy is we are not just acting to $3 a gallon gas, we are not acting just to save the planet we live on from the ravages of global warming. We are doing it from a positive economic growth-oriented proposal. And I think you can honestly say that this is probably the best thing the U.S. Congress could do to really grow the U.S. economy right now, because it is the one thing that the world obviously needs. Our market is not just in America. When we develop a clean-coal technology, we want to sell that technology to the Chinese and to India. And assuming we can do that, there is enormous growth potential.

Mr. INSLEE. As Ms. Schwartz indicated, I just happen to have an Innovation Agenda, which is the Democratic suggestion on how we can seize the power of innovation for the country and how the Innovation Agenda is just part of a larger package that one can read if anyone is interested. We think energy is a very important part, but it is one part of our Innovation Agenda; and page 3 of that basically is our effort to develop a new generation of innovators, and that is what we need to do. That is why we are committed to placing a highly qualified teacher in every math and science classroom, why we are committed to educate 100,000 new scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the next 4 years, why we want to make college tuition tax deductible for the students studying math, science and engineering so we can have those minds available. But if you look at page 8 on our Innovation Agenda, you will see our dedication to energy independence in 10 years. I will just mention two of the bullet points in the Democrats' larger agenda. We would commit to substantially reducing the use of petroleum-based fuels by rapidly expanding production and distribution of synthetic and bio-based fuels, such as ethanol derived from cellulosic sources, and by deploying new engine technologies for fuel-flexible, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and biodiesel vehicles. Now, those are different kinds of vehicles. Coming back to what Ms. Schwartz said, we want to give consumers choices of what kind of vehicles to buy and to use. This is not a command-and-control suggestion we are making. We think we want to develop an economy so that you can decide what kind of vehicle you want to use. That might be a flex-fuel vehicle. That is a vehicle that can burn gasoline or biofuels, and Brazil has done this through great genius. Now, when you pull up to a pump in Brazil, if you have a flex- fuel vehicle, you can burn either gasoline or biofuels or ethanol, which makes you in the driver's seat literally, not the oil and gas companies. So you can compare prices and decide what to burn. Now, the reason they have done that is Brazil basically told the auto industry to start producing these vehicles, give consumers choice, and that is what we stand for is giving consumers choice so that we are not victims of the oil and gas oligopolies in our country. We talked about fuel-flexible, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and biodiesel. The second bullet point in our plan will create a DARPA-like initiative within the Department of Energy to provide seed money for fundamental research needed to develop high-risk, high-reward technologies and build markets for the next generation of revolutionary energy. We do realize that there is some basic research that the government is good at that is very high-risk. It might be hard to get a bank loan on some of these cutting-edge technologies, but we have had very great success in the Defense Department with a group called DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research labs. They have done great work in the Department of Defense. We need to use that same strategy in energy, and that is why Democrats are proposing to have a similar energy advanced research program in the Department of Energy. We are very optimistic about that.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, last week, the President of the Marshall Islands visited Bainbridge Island, Washington. In discussions with me he made a specific plea. He asked America and the U.S. Congress to finally do something about global warming. The reason he said that is that rising sea levels literally could drown his entire nation. He basically told me that his entire nation could become the first nation state to be environmental refugees, and he said, you know, we don't hardly put any carbon dioxide in the air. You put 25 percent of all the carbon dioxide in the world into the air, and your Congress does nothing. I think he had a pretty good point. While the science of global warming becomes unambiguous and inarguable and clear, this Congress has lined the pockets of the oil and gas companies with giant subsidies and done absolutely nothing about global warming. It is a tragedy. You know, we have had a lot of Republicans historically to stand up for the environment, such as Teddy Roosevelt; Bill Ruckelshaus, who met with us yesterday, who said do something about global warming. We need some action instead of passivity.

Mr. INSLEE

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

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this would restore $260 million to the Public Housing Capital Fund. As Members know, this is a critical fund that delivers housing services to make sure that our public housing is up to snuff and our citizens can live in safe housing. This is a fund that makes sure that the roofs don't leak on our citizens, air ventilation doesn't cause asthma, and we don't allow termites to infest our public housing facilities. Despite the criticality of that fund, the current bill as proposed would cut $260 million, an 11 percent slash out of this budget of this very important fund. Mr. Chairman, we will simply restore that cut to go back to the status quo of the level of funding for the Public Housing Capital Fund. The reason we suggest this is that our offset for this would be a small cut to the Federal building budget. It would essentially result in about a 3.5 percent cut to the Federal building budget, and what we suggest by this amendment is that in difficult times, if we are going to have to have cuts in these Federal budgets, it should first come out of where we house our Federal agencies and, second, come out of where we house our citizens. Our citizens ought to have first claim to the money. The kids that we are trying to avoid an epidemic of asthma, some of which we believe is caused by poor housing, they ought not to be suffering right now if we have to slash some budget. If we have to delay some bureaucracy, getting an upgrade in an agency, that is really a delay that kids in public housing cannot take a slash in the health of these budgets. I just want to point out the one thing that this public housing fund does that is so effective. One of the problems of our folks in public housing are their energy costs. A lot of these people pay 50 percent and more of their income in housing costs, and their energy costs eats them alive. I looked at St. Paul. Over 26 percent of all the evictions there were essentially caused because of high utility costs, and one of the things this public housing fund can do is help get better weatherization, more efficient heating/cooling systems to reduce energy costs. In fact, if we reduce our energy costs by 10 percent, we will save $20 billion of these folks in public housing. So our amendment does some things that are very common sense. It will go back to status quo. It will restore a $260 million slashed cut to public housing. It will offset that by a 3.5 percent cut to the Federal budget. Let us give first priority to our citizens and their housing and second priority to a small cut to housing some of our Federal agencies. It is the right thing to do. It is common sense. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, while I respect my friend's argument, it is quite artful, but not every dollar spent by the Federal Government goes to terrorism, as the suggestion would be. Let us be real here in this discussion. We will leave $7.44 billion in the Federal building fund, and in that fund the vast majority of those dollars are spent for housing Federal office workers, not Border Patrol, and to suggest that somehow that if this cut takes place we are going to be bombarded by immigrants is a great stretch, artful perhaps, but a tremendous stretch. What we are really talking about, we are talking about delaying perhaps for a year expanded Federal bureaucracies and the square footage they have in their Federal offices and office buildings scattered all across America. We are talking about suggesting that that delay in expanding the square footage for Federal office workers, as hard as they work and I respect them a bunch, is something that we ought to figure is a common-sense thing to do, instead of cutting $260 million when people are living in substandard housing that has an $18 billion backlog. So, let us look at the real life and not get wrapped around the argument that anything that changes a Republican budget somehow smacks of being soft on terrorism. That is a great stretch, and I do not think that dog will hunt. We are talking about a small reduction of 3.5 percent in a $7.7 billion budget for office budgets. Let me just give you an example of what we are talking about. There is $4.3 billion for rental space, $277 million in current funding in this budget. Maybe a little bit of that could be deferred. There is $2 billion for building operations, $119 million, 6 percent more than cut funding. That is common sense. Let us give first priority to our housing.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I request a recorded vote.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, the Internet, the World Wide Web truly are the most magnificent intellectual achievements since the invention of the printing press. And tonight the U.S. Congress, if it does not do its job, will severely let down that marvelous achievement of the human intellect because today, at least until last August, engrained in the DNA of the Internet was a principle of nondiscrimination and freedom among all sources of information on the Internet. Unless we pass the Markey amendment and preserve net neutrality, that basic DNA is going to be subject to mutation, to discrimination. We have a simple proposition in the Markey amendment, and that is just as all men are created equal, all bits are created equal and we must treat all bits of information fairly, accurately, and without discrimination. If this amendment does not pass, we will for the first time, for the first time allow the infection of discrimination to discriminate amongst bits of information. I note this because the opponents of this amendment, the Markey amendment, are saying we have to get these entities that use these services to pay. No doubt. And under the marketing ability, you will be able to charge for the distribution of bits. But what we should not allow is to discriminate amongst those who in fact enter the on-ramp of the Internet information superhighway. We will continue to allow people to charge depending on how many bits you send through the pipe. But what we should never allow, and until last August, we have not allowed, is the discrimination about who is sending those bits across this information super highway. Preserve the basic DNA of the Internet. Pass the Markey amendment and preserve freedom of access of information.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to bring your attention to a technology that will revolutionize our electricity resources. This Congress has recognized that energy challenges need to be explored through alternative, renewable and clean energy sources to enable a diverse national energy resource plan. However, the rhetoric of supporting alternate fuels hasn't been met with the policies enacted by the House of Representatives. The Energy and Water Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2007 fails to recognize an area of energy exploration that other nations are well-ahead of us in tapping--ocean wave energy. There is an increasing need for reliable, non-polluting sources of economic electrical power throughout the world. The Electrical Power Research Institute, EPRI, has carried out a comprehensive economic study of wave generation and has concluded that the economics of wave generation are at least as favorable as for wind generation, EPRI study shows that tidal is as favorable as wind and that wave would be as favorable if the same resources for wind had been invested which has now achieved economic competitiveness and is undergoing extensive worldwide growth. It is estimated that if 0.2 percent of the oceans' untapped energy could be harnessed, it could provide power sufficient for the entire world. Wave Energy has several advantages over other forms of renewable energy such as wind and solar including higher energy densities, enabling devices to extract more power from a smaller volume at much lower costs (e.g., the density of water is about 1000 times that of air). The availability of wave energy is in the 80-90 percent range, whereas wind availability is in the 30-45 percent range depending on location. Wave energy is also more predictable, with energy forecast times of greater than 10 hours, thus enabling more straightforward and reliable integration into the electric utility grid to provide reliable power. Unfortunately, these developments have once again been ignored by Congress. While the FY 07 Energy and Water appropriations bill provides just over $24 billion for the Department of Energy, it fails to provide any funding for the ocean energy program. Ocean wave energy extraction technology is currently in the preliminary stages of development, at the same stage that wind turbines were approximately 15-20 years ago. Several technologies are being developed, and yet no clear superior engineering solution has been established. I urge my fellow colleagues to understand to recognize any opportunity to support this new endeavor and make the United States a leader in tapping into this alternative, renewable energy source. I am very pleased that this bill fully funds the American Competitiveness Initiative which would strengthen basic research by increasing funding for the DOE Office of Science, for a total of $4 billion. In addition, the bill supports the Advance Energy initiative by increasing funding for a variety of clean energy technologies, including biomass, hydrogen, solar, wind and clean coal. However, again, it includes no funding or support for ocean wave energy. The new Energy Policy Act of 2005 adopted into law recognized for the first time the value of wave power to the US economy. Ocean energy research and development was authorized by this Congress. It should be supported and funded by this Congress.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to the fiscal year Energy and Water appropriations bill which would stop Enron from once again cheating northwest consumers. I have worked with my colleagues and with Snohomish Public Utility District, SnoPUD, to ensure that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission plays fair in the case between Enron Power Marketing Inc. and SnoPUD. For too long, Enron has been harassing utilities for termination fees through the FERC administrative litigation system. The Enron Corporation has already wronged consumers through its manipulation of the energy market during the energy crisis of 2001. It wasn't bad enough that Enron already collected an astonishing $1.8 billion through their market-manipulation schemes, including millions from SnoPUD. Today, Enron is trying to bilk another $122 million from Washington State consumers. Enron argues that they deserve a fee for the termination of their contract for electricity that they never delivered to Snohomish Public Utility District, SnoPUD. Snohomish PUD's contention is that because the power was never delivered, and because these contracts with Enron were entered into when the company was illegally manipulating the electricity market to inflate rates, these contracts are invalid. Mr. Chairman, my amendment to the fiscal year 2007 Energy and Water Appropriations Act would prohibit the FERC from enforcing any decision that deems a termination payment is due to Enron from SnoPUD during fiscal year 2007. It's Congress's responsibility to ensure protection for consumers like those being served by Snohomish PUD from companies like the Enron Corporation. With this amendment, Congress will be deciding to stand with Enron, or stand with ratepayers.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment neither clarifies nor modifies any provision of the Federal Power Act. Nor does it ratify any action previously taken by FERC. The amendment would merely prevent entities that engaged in fraudulent and deceptive trading practices during the western states energy crisis, as determined by FERC, from profiting by their misconduct by collecting termination fees.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, my oldest son Jack is a carpenter, and one of the reasons I am so proud of him is he is such a hard worker. It doesn't matter how hard it is raining out in Seattle, he is out there swinging the hammer. That is one reason we should not respect the current pathetic management team of the Republican Party who is on a course to make this Congress the least productive Congress in American history, for one reason, because we don't do any work. Of the 5 months that we have been here, we are on a track to work about 38 days. If you have an employee that out of 5 months does 38 days of work, what do you think you ought to do? Unemployment. A pink slip for the folks who are not running this Congress. In Truman's time, we had the do-nothing Congress. This is the do- less-than-nothing Congress. If you want to know why there is no progress on Iraq, why there is no progress on energy, why there is no progress on helping the folks after Katrina, it is because the people here in this management stay home and don't do any work. It is time to start swinging a hammer, and, to do that, it is time to get new management in this House and get Congress working for the American people again.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, is it too much to ask for us to protect the last remaining 5 percent of the Alaskan coast? Is that too much to ask? To give to the Creator his pristine creation? We do not put oil derricks in Yellowstone National Park. We do not put them in Zion National Park. We do not put them in Mount Rainier National Park, and we should not industrialize this precious Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There is a pattern here. There is a pattern. Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were just convicted of fraud on what Enron did to us. And this administration and this Congress let Enron take billions of dollars from ratepayers because they were in fact in the pockets of these energy companies. Now we have a similar situation. I will never forget when Dick Cheney looked at us and we begged for help from him to stop Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling from taking money from ratepayers, and you know what he told us, he said you Democrats just don't understand markets. Now I guess we just don't understand energy either. We understand that we should protect the national jewels in the crown of this country. Vote ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen), who has done a great job on this issue for years.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, we have a very commonsense amendment that would simply say that we will not be using funds in FERC to allow FERC to rule in favor of Enron against civil utilities and several companies around the country who signed contracts with Enron. We know what happened in Enron. They were unable to provide electricity. As a result, there was a termination of contract. We want to make sure that FERC would not issue a ruling while discussions are going on with the parties that would require these utilities and companies to pay Enron. So it is quite a simple amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, we will certainly be pleased to work with the Chair if there is any tinkering necessary. I would yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rehberg).

Mr. INSLEE. I want to thank the Chair for his accommodation of this issue. I do not want these termination clauses to yield an unjust result. This will give us time to move forward. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Chairman, the people of the State of Washington deserve decisions about the Eagle Gap Wilderness area to be made based on science and public input, not the whims of President George Bush. Why do we rush to give this President, the President with the worst environmental record in American history, more discretion, more leeway, less science, less public input? That is a bit like giving Bonnie and Clyde a relaxation of the rules against bank robbery. There is no reason, given the record of this administration, to trust these administration policies with our national forests. But this bill will give a blank check to the whims of the political decisionmakers in the White House, not the foresters on the ground. This, in fact, strips, strips us of the requirement that we have a site-specific decision to go out and look at these properties. Now I will tell you how bad it is. I will tell you how George Bush's administration has not respected science. When Mr. Donato, a researcher at Oregon State University, reported his paper in a well-respected journal, Science Magazine, a peer-reviewed journal, do you know what happened? Do you know what his BLM did? They canceled his contract. That is how the Bush administration treats science. They cancel your contract if you come out with science, with an answer that is not apparently approved by Carl Rove and his political minions. Madam Chairman, we should not be on this floor giving George Bush more authority to make more bad decisions about the national forests. Reject this bill.

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

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment, simply put, will fix a problem with this legislation that otherwise would allow a giant loophole in our rule that now we have been fighting to maintain for some period of time to protect our roadless areas in our national forests. These roadless areas are the most pristine areas of the national forests. We have made a decision, 96 percent of Americans who have commented on the roadless areas have concluded that they want these areas managed for the clean water they provide, the recreation they provide, the aesthetics they provide rather than timber harvest through log road building. My amendment would essentially say that we are not going to tax, we are not going to subsidize log road building anymore in these roadless areas. There are three reasons we need to do this, and they are two fiscal and one environmental. I will address first the two fiscal reasons we need to adopt this amendment. First, this Chamber went on record in an amendment some time ago that said we are going to stop subsidizing roads with taxpayer dollars. And we essentially are going to stop, by this amendment, stop subsidizing logging roads in some of our steeper areas. These roadless areas are commonly found in our steeper, higher elevations. They are at the tops of our mountains, and they are the most expensive places to build logging roads. They are the places where the taxpayers get soaked the most in our subsidization programs. We would say essentially that you cannot use this legislation, in our amendment, to continue that log road-building program which ends up putting the tab on the American taxpayer. This is a fiscal reason. The second fiscal reason is it makes no sense now, it makes no sense to make a misprioritization from, instead of doing the $10 billion of backlog we already have to repair and maintain our existing mileage, enough to, I think it is 336,000 miles of existing roads, with a $10 billion backlog already. Uncle Sam already has a $10 billion commitment to get those roads and keep them from washing out. Eighty percent of these roads are not even fit. You cannot even drive your car on them. Instead of letting people get recreational value, to drive and go up to go hunting and go fishing and take your kids on a picnic by the creek, 80 percent of these roads are falling apart. Instead of taking care of their interests, this bill would subsidize the logging industry to go in and log as a priority. Now, they have tried to fix this problem, saying these will be temporary roads. There is no such thing as a temporary road. We have 60,000 miles of roads that should have been decommissioned already but aren't. So there are two sound fiscal reasons to adopt this amendment, but the third is an environmental reason. We depend on these roadless areas, the Kettle River Range in Washington, the Eagle Cap roadless area in Washington, we depend on them for clean water. We depend on them for habitat. And the fact of the matter is when you build a road into a roadless area, you double the chance of fire. And that, as a science, is well proven. You may get some timber out, but you double the chance of fire, and you increase areas of road that can erode and silt our streams. So two fiscal reasons and one environmental reason that commends this. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. First, we had the clean skies bill, that got more pollution; then we had the deficit reduction bill, and we had more deficit; now we have the forest recovery bill, which assures that we will be using less science and less common sense by the American people to make decisions of where and how to do forest recovery plans. This has largely been a red-herring debate to date. This is not a question whether we are going to have forest recovery plans and places to replant and places to harvest deadwood. What it is a debate about is where we do these recovery plans and how we do these recovery plans. This bill, as currently structured, guarantees two things: We will at times do them in the wrong place and we will at times do them in the wrong way. It does that by a repeated continuation of the terrible habit this Congress has gotten into, which is to repeal our environmental protection laws. And that is why every single environmental group dedicated to the preservation of our forests is very strongly opposed to this bill. Now, how is it going to be the wrong place and the wrong way? First, it will assure these are sometimes done in the wrong way by gutting the insistence that we use science. Right now, existing rules require bureaucracies to use science when they make decisions; to not go by some cookie-cutter approach that some bureaucrat in Washington sets out and says you can do this, that, and the other all across the Rocky Mountains, without ever stepping foot in the area where they are going to do this harvesting and replanting. Existing law requires that. This law, through a quite clever shell game, guts that requirement that Americans will use science when these decisions are made. What it does is it essentially says that NEPA requirements, the National Environmental Protection Act requirements, to use science when we make these decisions where to cut, which trees to cut, and how to replant. And it does that on page 24, in a very clever way. It doesn't say we gut NEPA. It doesn't say we repeal the National Environmental Protection Act. What it says, and I quote, ``Satisfaction of NEPA requirements. The following activities are deemed to satisfy the requirements of section 102 of the National Environmental Policy Act.'' What they say is, what you do here just wipes away the requirements of NEPA because we deem it complied with. We care about our forests in Washington State. The Kettle roadless area in eastern Washington, the Eagle Cap roadless area in western Washington. We want to insist that our Federal agencies use science. This bill removes one of the fundamental pillars of making these decisions. It removes science. So it does something to make sure that we do something the wrong way. But it also does something in the wrong place, and I will get to that when my amendment comes to preserve the roadless areas of our forests.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.