Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, ocean acidification is both the most disturbing and potentially the most unifying issue involving carbon dioxide and climate change. It is the most disturbing because nothing that I have heard in the last couple of years about this phenomenon disproves the point of that old saying from the 1960s that was in an old commercial ``It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.'' And we have found that when we put one-third of all the carbon dioxide coming out of our tailpipes and our coal plants, that that has made the oceans, just since the industrial revolution, 30 percent more acidic, and all the time the world has been around, it is 30 percent more acidic just during the time we've been burning coal and oil. The results of that are not hypothetical. We had testimony in Seattle from biologists and oceanographers a couple months ago that said they actually put a shell into water that was as acidic as it could be in the next century and a half and you could see it literally melt. You are looking at literally melting of any living stuff in the oceans that form a calcium carbonate material, including the phytoplankton that is 40 percent of the bottom of the food chain, in the next century or two if we don't change course. That's why it's disturbing. But here is why it's unifying: It's unifying because while we have had some debates about the climatic effects about global warming and CO2, there is no debate about ocean acidification. We could spent the next century arguing about the precise climatic effects of CO2, but there is no debate that we are making the oceans unfit for life that God himself or herself designed on the planet Earth. And that is what we are doing. And I am hopeful that that can be a unifying idea in this Congress so that we can start to develop a clean energy future for the country and the world that can preserve the oceans for living species that we depend on as well as the rest of the world. So it is disturbing now. Hopefully, it will be unifying when we get together and really do an Apollo new energy project and save the oceans for what they were designed for, which is life on this planet.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, when the Saudi Arabians tell you you have a problem in your oil speculation market, you've got a problem in your oil speculation market. Now, some people have argued that a 100 percent increase in the amount of financial speculation in these markets is necessary to liquidity of the markets. Hogwash. We need more liquidity in these markets the way Iowans need more liquidity in the rivers right now. We are drowning in liquidity. There has been over 100 percent increase of this speculation going into these markets, and we have now had clear, cogent and convincing testimony this is one of the reasons for 100 percent increase in prices of oil in the last year. We have seen this movie before. It was called Enron. And my constituents saw their electrical bills go up 1,000 percent. Now, they're seeing their oil go up double per barrel in one year in this bad movie. Pass this bill.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Have we forgotten what our ancestors have done in the cause of liberty? Don't we realize there are some lines we can never cross? Don't we realize we should never legitimize illegal violations of America's privacy rights, which this bill does? This bill says if the telecommunication companies violated America's privacy willfully, knowingly, knowing it was illegal, we are giving them immunity. Where is the excuse for that? Where is the excuse for turning a Nation of laws into a Nation that will be led by a President who knows how to manipulate our fears? We have got to know the law is our ultimate guardian of liberty, and those on this side have accused us of having a pre-9/11 mentality. Let me remind them that July 4, 1776, was pre-9/11. And heaven help us the day that those values are shucked aside at the service of fear. Reject this bill.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we come to the floor this evening to discuss this good news that we read yesterday for our warfighters doing great jobs for the U.S. Air Force and for the taxpayers who are providing the equipment for the Air Force and for a lot of working families in the United States. And that was the decision by the General Accountability Office to essentially allow the protests against the previous proposed decision by the United States Air Force to send a contract for the construction of 80 tankers which refuel our Air Force planes essentially overseas to a combination that is largely European by the Airbus Company. And we are extremely gratified and vindicated that the General Accountability Office has found that in seven very fundamental ways, the decision by the Air Force to send this American tanker using American taxpayer dollars for American warriors essentially overseas, and they have found that this was a decision that violated some general principles of procurement in issuing contracts using taxpayer dollars. In a very forceful and powerful and unambiguous decision, the General Accountability Office, we call it the GAO up here, concluded that this purported decision to send this contract away was a bad decision, bottom line. And this decision must be reviewed and we hope ultimately reversed. So we've come to the floor tonight to talk about why that decision was appropriate, why it is welcome, and why we hope the Air Force will move forward working with the bidders on this contract to really reach a decision that's going to be in the best interest of the country as a whole, including our warfighters and our taxpayers and our working families. And just if I can by way just as a matter of background, this is a contract for eventually 179 what are called KC-X aircraft. The first tranche would be 80 aircraft. These are the tankers that refuel our airplanes, and they are obviously the backbone of our Air Force. Without tankers, we don't have an Air Force. This is perhaps the most critical of the one type of airplane we have because this type of airplane has to be right for the job, competent, survivable, cost- effective, or we don't have an Air Force that requires this refueling capacity. Now, the contractor that we'll talk about tonight, the Boeing Company, has been essentially the exclusive suppliers of these tankers for the United States Air Force for five decades and with incredible success. The KC-135 has been an enormously successful airplane, and the Boeing family of workers that have provided it have been proud to provide that background. And they were, of course, a bidder to provide the Boeing 767 as the platform, a very well-respected workhorse airplane that is converted for tanker purposes. And this bid was originally rejected by the Air Force and given to a consortium involving Airbus, and it is that decision that the GAO has found was illegal essentially and violated procurement policies. Now, the GAO, they're sort of a neutral referee, if you will. They don't have any dog in this fight. They reviewed this decision with intimate care and concluded in seven ways, which we will talk about tonight, this decision was grievously flawed and has to be revisited. So we felt vindicated by that decision because we had been arguing on this floor for a couple months now that that decision was grievously wrong. I'm joined tonight by at least two Members, Phil Hare of Illinois and Nancy Boyda of Kansas. And I would like to start by yielding to Phil Hare of Illinois about his observations about how we need to restore this American plane to an American manufacturer to take care of American warfighters.

Mr. INSLEE. Will the gentleman yield for a moment?

Mr. INSLEE. I think you seized on a very important point. This was not a decision by the GAO that they're just going to change this decision because they decided to favor American jobs. Now, we think that's a really important point, but the really fundamental aspects of GAO is they concluded the rules were violated in making the decision of what the best airplane for the money was. They did not take into consideration American jobs. We essentially--the Boeing family sort of won this on the merits of the airplane without any sort of special consideration that we were the hometown team, and I think that's a really important point, and I appreciate you making that.

Mr. INSLEE. I appreciate the comments. Again, the GAO decision was not based on job creation or job loss, but we, of course, think that's an important value. And this isn't just those of us who are from the Boeing kind of country who feel this. A study by the Economic Policy Institute studied the proposals of Boeing in the competing European Airbus and concluded that the Boeing project would create twice as many jobs, 14,000 more jobs in this country than the other. Now, we've seen a lot of these fancy ads by the Airbus contractors suggesting that it's an American airplane. But you can't have an airplane take off to Luce, France, as wonderful as that country is, land it here and slap an American decal on it and make it an American airplane. And the EPI study, I think, is the most dispositive in showing that 14,000 additional jobs were at stake in this decision. But again, Boeing wanted to win this on the merits on what's the best airplane. And that's what's so impressive about the GAO study that for seven, not just one sort of technical violation, not two technical violations, they concluded that this decision violated this sort of seven deadly sins of procurement policy. And every single one of them went against Boeing contrary to the law. So this was a very powerful decision. I was going to use the word ``slam dunk,'' but I'm not sure that's a legal term of art. But that's what it was. This was not some sort of just minor technical decision. I would like to now yield to Nancy Boyda of Kansas who I appreciate joining us this evening.

Mr. INSLEE. You used the word ``strong,'' and I think that's very important here, because the Boeing airplane, the Boeing 767 was found by the Air Force's own evaluation to have five times as many survivability discriminators as the Airbus plane. Now, that's a fancy term to mean it had five times as many characteristics that would allow the plane and its pilots and its crew to survive and complete its mission. It is a stronger airplane from the sense of survivability. You used that term, and I just want to use a quote by former United States Air Force Chief of Staff and Retired General Ronald Fogelman who stressed survivability as an asset of the Boeing plane. He said, ``When I saw the Air Force's assessment of both candidate aircraft in the survivability area, I was struck by the fact that they clearly saw the KC-767 as a more survivable tanker.'' This was a statement to the ARSAG in his role that he was serving in as a consultant of Boeing. He said, ``To be survivable, tanker aircraft must contain systems to identify and defeat threats, provide improved situational awareness to the aircrew to avoid threat areas, and protect the crew in event of attack. The KC-767 has a superior survivability rating and will have greater operational utility to the joint commander and provide better protection to aircrews that must face real-world threats.'' Now, this just isn't Boeing talk. This is the Air Force's own conclusions that the ``discriminators''--it's a fancy word used in this business--that Boeing included more robust surface-to-air missile defense systems, cockpit displays that improve situational awareness, better electromagnetic pulse hardening, automatic route planning and rerouting, better armor protection features for the flight crew and critical aircraft systems, and better fuel tank explosion protection features. The Boeing 767, according to the Air Force's own evaluation, concluded that Mrs. Boyda's comment that this is a stronger airplane is correct.

Mr. INSLEE. Maybe the question is why not the best, and in this case, the Air Force's own conclusion is the strongest, most survivable airplane essentially is the Boeing 767. So I appreciate this comment about strength from Kansas. Now, I want to turn to my friend Earl Blumenauer from Oregon who's been a leader on a number of high-tech issues. I don't know if Mr. Blumenauer wants to address the fuel efficiency issues or other matters, but I'd appreciate his comments.

Mr. INSLEE. I really appreciate again reiterating that we want this decision to be made on the merits, and one of those merits I want to point out just that I find incredible about this decision--and that's why I'm so happy about the GAO decision--is the recognition that the Air Force totally failed to consider accurately the lifecycle costs of these two proposals. Now, obviously there's the up-front costs, but to the taxpayer, it's the lifecycle cost or the whole cost of maintaining and operating and parking the airplane that you really have to look at. And according to the GAO and the United States Air Force, they made a mistake in evaluating what the lifecycle costs were. Just reading from a Reuters article June 12--it was a few days later confirmed by GAO--the U.S. Air Force has conceded that Boeing Company's proposed KC-767 refueling tanker would cost less over time than what was then the winning plane by Airbus. And this is what the taxpayer has at stake in this thing, and this comes--we need to get down in the weeds a little bit--by the failure to take into consideration several things accurately. Number one, the Boeing airplane uses 24 percent less fuel. It's 24 percent more efficient. So you save, it's about somewhere between--I'm looking for my number here--according to a pretty good study, over the 40-year operational life, the Boeing plane would save $30 billion in projected fuel costs, $30 billion. I'd like to yield to Mr. Blumenauer for a comment.

Mr. INSLEE. And by the way, there seems to be no doubt, these statistics we're giving are essentially inarguable. Airbus is not contesting the fact that the Boeing airplane is 24 percent more fuel. This is just fact. The GAO find that this is, I believe, one of the reasons of life cycle cost. And by the way, it's just not fuel. Because the Airbus plane is so gargantuan, it's going to cost taxpayers an additional $2 billion in military construction to rebuild the hangers to hang them in and places to park the things. It will also cost $13 billion in additional manpower over the life cycle. So there are numerous reasons why the Boeing plane is a better deal for the taxpayers.

Mr. INSLEE. Well, I appreciate that. And just so people know who may be listening to this--and maybe even a couple of our colleagues, you never know, it's a slow night--I'll just read finding number six by the GAO. And they said, ``The Air Force's evaluation of military construction costs in calculating the offerer's most probable life cycle cost for their proposed aircraft was unreasonable. When the agency, during the protest, conceded that it made a number of errors in evaluation that, when corrected, resulted in Boeing displacing Northrop Grumman as the offerer with the lowest, most probable life cycle cost, the GAO concluded, and ultimately after they fixed their mistakes, concluded that the Boeing airplane is a better deal for the American taxpayer.'' Now, to me, if you've got a stronger airplane and a better deal for the American taxpayer, and peripherally, but not unimportantly, 14,000, at least, more jobs in America, this ought to be a slam-dunk decision. We hope that it will be, ultimately. I will yield to Mrs. Boyda.

Mr. INSLEE. And just to back up what Mrs. Boyda said, she's not just whistling Dixie--or Kansas in this case--she has backed up what the GAO said. They said specifically, in finding number four of seven deadly sins, they said, ``The Air Force conducted misleading and unequal discussions with Boeing by informing Boeing that it had fully satisfied a key performance parameter objective relating to operational utility, but later determined that Boeing had only partially met this objective. And then there's a bunch of other language that's pretty technical. But what happened here is, for some reason that I don't know for sure--I have some suspicions of what happened here, and that doesn't really matter--but for some reason the Air Force decided bigger was better. And they went and in their original decision opted for a bigger airplane and violated, in several different ways, the procurement rules in order to reach that conclusion. Now, we've said that the Air Force has already recognized that their life cycle cost decisions were in error. But we really hope in this rebidding that they will not be persuaded that bigger is always better. And what we have found, and some of the things we've talked about tonight, why bigger is not better, it's actually worse in this particular case because when you build a plane that's that much bigger, that exceeds your real requirements, you end up spending a quarter more fuel and you end up spending $2 billion on construction costs. And here's something that I think is important. The Airbus airplane can only use half as many airfields around the world as the Boeing 767. Now, you think of all the places we can end up in a military conflict around the world and all the relatively little airports that we may want to get involved in, I mean, who knew we were going to be flying from airports in Iraq 20 years ago when we made some procurement decisions? We have to be ready to fly these airplanes anywhere in the world. Yet the Airbus decision, if you buy this larger airplane, it can only use--I think it's either 200 or 400 airports that the Boeing plane can use that the Airbus plane cannot. I think that's really important, and one of the disadvantages of size. Plus, if you look at the requirements, the Boeing airplane fulfills the requirements that they asked for on how much capacity they had to have for refueling, Boeing met it. So that's one of the things that Mrs. Boyda was alluding to that GAO said, just because you do more than the requirement, it doesn't do you any good. Why give extra bonus points to something that just costs more money and eliminates half the airports in the world where you can land? That doesn't make sense. And I think that was one of the reasons that GAO decided. And I yield to Mrs. Boyda.

Mr. INSLEE. And as a result of this decision that has now been reversed, thankfully--at least by the GAO, they're calling for a reversal--what really happened is that the original decision, the Air Force decided to buy excess capacity that was not needed and gave up a capacity that was needed, which was refueling all our types of aircraft. And the GAO concluded--this isn't just Boeing talking, it's the GAO concluded--that the Airbus cannot refuel some of the airplanes we have in stock right now. So you sort of paid more money for more life cycle cost for the Airbus airplane, you bought capacity you did not need, and you gave up the one thing you do need, which is to be able to refuel every kind of airplane. What are we supposed to tell the pilots of the Tilt-Rotor aircraft; sorry, you don't get to fuel? We've made a procurement decision that, you know, you'll just have to take the long way around? It was a serious, serious misjudgment because they concluded, for reasons that escape me, frankly, why bigger is better. And I think that's really the fundamental decision that was made in that regard. I would like to, if I can, talk about something else that is important that was not in the GAO decision that I do think bears on this, and I think we, as Members of Congress, have a responsibility to look at, and that is this issue of whether or not it should be Federal policy to reward countries and companies that are violating international law on our trade agreements. Right now, the United States Government has concluded that the Airbus company has been the recipient of billions of dollars of illegal subsidies, illegal subsidies from the governments in Europe, and has concluded with such force that the United States Government, the U.S. Trade Representative, has filed a claim, a lawsuit of sorts, against Airbus because of these illegal subsidies. So the United States Government has determined that this contractor has received illegal subsidies violative of international and consequentially United States law. But then what did the other agency of the U.S. government turn around and do--or tried to do before the GAO blew the whistle? They turned around and tried to give a $40 billion contract to the very company that's violating the trade laws. Now, how does that make us look in international law if we're suing them, saying there's illegal subsidies, and we turn around and give them a $40 billion contract while taking away 14,000 jobs here away from a very well known and successful contractor, the Boeing company? It's ludicrous. Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing here. This is an issue that the GAO did not review and the Air Force did not review because some people in the Senate did not allow them to do that--that's a whole other story how that happened--but it seems to me that we, as Members of Congress, should stand for the enforcement of these trade laws and not reward companies and contractors who we ourselves have concluded violated the law. And I think that's an obligation on us. It's beyond the obligation of the GAO. That wasn't their job, but I think it is our job.

Mr. INSLEE. Yes.

Mr. INSLEE. Half the airports in the world.

Mr. INSLEE. And in making these arguments, I don't think any of us are apologetic for the fact that our constituents and families have been very active in the Boeing Company. My uncles and cousins, I remember my best friend growing up in south Seattle, his dad had the job of breaking Boeing airplanes. And his job was to try to figure out what you had to do to break a Boeing airplane. And when you were a kid growing up, to think that your job was to get to blow up things was pretty fun.

Mr. INSLEE. One of his coolest jobs was they would take a Boeing 727 and put a jack underneath it, and jack that wing up and see how far they could jack that wing up before it failed. And when they failed, they would literally explode because of the tension. And those things get up almost 35, 45 degrees. They have incredible flexibility as well as strength. So I grew up with Boeing as part of my blood and family, in the interest of full disclosure. But I think the arguments we're making here tonight go well beyond our sort of familial and constituent interests and duties because I think what we're portraying is a decision that it was so far out of kilter that you had the GAO now blowing the whistle on it, and the GAO is like the referee. They had an instant replay. They had it right on videotape. And they concluded this was a decision that was way, way out of bounds. And we are now hopeful that the Air Force will fully and fairly re-evaluate this. And I think that they will conclude in something that all of us Members conclude, I think tonight. And I was counting on what Mr. Hare said, five inarguable truths about this contract. I just want to list them, that nobody can argue, everybody would agree, even our Air Force colleagues would have to admit this. Number one, the Air Force's own conclusions showed that there were more survivable discriminators to show the survivability to the Boeing airplane helping the warfighter survive and do their jobs; Number two, the life cycle costs, when you include all the costs for maintenance and reconstruction of the hangars and everything, are less expensive in the Boeing airplane than the Airbus airplane; third, that the fuel life cycle costs are going to be less for the Boeing airplane than the Airbus airplane, in the billions of dollars; and fourth, and this wasn't in the GAO report but we know it to be true, if we go with the Airbus product here, we're going to be spending $40 plus billion of American taxpayer dollars rewarding a company that our own Federal Government has concluded is guilty of very serious violations of Federal trade rules in the billions of dollars; and fifth, and one that is maybe closest to our hearts at the moment, the Boeing airplane will have at least, and probably more than this, 14,000 families more employed doing high quality work than the competitor. So the GAO said there were seven major errors, which is extraordinary by the way, not just one, seven major fundamental errors. We will say tonight that there were five strikes and you're out, those are the five strikes that all of us can agree on I think. So we're hopeful that the GAO is heeded, if it is not by the Air Force, we will be doing our job here in Congress, and we will be finding the right avenue in the appropriations process to not allow this decision to stand to make sure that the right decision is made.

Mr. INSLEE. I appreciate your contributions on this and so many other things. And I want to say that this, I think, has opened many Members of Congress' eyes to the procurement policy. There are some issues we have to think about in general going forward of our procurement policy. But this is one we have to get fixed to start with before we act holistically. I would like to yield to Mr. Hare for closing comments.

Mr. INSLEE. And thank you Mr. Hare. Our thoughts are with your flooded constituents in Illinois. We are thinking about them tonight. Just a closing comment, where this goes from now, the Air Force is required within 60 days to respond to this protest. They will have 60 days within which to plan their next action in this regard. We know what we would like them to do. Following that, if decisions are not made as they should be, Congress can act in a variety of ways to make sure that this decision is right. And we stand ready, willing and able to do so. And the longer this goes on, the more our colleagues frankly understand that something was not right in this decision and needs to be reversed. So as time goes on I think we will get closer. Let me also say in criticizing the decision by the U.S. Air Force, I hope it goes without saying, we have undying respect for the people who serve in the United States Air Force. These are decisions that are hard fought, a lot of technical issues. A decision was not made here according to Hoyle. But do you know what? We have a process of fixing these things. And at the end of the day, the U.S. Air Force is going to be something we always admire. And we are going to get them the right airplane for the job. We know what that is, and we are going to get that job done for them.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. You bet. And any time an optimist is talking at 11 o'clock at night about America's great energy future--and I think we do have a very great energy future before us, and I appreciate you sharing that sense of optimism. And I'm optimistic because it is my belief that America has the same right stuff we had in the 1960s when Kennedy sent us to the moon and that same right stuff, that same intellectual fever, that same sense of a can-do spirit, that same innovative spirit is really available to us if we, in this building, will simply unshackle that creative power of America to solve our energy woes. And the reason I came over here tonight is that I am very concerned that some folks are promoting an alleged plan that won't solve our problems but will short-sell the Americans' spirit of being really able to solve this problem through technological gains. I heard some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle today proposing what they call an energy plan which is to simply drill more holes in the ground. And I would suggest very strongly that that is a plan doomed for total and abject failure, which is something at $4 a gallon of gas and a war in the Middle East and global warming nipping on our heels we can't run the risk of failure. And I'm just going to suggest what has been proposed is too little, too late, and too timid. And the first two are obvious why they're too little and too late. We know that it's too little simply to drill a few more holes in the ground in the United States because we don't have the oil. Even if we drill in Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park, and the Capitol Mall, we could drill in the south lawn of the White House, but we don't have the oil that can make any significant difference in the price of oil. Oil is a fungible product that is sold on a worldwide market, and every single expert that has testified--and we're not talking Democrats or Republicans; we're talking to people who know the oil industry--and every single expert that we have talked to has told us even in the long term, because our dinosaurs somehow died under the Saudi Arabia soil, we don't have the oil to make a difference in the price. Simple economic fact. The simple fact is we use 25 percent of the world's oil. The experts have told us, even if you drill in the south lawn of the White House, we've only got 3 to 3.2 percent of the world's oil supply. Because oil trades on a worldwide market, we can maximize and we won't be able to change the worldwide price of oil more than a couple of cents. And I want to make sure people understand this. There's a bunch of hooey coming from across the other side of the aisle that you're going to get $2 a gallon of gasoline if we drill on the south lawn of the White House. It's a bunch of hooey. Every single expert who has testified in the United States Congress for the last 2 years has told us that if you maximize drilling, if you ignore all of any environmental concerns we have, you will not change the price of oil more than a couple of pennies because it simply isn't enough to make a difference. The oil under Saudi Arabia is many, many, many fold the oil that we have no matter where we drill. So telling Americans that we are going to be able to affect the price of oil by expanding drilling in the United States is simple flimflam, and it reminds me of that great movie with George W. Scott called ``The Flim-Flam Man.'' He said he identified himself as a master of back stabbing, cork screwing and dirty dealing. And I think, frankly, it is a flimflam to tell people that it's going to solve it. It's too little. But it's too late because we shouldn't wait till 2030. The first oil that would flow from these new holes in the ground wouldn't flow until 2030. It is too late. It is too late for the Americans. And it's too timid. Now, I believe Mr. Blumenauer talked about this a little bit, but we have really one significant thing we can do in the short-term, and that is to end this rampant speculation that the experts are telling us is driving up the price that is not a function of supply and demand. It's hard to explain these increases any other way but rampant speculation. And tomorrow, I'll be joining Representative Bart Stupak, who's doing great work leading the House to a bill that will finally close the loopholes that have allowed these speculators to act in a nontransparent, sort of dark hole, of energy--of oil trading. And you know, they operate--and the one thing that was entirely appropriately named--It's called the Enron loophole. Man, that was the right name for that loophole, where these traders can do swaps, and we don't know about it. So we need to close these loopholes. That can have a short-term impact this year where we don't have to wait 20 years for a resolution. So it's too little, too late. But I just want to really focus on the part about being too timid. We need a bold, courageous, over-the-horizon, visionary energy plan that's fitting of the talents of the American people. Drilling holes in the ground is 140-year technology. It is old, mature technology. We do it quite well, and we've done it for a long time. Now is the time to turn the page and add to our portfolio of energy sources a whole new suite of technological sources that can power our cars and our homes, and I want to mention two of them. Okay? In the last 2 weeks, I've met with two people. One is a guy named Felix Cramer, who's a guy who essentially helped invent the plug-in hybrid car. You plug it in, you run it for 40-plus miles on electricity, and if you want to drive more, you use gasoline or ethanol. These are technologies that we need to strive on. And next week, I meet some folks at the A123 battery company in Boston. These are the folks who are making the lithium ion batteries that will be able to drive your car ultimately 100 miles and 40 miles now without a charge. We don't have to shackle ourselves to oil for the next 100 years. We've got to break our addiction to oil. We have the capacity to do this, but if we're timid, if we're pessimistic, if we're shortsighted, we will simply do what we've done for 140 years, which is drill holes in the ground. And we have a policy, and I've introduced a bill called the New Apollo Energy Act which basically says that this country's going to go on a course of technological innovation, and this truly has the capability of breaking the chains of oil, and I know we're capable of doing that. So I appreciate Mr. Blumenauer starting this discussion.

Mr. INSLEE. Will the gentleman yield for a minute?

Mr. INSLEE. I always appreciate Mr. Blumenauer's question of isn't it kind of funny to watch people stuck in traffic, driving to the gym to ride the stationary bicycle, and I always kind of appreciate that irony. I want to point out in talking about this theme of why we need a bold energy plan rather than a timid one, I want to point out three e-mails I've got in the last 24 hours that I think depict the future that we optimists see rather than pessimists who just want to remain addicted to oil. One was an e-mail I got about 4 hours ago from the United States Climate Change Science Program. This is a program in the George Bush administration. They just released their report about what the United States is going to face due to global warming. We're not talking about Kenya or India. We're talking about the United States. And today at 1:30, they released their report. This is the official scientific assessment of the administration of George Bush. And they concluded, Among the major findings reported in this assessment are that droughts, heavy downpours, excessive heat, and intense hurricanes are likely to be become more commonplace as humans continue to increase the atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The report is based on scientific evidence that a warming world will be accompanied by changes in the intensity, duration, frequency, and geographic extent of weather and climate extremes. That is the Bush administration's own people recognizing that the science says that we are in some dire consequences. In talking to my friends here tonight, who have been stacking sandbags in Iowa, in the second 500-year flood in about 14 years, I think we can see something's happening. I'm not saying this flood is specifically caused by global warming, but what we do know is these kind of incidents are going to become more frequent over time. Now, what is the response from this side of the aisle from that scientific information? You know, this side of the aisle, they trust science. They believe in science because they use cell phones, which are based on quantum mechanics. And they fly on Boeing airplanes, which are based on advanced physics. But when it comes to the science of global warming, what is their response? Their response is, let's just drill more oil and use more oil and pollute more global warming gases. That is a nonstarter of a strategy that can save the planet from the problems that the George Bush administration scientific assessment this afternoon says we're in for. That is too timid. Now, the second e-mail I got, I got it about 35 minutes ago, it was from the Nano Solar Company in Palo Alto, California. The Nano Solar Company is a thin cell photovoltaic company. And thin cells are a new type of photovoltaic. It's a solar cell that creates electricity just from sunlight. And it's thin cell, where you just spray this material on a plastic coating and boom, you've got yourself a solar cell. It's much cheaper to make than a silicon-based photovoltaic cell. Today they announced that they were the first company in the world to have one gigawatt of manufacturing capacity for photovoltaics, which can dramatically decrease the cost of production of photovoltaics. Now, we have a vision on this side of the aisle to help those companies expand. And if they do, we're going to eventually be able to break this addiction to oil. And that company is part of a vision where we use solar power, wind power, enhanced geothermal power, potentially clean coal, potentially some other sources to produce electricity and run cars on electricity. That's a vision that's up to the innovative capability. But the answer from this side of the aisle is, no, no, don't help these new companies that are advancing these new technologies, just help the old companies that learned how to drill for oil 140 years ago in Pennsylvania. That is an old technology. It's a horse-and-buggy technology. It's worked really well. Gasoline is a great fuel, except for its global warming capacity. The third e-mail I want to mention; yesterday afternoon I received an e-mail from the Ausra Energy Company that announced that they are opening their first solar thermal plant--in California, I believe--in about 2 or 3 weeks. Now, solar thermal energy is where you use mirrors to concentrate the sun's light; you generate heat; you heat water or oil; and you generate steam power based electricity. It has a potential to be energy just as cheap as coal-fired electricity in the next decade. These people are for real. They have multiple million dollars of capital funding; they have now signed contracts in Florida and California to provide electricity for almost 400,000 homes. These are the breakthrough projects that we need to foster rather than going back to just the old technology. And my concern about what my friends across the aisle are proposing is that we are proposing to really chain ourselves to the past here while the rest of the world is moving ahead. You know, we're in a race right now. We were in a space race in the sixties, and we won because we had leadership from John F. Kennedy who said, let's beat the Russians, let's go to the moon in 10 years. Now we need some leadership from this building to say, let's beat the Germans in solar cell technology, let's beat the Danes in wind turbine technology. Let's be the company that gets the Nano Solars and the Ausras of the world to start selling products to China. And I'll tell you another place we can get gasoline from, from the Sapphire Energy Company. It's a company in Washington and California that just raised about $50 million. And they have an algae-based material that can make, not ethanol, not biodiesel, but gasoline, gasoline just like you put in your tank today. Now, there's a company that could use a step forward so that, instead of having to drill in these environmentally sensitive areas, we can produce our own fuel without competing with food crops. And that product can be mass produced probably sooner than we can get major league drilling going in offshore areas. Now, that is not a guarantee, it is not a guarantee. None of these new technologies are lead pipe cinches. But they have very good prospects of success, they have attracted very significant private capital, and we know that they have a chance to do what we need, domestically produce clean energy that doesn't destroy the planet through climate change. And so we have adopted a position of assisting these breakthrough technologies, allowing drilling to continue in the United States where it has been leased. And there are 68 million acres today of public land owned by the United States Federal Government that has been leased to the oil and gas companies where they are fully capable of drilling wells, and they have not done so. In fact, there has been a lot of talk about the Arctic. Five out of the six oil companies that are drilling oil in any major league way internationally have no interest in the Arctic because it's too expensive to get to. We haven't even talked about cost associated with these things. So we believe this country is ready for a bold new vision, and we're ready to tackle that. And that's why my new Apollo energy project, the Bart Stupak bill, that will bring these speculators into the bright light of regulation so they don't do to us what Enron did to Washington and Oregon and California, that's a vision for this country, and we're ready to rock and roll on it. We're looking forward to a new President so we can get on with that job. I yield to Mr. Blumenauer.

Mr. INSLEE. My only point is that I think it was May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy stood right there and said we're going to go to the moon. And what we heard today from some of my colleagues across the aisle is, let's just go to Cleveland, that will be enough. Just being addicted to oil is beneath the bold vision that Americans are asking for right now. And we really have only one hope of significantly reducing gas prices over the long term, and that is to develop sources that are an alternative to oil and gas. We need to no longer be slaves to the oil companies and addicted to the needle of the gas pump. We need to be the masters, where we decide whether we're going to use electricity in our cars or algae-based biofuels that a little algae particle produced, or a combination or those things, or public transportation, as you so radically suggested, or a bicycle, and maybe even walk on occasion, if our minds were into that. When we have these choices, Americans will be freed from this oil addiction. And until we have those choices, we will not. We stand for giving America those choices. The other side stands for continued addiction for the next several centuries. We'll let the people decide. Thanks for having this discussion.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased my friend, Mr. Boehner, made reference to the idea of ``promoting our resources,'' a quote from Daniel Webster. What is the single resource that America has, the only resource that America has that can really bring down the price of fuel and break our addiction to Middle Eastern oil? There is one secret resource that we can promote. And that is the resource of intellectual capital, creativity, and innovation. We know that just poking more holes in the ground cannot solve this problem. We have got 25 percent of the world's oil. We have 3 percent of the oil in our land. What can solve this problem is innovation, innovation like the A123 Battery Company in Boston that is going to allow us to drive electric cars, Phoenix Motorcars, Inc., that is going to have an electric car that will get 100 miles just on an electrical charge, the Sapphire Energy Company that has developed a gasoline from algae-based sources. We need to develop the resource of intellectual capital. The optimists on this side of the aisle are doing that. The pessimists on this side of the aisle want to remain addicted to gasoline. That is a path that is doomed to failure. Let's be optimists and solve this problem.