Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we come tonight again, the group that is styled the Iraq Watch, or a group of my colleagues and myself who are committed to continue to bring accountability to this administration's policies in Iraq, to fulfill Congress' oversight responsibility to not allow administration mistakes in Iraq to go unheeded and have no accountability for them; and we are here tonight, and I expect the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and others will join me in this discussion. We have been doing this now for several months; and tonight, as on many nights, I have great sadness walking over here to speak this evening. Just as I was leaving my apartment, I saw on the news that we have lost two more great American warriors in the service of their country in Iraq, and I do not know who these gallant Americans were. I do not know where they are from. I do not know what happened to end their lives in Iraq, but I do know this: those two proud and honorable Americans deserved a President of the United States who told the truth to the American people before he started this war that resulted in the tragedy of these two people losing their lives. I know that this Congress has a solemn obligation to hold this administration accountable if, in fact, it is true that this administration did not tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the American people before this war started; and tonight, if we seem a bit angry about this situation, it is because on our minds and on our hearts are the death of these two American soldiers and those who have gone before and those who will come after. Our duty, as we see it tonight, is to discuss the manifold failure of this administration to, one, tell the truth in Iraq; and, two, to pursue a policy that would reduce the danger to our service personnel serving in Iraq, and our discussion will proceed on those lines. Now, let me start, if I can, on this fundamental question: Did the President of the United States of America fully level with the American people before he started this war? That is the question. If the answer is no, we think that is one of the greatest assaults to democracy that could possibly happen. There are many things that can go wrong in a democracy, but I would assert that the most serious affront to democratic principles of a representative government is for the elected leadership to start a war based on false information. Nothing, nothing can be a more serious breach of the solemn obligations when one takes the oath of office than to start a war based on falsehood, and we are here tonight to answer the question of whether or not that occurred. So let me start at the beginning of the Iraq war. The President of the United States asserted that America should start this war in Iraq based on two fundamental pillars, and his entire rationale for this war was based on these two pillars. He was successful in convincing a large majority of the American people that those two pillars were both factual, and those two pillars were these two: Number one, the President asserted that Iraq possessed wholesale amounts of weapons of mass destruction which presented a threat to the United States of America and our personal and our family's security. He told the American people that time after time after time. This statement was false. This fundamental pillar of this war was false. This President told us and stood right behind me and told the American people that we had information, the British had information that, in fact, Iraq had obtained yellow cake to extract uranium from it to build a nuclear weapon. That statement was false; and most importantly, the White House knew it was false. The White House had been told it was false. The White House had sent an emissary to Africa to check the accuracy of this statement, and Ambassador Joe Wilson who served proudly, who the first President Bush described as a hero during the first Persian Gulf War, came back and told the White House this statement was false. Two soldiers died today in Iraq based on a falsehood that was given to the American people that the White House knew was false. This pillar did not stand. The President of the United States told us that Iraq had drones that could fly across the Atlantic, apparently, and spray Americans with biological and chemical weapons, and this scared the living pants off people in America who heard this, as it should have, and as the White House knew that it would. Unfortunately, now that reports are peeled away, we have found out that even our own Air Force told the White House this statement was false; that they were kind of balsam wood things meant to take pictures of troop movements and the like. So the first pillar upon which the President of the United States sent soldiers to their death was false. So let us examine the second pillar, if I can, for a moment, and then I will yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt). The second pillar upon which the President's scaffolding of falsehood was built was a clear assertion that led to a significant majority, seven out of 10 Americans, to believe that Iraq was associated, was behind the attack on this country of September 11, and the President was successful, again, in creating this impression. He was successful in convincing seven out of 10 Americans that Saddam Hussein was behind these heinous, vile, indeed evil, attacks on America of 9/11. But it was not true. It was not true. Now, we know it was not true because a bipartisan commission has come back and stated categorically there is no credible evidence; and I want to read the quote to make sure I get it right: ``We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.'' Yet, seven out of 10 Americans were convinced by this White House that Saddam Hussein was behind these attacks on America. Where did Americans get that misimpression? Did they get it from Dan Rather? Did they get it from the New York Times? Did they get it from the Shopping Channel? No. They got it from the President of the United States, who led these people to believe that Iraq was behind this attack and that these folks were in an alliance with Iraq who attacked us. Let us look at what the President said. The President is saying, well, no, I did not really mean to say that. Golly gee, I did not mean to suggest or lead anybody to believe that Saddam was evil enough to have attacked us actually or that he was an ally. I just sort of suggested they talked to one another at some period of time. Well, look at what the President said in fact. In fact, the President, while he was on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, declaring the mission accomplished, several hundred dead Americans ago, he said the defeated Hussein was ``an ally of al Qaeda.'' An ally of al Qaeda. Is the President now to have us believe that he said that Saddam was an ally of al Qaeda, but he did not mean to suggest they actually helped each other? Is that what he expects us to believe? That is very difficult to swallow. The Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that al Qaeda was operating inside of Iraq, inside of Iraq. It turns out we find out ``inside of Iraq'' means they were in the Kurdish-controlled area that was inside our no fly zone. Now, are we supposed to know that?

Mr. INSLEE. Well, yes. In fact, we have spent millions of dollars of taxpayers' money looking for that, but they apparently do not exist. Now, let me suggest one thing that the President of the United States could have done to help his fellow Americans when we made a decision whether or not to go to war. He could have leveled with the American people. He could have told the American people that to the best of our knowledge there is no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the heinous, evil attack on America of September 11. He has talked to the American people probably six times a day for the last 2 years, and this President has never said that. This is wrong. We intend to maintain accountability for this administration. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for joining me tonight for the Iraq Watch, which will continue on other nights.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, my point I want to make is this does not stop DOD in their tracks from at least thinking about this issue. They will be allowed to consider this issue, but they will not be able to actually pull the trigger to waive these collective bargaining rights, to waive these appeal rights, to waive these due process rights. Third: One friend on the other side of the aisle suggested that this amendment is a bad idea, because now we are in the age of faxes and computers and this is a new day and age, so we should give unfettered discretion to the Department of Defense to have a new personnel system without statutory rules. Well, we can use faxes and computers and e-mail and answering machines, but we need to have a system of law to govern what due process rights the Congress has a role in deciding. These are rights that belong to individuals that are held very dearly by our employees, and we can use computers and faxes, but we need to do in a method that is rules-based. We got into a little trouble, we got into a little trouble when the Department of Defense decided they could sort of ignore this rules- based Geneva treaty system, because they thought they should just have unilateral discretion in deciding how to handle some of these issues. That was kind of a sort of suggestion that we need rules. Now, I am not suggesting our employees are going to be tortured, thank goodness that is not going to be the case, but we do need a rules-based employment system, and we cannot allow unilateral decision making by the Department of Defense. The fourth issue I want to make, this is not going to stop reform. We need to work on it in Congress. I think we have seen the whites of the eyes that this has been a very, very controversial issue that has inflamed the 700,000 people that we need to build morale on.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment addresses the clear American values of making sure that the 700,000 men and women who are so ably performing their duties today as part of our war against terrorism as civilian employees at the Department of Defense retain their American rights of collective bargaining, their American rights of due process, their American rights of an appeal if they have been abused on the job, their American rights to be treated based on merit in the performance of their jobs rather than on politics and patronage. Our amendment, quite simply, assures that no money will be spent in this bill to deprive them of those statutorily guaranteed rights that we have built up on a bipartisan basis over the last several decades. This will assure that that scaffolding that provides those 700,000 Americans with that protection will not be stripped away. Why is this important? This issue became paramount to me when I welcomed the USS Vincent back from the Afghan theater. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) and I helicoptered out to it, it was quite an experience as she came back in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and we talked to the sailors on board. The sailors told us they had launched and recovered I think over 10,000 sorties and had not lost a pilot, and that the reason they had done that had been because of the exquisitely professional performance of a lot of people who are of those 700,000 civilian employees of the Department of Defense, and particularly those of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. The sailors, the people who were out in harm's way within firing range, told me not to forget the people who were on the defense team in the civilian sector of the Department of Defense. Unfortunately, unless this amendment passes, those 700,000 patriots stand in the fire line of losing their collective bargaining rights, losing their right to an appeal, losing their right to due process and losing their right to have their performance judged on their merit. This happened because, unfortunately, during our rush to get the defense authorization bill through, there was a provision in good faith that was inserted that gave largely unfettered discretion to the Department of Defense to go forth and create a new personnel system. We are always open to reform and new ideas, but, unfortunately, what has transpired at the first cut by the Department of Defense, they have proposed plans that would essentially gut the real basic, fundamental right to collective bargaining in our system, a collective bargaining system that actually has been successful in maintaining the morale of these 700,000 patriots who are instrumental in our defense efforts today. What we have seen are proposals to essentially gut that by allowing the Department of Defense to unilaterally sort of jam down the throats of those 700,000 people whatever they decide to do without collaboration and without collective bargaining. That would be a mistake. It would be a mistake in not recognizing the American value of collective bargaining, and it would be a mistake to damage the morale of this workforce, and we are urging my colleagues not to allow that. Secondly, we do not want to allow what I consider to be a real civil right, and that is a right that when you are on the job working for the DOD, if you are going to be sanctioned, if you are going to be fired, if you are going to be sent down to the bilge as punishment, you ought to have some basic due process rights. You ought to have it in writing what you did wrong, you ought to have a right to a written decision on your appeal, even you ought to have a right to have an appeal, if I dare say, where you have a lawyer present when your job is on the line. Those civil rights are in jeopardy if we do not pass this amendment, and the 700,000 people who care about that know those rights are in jeopardy. We have already developed a very successful appeals system to handle this issue. Why should we go forth and create a whole new system to be a duplication of our existing system? It is not necessary. I would like to answer four kind of suggestions why this amendment is necessary. Some of my colleagues have suggested this is not a good idea. They have had four critiques. I would like to answer those during this debate. First, it has been suggested that the 700,000 employees that are going to be protected by my amendment do not want to be protected by my amendment. Not a well-put argument, when virtually every union that is elected by these employees wholeheartedly supports my amendment, the Association of Government Employees, the Federation of Teachers. By the way, teachers, it was said they are sort of un-American, they cannot form a union unless my amendment passes. That does not make any sense at all. Teachers ought to be able to form unions. So the employees think this is a good idea. Second, this will allow consideration of alternatives; it simply will not allow the pulling of the trigger. DOD will be able to aim, they will be able to load up, but they will not be able to pull the trigger on this until we look at this issue.

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

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I will give the gentleman a nonanswer answer. The nonanswer is we could pose another question, which is why did the first President Bush not go in and eliminate Saddam Hussein when he had that information as well? And that is an interesting historical issue, but it is one that is not pertinent to why I came here tonight, and I would like to address that issue. I think the issue is that Congress has a responsibility to fulfill now, which is to hold the administration accountable if, in fact, it created a false impression in the American people. And this is an interesting academic issue, whether it was contacts or collaboration or something more, but the bottom line is the President enjoyed some popular support for this war based on two pillars: the first pillar being his assertion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and that has now by and large been shown to be a falsehood; and the second pillar was that Saddam Hussein was responsible for killing over 2,000 Americans on September 11. And that was the impression that this President created. In fact, in a poll taken in September, 2003, 69 percent of Americans said they believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks. Here is the question I have, and then I will answer it: Where did 69 percent of the American people get the impression that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks of September 11? Did they get it from just reading The New York Times? I do not think so. Did they get it just watching Dan Rather? I do not think so. Did they get it from reading the penny press at home? I do not think so. They got it from President George Bush, who did everything possible to create the impression that Iraq was associated with the attack, an ally, in the attack of September 11. Why do I say that? Because that is the language President Bush used. On May 1, 2003, he said: ``The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding.'' The interesting thing that I challenge anyone to show me, the September 11 Commission reached what appears to me to be a factual conclusion. It appears to me to be the most rational conclusion I think we can make on the evidence we have. They said: ``We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.'' That is what they said. I believe that is most likely to be true. When did President George Bush ever say we have no credible evidence that al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States? When the President of the United States was urging another war, a preemptive attack on another country, without significant international assistance, and when he would believe that if a misimpression was created by the American public, it could lead to the wrong conclusion, did this President come forward and say the truth, which was there may have been some contacts, some discussions, between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's agents, they were way back in 1994, there was no active collaboration that took place, but I want to make sure the American people understand this one central tenet, because I want to make sure there is no confusion here: As far as we know, Saddam Hussein was not behind the attacks on September 11, and I do not want anybody starting a war based on this false impression. Did the President of the United States ever level with the American people and say that? No, he did not. This was an impression that he knew he was creating. If the Members would go see the movie the ``Flim- Flam Man,'' starring George C. Scott, it was about a great guy who understood how to create impressions to get people to take action. And there was an impression created that Iraq was responsible for the deaths of over 2,000 Americans. And it is most unfortunate. The reason we have come here tonight is to talk about the fact that it is unhealthy for a democracy, for a President to create false impressions that end in war, and this President created two massive false impressions. One that this demonic monster, Saddam Hussein, who we all agree on a bipartisan basis is a demonic monster, had weapons of mass destruction and that we were threatened with a mushroom cloud; and the second, he allowed 69 percent of the Americans to believe that Saddam was the one who attacked us, and that is an undemocratic action, and it is wrong, and he ought to be held accountable for it.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment. I want to pose a important question to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) if he could help us out. My comment is on the difference between connection and action and collaboration. I do not think there is any question that there had been some communication between al-Qaeda and some Iraqi officials. I think we all agree on that, and have for a long period of time. The September 11 Commission reported that back in 1994, bin Laden had essentially asked for help from Iraq but Iraq said no deal. We are not going to help you. And from that, the September 11 Commission concluded, a bipartisan commission concluded there had been no collaboration and there had been no active work between the two. In fact, the two highest bin Laden associates we have in custody have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al-Qaeda and Iraq. I think an accurate picture that has been stated is that there were some contacts and that bin Laden had asked for help and Iraq had refused to give him help. And yet the President started this war. Now, the question I have is what was the President trying to do in this conversation with the American people? It appears to me that he was trying to create an impression in the American people that Iraq was behind the attack of September 11. Let me give you just one quote that fits into that impression. On September 14, 2003, Vice President Cheney said ``If we are successful in Iraq, then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.'' That is just one of hundreds of statements made by this administration that to me was responsible for creating an impression in at least 69 percent of the American people that Iraq was behind it and that this was pay-back time. In fact, I remember seeing a tank as it entered Baghdad with it was lettered on the side ``pay back time.'' And I can understand why soldiers felt that way if the President of the United States was creating an impression that Iraq was responsible for September 11. It was not an impression that led this country to war that bin Laden had asked for help, but Iraq had said no, that is not the salient feature that led to this war. What led to this war was the President succeeding in creating an impression in America that Iraq was behind this venous and evil attack against us on September 11. So the question to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) if I can ask him, just kind of two questions, does he share my view that probably a majority of Americans had the impression as the result of its Federal Government's dissemination of information, the administration, that Iraq was behind in some fashion, or associated with the attack on September 11? And if that is true, does he think the President of the United States did enough to be candid with the American people to tell the American people that no, we do not have any evidence of collaboration resulting in the attack of September 11. Sincere question.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate my friend from Arizona's impassioned interest in trying to improve the performance of our fuel reduction program to reduce the fuel loading on our forests. But the question I have is, where were the Republicans an hour ago when we wanted to add money to the account on the Hooley amendment that would have added millions of dollars to get this job done and they defeated this amendment? The reason this job is not getting done is very simple. You have refused to appropriate the necessary money to get the job done. And instead of appropriating the dollars, you want to appropriate rhetoric attacking science. Where were you an hour ago when we tried to put more money in this account?

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the facts as I know them is that the Republican Party is in the majority in the House of Representatives. I regret that situation, but it is a fact. And the majority party refused to put more money in the fuels reduction account to get this job done 60 minutes ago, and now you are on the floor of the House trying to have some rhetorical argument that the reason this job is not getting done is because the law simply requires that we listen to science. But you do not want to listen to science. You want to listen to some other force of nature. Let me suggest that one of the problems of the pickle we have gotten into in our forests with this dense situation in underbrush is because the Federal Government ignored science for decades, and now today you want to perpetuate the history of the Federal Government of ignoring sound science. You want to continue a situation that you started with 2 years ago of doing in our water and allowing arsenic in our water, doing in our air where you want to allow mercury in our air, you want to now have lawless logging. You want to have logging that is not constrained by science or law. Let me suggest to my colleagues that the conservative approach on this issue is the approach that demands accountability of our government. The conservative approach demands that government respond to citizens by following the law. The conservative approach distrusts government; and when we have some innate suspicion of government, we make bureaucracies follow the law. But unless you pass this amendment, you are giving carte blanche to bureaucrats to ignore the science when it comes to conservation science, to ignore the science when it comes to ecosystems, to ignore the science when it is the right time to do underbrush thinning and when it is the right place to do underbrush thinning, and you want to give carte blanche to the bureaucrats. This whole national forest management plan came out of the idea of reform, to reform bureaucracies so they will not ignore taxpayers. We stand for taxpayers who say that taxpayers who pay their money are entitled to make sure the bureaucracies follow the law and the science. But you want to shortcut the science. Science is not good enough for you. Science is not good enough on arsenic. Science is not good enough on mercury, and science is not good enough in logging our national forests. We just have a simple proposition on this side of the aisle: follow the science and follow the law. That is why 325 scientists of the Society for Conservation Biology wrote a letter that urged the Forest Service, and by extension Congress, to not gut the National Forest Management Act, which you are gutting today. And we are simply here to say let us make sure that science rules in our forests. Let us make sure that the law rules on forests. Let us pass the Udall amendment.

Mr. INSLEE. I wish more of the gentleman's friends would have followed his admonition.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, this rule is not just ineffective. It is not just inefficient. It is not just unfair. It perpetuates one of the largest frauds on consumers in American history. It aids and abets the rip-off by Enron of over $1 billion of American consumers of electricity in the West Coast of the United States in the last 4 years. This rule does nothing about that. This rule allows Enron to keep their billion dollars they took away from our people, and this is clear. We have heard the tapes. We have heard the Enron traders saying let us jam a million dollars here to the grandmothers of California. Let us rip off the Washington ratepayers for $500,000. Let us stick Snohomish County for $152 million. Let us let California burn, baby, burn. And your rule does nothing about that. This rule is in bed with Enron. It aids and abets Enron. It is written for and by Enron, and it should be rejected. Now, we have offered an amendment that will allow ratepayers relief, give ratepayers in Snohomish County that $122 million back, give ratepayers in California over hundreds of millions of dollars in relief back, and the Republican Party said, no, we are on the side of Enron. Now, why did they do that? Well, this administration has not lifted a finger to help the ratepayers of the West Coast, not a finger. They have got all the efficiency of the Keystone cops and the aggressiveness of Barney Fife when it comes to enforcing the laws of this country. In fact, when we met with the Vice President during the height of the energy crisis in 2000, we explained to the Vice President that Enron had turned off a third of the generating capacity in the West Coast and driven the prices sky high. And you know what he did? He looked at us, Members of Congress, and he said, ``You know what your problem is? You just do not understand economics.'' Well, we do understand economics. We just do not understand Enronomics. We do not understand why the majority party will not allow us to do anything to get relief back from the customers who are gouged by Enron. Why will not they allow this Chamber even the right to vote on the measure to recover some sense of justice? Why do they lay down with Enron? Why do they get in bed with Ken Lay? Why are you motivated to do that? We cannot understand it. What I know is the people of my district deserve relief. They deserve a refund. The Snohomish County ratepayers deserve that $122 million back. So I want to ask my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), a friendly question, if I can. Today the gentleman is denying us the opportunity to get relief for ratepayers of the State of Washington and Enron. When will the Republican Party bring to the floor of this House a measure to allow us to get refunds from Enron of the millions of dollars they stole from Washington and Oregon and California?

Mr. INSLEE. Reclaiming my time, if the gentleman will just kindly answer my gentlemanly question. When will you bring a bill to the House to allow a refund by Enron? Just give me an answer.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we do not want to believe that the U.S. Congress would allow such a massive rip-off of Americans to take place and not do something. We do not want to believe that just because Ken Lay was so close to President Bush that the whole Federal Government will do nothing. We do not want to believe that massive political contributions could end up with the Federal Government not doing its job. We do not want to believe that when the Federal Government itself concludes that there was a crime, that there was manipulation, that there was gamesmanship, that there was defrauding, that there was embezzling, that they would do nothing. We do not believe that is the right thing to do, and we think ultimately we have some confidence that we will actually prevail on this. Even if it takes November and we get a new Congress that will finally take action to get a refund for Americans, that is the route we will go. I want to thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird) for joining me this evening.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, our friends on the other side of the aisle were worse than silent. They absolutely choked off any consideration of the Enron scandal on the floor of the House today. Here we have this enormous scandal breaking with the exposition of these tapes, and they refused to allow any Enron discussion even or action on the floor of the House. The gentleman brings up campaign contributions. It is interesting because so did the Enron traders. I want to read from a transcript of a tape of two Enron traders talking shortly before the election. The first one, his name was Matt. Matt was talking to Tom, and the transcript says: ``Tell you what. You heard this here first: When Bush wins-- ``Tom: Caps are gone,'' meaning price caps, some action to keep prices reasonable. ``Matt: That `blank' Bill Richardson,'' former Secretary of Energy, ``he's gone, and Clinton, he's gone. All those socialists are gone. ``Tom: Yeah. ``Matt: And who's the biggest single contributor to the Bush campaigners? ``Tom: You. ``Matt: (Laughs) Enron. ``Tom: Enron. What? ``Matt: Enron. ``Tom: Is it Enron? ``Matt: Yeah. ``Tom: Is that true? ``Matt: Yeah, I think it is. ``Tom: The biggest single contributor.'' Enron Corporation. ``Matt: Yeah, the biggest corporate contributor. ``Holy--really? That's huge. ``And that is number one. ``Ken Lay,'' CEO of Enron, ``is going to be the Secretary of Energy. ``Tom: Get out of here!'' Tom does not have to get out of here because he got what he wanted. He got a compliant administration that let Enron rip off American citizens, Democrats, Republicans, Independents alike. They were bipartisan victims, and he got an administration to let them run rampant through the energy markets and steal billions of dollars from our citizens and neighbors who cannot afford it. He got what he wants. Now it is up to this Congress to do something to get what we want and what our citizens, Republicans and Democrats alike, want, which is a refund for the money. Where did this money go? It went to buy a lot of mansions in Houston where the President used to be Governor, where his Vice President met with Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron, in a secret meeting to come up with a secret energy plan that is no secret any longer. There is no secret about what happened here. Enron got what they wanted, a compliant administration to let them take as much as they want from consumers and do nothing about it. And they got a Vice President, when we laid out the facts to them, when it was clear as a bell that this manipulation was going on, they got a Vice President, and do my colleagues know what he said? The same months that there were brownouts in California, he said ``The basic problem in California was caused by Californians.'' Maybe he is referring to the traders in Enron. Maybe they lived in California. I do not know, but I do not think so because it was obvious what was going on here. Thirty-two percent of all the steam-generated, gas, coal-fired plants feeding the west coast United States had been turned off, and the Vice President and the President of the United States told victims of that skullduggery that they were not going to do anything about it. And now Congress needs to act, and we are going to continue to press on this because we have learned an interesting thing. We can actually get this administration sometimes to change behavior. For 2 years they refused to do anything about this. We finally shamed them into action, and in 2003 they finally adopted price caps that they said were going to ruin the U.S. economy and that this was a communist plot to have price caps. They finally did it in 2003 because they could not take the heat anymore. We are hoping this administration, when they feel enough heat, and our colleagues across the aisle, when they feel enough heat, maybe they will not see the light; but maybe they will feel the heat, and maybe they are going to then knuckle under and do something for the consumers that are owed so much. I would like a closing comment from the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird) as we close our discussion tonight.

Mr. INSLEE. Not only did they do nothing, this House today did nothing while our consumers are still continuing to pay these outrageous electrical rates in Snohomish County, Washington, 52 percent today, still higher. This is the long, dark shadow of Enron that today we refused to do anything about. I want to go through just a moment of history of how this administration has and has not acted and why this ends up with rates being so high. It is interesting when President Bush was running for office in October 2000, when he was in San Diego and the prices were just starting to maybe go up, he said, ``I believe so strongly that part of this region is going to suffer unless you have a President who is willing to tell FERC to do what is right for the consumer.'' So when he was campaigning, he said he was going to make sure FERC did right by the consumers. He then took the oath of office in January 2001 and the next thing we heard was from Lawrence Lindsey, his assistant in the White House who said, ``They should expect no more help from the White House.'' Message from George Bush to the West Coast: Go fish. Let them eat cake. As a result, Enron had the green light from the President of the United States to go embezzle, cheat, gouge as much as they could from the West Coast and, by gum, Enron got the message. How do I know that? Here is a quote from one of the Enron traders. This is just right before the election. ``Matt,'' the Enron trader said, ``you know what? I'm scooping up every bit of `blank' power I can and take next summer,'' Tom said, ``because caps won't be there,'' meaning price caps, meaning he knew the President would do nothing about this problem. Matt responded, ``They got to come for it. I'm bound to bet huge on the election. When this election comes, Bush will `blank' whack that stuff, man.'' I am paraphrasing the expletives out. ``He won't `blank' play this price cap stuff. I bet they'll impose a national price cap at $1,000 and that's fine with me.'' They bet and they won. The Enron traders won when George Bush was elected to office and when the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives because they have done nothing for the years 2000, 2001 and 2002 to remedy this bleeding by our consumers. Just to make sure that people understand we are not kind of making this stuff up as we go along, I want to read about what the administration themselves concluded. On March 2003, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a final report on price manipulation in western markets. It found ``significant market manipulation,'' that ``many trading strategies employed by Enron and other companies were undertaken in violation of antigaming provisions.'' It identified more than 30 entities that might have manipulated the market. But Catch-22 from the Bush administration, we are not going to do anything about it. They concluded for 2 years before 2003 there was massive market manipulation and they refused to lift a finger to give refunds for people who were victimized. I could understand it if they said we are not sure if there was a crime here. But when the President of the United States' own agency concludes that billions of dollars were stolen from ratepayers in the western United States but they refused to lift a finger to get refunds, something is rotten in the State of Washington, D.C., and it is the influence of Enron Corporation still in the political process of those who still run the Federal Government. We have got to see some changes around here.

Mr. INSLEE. Just to give you an example, I just want to read specific language of two traders. They are talking about whether to keep a generating plant running or not. One trader asked the operator of the plant from Enron, ``How hard would it be for you to turn off your plant and then if we want to start it up later?'' He said, ``It's not that hard.'' So the Enron trader said, ``If we shut it down, could you bring it back up in 3 or 4 hours?'' The response was, ``Oh, yeah.'' The response was, ``Why don't you just go ahead and shut it down if that's okay.'' And when they shut it down, they boosted these prices up, sometimes 1,000 percent. That type of language was found by Snohomish County in at least a dozen specific circumstances where Enron specifically requested energy to be shut down. We do not know all of them because we found out they were actually taking some of these calls on cell phones to try to get them off their recording system but we have got enough to know there was a clear crime here. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird), who has so ably advocated for southwest Washington, which also suffered in this debacle.

Mr. INSLEE. The reason we need to respond is the administration has not. Beginning in 2000 and 2001, we have made every concerted effort to get the administration to impose some type of relief, price caps or otherwise. They refuse to take any steps. They sat on their hands. As Bonnie and Clyde ran out with the bank notes, these people sat there and watched this theft occur and did not lift a finger for 2 years. Now in 2003, because they were so ashamed by what was going on, they finally issued some price caps. But unfortunately according to their commissioner, and this was on June 4, and this is amazing, talk about a catch-22 here, this administration's agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, whose job it is to protect consumers, they wrote me a letter. I urged them to take action to get refunds for people up and down the west coast. They wrote me a letter and told me, number one, we have concluded there was massive violation of the law by Enron. We have concluded that there was manipulation. We have concluded there was gaming of the system. We have concluded in essence that there was congestion caused to shut down access to drive the price. We have concluded there was all of this skullduggery and scandal. But we do not think we have the authority to act to get refunds back from the people who had all of this money embezzled before 2003. So here we have this administration saying we concluded there was a huge crime here. There was robbery, fraud, and embezzlement, and we know how much was taken from ratepayers; but golly gosh, we cannot do a thing about it. Mr. Speaker, we had a chance today to do something about it to make it the law of this land that we are going to get those refunds, and the majority party refused to even allow that to come up for a vote, and it is a double scandal. It is a scandal that would make Enron proud. Let me make reference to one thing, when there was a fire that shut down a transmission line and prevented transmission of electricity to California which allowed Enron to boost the rates almost a thousand percent, a trader said, ``Burn, baby, burn. That is a beautiful thing.'' That is why Enron would be very proud of the majority party today refusing to allow us to vote on something to get refunds for people. The majority party adopted the ``burn, baby, burn'' approach to not allow us to do anything to get these refunds. If there was some question, if it was kind of a close call, like there are close calls in baseball, was he safe, was he out, if this was a close call whether Enron gouged west coast ratepayers, then perhaps there might be an excuse; but there is no excuse here. These tapes are the equivalent of a videotape of the crime, DNA of their identity, fingerprints, and a confession after their Miranda rights; and still when this crime occurred, the Republican Party will not help us remedy this wrong. We are going to continue this effort.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's eloquent statement, but I think it is important to state that the Democrats on this side of the aisle, we were prevented from having this amendment brought up. Think about the outrage, when we want democracy in Iraq, we do not have democracy on the floor of the House. The House is not even given an opportunity to vote on an amendment to get refunds. To show how callous these Enron traders that the Republican Party has now decided to accommodate by not allowing this amendment even to be voted on, I want to read one transcript to let Members know what the Enron corporation was like. Here is a trader that says, Kevin, there was a guy here yesterday. He is some consultant for some ``blank'' other business we are supposed to be starting over. He said the guy came in and he said I am in California now, and my small consulting business, my energy costs have gone from $100 to $500 a month. It is unbelievable. I do not know what to do. The trader said, I just turned from my desk and looked at him and said, Move. Mr. Speaker, that was a very heartfelt comment, and that was Enron's attitude and apparently that is the Republican Party's attitude. He should have moved from the west coast because we are not going to do anything for refunds. The same trader continued saying, ``The best thing that could happen is if there was a `blank' earthquake and let that thing,'' meaning the west coast, ``float out to the Pacific where they can just light candles.'' That is the attitude of Enron and that is the attitude of the majority party, apparently, that would not allow us to take action to do something about this travesty. California was hit, Oregon was hit, Washington was hit; and we are still suffering today. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman.

Mr. INSLEE. That is correct and the reason this is such a shame now is that for over 2 years we urged the administration to act. They did not act. There was an obvious defrauding going on, an obvious offense, an obvious crime. They let the embezzlement in a sense continue, and then told us they cannot get the money back for us. I want to make sure people understand this. First, when we asked for relief, the President and the Vice President said you are on your own, we are not going to help you. They said that for 2 years. Finally, in 2003, they said, okay, now we give up, we are going to offer some price caps, and they finally gave us some relief in 2003. But the horse was well out of the barn after 2 years of theft. What happened was they allowed that money to go to Texas. A lot of people in Houston bought mansions with the money we paid on the west coast, with money they stole from the west coast. The former Texas Governor let them steal it and did nothing for 2 years. Those people are now in Texas with money in bankruptcy that we cannot get. Now because of the combination of President Bush's inaction and failure to follow his responsibility and the bankruptcy laws, this money is gone. But at least we ought to be able to stop Enron from getting another $122 billion from Snohomish County. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis) who has been a tremendous advocate from the very beginning trying to get some action by this government for California ratepayers.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to go into our conversation in some detail with the Vice President. This was a bipartisan meeting with members of the west coast delegations, and what we did is we laid out the evidence for the Vice President, and stoplights in California were not working at the time we were talking to the Vice President of the United States, begging him for assistance. What the evidence we showed him was that at the time we were talking to him fully 32 percent of all the generating capacity in the west coast of the United States was turned off. At the time that stoplights were going out in California, Enron and its co-conspirators had turned off almost a third of all the generators in the west coast. They have tried to lay this excuse that, well, we were maintaining them, which was pretty lame because on the average in the last 12 years there has only been 2 to 4 percent of these plants down. So what we told the Vice President, in a pretty cogent way is, Mr. Vice President, it is obvious someone is gaming the system. There is clear manipulation going on. There is skullduggery. This is a scandal. One-third of the generators are turned off. You are causing brownouts in California. We are having 1,000 percent run-ups in the State of Washington. We need your help. We need your help to force FERC to enforce the law. And I will never forget what he said to that request. He looked at us in the eye, and he said, and this is about as close to a quote as I can come: you know what your problem is, you just do not understand economics. Now, we do understand economics. My degree happens to be in economics. It is just that we do not understand Enronomics. We do not understand Enronomics that the President and the Vice President of the United States sit on their hands and do nothing while consumers are gouged 10, 20 billions of dollars a year and are still suffering as a result of this Federal Government's refusal to act.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I came tonight to the floor of the House to address an outrage, perhaps the largest fraudulent activity in American history which has resulted in literally billions of dollars being stolen from American ratepayers for electricity in the western United States. And this, of course, is the outright theft from West Coast ratepayers by the Enron Corporation. And I have come to the floor tonight because, unfortunately, the energy bill that passed this Chamber today did absolutely nothing whatsoever to restore one ounce of justice for the consumers on the West Coast who were so grievously ripped off by the Enron Corporation. Mr. Speaker, the sad fact is that today the House of Representatives had an opportunity to do something about an outrage that has not been remedied now despite our efforts for the last 3 years. Because the sad fact is that the Enron Corporation and others manipulated with unfortunately great effect the energy market in the West Coast starting in 2000. This manipulation resulted in West Coast ratepayers paying conservatively in the billions of dollars of overcharges to Enron and other energy traders. And the law of the United States as written is designed to prevent that and does prevent that if we had a cop on the beat to enforce the laws. But, unfortunately, what happened in the years 2000 and 2001 is that Enron found a way to gain the system. They found a way to essentially shut off generating capacity for the western coast of the United States and, as a result, drive up the prices dramatically, and they were unfortunately successful in this outrageous conduct. In fact, rates being paid by utilities, and therefore ratepayers in the western United States went up by a factor of a thousand percent, sometimes on a daily basis. And Enron was successful in doing this because they decided not to follow the law. And, unfortunately, they had some allies in not following the law, and that was this Federal Government, which did not enforce the law of the United States and allowed Enron to foist billions of dollars of overcharges on the ratepayers on the West Coast. Now, just to put a sense on how grievous this is, in Snohomish County, Washington, in the northern Puget Sound area, an area which I represent, ratepayers are still paying today half as much more than they should be paying, 52 percent more than they should be paying for electricity due to the depredation, the rapaciousness of the Enron Corporation. This is now over a billion dollars in the State of Washington of overcharges that ratepayers are still paying today. And we believe, at least on my side of the aisle, that the Federal Government should take action to get refunds back from the Enron Corporation as a result of these wrongful activities. Unfortunately, today, the Republicans refused to allow an amendment to be even voted on in this Chamber to get that money back for ratepayers on the West Coast. It would have been a simple amendment. I offered it in conjunction with the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), that would have required that refunds would have been given to these ratepayers going back to the year 2000. But unfortunately the majority party decided to side with Enron, the bankrupted corporation, bankrupt both fiscally and morally. They sided with Enron rather than with consumers and stood against giving consumers the refunds that they are owing. This is outrageous, and I know it is outrageous because the offenses of which I speak are not hypothetical. We have very clear evidence of what Enron did, and that evidence has been disclosed by very vigorous, assertive, and healthfully combative Public Utility District in Snohomish County PD, in Snohomish County, Washington, because what they did was they forced the disclosure of audio tapes that these Enron traders had kept of their conversations when they came up with their nefarious deals. The Bush administration and their Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did not want the public to hear these tapes. They did not want the public to have access to the gamesmanship that went on that cost consumers so many millions of dollars, but Snohomish County PD was very energetic in getting these tapes released. Now they have come forward, and what is on these tapes would shock even the saltiest of sailors, not only because of the language that was used but because of the immoral, unethical conduct where these traders basically sacrificed willingly the ratepayers in order to juice out another million dollars or so a day for the Enron Corporation. I would like to go over some of these, and we have deleted the expletives that were unfortunately frequently in their conversations, but we are trying to keep the gist of their conversation, and I am just going to refer to some of them here. These are audio tapes transcripted by Snohomish County Public Utility District of traders for Enron Corporation talking to one another. First trader: So the rumor is true that they are taking all the blank money back from you guys, all that money you stole from those poor grandmothers in California? Response: Yeah, Grandma Millie, and she is the one who could not figure out how to blank vote on the butterfly vote. Response: Now she wants her blank money back for all the power you jammed her for, for $250 per megawatt hour. That is a conversation between Enron traders. Now, when they talk about jamming Grandma Millie, what they mean by this is they have constricted the supply down, going to the California ratepayers and Washington for that matter and, therefore, boosted the price up, in this case to $250 a megawatt hour, in many cases up to $1,000 a megawatt hour, 10 times what was the previously going rate. Now this type of conservation was repeated over and over and over again by these traders. Second example. The Enron traders discovered a handy little technique. They found a way to congest transmission lines so that when they were congested, energy could not get through. So they would willfully schedule transmissions in a way that would prevent transmission from occurring, and when that happened, the price skyrocketed because of the existing demand. So here is a conversation here. They are talking about the congestion. Then the other trader states: If the line's not congested, I just look to congest it. If you can congest it, that is a money maker, no matter what. And it was a money maker, because when they congested these lines, the price skyrocketed, sometimes tenfold, and when it skyrocketed, several things happened. First off, you actually had brownouts in California, but you also forced utilities like Snohomish County Public Utility District in Washington State to enter into long-term contracts to try to ameliorate, to try to reduce the outrageous hits they were taking in these skyrocketing prices. Enron tried to sort of lure them into these long-term contracts and were sometimes successful because they were punishing ratepayers with these outrageous prices. Third example. The Enron traders talked about who they would like to be running the Federal Government, and they talked about it in terms about who would be on Enron's side. They talked about who would be favorable to Enron, who would sort of wink at the wrongful actions by Enron, who would be sort of the cop who was asleep at the switch; and they reached a conclusion pretty quickly. First off, they noted that Enron was the biggest contributor to the election campaign of President George Bush. They then noted that would it not be great if the next Secretary of Energy was Ken Lay, the disgraced CEO of the Enron Corporation. What they said was, How great would that be for all the players in the market. He would open these markets up. Now, they were right on that. If Ken Lay was Secretary of Energy, he would have opened up these markets and would not have taken any steps to try to tamp down the rapacious behavior of Enron, but it turned out they did not need Ken Lay as being Secretary of Energy because the people in the Bush administration were quite effective in not doing anything to lift a finger to stop Enron from gouging west coast ratepayers. They got what they wanted. They got cops on the beat who just winked and let the bank robbers take money out the door without doing anything about it. It is very interesting here. The prediction of the Enron traders that, number one, they could congest these lines and drive up prices was accurate, much to the damage of people in Washington, Oregon and California; but their second prediction, that the President of the United States would let them get away with it, was accurate, too. That is the reason why it was such a grand shame here today when the Republican Party would not let this House vote on an amendment to simply enforce these laws, to finally blow a whistle on Enron and blow a whistle on the Bush administration for their failure to enforce this law. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) who has been fighting this battle now for several years, who has been a stalwart on it, who has a never-give-up attitude.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, this bill, this alleged energy bill, reminds me a little bit of a reverse Energizer bunny because it just keeps not going, not going and not going. One of the reasons it does not go anywhere is it perpetuates the fraud on the American people that the Enron Corporation put over on the West Coast. It does not have one single dime of refunds for the people of California for the billions of dollars that were stolen from them by the Enron Corporation. It does not have the $122 million that the people of Snohomish County, Washington have coming to them. It does not have the over $1 billion that the people of Washington have coming to them. What does it take for my Republican friends to join us to finally get refunds for the American people? We have heard these tapes of the Enron traders talk about jamming Grandma Millie, stealing millions of dollars, saying ``burn, baby, burn'' when the West Coast had brownouts. And the Republicans gave us nothing, not a dollar in refunds. What does it take? We have got the equivalent of fingerprints, DNA, videotape and confessions from Enron and yet this bill does not do a single thing to get refunds for the consumers of the West Coast of the United States. Goodness knows we have tried. We asked the Vice President of the United States 2 years ago to help us. We told the Vice President of the United States that while there were brownouts in California, while stoplights were not working, 32 percent of all the generating capacity was turned off. What he said was, ``The problem with you is you just don't understand economics.'' Well, we do understand economics. We just do not understand Enronomics. The majority party unfortunately is forcing down the throats of consumers in this country Enronomics. They are allowing Enron to continue to pillage and burn the West Coast. We deserve refunds. Reject this bill and get a bill that will stand up to Enron.