Steve Kagen

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of overriding a veto that is misguided. And I have the honor of speaking here today for the nearly 90,000 people in northeast Wisconsin who are covered by Medicare, people who would otherwise have to pay more money out of their pocket to the insurance company rather than to where it really belongs, for their health care. This is an opportunity to join together as Democrats and Republicans and do the right thing. Let's override this meaningless veto. Let's allow our President to do the right thing. President Bush needs our help; let's help him by overriding this veto.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Madam Speaker, everywhere in Wisconsin and across the country, people are asking for help to reduce prices for their gasoline costs and their health care. Rural areas, like the district I represent in northeast Wisconsin, are affected most. We need to work hard here in Congress to provide meaningful solutions to these problems. And our first step must be to solve our health care crisis by ending discrimination in health insurance everywhere; by saying if you are a citizen you are in; and if it is in your body, it should be covered; and by leveraging down insurance costs and creating the largest risk pool possible, and creating an open and transparent medical marketplace. We must also design for the first time in this administration a meaningful national energy policy which includes three things: drilling for new oil across America with every single ounce of our oil sold only to U.S. citizens; investing in every source of renewable energy possible; and by preventing manipulation in the marketplace. These efforts will get us back to the basics of becoming energy independent and a healthy Nation once again.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, for those, like me, who believe in the invaluable resource that is our public schools, it is a bittersweet time in the Green Bay School District. Dan Nerad, the superintendent of the largest public school system in my district for the past 7 years, is leaving to assume a similar position in Madison, Wisconsin. Dan began his career in Green Bay 33 years ago. He is known for his intelligence, for his integrity and for his candor. He tackled the toughest problems of our time in Wisconsin--school security and the achievement gap between minority and Caucasian students--while at the same time dealing with a shrinking financial resource. While his leadership will be missed, he is to be congratulated for taking the next step in an already distinguished career. Green Bay's loss will almost certainly be Madison's gain. He leaves an indelible mark on our children, on our educators and on our community. And I wish him well. Thank you, Superintendent Dan Nerad.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Madam Speaker, everywhere in Wisconsin, people are asking for help to cut the cost for gasoline and diesel fuels. People are having a tough time just keeping their heads above water, paying one out of four of their paychecks toward gas just to get to work. We must do everything possible to make certain gas and oil become more affordable. During the past year, I've been listening to everyone involved in the oil industry, and one thing is clear. Current oil prices are not explainable by normal marketplace forces of supply and demand. Why are gas prices so high? Well, there are many reasons, including increased demand from China and India and the declining value of the dollar, but these reasons alone do not explain today's surging oil prices. While ignoring cries for help from ordinary people, President Bush and Vice President Cheney--the two oil men in the White House--have been unwilling to investigate the anticompetitive activities of big oil companies and speculators in large investment banks. Their only response to the surge in oil prices has been to beg for more addictive oil from the Arabian kings in the Middle East, even though last year, as we emptied our pockets, Saudi Arabia enjoyed a windfall of $500 billion. We cannot afford to follow the advice of the White House oil men and of their supporters. For, if we do, we will become not just bankrupt but a nation of beggars. Aside from begging, the White House oil men also offered more of the same losing ideas that caused this mess in the first place: More drilling rights for Big Oil. Their old school drilling idea is shortsighted for it requires years--years, not weeks--to explore, pump, refine, and deliver gasoline and diesel fuels. We need gas price relief now, not next year. Here is how we get started. First, we need leaders who will stand up to Big Oil and who will provide the necessary oversight to the oil markets to prevent speculators from manipulating prices for their own benefit. On June 23, just yesterday, an Oppenheimer equity research expert, Mr. Gyte, testified before an Energy and Commerce subcommittee, focusing on oil price manipulation. In his words, ``I believe the surge in crude oil price, which more than doubled in the past 12 months, was mainly due to excessive speculation and not due to an unexpected shift in market fundamentals.'' His testimony and that of others is that speculative manipulation in the oil futures market is real and that, by designing effective regulation of the oil markets, prices for oil may decline immediately, anywhere from $45 to $65 a barrel immediately, not in 10 years. Based upon all of the information available today, the first and best choice for Congress is to prepare appropriate legislative and regulatory actions, which, according to experts, will drop prices dramatically in several weeks. In addition to better oversight of the oil markets, Congress must begin to invest in the development of reliable and affordable energy resources. We can do this by continuing to drill for new oil on Federal lands already leased to American oil companies even as we invest in renewable sources of energy using solar, wind, geothermal, cellulosic, and biomass-based technologies. We must also ask: Is it time to build new and more modern nuclear sources of electricity? By investing in these new renewable energy resources, we will create millions of new, higher waged jobs, and we will develop what we've been talking about--the green economy right here at home--as we become an energy independent Nation. We cannot neglect again to mention the OPEC kingdoms, which have been manipulating both world oil prices and supplies for years. To push back against their illegal manipulation of the oil market, I sponsored and passed major legislation that will, in time, bust up the oil cartels and will reestablish a freely competitive marketplace to make prices reasonable once again for everyone. What is it? What is it that my colleagues on the other side have against free markets? Simply put, we cannot continue to be held hostage by OPEC and by the manipulative partners in Big Oil. The final piece to solving the surge in oil price is the declining value of the dollar. Here, you see a picture form of the dollar in 2000, when President Bush took office, declining by 38 percent in the last year. In several more months of this economic activity of borrow and spend, you will be able to take your dollar, paste it with some glue on an envelope and use it as a postage stamp. Regretfully, as a direct result of President Bush's economic policy of borrow and spend, our money has lost its purchasing power. It simply doesn't stretch as far as it did before. As a direct result of dollar light, prices for everything have gone up, not just for gasoline but for a loaf of bread, for a gallon of milk and for everything we require just to survive: Our rent, our mortgage payments and our health care bills. People are screaming, ``It's the dollar, stupid!'' Prices for everything are up, but by working together, we can bring about a different economic policy, one different from borrow and spend. We're working hard to bring about the changes we need. By working together, we will become an energy independent Nation, and we will make available, affordable energy for all of us.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, Enough is enough. I will always support our troops; but not President Bush's losing policies. We've done our job in Iraq. Our brave soldiers took out Saddam, and Iraq has held several free elections. They now have a budget surplus, while we suffer with a budget busting deficit. It is time to move our troops away from Iraq, and back after our real enemies--Osama bin Laden and his followers. With three trillion dollars down the drain, President Bush's never ending occupation of Iraq will soon be known as the greatest theft in human history, driving the United States of America into bankruptcy. We must put an end to the losing policy of wasteful government spending in Iraq, and invest our hard earned tax dollars right here at home, as we work together to build a better nation for all of us.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, the people in Wisconsin elected me and sent me here to Washington to listen to them. And what are the people in Wisconsin asking me to do? They said Kagen, there are two things you can do to help me and stimulate my economy and put more money in my pocket: cut the price of gasoline and reduce our health care costs. As Megan and Eric from Appleton wrote to me, ``We are young people with four kids. Our insurance is out of control. Our family earns $38,000 a year. We pay $520 a month to have health insurance. Gas prices limit our lives. We can't afford it; food for our kids or gas in the tank.'' My friends, there are two reasons we are in this mess: Bush and Cheney. Bush and Cheney, these are the two reasons. And what have they done, they have taken our United States dollar and taken down its value. You might be drinking Miller Lite, but you've got dollar lite in your pocket, and that's why the price of everything, from gasoline to health care, to food, shelter and clothing is going up. Your United States dollar isn't worth what it was when George Bush took office.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, last month, I had the opportunity and the pleasure to work with the bipartisan majority of 221 Democrats and 103 Republicans, including the entire Wisconsin delegation, to pass the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act of 2008. This will in time decrease gas prices for everyone and will make certain that no one is able to manipulate oil prices and to control the free markets. One year ago, crude oil was selling for $65 a barrel, and all of us were paying around $3 per gallon at the pump. We thought things were bad then. The cost per barrel for crude oil has more than doubled since last year while, this week, we are forced to pay in northeast Wisconsin over $4 per gallon. Yet this is taking place during a recession when demand for oil is down. This is not the way of the free marketplace. Like you, I was more than a little surprised to learn that, during this past January of 2008, we had so much oil right here in the United States that American oil companies were exporting 335,000 barrels of diesel per day to Europe and to Mexico. Enough is enough. The Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act that we passed would allow us to attack gas price manipulation, something we do not currently have the authority to do. It would authorize as well an antitrust task force within the Department of Justice to begin to root out any anticompetitive activities and price manipulation in the speculative and volatile futures markets. For the first time, it would instruct the Federal Government to evaluate the damaging effects of past oil company mergers and acquisitions and these effects that they have had on our families and on small businesses alike. This is the first step in beginning to reestablish a free and open marketplace in the world's oil delivery, something that Teddy Roosevelt attempted in the early 1900s. My friends, we are today no further advanced in establishing a free and open marketplace than we were in 1910, but all of us who live in Wisconsin are struggling to fill our tanks today, and we need relief as fast as possible, and that's why I and an overwhelming number of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle passed this act to begin to cut gas prices immediately, realizing it will require some time to reverse the failed energy policies of the recent past. If studies show we don't have enough oil refineries, then let's ask the question: Is it time that we build refineries on each side of the Rocky Mountains? Skyrocketing gasoline prices are crippling family budgets and profits for small businesses everywhere in the country. Our long-term energy solutions, however, must include creating a new national energy policy, implementing provisions like those I fought to include in the new farm bill that will promote alternative sources of energy, leaving behind, once and for all, all of the losing ideas that we have had, namely, the drill-and-burn and drill-and-burn philosophy and policy of the Bush and Cheney administration. We cannot drill and burn our way out of this energy crisis. Although there are many causes for today's record-high gas prices, we should not be afraid to take on specific steps today to ensure that prices for middle class families and small businesses come down. That is why we have given the Department of Justice these new tools to, in effect, put a cop back on the beat, making certain that those who are profiting from our pain at the pump will be held accountable. With regard to the facts of the situation, let's look at some of the facts here, at the United States' oil facts. We, the people, have leased 42 million acres to oil companies, and of the 42 million acres, they are using 12 million. What else is going on? Since the year 1980, we have lost over 200 refineries, decreasing our capability to produce more oil and diesel when we require it. What else is going on? The outer banks. Everyone is talking about leasing the outer banks, the Outer Continental Shelf. Well, 82 percent of that property has already been leased, and they're not drilling. Some people have asked: Why aren't we drilling in ANWR? By drilling in ANWR, what are we going to get? This is an old idea. If we took all of the oil out of ANWR, it would drop, economists say, the cost at the pump by one to two pennies per gallon, and that would take place 10 or 20 years from now. Furthermore, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the companies bringing the oil out of ANWR would deliver it to the United States citizens. It may go to Japan or to Europe or to the highest bidder. So ANWR and drilling, drilling and burning is not the solution. What is going on in our marketplace? Recent investigations and testimony here in the House and in the Senate have shown that there is a concentration where pension funds are now beginning to invest more and more since the year 2000 into our commodities futures market. So it is now time to ask the question: Isn't it appropriate that we ask you, if you're buying oil, to take possession of what you buy?

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle and in particular Representatives Ryan, Sensenbrenner, and Petri from Wisconsin for joining me in passing this bill yesterday. It's called the ``No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act of 2008.'' For 7 years the Cheney and Bush administration has done nothing, nothing at all to break up the oil cartels overseas. They have done nothing to reduce the cost of our gasoline at the pump. And wherever I have been in Wisconsin, from Green Bay to Appleton, from Marinette to Minocqua, and everywhere I go in northeast Wisconsin, people are saying, ``Kagen, there are two things you can do to put more money in my pocket: Cut the cost of gasoline and reduce our health care costs.'' And this bill, voted on and supported by 103 Republicans in a bipartisan manner, will help to do just that. It will make it illegal for anyone to conspire to raise our price of gasoline. Thank you, thank you, my Republicans, for supporting me in this act.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the rule for the National Defense Authorization Act and the underlying legislation. As Congress authorizes this critical funding for the defense of our Nation and its interests abroad, we also have an opportunity to make sure that the current nationwide mortgage housing situation does not adversely affect our veterans. Current law provides some protections from bankruptcy and foreclosure for the men and women in uniform while serving in harm's way. But it does not provide for debt forgiveness or other relief from contractual obligations of servicemembers who have been called to active duty. Given the frequency with which military homeowners are forced to move to different bases throughout the country and overseas, our brave service men and women should not have to worry about forestalling or even preventing mortgage foreclosure. I commend Chairman Skelton and Mr. Hastings and ranking members for including provisions of a bill that I authored that calls upon the Secretary of Defense to establish a mortgage foreclosure and credit counseling program for members of the armed services and those who are returning from overseas. Credit counseling is available from many sources, including State and local governmental agencies, but not all counseling services are the same or even legitimate. Providing veterans with credible information through the Department of Defense will enhance their ability to make sound financial decisions during difficult times and to provide assistance before a potential problem or crisis arises. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support passage of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Thank you for your kind comments about the needs for quarterbacks. I want to thank you for quarterbacking this bill, H.R. 5856 to the House floor and towards a successful passage. It has the support of Republicans and Democrats alike. While we may be divided about war policy and foreign policy, we are united behind the support of our troops. Now, what does this bill do? It provides for 11 construction projects, $60 million, and 12 new leases in 2009. The construction projects range from Denver, Colorado, to San Antonio, Texas, to New Orleans, Louisiana. They involve lease projects from Eugene, Oregon, to Mesa, Arizona, to Mansfield, Ohio, and, of course, Green Bay Wisconsin, where the needs of our veterans require the construction of a new CBOC and also the presence of an outpatient surgical specialty area. This bill will take a major step toward developing the infrastructure of our Veterans Administration. Let me add by saying that as a physician who has served for 6 years in veterans hospitals, we need to invest in our infrastructure of the Veterans Administration throughout the country, not just in Green Bay. H.R. 5856 authorizes $5.8 million in fiscal year 2009 for the lease of a new facility to expand the Community Based Outpatient Clinic in Green Bay. This lease will extend for 20 years. Heretofore, we have had thousands and thousands of veterans in Northeast Wisconsin who had to drive beyond Green Bay, beyond Appleton, south to Milwaukee, to Zablocki in order to get the care they require. The new facility will offer specialty services heretofore not available in Northeast Wisconsin; lab work, radiology, physical therapy, pharmacy, mental health care services, dietetics, dental, podiatry, dermatology, urology, neurology, audiology, and social work. For many soldiers, the Comp and Pen examinations will be done closer to home, not just for their convenience, but also for their personal-family economy. After all, when the price of gasoline reaches $4 per gallon, it costs everyone a lot more to travel. Madam Speaker, 1,500 patients now are waiting on a fee basis for service at the veterans facility in Green Bay. Hundreds and hundreds of veterans are on waiting lists to receive care that they require. This project could not have happened without the strong bipartisan support of not just the chairman, but also the ranking member. So I thank you, Mr. Filner, and also the subcommittee chairman as well. Thank you for putting your best efforts forward to making sure that the veterans in Green Bay and Northeast Wisconsin get the care they need close to home.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my colleagues for bringing attention to this important aspect of our economy. As everyone understands, the cost of oil and the cost of energy is hamstringing and pulling down every one in our economy. Northeast Wisconsin, much like the State of Iowa, is very similar to many places in the country. It's highly rural, and in large part in Wisconsin we've got the northern forest lands and farm lands. Our way of life, like the rest of America, depends upon oil as a primary source of energy. Our way of life depends on affordable energy for our industries, such as agriculture, manufacturing of paper, of ships, and many other essentials. Why all of this insight into northeast Wisconsin? Well, much like your friends and your families and your coworkers, my friends in Wisconsin are wondering how much longer they will be able to continue to farm, to drive to work, to transport their goods, to run their trucks at today's impossible gas prices. And what about our senior citizens who are struggling to live on fixed incomes? We owe them and everyone in the Nation to respond to the oil energy crisis that we face together. Now, there are many causes for the increased price of gasoline, and Congress cannot address all of them. But the one thing Congress can do is to make certain that the price paid by our constituents for gasoline is not the result of anti-competitive practices and that the Department of Justice will devote necessary resources to address this issue. In May of 2007, Congress passed H.R. 2264, the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, otherwise known as NOPEC. This was by a vote of 345-72. And at that time, we were outraged, outraged that the price of crude oil was $65 a barrel and at that time, $3 for every gallon of gasoline. Now, compare that to today in May of 2008 when crude oil is over $125 a barrel and $4 at the pump. By passing NOPEC, the House agreed it was time to give U.S. authorities the ability to prosecute anti-competitive conduct committed by international cartels that restricts supply and drives up prices. OPEC, the world's most well-known oil cartel, accounts for more than two-thirds of global oil production, and OPEC's oil exports represent 65 percent of the oil traded internationally. What NOPEC did was to remove the immunity of sovereign states, and appropriately so. However, the conduct of OPEC and its members has been beyond the reach of Federal prosecutors. NOPEC addressed this legal barrier for prosecution by removing their sovereign immunity and bringing the conduct of international oil cartels within the reach of United States antitrust laws. This bill I submit today, the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act of 2008, builds on NOPEC by doing three things: first, it incorporates the NOPEC provisions as passed last year; secondly, the bill authorizes the creation of the Department of Justice Petroleum Industry Antitrust Task Force. Among its responsibilities, the task force will examine such issues as the existence and effects of price gouging in the sale of gasoline, anticompetitive price discrimination by petroleum refineries, unilateral actions to withhold supply in order to inflate prices, and manipulation of the futures markets; and third, the bill provides for a GAO study as to the effect of prior mergers on competition and order divestitures in the petroleum industry. Recent data reveal that at the same time oil supplies were going up and U.S. demand was going down, the oil prices continued to rise due, as some have suggested, to speculators in the oil and gas marketplace. Well, like many others, I believe it's time to shed some light into the dark regions of the speculated oil markets, and this bill will do just that by allowing the Department of Justice, the GAO, and Congress to do its work to guarantee that oil prices reflect supply-and-demand economic rules instead of the wild and speculative and, perhaps, illegal activities of some. Until we finally have an energy policy other than drill and burn, this bill will begin to set things right for the American people. Although this bill will not end the pain at the pump for us this month, it will deliver the information and the insight we need to construct a meaningful energy policy aimed at beginning to become an energy independent nation once again.

Mr. KAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Mr. Speaker, we just heard an argument made for that we shouldn't do another study, that we shouldn't look into the darkness of these oil- speculative marketplaces, that we shouldn't do anything but continue more of the same, more and more of the same. Well, let me offer, Mr. Speaker, some numbers. The first number is 7. For 7 years, we have not had an energy policy. We have had an energy policy that was designed behind closed doors. The next number is 300, 300-percent increase in the cost of gasoline at the pump. The people in Wisconsin, the people across America need a positive change in their energy policy, and that we can do some time this fall. The other number I would offer is 200. It's a 200 percent increase in fuel oil prices. Now, if you're living in northern Wisconsin and you are using fuel oil to heat your home and you are on a fixed income, this is pain not just at the pump but also at home. And I want to bring attention to the fact that we are bringing about that change, but we can't do it without studying and getting the facts; and this bill will offer that opportunity.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Thank you for yielding, and thank you for carrying on for the first few minutes before I was able to attend. Our Committee on Transportation just ended its subcommittee meeting at 9:20 this evening where we were hearing some testimony about the possible merger between Delta and Northwest. And it was a very educational seminar, to say the least. But it's still an example of how we are working hard to gain oversight over these mega mergers, and taking a look at big business and big insurance and big corporations and the big war machine that's now costing Americans millions and millions of dollars every day. And if you like numbers, my friend, it's $14 million an hour that we're spending in Iraq instead of here at home. It's $338 million per day, $2.4 billion per week, and $10 to $12 billion per month that we have our hard-earned tax money going over to the sands of Iraq and not investing here at home in our own infrastructure, in our roads and our bridges, in our schools and in our social system. Now, if you like numbers, and I like numbers, I've got a head for numbers. I'll give you the number 300, 200 and 13. 300 percent is the increase in the gasoline price since the current administration took office in 2001; three times as much as what you're paying at the pump as when they started. Now, my friend, Mr. Ellison, the right honorable sir, mentioned Iraq and some Iraq tragedies. On Mother's Day I had the occasion, in Wisconsin, to dial up and wish a happy Mother's Day to a fallen soldier's mother, and I spoke with Donna Opicka. She had lost her son, Dean. And in her words, quote, ``It's not working.'' She's been against our involvement in Iraq from the start. She has two sons that are there. And we will always support our troops, but not a failed policy. And in her words, ``It's just not working.'' They told us oil prices would go down. They've gone up 300 percent. The Number 200, it's 200 percent, the increase in fuel oil that many people in Northeast Wisconsin rely on to heat their homes. And it was a long winter this year. And what about the number 13? 13 percent increase in your cost for groceries. Your food went up 13 percent. My friends, if the cost of our food went up 200 and 300 percent, we'd see a revolution in this country. And so earlier today we passed a farm bill that will fundamentally and dramatically change the way we're feeding ourselves. This farm bill determines what farmers will plant, what they're going to grow and, ultimately, what we're going to eat and what we're going to look like. That farm bill had the overwhelming support of over 300 Members of Congress, and it's a very good example of how Congress really ought to work, in a bipartisan way, Republicans and Democrats together putting their minds together and working out a way in which we can feed not just our own families but continue to feed the world. Now, as this increase in energy for food and energy for oil has gone skyrocketing, the food prices have held their own until recently, when the energy cost has crept into our food supply. At the same time as these costs are going up, your income is going down. The median income went down 2 percent since 2001. So at the very same time that middle class Americans are having a hard time keeping their head above water with the escalation in the cost for energy, both food and oil, their income is not going up. And so I think people watching tonight have to ask a fundamental question. Whose side are we on? Are we on the side of big business? Are we on the side of big insurance, big oil companies? I think not. We're not sitting in a boardroom. We're standing on the people's floor here in the House. And I'm very honored to work with my Class of 2006, the class I brand America's hope for a real positive and a new direction; not just in our farm policy, not just in our foreign policy, but our domestic policy as well, as we pay attention to and continue to work hard for the American people to give them a fair shake in our future. And I yield back.

Mr. KAGEN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. KAGEN. Does it bother you at all that we don't have any oversight in Iraq, where 20 percent of the money we're putting in, no receipts, no oversight at all, and it's a culture of corruption? Does that bother you at all?

Mr. KAGEN. Will the gentleman yield again for another question?

Mr. KAGEN. Does it not astound you that the administration today, and our opposing party, has no answer when we say, look, we are budget red. We have a budget deficit and Iraq has a budget surplus. Isn't it time that they paid for their own reconstruction? Isn't that a reasonable question?

Mr. KAGEN. It wouldn't be so bad if everybody else was doing that good. The reason it's bad is because we didn't get lifted up at the same time.

Mr. KAGEN. Not the boats in my district, but median income might be $28,000 to $32,000 a year. When I was home in northeast Wisconsin, I was at a diner, Tina's Roost, in Oconto. And I was meeting with some workers there, and I said, well, listen. We're about to take up this discussion about an economic stimulus package to revitalize our economy and get us out of this upcoming recession; and one of the city workers stood up and took apart some of the six layers of clothing because it was still pretty cold in northern Wisconsin, and he said, Kagen, look out the window. You can see it right there. The price of gas. You drop the price of gasoline, I have got more money in my pocket. And while you're at it, knock down my health care bills. Those are the two things we could do immediately to put more money in people's pockets. But my response was very direct and very honest. We're working hard to do that, but it's hard to do it when you have a President who's an oil person and you have a vice president who's an oil person and a Secretary of State who is an oil person. So if you've got oil in the White House, it's hard to move it out until we look forward to that date in November when we get that real positive change that we really need. So we can drive our economy, but we have to have an energy policy that makes sense, one that is designed in the open and not behind closed doors; an energy policy that will be fashioned towards renewable sources of energy, away from fossil fuels, and it has to make sense for our environment at the same time. But fundamentally, people are like back home in Wisconsin. A lot of people are like turtles on their back. They just want to get back on their feet and get started. And that's what we did with the energy stimulus bill, and we're also doing that with this housing bill that we put forward, trying to find a pricing floor in the housing market.

Mr. KAGEN. What we did the other day in terms of trying not to put more petrol into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is to increase the supply. And the President said what we should be doing is increasing supply by drilling more. But there's a fallacy in that argument. There are thousands of acres available for drilling on public land, and they're not drilling. So the fallacy is the price of oil is going to shoot up and up and up as long as we have fewer and fewer oil companies that are chasing down the oil. But we cannot drill our way out of this energy crisis. We can't drill and burn and drill and burn. We're going to end up choking on our own exhaust. We're going to inflate the temperature so much in this globe that we're going to melt not just the ice caps but our future at the same time. So we need to have that energy policy that is not based on increasing supply but finding alternative sources of energy.

Mr. KAGEN. We're doing that with the Department of Energy building because our Transportation Committee has decided that the energy building, the Department of Energy, should be led with some solar power. It's called future fitting. And if you future fit your home, put up solar cells, not to take it off the electrical grid but knock down your electric footprint, your carbon footprint, you will save much in your electric bill and also in terms of the CO2 production in the atmosphere. These are the little things that when they add up, when thousands of homes across the country begin to future fit their homes, we can gain a great deal of energy independence and stimulate the economy. People underestimate the millions of jobs that can be created by future fitting their home, and we have to help them out here in Congress to create that legislation to incentivize that.

Mr. KAGEN. Let me put it in a different perspective, if you will allow me to. It's not about profits. I'm in favor of profits. We have a capitalistic marketplace. I'd like people to be profitable. It certainly beats the alternative of being negative in red ink. But let me submit to you that the oil that we're pulling up out of the ground hasn't changed in millions of years. The gold we're mining out of these mines, it's the same gold as it has been for millions of years but it costs more. It costs more because the purchasing power of your United States dollar has declined. So there's a decline, a reevaluation south of everything you own and everything you do. Every working man and woman today is earning money that has less purchasing power than before, and it's because of our failed economic policy of this administration and the Republican party, the philosophy of borrow and spend and borrow and spend. You cannot borrow your way into national prosperity. You cannot spend your way into prosperity. We have to have a fiscally responsible and socially progressive House and Nation, and when we do that, when we reinstill these values, we'll begin to grow our way out of this current recession and restore some balance to our economy, wherein an oil company may not have to make that much money at the expense of every consumer who is struggling just to keep their head above water.

Mr. KAGEN. I think that you're headed toward the philosophy that I think America really believes in, getting back to the basics and putting the letters U-N-I-T-Y, unity, back into community.

Mr. KAGEN

Mr. KAGEN. Mr. Speaker, during the past year, I had the high honor of working with Republicans and Democrats alike in the House Agriculture Committee to bring forward a new reform-minded bill, one that would be great for the health of the American people and Wisconsin's agricultural economy. I'm pleased to be able to say the farm bill has the overwhelming support of Members of Congress, the farming communities everywhere, and business leaders alike. The new farm bill we intend to pass today will be good for our health and our economy, and as a physician, I'm pleased to say that it will begin to move our children's diets away from carbohydrates and more towards the healthier choices, including fruits and vegetables. It will also reward work instead of wealth by dramatically reducing income caps for those qualifying for direct payments. More importantly, this bill will determine what farmers plant, what they grow, and ultimately, what we eat and what we look like. The new farm bill also rewards the use of cellulosic biofuels which will help ease the strain on rising food prices. I urge all of my colleagues to support it in the strongest fashion.