Cynthia Lummis

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you. Let me tell you about a few of our other classmates who could not be here this evening. We anticipated that we would have votes tomorrow and that we would have more members of our freshman class able to join us, but because of votes not being taken tomorrow, some people tried to get home tonight so they could visit with both their families and their constituents. Among them is Chris Lee from New York, who has spent two decades as a business entrepreneur in New York; Tom McClintock of California, another of our freshman colleagues, who was first elected to the California State Legislature at the age of 26; Pete Olson of Texas, a naval aviator for 9 years, who had missions in the Persian Gulf, also a naval liaison officer in the U.S. Senate; another, Bill Posey of Florida, an accomplished stock car racer. We have all become, of course, Pittsburgh Steeler fans due to our good friend and fellow freshman, Tom Rooney of Florida, who also played college football and was a special assistant U.S. Attorney at Fort Hood and taught military law. With that kind of diversity in our freshman class, it has been really helpful to me. For example, between votes, I can sit down on the floor next to Representative Rooney and ask him about things like enhanced interrogation techniques. Well, look. He just walked in the room. I didn't know you were still here. I'm so pleased to see you. It's that kind of expertise that makes our class such a close group and very helpful to each other as we are dealing with the many issues at hand. So, with the magical appearance of Representative Rooney, I'm delighted that you have chosen to join us this evening. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mrs. LUMMIS. How did you pay for it?

Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Luetkemeyer, this gets into an area that you're involved in deeply now. Any comments on either your service in the State legislature in Missouri and how you would compare it to process here in Washington and how process here in Washington impedes that or the energy issues specifically? Either one.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to engage in a colloquy with the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Chairman, section 311 of the bill directs the FAA to complete its analysis and recommendations for updating the aircraft, rescue and firefighting standards at our Nation's airports. I agree that the FAA should complete an update on firefighting standards, and commend the chairman for his dedication to improved safety at our airports. However, I am concerned that the prescriptive language in section 311 would unnecessarily create a significant financial burden on small rural airports least capable of absorbing cost increases. Will the chairman confirm that it is not the intent of H.R. 915 to saddle small airports and rural communities with unnecessary unfunded mandates? Further, can the chairman assure me that he will work with me and other Members from rural districts to ensure that there is adequate flexibility in aircraft rescue and firefighting standards to account for the unique needs of small rural airports? I yield to the chairman.

Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the chairman for his willingness to work together. I would also like to thank the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Adrian Smith, for his valuable assurance on this important issue.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Snakes and rabbits. They seem to go together. I was at a field hearing 2 weeks ago for the Natural Resources Committee. We toured solar facilities in California. We were in Representative Mary Bono Mack's district and Representative Jerry Lewis' district. We were on a Marine base at Twenty-Nine Palms with my committee cochairman, Jim Costa, who is from California as well. We got to tour their solar facilities. And they are about to put at a Marine base at Twenty-Nine Palms 240 acres of an abandoned lake bed--it is dry, there's absolutely nothing on it--in solar panels. And they will be able to do that in a way that improves the makeup, the mix of renewable and unrenewable resources on that base that will make it the leading base in the whole Marine system for renewables, because they have wind, solar, and some geothermal. But they probably could not pull that off if they were not on a nearly 600,000-acre military base, because if you try to move that same facility onto public lands in the desert, you encounter environmental group resistance to having large solar and wind projects, industrial scale. So there's nowhere to go without offending someone in this country. Oil and gas development offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf would be a magnificent resource for us, but there are environmental groups that have testified against that. Industrial-scale wind and solar on deserts in California, groups are testifying against that. Nuclear, groups are testifying against that. Any hydrocarbon, groups are testifying against that. Coal, there are groups saying there's no such thing as clean coal. We have to meet our energy needs as human beings, and there are ways to do it by using all of the resources we've discussed in moderation. That is the Republican response to this issue. To do it cleaner, do it better, do it with all of the resources that we have at our disposal in America; disengage from our need for foreign oil, because that is a national security issue, and produce our own energy, our own security. Do it in a more environmentally sensitive manner, but don't diminish our standard of living at the time we do it because it falls more seriously on working-class Americans and poor Americans than it does on rich Americans when we do something like our national energy tax, which is proposed under the name of cap-and-tax. Thank you very much for including me in your discussion this evening, and I yield back to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mrs. LUMMIS. So it is a wonderful resource.

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. King. You do such a nice job of laying out these issues. I want to thank Mr. Akin for including me in his last hour as well. The chart that was just placed up on the board illustrates something that is a new phenomenon in terms of the debate about renewable energies that I had not heard before arriving here in Washington--and that is objection by the environmental community to something called industrial-scale wind farms and industrial-scale solar farms. So even the advocates of renewable energy in terms of wind and solar are saying, Yes, we embrace wind energy and solar energy, but we do not want them done in industrial scale because it consumes so much land, it creates view sheds that have too many wind turbines on it, too many solar panels on it, and that we don't want them. And we are seeing efforts by Members of Congress when, coupled with environmental groups, to prevent large-scale wind farms and large-scale solar facilities in deserts and in areas where one might think would be appropriate for wind and solar, such as places where the wind blows and the sun shines. But, nevertheless, the problem seems to be the industrial scale that is being proposed for these facilities. Well, as you and I know, Mr. King, unless you do these on industrial scales, you can't possibly promote them as a larger component of our industrial energy mix. In fact, if you blanketed the entire State of Ohio with wind turbines, it would produce annually the equivalent amount of energy as one square mile of Wyoming coal. Now, Wyoming coal comes in square miles, which is very unusual for those of you from the East who are used to underground mines. We have something called surface mines, where you may have 30 to 100 feet of overburden, which is essentially the soil on top of the coal. And then you will uncover 100-foot coal seams. They are 100 feet level of coal, with no striations of anything but coal in between. So all you have to do is scrape off and save the overburden--the soil--pile it up, recover the coal, scoop it out, load it in trucks, load it in rail cars, and then put the top soil back in the same contours as it was before you began mining, reclaim the surface to a condition that is equivalent to or superior to the condition of the surface of the ground before you even began to recover the coal, and put it back to normal with ground for sage grouse, for rabbits, for snakes, and perfect, perfect ground cover.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Congressman Akin. I appreciate being involved in this discussion. This is a national energy tax. This will not solve our problems with pollution, but what will? Sometimes we Republicans are called the ``party of no,'' and it's because we need opportunities to express our better ideas. Indeed, I believe we do have better ideas, and some of them are being illustrated by the chart that Mr. Akin has on the board right now. We have opportunities to clean up the technologies and sources of energy that we have right now. We have the opportunity to increase the number of hybrid and zero-emission vehicles on the road. We have the opportunity to increase wind and solar and biofuels. We have the opportunity to add to the amount of natural gas that we use because it is, by far, the cleanest burning hydrocarbon. We have opportunities to sequester the CO2 that comes from coal, and as we know, coal is more than half of the electricity that is produced in this country. So, to abandon coal abruptly is just not possible. We should pursue ways to clean it up. That includes sequestering carbon. My State of Wyoming has the most advanced carbon sequestration laws in the country, which say that the pores under the surface where carbon can be sequestered--or captured and secured--belong to the surface owner, and that liability for the escape of hydrocarbons that are introduced into those pores are on the companies that put that carbon in the ground. So that creates a mechanism that other States are looking at right now, including Montana and others that are following Wyoming's lead. In addition, we need to produce from coal liquid products that burn less. In addition, we need more nuclear energy. As we know, nuclear energy is not a carbon emitter, and it is producing 20 percent of our electricity now. So we absolutely cannot take nuclear energy off the table. It's very important that we add more nuclear.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 20th anniversary of the Brady Plan and in honor of former Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady. The Brady Plan launched a new era of growth, development, and capital market access for emerging market economies. While Brady Bonds themselves have been largely superseded by newer instruments, the Brady Plan encouraged many emerging market countries to adopt and pursue ambitious economic reform programs which have been instrumental in the progress achieved during the last 20 years. On April 25, I attended a commemorative dinner in honor of Nicholas Brady and his many accomplishments. As Secretary of the Treasury under President George H.W. Bush, Mr. Brady was instrumental in resolving Latin American debt problems. I was honored to hear Mr. Brady speak on the current economic crisis and credit crunch, as well as present his proposal for reform. As he stated, we must have boldness, clarity, and determination today, just as they did in 1989 in order to build prosperity out of this crisis. International economic experts who attended the dinner praised Mr. Brady's work, while also noting how important trust, integrity, and personal relationships are in formulating global policy. The same is true today. Our actions today to solve the economic crisis cannot and should not be done in haste. The politically charged environment of Congress makes the creation of effective long-term policy extremely difficult. Consequently, Mr. Brady's remarks supported the creation of an independent commission, to find the root cause of our economic situation and to propose reforms to our financial system. I support such a bipartisan commission. As Mr. Brady stated, ``It is vital not just that far-reaching, complex reform of the financial system be pursued prudently but in a bipartisan manner in order to gain national support. After all, the purpose is to revive public confidence in the system itself.'' I was disappointed to see the Financial Markets Commission in S. 386, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, pass the House with a makeup of six Democrats and four Republicans. That is why last week I opposed this commission while at the same time agreeing to cosponsor H.R. 2111, the Congressional Commission on Financial Accountability and Preparedness Act of 2009. H.R. 2111's commission will have two members appointed from each side of the aisle and a mutually agreed upon fifth member to chair. This is true bipartisanship and is what is needed to find the real root causes and solutions to our financial crisis. I hope that submitting Mr. Brady's speech for the Record will spark a debate in Congress over the necessity for a bipartisan commission and how we, as a Nation, will move forward. April 25, 2009. 20th Anniversary of the Brady Plan (By Nicholas F. Brady) Washington, DC.--Good evening. I'd like to thank Charles Dallara and the IIF for organizing this gathering of old and new friends to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Brady Plan. Although I've been given the honor of speaking, I'd like to note that a great many of you here tonight share the credit for making the Brady Plan a success. And I want to thank you all of you who have spoken so generously. Let's start with why the Brady Plan was called the Brady Plan. We had been negotiating with Mexico since March 1989 under the rubric of what we called ``the new debt strategy.'' In July, while we were in Paris for the Group of Seven Summit, we had a major breakthrough with Mexico. When President Bush, No. 41, held the traditional end-of-summit press conference before 1,000 reporters, one journalist asked the president if he was going to call the new strategy the Bush Plan. He didn't miss a beat before answering, ``No, we're going to call it the Brady Plan. Then if it works, we'll call it the Bush Plan.'' The audience erupted into laughter, and the president, with his marvelous sense of humor, repeated the line so many times in the following days that the name stuck. There are uncanny parallels between the situation we find ourselves in today and the one the Bush administration confronted a generation ago. We faced a three-pronged crisis, including the credit markets, the real-estate market, and the budget just as the Obama administration does now. So it may be useful to recall the issues and challenges of the late '80s and early '90s as we try to resolve current problems and move into the future. First of all there was a serious LDC debt crisis. It's easy to forget that in 1988 our banking system was in dire straits because the commercial banks held billions of dollars of loans in countries whose economic prospects had ground to a halt. Three weeks into my job as Treasury secretary, the late Gustavo Petricioli, then Mexico's ambassador to the United States, called for an urgent meeting at the Treasury department to tell me that Mexico was threatening to default on its international bank loans. Talk about reality. It didn't take much imagination to grasp that if Mexico took that route then a string of Latin American economies likely would follow and that a volatile region would move from chaos to danger. Clearly a new approach was needed. For several years before I got to the Treasury, people had come in with various papers and solutions, all aimed at alleviating the debt overhang, but none really accomplished that. In a huge stroke of good fortune, I inherited two brilliant people at Treasury--David Mulford and Charles Dallara--and the first thing we did was to write a paper that came to be known as the ``Truth Serum Paper.'' We worked days, nights, and weekends to establish a detailed description of the problems we faced, of what the fundamental realities were. No troublesome obstacle was passed over. Among the indisputable points we laid out were that new money commitments had dried up in the past 12 months and that many banks were negotiating private sales of LDC paper at steep discounts while maintaining their claim on the countries that the loans were still worth 100 cents on the dollar. There were more, and they were equally sobering. We used these irrefutable facts as a starting point in all subsequent meetings. Our rule was that no suggestions were permitted to be discussed if they didn't accept the Truth Serum. They were off the table. Goodbye. Don't waste time. I felt that the solution to too much debt was not more debt but less. From there, you know the rest: we persuaded the international commercial banks--at first with great difficulty--to write down the stated value of the loans on their books to something close to market value in exchange for that lesser amount of host-country bonds backed by U.S. zero-coupon Treasuries. The Brady Plan was achieved at a negligible cost to the U.S. government. Yet it led to the restructuring, for example, of more than $100 billion of foreign bank debt for Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina alone. The plan broke the debt gridlock and opened the door for economic growth and social development in Latin America after the lost decade of the 1980s. And it created a new asset class: publicly traded sovereign debt--Brady Bonds--that grew to exceed half a trillion dollars. The process bought time, and the bonds helped to provide funds to developing nations in exchange for long-lasting reforms by the participating countries. A second initiative the Bush 41 administration had to undertake was to reconstitute the savings and loan industry and the real-estate market it financed--a problem not of President Bush's making. We created the Resolution Trust Corporation to take over some 750 insolvent savings banks, which reintroduced vibrancy into the real-estate market. In order to do this, we had no choice but to seek funding from Congress and undergo the intense political criticism that came with it. So we took the heat and moved on to solve the problem. Leadership can be painful. The final tab for cleaning up the S&L mess was $165 billion, including what was spent before we arrived. While this is not trivial, it didn't come close to estimates by businesses, politicians, and the media, which estimated that it would cost us $500 billion. I've been asked a number of times what reversed that era's negative thinking--and when. My firm conclusion is that it subsided in direct proportion to the weekly successful results recorded by the RTC to close the bankrupt S&Ls, gather up the real estate they held, and sell it promptly into the market. Third, in a major contrast to today, we set about to reign in escalating spending by the U.S. government, which was, for that day and age, clearly out of control. The Budget Act of 1990 established binding caps on the amount that Congress could spend on discretionary items. It was easy to see--and it was easy for me to recommend--that that's what the country needed. But President Bush, who had uttered the famous words, ``No new taxes,'' in his 1988 election campaign, said to me more than once, ``The trouble with you, Brady, is that you never ran for sheriff.'' The record should be clear that George Bush fully grasped the political ramifications of designing this legislation, but he decided it was the right thing to do for the country. And while the Budget Act probably contributed to his reelection defeat in 1992, it was an essential building block for the decade of economic growth that followed. People constantly tell me that the problems we're dealing with today are much more complex than those we faced 20 years ago. Maybe. Maybe not. The issues didn't feel simple to us back then, just as I'm sure they don't feel simple to Secretary Tim Geithner and his associates at the Treasury now. I won't spend a lot of time tonight trying to assign blame for the current crisis; I've been gone from Wall Street too long. In broad strokes I would say that when I came to Wall Street in 1954, it was a profession, one that financed the building of this country's industrial capacity and infrastructure. Year by year, however, the industry's emphasis has moved away from that purpose and toward financial innovation for financial profit's sake. Of course, many banks have served their clients well and their hard work has been a positive factor. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Commerce figures show that from 1980 to 1982, the financial sector accounted for an average of 9.1 percent of U.S. total corporate profits. By 2005 to 2007 that three-year average had more than tripled, to 28.6 percent. The particulars of today's collapse in judgment and common sense have been laid out in chapter and verse, so just I'll say briefly, first, that the whole notion that risk can be measured by a mathematical formula is based on the illusion of reality. Second, the desire for the improved returns generated by high leverage led the purveyors of this risk to push it beyond any reasonable boundaries. But while assigning villainy to CEOs of banks and other institutions may be high theater, playing to our country's justifiable anger is counterproductive. There are many good people in the industry, people who inevitably will--and should--be called on to work through the malfunctions in the system. The political process should concentrate now on how to fix the financial system and let the country's legal arm ferret out and deal with the wrong doers. A core issue today is that the government has yet to adequately describe the roots of the financial crisis to its citizens and therefore to fully pinpoint its size. It's been my experience that you can't fix what you can't explain. This leads one to think that the solution lies in providing ringing clarity on how the housing market burst, how the market excesses spread beyond housing, how these forces were fueled and then accelerated by our outsized external imbalances, and, with this knowledge, decide how markets can now be stabilized. At the same time, it's hard to see how our national leaders have helped the country dig out of its very real problems when they devalue each public pronouncement with the caveat: ``Remember, it's not over yet.'' Their caution reminds me of a story that was told to me by a friend, Bob Kleberg, who was the head of the King Ranch, the largest ranch in the United States, about a college commencement ceremony in his hometown of Kingsville, Texas, during the worst of the Great Depression. Bob had invited two speakers. One was an earnest Ivy League economist and the other was this country's most famous cowboy-philosopher, Will Rogers. The economist, who spoke first, read a long and languorous speech about how bad things were, leaving the roomful of 21-year-olds wondering if there was any hope to be had about their prospects. The conclusion of his speech was met with nervous and polite applause, after which Will Rogers, who was sitting in the front row, literally vaulted up onto the stage. Facing the audience squarely he looked out and said just six words: ``Live through it if you can.'' Then he jumped off the stage and returned to his seat. Terse, maybe. But they did live through it. And we will, too. So what should we do as the crisis abates? Here, there is real work to be done. First we should just come out and say it: the financial system that led us to the brink of disaster is broken. How do we proceed? The first step would be to reduce the number of and simplify the U.S. regulatory authorities, which include the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the FDIC, the OTS, the CFTC, the SEC, and state regulators too numerous to list. The easiest part of this process is naming them! Nowhere else in the world is the implementation of banking authority so diffuse, and the choices they present to the governed result in regulatory shopping for the softest touch. Be forewarned: each one of these organizations has a protector in Congress, and it will take a thunderbolt from the White House and Congress to reorganize and streamline them. Tough as it will be, the necessity is apparent to all, both here and abroad. The next step after marshaling the regulatory authorities is to move on to the banking institutions themselves. Of course we must be attendant to the fact that markets are international and by definition interrelated and interdependent. Yet a sense of order would dictate that we tend to our own backyard before trying to gain consensus with 19 other countries. As I see it, we have two choices. The first is to repair the current system, which is made of deposit-taking institutions on the one hand and what's known as the shadow banking system, or non-bank financial institutions, on the other. Under this approach, we would subject the entire group to one large, all-seeing regulatory system. Doing so would be enormously complicated, and the more complicated the regulatory system the less effective the regulation. In my opinion it is a bridge too far. We need a stronger identity of purpose between the regulators and the businesses subject to regulation beyond mere adherence to the law. My own view is that in addition to too many regulators, there is the further problem that the regulators did not use their existing powers. They could have halted the growth of the excessive leverage but did little. A culture of systemic risk awareness has to be developed, with clear guidelines to be followed regularly. Equally important, we need a financial system that has untouchable safety and survivability as its main stem. This would remove debate over whether any of its parts is too big to fail. After all, we're talking about the people's money. Is it operationally possible to combine the mechanics of the shadow banking system, which has emphasized gigantic leverage under-girded by stratospherically complex mathematical formulae, with the principle of securing the people's money? And as tempting as it is to tinker with the present system instead of building a new one, is it the best we can do to prevent another crisis? I believe that we need a simpler system centered on deposit-based banks. Under this approach, individual accounts in the depository banks would continue to be protected up to $250,000 and these banks would have access to the country's central bank. These institutions would not be allowed to participate in markets involving inordinate leverage or equity transactions that would risk their deposit-protecting charter. In contrast to the current mode, when asked what their primary purpose is, the banks' chief executives wouldn't talk first about shareholder return. Instead they would stand up and say: ``Our institution's primary purpose is to repay the depositors' money. Of course this is not the institutions' only purpose, and innovation within them as it relates to the asset side of the balance sheet should be encouraged as long as they keep a weather eye on leverage and equity risks. The highly innovative shadow banking system with its mantra of lower transaction costs, which would continue to introduce new concepts, would fund itself from the money markets and other sources but without federal guarantees and access to America's central bank. Institutions that currently straddle the two funding markets would have to choose which type of business to pursue. I know this would provoke the immediate cry that the financial system would be further pinched and credit would further shrink. My answer is that any deposit- gathering system with a $250,000 guarantee from the U.S. government and access to the central monetary authorities would get all the deposits it needed to provide a vibrant credit system. Admittedly, ironing out the details of such a vastly complicated system is a task of the highest order, but I believe it is attainable. You may have noticed that the Senate voted this week to create an independent commission to examine the root causes of the economic collapse and provide a blueprint for the future, and the Speaker of the House called for an inquiry similar to the Pecora Commission held in the early 1930s that gave rise to that generation's new securities laws. It takes me back. My first assignment as a new hire at Dillon Read in 1954, where I stayed for the next 35 years, was to read the volume on securities from the Pecora findings as an explanation for why we did things the way we did. This country has had a long and important history of independent commissions aimed at laying the groundwork for solutions to national problems of huge moment. Independent is the key word. Such commissions, which call on people with deep knowledge of the underlying problem, have had as their precept exposing fundamental realities. It's unfathomable why such a suggestion has been so long in coming, except to note that commissions terrify the powers that be, both inside and outside the government. If properly constituted, however, they bring together the best of the country's thinkers and thinking, and they're often the only force that unifies the nation. I've been dismayed to read that a number of lawmakers who say they're for a commission nonetheless don't want it to get in the way of acting now. That's exactly backwards. In my view what we need is a rigorous debate and that takes time. As the American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ``Counsel to which time hath not been called, time will not ratify.'' The composition of the commission is critically important: it can shape the whole outcome. It should have the word ``independent'' in its title. I believe its chair or chairs should be appointed by the president and that its expert membership should be appointed in equal numbers by the Democratic and Republican leadership of both houses of Congress. It is vital not just that far-reaching, complex reform of the financial system be pursued prudently but in a bipartisan manner in order to gain national support. After all, the purpose is to revive public confidence in the system itself. In conclusion, let me thank all of you for the great warmth of your reception. We can all agree that thanks to so many of you in this room tonight, including Charles and David, Bill and Pedro and Angel, that the Brady Plan worked and that it indeed set the base for significant prosperity over the past 20 years. I believe that if we can muster similar boldness, clarity, and determination today, we can build prosperity from this crisis and I look forward to working with you in this endeavor.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Madam Speaker, ever since I came here I've been hearing the majority party say that they inherited this deficit, and so they have no recourse except to double it in 5 years and then to triple it in 10. That is not a grown-up response to inheriting a deficit. The grown-up response is to be responsible with discretionary spending and taxes. With regard to taxes, Madam Speaker, if the government increased the top tax rate from the current rate of 35 percent to 100 percent, it would only collect an extra $400 billion this year. In other words, confiscating all of the income that is currently taxed at 35 percent, the highest tax rate, would not raise enough revenue to cover any of the annual deficits projected in the next 10 years. There is no way the tax hikes on the rich alone can pay for the proposed spending in the current budget. The tax hikes are going to fall on working-class Americans and on poor Americans. This is no way to run a household, and Madam Speaker, it is no way to run this House.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Madam Chairman, today, in America, there is a set of parents that are sitting at the table with their teenage son. Their teenage son does not have a job, but he's provided an allowance by his parents. They're sitting at the table because, unbeknownst to the parents until today, he has taken out four credit cards and run them up to the maximum. So the discussion with the teenage son is, What are we going to do about this? The teenage sons says, I will find a summer job mowing lawns. And they say, Well, what are you going to do in the fall? It's going to take you longer than that to pay back your credit cards. Let's worry about that when the fall comes. In order to avoid a big scene, the parents say, Okay, we'll worry about it when the fall comes. Now give us your credit cards so we can tear them up and stop this bleeding. The son, of course says, You can't have my credit cards. I've become used to this lifestyle. I'm going to keep my credit cards and run them up some more. As we know, that teenage son is the Democrat budget and the parents are the American taxpayers.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Madam Chairman, it takes one second to say ``no.'' One second to say ``no'' to this budget tomorrow. One second to save the American people $23 trillion. One second to save the American people and their children and their children's children from the debt that we are piling on them. One second to save them from taxes every time they turn on a light. One second to save them from expenditures that we'll never see the end of. It will take one second to say ``no.'' Or we can say ``yes'' to the Republican budget. If you say ``yes'' to the Republican budget, we can get to the point where deficits disappear. We can get to a point where the American people will be proud of their Congress for spending only as much as they take in. One second to say ``yes'' or one second to say ``no.'' I encourage my colleagues to vote with the American people, for their pocketbooks, for their financial security, to save them from debt. One second. Say ``yes'' to the Republican budget. Say ``no'' to the Democrat budget and save us and our children and our grandchildren from a future of debt that we may never recover from.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to support the Hastings amendment to the omnibus lands bill. I want to give you two examples why and they couldn't be farther apart and still be in America. One is here in Washington, D.C. I had a friend who worked for the Federal Government who was getting threatening phone calls from a disgruntled former employee. She was an older woman who lived alone and worked for an agency here in the Federal Government. And so she got a concealed weapons permit to protect herself and was commuting in and out of D.C. to an adjacent State. Having that concealed weapon would have been illegal under the new judge's ruling, which is why the Hastings amendment to the omnibus lands bill needs to be adopted. Now here is my example from the West. It is springtime. We're just starting to fix fence after a long winter that broke down some of the fences. When you're sitting on the ground fixing a fence and you're sitting right next to a rattlesnake, it can be very disconcerting. So a number of us carry weapons while we're fixing fence. If you let a weapon be hidden under your coat, even accidentally, you need a concealed weapons permit. So some people get concealed weapons permits and carry a weapon while they're fixing fence. Well, if you happen to be one of those people who is also driving between Cody, Wyoming and Jackson, Wyoming, you're going to go through Yellowstone National Park. That is your commute. And it would be illegal to have that weapon under this recent judge's ruling. Mr. Speaker, both the Bush and the Obama administration have pushed forward with a rule to allow the carrying of concealed weapons on these lands subject to local State laws. By doing so, they bring these public lands in line with millions of acres of BLM and Forest Service lands where the application of local gun laws have guided our public land managers well. It took just one U.S. District Judge to throw that consistency out the window, but this Congress has the opportunity to renew it should the Democrat leadership in the House allow just one simple amendment to address the protection of our second amendment rights. Sadly, they are refusing to do so, placing the importance of a political win on the public lands omnibus bill above the constitutional rights of our citizenry to keep and bear arms. I urge the Rules Committee and the House Democrat leadership to reconsider their priorities and to allow us to protect second amendment rights when we consider the public lands bill tomorrow.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an achievement of the University of Wyoming Nordic Ski Club. Two weeks ago, this team swept the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association Nationals, with the men's and women's team both bringing home the gold. I would like to congratulate coaches Christi Boggs and Rachel Watson, who led this team to double championship titles at Devil's Thumb Ranch in Colorado. This is the fourth national title for the University of Wyoming's women's program and the second for the men's program in 10 years. Particular recognition should also go to Daniel Lewis, who came away with three individual championships, as well as his fellow teammates on the men's championship relay team, Eliah Pedersen and Evgeniy Panzhinskiy. In addition to these three accomplished young men, John Kirlin was named an Overall Individual All-American. On the women's team, this title was awarded to Gracey Lewis, Kari Boroff, Gwynn Barrows and Marie Cartwright. Again, I congratulate the University of Wyoming ski teams, my alma mater ski teams, on all their success. The Cowboy State is proud of these young men and women.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important issue to me. I rise to oppose Senate 22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act in the suspension, but my decision to oppose this was not an easy one, because two of the individual bills in this omnibus measure were introduced in honor of a dear friend of mine, one of the truest Western statesmen to have ever served in the United States Congress. I speak, of course, of the late Senator Craig Thomas, who was also a Member of this body, a tireless advocate and protector of those values that continue to shape Wyoming and its people. Wyoming is a State blessed with unparalleled natural resources, from spectacular mountain ranges and wide open plains to the vast mineral deposits that lie beneath them. In Wyoming, we find balance regarding how those very resources are managed. The bill we are considering today fails in achieving that have balance. While our economy reels and the Federal deficit reaches record highs, this bill places an additional $10 billion burden on the taxpayers in Wyoming and across the Nation. These are not dollars being spent to ease economic woes or create jobs, these are dollars being spent in large part to restrict access to our public lands, to limit responsible energy production in the West and to codify the vague and ill-conceived National Landscape Conservation System. Supporters of this 1,200-page massive omnibus package will tell you that most of the bills it is comprised of are largely noncontroversial. In some cases they are correct, but in many cases they are not. Nearly 100 of the bills wrapped into this measure were never considered by the full House, let alone by those of us who were freshmen. Absolutely no amendments are allowed to be offered today. As such, I am afforded no opportunity to work with the people of my State to address the specific local concerns regarding the Wyoming portion of this package.

Mrs. LUMMIS. In today's vote we are asked to choose all or nothing. I know, Mr. Speaker, the House can do better. Our public lands deserve better.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the gentlelady from Illinois for this fine session this evening. The American people know, and particularly women in this country know, that you cannot tax and spend your way into economic prosperity; and furthermore, you cannot tax during a recession. Yet, that is what is being proposed, and those taxes will fall on you. One of the ways in which those taxes will fall on you during this recession is through something called cap and trade. Cap and trade is a tax, so I'm going to go over and change this and add the word ``tax.'' And I want to talk specifically about how it's going to affect family budgets. Cap and trade is a tax that will be used to change the way that you use power--meaning electricity, oil, gas--and anything that comes from carbon--meaning oil, gas, or coal, specifically. And those sources of energy represent 50 percent of the electricity in this country, which comes from coal, and also a significant amount, of course, of our gasoline coming from oil, and natural gas, which is used to heat our homes. These all emit carbon. And in order to change the American behavior and the way that we use these carbon-emitting substances, the Obama administration proposes to tax them. It will be called a cap and trade system, which is a market-based system, but it's cleverly disguised as a market-based system because, in reality, it is a tax, a carbon tax, and it will be paid by the American consumer. So if you use electricity, if you heat or cool your home, if you drive an automobile, if you use public transportation, you will be paying this tax. And here's how it will accrue to you if you are an average household. Gasoline is in blue on this chart, natural gas in red, electricity in green. And as you can see, the cost of these for an average household without the cap and trade tax is on the left, and the cost with cap and trade is on my right--the left of someone who would be viewing this chart. So you will see it will have a 9 percent increase for electricity in the average home, 14 percent increase for natural gas, and a 16 percent increase for gasoline in the average home. Now, I can tell you, in my home State of Wyoming it will be much higher than that because in the winter it costs more for us to heat our homes. In the summer, admittedly, it costs less for us to cool our homes. But we consume more gasoline per family than any other State in the Union and that is because there is no public transportation in Wyoming. The distances are too far. We are the ninth largest State by land mass, and we have the smallest population in the Nation. Consequently, we can't go anywhere on public transportation; it is all automobile-based. That's why we consume more gasoline than other States, and that's why the effects of this tax will fall very heavily on people who live in rural areas, and also in areas with extreme climate changes or extreme temperature changes, places that must heat their homes in the winter and cool their homes in the summer. So if you fall into any of those categories, you're going to see much higher expenses because all of the cap and trade taxes are going to be passed on to you. They are not going to be absorbed by the companies that are producing oil, gas and coal. However, there is going to be another impact on those businesses, and that is job loss, job loss at a time when this country is in recession, at a time when job losses are already driving us more deeply into recession. And that job loss looks like this: 2011, over 200,000 jobs lost; and each year thereafter, climbing to the year 2015, to about 1.5 million jobs lost due to this cap and trade tax. And once again, I'm going to write the word ``tax'' on this chart. What's worse, this is being foisted on the American people in the name of climate change, in the name of global warming. And those who believe that global warming is man-made--and there are many, I would say a preponderance of people believe that climate change is man-made-- believe that if Americans change their ways and consume less carbon- emitting substances, that they will be able to change climate. I learned last week in a Natural Resources Committee from an international expert on energy and climate that that is not the case, that America could cease all economic activity, that Japan could cease all economic activity, and that Europe could cease all economic activity, we could turn off our lights, we could quit using our cars, we could stay home, we wouldn't work, the factories would shut down, in all three of those large economies and it is not going to have one iota of influence on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere unless China, Russia and India change their climate policies. China desperately wants each person in their economy to have a light bulb in their home. That is their goal, a light bulb in every home. And in order to put a light bulb in every home in China they are building one new coal-fired plant a week, and they will have to continue to do so for a very long period of time. No one can blame China for wanting a higher standard of living for every person in their country, and no one can fault them for wanting them to do it with resources they have--like coal, oil and gas--and for wanting to do it with the cheapest source, hydroelectric and coal. Consequently, the costs that will be borne by the American consumer are going to have not one single effect on carbon emissions in this atmosphere. That's where rational thinking goes out of the way and the American consumer foots the bill. I want to close--and I thank the gentlelady from Illinois--I want to close with this thought: You can't tax and spend your way out of a recession. And taxes during a recession is the absolute worst consequence on a family in America in the 21st century with these problems.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Would the gentlelady yield?

Mrs. LUMMIS. Who is going to bail out the bank when the bank loses that money?

Mrs. LUMMIS. We do. And the gentlelady makes a wonderful point. These are taxes. These are taxes on the consumers of American energy. So if you have electricity in your home or in your office, or if you drive a vehicle, or if you use electricity or oil or gas or energy of any kind, you will be paying a tax. And that tax will amount to $646 billion in new taxes, which will come out of your pocket. So 100 percent of the people who use energy in this country will pay 100 percent of the taxes that will be levied pursuant to the Cap and Trade bill. Now, this means that a typical consumer, in their electric bill in their home, will see about a 62 percent increase in their utility bills. And businesses, small businesses--such as you and the gentleman from Tennessee have been discussing--will see a 100 percent increase. They will see a doubling in their utility rates. And, of course, other fuels will increase as well, including gasoline--which, once again, makes me recall my friend who brings groceries into the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and the hardships that will be imposed on regular Americans as a consequence of Cap and Trade legislation. In addition, the proposed budget by the President includes an enormous array of taxes on the oil and gas industry, which will, once again, be passed on to consumers in America--that is if the industry here survives. And if the industry here does not survive or cuts back, that will reduce American jobs, it will increase our dependence on foreign sources of oil and gas. It fails to acknowledge that natural gas is the cleanest burning hydrocarbon. And my State of Wyoming, which produces coal, may end up shipping its coal to places like China, which are demanding coal and building new coal-fired power plants. Now, I learned today in a committee meeting before the Natural Resources Committee from a witness that was brought in at the pleasure of the majority party that if you ceased all economic activity in the United States, Europe and Japan combined and did absolutely nothing, that unless China, India and Russia changed their ways, we'll see no reduction in carbon emissions--which is to say we could completely cease all economic activity in Europe, the U.S. and Japan and still, because of the carbon emissions and the increases in carbon emissions that are occurring in China, Russia and India, there will be no reduction in carbon emissions. So, in other words, we are not going to be able to influence. By hurting our own economy, reducing our own jobs, taxing our own people, we're not going be able to reduce carbon emissions. So, consequently, we need to look at the benefits of these programs that are being proposed in the President's budget and compare them to the costs. And I can tell you based on what I saw today in budget presentations in the Budget Committee and testimony in the Natural Resources Committee that the benefits of reducing carbon emissions in the United States, Europe and Japan are not recovered, and the cost is borne by the American people.

Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the gentlelady from North Carolina and the gentleman from Tennessee for their dialogue. It brought to mind a constituent of mine. I am from the State of Wyoming, and an Arapaho woman, who is a friend of mine, had a business last summer on the reservation in Wyoming where she was bringing groceries in, trucking groceries into the reservation for easy access and purchase by members of both the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation. It provided an opportunity for Native Americans to shop on the reservation rather than having to go into town in Riverton or Lander. It provided Native Americans with jobs in trucking and in the grocery business. And she's a wonderful entrepreneur. When the price of gas reached $4 a gallon, it was not clear that she would be able to keep her grocery business open. She was beginning to cut down on the hours that her employees worked, cut down on the amount of product she had on her shelves. And had those prices continued at that rate, she would have had to have closed her doors making it more expensive for Native Americans to drive to adjacent communities to purchase their groceries. Fortunately, the price of gas dropped. But since I've come to Congress, and particularly in the last week, I've seen, as a member of the Budget Committee and a member of the Natural Resources Committee, proposals in the President's budget for Cap and Trade legislation that would include $646 billion in new revenue. Now, that new revenue is going to come from the American people.

Mrs. LUMMIS. I yield.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you very much for yielding. Mr. Speaker, it's a privilege to participate in this discussion. As a new member of the Budget Committee, I learned today that the President's budget would project the levels of spending in the war in Iraq at the same level that they are during the surge, and use that dollar amount and project it out to the year 2019. It does not account for the fact that President Obama has decided to withdraw combat troops from Iraq in August of 2010, but for this manner: if you project that spending is going to go up when you factor in inflation until 2019 at surge levels, and then you project that we're going to withdraw troops, that gives you $1.6 trillion that the administration is choosing to spend on other programs. In other words, that money won't be saved, it will be redirected into other components of this President's budget.