Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. This bill is an environmental atrocity. The majority has allowed an unrelated amendment that would forbid the EPA--forbid them--from requiring the safe disposal of toxic coal waste that contains arsenic, mercury, and chromium. And the majority has allowed an amendment that would provide massive exemptions from the National Environmental Policy Act and smothers the ability of communities to have input into projects that could create toxic nightmares in local neighborhoods. This is what the Republicans are doing out here today. ``EPA,'' Every Polluter's Ally, that's what they want to turn it into. So what we have on top of that is a provision to build the Keystone pipeline through the United States of America from Canada, the dirtiest oil, by the way, in the world, bring it through the United States, and then to bring it to Port Arthur, Texas. Now, what goes on in Port Arthur, Texas? Very interesting. I think it's important for the American people to know what happens there. Last year, 73 percent of all of the gasoline that was refined in Port Arthur and in the Houston area was exported out of the United States. Understand what I'm saying? This is oil that was found in the United States, drilled for in the United States, sent down to Texas, refined down there in the Houston and Port Arthur area, and then they exported it. And where did they export it to--our oil, United States oil? They exported it to China, to the Communists. The Republicans are here blocking an amendment that makes it possible for us to stop the oil from the Keystone pipeline from being sent to the Communist Chinese. Now, I hear gentlemen out here charging President Obama with being a Socialist, but who would engage in this kind of activity, to pretend that they want to have oil for the United States and for our citizens, and then when I ask for an amendment to ensure that all the oil that comes through the Keystone pipeline stays in the United States, the Republicans say, Oh, no, you're not making that amendment; we're going to tie your hands, Mr. Markey; you can't make the amendment; we don't want you to make us be prohibited from selling this oil to the Communist Chinese? Now, ladies and gentlemen, that's just wrong. That's wrong. That oil is American oil. That oil should stay in the United States. If we're building this pipeline, it should stay here in the United States. We should not be exporting American oil, with gasoline prices at $4 a gallon, to China and to Latin America. That's what this whole plot is about, by the way. This is a plot to build a pipeline down to Port Arthur, Texas, tax free, and export that oil out of the United States. That's why the amendment I requested has not been put in order.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. The Republican budget reads like the legislative version of the ``Hunger Games,'' pitting American families in an unfair and losing battle against billionaires and Big Oil. One, the Republican budget doles out tax breaks that the wealthiest don't need and we can't afford; two, gives away $4 billion in annual tax breaks for oil companies; three, abandons grandma and grandpa, forcing them to pay more for health care or forgo coverage altogether; four, takes food out of the mouths of hungry children all across our country. Just yesterday, Senate Republicans refused to fix a broken system that allows CEOs to pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. Here in the House, the Republican leadership has called the Buffett rule a hoax. The real hoax is the Republican budget. The GOP used to stand for Grand Old Party. Now it stands for Guaranteed Oil Profits; now it stands for Gut and Get Old People; now it stands for Greed Over Principle. One hundred years after the Titanic sank, the Republican budget throws working Americans overboard while saving the lifeboats for the wealthiest. The ``Hunger Games,'' that's what the Republicans are playing. For the entertainment of the billionaires and the oil companies, we--that is the Republicans--are now going to sacrifice the programs that help the neediest children in our country. It is a budget that does not deserve the support of any Member of this institution.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. The rise in gas prices is not about Obama. It is about OPEC, oil companies, and Wall Street speculators. Wall Street speculators now control nearly two-thirds of the oil market, up from 11 percent just 10 years ago. Morgan Stanley now controls 15 percent of New England's home heating oil. Experts tell us that as much as 25 percent of the price of oil is the result of excessive speculation, which means American drivers are paying a ``Wall Street speculation tax'' of more than 70 cents on every gallon of gasoline. Wall Street speculators have turned oil markets into a crude oil casino. Yet the majority actually tried to cut funding for our Wall Street cops, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, by $30 million. Today, Mitt Romney called the administration's efforts to crack down on speculation a gimmick. But protecting Wall Street consumers, protecting Main Street consumers over Wall Street isn't a gimmick; it should be a given. This motion will give the CFTC speculation cops the resources and personnel they need to put an end to Wall Street's gasoline gambling. Vote ``aye'' on the Tierney motion to crack down on Wall Street speculation and to protect Main Street consumers. Vote ``aye'' on the Tierney motion to recommit.

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chair, the Republican budget reads like ``The Hunger Games''--forcing American families to compete for survival against a plutonium plutocracy. The Republican budget cuts Medicare. It cuts Medicaid. It cuts Pell Grants. Yet, at the same time, their budget calls for more spending on the weapons of last century's Cold War. More nuclear bomb-making plants. More nuclear missiles. More nuclear subs. Their budget fails to address the needs of the elderly, the children, the sick, and the most vulnerable. It makes no sense. It is insane. The CPC budget includes my legislation, the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act--the SANE Act. SANE will save $100 billion over the next 10 years by reducing nuclear weapons spending. The CPC and the SANE Act puts people ahead of plutonium. I urge my colleagues to join me and vote for the CPC ``Budget for All''.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, millions of Americans around the country are focused on March Madness and the basketball Final Four showdown this weekend. But for our Nation's seniors and the middle class, the real March madness is happening right here on the House floor with the Republican budget. This is the GOP's burden of March madness with its own final four: First, end Medicare guarantee for millions of seniors so that they're out of luck now in Medicare; Then you move on and you force Grandma and Grandpa to pay more for all of their coverage or forego it in its entirety; Next, what you do is you put billionaires first. You protect their tax breaks. You put them right up there on the top of the list of the most important people that need help in America today; Then, fourth, you subsidize Big Oil by keeping the $4 billion for tax subsidies in the budget while cutting, by 85 percent in the Ryan budget, the subsidies, the funding for wind and solar and renewable energy. Tax breaks for Big Oil; cut the programs for clean energy. So here is the completed bracket for the Republicans: ending the Medicare guarantee; abandoning Grandma and Grandpa; subsidizing Big Oil; and putting billionaires first. That is the Republican Final Four, and it's also the final answer for America. Yet, unlike the NCAA tournament, the Republican budget doesn't pit these priorities against each other--they're all winners in the eyes of the GOP. The GOP used to stand for Grand Old Party, but now it stands for the Gas and Oil Party. It stands for Grandma is out of prescriptions. It now stands for greed over principle. This is the real March madness--the Republican budget that makes winners out of Big Oil and billionaires while running out the clock for seniors and hardworking families who are left to fend for themselves. Vote ``no'' on this Republican budget.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentlelady so much. I think all of us on the Democratic side would agree that if there were a way to streamline and strengthen the FCC's procedures, and if we could find a way to improve the way in which it carries out its duties, well, we would support that. However, the aim of the Republican legislation is not to streamline the Federal Communications Commission; it is to straitjacket the Federal Communications Commission. This is a bill which would severely restrict the Commission's ability to operate effectively. If this bill becomes law, then the ``FCC'' would stand for ``Fully Constrained Commission''; and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the goal of the Republicans in this legislation. It would establish a separate administrative process to govern the FCC's internal operations that would be different from and more cumbersome than any other Agency's in the entire Federal Government, without producing any policy benefits. Now, we know who supports the bill. AT&T, big companies, they support this legislation. We also know who opposes this legislation. Every consumer group and every public interest group in the country says this is a particularly bad bill from a public interest perspective. But if you're AT&T, if you're a big company, you'll love this. This is going to tie the Commission in knots. You can continue to do whatever you feel like doing indefinitely because the Republicans have decided to create the most cumbersome--the most cumbersome--regulatory process of any Agency in this country. They're a model. They're pioneers here, the Republicans out here on the floor. They want to create the most modern ``redtape, tie them in knots'' agency possible with the hopes that other Federal Agencies would wind up emulating them. And it's going to be the first jobs bill that the Republicans have passed so far in this Congress because this bill is going to create so many jobs for lobbyists, so many jobs for lawyers, and so many jobs for all of the people who are now going to be put to work trying to untangle and untie this mess of a bill of a regulatory Agency that is going to be created by this process. So, ladies and gentlemen, this bill takes the public interest standard, the public benefits that have always been the test of whether or not the Agency can, in fact, make a decision that ensures that the interests of all Americans are being protected, and turns it into something which is going to wind up with a harmful, drastic departure from current law. This bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Vote ``no.''

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentlelady very much. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation. After 427 days in the majority and having no energy or jobs strategy to show for it, House Republicans are now offering H.R. 2842, the Bureau of Reclamation Small Conduit Hydropower Development and Rural Jobs Act. We need legislation that gets hydro projects moving and that gets hard hats down in the ditches again. Instead, Republicans are offering more legislation that is certain to be ditched by the Senate. We should encourage the development of small hydropower projects at existing facilities. In fact, if the legislation simply gave the Bureau of Reclamation exclusive jurisdiction to develop hydropower at Federal reclamation facilities, I would support it. If it mandated that the Bureau of Reclamation institute categorical exclusions for their small hydro projects, I would support it. But Republicans, they just couldn't help themselves. It doesn't matter the nature of the problem. For Republicans, the problem is always just nature, so they went and gutted environmental review altogether in this bill. That's what happens when your entire economic platform is deregulation and gutting safety and environmental protections. You start waiving environmental review even when the industry you're trying to help isn't asking for it. If the Republicans had simply followed the advice of the hydro industry, we would have a noncontroversial bill that I could support and recommend to all of the Democratic Members that we pass 435 to nothing out here on the House floor this afternoon. Instead, it's ideology over hydrology. That's what the Republicans bring to the floor today. If Republicans are serious about advancing the hydro industry, here is what they can do: extend the production tax credit, support clean renewable energy bonds, support domestic clean energy manufacturing tax credits, and extend the section 1603 renewable energy grant program. Here is what those successful Recovery Act programs have already done: Three companies have received $67 million in tax credits to build hydro-related manufacturing facilities in the United States. Eight companies have received $2 million in grants to support hydro deployment under the 1603 renewable energy grant program. Clean renewable energy bonds have supported $531 million in public power hydro projects across the country. But Republicans aren't interested in doing something constructive for hydro or for any other clean energy technology. With their oil-above- all strategy, Republicans want to continue subsidizing the oil and gas industry $4 billion annually--$40 billion over 10 years--but shut down all of the clean energy programs that I just outlined. They're going directly after any and all threats to Big Oil and Big Coal, and they're targeting clean energy jobs for elimination. Republicans on our committee have reported out a bill that would repeal the borrowing authority that the Western Area Power Administration currently has to help finance transmission serving renewable energy projects. Between one project in Montana that is already under construction and three others that are deep into development, there are 11,500 jobs at stake, but the Republicans don't care about those 11,500 jobs. Then there is the wind industry. Ten thousand American workers have already been cut in the wind industry because the production tax credit is expiring at the end of the year and orders are drying up; 27,000 more wind workers will lose their jobs if Republicans get their way and raise taxes on the wind industry beginning on December 31 of this year. A clean energy wave is upon us. America needs a vibrant domestic hydro industry, along with a healthy wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass industry, if we are to capture its benefits. Otherwise this wave will crash down upon us and, instead, carry the Chinese and the Indian and German economies to prosperity. Let us vote down this bad bill before us and move on to the real policies that will help America's hydro sector.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentlelady. While this bill directly affects the State of California, even though the State of California opposes the legislation, it is also opposed by representatives of the other western water interests--the State of Montana, the State of New Mexico, the State of Oregon, the State of Wyoming, the State of Colorado--which have all joined California in saying they don't want this bill. Why are they all saying that? They are saying it because of the precedent that it will set in upsetting settled water rights in the West. Now, to address that issue, the Republicans have inserted in the bill language that says this bill does not set a precedent in upsetting all the water rights in the West, as it upsets all the water rights in California. So, what's that like? Well, in 1929, the Belgian surrealist painter, Rene Magritte, painted a painting of a tobacco pipe. Under the pipe, he painted the words, ``This is not a pipe.'' But of course it was a pipe--or at least a painting of a pipe. This bill has a similar surrealistic quality to it. The bill states that the violence of this bill in upsetting water rights is not a precedent, that nothing that happens in California will be a precedent for any other State--which is why of course all the other States are opposing the bill because of the precedent that it sets. This bill sets the precedent to upset all those other arrangements. Others in the West who may wish to restructure water rights elsewhere around the West will look to it as a precedent. So I would say to the majority: nice job, but no cigar. Clearly, this bill does set a bad precedent, and we can't get around that fact just by putting in the bill that it does not set a precedent. You are, for all intents and purposes, taking all of those arrangements set up over generations and in one bill--opposed by all those States-- upsetting the apple cart and setting a brand new era. And you cannot get around it by saying in the bill: This does not set a precedent.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment along with Ms. Matsui and Mr. Thompson.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Our amendment is simple. It would ensure that State law is upheld and that the best available science is used when making decisions about the complex California water system. Instead of using cutting-edge science, the Republican bill would take us back to 1994. So let me ask you: Are you willing to give up your 2012 iPhone for a 1994 brick of a cellular phone? How about giving up your Prius for a Yugo? Or using a phonebook instead of Facebook? Would you rather fold a map or use Google maps? The answer to those questions is easy. And so is this one: Would you trade the science of California water in 2012 for 1994 science? If your answer is no, if your answer is you want to use the best science, today's science, in order to ensure that we protect the water users and the environment, then vote ``yes'' on our amendment. I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson) so he can explain why the radical coalition that we have also includes the Governors of seven States that don't like this bill.

Mr. MARKEY. May I ask, Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining on either side.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Matsui).

Mr. MARKEY. Would you be able to tell us, Mr. Chairman, who has the right to conclude debate?

Mr. MARKEY. And could you again tell me how much time I have remaining?

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself that 1 minute in order to just say this. If we don't do anything else here, at least we should say that we're going to use science, we're going to use the best available knowledge about science to ensure that this legislation does not invoke the law of unintended consequences, that we understand what we're doing. And I don't know why the Republicans have this aversion to using modern science; but I will tell you this, that this is going to be a defining vote here on the House floor. Do the Republicans actually believe in science? Do they want modern science to be used, or do they want some science from two decades ago to be used? The importance of using science is that it doesn't depend on one man. It relies on hundreds and thousands of scientists testing each other's works. The Republican bill would ignore 18 years of work by hundreds and thousands of scientists to reach today's consensus because they want that old science in order to take care of the special interests that cannot live within the advances made and the knowledge about the implications of what would happen under their bill.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of a provision in H.R. 3630 that will help ensure a competitive, creative, and consumer-friendly wireless marketplace. As more and more Americans use mobile devices to surf the web and communicate with others, it is imperative that they have a choice of providers that have sufficient spectrum to meet these growing demands. Because H.R. 3630 gives the FCC authority to hold voluntary incentive auctions of broadcast spectrum, it is important to ensure that there is no question about the Commission's authority to adopt and enforce rules of general applicability concerning spectrum aggregation that promote competition. Fortunately, the H.R. 3630 conferees included a provision that specifically confirms that authority. As an exception to a provision in the bill that prohibits the FCC from preventing persons from participating in auctions, this savings clause gives the FCC the flexibility to adopt spectrum rules in the manner that most effectively promotes competition--in connection with a particular auction or otherwise. I commend the conferees for including this provision.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very simple. It prohibits the export of the natural gas produced from the leases that are going to be given to oil and gas companies under this bill. The bottom line is, what the Republicans want to do is open up drilling for natural gas off of the beaches of Florida, off of the beaches of California, off of the beaches of Virginia, off of the beaches of New Jersey and Massachusetts. Then all they say is, Oh, we have to do this; it's for our national security. But right now, over at the Department of Energy, there are eight applications seeking to export 18 percent of our natural gas overseas--to China, to Europe, to Latin America. Why is that? Well, it's very simple. The price of natural gas in the United States is six times lower than in Asia. These companies want to make a big profit, not here in America, but by selling our natural gas--drilled for off of our beaches--to other countries. In Europe, it is four times more expensive for natural gas. That's where they want to sell it. Now, why would we support that? It's only if there is an oil and gas company agenda because, unlike natural gas, oil has a price which is set on the international marketplace. So, if it's $100 a barrel in China, it's $100 a barrel in the United States. Not so, ladies and gentlemen, with natural gas. Natural gas is our greatest asset. It's what's fueling our economic recovery. Manufacturing new jobs have been the highest in the last 5 years. It's very low-priced natural gas which is fueling this revolution in creating new jobs because the price of energy is so low in America for natural gas. What is the plan of the oil and gas companies? It's to send this natural gas around the rest of the world. What would the impact be? It would increase prices for the American steel industry; increase prices for the chemical industry; increase prices for the plastics industry; increase prices for the utility industries, which generate electricity for American homes and businesses; and it would ultimately increase prices for consumers in our country. This amendment, the Markey amendment, is aimed straight at the Strait of Hormuz, and it's saying to them, We've got the natural gas here in America. We're going to drill for it, but we're keeping it here because it's six times lower in price than it is in Asia and in Europe, and that's what we're going to keep here for our American citizens. We're not going to play this game of international markets so that the oil and gas industry can raise the price of natural gas up to the price of oil. They get rich, and ExxonMobil is reporting $137 billion in profits even as we give them, through the Republicans, $40 billion worth of tax breaks. When do American consumers get a break? When do American manufacturers get a break? When do the plastics, the chemical, the steel industries get a break in low energy prices? Is it all a one-way street for ExxonMobil and these big multinationals? The Markey amendment says that we drill for natural gas off the beaches of this country. That natural gas stays here in this country. It is not exported. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. I would inquire as to who has the right to close and if the majority is down to its last speaker.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chair, through you, I would prefer to wait until the final speaker for the majority is about to take the podium. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. May I ask how much time is remaining on either side?

Mr. MARKEY. At this point, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.