Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chair, during rollcall vote number 208 on H.R. 658, on the Garrett of NJ amendment, I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``no'' when I should have voted ``yes.'' Amendment No. 9 Offered by Mr. DeFazio

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Speaker, in an era when Edwardian drama is the only way to characterize the way in which cable news deals with the public affairs of our country, there is an oasis of real news that begins with Morning Edition, goes right through the day to All Things Considered, which focuses on that most unusual of all subjects, hard news, that the American people can use to make judgments about the affairs of our country and the affairs of the world. It is an oasis of information that is supplemented, yes, by Lake Woe Begone, On Point, other programs that raise the cultural level but serve as a place where people, 170 million Americans, can go to get real information. Now what is this debate all about? Well, it's really about an ancient animosity which the Republican Party has had to the very creation of NPR, through Newt Gingrich, through the early years of the 21st century, right up to today where it's on a list of grievances which they have about this ability of NPR to provide this news and information. That's what the debate's about. You don't have to be Dick Tracy to figure out what this debate is all about. They have right from the very beginning of the creation of this network wanted to destroy it. I think that they are going to run into a razor blade sharp edge reaction from the American public as they find that, in place of Morning Edition and Car Talk and All Things Considered, they want to move to radio silence, and when the American people find out about that, they are going to be outraged. I would vote ``no'' and urge strongly a ``no'' vote for all Members of this body.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. This bill would wipe ``Car Talk'' off the road. It would wipe ``Lake Woebegone'' right off the map. It would close down ``Marketplace,'' and tell ``Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!'' to take a hike. GOP used to stand for ``Grand Old Party.'' Now it stands for ``Gut Our Programs.'' This bill prohibits public radio stations from using Federal funds to buy these programs and others produced by National Public Radio or its competitors. As a result, this bill would silence public radio stations across the country, depriving listeners of the news and information they depend on. Public radio stations can just raise the money from private donors, some say. Not likely. Local public radio stations need signature NPR programs like ``Morning Edition'' and ``All Things Considered'' to attract audiences. By drawing listeners to local stations, these programs and others generate strong financial support from the local listening area. Without these prominent NPR programs, local stations won't be able to attract the audience and sufficient fundraising base to keep running. Every month, more than 170 million Americans turn to their local public broadcasting stations for free high-quality programs that focus on the issues most important to them. This bill would pull the plug. It would snuff out stations from coast to coast, many in rural areas where the public radio station is the primary source of news and information. This makes no sense. Public radio is widely supported by large majorities of Americans regardless of party affiliation. It is increasingly relied upon while fewer Americans watch broadcast TV and read newspapers. This bill was rushed to the floor without a single hearing, completely bypassing the committee process. It is unwise, ill- conceived. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. Monument designations do not take non-Federal land. The Antiquities Act only allows monument designations on land the Federal Government already owns. There is nothing improper about these designations. This authority has been upheld by every court which has reviewed it since 1906. Monument designations do not lock up resources. Monument designations under the Antiquities Act grandfather valid, existing rights so any mining or other claim existing before the designation can still move forward. If Members object to the Antiquities Act of 1906, they should file legislation amending the act and then come on over to the Natural Resources Committee. Doc Hastings and I will be sitting there waiting for you to testify to make your case to amend the Antiquities Act. This amendment is based on an extreme ideology that the Federal Government should divest itself of the stunning national treasures managed by the Department of Interior and enjoyed by millions each year. Vote ``no'' on this amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman from California. This language is going to destroy the early warning system that has been put in place in order to give parents the information they need in order to protect their children. If this amendment passes, it will grant industry's wish to once again make the government its secret partner in crime by keeping reports of serious injury or even death hidden from public view. In 2000 and again in 2003, the Consumer Product Safety Commission documented cases of children suffering intestinal injuries after swallowing small but powerful magnets that had fallen out of toys. The public didn't know, and the CPSC did nothing. By mid-2005, after more reports of safety concerns associated with the magnets and two reports of serious, life-threatening injuries, the public still didn't know, and the CPSC still did nothing. On Thanksgiving Day 2005, 22-month-old Kenny Sweet of Redmond, Washington, died after swallowing magnets that had fallen out of Magnetix toys. It was only after Kenny's death and an additional four hospitalizations that the CPSC finally gave the public an inkling of what was going on. But it actually took until April of 2007--after 7 years of reports of risks, numerous serious injuries and a death-- before a full recall of all the products was undertaken. And that is not the only example of deaths and injuries that could have been avoided had parents known the risks to their children. In all of these cases, we heard the same story. There simply aren't enough resources for the CPSC to quickly and fully investigate every complaint. In 2005, the CPSC investigated only 1 percent. This is a ``no'' vote. Otherwise, we are going to see that choking hazards and cribs that kill are once again hidden from public view.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the ranking member of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. MARKEY. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York, the author of this amendment in 2006, Mr. Hinchey.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the Chair. Mr. Chairman, we all agree that we have to do some serious work to reduce the deficit. But we need to start by first eliminating unnecessary taxpayer subsidies to big oil companies. I'm going to finish the rest of this opening statement in the well. As a result of a poorly drafted law passed by the Republican Congress in 1995, oil companies are now drilling for free on public lands offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The Government Accountability Office projects that the American people currently stand to lose as much as $53 billion in royalty payments over the life of these leases. And according to a brand new study, that's as much as $1.5 billion just this year. And with oil prices at $90 a barrel, we do not have to be allowing them to drill on public lands for free and take all of the profit for themselves and giving nothing back to the American taxpayer. This amendment is very simple. It says to these companies we will allow you to continue to drill and not even pay any royalties, but we're not going to give you an opportunity to bid on any new leases on public lands in our country. So if you renegotiate so that you are paying your fair share back to the American taxpayer, then fine, you can drill in the future. But we need that $53 billion that they owe in royalties, in taxes to be put towards reducing the Federal deficit. That's what this debate should be all about: Where do we go to find where the waste is in our Federal Government? The oil companies drilling for free, paying nothing to the taxpayers while reaping windfall profits is absolutely something that we should not tolerate. This amendment passed in 2006 on the House floor. This amendment passed as part of the BP response bill last year. This amendment passes over and over again with significant Republican support, 60 votes just 5 years ago. In order to reclaim this money, I urge an ``aye'' vote. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself the remainder of the time. This amendment encapsulates this entire week. This week's debate is all about priorities: Will we stand with Big Oil or with Big Bird? With the big corporations or with the little guy? Shell Oil isn't curing our addiction to oil, but the millions of Americans afflicted with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's need a cure for those diseases; and they need these revenues from the oil companies. Executives from BP won't be shivering in the cold any time soon, but our Nation's poorest families and senior citizens will be. ConocoPhillips doesn't need help feeding their profits; but millions of America's poorest women, infants, and children who don't have enough to eat need help staying fed. Chevron doesn't need special treatment, but special education programs for our neediest students are on the chopping block. ExxonMobil doesn't need a head start on success, but our kids do need the Head Start program to send them on the right educational path. My amendment focuses on just the kind of special interest loophole that should be closed before we open attacks on programs for the poorest Americans most in need of help. One of the several dozen companies receiving this windfall is BP. Imagine that. BP spilled oil freely into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly 90 days, and yet they are now drilling for free in some of those same waters at the expense of the American taxpayers. Just last week the former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, was quoted in the National Journal as saying, ``In the face of sustained high oil prices, it was not an issue for large companies of needing the subsidies to entice them to looking for and producing more oil.'' Well, I agree with Mr. Hofmeister. At nearly $90 a barrel, subsidizing oil companies to drill is like subsidizing a bird to fly or a fish to swim. You do not have to do it. Unless this amendment is adopted, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron will continue to hold leases that let them drill on public land without paying taxpayers a single dime. These companies are already getting 100-year-old tax breaks to sell $100-a- barrel oil to make $100 billion a year in profits. They don't need a $53 billion windfall courtesy of the American taxpayer and our national debt. Vote ``aye'' on the Markey amendment. Cease paying big oil companies' windfall profits for the American people.

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

Mr. MARKEY. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. On September 11, 2001, when Richard Clarke, George Bush's terrorism czar, was asked to sit in the control room to take over the response on 9/11, the first call he made was to the port of the city of Boston to shut down the port because of the LNG facility in Everett, Massachusetts, in my district. That was the first thought in his mind. And why was that so? Because the al Qaeda had actually come in from Algeria, jumping off those ships in Boston Harbor in Everett, Massachusetts, in my district. Now we've had a tremendous amount of development of natural gas in the Marcellus shale formation and all across the country, an addition of 30 percent to the natural gas reserves of our country over the last 4 years. Now if a city, if a State determines that the terrorism threat is so great that they do not want an LNG facility in the middle of their most densely populated area, it should not be the right of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to override the public safety decision made by the State and local police that it is too great of a danger. That is why the Wu amendment is correct. We have a bonanza of natural gas domestically. If a State decides they can get it from our own people rather than overseas, it is not up to the FERC to make that decision if they are going to override the national security, the safety consideration of that community, in making that decision. I urge an ``aye'' vote on the Wu amendment.

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

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. And I rise in opposition to the Herger amendment. In 2001, the Forest Service finally admitted the obvious--the road system through our national forests is far larger than it should be. Though the Forest Service can't tell us for sure, the best estimate is that the national forests are crisscrossed by more than 308,000 miles of roads. That is eight times the length of the entire United States interstate system. Forest roads could wrap around the Earth 15 times. From 1975 to 1985, the Forest road system doubled. And that is just the authorized roads. It is estimated that there are an additional 60,000 miles of user-created, illegal roads through the forests, cut through sensitive areas just because it looked like fun. The massive tangle of roads fragments the forest, destroying habitat, increasing erosion, and decreasing water quality. And the problems get worse each year as the Forest Service road maintenance budget falls further and further behind. Real maintenance needs for this massive road system just don't happen. The current backlog is estimated to be $10 billion. And do you want to know how we know it's really so bad? Because it was the Bush administration that finally announced in 2001 that a planning process for inventory of the road system to figure out how many miles of roads it really needed, closing illegal roads, and starting to work on a more efficient system, were needed. The Herger amendment stops the Bush administration planning in its tracks just as it is about to be completed. And I just believe that the Members really should not take it upon themselves to end this 7-year process that is going to finally bring some order to the Forest Service. I urge a ``no'' vote on the Herger amendment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. MARKEY. This amendment is overbroad, to use a euphemistic term, in order to describe what its impact will be upon those who are the least powerful, and most agreed in terms of the impact in which the Federal Government has upon their lives as individual citizens. Let me give you an idea of how broad the impact of this amendment is. If this amendment had been in place, would the citizens who had been unwittingly turned into nuclear guinea pigs in the 1940s and 1950s during Federal Government-sponsored radiation experiments using thousands of American citizens without their permission have been able to bring their lawsuits decades later in order to reclaim some small compensation for their families? Would they have been able to bring their suits against the Federal Government? Who do you want to empower, the people who were the guinea pigs or the Federal Government? Would a widow who sued the Social Security Administration for refusing to provide the survivor's benefits that she was still due, would she be able to sue? Or are the legal fees just so great that the widow just has to live without the benefits? Would those who live downwind from a nuclear test and suffered cancer or other health effects, would they be able to sue? They've only found out years later what the impact is on them. How can they possibly afford the legal fees to take on the Federal Government? Would the atomic veteran deployed at the test site during the atmospheric nuclear testing of the 1950s ever have been able to afford to bring their case to court? Would those people all across Nevada, Arizona, Utah, those States out West where these poor victims only found out later, how could they have ever afforded to have brought a lawsuit if they are not going to know that their legal fees would be covered when they win? Would government whistleblowers be able to bring a case in response to retaliation by their supervisors? How can they sue the government? It's this lone individual against the Federal Government. We should be empowering these individuals against the Federal Government when it acts in an imperious, arbitrary, capricious way that ruins people's lives. Would citizens harmed by a contamination at a Superfund site at a military base in their neighborhood be able to sue the Federal Government because of the harm that has now gone into their neighborhoods? Or should we just say, Sorry, you are out of luck. The Federal Government did it to you. They did it to you in your neighborhood. You don't have the capacity because you are just some poor citizen living accidentally near a military base. What would the black farmers who were discriminated against for decades by the Agriculture Department have been able to do in terms of bringing a lawsuit? They couldn't have done it. Those poor black farmers took a generation. Who funds that? How do they take on the Federal Government which had a policy of discrimination for 200 years against black farmers? How do they do it? You are defunding all of those lawsuits with this one amendment. What would have been the impact on Native Americans who trusted the government to protect their interests and natural resources and instead were ripped off? How do those Native Americans bring their case? All of these things are now basically undermined by the amendment that we are now considering. That is this impact that is being visited upon all of these victims and all future victims, all actions by the Federal Government of the United States of America. This is where you get to show what your attitude is towards the Federal Government when they are acting in a way which does direct harm to the health, the well-being, and the safety of ordinary Americans in our country. I will read the amendment. ``None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the payment of fees and other expenses under section 504 of title 5'' of the U.S. Code. So this covers every suit that could be brought by any citizen against any Federal agency of the United States Government. I don't know how you can side with the Federal Government against ordinary citizens and their right to sue, especially those who have been harmed the most seriously. So I urge a very strong ``no'' by every Member of Congress who really does believe that the Federal Government has to be put in its place when they harm ordinary citizens.

Mr. MARKEY. What we are hearing this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, is a whole bunch of phony baloney numbers about how this is going to affect the cement industry, about how this is going to affect the concrete industry, when, in fact, industry after industry in the United States has been able to comply with rules which protect the public health and safety. First, let's just define what we're talking about and why American families are concerned about what the Portland cement industry is doing: It is airborne mercury which settles in lakes and rivers. It accumulates in fish and shellfish. In its most dangerous form, it is a neurotoxin that can lead to birth defects and stunted brain development. Since we are at the top of the food chain and doctors and dieticians across the country are urging families to eat more fish, we are simultaneously urging them, especially those with small children or who are women who may be pregnant, to consume these fish that have the neurotoxins in them that we know lead directly to brain damage, that lead to harm in children in our country. So this is a concrete example of what the Republican majority is now trying to do. This is kind of a regulatory earmark for a single industry, aimed at giving it the right to pollute, to send mercury into our atmosphere, and ultimately into the bodies of the children of our country when we know that thousands of them are going to die from the consumption of that mercury and that thousands more will have an aggravation of asthma, which they already have. The same thing will be true for senior citizens. Yet they're over here and are almost ignoring the health care impacts on families in our country. We have people all across the country who are now going through food stores, looking to find what the mercury count is in the food which they're purchasing for their families. Instead, what the majority wants to do here today is to put a pair of Portland cement shoes on the EPA and then throw it into the river. And if the EPA doesn't die from drowning, the mercury is going to kill it. That's ultimately what the impact is going to be of this amendment. So I understand, if I were a trade association, that I would be arguing, You can't impose any kind of restrictions upon us to protect the children of our country. It's just too expensive. It's too hard for us to do. The Chinese will take advantage of our protecting children from having mercury put into their brains, into their systems. But do you want to know what? That's not a good enough excuse for our country. Our country is supposed to be the leader in ensuring that the public health of our citizens is protected. What has been constructed here is a very careful balance which ensures that the industry can survive and thrive at the same time that it is protecting the health and safety of the children in our country. There are, by the way, many other people in the cement manufacturing industry who have contacted me, including companies in my own district, who do not support this position. They say that it is actually quite within their power to be able to comply with these rules in terms of ensuring that mercury is reduced in the production of cement, of concrete in our country. So this is for the narrow number of small companies which are seeking to be exempted from having to participate in something that the vast majority of the industry can comply with. I do not believe that our country is going to sink to a level where the health and safety of the children in our country are going to be allowed to be compromised by amendments on this House floor on behalf of a single small industry, without any scientific justification except the bleatings that come from those who do not want to comply, and knowing that the consequences will be the loss of thousands of lives and brain damage done to thousands of more who are children right now but who will be affected by the vote that we cast here today. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I think a little bit of telecommunications history would be appropriate at this juncture. First of all, just let me explain that AT&T and the regional Bell companies had nothing to do with the invention of the Internet. In fact, they were asked by the Federal Government in 1966 if they wanted the contract to build the packet switch network that would operate simultaneously with the Long Lines Network across the country, and AT&T and Bell South and Verizon all said, No, we don't want to build the packet switch network. Give it to someone else. And so they did. They gave it to a tiny company, Bolt, Baranek and Newman up in Massachusetts, which built the Internet across the country, designed it, without any of the Bell operating companies. Back in the 1960s and the 1970s, when people said to AT&T and said to Verizon and said to Pac Bell, How about allowing people to be able to go out and buy another phone other than a black rotary dial phone? Well, here's what AT&T and Bell South said. They said, If you allow someone to buy another phone other than a black rotary dial phone, it could destroy the entire phone system of our country. Back in the 1970s and early 1980s there were new companies called MCI and Sprint that wanted to provide competing long distance service. Remember, up until the mid-1980s, whenever grandma called from California, people would run to the phone saying, Run, it's long distance. It costs a dollar a minute. That was AT&T, that was the Bell system across our country. No competition, no incentive to introduce innovation, no incentive to lower prices, no incentive to make the consumer the king. And then along comes the 1990s and 2000s. We here on the floor of Congress said we must introduce competition. This system--this AT&T, this Bell South, Verizon, Pac Bell system--it does not innovate. Not one home in America had broadband in February of 1996 when we passed the Telecom Act here. We had to order it. There were no broadband users in America in any home as we passed the bill. So what we tried to do is to induce Darwinian, paranoia-inducing competition. What do the broadband barons seek to accomplish? They, as the private sector, want to quash competition. They don't ever and they never will invent a Hulu, an Amazon, an eBay. They will never invent any of these thousands of smaller companies which are the engine of economic growth in our country, which leads to our ability to export these products. Verizon is not going to invent anything to do. What they want to do is squeeze the competitors. Price them out of the market so that they can maintain a monopoly or an oligopoly across the country. That's what this debate is all about. That's what the FCC rules are saying. They're saying that the new Steve Jobs, the new Bill Gates, the new Sergey Brin or Larry Page in the garage somewhere--and there are thousands of them across the country--must be able to get into the marketplace to create these new jobs without having to be tipped upside down and having every last cent poured out of their pocket to pay these large companies. That's what this debate is all about. It's about whether or not we want vigorous competition in the marketplace. Those who are opposed to the open network, those who are opposed to giving every competitor equal access with the biggest broadband behemoth, that is what this debate is about. They're covering it as though the government is really trying to control the Internet. Not so. They are siding with the broadband barons against those thousands of companies who are out there, who have reinvented telecommunications and information delivery in our country and across the planet just 14 years after the Bell system had 100 years to do so and had invented every single technology. They had invented them all, but they had no incentive to deploy those new technologies because they had a monopoly. That's what the debate is about. If you vote for this amendment to give control by the broadband barons over the Internet once again, then you will see an inexorable, inevitable decline in innovation, in investment, in the private sector in these new products, these new technologies, these new applications, these new devices which are basically invented by hundreds and thousands of smaller companies in our country. That's the choice you have. Vote ``no'' on this amendment that shuts down the Internet.

Mr. MARKEY. I rise just to make this very simple point so you all know what you're doing. The law that this amendment wants to prevent funding for was a Ronald Reagan law. This is a law Ronald Reagan signed and put on the books, just so you understand. And of course the reason he put it on the books was that he sided with the little guy against the Federal Government. This is a way to make the Federal Government accountable. And recovery of attorneys' fees and legal expenses is needed to ensure that the people can keep their own government accountable when they, the smallest of the small, are having the Federal Government intrude itself into their lives and bringing tremendous harm to the health and well-being of the families in any particular community in our country. As of 2009, by the way, Social Security and veterans cases make up the majority of Equal Access to Justice awards. So you're going to be disempowering, for the most part, Social Security and veterans cases that otherwise would not be able to be brought against the Federal Government. And I just think that this is not well thought out. This is an across-the-board blunderbuss attack upon the rights of citizens all across the country who otherwise are just going to sit there in their home wondering what's going on in Washington. If ever there was a tea party amendment that has to be made to counter what you're doing, this is it. You guys are here representing Big Government against the essence, the heart, the soul of the tea party movement, wondering how the Federal Government can get away with intruding themselves. And all we're really providing here is minimal financial assistance if they win. If they lose it's a frivolous case. If they lose, the jury decided against them. This is only if they win, if they put up their life savings to try to take on the Federal Government and they win because the Federal Government had compromised the rights of their family. So, I just want to let you all know, environmental cases amount to a very, very, very tiny fraction of all the cases that we're talking about. We're talking about, for the most part, ordinary families. And I understand why some people might not want to give these people the right to sue, but you're making a big mistake. It's at the heart, it seems to me, of what the tea party movement was about, and voting for this will be a very difficult thing to explain.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oregon that the majority has, unfortunately, ruled out of order. In this continuing resolution, the Republicans are trying to dismantle one of the most precious landmarks of the entire media landscape. Public broadcasting is an electronic oasis for learning in what has been called the vast wasteland of commercial television. Now, why do I say that? Well, I say it because you just have to look at what is on commercial television from the perspective of a parent with children trying to ensure that those children are given the educational and informational programming that will help in their development. Here's a short sampling of what was on television during the day today. There's a spate of daytime soap operas which are full of adult themes not appropriate for young children. Then there were programs on this afternoon such as ``Hoarding,'' ``Buried Alive,'' and ``The Babysitter's Seduction.'' Again, more programming not suitable for children. In addition, there was ``Hollywood's Most Shocking Breakups,'' and ``Dog, the Bounty Hunter,'' and they were not talking about Clifford the Big Red Dog. Ladies and gentlemen, what we hear is that the private sector, private television, commercial television is taking care of the children's audience. It does not. The Cartoon Network is in no way to be compared to what is on the Public Broadcasting System from 6 a.m. every morning until 6 p.m. every night, 12 hours every day, something that parents can rely upon for their children to see which is educationally nutritious for their development. And it's on every television station, every public television station in the country, every single day. Let me give you a typical day. On WGBH up in Boston, but on every other public television station, beginning at 6 a.m., it's ``Between the Lions,'' then ``Clifford the Big Red Dog'' and ``Arthur,'' followed by ``Martha Speaks,'' ``Curious George,'' ``Dinosaur Train'' and ``WordWorld,'' which brings us all the way up to noontime. The parents are happy. The kids have good programming that they're watching. And then rather than soap operas in the afternoon, on the Public Broadcasting System, the kids get to see ``Sid the Science Guy,'' ``WordGirl,'' ``The Electric Company,'' and on and on and on until 6 every night. PBS is really the children's television network, and generations of children and parents have benefited from this programming being on. What the Republicans are trying to do is just end this era and just toss these families over to this commercial world, which is fine if you really do believe that Cartoon Network and other networks like that targeted at children for commercial purposes can in any way substitute for this Sesame Street diet that children have been on for more than one generation and have immeasurably helped, not just those that come from the white upper middle class, but in polling it's actually above 80 percent, whether your family is Asian, Hispanic, white, African American. All poll out at 80 percent in terms of what those parents believe about the benefit that comes from the Public Broadcasting System in the children's programming that is presented to those children. So CPB doesn't just stand for Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It also stands for Children and Parents Benefit. And that's why it's important. And that's why it was important in 1967, and that's why it is important today. This has been the crown jewel in our national media mix when it comes to the children of our country. And this attempt to take out a meat cleaver and to cut this programming source off in a way that would harm those families in our country is a huge mistake. Now, Mr. Blumenauer has attempted to offer an amendment that would have restored the full $460 million in funding for the Public Broadcasting System. But in turn, what his amendment would have tried to do is to go to the big tax breaks for oil and gas companies in our country.

Mr. MARKEY. And it's altogether understandable why the gentleman who did object objected because I know where he's coming from on this. He did not want to hear the next sentence, because the gentleman from Montana is someone who does believe that the tax breaks for Big Oil should stay on the books. It's $40 billion over the next 5 years, and he'd rather see a cutting of Big Oil be substituted by a cutting of Big Bird. Okay? That's what tonight's all about, just this misallocation of resources within our society. And I understand why the gentleman from Montana doesn't want to hear those words spoken, but he should get ready to hear it over and over again. Big Oil is going to get all the breaks that they want, and it might come at the expense of children's television or poor people. But I will tell you this much. Grandma isn't going to get her lunch because of these people over here. And these guys want to continue to take Big Oil to lunch, but we're going to have a big debate about this as each and every day goes by. I thank the gentlelady, and I congratulate the gentleman from Oregon for making this amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, we all recognize that we must make calculated decisions to drive down our deficit, but today we see the cold calculations of the Republican leadership, who are cutting hundreds of millions of dollars that would help our Nation's poorest families heat their homes while continuing the billions in taxpayer subsidies we send to big oil companies. My amendment would fully restore LIHEAP funding and reduce the deficit by repealing these $40 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil. Oil companies don't need the 100-year-old tax breaks to sell $100-per- barrel oil while making $100 billion per year. For millions of families across the country this year, heating bills have been piling up along with the snow, and so are the record numbers of people turning to LIHEAP to help them get through the winter. In my State of Massachusetts alone, LIHEAP is projected to help 250,000 families this winter. But even as the mercury has dropped, House Republicans are now considering dropping this important safety net for millions of low-income families nationwide. The only way this bill is going to help families heat their homes would be if they tossed all 359 pages in the fireplace. It takes a frigid heart for the Republican leadership to continue to defend tax breaks for oil and gas companies while putting heating fuel assistance for America's neediest on ice. But that's exactly what they are doing. The majority spending bill presents us with a false choice. We shouldn't be cutting heating assistance for the poorest families before repealing the $40 billion in tax subsidies to big oil companies, the most profitable companies in the history of the world. The Republicans can continue to make their choices, but the American people will not stand with them. When they are faced with giving tax breaks to Exxon or fuel assistance to low-income Americans, they have chosen Exxon. When they are forced to choose between a free lunch for BP or lunch for hungry senior citizens, they make the choice for BP. We should not be balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest families. I urge support for this amendment to protect the neediest amongst us with a ``no'' vote on this cold-hearted funding bill. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Point of Order