Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

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

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

Mr. MARKEY. Will the gentleman yield?

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. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is a nearly 50-year- old promise to the American people that if we are going to allow giant oil companies like BP to deplete our ocean energy resources, we will take a small sliver of their massive profits and deposit it into a conservation fund. Since its creation in 1965, the Land and Water Conversation Fund has allowed Federal acquisition of critical acres inside the national parks, vital wildlife habitats, conservation easements, and water rights, as well as construction of local recreational facilities through grants to States. The fund has served as one of the most important tools in building and protecting our national resources heritage. The underlying bill devastates this revered program by slashing the amount to be paid out of the fund for conservation by almost 90 percent compared to current levels--almost 90 percent of a cut from current levels. The funding level contained in the underlying bill is the lowest proposed amount since the program was created in 1965. This is not a return to fiscal year 2008. This is not a return to fiscal year 2009. This is a return to fiscal year LBJ. That's their goal, to go back right to the very beginning, and if they could, to the year before when it did not exist at all. That's the real goal of what this debate is trying to accomplish from the Republican side. And now this amendment proposes a further reduction in the Land and Water Conservation Fund. To be clear, this amendment does not save this money. Rather, it borrows this money from a trust fund and uses it to offset spending that has already occurred. This is diverting oil money from its intended conservation purpose in violation of a promise made to the American people. The Outdoor Industry Association points out that outdoor recreation contributes $730 billion annually to the United States economy and supports more than 6 million jobs. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is good for the environment, it's good for the economy, and it's a 50-year-old promise to every American. The cuts contained in the underlying bill would cripple the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Further cuts could kill it. This amendment should be defeated, and it should be seen in the context of this massive attempt by the new Republican majority to take the EPA and to turn it into every polluter's ally; to take the clean air and the clean water laws and begin to undermine them systematically; to take each and every one of these environmental areas that we've made tremendous progress in over the last 30, 40, and 50 years and begin to roll back those gains as though America was not the beneficiary. There's a good reason why America is the number one box office smash in the world, and that's because they look at us and they appreciate the commitment that we have made to the public health, to the public lands, to clean water, to clean air. And if we begin to undermine that image, then we will be hurting our country; we will be hurting our tourism; we will be hurting our ability to be able to pass on this planet in better condition than the way we found it. I urge that under no circumstances we support a provision that would accomplish all those goals.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself 1 additional minute. Because the real agenda here is to create as many red herrings as they can about the real agenda. As a matter of fact, we can put an aquarium out here there are so many red herrings. As a matter of fact, so many red herrings are being created by the Republicans in this debate that they wouldn't be an endangered species there are so many things that are taking us off the real agenda that they are taking about. And the real agenda is to make sure that we do not invest in wind, that we do not invest in solar. And, by the way, in the Waxman-Markey bill that was passed that year, $60 billion was put in to the Waxman-Markey bill for clean coal technology; $75 billion was put into that bill for nuclear technology that they could apply for low-interest loans to build new nuclear power plants in our country, plus wind, plus solar, plus geothermal, plus all the other things that we could do domestically in our country. What we are talking about here, though, is a different agenda altogether. It's an agenda that will just allow the oil industry to go back to business as usual without the regulations to protect the public health and safety. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. I do so just to say that Democrats see high unemployment and we look forward. We recognize that American ingenuity, innovation, and hard work can dig us out of this hole by creating high-paying, long-term domestic jobs in new vibrant industries. The Republican majority, they see high unemployment and they look backwards. They seek to increase the already massive profits for huge international corporations and hope that on their way to the bank they hire a few people here and there. Ladies and gentlemen, the great challenge of our time is to not allow China and Germany to replace OPEC as the place from which we have to import our energy technologies. If there is no plan which is forthcoming from the Republican majority, which so far has not presented itself, because they have yet to have one bill that actually creates one job come here onto the House floor in the first 5 weeks that they have controlled the majority, then I am afraid that the next generation of young Americans will wonder why all the solar and wind technology is being manufactured in China, and they here in America are unemployed.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, we only have one speaker remaining on our side, so until the majority is down to one speaker, we would like to reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I am the last remaining speaker on our side. I reserve my time.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself the balance of my time. I say to the gentleman from Washington State that just 2 weeks ago we passed by unanimous consent the oversight plan which the majority has for the Department of the Interior, and the minority signed off on that oversight plan over all of the regulations and all of the various agencies that come under the jurisdiction of our committee. We did not fight that. This debate tonight is something that doesn't really even have to take place. The committee--our committee, the Natural Resources Committee--is already fully empowered to do all of the oversight that they believe is necessary, and we will be there joining with them where it is necessary to conduct that oversight. Coming back, though, to the central point, that's something that we all agree upon. What the American people want is to see what the agenda is for creation of jobs in our country. That's what has been lacking on the House floor since the Republicans have taken over the House of Representatives. And that's the most important agenda for our country. And I don't believe that we can accomplish that goal if the Republicans continue with their objective of $100 million in profits going to oil companies at the same time that they want to give $40 billion worth of tax breaks to them. That is not really a good policy for our country. That's not going to create any new jobs. It would be better if we took that $40 billion, moved it over to wind and solar and all-electric vehicles; that we moved it over to take care of the low-income people whose oil prices are just skyrocketing across this country, so that people don't freeze in their own homes. That would be a better use of that $40 billion instead of handing it over to the oil and gas industry. We would create more jobs, we would protect people and keep them safe in their own homes, and we would have a better balance for where this country should be going. Instead, we're here debating oversight of these agencies, and we agree with the need to do so. We probably disagree over the extent to which we should deregulate them. In fact, if we deregulate too much, if we take too many regulations off the books, we're just going to see a repetition of the same kind of environmental disasters that have ravaged our country over the years, the same kind of economic collapse that was a result of turning a blind eye to the shenanigans that went on in the financial marketplace with the big Wall Street firms that were not given the proper oversight, and on and on down the line. So I want to just say again to the majority that we want to work with you on our committee. We want to work with you on the oversight that is necessary. That's why we signed off on the plan to do the oversight. I just think that we have wasted an hour here on an issue that we already agree upon; that we should be partnering to make sure that wherever there is chicanery, wherever there is wrongdoing that we should partner together to root it out. But I'm afraid that this is part of a larger agenda that really seeks to destroy the wind and solar industries in our country, to cut dramatically the low-income heating assistance that we give to the poorest people in our country, to keep the $40 billion in tax breaks on the books for the largest oil and gas companies in our country even as they are going to enjoy $100 billion worth of profits this year given to them by tax breaks that are a hundred years old, with the price of a barrel of oil now at $100 a barrel. That is absolutely absurd, ladies and gentlemen. It is a squandering of the limited resources that we have in our country that should be spent on creating new jobs in the renewable energy sector and creating jobs by the millions that young people in our country want to create. They want to able to tell OPEC, We don't need your oil any more than we need your sand. And as Mubarak is teetering, the one message that we can send to the Middle East is the same message that President Kennedy sent to Kruschev in 1961, We are going to use our technological might in order to fend off this threat that is posed to our country economically, militarily, diplomatically, environmentally. We are going to use this as an opportunity. That is not what this debate is about. That's where we should move over the next weeks and months. My hope is that we can do it together. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, the independent bipartisan commission on the BP oil spill issued its final report last month. And what did it conclude? Well, that the Deepwater Horizon that went to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, creating the worst environmental disaster in our country's history, was not an isolated incident; that the problems were systemic across the entire oil and gas industry. That report was a blistering, scalding indictment of the deregulatory environment which was created at the Department of the Interior that led inexorably, inevitably to this catastrophe, this environmental catastrophe. But are we here tonight debating legislation to implement the reforms that the commission presented to the Congress in order to prevent another catastrophe like this? No, we are not. We are instead debating whether or not we should have fewer regulations, whether or not regulations that actually protect against incidents like this hurt job creation. Well, ladies and gentlemen, what we learned from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe was that lax regulation doesn't save money; lax regulation costs money. Lax regulation does not create jobs; lax regulation destroys jobs. And in this case, lax regulation led to the loss of 11 lives and 155 other individuals who were seriously injured. Lax regulation, ladies and gentlemen, leads to catastrophe. Boosterism breeds overconfidence, and overconfidence breeds disaster. That's what happens in our financial markets. That's what happens in environmental and health regulation when you just trust the private sector to always do the right thing. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when the government doesn't move in to protect the little guy, to protect ordinary citizens. The reason that we were able to move from the average age of death at 48 years of age in the year 1900, after 5,000 years from the Garden of Eden until 1900, to 79 years of age just 100 years later is we started to regulate for public health and safety for ordinary people. Methuselah always lived to 900 years. The wealthy always did well. But only when regulation started to be put on the books to protect the meek--the water, the air, and the environment in which people live--did ordinary families start to benefit as well. That's what they want to take off the books. That's the agenda of large companies across our country.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself 1 additional minute. How do you create jobs? We haven't heard that yet. We haven't heard that yet. Well, they say drilling. Well, last year there were 4,700 new leases that were granted by the Bureau of Land Management, but the oil industry only began drilling on 1,400 of them, only one-third. Now, we don't really have to worry going forward in the future, because at $100 a barrel plus, ladies and gentlemen, the $40 billion in tax breaks that the Republicans want to give to the oil industry over the next 5 years, we don't have to worry that they are going to go drill, because they are going and drilling. But why are we giving them $40 billion? Why aren't the Republicans out here as free market devotees saying let's take that $40 billion of taxpayers' money away from the oil industry? Why aren't they doing that? Why are they going to allow the taxpayers to be shaken upside down at the gas pump and have money come out of their pockets for the rest of this year as the price of a gallon of gasoline goes to $3.30, $3.40, all the way up to $4 a gallon again?

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I yield myself 5 minutes. This is a very important debate because it goes right to the very heart of what is needed in order to ensure that we provide the proper protections for families across our country, from the despoliation of the environment and all the public health and safety and environmental catastrophes that then can affect American families. I have here a picture of the Deepwater Horizon in flames as it's about to go to the bottom of the ocean. This is what happened because of deregulation. This is what happened when regulations are not applied and enforced in a way that ensures that the public health and safety is protected, the greatest environmental disaster in the history of the United States, devastating the lives of 11 men and the livelihoods of millions of people in the Gulf of Mexico. This is the legacy of what happened during the Bush administration, a ticking timebomb that exploded across our country, leading to this environmental catastrophe. The same thing, by the way, is true in our financial marketplace where, in the Bush years, they turned a blind eye to obvious problems with derivatives, obvious problems with chicanery inside of the financial marketplace, a ticking timebomb that exploded, that has wreaked havoc on millions of Americans, losing their home, their jobs. When George Bush left office, the Dow Jones industrial average at 6,400, 6,400, after 8 years in office. That's what George Bush left in office, by turning a blind eye to the kinds of regulations that it needed there to protect the lives of families. Today, with Barack Obama on the job, with a Securities and Exchange Commission doing its job, the Dow is now over 12,000, almost doubled, because people have confidence in the regulations. They can trust their money in the stock market once again. That's what happens when regulations are there to protect ordinary people. Now, what is their proposal? Their proposal is to take the Environmental Protection Agency and to turn the Environmental Protection Agency into every polluter's ally. They're going to bring a bill out here onto the House floor that says they're going to repeal the ability of the EPA to improve the fuel economy standards of the vehicles which we drive, to ensure that regulations are on the books that we have renewable fuels that we develop here in the United States, not imported from OPEC. The result of that bill that they're going to bring out here on the House floor in the next 2 weeks? Some 5 million barrels of oil per day that otherwise would be backed out, that we would not import from the Middle East, will now have to be imported. At $100 a barrel with 365 days in a year, we're talking about $162 billion a year that the American consumer will have to send to the Middle East because they do not want to regulate. They do not want to ensure that the efficiency of the cars which people drive, the amount of pollution that comes out of those cars, they say, is too high a price to pay. While here as we watch Egypt explode, Tunisia explode, other countries in the Middle East on the verge of having the same kind of explosions, this kind of environmental, this kind of safety protection that we put on the books enforces the need for us to ensure that we do not allow for the repeal of these environmental and safety protections. That's what this debate is all about. This is the same kind of war on the environment that we saw during the 8 years of the Bush administration. This is the result of that, ladies and gentlemen. And that's where they're going to take us if we have this wholesale destruction of this environmental and safety regime which has been put on the books in order to protect the American public. At this point I ask unanimous consent that all time on the resolution be yielded back and that H. Res. 72 be adopted so that we can move on to consider legislation to create jobs in our country, which is really what we should be debating out here on the House floor.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Napolitano).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, this Republican bill is the wrong prescription for our country. It isn't just a repeal; it's a bad deal. It's a bad deal for small businesses and middle class families, who would lose tax credits included in the new law to help them pay for health insurance. It's a bad deal for grandma, who will face higher costs for the life- saving medications she needs. It's a bad deal for pregnant women, who could be denied coverage when they need it the most. Lydia Swan, my constituent, shared her story with me during the health care debate last year. Lydia was pregnant when her husband switched jobs. Her new insurance company said her pregnancy was a preexisting condition, and they wouldn't pay any expenses. So Lydia was insured, but she wasn't covered. That is wrong. It is just plain wrong. Mr. Speaker, a newborn child should be a pleasure and not a preexisting condition. New parents expect some sleepless nights. They don't expect their insurance company to deny coverage for the pregnancy. New parents should worry about the baby and not about the medical bills. The new health care law closes the book on these kinds of insurance company abuses. Let us not today reopen it once again. Say ``no'' to this Republican bad deal that takes away patients' rights and freedoms, and say ``yes'' to a health care system that protects American families.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, to achieve lasting peace in Sri Lanka, there should be an independent, international investigation into alleged war crimes at the end of the country's 25-year civil war in May 2009. Last August, I joined 57 of my fellow Members of Congress in urging Secretary Clinton to press for a United Nations investigation. I renew this call now. As the Boston Globe stated in an editorial on December 29, 2010: [From the Boston Globe, Dec. 29, 2010] Probe Both Sides in Sri Lanka No foreign leader has fared worse in the cables released by WikiLeaks than Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has been resisting calls for an international inquiry into possible war crimes committed when Sri Lankan troops wiped out the secessionist Tamil Tigers in May 2009. In this particular case, disclosure of an American diplomat's confidential assessment serves the cause of human rights, validating the stand of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Crisis Group. All three have argued, rightly, for a credible investigation of alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka, whether committed by the Tamil Tigers or government forces. The documents show that US Ambassador Patricia Butenis observed last January that no regime investigates ``its own troops or senior officials for war crimes.'' She then added, in a devastating aside, that in Sri Lanka ``responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country's senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers.'' The ambassador's candor illuminates a recurring contradiction between the moral imperatives of human rights and the cold logic of diplomacy. Videos and survivor accounts strongly suggest that hundreds, if not thousands, of Tamils were stripped naked, had their hands bound behind their backs, and were murdered during the final weeks of the government's war against the Tigers. Yet for reasons of state, neighboring powers India and China show no interest in documenting and punishing such crimes. All the more reason for America to heed the awful truth in Butenis's cable and push for a legitimate UN investigation of war crimes in Sri Lanka.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. This debate is about health care versus don't care. The Democrats' health care law lowers prescription drug costs, helps middle class families pay for health coverage for their sick children, and expands health care for 32 million more Americans, reducing the deficit by $143 billion. The Democrats' health care law helps grandma afford her prescription drugs. The Republicans don't care about grandma. They want to take back the drug benefits in the new law. GOP used to stand for Grand Old Party; now it stands for ``grandma's out of prescriptions.'' The Republicans' ``don't care'' repeal shows they don't care about sick children with medical bills pushing families into bankruptcy, that they don't care about grandma and grandpa who need help paying for prescription drugs. Vote down this rule so that we can help grandma, sick children, and middle class families struggling to pay for health care.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago, on December 6, 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower set aside the core of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. In so doing, President Eisenhower began the bipartisan legacy of protecting this majestic national treasure. 20 years later, in 1980, Representative Mo Udall succeeded in doubling the size of the Refuge. Now it is time that we finish the job these great Americans began 50 years ago. Now it is time to permanently protect the Coastal Plain. The Congress needs to pass legislation designating it as wilderness. If we don't enact permanent protections for the Refuge, oil companies and their allies in Congress will continue to push for short-sighted plans to drill one of our last pristine wild places. Just last year, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster led to more than 4 million barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. It was the worst oil spill in the history of the United States. The blobs of oil washing up on Gulf beaches recalled the ghosts of Valdez, and of Santa Barbara. As we learned from the BP oil spill, the oil companies are prepared to drill ultra-deep, but they are not prepared to do it ultra-safe. Or respond ultra-quick. What we did discover is that their response plans for a Gulf oil spill included plans to evacuate walruses from the warm waters off Louisiana, even though they had not called the Gulf home for 3 million years. This disaster was born from boosterism from the oil industry. Boosterism led to complacency. And complacency led to disaster. When it comes to the Arctic Refuge, we've heard the same boosterism for years. The oil companies and their allies repeat a list of talking points: Drilling has a small footprint. It will not spoil habitats. Drilling can be done in an environmentally safe manner. Now the oil companies and their allies want to open the Refuge and undo 50 years of protections and eons of solitude, all for less than a couple pennies at the pump more than two decades from now. Instead of looking for the last drops of oil on Earth, we should be harnessing the wind and the sun to power our economy and create new, safe American jobs. And unlike an oil well, you don't need a blowout preventer on a solar panel. There's no such thing as a ``tragic wind spill.'' When we look upon the Refuge decades from now, will we see a monument to America's commitment to our natural heritage, or will we see the abandoned wells and spilled oil as a monument to our insatiable thirst for oil? Will the Refuge remain a monument to America's wisdom or will our children and grandchildren only be able to see polar bears, caribou and other iconic animals carved in stone, monuments to our lack of foresight and innovation? Now is the time to create a refuge for the American people from hundreds of billions of dollars we spend every year on foreign oil. Now is the time to create a refuge from the fossil fuel policies that have devastated the economy of the Gulf. Now is the time to protect the Arctic Refuge.

Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts

Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, the Oil Spill Victims Redress Act that I am introducing today with the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Castor, would help protect those Gulf Coast residents who have seen their livelihoods destroyed by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This legislation would clarify that people who have suffered economic harm as a result of the BP spill can seek to pursue claims from all of the companies involved in the disaster in state court. The companies involved in the spill, including Halliburton and Cameron, have argued that the Oil Pollution Act preempts state law and, as a result, that all state law claims brought by the victims of the spill should be dismissed or removed to federal court. Some of these companies, such as Halliburton and Cameron, have even argued that they should be exempt from all suits because they are not responsible parties as defined under the OPA. To be clear, the underlying statute, the Oil Pollution Act, already clearly provides for claims brought in state court and was not intended to preempt state law. The Act clearly states that ``nothing in this Act . . . shall affect, or be construed or interpreted to affect or modify in any way the obligations or liabilities of any person under . . . State law, including common law.'' However, in light of the legal arguments proffered by the companies involved in this disaster, the legislation that we are introducing today would further clarify the ability of people to seek compensation in state court. We must ensure that we do not forget about the people of the Gulf who have had their lives destroyed by this disaster. We must ensure that all of the companies responsible for the worst oil spill in our nation's history are held accountable. And we must ensure that everyone who has suffered economic damages as a result of the BP oil spill is made whole.

Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts

Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, my friend and fellow member of Red Sox nation, David Cavicke, the Chief of Staff for the Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee, is leaving the Committee in January after nearly 16 years on the Hill at the Committee. Mr. Cavicke is an institutionalist--he has sought to work quietly on a bipartisan basis to advance the good of the country across the array of issues within the jurisdiction of the Committee. Over the years, Mr. Cavicke has ably served the Republican Members of the Energy and Commerce Committee. But he has also helped facilitate bipartisan compromise on many vital issues. In 1995, he staffed then- Subcommittee Chairman Jack Fields when our Committee enacted the National Securities Markets Improvement Act, which rationalized various aspects of federal securities laws. Two years later, under then- Subcommittee Chairman Oxley, he worked with my office to bring the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ Stock Market out of the 18th century and into the 21st by ending government mandated pricing in fractions and moving to decimal pricing. The Common Cents Stock Pricing Act of 1997 provided the impetus to end fractionalized trading which cost investors $3 billion a year. Each year American investors, rather than professional floor traders and NASDAQ market makers, will put that $3 billion to more productive uses, such as saving for retirement and children's education. Following the transfer of the Committee's securities jurisdiction over to the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Cavicke moved into a management role on the Republican staff. In that capacity, he has been relentlessly fair and has always sought to work to provide procedural due process to all members of the Committee regardless of the issue of the moment. I join in expressing the thanks of the Members of the Committee for his service, and our best wishes.