Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I am the last speaker, so I reserve my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Could we get a final review here of where we are, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, could you advise us how much time is remaining?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/6\ minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. First, let me begin by complimenting the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hyde. Like Mr. Hyde, I was born a Democrat and baptized a Catholic just 7 days later. So I know how big a decision it must have been to have abandoned that Democratic birthright. But he has been a historic figure in this institution. I want to associate myself with everything that the gentleman from California said about you. But I do believe that this bill is a historic mistake. The world is looking at this institution this evening. It is wondering what in the world the United States is thinking in giving an exemption to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act to a country which is a nonsignatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. What is the signal that that will send to Pakistan? What is the signal that that will send to Iran, to Syria, to Egypt, to Venezuela, to North Korea? What is the signal that we are sending with regard to the entire nuclear nonproliferation regime which has served this world well since the 1960s? I think that the message they are receiving is that there is going to be a double standard, and a double standard which, unfortunately, from my perspective, is going to lead to a rapid escalation of the development of nuclear weapons programs in country after country around the world. Right now, India has a nuclear weapons program that experts estimate produces approximately 7 per year. Because the nuclear fuel, which this bill will make possible, frees up the domestic uranium supply in India, experts estimate that it will increase to 40 to 50 the number of nuclear weapons which India can produce per year, because we, the United States, in passing this legislation, will ensure the supply of their civilian nuclear energy needs. Why should we care about that? Well, the reason that we should care about that is that Pakistan is now developing and building their own nuclear material production facility, which experts indicate will increase from two to three nuclear bombs per year to 40 to 50 nuclear bombs per year. That is what a nuclear arms race looks like. That is what the nuclear arms race between the United States and Soviet Union looked like in the 1950s, in the 1960s and in the 1970s, and what we are doing out here is pouring fuel onto this fire, rather than calling an international conference to bring together these parties and others in order to put in place a real nuclear weapons control regime. Instead we are turning a blind eye to the reality of what is going on in the South Asian continent. So, ladies and gentlemen, this is a historic moment, a moment that we will look back on, not perhaps tomorrow, or next week, but 5 years from now, 10 years from now. People will point back to this night, this last night of the Republican control of Congress, this last night when the Republican-controlled House and Senate can produce for President Bush this anti-nuclear weapons control policy that he has been engaging in for the last 6 years and say this was the moment that crossed the line where ever country said to themselves, why should we, as signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, abide by those rules when the United States selectively gives exemptions to countries that are not signatories to the nuclear nonproliferation policy. You cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. The hypocrisy coefficient is at historic heights when the United States believes that the rest of the world will listen to us as we preach that they should not be interested in nuclear weapons, even as they are helping to facilitate the Indians in developing an ever greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons inspect that country. Why should we care? We should care because A. Q. Khan, the nuclear Johnny Appleseed, the nuclear Pied Piper, who spread nuclear weapons from North Korea through the Middle East, is still living in Pakistan, living in a palace, still not in prison. His associates, his men, still walking the streets of Pakistan. Al Qaeda is headquartered in Pakistan, still unapprehended. What is the message that we are sending? We are sending a message that the nuclear arms sellers are back on the road, selling to anyone who will purchase. That is the message that we are sending. So tonight is a historic vote. It is a vote that will be looked back at as one of the most important that we have ever cast here in Congress. Sadly, it is not going to receive even a fraction of the attention which it deserves. But I tell you this, ladies and gentlemen, when and if this nuclear war breaks out, we will look back. At least we should be able to say we tried, we really tried to put an end to the nuclear arms race on the South Asian continent. This is what this debate tonight is all about. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to claim the time in opposition to the bill.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

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

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time and that is again to make the point that this amendment is central to the reclaiming of the $60 billion which the oil and gas industry has escaped in paying for drilling on the public lands of the United States. This is like Teapot Dome in the 1920s. They don't pay royalties. They have escaped payment for the use of the oil and gas for the American people. This isn't their oil and gas; it is ours. This amendment just says that if they want to drill in the Gulf of Mexico in this new land, they have got to renegotiate these old contracts where they don't pay any royalties at all. At $40, $50, $60, $70, $80 a barrel the American taxpayer is paying at the pump, they don't get any tax relief when they use American oil and gas from the American public lands. Vote ``aye'' for the Markey-Hinchey amendment. It is the key to ensuring that this bill has a fiscally sound core at its heart.

Mr. MARKEY. I apologize to the gentleman. I only have 1 minute to give to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) at this time. I am now advised that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) wants to yield his minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, again, the Markey amendment does nothing about drilling in the new areas that are opened up in this bill. What the amendment says is that on all of those leases in the 1990s that had no royalty payments required at all, that finally if these oil and gas companies want to move into this new oil and gas gold rush in the Gulf of Mexico, they have to renegotiate those old contracts, those windfall profits, that 20 to $60 billion that could be used for the defense of our country, to reduce the deficit or for any other purposes. This is a very simple amendment, and what it does is it mirrors what we voted on in May of this year when 252 Members of the House voted to force these oil and gas companies to finally play their role in contributing to the balancing of the budget. Otherwise, the oil companies are going to continue to just tip the American taxpayer upside down. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. The amendment which we are about to consider does not prohibit drilling in any of this new land. The amendment we are about to debate does not prohibit drilling in any of the new land which is authorized to be drilled in. What the amendment says is this: is that the oil and gas companies that received leases over the last 10 years where they pay no royalties whatsoever, and that has been determined, as a result, deprived the American taxpayer of between 20 and $60 billion worth of royalties, which they are entitled to as taxpayers, will be renegotiated by the oil companies that want to drill in this new land in the Gulf of Mexico. That is all it does. So anyone who is listening to this, this amendment will not prohibit drilling here. All it says is that where these massive, tens of billions of dollars of windfall profits are falling into the pockets of oil and gas companies under these oil leases, that these oil and gas companies do not have the privilege of coming into these new leases. However, any other oil company, any other gas company, they can go right into this Gulf of Mexico area and drill. So for Mr. Peterson, or anyone else, it has nothing to do with it. The question for you, Mr. Peterson, the question for the other Members is: Do you want to recollect these other royalties? Or if the price of oil goes to 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, $80 a barrel, do you want the oil and gas industry to pay any royalties at all? Because right now, they don't. So if you want all the revenues to go to them, nothing to go to the taxpayer, then, fine. Vote against the Markey amendment. But if you want to open up the lands in the gulf, let the oil industry come in, but to make sure that they pay on their old leases a fair share of the dues to live in this country, because it is a massive part of the revenues that we use to fund our defense, then you vote ``yes'' on the Markey amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and I thank the Members of the House for allowing us to have these few minutes on the floor of the House of Representatives to honor, to recognize one of the greatest Americans of the 20th century, one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time, but also a man who was a pioneer in race relations. In 1950, he was the first person to draft in the NBA an African American. In 1966, he named Bill Russell as the coach of the Boston Celtics, the first African American coach of any major sport in the United States. In 1965, he won the NBA title playing five African American starters on an NBA team. No one had ever done that before, because he was blind to race. I know this, because in 1959 when I was 13 years old, Red Auerbach decided that he was going to have four teams that would alternate playing a game at Boston Garden right before the Boston Celtic game at 1 o'clock. He had a YMHA team, Young Men's Hebrew Association; a Chinese American team; an African American team from Roxbury; and he had a CYO team, a Catholic Youth Organization team, and I was on that team. I was one of the 10 boys on that Catholic team. And we played alternating Sundays right before the Celtics game, in uniform with all the fans coming in; Chinese, African American, Jewish, white, in Boston, in 1959. Red Auerbach was a very special man, because he was dedicated to being color-blind. He was dedicated to excellence, regardless of where the talent came from. It was a message that all of us in Boston saw and heard, and to a very large extent this new African American Governor, this great new Governor that we have in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, he is a political godchild not only of Bobby Kennedy and John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but also in Boston, in Massachusetts, of Red Auerbach and the message he was sending through Bill Russell, through these other players a generation ago, to all of us in our State. So we are so, so proud of him. He always knew that a team could be bigger than the sum of its parts if they all worked together. That was his message. That was something that made him the most successful basketball coach in the history of basketball. It was that notion of teamwork. After each victory, he pulled out a cigar, and I know that it is in violation of House rules to smoke, although in the State of Massachusetts, in all public places, it is illegal to smoke, except written into the law Red Auerbach, because he had a special exception, and out here on the House floor today, to Red I say that you were the ultimate winner, that you were someone who not only won on the court but you won in life and you sent that message to all of us. We thank you for your example. I thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia for recognizing me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution to honor ``Red'' Auerbach, the legendary basketball coach and executive of the Boston Celtics, who passed away in October at the age of 89. Mr. Speaker, Red Auerbach was a winner. As a coach, he won more than a thousand games, including 9 world championships and an unbelievable 8 in a row--a record that still stands today. Overall, he won almost two- thirds of the games he coached over a 20-year NBA career. The 16 world championship banners that hang from the rafters in Boston Garden today are an everlasting testament to Red's incredible talent. As an executive leading the Celtics, he was the architect of one of the greatest dynasties in the history of professional sports. The players he brought onto the Celtics--often by outwitting and outmaneuvering the general managers of the other teams in the league-- remain among the greatest to ever play the game: Bill Russell; Bob Cousy; John Havlicek; Kevin McHale; and of course, Larry Bird. Red understood that it took much more than individual stars to win consistently. That's why he constructed teams with players who knew and excelled at their specific roles, building a whole that always was greater than the sum of its parts. It wasn't unusual for players from other teams to suddenly start playing better when they joined the Celtics than they ever had with their previous team. Red infused the entire Celtics organization with the values of teamwork, respect, tenacity and loyalty, creating a culture known as ``Celtic Pride'' that forever will be associated with the Boston Celtics franchise. It's impossible to overstate Red's impact on the City of Boston and the entire New England region. With his leadership, the Celtics became hometown heroes, and Red was a living legend. Growing up as a boy in Massachusetts, I always got a thrill when Red would let the CYO teams from across the state play on that incredible parquet floor in Boston Garden. It was a highlight for us, and it also was an example of Red's work to break down racial and class barriers. To have white kids and black kids, Hispanic and Jewish kids from communities across the state mixing together was unusual in Boston in the 50s and early 60s, and Red was the one making it happen. Red's lasting impact on our country transcends basketball. His unrivalled ability to identify gifted players was fueled by his laser focus on talent and attitude, which left no room for considerations of race, creed or color. In 1950, Red drafted the NBA's first African-American player, Chuck Cooper. He hired the first African-American head coach in professional sports in 1966 in Bill Russell and was the first coach to put together a starting lineup consisting entirely of African-American players in 1964. While Red made his indelible mark in Boston, his home remained in Washington, DC throughout his career with the Celtics. I was fortunate to be invited to Red's famous lunches at the China Pearl restaurant, where Red would hold court in the middle of a diverse group of journalists, athletes, doctors, coaches, and other friends he had made over the years. Watching Red, it was clear that he was a natural leader--he would have made a great Speaker of the House in his day. Red's place among the greatest coaches and executives of all time is assured, his contributions to the betterment of society will always endure, and his life exemplifies the very best ideals of our country. There will never be another Red Auerbach--he was an American original. Our hearts go out to Red's family and friends. I encourage my colleagues to support this resolution in Red's honor.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, Sherry Boehlert was my good friend. He was a wonderful chairman and a great environmental champion. Sherry was a consistent bulwark in the Republican Party against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and his outstanding leadership is one of the main reasons why the Refuge remains a pristine wilderness today. In defending this magnificent wilderness, he more than filled the shoes of a Republican General--President Dwight David Eisenhower--who had the foresight to protect the refuge for its unique environmental values and the backbone to resist a storm of pressure to let the drillers destroy this untrammeled corner of America forever. Sherry was also the leading Republican voice for higher fuel economy standards for our nation's cars, trucks and SUVs. In doing so, he stood tall for our soldiers who fight on the oil fields of the Middle East and for the children of our children who are facing a climate change catastrophe that we are only beginning to fathom. I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to work with him often in these fights and his leadership and passion were an inspiration to me and to everyone who knew him.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion to Instruct Conferees. The recommital motion I offered when this bill came to the floor in July would have required the President to certify that India is fully supporting U.S. efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The gentleman from California Mr. Lantos supported my amendment, and I thank him for that, but my amendment unfortunately failed. In the Senate, a similar but less expansive amendment offered by Sen. Harkin was successful, and that is the amendment supported by this Motion to Instruct. The Harkin Amendment would require the President to certify that India was abiding by United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iran. Since those resolutions are already binding under international law, that is a low enough bar that the President could make such a certification for almost any country in the world. India would certainly pass. The Harkin Amendment doesn't do everything that I would like it to, but I believe that it is nonetheless an important provision to keep in the final bill. But now the Bush Administration is objecting to even this modest requirement. Last week, Secretary Rice wrote to Chairman Hyde and Ranking Member Lantos asking that all of the significant nonproliferation provisions added by the Congress be removed. She also argued that the Harkin Amendment would be viewed by India as an ``additional condition,'' and therefore the requirement must be removed. So it seems that the Bush administration is refusing to ask a close ally, India, to abide by established international law and assist in preventing Iran from going nuclear. Apparently, the Bush Administration has entered the nuclear twilight zone. It can go to war in Iraq to disarm imaginary WMD, but not a word to India in this nuclear agreement about helping us stand up to Iran's WMD programs? I ask my colleagues: Whose foreign policy is the Administration promoting? This is a modest suggestion. I think we actually should be doing more, and I and other House Members have sent a letter to Chairman Hyde and Ranking Member Lantos outlining some of the other critical nuclear nonproliferation provisions that are the minimum requirements that we should be including in this bill. I hope that they are included in the final conference report. But we really do need to ensure that India is not able to simultaneously reap the benefits of nuclear cooperation with the U.S. and others, while continuing to support Iran's efforts to maintain a renegade nuclear program. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this Motion to Instruct Conferees, because we absolutely must halt Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of Johanna's law and I thank Representatives Levin, Issa, DeLauro and Burton and their strong bipartisan coalition for all of their hard work in bringing this bill to the floor today. This bill honors the memory of Johanna Silver Gordon and the thousands of women who have lost their lives to gynecologic cancer because they were not diagnosed until the late stages of the disease. This year, more than 80,000 women will be diagnosed with gynecologic cancer, and more than 28,000 women will die from these diseases. However, there is very little awareness about these deadly diseases. According the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, NOCC, only 15 percent of women are familiar with the symptoms of ovarian cancer, and 82 percent have never talked to their doctors about the symptoms and risk factors. If caught in the early stages of the disease, the five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is 90 percent. However 75 percent of women are diagnosed in the advanced stages of the disease, when the prognosis is very poor. It is clear that we must do something to increase awareness about this disease and promote early diagnosis. Johanna's law will authorize a national campaign directed at women and their providers to promote early detection of gynecologic cancer and raise awareness about these devastating diseases. I would like to thank one of my constituents, Barbara O'Brien, a 9 year survivor herself, for her passionate advocacy and her dedication to raising awareness about this incredibly important issue. Education is a critical first step and this bill will significantly increase awareness. However, we must also continue to pursue the research necessary to find a diagnostic test, better treatments and ultimately a cure for this horrible disease so that succeeding generations will have to turn to the history books to learn that there was ever a disease called ovarian cancer. I urge support of this important legislation

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi, and I thank him for his excellent work on that legislation. I would say that the gentlewoman made a fine point here. The Democrats waited for days to find out what was in this bill as the Republicans deliberated by themselves. Finally it comes back over, and we learn what they included. Did it have anything on rail and rapid transit security? No. Did it have something on moving hazardous materials in a way that got them around densely populated areas? No. Did it have anything to do with ensuring that we screen for nuclear bombs on ships before they came into the ports of the United States? No. But what did they include? Well, they included an Internet gambling bill. Now, you would think given the fact that it was a port bill, you would think they would have something in it on riverboat gambling. But, no, nothing even on that. So, ladies and gentlemen, what they have produced is a fine piece of political pork that the Republican Party in secret has put together. Meantime, al Qaeda has their number one objective in the world still undealt with by the Republicans, and that is obtaining a nuclear weapon out of the former Soviet Union, bringing it to a port in the world, placing it in a container on that ship, bringing the ship into a port in the United States, and then detonating that nuclear bomb before it is ever taken off the ship. And the Republicans in this bill, do they require that there be screening for nuclear bombs before they leave for the United States? No. So, ladies and gentlemen, this bill on the central issue is a failure. The number one threat to our security, a nuclear bomb in a container on a ship, no requirement at all for the screening before it comes to our port. They have the screening after the nuclear bomb reaches the port in the United States. By then it is too late. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is like instead of buying a dog, they put up a ``beware of dog'' sign. So when the bomb has reached the port of New York or Boston or L.A., the only thing that will be there is ``beware of dog.'' They refuse to put up the protection. Vote ``no'' on this terrible bill.