Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry. Mr. Chairman, could you tell me where in the amendment there is a proposed change in the budget authority?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, we have something which is called the Metropolitan Medical Response System. This is the system that has been set up in 125 major communities across the United States, every major metropolitan area, in order to coordinate the response of the police, the fire and the emergency medical personnel in the event that there is a terrorist attack; a hurricane; tornado; an earthquake; or, as we have learned over the last 6 or 8 months, an avian flu disaster which hits a community. Last year, there was $30 million which was appropriated. To the credit of the committee, the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from Minnesota, after the White House recommended zero for this program, the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from Minnesota have restored the $30 million. But in the Homeland Security Committee, on which I serve, by a unanimous vote just a month ago, our committee voted to double the number to $60 million. Now, why did we do that? Well, in addition to that number's being endorsed by the International Association of Fire Chiefs, all of these medical personnel across the country who say that the funding is woefully inadequate, you have just about every local police and fire department who are saying that they are going to be overwhelmed if one of these disasters hits their community. So just to recap the last 12 months, since the $30 million was established as the number, we have already had Hurricane Katrina, which has exposed the inadequacies of the coordination of local police and fire and medical personnel. We have had the avian flu, which has arisen as a threat to the public health and safety of every community in our country. And there is no community at this point which is bragging that they are prepared to deal with this catastrophe if it hits their hometown. So what we have done is identify a couple of programs, including the MAXHR program, which every union in America is opposed to because it is just going to redesign the whole way in which people are hired, and instead substituted money which will actually go to these local police and fire and medical personnel so that we can have the planning which is put in place. We all know that when a catastrophe occurs in a community, nobody calls the Department of Homeland Security. They call the local police department, they call the local fire department, they call the local hospital. They are crying out to us saying they don't have the resources. That is why the Homeland Security Committee upped the number from $30 million to $60 million just last month. Every one of these people, we saw it New York City, we saw it down here, these people are heroes. But heroes need help. They need the resources. They need the planning to be put in place. That is why the fire chiefs, that is why these local unions are all crying out, please, give us the help. We will take the risk. We will go into the flaming buildings. We will try to stop the flood. We will put our own health on the line in the event of an avian flu hitting a community. But give us the planning, give us the capacity now to put in place the response mechanism. That is what this amendment does. And all it does is respond to what all these experts have told us the number has to be. $30 million is clearly inadequate, given what we have learned since last year with avian flu and what happened in New Orleans and across the whole gulf coast. I urge an ``aye'' vote in order to ensure that this funding is made available to these local heroes. Point of Order

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

Mr. MARKEY. No, I await the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, this recommittal motion goes right to the heart of what the Congress voted last week. Last week the Congress said that if oil companies that had received leases in the 1990s and in the early part of this century that are not paying any royalties on the oil which they drill out of public lands that would help to reduce the deficit, to pay for Medicare, to pay for Medicaid; if they are not going to pay royalties at $60 a barrel, $70 a barrel, $80 a barrel, $90 a barrel or $100 a barrel on oil which is drilled on public lands that they already have leases on, that those companies should not be able to drill on public lands in an Arctic wildlife refuge and receive the benefit of drilling on public lands. Either they renegotiate their old royalty agreements with the Federal Government that allow them to escape paying to the Federal Treasury, or they will not get the benefit of drilling on public lands, especially if it is a wildlife refuge. So that is what this is all about. And President Bush said in April there is no need for royalty relief at $55 a barrel oil. We are talking about $60, $70, $80, $90 a barrel. This recommittal motion ensures that the American taxpayer will be protected.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this is a historic debate. We have OPEC and the oil industry tipping consumers upside-down at the pump every single day. Rather than having a debate out here on the House floor on the amount of alternative renewable fuels we use which would dramatically increase by millions of barrels a day; rather than debating out here on the floor how we would increase the fuel efficiency standards over the next 10 years of all of the vehicles we drive in the United States, which would push out additional millions of barrels of oil a day, so that, 10 years from today, there would be no imported oil from the OPEC countries, no imported oil from the Persian Gulf; instead, we are debating a bill which won't produce the first barrel of oil for 10 years, and it will come from a pristine wildlife refuge. That just shows you how bankrupt the Republican energy strategy is. It is almost Memorial Day weekend. Millions of drivers are getting ready to go to the pump to get ready for their long drives only to pay $3.20, $3.40 a gallon. The answer from the Republican party is, we will help you 10 years from now from a gas station we create in the pristine wildlife refuge in Alaska to send oil down to California to put into SUVs to get 15 miles a gallon. That is not the answer to this crisis. We have a choice, make our country more addicted to oil or chart a new direction. We need cleaner air and water rather than more pollution. We need abundant, renewable energy and more efficient vehicles to drive in our country. We put 70 percent of all the oil we consume into gasoline tanks. Instead, we are here talking about something that will not happen for 10 years. The American people want to know, when will the Congress stand up for them and make sure that the oil industry and OPEC stops sticking them up at the pump? Because our country has been paralyzed for 6 years by this Congress and by the Republican White House, which unfortunately is still too controlled by the oil industry vote to ensure that we protect this Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from being exploited. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett). (Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). (Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin). (Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we have an historic time in our country. It is a time that requires the United States, this Congress, the President, to respond to an energy crisis. Skyrocketing gasoline prices, a real sense that we are importing too much oil from overseas and a real need for us to come together in a comprehensive way for our country to respond. We should be debating out here on the House floor today how we radically increase the amount of renewable fuels in our country that is consumed. We have to have a debate out here on the House floor about how we improve all of the vehicles which we drive in terms of their energy efficiency, all of the appliances which we use in our country in order to make them more efficient so we do not have to import so much oil. Instead, the response from the majority is to just bring out this bill, once again, which will not produce the first barrel of oil for at least 10 years in a pristine wildlife refuge in Alaska. It is a failure not to have this debate be broader, be more comprehensive at this time, so that we can, in fact, 10 years from now, 10 years from now, have energy independence from the Middle East. This bill will not even produce the first barrel of oil for 10 years. It is a red herring. It is a disservice to the American public. There were no hearings on this bill before it came out. They have changed the language that has always come out on to the House floor dealing with the arctic refuge with no hearings. It is something that should be rejected. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I hope everyone who has been watching this debate appreciates this free, online parliamentary lesson that we are conducting out here on the floor. My amendment has been redrafted in a way, working with the Parliamentarians, which I think is now completely in conformance with the rules of the House. But what I have decided to do during the time that we have been actually working on the parliamentary questions is to change the amendment by reducing the amount that I am going to ask to be transferred over to the metropolitan medical response systems in the country. That decision rested upon kind of a suggestion that I take the money that we really need out of the Max HR program, this program which the unions of America are in opposition to, the National Treasury Employees Union, the American Federation of Government Employees. We have the Fire Chiefs of the United States who have endorsed my amendment. Just to restate for those who were not listening earlier, the point of this is that we have learned a lot since this time last year when we were appropriating the last time; $30 million was inserted. And I want to congratulate the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from Minnesota. Again, the White House recommended no money. But we all know the critical role which the local police, the local fire, the local medical personnel are going to play in the event that, God forbid, there is ever a catastrophic event in a community. We have also learned from this time last year of the inadequacy of local preparedness. Hurricane Katrina showed us how locally unprepared we are in our community. The Avian flu has only appeared as a major pandemic threat to our country since this time last year. We did not have that as part of our discussion. What have we heard from the local level? We have heard that there is no capacity for just about any community in America to respond to the level of catastrophe that a terrorist attack, nuclear, biological or chemical; a hurricane of a magnitude of a three or higher; or an avian flu type of pandemic would present to a community. So here in this amendment, what I am doing is increasing by $14.7 million the funding that will go out to these 125 largest of all metropolitan areas in the United States, so that at the State level and local level they can coordinate with the Federal Government and their police, fire and medical resources, so that there is a strategy to respond in the event of one of those catastrophes. The money, again, will be coming out of the Max HR program. It is one that has already been tapped in this process. It is one that deals with the program which has come under assault from the unions of our country as being an assault upon their workplace. So to the Members, I urge them to support this amendment. It will provide for those local heroes the help that they are going to need, the reinforcements that they are going to need in the event, and we know that no one community has an inevitable catastrophe, but we know that across the country, in any one year, it is inevitable that someone will be hit. This is a way of giving us that extra insurance policy so that the planning can be in place. I urge an ``aye'' vote on the Markey amendment.

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

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that, and I appreciate the gentleman not objecting at this time. What I did was, to be honest with you, I truncated my statement when I rose this second time, that is, on this second iteration of the amendment, and I realize that many people an hour ago probably were not listening. So when the gentleman from Kentucky said that $30 million was in the budget, that was true and it remains true, and I do not contest that except in my earlier statement I made clear that, one, I praised him for putting in $30 million because the Bush administration wanted zero, but second, the $30 million number is the same number that was in last year's budget before Katrina, before the avian flu threat became clear, before all the lessons that this country has learned unfortunately through real life experience. That is why I believe that we have to increase this budget by this near $15 million. That is what the fire chiefs are asking us for. That is what the unions are asking us for. In other words, the local police, the local fire, the employees in the hospitals all across the country, they are all saying: We are not prepared. Our emergency rooms will be overrun. We do not have the capacity to respond to a nuclear or chemical or biological event. We will be paralyzed in the first one hour. We need better metropolitan planning so that no one hospital, no one neighborhood is devastated. So I am asking for the increase because of what we have learned over the last year, what we are seeing ourselves as Americans, horrified last Labor Day weekend, saw these people looking up, looking for help, and realizing there was no metropolitan medical response plan. We have learned in audits of plans across the whole country that there is still not in existence plans of a way that would adequately deal with this issue. So, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for not objecting, and I urge the Members to support my amendment.

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