Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr). (Mr. FARR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the United States Marine Corps on its 228th birthday. This organization, founded on November 10th, 1775, has a proud history of challenges met and overcome in every war in which our country has been involved. From the historic battles of Mellow Wood in the First World War to the battles of Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Tarawa in the Second World War, to the modern conflicts in Panama, Somalia, and Iraq, the fighting men and women of the U.S. Marines have displayed the greatest valor and spirit. I wish to congratulate and honor all Marines and Marine veterans, with particular attention paid to those currently serving from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including 2,934 active duty Marines and 3,989 active reserve Marines in addition to the 2,259 retired Marines from our state. The U.S. Marines continue to be a storied organization upholding a proud tradition of freedom throughout the world. Congratulations to the U.S. Marine Corps.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that this is a moment in American history where we begin to pay the price for the Bush tax cuts. For 3 years, we have been told that the $3 trillion worth of tax cuts that are now going to be put in place over the next 15 years, that we do not have to worry because it will not impact on education, it will not impact on Social Security, it will not impact on Medicare, it will not impact on Medicaid, it will not impact on NIH. Do not worry. Well, the gentleman from Ohio did a wonderful job doubling the NIH budget over a 5-year period. He has got a heart of gold. But this issue is now out of his control. There is no money left. We have got to tighten our belt. How about in Iraq? Well, not there. There, we have an ability to send $87.5 billion this year, on top of the $75 billion we have already spent. For NIH, sorry, no increase. No increase? Fourteen million Americans are going to have Alzheimer's by the time all the baby boomers have retired, 14 million. Five million are going to have Parkinson's disease by the time all the baby boomers have retired; 1\1/ 2\ million Americans are going to have ALS by the time all the baby boomers have retired. For Iraq, $150 billion over a 1-year period. For NIH, for all of the health care security for every American family, after inflation, after some of the money which is going to have to now be spent on bio-defense and antiterrorism at NIH as well and coordination with the antiterrorism effort, we are going to see a net decrease in NIH spending. Now, one of the by-products of all the NIH spending over the years has been the lengthening of life expectancy. That is good. But the problem is that it has made it clearer that when people age, all of these other diseases then manifest themselves, Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's and many others for which we do not have a cure. We have cured the diseases that people died from in 1900, remarkably because of NIH; but we have not cured the diseases of the 21st century yet. That only can happen if NIH is fully funded. Now, for smart bombs, an unlimited budget; for smart medical research, I am sorry, no increase. Mr. Speaker, if we are not going to fund and leave the money in for the nursing home care for all of these people, and, by the way, half the people in nursing homes have Alzheimer's, guess who pays for it? Medicaid. When it hits 14 million, it is going to be Medicaid. But this tax cut is now going to make it impossible for us to fund that nursing home care for those senior citizens across our country. So they either have to have it one way or the other in the Bush administration: cure these diseases, or leave the money in for the nursing home care. You cannot have it both ways.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the congressional fellows program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The mission of the AAAS is to ``Advance science and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people''. In pursuit of this mission, in 1973 the AAAS established a fellowship program designed to provide a unique public policy learning experience for scientist and to demonstrate the value of science-government interaction. From an initial cohort of seven Fellows, the AAAS program has grown over thirty years to include nearly one hundred Fellows each year, serving in both Houses of Congress and many agencies of the executive branch. Bringing technical backgrounds that range from astrophysics to veterinary radiology, AAAS Fellows have made important contributions to all areas of government policy. Many former Fellows have remained in Washington at the end of their twelve-month tenure, to become members of the scientific policymaking community. Others have returned to scientific careers with an enhanced appreciation of public policy, sharing this knowledge and experience with colleagues and students. I have welcomed over twenty AAAS Fellows into my office since 1979 and have been consistently impressed by their contributions to policymaking and advising. They have made a significant positive impact on the quality of life for the people of Massachusetts, the United States, and the world by instilling a measure of science and humanity into the decisions we are asked to make in these chambers every day. I look forward to working with AAAS Fellows for another thirty years. The following article from the Washington Post provides a useful look back at 30 years of the outstanding achievements of the AAAS science policy program. [From the Washington Post, Sept. 18, 2003] Bridging This Gap Isn't Rocket Science (By Rick Weiss) In his famous 1959 treatise ``The Two Cultures,'' British scientist and novelist C.P. Snow decried the divide between scientists and ``literary intellectuals,'' warning that society's problems will remain largely intractable as long as scientists eschew Shakespeare and literary types remain ignorant about the second law of thermodynamics. Washington has its own version of that cultural divide-- this one involving scientists and politicians. How can the nation craft policies in such scientifically complex areas as embryonic stem cell research, global warming, agricultural biotechnology and ``Star Wars'' missile defense, experts in both camps moan, when so many politicians know so little about science and most scientists remain so clueless about how policy is made? Enter the AAAS Science and Technology Fellows Program, a little-known but influential cultural exchange that serves as a wormhole between the largely alien universes of science and politics. The program--coordinated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's largest general science organization and publisher of the research journal Science--places about 60 PhD scientists in congressional and executive branch offices each fall for one-year stints. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this week, the program gives scientists a chance to explore the world of policy and politics while allowing lawmakers and administration officials to take advantage of the fellows' well-wired brains. Scientists learn about a kind of sausage-making that never came up in their PhD food chemistry courses and bureaucrats get reminded that the universe cannot run on hot air alone. Sometimes there is even a profound synthesis. In at least one case, involving a psychology fellow and a Treasury official, the cross-pollination between science and politics got so personal as to culminate in matrimony. But perhaps the best measure of the program's success is the ubiquity of former fellows inside the Beltway today. Ten of about 50 staff members on the House Science Committee-- including the committee's deputy chief of staff--are former fellows, as is one member of Congress: Rep. Rush D. Holt (D- N.J.). Other former fellows include the deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security's Advanced Research Projects Agency; the new chief science adviser at the State Department; and the deputy associate director of technology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Perhaps no fellow is as appreciative of the program as psychologist Karen Kovacs North, now assistant dean for the School of Public Policy and Social Research at the University of California at Los Angeles. She met her husband in 1994 while on her AAAS stint in the office of Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). ``We met banning Chinese assault weapons,'' she said. Specifically, she first got Erik North, a Treasury official, in her cross hairs when he and some colleagues went to Markey's office to work with her on the wording of the pending Clinton importation ban. ``They came over with a bunch of guns and it scared the hell out of me,'' Kovacs North recalled. After months of work together, with the ban written and passed, it was dinner for two, long talks into the night ``and the rest,'' Kovac North said, ``is Hollywood history.'' They married in Malibu, Calif., in 1997. C.P. Snow would have cried with happiness.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am offering this motion today to address one of the most inexplicable and indefensible decisions made by the House and Senate Republican energy conferees in their closed-door meetings. I am talking about the decision that has apparently been made by the Republican majority to weaken critical nuclear security provisions Democrats had earlier attached to the energy bill, H.R. 6, in order to better secure our Nation's 103 currently operating civilian nuclear power plants from the threat of terrorist attack. Remember less than 2 years ago, President Bush told the Nation in his State of the Union address, quote, our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears and showed us the true scope of the task ahead. We have seen the depths of our enemies' hatred in videos where they laugh about the loss of innocent life and the depth of their hatred is equaled by the madness of the destruction they design. We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities, detailed instructions for making chemical weapons, surveillance maps of American cities and thorough descriptions of landmarks in America and throughout the world. So we know that nuclear power plants are at the very top of al Qaeda's list of potential targets in the United States. Despite this fact, the Republican conferees have apparently decided to weaken the nuclear security language in the energy bill. My motion covers three of the major weakening changes that have been made in the nuclear antiterrorism provisions in the energy bill. The first part of my motion addresses the decision by the House Republican conferees to eliminate the requirement for a mandatory Nuclear Regulatory Commission rulemaking to upgrade nuclear security regulations. Section 14012 of the House bill entitled Nuclear Facility Threats requires the NRC to issue regulations, including changes to the design basis threat, to ensure that licensees addressed the threats of a terrorist attack against a nuclear power plant in the United States. Under the provision, these new rules are required to be issued not later than 270 days after the submission of a detailed report by the President assessing the nature of the terrorist threat to the nuclear facilities in the United States or a year after enactment. The Republican conferees have now weakened this provision so that it no longer mandates a new NRC rulemaking, but instead merely authorizes the NRC to make such revisions to the design basis threats promulgated before the date of enactment of this section as the commission deems appropriate, based on the summary and classification report. There is no deadline. There is no requirement for any formal Nuclear Regulatory Commission rulemaking. This language guts the entire section and appears to allow the NRC to deem the interim orders that it has already adopted since the September 11 attacks to be sufficient and take no further action. This new language reflects what the NRC and the nuclear industry have always wanted, no action by Congress to require them to do anything more than that which they have already done on nuclear security. But is that the position that this body, which has twice voted to mandate Nuclear Regulatory Commission nuclear security rulemaking, really wants to take? You might say, perhaps the NRC has already addressed the problem in its secret orders. No, it has not. The NRC orders are classified and were prepared following closed-door consultations with the nuclear industry and no opportunity for public comment. I have read the NRC orders very carefully. And while I cannot discuss them in a public forum due to their security classification, I can tell this House that the NRC's orders are inadequate in several respects and fail to address the kind of threats that we now must be prepared for in a post- September 11 environment. I would suggest to the Members that if they took the time to read these orders and to consult with anyone with any real expertise on security matters, they would share my concern that the NRC has failed to do enough to beef up security at our Nation's nuclear facilities. But despite the President's warnings, the Republican energy conferees have now decided not to even require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to undertake a rulemaking to tighten up security at these sensitive facilities. The second part of my motion addresses the Republican conferees' decision to weaken the House-passed requirements for full consultation with Homeland Security regarding nuclear security risks. Section 14013 of the House bill, ``Unreasonable Risk Consultation,'' requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consult with the Department of Homeland Security concerning whether the location of a new nuclear power plant or its design provides for adequate protection of public health and safety if subject to a terrorist attack before Price- Anderson liability indemnification is provided to the plant. This provision originated as an amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) to last year's Price-Anderson bill, which this year was attached to the base text of H.R. 6. It also requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consult with the Department of Homeland Security before issuing or renewing a license to operate a new or existing nuclear power plant to determine the adequacy of the emergency evacuation plan for communities around the plant. This provision originated as an amendment that I authored. We have also been informed that they are preparing to eliminate the requirement for consultation prior to a relicensing of an existing power plant, although the Republican conferees have yet to share this new language with us in this bill. The Republican conferees have now de-linked the Waxman amendment's consultation requirement from Price-Anderson's liability indemnification and eliminated the Markey amendment's requirement for consultation regarding adequacy of emergency evacuation plans. We have also been informed that they are preparing to eliminate the requirement for consultation prior to a relicensing of an existing power plant, although the Republican conferees have yet to share this new language with the Democrats. The elimination of the Waxman amendment's linkage between NRC consultation with Homeland Security and Price-Anderson indemnification takes all of the teeth out of the Waxman provision. Instead of mandating a consultation aimed at determining whether the design or location of a nuclear facility poses an unreasonable risk before giving the owner government-subsidized insurance, we are now merely calling for such consultation to take place. Moreover, tying consultation to the initial licensing of a plant, and not recovering relicensing of the 103 currently-operating nuclear power plants, greatly narrows the application of the amendment since no new nuclear power plant has been successfully ordered since 1973 and no new nuclear power plants are likely to be ordered for decades, if ever. If this change is made, there would be no mandatory consultation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with the Department of Homeland Security for any of the existing nuclear power plants in this country, not for Seabrook, not for Pilgrim, not for Indian Point, not for Diablo Canyon, for none. Finally, eliminating the specific requirement for consultation regarding the adequacy of emergency evacuation plans in the event of a successful terrorist attack on a nuclear power plant means that we are failing to do what is needed to ensure that citizens living near plants such as the Indian Point reactor right outside of New York City are fully protected against the threat of a terrorist attack. And third and finally, my amendment addresses the decision to weaken nuclear materials transportation requirements: section 14011 of the House-passed bill, requiring the NRC to establish a system to better ensure the security of nuclear materials transferred to, from, or within the United States. This provision originated as an amendment I authored that has now passed the House twice in H.R. 6 in this Congress and as part of Price-Anderson reauthorization last year. The latest Republican conference report draft, in contrast, limits the NRC's regulations to the security of imports or exports of nuclear materials, failing to cover the transportation of these materials within our own country. This limitation is inexplicable in light of the fact that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Congress in 2002 that there are 2 million radioactive sources in the United States and that each year there are on average 300 reports of lost or stolen or abandoned radioactive materials. The NRC also reported at that time that in the past 5 years, there have been 1,495 reports of lost, stolen, or abandoned radioactive materials; 835 these have not been found. According to the NRC, a radioactive source as small as 1Curie, if dispersed by a bomb, ``could spread low-level contamination over an area up to several city blocks, possibly resulting in restriction of the area until the area was surveyed and decontaminated.'' But the Republican energy conferees have exempted transfers of these radioactive materials within the country from the new nuclear security requirements. That makes no sense. I urge my colleagues to vote for this motion today and send a strong message to the House and Senate Republican energy conferees that this body insists on tougher protections against a terrorist attack on our Nation's nuclear facilities; that this body insists on tougher protections against the threat of a radiological dirty bomb; and that this body rejects secret, back-room talks that result in the weakening of critical antiterrorism protections. I heard the majority leader earlier make reference to the fact that a motion to instruct might just reflect what the Members in this body are feeling that day. That is not what the provisions that we are talking about reflect. They reflect what has happened on this House floor several times with the Members voting for it. In fact, taking it out reflects what, in my opinion, a small number of Members and nuclear industry officials might feel on any particular day. But they do not capture what the consensus was that was reached by House Members and the general public about what must be done to enhance nuclear security. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume in order to conclude this debate. Madam Speaker, without question, back in 1787 when a deal was being cut on the construction of the Union and the small States demanded that, rather than equal representation for all States, that another body be created in order to represent them, that other body that was created at the time has developed peculiar characteristics that, unfortunately, are manifesting themselves here on the House floor today. There are many who look back with regret that that deal was ever cut, the grand compromise in the Constitution, allowing for that disproportionate influence, and I see nodding bipartisan agreement on the Republican side on this subject.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush). (Mr. RUSH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman very much. I regret that Texas was not part of the Union at the time. Perhaps they could have exercised some influence in that final decision making. But the other body, as it likes to be called, and I understand why in many instances, this is a good example of where anonymity is something to be much desired and sought, that the other body here, according to the majority, is calling all the shots in terms of nuclear security, which is a premise which I doubt is actually accurate. I do believe that it was a bicameral Republican decision to take out the nuclear security issues, since we know that the Democrats in the Senate, like the Democrats in the House, are searching the corridors of this building trying to find where the meetings are taking place. We have no idea. We do know this though, that reports are rampant that the bill, when it comes out on the House floor, is going to be loaded with billions of dollars of subsidies for the nuclear industry. I understand it is that time of the year where the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries just really think that they deserve billions of dollars in subsidies for each one of their industries from the taxpaying public, even though they are the wealthiest industries in the United States. But, it seems to me, the least that the nuclear industry should be willing to accept are antiterrorism provisions that are attached to the nuclear gifts which it appears the Republican House and Senate and White House is willing to, and I am sorry I said ``Senate,'' I meant the other body, that they appear willing to confer upon them. They should accept those additional safety measures, because the public, without question, gave an additional measure of wholehearted support to the President in his campaign to eradicate the threat of Saddam Hussein to the world because of his nuclear mujahideen, because of the contention he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. Here, domestically, we know that nuclear power plants are similarly at the top of the terrorist target list for al Qaeda, and it seems to me the nuclear industry is acting in an irresponsible fashion in not accepting reasonable measures being adopted which guarantee that terrorists cannot be successful in using domestic nuclear materials to terrorize our country. So I regret that that language has been removed, and at this point I urge an ``aye'' vote on this motion to instruct. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, subject to rule XXII, clause 7, I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 6, the Energy Policy Act. The form of the motion is as follows: Mr. Markey moves that the managers on the part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 6 be instructed to insist upon the provisions contained in-- (1) section 14011 of the House bill relating to secure transfer of nuclear materials; (2) section 14012(d) of the House bill relating to nuclear facility threats, directing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue regulations, including changes to the design basis threat, to ensure that nuclear facilities licensed by Commission address the threat of a terrorist attack against such facilities; and (3) section 14013 of the House bill requiring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, before entering into any agreement of indemnification with respect to a utilization facility under section 170 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, to consult with the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security (or any successor official) with respect to that facility concerning whether the location of the facility and the design of that type of facility ensures that the facility provides for the adequate protection of public health and safety if subject to a terrorist attack, and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission also consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security before issuing a license or a license renewal for a sensitive nuclear facility concerning the emergency evacuation plan for the communities living near the sensitive nuclear facility.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The problem with the bill the way it is written is that, for example, the $73 million, which we all agree should be put in for drug interdiction, could just get shifted out of drug interdiction over to a Defense Department R&D program, a procurement program. We will not have any say over that. We agree on the drug interdiction, but Rumsfeld can put it anywhere he wants. My amendment does not cut a single nickel out of this entire budget. What it says, though, is if they want to reprogram it, they have got to come back to us. If they have changed their mind on drug interdiction, if they want $1.3 billion in walking-around money to give to Jordan or any other country, they come back to us. They ask for our permission. This is a war in which we are the elected people of our country. This is where ``no taxation without representation'' started as a revolution in my district. It was about a war. It was about taxation. It was about proper representation. I do not believe the American people want to hand over to Donald Rumsfeld and over to Condoleezza Rice and over to Wolfowitz and all of them the authority to make decisions which we, as their elected representatives greeting the body bags coming back to our district, are expected to make on behalf of our constituents.

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Let me begin by saying that if we pass this bill with the type of blank check transfer authority that it currently contains, we will live to regret it in this House. We will only be furthering the restoration of an unaccountable imperial Presidency, a phenomenon that many of us saw emerge during the Vietnam era, much to our Nation's regret; and we will have handed over one of the principal powers of the Constitution that is granted to this body, the power of the purse. While there is lots of debate and discussion about President Bush's $87 billion supplemental request for military operations, there is no discussion about how Secretary Rumsfeld and President Bush can use most of this as a slush fund pretty much any way they want. Most of the supplemental is pretty straightforward: $87 billion in total funding, $64.7 billion in military spending. But buried in the supplemental, there are also a number of provisions which would grant the Bush administration broad authority to transfer billions in funding appropriated in the bill for one purpose to be instead used for a completely different purpose with only minimal congressional oversight. Nearly, listen to this, $53 billion of the $87 billion appropriation is subject to one or more of these retransfer or reallocation provisions. What exactly do these blank check provisions do? Essentially they allow Secretary Rumsfeld and President Bush to create their very own slush funds that they can use for virtually whatever they want to do. Number one, there is $1.3 billion in defense-wide operations and maintenance funds that can be transferred over for use ``for payments to reimburse Pakistan, Jordan, and other key cooperating nations, for logistical and military support provided, or to be provided, to United States military operations.'' So here we are essentially letting Secretary Rumsfeld take money appropriated for operations and maintenance and the military and instead using it as walking-around money to pay off countries that he thinks may be helpful to us. He decides who gets the money. He decides how much they get, and he decides whether or not those expenditures are really justified. All we are going to get back here in Congress are quarterly reports as he will tell us who he gave the money to. Second, there is $1.98 billion appropriated for the Iraq Freedom Fund that can be transferred over to appropriations for military personnel operations and maintenance; overseas humanitarian, disaster, and civic aid. So if the Secretary does not like how the Congress has appropriated for these accounts, he can increase them by $2 billion. Congress just gets notified about what the Secretary has done, but we have no ability to stop him. Third, there is $73 million in drug interdiction and counter-drug activity funds for Afghanistan which can be transferred by Secretary Rumsfeld to appropriations for military personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; and research, development. In this section there is not even any requirement for congressional notification. The money just gets shifted out of drug interdiction. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, last fall we were told that Congress needed to authorize military force against Iraq in order to convince the U.N. to send the inspectors back into Iraq. But as soon as we did so, the Bush administration pulled the rug out from under the U.N. inspectors and decided it would use the authority Congress granted them to fight a unilateral war. Now we are learning that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Congress and the American people were deceived, misled, and manipulated with false and misleading intelligence and political spin from the Bush White House. Now the Bush administration cannot find any weapons of mass destruction. It cannot find Saddam Hussein. It cannot find Osama bin Laden. It cannot find Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and it cannot even find out who within the White House staff leaked the name of that covert CIA operative. What does the Bush administration now ask the Congress for? They ask us to trust them and to grant their request for another $87 billion going into Iraq, a blank check with no clear vision of how we are going to extricate ourselves from this morass. Now, I hear a lot of talk from the administration and its supporters about how we are crafting with this legislation a new Marshall Plan for Iraq. Well, let me tell you, when George Marshall was crafting a plan for Harry Truman to reconstruct Europe after the devastation of World War II, he was not setting up a sweetheart, no-bid contract system for companies associated with the old Pendergast Machine in Kansas City. That is what we are seeing today with the contracts being given to Halliburton and other favored companies. We are providing broad transfer and reallocation authority to the executive branch that gives the Bush administration virtually unfettered discretion to spend the monies we appropriate in any way they wish. At the same time the President asks us to spend $87 billion in Iraq, he is also going around the country giving speeches calling for additional tax cuts for the top 1 percent wealthiest people in the United States of America. So if you are wealthy in this country, you get tax cuts and fat government contracts. But if you are an ordinary working American, you get Social Security and Medicare trust funds raided, the 50 percent who are in nursing homes, the elderly dependent upon Medicaid, payments for their nursing home care, they are cut; and meanwhile it is all raided for the reconstruction of Iraq, while at the same time tax cuts of the same amounts are being given to the wealthiest 1 percent in our country. So the Republicans are busy at work coming up with new schemes to increase your Medicare co-pays, means test your benefits, increase payments for seniors with home health care visits. All of it is wrong, just plain wrong. It is a blank check. It gives the President and Secretary Rumsfeld too much authority. And it fails to do what is needed to build international support for peacekeeping and reconstruction in Iraq or craft an appropriate exit strategy to get our troops back home. And that can only happen if we have multilateral support for this effort, if we have a real vision for what is going on. As long as this administration believes that it is going to bring Jeffersonian democracy at the point of a gun to an occupied country, then we are operating with one of the most naive political schemes ever put together in the history of this world. And it is time for us to be ensuring that the Congress makes this administration accountable, rather than handing over a blank check with no accountability with at least 60 to 70 percent of this money capable of being reprogrammed by the administration at its own whim without Congress voting upon it again, all of it a mistake of historic proportions. This is where Congress must check in. It did so after World War II. Today it is just providing a blank check.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. This is a curious provision. It was not in the House bill, it was not in the Senate bill, but it miraculously shows up when the Republicans from the House and the Senate meet in secret somewhere here in the Capitol and the Cheney Task Force moved from the White House down here as an integral part of the plan, which neither the House nor the Senate voted for. That is just an incredible achievement. At the same time, the Republicans are saying, we do not believe we can improve the fuel economy standards of SUVs or automobiles; we do not believe we can improve the efficiency of air conditioners; and, by the way, we put 70 percent of all of the oil which we consume in the United States into gasoline tanks; but the Republicans say, we cannot improve that technology. That is impossible. On air conditioners, we cannot improve that technology. That is impossible, even though during the summer, in all of the Southern States, the peak demand for electricity is 70 percent air-conditioning. We cannot improve that technology. But what do they think they can do? Well, they think, rather than making ourselves more efficient so we consume less oil or consume less natural gas, they are going to go up the coastline of California, of Florida, of North Carolina, of Massachusetts to Georges Bank. I asked Secretary Norton 2 years ago when the Cheney Task Force first brought this measure up, I asked her if she planned on drilling off of Georges Bank and she said to me, where is Georges Bank? And I said to her, Madam Secretary, the people of New England hope you never find out where Georges Bank is, because we do not want you to be building these oil pumps off of our beaches, while telling the auto industry, the SUV industry, the air-conditioning industry, they can continue to be less and less and less efficient. Of course we are going to have to drill off of beaches if that is the attitude, because the whole Republican philosophy is antitechnology. And, by the way, the majority leader was very honest, very honest last week. He said that the Republicans have to hold on to drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, have to hold on to it because it will, ``set a precedent'' so that they can drill in other pristine areas, including off the coasts of our country. So it is an important precedent. We are not going to be a country, said the Republicans, that have increased efficiencies in our technology. They say, no, we are just going to continue to drill in places where Americans do not want oil and gas drilled for, because we do not have the nerve to take on the auto industry, the air-conditioning industry, or any other industry that is forcing our dependence upon imported oil from the Middle East.

Mr. MARKEY. Oh, I understand that. I am talking about the bipartisan cities with losing baseball histories.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, this camaraderie that we can share on this one issue is hopefully one that we might be able to spread to other issues.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman on a bipartisan basis, because this is a time for all of the other cities with losing histories in baseball to all band together and root for the Red Sox to end this terrible reign.