Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Perhaps on oil and gas and other environmental issues as well, but at least on this one issue I do agree with my colleague that the New York Yankees are the oil and gas industry of the baseball industry.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to refresh and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the subject of this special order on Mildred O'Neill.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, Massachusetts will miss Millie O'Neill dearly. She and Tip were one of the greatest couples of the greatest generation. I am sure that if Tip were with us today, he would say that he was the luckiest man in the world to have met his sweetheart Millie in high school, to have her willingly and joyfully join him on a journey through the highs and the lows of national politics in America's last half century, to have raised three wonderful sons and two outstanding daughters. Tommy, who I met at Boston College; Susan, who was my classmate and a history major with me at Boston College. I have known them my whole life. This is a wonderful family, and they balanced the demands of that journey against the love and attention that a family requires. And Millie emerged from it all with her love for Tip as strong and as deep and as transparent as the two schoolkids they once were. She leaves a legacy of warmth and companionship that will glow for the ages. Millie was pretty good at taking Tip's favorite sayings and turning them around to her advantage. One of my favorites is retold in Tip's wonderful autobiography, Man of the House. Tip loved to remind people in politics of the priceless advice of Mrs. O'Brian, a neighbor and teacher in North Cambridge. She taught him the lesson that you should never assume someone will vote for you. You have to ask, said Mrs. O'Brian. So Tip writes, ``Poor Millie is sick of hearing me tell the Mrs. O'Brian story, and I can't blame her. But during my long career in Congress, we would always go to the polls together on election day, and before leaving the house I would say to her, Honey, I would like to ask for your vote. Tom, she would reply, I will give you every consideration.'' Millie's selfless devotion to her children and her grandchildren and her support for the March of Dimes and the arts was unparalleled. All of us in Massachusetts and our country feel like we have lost a pillar of public service. And, oh, how she loved the trips with the Rangels and the Contes and the Moakleys and the Michels on their journeys around the world, this incredible congressional delegation, with each of them becoming a family member of the other family in the course of all of the years that they traveled together. So for us it is a great loss, but it is I think our country's great, great, great honor to have had Tip and her be the Man and the Woman of this House for 10 years, providing a family-like atmosphere that so many Members long for; that brought a joy to this place, as almost a second home for Members when they were away rather than a place that they just saw as one in which they worked. Those days we all long for. And we thank the O'Neills for the blessings which they conferred upon each of us during their lives because they are amongst our fondest memories.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with the excellent comments and argument of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer). (Mr. BUYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), the ranking member on the Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, which has jurisdiction over the Federal Trade Commission.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support for this bill, and I rise in strong commendation for the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) and for our ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) has brought this bill out at such a rapid pace that I believe that this legislation has set the Congressional land speed record for legislating in the aftermath of a terrible Oklahoma court decision, and I want to congratulate the gentleman from Louisiana. I think this record, like Roger Bannister's breaking of the four-minute mile, will be viewed as a landmark for all future legislation in the history of our country. This legislation got to the House floor faster than a consumer can hang up on a telemarketer at dinner time. I mean, the gentleman just did a phenomenal job in ensuring that we are able to protect the American people, because we need this bill in order to ensure that by Christmastime, the only ringing bells consumers will hear are jingle bells and sleigh bells, not the jangling phone ruining people's family holidays. Now, if we do not pass this legislation, the judge in Oklahoma will have to put his own courthouse phone number on a do-not-call list, because he will have millions of phone calls from complaining Americans demanding that this decision be reversed. So we are doing the judge a big favor today. We are saving him from the same headache that tens of millions of Americans feel that they are subjected to on a daily basis by the phone calls that come into their homes on an unwanted basis. What is our purpose? The gentleman from Louisiana, the gentleman from Michigan, all the Members of Congress, all we are trying to do is to make the Direct Marketing Association, these telemarketers, more efficient. How efficient is it to know exactly who is receptive to your hundreds of calls a year than for us to put together a list for you of all of the people in America who want to get these calls? Now, I do not happen to be one of them. I actually signed up at 12:01 a.m. on the first day that it was available to end these calls coming in to my own home, personally, and I threw my cell phone in as well. Those 50 million other phone numbers that are on that list, I was trying to be number one in that land speed race to end it once and for all. What we have got now on our hands is, in my opinion, a very efficient telemarketing industry, one which can now use their huckster sales pitch to address just those Americans who kind of enjoy having people call them at all hours of the day, and we know there are people out there that really do like it. If a salesman comes to your front door and knocks on the front door, you do not have to answer. That is your way of dealing with them. But if someone calls you on the phone, that phone just keeps ringing until you have to answer it. That is the difference between a door-to-door salesman and someone who calls you on the phone. That person can ruin your supper, can ruin your day. So this do-not-call database proposal is a winner for the millions of consumers who are plagued by those unsolicited commercial telemarketing calls. The bill which we consider today permits the FTC to proceed on a timely basis, so that by October 1, consumers can begin to see a reduction in unwanted telemarketing calls. Having first proposed a national do-not-call database registry in legislation that the Congress successfully enacted in 1991, I believe its implementation is action that is long overdue. Consumers across the country have clearly voted in favor of signing up for the database, indicating by the millions that they want an effective ``no soliciting'' sign on their home phone or cell phone. They want this national database to help to bring a halt to the seemingly nightly ritual of phone calls, interrupting dinner or precious family time. I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this bill with the gentleman from Louisiana (Chairman Tauzin). Again, I want to commend the chairman for his alacrity in bringing this bill to the floor so soon after the court decision. He and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and all of the Members who worked on this and the staff who worked on this overnight deserve an enormous amount of credit. Finally, I want to commend FTC Chairman Timothy Muris for his pro- consumer action in creating the Federal Trade Commission do-not-call rules. This do-not-call database will be a powerful new tool for consumers to combat unwanted telemarketing intrusions. It is a landmark day in the history of consumer legislation in our country. Tim Muris deserves a lot of credit, the rest of the FTC, the gentleman from Louisiana (Chairman Tauzin), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), and all of the other Members. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no other requests for time to speak on this important bill, so I will continue to reserve my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, with compliments to the gentleman from Louisiana (Chairman Tauzin) and to the gentleman from Michigan (Ranking Member Dingell), and to all of the Members who worked on this legislation, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. First of all, Madam Speaker, all packages 16 ounces and under are not checked by canine. They have a pilot project to check some of the packages 16 ounces and under. They do not have every 16- ounce package checked by canine. Moreover, why in the world should everyone in these galleries, every American have to take off their shoes, put through their computer, put all of their packages through screening and then have a dog sniff however many packages the cargo shipper or the airlines feel like they should sniff? Why should those packages not get the same screening? Why should there be any risk of mistake? They do not screen us by sniffing dogs. They do not have dogs sniffing our bags or our packages. They want to make sure that it is absolutely guaranteed that no one is getting on to the passenger section of a plane with an explosive. It is just wrong. It makes no sense, in fact. Why make people take off their shoes if someone can put it on in the belly of the same plane without the same screening? It makes no sense. We should have a known-tripper program, then. Let 98 percent of all Americans get on with no screening because we know they are not a big risk. We do not say it that way. We say we are not taking any chances with the lives and safety of Americans on planes. We are going to have everyone go through. Regardless of status, regardless of income, everyone goes through. And I think it is reassuring to other Americans when they see Members of Congress taking off their shoes, putting their own carry-ons through. I think they know that we are serious about it. But they know we cannot possibly be serious when their nail clippers are being confiscated and they bite their own nails while they watch the cargo go onto the same plane with no physical screening at all. Vote ``no.'' It is just not a good enough bill on the issue that we know al Qaeda still puts at the very top of their list the airlines of our country with passengers on them. We owe those people better 2 years after what happened on September 11.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time. Let me go through this once again. If you are on a passenger plane, and this is the size of your carry-on luggage, you have to put that luggage through screening, each person in America, no exceptions; Members of Congress, no exception. We are known trippers. They do not say to Members of Congress, oh, we know who you are, you are a known tripper, just bring that bag right around security. They do not say to businessmen who fly between New York and Boston every day, you are a known tripper, come right around security, we are only going to check these people who do not fly that often. No. Every single one of our carry-on pieces of luggage gets screened, and that is the way it should be, no exceptions for Members of Congress, no exceptions for business people, no exceptions for anybody. But if you have got a piece of cargo, and they say you are a known shipper, they do not put it through any screening on the same plane that we are on. But listen to this: If it is under 16 ounces, and, by the way, Richard Reid, who had explosive plastic material in his shoes had less than this, this does not get screened. There is no paperwork required. There is no known shipper program. Nothing, if it is 16 ounces and under to go on passenger planes if it is cargo. Now, that is a huge loophole. Why can we not screen this? What is so complicated about screening this going onto passenger planes? Why is there no equipment to do this? If you can screen a huge bag which we are all taking on our vacation for 10 days, how can a cargo shipper who is putting this on a plane not have it screened; does not even require paperwork, if we know an explosive could be put in it? It is wrong, and this bill should be defeated. We owe the passengers of America the knowledge that as they put their families on planes to fly around this country that this package is being screened; that there is paperwork that is attached to it; that we know what is in it as we are putting it on a passenger plane. This bill says no, we are not going to have a requirement. We are not going to make that a part of the compact which we have with American people for homeland security. We know there is no uranium or nuclear weapons in Iraq. We now know that. But we know that al Qaeda is still in our country trying to figure out ways of targeting the airline industry. Give them the right to know that their families are safe. Vote ``no'' on this homeland security bill until they give every American family that level of protection.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for her leadership on this bill along with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo). We cannot be debating a more important issue to our homeland security than how much money the Federal Government is going to spend over the next year to secure the people of our country. The President has been able to find a way to spend $87 billion in Iraq to protect American security on top of an additional $65 billion which we have already spent, but this administration can only find an additional 2 percent for homeland security. And after inflation, that pretty much gobbles it up. While this theory that somehow or other al Qaeda is going to be attacking us 5,000 miles away and not here on our own shore belies the reality of where the threat is to the American people which is in their homes, in their places of work. Now, just a couple of months ago on this House floor, we passed an amendment by a vote of 278 to 146. That amendment required that in addition to each of us who are passengers on planes in America having to take off our shoes, having to put our cell phones through security, having to put our computers through security, having to put our carry-on bags through security, having to put our luggage, if it is too big, down and under the plane through security, that the cargo which goes on those very same passenger planes is also screened. Believe it or not, although 22 percent of all air cargo in the United States is placed on passenger planes that we all fly on, there is no screening program. So as we all sit up in the passenger seats now, thinking that everyone who is seated with us in the passenger section has also been screened, and thereby we are safe because there are two air marshals, there is a double-reinforced steel door on the pilot's cabin, the pilot may have a gun, every passenger may be looking to see how they may respond if al Qaeda jumps up on that plane as to how they will tackle al Qaeda, but in the cargo bin of that very same plane, a package just this size, the same size as your luggage goes on that plane without being screened. Cargo. Now, there is something wrong when your luggage, which is this size, gets screened but a piece of cargo does not get screened. Al Qaeda, not even flying on that plane, not even flying on that plane, can send cargo on that same plane unscreened, unseen, that destroys that plane. And the consequence would be another half-a-trillion or trillion-dollar hit to our economy. So here is the bizarre situation in which we now see ourselves as the Republicans bring this bill out on the House floor, we, the average American, will have to go through airport security doing whatever it is that those screeners ask us to do. And we do not mind, we want security for our families, for our country, but going around the screening is the cargo on the very same plane. By the way, with those people who put the cargo on the plane not flying on it, unless, if you followed this a couple of weeks ago, there was a young man who actually shipped himself across the country. Thank God that young man was a tourist and not a terrorist. That is where we are. You can get a bomb onto a plane without a boarding pass. You can go right around the whole system that all of us have to go through to get on that passenger plane. So in this bill, rather than accepting the amendment which passed here on the House floor, which would require the TSA to construct a plan to ensure that there is a screening for cargo which goes on passenger planes, instead they removed it on a partisan, Republican-Democrat, vote in the conference committee, party line. So while the passengers are having their nail clippers taken away from them because it may pose a threat to security on the plane, a piece of cargo can go on without any screening whatsoever. Now, that is just wrong. At Logan Airport, which I represent, 2 years ago, 10 al Qaeda, who had a sleeper cell in our city, got on 2 planes and terrorized our country and the world by then destroying the lives of not only the passengers on that plane from New England, but also 3,000 additional lives in New York City and a good chunk of our economy. We cannot run the risk on those very same planes taking off today, that al Qaeda could put cargo on the very same passenger flights without any screening. And I do not think the American people want to fly on planes that do not have cargo which is screened. This provision, which has been deleted, has been endorsed by Coalition of Airline Pilots Association. All the airline pilots in America endorse the provision. Let me read what the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 have to say about this provision. Here is what they say in a letter to us: ``The victims of Pan Am Flight 103 Organization is dedicated to and strives for passenger planes to be as secure as possible. Our goal is to have 100 percent physical screening of passengers, crew, luggage and cargo. Trading lives or dollars is totally unacceptable to the families who have paid the price of ineffective security.''

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for his excellent work and, too, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). This is a critically important bill. We are debating, we are discussing the security of the American people at home. The President says that the security of the American people at home can be enhanced by spending $5.7 billion to rebuild Iraq's electricity grid; that our security is enhanced by spending $3.7 billion to expand access to safe drinking water for Iraqis; $875 million to restore marshlands in Iraq, that helps our security; $20 million for political consultants to the Afghan Government, that helps our security; $856 million to the Iraqis for their airports, that helps our security. But when it comes to screening cargo that goes on the passenger planes, that every American flies on, nothing. Under existing law that this administration and the Republican leadership are going to pass, we all, Americans, we have to go through security, take off everything we have got on if necessary, put our carry-on bags through, our computers, our cell phones to prove that we are not threatening that passenger plane, but on the very same plane, that cargo goes on unscreened. We are told by the Republican leadership that we cannot afford to do it, that the technology does not exist to do it. Let me ask this: If a person's carry-on can be taken on a plane this size and be put through a device that ensures that it does not have a bomb on it, why cannot this package of cargo go through the very same screening device? What do my colleagues mean the screening device does not exist? Put this through the screening device. It is going on the same plane, except a person is going to be on the plane with their baggage. The terrorist will not be on the plane with the cargo. What about this 16-ounce package? Not only does it not get screened if it is cargo, but there is no paperwork required. Why cannot this go through the same screening device we go through if it is going into the belly of the plane? What do my colleagues mean the screening device does not exist? I will tell my colleagues what does not exist. The screeners do not exist. The Republican administration has laid off 6,000 screeners who could be putting this cargo through the screening device to make sure that, as it goes on the passenger planes, that the people of America, every person that flew here to Washington, D.C., to visit the Capitol, who are flying back on a plane with cargo on it that has not been screened, that has not been put through the same machine that their bags are put there. So if you are al Qaeda, are you going to try to get through that screening device, through the two air marshals, through the metal door of the pilot's cabin, past the pilot with a gun, past all the passengers who are going to jump you if you get up in the aisle, or are you just going to go right around this machine and put your bomb on the plane unscreened because they do not want to pay to put it through that device? We cannot spend $87 billion on top of 65 billion other dollars that we have already spent to provide security for Americans in Iraq and then say we are not going to ensure that the packages which go on passenger planes in America, that our cargo are screened. It is at the top of the al Qaeda terrorist list. We know that the four planes that they brought down were only a small part of what their plot was, a small part of how many planes they wanted to bring down. They know what it does to the psyche of the American people, to the economy of our country. That is what terrorism is all about. It paralyzes a country. It has paralyzed us, and we have come out of it, to the credit of the American people, but we cannot allow it to happen again because we know what they are targeting. Laying off 6,000 screeners and saying that technology does not exist is not accurate. We can put these packages through the very same screening devices. How can it consume more time to put all of us through the screening device, human beings, than it does to just put a package through? In fact, it would take less time to ensure that that cargo is screened, but the industry does not want to pay for it, cargo or airline. The Bush administration says we do not have any money for that domestically, even though we have $87 billion for Iraqi security. It is wrong. This bill must be defeated. We must ensure that every person flying in our country is not subject to this threat.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota and the gentleman from Wisconsin for their leadership on this issue. The issue that I am going to address today is one that goes to the heart of how serious we are in this country about protecting innocent Americans from a successful al Qaeda attack. On the second anniversary of September 11, we know that al Qaeda still maintains that planes are at the very top of their list of potentially successful attacks upon the physical and psychological well-being of our Nation. Twenty-two percent of all air cargo in the United States is actually placed on passenger planes; not on cargo planes, on passenger planes. For each of us, as we get on a plane they screen our shoes, they screen our computers, our cell phones, our carry-on bags. Our luggage, if it is checked, is screened before it is put into the belly of the plane. But the cargo which is placed on that very same plane is not screened. Now, we saw yesterday what happens, when a young man, Charles McKinley, successfully shipped himself from New York to Dallas without being detected except at the point at which he emerged from his box on the doorstep of his parents. This is a funny cartoon about a very deadly, serious subject. If you are wearing shoes and pants, you get searched at the airport. If you are wearing a dress and heels, you get searched at the airport. But if you are wearing a box, like Charles McKinley, neither you nor the box gets searched. That is a homeland security hole that will get filled by al Qaeda if we do not fill it ourselves. What the Transportation Security Administration and the Bush administration likes to call a ``known shipper'' program, I call an ``unknown cargo'' program. The known shipper regulations are a bureaucratic paper exercise, not a serious security program. Charles McKinley's little escapade has exposed the known shipper program as a complete and total fraud. What Mr. McKinley has pointed out to our country is that if an enemy wants to terrorize this country, they do not need to worry about hiding a box cutter; they just need to sit quietly inside a box. The Transportation Security Agency has announced yesterday that it is going to develop an individual passenger profile of every airline passenger based on the risk that they pose to committing a future act of terrorism. So in addition to taking off our shoes, having someone rifle through our luggage, having to pass through metal detectors, we will also be given a color code. Well, if you are shipping cargo, your color code is always the same, green. Go, put it on the passenger plane. Al Qaeda is, in fact, targeting these planes as a subject for the further terrorization of our country. Now, Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb contained in unscreened baggage. Today the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 are still concerned about airline security, and have endorsed the Markey-Shays amendment to require screening or inspection of cargo loaded on to passenger planes. In addition, the Coalition of Airline Pilots of America, which pilots so many of these planes, has also endorsed the Markey-Shays amendment, the idea of screening all cargo placed on passenger planes. It is crazy for people to be sitting on planes with their screened shoes looking out the window at a cargo truck now loading cargo on the very same plane that has not been screened. We could have al Qaeda in a box just being shipped on these planes. They do not need a boarding pass to get on above, they can put their bombs on without a boarding pass underneath on the very same passenger plane. You could ship a terrorist through this loophole. So, while up above in the passenger cabin we now have screening for the passengers, we have air marshals, we have a double reinforced steel door to the pilot's cabin, we have armed pilots and passengers who will jump any al Qaeda from now on, meanwhile, down below, nothing which will stop them from putting this cargo on. Support this motion to instruct. The White House, the Senate, the cargo and airline industry must listen to the American people.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman from Alabama missed the point in the discussion of the gentleman from Ohio where he changed the metaphor from the American Revolution to moving the goal post, which makes sense. As a graduate of Ohio State, you would try to switch the form of the debate. But, nonetheless, we have California moving the goal post further away from the consumer, where in the minds of Californians, and most of us who have dedicated our lives to privacy, the California section moves it closer to the privacy objectives that ordinary families have for their personal financial information. And what we are doing here is essentially giving to the big financial institutions the ability to be able to circumvent this increasing interest at the State level of enhancing the rights of families to be able to protect their privacy. I hope when we get to the conference committee that my cochairman of the privacy caucus, Senator Shelby, who shares the passion on this issue, will be in disagreement with my colleagues as to whether or not we have reached in this bill the historic high point of where we should be in 2003 in terms of the protection of the privacy of American families.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, if the line of juris prudence that we are now operating under is allowed to stand, then we are in a situation in which there is no effective regulation of a bank, an insurance company, or a securities firm sharing of a consumer's personal financial information and no State regulation of such transactions. In other words, we are left with a regulatory black hole in which neither the Federal Government nor the States are regulating what is going on within this affiliate structure where one part of a firm gets it and then shares it with all of its affiliates, stockbrokers, insurance, you name it. All of the family's secrets are then spread throughout the country and to anyone that is affiliated with them as an independent operator as well. This is unacceptable. And it means we have no Federal standard for consumer consent regarding affiliate sharing and preemption of any State law dealing with the subject. What the Lee amendment says is that we should close this black hole so that if the Federal Government is unwilling or unable to effectively address affiliate sharing, sharing it with all the companies which this bank or insurance company or stock brokerage has, taking all their secrets and starting to share it with all these other companies, then the States can do so. This amendment preserves not only California's privacy statute but the laws of any other State that might want to give their people protection so that their family's secrets are not made a product sold to anyone with enough money to buy what it is that you are doing with your financial life, your stock brokerage, your insurance information. This is an important issue that our country faces: the privacy of every American. It is why we fought the American Revolution.

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to instruct that is being offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). Our constituents want to know what caused the August 14th blackout, and what we are going to do to prevent it from happening again. Unfortunately, the testimony the Energy and Commerce Committee received from the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday, indicates that the Bush Administration remains pretty much in the dark about the causes of the blackout. At the same time, the Bush Administration continues to press for the immediate adoption of an energy bill that contains language that would make sweeping deregulatory changes in electricity law and launch a wide-ranging assault on our environment in the name of increasing oil and gas production. The Administration is essentially saying that these radical proposals are needed to prevent the recurrence of an event whose causes they say remain unknown. But if we don't know what caused the blackout in the first place, how can we know whether the proposed cure is worse than the disease? That's like a doctor telling you he has no idea what caused you to black out, but he'd like to see you in the morning for brain surgery. When you hear that, you know it's time to get a second opinion. And the gentleman from Michigan has very helpfully offered a second opinion. Instead of a full frontal electricity lobotomy, he proposes a more modest initial course of treatment. His motion essentially says that we should quickly reach agreement on the consensus reliability language, and put the rest of the electricity title on hold for a later day. This solution, if adopted by the conferees would allow this Congress to solve a very real problem that we already know exists--the fact that existing electric utility reliability standards are purely voluntary and unenforceable. We know this is a problem. It very well may have contributed to the August 14th blackout. We should deal with it quickly, and not hold its ultimate resolution hostage to a resolution of the very complex and contentious issues of PUHCA-repeal, Regional Transmission Organizations, Native Load protection, incentive ratemaking, renewable portfolio standards, and a whole host of other entirely unrelated energy issues that are in the House and Senate bills. We should set aside all of these issues now, at the very least until we've heard back from the U.S.-Canada Task Force on the causes of the blackout. Instead, we should just pass a clean, stand alone reliability bill, and do it now. If we get further recommendations from the Task Force after it completes its work, we can decide if more legislation is needed. But right now, we should, reject once and for all this ridiculous notion that drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge is somehow needed to prevent future blackouts. Oil is for cars and trucks, not for air conditioners, refrigerators, ovens or light bulbs. Only about 3 percent of the oil our nation consumes is used for electricity. What stopped working during the blackout? Our lights, our cooling, our refrigerators, our ovens. Our cars and SUVs ran just fine. It is ridiculous to use the blackout as an argument for drilling in the Arctic Refuge and other pristine public lands, and it exposes those who make the argument desperate for an outcome, driven by ideology, not facts. The only relationship between the electricity blackout and gasoline is that several refineries shut down temporarily, which the oil industry used as an excuse to raise the price of gasoline to record- breaking levels nationwide over the Labor Day weekend. I don't think that was justified, but at least the relationship is clear--electricity doesn't depend on reliable oil--oil depends on reliable electricity. That is why we should stop searching in Alaska for solutions to the blackout. The problem is not in Alaska, it is in Ohio. The solutions won't be found above the Arctic Circle, but below Lake Erie. Yesterday, Energy Secretary Abraham and FERC Chairman Pat Wood essentially told our Committee ``we'll get back to you later'' with some answers about what caused the blackout. So right now, we really don't have all the answers. We do know, however, that this $7-10 billion dollar hit to the economy could happen again tomorrow. Before we enact comprehensive energy legislation, we should know what caused the blackout. We can, as a first step, pass by consensus reliability language that is in both the House and Senate bills, and defer action on the broader issues of FERC oversight, PUHCA and other issues that are just too contentious to resolve quickly. After we've gotten some answers, we can then come back and consider whether we should do other things. But is we legislate right now, we are just firing a shot in the dark--a shot that could hit our constituents and our economy with very severe consequences. I urge adoption of the Dingell motion to instruct.

Mr. MARKEY

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), the co-sponsor of the amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) and I are at this point going to attempt to move money from the program which has funded the Prometheus program in NASA's budget over to deal with the shortfall in the Superfund clean-up program which is one that has not met the amount which President Bush requested in this budget. Now, as the bill itself is structured, there is such an increase in the program for Prometheus that it does leave over substantial money that if it was shifted over, that would ensure the full funding of the Superfund program as President Bush requested it, combined with a still substantial increase in the Prometheus program, and that is what we will consider today. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.