Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time. In 1987, the fuel economy standard for the United States reached 27 miles per gallon. It had increased to that amount over a 10-year period because of an act of Congress. That act of Congress changed our relationship with imported oil so that it reduced dramatically our dependence upon imported oil. Since that time, we have sequenced the human genome in medicine, revolutionizing that industry. We have deployed the Internet around the world, revolutionizing communications. We have changed our defense technology such that we could bring a country like Iraq to its knees within 3 weeks. But in fuel economy standards, we have gone backwards, back to 24 miles per gallon, increasing to 65 percent our dependence upon imported oil. If we do not pass this amendment, we will have 70 and 75 and 80 percent dependence upon imported oil over the next generation. This is the most important amendment we are going to consider today. I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the Boehlert-Markey amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) so she may control those 5 minutes.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 5.

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

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, we already have in the underlying bill authorized $3.4 billion, and they can find it from wherever the revenues are that come in, including the revenues that might come in if there is ever any drilling up in the Arctic refuge; but they would not be constrained in terms of their ability to use it for these purposes, although the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) and I are lifelong authorizers, and so we understand the relationship that exists between what it is that we exhort that committee to do and what they ultimately reserve the right to put in place in an actual spending bill.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) and I introduced legislation to deal with the issue of highly enriched uranium that is of U.S. origin that should be secured no matter where it is, here or around the world, so that we can preclude that material's being used for nuclear weapons. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) improves upon it. He wants it out of an even more dangerous area, and that is the former Soviet Union, all the loose nuclear material; and the opportunity that the United States has to play a lead role in taking that nuclear material, bringing it to the United States, getting it out of harm's way. And I am glad that the gentleman from Louisiana and the Republican leadership is accepting this amendment because, in the long run, there may be no more important amendment that we consider.

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

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

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

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation. American needs a balanced and comprehensive national energy policy. But the bill before us today is neither balanced nor comprehensive. it is a polluting bill. It unnecessarily sweeps aside a wide range of environmental and anti-pollution protections in the name of increasing oil and gas drilling throughout the country, and burning more and more fossil fuels that spew pollutants into our air and water. It is also a dangerous bill. It rolls back key consumer protections in the electricity and natural gas markets, such as the Public Utility Holding Company Act, while simultaneously failing to give federal regulators the full power they need to serve as the ``cop on the beat'' and prevent the type of fraud and manipulation that we have seen in electricity and natural gas markets in recent years. We need a more balanced approach to national energy policy. Democrats support reasonable measures to increase energy production, but we also want to see measures aimed at improving energy efficiency and promoting alternative renewable generation technologies. For the most part, this bill ignores efficiency and renewables. Yes, there is a modest appliance efficiency title. But does that title direct the Department of Energy to stop trying to rollback central air conditioning efficiency standards from the standards adopted by the Clinton Administration? Does it fully address the problem President Bush has identified of ``energy vampire'' standby power or battery charger systems for VCRS, DVDs, computers, that waste electricity? No, it does not. And what about motor vehicle fuel efficiency? Two-thirds of all the oil we consume is used by the transportation sector. Does this bill do anything to improve automobile fuel efficiency or close the SUV loophole and require light trucks to use commercially available technologies that the National Academy of Sciences says could be deployed today? No, it does not. And on renewables, yes, there are some tax credits in this bill for renewables. But the House Republicans have now altered this provision so that a dirty facility that burns municipal solid waste to produce energy would now qualify for the renewables credit. Now, there are some provisions of this bill that I support. The Committee adopted the Cox-Markey amendments barring any indemnification of contractors that ship nuclear technology to North Korea or other countries on the terrorism list, and outlawing any exports, re-exports, or transfers of nuclear technology, materials or information to such countries. This amendment will effectively end any further efforts to transfer light water reactors to North Korea, and would prevent any similar efforts from being undertaken in Iran or Syria in the future. I commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) for his work on these measures, and I have been pleased to work with and support him in his endeavors. The bill also contains amendments I attached to similar legislation in the last Congress which would require the NRC to issue new rules to increase the security of nuclear facilities on a permanent basis and the transportation of nuclear materials against the terrorist threat, and to assure public access to non-classified information about non- public NRC meetings. It also contains some new NRC and DOE whistleblower protection measures I authored that would close loopholes in the law and strengthen protections for those brave individuals that report wrongdoing at the NRC, DOE, or their contractors. I thank Chairman Barton, Chairman Tauzin, and Ranking Members Dingell and Boucher for working with me to include these provisions in the bill. In addition, the bill includes an amendment I worked out with the gentleman from Louisiana and the gentleman from Texas directing the FERC to take action to assure public access to natural gas market price information. This provision is intended to ensure that FERC or its designee to obtain information from any party needed to enable it to compile accurate natural gas price indexes. A series of studies and investigations by FERC and other federal authorities has revealed widespread manipulation of existing natural gas price indexes, and this provision is aimed at ensuring that FERC, state regulators, and the public can obtain access to the type of information they need to monitor the markets or determine market prices. At the same time, the provision does not require sensitive, transaction-specific information to be made public--though such information would be accessible to federal or state regulators. These are useful and important provisions, and I support them. At the same time, I cannot support this legislation in its current form because of other harmful provisions in the bill. The electricity title contains provisions repealing the Public Utility Holding Company Act, enshrining incumbent utility monopolies with anti-competitive and discriminatory ``native load'' protections, so-called ``contract sanctity'' language that is clearly aimed at preventing FERC from assuring just and reasonable rates, and a figleaf ``round-tripping'' provision that outlaws only one of the many manipulative practices we have seen in the electricity markets, while leaving the others untouched. The hydropower title replaces the bipartisan hydro agreement reached in the last Congress with an unfair provision that gives dam owners special status to change environmental or other conditions imposed as part of the re-licensing process. This upsets the balance between how power and non-power values (such as fish and habitat protection, recreation, navigation, and irrigation) are dealt with in the Federal Power Act. The oil and gas-related provisions in the Commerce and Resources titles would strip away environmental protections relating to the oil and gas industry. It would: Restrict the ability of California and other states to protect their coastal areas by amending the Coastal Zone Management Act; amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to allow more water pollution by creating a permanent exemption from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) storm water rule; prevent the EPA from barring the injection of diesel fuel into underground sources of drinking water during hydraulic fracturing by excluding oil and gas operations from the Safe Drinking Water Act; grant multinational oil and gas companies licenses to drill on public lands and in coastal waters while avoiding obligations to pay hundreds of millions in royalties, depriving the U.S. Treasury of a key source of revenue; further add to the taxpayer's burden by allowing oil and gas companies to be reimbursed for the costs of permitting their activities under the National Environmental Policy Act, an estimated $165 million over ten years. If these provisions are not stripped from this bill, either today or later in the legislative process, H.R. 6 should be defeated.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, this is a momentous debate. With 250,000 young men and women in Iraq fighting for all of us, we know that this Congress has a tremendous responsibility as we consider our national energy policy for the next decade to make decisions which will make it less likely that we are drawn into global conflicts in the future because of our dependence upon imported oil. That is why the provision which the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and others asked to be put in order out here on the House floor, that is why the Waxman amendment, that is why the Dingell amendment, which deals with fraud in the electricity marketplace, that is why the Rahall amendment and so many of the other issues we were talking about, are so central. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) is raising the issue in the electricity marketplace of whether or not we are going to deal with the issue of fraud, of ensuring that we have an audit trail, which is going to make it possible for us to track activity which undermines the integrity of the marketplace; and that debate is a critical one here today. In addition, we are going to debate whether or not we should be drilling in the pristine Arctic wilderness. Should we be going to the pristine wilderness of our country before we ensure that the motor vehicles in our country, the SUVs, the light trucks, the automobiles that are in our national fleet, are made more efficient. Under the majority provision here today, we do not do anything about that. Instead, we turn to this pristine area in our country first. I believe that that is morally wrong, that we have a responsibility first to deal with the technologies that consume the energy in our society.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. This rule does not allow the Democrats to make the amendments which are appropriate on the environmental side. The gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) is looking at an innovative, more balanced approach to Federal lands, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), to ensure that our hydroelectric laws are protected so that conservation and fishing and other issues are given the same weight as the generation of electricity. The Waxman amendment would reduce imported oil by 600,000 barrels. The amount that we import from Iraq, that is not put in order. The Oberstar amendment, which would change the relationship between the Clean Water Act and oil and gas drilling in the United States, reducing the amount of protections that are given against the water of our country being polluted. And at a higher level, this bill, in general, is completely unbalanced. I think the American people, as they are watching this debate, probably assume that since we put 70 percent of all of the oil which we consume in this country into gasoline tanks, that we will probably be changing that so we can reduce the amount of oil that SUVs and light trucks and automobiles consume in our country, so that Iran and Saudi Arabia and other countries, we are not sucked even deeper into their internal affairs. But no, the majority bill, the Republican bill, does not do anything about our dependence on imported oil, due to our ever- increasing dependence on imported oil because of the inefficiency of our vehicles. The Democrats want to make these vehicles more efficient, keep the same size weight and the same safety, but make sure that they consume less oil. We are at 65 percent dependence upon imported oil today. We will be at 75 and 80 percent by 2010 and 2015 on imported oil unless we do something about where we put that oil after we bring it into our country. This is not a fair rule. Other amendments should have been put in order. I urge a ``no.''

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I am not saying it is a totally bad rule. Obviously, there are some amendments which have been put in order that are appropriate. What we are saying is that the American people have an expectation that the Congress of our country, at a minimum, would look at all of the rest of the issues, as well, and not exclude them from debate here on the House floor.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, that, as well, is an amendment which we are hoping for support.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent amendment. I am looking forward to the gentleman's support on that when we debate it, yes.

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, over in Iraq the Air Force is preparing to deploy its newest bomb, the MOAB, the mother of all bombs, if needed, against the remaining Republican Guards. Meanwhile, back in Washington, the House of Representatives Republican guard is now deploying its very own legislative MOAB, the mother of all budgets; and it is a mother. This Republican legislative MOAB blows a huge crater into our economy, irresponsibly piling up $1 trillion of new debt, increasing the debt limit by $860 billion. The Republicans say Osama ate our budget homework. Saddam ate our surplus; it is not our fault. But it is their fault. I would say to those Members who would vote for this budget, they have the freedom to choose whether or not to cut taxes for the richest in our country at a time of war and national emergency, and they have made their decision to drop this legislative MOAB into the middle of our economy, and the collateral damage will hit the poorest in our society. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).