John Mica

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against page 12, line 12, beginning with ``provided further'' through line 17 ending with the word ``program.'' This provision also violates clause 2 of rule XXI. It changes existing law and therefore constitutes legislating on an appropriation bill in violation of the House rules.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I make a further point of order against the paragraph.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against page 11, line 22, beginning with ``; for grants'' through page 12, line 1, ending with the word ``code.'' This provision violates clause 2 of rule XXI. It changes existing law and therefore constitutes legislating on an appropriation bill in violation of House rules.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I raise a point of order against section 130. Mr. Chairman, I raise a point of order against page 28, line 15, beginning with ``provided further'' through page 29, line 2. These provisos violate clause 2 of rule XXI. They change existing law which constitutes legislating on an appropriations bill in violation of House rules.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this is an important amendment because it does do away with the reforms that this appropriation subcommittee has imposed on Amtrak. As I said earlier, I have been on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure for some 13 years. I watched for more than 4 years when they had an Amtrak reform council look at the operations of Amtrak and come up with recommendations that were made to Congress; and, sure enough, they ignored those recommendations. This is a tough business to reform Amtrak and eliminate some of these politically popular routes. But the cost of those routes, as we have heard, range from $242 subsidizing per ticket on the Sunset Limited, some $466 to run the route that we saw here. Some of those go into my State, Florida. But it is time to reevaluate those routes, and we must eliminate them if we have to, only by legislation, because the reform which we have tried to do through an advisory council and commission to look at this in an independent study, all that has failed. I do support the President in really drawing a line in the sand and saying we must impose reforms on Amtrak. Now, we have heard this analogy, and I chair the Subcommittee on Aviation, on how much we subsidize aviation. But every ticket that is sold by Amtrak is subsidized by $49, every single ticket. In aviation that is not the case, I say to my colleagues. We heard how much money goes in, but that money is raised by a 7.5 percent ticket tax. The next time you get your airline ticket, look at 7.5 percent, look at the other fees. There is a passenger facilitation fee, and that could be anywhere from a few dollars on up. There is an aviation security fee of $5. You hear the airlines complaining about how taxed their passengers are. The passengers are paying their full fare, including a fuel tax. Amtrak pays no fuel tax, there is no passenger tax, there is no security fee. There is no contribution. Besides that, they are losing, on every ticket they sell, an average of $49. Now, I am a strong supporter of mass transit, high-speed rail, rail as an alternative; and I do know that some of that has to be subsidized. I will vote to subsidize this. But a loss of nearly $500 a ticket, and that is what this amendment would do, will restore all those losing routes. Now, why has Amtrak not changed out some of these routes? Let us be a little candid among friends here. Labor cut sweetheart deals so most of the Amtrak employees are going to get 7 years' salary and benefits assistance; some will get 5 years. There is a cost. We cannot eliminate one single route without paying those benefits that have already been negotiated. But at some time, we have to pay the piper, and sometimes we have to cut the losses. Now, out in America right now, probably not watching the proceedings of this House, are millions of Americans who are working hard. It is hard for me to tell them to go out there and work even harder, maybe get another part-time job so you can send that money here to Washington, so we can have them waste it. When they provide food service and take in a dollar, it costs them $2. They lost a third of a billion dollars in the past 3\1/2\ years on food service. When they try to put high-speed rail in, and I am a strong advocate of high-speed rail, we have neither high-speed and we do not have service. It is down the tubes. It was going 83 miles an hour. That is not high-speed service, even by our own standards which are, under Federal law, 120 miles an hour. So let us make the reform that is necessary. The chairman and the subcommittee have done an excellent job in forcing some of these reforms that are long overdue. Let us defeat this ill-conceived amendment. Let us reform Amtrak. Let us provide good service, not a Soviet-style train endurance test for passengers, but modern, high- speed rail and long-distance service across the United States, and give service to passengers that do not have that service available, at the lowest cost to the taxpayers. We can do that.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I raise a point of order against section 112. This provision violates clause 2 of rule XXI. It changes existing law, and therefore constitutes legislating on an appropriations bill in violation of House rules.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the paragraph.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I also had the privilege of chairing the Criminal Justice Drug Policy Subcommittee before the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) and inherited those responsibilities, actually, from the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House. All during that era, the Clinton era, we saw really the beginning of this incredible problem in Colombia. During the 8 years of the Clinton administration, the other side of the aisle, even some of the folks that have spoken today, did everything they could to keep resources from going to Colombia; and when you do not have the resources to combat narcoterrorism, what happens? I have a little map here, and it shows where the drugs come from. This is not a guessing game. We know from chemical analysis even the fields the cocaine and heroin came from. So they blocked helicopters, they blocked assistance, they blocked eradication, interdiction, anything they could, because they did not want to harm the hair on a single leftist terrorist in that region. But we are now trying to get a handle on that with the efforts of Speaker Hastert, with this President. They said Plan Colombia has not worked, when kidnappings are down a third in Colombia; they say it has not worked when murder is down a third; it has not worked when pipeline attacks from 2000, which were at 177 that year, to 20 last year. It has not worked? Human rights? My colleague is concerned about human rights? Tens of thousands of people died, judges, legislators, thousands of police were slaughtered, and their human rights were not considered while you blocked aid and assistance. We have a President of the United States who has a firm policy, we have a Speaker who has developed Plan Colombia and we are initiating that. We have success in that land because we have a President who is also getting the resources to another president, in Colombia, who has a tough stance against narco-terrorism. The drugs in the United States are still killing our young people. We had over 26,000 people die, the silent deaths on our street. Our biggest social problem. This is where our few dollars and resources need to go, and that is where the drugs are, at their source, and we can eradicate them. Talk to one mother or father who has had a child die of a drug overdose and you will see the worth of what we are doing here today. We know where these drugs are. We can eradicate them. And we can do that continuing Plan Colombia in an effective manner and not having the legs cut out from under us when we have made such great progress. I urge defeat of the McGovern amendment. I urge defeat of attempts to again thwart the effort to stop drugs coming in across our borders.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, Saturday, June 25th, marked 9 years since the terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers, the U.S. military housing facility in Saudi Arabia where 19 American servicemen were killed and hundreds wounded. Four years ago, on June 21st, 2001, the United States indicted some of those who were responsible for those murders. While a few of these individuals have been identified, not one has been brought to trial yet. However long it takes, our country must continue to pursue and bring to justice all of those indicted and all those responsible for this murderous, terrorist act against our servicemen and our country. We must not rest until this has been accomplished. Florida and our Nation lost too many innocent victims for this matter to be brushed aside. Master Sergeant Michael G. Heiser, of Palm Coast, and Airman First Class Brian W. McVeigh, of DeBary, are 2 of the 19 heroes who left behind loved ones and families in my Congressional District. Their young lives were cut short when they made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. The United States must never rest until those responsible for these deaths are brought to justice. We know that these surviving relatives and all the others who lost their loved ones continue to feel the pain of great loss. We know that they cannot rest--until justice prevails.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support both of the legislation and appropriation bill before us and also in strong support of the Capitol Visitors Center project. Having been very intimately involved in this project, I had the only two bills that were introduced and actually had congressional hearings on authorizing the visitors center, and then being the Speaker's designee to the Capitol Preservation Commission, which oversees this also on public works. I followed this project from day one. Let me just for the record set the record straight. First, about private money, we did start out raising private money. Mr. Chairman, the last fundraiser that was held to raise private money I participated in downstairs in the Speaker's dining room on the evening of Monday, September 10, 2001. As the Members know, our world changed and the project changed, and after that we put substantial money into the project. Correct, it then went to $265 million. There was money put in the project prior to that time because we had two police officers killed at the front door of the Capitol. Go back and read the testimony of the Sergeant at Arms where he described the scenario that we should have prevented if we had built the structure in advance. So that is why there was additional money put in. If we look at the record, in October of 2001, we put in $38.5 million; and then in April of 2002, $33 million. Add that up, and it is about $70 million. It was all for security after September 11 to protect this, the people's House. The additional $70 million for expansion of space, when we built the project it was supposed to be smaller. I insisted, as a developer and former real estate person, that it be larger; that we create as much shell space as possible, because we are not going to dig up the front yard of the United States Capitol every year. So we built all of that shell space. In November of 2001, we decided to build out the additional space for the House of Representatives. It was a wise decision because we will save a tremendous amount of money. As a developer, I could tell my colleagues if we go back afterwards, it will cost us twice as much. So we actually saved money. Other improvements are for utilities. Some utilities fell apart as we dug them up, and we could see some of the results; so we will actually save money in utilities. This is a wise investment. It gives the people of the United States a place to visit, to see the history, the artifacts, and also deal with the capacity issue, because we could never fit them all in this wonderful historic building that is overcrowded, without even the basic accommodations for visitors like restrooms. So I strongly urge the adoption of this bill and also every Member's strong support of the largest addition in the history of the Capitol for the people of the United States.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in opposition to any further investigation of either what is taking place at Guantanamo Bay with our detainees or further investigation of Abu Ghraib. I want to speak about Guantanamo first, because I heard some of the reports when we first brought detainees there, and I went down and visited. I walked among the prisoners, I saw the housing, I saw how they were treated. I was asked what I thought when I saw the whole thing, and I want to use my quote here on the floor. I said, ``I thought it was too good for the bastards.'' I stand here today appalled at my colleagues who, in fact, are concerned about the rights of mass murderers. And that is exactly what we have here. We have international mass murderers, enemy combatants. They had no consideration, in support of a regime, the al Qaeda regime and Osama bin Laden, who slaughtered thousands of people on our soil, and many of whom were both Americans and internationals. What right did they respect of Barbara Olson, who worked for our Committee on Government Reform, whose plane crashed into the Pentagon that morning? And I remember Barbara. What right did they respect of Neal Levin, who I met with at the World Trade Centers, who was trapped, along with everyone who helped me and our Subcommittee on Aviation, who were all murdered on the morning of September 11 when they were in the Windows on the World restaurant? What right did they defend of those people? How quickly we forget September 11. I am reading the book ``102 Minutes.'' I wish everyone would read it, about the thousands of people who were left trapped in the World Trade Center. What rights did these people who supported that activity exercise? Abu Ghraib, if I hear one more thing about that and the actions of our military folks; someone described ``horrific torture.'' I saw worse things at fraternity houses in college than what our troops were involved in. And to continue the harassment. The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) brought into the Committee on International Relations two prisoners; one, I recall, was from Abu Ghraib. I did not see anyone from the other side there, I did not see anyone from the press there when they described their treatment under Saddam Hussein. Do my colleagues know how he dealt with overcrowding? He took them out and slaughtered them. I did not see anyone from the other side concerned about the rights of those prisoners. One gentleman told us how he was taken from Abu Ghraib Prison; well, he described not only the beheadings, but the limb amputations, the pulling out of tongues, the electrical shocks. How dare anyone from the House or the other body compare the treatment our troops afforded this scum of the earth? What about an investigation of the 300,000 mass graves that our troops have uncovered and the treatment that those people received. Finally, again, that one prisoner, and no one here bothered on the other side to even attend the meeting with the prisoners to hear how Saddam Hussein treated them. He described how he was taken out, he and others, and they were all shot, and the bulldozer pushed over dirt on them; he was shot five times, and only managed to crawl away and somehow survive to tell how the other side truly tortures.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Again, I stayed out here yesterday and today to make this point, because this is critical to the future economic development, the growth of jobs in this country. With that spirit in mind, I appreciate the gentleman's offer to look further at this proposal. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

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

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I offer this amendment which transfers all of the funding for economic service officer positions in the Department of State, transfers their funds, $131 million for those positions, to the Foreign Commercial Service operation, which is under the Department of Commerce. I do so because this 5 or 10 minutes that we have here to discuss on this amendment is probably the only discussion we will have on this entire bill relating to our trade deficit and the inability of the United States to compete in international markets. I would venture to say very few Members of Congress have a clue as to what the Foreign Commercial Service does or where it is positioned. The Foreign Commercial Service, which has been around for some time and has bounced around from the Department of Commerce to the Department of State, is our number one means of assistance to particularly medium and small businesses overseas to assist in promoting U.S. exports and businesses in those localities. Our trade deficit last month, I believe, was $57 billion. We will exceed a trade deficit in the United States of over $600 billion this year. We only have 76 countries in which we have Foreign Commercial Service operations. We only have officers in 76 countries. In 96 countries, the Department of State has that responsibility. I would not mind if the Department of State had that responsibility, but from my personal experience of dealing in international trade, our system of promoting, assisting, financing and negotiating in international trade is dysfunctional at best. We have these 98 countries, and I will include this list as part of the Record, that have no Foreign Commercial Service operations. It is handled by the State Department. If I thought the State Department considered this a priority in promoting trade in U.S. business, or we had the best personnel to assist in doing business, I would not be here. Here is the response I got from the Department of State on the number of positions they have: There are currently 1,319 Foreign Service officers with economics specialization. List of overseas economic positions and posts where the State Department performs the commercial functions are enclosed. As you can see, the number of economic positions overseas, only 497, is considerably less than the number of Foreign Service officers with an economic specialty, 1,319. The difference is accounted for by the fact that many economic officers are entry-level officers who in their first one or two tours in the Foreign Service fill rotational or consular positions. Other economics officers are stationed in Washington; others are participating in long-term training or performing other noneconomic jobs overseas, and so forth. That is not a priority. We have the emerging markets around the world in which we have not a priority nor no Foreign Commercial Service officer operating. This is a simple amendment. It transfers those, sometimes they call them bean counters, and in some countries the economic officers do do a very good job, but I am saying in most countries we do not even have and in emerging markets we do not even have a Foreign Commercial Service officer. Finally, I have a chart that shows the level of funding for international trade promotion and assistance positions and the deficit. As we keep the level of personnel dealing with assisting business and particularly medium and small business at the lowest possible level, you can see that our trade deficit explodes. Mr. Chairman, 19 of 20 consumers in the future are outside our borders. I cannot fault the appropriators alone because this is also authorization responsibility, but it is multijurisdictional. But no one is taking it within their turf to do anything about this, so I propose today that we take the economic officers who do not have this as a priority in the Department of State and transfer them to the Department of Commerce under the Foreign Commercial Service Office. Embassies at Which State Department Performs Commercial Function africa 1 Abidjan 2 Addis Ababa 3 Antananarivo 4 Asmara 5 Bamako 6 Bangui 7 Banjul 8 Bissau 9 Brazzaville 10 Bujumbura 11 Conakry 12 Cotonou 13 Dar Es Salaam 14 Djibouti 15 Freetown 16 Gaborone 17 Harare 18 Kampala 19 Khartoum 20 Kigali 21 Kinshasa 22 Libreville 23 Lilongwe 24 Lome 25 Luanda 26 Lusaka 27 Maputo 28 Maseru 29 Mbabane 30 N'djamena 31 Niamey 32 Monrovia 33 Nouakchott 34 Ouagadougou 35 Port Louis 36 Praia 37 Windhoek 38 Yaounde east asia & pacific 39 Apia 40 Bandar Seri Begawan 41 Dili 42 Kolonia 43 Koror 44 Majuro 45 Phnom Penh 46 Port Moresby 47 Rangoon 48 Suva 49 Ulaambaatar 50 Vientianne europe 51 Ashgabat 52 Baku 53 Bishkek 54 Chisinau 55 Dushanbe 56 Ljubljana 57 Luxembourg 58 Minsk 59 Nicosia 60 Reykjavik 61 Riga 62 Sasrajevo 63 Skopje 64 Tallinn 65 Tashkent 66 Tbilisi 67 Tirana 68 Valletta 69 Vilnius 70 Yerevan near east 71 Algiers 72 Beirut 73 Damascus 74 Doha 75 Manama 76 Muscat 77 Sanaa 78 Tripoli 79 Tunis south asia 80 Colombo 81 Dhaka 82 Islamabad 83 Kabul 84 Kathmandu western hemisphere 85 Asuncion 86 Belize 87 Bridgetown 88 Georgetown 89 Kingston 90 La Paz 91 Managua 92 Montevideo 93 Nassau 94 Paramaribo 95 Port au Prince 96 Port of Spain 97 St. Georges 98 Tegucigalpa

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

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 849 would transfer certain land, currently within the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, to Clark County, Nevada. The land is to be used as a heliport for commercial helicopter air tours. The transfer would only take place if certain conditions on the use of the heliport are met by Clark County. The first condition is that the County must impose and collect a per passenger ``conservation fee'' of $3.00 for each passenger of a helicopter tour that passes over any portion of the Conservation Area. The second condition requires the County to ensure that any helicopter tour originating or concluding at the heliport traveling over the Conservation Area fly on a certain flight path and at a specified altitude except for safety reasons. For purposes of clarity, the conditions set forth in H.R. 849 are on the transfer of the land and should the County fail to fulfill the conditions; the land would either not be transferred or if already transferred would revert back to the United States. Let us look at each of the conditions on the transfer of the land to Clark County. The first condition, that the County impose and collect a per passenger fee, is problematic. Elsewhere in law, States or political subdivisions of States are prohibited from levying or collecting a ``tax, fee, or charge . . . exclusively upon any business located a commercial service airport [which includes heliports] . . . other than a tax, fee, or charge wholly utilized for airport or aeronautical purposes.'' Therefore, it seems that the County would be unable to fulfill the first condition of the land transfer as the fee would be imposed upon and collected from helicopter tour passengers for the management of cultural, wildlife and wilderness resources on public land in Nevada. The second condition is also problematic. Again, this condition would require the County to ensure that certain flight paths and minimum flight altitudes are utilized by the helicopter tours. It should be emphasized that this bill does not direct Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) action with regard to airspace management and control. In fact, should the FAA determine that the flight path and minimum altitude requirements set forth in the bill are unsafe or otherwise operationally unwise, the County would have failed to meet a condition of the land transfer and the land would revert back to the United States. To make this perfectly clear, only the FAA has the authority to manage and control the National Airspace. State, regional, county and other local government entities, not to mention other Federal departments and agencies, have no authority in this regard. Thus, the second condition on the transfer of land to Clark County is clearly outside of the County's authority and control. Therefore, given that Clark County may very well be unable to fulfill either of the conditions of the land transfer; it appears that H.R. 849 is legislating a nullity. I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to be heard on H.R. 849 and to clarify the legislative record with regard to this bill and how it should be interpreted relating to the FAA and airspace management and control.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into a colloquy with the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs of the Committee on Appropriations. First of all, I want to take a moment to commend the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) and the committee for bringing this important pending bill to the floor and providing resources to our military and those who serve in our military. I thank him for his leadership in the United States House of Representatives and for his service to our Nation. I had intended to offer an amendment to add $1.3 million to the Army National Guard construction account in order to complete the design of a joint National Guard Reserve Center in Daytona Beach, Florida. Last year, through the good work of this appropriations subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Military Construction appropriated $789,000 in fiscal year 2005 funding to begin the design, and that funding is now being depleted. Mr. Chairman, this project is the Florida National Guard's number one priority in the 2012 to 2013, 5-year plan and will be included in the President's budget for the 2007 budget. I am concerned that possibly cutting the funding or not providing the funding for this project now may negatively impact on the Florida National Guard's ability to move forward with this important project that is now some nearly 8 years behind schedule. I would ask the gentleman from New York whether he can commit to working with me during the conference on this bill to ensure that funding or adequate attention and language is in the final bill.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time. I must say that I enjoy serving with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). He certainly is one of the most knowledgeable people on transportation issues. He was working on it long before I came to Congress. We agree on many transportation issues. However, I think we may disagree on this particular action he is asking for the House to take. To paraphrase him, he said we need to address the problem of people taking the Lord's name more in traffic than they do in church on Sunday. I am right with him. And I am trying to correct that situation. Again, we agree that we need to move this process forward. This is the seventh extension. There are people waiting. There are jobs waiting. In some areas, unlike Florida, you only have a certain building season. But we have come to an agreement on a 30-day extension. We are about to appoint conferees and move forward with the process that will finish the job. But we do not want to finish the job and start on a shaky foundation. We would send the wrong message now if we put our position forward, the 283.9 or 284 billion, it is the House position. Agreeing on 92 and sending a message to conference at this point, I submit, is premature. Why would you show your cards at this particular juncture in the conference process? We may be able to do better. We may not have the money to do the 92. We may be putting ourselves in a very difficult position to start out the conference in already dealing with an administration that we know is temperamental on this issue. So we need to move forward on a good solid foundation. We do not need to pass this. The other thing, too, I heard our majority leader address some folks from Florida, and he said in Congress the legislative process is something that is very important. He said they have a term for this in Texas. He said they called it ``strategey,'' just joking of course, for strategy. And I submit this is strategery, not good strategy, because we are not moving forward in a timely fashion. Members have not been alerted to this action. Some Members, I think, have already departed the Chamber and are on their way to Memorial Day events back in their districts. So from a strategic standpoint, I think we make a mistake by even offering this at this time. I think at the right time with the right strategy that we could do better to move this process and also the dollars forward to build our Nation's infrastructure.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 216 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and pay tribute to Marine Lance Corporal John T. Schmidt III, who died on May 11 from injuries sustained while in combat in Iraq and in service to our country. John was born in Carmel, New York and was a graduate of Oviedo High School in Oviedo, Florida. This fine young man was just 21 years old. Lance Corporal Schmidt was a proud member of the United States Marine Corps, and today he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. We remember today John's courage and his ultimate sacrifice to our nation. Greater love hath no man than to give up his life for others. The freedom we enjoy and the liberty in the world for which he fought are part of the great legacy John leaves behind. He was the son of John Schmidt, Jr. of Bunnell, Florida. His additional family included his mother and stepfather, Barbara and Eric Jimenez, and another stepfather, Donald Porricelli, all of Danbury, Connecticut; and his maternal grandparents, Richard and Jean Backlund of St. Augustine, Florida. To all of John's family, we extend our deepest sympathy. Mr. Speaker, because of Lance Corporal John T. Schmidt Ill's sacrifice for our country, I ask all Members of the House of Representatives to join me in recognizing his service as a Marine and his life as a wonderful son, and in remembering his dedication to the United States of America.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I am here to support the long overdue Peterson amendment. I come from Florida. We will not hear a lot of folks talk about this. It is a hot political issue. All of us are equally concerned about preserving the environment. Since my days in the legislature, I have always supported the safe and environmentally sound development and exploration of natural gas off the coast of Florida. I helped participate in the development of the section 181 prohibitions. I oppose oil drilling. We can safely extract natural gas. For all of the 1990s, and many of my colleagues were here, our policy was to convert coal and oil-generating plants to natural gas, and we have done that in over 30 of our plants in Florida, and we have got more coming online. My colleagues saw that we pay just about double the price. This not- in-my-backyard does not cut it. We can keep it offshore, but we can still do it soundly and safely. I support the amendment.