George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, what is the situation when a chart is used and the quote is crushingly accurate, but a Member in the Chamber does not like it?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, we did read the front page of the papers today. What we found out was that the Contract With America was based upon a phony and fraudulent poll. We did read the front pages of the paper today. What we found out is the American people do not believe you, they do not trust you, and they do not like what you are doing to them. That is what was on the front pages of the paper today. The American people have caught on to what you are doing. They know you are not preserving and protecting Medicare. They know you are hurting the elderly in this country. They know you are hurting the children in this country. They know you are willing to put another million children into poverty. Why? So you can give a tax break to your wealthy contributors, the wealthiest people in this Nation, because that is what your plan does. You spent 100 days in an ideological feeding frenzy around here, accomplishing nothing except slapping one another on the back and slapping the taxpayers and the poor people in this country in the face. So for 100 days you have nothing to show for it. October came and went. We do not have the appropriations bill done. We do not have a budget done because, as the previous speaker said, this is a fight among Republicans. This was a fight among some Republicans who think we ought to govern while we are here, and other Republicans that think we ought to burn the place down, and those who want to hand them the matches. That will not work. That will not work with the American people. Every poll, every measurement of the American people are telling you, ``Don't do it.'' Do not do this to their parents, grandparents; do not do this to their parents, do not do this to their children. Give them an opportunity for an education, give them an opportunity for health care security, give them an opportunity to live the twilight of their life with dignity. What is the gift you gave to veterans in my district, the veterans in the district of the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], the district of the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio]? That was a promise. It was in the budget but it was taken out here. We did read the papers, and America is reading the papers. America is on to you. They are on to you. You cannot run, you cannot hide. Pass a clean budget. Pass a clean continuing resolution. Pass a clean debt limit.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker and Members, the suggestion is being made by the Republicans that, if we do not pass the continuing resolution to fund the Government and we do not pass the debt limit to increase the debt of this Government so that we can make good the credit of the United States and the payment on that debt, that if we do not do it their way, it cannot be done. Mr. Speaker, it is simply not true. For a clean debt limit, for a clean CR, I am sure on this side of the aisle we can find 150-175 votes, and I am sure that if the Republicans scour their entire caucus, they could find 25, 30, 40 votes that are willing to see that this Government continue, that we continue to govern, and then we can continue on with the debate over Medicare, and the future of children in this country, and the future of education, [[Page H 12103]] but what we do not have to put at risk, what we do not have to put as risk, is the vital services of this Government, whether it is to veterans, or whether it is to the elderly, or whether it is to the schools of this Nation, or the transportation of this Nation. And even more importantly than all that, perhaps, is the credit of this Nation, that if we guess wrong and the markets react adversely, it will cost the homeowners and people who have debt in this Nation, who have mortgages. We ought not to put that at risk. Mr. Speaker, we can pass a clean debt limit, we can pass a clean CR, in a matter of minutes, in a matter of minutes. But the Republicans have chosen to have an ideological fight. They have the fight going on now. That is why we do not see them on the floor of the House, because they are having that fight in their conference. But they also chose to have that fight with the people of the United States and the President of the United States, and to force that fight they want to shut down the Government. It is really unacceptable. It is really the sort of a politics that should not exist any longer because with the world financial markets, and our world creditworthiness, and our ability to loan money and to recapture money around the world, we should not be playing with the credit rating of the United States of America.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] for yielding this time to me, and I hope that his motion carries. As my colleagues know, we cannot make light of what happens to people in this country and what has happened in the past to people in this country when corporations and corporate officers unfortunately and almost unbelievably from time to time have made decisions to systematically injure people and hide the cause of injury from those individuals. I have thousands of constituents who are caught up in the asbestos scandal of the past decades, and we have gone through the corporate minutes and the memorandums between medical committees, and the chief executive officers, and the board of directors and others about how to strategically retire people before they would find out that they had mesothelioma. We would find out how people were given bonuses to be retired, and gold watches, so that they would be off the rolls when they discovered they had the cancer and they were dying. I have people in my district who drag behind them breathing machines everywhere they go. They come to see me, or they go to the show, or they go to dinner. The husband is usually dragging a breathing machine behind him. Why? Because the Johns Manville Corp. systematically made a decision that they were going to hide from these people the damage that the company and the product was doing to them for decades while they knew it. They did the research, very analogous to what we see going on in the tobacco industry. That company that mispainted that car and sold it as new, it was not a single-shot item. They systematically were doing it in States all over the country. They were representing that people were buying a luxury automobile that was new. It was not new. It had been damaged, and dinged, and what have you, and unfortunately a lot of people buy these for the pride of ownership and everything else. They were defrauded, and they were defrauded on a systematic basis. Mr. Speaker, that is why we need the plaintiffs' attorneys, because without the plaintiffs' attorneys who is it that is going to bring his case to the bar of justice? Who is going to take this case and bring it to the bar of justice? Who is going to get these people who worked all their lives in that asbestos company in my district the kind of recovery they need based upon their wages? Their wages were spit compared to the injury to them, and their families, and their premature death. Yes, you can calculate it out. They worked for not very good wages at all, and that [[Page H 11987]] is the reward we are going to give them. These cases have faces on them. They have faces of people who calculate that they can get away with allowing X number of people to die in a Pinto automobile and still make it profitable. They can absorb the lawsuits. What they cannot absorb is when a jury gets fed up with these people, understands that they are harming their neighbors or they are harming their community, and they put down punitive damages. Then the company says, ``We better redesign the car, we better recalculate.'' How many low-income people, how many wives, have to drive a pickup truck with the gas tank that explodes and get minimal recovery, but if an executive is driving it on his ranch, his summer home in Montana, and it explodes, what is his recovery? Why are they treated differently? This is about equity, this is about fairness, this is about an average person not able, unfortunately, to unravel some of the conspiracies of silence, the withholding of information, that have gone on in the board rooms of the largest, most reputable corporations in this Nation, and without the plaintiff's bar those people would have never known what happened to them. They would have never been able to discuss it. They would never be able to discover it. Mr. Speaker, that access to that bar is what this motion is about, and we ought to support the gentleman's motion.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, today the Executive Office of the President, the Office of Management and Budget, released a report describing the impacts of both the House- passed welfare bill and the Senate-passed welfare bill and, most importantly, its impact upon the children of this Nation. This report notes that those two pieces of legislation can have a very severe [[Page H 12070]] and substantial impact on those children because this legislation threatens to take children who are not now living in poverty and put them into poverty by virtue of the withdrawal of resources that are available to those children in those families, and that we ought not allow to happen. The report also points out that we have seen the number of people, just recently, who are living in poverty in this Nation decline, that in 1994 there were 1.2 million fewer poor people living in poverty than in 1993. We also see that the changes that this Congress and the administration made on the earned income tax credit for working families where we provide some subsidy to low wages in those families to keep people in the work force as opposed to the welfare rolls, that that has also reduced the number of families that go to work every day but simply work at wages that are insufficient to keep their family out of poverty. So that is the good news. That is the good news of what this administration has done and changes that Congress has made. But now the report tells us that, if we were to enact the Senate welfare bill, that we could expect as many as 1.2 million new children, who are currently not in poverty, to be placed in poverty, and God forbid if we were to enact the House-passed welfare bill, we could see as many as 2.1 or 2.3 million children who are not now in poverty being placed in poverty. Now to understand what this means, Mr. Speaker, if you read the recommendations of this report from the administration, it becomes very clear that within these recommendations we can have historic and dramatic welfare reform that conforms with what our constituents want to see happen, what people on welfare want to see happen, and what we want to see happen, and that is that we put in place a comprehensive and concerted plan to move people from the welfare rolls to the payroll, that people are required to go to work when they have the skills and the talent to do so, and we were willing to help people gain those skills and that talent to move them off of the welfare roll. We can do all of that and not hurt the 1 or 2 million children that we see will be hurt if the Republican-passed bills are passed, and that currently seems to be the intent of the conferees who are meeting on this matter. If in fact we do that after receiving this report, we must understand that we are now knowingly, knowingly selecting policy options to place children in poverty that are not now in poverty. That decision reaches a moral dimension, and we ought not, those of us who are fortunate enough to be elected to positions of public policy, who have the trust of our constituents and the trust of this Nation, should not be selecting policy options that knowingly put children into poverty that are not in poverty today. This is not a contest between the status quo because the status quo with respect to welfare is unacceptable. The President has made it clear that it is unacceptable to him, the Republicans have made it clear that it is unacceptable to them, and the Democrats have made it clear that it is unacceptable to us. This is about whether or not we design policies to put families to work, to make sure that the day care they need is in place, their children will be taken care of and they can move off of the welfare rolls, as this Nation expects those individuals to do. But all of that is threatened by the passage of either the Senate or the House bill and its infliction of terrible, terrible results on the children of this Nation. Mr. Speaker, those bills should not be passed.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to the gentleman from Texas. Mr. Speaker, all of those figures that the gentleman from Texas referred to still stand. The first figure is a worst-case scenario. If everybody who is qualified for this in fact desires to take advantage of it, that is what the agency has told us. The other one is for the scoring of this legislation, and then the other one obviously is after they took a look at the MS figures and went back and forth on them, they still say it is a half a billion. So that is where we are.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate everything the gentleman from Colorado stated. CBO went through that exact analysis of the Department of Energy, of Mineral Management Services, and rejected that. I find it rather interesting that we now see the proponents of this royalty holiday relying on an agency that they do not trust to give them estimates in Alaska on reserves and costs, and on the Department of Energy, which they think should be abolished. But they do not want to now look at what CBO, the agency they are relying on and we are all relying on to help us balance the budget, when they reject it and say flat out it is going to cost a net $150 million to the taxpayers. When you get through all of the offsets and you get through the leases that are going to be moved forward and the leases that are going to be moved backwards, what you have in fact is a $150 million net cost, $500 million gross costs in the years 2000 and 2020. So CBO, the agency we are relying on, that you are relying on, that we have given credibility to, that has rejected the administration arguments in many, many instances, now says, ``This is a net cost to the taxpayers of this country.'' That is why we should not be providing a royalty holiday to companies that do not need it. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, this debate today will not be about the underlying bill which is overwhelmingly supported in this House but, rather, it is about the hijacking of this bill by the Senate to include a royalty holiday for the major oil companies that drill in what the Senate says is deep water. That is a provision that we should not allow to stand because it simply cannot be justified. It cannot be justified because it is a raid on the taxpayers of this country to provide one of the wealthiest industries in this country help that they do not need. They do not need that help because they are drilling in the gulf today. They are standing in line to drill in the gulf tomorrow. And they are putting many, many of their resources in the gulf. Why? Because they can make money. As one of them said, they can make serious money. This has become of one of the hottest oil prospects in the entire world. Some of my colleagues have talked about 1982 and the loss of jobs in 1985. This is 1995. This is an area that is brimming with competition. The marketplace is working. People are competing. We have had record participation in the bids. They are looking to get their hands on these blocks so they can drill for oil and make money. That is why we should not be providing a royalty holiday. A royalty holiday says, if you sink a well in 200 meters of water, which is not deep by today's technology or today's investment or today's activity, you get 17 million barrels of oil royalty-free. If you sink it in 800 meters of water, which by today's standard is not deep, you get a minimum of 85 million barrels of oil royalty-free. That means for those 85 million barrels of oil or more, each one of those barrels you dip into the taxpayers' pocket and you take out the royalty and give it to the oil company. That should not be allowed. That should not be allowed because the marketplace is working. Yet we find people who say that this is what they do. If my colleagues do not vote for the motion to recommit, what they are doing is creating new corporate welfare when in fact much of the debate in this Congress has been about how to eliminate some of that corporate welfare, and at the same time they are creating a new entitlement. This is an entitlement for the next 5 years because this is mandatory. This is not discretionary. It does not weigh the economic health of the lease, it does not weigh whether or not the lease will be drilled, it does not weigh the economic health of the company making that bid or drilling that oil. It is mandatory, when they sink the well into this water, that should not be allowed. That is an entitlement that the CBO tells us will cost us over $100 million. Mr. Speaker, CBO has looked at all of the alternative ways that my colleagues want to talk about scoring this provision, present value, and leases forgone, and incentives and leases moved forward in time and backward in time. When they got all done with that scoring, CBO said, This costs the taxpayers in excess of $100 million. This is a big loser in the out years, in the out years when you're trying to keep the budget balanced, when you're trying to make up for some of the taxes, when you're trying to make up for those problems. We start to lose, and we start to hemorrhage, taxpayer dollars to the oil industry. I would hope that my colleagues, the 261 who voted for the motion to instruct the conferees, would now say that they meant it that we do not want to create new welfare for the oil companies, we do not want to create an entitlement for the oil companies when we have all of the other budget decisions that confront us in the next 2 weeks.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Gejdenson].

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, yes; I am.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for his comments. I want to just say that the gentleman makes an important point. CBO considered all of the alternative analysis, all of the suggestions. They have been besieged with people asking them to rescore this, from the Department of Energy, to Minerals Management had another way, Members of Congress have gone to them, but when it was all done, 6 days ago, CBO said, ``It loses $400 million,'' and that is the point I think the gentleman was making. There are a lot of alternative ways to score it, but none of them as reliable as CBO. Most of them, the Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle would not accept in any other fight but they are accepting them for this fight, but the one that we have decided to trust for our scoring has said this is a $400 million loss to the taxpayers of this country. Mr. Speaker, I include the following statement for the Record: Mr. Speaker and my colleagues in the House, the integrity of the House, our responsibilities to the taxpayers, and our commitment to ending unnecessary spending and corporate welfare--all these reasons compel us to reject the conference report before us and to vote to recommit it to the conference committee. Once again, the Senate has insisted that we accept a provision that is totally nongermane to the main subject of Alaskan oil exports. This is not the first time the Senate has sent us the deep water royalty holiday; we have rejected it each time in the past, and we should reject it here again today. When the House considered this bill, we voted on a bipartisan basis to instruct our conferees to reject the royalty holiday in conference by an overwhelming vote of 261 to 161. Included in that 261-vote majority were Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives-- all in agreement that we should not spend hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars to encourage the oil industry to do what it is already doing: searching for oil in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. Since that vote, oil company lobbyists have swarmed over the Hill. The oil corporations have hired Republicans, Democrats, anybody to plead their special interest case. And the lobbying has come from the Clinton administration, too, that cut a special deal with the oil industry. It has been a massive lobbying effort. You'd spend a lot of money on well-connected lobbyists, too, if the prize was a half billion dollars for doing nothing more than you are doing right now. And I know what they're telling you: without a royalty holiday, no one will drill in the gulf; without a holiday, jobs will be lost; without a holiday, we will become more and more dependent on foreign oil. And they tell you this holiday won't cost you anything; they show you estimates OMB whipped up. Well, there's just one problem with their arguments: they are not supported by the facts. We don't need to spend a half billion dollars to encourage deep water development in the gulf; we won't make money, we'll lose hundreds of millions of dollars; and most significantly, their own publications illustrate and confirm that deep water in the gulf is among the premier offshore leasing prospects in the world today. They will deny all of the above today on the floor. But before you give into the pleas of the oil lobbyists, let's reexamine the facts. fact 1. the royalty holiday is a big revenue loser The holiday's proponents will recite MMS and OMB numbers asserting the holiday will make money. But CBO, the only official source of budget scoring, considered and rejected those same MMS and OMB assertions. CBO definitively states that the royalty holiday will cost taxpayers--who own the oil and gas--at least $420 million, and possibly much more. Even using the specious accounting methods employed by OMB, but rejected as distorted by CBO, the royalty holiday loses over $150 million. fact 2. the royalty holiday would be mandatory for every tract leased in more than 200 meters of water for the next 5 years Proponents of the holiday, including Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary, have argued the Holiday is discretionary and would only be granted on tracts where the Secretary determines it is necessary to encourage development. This is absolutely false, as the legal division of the Congressional Research Service has advised. The Energy Department has admitted it erred in asserting that the holiday is discretionary. Under the language of the conference report, all leases in more than 200 meters must be granted on a royalty-free basis for the next 5 years with no finding of need even though that need is the only rationale for granting the royalty holiday in the first place. Don't let anyone tell you the royalty holiday is discretionary for new leases. My amendment, offered in the conference, to make it clear the holiday is discretionary was voted down. So there should [[Page H 11876]] be no doubt: this holiday is mandatory, regardless of need, regardless of facts, regardless of cost. fact 3. the gulf of mexico--including deep water areas--is one of the hottest oil prospecting regions in the world The royalty holiday was dreamed up years ago when the oil industry was not interested in the ``played out'' gulf and technology was not yet developed for deep water development. But recent lease sales in the gulf have been record-setters, with active bidding on tracts in as much as 3,000 meters. The royalty holiday mandates royalty-free oil for tracts in as little as just 200 meters. Here is just a small sampling of what the oil press says about deep water leasing: New technologies cut the cost of deep-sea production * * * armed with new technology, U.S. companies are venturing into ever deeper waters. (Business Week, October 20, 1995). Sonat Offshore Drilling Inc. * * * analysts are projecting third quarter profits to increase more than 400 percent over the 1994 period. A large reason for Sonat's success is its emphasis on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, perhaps the hottest niche market in the business these days. (Dallas Morning News, October 24, 1995). The demand for rigs is now so great that deepwater rigs have been contracted out as far as 1998, [a stock analyst at] Simmons [& Co.] said. (Houston Chronicle, September 21, 1995). Texaco is among the major oil companies starting to spend heavily in the deepwater at depths of 1,000 feet and more. This is definitely an area of strong interest among major oil companies (Times Picayune, New Orleans, LA, September 19, 1995). Our activity level is based on our commitment to the strategy of developing oil and gas in deep water, Mobile said * * * Texaco said bidding at sale 155 sustained the trend into deepwater that is driving exploration success * * * New technology capabilities are leading the industry farther and farther out into the gulf, a Texaco official said, Deep water in the Gulf of Mexico is not the next frontier, it's the now frontier. (Oil and Gas Journal, September 18, 1995). These are just a few of the candid remarks by those most familiar with leasing and development deep water trends in the oil industry. And I mean real deep water, not the 200 meters that S. 395 defines as deep. Let's remember that the Ursa project is located in 3,950 feet of water, and ``industry executives believe tension-leg platforms can be affordable in water as deep as 6,000 feet,'' according to the Wall Street Journal (January 25, 1995). fact 4. alternatives to the royalty holiday already exist to provide the industry will incentives but without costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars In fact, I helped write the 1978 OCS law that allows use of bidding systems that forgive payment of a royalty until a tract is profitable. Unlike the royalty holiday, taxpayers would recoup the foregone royalty later in the production phase, as MMS originally proposed. Proponents of the holiday are probably going to argue today that the conference accepted an amendment offered by Congresswoman Fowler that addresses all of the environmental issues in the royalty holiday dispute by removing offshore Florida lands for coverage. But the major objection to the royalty holiday has never been environmental: it is economic. The objection is not that offering leases will encourage offshore development near coastal communities. Indeed, CBO concludes that few leases that would not be leased anyway would be leased because of the royalty. They just might he bought sooner to qualify for royalty-free status. The Fowler amendment fails to address a single one of the economic and subsidy objections I have raised or the House has voted on. It was an effort to defuse the opposition to the royalty holiday by appearing to fix the wrong problem. It should influence no one to change their vote on the motion to recommit. The objection to the royalty holiday is not that it will damage the environment. The objection is that it will damage taxpayers to the tune of $450 million, and maybe much more, for no good reason whatsoever. You may be told the Senate just voted for the royalty holiday in their reconciliation bill--because it's been stuck in there, too. But that is not true: the Senate never got to vote on the holiday because a parliamentary device was used to prevent a vote on the merits, just as we have been denied a chance here in the House, or in the Resources Committee, to consider this legislation on its merits. Now, if this legislation is so important and so meritorious, why haven't we had a hearing on it? Why haven't its proponents in the House or the Senate put it before the committees and on the floor of both Houses and allowed a real debate and amendatory process to occur? Why does it always come to us, tucked into a nongermane bill, with no opportunity for testimony or examination? The reason is because this proposal is an idea whose time has passed. Years ago, when leasing and drilling activity in the gulf was deteriorating, the industry and its friends cooked up the royalty holiday scheme. The world has changed, and the gulf--including the deep water gulf--is competitive and highly attractive. We have had two highly successful lease sales there in the past 6 months, including in the deep water. So the issue here today is, having already voted 261 to 161 to reject the deep water scheme, are we going to cave into the oil lobbyists, are we going to cave into the phony financial projections that our own CBO rejects, are we going to cave into the Senate and let them cram this expensive, special interest, corporate welfare scheme down our throats? Or are we going to say that this issue should be considered with deliberation and thoroughness by the Resources Committee and by the House of Representatives? Those who believe it is a good idea should come up here and testify for it and subject themselves to cross- examination instead of skulking around the Halls of Congress, lining up votes secretively, evading the public review that a half billion dollars in public money deserves. The royalty holiday is bad policy and a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars. On those grounds alone, backed up by CRS, CBO, and the oil industry's own evidence, we should reject this provision and send this report back to the conference, where the royalty holiday will surely be stripped out. In fact, the conference has scheduled another meeting for this afternoon to strip it out if the House votes to do so. But I believe there is another reason we should vote for the motion to instruct, and that is to stand up for the honor of this House. We voted to instruct our conferees to reject the royalty holiday, and those conferees ignored that direction. If this House will not reassert its position and again direct the conferees to reject the royalty holiday, we are giving up the powers of this House to the Senate and to a tiny number of senior Members who will make all the decisions for the rest of us, and that is not how decisions should be made. Some Members have asked me why I care so much about this royalty holiday. Why am I so concerned about a scheme that will only cost us a few hundred million dollars at a time when tens of billions are being cut elsewhere? Here is the reason: because this royalty holiday is wrong. It is the worst kind of special interest giveaway at a time when we are demanding that everyone in the country sacrifice. The oil industry already enjoys one of the lowest tax rates of any industry; they do not need more incentives to explore the Gulf of Mexico, and this House must have the courage to stand up to the international oil industry on behalf of the working men and women of this country who own that oil. The evidence is overwhelming that we do not need the royalty holiday. I urge my colleagues to vote to recommit the conference report. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie]. (Mr. ABERCROMBIE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, after we consider the rule on this legislation, we will get into general debate on a conference report, a conference report that comes back to us on the Alaska oil export bill of which there is relatively little controversy, but that bill has now been hijacked in the conference by a very controversial provision for a royalty holiday for the oil companies in this country that go into the Gulf of Mexico and drill in what this legislation calls deep water. Although I must tell my colleagues in the industry today and with the technology today where we give a royalty holiday under this bill it is no longer deep water. The technology, the investment, the risks, and the oil have all gone past this legislation. This legislation, the provision that is hijacking the Alaska oil export bill, was originally thought of around 1988 when the Gulf of Mexico was in an oil depression. Since that time the Gulf of Mexico has come roaring back. The oil companies are submitting record high bids in that region to compete for the right to drill out there, and it is, in fact, probably the hottest oil place in the world today. That is not because I say so, that is because every oil and energy and gas periodical in the country says that, and all of the oil companies say this is where they are going. They have set forth their 5-year plan. They have set forth their 10-year plan. This is where they are going to make their investments, along with their other decisions. What we do here is not going to change that. We are just going to decide whether or not we are going to give away the taxpayers' dollars to a lot of oil companies that do not need it, have not particularly asked for it, and understand that it is not going to change their decisions. They are going to the Gulf of Mexico because that is where the oil is. That is where the profitable oil is. What you have here is you have, today you can be at the creation of corporate welfare because this does not exist today, but should you vote against the motion to recommit this conference report, you will be voting to create corporate welfare that CBO says will cost us $500 million. Weigh that against the other decisions you are going to be asked to make later today: to increase Medicare premiums, to do all the things you are going to be asked to do in budget reconciliation, you will be asked to do in the continuing resolution, all the decisions this Congress has made about children's nutrition programs, about education, about science, about technology, about transportation; and in the middle of that, you are going to provide a royalty holiday to the oil industry of this country. I do not think that is what you want to tell your constituents. There is no need for this. The problem with this is, it is mandatory. It is not that the oil company makes a showing that, but for this, they would have drilled the well, or that they need it. It is mandatory. When they sink the well, they get up to 72 million barrels of oil, royalty free, for simply being there, doing what they were already going to do. As I said, they have already bid on the lands. They have already made the investment calculations. They have already leased the rigs, they have already contracted to build new ones, all absent the royalty oil holiday. This Congress should not be larding up, should not be larding up the budget [[Page H 11858]] of the United States with this kind of special privilege. That is what the motion to recommit is about. The motion to recommit is about, in the middle of when we are making the most difficult budget decisions on both sides of the aisle, we find here a provision that CBO says will net out a $150 million loss to the Treasury of the United States, and $500 million between the year 2000 and 2020. We should not be doing that to the taxpayers, we should not be doing that to people who are asking us to put some balance in the balanced budget provision. The last time we had this provision before us, 100 Republicans and 161 Democrats joined to instruct the conferees not to take this provision. The conferees decided otherwise. That is why this rule waives all points of order, because this is a nongermane provision. This is simply a highjacking of a bill that many of this Congress believe is very important, very important, to do that. For those who think if they vote for the motion to recommit they will be bringing down the bill, let me inform them that there is a conference committee scheduled today on the assumption that the motion to recommit will pass so that we can go back to conference, redo this bill, and send it out here. I have told the sponsor of this bill I would let it go on unanimous consent, so they can have the bill and they can stop the creation of new corporate welfare that just in no way can be justified.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Louisiana has made the case why we do not need a royalty holiday. The rig that he is discussing is built. The decision to lease in the tracts has been made. The money has been invested. It was based upon decisions that the oil companies made 1 year ago, 2 years ago, and 3 years ago. This may come as a surprise, but after many, many years of watching the Government make policy, whether it is tax policy or depletion policy or resource policy, one of the CEO's of the major oil companies in my district said to me: George, understand something. We do not make our decisions anymore based upon what you are going to do. The money is so great now, we do it based upon profit. We do it based upon going to our shareholders and telling them, ``This is the best decision we can make, whether it is to go to Russia or to Kazakhstan or to China or the deep Gulf.'' Right now what the oil companies are telling their shareholders is that it is the deep gulf. That is why, in this last May, we had record numbers of bids. We had over 800 bids for some 500 tracts. Why? Why? Because that is where the money is. That is where the profit is. That is where you can convince your shareholders to stick with the management decisions. That is what is going on in the oil industry. The market is working. The rigs are being built. Yes, they are $1 billion. That calculation has already been made without the oil royalty. That, Mr. Speaker, is the definition of corporate welfare. [[Page H 11872]] That is corporate welfare. The market does not demand it, the incentive is not needed, the industry is healthy, they are moving on their own, so there is no reason for a Government incentive, but you give it anyway. You give it anyway. This plan was thought up back in the 1980's, when the gulf was in the doldrums, when the gulf was in a recession. That is not the Gulf of Mexico today. Listen to what they say in the Dallas Morning News: The analysts are projecting third-quarter profit increases of 400 percent over the 1994 period. The large reason for Zonac's success is its emphasis on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps the hottest niche market in business today. The Houston Chronicle: ``the demand for rigs now is so great that deep water rigs have been contracted out as far as 1998.'' No royalty holiday, long-term leases. The Times Picayune: Texas is among the major oil companies starting to heavily spend in deep water at depths of 1,000 feet or more. This is definitely an area of strong interest among major oil companies. The Oil and Gas Journal: A Texaco official says, ``The deep water in the Gulf of Mexico is not the next frontier, it is the now frontier.'' As they said, you can make real money in the Gulf of Mexico at 1,500 feet. At 1,000 feet, you can make serious money. That is why they are going to their shareholders; that is why they are going to their lenders and asking for money to go to the Gulf of Mexico; not because we decide that all of a sudden 200 meters is deep water, they blew by that years ago. Six hundred meters is deep water. They are there now, and they are looking to go far out, far out beyond that, because of new technology. Go to your major oil company if you live near one and ask them to look at the technology. Look at what they combine in terms of the 3-D geophysical information. Look at Forbes magazine 2 weeks ago about the subsea platforms that they can use today to reduce the cost of drilling. The fact is, technology, computerization has blown right by many of the cost barriers to deep-water drilling. That is why the oil companies are going there. We should not now take, we should not now take the Government's money and give it to them to do that which they are already doing. The gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin] said we receive much more money in bonus bids than we do in royalty. No, we do not. It is a 10- to-1 ratio. That is why many countries do not provide bonus bids. The would rather have the royalties. It is the royalties where you make money, and it is the royalties that we forgive. In fiscal year 1995 the Treasury received $2.4 billion in royalties and $200 million in bonus bids. The fact of the matter is, we should not even be charging a bonus bid. Why would we want them to put their nonproductive money into the Treasury? Why do we not let them put that into drilling and take it out when they find oil share in a royalty? But they have chosen not to do that. Listen to what the business journals, listen to what the experts in the industry, listen to what the officers in the industry are saying. Listen to what Wall Street and the banking industry in this country are saying. They are saying, these boys have it calculated about right, and that is why they are lending them record amounts of money. That is why their stocks continue to soar, because they now have the potential to find what they think may be larger than Prudhoe Bay at far less expense than they ever, ever envisioned, and that is a smart play. It is protected in the good old U.S. of A. They do not have to cut a deal with Iran or with Turkey or with Azerbaijan or with the Russians or with the Kazakhstans, nobody. It is right here. That is why it is so valuable. That is why the marketplace is working. We ought to let the marketplace go. We ought to put this money back into the Treasury of the United States or give it back to the taxpayers, but there is no, no compelling economic reason to provide this kind of largesse to this industry at this given time. They have made the decision, they made it based upon the free market system. They do not need the Government help. There is little indication they want the Government help, but yet we are going to force ourselves into doing something that will be tragic for the taxpayers of this country.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hinchey].

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough].

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, voters all across the country yesterday voted against the Republican Medicare cuts and the Republican cuts in education. They voted to put Democrats in office at the local level. And yet last night what were the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate doing? They were secretly negotiating to bring about the first installment of the withering of Medicare that the Speaker has said he supports and endorses. They are going to start to wither Medicare by raising the part B premiums today in the debt limit. They are going to ask senior citizens to step up and take these cuts in Medicare benefits at a time that they still want to continue to press forward for a $245 billion tax cut for the wealthiest people in this country. Yes, the Republican votes today will be to let Medicare wither. We ought to reject those votes. We ought to reject that proposition, and we ought to do what the people of this country voted yesterday to do and that is to protect Medicare, to make sure that it is not used as a piggy bank for tax cuts for the wealthy.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, last week the Republicans voted to dramatically slash Medicare by $270 billion, Medicaid by $180 billion. They voted to raid the pension plans of [[Page H 11689]] working men and women in this country and to slash educational opportunities for those who seek a college education. Why did they do it? They did it so they can pay for a tax cut to the wealthiest people in this country. The vast majority of their tax cut goes to the upper 5 percent of the people in this country. They have asked the children, they have asked our college students, and they have asked our pensioners to pay for it. They say if the President does not agree to it, they are going to force the Government to default. If the Government defaults now, they are going to ask the pensioners once again to pay for it. They are going to ask the retirees to pay again. They are going to ask those people who get an income tax refund to pay again. They are going to ask homeowners with mortgages to pay again. They are prepared to ask everybody to pay in the country, except the wealthiest people in this country, for that tax cut. They should not be allowed to force this Government to default to provide an unfair tax cut to the wealthiest people in this country.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?