John Peterson

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I rise to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla). I rise today on behalf of the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Davis) and the rest of the Congressional Rural Caucus to request that as you move forward with this appropriations bill and eventually go to a conference committee with the Senate you will work with the Rural Caucus to increase appropriations for both the value-added agricultural product market development grant program and the rural broadband loan program. Since being authorized in the 2002 farm bill, the value-added grants program has been the engine that has driven many valuable projects and local entrepreneurs across the country. Unfortunately, this program has been funded well below the $40 million authorized level every year, resulting in lost opportunities for rural America. Likewise, the recently created rural broadband loan program is quickly proving to be an invaluable tool to rural communities in connecting us to broadband technology. Without access to this technology, rural communities will continue to struggle to become fully integrated into the new economy. We hope you will support these requests as you undergo the difficult task of guiding the fiscal year 2005 Agricultural, Rural Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill through this process. I know that you being from the Texas heartland are very sensitive to these rural issues, and I thank you for your leadership on these important issues.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to first thank the members of this committee, the gentleman from New York (Chairman Boehlert), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), and the ranking member, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) for their good work at not only reauthorizing this program, but restrengthening this program. I think it is vital at this time that we do that; but I think also if programs are going to serve us well, it is important that they are accountable, that they are accountable to the public they serve. Currently in law, they have to have audited budgets that go back to the State and Federal agency that fund them. But I have had the unfortunate situation of having one of these agencies who, when members of the community or the press asked for a copy of their audited budget, they were told that they were a 501(c)(3) not for profit and they were private. This was private business. Mr. Chairman, when programs are funded with Federal dollars, with State tax dollars, they are public programs. In my view, accountability can be obtained from Federal and State oversight, but real accountability comes when the people they service and press and interested citizens locally have the ability to look and evaluate their records. My amendment simply says, it clarifies and ensures these audits are available to OMB, but they are also available to the public and press upon request. I think that is important in making sure that these programs are efficient, that they are well-run, and they are on the right priorities, that they are serving the right part of the manufacturing community, and that our other economic development agencies have the ability to work closely with them and ensure that we get the biggest bang for the buck.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman very much and congratulate him for his good work.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 150th anniversary of my district's largest employer, the Pennsylvania State University, which consists of 11 academic schools, 20 campuses throughout Pennsylvania, the College of Medicine, the Dickinson School of Law, and the Pennsylvania College of Technology. Penn State was founded in 1855 as America's first land grant college and was the first institution in the Nation to offer a degree in agriculture. One in every eight Pennsylvanians with a college degree, one in every 50 engineers in America, and one in every four meteorologists in America are alumni of Penn State, which has the largest dues-paying alumni association in the Nation. Penn State consistently ranks in the top three universities to receive SAT scores by high school seniors. Penn State hosts the largest student-run philanthropic event in the world benefiting the Four Diamonds Fund for families with children being treated for cancer. Penn State has excelled at academic and athletic achievements by doing things honorably and exceptionally, by doing things the Penn State way. Happy 150th birthday, Penn State. I am proud to represent you in Congress and add my voice to those exclaiming, ``We are Penn State.''

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, it has been interesting to listen to this discussion today and talk about why we have high prices. Someone just talked that we had a failing energy policy. Folks, this Congress has never put an energy policy on any President's desk, and I do not know that any President has asked for one till George Bush. He has begged for one. He has pleaded for one, and this Congress has not put an energy policy on his desk. That is why we are in trouble. Even with an energy policy, it is going to be years before we have much to say about our future. We are dependent today because we do not have a plan; we do not have a policy on foreign parts of the world who dictate. Think, just a few months ago, one of our supposed friends said when oil was $32 a barrel, they were going to raise the price. No. They were going to reduce how much they were sending. Historically when it got over $30, they put more oil in, and the price would come down a little bit, but at $32 they took oil out, and prices sky-rocketed within a couple of months to $42. Folks, we are vulnerable to countries who have little long-term interest in us, little long-term commitment to us, and that is why it has never been more important for us to have a stockpile. SPRO was not designed for price control. The strategic oil reserve is for us in case of war, in case of something that would interrupt our supply of oil. We are now 58 percent dependent on imports from unstable parts of the world. We have never had a time when our oil supply, they are looking on how they can disrupt our oil supply every day, whether it is blow up tankers, whether it is blow up pipelines. Iraq had serious problems just this week. It was going to stop supply, a tremendous amount of supply from Iraq. We are vulnerable, and if we would have one of these countries taken over by a dissident group, we would have not $40 oil, not $50 oil, but possibly $60 oil, which would crush our economy. We have to look at the big picture here, but all of those pleading for price control, let us talk about an energy policy. I wish you would join us in saying let us put an energy policy on the President's desk so he can sign it so this country can get on a plan of action where we are not dependent on foreign oil. The natural gas issue right beside us is crushing us economically because we cannot import natural gas like we import oil. We have $6- and-something gas going into the ground right now that is going to be coming out next winter. Last year at this time we put natural gas in the ground at $4.60, and that was a record. This year it is in excess of $6. When you combine those two, greater pressure on oil because of high gas prices. They were related. Last winter, school districts, hospitals who had the ability to divert, diverted from natural gases because of high prices and used more oil, increasing our need to import oil from foreign countries. We talk about our oil companies control, this country has little control of oil. We do not have it. We are only producing 42 percent of the oil we use. We produce 20 million barrels a day out of the 80 million; and we have China, we have India who are now becoming huge users. The countries that took care of us have lots of people knocking on their door now saying we need oil. They have other people who are going to use huge amounts of oil. There are those who predict China will use more oil than us in 5 years. I do not know that that is correct. I have not researched that, but I have heard that stated. The most important thing we can do here in this Congress is give the President, quit our bickering and our partisan fighting and get an energy policy on the President's desk that he can sign that will help us wean ourselves off foreign oil, get us out of oil for transportation down the road and other measures to move our vehicles. We have to have a plan of action. We are becoming more dependent every day, and we are dependent on less and less stable parts of the world for oil. The energy issue, when you combine oil prices and natural gas prices, has the potential to stall the economy of this country. And if we do not protect SPRO and have it in case of an interruption, disruption, $50 and $60 oil will shut the economy down is what we are talking about.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Somebody said I cannot talk, I am too far east. Maybe we ought to have people who have ridden on snowmobiles and understand them, the only ones that can talk. I think it might have changed the debate a little bit today. Someone talked about a fair process. In 1997 the Park Service began the process of developing an environmental impact statement. The service has prepared research examining winter wildlife, snowmobile emissions and impacts, and visitor use. They released the draft of EIS on September 29, 1999, for public comment. The draft contained seven alternatives. None of them talked about banning snowmobiles. Just a couple months later in December, the service prepared a substantially revised alternative G, which made it rather than alternative B, the new preferred alternative. These changes include an outright ban on all recreation snowmobile use in the park. None of these changes had been previously shared with the public or the State or the county cooperators. The cooperating States immediately protested. Then on April 27, the former Secretary, John Barry, issued a memorandum directing the service to prohibit the snowmobile use. That is the process that was reacted to. That was the process that was considered a compromise, not a compromise. I was not planning to speak on this issue, but I had three snowmobiles for a long time, when my children were growing up and neighbor kids, and we had some wonderful times there. I was intrigued when the gentleman from California talked about wildlife watching because I have probably spent as much time watching wildlife as anybody in this Congress. As a kid, I grew up in the forest. I camped in the forest. In the summertime, my brothers and I slept in the forest, and I can tell you for hours the wonderful wildlife scenes that I saw. I want tell you, I will never forget the day my wife and son and several other people saw their first flock of turkeys up close. Yes, we were on a snowmobile, putting down a country lane, a road in the woods, and came down around the hillside and there was 15 or 20 turkeys scratching. They stopped and watched us, scurried off to the side as we went by. I remember seeing deer; and I taught my son, when we see wildlife, do not stop. Just keep moving slowly. We went by beautiful deer looking over us. And I will never forget the day that this big owl sat there fairly close to us, and I can still see him squinting with one eye, trying to see what we were, watching us put by on our snowmobiles. I have seen fleeting fox. I have seen all kinds of wildlife creatures because they are far less scared of you on a vehicle than they are in person. If I had walked around that bend, I probably would not have seen them because they would have seen me before I saw them. But I have seen more wildlife, wonderful, beautiful scenes; and if you learn not to react to them, they will watch you go right by. We have seen wildlife up closer where you actually watch their eye activity on a snowmobile. So those who are interested in wildlife watching, snowmobiles are not that big machine that is going to chase wildlife away. They are far less fearful of that vehicle putting down through the woods than they are of any one of us walking. I have spent thousands of hours out there, and I cannot tell you the stories I have seen of beautiful wildlife scenes on a snowmobile. So that argument, in my view, needs to be turned around. People will see scenes on a snowmobile they never dreamed of. They will see wildlife up very close. And I think that is an important part that needs to be shared.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, do we need to change this policy? We talk about the resistance to the Bush changes to the current policy. I happen to represent the Allegheny National Forest. It is about a 600,000-acre forest, the finest hardwood forest in America, it was, but it will not be for long if we do not soon manage it, because we have not been managing it. The current process of rewriting the forest plan on the ANF has been going on for years and years and years, and we cannot get there. The current plan does not work. The process of managing a forest for multiple use should not be complicated. It should not take decades. It should take a year or two to sit down and figure out where we are, what should happen there, and how do we manage part of it for forestry. That happens to be one of the most mature hardwood forests in the world and has some of the most valuable cherry, and that is a forest that only lives about 100 years; and it is about reaching that age and it is going to die. We had a big blow-down last year. We cannot even get the blow-down trees harvested because the process does not work. We need a new process. Let us look at what the current plan brings us. We had a big gypsy moth defoliation a few years ago; we had that for 2 or 3 years. And then we had other insects a few years later. So they designed the East Side Sale to salvage dead and dying and diseased timber and clear up these oak areas so they could regenerate, because they will. The hardwood forest in the east does not even have to be planted. If it is pruned properly and cut properly and managed properly, there will be a good forest there for our children, our grandchildren, forever. It grows from seed, it grows from sprouts, it comes back naturally if it is properly maintained. It is a renewable resource. Do we want to cut it off? We manage a very small portion of it. The Allegheny allows a cut of 90 million board feet. Some years we do not cut any, and some years we cut 5 or 10 million board feet. Almost nothing. But what happens? We planned the East Side Sale and a student sues who has a religion about trees should not be cut down. Not a soil scientist, not a forester, not a biologist. A student gets a free lawyer from a university, goes to court, and wins. We redesigned, redid it, totally reworked it over a couple of years, put back out again, and another student sues. Three years, this time they win. Not the student, but the Forest Service wins, after 3 years. Now we have 5 years, and we finally have a result. The student sues again, just thrown into a Philadelphia court, and we do not know whether it will ever come out of there. Folks, the process does not work. Now, I heard a lot about scientists. I do not think our Forest Service gets enough credit, because the Allegheny Forest has foresters, fish biologists, game biologists, soil scientists, archeologists, hydrologists, entomologists and ornithologists, all who play a role in everything we do there, whether we are going to do recreation or whether we are going to do forestry. They sign off. These are experts. Now, the people who sue and win usually have no credentials. They are someone with a religious philosophy that you should not cut down trees. I want to tell my colleagues, the unmanaged forest in the east is going to die. It is going to be very prone to wind storms, and it is going to blow over. It is not a habitat for wildlife, an old forest. And all of us, those of my colleagues who are concerned about CO2, a forest that you do not prune and manage becomes a CO2 emitter, just the same as a plant, just the same as us when we breath out. A forest that is managed is the most successful carbon sink in America. Active agricultural land and actively managed forest land absorbs tons and tons of CO2 and puts it into logs, locks it up; and we are averting that process on all the public land in this country. Mr. Chairman, our foresters and our scientists are leaving our system because they are disgusted with this Congress's involvement, because they cannot manage. All the science they have, all the experience they have, we have Congressmen who think they know better; and they are wrong.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the Chabot-Andrews roadless amendment. Thirteen million acres of the Tongass is off limits to roads; 13 million acres. And 330,000 acres are available to forest repractices, and now we are trying to lock that up. I hear all of the talk about hunters support this. I do not know how many Members hunt, but my hunters hunt where people timber. Old growth forests do not have a lot of wildlife because there is no food there. This amendment is simply an effort by extreme environmental groups to impose their will over the objections of Alaskans. The Alaskan delegation, including the former Democratic Governor, Tony Knowles, is opposed to this lockup of the Tongass National Forest. The State of Alaska does not support blanket roadless area designations. In fact, the State took the Clinton administration to court over the issue and won. The environmentalists lost in court, and now they are trying to get Congress to do it for them. The National Forest Management Act already outlines a process for the Forest Service to make decisions on whether to build a road. The Tongass Forest Management Plan process was locally driven, based on site-specific conditions such as wildlife risk, insects and disease outbreaks, wildlife habitat, and threatened and endangered species. This amendment ignores this process, ignores local input, science, and the experience of highly competent forest managers. Mr. Chairman, 78 percent of the Tongass is already roadless, wilderness, or nondevelopable designation. Only 2 percent of the landbase is open for forestry. The only people who support this designation are the special interest groups who want to stop all uses of our natural resources. They lost in court, they do not have local or State support, and they want Congress to make a foolish move and get into Alaskan business that nobody wins with.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to ask the question, How long can America afford to not have an energy policy in place? For many years we had cheap energy in this country. We had oil for over a decade at about $10 a barrel and natural gas around $2 a thousand, but that has all changed. Today we have oil constantly popping past the $40-per-barrel mark. The natural gas that we were putting in the ground today for next winter's heating $6.47 a thousand. Last year the world was shocked when we put it in the ground at $4.60 a thousand for the next heating season during the winter. The question I ask again and again is when will we put an energy policy on the President's desk so he can sign it? He is the first President to continually ask Congress for an energy policy, an energy plan. Other Presidents ignored it. We have an education policy, but no energy policy. We have a defense policy, but no energy policy. We have an ag policy, but no energy policy. A transportation policy, an environmental policy, trade policies, but no energy policy. I live within 5 miles in Pennsylvania of Drake's Well, the first oil well which was drilled in 1859; and when oil was discovered, it changed the world. It brought about the industrial revolution and the modernization of our society, and today the world consumes 80 million barrels daily. We use about one fourth, 20 million barrels; and our use continues to rise. The alarming fact is that China and India are now growing faster in energy use than us and competing with us for foreign oil. And as the world economy begins to really grow, and it is, the demand continues to rise. Our problem is 50 percent of our oil comes from unstable parts of the world. We have no control over oil prices. We have no control over energy costs. And coupling that problem with the natural gas issue, which is new, just a few years ago it was $2 a thousand. Today, they continue to sky rocket. Four years ago, it was less than 3, usually 2- something. Last year, we were putting in the ground at $4.70 at this time of the year. On the average of almost $6 over the year. Today we are putting it in the ground for next year at $6.47, and some think gas will be 7 to $8 a thousand this winter. The problem that raises is that we are not competitive. Europe pays $3.70 a thousand. North Africa $1.20; all the others are under that. So the rest of the world has natural gas much cheaper than us. Now, what is that doing to business in this country? It is eliminating the fertilizer business in this country as we speak. You cannot afford to make fertilizer in America because they use it as an ingredient and as a fuel. It is harming the petrochemical industry, which is quickly moving to Europe. Polymers and plastics and anybody that heats, bakes, cooks, melts or dries products with natural gas has a problem. We produce 85 percent of our natural gas in this country. We import 14.5 percent from Canada; a percent and a half of liquefied natural gas from numerous parts around the world; and we export about 1 percent of our gas to Mexico. A decade ago, a moratorium was removed on the generation of electricity with natural gas. I think it is an issue that really needs to be debated again today. At that time, 8 percent of our natural gas was only allowed to be used for peak power, in the morning and evening time when we need that extra surge. But when they removed that moratorium, in a few short years 25 percent of the natural gas in this country is now used to generate electricity. We have 1,000 rigs drilling, a number higher than most, than normally, but the shortage remains. All of the gas-rich areas in America are off limits to drilling, many legislatively. It has been prohibited to drill the east and west coast offshore. Around the Florida coastline where there is lots of gas, it is off limits. Forty percent of the gulf, and we know the rest of the gulf is rich with gas because we get a lot of it there, is off limits to drilling. Sixty percent of the Midwest, which is owned by the Federal Government, much of it is off limits to drilling or it takes years to get a permit. We must somehow figure out if we are going to use natural gas to generate electricity, how we replace that supply because we are threatening homeownership, we are draining commerce, and we are threatening industries in this country that particularly use a lot of natural gas. The question I ask again, Can we afford to float down the river aimlessly with no plan of action, no energy policy on the President's desk? Yes, we must conserve and we must use energy more wisely and we must promote renewables, but the growth has not been there. Wind and solar are only used part of the time so you have to have an abundant source. America needs an energy plan. It needs to be on the President's desk tomorrow.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, let us put some competition into the marketplace. We just have a proposal now that says we will have a government-subsidized program, and we all know where that will take us. The taxpayers will pay and pay. Here is the problem: 50 percent of America has one insurer. That means you have a monopoly, and that is where we are getting 20, 30, and 40 percent increases annually, and businesses are straining. But when you only have one insurer, the new pharmacy plan, we have guaranteed everybody two. But in health care, over half of America have one. Associated Health Plans would, I think, change the marketplace dramatically, because you would bring lots of competition to the marketplace. The monopolies would no longer rule. A lot of other companies that are not monopolies do not want health care either. Why? It is going to be competition. Whenever America is successful, we bring competition into the marketplace. Yes, those monopolies are leaving community rating; yes, they are cherry-picking today. And State mandates are part of the problem, because 50 States have different mandates and we guarantee everybody gets a Cadillac plan. That means a lot of people cannot afford a plan at all, because you only can deliver a Cadillac plan. That is the system we have. In rural areas, where monopolies exist, businesses, individuals and governments pay measurably more for health insurance than neighboring counties. In my district, I have school districts and counties who will pay $650 for a family plan. Two counties away they pay $1,100 for the same insurance coverage under the current system. Why? Because there is no competition there. Now, the hospitals, the doctors and providers under these monopolies get paid less too, because they have no bargaining power with the big insurance giants that are the monopolies. The current system will change dramatically with Associated Health Plans, because, for the first time, all parts of America will have many people who they can purchase insurance from. Yes, maybe if I am a restaurateur, I will be part of a national restaurant association who has a plan tailored for restaurants. I was a supermarket operator for 26 years. I probably, if I were back in that business, would have a plan that works well for super markets. But when you put them all in the same box, you put all kinds of employers in the same box, as we currently do with State mandates. Let us give our businesses and our government service agencies choices. Let us give them Associated Health Plans, not another government-subsidized program. But let us turn the competitiveness of American ingenuity, and we will solve the uninsured problem in this country.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, May 6, 2004, I was unavoidably detained and missed House rollcall vote No. 152 on H. Con. Res. 398, a bill expressing the concern of Congress over Iran's development of the means to produce nuclear weapons. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on H. Con. Res. 398, and ask unanimous consent that this be reflected in the appropriate place in the Record.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I recently visited a prison in my district, a Federal prison; and 80 percent of those there were addicted to a drug. I believe the figure was 60 percent were there because they were selling drugs. That is a huge figure, $35,000 per person to incarcerate people. We certainly can afford to invest in drug treatment and in prevention. But I wanted to mention the issue of methamphetamine again. The gentleman talked about the big labs in California. I come from a very rural area. There is hardly a month that goes by that in our local community, a small town, the local paper talks of another meth bust, another lab found. And I want to tell the Members the story of Suzie. Her name is not Suzie, but I want to protect the family. I remember vividly when Suzie moved to our area. She married a person locally who was very successful, a family. She was pleasant. She was attractive. She was smart. And as years rolled by, I had heard that Suzie might have a cocaine problem. I did not know. But I do know this: over a year ago, or maybe it was 2 years ago now, there was a major meth bust in our region, and it was proven that she was one of the kingpins. She was the person who was buying the material, a lot of the material to make methamphetamines, at the hardware store: lye, paint thinners, a lot of chemicals that one would not think have anything to do with ingesting in one's body. In fact, in my region the drug stores have all the Sudafed-type health medicines behind the pharmacy because they do not allow them out there because they are being purchased by people who come in time and time again and get them because that is a main ingredient to make meth. So it shows us the problem is rampant. It took 4 years to get the kingpin. DEA, the State drug team, the local police worked 4 years to get the person. And Suzie was the person who helped them nail him because before they never could get the kingpin. And he is now in prison, I think, for 40 or 45 years. But residue is he has taught so many people how to make high-quality meth that we remain a meth production area. And the police tell me they just do not know how to get their arms around it because every time they turn around, they hear another lead, they go check, they find another meth lab. I mean, they are everywhere. So that is a story of a destroyed life. The final page on Suzie is I got to know her pretty well because she was volunteering in the nursing homes and the personal care homes and my mother was there, and she was always very nice to my mother and we talked a bit. And I always wanted to sit down with her and talk with her about how it happened because she was going out also speaking to school groups. Several months ago on a Sunday morning, after friends had talked to her on Saturday night and she was in good spirits, she was found hanging in an old pump house in the woods, dead. Suzie lost her life because we heard, the kingpin said, and I do not know if they can ever prove it, but the kingpin said she will not live long. Suzie did not live long. She was a person in her late 40s. She was a mature woman. She was attractive. She was smart. But she got hooked on drugs. And if a person her age can get hooked, how vulnerable are our eighth, ninth and tenth graders as they are still growing and working to become adults? And that is why drug testing is so important. It is about protecting kids, not about penalizing kids.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my good friend from Indiana (Mr. Souder), who is the leader in Congress on this issue. I want to commend him for these efforts because these are not issues that are pushed by the power brokers in this country or pushed by the big PAC givers. These are the issues that are at the heart and soul of America's kids and who, I feel, have more peer pressure today to deal with the drug issue than any generation before them. This used to be a city issue. For years, maybe decades, the cities have been infected with drugs. But I hear the experts today say there is not a community in America that does not have a drug problem. Now, one of the problems we have is a lot of those communities do not realize the severity of the problem and sometimes kind of just want to look by it as long as it has not impacted them or their families or their neighborhoods. I represent a huge rural district in Pennsylvania, one of the largest rural districts in the eastern part of the country, and I have hundreds and hundreds of small towns. I have not talked to a youngster in my office that does not tell of the severity of the drug issue in their school and the easy availability, marijuana being available in middle school. Sometimes kids will actually smoke a marijuana cigarette before they smoke tobacco because it is easier to buy. They do not have to have an ID card. Stop and think about that. Jonathan Walters, the Drug Czar, was with me in my district about a year ago and is doing a wonderful job. I will never forget the face of a young lady, 16 years old, who lived in a small town of about 6,000 people. This is an area you would think would not be infested with drugs. When she was 14 she was using three bags of heroin a day. The young people in that school were driving into north Philadelphia and they were buying pure uncut heroin. The tragedy of that is that usually heroin is the drug for the end- of-the-line user. When people got hooked on heroin, they had worked their way all the way up the food chain. Heroin is such a powerfully addicting drug, it is usually just a matter of time until their life is over. But here we have 14-year-old and 15-year-old and 16-year-old teenagers who are into heroin. I have probably 10 or 15 communities in my district that have known heavy heroin use in kids. The power of it is that it is uncut pure heroin that is affordable and available. And the problem with that is it is so addictive that the drug counselors tell me if you have any kind of an addictive personality you may never lick the habit. Now, this young lady, I said to her, what is your wish? Well, she said, my wish in life is that I had never touched it. I am on my second rehabilitation program, and I hope I can stay drug-free. I do not want to ever do drugs again. But the addiction is so powerful, and when you take young people like that, who are not even mature as an adult yet, and give them uncut heroin, or uncut cocaine, or the one that has been terribly impacting my region also, which is methamphetamine, where it is manufactured in laboratories out in the country, in homes and garages and barns and buildings, it is about as addicting as heroin and about as powerful. And I am told many times people who may be first- and second-time users will fight that addiction the rest of their life. So those who think testing is an intrusion of privacy, I want to plead with you that testing is the only way parents know, it is the only way a family knows, it is the only way schools know what your child is doing. And if you have it to where schools participate voluntarily and parents approve of their kids being tested, I would test all kids that parents would allow the test. Leave it a freedom of choice of the family, but I would make it a negative check-off where everybody gets tested. Now, that is not where most are at today. But I listened to the debate at the Supreme Court when they expanded from sports activities to all extracurricular activities, and some schools have gotten creative and said kids driving their cars to school, because assuming you drive your car to school, you are more likely to be bringing drugs in here. I had an argument with a nationally well-known figure, and if I mentioned his name you would all know him, but he was arguing on a national television show against testing, so I said to him, well, if my memory is correct, 15 or 20 years ago the military had a rampant drug problem, and random testing fixed it. He stopped, he paused, he said, yes, I was there. I was a part of that. I had never related it, but you are right. I change my position at this moment. I would support random drug testing. So today I introduce the Empowering Parents and Teachers for a Drug Free Education Act. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) joined me and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne). That is a band of three. But I think it is legislation whose time has come. I cannot tell you how excited I was last night when the President put sufficient emphasis on this. It is not about privacy. It is about helping young people who are now being exposed to drugs that are so powerful that if they use them once or twice they may be addicted the rest of their lives. So it is preserving their life. It is not about drug enforcement. It is about when you find a youngster that has drugs in their system that the parents get involved, and then the schools get involved to first help them with this problem. A youngster into drugs without help will soon be too far down the road that they will literally owe their life to the drug dealers. When you look at who the drug dealers are, we know today for a fact that terrorism is often funded by drug dealers. The drug dealers of America in our small towns are the scourge of this country. They are the low life who care nothing about the future of our youth, care nothing about the future of this country. They are just interested in the mammoth profits they make selling this poison to our young people. I will never forget the discussion I had last year with my granddaughter Nicole. We were going shopping after Christmas, returning some things and spending some of her money she had gotten for Christmas, and we always get on this subject. And she said, Pop, why are you so concerned I will get on drugs? I am a good student. I am doing well in school, she said. I am not going to do drugs, Pop. So I said, well, who do you think will entice you to do drugs? She said, oh, some creep at school or somebody that will come. I said, no, Nicole, that is not who will introduce you to drugs. The person who will introduce you to drugs is one of your best friends, like Jacquelyn, whose boyfriend or friend has, maybe at a party where she has had a couple of beers, even though that is not legal, but her judgment is impaired and she tries them. When she tries them and has gotten into that habit, she is going to want her best friend, Nicole, to be with her. It is not some creep that introduces our kids to drugs. It is somebody who is their friend. It is somebody who they have an established relationship with. I guess the thing that scares me, and that I wish school superintendents would be more scared of, and I wish parents would be more fearful of is that their child, without any doubt is going to have numerous opportunities to do drugs. Even if they are not an avid drinker, even if they are not into the other things where they are more likely to, there will be a time. So we must help these young people. In the workplace today it is common practice. You sign a form, and in most cases they say we will be randomly drug testing. That is the way of the work world. In the military, you will be randomly drug tested. And I find there is no tool to help get drugs out of our schools. If I were president of a college, I would have on the application form that you will be randomly drug tested. And I would promise the parents that brought them there that my first goal would be to run a drug-free college. It would be difficult, but it would be my number one goal. Because those are still those formative years. The kids tell me that the age at which they are asked to do drugs is getting younger and younger and younger. And when you get down to 8th and 9th graders, who are not that mature yet, who are more vulnerable, and the drugs are more available to them, and they are more potent than they have ever been, a lot of them are pure and uncut, and at that those young ages, if they try once, they may never lick the habit. I thank my colleague for the chance to join him.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I have had young people and other people who were opposed but most of the young people who come in my office support drug testing. They would like to see that down pressure on their friends who are struggling with the decision-making process. Several years ago I was discussing this issue with a radio commentator on a big city talk radio program. He was making fun of me, according to the people who were listening to the station, prior to me coming on, that we are going to talk to the Congressman that wants our kids to fill a cup with urine and just was kind of making light of it. At the end of that discussion that day after I was off, one of my staff was listening, he said, you know, I was pretty opposed to this idea, but after the discussion, if I had a 12- or 14-year-old boy, and I don't, would I want testing or would I not and he had a long pause and he said, you know, I think the Congressman convinced me. Just the matter of having a discussion. We have other tests. We have the hair test, which I think is one of the best because it reaches back. If you tested in September, you know the activity for months before, because the hair holds the drug. You have saliva tests, you have sweat tests, of course you have the blood tests, the urine tests. There is lots of testing today. One of the deterrents to schools doing it is the cost, especially in a small rural school district with there is not much extra cash to go around. That is what is so vital about the President's program saying, hey, if you decide, if the parents in your community talk to your administration and say we would like our kids tested and you develop a testing program, we're going to help. That is what this is about. This is not a mandate. I know in my district, I am going to be selling it. The young people want me to sell it. We need to encourage parents and community leaders to encourage school boards to move out and say, let's do everything we can do to make our school drug free. I have superintendents who are there. I have lots of superintendents who are afraid of the issue. But I have had a couple of superintendents who have said they bring in dog teams, they bring in a drug enforcement officer, they bring in people who tell about the lives of people who got addicted to drugs and how their life was really over. Parents would have the right to veto if they did not want it. That keeps us out of the ACLU and the courts. In my view, I think there are a lot of things we can be doing, and what we are doing it for is the kids. Joe Paterno is a strong proponent of drug testing. He has been coaching young men for a long, long time. On my very last time with him, as I went to leave the room, he said, Pete, you keep pushing that drug testing. I want to tell you, over my years of coaching, and I have been drug testing for some time, one year I let up and the next spring camp I saw some of my boys back from last year who I suspicioned may have at times been on drugs, and I hadn't tested much that year and I saw more signs, because as a coach he knew, he could tell by watching their play in spring camp whether they had been using drugs or not. I do not know how he told. He said, I want to tell you, I'll never make that mistake again. I continue to do more and more and more testing because testing works.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge everyone if you want forests to be healthy and be managed, to support this bill. I have heard stated here that we have mismanaged, that the Forest Service and other agencies cannot manage forests under the current law. It is impossible to manage. In the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania, the finest hardwood forest in America, we just had 10,000 to 20,000 acres of blow-down in July. It has been assessed at somewhere between $50 to $100 million in value lying on the ground. The Forest Service chief there just determined that it would be at least 3 years before he could have people there harvesting trees on the ground. Tell me that the system season broke, that it makes sense to have $100 million worth of American assets to lie there and rot because in 3 years they are of little value at all. Folks, this system is broken. We do not want judges managing our forests. We want soil scientists, fish and wildlife biologists, and all the people that our Forest Service hires. They have every kind of scientist there is managing our forests. They should make those decisions.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate those that have worked on this very complicated bill. I was pleased this morning to receive from the Governor of Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell, an endorsement of this plan. Why would a democrat governor from Pennsylvania support his plan? His people were here and reviewed it. This allows states like Pennsylvania and 20 other states who have pharmacy plans to wrap around and make a really comprehensive pharmacy program for their state with a state effort and the Federal effort. Now, those of you who come from rural America better think seriously about voting against this bill. Rural health care has been fighting for its life. This is a lifeline that will for once and forever help stabilize Medicare payments. In rural America what good does a pharmacy program do if you do not have a doctor in a hospital and a home health care agency for him or her to work in? This program does more to help rural health care than has ever been done. The urban areas of this country have had Medicare Plus Plus while rural America has had Medicare Minus Minus. An unfair system. And this bill does more to equalize that. It also preserves cancer care that has been under threat. And it brings health savings accounts that will be an offering to our businesses more seriously considering about walking away from health care because they cannot afford the current plan. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Office of the Governor, Harrisburg, PA, November 21, 2003. Hon. John Peterson, Cannon Building, Washington, DC. Dear Representative Peterson: I am writing to thank you for your efforts to develop provisions in the Medicare Prescription Drug bill to allow PACE to continue to be the primary source of drug benefits for qualifying seniors in Pennsylvania. As of early 2004, we expect approximately 325,000 Pennsylvania seniors to be in the PACE program, and we owe it to all of them to ensure the program on which they rely continues to work for them. As the Medicare drug benefit legislation had been in development, our goals have been to ensure seniors in the PACE program would be able to benefit from the new federal benefit without experiencing any changes in the way they obtain prescription drugs and without being forced through a bureaucratic process along the way. Federal legislation must allow for a seamless transition for PACE beneficiaries while at the same time allowing PACE to expand its prescription drug program and services to more of our seniors. I am informed that the language in the Medicare drug benefit bill achieves our major goals relating to the PACE program. This is good news for our constituents and I appreciate very much all the hard work you and others in the Pennsylvania delegation did to make this happen. Should the legislation ultimately be enacted, I look forward to working with you and Secretary Thompson to make sure the PACE-related provisions are implemented as we all believe they should be. Thank you again for your efforts on behalf of Pennsylvania's seniors. Sincerely, Edward G. Rendell, Governor.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time, and I would like to commend the chairman for his leadership on this issue. I know the gentleman from Ohio is a strong supporter of education. I want to congratulate the Democrats for coming aboard. Where were they in July when the chairman was funding Pell grants at the level they now want to support? Where were their votes then? Or was partisan politics more important? I think the record speaks for itself. We talk about a plateau up here, which may be a plateau in the maximum grant, but it is not a plateau in money. Last year, it was $11.365 billion; this year, $12.250 billion, almost a $1 billion increase; but that has been absorbed by the increased number of students. In fact, from the beginning of this chart we were talking about 2.9 million students, and at the end of this chart we are talking about 5 million students. So the growth in the program has been immense. Those who criticize the plateau we have reached here in the maximum grant, let us go back to 1992, to 1993 where there was a huge decrease; 1994, a continued decrease; 1995, a slight bump but still way below 1991 and 1992. I do not know what was going on then, but my colleagues were in control, and it shows the blue part here where the real money for Pell grants was not put in the budget. The increase of the maximum grant was not flat. It actually was declining over a 3-year period. So there is no decline up here, and the reason there is not growth is a strong growth in the number of students at a time when budgets are tight, but we want to congratulate my colleagues today for joining support of the House numbers. As we review the education issues, I think we had a chart up here last week on special education or whether it is Pell grants or whether it is funding for other education programs, since 1996 the Republicans have put money on the table for the youth of this country. More money in an 8- or 9-year period than has even come close to in 8 or 9 years prior to that. That chart last week on IDEA was almost the same as this, almost flat funding for 9 or 10 years, and then a strong, steady escalation. We would like to have this chart going on up, but if we had not picked up the number of students we picked up last year, we could have, because we are putting in about $1 billion. Let us join hands, but let us be fair. Pell grants are the gas and oil of education for the young people of this country, especially for the poor. They are the grants that give people help, and I can think of lots of them in my family. My younger brother was the first one to receive a college education. It was not available, Pell grants and other grants were not available in Pennsylvania when I was in high school. I never had the opportunity to go to a college. Why? I looked at being in medical school. My family was too poor. There was no State help. I looked at going into forestry and found out we could not afford that. So the minute I graduated from high school I went to work and built a life with hard work; but my younger brother went to the military; and it was through that program, after he came back from Vietnam, that he got the first college education in our family, my brother Bruce, and I am very proud of him. It took him more than 4 years to do it, took him a while to get his act together, but he got a college education because the military system assisted him. Yes, this program is vital to our future, and we are glad my colleagues are here tonight to support the Republican position that was here in July but was not adequately supported from their party. Pell grants are not about Republicans and Democrats. They are about kids, and I will stand on this record of achievement anytime. We always wish it could have been better, and the grant may have flattened out in its maximum grant; but the number of students, if we had that chart would show us continuing to go up because we have a lot more students getting them. We have a record of success. We thank my colleagues for joining us. Just wish they had been here in July.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin made a statement that I guess we were confused about. He talked about a number of students that would not get grants under this program. I wonder if he could give us that information again. We did not understand it.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, what does the gentleman mean? If a person qualifies for a Pell Grant, the program borrows money, if I understand it correctly, and then we have to replenish it. But anybody who meets the criteria of the Pell Grants will receive the Pell Grants, whether we budget enough money or not; am I correct?

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Well, Mr. Speaker, again reclaiming my time, I personally have no understanding of how a student who qualifies for a Pell Grant will not receive Pell Grants. The gentleman is talking about a number of issues here, but I think he is misleading the American public a bit with that statement. If someone qualifies for a Pell Grant, whether we adequately fund the program or not this year, it will be backfilled next year. And so I hate to leave young people in America with the perception that this budget could disqualify them from a Pell Grant, and if we did something different that they would get a Pell Grant. I think that is a little less than accurate.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this conference report and want to commend the chairman and his staff on very, very fine work. I particularly thank them for their willingness to work with those of us from Appalachian districts for funding for the Appalachian Regional Commission. That is a part of America that is very rural, it is a part of America that is struggling economically, and with the tremendous loss of manufacturing jobs recently, it is an agency that we believe needed to be funded. We are also pleased that he helped us put language in the bill that said those who receive this funding will be accountable publicly. We want to make sure that these agencies serve us, and that they are open. The language requires that their budgets, their minutes, their audited statements and public meetings be open to the press and public. We thank them for that. I also commend the committee on authorizing $2.15 billion for hydrogen fuel cells. It is a program I have supported for years. I commend the committee on authorizing $200 million for clean cities. I represent State College, Pennsylvania, which is the first bus system that will be all natural gas, and are now working toward becoming hydrogen, and are leading the way. I thank the committee for the $100 million for increased hydropower which is important. We have a lot of dams in this country which have not been harnessed and hydropower which has not been adequately utilized, and I want to particularly thank the committee for its dramatic increase for LIHEAP from $2 billion to $3.4 billion. With the high cost of natural gas and fuel oil this year, home heating is going to be a problem in cold parts of this country, and this program will be vital. I also was delighted at the $1.8 million clean coal power spending; and I want to thank the chairman and those who worked with him on Yucca Mountain. I know it is a controversial issue, but it needed legislative leadership and the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Hobson) provided that. I thank him for his work.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding me this time, and I would like to thank committee and all those involved in bringing forward this heritage region omnibus bill which includes the Oil Heritage Region bill. I come from the Oil Valley where oil was discovered. In fact, I live 5 miles from Drake's Well where the first oil well that produced oil, ever, in the world was dug. Colonel Drake, in the middle of the 19th Century, came to Titusville, and it was sort of Drake's folly. He was going to drill for oil. They could not get the drilling rigs, and so they actually dug a well 68 feet deep. And one would wonder why they chose that valley. Because that creek was already Oil Creek that ran between Oil City and Titusville, Titusville to Oil City, because that stream always had oil on it. The gas pressure, the oil sand being only 68 feet below the surface, oil was always oozing up into springs and small streams and into Oil Creek; so it was always named Oil Creek because there was always a scum of oil on Oil Creek. That valley changed the world. It changed our whole transportation system. And here 150 years later, we still use for vehicle oil, the same kind of oil that was discovered back when Drake's oil was dug. It was the home base of all the major oil companies. Every major oil company in this country has its roots in Titusville and Oil City. Cities Service and Sunoco, all of those started there. In my lifetime, the companies that used to be there, Quaker State, Pennzoil, and Kendall, were the Penn-grade crude refineries that remained because Pennsylvania-grade crude is a paraffin-based crude, not an asphalt-based crude as in other parts of the world. I want to make sure that everyone realizes that the Oil Heritage Area in no way threatens private property rights. There are those who believe that a heritage area somehow is going to take away personal private property rights. This legislation speaks clearly to that issue, that those with private property will only be involved in the heritage area if they so choose to. In our area, we have a lot of State land, local land, and Federal properties that are a part of the area, and in 1994 the State started the State Oil Heritage Area, and we are now in the process of making that the National Oil Heritage Area. Why do we want to do that? It is about preserving the history of oil. The one item that I say changed the world more than any other discovery, except, maybe today, the computer, as we look at how the computer has changed the world. Oil changed the whole world in how we travel, how we manufacture. The industrial revolution came from it, and it all started by Colonel Drake's digging a well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, Colonel Drake's Well. Drake Well Park is there. Oil Creek State Park is there. And Oil Creek today is one of the finest fishing streams in Pennsylvania. Trout and bass propagate there naturally. That is a sign of a pretty good stream. And 150 years ago, that whole area was drilled, oil wells were beside each other, and today it is a pristine State park and a beautiful area, and we just want to tell the story of oil which we think should be told and the whole world should be able to hear it.