Ralph Regula

Mr. REGULA

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

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, the point was made that the industry should make their own expenditures, and I want to point out to the Members that for every dollar of Federal money in the Clean Coal Technology program, there are two dollars of private money. This has been a partnership, but it has been a partnership where industry has carried the heavy end of it, and we have had some real successes. I wish I could take every Member to Tampa, Florida, to visit the plant that was built under this Clean Coal Technology program. It is a greenfield plant. The efficiency is probably almost double that of the normal plant, and the emissions are very negligible. They capture every part of a lump of coal, the sulfur, the various other components. As I said, I was there. They are getting everything but the squeal out of that lump of coal, and they are doing it under a very efficient system. So it does work. It is an important program, because as we talk about the continued effort to clean up our air, to clean up our water, we need to have a clean coal program on stream. Let me point out that whatever else we may think about it, we are going to be using coal for the foreseeable future as a major source of power generation. Our committees invested a lot of money in boiler technology, in addition, to the clean coal technology, because we have a plentiful supply of coal. Perhaps in actual BTUs, the coal supply of the United States is the equivalent of most of the known oil in the world today. If we are to have energy independence, if we are to have electricity to fuel a growing economy, we need to use coal and to use coal in a clean, environmentally safe way. It requires clean coal technology. Many of these projects are under way. I do not think it is an appropriate time to take out the money or to make it difficult for the Energy Department to continue on the Clean Coal Program. A few weeks ago or a few days ago, we voted to bring China into the WTO. One of the compelling reasons was that China could grow the economy and become a market for United States products. China alone plans to build eight to 10 power plants a year, a year, eight to 10 a year for the next 20 years. That is 160 power plants. 75 percent of those will burn coal, because this is the fuel that they have. If my colleagues are concerned about the environment, I think it is essential that we develop this technology. We will have a market for it in China, and not only will we have a market in the process of cleaning up the air in China, this, of course, adds to the cleaning of air in our global environment. For those who talk about Kyoto and the Kyoto Protocol, the premise is that any impact on the environment of air emissions, wherever it occurs in the world, has a deleterious impact on all of us. If we can use this technology, sell it to China, persuade them to use it in the generation of power as they expand their economy, we will be doing ourselves a favor, not only economically, but in terms of the environment. For all of these reasons, I urge Members to vote no on this amendment. I do not think it is an appropriate time to give up on the technology that has such an enormously bright future.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my point of order that a quorum is not present. So the amendment was rejected. Amendment No. 28 Offered by Mr. Sanders

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I want to advise Members about the schedule, at least as we best know it for the time being. We are planning to go forward on the amendments and possibly have some votes prior to 6:30, if we can get some of these out of the way; and then it is my understanding that we will roll votes until about 9:30 because of the Members that are going to the Kennedy Center for an event. I would hope we can keep going and then finish tonight, because I know if we can get finished with this bill, we will do a great deal to expedite the time of getting out of here tomorrow. I know many Members would like to get on their way at a decent time tomorrow night. So if everybody will help and cooperate, I think we can get this bill finished tonight.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, this amendment reflects an agreement between the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and myself on an amendment, and I urge the Members to support it.

Mr. REGULA. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to return to page 49 to offer an amendment on behalf of the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and myself.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I want to advise the membership of what we are doing. We have an agreement that has been agreed to between the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and myself, and I have a colloquy, and then we have two votes on amendments that have been rolled, and that will complete the activities tonight. Then we will get time agreements to start tomorrow morning, as soon as the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs have completed their markup. We are going to make every effort to finish this bill tomorrow. We have to finish it tomorrow, but will attempt to do so in order to get people out of here in time to make their airplane connections. So we have no more debate on this amendment, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. REGULA. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. REGULA. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, let us defer that one.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. We are in agreement with this amendment. I think it reaches the intent of what we are trying to do in the committee, and that is to provide funding to match what the State of Florida is doing in land acquisition. This does not remove it, but rather ensures that the money that we have appropriated from all the taxpayers in the United States will be used to benefit a resource that is very valuable to the people of this Nation, namely: the Everglades National Park. This goes to make sure that the money we appropriate goes to the kind of purpose that the constituents, the people of this Nation, would find very desirable. I commend the gentleman for the language, and I am willing to accept the amendment.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that debate and votes on the gentleman's amendment and all amendments thereto be temporarily put aside, without prejudice, and that it be the first order of new business after 9:30 this evening.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, with the consent of the parties here, if we could defer this amendment, I would ask unanimous consent to return to this section at some later point, and allow some time to see if we can reach a meeting of the minds on the language that accomplishes the objectives of all the parties.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) and also Mrs. Clark, Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, for working with the gentleman in a very bipartisan fashion to solve a problem that affects the people in the gentleman's district. I think it is a great example of how government officials, executive and legislative, can work together to do something that is beneficial to the people. We hear so much about the lack of bipartisanship, but this is a great example that it does work.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) understand that the decision rests with BLM? This is permissive authority for them to deal with the problem in the event, for lack of resources, both monetary and manpower that they would not be able to address all of the permits that have an environmental consideration. We are simply giving them some latitude to make the decision, but they do not have to do this. I do not think it gives the permitees any standing because they have to negotiate with BLM. This is language similar to what we had negotiated with the President last year and just simply recognizing that the task was so huge they may not be able to effectively renegotiate all of these permits within the time allocated.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, this amendment decreases construction funding for the Escalante Science Center by $1 million. It is not quite ready to go forward. It increases funding for the National Trail Center in Casper, Wyoming, which we had an oversight on and had previously committed to do. The Members involved in this switch are both in agreement with it, and I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to return to page 5, line 12, to offer an amendment.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, just recently this body voted on a bill called CARA, which would spend almost $4 billion annually on a lot of worthy causes. That money is to be generated from royalties on oil wells on Federal property. What we are saying here, in part, is that it is incumbent on the Federal Government to support some research to make these wells even more productive to get more of the resource, which will support the CARA bill.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.