John Shimkus

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), a primary mover on this bill.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to a member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Harper).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will just tell my friend from Florida, H.R. 2273 includes structural integrity inspection requirements on impoundments that do not exist today. They allow only those facilities that are structurally sound and operating in a protective manner to continue to operate. In this Kingston debate, what is never mentioned is that in the cleanup of the Kingston spill, all that waste went into nonhazardous landfills because they were not hazards. This is really a debate about hazardous and nonhazardous. EPA has numerous times ruled that coal combustion residual is not hazardous. That's why there's confusion. I yield 2 minutes to my colleague, also a member of the committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson).

Mr. SHIMKUS. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 2273, the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act. Fifty percent of our Nation's electricity generation comes from coal. This means that we need to do something to address the long-term disposal issues presented by these wastes. This bill is a measured, appropriate, protective response to the issue of coal waste generated to safely, responsibly, and affordably provide heat to communities across the country. The trash we throw out daily contains everything from milk cartons to household cleaning items and pesticides, all mixed and destined for the same destination. The chemical characteristics of coal ash put it somewhere in between these two extremes. For years, States have been successfully managing these nonhazardous wastes through their municipal solid waste programs. Yet even though EPA has confirmed on multiple occasions that coal ash does not trigger its own toxicity test to be labeled as hazardous, regulation was proposed by the EPA in June 2010 that would do just that. EPA's regulation would have prevented coal ash from being governed under the municipal solid waste programs despite its nonhazardous nature and EPA saying in its proposed rule that it preferred the municipal solid waste option. The results of EPA's regulations would have been devastating effects on jobs, higher utility rates at home, and crippling of a very successful emerging byproducts industry. H.R. 2273 strikes the right balance to provide certainty to producers and recyclers of coal combustion byproducts at a time when recyclers do not have time to wait. It also facilitates a safe and appropriate disposal and monitoring of coal combustion byproducts. The bill establishes, for the first time ever, comprehensive Federal standards specific to coal ash disposal. These new standards for the management and disposal of coal combustion residuals are based on existing Federal regulations issued by EPA to protect human health and the environment. H.R. 2273 provides a benchmark for States to regulate under their existing municipal solid waste programs, which are already required to meet this Federal baseline of protection. These standards will include groundwater protection and detection and monitoring, liners at landfills, corrective action when environmental damage occurs, structural stability criteria, financial assurance, and recordkeeping. EPA will continue to have an oversight role to ensure States are meeting their obligations. EPA will review the contents of a State permit program and determine whether it meets the minimum specifications set in H.R. 2273. They will also review State implementation of permit programs to make sure States are implementing a permit program meeting the minimum specifications. However, discretion will remain with the States to regulate coal ash even more stringently than the Federal standards set in H.R. 2273. And should a State fail to meet these baseline standards or decline to regulate coal ash, EPA has the authority under the bill to come into a State and operate a program. H.R. 2273 received strong 3-1 bipartisan support when it was favorably passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee. We have continued to work hard since then with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to clarify and address additional concerns reflected in the manager's amendment. This has resulted in a bipartisan product that empowers States, saves jobs, controls public and private costs, and protects people and the environment. H.R. 2273 has endorsements by a diverse stakeholder community as well from the Environmental Council of the States, State environmental officials, the beneficial use community, labor unions, and a coalition of regulated stakeholders. Mr. Chairman, some of our colleagues are going to oppose this bill based upon this information or misguided policy. That is unfortunate. We will hear plenty about that in this debate. I urge Members to pay attention to the debate as many of our Nation's environmental laws already apply to the concerns being raised. More laws requiring the same thing to be done that is required in other laws do not improve the environment nor the law. We need to be serious about that point. Most importantly, our economy continues to struggle and businesses are trying to figure out how to get out from underneath the weight of overly burdensome regulations. H.R. 2273 is a jobs bill that gives us yet another chance in the House to regulatory certainty and unemployment relief with passage of H.R. 2273. This bill protects the working men and women of this country. It encourages jobs in road building and construction industries and encourages an affordable and more secure standard of living in this country for all Americans and their families. This bill is worthy of all my colleagues' support. I urge my colleagues to vote for H.R. 2273, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2273 and to insert extraneous material.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Before I yield time to my colleague from Tennessee, let me ask the time remaining.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Chairman, for the purpose of a colloquy, I would like to yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Just to my friend from Virginia, I hope he will look at the manager's amendment, because in the manager's amendment it beefs up the list of constituents for groundwater detection and assessment monitoring specific to coal combustion residuals. This is something we received from your side of the aisle that they wanted more clarity. That's what the manager's amendment does on runoff aspects of the Clean Water Act. The other thing is, if the toxic sludge, as you had defined it, was so toxic, why did it go into municipal landfills and not into toxic landfills? The reality is the cleanup materials did not go into toxic landfills. So we just want to clear up some false statements here. I would now like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Again to my colleague and friend from West Virginia, my amendment in no way reduces the administrator's authority to take into account facility capabilities. That authority is unchanged by both my amendment and your underlying bill.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS. I appreciate the ranking member's accepting the amendment. We do think it improves the bill. I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. It's not because of the input we got from Democrats to change that original bill. So that's why. I mean, it was bipartisan.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SHIMKUS. I'm just here to speak in support of the rule. First of all, on April 14, 2011, the Subcommittee on the Environment and the Economy, which I chair, held a legislative hearing on the coal ash bill, H.R. 1391. Based on this hearing and working with Democrats in the subcommittee, we modified the bill. We changed the bill, and then we had a voice vote out of subcommittee. Then we went to the full committee, and we had a bipartisan vote in the full committee. I think at least six Democrat votes, and two more that would have had they been there for the process. So we are working together with Democrats to bring a sensible bill to the floor. If we don't do this, it's projected in the coal ash recycling industry of this country we will lose 38,000 to 119,000 jobs. So we trust the State regulators. They do it for municipal solid waste. We're just making coal ash recyclable, the same as we do for municipal solid waste. It has bipartisan support. Thank you, Rules Committee, for making the amendments in order. I think five of the six amendments are Democrat amendments. So it's not perfect, but it allows us to move forward.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor a second time, as I promised a couple of weeks ago, to talk about high-level nuclear waste in the Yucca Mountain repository. Two weeks ago I highlighted Hanford, Washington, a DOE site that has 53 million gallons of nuclear waste--53 million gallons of nuclear waste that's stored 10 feet underground in tanks that are leaking. The waste is 250 feet above the water table and the waste is 1 mile from the Columbia River, versus Federal law which said in 1982 that Yucca Mountain should be our national repository. Now let's look at Yucca Mountain. Right now there's no nuclear waste on site. The waste would be stored a thousand feet underground. The waste is a thousand feet above the water table, and the waste would be 100 miles from the Colorado River; 100 miles versus 1 mile, high-level nuclear waste, especially with Hanford where you have nuclear waste that actually is leaking outside the tanks. So then my response was: What are the Senators in these two States doing and what's their position? The reason why we're not moving to Yucca Mountain is because of one U.S. Senator, the majority leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, who has blocked the movement of Yucca Mountain. Obviously, these Senators have an interest because of the Columbia River, and I was trying to encourage them, through the use of the bully pulpit, that this was a time to move to get this resolution resolved, especially after Fukushima Daiichi, everybody following the tragedy in Japan, and part of that was high-level nuclear waste in storage ponds right on site. Since then, I have been able to get a few quotes from these Senators, or researched them. Senator Cantwell said: ``The National Academy of Sciences has concluded that the best approach is to bury nuclear waste deep underground. Since that conclusion, Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been chosen as the national repository.'' Senator Murray said this: ``I believe that it is irresponsible for the Department of Energy to discontinue the Yucca program altogether, its funding, licensing and design.'' Senator Wyden has said: ``I don't see that (Yucca Mountain will reopen). I think that there'll be an effort to look at new technologies and on-site storage and a whole host of approaches, but I don't think that's going to happen.'' So Senator Wyden is accepting this in Hanford, a mile from the Columbia River. Senator Merkley has been quiet, as far as we could find from the Google search pairing his name and any Yucca Mountain comments. Now, lest people think I'm picking on the Northwest, let me go to my home State of Illinois. So one facility, Zion Nuclear Power Station, it's a decommissioned plant but there's still 65 casks containing 1,135 metric tons of nuclear waste, versus Yucca Mountain, which has zero. The waste at Zion is stored above the ground; the waste at Yucca Mountain would be a thousand feet below the surface. The waste at Zion is 5 feet above the water table; the waste at Yucca Mountain would be a thousand feet. The waste at Yucca Mountain is 100 miles from the Colorado River; the waste from Zion is 1,300 feet from Lake Michigan. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that Yucca Mountain is safer than storing high-level nuclear waste next to Lake Michigan. So what have our Senators said? Well, let's start with Senator Durbin. He's quoted as saying: ``There are a lot of options out there. But I have supported Yucca in the past, and I am not walking away from that. I just think we need to consider other options as well.'' I want him to obviously continue to consider Yucca Mountain. Senator Kirk has said: ``I think in the end Congress needs to fight and win the battle to build the Yucca Mountain facility so that we can store nuclear waste 1,000 feet below the surface.'' I agree. Senator Kohl is quoted as saying: ``This site, on the Nevada nuclear test site''--that's what people don't know is that Yucca Mountain is also the Nevada nuclear test site. That's where we tested the nuclear bombs during the nuclear arms race and the nuclear age. So Senator Kohl is correct in saying: ``This site, on the Nevada nuclear test site, is certainly safer than leaving the waste at 132 sites nationwide, sites scattered around the country that were never designed to be a permanent solution.'' Senator Johnson is silent.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. I would just ask my friends, does that make sense that we are now going to import cement at higher cost from countries who aren't complying with these rules and regulations? I think not. This debate is about jobs and the economy. Now is not the time to ratchet down these rules so we make it more difficult to create jobs, keep jobs, and grow this economy.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to come down here to thank the Rules Committee for the modified open rule and a chance for us to go through this bill bit by bit, amendment by amendment, to address concerns that my friends on the other side of the aisle might have about this. I am following my good friend from Oregon, and I appreciate his passion. But I come to the floor to talk about the jobs. And the EPA, whom I've also rallied against numerous times, produced the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule in July. The result of that is two power plants in Illinois are closing. One is 369 megawatts, and the other one is 302 megawatts. That means 671 megawatts of basal power is going to be offline. If you understand the law of supply and demand--less supply plus similar demand or higher demand equals higher costs--then it's very easy to project higher energy costs for everybody across this country because of that rule. Secondly, the job losses. In the first plant, 14 management and 39 union-represented employees will lose their jobs. That's at plant number one. At plant number two, eight management and 29 union- represented employees will lose their jobs. We do this and we come down and we have these debates on the role of the EPA so that we can have the debate about jobs in this economy. This is not the time--in fact, I have asked the President, the best thing he could do for his own reelection and for the country is stop doing things. Put a hold on new rules and new regulations and let the economy recover. Let's put people back to work. Let's make these power plants that are employing these folks still have jobs. Let's make sure the tax base in these small rural communities that these power plants pay taxes to still have that property tax revenue going. Boiler MACT is another example of what we did last week, and these effects on job losses are real. This announcement was done today. Boiler MACT will affect a lot of municipal power plants who have a contractual obligation with their citizens saying we will locally produce power. And so they are breaking contract with their citizens. The Cement MACT is another example of when we talk about jobs and infrastructure. The result of these cement plants closing is that we will import cement.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, this marks the first of what I hope to be many times to address you and my colleagues on an issue that I have been graced with having the responsibility to deal in the public policy arena, and that's the issue of nuclear waste. When people talk about nuclear waste and this debate about where it is and why it's there, they primarily talk about our nuclear utilities. Especially after Fukushima Daiichi, people understand that when you store high-level nuclear waste onsite and if there's a disaster that occurs and if the pools run dry, then you might have a melting which might spread radioactivity, and that's not good for anybody. That's a good debate to have because we have nuclear waste stored all over this country. But I'm not here really to talk about the private for-profit sector, the nuclear industry today. I'm here to tell another story, another story that really talks about why we have government and why there's still a need for some government entities. Back during World War II--and we just heard my colleague talk about the Honor Flights--back during World War II, we decided as a Nation to win these wars. One way to make sure that we wouldn't lose thousands upon thousands of soldiers in an invasion of Japan was to develop the nuclear bomb. Two were dropped; the war ended. Many people historically know that development, that occurred because of the Manhattan Project. What I think a lot of people don't know is that we still are dealing with much of the history of winning the war in the Manhattan Project and that winning the Cold War relied upon a strong military and a strong nuclear deterrence. So even after World War II, we continued to develop nuclear weapons, which we deal with today. So I had a chance to visit during our last district work period, I took a day and visited a place called Hanford, Washington. Hanford, Washington was part of the Manhattan Project. Hanford was the site that the U.S. military picked to help produce plutonium. The ``Fat Man'' bomb was developed there. That area was picked for a lot of reasons. There weren't a lot of people there. As you can see, the Columbia River is right next to it. You had some low-cost power production, and so it was a good site. And, hence, people got moved off the land, the government took over, and the government has been controlling hundreds of acres in Washington State even today. The result of the Cold War and winning World War II is that millions of gallons of nuclear waste now reside in Hanford, Washington. And I'm not exaggerating. In fact, 53 million gallons of nuclear waste is onsite. And what's interesting about Hanford, of course, when you started storing this nuclear waste, our technology, our information, our knowledge was not as great as it is now. The way we stored this material then would not be an acceptable process today. It is an environmental disaster and a hazard that has to be cleaned up. You have approximately 174 storage tanks. These storage tanks are from 750,000 gallons to a million gallons, all with nuclear waste in these tanks. These tanks are buried, as it says here, 10 feet underground and 250 feet above the water table, a mile from the Columbia River. Some of these tanks are leaking. It's just not a good thing for us to have. And so the government has been trying to deal with this one site of nuclear waste in this country. Why do I bring this before you, Mr. Speaker, and why is this important? Because in 1982, part of the process of dealing with Hanford was to pass a law. The law was called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and in that law it says, We've got a solution. We're going to collect all the high-level nuclear waste, and we have a storage facility that we're going to place it in. And that place is Yucca Mountain. Now, many of you may have heard about Yucca Mountain before. I've visited it twice. Yucca Mountain is in a desert, and it's a mountain. So I do the side-by-side comparisons here. Right now at Hanford we have 53 million gallons of nuclear waste on site. Yucca Mountain, which is a site we designed, we picked. We studied for decades. We spent $12.5 billion. We currently have no nuclear waste there. The nuclear waste at Hanford is stored 10 feet underground. The nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain would be stored a thousand feet underground. The nuclear waste at Hanford is 250 feet above the groundwater. The nuclear waste at Yucca will be stored a thousand feet above the water table. The nuclear waste at Hanford is a mile from the Columbia River. The closest river to Yucca Mountain is the Colorado River, which is 100 miles away. I'll come back to this floor throughout the year and highlight different locations around the country where there's waste and start pleading with my colleagues to help us stop two people--the President of the United States and Majority Leader Harry Reid. Majority Leader Reid has blocked our ability to continue to move forward and take nuclear waste from around this country and place it underneath a mountain in a desert. This location is exhibit number 1. There is no more compelling location in this country that cries out for this waste to be moved than Hanford. In fact, in the clean-up process, the scientific design of the casks that will be used to clear out these 53 million gallons of waste and put into storage containers, they are designed specifically for Yucca Mountain. Again, we have spent $12.5 billion to prepare this site to receive nuclear waste. The House went on record this year on a vote in the appropriation bill for energy and water and said, yes, Yucca Mountain is still where we believe high-level nuclear waste ought to go. And that vote was 297 Members voting to increase funding to complete the safety review of the DOA application so that Yucca Mountain could move forward. One Senator is blocking this, one Senator from the State of Nevada. But it's time for the other Senators from these other States who are affected, regardless of their party, to say, ``I don't want this high- level nuclear waste in my State. We have a Federal law to move it to underneath a mountain in a desert.'' And it's time for them to stand up and be counted. That's why this is my first trip to the well identifying one location in this country, I think the most compelling argument for Yucca Mountain, and it's not even tied to that nuclear power generating for-profit industry. It is tied to our World War II legacy and the environment and the health of not only the land here in Washington State but also the great Columbia River. So who are we asking to stand up and be counted and help us move this? Well, we just happen to have four U.S. Senators, two from the State of Washington, two from the State of Oregon: Senator Cantwell; Senator Murray; Senator Wyden; and Senator Merkley. Now, if you look at this site, the Columbia River, those of you who know your geography know that the Columbia River, when it gets closer to the west side of the State, separates the State of Oregon and the State of Washington, to the north. North of the Columbia is Washington State, south is Oregon. These Senators need to step up to the plate, and these Senators need to do their job. They need to speak to the majority leader. We understand the majority leader who wants to protect the State of Nevada. So I'm not trying to lift mountains that I can't personally lift. But what I can do is start making the clarion call to Senators around this country who have high-level nuclear waste in their States when we have already spent $12.5 billion for a single repository, and as I've said numerous times, underneath a mountain in a desert. The numbers here in Washington--on the House side, we have an overwhelming majority. In the other body, their majority is not as big as it once was. And because of that, these centers are even empowered more to be able to go to their leader and plead for their State and make the compelling argument. Again, if you can't make it for Hanford, you can't make it for anywhere. I'm from southern Illinois. I don't have a nuclear facility in my congressional district, although I am from the State of Illinois, and Illinois is a huge nuclear power State. We have six locations, 11 reactors. So we have high-level nuclear waste stored 40 miles from downtown Chicago. Now, does that make sense? Does that make sense in a day when we've already spent $12 billion to prepare, locate, research a single repository that can be kept safe, secure, and stored? It doesn't make sense. So that's why in the coming weeks you'll see other posters like this. I'll definitely keep this one. But we'll compare Yucca Mountain to downtown Chicago. We'll compare Yucca Mountain to Boston, Massachusetts. We'll compare Yucca Mountain to Savannah, Georgia. If you live in a State and may not have a nuclear power plant, you may very well have the legacy of World War II Manhattan-type projects and nuclear waste that has to be stored elsewhere than in the place where it is today. As the chairman of the Environment and the Economy Subcommittee, my congressional responsibility is that of nuclear waste. It is a challenge for this country. It is a challenge that we already have a plan to deal with. In fact, ratepayers of States that have nuclear power have been paying an additional charge on their utility bills to prepare Yucca Mountain to receive this waste. To have one man and a President who's complicit in his design to stop this is not in the best interest of this country, and I will continue to come down to the well to fight this fight so that we take full advantage of the great resources we have and follow up on the planning and the funding that we've done for decades to have a single repository. With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I do apologize to my friend from California for coming late and kind of disrupting what was planned to be a closing, but this is an important debate, and my colleague from California and I have crossed sabers many times on these issues. I don't question his commitment to the environment and the regs and rules and the like. As he knows, I'm from southern Illinois. I'm from an area that was devastated in the jobs issue and during the 1992 Clean Air Act, and I'm from an area of the country that still is not being all it can be based upon the excessive rules and regulations that come out of Washington, D.C. The TRAIN Act is really a first step to help us ask a simple question: Shouldn't we, as an interagency process, shouldn't we at least ask the basic question of what effect is this going to have on jobs and what effect will it have on our competitiveness worldwide? It is really a basic debate. It's a good one to have. I applaud the chairman for bringing this to the floor. We need an up-or-down vote because, as much as we want clean air, we would like jobs. They're not exclusionary. We can do both. We have the cleanest environment that anyone has seen in decades in this country, and it is attributed to the work that past Congresses have done. But the difference is this, that in today's environment--well, let's go back. Three decades ago, when you wanted to clean up 50 percent of the emissions, you could make the capital investments and you could do it. The debate now is: How clean is clean? What is the cost benefit analysis and what is the effect on jobs if we get to a limit that you don't find naturally? What the TRAIN Act basically does is it says, before we promulgate more rules and more regulations, we ought to at least admit the fact that it may affect our competitiveness in our economic position. We ought to accept the premise that if you continue to put more rules and regulations on electric generation, that electricity costs are going to go up. What does that do to the manufacturing sector? I think that's what this bill is just asking. If we find out these answers and we figure out that the economic costs outweigh the environmental benefit, well maybe we better slow down. If we decide the environmental benefits are so great that we're willing to accept the cost, then we ought to move forward. But for us not to have this debate is not doing our job and it is not doing our duty. I am really pleased that we've brought this bill to the floor. We've had numerous hearings. We've gone through the legislative process. I appreciate Speaker Boehner and the openness because we've had hearings. We had a subcommittee mark. We've had a full committee mark. We've had this debate on amendments to this bill, and now we're ready to have this debate on the floor. The last hearing we had in Chairman Whitfield's committee was on the reliability issue, and I took to task the chairman of the FERC who, in their own analysis, said that if we continue to move on this regulatory regime, 80 gigawatts of power is going to go offline. Now, EPA did the analysis, and they said eight. So you've got a tenfold difference. Well, maybe they're both wrong. Maybe it's 40 gigawatts. My friends, 40 gigawatts is a lot of power and will affect the reliability of the electricity grid in this country. We rely on that reliability for a lot of things. We rely upon it in the manufacturing sector and the manufacturing facilities, but we also rely upon the reliability in the safety of our citizens who are in the hospitals and in long-term care who need power to those facilities just for their livelihood. So if our aggressive environmental movement takes away 80 gigawatts of power, will that affect our electricity reliability? I think it will. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, it's been more than 9 months since the December 19 brutal and bloody crackdown on the opposition in Belarus. Human rights of ordinary Belarusan citizens continue to be denied. Nine political prisoners still exist. Nikolay Statkevich, Andrey Sannikaw, Dmitri Uss, Dmitri Bandarenka, Dmitri Dashkevich, Eduard Lobov, Pavel Severinetz, Ales Belyatsky and Mikalai Autukovich remain in prison, and President Lukashenka is using them to bargain for economic assistance with the international community. Anatoly Lyabedska, leader of the United Civic Party, described the conditions in the KGB pre-trial detention facility as being cruel and inhumane, and the authorities' actions against opposition activities as being brutal. For the first time in 17 years, people in Belarus are looking for a real alternative and asking for democratic change. It is now time to invest in democracy in Belarus. The existing window for the opposition might be temporary. People in Belarus need our support, and we have to be with them until the end of this existing brutal regime.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 30th Anniversary of the founding of the Baltic American Freedom League, an important national Baltic American organization. The Baltic American Freedom League (BAFL) was founded in February 1981 by Baltic American political activists in southern California to raise American consciousness about Baltic issues and to carry out specific and concrete goals and projects toward helping achieve freedom for the Soviet occupied Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In 1982, BAFL initiated a Congressional resolution asking President W. Reagan to designate June 14, 1982 as Baltic Freedom Day--reiterating U.S. non-recognition of the forcible and illegal incorporation of the Baltic Republics into the U.S.S.R. This Proclamation continued each year until the Baltic countries regained their independence in 1991. Due to the combined efforts of BAFL, other Baltic organizations, and the Senate and House Baltic Caucuses, the Senate passed SCR 35 on May 19, 2005, and the House of Representatives unanimously adopted H.R. 128 on July 22, 2005; historic resolutions stating that ``. . . it is the sense of Congress that the Government of the Russian Federation should issue a clear and unambiguous statement of admission and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 of the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the consequences of which will be significant increase in good will among the affected people''. In February 1997, at the request of BAFL, a Baltic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives was organized by me and my colleague, Congressman Kucinich of Ohio. The Caucus currently has 55 House Members and has played and continues to play an important role in supporting Baltic issues. Since November 17, 2008, the citizens of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have been able to travel to the U.S. without obtaining visas, thanks to BAFL and other Baltic organizations, and all those in Congress whose dedication and persistent work overcame strong opposition, and persuaded the U.S. to expand its Visa Waiver Program to include the Baltic countries. I want to congratulate the Baltic American Freedom League and all its members, past and present, on this 30th anniversary celebration, and to join with other Members of this House in wishing them continued success for another 30 years and beyond.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I am not coming down here to blame one side or the other for the financial position that we are in because we all have a part to play in the story, but this is a great day. I was also asked earlier about how I felt about today, and I told them I felt relieved. I was afraid of the credit markets. I was afraid of rising interest rates. Whatever recovery we are having, I was afraid that it could stem that tide. So I do feel a great relief. This is one of the few times, in the 103 times that we have actually cut spending, when we tried in attempting to raise the debt limit. We can no longer continue to spend and borrow 42 cents of every dollar that we spend. It's ridiculous, and this is starting to change that process. We are going to have discretionary cuts. We are going to have entitlement reforms. I do like the supercommittee: bicameral, bipartisan, equally divided. When have we had a committee where we have equally divided the decision-making not upon majority and minority side, but equally divided, three Republicans, three Democrats in the House; three Republicans, three Democrats in the Senate? If this committee can't start addressing our entitlement reforms, then I am afraid we are never going to do it. So I have great faith in my colleagues who will be put on this committee. We really have to make the great choices. I appreciate the Rules Committee for bringing this to the floor, and my good friend, David Dreier. And I hope that we will continue to move forward, pass the rule, and pass the bill.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, we are in an historic heat wave in this country, and I'm not talking about the debate on the debt limit, I'm actually talking about the temperature outside. And what's noted is that many leaders throughout this country--whether they're local Mayors or Governors--are saying, if you're poor, get to a cooling shelter, stay inside, stay in the air conditioning. Well, we're fortunate in this country to have low-cost power generated by coal. In rural Illinois, the average salary is $58,000 a year, the average utility bill is $121 a month, which means they pay about $1,500 a year for the utility cost. However, in France, they pay 20 cents per kilowatt hour. Just think what the cost would be here if we had to double our electricity rates. Talk about a burden on the poor and rural Americans when, instead of $1,500 a year, they would have to pay $3,000 a year just to seek relief from these hot summers.

Mr. SHIMKUS

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I taught high school government and history for 4 years. For a bill to become a law, it must pass both Chambers, and then it must be signed by the President. The House has now passed two bills which raise the debt ceiling, cut spending, and address a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. This historical reform for the first time ties a debt increase to a cut in spending. It is long past time for the Senate to pass something. Their negligence threatens the fiscal health of this Nation. Once they do, we can conference the bills, which is where compromises are then resolved. Or we can pick up their bill. But until then, the world waits.