Allyson Schwartz

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. And I'll just also end by saying thank you very much, Mr. Inslee, for joining me and for helping, I hope, being able to talk about what is such an important issue for every American, and that is how to create less expensive, more available, more home-grown energy. So thank you very much for joining me this evening, and I look forward to getting this done with you.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. It is not using our imagination and our skills to move forward. And, also, I will just second the point you made. I do feel very strongly that the public buildings, for example, and our public procurement, that is what we buy, we should be setting an example. We should be practicing what we preach. We should be doing as best we can. Again, it is not so easy for us to change our patterns, you know, what we are used to doing. Someone said, when gasoline prices were so high, one of the suggestions we were trying to make to people is if you are going to run your errands, try to be more efficient in the way you drive and do that. You could save yourself a few gallons of gasoline every week, several a month. That could make a difference. Think about carpooling. It is hard to change our own patterns, and I think that is true in government, too. We should be setting an example that when we actually build a new building, that it is more energy-efficient; when we change light bulbs, and I think there were just some changes made in some of the hallways and some of the office buildings, but are we encouraged to turn the lights off? We keep a lot of lights on every night. What would that save if, in fact, we had these all on timers or motion detectors? We should be thinking about this in a way, because if each of us reduced our energy consumption by 10 percent, maybe some of us could even do better, we could have a dramatic impact on the amount of energy and fuel we would need. So, again, this isn't picking and choosing. This isn't saying, I am going to blame individuals for not doing all they can. We are not blaming anyone. The idea is for us to really use all of our power, if I can use that word, all of our power to make it clear that we want less costly, more efficient fuel for all of our needs. And we are going to have these needs. We are going to need this energy for our needs. They are not going to get fewer. There are more of us, more people, more densely populated, and we need to figure this out and do so in a way that doesn't just say let us just give a little more subsidy to the oil industry. If we just took the subsidies, $8 billion, $9 billion from the oil industry, maybe collected those royalties for offshore drilling from the oil industry, and said let us take that money and invest it in these new technologies and invest it in renewables, use the incentives so people will build buildings that will be more fuel-efficient and energy-efficient, what would that do for us? In fact, what we know is that that is really significant. The amount of reduction in energy needs would be really significant and would have an impact. And at the same time, we would be learning better what, in fact, works best for us so we would be able to move ahead. I just want to say one more thing, and then I want to reflect on some of this, too. I think we also have to say to people that we have done this. I think you are right to use the example of the man on the moon, but we have even done smaller things; for instance, when we found out that lead in paint was extremely harmful to kids in this country. We didn't always know that. There was lead in paint, and we all painted with that, used that paint, but, in fact, those paint chips actually caused brain damage for our kids. Well, we did something about it. It didn't happen immediately. People finally had to get outraged by it. Members of Congress finally had to stand up and say, you know what we are going to do, we are going to take lead out of paint. Now, originally people said, I don't think we can do that. I don't think we have the technology to do that; how do we do that? Well, some smart people got together and figured out how to do it, and they did. We don't allow lead to be put in our paint anymore. We don't have chlorofluorocarbons anymore, because we realized it was causing a big hole in the ozone layer. It took a while for us to agree to do something about that, and some people said, oh, it is not really a problem, but it turns out it was a problem, and the fact is we could fix it, and we did. So I just want to reflect on that because people sometimes think this is just too big. I can't do it, you can't do it, how are we going to do it? But the fact is we can if we get serious about it. If we understand the different roles of the private and public sector, we can actually do something really dramatic about creating less expensive, more home- based energy.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. I think this is something that is so exciting I think for all of us. It is something I have been excited about, too. We see the National Science Foundation being able to do some of this research, and again, some of the funding we give to scientific research is done by scientists who work for the government. So it is also given out in grants that are then either given out all over the country to innovators who are doing this kind of work, but then because we are involved in it, we have scientists sort of talking to each other, being able to give that information back on a national level, being able to share that information, being able to again act more quickly on that shared information to see what is working and what is most effective and cost effective and actually what is fuel effective. These are, I think, really exciting, exciting options for all of us. It is something we can do, but again, I think we should be clear, we are not doing it now. That is detrimental to all of us, not just because when we go right today to fill up our tank we are paying $3 or more a gallon and because the vehicles we drive are not as fuel efficient as they could be and the homes we live in are not as efficient either as they could be. It is because we actually have not gotten serious about taking this next step and we need to. We need to again because of the high cost to our families. If you look at families that are paying several hundred dollars more, in some cases several thousand dollars more, those are really tough decisions for a lot of our families in this country, what do we do and how do we make ends meet when we have these concerns. I hope they are hearing us. We want you to push us. You should push us. You should push this administration to do more. Again, you pointed out the oil and gas industry could be a part of this. They should be a part of this because they also have scientists. They could be more fuel efficient. They should be.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Just to be a little political here for a moment, because you brought up, I think, how do we take what we are saying and make it happen. I mean, that really is sort of what we are talking about; and again, we are starting to sound sort of hopeful, optimistic, and it sounds like a lot of new terms for a lot of people, but I think we will increasingly get comfortable with some of this discussion. You know we can do that, and I think that is one of the reasons that I am on the floor tonight. It is one of the reasons that Mr. Inslee joined me. We want to get more familiar with this terminology. What are the alternative fuels? What are the choices they have? What is the flexible fuel vehicle? What are the kinds of options that I have out there in the future? What should I be asking for? How can I save energy at home? How can I save energy for business? How can we encourage businesses to do that? And what is the role of government in all of this? I think what is exciting here is that there are so many of these ideas out there that if, in fact, we can encourage businesses to push even harder, to move even faster, push automobile manufacturers to higher fuel efficiency, if we went to 33-miles per gallon rather than 22 or whatever we sit at right now, we would save literally 2.6 million barrels of oil per day by 2025. You say, well, that is a long time from now. If we start now, we will start to do it. We should start to do it. We really have this opportunity to do it, and in fact, we know how to make those vehicles. We can make more fuel-efficient SUVs. So if Americans want to buy the SUVs, we can make them fuel efficient. The fact is we have brought these ideas, brought them up as amendments and bills, and we want to work together to make this happen. This should not be a fight about do we ever use oil again or do we only go to you get to live in a green building or not. It is about moving all of us forward so that we can use less energy, use it more efficiently, bring down the costs for Americans, be more self-reliant. Knowing that we can do this, our role is to recognize the innovation out there, to create the incentive, to encourage it to move much, much faster so, in fact, we can make this happen. Occasionally we have to set some of the rules. I mean, sometimes we cannot bring people along. You do have to set rules out there to help make it happen, and to help make it happen much, much faster; but the fact is that this is very much a part of the Democratic agenda to be able to again use our innovation and to use our smarts to make this happen. I see the pamphlet that you have, and I will maybe yield over, but I know one of the things we are talking about that we have not brought up today is we do need to encourage our young people to be well-educated in science and engineering and technology. We know that that is so important to our future for all of us that if we do not start making sure that our young people and some of the old people who are maybe going back to school or have some new training and education that we actually encourage this so that we do have the best and the brightest who are putting their minds to this work, and that is what we are hoping to make happen as well.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. I was going to bring up another aspect of all of this discussion. I think also that sometimes when people hear these kind of conversations, they think, well, it is not really about me. What can I do that would really affect carbon emissions in this world? You know, how can I actually help save the planet and create more energy sources? But the fact is, and if we could just talk about this for a minute, there is a lot that people can do. And, again, I am reflecting back. I remember when we first started talking about recycling, and I remember some of my colleagues would say, well, no one is going to want to bother doing that. And now people are doing this all across the country, and it actually makes you much more aware. It is something you can do. It saves cost at some level. But when you think about what some individuals can do related to energy, and I thought we could talk about that. Again, if you are a business owner, there is so much you can do in your own plant potentially to be able to reduce your energy consumption so that you could reduce your costs. All of us know about if you can weatherize your home. Well, I just went to visit a new building in my district that is actually on the campus of a university that they just built a green building. Well, I think I have seen green buildings, you know. They have sort of motion detector electric lights, or they have more efficient plumbing appliances and all that. But this building, actually the roof looked like it had grass on it. It had green plants on the roof. It was new to me. I didn't know that that existed. But they said this isn't new. This is something we are experimenting with, but, in fact, it is not just grass, it is a little more complicated than that. But it is going to reduce their need for heating and cooling that building dramatically. Dramatically. So if you could, I don't know what the number was, cut it in half, cut it 80 percent. They are trying to perfect this, of course. My guess is that they are going to be able to come up with something as we experiment with these ideas that we can do in our homes, in our businesses, in our public spaces. And we should be leaders in that as public officials, as elected officials. This is something we should be doing because we know how important it is. And we know that we should learn from each other. We always talk about best practices. Well, we should start to scale up on this, as they say. We should start to say: If it is working in this State, why isn't it working somewhere else? And the States are innovative to change. We are interested to hear what you are talking about in terms of the State of Washington. We are proud in Pennsylvania that we have wind farms and they are working, that they are working, as I said, on clean coal, that we are creating incentives for businesses to be able to reduce their costs of energy. Public transportation obviously is something we are not even getting into here, but some of the newer technologies on that. But just to comment on what we can do. I know there is a Federal program, I don't think it is known well enough, called Energy Start, where you can buy more efficient appliances. Businesses can get credits, tax credits, for being more energy-efficient. So as you pointed out, there are little starts here, but if we really want to get serious about this, we have to start talking about it, making it clear that everyone, every business, every family, and certainly our bigger businesses can really start to participate in this in a way that will start to really make the kind of difference that will see us shifting to these new energy sources and reducing our reliance on foreign oil.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. They did the same thing they have been doing.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Absolutely. And I think that that says how good this can be for business, both the cost of the new businesses that are created as a result of what we are talking about, but I really also means jobs. Coming from Pennsylvania, and I was in the State senate for 14 years before coming to Congress, and we would often have a debate when we discussed some of these changes that we wanted to in terms of auto emissions and how we would respond to this, and what if we actually put more regulation on businesses, wouldn't we lose jobs? And how will we be able to protect the environment and not lose jobs? And in Pennsylvania it was a really serious issue. And I remember having those debates on the floor of senate, and yet by not moving ahead, we, in fact, lost some of those jobs anyway and didn't create new ones. And I think what we are talking about here is let us create those new jobs. If you have an innovative entrepreneur of a company, well, they are going to hire people who then get jobs that potentially will grow into more jobs and more jobs. And these are often skilled jobs, they are decent-paying jobs. And if as a result they end with a product, new energies, new ways for us to both fuel our vehicles and also heat our home, and at the same time reduce some of these really serious carbon emissions and be able to home-grow some of our energy, more of our energy, while we are really doing a lot, and we are at the same time reducing costs, We are reducing costs to our businesses. And now some will say to me, if we could just reduce the cost of our energy, well, then maybe I could hire that additional person that I am trying to do. You hear that all the time, just bringing down the cost of electricity or being able to bring down your home heating or heating for business, that action may produce enough residual money for someone to be able to create a new job or two or maybe many more jobs. So I think we have to see this as just an extraordinarily potential win-win for all of us. And, again, creating that diversity of options for people and the kind of energy, maybe more choices, meaning that there will be a little more competition, means that prices might come down. That helps all of us. But I think what we have to say is this about creating new businesses, creating new jobs, and at the same time creating new sources of energy that could be both safer for the environment and also be able to be far more available without our having to have those serious kinds of negotiations that might get in the way of some of our more international relationships. And this isn't about being an isolationist when we talk about other countries. The idea is to share some of these innovations. And we have seen that, too. Talk about the high-tech industry, well, it is actually some of our ideas that are now being produced elsewhere. But it is our ideas, and we need to work and bring all those ideas together, create those jobs, create those opportunities, and help our businesses be able to be competitive, because without reducing energy costs, they simply won't be able to.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. A couple things on what you say. One is that I think we also ought to make clear, and I know in your proposal and you are talking about it is that this isn't about a new big government program, this is about working with the private sector and helping innovation, on whether it is actually giving tax credits or helping to make some investment or helping to kick-start one of those ideas for a private company that wants to do this and wants to explore doing it. That is who is doing it. But what they need is for us to help make that happen so that it doesn't take them 10 years before they grow just enough to be able to prove it to someone, to be able to take a risk. And I think some of the proposals that as government we could just ensure that loan, so that, in fact, it helps some private bank be able to make that loan and risk it, because we don't know what is going to work. We know some things are working; we don't know which one is going to really take off. We know, again, even with the biofuels we have been talking about ethanol, but there is some suggestion we could use sugar, we could use switchgrass. There is a whole variety of other ways we can do this, the whole question about electric cars and whether that works and how we can do this. There is some other technologies out there, fuel cell technology that we could actually potentially use in cars. So, again, what we are saying here is that we want to work with the private sector; we want to work with those scientists and innovators and entrepreneurs who will be able to take their ideas and then be able to keep tweaking them, if you will, to see what works, to see what takes off; and to work with our own automobile manufacturers to say, you want to scale it up not just another few cars, but a lot of cars, and how quickly can you do that? How can you make it? How can we keep making cars here that we want to buy, that we can afford to buy, that will use less fuel? But it is working with the private sector with that innovation, allowing it to be quite dynamic, because we don't know which ones to choose so much. And that is even happening, as I mentioned this about the old-time fossil fuels. There are now clean-coal technologies. In Pennsylvania we are sort of interested in some of that, could that work? Could it help us get through the hump for the foreseeable future? But I do think it is so important for us not to be so worried that we actually only think in the very narrowest ways about how we can solve the problem for next year or for the year after. This is really looking at both immediate solutions, but then long term, where are we really going with this, and why shouldn't we in America be the ones in the forefront of this? And that is what you are talking about, and I think that is very exciting.

Ms. SCHWARTZ

Ms. SCHWARTZ. In fact, isn't that the President's solution, just more oil?

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. I just want to ask you a little more about that. I think sometimes for those of us who are not scientists out there, there is sometimes a feeling when you hear about that, it is what can we do about that? We need to use all of this energy. We need to use these fossil fuels. How am I going to get to my job? I mean, how can we possibly do this? How am I going to worry about the coral reefs? Why should I worry about that? What can we possibly do about it? I think what you are saying, and I think what we need to really be talking about, is believe in ourselves as a country, to believe in how smart we are, how capable we are, how innovative we are, and then to use those assets, which are really our people and how smart we can be, to say in fact we can fix it. Just as you point out, we did create this space program. We did send to a man to the moon. We have actually even sent some women in space now, you know? But the fact is, I was just thinking about this as well, we have taken real problems, and we have solved them. We have solved some of these environmental problems. So I wanted to ask you about that, because I think one of the things as I read your proposal I was so taken with is that it also understands that there probably isn't one answer. We don't even know exactly what all the solution is going to be, which I think would be great for Americans, because the fact is we like choices. So it may be that a hybrid vehicle works for me, and a more fuel-efficient vehicle that is not a hybrid works for you. Maybe a flexible-fuel vehicles works for you. Maybe I need a big car, or maybe I don't need a big car, depending on where we live, what kind of job we have. But really the question I have, too, as I look at your proposal is you really look at a lot of different ways to solve this problem and really take the science and use it. So talk about that, if you would. I think that is really important to hear.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your courtesy in giving me a few extra minutes to get here. What I want to do this evening, and I am a little short on extra Members and we are going to see how that evolves over the next few minutes, but I want to begin the discussion on an issue that I think is really incredibly important to each and every one of us in this country. And certainly as Members of Congress representing so many people, constituents come to us, I think, every day, and they may not say, what are you doing about energy, but they certainly come to us and say, What is going on with the high price of gasoline? We go to the pump. We see the price going up, sometimes more than one time in a day, and we have seen prices well over $3 a gallon. And what we know, of course, is that consumers are paying 100 percent more than they were paying 5 years ago. The price at the pump was about $1.44, $1.50, the average price of gasoline 5 years ago; and now we are seeing prices certainly well over $3 a gallon. And this is at the same time, of course, that we are seeing record profits from the oil industry. And certainly my constituents say to me, What is going on? What can we do about this? Why isn't something more happening? And they do understand there are some causes of this, but what I would like to discuss this evening is what is going on and what we have been doing about it and what we have not been doing about it that we should. I think that is really what I am most concerned about as I see these issues in my district, not only for gasoline. We are not in the right season yet, but we certainly know that home heating oil and home heating fuel has gone up as well. In fact, I commissioned a study in Pennsylvania to see what the price was for home heating oil last winter, and we saw increases on the average in Pennsylvania of over $700 a year for a family. That is a lot of dollars, particularly for somebody on a fixed income, young families struggling to make ends meet, and, of course, making some of the choices are really very difficult for families. And, in fact, what we are hearing is that families are telling us that it matters, that they have seen a real effect when they see transportation and home heating costs going up an average of 75 percent increase over what they saw even in 2001. So what are we seeing? What are we doing about this? What do we expect to do? There is certainly discussion on the floor about this issue. And I know, as Democrats, we have stood and really made quite a few suggestions, some very specific as far as what we can do immediately. The one specific one, of course, was what about price gouging? Are we seeing the price of gasoline go up because, in fact, there was some inappropriate, illegal activity? We have some preliminary information about that. Unfortunately, we do not have a Federal definition of price gouging; so it has been really difficult to be able to say specifically whether, in fact, that is really what has been going on. And what can we do more immediately to help make sure that the oil industry is doing all that it can to get us more affordable gasoline? But there is no question that those are short-term solutions. Those are not long-term solutions. And what many of us feel is that we should be acting on long-term solutions and we should have been doing it already, and why are we not doing it today, because what we do today matters next year, the year after, and for years in the future. So what are we doing to make sure that there is an adequate supply of energy in this Nation? Are we smart enough to be doing the kind of innovation and research that we know we need to do to be able to do this? Of course the answer, Mr. Speaker, is that we are; that the answer has to be to diversify our energy sources, to look at the different ways, the innovations, that are out there and bringing different kinds of fuel to our vehicles and to our homes. And we have seen that already. We have had numbers of our Members talk about biofuels and the opportunity for ethanol. We have just seen in my region of the country, and we have seen it elsewhere in the country, the fact that we now have mixed gasoline and ethanol. We have 5 percent ethanol coming into our tanks in the Philadelphia area. That switch was just made a couple of months ago. But we also know that you can have a flexible fuel vehicle, you can fuel your vehicle with 85 percent ethanol. Well, that is made out of corn in this country. Does that mean we reduce our reliance on foreign oil? Absolutely. And should we be doing more of that? How do we actually begin to make the kind of investments that really would matter where we can actually say we are using the kind of research, the kind of smart scientists, the engineers, the innovation that exists in this country to bring new fuel options to our vehicles and to all of us so that we have a diversity, we have more choices as consumers? And then, in fact, there was an article in the Inquirer just this morning that the oil executives themselves are saying this is a question of supply. It is also a question of demand. If there is less demand, that would make a difference in price as well. A report I heard said if we could just reduce demand by 3 percent in this country, we could, in fact, start to see a reduction in prices. So we have some real opportunities here. And of course long term if we can start to look at biofuels to be able to get them going, be able to get the production up really much faster, then we really have the opportunity to bring down the cost of fuel in this country for our automobiles. Now, of course, tied to that there is something many of us also believe, and that is that we ought to be calling on the automobile manufacturers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, more hybrids, more flexible fuel vehicles, and more gasoline-driven vehicles that are more fuel efficient. And they can do it. They know how to do it. We need to make them do it more quickly and to be able to create that option for us so that we as consumers, all of my constituents, all of my fellow Congressmen's constituents, all Americans, have greater flexibility and can make choices about what are the right kinds of vehicles for them to drive, what is the most fuel-efficient way for us to be handling our own transportation needs. So I will just say that those are just some of the ideas. In fact, there are so many ideas. This is one of the things that when constituents ask, what can you do, I say we should be investing in serious ways in this country in these new technologies. And then we should be insisting that our automobile manufacturers and our purchasers, as well, start to participate in this. There are so many ideas out there. I see a colleague of mine has joined us, and I am excited about that because he is someone who is very knowledgeable about this whole area and what we could be doing. But when we see the city of Philadelphia that I represent, that the new city buses they are buying are hybrid buses, that can make a really big difference. All of our cities should be doing that. All of our communities should be doing that. What about school buses? What can we do to make them more fuel efficient? These are things that we really need to be working on. And I will say two of the things I have only been focusing on, access to the energy we need and to price and the concern that consumers have on that, but there are two other aspects of this that are very critical for us to understand, and that is that of course it has an environmental effect if we continue to burn fossil fuels at the rate we have been doing that, we actually continue the kind of pollution we have. We cannot just have rhetoric about reducing emissions. We need to take it really seriously if we plan to protect this Earth we live in and protect the environment and the consequences that we have seen of some of the changes in the environment, the increasing number of storms. Hurricane Katrina is, of course, one of the examples that is in all of our minds; and we are just approaching, of course, a new hurricane season. The third point I was going to make in addition to cost and availability of fuel and the energy we need as well as the environmental effects is, of course, the third area, which is our national security. We all understand, I hope we do increasingly understand, our reliance on foreign oil. Sixty percent of the oil that we use is imported. We need to reduce, if not eliminate, our reliance on foreign oil. It changes the relationships that we have with nations that are not always friendly to us. So we need to have a much different relationship to foreign oil than we do, and that is we have to end our reliance on foreign oil. But that is not going to be done unless we start to really seriously invest in alternative fuels and renewable energy sources, both for our vehicles, and, of course for our homes as well. So I am going to ask my colleague to join us. I did want to also say that I hope we can in our discussion also get to a little bit of a discussion about what consumers can do. What can individual Americans do that could really change the way we use energy; put more pressure on us, on Congress, to create those alternatives? Someone asked me, well, where can you buy ethanol-mixed gasoline? Where can you buy E85 in Pennsylvania? Well, the answer is there is one station in Lancaster, and there is one station in Pittsburgh. If you live in Philadelphia, that is a very long to drive to fill up your tank and not acceptable. So we need to be kick-starting this. We need to not just do a little bit; wouldn't that be nice, let's do that little project over there, let's see how that goes. We need to make a serious investment that changes dramatically the kind of energy options that we have for our automobiles, for our homes, for our daily lives. And only by doing that will we be able to protect the environment for the future, will we be able to end our reliance on foreign oil, will we be able to bring down the cost of energy for our cars and for our homes. If we don't do it now, we are going to be having this same discussion, only more seriously, in the years to come. So, as Democrats we have had a number of proposals, but one of the leaders in really putting forward a new energy policy for this country, and it is a wonderful one, it is called the New Apollo Energy Act, I guess we would like to see if it gets to be an act, and I would want to really encourage it, and I am delighted that my colleague Congressman Jay Inslee has joined us to talk a little bit about what that would do and how it would get us started in a very, very serious way in changing the way we create the energy for ourselves, for our homes and for our businesses.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my colleagues here in the U.S. House of Representatives. I respect them for their service and for their dedication to their constituents. However, Mr. Speaker, I take offense that any member of this House would stand here and challenge the patriotism of a colleague--such a charge is unworthy of this institution and the democracy we fight for every day. I refuse to allow anyone on the other side, as they have done today and have since this war in Iraq began, to question--whether directly or indirectly--my love of our country, my unwavering commitment to our troops, and my firm belief that we must do whatever necessary to defend the citizens of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I will oppose the resolution before us today. And, I do so because I love this country and who we are and what we stand for. My reason for opposing this particular resolution comes down to one word-- accountability. At every level, the Republican majority here in Congress, has failed to hold this Administration accountable. It is simply astonishing that most of my Republican colleagues have time and time again simply bent to the will of the Administration and allowed themselves to believe meaningless rhetoric without asking tough questions. I urge my colleagues on the other side to abandon their blind faith in this Administration's rhetoric and instead demand accountability. For it is through information, recognition of errors, and the development of an honest plan that we will ultimately ensure our success in Iraq. Misjudgments and miscalculations have led to a conflict that continues three years after the President declared ``mission accomplished.'' History will judge the President and his cabinet for their performance. But, it is our responsibility as members of Congress to call for a clear plan going forward. It is past time that this Administration implement a strategy to meet our mission and bring our troops home, and it is past time that this Congress demand it. Instead, this resolution supports a ``stay the course'' policy that has failed our troops and failed our nation. We all want to see a safe and democratic Iraq. However, the President's open-ended declaration to stay as long as it takes--a policy that this resolution defends--will not require the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people to make the tough choices that need to be made. That is why we must make clear that our military presence is contingent upon progress in the formation of a stable and functioning Iraqi government. We have to make it clear that we expect the Iraqis to take responsibility for their government and for their security. We will support them, but the time for a serious U.S. military presence is limited. To make that clear, we should begin to bring our Reservists and National Guard home, and put in place a strategy to bring the rest of our young men and women out of Iraq as soon as possible. My colleagues, today, we could have had the opportunity to discuss these important policy issues, demand answers, and work together to better define our objectives in Iraq and our strategy for completing our mission. Instead, we are once again stuck in neutral--playing politics with resolutions about whether Republicans or Democrats support the troops and whether Republicans or Democrats are stronger against terrorism. Let's be clear: we all support the troops and we are all committed to fighting terrorism. That is not the issue--the issue is the Bush Administration's failed policy in Iraq and how Congress--as a separate and independent branch of government--should demand accountability for their failures and demand a real strategy to achieve success and bring our troops home. We owe this to our constituents. We owe it to the brave Americans serving this country overseas. And, we owe it to our great country and its legacy.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5449, which would send the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association back to the negotiating table to reach a fair resolution to their contract dispute. On April 5, 2005, the FAA declared an impasse in its contract talks with NATCA. The current process for resolving an impasse in contract talks between FAA and NATCA allows the FAA to unilaterally impose its contract upon the controllers if the agency sends the contract to Congress and there is no legislative intervention within 60-days. On June 5, the 60-day window ended and the FAA announced that it intended to begin implementing its last contract offer. Not only is this process unfair, but it creates a level of distrust between the two parties responsible for ensuring a safe and efficient air traffic control system. Congress should not be in the business of negotiating contract disputes. Instead, we should help ensure an equitable resolution to this situation by sending both parties back to the negotiating table and H.R. 5449 does just this. Mr. Speaker, our nation's dedicated, highly-skilled air traffic controllers are on the front lines of ensuring safety for the millions of Americans who fly each year. Under the unfavorable terms of the FAA's last offer, many of them would have an incentive to quickly retire. Such a retirement exodus would have serious safety implications for the flying public. It is imperative that Congress acts now and sends the two parties back to the negotiating table.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for five minutes and to revise and extend my remarks. This past Friday, I attended the funeral of Philadelphia Police Officer Gary Skerski. I saw the pain of his wife Anne, 13-year old son Robert, and 10-year old daughter Nicole--a pain that may dull with time, but will never go away. They lost a husband and a father. And Philadelphia lost one of its finest. Officer Skerski was a community relations officer, and a 16-year veteran of the force. And, on May 8th at 10 pm, Officer Gary Skerski was murdered in the line of duty. Gary was working overtime when he and his partner responded to a robbery call. He entered a neighborhood watering hole to stop a gunman who was terrorizing patrons and staff. Gary was shot in the neck by a cold-blooded killer who has no regard for the law and no regard for life. Gary never even had a chance to draw his gun. Officer Skerski worked to protect the families, homes, and businesses of Northeast Philadelphia. He interacted with my staff often, and I had the pleasure of meeting Gary at a community meeting just this past winter. Gary was, however, far more than a respected member of our police force. He was a loving husband for more than 18 years, he was the proud father of two, and he was an active, well-recognized, and beloved member of Port Richmond--a home to many Philadelphia police officers. I rise today to pay tribute to Officer Gary Skerski and in remembrance of the 56 United States law enforcement officers who have died this year in the line-of-duty. These brave men and women in uniform have given their lives while protecting our communities. These brave men and women died while enforcing and upholding our laws. And, these brave men and women left behind family, friends and colleagues for the benefit of others. Our nation must never forget their contributions to the safety, security and betterment of our neighborhoods. I know I and my staff will not forget Gary, his sense of dedication, and the contributions he made to our community. Mr. Speaker, my thoughts and prayers are with the Skerski family during this very difficult time. And, I know that all of my colleagues, and all Americans, join me in honoring Officer Gary Skerski and all of the officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Mrs. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania

Mrs. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, this chamber is in the final stages of the annual budget process--a process that provides an important opportunity to discuss the things we value as a Nation. Before we cast our votes, each of us should consider the following: 1. Does the Republican budget value fiscal discipline and honest budgeting? And, did the Republican leadership make the tough choices needed to balance the budget and pay down the debt? No. The Republican budget continues the majority party's borrow-and- spend policies. As a result, it not only fails to balance the Federal government's checkbook, but will actually run a deficit of $348 billion for 2007--further increasing the mounting debt being, passed onto our children and grandchildren. 2. Does the Republican budget value our shared economic future? And, did the Republican majority make wise investments in education, workforce development and alternative fuels that will favorably position us in the highly competitive global marketplace? No. The Republican budget cuts education funding by $2.2 billion, reduces support for renewable energy and energy-efficiency initiatives, and impedes access to health care for women and children. 3. Does the Republican budget value enhanced security at home and a strong defense? And, did the Republican majority provide for the men and women who protect us, both while they are on the front lines and after they have fulfilled their duties and return home? No. The Republican budget cuts funding for veterans' health care by $6 billion, and will reduce our ability to maintain current homeland security efforts due to a lack of consistent and reliable funding. 4. Is the Republican budget based on sound, fair tax policies to recognize the priorities of everyday Americans? No. The Republican budget has one purpose: to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. In fact, this budget provides $228 billion in new tax cuts--90 percent of which will go to the wealthiest ten percent of taxpayers. This budget fails to meet sound fiscal principles, and it sets us on an irresponsible path for years to come--with mounting annual deficits, and an increasing national debt. In fact, the Republican majority went to great lengths to mask the fact that their spending plan does not include some of our Nation's largest financial commitments--commitments that we must meet. Their plan almost completely ignores the cost of ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, which according to the Congressional Budget Office will be at least $298 over 10 years. Except for a one year fix, it does nothing to address the Alternative Minimum Tax, which will increase taxes for middle class families by an estimated $844 billion over the next ten years. Even with these cuts, omissions, and gimmicks, the majority's budget will add another $2.3 trillion to our national debt by 2011--or nearly $1 million of debt per minute. Under President Bush, and his Republican Congress, our Nation has incurred more debt than it did under the 42 presidents before him. But there is a better way. As a member of the House Budget Committee, I assisted Ranking Member Spratt in the creation of a fiscal year 2007 budget that makes the necessary tough, fiscally disciplined choice. This Democratic alternative meets the basic budgetary principles of meeting our obligations, working within the resources we have, and making smart investments that will ensure the Nation's current and future fiscal well-being. The Democratic budget will put our nation back on the right track by closing tax loopholes that provide incentives to companies to ship jobs overseas, by cracking down on tax cheats that avoid paying nearly $350 billion a year in taxes, by rescinding the tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industry, and by rolling back Medicare overpayments to HMOs. We would then reinvest these savings in the priorities that matter to most Americans: national and homeland security, energy independence, education, and health care. And, it will do so while balancing the Federal Government's budget within 6 years, and begin to pay down the debt by 2013. Our plan would secure our homeland through investments in our military and defense networks. Our plan would ensure that we are prepared here at home, while also pursuing smart foreign policies that encourage stability in nations throughout the world. And, our plan would meet our obligations to the men and women who have fought to protect our Nation. Second, our plan would help secure our economic future by educating our children for the twenty-first century economy, promoting the development and innovation of small businesses, upholding environmental protections, and advancing the production of alternative sources of energy to end our dependence on foreign oil. And, third, our plan would expand access to affordable health care for all Americans and improve retirement security with particular attention to the dramatic and costly needs of the baby boomers who will begin to reach retirement in 2007. Mr. Chairman, I believe that we have a responsibility to meet our obligations and balance the budget. I am also well aware that the Federal Government's budgets have consequences. If the majority's budget passes, it will hurt State and local budgets by forcing them to cover the shortfalls--likely through increased local taxes. If the majority's budget passes, small businesses will be on their own as they fight to compete in the global marketplace in the face of rising health care and energy costs. If the majority's budget passes, senior citizens will risk losing the benefits they have been promised. Unless we change course, the negative consequences of the Republican budget will be felt by every American. My colleagues, Americans are seeking to meet their obligations to their families, their communities and to the Nation. We must honor their commitment and we should not, and I cannot walk away from our obligations to them. Vote ``no'' on this irresponsible Republican budget, and support the Democratic alternative.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. As my colleagues know, I am a Member of the Budget Committee. I serve on that committee in an effort to, both of course, understand the budget and the decisions that we make in this Congress on behalf of the country, on behalf of American families, and hoping to speak up on behalf of American families and their priorities. I was particularly interested in coming out this evening to talk on the perspective as a new Member of Congress. I came from the State Senate. As for most State Senates in this country, the States have to balance their budget. We have to make decisions, and we have to decide the priorities. We cannot spend money we do not have. And so as a State Senator, those were difficult choices we often made, in how to do that. And certainly as a Member of this freshman class, I recognize that many of us come with broad perspectives and experiences that we bring. Some of us come from State legislatures, many of us do, so we have that experience in how to make those decisions in our priorities. Some came from running small businesses and being mayors, being on city councils, being in county government, again tough choices that we have to make. And I think on the eve of what we expect tomorrow, the Republicans to bring their proposal before us and ask for a vote on it, I think it is a time for us to use our perspective as new Members of Congress coming maybe even closer than some of our other colleagues from hearing the concerns of our constituents, of the families, of the seniors, of even the kids in our districts, certainly of our local governments. And to be able to really ask some of the tough questions of this budget, to be able to say, and I think we should all be thinking about, if I could just lay out a few, and then maybe you want to add some of your comments and thoughts about this. I think we do have to think about the budget at the time when we do decide on our priorities, when we do think about what is important to us as Americans, and how we should best use our taxpayer dollars. And so as we face this decision tomorrow, certainly I think we have to talk about and think about does this Republican budget value fiscal discipline? Is it honest budgeting? Did the Republican leadership make those tough choices needed to balance the budget to pay down the debt, to be able to use those resources really well? The answer I would say on that score is no. This Republican budget continues the borrow and spend policies that we have seen certainly in the 2 years that we have been here. It certainly does not balance the Federal Government's checkbook. And it does, in fact, run a new deficit to this coming year of $348 billion of new deficit to add to the debt that of course is already at $8 trillion and that we know we will pass along to our children and grandchildren. Second, does this Republican budget value our shared economic future? Does it do some of the things that I think we have heard about already this evening? Are we making the wise investments in education, in workforce development, in some of the energy discussions that you were having already, and whether we, in fact, are investing in alternative fuels and renewable fuels and really reducing our reliance on foreign oil so we can be competitive in a global marketplace? Again, the Republican budget does not do this. It cuts funding in education and renewable energy initiatives and in fact impedes some of the concerns that we have on health care and education. Third, I would just say two more, then I am going to yield to my colleagues. But to say that this Republican budget, we have to ask does this Republican budget value enhanced security and a strong defense? In fact, does it provide for the men and women who have served this country in Iraq and Afghanistan and in previous wars? And the answer is no, it does not. It cuts veterans health care, and it does not, we are concerned, does not provide for the troops in the field the way it should. So we are looking at a cut of $6 billion in veterans health care. And our ability to make sure that our current homeland security is as strong as it needs to be? Again, we have had numerous debates on the floor of Congress. But this budget does not meet all that we know that we should be doing so that we can assure our constituents and our families that in fact they are secure at home. And finally I would say, does this Republican budget, is it based on, in fact, sound and fair tax policies? Does it recognize the priorities of everyday Americans? And the fact that again this Republican budget is relying on what is the major goal, it seems to me, of the other side of the aisle, and that is to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. That seems to be their singular purpose, and all else flows from that. When in fact, there are so many, as I point out, issues and concerns. We, in fact, need to make sure, because the tax cuts that they are looking at really benefit, and 90 percent of the tax cuts go to the wealthiest Americans. Is that really what we want to be doing in this country at this particular time with this kind of debt in this country and with this kind of growing deficit? So I would say this budget fails on so many levels to meet fiscal discipline, to meet the priorities of American families, for us to be able to go home and say, we came here to fight for our constituents, for everyday Americans, and does this budget do it? And I think the answer has to be that it does not, that we can do better, that we must do better, and we must put forward the needs of American families. I would be happy to add on what I think we ought to be doing, because you should know, and of course as you know the Democrats put forward a Democratic alternative on the Budget Committee. I was part of crafting that. I am proud to say that I have done it. And what we have done is to be able to say that we can live within our means, we can, in fact, meet our obligations, and we can, in fact, build a budget that begins to pay down the debt, the enormous debt that this country is in, at the same time making the important investments that we need for the future in this country. So that is our obligation to me as a Member of Congress of what we bring as freshmen. It seems funny to call ourselves freshmen. You are experienced people who have brought a lot to our first tenure here. But the fact is that we should draw on these experiences that we have had in the private sector and in other areas of the public sector to say that we know that we have to make these tough choices, and we should, and we should do so in a way that is fiscally responsible, that in fact we can say proudly to our constituents, to our children, to our grandchildren that in fact we have done right in making the right investments, and, in fact, we have done so in a fiscally disciplined way. It would be wonderful to be voting on that kind of budget tomorrow. But, unfortunately, it is unlikely that we will have that opportunity, at least for the majority budget that is going to be presented to us.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. In fact, we are often asked, how would we find additional resources in a budget? And you make a good point, that there are, in fact, expenditures that we would not make, that we would choose to use in different ways. And certainly, the subsidies that we offered, that the Republicans pushed through for the oil industry at a time when there were record profits, we are talking about $113 billion profits for the oil industry last year, and that is not revenue, that is profits. $36 billion just for Exxon Mobil. It is really sort of an extraordinary sum. But there are other ways that we would also cut. We would not spend some of the dollars that they have. There are enormous subsidies given to the HMOs for the Medicare prescription drug benefit. That has been talked about a good bit, too. Should we continue those subsidies for the HMOs rather than making sure that more of our seniors have access to prescription drugs and in fact reduce the cost of that program to Government? Is that the choice we make? We are looking at tax loopholes that still incentivize companies to ship their jobs overseas. What about closing those loopholes, bringing those dollars home, investing that in workforce development, for example? Or a favorite of ours on the Budget Committee is the fact that there are in fact billions of dollars of tax revenue that is not collected in this country. And there is an interesting report recently that suggests as much as $350 billion is not collected from people who owe taxes to this government. If we went out and just got 10 or 20 percent of that, you are talking about $35 or $70 billion that we then could use, that would go to some of the priorities that we are talking about. That is the kind of way we would be more fiscally responsible in drawing on money that is being spent now, that could be spent in a better way for everyday Americans to be able to meet their responsibilities and their goals for themselves, their families and for our country.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. It was interesting in the Budget Committee when we talked about the principle that you are talking about, that we should know where the revenues are coming from if we are going to spend money. That is really what we are talking about. It is basically being unable to meet their obligations. It is knowing where that money is coming from. Of course, we do budget not just for next year, but we budget out 5 years. We used to budget to 10 years. But we do see those kinds of numbers so we can anticipate what we think might be happening. And what was interesting about that discussion in the Budget Committee is that there, in fact, is some interest, I think, on the other side of the aisle in doing this. They understand as well that, I think some of them do know, of course, they would not let that pass, but in fact I think if we really, truly could sit down in a bipartisan way and say, look, we have a responsibility to do this in a way that does not create a debt we do not even have any way of repaying at this point. The Republicans have, of course, taken certain things off budget. That means, of course, that let's not really consider what the cost to Katrina is, for example; the real cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan in which some estimates in the budget this year have been $50 billion when we know that it could well get up to $400 billion. Well, if you know that, we have to be straight with the American people. We have to be able to say, this is what we know it is going to cost us. How are we going to have the revenues to support that? Where is it going to come from? Let's have that as a serious discussion and let's make the hard choices we have to make. We know we want to support our troops. We want to make sure that they have all the equipment they need. That has been a discussion. Of course, we will support the troops in that. But let's be real about what it will cost us and let's be honest with the American people about how we will do that. I think there is some interest on the other side of the aisle, but in fact if we do that, there is no way they could go ahead with the kind of budget that we will be faced with tomorrow because it does not reveal all that we need to know about what our obligations are. And as you point out, for American families who struggle every day to figure out how do they pay, we talk about gasoline prices. That throws budgets into a real problem when you have budgeted really tight. It is not a problem to budget really tight if you do not have any contingency, if you are not really honest with yourself that there will be an expense next month. But in fact we are making it harder on American families by not being honest with them. And we are making it harder on them by not bringing down gasoline prices. We are making it harder on them by not helping their kids going to college. We are making it harder on them by not allowing ways for us to be sure that their business can pay for health insurance. You can almost name any issue and we are making it harder on American families when in fact it does not have to be that way.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. There is an explanation. I cannot necessarily and I do not want to make explanations about why it was done this year. I will talk about that for a minute. The fact is that it is reasonable for us to say that there is going to be an emergency that happens in this country that we cannot budget for. Katrina is an example. We could not have anticipated that a year ahead of time there would be an emergency as catastrophic as Katrina and the devastation it caused in the gulf States. And I have been there and many of you have been there to see the devastation. So that is why we allow for a process that we can have a supplemental appropriations. We get an emergency appropriation, as it is called; and that is appropriate because we need to act quickly. We need to act appropriately to help Americans. We have done it to help people in other countries as well. That is certainly true in time of war as well. If you go to war, you did not anticipate going to war. Then you have an emergency appropriation, a supplemental is what we call it, and that is appropriate. What is less understandable and I think that you make clear is what about a year later? What about 2 years later? Why cannot we anticipate at least in a better way what in fact the costs will be to clean up in Katrina? If we are wrong, we might need to do a supplemental. But now to not say we are in Iraq. There is a cost; we know what it is costing us every week. We know what it is costing us every month to put $50 billion in when all the estimations are that it will be at least $200, probably $300 billion at least. It is really just not being honest about what it is going to cost us in the future. For Katrina, again let's decide what we can accommodate to pay for and what we should. And if we have to stretch, then we have an obligation. As you point out, all of us have had to balance budgets. We should have to balance a budget here. We should be able to say, where should that money come from? Where does it come from? Are we asking Americans to all kick in? Are we going to sell Katrina bonds or something? I am throwing out ideas. Maybe there are ways we can sit down and say, okay, we do not have all the money for this. How can we do it in a way that is fair to the American people, is fair to people of different incomes? Maybe ask them to join in and be helpful as so many Americans did after Katrina, the number of dollars we got from charities, people wanted to help dramatically. There are ways for us to do this in a way that does not put our country into fiscal difficulties, and in fact respects the kind of budgeting that we should be doing in this country.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. I appreciate those comments. I think there are some, the term ``gimmick'' is one that I am almost reluctant to use. My staff and I discussed whether we should talk about some of these gimmicks because it is such a serious process we are in. What we do matters in the lives of American families. I take it seriously. I know we all do. But the fact is, this is at least an accounting gimmick, if nothing else, in not recognizing some of the very serious expenses that we know we have and we have an obligation to meet. And again, just as in American families, we need to figure out how to do it. And if we cannot do it, we need to say that too. So in some of these situations, we are not going to say ``no.'' So we should in fact meet the obligations. Again, the example came up about veterans' health care. And I think we all go home. We all want to be respectful of our veterans, but whether in fact we fund veterans' health care or not really matters in each and every one of their lives. It is not so much about the rhetoric we have at home. It is really about what we do in this budget that allows them to get the health care that they need. I see that our colleague has a chart he may want to talk about in terms of the national debt and the deficit and the national debt that it has led to.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, what is interesting, I think that something I learned more about, oh, the last year is how close we are to really being able to, in terms of scale up, if you will, the use of some of the biofuels and some of the alternative fuels. So I think something one would say, most of us would say how far is that; will it take years and years? Well, for most of us in my area, we are seeing ethanol being finally introduced as a mixture, probably 5 percent of our gasoline. We know that we can make it 15 percent, 20 percent. There is even an E-85. We can have 85 percent of the gallon be ethanol which we produce in this country by growing corn, and it has been taking longer to get from the middle part of the country to the East Coast. We have to bring some of the ethanol, but in fact it is coming. We need to make it happen much faster. There needs to be incentives to make that happen. I think it will happen as consumers make more demands to make sure that that happens because in fact we do want more fuel efficiency. We want cleaner fuel, and we want less reliance on foreign oil because there is, as the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver) pointed out, it is also creating a dynamic internationally that is not really very helpful to us as we look towards a more peaceful and stable world. So that, in fact, we could be doing much more, and this budget cuts, rather than adds, to the initiatives that have actually been making these biofuels and the research and technology and using the innovation in this country to be able to push forward much, much more quickly. I think that Americans want to see the price of gasoline go down. It works for their pocketbooks, but they also understand that they want to know, well, where is it going? If it is going to just keep going up, how can I make this work? I am proposing this as Democrats. I introduced a $250 million initiative that we could have put in or maybe even should be more money, but it is much more money than this budget proposes, and really pushing forward on renewables and research and development and more fuel efficient vehicles and more fuel efficient cars. So there is a lot of things that can go into all of this. In fact, we are there already. We are really close to making it happen. We will be looking at American innovation and moving forward and not just borrowing and spending, which is really what this budget puts forward, and putting an enormous debt on our children and grandchildren.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman makes an important point, and I think one of the ways to help Americans understand what this really means to them because these numbers are very big, it is sort of hard to say, well, you cut $1 billion here, $1 billion there, how does that matter in the lives of our constituents? The other day I met with some of the school superintendents in my district, and they told me, I will say all things are really new, but they were pleading with me because they said we want to be held accountable. We want our teachers, our schools to perform at the highest levels possible. So the concept of No Child Left Behind, in fact, we support it, as do I, but the fact that they are not getting the funding for that that the government promised to them, again it is about meeting our promises, about meeting our obligations to our children. If we said we will not leave any child behind, but then walk away, then we have, in fact, left them behind, and this is what is happening. For Americans who have children in schools, they know what that means. They are being challenged without additional resources, and it also means to all of us that our local and State taxes are likely to go up to make up for the difference. What we have done is pass along the burden to our State and local governments, and in fact Americans are going to have to pay for it one way or the other. I will just mention two other areas because I know I hear this a lot, and I am sure you do as well in education, and that is special education. I know when I served in the State Senate, I was the Democratic Chair of the Education Committee for a number of years. I served on the State Board of Education. We heard over and over again that there were remarkable new ways to educate children with many different needs. More children are being identified with early childhood learning disabilities. In fact, early intervention is making an enormous difference in their being successful in school. Then, of course, there are some of the very seriously challenged students. When we passed the original legislation, not we, we weren't there then, we freshmen, but when the original legislation was passed, it was called IDEA, but when the special education legislation was passed, the Federal Government said, You know what, we want you to educate every child regardless of what their needs are and to challenge them to be the best they can be. And we are going to pick up 40 percent of the cost. Regardless of what it costs, we will pick up 40 percent. Well, they never have. So what does that mean? Right now the Federal Government is paying about 17 percent of that cost, not even half of what was promised years ago. So what that means is that local school districts are picking up the tab. States are picking up the tab. What we ought to be doing is meeting our commitments, meeting our obligations and being honest and straightforward with the American people, that this is what we promised to do, it is what you want us to do, it is what we should be doing. Last, you point out a college education. We talked about families already being stretched, but we are at a time when we know our young people and increasingly older people who also are being retrained or reeducated need to go to college. Sometimes it is a community college, sometimes it is a postsecondary technical college, sometimes it is a 4- year university. But the fact is that we need to be sure that the best and brightest in this country have access to higher education. And we know we are competing not just with our neighboring States or our neighboring communities or even countries who used to be our trading partners, we are just a global economy, a global marketplace, and our young people have to be prepared. Yet what this budget does is, in fact, cut the Federal grants that so many people relied on to do their college education. So we are saying it is going to even be harder at a time when our young people should be going to college, for you to be able to go to college, be successful and to be able to not be in so much debt when you come out of college. So, yes, could we do these things? That is what I get asked. Could we do these? The answer is, of course we could, if in fact we recognize that it is our priority, that we were honest about what kind of dollars we needed and we made it a priority in our budget instead of something else. Again, the Democratic alternative that will be available tomorrow does that. So, again, I hope that my constituents, your constituents understand that we come again as first-term Members with a real interest, maybe that is not strong enough, but a demand for us to do it better, to do it right, to meet these obligations and to do it this year as a beginning because we can't wait any longer. Whether it is on education, on higher education, whether it is on energy, whether it is on paying down the debt. These are things we have to start working on, on security, health care. We could go on for hours. Fortunately we are limited, from our viewers' point of view, to an hour. But the fact is that we have so many opportunities for us to be building that future for Americans, American children, American families. This budget simply doesn't do it. It is why we should reject it.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Your comments, I think, do speak to the frustrations we hear from Americans. But I hope that as we end this evening's discussion, we can also leave with the understanding that Americans, I hope, will feel hopeful. Because, in fact, you point out that if we use common sense, if we use our political will, if we sit down to work out these issues, we could do that. I think that is what the American people expect of us and it is also something that I think as freshmen we are offering back, that we want to be able to say we can do this, we want to do it, we want to be able to tackle these problems and we want all of the best ideas, and there are so many out there, to be able to offer the American people the secure Nation that they want, the opportunities for their children economically and educationally and the kind of hope for the future that they all want.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. I think that is true in all of our States.

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania

Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the SAFE Port Act. My colleagues, this bill is a good start, and I will support it, but it is not a comprehensive solution to port security. Last year, customs officials screened only five percent of the 11 million cargo containers entering the United States. That rate is both unacceptable and dangerous to our national and economic interests. I represent the Port of Philadelphia, and I know firsthand the important role that ports play in the national and global economy. I have also seen how simple accidents can have devastating impacts on the port system. Just 24 days after I was elected to the House of Representatives, an oil tanker struck a submerged object and spilled 265,000 gallons of oil into the Delaware River. This spill halted commerce, temporarily shut down a nuclear power plant, and put area drinking water at risk. All of this was caused by an inanimate and rusty anchor sitting at the bottom of the river. All told, this incident cost an estimated $150 million. In contrast, the damage and destruction caused by smuggling a weapon of mass destruction into a port could cost as much as $1 trillion. Democrats have a proposal that would prevent such a devastating device from ever entering U.S. waters or a U.S. port. Under our plan, every cargo container--100 percent--would be screened prior to arrival in the United States. We put this proposal on the table months ago and, today, the Republican Leadership has refused to embrace it--jeopardizing security at 361 U.S. ports and putting at risk 75 percent of the international trade entering our country. But we must take a step forward, and the bill under consideration will improve many elements of security at our ports, which I have actively supported such as establishing a risk-based port security grant program and setting deadlines for a mandatory security identification card for port employees. For this reason, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the bill. And, I will keep working to ensure security at all American ports.