Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the chairman and look forward to working with him and the administration in ensuring that we properly implement the BioShield program and congratulate him and the committee for, again, a great effort in this bill to help secure our country and protect her.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge all Members of the House to support the passage of the Tauzin-Brown amendment to H.R. 1298, the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003. I want to commend my colleague from the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for his assistance and support and advocacy of this amendment. First, the Tauzin-Brown amendment strengthens H.R. 1298 by adding additional accountability measures to ensure that our fight against HIV/AIDS and TB and malaria has a greater chance of success. That is what we all want. Our amendment establishes priorities to be followed by the global AIDS coordinator for the distribution of resources based on factors such as size and demographics of specific nations to ensure that the countries who need assistance the most receive it first. Next, our amendment utilizes an independent third party to examine the success of strategies implemented by the global AIDS coordinator. The Institutes of Medicine, the IOM, will be responsible for examining the achievements of the programs funded by the global AIDS coordinator and then comparing the success rates of various methods that have been used by the coordinator. Second, the Tauzin-Brown amendment also strengthens the existing authority and the accountability measures in H.R. 1298. Our amendment specifically states that if at any point administrative expenses within the Global Fund exceed 10 percent of total expenditures of the fund for any 2-year period, then the U.S. will withhold an equal amount from its contribution the following year. This is to ensure that this fund does not get gobbled up in bureaucrats and administrative expenses. We believe this is fair and, at the same time, will ensure that the Global Fund remains fiscally responsible to its purpose. That is, getting dollars in to actually combat AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis in the world. These two accountability measures represent provisions ensure our approach to this problem is not only morally responsible, it is fiscally responsible as well. Finally, the amendment requires that the HIV/AIDS coordinator make available to Congress basic information on the Global Fund. Specifically, the coordinator is required to submit to Congress a detailed report outlining all financial and accounting statements, copies of the reports provided to the Global Fund by organizations contracted to audit recipients, and project proposals submitted by applicants and grantees. In the past we have had great difficulty getting this information from the Global Fund. We are confident the coordinator will do a wonderful job in delivering this information to Congress. I urge my colleagues to support the Tauzin-Brown amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am honored to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the chairman of the Committee on International Relations.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Michigan (Mr. Upton), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, the intent of the language is to study the question of the illegal diversion of drugs for improper purposes, that is, for resale and that sort of thing. We describe the purposes within that amendment. So the gentleman is accurate in his statement. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I simply wanted to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and the members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce who worked on this amendment, as I said, to help coordinate the fine work done by the chairman and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) on this underlying bill. This is an excellent piece of legislation. I hope we have improved it. I will commit to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) that we will continue to work with him to clarify the concerns he has. We do not want to create those problems. We are simply trying to add more accountability, not less; and more clarity, less confusion. Finally, let me point out to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) that it has obviously come to our committee's attention that a great deal of work is going on domestically by a number of pharmaceutical companies in testing, et cetera, in attempts to find some sort of vaccine to combat HIV/AIDS and some of these other diseases, particularly HIV/ AIDS. And when and if that discovery is made, as we all hope it is, we will be back on the floor with legislation to establish some sort of national framework for us to utilize that scientific breakthrough, when and if it does occur, in a way that humanely administers that kind of a hope and expectation of cure and prevention to all Americans without regard to the Americans' capabilities or financial capabilities to take advantage of it. We will have to think that through, how do we make sure everybody gets to take advantage of those scientific breakthroughs when they occur. We have done some preliminary work on it; and I invite my colleague from Ohio, and others, to stay in touch with us as we move forward. As we see these breakthroughs coming, we will want to talk with the gentleman and others on the committee to see if we cannot advance legislation to make sure that every American has the advantage of those breakthroughs when they occur.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green). (Mr. GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and let me again offer my sincere thanks to the chairman and to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for accepting this legislation and urge adoption of it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Pitts amendment. The Federal program on abstinence is not a mandated program on the States. In fact, States have to put up dollars to get into the abstinence program. And States readily do. Do my colleagues know why? Because it works. We have heard story after story after story before the Committee on Energy and Commerce that abstinence works. Not only does it help prevent the kinds of disease we are talking about, but it literally is the best way to make sure that other venereal diseases are not spread and other cases of awful calamity are avoided for young women as they are growing up. We learned, for example, that condoms do not stop the spread of many new venereal diseases that are viral in nature, and nevertheless ruin a woman's chance of reproduction as they grow up and try to become young married women and have a family. We learned a great deal in the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The most important thing we learned is that abstinence works. It works in our States, it works in this country, and it can work in this program. The second thing to keep in mind is that every time we have promoted abstinence programs in this country, the argument on the other side is abstinence-only should not be the deal. This is not abstinence-only, this is abstinence as one-third of the program. I urge Members to support the Pitts amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I, too, will not object, Mr. Chairman; but let me hopefully make some points that are critical as we go forward not only in this conference committee to construct a comprehensive energy policy for our country but to continue the work of the Committee on Resources in developing the 5-year leasing plans of our government and the ability of the coastal States to work with the Federal Government and the consultation process that is required under those 5-year plans. I want to remind my friends who may not have been here back when, in the early days of the Reagan administration, his own Interior Secretary appeared before the Committee on Resources on the 5-year plan and explained the question of moratorium to the committee. What that Interior Secretary did, Mr. Chairman, was to define for us a process by which the Interior Department divided areas of potential coastal development and/or protection in several categories. On the one hand, there were categories of areas that were highly environmentally sensitive and very low in potential hydrocarbon content or potential. On the other hand, there were areas of very high hydrocarbon potential and very low environmental sensitivity, in other words, areas that could easily produce oil and gas for America in ways that had very little consequences or concerns for damage to the environment. That was a pretty logical way of dividing the universe of areas off the coast of the United States that might be subject to production. He went on to say that what we have tried to do as an Interior Department is to recommend for moratoria, no activity, those areas of low hydrocarbon potential and high-environmental concern and to recommend instead for production and development those areas of low environmental consequence concerns and high hydrocarbon potential for the country. We accepted that logical analysis, only to find out that there were a number of areas that had been listed for moratorium, for no activity whatsoever, that were in fact high hydrocarbon areas and very low in environmental consequence potential. So we asked him, what is the deal here? You told us you had a pretty logical way of figuring this out. Yet you have set down for moratorium areas that really should be over here in this category. Why did you do that? His answer was, ``Politics.'' His answer was politics, that I do not want to get in the face of the politics of the State of California in that case because they do not want to drill those areas; and, therefore, we are just going to list them as moratorium areas. Politics was making the decision. We saw some politics on the floor last night when it came to ANWR and the fight over whether or not we ought to produce the high potential of a small area, tiny little area, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of that vast area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, high in hydrocarbon potential. We had a fight over that last night. In the conference work last year with the Senate, John Breaux asked the question that was enormously, I thought, profound. As we were debating with Senators who were saying no to the question of any kind of production, he said, if we reduce the area down to 1 acre, would you still oppose, and they said absolutely. One acre was too much. He said, well, if you won't let the people who live in ANWR produce their own private property, wouldn't you let them at least have a two-acre footprint to get a pipeline to get their own product out to market? And they said no. He even suggested building a pipeline like the St. Louis arch, way up in the air, way down where they would not have any footprint, would they at least let them do that. No, no. It was like some kind of a religious shrine instead of a logical argument. That is the problem with the way in which much of the process of the discussions over what can and what cannot be developed for our Nation's good has gone. Politics intervenes all the time. And so we offered in the Committee on Resources a simple proposition: Let us at least inventory. Let us at least know. If you want to put areas off-limits, for political reasons, other than logical reasons, we at least ought to know what we are giving up for America, what kind of vulnerabilities we are creating for our country because we will not produce in areas we could produce in. We at least ought to know. We ought to have a right to know as a people what we have and what we do not have in this country in terms of resources. And so that is why this language was written in the Committee on Resources. But lo and behold we are met with an argument that we should not know, we should not inventory, we should not even look, we should not even think about the question of whether or not we made wise decisions. And so this amendment comes. We are going to accept it; we are not going to have a fight over it. But where is the symmetry? Where is the symmetry here? If we had areas under development that had environmental concern for you, would you not want to inventory those environmental concerns? I would. I want to know just how well those 100 wells are producing in Mandalay National Wildlife Reserve in Louisiana. I would want to know if there is any consequences to those natural resources that we have to protect against harm. I would want to know everything I could know about that. And if you offered an amendment to say we need a national inventory to find out what those wildlife reserves look like and resources look like, I would support that. I think it is a good idea. We ought to know. We ought to make wise decisions about conservation protection and development in America. But how do you make wise decisions if you close both eyes and you shut both ears? You will not listen, you will not look, you will not learn. You do not want to know. I think you make unwise decisions when you do that. In a country, a free country like ours where we prize free speech and information, an information society where knowledge is power, where we make good decisions because we know more, not less, this is a strange amendment. And so, Mr. Chairman, I will not object, because my chairman of Resources has asked us not to object and to accept this amendment, but as we go forward with 5-year leasing plans in the future, I am going to continue to press this question upon all of you. What have you got to hide? What are you afraid to know? Why do you want to act in the dark? Why would you rather make decisions without the facts instead of making decisions with the facts? And if you would rather make decisions in the dark, do you not see that one day we are going to all be in the dark? We are going to be without power. We are going to have parts of this country that suffer the way California did one day. Do you not think that at least we ought to know what is coming and we ought to make wise decisions? I thought the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) was very statesmanlike last night when he talked about ANWR and he talked about his own trips there. I have been there, too, as the gentleman knows. It is a fascinating place. It ought to be protected in whatever we do there. That was a very statesmanlike statement, knowing, seeing, understanding and then making wise decisions. That is the way we ought to proceed, not sticking our head in the sand and refusing to know the facts. So we will accept this amendment, but I want to put everybody on notice that I am not through with this debate. I think we need to continue talking in the 5-year plans of this country about what we know and what we do not know and what we ought to know and what we do not know in terms of all resources development of this country.

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, this un-Kind amendment is typical of the reaction we get from the other side when we try to produce a comprehensive, balanced energy bill for America. We are asked to include efficiency titles and conservation titles and renewable fuel titles and alternative fuel titles and we do. Then we have one title to help maintain pro-production in this country, the vital fuels, the hydrocarbon fuels, the oil, the gas. It is critical to keep electric plants working to keep this economy going, to keep people warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and we get an amendment like this to strike that part of the bill, to totally unbalance it, so it does not have the pro-production features that a balanced energy policy ought to have. The President, in asking us to pass this bill, did a study of the Nation's needs in natural gas alone. He predicted we needed 1,600 new major electric plants in this country to supply this country with energy, and most of those plants were going to be natural gas plants because it is the environmental fuel of choice in America to produce electricity. Where is that gas going to come from? Do my colleagues think it comes from the sky? Do they think it comes out of the wall? I mean, they did a survey in California. Believe it or not, a huge percentage of people in California, when asked where electricity comes from, they said, the wall; and when asked who put it there, they said, the contractor put it there. They had no idea that there was somebody out there drilling an oil well, producing gas, putting it in a pipeline, putting in an electric power plant to make electricity for American families. This amendment would shut the pipeline down. This amendment would say, let us not put any more gas in the pipeline to fuel those power plants. This amendment would shut off the incentive program that Bill Clinton signed into law, the royalty relief program that Bill Clinton executed during his time in office, the program that Bill Clinton put in that was predicted, if it worked, to produce $400 to $500 million for the United States Treasury. Do my colleagues know what it produced? It is now predicted to produce $7 billion in new royalties that would never have been obtained, but for the deep-water drilling that occurred because Bill Clinton had the wisdom to sign the act we passed in Congress on deep- water drilling. This bill contains a similar incentive for deep-well drilling in the shallow fields, and the only place in America that most of my colleagues will allow us to drill is the offshore of Louisiana, Texas and Alabama. This bill is likely to produce enough natural gas to double the production of natural gas that the whole OCS produces in America. This amendment would shut it down. This amendment would say, let us not produce any more natural gas for America from these exotic fields below 20,000 feet. That would never get produced without this incentive, and even Bill Clinton understood that and signed a bill and executed it into law. And the $7 billion that produces, by the way, includes $1 billion that goes into the Land and Water Conservation Fund that goes into historic preservation in this country, money that would not be available for these environmental causes but for the deep-water drilling program that Bill Clinton signed into law. This bill extends further into authorization and extends into the deep drilling of the shallow fields. If we think natural gas and oil only powers power plants, think again. The liquids that come from these fuels, the propylenes, the ethylenes, the chemical building blocks that build most of the products we in our kitchen, shut them down, shut down American kitchens as well, shut down the entire chemical processes. That is what the un-Kind amendment does. We need to defeat it.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, let me first thank my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), and the members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in particular for the cooperative spirit and civility in which we have passed out of committee and onto the floor this immensely important bill for our Nation's future. And I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) in every way for those courtesies. Let me, on the other hand, greatly oppose this motion to recommit. There are three great ironies here. Let me first set the stage for my colleagues. The amendment that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) offers in the motion to recommit is, in fact, the position the House took last year. It was agreed to as a condition, as part of the package of a bill that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) agreed to support last year, and we were pleased to get his support for it. On the other hand, the Democratic Senate passed a hydro provision, and guess what, the provision in our House bill today is nearly identical to the Senate-passed hydro provisions of last year under a Democratic-controlled system. It is nearly identical to the hydro provisions passed out of the Senate committee this week, and it is a much better version of the hydro provisions that we contain in this bill that would get stripped by the Dingell motion to recommit. Let me tell my colleagues why. Let me tell my colleagues the ironies here. The irony, number one, hydropower is the number one renewable fuel in America. It provides more renewable clean energy than wind, solar, all other renewables combined. One would think we would want to encourage relicensing of hydro plants. It is the cleanest, the safest, most renewable energy in America. Our bill's hydro provisions helps to relicense and continue hydropower in America. The other great irony of this bill, of the motion to recommit offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) is that while everything the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) will set forth in his motion to recommit some very arbitrary standards, under which the Secretary has to do this relicensing, he actually provides such a limited list of alternatives to the Secretary that if anyone comes up with a better way of protecting fish, that would be illegal. The greatest irony is that this amendment in the nature of a substitute is offered for fish, and it cuts off alternative designs that would better protect fish and it leads to bureaucrats in the Department to make decisions about what rules to apply on a case-by- case basis when it comes to conditions on the license. This is not a good hydro provision. The hydro provision the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) offers this House will cripple the relicensing provisions of the bill. It will hurt hydropower. It will make it more difficult for us to have the number one, cleanest renewable fuel in America, and we ought not to adopt that kind of a policy in a good bill. Let me tell my colleagues the greatest irony. The greatest irony, while I do not have the gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Dingell) support on this bill, I have the support of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Mining Association, the Domestic Petroleum Council, the Edison Electric Institute, Large Public Power Council, the National Farmers Union, the Teamsters Union, the Association of American Railroads, the National Gas Vehicle Coalition, the Solar Energy Industries Association, the Renewable Fuels Association, the National Corn Growers Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and on and on and on. This bill is great for America. This motion to recommit would cripple an important part of renewable, clean energy, and we need to defeat it.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Let us vote this motion to recommit down and let us give America its first good shot in the economic arm. Let us get this country rolling again with national security and economic growth.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor) and would like to enter into several colloquies with Members.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, it has come to our attention that the gentleman has very serious concerns that residents of the State of Virginia may not benefit from certain provisions in the electricity title of H.R. 6, and it is for that reason we have this colloquy; and I want to give the gentleman certain assurances today.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I recognize and acknowledge that we will need to work further on the specific language in the savings clause of the Native Load provisions to address the gentleman's concerns. The exemption of this bill may have unintended consequences in States and regions of the country which are transitioning to RTOs and ISOs. I intend to continue to work on that language to ensure that any load- serving entity that wishes to avail itself of the statutory provision is able to do so.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 6, the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, and cross-references and to make such other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to reflect the actions of the House.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 6, the bill just passed.