Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, section 181 is located 64 miles from my district. It is much closer to my district in Louisiana, and much closer, by the way, to Alabama and Mississippi than it is to Florida. That is point number one. Point number two, right adjacent to section 181 BP just discovered 1.5 billion barrels of oil. There are huge reserves there, 7.8 trillion feet of natural gas probably in section 181. Section 181 is under a 5- year plan approved by President Clinton in his executive order 98, signed off by Florida and the other States of the area, that in fact respects the rights of Florida not to have drilling within 100 miles of its coast. Section 181 can help us through a terrible crisis we are about to face. It is not moratorium, it is in the 5-year leasing plan, and it needs to be developed. Ninety-two percent of the new electric power plants that are planned to be built in this country are being planned to be built with natural gas. Yet, we produce 14 percent less natural gas in this country than we did in 1973. Section 181 is critical. It has, on best estimates, 7.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas available for this country. We are not going to drill it? We are not talking about moratoriumed areas, we are not talking about monuments, we are talking about an area in the Gulf of Mexico right next to an area in Louisiana that is currently being drilled, currently being processed, for oil and gas for our country. It is an area rich in oil and gas for a nation that desperately need natural gas. Seven out of twelve fertilizer plants in Louisiana were shut down this year because we could not afford the natural gas to process fertilizer for the rest of this country. Do Members want to see more problems? Shut down section 181 and we will begin to shut down America's farm belt. We will begin to shut down clean power for America. We literally predict a crisis that will come true. Defeat this amendment for the good of the country.

Mr. TAUZIN

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to quickly address a subject in support of this rule that has arisen on the floor regarding California. Our committee, led by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), did a marvelous job of producing a set of solutions that could help the California problem out that included both demand reduction and supply increases, getting the QS back on, getting the Governor and the President to make some administrative decisions that have helped California, I think, a great deal. One of the recommendations we made in that bill and passed on to the FERC was the recommendations to do price mitigation on a 24-hour basis 7 days a week. Unanimously, Democrats and Republicans have now endorsed that proposal. It is now the order of the FERC. Senator Feinstein has said with this order in place she is not even asking for the price control bill that she originally sponsored on the Senate side. This notion of putting price controls into this debate is absolutely ludicrous. The reason California got in trouble was because California had price caps at the retail level, and attempted price caps at the wholesale level. Those price caps did something very remarkable. Those price caps reduced conservation in California by 8 percent, encouraged excessive demand, a 6 percent growth, the highest in the Nation, and put California in a shortage position where it did not have enough power plants to supply the needs of that economy. This price mitigation plan now adopted by the FERC, as recommended by our committee, together with 17 Members of the Republican California delegation, a plan first suggested to us by the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose), is now in place and will serve to make sure that price spikes do not occur in those periods of time when California is really short. This has been a rough and tumble negotiated process, but we have produced a solution that does in fact help order that market without doing what California did incorrectly, without putting hard price caps in place that do nothing but shorten supply, increase demand, and dampen the need for conservation. Since the price caps on rates have been lifted in California, guess what, conservation has increased 13 percent. Now that the Governor has authorized the construction of new plants in California, put old plants back online, put QS back on, there is less of a danger of blackouts; it is not solved yet, but there is much less of a danger of blackouts. In short, the work done by the subcommittee led by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), with the help and counsel of the California Members of the Republican party and with the President and the FERC now following in a bipartisan fashion the adoption of the price mitigation plan, we are well on our way, at least, to beginning to settle the California problem that unfortunately the policymakers in California put the people of California through. Let me say something else: California is 12 percent of this Nation's economy. We could not afford not to help. California needs to have a good supply of energy. It needs to have prices people can afford. It needs to have a market that is reasonable, like the rest of America, where supply meets demand; where conservation is encouraged, not dampened or weakened; and where new supplies are always brought on board when there is a real and honest demand for those supplies. Silicon Valley cannot afford to go dark. America cannot afford to have this new economy darken because we have not solved those problems. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) for the courageous work he has done. I want to thank the FERC for making I think a very wise decision in this price mitigation plan. I want to thank all of the Members who agree with me that this issue ought to be put to bed.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to take a minute to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) for the special order, because as the gentleman knows residents of Louisiana suffered along with residents of Texas. All over my district, we had similar flooding. This morning, the President declared a disaster area in the parishes that I represent in South Louisiana. In my hometown, we had a rain gauge that measured 38 inches of rainfall at one location, in my hometown, an amazing amount of rain. No one could have prepared for it. I want to thank the gentleman for reading those numbers. I hope people have listened carefully. FEMA is on the job, and we hope relief is coming soon.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, as a former chairman of the Subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Marine Transportation, I want to admit a prejudice. I have a huge incredible appreciation and admiration for the work of the young men and women of our United States Coast Guard. I have seen firsthand incredible sacrifices and the extraordinary valor and courage they exercise every day in saving lives and interdicting drugs and opening up seaways and keeping our waterways safe and keeping the traffic that is critical to international trade in and out of our harbors without collisions and damage and oil spills and all the other things, the incredible number of missions that they perform on a daily basis without a whole lot of thanks and without a whole lot of expectation of reward. But it is time we recognize something; that the sons and daughters of American citizens, who serve in the United States Coast Guard and who daily save lives and save us from human suffering with their drug interdiction and who save damage and destruction in our harbors as they keep safety in these critical national commerce areas, that these men and women too often work with outdated and outmoded equipment and that their lives are at risk unnecessarily. It is time we put some real resources into upgrading and updating the equipment, the boats and planes and the equipment they use to carry out these extraordinary missions. I was on a flight one time in a Coast Guard plane whose engine gave out on us, and communication was lost, and I thought we were all gone for a little while. That should never happen to any young man or woman who volunteers for service in the United States Coast Guard. Let us today, in this vote, declare with a ringing sense of appreciation the gratitude of the American people through this Congress for the extraordinary sacrifice and service of the young men and women of our United States Coast Guard. And let us dedicate ourselves to making sure that as they save lives, as they perform the incredibly important missions we have assigned to them, that we make their lives as sacred as the lives they are saving, that we protect them with better equipment and better boats and better planes. Mr. Chairman, I wholeheartedly urge the passage of this bill.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank and appreciate the great work of the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor), in bringing this legislation to the floor today, and to recognize that this is the first, I think, significant reform in environmental laws in this country in 5 years; and that for this to happen, it required an extraordinary amount of bipartisan cooperation and support. I particularly want to single out the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), who has done an extraordinary job of reaching across the aisle to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor) and bringing this bill forward. I owe a great deal of gratitude to my own ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), who is working closely with me on the Committee of Energy and Commerce to bring a bipartisan spirit to much of our work. Again, this bill is the best symbol of that effort to date. I want to thank him for that. I of course would like to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), who have put in so many hours and years. There are numerous other people in this room who deserve credit. It is important to note that this is indeed a bipartisan effort to find an answer to a very troubling problem in Superfund law, that is, how to protect the innocent folks who get caught up into this amazing and deep liability and litigation scheme that was designed to make sure that real polluters were punished by making them responsible for cleaning up Superfund sites in this country. This particular area of small business relief I think was really brought to our attention for all Americans by Barbara Williams, the former owner of SunnyRay Restaurant in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who told us here in Congress about her own nightmare experience of being drawn into Superfund liability and transaction costs and litigation expenses. And for what reason? That her restaurant had put some chicken bones into her waste, and this had eventually gone to a site. All of a sudden she found herself wrapped up in the system in a way that the law never was intended to give Americans those kinds of problems. The passage of this bill, which is hugely endorsed by NFIB and by the administration, is not the end; but it is certainly the beginning of Superfund reform. I commend the authors and encourage passage of the bill.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, on February 7, 2001, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, meeting in open markup session, adopted the following Rules for the 107th Congress.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, let me first acknowledge, as did the ranking minority member of the Committee on Commerce, our extraordinary disappointment in the jurisdictional transfer from the Committee on Commerce to this new Committee on Financial Services. It is important, as the chairman has said, to know, however, that memorandums of understanding regarding that transfer are now being negotiated so that there is clarity in the transfer. Like the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), we too had similar questions about the meaning of the jurisdictional changes; and I would first ask my friend, the chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), a simple question. The rules changes being considered today will clearly transfer jurisdiction over securities and exchanges from the Committee on Commerce to the new Committee on Financial Services, and the Committee on Financial Services will also be accorded insurance, generally. But there is not any intent on the part of the Committee on Rules to transfer or otherwise affect the jurisdiction of the Committee on Commerce; is that correct?

Mr. TAUZIN. Indeed, the gentleman pointed out very clearly that health care insurance and Public Utility Holding Company Act jurisdiction still resides with the Committee on Commerce; is that correct?

Mr. TAUZIN. Let me say on behalf of many members of the Committee on Commerce we, of course, are extremely disappointed in this transfer. While we would, of course, like to retain that jurisdiction, we would like to retain it for a simple reason and that is because the Committee on Commerce has done, as the ranking minority member has stated, an extraordinary job in representing good policy for the stock market and the security industries in general, as well as for the insurance industry of this country, and the record will demonstrate, I think, that the extraordinary care and concern the Committee on Commerce has given to these issues has created an extraordinarily stable environment for financial trading and for insurance. While we regret this transfer, we appreciate the cooperation of the chairman of the Committee on Rules in the memorandum and in further clarifications of jurisdictional shifts.

Mr. TAUZIN. Is the chairman also in agreement that further memorandums of understanding are being worked out regarding issues?

Mr. TAUZIN. Some of the questions like FASB and ECNs?

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to point out, even while we are going through an awfully hotly contested election and waiting to find out who our next President may be, we are still working here and still improving the state of our Nation's laws and this small, but important area making sure that consumers enjoy their televisions and their radios and their mobile telephone sets in their homes. This is an important bill that helps American families in a very special way when they run into this problem. It will give them local redress so they do not have to come all the way to Washington to get help. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), my friend, for persevering all this year to bring this to final action in this House. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Bliley), because without the assistance of the gentleman from Virginia, obviously, we would not have moved the bill to this point. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection, for their extraordinarily bipartisan cooperation on this and so many communication bills that our committee works on. Mr. Speaker, again, I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn), my friend, for being here to help us finalize this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), the author of the legislation who has worked tirelessly for many years now to bring this legislation to final action by the House and the Senate.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say thank you to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn), my friend, who has always demonstrated, as the Committee on Commerce often does, a bipartisan spirit to improve the condition of our consumer protection laws. This certainly is not a bill that is going to reshape the economy of Louisiana or America or Michigan or Maryland, but it nevertheless is an unusually important bill to neighbors who cannot use their telephones and their television sets. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), my friend.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 2346) to authorize the enforcement by State and local governments of certain Federal Communications Commission regulations regarding use of citizens band radio equipment.

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 to insert extraneous material on H.R. 2346.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. H.R. 2346 is an important initiative intended to improve compliance with the FCC rules governing citizens band radio service. The House passed this bill in September by a voice vote, and the other body made a clarifying amendment to the bill when it passed the bill just last month. The result is the text that we see before us today. Fundamentally, the bill is an effort to help eliminate the practices of the few CB radio users that have chosen to take advantage of the unlicensed nature of CB radios to operate outside the boundaries of the FCC rules. When some people choose not to follow those rules, unexpected and potentially harmful interference can result for users of other services. Let me take a moment to talk about the amendment that the other body has made to the bill. The amendment was worked out by all parties, including my good friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), and the American Trucking Association, the sponsor of the bill; and obviously the trucking association is a very interested group of American citizens. First, the amendment protects against the possibility that the courts might construe the legislation to require a final decision in a State adjudication process, as distinguished from a mere final action of a State or a local enforcement agency, as a precondition of appeal to the FCC which has, of course, jurisdiction in the area. This would prevent lengthy court action prior to appealing a decision of a State or a local agency. The other body's amendment makes it clear that the legal standard of probable cause for commercial motor vehicles and operators under this legislation is a standard developed by the court system. This eliminates a protection included in the House bill to help the operators of commercial motor vehicles that raised some unintended consequences and concerns. Accordingly, we should be able to drop that section of the bill. Lastly, the amendment modifies a requirement that the FCC provide technical guidance to the State and local government agencies. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), my friend, for his work on this bill and ask all Members to support its passage Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I think it is time we put this in perspective. Medicare+Choice programs are exactly that, they are Medicare plus, and they are choice programs. Nobody forces a senior to join them; nobody says you have to join it; nobody says you have to stay in it if you do not like it. In fact, seniors join these Medicare+Choice programs because they like them, because they add new benefits, primarily prescription drug coverage, but sometimes even other nice benefits. Prescription drug benefit coverage obviously is something seniors want to have, and that is why this House passed a prescription drug benefit bill and sent it on to the Senate. But for those seniors who join these programs, of course we all agree that we do not want these programs to shut down and move out. They have shut down in my district. They are threatening to move out in my district as well. But the reason cited as the most important reason why they are moving out, according to the MedPac March 2000 report, is the uncertainty of future payments. So can we all agree that the problem of reimbursement is one of the principal causes of hospitals shutting down in the rural parts of America and Medicare+Choice programs moving out? So we pass the bill, H.R. 5543, which includes new reimbursement formulas, new monies to hospitals, new monies for the Medicare+Choice programs; and as the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) correctly pointed out, it included language that said the money that went to the Medicare+Choice programs must be used for lower premiums and/or more benefits. It has to be used for that. So we provided more money to keep them there, to keep them home, and to keep them investing in our communities, providing these Medicare+Choice programs for seniors. We want to encourage them to stay. The problem with the motion to instruct is that it may have the perverse effect of destabilizing them even more. What it says is you have to stay for 3 years, whether or not the program is working, whether or not the reimbursements are adequate to cover the benefits that are provided under the program. The reason why this motion to instruct is wrong, even though we all agree that these are good programs that seniors want to have, even though we all agree that we do not want to see them move out of our districts, even though we all agree they are programs that provide extra coverage for our moms, for our dads and for our grandparents who desperately need extra coverage, the reason why this motion to instruct is wrong is it has the effect of destabilizing the presence of Medicare+Choice programs in our communities. Why would someone come into a marginally profitable area? Why would they come into an area where the reimbursements are not quite adequate to cover the benefits? Why would they come in if they were told, whether or not it works, you have to stay 3 years? They would not come in at all. The chances of them not coming in, not being present for my mom, not being present for our grandparents around America, to have these programs available to them, is much stronger if this motion to instruct passes. On the contrary, we ought to encourage the signature on H.R. 5543. Let me remind my friends on the other side, you voted to give more money to Medicare+Choice programs. You voted under the Medicare prescription drug bill we passed, or the Stark substitute. You voted for $3 billion more to go to those programs. So you agree with us we ought to help them more, we ought to stabilize them, we ought encourage them to stay so seniors can have them. But what we ought not do in this motion to instruct is further discourage them, further say there is a bigger risk in your coming to Thibodaux, Louisiana, where seniors would like you to be around. You see, there is a disconnect here. You cannot on the one hand attack these programs and refuse to help them out financially, and then on the other hand say that whether you make it or not, you have got to stick around for 3 years. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad motion to instruct. We ought to defeat it.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, this matter involves two things: the first is the facts, so let us get the facts straight. We are talking about a whistleblower lawsuit on royalty valuations that amounted to about a $400 million claim. It was not brought by POGO. This whistleblower lawsuit was brought by a whistleblower by the name of Johnson. Johnson filed suit against Shell. Johnson was entitled, under the whistleblower statute, to 17 to 20 percent of the winnings if this whistleblower suit won. Now, we have these things in Louisiana a lot. The oil companies fight with our State over oil royalty and gas royalty valuations all the time. Some are legitimate disputes; some are not so legitimate. Johnson brought a suit claiming illegitimate royalty valuations, and Johnson the whistleblower suddenly finds out that POGO gets in its lawsuit and wants a share of the take. POGO in fact weasels its way into that lawsuit and gets about a $7 million share of the take. How did POGO get in the lawsuit? POGO got in the lawsuit, we are told, our investigators tell us, because two Federal employees apparently knew about this sealed lawsuit, called their friends at POGO, got them into the lawsuit, and cut a deal to get one-third of the take. Two Federal employees cut a deal, apparently, with POGO, to each take one-third of $7 million, to get POGO a share of Mr. Johnson's whistleblower lawsuit. That is what the allegations are. Now, the second thing we are talking about is whether this Congress, as the watchdog of America over Federal agencies and Federal employees who might do criminal and wrong things, has a right to get straight answers from witnesses we call. Now, when the two witnesses from POGO and when the Federal official involved here come before our committee and refuse to answer the questions that we ask them about this elicit deal, they do not take the fifth amendment, which they could have done. They simply say, ``Hum, Congress, we are not going to talk to you, and you can't do anything about it.'' They are telling the American people that the eyes and ears of their Congress, elected by the American public to watchdog Federal agencies, have no power, have no authority. They take that power away from us when they can snub us and say they will not answer legitimate questions in a Federal inquiry. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie). He said it right. Whether the Democrats control this House, or whether the Republicans control this House, this is the people's House. We are not just here voting for Americans; we are their eyes and ears too over the Federal bureaucracies. It is our job to make sure Federal employees deal with Americans honestly, and when two Federal employees cut a deal to get one-third of a whistleblower lawsuit and refuse to come and answer questions about it before a committee of this Congress, every Member, Democrat and Republican, ought to rise up and say, the American public, this House, will not be shunned this way. We will not be, in the vernacular of the young, ``dissed'' in this fashion. The product of this investigation is critical. The product of this investigation is to uncover criminal wrongdoing, and we ought to proceed with this vote today.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 563, I was inadvertently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I was recorded as a ``yea'' on rollcall vote No. 382. It was my intention to vote ``nay''.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, Americans were shocked this morning to realize that today public radio is beginning to air political advertisements. It seems that public radio has interpreted their mandate to include reasonable access to Federal candidates to allow the placement of Democratic political advertisements on public radio. Now, I think they have interpreted the law wrong. But I am calling upon public radio to immediately take those political ads down. The law requires, in effect, that they cannot charge for political advertising. The Democrat candidates are apparently taking advantage of tax-free paid support to public radio by placing their ads free of charge on public radio. That ought to end today. If it does not end today, I will call upon every candidate in political elections to bring their ads to public radio and next year we will think about taking away their mandate entirely.

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 to insert extraneous material on H.R. 2592, as amended.