Bill Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, we have a number of other measures that we will move along. As chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, I can assure the gentleman that $3 billion over 10 years is not that large an amount of money to find, and as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, I pledge to the gentleman, we will find it. If that is the gentleman's concern about not supporting the amendment, I hope he now supports it.

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

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson) to control the time.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment has two major provisions, one dealing with an attempt, since we know that the Patients' Bill of Rights and the expenses associated with the albeit appropriate and necessary structural procedure of due process and potential litigation will cost additional dollars and, therefore, will have some negative impact on the number of folks who are insured, we believe that it is necessary to go forward. That is why this amendment is offered. This amendment contains two significant provisions that we believe will significantly enhance the opportunity to retain the insurance that is available for individuals for health insurance today and, perhaps, even enhance it based upon the creative approach in this amendment. The first provisions are called medical savings accounts, and in honor of the former chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, these have become known as Archer MSAs. The problem with the Archer MSAs was that they were not permanent. They were not a viable insurance product, and notwithstanding recent polls that show that up to 90 percent of Americans believe these are necessary and appropriate, especially among that group that is the least insured with health insurance, the 18- to 29-year-olds who have that 91 percent desirability for this insurance, the structure of MSAs has been such that it does not work. Mr. Chairman, this amendment refines medical savings accounts to produce a viable insurance product. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson). (Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, as we look at this tax component, it has been characterized today in a number of different ways. Our friends on the other side of the aisle like to talk about the enormous giveaway to special interests. I would like to point out that the special interests in the bill who get the major-appliance reductions for energy efficiency are the American taxpayers. Those who invest in their home in energy-efficient ways are also the special interests involved in this bill. If they buy a more fuel-efficient car, they get significant tax credits. I think Members will find that throughout this tax provision, individuals who seek conservation and alternate energy get rewarded for that behavior. That is one of the major special interests. The other area that I think needs to be emphasized that people do not talk about is under the heading of reliability. That actually gets the largest percentage of money, almost 39 percent in this tax structure, because we frankly need to deal with electric transmission lines. We need to deal with natural gas transmission lines. Then, once we develop the natural gas transmission lines for clean-burning natural gas, we need distribution lines. One of the difficulties, I think, that we forget about is that it is not just the switch on the wall. Our ability to function in a post- industrial energy-efficient world requires significant investment in infrastructure. Even a transition from the highly regulated one that we are in in the area of electricity to a more deregulated one requires attention in the Tax Code. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan Mr. Camp), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, so we can get a slightly different perspective on this issue.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, one of the significant hands and minds that allowed us to put this package together.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of my time. Volume will not stop the truth from getting out. At my request, the Democrats wrote me letters indicating what they would like to see in this energy package. In fact, the ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), wrote me a letter indicating there were 17 provisions that they requested. Twelve of them were included in their entirety and several in part. I found it ironic that the gentleman from Michigan took the very scant few minutes the Committee on Ways and Means has to talk about the tax package to, in fact, urge people to vote against an amendment to be offered by the chairman of the Committee on Science. So much for the real concern about this tax provision. Now, I am not going to answer in kind the comments that were made in terms of who is getting the money, except to say I cannot believe anyone out there listening really believes that the $12 billion identified by the gentleman from Washington was going to big oil. As a matter of fact, the largest energy production structure in the United States gets the smallest amount in this bill. It is a balanced bill. It contains many of the provisions the Democrats wanted. And if we will listen to their rhetoric, take a look at their vote, I think we will find a significant difference between what they are saying and how they are voting.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, it is my privilege to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watkins), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I really had not planned on speaking on the rule, but when we have finally reached the point of every Democratic Member coming in the well and simply misrepresenting what this bill is in such a gross way, I do think we need to put a little balance into it. The single biggest portion of the tax area is in reliability. The second largest is conservation. There are a number of renewable requirements for solar and for biomass. There are a number of provisions for individuals to get tax credits on their major appliances, on their homes, major tax credits for fuel cell cars, up to $40,000. The gentleman from Massachusetts is probably not wanting to listen to this because he said $34 billion went to major oil companies. The fact of the matter is that is not true. Half of it does not go, a quarter of it does not go, 10 percent of it does not go. But it does not make nearly as good a pitch as saying this tax credit goes to big oil and it comes out of Medicare. That is not true, but the truth is not a good story. The truth is that on a bipartisan basis we are going to conserve, we are going to make our energy source more reliable, and we are going to produce a little bit more. That is a really good mix.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for providing that very enlightening chart. What most Members could not see was the fine print up on the rig, and it said, ``For more than 40 years, that is what the Democrats did.'' There was another sign right below it that said, ``This rig is no longer in operation.'' Because we are here arguing about the surplus. Never happened on your watch. Let me repeat the key words in that devastating Republican quote that the gentlewoman from Florida offered, ``possibly already.'' Really firm language. The answer is, we are not invading the HI trust fund and we will not invade the HI trust fund. Stripped of all of the language, what this is is something that is becoming familiar to us. It is a trigger, and the trigger says, now watch this; the trigger says, they want to rely on a projection of income. During the tax bill, all we heard from them was, We cannot rely on projections. Do not rely on projections. This trigger is based on projections, so the last desperate refuge is to argue that we are going to deal with a projection. What is the projection? Not that there is a deficit, not that there is going to be a deficit in the upcoming Federal fiscal year. But if Members will look on line 14 and 15, it says: ``The director of the Office of Management and Budget shall make a projection for the following calendar year,'' so they have to make a second-year projection that there will be a deficit; not that a deficit occurs, but that there is a projection that there will be a deficit. What does that trigger, since this is just a trigger? The entire denial of the energy package in which we have the 38 percent devoted to conservation, 37 percent devoted to reliability, so that the lights do not go off in California, so that the rest of the United States does not experience our predicament. If Members want a trigger, use a light switch, not some kind of a budget projection a year and a half off.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the preferential motion.

Mr. THOMAS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I was not one of those that had a government imposition of MTBE on the refineries either, because it increased the cost of producing fuel. It does not produce the end result. And now we find out it was even worse than we thought. We have increased the cost of gasoline to America's consumers by billions of dollars either with ethanol or with this particular additive, and it has not gotten us where we need to go. What we need do is take a step back, take the politics out of it, and use a bit more science in the way in which we are trying to get more reasonable mileage out of a gallon of fuel.

Mr. THOMAS. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. THOMAS. The motion is that we do now rise, but pending that, we strike the enacting clause, which allows me to debate the issue. I apologize to the chairman as well. In this debate there are individuals who have gotten a little carried away with the concept of oxygenated fuel, because the rise of an oxygenated fuel is twofold. One, there is clearly a subsidy to America's farmers. And if we discuss using ethanol because it assists corn growers and it is a subsidy to farmers, then I think that is a legitimate debate. But if we are going to discuss using ethanol because of its superior qualities in a fuel for cars, then I think we need to take a look at the technology that has developed over the last 20 years and the way in which automobiles now function versus the way automobiles functioned at the time ethanol became a ``fuel additive,'' putting oxygen in the gasoline itself. In an open-looped automobile there is a carburetor or fuel injection, and it is basically a self-regulating structure of air coming in, mixing with the fuel, going into the chamber, firing, and going out the exhaust. If we can enhance the burning quality of that mixture by putting oxygen in the fuel, we can actually get a cleaner burning fuel, and we can even improve the mileage. The problem is technology has carried us far beyond that today. We have closed-loop automobiles. There are very few open-loop automobiles around. What in the world is a closed-loop automobile? Most of my colleagues have an oxygen sensor in their exhaust system. The oxygen sensor examines the mix after the combustion; and it says, there is too little oxygen, there is too much oxygen. The message from the oxygen sensor goes to a computer and the computer regulates the amount of air or the amount of fuel coming in to the chamber. It does not go outside. It is a closed loop. And if the message is there is too much oxygen in the fuel, the computer does what? It puts more fuel into the mix. Why? Because there is too much oxygen. Air. Except the oxygen is in the fuel. And so we consume more fuel than we would have otherwise in a closed-loop automobile, and we do not necessarily get cleaner burning because the oxygen sensor is trying to regulate the fuel air mixture. When I say air, think of oxygen. But we have put oxygen in the fuel, and what happens is we wind up consuming more fuel than we otherwise would. We do not get as many miles per gallon. And if we are burning more fuel per mile, we are increasing the emissions. Now, at some point, maybe we can have an objective discussion of fuel mileage and the way in which we are treating our fuels. We have more than three dozen fuels all over the country in an attempt to micromanage the quality of the air. Most of them do more damage than would otherwise be the case with the automobiles that we currently use. So at some point I am looking forward to a debate about whether or not we ought to subsidize America's corn growers by putting ethanol in gasoline. But it is not an argument that it is cleaner burning or that it saves fuel and mileage. In today's cars, it is just not true.

Mr. THOMAS. I do apologize to some of my colleagues.

Mr. THOMAS. Pending that, I would move the enacting clause be stricken.

Mr. THOMAS. I cannot gain time by moving to strike the enacting clause?

Mr. THOMAS. The time is controlled?

Mr. THOMAS. I believe there is time left in the debate.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the enacting clause.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of H.R. 2603.