Zach Wamp

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman. I just want to say as I begin that the gentlelady from Texas said that this money goes to the White House. Thankfully, this money goes to the men and women in the uniform of our Armed Forces who volunteered to stand between a threat and our civilian population. And I want to commend everyone in the House for bringing us to this moment, because the traditions of this great country and this Congress are to meet at the water's edge at a time of war. And we have learned the lessons of history. And we know that it's important to fund the men and women who are in harm's way with the resources they need. The particular piece that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and I have worked together on are the issues of quality of life. And let me tell you that this supplemental appropriations bill meets those quality of life needs on military housing, the child development centers for the families that are so critical, the medical treatment at places like Walter Reed that we have read and heard so much about and polytrauma rehabilitation centers. We know that asymmetrical warfare has caused critical problems that must be addressed. People ask me and Mr. Edwards often, are we doing what's right for our men and women in uniform? This bill helps us to do that in a significant way and meet the needs of our veteran population. It meets the needs of barracks that we know and have heard about. And it fully funds what we need to on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission so they can meet their schedule which we were not meeting. This is so important. And then this issue of GI benefits for education. Of course the men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve this benefit. For weeks we've all been writing about how this is so appropriate. And today we come together. So I applaud everyone, most of all those volunteers in our military, who have agreed to answer our country's call and stand in harm's way. My nephew, who just got back from Iraq, and my other nephew who is a marine on his way to Afghanistan, and all of the other brave Americans, we're answering their call today. They answered our call. We meet together to do what is right for our country thanks to the leadership in the majority and the minority for finally coming together and doing what is right. This is a good bill. Let's move it forward. And let's honor our commitment to our men and women in uniform.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman, and I'll try not to be long. But I do want to start by saying that I seek not to blame anyone, because one of the things that I'm the most turned off by in the modern era of American politics is that everybody wants to blame everybody. And Democrats always say Republicans are wrong. Republicans always say Democrats are wrong. The truth is, neither party has a whole lot to brag about, and more and more people are being frustrated or becoming frustrated with the two parties. But I will say, on this particular issue of energy, it's important to realize that talk is cheap. Words are not worth much. And votes really do matter. And the positions you take really do have consequences, and we have to actually discuss that as we look at solutions, because what I want to talk about is solutions; not blame, but solutions to these major problems. In my 14 years of service here, this issue now stings and hurts more than any issue that I've seen. And I've served through impeachment, through the Iraq war, through the awful response to Katrina, and I would say that more people are angry and upset and concerned about $4.05 gasoline than anything. And it's easy to say, I told you so. The gentleman from Pennsylvania can definitely say I told you so because I've served with him for 12 years, and he's been talking about supply of oil and gas and the consequences of us not going after it and becoming more independent ourselves for the whole 12 years; a very powerful and effective voice. I too have a long history of talking about the problems that are going to be associated with the energy crunch and was very concerned following September the 11th that we would end up here tonight. I do think that the nexus between national security, energy and the environment is the most important challenge of our generation because they're all connected now inseparably. It's ironic that the left wants to promote legislation and conversation about global warming and climate change because actually that will further restrict our access to energy, and everybody knows that. And it will raise prices. It will increase regulation. It will actually compound this problem. Yet they're promoting that agenda at the same time that they're retreating from energy capacity. And these votes really matter. Now I come at this with 10 years of service on the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, 8 years of service as the cochairman of the Renewable Energy Caucus here in the House, which is a bipartisan thing; the Representative that represents the premier energy research facility in this country, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And I want to start by saying that conservation is a very important piece of these solutions. As a matter of fact, conservation is not for wimps, as some people would have you believe. Conservation is for warriors, in my opinion. Not everyone is going to put on the uniform of our Armed Forces. We should be grateful to everyone who does. But not everyone's going to do that. But every person in this country can contribute to our national security by becoming more energy efficient, by conserving, by trying to be more efficient in their daily life, and there are a lot of ways to do that. And I rolled out at the National Press Club, with some outside groups, some very effective outside groups, the Drive Smarter Challenge. You can go to drivesmarterchallenge.org, and you can save yourself hundreds of dollars by following simple instructions of how to conserve gasoline without cutting back on your travel. Obviously the speed limit and how much you travel would be a good step. But there a lot of other things you can do with your automobile, depending on how much gas it uses, to save and conserve, because even in small ways, if we reduce the demand, and the supply stays the same, the price will come down. Demand and supply are connected to each other. I'm also very, very much about new technologies. As I talk about these solutions, understand that I'm here tonight, not because these solutions are all technology-driven or conservation-driven, but I'm here tonight because we have to go forward with an all-of-the-above strategy. We can't afford to leave anything off the table. We can't afford to pick winners and losers. As a matter of fact, I can give you a good example of picking winners and losers in the energy sector because in California, they said, we're not going to use all of the resources for electricity production. We're going to mandate that a certain amount of our electricity has to be produced by these sources. They picked winners and losers. And guess what happened? The lights went out. They didn't have any electricity. That's the problem with picking winners and losers. We have to have an all-of-the-above strategy. I'm here tonight, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania laid out earlier, because we have to increase capacity. We have to go after these resources from the Outer Continental Shelf, from ANWR. I've been in Congress 14 years. I've cast 24 votes to increase capacity for oil and gas in this country. Twenty-four votes. As has been said ad infinitum now, and I'm not a partisan guy--I don't want to blame anybody--but these votes matter. And almost every time the Republicans vote for new capacity, and almost every time the Democrats vote against it. Even today, it happened again. And 2 weeks ago it happened in the Senate again. This is one of those issues that I don't want to be too partisan, but you can't deny there is a huge difference between increasing capacity. Frankly, even the wild-eyed environmentalist has to recognize that this is painful to regular people. And you've got to get off of your crusade to save every tree, you know, to save every form of wildlife at the expense of our human beings who can't pay their bills and they can't buy gas. Be reasonable, people. That's not happening today. But there's a tremendous amount of new technologies. I would argue that we can literally grow our economy, a manufacturing-driven, export robust U.S. economy, by being aggressive in this energy sector, because we have the innovation. What does everyone around the world still emulate about our country? We would like to say it's our privilege to vote. That's important. But they don't all emulate that. We'd like to think that they all would freely worship as we do, and I cherish that. But they don't all emulate that. We would like to think we all have freedom of the press. The one thing they emulate is our private sector, our capitalistic, free enterprise, innovative sector. We have that. How did we balance the budget in the late nineties? I was here. Four straight years. People think, oh, you cut spending. No we didn't. We slowed the growth of spending, yes we did. We didn't cut spending. But revenues surpassed expenses principally because of one sector of our economy that roared, information technology. We led the world. Microsoft is an example. There are many others. We led the world. Revenues surpassed expenses. That can happen again in this sector if we will lead and not be in retreat and not regulate, not limit, but expand, go after it, create new technologies, increase capacity. Be competitive. As the gentleman from Pennsylvania said, it's important. Now, I have had the editor of Automotive News say that we're going to be driving electric cars. That might be true. Ion lithium batteries have some potential. GM and Toyota say that next summer they're going to have plug-in hybrids. But I will also tell you that Volkswagon, which is a premier automotive interest in the world, can make a three- cylinder diesel engine, lightweight, gets 50 to 60 miles a gallon so biodiesel, biofuels, as long as they're cellulosic in nature and not corn based, are very important developments as well. I will tell you what I don't think the Congress ought to do is pick winners and losers. I think we ought to have an all-of-the-above strategy. Let the market determine which one gets their best and first. Let consumers choose and promote them all. Let the marketplace decide. Let me say that if we do end up plugging our cars in, though, we don't have the electricity capacity to keep them running. We have to have nuclear energy. The numbers--81 percent of France's electricity is generated by nuclear power. They have 53 reactors; we have roughly twice that many. They don't bury their waste, which we propose at Yucca Mountain. They reprocess their spent full turning most of the spent waste back into energy. Why don't we do that? Because we're still stuck in a Three Mile Island time warp mindset that it's somehow not safe, and it is. And there is no evidence that it is not. And we've not had any nuclear incidences. We have 53 nuclear reactors. It is emissionless. You want to reduce the carbon footprint? Promote nuclear. If you want to reduce the carbon footprint in a meaningful way and you're against nuclear, you're disingenuous. I don't care what your name is. You're not living in the real world, or you're playing politics. We need nuclear. Now, another new technology is the stationary solid oxide fuel cell. What is that? Well, it's developed out of Silicon Valley. Partnerships around the country. We have a 100-kilowatt system now being demonstrated in the Tennessee Valley. It looks like the HVAC system in your home, but here is the special element of a solid oxide fuel cell: It makes electricity, but it's not on a transmission grid. That's pretty cool in the world we live in today because without a transmission grid, you can't shut down the electricity through a terrorist incident because not everyone is connected to the grid. And in this stationary solid oxide fuel cell, which is also emissionless, reducing the carbon footprint, it does have to be fueled in one feedstock. It's an HVAC system with fuel cells that creates 100 kilowatts of power which is roughly a 30,000 square foot building. Office building, commercial center, several houses. But you have to have a feedstock, but it will run on anything, just about. It will run on natural gas, it will run on solar in some places, ethanol, different feedstocks. But that's an important development. It has got tremendous electricity potential especially if we start plugging in our cars and we need this new electricity capacity. I believe we ought to look at a follow-up stimulus bill that directs resources to people that are stuck. And I'll tell you in the south, if you're on the lower income, you probably have a very inefficient vehicle and you probably drive a long way to work and you're stuck; and those are the people that our next economic stimulus ought to help. We ought to figure out a way in a bipartisan way to get them some resources to move to more efficient transportation, one way or another. Because people right now, they can't trade that big car. They can't get for it what it's worth, and then they don't have the money to go to a more efficient car. We should help them. In closing, let me just say words are cheap and votes really do make a difference, and the votes for energy capacity have been really important in the past, and they're even more important today; and they're going to be even more important tomorrow. And this is where we have to bring this Congress together. And the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate is way out of touch with reality unless they get serious immediately about increasing capacity because if we made moves that were published around the world that we're going back in the energy-production business, prices would come down overnight, not because the energy is there overnight, but because they know we're going in the right direction because right now we're going in the wrong direction. We need help.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker. I rise today in support of worksite physical activity. On Wednesday, April 23rd, I had the distinct honor of opening a session on Capitol Hill that focused on the importance of worksite physical activity and how such activity benefits individuals, society, our economy and our government. There were a number of congressional offices in attendance, but the session covered such an important topic I wanted to share a bit of it with my colleagues here today. The session, organized by the non-profit group, Partnership for Prevention, featured speakers from the Center for Disease Control, the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity, the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association and Erickson Communities. The reason for the session was simple--obesity in this country is rising with nearly 67 percent of all American adults being classified as obese. Health care costs associated with diseases in which obesity is a contributing factor are rising, with costs increasing over the thirteen-year period from 1987 to 2000 by between 16 and 30 percent for such diseases as diabetes, arthritis, hypertension, cancer and heart problems. Obesity costs employers more than $117 billion annually in sick leave, medical costs, lost productivity and labor replacement costs. And the government spends more combating these diseases through our federal medical programs. Given how widespread and deeply disturbing this issue is, all of us have a role in combating obesity. Individuals need to exercise more. Companies need to provide more help for workplace fitness and we in government ought to both promote physical activity and eliminate any barriers that might exist that prevent that at the federal level. The speakers addressed each of these issues, with many interesting and important facts, but the one that stuck out in my mind was a simple one. For every $ that a company invests in a workplace fitness program, it gets back $3.48 in reduced health care costs, lower worker absenteeism and increased productivity. That is a great return on investment. It is why so many companies have invested heavily in workplace fitness. Sadly, we in Congress have not yet done our part. There are still too many barriers within the federal legal code to the promotion of workplace physical activity. Two pieces of legislation currently pending before the House, H.R. 1748, the Workforce Health Improvement Program Act, and H.R. 245, the Personal Health Investment Today Act. would eliminate federal tax barriers to the active promotion of physical activity. I and a number of my colleagues in the House, from both sides of the aisle, support these bills and we are working to get them enacted. Just as companies and organizations like the ones at the briefing have stepped up, I hope Congress will do the same.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, as a leader on earmark reform among House Republicans, I am committed to honoring House Republican rules that provide for greater transparency. The fiscal year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act contains the following funding that I requested: Requesting Member: Representative Zach Wamp. Bill Number: H.R. 5658. Account: Military Construction, Army National Guard. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Tennessee National Guard. Address: 3041 Sidco Drive, Nashville, TN. Description of Request: $10,372,000 for the construction of a new Army National Guard Readiness Center to replace the inadequate Readiness Center that was constructed in 1954. The existing facility has numerous health and safety issues as well as significant electrical code issues, and ADA violations. The new facility will house the 20th Troop Command, and the Company Headquarters of the 1175th Transportation Company. This project is in the Army National Guard's Fiscal Year 2012 Future Year Defense Plan. Requesting Member: Representative Zach Wamp. Bill Number: H.R. 5658. Account: Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Weapons Activities. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Y-12 National Security Complex. Address: Oak Ridge, TN. Description of Request: $5,000,000 in the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities Program. Operations and Facilities Account for basic operational needs at the Y-12 National Security Complex, a Department of Energy nuclear weapons manufacturing plant. Its vast facilities and infrastructure require routine maintenance as Y-12 performs its national defense and security missions. Requesting Member: Representative Zach Wamp. Bill Number: H.R. 5658. Account: Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Weapons Activities. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Y-12 National Security Complex. Address: Oak Ridge, TN. Description of Request: $3,000,000 in the Safety and Security Program to continue to improve the physical security at the Y-12 National Security Complex, a Department of Energy nuclear weapons manufacturing plant. Post 9-11, federal standards were created to achieve maximum safety at national security sites. These funds will achieve compliance with the Design Basis Threat Policy. Requesting Member: Representative Zach Wamp. Bill Number: H.R. 5658. Account: Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Weapons Activity. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Y-12 National Security Complex. Address: Oak Ridge, TN. Description of Request: $2,000,000 in the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities Program Storage Account for Y-12 National Security Complex, a Department of Energy nuclear weapons manufacturing plant. Y- 12 is transitioning to the new Highly Enriched Uranium Manufacturing Facility and following Congressional direction to transform and modernize the nuclear weapons complex.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I don't want to get into the blame game because the American people are sick and tired of the blame game. I think the truth is, Republicans screwed up running this place, and now Democrats are screwing up running this place. So there's plenty of blame to go around. And they're sick and tired of this process debate because they don't understand how it affects them. But let me say to the people who are talking process. If the Congress is not going to work together on matters of the military funding at a time of war, the Congress is never going to work together. And that is the underlying problem, and it does affect our lives. I've got a nephew in Iraq right now. I've got another nephew on his way to Afghanistan and that affects our lives. I am the ranking member of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee. I heard my chairman, Mr. Edwards, whom I very much respect, go through 3 minutes of excellent reasons why to support this bill, but not one time did he talk about anybody on this side because we didn't have any voice in the process. He didn't compliment anything over here because we were not involved this time around. I think we should be. And the way that they pay for the extras in this bill are with taxes. We don't want to raise your taxes. And I know that we're spending a lot of money in Iraq, but it's easy for everybody to forget, over half the Democrats in the United States Senate voted to remove Saddam Hussein by force. Almost half the Democrats in the House voted to remove Saddam Hussein by force. The President of the United States acknowledged just a week ago that he never should have said ``Mission Accomplished,'' and he shouldn't have because it's not. We've got a long way to go. This is the serious business of freedom, and it needs to be funded without all the extraneous stuff, and frankly, all the tricks associated with getting what they want in addition to what we need. And they're doing it with tax increases, and it's the wrong way. And I'm sorry, I'm not blaming anybody; we just need to do better.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, the reality of 2008 is that the nexus between national security, energy, and the environment is the most important public policy issue that we face in this country. The nexus has a lot of different angles to it, but these three issues together is the greatest policy challenge that we face. The farm bill is now in a sense an energy bill. The national security challenges that we face are indeed tied to the cost of oil. Unfortunately, these are the realities of what we face today. Tomorrow in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory which is one of the lead laboratories in our country on alternative fuels, biofuels, research, mostly looking at cellulosic ethanol research and how to best bring that about, tomorrow at that laboratory my senior Senator, Senator Lamar Alexander, will lay out a Manhattan Project style approach to energy. I don't want to preempt what he is saying there tomorrow, but he is joined tomorrow by Congressman Bart Gordon, a Democrat from our State who happens to be the chairman of the Science and Technology Committee here in the House on a Manhattan-style approach because of this nexus, because there is a lot of clamor about global warming and because people are looking to our country to take some leadership, and the President of the United States has said we do need to lead. I believe this is an opportunity for us. But I will tell you what my position is on energy, and this is after 8 years as the Republican co-chairman of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus in the House of Representatives, which is over half of the House, it is about 60 percent Democratic members and 40 percent Republican members. I have chaired it for 8 years with Mark Udall. I am the chairman of that, but my position on energy is an all- of-the-above position. It has to be an all-of-the-above position. We cannot pick winners and losers. They did that in California and the lights went out. You can't pick winners and losers, not when we have the capacity challenges that we have today. And we do have capacity challenges everywhere. At $122 a barrel, this is a supply-and-demand problem. If the people who don't like us around the world that produce oil would increase the supply, the price would go down. Or if the demand would reduce by conservation and not so much growth in India and China, the price would go down. But this is a supply-and-demand problem. We have to have an all-of-the-above solution. Let me talk about a few things because transportation is the big driver, and gasoline is the most painful thing for the average consumer. I would suggest to you today, and Members say this a lot, but I know a lot about this, alternative fuels are only a bridge to the future. They are not the end all. That is not where we are going to end up in terms of transportation. We have such quick development in ion lithium batteries that the people in the auto industry will tell you that we will be plugging in our automobiles very, very soon at a cost-competitive price point, not like the hydrogen fuel cell which is a 25-year proposal because the cost is prohibitive today, we can't pay $300,000 for a car, so we can't have hydrogen fuel cell cars yet, but that technology is out there. And maybe it will work. But I will tell you what will work right now in the marketplace is electric cars, and they are coming quick. Plug-in hybrids, GM and Toyota, the year after next, will be commercially viable at a price point such that consumers will use them. So fuels are important, but technology is going to develop. Transportation is two-thirds of our oil consumption, and we have to move quickly there because this is very, very painful. But here is the technology opportunity for the United States of America, and I call this the in-tech agenda. How did the budget get balanced for 4 years here? I was here. I think Shimkus was here. Four years ago, Lee Terry was here. For 4 years in a row it got balanced, not by cutting spending. We did slow the growth of spending below inflation for 4 years which was very admirable because that hadn't been done in 40 years. But what we did do is we had such a robust, export-driven U.S. economy that revenues surpassed expenses. That's how the budget got balanced. Now what drove the revenues up? Well, guess what, we led in an area of the economy, and it boomed with our leadership, called the information world. Bill Gates and people like him so led the world that if you wanted the best in software and computers, for a long period of time they were from this country. I grew up when you didn't want to drive an American-made car. You didn't want to have an American-made television; for a while it had to be Japanese. Cars had to be German. Things changed. We led in the information world, and revenues surpassed expenses. Guess what can happen early in the 21st century if we get off our tails: we can lead in energy technologies. We can solve the world's problem by being proactive and not even beat a retreat on climate change. I don't want to argue about how much man contributes to climate change because, frankly, the science is not clear on that. But it is an opportunity for us because if we provide these technology solutions to the world, the budget will get balanced again with a robust manufacturing-driven U.S. economy. Part of an all of the above. We should provide the nuclear solutions to the world and not be afraid of it because, like the speaker said, in France and Great Britain and the Netherlands and other countries, nuclear is very much a part of their portfolio because they have a balanced portfolio, because they know they need to do these things in order to reduce their emissions. While we are going to vigorously debate next year this issue of global warming, anybody in this place who says they are for cleaning up the air globally and making progress on zero emissions and carbon sequestration and reducing the carbon footprint and they are not for nuclear, they are kidding themselves because it has got to be a part of the portfolio given the capacity demands of today and tomorrow. And if we are going to plug our cars in, capacity has to increase on energy. It is an all-of-the-above strategy. Just today in the House, Congressman Steve Buyer, with me as an original co-sponsor, introduced the Main Street U.S.A. Energy Security Act. It opens the Outer Continental Shelf to responsible energy production. It allows energy development within the ANWR. It streamlines the refinery permitting process assisting new refineries to be built in the United States for the first time in 30 years. It supports the development of coal-to-liquid plants. It supports the building of more nuclear plants. It provides a 3-year production tax credit extension for wind, biomass, geothermal, and many of the renewable investments. It invests in research and development programs for the energy needs of tomorrow. You say, What are you doing introducing that today? Well, that is just a package of things that we are reintroducing again that we voted on in this House over and over and over and over again in the last 14 years because I counted, and it is dozens and dozens of times that we have had these votes, and the people who were for more capacity lost. On the floor of this House, on the floor of the Senate, we lost. Bill Clinton vetoed the bill to open up oil production in Alaska. I'm not picking on him. Maybe that is what people wanted then, but they sure don't now. Why are we not responding? Why is our head buried in the sand? We have to have an all-of-the-above policy to compete. And we can balance the budget again. It is good for us. The world sees us reducing our carbon footprint, leading with new energy technologies and solving the world's problems. We sat on the couch from 1973 to 2008. Since the oil embargoes of 1973, we sat on the couch as Americans and didn't make the changes we needed to make. And now we are in a mess. A $122 a barrel mess. But we sat on the couch. Guess what happens when you sit on the couch and you don't exercise and you don't get ready; that's where we are. We have to change. You cannot vote against energy capacity in any segment of our economy or energy production without ending up either the lights go out or the price is too high, access is not there, and people are hurting. That's where we are today. It is an all-of-the-above strategy. Let me close on this note. I am a conservative, and conservation is a good thing. People can begin to reduce demand by conserving, and consumers can join us. We need to do better, and so does the consumer in this country. Use less, be sensitive to lights, drive less, move to smaller vehicles; demand goes down and price goes down. We need to do that, and it is not wimpish to propose that. It is a good, solid, pro- American thing. Let's be more efficient, let's move to alternatives. But I'm saying an all-of-the-above strategy. Don't say we can do all of this with renewables. It is not there to meet tomorrow's demand. We have to have all of the above. Some things are long term and I know that, but right now we have to respond. This takes a balanced approach. I thank Members from both sides who have that attitude, and I look forward to tomorrow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to thank Mr. Bartlett for this lesson. I should say Dr. Bartlett. It is rare that a person has been in Congress for as long as you have. I first met you, Congressman Bartlett, when you and I were running for Congress in the 1992 cycle. I did not prevail, and you did, so you got a 2-year jump on me here. And I've been here on the floor in the past when we talked about this challenge, and my only regret tonight is that all of the Members of the House were not here to hear again your comprehensive explanation of some of these problems and the solutions and the realities, and that everyone in our country could not understand as well as you understand the realities of what we are seeing today. I want to begin elementally by saying that the nexus between energy and national security and our environment is the most important policy challenge of our time. And all of the conflicts of the world have some relation to those three challenges. There's obviously religious undertones and whatnot, but those have been around forever. These challenges now all kind of collide. That's this nexus that I am talking about. On the national security front, you mentioned Thomas Friedman's column, and there is one quote in it that I wanted to point out where he says, `` `There are 23 countries in the world that derive at least 60 percent of their exports from oil and gas and not a single one is a real democracy. Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Nigeria are the poster children' for this trend where leaders grab the oil tap to ensconce themselves in power.'' That makes this peak oil challenge a critical national security problem for the United States of America. When I talk about the environment, one of the most important issues now as we face the next Congress and the next administration after this fall's election will be the American response to this global warming challenge. And I would argue this: We can't deny the problem. We can't bury our head in the sand from the problem. We should not ignore it, but we better be very careful that we don't over-regulate our free society as we respond to it. The world needs to see us proactively addressing this problem, but I would say the best way we can do it is deploy the technologies, use the innovation, parlay and capitalize on our free-enterprise system to solve these problems for the world, much in the same way that the information revolution in the last 30 years in this country was led by the United States of America and the likes of Microsoft; and in doing so, a robust U.S. economy erupted that led to a balanced budget in this modern era that was unprecedented where revenues actually surpassed expenses. So we see energy and the environment and national security all come together. Now, earlier tonight I talked about an all-of-the-above approach that I promote that we should promote because the capacity needs, both from transportation and fuels and electricity are so great, even today but even more so in the future, the capacity needs are so great with this demand that we have to not, in my view, leave anything off the table but have an all-of-the-above solution. But I want to zero in, because you have rightly talked about these issues of conservation, efficiency, new technologies, renewables; and I want to highlight a few because I said earlier tonight on the floor, I'm a conservative. I think conservatives should promote conservation. That's a logical thing to say and to do. And that should be first and foremost, and it is not wimpish, as I said earlier, for us to promote conservation. It's smart. It reduces demand and lowers price. That's what we have to see. And it should be led by the top, and it should be a grassroots call for us to be as efficient as possible in all aspects of our life, frankly. We have sat on the couch for a generation knowing these problems existed, and we haven't acted, and there's plenty of blame to go around. I don't want to come to the floor and blame everybody. There's a lot of that that goes on. Frankly, that's one reason people tune out Washington so much is there's too much of a blame game going on here. American people want these problems solved, but I really believe we should look at these incredible technologies that we have. So let's talk a little bit about transportation because there's a Farm Bill coming. There's a lot of talk about alternative fuels. I believe in the south that cellulosic ethanol will be part of the solution, but it's a bridge, in my view. Even at best, it's a bridge to the future. It's not the permanent solution. The fuel mix could certainly be improved, and cellulosic ethanol doesn't destroy our agriculture and our food capabilities and pricing like corn-based ethanol does, so that obviously has been a net loser for the environment; it has been a net loser for agriculture; it has been a net loser economically in some ways. But cellulosic ethanol, say switchgrass that you don't eat, it could actually be productive in creating an alternative fuel. But that's a bridge to the future because if you ask the automotive industry leaders, they will tell you that in a couple of years, the price points on plug-in hybrids will be such that Toyota and General Motors in 2010 will have a cost-competitive plug-in hybrid. So the vehicles of the future are going to run probably for a while on some form of electricity, some kind of a battery, an ion lithium battery. The technologies are developing very quickly. Imagine plugging your car in in your garage overnight and having it charged where you can take it 400 miles before recharging it and getting an equivalent horsepower of 260 to 280 horsepower. People would be excited about that if they could afford it. Right now the price point on a hydrogen fuel cell car is not cost effective. It's a couple hundred thousand dollars at best, which obviously is not ready for the marketplace. That may be 15 to 25 years from now. And there is a silver lining in the cloud. You talked, Dr. Bartlett, about the silver lining during the Carter years, that it caused us to blunt the sharp increase in consumption. The silver lining today with these price points is that technologies are rapidly being deployed because the marketplace knows there's opportunity there. And we were with the President of the United States yesterday discussing this, and he talked about that specifically that you're seeing the most rapid movement towards alternative transportation systems and technologies that we've seen in the modern era because people cannot afford gasoline today, and therefore, alternatives will hit the marketplace faster. And surely we could have done better in the past, but we've got to find these solutions so we're going to have some kind of electricity. Now that brings all of the energy problems together when you're talking about electric cars because two-thirds of the oil consumption's in the transportation sector, and we've got some capacity problems in the electricity sector, and we are not bringing on nuclear plants at anywhere near the rate of European countries because we're still caught in this Three Mile Island time warp of safety and security. And the waste stream is such here that you can't permit a place to bury it, like Yucca Mountain, in a timely manner. So we need to look at the proposition that they do in France of recycling the spent fuel back into energy. Reprocessing spent fuel. It's a closed-fuel cycle. We can do that. We should look at that. And we should bring nuclear up. But I want to throw a new technology into the electricity production which could very well help us on transportation as we move towards battery-powered cars if they're cost effective. See, I believe the market will determine which ones come first and which one consumers will buy and which ones hit the price points quickest, and that's where people, I think, will buy. So I think if electric cars or the plug-in hybrid is the first one there at $25,000, $35,000 for a new car, that's where consumers will go. But where is the electricity going to come from if we do this? We don't have the capacity right now to meet today's demand based on commerce and industry, let alone new transportation systems that need electricity. And we are the most abundant source of coal. We're the Saudi Arabia of coal for the world. But we have got to, if we're going to take this leadership position on climate change and not bury our head in the sand, we've got to have clean coal technology, we've got to have carbon capture. We've got to invest there. We've got to still use coal, but it's also a finite resource, which you have identified. Let me tell you about a new technology that's really got potential. It comes out of the Silicon Valley and the Tennessee Valley, interestingly enough, where I live. We're in a partnership with them. We have built a stationary solid oxide fuel cell system. It looks like the HVAC unit in your home. We now have a 100 kilowatt system, meaning it generates 100 kilowatts of electricity, and it runs off of one feedstock going in but no transmission system. So unlike the electricity that comes to your house, it is not connected on a grid somewhere to a power source. It's a standalone system for electricity production, but you do have to have a feedstock going in. But this unit runs off of the feedstock as natural gas, can run off ethanol, it can run off of solar, it can run off of a variety of renewable sources; but it has to have a feedstock as you know--are you a physicist?

Mr. WAMP. Physiologist. As you know it has to have a feedstock, but it has tremendous potential. And just recently here in the House, I have promoted, and much to his credit, Dan Beard, the chief operating officer of the House, has been and viewed these systems as has the chairwoman of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, been in consultation with us about the notion that in just a couple of years, we could take an entire House office building in Washington, D.C. and take it off of the fossil-fired powerhouse here on Capitol Hill, take it off of that coal powerhouse and put it on a solid oxide stationary fuel cell to demonstrate to the country that emissionless, completely emissionless, not nuclear, but through a new technology called a stationary solid oxide fuel cell, you could completely power and cool and heat and cool the water in a huge House office building or a 100,000 square foot commercial center with this new technology. Tremendous. You would think every utility in the country would be interested in that because there is no transmission grid. It makes us more terrorist- proof because you can't shut down the transmission grid because everybody's got their own electricity source. And if transportation is moving towards electricity, it has tremendous potential. I would just say that your energy efficiency, renewable energy, conservation programs should be at the forefront followed by a real understanding that we have capacity needs in this country. I, too, was in China in January. I have a great concern because what I heard and saw in China about their attitudes towards the environment is that this is indeed their industrial revolution and they're entitled to it. The problem with them having an industrial revolution in 2008 is they're almost one-fourth of the world's population, and if they have an industrial revolution without environmental responsibility at the same time the rest of the world is being called on to reduce carbon and their carbon footprint, it's a regulatory burden to the industrialized world and it lets these developing nations, including China, off without those regulations. That levelizes the world at our expense. That's a dangerous notion. So back to the nexus. This is critical. You're taking excellent leadership. I want to thank you for that, and I want to thank you for the time tonight.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor Sammy George of my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, as he departs the broadcasting industry at the height of his career with 35 years of service. Mr. George has been an outstanding leader at home, in the industry and within our community. Now that he will be spending more time with his family and friends, I want to take a moment to recognize his tremendous accomplishments and thank him for all he has done in Chattanooga. Alter serving in the U.S. Marines in Vietnam, Sammy returned to his hometown of West Blocton, Alabama, where he worked as a disc jockey, DJ. He moved to Chattanooga in 1985 to become the general manager of the upstart radio station WUSY US-101 where he has remained for more than 22 years. During his term, the station has won countless awards and has been recognized for its distinction and excellence These include nine Country Music Association Station of the Year awards, four R&R Station of the Year awards, one Academy of Country Music Station award, a National Association of Business, NAB, Marconi for Personality of the Year and the NAB Crystal award. Most importantly, Sammy has focused his talent and energy on helping those in need. He has humbly led our community in raising millions of dollars for charitable causes, including $5 million for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and $800,000 of supplies for Hurricane Katrina victims. Sammy retires as the market manager for Clear Channel/Chattanooga where he oversaw three popular radio stations: WUSY US-101, WLND 98.1 The Legend, and WRXR Rock 105. After taking some much deserved time off, he will bring his wealth of experience to Northwest Georgia Bank where he will be vice-president for new business. Sammy George is a man of integrity, loyalty and outstanding leadership, and I am proud to recognize him today.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, the nexus between national security, energy, and the environment is one of the most important issues of our time. And on energy, I'm an all-of-the-above Republican. It is wise to conserve, and we need to promote conservation. It is wise to advance energy efficiency technologies. We need to invest. But new capacity, new energy sources are also sorely lacking. We need new national gas supplies in this country. We need refinery capacity. We need our own oil, albeit limited. But we've got to, number one, grow our capability to create energy in our country to be energy independent. I want to talk about nuclear energy because the cars of the future are going to run off of lithium batteries, some form of electric. We've got to have new capacity. We need nuclear energy in this country to be self-sufficient even on transportation. If we're going to reduce our carbon footprint, don't leave nuclear off the table. This is a time to come together for new energy technologies, to promote an in-tech agenda, to actually balance the budget again with a robust manufacturing economy. It's pro-American.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, as I closed the rally today with 400 veterans in support of our troops and their mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, I quoted John Stuart Mill, who said, ``War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral unpatriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A person who has nothing for which they are willing to fight, nothing they care more about than their own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of ever being free unless those very freedoms are made and kept by better persons than themselves.'' Those better persons are our Nation's veterans, the men and women in uniform, and today may God almighty, Jehovah God, bless and keep those brave Americans in harm's way on our behalf.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because every now and then a person's story will so inspire us that the example is set for all young people to look up to, to follow in their footsteps. And that happened 9 days ago to a young man from East Tennessee whom so many people are so very proud of today. His name is Jordan Leen. And 9 days ago, in the 157 pound weight class at Cornell University, Jordan Leen achieved his life's ambition of becoming a national champion. Among all universities from sea to shining sea, against some very difficult odds, this young man became a national champion. He has moved up weight classes in his last couple of years at Cornell until he got comfortable and didn't have to lose weight to wrestle. So this is probably about his natural weight. He's what my son would call a ``beast.'' I've seen him in all ways of his life. He beat the number one seed, even though he was seeded eighth going into the tournament in the quarter finals, and he beat the number two seed in the finals just 3-2 in the most hard-fought match you've ever seen. And it was glorious. It was electric. He was distinguished through his high school career. And I want to focus on three things that made Jordan Leen a champion so others can look up to him and know that these are some of the ingredients for success. One is family. His father, Mark; his mother, Tammy; his sisters, Andrea and Tara, they're a unit. The scriptural principle is that a cord of three strands is not easily broken; and with the Leens, a cord of five strands is not broken. They're a unit. They're a team. I know this because this young champion grew up across the street from me. He and my son, Weston, are best friends. This was a glorious moment not just in my family's life but in all of these Tennesseeans' because this family was represented on the mat in front of the national ESPN audience a week ago Saturday, and we all took joy in this accomplishment from this fighter. He had been sick the week of the national championship, but he battled through that to become a national champion. Ingredient number two, a foundation. He got it at the Baylor School with an outstanding wrestling program, an incredible tradition, and the foundation was there for him to become a collegiate athlete and a scholar athlete. He was the greatest wrestler in the history of the State of Tennessee by anyone's standard: a 4-year State champion; 215 victories; 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th State champion all the way through high school at the Baylor School. He had the foundation from the program, and Baylor School is proud. And, third, faithfulness. He was faithful through the years. He had a goal and he stuck with it. His work ethic was greater than anyone's. He worked out harder. He fought harder. He suffered more through injuries. He was faithful all the way through. His father in the account said that that whole week of the championship he knew something was different because Jordan had turned the week over to the Lord. He was faithful. He gave it to God and said, I'm here to do my best. I'm sick, but I am here to do my best. And he was honored. And he was faithful. He's an incredible young man. He's an inspiration to all. He's an excellent student, making a 3.3 at Cornell in pre-med, and a national collegiate champion in the 157 pound weight class. Jordan Leen, East Tennessee salutes you. You're one of the greatest athletes in the history of our region. You have reached the climax, but you're still the same guy. And we love you for the example you have set for young people. Young people, if you want to be a student athlete, follow Jordan Leen. Follow Jordan Leen. Thank you, Jordan. Your family loves you, and we salute you on the floor of the House tonight.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I stood right here a few years ago against my party in favor of reform. I got scars on my back from standing for reform. But I heard John Tanner say when I got to Congress that neither party has an exclusive on integrity and ideas, and I believe that is true. I want to tell you tonight, on the same platform I stood a few years ago when I joined then minority in this reform, there is good reform and there is bad reform. This is bad reform. I don't care what you say about it, how kind you are about it, this is bad reform. It is not good for the institution. It is not workable. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record a four-page document by Ken Kellner, the senior counsel for your majority Ethics Committee, explaining all the problems. Review of Task Force Proposal Bill: I looked over the draft resolution forwarded by Rep. Smith. I suggest you review it closely as well. Review of the draft was not to critique the need for or merits of the proposal, but to identify areas in which the proposal would interfere with the operations of the Committee. We cannot anticipate all plausible areas of concern prior to actual implementation, but I did the best I could. 1. The new ``Office'' or ``Board'' is expressly authorized to take up matters on its own initiative and to conduct interviews and obtain testimony in its ``review'' of such matters. See Section 1(c)(1)(A). This raises several concerns, listed below: As the Committee noted in its earlier feedback to the task force, the interview of witnesses by both the new entity and the Committee might result in conflicting statements that would undermine the value of testimony from that witness. Statements from witnesses would also likely be obtained prematurely due to the time deadlines imposed on the new entity. Sometimes there are valid investigative reasons not to reveal the existence of an investigation to a witness until other witnesses are interviewed or other evidence obtained. In the course of its proceedings, the new entity might reveal critical evidence or information to key witnesses. The failure of those witnesses to keep this information confidential may be very harmful to the integrity of any future Committee inquiry. The ``self-initiation'' discretion could undermine current rules that limit complaints to those filed by Members. An agent could provide information to the new entity that would trigger review under its rules. There is no accountability as to the source of information, unlike with respect to ``complainants,'' who must certify that the ``information is submitted in good faith and warrants the review and consideration of the Committee,'' and who must provide a copy of the complaint and all attachments to the respondent. See Committee Rules (d) and (e). 2. The new entity must ``transmit to the individual who is the subject of the second-phase review the written report and findings of the board[.]'' See Section 1(c)(2)(C)(ii). In addition, the report will include ``findings of fact,'' ``a description of any relevant information that it was unable to obtain or witnesses whom it was unable to interview [] and the reasons therefore,'' and a recommendation for the issuance of subpoenas where appropriate.'' It is a bad idea for the Committee's purposes that the ``written report and findings of the board'' be transmitted both to the Committee and to the individual under review. This will provide information to a potential respondent at an inappropriate stage, including alerting the respondent as to witnesses who have been identified as potential recipients of subpoenas. At a minimum, this would provide opportunities for the coordination (or appearance of coordination) of testimony. Potential respondents would also be alerted as to difficulties encountered in obtaining information from certain witnesses. This could discourage negotiated outcomes if a respondent knows that certain individuals are not cooperating witnesses. This process is not sensitive to the need for confidentiality of witness information at the early stages of an investigation. Members, staff, and private individuals should be able to provide information in confidence, at least at the initial stages. The new rules may have an anti- whistleblower effect and possibly employment ramifications for individuals as well. For example, what if it is revealed that a current employee is providing or refusing to provide information about his or her employing Member? A previous ethics task force was ``mindful'' of the need to ``protect the confidentiality of a witness prior to publicly disclosing'' a statement of alleged violation. Report of the Ethics Reform Task Force on H. Res. 168, 105th Cong., 1st Sess. at 25 (June 17, 1997). The proposal is also inconsistent with Committee rules and practices that keep investigative information confidential. Under Committee Rule 26(f), evidence gathered by an Investigative Subcommittee that would potentially be used to prove a violation ``shall be made available to the respondent and his or her counsel only after each agrees, in writing, that no document, information, or other materials . . . shall be made public until'' a Statement of Alleged Violation is made public by the Committee or an adjudicatory hearing is commenced. There is no rule or precedent in effect for the new entity for dealing with concerns of the Department of Justice in cases of concurrent jurisdiction. As noted, under the proposed process, there is considerable potential for the making of inconsistent statements by witnesses and for the release of confidential information. It this occurs, it could easily undermine active criminal investigations. The Board may make ``findings of fact'' as part of their submission. This is generally a function for a trier of fact after an opportunity for a defendant/respondent to cross-examine witnesses or challenge the evidence. What if the findings differ from those reached by the Committee? 3. There appears to be a requirement that the Committee publicly disclose Board submissions to the Committee. See Section 3(2). This would occur if the Committee declines to empanel an Investigative Subcommittee or if one year has passed from the date of the referral from the new entity. This means that the Committee must release the Board's findings, even if the Committee has already determined to handle the matter non-publicly. This is inconsistent with the discretion now with the Committee (and investigative bodies generally) to exercise judgment as to what matters to address in a non-public fashion. With the possibility of review by the new entity and public disclosure of conduct, there will be greatly reduced incentive for witnesses and investigated parties to cooperate with the Committee or to do so with complete cooperation and candor. This procedure also may place artificial pressure on an Investigative Subcommittee to complete its work in well less than a year, regardless of the impact on the investigation. While such a time period may be sufficient, neither the Department of Justice nor other law enforcement entities and regulatory bodies, are subject to such limitations as they would generally impact adversely on the completeness of an inquiry. 4. A provision in the proposal provides that the Office will cease its review of a matter on the request of the Committee ``because of the ongoing investigation of such matter by the Committee.'' See Section 1(d). This rule should be clarified to make clear that it includes informal fact-finding efforts by the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee. Otherwise, this important rule may only have effect in the unusual case of empanelled subcommittees. New language could be ``because of the ongoing review of this matter by the Committee in accordance with the Committee's rules.'' Section 1(d) and Section 3(3) should be revised. 5. If the new entity ceases such review at the request of the Committee it will ``so notify any individual who is the subject of the review.'' See Section 1(d). There are valid circumstances under which the Committee would not want to notify an individual that it is undertaking review of a matter until it is ready to do so for valid investigative and privacy reasons. In general, it is not the routine practice of law enforcement entities to notify individuals. Such disclosures could trigger protective behaviors that might undermine an investigation, as well as lead individuals to hire of attorneys (perhaps unnecessarily and at considerable expense). [By analogy, would it be appropriate in all cases to notify a respondent that the Committee has referred evidence of criminal conduct to the Department of Justice? In many cases, it is in the interests of criminal law enforcement that such referrals be made in confidence.] 6. The new entity must adopt a ``rule requiring that there be no ex parte communications between any member of the board and any individual who is the subject of any review by the board.'' See Section 1(c)(2)(E)(iv). This provision should be revised to prohibit communications from any interested persons and any member of the board, as well as make explicit that ex parte contacts include those made by counsel. A useful provision to examine in considering ex parte prohibitions is the provision contained in Federal Election Commission regulations pertaining to contacts with any Commissioner. See 11 C.F.R. Sec. 201.2. Kenneth E. Kellner, Senior Counsel, Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. They kept a lid on it till today, and the bill is up tonight, and here it is. It is bad reform. If you think that the steroid and baseball hearings are a distraction over the business of the people of this country, wait until tomorrow when this goes into effect, when outsiders are firing political shots at each other, listening to people back home want us to quit bickering and sniping and firing shots at each other and get these important things done for them. The gentlelady said she yields the customary time. This is not a customary process. The rule was shut down. There are no substitutes, there is no recommit, there are no alternatives, and there is no consideration of a bipartisan alternative by two people with integrity who have been working together for weeks to have a day to say, no, this is a better approach. Have former Members, first time ever that outsiders are part of this process, but they are former Members. They have no ax to grind. They will call it like it is. Let's take a logical step. But let me tell you, if this is based on trying to hold the House, that's a false strategy. When we put our reelection as a majority above the people's business and honor and integrity we lost, and we should have, and you are doing the same thing. Don't do this, House. It's not good for this country, and it's not good for us.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WAMP. I just wanted to make our colleagues aware that besides the Smith bill, which I'm pleased to hear the Rules Committee will take time to hear, there is another bipartisan alternative that Mr. Hill of Indiana and myself have offered as well where there is substantial bipartisan support for a third alternative that's not a Democratic or Republican bill, but when we are considering matters of the House, it is truly a bipartisan compromise. And the gentleman is on his feet from Indiana as well, and I thank you for the time.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I thank Frank Wolf for a distinguished career of public service. We honored the life of Tom Lantos today here in Congress, but Frank Wolf is the same kind of person as Tom Lantos in terms of always caring about what is right, what is just, human rights anywhere and everywhere in the world that need our attention in the greatest Nation in the history of the world. Frank Wolf is one of the people here that I look to always for the integrity on decisions that are controversial, that are impassioned. He seems to have a level- headed approach that honors the Constitution, honors what is right. So here we are again working together. Jack Kingston and Frank Wolf and I, as long-standing Members of the Appropriations Committee, know that this is a problem. This abuse of earmarks has created clearly the need for sweeping reforms of this process. But I think that we need to do it the right way instead of the wrong way. One of the things I like about John McCain is that he doesn't pander to people based on whatever might be popular for the moment. The right approach to this particular problem with congressional earmarking in 2008 is to step back and establish a bipartisan, bicameral select committee to overhaul the process in its entirety. I say that because any kind of a ban that is temporary or only for an individual is not lasting. So if you pledge to say no earmarks, well, for how long and who all is affected, and how about the Senate, how about the House, how about the executive branch, how about everybody else? Because unless it is a systemic change, it is not a permanent change; it is not a real change. It is a political posture. Therefore, we should be careful not to pander on this issue, but truly seek change. I think that is what this does. This select committee, what is a select committee? Well, Congress has this provision so that that committee can rise above the other committees. It has subpoena power. It has tremendous authority. It is unusual. But it is a committee set up to reform a system like this. Now, a lot of people don't realize that article I, section 9 of the United States Constitution clearly says that Congress shall appropriate the money. We need also look at history and realize over the last 40 years there is a continuing separation of powers under way where the executive branch pulls and pulls more and more authority from the legislative branch. One of the things that this select committee would allow us to do is over a 6-month period of time, with five public hearings, have a national debate about what is the Congress' role, what is the executive branch's role, both under the Constitution and in reality. Just 2 weeks ago, February 1, the President's budget request came over. Actually, it was February 4. But when it came over, it was full of specific requests for specific programs which are an earmark. They are earmarks. So one of the first things we need to do with this select committee is define what is an earmark, because right now it is not clear as to what is and is not an earmark. For instance, is it an earmark for a Member of Congress to request an increase in a specific account at the National Institutes of Health? If it is the National Institutes of Health and you believe that it should be increased and you are a Member of the United States Congress, and under article I, section 9 you have the authority to appropriate money, that should not be an earmark. But I have got news for you. A lot of things right now classified as an earmark should not be an earmark. It should be programmatic in nature; it should be looked at in a different way. So this whole system needs an overhaul, and that select committee can get to that without people claiming turf protection or feeling like you are stepping on their toes, and then they can come back with these recommendations that would have the force of law and truly change this whole process without the legislative branch retreating from its constitutional responsibility or just ceding more and more authority to the executive branch, many times to people at the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, that submits these budget requests, who are neither elected nor educated enough on these issues to actually make these recommendations. That why it is important for elected representatives to do this in a very responsible way. The select committee is exactly that approach, the responsible way to do this. It is comprehensive in nature. As Representative Wolf said, it doesn't just apply to the Appropriations Committee. It applies to authorization committees, tax and trade and tariff bills, the executive branch requests, the whole gambit of direction of funding of appropriated dollars. And the whole thing needs to be reformed. I will give you an example. The Bridge to Nowhere request is one of the most egregious earmarks that we can point to, and it did not come through the Appropriations Committee. It was in fact an authorization bill from the Transportation Committee. That is gas tax dollars that every 5 years the Congress directs to this projects or that projects or this priority or that priority, and in fact that Bridge to Nowhere was an authorization bill. So you can wipe out all the earmarks on appropriations; and if that is allowed to continue, the most egregious abuse we can point to continues. You need a comprehensive and systemic approach to this, and that is why we have had consensus developing in our conference on the Republican side for basically a timeout, a moratorium: 6 months, no earmarks, hold up the trains, let's stop and do this right. But do it responsibly. Don't just willy-nilly say we are going to do this for political purposes or that for political purposes, or we are going to grandstand or pander. No, we are going to do this the way that people 50 years from now can look back and study the record and say, they put the institution and its congressional prerogatives and responsibilities above the passions of the moment, and they recognized that some people abused it and that needed to be cleaned up and reformed and changed, but they did not give the people down the street at the executive branch more and more authority and violate the separation of powers under the Constitution of the United States. This is an important principle as we go forward on how to truly have a systemic approach to clean this mess up. But it needs change. Anybody who thinks that this system stands the ``smell test'' in America is wrong. It needs to change, and we are trying to change it from this place because that is the responsible thing to do. People have abused it. I would argue that the last election in 2006 was lost by our party in large part because of these abuses of earmarks, on authorization, tax, trade, energy bills and appropriations, and we could use an overhaul, a statutory framework that the House and the Senate would both have to adhere to. The public is demanding it. So some self-imposed thing is not going to bring about systemic change. Systemic change is what this institution needs, change that will still be here 10 years from now, not just for the next election. This shouldn't be political; it should be bipartisan. Just this week, one of the leading Democrats here in the House basically called for the same thing. He said we ought to have a moratorium; we ought to have a timeout and we need to overhaul this practice. His name is Henry Waxman. I talked to him today. I don't want to put words in his mouth. But I was encouraged that one of the leading Democrats said the same thing, basically: we need to have a comprehensive reform of this process known as earmarking. But I believe step one is to define it, what is and what is not an earmark, and then go forward. Things that are existing by law that have been around for a long period of time should not be an earmark. Another thing we need to do is separate the ability of people to have a cottage industry through lobbying for earmarks. That, frankly, makes everybody in Washington look bad. It erodes the public trust over a period of time. There are times where someone advocating for you for a specific cause in this country is necessary, and that is called lobbying. Today lobbying has a bad name. If I was a lobbyist I would want these reforms so that my reputation is not tarnished. Just like we appropriators, Wolf, Kingston, Wamp, Kirk, Culberson, Weldon, Goode and others that have helped us with this cause, we don't want our integrity tarnished by the people who abused this prerogative under the Constitution. They are the ones, just like the local law enforcement guy who takes a bribe, all police officers are not like that, and all Members of Congress are not going to do what these people did. Thankfully, the people that have violated our trust are either under investigation or they are already gone or some of them are in jail. But the system needs to be cleaned up so that they cannot do that again. That is what hasn't happened. Frankly, there are some people in this institution who are kind of arrogant about this, saying that it ought to continue and that there is no reason for reform. But that is not true either. So we have got to meet in a rational, logical way. That is why the select committee approach is the right approach. I am very, very proud to stand with Representatives Wolf and Kingston and others in support of this approach, and we will have a moratorium on earmarks until we make the needed changes to begin to restore the public trust and uphold the honor and the dignity that should be associated with our fulfilling our responsibilities under the Constitution of the United States. I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I think Mahatma Gandhi once said that if all of the people who profess to be Christians would act like Jesus, the world would be at their feet. And I was reminded of that last week, because when we gathered Sunday morning for the Johnson Atchley Sunday School class at Red Bank Baptist Church where I go, ironically the lesson was on witnessing; and many times people consider ``witnessing'' as sharing the Gospel verbally. But we all know the most powerful witness that anybody can give of their faith and their commitment to the Lord is in what they do. And, man, did we ever see that again last week in Tennessee. I have to tell of the people in Madison County who've been hit and hit and hit again over the last several years by tornados because one of the students at Union University, who was hurt very badly, is David Wilson, who happens to be a very, very close friend of my family. His parents are two of my wife's and my best friends, and he cotaught that Sunday school class with me at Red Bank Baptist Church for a number of years. His son was transported today from the hospital in Madison County across the street to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga where he will be continuing in recovery. But he was hurt critically, and he was underneath the rubble for 4 hours with other students at Union University. I have got to tell you, the experience that the family saw there was a witness of their faith and their goodness. They not only had the basics of water and food and shelter, they found a home and they took care of them, but they went and got him eyeglasses and met every single need, and they made sure he was flown back to the hospital at home today and met every single need. And that's how people express their love for God is by sharing what they have with others, especially in a time of need. Tennesseans are good people. And, man, when folks are hurting, everybody comes to help. We saw it again in Madison County. And on behalf of the Wilson family, I want to say from the other end of the State, thank you to the good people of that entire area where the tornados hit yet again. Thank you to Union University for meeting every need. Thank God none of the students died. David Wilson has got a long, long road back to stand and walk again. We pray for the Wilsons. We pray for David. We pray and thank God for all the people who helped at this time of need. Just appreciate the goodness of the people of Tennessee who came out and helped in so many ways and all of those professionals that were there, it has been said. And thanks to this delegation for pulling together yet again. And for the people who were hurt in other States and affected and for loss of life, our prayers went up. This is really what it's all about is people being there, because that's really all we are here for is to love God and to serve others.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which continues to be recognized for its critical work on environmental issues. The United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are co-winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, ``for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change,'' according to the Nobel announcement. The IPCC has benefited from the contributions of ORNL in several areas, from scientific research and policy studies to state-of- the-art tools and facilities. Several ORNL researchers are co-authors, and in some cases, lead authors on IPCC studies and documents as part of a global effort to assess the realities and risks of human-induced global climate change on the basis of peer reviewed and published scientific literature. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report produced four reports in 2007 that featured the involvement of ORNL scientists such as Corporate Fellows Tom Wilbanks and David Greene, and the Environmental Sciences Division's Paul Hanson, Virginia Dale and Gregg Marland. A very significant portion of the IPCC's study involved modeling of how climate change will affect a variety of important human and economic factors, from temperature to electrical costs. The scientific discovery for applications such as climate change modeling and simulation would not be possible without ORNL advanced computing capabilities, due to the enormous scale and complexity of climate data collected. ORNL's Center for Computational Sciences, home of the world's most powerful supercomputer for open science, ran the extremely complex models and provided infrastructure for more than one-third of the total U.S. contribution to the IPCC report. The climate study is the culmination of a six-year international effort. Regardless of one's views on climate change, there is no question that ORNL's computing resources and its human resources provided significant contributions to the IPCC. I am proud to honor the research that ORNL generates on an ongoing basis, but especially pleased to honor the leadership and commitment of everyone at ORNL for the efforts that contributed to the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, I consider it a privilege to follow the distinguished Speaker of the House in recognizing our support for the people of Pakistan and our remorse that the world community of peacemakers has lost the great Benazir Bhutto. I, too, considered her a personal friend. I spent many hours with her, mostly associated with the National Prayer Breakfast here. During the years she was in exile, she came many times to our National Prayer Breakfast, which is always the first Thursday in February. She was a proud participant in the Islamic tradition. However, she was always interested in the teachings of Jesus, and she was very much fascinated by the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation, and the principles that the last would be first and basically the way that the teachings of Jesus turned the world upside down. And we had coffee with her. We had lunches with her. My wife and I had dinner with her and her controversial husband and got to know him when he was here the last time she was here and visited with us. She was truly a courageous human being, someone who understood the West, yet maintained her solid heartfelt conviction to her favorite country, Pakistan. She spent a lot of time with us, and she truly was a peacemaker. I believe the greatest way to honor her courageous death would be for us to work tirelessly to empower the moderates within Islam to stand with us against radicalization, in any faith, frankly. But today, particularly in the Islamic faith, the radicals threaten the world. Yet 92 percent of people within Islam believe that terrorism is not an acceptable means to an end. And she was a leader among that 92 percent. The problem is 8 percent of Islam is 130 million people who think that terrorism is acceptable, and those are the people that killed her. And they will kill anyone who threatens their ideology. And they killed her. We need to empower all of the moderates within this very large religion to stand with us against the radicals, and then we can honor her courageous death. She will live on though, really through eternity, as one who, as Mike Pence said, was willing to lay down her life for a friend. I will quote another Christian idea. It is in the Beatitudes. ``Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.'' Benazir Bhutto was a peacemaker. She gave her life for a cause, and the entire world should be grateful.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Mr. C.T. Cozart from my hometown of Chattanooga, TN, as he steps down as Chairman of the Board of Carson Newman College. Thank you for allowing me to take a moment to recognize his tremendous contributions and to thank him for his service to our state and nation. Mr. Cozart has been an outstanding leader in our civic and faith communities. C.T. graduated from the University of Tennessee and began a 30-year career with Chevron. In 1996, he retired as the vice president of marketing for Chevron Lubricants and moved back to his home state of Tennessee. His career caused frequent moves, so he and his wife became active in over ten churches throughout the country. The church was his most important connection with each new town and its people. C.T. is a deacon, has taught Sunday school, and served as head of the pastor search committee at two churches, most recently at Red Bank Baptist Church. In 2000, C.T. was asked to serve on the Board of Trustees of Carson Newman College, one of the nation's premiere Baptist colleges, located in Jefferson City, Tennessee. Upon becoming chairman in 2006, he led the board with integrity and dignity through some of the most challenging times in the school's history. Throughout his tenure, his leadership has united Carson Newman and provided a clear and distinct path for the future of this Christian institution. Without exception, his tenure demonstrates the Christ-like manner in which C.T. Cozart has led his life. C.T. is a charter member of the SimCenter; National Center for Computational Engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. As one of only two members of this board with a non- engineering background, he brings a unique business prospective to the education community. C.T. has been married to his wife Molly, for 46 years and is the proud father of two married adult children, Kathy and Scott Cushing, and Scott and Elaine Cozart. He is blessed with two grandchildren Camden and Mackenzie. C.T. is a wonderful example of integrity and leadership, and I am proud to recognize him today.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. I thank the distinguished ranking member and the chairwoman and Mr. Jackson. I love this Capitol. I love every square inch of it. I have spent many, many hours walking people through this Capitol and talking about the extraordinary history of this place. About 1,700 times I have taken groups through the Capitol over the last 13 years. Some of the stories that I have learned about as I share them just send chills up and down my spine. To think that there were 4,000 Union troops during the Civil War stationed on Capitol Hill, that 4,000 troops were here at the Capitol during the Civil War. And when you go up inside of the Dome, the magnificent Dome, which around the world is the beacon of freedom, the symbol of hope, recognizable everywhere in this world, you go up inside of it, and you ask what the little hooks are hanging there, and they will tell you that is where they hung the lanterns when Union soldiers would work side by side with slaves to build that Rotunda in the depths of the Civil War. That is a fact that few people know because, as Ms. Norton said, the story was never told. It was never archived, the incredible commitment and the irony of the people fighting for the slaves' freedom were working side by side during the Civil War to build this temple of freedom. All the history books point out that that is one great and grave omission in the Capitol history. A guy named Oz Guiness once told me that the power to convene is greater than the power to legislate. And we convene here in the Capitol, people from all over the world, for good causes. The floor space of the Rotunda, which is the most prominent room in Capitol, is about 7,500 square feet. As Ms. Norton said, the floor space of this new hall, which has been called the great hall, is almost three times that size. It's a magnificent space designed to bring all of the visitors there to convene them before they enter this temple of freedom. I want to answer the question why not the Great Hall, because it has been referred to as the great hall. But the Great Hall for over 100 years is the foyer, the Great Hall, at the Library of Congress in the Jefferson building. It is one of the most ornate spaces in the United States of America. I think it is the most beautiful room in Washington, D.C. And it is called the Great Hall. The Librarian of Congress told us, as soon a I became the ranking member of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee in January, that this was a conflict because the CVC construction adds a tunnel between the Great Hall and the great hall. On two sides of the tunnel is going to be two great halls. Are you kidding me? How did we do that? That's confusing. That's problematic. That diminishes the name and the history for over a century of the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, which everyone in this city, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Speakers of the House, know as the Great Hall. So you can't call this the great hall. So what shall it be called? Emancipation brings us all together at a time in this country where we need things to bring us together. This is a way to honor this incredible process that led to an event that liberated all people in this country under our Constitution, not just some. And it was Abraham Lincoln who was the great emancipator. So our parties come together today, and I ask the House to join us in this most important naming. It is important what you name things. It's important what we name each other. It's important what we call things. It's important what we call each other. Words matter. Emancipation liberates us today, the thought of Emancipation Hall, the largest and most prominent room in this 580,000-square-foot addition to the Capitol. Come together, House of Representatives. Come together, United States Senate. Let us send the message to all who come to this temple of freedom that emancipation lives on. And with such an important moment in the learning process of this experiment in freedom and democracy known as the American Republic, let's come together today.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman for yielding. All I want to do is rise to raise some concerns, because I think this is a case where clearly these motives of this legislation are meritorious, worthy. But at the Commerce Committee, when this bill was reported out, some concerns were raised, and I want to reraise those concerns on the floor of the House today because I think everything that has been said is accurate, but I think the likely place that this mercury is going to come is to my district, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Everybody within DOE and the NNSA, the National Nuclear Security Administration, expects this mercury to come to the Y-12 National Security Complex. We are in the middle of modernization, sweeping modernization, new facilities, because we are the Fort Knox for highly enriched uranium for our country, and we basically received a mandate from the Congress to more properly secure this material. We've got a new design basis threat. We have new security challenges. This is about a $42 million price tag. I understand there are ways to pay for it, but it's going to go somewhere, and when you push on one side of the balloon, out pops the other. We just want to raise the concern because probably no place in America wants to be the place that this mercury comes to. You've raised the concerns about mercury. We can safely store it and we do. We have got an excellent record and reputation. But we want to make sure that this is done properly. And I am not going to speak in opposition to the legislation because I think that the merits of the legislation are justified, but I am raising these concerns because we need to address this. The administration has issued a SAP, Statement of Administration Policy, today against this bill. So we need to solve some of these problems as we go forward. With that I applaud your efforts, the work that you've done, raise these concerns because we are probably going to end up with this stuff, and I thank you for your work. And with that, I am not going to object; I am just going to raise these concerns.

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Madam Speaker, each Veterans Day we recognize and pay tribute to the extraordinary courage of those who have served in our nation's armed forces. The sacrificial service of these brave men and women committed to God, family, and country has preserved the freedom of this great Nation and granted freedom to millions around the world. Though, we must never forget that freedom is not free. The price of freedom is paid for with the lives and blood of the men and women of our Armed Forces. Just 8 days ago on November 1, 2007, our Nation lost retired BG Paul W. Tibbetts when he died at the age of 92 surrounded by family and friends in Columbus, OH. At a time when our Nation witnessed the rape of Nanking, the Death March to Bataan, and the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, General Tibbetts fulfilled his call to duty and today we honor him for his service. February 23, 1915, was a significant day in history as it marked the birth of Paul Warfield Tibbetts, Jr. to Mr. Paul and Enola Gay Tibbetts. Just 30 years later their son would command the most famous single military air strike in world history over Hiroshima, Japan, in a plane carrying his mother's namesake. In one of his very rare interviews, General Tibbetts, offered his perspective on his role in the bombing of Hiroshima. ``I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did,'' he said years later. ``You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war, and you use anything at your disposal.'' This gives us great insight into the life and legacy of BG Paul W. Tibbetts, whose unwavering commitment epitomized the words of the 18th Century British philosopher John Stuart Mill, ``War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.''

Mr. WAMP

Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his continued leadership. It is not just General Petraeus that moveon.org attacks. One of the distinguished, I think very reasonable members of the Democratic Caucus here in the house, Brian Baird of Washington State, also has been protested by moveon.org in his office since he returned from Iraq in August and basically told what he saw. He came back and just said, this is what I saw: There is progress, and we shouldn't leave precipitously because there will be major consequences. He told the truth. He is an honorable guy. He serves here in the House. I respect him. He is a Democrat, and moveon sends hundreds of people to protest at his office. It is a political agenda, and it is unfortunate. I grew up a Democrat. The first half of my life I was a Democrat; the second half I was a Republican. I don't think either party has an exclusive on integrity or ideas, but I think this is so far over the top. There used to be things that we did in this country as Americans, not as Democrats and Republicans. This should not be about winning the next election or the last election. Wars should not divide us along Democrat and Republican lines, and everything should not be seen through that prism, and moveon.org is shameless to do this. It is shameless, this advertisement in The New York Times, and, as the gentleman from Georgia said, everyone in this body should condemn what they are doing to try to win elections over our men and women in uniform in Iraq. My nephew is serving there in Iraq right now. I hate it that he would turn around and see this in a full page ad in a major newspaper against the most equipped leader to lead our forces in Iraq that our country has to offer, period, is who this is. For them to slander him in this way for political gain is un- American. What they have done is un-American. They have the right under the Constitution to say it, and we have the right as Americans to reject it, and everybody in this House should do that. Three main things, while I have an opportunity to speak tonight. The mission is just. We lose sight of that sometimes, that our men and women in uniform are doing and carrying out what is right for our country at this very volatile time in world history. It is also easy to forget that over half the Democrats in the United States Senate and almost half the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove Saddam Hussein by force. And others will come and say, oh, George Bush sold us a bunch of bad information. Listen, if there was any bad information, everyone had the same information, and many of us voted, from both sides of the aisle, to remove Saddam Hussein by force. It is just very convenient now to say, oh, that was them and not me. It is hard to take responsibility for your actions. It is hard to stand before the American people and say we need to work through this together. We need to stand behind our troops until they prevail, until we have victory and not retreat in Iraq, instead of saying this is all about them. It used to be in this country about us. We did things like this together, and we didn't retreat so the world would see us walk away from our commitments. This mission is just, number one. Number two, the military has been extraordinary. They have been great. You heard General Petraeus say that today. What the Marines have done in Anbar, the progress that has been made there, it wasn't even hardly covered by the GAO report. They didn't even talk about the extraordinary success, civilian casualties way down, 80 percent success in the Anbar Province. The moderates are even siding up with us and saying ``We don't like al Qaeda. They are cutting off our people's fingers. They are killing our children. We want to fight with the Americans against these insurgents.'' That is not the way it was before we strengthened our forces and had this success in Anbar. The military is performing in an extraordinary way and the tribal governments are now siding with us. That is progress by any definition. The military is succeeding in Iraq. You may not want to hear it, because, as one of your distinguished leaders said, you are in trouble politically if we succeed as a Nation in Iraq. That is what he said. I hated that he said it. That is terrible. That is an indictment on politics in America. We all win if we beat these terrorists in Iraq. Everyone in this country wins. The military is succeeding. Number three, the political progress in Iraq is not happening. That is true. We need to be honest about it. I wish personally we could get rid of the Maliki government because I think it is deplorable. But we promoted free elections and that is what we got, and we can't very well turn around now and say, oh, we didn't like who you elected. Get rid of him. They have got to do that. That is the tough work of freedom. They have got to do that. I hope they do. But that is up to them. Politically, we are not succeeding the way we need to succeed in Iraq, and all of us in this House have an obligation to come together and see that through to completion. Let me just close with this: I have worked for 13 years in a bipartisan way. I have scars on my back to prove it. I have made people on my side of the aisle livid with some of the positions that I have taken working with the other side. But I will not----