Lynn Westmoreland

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Yes. A Congress working for all Americans is the Democratic promise. And what the Democratic promise says is, ``bills should be developed following full hearings and open subcommittee and committee markups with appropriate referrals to other committees. Members should have at least 24 hours to examine a bill prior to consideration at the subcommittee level. Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full and fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute. Members should have at least 24 hours to examine a bill and conference report text prior to floor consideration. Rules governing floor debate must be reported before 10 p.m. for a bill to be considered the following day.'' It also says that the suspension calendar should be restricted to noncontroversial legislation. I would like to remind my friend from Indiana that all the legislation that we've had thus far in the 110th Congress that dealt with energy has either, number one, been brought up under a closed rule or under a suspension rule. The closed rule means no amendments. The suspension rules mean no subcommittee, no committee, no amendments, just a straight 20 minutes for each side. And I've got some other points I want to bring up, but I'll let you talk about these empty promises that has come about.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank my friend from Indiana. But to the gentleman from Arizona, let me point out that that was only a promise.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great patriot from Georgia's Third Congressional District who died September 9 at the age of 66. I have known John Grunden of Fayetteville for many years as a fellow foot soldier fighting for the Republican Party and conservative causes in our community, our State and our Nation. As the owner of two small businesses, an insurance consulting firm and the Classic Cue pool hall in Fayetteville, Mr. Grunden had first- hand knowledge of how taxes and regulation affect our Nation's job creators. His strong stands on business and his conservative values made him a great leader for the Fayette County Republican Party when he won the chairmanship in the 1980s. Under his leadership, the county party experienced such success that the State Republican Party soon began citing it as a model for other counties. Mr. Grunden was a behind-the-scenes operator who did the hard work that enable candidates such as me to succeed at the ballot box. I'm lucky to have had his support through the years, and I am not the only Member of Congress who called on him for help. Mr. Grunden was an early supporter of a young upstart congressman from Georgia who at the time was the only Republican in our State's delegation. As my colleagues here in the House know, that member, Newt Gingrich, went on to lead our party to the House majority for the first time in decades and ascended to the speaker's chair. In addition to his volunteer activities on behalf of his party, Mr. Grunden also wore his nation's uniform. From 1961 to 1964, he served in the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division. I was honored to call John Grunden a friend. On behalf of the people of Georgia's Third Congressional District, I would like to express my condolences to his wife, Pat, who stood by his side for 45 years, and to the rest of the Grunden family.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank my friend from Utah for giving me this opportunity to come and to speak. As I was listening to the gentlelady from New Hampshire speak, she must not have read the American Energy Act. My colleagues and I, at least about 135 of my Republican colleagues and I, have been coming back to this floor ever since August 1, when Speaker Pelosi decided to adjourn this Congress and go on a 5-week vacation rather than address the energy crisis that we have in this country. Mr. Chairman, it's awfully strange that all of the debate, most all of the debate that I have heard on the floor today, has dealt with energy. Yet we refuse to bring an energy bill to the floor under regular order. I think what also needs to be said, Mr. Chairman, and I hope the American people are picking up on this, is that the Democrats have been in control of this Congress for the last 20 months. The Democrats have been the majority, the controlling party in this Congress for the last 20 months. In the House, they have 236 Members, I believe. Close to it. I think the Republicans have 199. It only takes 218 to pass any legislation in this body. In fact, you can have a good idea, you can have a great idea, you can have a lifesaving, wonderful, world-changing idea, but if you don't have 218 votes, you don't have anything except an idea. If you have the worst bill in the world, or something that really hurts the American people and hurts our economy and our future and future generations, if you have 218 votes, you can pass that. So I guess my question to the majority is that rather than continually laying the blame on the executive branch of our government, and most all Americans know that we do have three branches of government. We have got the executive branch, we have got the judicial branch, and we have got the legislative branch. The legislative branch, who the Democrats are in control of, have the responsibility for passing laws. So we can't help it. It's not our fault. If the unemployment was 4.2 percent, Mr. Chairman, when your party took the majority, and now it's 6.1, we can't help that. This comes from the legislation that you had 218 votes for to pass. Now we can't help it because gas was $2.06 a gallon when you took over, and that it's over $4, or close to $4 a gallon now. It's been as high as $4.50. We can't help that. You were in control. You had the 218 votes to do anything you wanted to do. But what has happened? The Democratic majority decided that rather than have a bill that would go through regular order and have subcommittee hearings and committee hearings and be brought to the floor under a rule that would be an open rule that would allow input for all 435 Members and the seven delegates from U.S. territories to be able to have amendments on the floor to speak to what their constituents had felt and what they had been told at home, they have been brought under a suspension rule. Mr. Chairman, a suspension does not have to go through committee. It does not have a rule. There's 20 minutes of debate for each side. And then you have to have two-thirds of the vote. Well, these have been snake oil or shams or, I guess, covers to hide under, maybe, that you could go home and say that you had voted for an energy bill. I say let's bring it under regular order. If you bring it under regular order, let's give us an opportunity to have a motion to recommit, or an alternative. But the best thing to do, the thing that I think the American people want to happen, is an open rule come to the floor, where we can all--this is a House where we are supposed to come and debate and share ideas. Let this House work its will. Let's vote on every amendment that comes to the floor. Limit it to one amendment per person. If we have to stay here over the weekend, let's hear all the good ideas that will come out of this place. There's not just a certain number of people in this body that have good ideas, there's a lot of good ideas that come from a lot of people, and there's a lot of people here who have good ideas that never get to share them. With that, Mr. Chairman, I encourage, I encourage the majority to bring out of mothballs that commonsense energy plan that in April of 2006 Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that she had. I hope that she will bring it out soon because not just my constituents in the Third District of Georgia, but constituents, people, citizens all over this country are hurting. So, hopefully, we will get to see this commonsense plan at some point in the near future.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. This morning I'm here, and if I could talk to the people of America, Madam Speaker, I would tell them that the number to the House operator is 202-224-3121, but I know I can't do that. But if I could, it would be 202-224-3121, and I would ask for Speaker Pelosi. I would tell Speaker Pelosi that I'm not a hoax because, see, here's a quote: ``This call for drilling in areas that are protected is a hoax, it's an absolute hoax on the part of the Republicans and the administration.'' The American people, Madam Speaker, 73 percent of them are not a hoax. She's too busy trying to save the planet. Speaker Pelosi announced, ``I'm trying to save the planet.'' I hope, Madam Speaker, that if the American people could get this number that they could call the Speaker and say, ``Before you save the planet, let's secure America.'' Madam Speaker, we're going to adjourn today, and many in this House are going to leave for a vacation, a trip overseas, to Africa, Europe, Asia, while my constituents can't even afford to drive to a State park. We must stay in session. We must do something to increase U.S. oil production.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, I want to call today your attention to something yesterday. We had a vote 213-212 to adjourn this House without passing a comprehensive energy bill, without being able to vote on drilling. So what I've done, Mr. Speaker, I've got a number here. Call (202) 224-3121. Ask for Speaker Pelosi if you want to make sure that we do something before we leave this Chamber today or tomorrow to vote on drilling; or call and ask for your Member of Congress and find out if they were the swing vote that made us leave this city without voting for you. But I'll tell you what, not only are they leaving Washington, DC, they're going to get on jets on your dime. They're going to fly to Africa and Europe and all over this world on your dime while you don't have money at your house to go on a family vacation, or even go to the store sometimes, they're going to be flying around here. Call this number. Mr. Speaker, I hope they will put it on the Internet. I hope we will let Speaker Pelosi, the Democratic leadership, know we're tired of this. We need to know where you stand. We need to drill for U.S. oil.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Should this motion pass, it could be recommitted back to the committee from which it came and brought forth on the next legislative day?

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank the ranking member for yielding. And a while ago, I heard the majority leader say that this was not a sham. Well, we've seen this snake oil shop set up before when we've voted on things under the suspension rules, and that's what makes this a hoax. That's what makes this a joke. Half of this House is being shut out, if not all of this House is being shut out, from offering amendments on the floor. The 700,000 people I represent in Georgia's Third Congressional District, Mr. Speaker, had no input into this. And so we can call it what we want to, but it's a red herring. We are trying to put the attention on something that will not increase our U.S. oil production. Seventy-three percent, Mr. Speaker, of American people say let's drill here, let's drill now, let's increase our oil production, let's bring up the supply; that will drive down the cost of our oil. I want to read you a quote, and this is from Speaker Pelosi: ``This call for drilling in areas that are protected is a hoax. It's an absolute hoax on the part of the Republicans and the administration.'' Here's a number for the switchboard in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker. I encourage the 73 percent of the American people that say that drilling is the right thing for us to do, that we should use our own natural resources, not be dependent on foreign oil, that we should let her know because I'm telling you, the Republican minority in this House cannot do anything to make the Democratic majority bring a bill forward through regular order that would give us or have an ability to either amend the bill or have a motion to recommit where the American people could really tell how their representatives feel about increasing U.S. oil production. This is just smoke and mirrors. This is smoke and mirrors so they can go home during the August recess and say they voted on something. This is not an increase in our U.S. oil supply.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank my friend from Texas for yielding. I wanted to have a quote up here that was from Mr. Kanjorski. And this was in an interview that he was giving to one of the local newspapers or television stations. And he was talking about really the Democrats' promise to end the war in Iraq and bringing all of the troops home, but it relates to their energy policy, too, and what they promised when Speaker Pelosi, then-minority leader in April of 2006, says, ``We as Democrats have a commonsense plan to lower the skyrocketing price of gas.'' At the time it was about $2.10 a gallon. But Mr. Kanjorski said, ``We sort of stretched the truth and people ate it up.'' Well, there's been some truth stretching going on lately in this building, and I think what we've got to realize is that we need to do something to increase the supply other than taking out of our savings account. If you have a shortfall every month and you take out of your savings to make up for that shortfall or to increase the supply of money that you have, you're eventually going to run out of that. We would run out of oil, and we don't need to do that because then we would certainly be at the mercy of our enemies. This is Mr. DeFazio back on January 18 of 2007, Mr. Speaker, when the Democrats came out with their energy plan. He said, ``It is sad to see the Republicans come to this. Now they laughingly say this will lead the higher prices.'' At the time, gas was $2.10 a gallon. Today it's about $4.10 a gallon. We told the Democrats then that their energy plan was not going to work, that it was not going to help Americans lower the gas prices and the price to heat their homes. We're telling them the same thing today: by taking out of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase the supply is not the way to go. That's not the commonsense plan that Speaker Pelosi promised us back in April of 2006. We don't need to deplete our savings, the energy reserve that we have in cases of emergency like when we used it for the first Gulf war and when we used it for Katrina. We don't need to use our savings. And so with that, I want to say that this is another situation where, Mr. Speaker, the American people have heard the Republican idea of increasing supply, an all-of-the-above policy, and the Democrats are still doing things under suspension when they could do this under regular rule. They've got 218 votes. Mr. Speaker, the reason I think the majority party does not want to do it is because they know their energy plan is a failure. They want these bills to fail that they have under suspension. Let's bring about something to this floor that will let the duly elected people of this country vote on an energy policy that will bring relief to the Americans at the pump. And that policy is to increase our oil supply from our own natural resources.

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank my friend from Texas for yielding the time. I wanted to ask Mr. Markey a question, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to ask him how many votes the Democrats have in this Congress, and I believe it's 233. If I am not badly mistaken, it takes 218 to pass any piece of legislation in this body. So I don't understand why we are doing the smoke-and-mirrors game and the joke game of trying to say that Republicans are blocking this bill. They have got 218 votes. They can do anything they want to. They have changed the rules immediately when they want to. They can do anything with 218 votes, but yet they can't pass this bill. The reason they can't pass this bill is because they don't want to give us an opportunity to put forth what 73 percent of the American people want, and that's to drill here and to drill now. A quote from Mr. Kanjorski, to give you an idea of what we are talking about, is with a local newspaper, he was talking about the fact that the Democrats had promised to end the war and bring the troops home if they were elected to Congress and it had not come true. Ms. Pelosi had also promised to have a commonsense plan to bring down the skyrocketing price of gas. That's when gas was $2.10. It's now $4.10. And this is what Mr. Kanjorski said: ``We sort of stretched the truth, and the people ate it up.'' ``We sort of stretched the truth, and the people ate it up.'' They're kind of stretching the truth today to make you believe that they cannot pass this bill. The reason they don't want to pass this bill is because they know it's smoke and mirrors. They know it's smoke and mirrors, and it won't have the immediate effect that they are saying. So what they are trying to do is to get something to go home to explain to their constituents why they are not going along with 73 percent of the American people that's saying drill here, drill now, lower our gas prices. They want to have an excuse, and that's their excuse. I think it's true to form to what Mr. Kanjorski said--``We sort of stretched the truth, and the people ate it up.''

Mr. WESTMORELAND

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank my good friend from Georgia for those comments. And we have all said here tonight, and as Ken asked me, Mr. Speaker, on that teleconference call, why can't you work together? And Americans all over this country are wondering why, when 73 percent of them say drill here, lower our gas prices, they want to know why. And I want to give just a little insight into why. I want to read you some quotes, and this quote is from the Sierra Club, and you can go to probably their Web site or at least the FEC reports and see which Members have gotten money from this group. But this is the Sierra Club. ``The Sierra Club opposes any general program to lease Federal oil shale reserves for production purposes. The Sierra Club opposes development of the oil resources on the Outer Continental Shelf.'' The U.S. has an equivalent of 1.8 trillion, two trillion barrels of oil in the oil reserves. Greenpeace said this: ``Let's end fossil fuel use. For decades we have relied on oil, coal and gas to meet our ever increasing energy needs, and now we are facing the consequences of our actions in global warming.'' Now, keep in mind, when they say let's end fossil fuel use, 85 percent, Mr. Speaker, of U.S. energy consumption is supplied by fossil fuels. League of Conservation Voters: ``Drilling in protected areas offshore won't solve our energy needs in the short-term and in the long-term will increase the threat of global warming.'' Natural Resources Defense Council: ``Oil and gas production is a dirty process. Drilling in the Arctic refuge would ruin one of America's last wild places. The Arctic refuge is simply too precious to destroy.'' Mr. Speaker, I don't know if a lot of Americans have ever seen that Arctic refuge, but it is a frozen tundra. I have never seen a tree on it. Friends of the Earth: ``Even if the burning of coal was not a major greenhouse gas contributor, the coal industry is a disaster when it comes to environmental stewardship and human health.'' Center for Biological Diversity: ``Oil and gas exploration directly disturbs wildlife, destroys precious habitat, and can result in catastrophic oil spills, as well as dangerous blowouts that kill people, ignite fires and contaminate surface drinking water.'' Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the American people, how many of you have heard lately of a catastrophic oil spill? Even with our oil wells with Katrina and Rita, how many of you have heard of dangerous blowouts that kill people? How many of you have heard of these fires being ignited? How many of you heard of the contaminated drinking water from our oil platforms? None. Mr. Speaker, this is the reason we can't get anything from the Democratic majority, because, Mr. Speaker, these environmental groups are controlling the agenda on this House floor when it comes to the U.S. production of oil. And Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that there is nothing the minority can do about it except stand here and beg the American people to become involved. H.R. 6, which was the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, that was passed by the Democratic majority, this is the one, the commonsense energy plan to bring down skyrocketing gas prices. And as you saw on my other chart, they have almost doubled. Here are the words in that 316 page bill. Crude oil was mentioned five times, gasoline 12, exploratory drilling, two, offshore drilling, none, Domestic drilling, none, domestic oil, none, domestic gas, none, domestic fuel, none, domestic petroleum, none, gas price or gas prices, none, common sense, none, light bulb, 350 times. Mr. Speaker, we called it a no energy plan, and this is a quote from Mr. DeFazio about the comments the Republicans made about H.R. 6, the Common Sense Energy Bill. ``It is sad to see the Republicans come to this. Now they will laughably say this will lead to higher gas prices.'' That was January 18, 2007, when gas was about $2.10 a gallon. It is now $4.07. Mr. Speaker, I beg, I implore the American people to become involved. Go to house.gov/westmoreland; find out where your congressman is at. See if they won't have the will to sign that petition to let you know, Mr. Speaker, the constituents of the people elected to this body, that they believe in lowering gas prices for all Americans. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. You are exactly right. I wanted to read this one quote, Mr. Speaker, that I think will give the American people an idea of exactly what is going on because back in April of 2006 then minority leader, now Speaker Pelosi made a statement, ``Vote for us,'' the Democrats, ``because we have a commonsense plan to bring down the skyrocketing price of gas.'' At the time gas was probably $2.23 a gallon. Right now it is about $4.08. This was a statement that was made by Mr. Kanjorski recently when he was campaigning. He was talking to one of his local papers. Here is what he said, and this was in reference to bringing home the troops out of Iraq, but it is just as good a reference to the energy crisis that we have. He said, ``We sort of stretched the truth, and the people ate it up.'' What a comment to make. ``We sort of stretched the truth, and the people ate it up.'' Well, Mr. Speaker, I think the people have chewed on this enough, at least I hope that they have chewed on it enough. Mr. Speaker, if I could speak to the American people, which I know I can't, but if I could, I would say if you've had enough, let your Congressperson know about it, that you are ready to do something. You're ready for this body, this duly-elected body to put forth a plan to bring down not just the skyrocketing price of gas, but of food. Because as we have made efforts to have biofuels and ethanol, the price of corn has gone up. The price of all petroleum products have gone up. And what we are faced with is a gallon of milk costing more and a loaf of bread costing more, and they sort of stretched the truth. Well, I'm saying they stretched the truth a pretty good ways if they are talking about a commonsense plan to bring down the skyrocketing price of gas. I see another one of my good colleagues, the gentleman from Marietta, Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Absolutely. You know, there have been 192 people who have signed it so far. I think six have been from the other side of the aisle, and the rest are Republicans, and there is a list on our Website at westmoreland.house.gov. To the gentleman from Georgia, let me say, you have talked about process. I have talked about process. We have all come to this floor to talk about the process, and the fact that it is a broken process. The only thing that can come out of a broken process is a flawed product. Mr. Speaker, we have to have the people of America get involved to help with this. We have to have the people of America engage. They have got to be part of the process, and they are going to have to engage and call their Congressman or Congresswoman to let them know, get out of the fetal position and let's do something.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Six as of now.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank the gentleman. I too did a tele-town hall tonight and talked to about five of my counties. The last person on the line was a gentleman by the name of Ken. Ken asked me, he said, why can't you all come up with a solution together? Why can't you do that? I said, Ken, that's a great question, and I tried to answer Ken the best I could, but it was hard to answer it without getting into floor procedures and the parliamentary procedure. Basically what I tried to tell Ken and the other 500 or so people that were on the call is that, listen, when you have 218 votes in this body, you can do anything you want to do. You can have a good idea. You can have a great idea. You can be 100 percent right in your idea and your thoughts. But if you don't have 218 votes, you don't have anything. You can't even get it to the floor. That's what's happened here, even though 73 percent of the American people polled said, look, let's drill here, let's bring down our price of gas, let's become more dependent on our own natural resources rather than giving $170 million in American jobs to Hugo Chavez, let's invest in our own futures, let's invest in the future of our children and grandchildren. That's what they are saying. When somebody like Ken asked me that on a call, why can't you get along, we can't even get our point out. As Mr. Gingrey from Georgia said, this is the only way we have got to do it is come to the special orders on the floor of the House and try to convince the American people to get involved. You know, we are a government of, for and by the people, but if the people aren't engaged in it, then it's not going to work. Seventy-three percent of the American people have answered polls and said, look, let's drill. But, yet, the majority party, who represents probably a little over half of the American people, have said November. But the Republicans, the minority, who represent the other half of the American people, have not had an ability to put their ideas on floor. We have discharge petitions, and a discharge petition is something if you can come up with 218 signatures, supposedly, it would get to be on the floor. We had one the week of June 9 that said No More Excuses Energy Act of 2007. Reduce the price of gasoline by opening up new American oil refineries, investing in clean energy resources such as wind, nuclear and capture carbon dioxide and making available more home-grown energy through environmentally sensitive exploration or the Arctic energy slope in America's deep-sea energy resources. Then on the week of June 16 we had another discharge petition, which is over here every day for Members to come sign that says, Expanding American Refining Capabilities on Closed Military Installations, reduces the price of gasoline by streamlining the refinery application process and by requiring the President to open at least three closed military installations for the purpose of siting new and reliable American refineries. We even had that in a motion to recommit that was voted down. But this is over here readily available to be signed every day. Week of June 23, the repeal of the ban on requiring alternative fuels, as I mentioned before, we have a ban on alternative fuels for our government agencies. It reduces the price of gasoline by allowing the Federal Government to procure advanced alternative fuels derived from diverse sources such as oil shale, tar sands and coal-to-liquid technology. The week of July 7, the Coal-to-Liquid Act, reduces the price of gasoline by encouraging the use of clean coal-to-liquid technology, authorizing the Secretary of Energy to enter into loan agreements with coal-to-liquids projects that produce innovative transportation fuel. Take the burden off of aviation fuel, off of our military. You know what? This creates American jobs. This puts people to work. The week of July 14, the Fuel Mandate Reduction Act of 2007, reduces the price of gasoline by removing fuel blend requirements and onerous governmental mandates if they contribute to unaffordable gas prices. It's right over here every day for people to sign. This week, American Energy Independence and Price Reduction Act, reduces the price of gasoline by opening the Arctic energy slope to environmentally sensitive American energy exploration. The development footprint would be limited to one one-hundredth of 1 percent of the refuge. Revenue received from the new leases would be invested in a long-term alternative energy trust fund. Those are opportunities that each Member of this body and each delegate of the U.S. territories across this world have an opportunity to sign, yet we don't even have the 218 yet. So these are opportunities. When people go home on these resources, and as my gentleman, my friend from Georgia said, we get out on a Thursday about 2:30 while other people are hard working trying to earn enough money to buy their gas, but let us hear from you. If I could speak to the people, I would tell them, we need your help to move this. I see the gentlelady from North Carolina, my good friend and classmate that came in at the same time I did, Ms. Foxx.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. If you remember, and Mr. Speaker, I am sure you remember this, H.R. 6 in January of 2007, which was the Democrat's energy bill, they precluded the American government, our agencies, from using the renewable fuels. And so that is an incredible thing. Part of the solution is going to be using and making these renewable fuels more affordable for all of us. But yet the biggest user of these fuels under section 526 of that bill, we are precluded from even using them.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Well, if the gentleman would let me reclaim a little time, you mentioned the appropriations bills, and as the gentleman from California knows, there was an amendment offered by the ranking member of Appropriations, Mr. Lewis, and when that was offered, that substitute was offered, Mr. Obey just pulled the bill out of committee and refused to let it be voted on or to at least have a chance of discussion.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. No, sir, I have not.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank the gentleman from California for taking time away from his family and actually traveling to ANWR in the Alaska area to see not only what it would do for this country in the production of U.S. oil, but also to create jobs. This is a job creator for Americans, good-paying jobs that they would have and not have to go to Saudi Arabia and other parts of this world to get that kind of employment. They would be able to have it right here in this country. And now I am joined by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price).

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Reclaiming my time, the petition that I had up here, they won't even sign a simple petition that says, ``I will vote to increase U.S. oil production to lower gas prices for Americans.''

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, this is a poster that we have, and this is the poster that really gets my blood kind of hot, and I think it does for most other Americans, too. When we realize who we are dependent on, when we talk about being dependent on foreign oil, exactly who are we talking about? I think this poster will give the American people an idea of some of the people we are talking about. This poster says, America, get out your checkbook. In a recent interview on Al Jazeera, Chavez called for developing nations to unite against U.S. political and economic policies. What can we do regarding the imperialist power of the United States? We have no choice but to unite, he said. Venezuela's energy alliances with nations such as Cuba, which receives cheap oil, and are an example of how, and this is a quote, ``we use oil in our war against neoliberalism.'' Here is a picture of Fidel Castro and Mr. Chavez. This is the interesting quote. Or as he has put it on another occasion, and this is Mr. Chavez talking and that was in the Washington Post, ``We have invaded the United States but with our oil; not with guns, but with our oil.'' And here is the other part that most Americans do not realize, rather than having good-paying American jobs, rather than having the revenue from these oil leases come into this country and come into our pot, our government, our general account, rather than the royalties coming into us and us being able to lower our gas prices for all Americans, we write a check every day and this check is from American families and businesses to Hugo Chavez for $170,250,000 a day, a day. Not a week, not a month, not a year, $170,250,000 a day. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. I want to thank the gentlelady from North Carolina. I want to thank the Speaker, too. I didn't realize who the Speaker was until just now. But I want to thank the Speaker for what we did a couple of weeks ago in a 2-hour Special Order where we had bipartisan participation. And I think the American people, Mr. Speaker, enjoyed it. I know that you said you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, and hopefully we can do that again. I want to comment, the gentlelady from North Carolina made a comment about the Democratic majority calling on the President to do something. Well, he did do something. He removed the executive ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, and he called on Congress to do the same thing. We have yet to do that. But just the mention, just the mention of that, oil went down $10 a barrel. Then just the mention, the discussion, even though it was more snake oil than anything else, that the majority had last week on a bill that they called DRILL for some reason, oil went down again. And so I think that, and if you look at the spike in oil prices, and I don't have the chart up here with me tonight. I do have the chart that shows the 12 years of the Republican Congress of gas going from $1.44 to $2.10. In the 18 months that the Democrats have been in charge of Congress it has gone from $2.10 to $4.11. Let me give you just a little bit of background about that, because if you look at a chart in May of 2007, the speculation in the oil prices just shot up, and for good reason. We had an amendment on this floor that Mr.--I believe that was the gentleman from Colorado that said, no more drilling for shale oil. Two trillion barrels. And I believe, Mr. Speaker, that is more than Saudi Arabia has in crude oil that we have got in our western States in shale oil, and this Congress, by a very narrow vote, said nope, we are not going to take that out. We are going to leave that two trillion barrels of oil in there. It was at that time that we saw the spike because what people realized is, hey, look, they are not going to take care of their own resources. They are not going to increase their production. They are going to be dependent on other countries to supply it. And then, on the reverse, just the mention of drilling dropped the price of oil. I would like to yield some time to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. WESTMORELAND. Mr. Speaker, again, we come tonight to talk about something that is on all Americans' minds tonight, and that is the price of energy. We have been here for the last couple of weeks talking about the problem that we have with the energy prices and especially the price of gasoline in this country. And we are unable to break a deadlock, it seems like, in the House, Mr. Speaker, to have the representatives vote for a bill that would really increase energy production. And I have got a few charts that I'm going to put up here now. These charts that I put up just represent a little petition that I had made up for the Members of this body. I had been contacted, as many of you, Mr. Speaker, have heard me say before, that I was contacted by many constituents that asked me if I had signed off the Internet petitions about drill here, drill now, pay less. There have been several petitions about wanting to bring down the price of gas. In fact, I was in a local service station. I got my gas. I went in to buy some other things. And there was a petition there on the counter. It said, ``sign here if you want to lower gas prices.'' And I'm assuming the proprietor of that business did that to keep people from hollering at him about how much they were paying for their gas. But after reading this and learning that over about 1.5 million people had signed the petition on the Internet telling Congress, hey, look, we want you to drill here, we want you to drill now, I came up with the idea, Mr. Speaker, that I would come up with a petition for the Members of this body. We are hearing from our constituents. And right now, about 73 percent of Americans are telling us, drill here. Drill now. We want to lower our gas prices. We want to be more dependent on our own natural resources than we are on foreign resources and be independent of other people to supply us with our energy needs. So I came up with a petition. It says ``American energy solutions for lower gas prices.'' It includes bringing onshore oil online, bringing deep water oil online, and bringing new refineries online. A lot of people, Mr. Speaker, do not realize that we have not built a refinery in this country since 1978. In order to do that, we have got to do something to persuade these refining companies to bring refineries online, to do something to streamline the regulation process and the permitting process to be able to do this. When the Republicans were in the majority, we did do that. We brought about a bill that offered an opportunity to streamline and to actually put some of these refineries on some of the military bases that were going to be closed. I came up with a petition. I had the petition over here. It is a House of Representatives energy petition. It says ``I will vote to increase U.S. oil production to lower gas prices for Americans.'' Now that is too simple, Mr. Speaker, for a lot of people in this body, in that it's one sentence, ``I will vote to increase U.S. oil production to lower gas prices for Americans.'' That's pretty simple. There's no discharge petition. There's no legislation that goes with it, Mr. Speaker. It's just an opportunity for not only the 435 voting Members of this body, but also the other seven delegates from U.S. territories around the world, to let their constituents know how they feel about increasing U.S. production to lower the gas prices. Well, we have sent at least two e-mails to everybody's office. We have talked to probably 230 or 240, maybe 250 people on this floor. So far, we have had 192 Members sign this simple petition. It says, ``I will vote to increase U.S. oil production to lower gas prices for Americans.'' Now, if you're sitting at home--Mr. Speaker, if anybody was sitting at home watching TV and wanting to find out if their Congressman had signed, Mr. Speaker, they would go to house.gov/westmoreland. And, Mr. Speaker, on this Web site, we have a list of all those Members who have signed. And we have a list of those who have refused to sign. And if your Member is not in either one of those lists, then they have not signed. So everybody in here has had an opportunity to do this. So far, 192 Members--and as I said, it's very simple, nothing, no piece of legislation, it's just a simple comment to the voters at home to let you know how the people in this body, because we are the ones, Mr. Speaker, that are going to have to take some action to make this happen. Last week the President recalled or withdrew the Presidential ban on offshore drilling. Now, it's up to this House to do the same thing. We have to withdraw the congressional ban to explore and to do the offshore drilling. But so far, we've refused to do that. In fact, every bill that has come to this floor, including the Democrats' energy bill of January of 2007, has been either under a closed rule or under suspension. Now, Mr. Speaker, you know that being under suspension, you have no ability to amend the bill, there is 20 minutes of debate normally on each side, probably not even a subcommittee or a committee hearing on the process. So these bills have come with little input from all the Members of this body. What we have called for, what the Republicans have called for, is for the Democrats to bring a bill to this floor that is an open rule bill. That means a bill, Mr. Speaker, that would allow all 435 Members of this body to put forth ideas, because the total solution is not drilling. The total solution is not conserving. The real solution is all of the above, a complete energy plan that would call for drilling on our Outer Continental Shelf, that would allow us to drill on Federal lands, do coal-to-oil conversion, create oil from the shale in the Western States, wind power, solar power, all of the above. But so far, the Democratic majority, Mr. Speaker, has refused to allow those type of bills to the floor so everybody can have input. Now, I see here one of my colleagues, the gentleman from California, who just got back from a trip, Mr. Speaker, to some of these regions that we're talking about. And so I would like for my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy) to get up and maybe tell us a little bit about his trip to some of the area that we believe we have some of the largest oil reserves in this country.