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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE
H8287
 July 16, 2009
our Congress, this body, takes up com-prehensive health care reform, I be-lieve we the pro-life group in this bodymust mobilize and ensure that ourvoices are heard so that our Nation’svoices are heard. Because if we don’tact, every American will be forced topay for these services, whether throughtheir premiums or taxes. Abortionrates have fallen over the last 30 years,but if we fail to act, I wholeheartedlybelieve we will see abortion rates sky-rocket.Health care, you know, Dr. F
LEMING
,and you know this all too well—youtook that oath—is about saving lives.It’s about providing our help, our love,our compassion, our prayers to theyoung women who need it. Health carereform should be about finding ways todo that better, not mandating coveragethat we all agree will not do that. Weshould be doing things to make abor-tion rare. After all, everyone, includingthat unborn child, deserves the right tolife.Dr. F
LEMING
, thank you so much forbringing this to the attention of thisbody and of the American people. Youare a great American and hopefullyyou will save a life because of this ac-tion.Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentle-lady for yielding back, and I apologize,from Ohio instead of New Jersey. I’mgetting my Schmidts and my Smithsmixed up this evening. Briefly in thefinal moments, I want to pitch back toMr. S
MITH
from New Jersey.Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Dr. F
LEM
-
ING
, thank you and say to my friendfrom Ohio, thank you for that extraor-dinarily eloquent statement, as usual.Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you verymuch.Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let mejust make a couple of points, Doctor.The abortion industry is seeking a bail-out. This is the abortion bailout billand it needs to be seen as that. Thenumber of abortions are going down be-cause of ultrasound and because of edu-cational efforts. This would mandateprivate insurers to cover abortion—andpublic as well—expand venues, the kill-ing centers, to do abortions.But there’s something that I wouldlike your take on. The former directorof the National Abortion Federationhas said that the number of abortionsare going down, also, because there arephysicians who either can’t or won’tperform this, quote, essential service inher view. The American Medical Newsreported that abortion is a matter of choice in this country, not only forwomen but for physicians as well. Allover the country most physicians arechoosing not to do it. The San Fran-cisco Chronicle has said those who runabortion clinics, even in large cities,say that recruiting doctors is now theirmost serious problem. To which wesay, thank God that doctors are doingwhat the Hippocratic oath has toldthem and admonished them to do.I would like your take on that.Mr. FLEMING. I appreciate that.We’re going to be running out of timeand I’m going to give you a brief re-sponse to that. When I was in the Navy,I had a friend who was an OB–GYN whospecifically refused to do abortions. Hesaid it was against his conscience. Heretired and went into the local townnearby to go into practice and his prac-tice began a little slow and soon withinmonths he became the most prolificabortionist in town.So in answer to your question, thereason why so many people, or thosewho have done it in the past have doneit, it’s obvious. It’s money. It’s a verylucrative trade. But on the other handin the medical communities, in thecommunities at large, there’s been tre-mendous social pressure against that.As a result, I think many have decidedit isn’t worth the money.This has been a wonderful hour. I dothank my colleagues for visiting andadding so many wonderful comments.We could spend another couple of hourson this.With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
f
CLEAN ENERGYThe SPEAKER pro tempore. Underthe Speaker’s announced policy of Jan-uary 6, 2009, the gentleman from Ohio(Mr. B
OCCIERI
) is recognized for 60 min-utes.Mr. BOCCIERI. Thank you, Mr.Speaker.It’s an honor to be in this Chamber,in this body, to talk about an issuethat is so important to our country.I’m so happy to be joined by my col-league Steve Driehaus from Cincinnati,a fellow Ohioan, and my good friendand neighbor in the Longworth Build-ing, T
OM
P
ERRIELLO
from Virginia.Tonight we’re going to have a veryspirited dialogue about clean energyand about the American Clean Energyand Security Act that passed thisChamber and the necessity of enactingthis legislation very soon as it pertainsto our national security.With that, let me begin by suggestingthis, my friends. In this Congress, wewere elected to represent the people of Ohio and Virginia collectively herewith my colleagues, but to representthe interests of the United States inmuch broader terms. And after havingspent 15 years in the United States AirForce as a C–130 pilot flying all overthe world, to 60 different nations, vis-iting places I never dreamed I wouldsee, seeing people, meeting people Inever dreamed I would meet and doingthings that I never dreamed that Iwould do, it only takes one trip outsidethe borders of the United States to un-derstand how good we have it here. Andwhen you think about all the blessingsthat this country has been given interms of the abundance of natural re-sources, in terms of the opportunity towrite our own destiny, we are truly ablessed nation. And I say this becausewe find ourselves at a crossroads in ourhistory as it pertains to energy.Now we have 3 percent of the world’spopulation but we consume nearly 40percent of the world’s natural re-sources. The United States has a verybig demand, whether it’s electricity,whether it’s our dependence on foreignoil, or whether it’s our overreliance onother fossil fuels that make this coun-try very dependent on internationalgeopolitical forces.I’ve got to tell you, what specificallyconcerns me with respect to our energypolicy is the fact that 60 percent of ouroil comes from overseas. Sixty percent.And 40 percent comes from the MiddleEast, where we find our military en-gaged in two wars on two differentfronts in a region that has an abun-dance of oil but a lack of democracyand a lack of attention to humani-tarian interests and a democracy thatworks for the people.So while we become very dependenton overseas supply of oil, we find our-selves now at a crossroads. We wereelected, and we’re freshman Membershere, it’s our first term serving in thisaugust body, but I will tell you this,that we will be judged by two meas-ures. We will be judged by action or in-action, and now is the time to take ac-tion for our national security, to cre-ate jobs in this country that cannot beoutsourced and to make sure that wemove away from our dependence on for-eign oil. It’s in this spirit that I lookfor a robust conversation about howthis protects our national security.I will yield to my colleague fromOhio.
b
2200Mr. DRIEHAUS. Thank you verymuch, Congressman B
OCCIERI
, and Iwould agree that this is about actionversus inaction.From 1994 until 2006, the RepublicanParty ruled the Congress. They ruledthe House of Representatives, and theywere at the root of the inaction. Thisenergy crisis didn’t sneak up on us.This health care crisis didn’t sneak upon us. The housing bubble and the fi-nancial crisis didn’t sneak up on us. Wecould have done something. We couldhave done something about our reli-ance on foreign energy. We could havedone something about health care. Wecould have done something about thefinancial institutions. But my col-leagues on the other side of the aisle,rather than act, they chose not to act.So I agree wholeheartedly that we willbe judged on what we are willing to dofor this country.I have a couple of observations aboutthe bill that we passed, and I havenever seen so much information—mis-information, on a bill in my life as Isaw on this one.My colleagues on the other side of the aisle—who are chatting—werespreading rumors. They were spreadingrumors about costs of $4,000 a year intax increases on the energy bill.Now, I don’t know about you, but Italked to my energy friends backhome. I talked to my friends at DukePower, and they suggested that the po-tential increases, if there are in-creases—and I would argue that those
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE
H8288
 July 16, 2009
increases are going to be offset by sav-ings and they’re going to be offset byjob creation—but they were spreadingmisinformation about the cost of thisbill; yet it went on and on and on andon.And then they talked about the factthat no one had read the bill as theysearched the Chamber for an amend-ment that sat right in front of them.Their leader came to the floor with thevery amendment and went throughpage by page that he had earmarked,clearly having had time to read thebill.The fact of the matter is we havebeen discussing our reliance upon for-eign oil. We have been discussing en-ergy for years.Mr. KING of Iowa. Will the gen-tleman yield?Mr. DRIEHAUS. No.Mr. KING of Iowa. The gentlemanmade an allegation, and I would bevery happy to respond to that. I appre-ciate it if the gentleman would yield.Mr. DRIEHAUS. I’m talking aboutthe misinformation.Mr. KING of Iowa. That’s what Ihear, and that challenges the integrityof some of the Members. I asked thegentleman to kindly yield. It’s a cour-tesy that’s commonly offered.The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gen-tleman from Ohio (Mr. B
OCCIERI
) con-trols the time.Mr. BOCCIERI. It is up to the gen-tleman from Cincinnati if he wouldyield.Mr. DRIEHAUS. No, I won’t yield. Ihave heard misinformation after misin-formation come to this floor, and theAmerican people deserve the truth.They deserve the truth.
PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY
 
Mr. KING of Iowa. Parliamentary in-quiry.The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gen-tleman from Ohio will suspend. Thegentleman will state his parliamentaryinquiry.Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, is itinappropriate under the rules of theHouse to challenge the mendacity of any of the Members in this House?Mr. DRIEHAUS. Mr. Speaker, pointof clarification. I am challenging thefacts.Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, Imade a proper parliamentary inquiry.The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gen-tleman’s remarks did not target anyindividual Member.Mr. KING of Iowa. I’m sorry, Mr.Speaker. I can’t hear you.The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gen-tleman’s did not target any individualMember.Mr. KING of Iowa. Further par-liamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gen-tleman will state his parliamentary in-quiry.Mr. KING of Iowa. The gentlemenfrom Ohio alleged intentional misin-formation on the part of members of my conference, and that, I believe,challenges the mendacity of Membersof this Congress.The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gen-tleman’s remarks did not specify anyindividual Member.Mr. KING of Iowa. Further par-liamentary inquiry.The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gen-tleman will state his parliamentary in-quiry.Mr. KING of Iowa. Is it the ruling of the Chair that the gentleman fromOhio can challenge the mendacity of aMember provided he doesn’t namethem specifically?The SPEAKER pro tempore. Mem-bers are reminded not to engage in per-sonalities.Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, Ithink everybody gets the message here.The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gen-tleman from Ohio is recognized.Mr. BOCCIERI. Mr. Speaker, I wantto yield to the gentleman and my col-league from Cincinnati to finish his re-marks.Mr. DRIEHAUS. I will further clarifyit for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that I believe there was grossexaggeration engaged in on the debatewith regard to energy. And the attemptwasn’t to solve a problem. The attemptwas to scare the American people.They scared the American people rath-er than addressing the problem, ratherthan taking on the problem. The at-tempt was to scare the American peo-ple, to scare the American people andsuggest to them that this was sometype of massive tax increase when, infact, this is about the energy securityof the United States of America. That’swhat this bill is about. And that’s whatwe had the courage to do.It is about the job creation for ourState of Ohio. It is about job creationand clean energy and new energy jobsacross the United States, and it isabout ensuring the energy security forour children and future generations.And that’s the courage that it took topass this bill rather than letting it go,letting it go, taking the ostrich ap-proach of sticking your head in thesand and ignoring the problem.So I appreciate the opportunity tospeak, Mr. B
OCCIERI
.Mr. BOCCIERI. Thank you for thosecomments.And there is very clearly misinforma-tion out there. I have had a number of inquiries into my office, both here inWashington and back in the district inOhio, that have clearly been misrepre-sented of what the bill actually standsfor and what it actually means.And with that, I will yield to myfriend and colleague and neighbor inthe Longworth Building, the gen-tleman from Virginia (Mr. P
ERRIELLO
).Mr. PERRIELLO. Thank you verymuch, Mr. B
OCCIERI
.It’s very easy to focus on the normalmisinformation and all of the bad newsthat people expect from politics, butwhat we miss in that is this tremen-dous opportunity, the excitement of this moment. We are betting on Amer-ica again. We’re betting on innovation.We are better at this than any othercountry on Earth.And the fact of the matter is I’m sickand tired of going to the gas pump andknowing that my hard-earned dollarsare going to support petrol dictatorsoverseas instead of American innova-tion back at home. Sometimes youhave to put America ahead of Ahmadinejad, and this is one of thosemoments.We can make a choice that Americawill be at the forefront of the clean en-ergy economy. This is our time. Bothparties, for the last couple of decades,have had a disastrous strategy oninternational trade and other thingsthat have sold the middle class and theworking class of this country down theroad.It is time to reinvest in Americaagain, and the new energy economy isa big part of that. We are one of theonly countries in history that havebeen funding both sides of a war. UnderPresident Bush’s Department of De-fense in 2003, they wrote the risk of ab-rupt climate change should be elevatedbeyond a scientific debate to a U.S. na-tional security concern.We spent $357 billion last year on for-eign crude oil, 2.3 percent of our GDP.That’s the bad news. But the good newsis we are getting ahead on this now.And this bill helps create the incen-tives to reward success, to reward lead-ership instead of continuing to rewardfailure and reward the lack of innova-tion that we’ve seen in recent years.And with your discretion, Mr.B
OCCIERI
, I would like to brag on southside Virginia for a second.My part of the country has beenhurting. We’ve had 20 percent unem-ployment in parts of my district. We’vebeen hit hard by the exporting of man-ufacturing jobs, textile, furniture, to-bacco farming. But we’re now hearingphrases like ‘‘first in the Nation,’’‘‘best in the Nation,’’ moducrafthomes, the first and best on energy-ef-ficient modular homes.Red Birch, a truck stop owner whoturned his truck stop into the frontlines of the freedom fight for energyindependence by developing the firstfarm-to-fuel closed-loop system, notonly is he keeping those dollars inAmerica, he’s keeping them in thecommunity. When you go to that truckstop to buy a high cetane premium die-sel fuel, 92 cents on every dollar staysin the community. Moducraft homes,Red Birch, Windy Acres, these arethings to be proud of.And let me mention one other thing,Mr. B
OCCIERI
. I don’t care whether agood idea comes from the DemocraticParty or the Republican Party. I onlycare that it’s a good idea. And the factis you wouldn’t know it from this de-bate, but cap-and-trade was a Repub-lican idea. The tradable permit schemewas invented and produced under thefirst President Bush in the effort tocombat acid rain.
b
2210One of the most efficient and effec-tive environmental laws ever created
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE
H8289
 July 16, 2009
under the leadership of Bill Riley atthe EPA and the first President Bush,tradable permits were a smart Repub-lican idea that said we can use the freemarket and capitalism to drive that in-novative edge and that competition.It’s something that Senator M
C
C
AIN
 and the former Senator Warner andothers have supported as being theright mix of a national security solu-tion using free-market strategies.So this was a Republican idea thatwas good enough for this country untilDemocrats also supported it, and thisis what Americans are sick of. They’resick of the idea that we’re going to putscoring political points ahead of patri-otism and problem-solving.The fact is this was about putting thebest ideas on the table to solve what isone of our leading national securitythreats, one of our leading economicthreats, and get America right back onto the cutting edge.It’s a great thing that we’ve done.We’ve stood up to the special interestgroups, and for once, in a few years,we’re going to be able to start sup-porting an energy economy that’s cre-ating jobs right here in America andselling that technology all around theworld.Mr. BOCCIERI. I appreciate the gen-tleman from Virginia’s comments, andhe is exactly right on. A good ideadoesn’t have to be a Democrat or Re-publican idea. It’s an American idea.And while we may disagree about someof the approaches, let’s look at and re-visit some of the comments of some of the leading leaders who ran for thePresidency last year and talked abouthow climate change and our depend-ence on foreign oil is a matter of na-tional security.Let’s visit the Presidential candidatefor the Republicans last year, J
OHN
 M
C
C
AIN
, who I incidentally flew out of Baghdad, is a man of honor and integ-rity, and this is what he has to say: It’scap-and-trade. There will be incentivesfor people to reduce greenhouse gasemissions. It’s a free-market approach.Let me repeat that: it’s a free-marketapproach. The Europeans are doing it.We did it in the case of acid rain. Look,if we do that, we will stimulate greentechnologies. This will be a profit-mak-ing business, and it won’t cost theAmerican taxpayer. It won’t cost theAmerican taxpayer. J
OE
L
IEBERMAN
 and I introduced a cap-and-trade pro-posal several years ago which would re-duce greenhouse gases with a gradualreduction. We did the same thing withacid rain. This works. It works.Mr. DRIEHAUS. Will the gentlemanyield?Mr. BOCCIERI. I will.Mr. DRIEHAUS. This goes back tothe question of action versus inaction,and the question is, If you don’t em-bark down this road, if you don’t ad-dress the energy crisis, if you don’twork toward a system of cap-and-trade,what’s the alternative? And the alter-native is simply this:The EPA comes out with rules crack-ing down on utilities and emitters of carbon, which would in fact be a mas-sive tax, a massive government man-date on utilities and manufacturers,killing jobs, raising rates for busi-nesses, raising rates for residentialconsumers. Instead, the choice wemade, the choice for action was aboutusing a free-market approach toincentivize job creation, to incentivizecreativity, just like we did with tele-communications.We now have the opportunity to dothe same with energy. We believe inthe American economy. We believe inthe innovation that can be releasedthrough the use of a free-market sys-tem like cap-and-trade. That’s why wewent down this road, and that’s why wechose to actMr. BOCCIERI. Let me just expoundon the gentleman’s remarks there.I believe that this truly is about ournational security, and I’m going to goover some facts here in just a moment.But back to revisiting what some of our colleagues have said running forPresident. Mike Huckabee reallysummed it up best when he said, A na-tion that cannot feed itself, that can-not fuel itself or produce the weaponsto fight for itself is a nation foreverenslaved.And he further added, So it’s criticalthat for our own interests economi-cally and from a point on national se-curity we commit to becoming energyindependent, and we commit to doingit within a decade. Within a decade. Wewent to the Moon in less. We can dothis in less than a decade. We have totake responsibility in our own housebefore we can expect others to do thesame in theirs. It goes back to mybasic concept of leadership. Leadersdon’t ask others to do what they areunwilling to do themselves.This gentleman was right on with hisremarks. I yield to the gentleman fromVirginia.Mr. PERRIELLO. Well, you know,Mr. Huckabee is a great man of faith,and I was meeting with a number of evangelical leaders today, and theywere talking about the frustrationthey’ve had with some people in thepews about the seriousness of thisissue. And they say, you know, somepeople get so caught up on whether cli-mate change is a partisan issue, wheth-er this is about some Democratic con-spiracy theory to tax or whether it’ssome Republican denial of scientificevidence.And the evangelical leaders were say-ing to me that do you realize over thenext 10 years 250 million of God’s chil-dren in Africa could be denied access towater because of the effects of climate?How willing are we to roll the dice onthis uncertainty to do nothing, to ac-cept inaction when we know that ournational security demands it, when weknow that our innovation and our jobcreation demands it, when we knowthat our conscience demands it, whenso many of those who had nothing todo with creating the problem, the mostvulnerable amongst us, 250 million inAfrica alone could be denied that ac-cess to water?Mike Huckabee has been a leader onthis. He’s talked about the importanceof climate, as has J
OHN
M
C
C
AIN
, as hasSarah Palin and others.The reality is, we all know how im-portant this is, but somehow in thisbody here we can get lost in scoring po-litical points for the next election in-stead of doing what’s right for ourcountry and for our economy. Youserved in uniform, and we appreciatethat service, and once again, here we’redoing what we need to do to keep thiscountry safe and to keep it strong.Mr. BOCCIERI. I cannot agree withmy gentleman and neighbor as he soeloquently suggested that this is aboutthe faith that we have in our own inno-vation, the faith that we have in ourown country and our own people tocome up with ideas that can make ourcountry stronger in the long run. Andlet me revisit some of what our faithleaders have said.Billy Graham said that the growingpossibility of destroying ourselves inthe world with our own neglect and ex-cess is tragic and very real.Pope Benedict said, The brutal con-sumption of creation begins where Godis not. I think, therefore, that true andeffective initiatives to prevent thewaste and destruction of creation canstart only where creation is consideredas beginning with God. Particularly,attention must be paid to the fact thatthe poorest countries are likely to paythe heaviest price for ecological dete-rioration.Pat Robertson said, I have not beenone who believed in global warming,but I tell you, they are making a con-vert out of me. It is getting hotter andthe ice caps are melting and there is abuildup of carbon dioxide in the air. Wereally need to address the burning of fossil fuels because if we are contrib-uting to the destruction of the planet,we need to do something about it.Dr. Rick Warren, author of ‘‘The Pur-pose Driven Life’’ said, We cannot beall that God wants us to be withoutcaring about the Earth.Now, our faith leaders are telling us,our national security folks who are incharge and responsible for our nationalsecurity are saying it, the Congress hasspoken, that this is a matter of na-tional security, creating jobs here athome, jobs that cannot be outsourcedand moving away from our dependenceon foreign oil.Let me touch on just a few points be-fore I yield back to my friends.Eighty percent of the world’s re-serves of oil are in the hands of govern-ments and their respective national oilcompanies. Sixteen of the world’s 20largest oil companies are state-owned.We import 60 percent of the world’s oil.We know that we’re going to, with theSenate version of this bill, we’re ex-panding exploration and drilling righthere in America in the Gulf of Mexico,knowing that that’s not going to beenough to sustain our 20 million bar-rels that we consume every day. We
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