Missisquoi and Trout Rivers Wild and Scenic River Study Act of 2008

Floor Speech

Mr. Chairman, it is great to have a chance to be on the floor to talk about energy and the lack of movement from my colleagues on the other side. It's not the first time I've been down here, it's not going to be the last, and I seriously doubt that the provision that will be brought to the floor will be an all-of-the-above, comprehensive plan.

It will be a smoke screen, it will try to have some cover for votes for November, but it will not be the all-the-above strategy that we are demanding on the floor of the House.

There will not be a provision on coal in this bill. Coal is our most valuable resource we have in this country. There will not be a provision on oil shale. More energy than any other country in oil shale. We will not deal with opening up the entire Outer Continental Shelf. We will not use the revenues to fully expand the grid or go into all the renewables.

We would like regular order. We would like the chance to move a bill through the committee. I serve on the Energy and Air Quality subcommittee; I serve on the Energy and Commerce full committee. The 2005 energy bill that you all had attacked went through regular order. It went through your committee, it went through my committee, it went through the Science Committee. It went through all the committees; it was cobbled together on the floor; we had amendments on the floor, and we voted.

Democrats attacked us for the majority of the majority rule of the floor of the House. Well, we're going to turn that around, because now it's just a majority of one: It's whatever Speaker Pelosi decides, that will be the bill on the floor. And she is dissing you all. She's not allowing you all to have any input into the legislative process. It's whatever she says goes. And you just can't deny that fact, because it is not going through any regular order.

So when you attacked the 2005 energy bill that went through the subcommittee, went through the full committee as being written behind closed doors, there is no more closed doors than what you are doing and proposing to do in this bill, and it is a shame and it is an insult on the legislative process.

Let's see if we address coal-to-liquid. There are two provisions you all could put in the bill right now to make us more energy independent.

You could put long-term contracting Department of Defense, who are asking for coal-to-liquid applications for jet fuel, long-term contracting, and we would have coal-to-liquid refineries being built with American jobs today.

You could take a Democrat bill, the Boucher coal-to-liquid bill. You could put RICK BOUCHER's bill in this, quote/unquote, comprehensive energy bill, and we would have coal-to-liquid refineries being built in this country within a year.

But it won't be comprehensive because you're going to not address coal, the greatest resource. We have more coal reserves than any country on this planet. So you can't really say you are going to have a comprehensive energy plan when you don't address coal.

The other thing that you will not do is open up the Outer Continental Shelf. You may open up 5 percent more. This whole red area, you have seen it numerous times, off-limits.

We're going to call your bluff. We're going to shut down this government on the CR because we're going to defeat the moratorium. So you can pass all these energy bills you want. You know you can't conference it with the Senate. You know it's not going to go to the President's desk. It's a fig leaf. It's a farce. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

What we're going to do is we're going to wait till the spending bill comes to fund government, and then we're going to call your bluff. Are you willing to shut the government down and keep off-limits billions of barrels of oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas? And if you're willing to do that, fine. We'll do that before the election. We'll go back and we'll hold you accountable at the polls.

Do you know why you can't bring a comprehensive bill that comes through regular order? Because Nancy Pelosi loses, and it's her bill.

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