Federal Government's Response to the Oil Spill

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up on what my friends were discussing because this oil spill is so important. And when our colleagues across the aisle control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the most we can do is use this honored place here to bring out some points so that, hopefully, America will respond, let their Members of Congress know what can be done, what should be done, and why. And then perhaps we will get the appropriate action from the majority.

But I know there have been a lot of people that have been perplexed over the President waiting for so long to sit down with the chairman of British Petroleum. I know our President has said he has been involved and been in control and been in charge since day one. We have heard that over and over. And I know my colleague, former Judge Carter, like me--maybe it's the judge in us--but even though the President has said he wasn't going to believe--something like he wasn't going to be able to believe whatever he said, so he didn't even meet with him. Well, as my fellow former judge knows, the best way to find out if you can believe them is bring them. Look them in the eye. Ask them questions. Find out if their answers are credible. Find out by the questions you ask whether they make sense, whether they're conflicting. And you find out whether you can trust somebody just by getting them in and talking to them. To make the statement that, for whatever reason, but if it was you can't trust what he says, then get him in and talk to him, for heaven's sake. I guess if you're used to condemning police officers before you know the facts, then, as we know from court cases, the best indication of future activity is often past history. It needs to rise to the level of being habit. But we're beginning to see a pattern developed here.

But many have wondered, Why was the President easy on British Petroleum for so long? Lately, he talked about kicking rear ends and all this stuff, but this is over a month and a half later. So I was very interested in this article, apparently from the Washington Examiner. And the K Street Column appears on Wednesday by Timothy Carney. I'm just going to read the article because I found this very interesting and helped give me some insight into this relationship with British Petroleum.

But the article says, ``As British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking on April 22, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, was on the phone with allies in his push for climate legislation, telling them he would soon roll out the Senate climate bill with the support of the utility industry and three oil companies, including BP, according to the Washington Post.''

Let me explain here why this is called climate legislation. In the last couple of years, it became clear that there was significant evidence to indicate that global warming was not occurring. We've had indication one of the heads of the movement that is claiming it was, actually admits there has been no evidence that the planet has been warming since 1995. And the evidence has been the last few years it is probably cooling. I read an article in the wee hours this morning that South Africa is getting the first snow in decades.

So, anyway, but apparently, the global warming movement realized this was a problem. And I read another article sometime back around this time that indicated, you know what? We've been saying carbon dioxide trapped the warmth in, but it may be, since the planet may be cooling, maybe it makes the Sun's rays bounce off the carbon dioxide. And so maybe CO2 is to blame for the cooling. So they realize if the planet is cooling, and you want to blame CO2, you're going to have to change the name, because global warming doesn't work if the climate is actually getting cooler. So they have started calling it climate legislation rather than global warming legislation. So that's why it's referred to this way, and that's why senators like Senator Kerry down the hall are referring to it as climate legislation.

But, anyway, going back to the article, it says, ``Kerry never got to have his photo op with BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward and other regulation-friendly corporate chieftains. Within days, Republican cosponsor Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, repudiated the bill following a spat about immigration, and Democrats went back to the drawing board. But the Kerry-British Petroleum alliance for an energy bill that included a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gasses pokes a hole in a favorite claim of President Obama and his allies in the media that BP's lobbyists have fought fiercely to be left alone. Lobbying records show that BP is no free-market crusader but instead a close friend of Big Government whenever it serves the company's bottom line. While BP has resisted some government intervention, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, the subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.''

The article continues on, ``Now that BP's oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG. Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market. As Democrats fight to advance climate change policies,'' AKA global warming when it's not warming. Back to the article, ``they are resorting to the misleading tactics they used in their health care and finance report: posing as the scourges of the special interest and tarring reform opponents as the stooges of big business. Expect BP to be public enemy number one in the climate debate. There's a problem. BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the Nation's largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switch to gas. In February, BP quit the United States Climate Action Partnership without giving much of a reason beyond saying the company could lobby more effectively on its own than in a coalition that is increasingly dominated by power companies. They made out particularly well in the House climate bill, while natural gas producers suffer.''

And I am still reading from the article: ``But 2 months later, BP signed off on Kerry's Senate climate bill, which was hardly a capitalist concoction. One provision BP explicitly backed, according to Congressional Quarterly and other media reports: a higher gas tax. The money would be earmarked for building more highways, thus inducing more driving and more gasoline consumption.

``Elsewhere in the green arena, BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels and solar energy, two products that cannot break even without government support. Lobbying records show the company backing solar subsidies including Federal funding for solar research. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a Federal agency, is currently financing a BP solar energy project in Argentina.

``Export-Import has also put up taxpayer cash to finance construction of the 1,094-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, Turkey--again, profiting BP. Lobbying records also show BP lobbying on Obama's stimulus bill and Bush's Wall Street bailout. You can guess the oil giant wasn't in league with the Cato Institute or Ron Paul on those.''

Continuing to read from the article, the last couple of paragraphs: ``BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans. It employs the Podesta Group, cofounded by John Podesta, Obama's transition director and confidant. Other BP troops on K Street include Michael Berman, a former top aide to Vice President Walter Mondale; Steven Champlin, former executive director of the House Democratic Caucus; and Matthew LaRocco, who worked in Bill Clinton's Interior Department and whose father was a Democratic Congressman. Former Republican staffers, such as Reagan alumnus Ken Duberstein, also lobby for BP, but there's no truth to Democratic portrayals of the oil company as an arm of the GOP.''

Reading the last paragraph: ``Two patterns have emerged during Obama's Presidency: 1) Big business increasingly seeks profits through more government, and 2) Obama nonetheless paints opponents of his intervention as industry shills. BP is just the latest example of this tawdry sleight of hand. Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool.''

So I would like to yield time to my friend from Round Rock, the Georgetown area, and ask if that makes sense now that you know the full story and perhaps explains why the President was so slow to get after British Petroleum. I yield.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, reclaiming my time, it appears that apparently former President George W. Bush must have had an awful lot of activity to have that kind of effect on global warming even back then. But then I find it interesting, because I know my friend recalls seeing the articles as I did. In fact, I recall in college being told that we were probably at the very beginning--some said we absolutely were at the very early stages of a new ice age that would end the world, end all people on the world with ice.

Well, I just didn't believe it because as a Christian, you know, the Bible doesn't teach that the world ends with an ice age, and so I just knew that couldn't be right. But the people all around me were saying, Oh, yeah, we're at the beginning of a new ice age. It's the global cooling. It's going to ultimately have the whole planet frozen solid, and then who knows what life forms will emerge, if any, after the big ice age. Now I remember that, and I remember the discussions and discussing it with classmates and things, and I just could not buy back in the seventies that we were at the beginning of a new ice age.

So I come into this thing a bit skeptical. And as I have said many times, there is an adage here in Washington that no matter how cynical you get, it's never enough to catch up. And this is exactly the kind of thing that makes you see that. It just creates too much cynicism.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I was just going to mention, former Vice President Gore. He has got a global warming problem of his own now, so I will probably just leave reference to him out entirely. Apparently his planet is warming right now.

But it is interesting, too, when I heard the President talking previously about this cozy relationship between regulators and the Big Oil--here it is back again to the cynicism, and part of it I think is all those days as a judge--you know, it hit me. And I asked my office to check. And sure enough, they found a press release from the Department of Interior dated June 18, 2009, and I'm glad my friend was enlightened, as I was, to find out just how cozy British Petroleum and the White House and the global warming advocates here on Capitol Hill and the White House have been. There is apparently a very cozy relationship, which obviously made it difficult for him to want to condemn BP because they were the oil company that was jumping out there and saying, We support all this global warming stuff.

Well, let me read you this press release. It's from the Department of the Interior. It says, Department of the Interior press release. Date, June 18, 2009. And the headline is, Secretary Salazar Names Sylvia V. Baca Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. Minerals Management should ring a bell with what's going on today. And then it has the city, ``Washington, D.C.--Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today named Sylvia V. Baca, a senior public and private sector manager in energy and environmental policy and programs, as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management. The appointment does not require Senate confirmation.'' Because see, if it required Senate confirmation, as my friend knows, then they would have been really digging into what she had been doing before.

But anyway, back to the press release from the Department of Interior: ``Sylvia brings more than two decades of management experience dealing with natural resource and environmental stewardship issues in both the public and private sectors and at all levels of government, Secretary Salazar said. Sylvia understands the value of partnerships and the dynamics of consensus building on difficult issues, and her professionalism and detailed knowledge of Interior's land and energy responsibilities will make her a valuable member of our leadership team.

``Baca, who currently is general manager for Social Investment Programs and Strategic Partnerships at BP America Inc. in Houston, has held several senior management positions with the company since 2001, focusing on environmental initiatives, overseeing cooperative projects with private and public organizations, developing health, safety, and emergency response programs, and working on climate change, biodiversity, and sustainability objectives.

``As Director of Global Health, Safety, Environment, & Emergency Response for BP Shipping Ltd. in London, Baca led a worldwide team to develop innovative and proactive energy and the environment initiatives. Among her accomplishments, she oversaw health, safety and environmental outcomes for an $8 billion shipbuilding program, resulting in the youngest, greenest and most technically advanced fleet in the world. The project has received numerous awards for its safety and environmental advancements.

``As vice president for Health, Safety and Environment, BP North America in Los Angeles, Baca served as policy adviser on environmental initiatives, such as climate change, biodiversity, sustainable development, land restoration, and air and water programs. Baca presented BP's Climate Change Program before congressional committees and served as a board member on the California Climate Action Registry, National Resources Council of America, NatureServe, and the University of Colorado Natural Resources School of Law. She developed collaborative partnerships with key constituents, trade associations, regulators, and other stakeholders on environmental legislative and regulatory issues.''

It gets better.

``From 1995 to 2001, Baca served as the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Department of the Interior, where she was the principal policy adviser to the Secretary of the Interior for environmentally responsible stewardship of public lands and resources. She was responsible for the development of national policy and management direction of the Bureau of Land Management, Minerals Management Service, and Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

``Among her achievements, Baca formulated consensus-based Federal land and resource management policies and facilitated policy resolution for public land and mineral disputes with competing interest groups. She earlier served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management, and was the Acting Director of the Bureau of Land Management.''

I'm going to stop reading here because what brought her to my attention for the first time I ever heard her name was when the inspector general, who had investigated a few years ago how in the world we ended up on our offshore leases having the price control adjustment language pulled out in 1998 and 1999, he mentioned that Ms. Baca was probably principally in the best position to talk about why it was pulled out.

From the hearing, it certainly appeared that they were informed: We always put this price adjustment language in there. For some reason there were two people, Ms. Baca and another, who were involved apparently in seeing it was pulled out. And it has cost this country's Federal Treasury billions of dollars now that has gone to those who signed those leases in which she or somebody she knew about was pulling the language out regarding the price adjustment.

When I asked the inspector general what Ms. Baca said about this when he questioned her, he said he had never questioned her because she left government service at the end of the Clinton administration and he couldn't talk to her now that she was in private business and in the private sector. I couldn't believe he wouldn't at least give her a call.

Anyway, it turns out that cozy relationship that the President talked about is very real. It was present in the Clinton administration. It left during the Bush administration, but came back in June of 2009 as their own press release from the Department of the Interior indicates.

I yield to my friend.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GOHMERT. It certainly is part of Minerals Management Service. I have to say, it was a hunch when I heard President Obama talking about the cozy relationship between Big Oil and the regulators. It just hit me, and I sent a message to my staff and said find out where those two people are who the inspector general said were largely responsible or likely responsible for the price adjustment language being pulled out that cost our country billions of dollars while they were there in 1998 and 1999. They came back and said we have a press release that is talking about one of them, and this is the press release that I just have read from.

So it is interesting. There is a cozy relationship between this administration, and it goes beyond this, and I am deeply troubled. I know whether you are in Congress, but especially President of the United States, we rely so much on our staff and those people around us to help us get information, and we often depend on what they give us. That is why I like to see it in print, verified.

But the President said in his speech last night, We are running out of places to drill. Well, yes, because if you go back a year and a half ago you will find this same Secretary Salazar took checks that the government had already received at the end of 2008 for leases in the middle of the United States area and returned the checks and said it was his decision and this administration's decision that they were not going to allow those leases to go forward that were let at the midnight hour as the Bush administration was leaving. That was grossly unfair to what occurred, because the information that some of our folks in natural resources had found was that actually that was a 7-year process. He called it a midnight hour, that is when the checks came in, but no company is just going to rush in and say, Here is a check; I don't know what the land looks like. They have to do some testing, see what they think they might want to offer in the way of a bid. So that was a long 7-year process. And it was terminated.

So when the President says we are running out of places to drill, yeah, I guess so, when you keep declaring all of these areas off limits, on shore, in the shallow gulf, all of these shallow and inland areas. People are not aware, but every time they declare a wilderness area, they put that land off limits to drilling. When they declare a wilderness area like this body has, and it is on the Mexico-Arizona border, that means there is no Border Patrol cars or helicopters or anything that can be on the ground in that area in the wilderness area. So there is probably not a month goes by that we don't declare more and more land unavailable for any mineral production.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GOHMERT. The people who are coming into the country illegally, obviously they are not worrying about what the laws in the wilderness area are. They can bring mechanical things and let them work there, but the Border Patrol cannot pursue them. Those areas look like roadways, and it is from the illegals coming through the wilderness areas.

I want to mention one other thing. I know our President has said he has been doing everything from day one. He has been in control. He has been in charge, and we are doing absolutely everything we can. But then we

find out many weeks after this explosion that actually the Netherlands and other countries have offered their ships, their expertise to come help us. The Netherlands, probably the best nation in the world for building dikes and building sand barriers and things, they volunteered to come over here. The problem is that would violate a union-pushed law back in the 1920s. I believe it was in the 1920s when it came. It says, if it is not an American ship, it can't operate and do the things that the Dutch were willing to do for us.

I am sure the President is just a victim of whoever put that information in his teleprompter, but the fact is that everything has not been done. We had a hearing where we had Coast Guard people, and the people from Louisiana have made clear, they have been trying to do things since it started and they keep being hampered by this administration giving BP the responsibility to make all decisions. That didn't make a lot of sense until you read this article and find out just how cozy that relationship has been between BP and the majority leaders in the Senate and in the Congress and at the White House.

But since I know the President believed, I am sure he wouldn't have said it, believed he is doing everything--actually, Presidents can suspend the Jones Act on their own. I know it was mentioned by my friend from the Houston area, but just to bring the fact home and give some specific information, Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of mainly Louisiana on August 29, 2005. Two days later, on September 1 of 2005, President Bush suspended the Jones Act so foreign ships could come in and assist in the hurricane cleanup. As I understand it, I heard that they were a very good help. They came in immediately, and so we have a track record of foreign countries that can come in and help us. President Bush continued the suspension until September 19, 2005. So 19 days was enough to allow those ships to come in and the foreign equipment to come in and help us clean up the disaster areas there on the coast in 2005.

Now, the process requires signoff from Customs and Border Protection, from Department of Energy, and the Maritime Administration, but that can be done on an expedited basis and can be done all within 1 day. You could, in fact, give a call if you are President of the United States, you could give a call to Customs and Border Protection, DOE, and Maritime Administration and say, I want this done. If you are not going to do it, I am going to get somebody in your job that will get it done. Do it. Then get it for final signature to me. I will be finishing the 9th hole on the golf course such and such time; get it to me before I start the 10th tee. He could jump out of the cart and sign that Jones Act suspension and not even be interrupted from a round of golf. It could easily have been done all these days ago.

Just like Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, and just think about this. As incompetent as this administration has repeatedly said the Bush administration was, just think about if an incompetent administration as totally worthless and incompetent as the Bush administration was, could get the Jones Act suspended within 3 days after Hurricane Katrina hitting, just think what these guys could have done. Since they are so much more competent and qualified, think how much quicker they could have done it since it took the Bush administration nearly 3 days.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, it makes most of us just furious that BP appears to have gotten in such a hurry that with all the talk and all the help that Senator Kerry and the global warming bill and this administration on global warming and all the bills they were trying to get done, it makes it so outrageous when it appears they got in a hurry, they got sloppy, lots of safety problems. And this thing happens because it devastates not just--the worst tragedy is the loss of life, and then there are at least 17 others that were severely hurt, and our thoughts and prayers go out to them.

And I know my friend says it's basically almost comical. I know he knows what it is to have personal loss in your life, and I do, including just in the last couple of months losing a brother and a cousin, funeral attended yesterday, and there's nothing like that kind of heartache.

But then the next tragedy is what's being done to this country, what's being done to our ability to be energy independent and to force us to be more dependent on countries that don't like us, that help our enemies. There's tragedies in line behind those, most tragic the loss of life and the injuries and the hurt, but what they have done to our future is also really devastating. And we have got to take a step forward.

And our friend from the Navy, Pete Olson, made it clear, when you're the leader, you've got to lead; it's not something you can vote ``present'' on. You've got to take charge. People are looking at you, and I know when I was in the Army, it certainly made an impression on me when a superior commissioned officer got in my face and said, Captain, no decision is a decision, and that's exactly right. No decision for day after day after day after day was a decision not to move forward, not to embarrass British Petroleum because they were being so helpful on the global warming bills, not to embarrass British Petroleum because we've got people in this administration that came straight from BP and helped the Clinton administration, made billions of dollars for the oil companies at the cost of the Federal Treasury back during the Clinton administration. All that coziness that President Obama talked about, we're seeing it here, and it's understandable. He wouldn't want to be too harsh until the country didn't give him any choice on such a close ally on these global warming bills like BP.

I appreciate so much my friend's assistance, but I did want to kind of change gears here and talk a little bit for a few minutes about something very close to my heart, and I know, my friend's heart. He mentioned the words ``my Lord'' and I know he and I believe in the same Lord, but the book that we're pointed to discusses Israel, our friend and our ally Israel, and it continues to grieve me much to see the way this administration continues to snub Israel.

This episode with the flotilla that was obviously an effort to force Israel's hand because they knew, Israel had made clear, we're going to have to defend ourselves, and that means checking any shipment to see if you're bringing in anything that can be used to blow up more Israelis, into the Gaza Strip. They made it very clear. That was very predictable, because when you study the course of human history and government's history, you know that when the strongest ally of a small country shows the world that there is space between us and our smaller ally, it is going to induce, many times, their enemies to make a move. This was entirely predictable. You didn't see a flotilla move toward Israel during the Bush administration. They knew there was no space between Israel and this country under President Bush. They see a lot of space, and it is dangerous, and I would just, Mr. Speaker, hope and pray and plead that this would stop.

I have a letter that we're circulating getting signatures on asking the Speaker and Majority Leader Reid to please invite Prime Minister Netanyahu to come stand right there at that podium and speak to a Joint Session of Congress so that Iran and all of Israel's enemies will see both sides of the aisle standing and applauding the Prime Minister, the leader of our close ally Israel; so they will know there may be games being played some places around here in Washington, but when push comes to shove, we're going to defend our friend, our ally in Israel.

We have shared belief systems in the value of human life. Both Israel and the United States believe women, for example, are not property, that they're not someone to have honor killings of if you think they've embarrassed your family. They're a country that does not believe that because you practice some other religion, it's okay to kill you. It is a country that believes, as Voltaire and Cicero said, apparently, that I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Now I know we're moving away from that, and there are maybe some people in this country, not maybe, there are people in this country that say basically, you disagree with me, I'm not only not going to defend your right to say it, I'm going to get your job taken away from you; I want to take all your assets; I want to kill any chance you will ever have of making a living; I want to embarrass your family. That's some of the stuff we've had, but that's a minority in this country.

Israel has the same belief system in the value of human life that we do, and we should embrace that relationship and make sure that the world knows that that relationship is intact and that, if necessary to defend itself--I have this resolution, and we're circulating that. We're getting lots of signatures on that from Members of Congress. I'm hoping more and more Members of Congress will be signing on so that we can get this bill to the floor and the Speaker will feel pressured by people's reactions, pushing on their Representatives and their Senators to get them to come on board and sign, so we can let the world know, these are our friends, and we're not going to forsake them.

And like a big strong brother would tell the enemy of his little brother, if you're going to attack my little brother, you're going to have to go through me because I'm going to make sure you have to pay if you hurt my little brother. That's the kind of friend we need to be to Israel so that Iran knows and Ahmadinejad knows, and it sounds like he honestly does believe that he could use nuclear weapons to hasten the end, to hasten the return of the mighty to rule and apparently even believes Jesus would come and help fight to put the mighty in charge of the whole caliphate. But he needs to find out that if he hurts our friend, that not only is there not going to be a caliphate, there will not be an Iran.

We need to make this clear: You don't go start anything with Israel.

But in the meantime, while Israel's leaders are being snubbed by an administration here, the centrifuges are just spinning, and the IAEA says they have enough nuclear material for two nukes. You read Ahmadinejad's quotes, he makes it very clear: It's not just Israel. Israel apparently in his mind is the little Satan, and we're the big Satan.

And some of his quotes, he said here at the conference in Tehran, called ``The World without Zionism,'' Ahmadinejad stated, quote, God willing, with the force of God behind it, we will soon experience a world without the United States and without Zionism.

Well, as the New York Times, they also quoted him as saying, This occupying regime Israel is to be wiped off the map.

It is one thing when some little pee wee punk with no weaponry says I'm going to kick your rear-end or something like that. It's another when a Nation has enough enriched uranium to make two nuclear weapons, says I'm going to wipe you off the face of the earth, you will no longer exist when we're done, and he continues to make material for a nuclear weapon to do that.

I really thought that this Nation would be a bit like the Roman empire, not that we're an empire; we are not imperial. That's why they still speak French in France and German in Germany and Japanese in Japan, because we're not imperialists. We fight for liberty wherever it needs to be fought for. But this is a Nation that all of the sudden after 9/11, we realized we may not take decades and decades and decades to meet our end because we know every Nation eventually ends, and I would not stay in Congress if I didn't believe we could turn things around and this country could go for a couple hundred more years.

But the problem is, after 9/11, we saw we're very vulnerable, and if he gets a nuclear weapon--and this is common knowledge, otherwise I wouldn't be out there saying it--but he takes a nuclear weapon on a boat into New York Harbor, Houston, New Orleans, and it takes out a tremendous amount of our energy capabilities; Chicago and New York, big financial hubs; LA, Washington, wouldn't take but a handful of nukes and we're in big trouble. We may not be able to respond. We've got to take this stuff seriously.

Some have referred to Israel as the miner's canary for the world, that when they're under assault, that the world is going to be next. That may be true, but we have got to take it seriously, and we have got to support our friend Israel, and I yield to my friend for comment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend, Judge Carter, and I appreciate your insights in this discussion.

I would like to finish tonight by reading a couple of things of historical nature because I know our President has said we're not a Christian Nation. I understand that; I'm not going to debate that. But I know our history, I know where we came from, and I know that people in the United States are really victims of who it was that taught them and, therefore, only know so much as what they're taught.

So I'd like to read this proclamation from George Washington, October 3, 1789. This was during his first year as President of the new United States. He said--and these are Washington's words, his proclamation, ``Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.'' ``And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all to render our national government a blessing to all the people, to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue.''

In fact, he mentioned in 1790, in his letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, that, ``may the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the Father of all mercies scatter light, not darkness, upon our paths and make us all in our civil vocations useful here and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.''

This is a book that was put together by William Federer, ``Prayers and Presidents: Inspiring Faith From Leaders of the Past.'' So these are direct quotes. I will just finish with a couple things from Lincoln.

This is from August 12, 1861, the first year that Abraham Lincoln was President. This is his own words: ``Whereas, when our own beloved country, once, by the blessings of God, united, prosperous and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him and to pray for His mercy, to pray that we may be spared further punishment, though most justly deserved; that the inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty may be restored.''

And this in closing, Abraham Lincoln's own words, his first inaugural, March 4, 1861: ``Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulties.''

It was true then, it's true now.

I yield back.

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