Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2007
ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 24, 2006)
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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, yesterday, we spent an inordinate amount of time focusing on a few relatively tiny earmarks on the agriculture appropriations bill and spent almost no time discussing whether or not that bill was adequate in responding to the needs of rural America. Today, we are going to be debating the shape and nature of some of these individual programs, but we are likely, except for the Visclosky amendment, never likely to really discuss the adequacy of this bill in terms of the challenges that lie before the Nation. So I want to take just a moment to express my regret that the majority felt it necessary to strike the Visclosky amendment on a point of order.
We have been drifting aimlessly on energy policy ever since President Carter left office, as Mr. Visclosky pointed out last night. In a variety of program categories, when we are discussing (energy and conservation research, renewable research, fossil fuel research and energy conservation)
we are funding these efforts at levels that range from one-quarter to one-half in real-dollar terms of what we were funding those same efforts when Jimmy Carter was President.
As a result of that two decade or more drift, we as a society today are extremely vulnerable to higher energy prices, and especially higher gas prices. The Visclosky Amendment was an attempt to, at least for a few moments on the debate on this bill, focus on the adequacy of our effort.
No one faults the gentleman from Ohio for the job he has done in allocating what resources are available. But the fact is, if we are really serious, if we were really serious about meeting the flood control needs of the country, if we were really serious about meeting the energy conservation and energy development needs of this country, we would be putting those items first.
We would be putting an extra billion dollars into those items, rather than providing super-sized tax cuts to people who make $1 million or more a year. The Visclosky Amendment would have simply asked that we cut back by $2,000 per taxpayer the size of the tax cuts going to people who make $1 million or more a year.
The tax bill that this House passed 2 weeks ago provided over $40 billion in additional tax cuts to people who make over $1 million a year. We would have simply taken $1 billion of that $40 billion and transferred it from tax cuts for the most privileged among us to investments in flood control, to investments in the kind of energy promises that Mr. Visclosky was talking about today.
It is regrettable that this House does not see fit to put first things first by passing an amendment such as the Visclosky Amendment. I simply wanted to take the time to express that thought.
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