Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 19, 2007)

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Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the time, and I want to congratulate the gentleman from Indiana and the gentleman from Ohio for doing a first-rate piece of work on this legislation. They know their business, they work with each other well, and I am proud of both of them. I would like to discuss two matters. The first is the question of congressional earmarks, and the second is the actual substance of this bill.

We have seen much attention paid over the past several months to the practice of Congress earmarking certain projects.

This bill is a project-oriented bill, and so there will be quite a lot of that going on before the bill is finished. But I would like to put that in context. The fact is that the administration has requested far more dollars for earmark projects for this bill than the Congress traditionally provides.

Example: in fiscal year 2006, which is the last year we had a completed bill, the President asked for 987 specific earmark projects in the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers, costing $3.8 billion. The Congress appropriated $1.1 billion for projects that it ranked as high priority.

The result: 77 percent of the Army Corps budget went for projects earmarked by the administration; 23 percent went for projects earmarked by the Congress of the United States.

In fact, this is a copy of the report for that 2006 bill. The list of administration project earmark requests goes on for 46 pages, and I would submit that if the administration had been Democratic, it would have been the same result.

Now, how does the administration decide how to allocate money to specific projects? Here is what the instruction sheet reads for the Corps of Engineers: ``To be included in the recommended program and considered for the ceiling program for fiscal 2008, a construction project or separate element must be consistent with policy.''

Well, guess what? That is the same policy that Congress provides. Projects have to be consistent with policy in order to be included.

The document from the Army Corps of Engineers also says it must have a decision document for which executive branch review has been completed. And then it goes on to say, each project or separable element must meet at least one of nine criteria, which are listed. But then it goes on to say, ``however, the agency may propose to relax those criteria, to use additional criteria, or to include special cases.''

Guess what? That is exactly what the Congress does in determining which projects it feels are high priority.

Now, let's turn to 2008. This year, the administration has requested some 991 projects. If you string them end to end, that is how long their project list is for this year. I would submit, in the end, this will be a longer list than the project list provided by the Congress in this bill.

So let me simply state that whether projects are funded because of directed spending on the part of the administration or directed spending on the part of the Congress, the result is the same: public money is expended on projects that either the executive branch or the legislative branch thinks represent high priority needs. So much for earmarks in this bill.

Now, let me simply discuss the substance. There are three major areas of funding critical to our country's future in the bill: climate change, the energy crisis, and nuclear policy.

This bill includes more than $1 billion above the President's request for climate change. Funding goes to energy research, for development and demonstration of energy technologies that don't release greenhouse gases. They include conservation, research and development, and demonstration to reduce energy consumption in buildings, vehicles and energy-intensive industries. They include deployment of conservation measures in Federal buildings. They include demonstration of capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide.

In the 1970s, the United States responded to the energy crisis in those days with substantially increased funding for energy research, for development and demonstration. But with the collapse of oil prices in the eighties, the interests of the administrations and the interests of Congress, unfortunately, subsided. So the result is that by fiscal 2006, after adjusting for inflation, research budgets for renewable energy were only 20 percent of what they were in real terms in 1980. Research budgets for fossil energy were only 25 percent of 1980 levels. Funding for conservation research was only 49 percent of 1980 levels.

In the year-long continuing resolution which we passed just 3 months ago, we raised those percentages considerably. So 2007 funding for renewable energy was boosted up to 38 percent of 1980 levels, and 2007 funding for conservation was boosted to 54 percent of 1980 levels.

This bill continues that effort: 2008 funding for renewable energy will now under this bill be upped to 47 percent of 1980 levels, 2008 funding for fossil energy will be upped to 31 percent of 1980 levels, and 2008 funding for conservation will be up to 67 percent of 1980 levels.

This bill also provides for a $2 billion operating level for the nuclear nonproliferation activities of the Department of Energy.

This bill does not fund new nuclear weapons nor major new weapons facilities, because the administration has not developed a strategy for strategic nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era.

So let me simply say in conclusion that this bill reverses a quarter century of decline in energy research. It increases critical funding to prevent nuclear weapons or material from falling into the hands of terrorists. It represents a responsibly balanced bill. I congratulate both gentlemen for producing this, and I would urge strong support for its passage.

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