The Truth Squad

THE TRUTH SQUAD -- (House of Representatives - September 10, 2008)

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, there's so much that needs to be said tonight and 1 hour's just not enough time to do it. I think I want to recommend that people read, again, if you haven't read, the book, 1984, because what you've seen exhibited here tonight is a living example of that book, where people distort the facts, they distort the past, and certainly distort the facts.

I do have to say a couple of things. We're here tonight to talk about energy and the failed energy policies of the Democratically controlled Congress. The Democrats are in control of the Congress, and they have been since January 2007. And I think it's very, very important that we continue to remind the American people of that.

For one thing, my colleagues talked about the 605,000 jobs lost in the last 8 months. Well, I'm here to say that's because the Democrats are in charge of Congress. They want to blame it on the President. The President can't make anything happen about those jobs that are lost. Congress can. And the American people have to hold the Democrats in charge of the Congress accountable.

I do want to get on to energy, but I have to make, again, a couple of comments about what was said here tonight.

We had a ``Truth Squad'' that used to meet on a regular basis here to correct the misstatements made by our colleagues almost every night, not every night. But I want to bring this Truth Squad back in the form of just me tonight by talking about some of the things, again, that they have said.

I really was a little surprised that they focused so much on the war. I think it's really emblematic, again, of their running away from the issue that's most important to the American people, and that is the high price of gasoline and the high price of fuel oil. And they made lots of promises tonight, just like the Democrats did in 2006 when they were running for election and asked the American people to give them the majority. Well, the American people did give them the majority, and every promise they made has been broken. They promised to bring down the price of gasoline. They promised to make this the most open Congress ever, the most bipartisan Congress. Every one of those promises was broken.

What we need to be focusing on, and what Republicans have been focusing on for the 20 months that the Democrats have been in control of the Congress, has been the high price of energy and how that price has been going steadily up. And again, I was a little bit amazed tonight that the focus of the group just before me was on the war and on the economy and blaming all of that on somebody else.

They talked about how jobs had increased under the Clinton administration. Let me remind the American people that President Clinton had a Democratic Congress for the first 2 years of his administration, and those 2 years were not good for this economy. In fact, they were pretty rotten, 1992 and 1993. The Republicans took control of the House in 1994, in the fall of 1994, and came into office in 1995. Certainly we had a good economy under President Clinton, but it was because the Republicans were in charge of the Congress.

The Democrats conveniently leave that little fact out. They give all the credit to President Clinton. It wasn't President Clinton's policies that gave us a great economy. It was the Republican Congress.

They talk about the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the failed administration. I think we will see more and more coming out that the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are because of the liberal policies of the Democrats forcing banks, mortgage companies, loan companies to make loans to people who should never have gotten loans. I'm sure there's some greed out there, and I'm sure that there are some characters that we wouldn't like being in the business. But most of it was because of the liberal policies that they put into effect years ago.

I do want to say that I appreciate what we have done for our veterans in this session of Congress, but the folks who spoke before us said they thanked the men and women who served us, and I do, too. We're going to be celebrating 9/11 tomorrow, 2001. We'll not celebrate but commemorate what happened that day. And I want to say I'm so grateful to the men and women who are currently serving in our military because they are all volunteers.

These folks say they think they've been serving in the wrong places, they've been put in the wrong places. Well, I thank the good Lord many times every day that we have men and women who are willing to serve this country no matter where it is they have to serve because they believe in this country and they will go wherever it is necessary for them to serve.

Now again, I want to talk more about energy now because that is what I think has created so many of the problems that we're facing.

My colleagues and I were here all during the month of August while the Democrats went on vacation. They took a 5-week vacation. And in fact, they're still on vacation because this week, we're doing practically nothing here in the Congress. We have passed bills like commemorating the Kingdom of Bhutan's participation in the 2008 Smithsonian Folk Life Festival, really important things to be doing while we should be voting on the American Energy Act, the bill that would create all-of-the-above alternatives for us.

And I want to recognize now my colleague from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) who has served his State and this country so well as a member of the Intelligence Committee, Ranking Member of the Intelligence Committee and formally chairman of the Intelligence Committee, to allow him to offer some comments on the energy issue and to bring his perspective to this.

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Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I will yield.

We're joined by a few of our friends, and I think we can have a spirited discussion about the future of America rather than focusing on the past. So thank you for yielding.

Ms. FOXX. I agree with you.

Do you remember some of the promises that were made by the then minority?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentlelady will yield, I think the big promise was--I have Speaker Pelosi saying, I have a secret plan.

I'm not sure that she said ``secret.''

Ms. FOXX. I think she said, ``I have a commonsense plan.''

Mr. HOEKSTRA. ``I have a commonsense plan to lower the price of gasoline.'' Whoa.

You know, I hope that she let's America know soon what it is because for the last 20 months under Speaker Pelosi, her commonsense plan has only meant pain and hardship for my constituents.

Ms. FOXX. And I think that what we need to do is take some of the promises that were spewed out here tonight by these folks who had the hour before us and put them next to all of those promises that were made by Speaker Pelosi and majority leader Hoyer in 2006 and say, well, if they delivered on these promises in 2006, then maybe we could believe they will deliver on these promises in the next election.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentlelady will yield for a minute.

I thought it was pretty interesting on the floor when the minority leader on the floor, Mr. Boehner from Ohio, was talking about a procedural vote here on the floor and said, ``Will you allow a vote on the American Energy Independence Bill?'' And the answer after he asked that question three or four times, the folks on that side of the aisle started saying, ``No, no, no,'' meaning they don't want to have a full and complete debate on energy.

What really makes me concerned is that they're going to throw up--we know what they're going to--we're for all-of-the-above. They're going to come out with a plan later on, who knows. I wouldn't even call it a plan. They will come out with a piece of paper, and as we dissect it, it will be none-of-the-above. They're not for nuclear, they're not for drilling offshore, they're not for drilling in Alaska.

Ms. FOXX. They're not for nuclear.

Mr. SHIMKUS. So you go through all of this and say it's not even some of the above. They'll put in, especially when it comes to drilling, and they'll say well you can drill in these specific areas.

But as one of my colleagues, Congressman Shadegg, has pointed out, I think in Alaska and some other areas, where 487 leases were issued, every single one of those leases has been challenged multiple times through the process by radical environmental groups to make sure that no drilling takes place. Those folks know that we can open this up, but because we've created these environmental standards, the radical environmental standard, no drilling will ever take place.

Ms. FOXX. I think that, even though we haven't seen the bill, I feel certain that I will be able to give that bill the Emperor's New Clothes Award because it will pretend to do something but it will do nothing. So I can just about bet that it's going to do nothing and will deserve the Emperor's New Clothes Award. I have the Emperor's New Clothes Award here. You can see it on the podium here, and so I'm going to give it the Emperor's New Clothes Award. I know that's what it's going to deserve.

Mr. SHIMKUS. I think as we talk about this, and I hope our colleagues join in. I come from the great State of Michigan and we're struggling. Last month, we were at 8.5 percent unemployment. My expectation is that now with what's happened at the national level that unemployment rate is going to go up.

But as we struggle with these energy costs, it has absolutely hammered jobs. It has absolutely hammered the automotive industry and these types of things, and the refusal of our colleagues to deal with this issue means increased unemployment and increased hardship for a State like Michigan.

And you know, our Governor came out recently and said I can't believe that Michigan may be in play in this election, and it's kind of like, excuse me, Republicans are going to do very well in the State of Michigan because Democrats in Washington have refused to deal with the issue of energy. And if people want to take a look at what America might look like under a Democrat administration all the way through, take a look at Michigan.

Michigan, our Governor came up with a brilliant strategy of saying, you know, we've got the highest unemployment rate in the country. You know what we ought to do? To attract more business, to attract more investment to the State of Michigan, let's raise taxes and let's make sure people don't understand exactly how much or where those taxes are going to be raised because we think that will get people to come to our State and get them to invest and create jobs.

Now, we live on a peninsula. People don't come to Michigan naturally. If they want to do and invest in Michigan, they've got to be going down the expressway in Indiana, and depending on whether they're going east or west, they've got to make a left turn or a right turn. And I'll tell you, they're not turning into Michigan anymore because they're looking at Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and all of these States, and they're saying these are pretty good States to do business in. And if we take a left turn and go up into Michigan, we're going to be paying more in taxes. We will just kind of stay on the interstate and do business here.

But that's what, you know, we're facing with a Democrat leadership that not only won't deal with the energy issue, but will raise taxes because they believe the best way for America to be competitive on a global basis is not to grow American industries but to tax American industries and to tax the American citizen so that we can feed this beast in Washington.

Ms. FOXX. Thank you. I appreciate my colleague from Michigan explaining the Michigan situation. I want to make just one comment, and I'm going to ask some of my other colleagues to speak.

When the Democrats took over the Congress in 2007, January 2007, we had had 54 straight months of job growth under a Republican-led Congress and a Republican administration. What they refuse to admit is, as soon as they took over the Congress, the price of gasoline started going up, and as the price of gasoline started going up, so did the unemployment rate. There is no denying these facts. They caused this problem. We've been pointing this out week after week. We're finally, we think, getting through that the Democrats are in charge of the Congress, and it is their policies that have created these problems.

I want to recognize now my colleague from Pennsylvania I think who has some comments to make about this situation, and we've been suddenly joined by several people. And so I do hope that we'll have a great dialogue here, but with my classmate, my colleague from Pennsylvania, I yield to you.

Mr. DENT. I'd like to thank the gentlelady from North Carolina for her leadership on this very important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I feel it's very important that as with Members of Congress we lead, and there are a lot of things that the Congress would like to do, need to do, but there's one thing that we must do, and that is fund the Federal Government. I think it is a dereliction of duty on the part of this Speaker of the House and this Congress that this Congress has failed, has failed to deal with the various spending bills, the appropriations bills to fund the government.

The reason why this Congress is not dealing with these appropriations bills is because there is fear, fear that some Member of the House, some impertinent Member, maybe a Republican Member, maybe a Democratic Member, will stand up on this floor and offer an amendment to provide for additional American energy production from traditional sources.

So we're not dealing with the most important business of Congress, which is to fund the government because there is fear to deal with the energy issue, and I think it is unrealistic and unfair that there are people in this House who, for whatever reasons, oppose traditional sources of energy. Everybody here supports alternative renewable fuels, but we also know we need to deal with the here and the now.

I come from a State, Pennsylvania, where we are rich in coal resources, where oil was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Colonel Drake some time ago. We have tremendous natural gas reserves. My State has been part of the energy solution for this Nation for a very long time and will continue to be.

Ms. FOXX. I heard that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal and that we have three times the coal reserves that Saudi Arabia has in oil reserves. Have you heard the same thing?

Mr. DENT. I've heard the same thing, and I believe that reference is to some of the vast oil shale reserves out in the Rocky Mountain West. But I know in terms of coal, it's estimated that we have about 250 years' worth of coal supply, assuming we're consuming at the current levels.

What I did want to say, though, is coal is responsible for 50 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. Nuclear energy is responsible for about 20 percent. Natural gas for another 20 percent. I'm up to 90 percent. There's a little bit of other.

Petroleum, hydroelectric takes a fair amount. Solar and wind I think account for about 1 percent.

But unfortunately, while I strongly support solar, wind, geothermal and other renewables, I also know there are too many people in this Congress that, though renewables account for 1 percent of our source, it accounts for 100 percent of their talking points.

The truth is we know we're going to need coal. We need to clean it up. Clean coal technology, there's a lot of interesting, carbon capture, storage sequestration going on out there. We need to develop that technology. I think we all understand, too, that if we want to lower carbon emissions in America we're going to need to expand nuclear energy.

But again, many people in this building are opposed to coal technology. They're opposed to nuclear. They're opposed to drilling for gas and oil where those resources may actually be. So that really limits our options as a Nation.

We have to get to work. Everybody knows it. And this is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. This is an American issue. The American people are pragmatic. They want us to solve the problem.

I'll be the first to tell you, you know, our critics, the critics of the Republican Party will say that Republicans are too focused on production and supply. Critics of the Democrats will say that they're too focused on conservation and efficiency. The truth is we must do both, and I'll be the first to tell you that we can't drill our way out of this problem, but drilling is most assuredly part of the solution, just as conservation is part of the solution, and neither can you conserve your way out of the problem.

So we need people to be pragmatic, come down here and support something reasonable. The American Energy Act about which we've been speaking tonight is a good piece of legislation. It deals with all of the above, the alternatives, renewables, transitions to the future, as well as traditional sources of energy, conservation, efficiency.

There's another bill out there, the Peterson-Abercrombie bill, which is a genuine bipartisan bill that there's a lot in there I like and there's some things I'm not particularly crazy about, but I would support that bill. I'm a cosponsor of it. In the name of compromise, I'm willing to support legislation that will advance this discussion and actually, more importantly, advance America's energy security.

At the end of the day, the American people want us to become less dependent on unstable parts of the world for fossil fuel. I think you and I agree to that, but it's going to require leaders to say, yes, take an affirmative approach to energy. But as you know, too many people here are not willing to do that, and I have to lay the blame at the doorstep of the Speaker of the House.

I thank Ms. Foxx, my classmate, for allowing me to speak on this important issue.

Ms. FOXX. I want to thank my classmate, Congressman Dent from Pennsylvania, for illuminating this issue from his perspective in Pennsylvania.

Now I want to turn it over to a new Member of Congress this year who's been, I think, one of the really bright lights in the Congress, who's one of the most articulate people that we have in the Congress, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, which just hosted many of us who were at the Republican National Convention.

And I want to say that it was certainly ``Minnesota Nice.'' The folks in Minnesota were fabulous. They treated us very well, very friendly, just like the people in North Carolina. I was extremely pleased to be there, and I want to ask you if you will share some of your perspectives on this issue of energy.

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Ms. FOXX. Well, I thank my colleague, Congresswoman Bachmann from Minnesota. And I want to say she has boiled it down to a very simple fact. And I say that people in this Congress are either pro American energy or anti American energy. And I think we know the difference in the two groups of folks.

The people who don't want us to produce energy in this country are anti American energy. They don't want us to be independent of these foreign countries. It is a difficult thing for me to understand, it's a difficult thing for my constituents to understand.

And as our colleague, Mr. Dent from Pennsylvania, said, we want all those alternatives, but they only produce a small part of what we're going to need. Perhaps eventually we will have the technology to produce more of it. But we have to increase our supply of gas and oil and other fossil fuels to get us through this situation that we're in now until we get to those alternatives. And certainly we want them, but they're a small part right now of what we can produce.

Other people who have joined us tonight include my great colleague who is on the Constitution Caucus with me and is often here speaking on the Constitution, a former teacher from the State of Utah. Now, former teachers like Congressman Bishop and I often have tendencies to speak for 50 minutes at a time, but since there are other folks here tonight, I'm hoping he is not going to speak for 50 minutes. But he is going to be very eloquent in what he shares with us.

I yield to my colleague, Mr. Bishop from Utah.

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Ms. FOXX. Again, I promised you eloquence and you received eloquence.

I want to share with you some of the bills that the Democrat Congress has been presenting to us to vote on while they have been ignoring the need to vote on the American Energy Act.

How about this one: recognizing the American Highway User Alliance on its 75th anniversary. Now, that was a really important bill for us to be voting on.

Or how about what we did this week: condemning the use of television programming by Hamas to indoctrinate hatred, violence, and anti-Semitism toward Israel in young Palestinian children. I am one of the biggest supporters of Israel that you will find, but I don't think that our passing this bill had one wit of difference on Hamas.

Another really significant bill: supporting the goals and ideals of National Passport Month. When we should have been dealing with American energy, we were passing that bill.

We also passed a bill recognizing the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the Muir Woods National Monument by President Teddy Roosevelt. All of us Republicans are very glad to see Teddy Roosevelt honored because he's the original conservationist. He set the tone for Republicans, and we all know that. But I'm sure Teddy Roosevelt would have rather we had been dealing with the American energy situation and not commemorating something he had done because it was the right thing to do.

Two hundred and eighty-two laws have passed in the 110th Congress. Thirty-seven percent of them have named buildings or lands. Thirty-seven percent of them passed unanimously. Another fifteen percent extended the law or made technical corrections to an existing law. This Congress has done nothing while the American people have suffered.

The Democrats' answer to the needs of the American people for lower gas prices is ``drive small cars and wait for the wind.'' Ladies and gentlemen, that should not be the response of this Congress to the needs of the American people. When gasoline prices are $4 a gallon, we need to do something. And as my colleagues have so eloquently expressed here tonight, we can do something. We have it within our power to create all of the energy that we need in this country at very affordable prices. However, this Congress, led by Democrats, controlled by Democrats, having Democrats in charge, have done nothing to act on the needs of the American people. I think one of the most important things we were able to accomplish in August when many of us were here every day talking to the American people on this floor because, as people have said before, the lights were out, C-SPAN was off, the microphones were off--in fact, many of us have had trouble speaking with microphones again because we were on the floor speaking so many times without microphones. We brought the issue to the American people. We let the American people know who was in charge, who is in charge of this Congress. The American people have said we want something done.

The Speaker is saying they're going to bring a bill, but as my colleagues have said, we have been here all week. They had the whole month of August. They had 5 weeks to come up with something, in addition this week. No bill yet to vote on. And I will make one little correction to my colleague from Michigan who said we will be working for 15 days from August 1 until January 1. We are not going to be here on Friday; so it's only going to be 14 days. We're being paid to do that. The Democrats are in charge. It is their responsibility.

My constituents find it hard to understand how one person can be totally in control of what bills come for a vote in the House, but that is the case. Speaker Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, is the person who controls whether we vote on bills on the House floor. And you need to let your interests be known to her and to your Democratic Congressman if that's who you have representing you.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the leadership for giving us this hour.

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