well not following the guidance of wall street but going back to prudent lending and recreating a safe and sound banking system across this country. madam speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes mr. jones of north carolina. mr. jones: thank you very much. tonight i'm going to take my time and refer to an article in "the american conservative" of may 18, 2009, titled "to die for mystique," subtitled, the lessons our leaders didn't learn if the vietnam war. i'm going to read two or three paragraphs and then close. in one of the most thoughtful vietnam era accounts, general bruce palmer once observed, with respect to vietnam, our leaders should have known the american people would not standstill for a protracted war

of indeterminate nature with no foreseeable end to the united states commitment. he further stated in the article, general palmer thereby distilled into a single sentence the lessons of vietnam to embark on an open-ended war was to forfeit public support, thereby courting disaster. the implications were clear. never again. i further read from the article, the dirty little secret to which few in washington will own up is that the united states now faces the prospects of perpetual conflict. we find ourselves in the midst of what the pentagon calls the long war a conflict global in scope, if largely concentrated in the greater middle east, and expected to outlast even general palmer's 25-year war. the present generation of civilians and officers have either forgotten or inverted the lessons of vietnam,

embracing open-ended war as an inescapable reality. madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent i might submit this entire article for the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. jones spks i further read and want to close and make a few comments with this. this is the last paragraph -- and let me say about the author, he himself was a vietnam veteran. he himself was a veteran of desert storm. he himself taught at west point. he lost a son in 2007, a young lieutenant who was killed in iraq. i think he brings great credibility to this article he's written. this is the last paragraph in the article. the urgent need is to demystify that project which was formed, which from the outset was a misguided one. just as in the 1960's, we possessed neither the wisdom nor the means to determine the

fate of southeast asia so today we possess neither the wisdom nor the means necessary to determine the fate of the greatest middle east. to persist in efforts to do so, as the obama administration appears intent on doing in afghanistan, will simply replicate on a greater scale mistakes like those bruce palmer and john kerry once rightly decried. i bring this ford because my friend from massachusetts, jim mcgovern, has put a bill in that would say simply to the secretary of defense, you need to come to the congress and tell the congress what the exit gentleman ji is for afghanistan. -- what the the exit strategy is for afghanistan. you don't have to say in 2009, 2010, 2015, 2020. but tell the american people where we're going when we send our young men and women to die in afghanistan without a plan,

without benchmarks. i don't know if mr. mcgovern's amendment has been approved for debate tomorrow in the armed services bill, but i want to thank mr. mcgovern for bringing this to the attention of the american people and the congress. we need to have an end point to the strategy in afghanistan. the marines in my district will tell you that our military is tired and worn out. they will keep going back and forth and back and forth because they love this nation. we've got to be realistic about breaking the military, we've got north korea over here threaten, we've got the chinese, we don't know what they might do, we need to have a plan for victory in afghanistan, we cannot do what the bush administration did and keep going on and on. as i close, as i do every night on this floor, i have signed 8,000 families and extended families who have lost loved

ones in iraq. i ask god to bless the men and women in uniforms and i ask god to bless the families of the men and women in uniform and i ask three time, god please, god please, god please continue to bless america. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio rise? ms. kaptur: madam speaker, by direction of my home committee, the appropriations committee, i

prnt a privilege red port for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: report to accompany h.r. 2997 a bill making appropriations for agriculture, rural dworget food and drug administration and related agencies programs for fiscal year ending september 30, 2010, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: referred to union calendar and ordered printed, pursuant to clause 1 of rule 21, points of order are reserved. the chair would like to recognize george miller of california. mr. mill -- >> i ask unanimous consent to claim the gentleman's time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from kansas. >> thank you very much. from its beginning in the house energy and commerce committee, h.r. 2454 has been forced on members of congress with little

time to consider the significant and damaging consequences of this legislation. on june 12 of this month, the committee on agriculture, on which i serve, held a seven-hour hearing to review the bill. we learned there's little solid economic analysis on how this legislation will affect our economy. preliminary evidence makes clear it will increase the cost of energy and with it the cost of everything we use in our rives on a daily basis. we do know the congressional budget office has said this bill will raise government revenuely $846 billion over the next 10 years. in everyday term that means a huge tax increase. $846 billion, however, is just the beginning. h.r. 2454 is permanent and after a 10-year period that period analyzed by the c.b.o., free carbon allowances are phased out, auction carbon allowances are phased in and total allowances are reduced.

this means future generations will be forced to pay much more than that indicated in the initial 10-year budget estimate. though billed as cap and trade, in reality, waxman-markey is a cap and tax bill. instead of levying a tax, it disguises the tax as a carbon allowance auction that requires refinesers and others to pay a tax. it goes far beyond the price and our ability to turn on the rightlights in rural america. kansans who must already travel great distances to work and school and to receive medical care will pay disproportionately compared to those who have shorter distances to travel and can use public transportation. many hoped that rural america would be made whole under in bill, but this is clearly not the case.

agriculture is not mentioned once in the section that defines offsets. instead, h.r. 2454 directs the e.p.a. to define the world of caon offsets this will lead to few benefits for farmers and ranchers and will allow e.p.a. to further intrude on our farms. e.p.a. has made harmful decisions that failed the test of common sense. unless agriculture offsets are express dihi defined, farmers will never see benefits from this legislation. even if those offsets are defined and usda is given the authority, it's hard to see how agriculture will overcome the increased cost of using this cap and tax system. in the best-case scenario under backman-markey a farmer could mitigate 10% to 15% of the cost, in the worst-case scenario, farmers and ranchers could find themselves unable to

use the offset market at all and have to cover all the cost. unlike crop farmers, ranch operators have few opportunities to accumulate carbon offsets. much emphasis has been placed on our nation's economic recovery since the market perhaps of last fall this bill is almost certain to destroy any chance of economic recovery if enacted in its current form. congress should be allowed to obtain sound technical analysis and address this legislation's many flaws. if further legislative debate is denied we must defeat this bill. congress rarely gets things right when we have ample time to consider changes but has never made good decision when rushed by arbitrary timetables. congress should abandon the pace set by the speaker of the house, otherwise members of the house will have abdicated their

responsibilities and the entire country will suffer the consequences. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes mr. burton. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to claim the gentleman's time, address the house for five minutes and revise and extend my remarks. mr. mccotter: her name was neda, in far see it means the voice. true to her name she loved music, sought freedom and she's dead. shot down in the streets by an iranian regime, state-sanctioned murderers. she must not have died in vain.

today, iranians and americans face a generational chance for freedom, one that assures a rogue regime's implosion prevents a confrontation. regret -- regrettably, our president is not following up on this. the president vapidly opined, it is up to iranians to make decisions about who iran's leaders will be. we respect iranian sovereignty. then as the crisis escalated, the president optimistcally noted, you've seen in iran some initial reaction from the supreme leader he understands the iranian people have deep concerns about the election and my hope is that the iranian people will make the right steps in order for them to express their voices, express their aspirations. tragically, the supreme

leader's deep concern drove him to step on the throats of pro-democracy protesters like neda. next, the president said the rights of free speech must be respected. it was the last thing i want to do is have the united states be a foil for forces inside iran who would love nothing better than to make this about the united states. with these contradictory statements of support and appeasement, the president returned to square one. the iranian people will judge the actions of their own government. if the iranian government seeks the respect of the world, it must govern its own people through consent, not coerce. the supreme leader, his cronies and the puppet government never respected their people. this is why he cre re-jet

stream stole the election and shoots peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators. implying otherwise mocks them. the iranian regime will claim that the united states plays into their hands regardless, because as the president noted, that's what they do. but what matters is not what the regime says about america, but what iranians think about americans. iranians watch as the president holds out an open hand to those who opened fire on protesters. this is the pacifist policy of jimmy carter that led to escalation. the surest way to end nuclear threat is to hasten their collapse. taking its rightful place among

the community of free nations, a democratic iran will necessarily reverse the homicidal obsession with nuclear weapons. thus for their liberty and our security, the united states and the world must do everything in our power to further their claims to freedom. how we aid pro-democracy iranians will remind the world who we are. we are americans. the revolutionary children of freedom who have lived and died defending our liberty and extending it to the enslaved and oppressed. we will do no less today in support of our iranian brothers and sisters. today, nay da's voice calls to our consciences and warns that the fate of iranian's liberty is intined with the fate of american security. we must not miss this generational chance for freedom, one that ensures a rogue regime's implosion, prevents a nuclear

confrontation and ensures that neda and other martyrs shall not have died in vain. we must seize this moment and help iranians seize their freedom. that's what we do. i yield back the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: recognize mr. burton from indiana. mr. brady from pennsylvania. the chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana. for five minutes. the gentleman is recognized.

mr. fleming: mr. fleming: thank you, madam speaker. like most of america i support an all-of-the-above solution to this nation's energy needs. i believe we can have it all when it mes to energy. we can aggressively pursue renewable energy, nuclear energy, and other innovative alternatives while continuing efforts to expand our domestic supply of fossil fuels. we live in a country rich in energy sources and congress should encourage production from all available resources

and technologies. tonight i'd like to focus on a reliable and clean burning alternative fuel which is an extraordinary -- in an extraordinary abundance right under our feet in this country. and that is natural gas. located in my district in northwest louisiana, recent estimates have projected the haynesville shale contains 234 trillion cubic feet of natural gas production potential. this would make it the largest natural gas plate in the united states and one of the largest in the world. the equivalent of 18 years' worth of u.s. oil production. and i want to point out to you, this is the crosshatched area is the so-called haynesville shale. as you can see it overlies several parishes in louisiana as well as several counties in texas. a very wide area. now, of course, for those

listening shale is nothing more, nothing less than a rock formation deep down the earth somewhere around two miles in depth that acts like a sponge. it's full of either gas or oil d sometimes both. we have great methods today to extract fossil fuels from these. let me turn to some more statistics. regarding the haynesville shale. it's provided macik injections of capital into the fourth district of louisiana, my district. it's pumped $4.5 billion into the economy in f.y. 2008. it's created nearly $3.9 billion in household earnings in the same year. the greatest impact on indirect and household earnings was experienced by workers in the mining sector with new household earnings of $191.3

million in 2008. it's created over $30 million in new earnings in seven separate sectors. one mining 9.13 million. health care, 56.7 million. management, 46.6 million. professional scientific technical services, 38.5 million. retail trade, 35.7 million. manufacturing, 33.5 million, and construction, 31.8 million. he created correctly and incorrect directly over 32,000 jobs. the new jobs created by the extraction activities in the haynesville shale are widely disbursed across industries, large impacts have been felt in utilities 5,229 jobs. mining 3808, health care, 3,496 jobs, and retail trade, 3,433. those are a lot of numbers, but i think you understand that the

magnitude is what counts here. conservative estimates report that state and local tax revenues increased by at least $153.3 million in 2008 due to the extraction activities of the haynesville shale. needless to say louisiana is not suffering the level of recession and unemployment that -- even effects on real estate that many other states are today, largely due to the haynesville shale. with some parishes reporting a 300% increase in sales tax collections. i wanted to talk a moment about how we get the natural gas out of that shale that we are talking about, that's two miles deep in the earth. the method is called hydraulic fracturing, or hydrotracking is a more common term. this method has been used for over 60 years and responsible for 30% of america's

recoverable oil and gas. of wells currently operating today, wells currently operating today, over 90% have been fractured at least once. environmentalists and their allies in congress are escalating their assault on affordable and reliable energy with legislation that would place regulation of hydraulic fracturing under the safe drinkling water act, sdwa. a law that was never intended for this purpose. this legislation would have a far-reaching negative impact on energy and energy producers and consumers alike. for years this process has been safely and effectively regulated by individual states. and of the more than one million wells fractured, not a single case, not a single case of drinking water contamination has ever been recorded. in my state of louisiana, three different agencies have

oversight related to this process. so you see it's not an unregulated process to begin with. first it's the office of conservation of the louisiana department of natural resources. louisiana department of environmental quality. and finally, the department of health and hospitals which tests potable water. additionally these agencies already work closely in association with existing federal regulations under the e.p.a. it is illustrated in these graphics, current industry practices ensure multiple levels of protection between any sources of drinking water and the production zone of oil and gas. that's what i'm going to illustrate. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes mr. inglis from south carolina. mr. inglis: thank you, madam speaker. last night in spartanburg, south carolina, we had a town meeting and folks were joining in this debate we are having here this week in washington about climate legislation. there were folks who spoke passionately about the need to take action. and i'm in agreement with them. there is a need to take action and to discharge a stewardship obligation. then there are others there who really didn't buy the science of climate change. so there's a good discussion a. good debate. there's going to be a debate here on this house floor, perhaps by the end of the week. and, madam speaker, what i'd like to say tonight is that there is a need to act, but there's a need to act in way that wins a triple play of this american century. if we play this right, it

really is an opportunity to do three things simultaneously. one, improve the national security of the united states. two, create jobs. and three, clean up the air. so let's get about the triple play. it starts by stoppingp the current cap and trade proposal. the problem with cap and trade is, it's a massive tax increase in the midst of a recession. it's a wall street trading scheme that would make traders in wall street blush. and it punishes american manufacturing because it tax the cap and trade which is essentially a tax, is applied only to domestically produced goods and not imported goods. so if that's the case, if it's really not going to accomplish what we want to accomplish, what would be better? i think it's important to -- it's important that those of us who are opposed to cap and trade come with something better.

the better that i would propose is this, it's a revenue neutral tax swap. basically what we would do we reduce fica taxes. that's the payroll taxes on your paycheck. reduce those and in an equal amount you impose a tax on carbon dioxide. there is no additional take to the government so it's revenue neutral. you apply this tax, transparent tax. admittedly a tax. to imported goods as well as domestically produced goods. the result is there's one less reason to export productive capacity from the united states. and we achieve this triple play . we can simultaneously create jobs by propelling these new technologies with the alternative energies and fuels of the future. we can improve the national security of the united states

by breaking the addiction to oil. that will only come when the economics work out for the competing technologies. currently the incumbent technology, gasoline in the case of transportation fuel, has this -- these negative externals -- externalities that aren't recognized. if they were and attached to that product, the environmental problems that it causes, the small paragraph particular lats -- particulates, they are quantifiable and real, you attached that to that product, suddenly the marketplace could deliver competing technologies. and the fuels of the future could take off and could lead us to these jobs of the future and to cleaning up the air. madam speaker, this is a fabulous opportunity. it starts with stopping the current cap and trade proposal. and then we come together, republicans, democrats to find

a better solution. i think we can find it in a revenue neutral tax swap that makes free enterprise able to lead us into the fuels of the future. madam speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. mr. gingrey from georgia, you are recognized for five minutes. mr. gingrey: madam speaker, i thank you. i rise to honor an american hero and patriot who gave his life in defense of our nation while serving with the georgia national guard in afghanistan. first sergeant john blair from cal hewn -- calhoun, georgia, was killed in action on june 20, 2009, just this past saturday, when a rocket

propelled grenade struck his vehicle during an hour and a half long firefight with enemy forces after the convoy which he was leading was ambushed. eyewitness accounts from soldiers serving alongside sergeant blair credit his actions with saving the lives of many of his fellow shoulders during the ambush. as a credit to his leadership, his men kept their cool and they did their jobs, even after their commander and officer fell. blair has been described as a true leader, madam speaker. both for the american troops who serve with him, as well as the first brigade of the afghan national army's 203rd corps who he was in charge of mentoring. i want to quote a couple of lines that were written about sergeant blair in the military publication, "stars and stripes." and i quote. blair was their leader. he was tough. unrelenting. he cursed