who are watching tonight, call your member of congress, ask, demand if you wish, that a share of your money that's going overseas right now be returned back to you to create jobs here, to protect our homeland and also to reduce our overall debt and deficit. we've been spending the money, over a half a trillion dollars alone the last 10 years, in afghanistan. . this administration is slated to wind down that expenditure and help make america strong again. and you know why it's important for america to be strong? because we believe in democracy. we, the people, actually have a voice, through folks like me, who you hired. i have the constitutional duty to be your voice here.

not just for metro detroiters but for all of you who understand the value in manufacturing. that's the reason why my dad risked everything in 80 years ago to leave his homeland in india to come here so we could live his life and to raise a family. i'm his only son. and he was so honored to see many decades ago the first indian american elected to congress. and i'm here, too, as a legacy of an immigrant's courage to make a difference for himself, his family and his country. my point is this, people, it's our money. and you work hard for that money. and yes, we invested it overseas because we were trying to stop the people that were determined

to wipe us out. and we got the ring leader. we took him out. let's take a share of our money back and return it to our people. let's create jobs here. call your member of congress. do it tonight. leave them a voice mail message and tell them we need you as a member of this body that is constitutionally committed to represent the people. we need you to use a share of our money to help american families to become financially stable again and to help this country's economy really endure in a prosperous way to help bring democracy and freedom throughout the world. thank you very much for giving me this time, representative. i appreciate it. but i'm so committed that we take a share of our funds to create jobs here.

and i'm born and raised in the city of detroit and heartbreaking to see what is happening in detroit but it is so much promise there in detroit, because we have the greatest talent in manufacturing. we have great research universities there in michigan, including wayne state university that i'm proud to represent. and we have the plants and the land to actually build new manufacturing operations. and this country has the superb ability to innovate and outhustle the competition in the world. return some of our money, tax dollars, back to the u.s., so that we can prosper again. and some of us are doing well. but i know overall and i will close, that many american families are not feeling that financially secure. and i understand that. look, i have been through hard times myself as a young man.

that's why i'm stressing the fact, turn a share of the task dollars -- tax dollars back to our people. thank you so much. and god bless america. mr. cicilline: i thank the gentleman. you know, one of the things i know we all share as new members of the congress as freshmen, we have been here for four months, madam speaker, and we have had conversations and debates about cutting pell grants and cutting head start, we have endured a tax on women's health and n.p.r., attacks on the environment and efforts to end medicare as we know i it. we haven't had before this congress a jobs agenda, a time when americans are suffering from the highest unemployment in a generation. and we recognize we need to cut spending and need to be responsible in our management of the national debt. one of the key ways we can do that is to grow our economy and

get americans back to work. and i believe, madam speaker, that one of the key ways we can do that is to rebuild the manufacturing base in our country. there is no way we can maintain our position as a great economic power without making things in america. making things in america is really a key part to rebuilding the economy of this country. my home state of rhode island is one of the states that has been hardest hit in this economic downturn. rhode island was the first to enter the economic recession and facing the fifth highest unemployment in america. but rhode island has a strong tradition of manufacturing. it's the birth place of the american industrial revolution. this helped build the middle class and provided good paying jobs for working families. rhode island used to produce one-third of the costume jewelry in the united states. our manufacturing sector has been hard hit especially in

these especially difficult times. according to the alunes for american manufacturing, 71,000 100 manufacturing jobs in rhode island in 2000 by the year 2008, that number dropped to 47,000 900. rhode island lost 15% of its manufacturing jobs from 2008 to 2009 alone. and from 2001 to 2008, rhode island lost 10,000 500 jobs due to trade to china. when is the last time you found something made in america. manufacturing jobs all across this country have seen a steep decline from 20 million jobs in 1979 to 12 million today and the middle class has been left behind. and that's why this past week when we launched the make it in america agenda, i became so hopeful about this congress' attention on manufacturing.

this agenda is about reversing manufacturing job loss. it's about investing in good paying jobs, world class education, top-notch research and sound infrastructure. we need to create an environment that encourages manufacturers to innovate, grow, create and keep good jobs in the united states. when we make it in america, our middle class will succeed. this agenda is based on the conviction that when more products are made in america, families will be able to make it in america. the agenda is intended to create conditions to help american businesses to produce goods here in america and create jobs. it is smart about the investments to outeducate, out innovate and outbuild. the president has signed six make it in america.

business and labor leaders recognize that the democratic agenda of making it in america is good for our country and it's central to the future of our competitiveness, our jobs and our leadership in the world. and so this past week, we outlined a series of bills that represent really a cross section of the legislative package, a dynamic agenda that will continue to evolve during the 112th congress but is focused on how we support the manufacturing sector again. some of these bills have been introduced. others will be introduced in the coming weeks. the aagenda ave includes the development of the national manufacturing strategy and directs the president to work with the industry leaders, labor leaders, other stake holders to develop a national manufacturing strategy for our country to have benchmarks.

every other nation we are competing with has a national manufacturing strategy. the agenda i cludes the build america bonds, expanding the build america bonds, the creation of a national infrastructure development bank. if we are going to compete in the 21st century, we need to have an infrastructure that supports that competition, we need to have roads, bridges and transit systems and the ability to compete. it includes the research and development tax credit permanent and more generous to encourage job creation and creation of small business startup savings accounts, four of the chinese currency system to give our american manufacturers a fighting chance to compete. and includes the make it in america block grant, which i have drafted. this is a block grant which will help american manufacturers retrofit their factories, retrain their workers, buy new

equipment and make their facilities more energy efficient so they can compete successful wli in the 21st century. we have got to start making things again in this country. that manufacturing was an important part of the history of america and important way we built up the middle class in this country and became a world economic power and no longer act as if manufacturing isn't important. we need to make things in america and we need to start exporting goods made in america all offer the world because we make the best products and have the best workers and stop exporting jobs. this is an agenda which i hope will earn bipartisan support that will be a key to helping rebuild the economy of our country and rebuilding our strong manufacturing base. madam speaker, i think the most urgent priority we face is getting americans back to work.

americans have been very hard in this recession. members hear it all the time from constituents back at home. what are you doing to get people back to work to get this economy back on the right track? this make it in america agenda i believe provides a real opportunity to rebuild the manufacturing base in this country to make things here in america and american families make it as well. in addition, we also need to invest as the president said in education so we can outeducate and our kids can compete not just with the kids in the neighboring town or the next state but india, china and germany. that is who they are competing with and we have to make sure they have the tools and skills necessary to compete successfully in the global economy. we have to invest in science, research and innovation so we can continue to make the new

discoveries, make the new inventions and create new products that will allow us to lead the world and maintain our position as a world economic power. and that's why as we think of the balance that we have to strike in managing the serious responsibility, eliminating programs that don't work, cutting waste and at the same time investing in things that are necessary, education, innovation and infrastructure. and so, madam speaker, i hope that this congress, the 112th congress will be known as the congress that restarted and reinvested in making things in america and i know that my colleague from massachusetts, the distinguished the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. keating, has focused as well on creating jobs, bringing balance to our federal budget and rebuilding manufacturing. i would like to yield time to mr. keating.

mr. keating: i just came here to advance statements here by our fellow freshman and my neighbor from rhode island, because here we are in virtually an empty chamber sitting here talking about jobs. before i came a member of congress just a few months ago, my job and i was fortunate to have one, was the job of a district attorney. now the responsibilities of that job are not well known but one of the responsibilities in our state, when there is a death that occurred in a hospital, it's important that be investigated for any indications of foul play from a criminal standpoint. so as a result, the troopers attached to my unit and my prosecutors reviewed the deaths of people. and i must say just to put this

in context in a very personal sense to me, one of the most tragic and heart-wrenching parts of that job was coming upon the scenes of suicide. and in the course of that over the last couple of years, you actually saw situations where people depressed, hopeless, took their own lives and they left indications that i won't get into as to the reason they did that. and so many of those people were out of work, clin chronicically out of work and their homes were falling apart and families were falling apart and hope had been extinguished. there were notes, indications, where you go back and a family and talk about the person to make sure you knew what happened. that is the most powerful way i

think that you can understand why we are here in this congress trying to put people back to work. we have to do everything we can do in our power to do this, to be out of work is human misery and misery that extends to spouses, sons and daughters, conversations where one of these instances where the person that took their life was told that they would never be able to afford the college they were accepted to. . i hope we don't continue to have this discussion about jobs in empty chambers. i hope it becomes the focal point of open session because frankly there hasn't been enough that have discussion. i came here imbued with a sense

of challenge and responsibility, that i would do everything that i could to try and stop this human misery from occurring in families and individuals. so i hope as we go forward and we look at make it in america, we look at other platforms and policies, to try and put people back to work, we don't forget, these aren't people just called our constituents, these are real people. people suffering more than they ever should. and so my own district, as people are ready to go through the tourist system and the wealthier people come to celebrate their vacations, to do it in a region where unemployment is at 16% and too many people out of -- are out of work, i hope as we go forward that as freshmen we come forward and remember what we said in the campaign just a few months ago. focus on what we said we would do and i hope that kind of

freshmen enthusiasm is contagious and i hope we're having robust discussions about putting people back to work, not here in an empty chamber, but in a full chamber with ideas teaming so that we can accomplish that very important mission and with that i yield back my time. mr. cicilline: i thank the distinguished gentleman and my good friend from massachusetts and think it's a really important point that he makes tonight. we talk about the urgency of job creation and about the enormity of the challenge facing -- or challenges facing our country. but behind all of these numbers and the unemployment rate and these statistics are real families and real people who we see every sickle -- single day in our districts all across this country who are anguished and worried and i think more than -- people often describe, the american people are angry. i don't see anger, i see the american people as anxiety. people are worried about with the future.

they're worried about whether or not this economy is ever going to get on the right track, whether or not we're really going to be successful in growing jobs and getting people back to work and they look at the proceedings of this congress and they say, where is the conversation about creating jobs? where is the emphasis on putting americans back to work and they grow more anxious and so i thank the gentleman from massachusetts for reminding all of us that we're here fighting for real people who are counting on us to do the right thing, to get them back to work, to get this economy back on track and to put our country's fiscal house in order. these are big challenges but they're challenges we have to meet and i'll end by again reminding everyone that this agenda, and i want to really acknowledge the leadership of our minority whip, steny hoyer, who really has led the charge on make it in america, and the legislation that's contained in that agenda, specific bills which i hope will earn bipartisan support that really

get at this issue of how we grow the manufacturing base in this country which provided such strong support to the middle class and a real opportunity to fulfill the american dream and to ensure that america can compete internationally and sell our goods all over the world and so i hope we can come together in this congress and work quickly to pass the legislation that is part of the make it in america agenda so we can make sure american families can make it. and with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the gentleman from texas, mr. carter, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

mr. carter: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. carter: thank you, mr. speaker. i had to get my boards set up here. with all the issues that we deal with here in congress the american people deal with other issues at home. some of those issues are connected and some of those issues they don't see the connection. but they do wonder about something. they wonder about the fact that gas prices in some places in this country in 2009, january of

2009, the president came into office, unleaded $132 a gallon, midrange, $1.42, super range, $1.52. gas prices in april of 2011 over here, somewhere in this country it looks like it could be texas because we're about right there, $3.99 for a regular, $4.ot for midrange, $4.19 for the super, the ethyl, they used to say in the old days. so since we have -- the president has taken office, something that affects every life in this country, the price of gasoline. whether we like it or not, whether we come up with alternative energy sources or

not, whether we have new ideas about high speed trains, subways, elevated railways, buses, the majority of the people in the united states move around in the automobile and the majority of those automobiles are driven using one of two fuels, either gasoline or diesel. neither one of these charts show a diesel price but amazingly enough back when i was a youngster diesel was the cheapest fuel we had available. but diesel prices are no longer cheap. these -- diesel prices are competitive, usually around the midrange price of gasoline. but there are people who have good reasons to drive diesel vehicles and so whether we like it or not, whether it's -- it fits our congressional legislative program or not to have gasoline and diesel being

the fuel that moves people around this country, it's a fact. and you may think otherwise all you wish, but it's a fact. there's no wind cars where you hook a sail up and hope that the wind's blowing toward washington, d.c. so everybody can get to work, it's not happening. so everybody gets up and everybody goes out and most everybody, unless they have one of the brand new electric cars, start their vehicle with gasoline or maybe diesel. and they go to work. or they go on vacation or they travel to see their relatives. or whatever the purpose of their trip. so let's be frank. until we come up with alternative sources that move people from point a to point b in the united states of america we are bound to gasoline. and diesel.

and in the three years track record of this administration we have seen the highest gas price s, i understand it's reported the highest gasoline, we say gas, we mean gasoline, gasoline prices in the history of the country. even higher than the famous jimmy carter days when jimmy carter had us waiting in long, long ration lines and paying extremely high gasoline prices. at $4 a gallon i think we've topped even the numbers that came under president carter. almost two decades ago. so here we are, we've gone full circle in a democrat presidency and here we are back with the issue of gas prices. now, why are gas prices so important to people? because it's how we get where we're going to get.

if you take your kid to the soccer game or the baseball practice or football practice or lacrosse up here in the east or track and field or whatever your young people are doing, you got to get them there and most instances they can't walk and they can't ride a bike, they have to go in an automobile. and from game to game they go in automobiles and when you go to take their tests for entry into college they have to go to an independent location and many times they travel there by automobile. you have to pick up the laundry, you have pick up the groceries, you have to do a million things, get the kids to school on time, get the kids home from school, take the wife out on a date, unmarried people are dating and that's part of their date costs

and at a time when we are -- we have some of the highest unemployment in modern times, we've bumped back above 9% i understand now, so there's a lot of people out of work, those people out of work, some of them are drawing unemployment and some of them are just trying to figure out a way to make do until they can find another job. and to have a roughly $3 increase per gallon in the cost of their fuel to move them around the country, people feel that immediately. it's literally sticker shock to go in and start filling up your tank and i have a fairly small tank in my car, my wife's got a little large tank, hers is more of a sticker shock, but -- and drive a hybrid. so i'm getting some pretty good gas mileage. but still, to watch that thing

go up to $54 to fill up my tank, watch my wife's go up to $65, $70 to drive, i've got a daughter who's working part time and going to college, sometimes she has toly go for testing to a town, in fact, she went for testing to a town which is about 40 miles from where we live. to take the test. and it's a full tank of gasoline up there and back for her in the little car she drives or almost. and she works hard to pay for -- all kay day, she work all day and maybe two days at her job to pay for a tank of gasoline. so it immediately affects your budget. but it's not just the cost of this fuel to the individual, it's the fact that it's killing the recovery in this country.

this new increase in gasoline. -- gasoline costs and fuel costs. now, as we move goods from one place to the other, in texas we are blessed to have the rio grande valley where we produce wonderful fruits and vegetables. and where we can feed around the country with our food and vegetable crop but with the prices of those things are going up and they're going up very quickly. you know, all of a sudden you're seeing tomatoes are $2.50 a pound. now you say, how do you know this? one of the great questions they like to ask a congressman is what is the price of bready your town? what's the prize of this and that? because they figure we don't know. well with, i can assure you my wife will back me up on this, i have shopped for our family in the grocery store since the day i got married. and i continue to do so because we live away from town and usually i would be leaving my

work in town, it was easier for me to grab the groceries than for my wife to drive eight or 10 miles to where we live out in the country into town. so i can honestly say i watched ave cadows go from $1 apiece to $2 apiece in two days. in round rock, texas. at one of the better stores where the prices are kept low, where we regularly shop. you have to think about it, i'm fortunate enough to have a job, but there are people who don't and i'm not saying avacadoes may be a luxury to some people but that's just a luxury that i noticed because it shocked me to see them double in price in a 48-hour period. and so i thought about it. but that's not all. i mean, the price of everything is going up. now why is that? transportation costs. we move our products to market and we move our products to

wholesalers, retailers and it all takes transportation and that transportation is now almost troubled because in a very short period of time and people say why? we hear from our democrat colleagues here in the congress, the why is the evil oil companies, the evil major oil companies and they name names, exxon mobil, conoco phillips, chevron and i'm not going to use all the names, there's bunches of them, but they get used everyday in this congress, they are making horrendous profits and they're the cause of gasoline going up. . but the price of oil is going up and that's why prices go up. the thing is, we don't know --

we all speculate to some extent, but i think it's pretty easy common sense position to take that the more supply we have with the demand, we are the demand capital of the world on burning gasoline and diesel. we outshine anybody else on the face of this globe in the use of those protects. and we have relatively cheap prices as compared to other countries, especially those countries who have no production, they can get very expensive very quickly. there was no oil or gas or oil to amount to anything and we now call western yupe. today there is. they found it offshore and found it on the land in holland, norway and other places. norway is one of those places, something like the third biggest producer of oil and offshore oil

in the world now. they are doing extremely well and running their economy in a frugal manner, very smart people. and they should be commended. i happened to go to norway with chairman obey on a committee with the openings appropriations committee when the democrats were in control and we saw the offshore production in norway and doing a good job. the prices for gasoline are three times as in europe and other places, even more. but it makes sense that the law of supply and demand always works. it's kind of like gravity. the law of gravity, if you drop something, it's going down. the law of supply and demand has been proven over and over and over is what drives the market

for anything. and so, if we have the opportunity to increase our supply in this country, then -- and we have the demand, why wouldn't that have an effect on our price? i think that's a reasonable thing to talk about. the obama administration has, i would say, a dismal record in assisting us in finding oil and gas. we are familiar with the fact that we had a bad oil leak in the gulf and nobody is in any way saying that that was good. in fact, that was a terrible, terrible thing to our environment, a terrible thing -- hurt the country, especially some of the southern states that border on the gulf of mexico and messed up some beaches and

probably had some effect on the wildlife and sea life in the ocean. we will be learning in the future just how much. as a result of that, we put a moratorium on drilling in the gulf of mexico. i had a map showing what the production was, but oil and gas is found in the gulf of mexico, especially oil, but some extent, natural gas, in some abundance in deep water. deep water drilling is very expensive. it is billion dollars with a b, piece of equipment and cost of drilling those wells is expensive. but they are expensive and the bp well that blew out, it was

blowing out a phenomenal amount of oil and if that production had been put into play, it would have had an effect on the availability of oil in the united states, just that one well, would have had an effect. but put a moratorium on that. and the production from the decrease in oil production from this decreased the amount of production by 360,000 of domestic barrels of oil per day. the obama administration has leased the least since president reagan. in 2009, the administration indefinitely delayed leases for oil shale in the west, which kept these resources off limits,

over 2 trillion are sitting idle due to these delays. they have kept new offshore oil exploration off limits until 2017, over 80 billion barrels of oil in the atlantic, pacific, alaska and gulf of mexico. the pipeline in the gulf of mexico is running at less than one-third capacity because companies can't get permits to produce oil. the administration has essentially shut down production in the state which withholding the necessary permits. keystone xl pipeline which could bring 1.5 million barrels of oil per day is being prevented by

the state department. america is the third largest oil-producing nation in the world. the above actions are a clear sign to the world that we are closed for business. if we are closed for business and we are number three, then how much more valuable does that make the product at number two and number one and those behind us are producing, therefore, driving up the cost of our product unless you have the market, the higher the costs if there is a demand and clearly a demand worldwide. in fact, one of the things you are seeing on the price of oil is the fact that we now -- at one time, we were the biggest market by far. the europeans really didn't come close to being the market for oil and gas that the united states is. but today, these booming new

upcoming economies, china, the fastest growing economy in the world right now, you think they can have that fast growing economy without energy? of course not. energy is the driving force by manufacturing. driving force behind development of a nation. those folks need to get where they need to go just like everybody else does. and they have many of the innovative things that america is starting to talk about today. the chairman of the transportation -- secretary of transportation has just let out a bunch of money to build high-speed rail. china has the highest speed rail in the world. they have speeds up to 250 miles an hour. we aren't going to come close to that. they are still the biggest competitor of trying to make

forward purchases and trying to buy future purchases so they can assure they have the field they need in the future to meet their demands. we have a product that we sell for that, they are called futures on the exchange and buying oil to be delivered at a later time at a set price. and when futures come in demand and futures are looksd at by countries to make this purchase to run your industry, then it drives up the cost in the market. the market goes up. something is in demand and the market needs it not only today but sees a projection to need it in six months, a year, five years and 10 years and willing to pay for the right to purchase at a certain price. the prices go up.

that's the market. so i think we first off, we aren't going to get anywhere unless we have an energy plan that is about all energy in the united states. and i would argue that with the use of the regulations and the failure to lease and the failure to lift moratoriums and after you lift moratoriums, failure to give drilling permits, all the things that this administration has done, it has been an anti-oil and gas industry and i'm sure coal also, anti-hydrocarbon administration. they don't deny that at all. they are anti-hydrocarbons and don't like oil, coal and gas and

opposed to them and doing it through regulations and failure to do the necessary leasing, they are keeping closed natural resources that are available to americans. and, hey, let's get this straight. before the middle east, before the -- russia and soviet union, prior to that, before offshore norway, before jo shore hole arned and the north sea. before indonesia, all these places where we now produce oil and gas, we started by producing oil in pennsylvania. we later made a huge oil find in texas and texas is defined by oil and gas by many. and we are the pioneers of oil and gas in the world. the united states of america. all the improvements in drilling

procedures and closing down wells in saving oil without blowouts and in fighting oil fires, in any category you can come up with to deal with oil and gas, the united states of america has led as it usually leads in all things, but has led in the oil and gas industry. we are the experts. in fact, when we went to norway and asked them what they would do if they had a blowout like british petroleum, they said we would call the experts, the people in the united states, the companies drilling the wells, they are the experts, not us. then why all of a sudden in this administration have we decided that a major industry in this country is of no consequence because you want to change the way the american people get around and you want to change

the way we do business in this country? you hold votes on the floor of this house something called cap and trade and fails. passes the house and gets to the senate and dice. you try to get the regulators to shut them down and that will do just as good as passing cap and trade. if you want to know what it does to you folks looking for a job, well, texas at one time in the very near past in the last year, had the lowest unemployment in the nation, until we shut down drilling offshore and along the gulf coast and we lost thousands, tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people that are connected with this try industry. it's not the drillers that drill the oil well but the food service, but the helicopter

people, transport people, shipping industry that transports the fuel, the pipeline industry that puts it in the pipeline and delivers it, refining industry, all of these people are affected when you shut down the local source, which is what this administration has done. and we say to ourselves, why is the price of gasoline gone up? well, it seems to me part of the problem has got to be an administration hostile to this very industry. it's awfully hard when the regulators, e.p.a. and others, have painted a target on your back to prevent you from producing. you know, we made a phenomenal gas find in this country. we have found, if i had told you this four years ago that we would bust up rocks to find natural gas, you would say i

needed to have serious psychiatric examination because it doesn't make sense that you can bust up rocks and make gas. but we have discovered shale gas. and now, we have shale gas in texas and might proud of it, it touches multiple states. it goes right up through the south and midwest and right up into pennsylvania where they have done some serious shale oil work and even -- and i know there is some in yorkt, although they don't seem to be interested in producing it. a belt of product stretches across our country, natural gas. . and yet immediately there's some people who are telling you, i can smell that gas in my water well. well, i got news for you.

natural gas doesn't smell. so if you smell that gas in your water well you got a city gas line leaking someplace in your house because you put the smell in the gas when you sell it to the retail customer so you can smell the gas if it's leaking in your house. but there's no smell in natural gas. people come up here to congress and say, they drilled a well right around the corner from me and now my water smells like natural gas. doesn't make sense because natural gas doesn't smell. i can tell that you from personal experience. it does not smell because i have dug up the machine on a job i had that smells and that was one of the nastiest jobs i ever had because you got that smell all over you. but that's a different story. we need an energy policy that works, not an antienergy policy. -- anti-energy policy.

an antienergy policy. year one, 2009. february 4, 77 utah oil and gas lease areas withdrawn from development. one of the things we talk about a lot in texas, we talk now about it in pennsylvania, we talk about many other places where there is now production but what we don't talk about because we haven't been able to get in there to do it is the basin of which utah sits in the middle of but it goes up into idaho, it goes over in wyoming, it goes up into montana, there's a large potential feel -- field and discovery field in north dakota of oil and gas.

but the utah oil leases were withdrawn for development. february 10, actions of the administration, offshore leasing plans delayed for six months. february 25, shale oil research and development leases delayed in colorado, wyoming and utah. march 30, three million acres of federal land removed from energy production by omnibus public lands management act. passed by a democratic congress. june 29, 29 million acres of federal land removed from solar energy development plan leaving just 670,000 solar acres. so even the so-called clean energy is meeting road blocks by this administration two million acres of federal land here,

uranium mining blocked for two years on one million acres of land in arizona. that was in july. august, 2524,000 acres in wyoming, oil and gas leases withdrawn. september, new outer continental shelf lease plan postponed until 2012. october, 60 of the 77 utah oil and gas leases permanently canceled. november, obama administration found to have approved the lease -- oil and gas leases annually ever recorded in the united states history. so they in the first year, this administration, they started out with a clear policy of getting rid of our energy, not going after our energy. even solar. year two.

january 6, new rig issuesed to restrict oil and gas development on federal land. january 26, january offshore leases delayed. january 28, restricted shale oil lease terms cutting industry off by -- offers 85%. 40 billion oil and gas industry tax and fee increases introduced in f.y. 2011 budget proposal. february 17, administration unilaterally shuts down yucca mountain, the nation's only repository for spent nuclear fuel, jeopardizing the future of nuclear industry. -- energy. that's energy. march 12, 61 montana oil leases withdrawn. march 31, majority of outer continental shelf closed to future production. may 6, ban on oil gulf drilling

over b.p. spill. july 12, president drilling ban. gulf drilling ban lifted but refuses to issue new permits, keeping a de facto ban in place in contempt of federal court. november 18, interior department plans no new gulf leases until 2012. december 1, administration reinstates the illegal gulf drilling ban to introduce the entire pacific, atlantic coast and eastern gulf and parts of alaska. so they reinstate the ban to cover the whole coast of the country.

oh, yeah, we got one more here. year three. 2011, january 14, evoked -- revoked west virginia coal mine permit costing 250 american jobs. february 2, federal judge fines -- finds interior department in contempt of court over de facto drilling ban. further delays to u.s. oil shale production on deciding to rereview the current rules for commercial oil shale leasing. february 28, continued the de facto drilling ban while issues a -- issuing a token deepwater permit. march 4, president appealed the federal court ruling to issue stalled deepwater permits. when i saw that shale oil, i saw my friend stand up, he's from

pennsylvania, i yield to my good friend whatever time he may need to talk about the great things that are happening in pennsylvania. >> i thank my good friend for hosting this hour. i actually do think this administration has a energy policy and it is all about shutting down all the domestic use of the resources we've been blessed with in this country. mr. thompson: and it's about cutting our supply, eliminating our domestic supply. when i think about -- i looked at your chart you had in terms of gas prices reflecting 2009 and 2011. there's a lot of, i know at the white house they're talking a lot about -- the president is asking the attorney general and putting together a task force and trying to find the bad guys of who's causing gas prices to be so high right now, pushing over $4 a gallon. well, you know, there's only really one thing that impacts gas places and that's supply and demand. and demand around the world is

going up. but the problem is you is really captured nicely in the documentation, congressman, this administration has shut down access to domestic supply. and we're making mo us more and more foreign dependent. with what's happening in little bit yarks we only get 2% of our oil resources from libya and just that 2% with what's happening in that country, we're seeing gas prices now push over $4 a gallon. and i'd like to contrast that with the shale gas that you talked about with because in pennsylvania we are blessed with it. let me also claim my heritage. i represent titusville, pennsylvania, where drake drilled that first well 150 years ago and we're very proud of that. but also the 17 counties i represent in pennsylvania are right in the heart of the natural gas shale. and in the middle of one of the worst recessions weave had since the great depression, when gas prices, if you captured them, they are spiking at just record

heights, if we had a chart that showed natural gas prices that actually is a record low, it's a little over $4. normally when we would import our domestic gas from other countries, right now natural gas would probably be somewhere around $11 or $12 a cubic foot but today it's $4 something a cue pick foot, in the middle of the worst recession this winter the folks all over the state, including center city philadelphia, have been paying the lowest gas rates because it is domestically produced. it speaks of a strong domestic supply program. the policies in this administration make that almost impossible for our oil and they're coming after natural gas, prying -- trying to stop that as well. that's driving up costs and i find that's just -- it's not only so terribly damaging on our economy and jobs, it's just

immoral. when with we are blessed with these resources, they're produce pro-- provided to us for a purpose. mr. carter: if our friend would yield for minute. what's the unemployment rate in pennsylvania right now? mr. thompson: somewhere just about -- well, it's lower than national averages. i have a couple of counties in tick -- particular, one county is in the heart of this natural gas, it is probably the first time in history that county's unloiment is blow -- unemployment is below both state and national averages and lingts because of the natural gas industry. mr. carter: it's because of all those jobs. mr. thompson: absolutely and you're right, it's not just the drilling jobs but it's the hotel jobs, the restaurant jobs. i've got manufacturers right now that are sitting there with -- sitting with jobs that they can't fill and we hear a lot

about unemployment but i have -- and these are good jobs. they pay a significant amount of money per hour, good benefits, it's a great employer and they're sitting there with these job openings looking for folks to fill them. now some of the people they had working for them have moved on into the gas field and they've created new opportunities. so this is -- in terms of jobs, you know, producing domestic energy produces domestic jobs. it's so important. mr. carter: reclaiming my time for just a moment. a lot of people don't realize that when you're talking about production of oil and gas there's much more to putting a rig on a piece of land than just driving out there and putting it up. you build roads, you build fences, people -- road builders don't drill a single drop of gas but they build the road and that's a job. multiple jobs.

in louisiana and the marshy parts of the country, they used to build wooden roads to get out to these are rigs. all this creates jobs, all the science industries of the oil and gas industry, just like any other industry, there are side industries that feed the big industry and they all create jobs. in a country that dropped below 9% but now has jumped back this month above 9% again after one of the lockest stretches of high -- longest stretches of high unemployment in crit, you know, i just use my family as an example, my daddy was born in kentucky and my mother was born in tennessee. in fact, where my mother lives maybe pretty close to being under water right now. in fact, she lives right close to the river in tennessee. and the great depression there were no jobs in that part of the country. but there were jobs in texas. because the oil industry.

and so they both came down to texas to get a job in the oil industry. now, they both ended up in the oil industry but they both started out, my mother was in the secretary al pool for business and high daddy was a teacher, an accounting professor. but they got jobs in all of this and it was always good in our family. i don't lay any bones about it. i was raised in an oil and gas family, my dad was a big gas man and i've seen it make not only our state prosper but all of the producing states i've ever visited, they have prospered. look what it's done for alaska. look at louisiana. look at new mexico and oklahoma. what it does to those states and economy. and to take and target an industry and go after that industry the way this administration has done, not only, that i don't even understand the yucca mountain deal.

i don't understand the no uranium leases. if we're going to switch to, which now the president says in a couple of speeches, we'll switch to nuclear, i think that may have changed now that japan's disaster, but we can't do it without uranium. well, there's a new process you may be could but that's a different story. historically you can't do it without uranium. you have to have the location to store the fuel but these things all tended -- americans need to wake up and say, wait a minute, we need energy. i was talking to people today that said the e.p.a. was going to do their best to shut down wood-burning fireplaces. my gosh. i mean, how are we going to get warm, you guys, up north, how are you going to get warm in the wintertime if you're going to take away your coal and your natural gas and the price of oil will be through the roof

and you can't afford that and you can't even burn wood in your own flyers. what's wrong with this picture? i yield back. >> you're right. mr. brady: -- mr. thompson: it's been well documented that two countries in particular are increasing their thirst for oil, that is china and india, it's expected just within the next few years the demand for oil is going to go up 10 million to 12 million barrels of -- barrels of oil a day. that's in addition to what the world is using today. if that occurs and we don't increase our domestic supply, we don't have a board big enough to show where that red line is going to climb to in terms of gas prices. it is absolutely critical. that's why i'm so proud, i'm on the natural resources committee, we passed out of there three weeks ago -- a week

ago three pieces of legislation. the house passed h.r. 1229 putting the gulf back to work act, this week we'll be working on h.r. 1230, restarting american offshore leasing act and that will make a difference. critics will say, it would be a year or more until you produce one barrel of oil once we pass that act. that's true. it takes a while to get that rig set up and get it produced. but we only have to look back to 2008, when president bush and this congress finally lifted the outer continental shelf ban, moratorium, and on the day that that was lifted and congress lifted that and we began, we gave the approval to go ahead with issuing permits again on the tai they voted on it, the price of gas in 2008 was $4 and something a gallon. the next day it was $2 and something a gallon. it does make a difference and

indicates america is willing to use its own resources and won't be dependent on the middle east, on libya, saudi arabia, on places so volatile today we don't know if there's a revolution or demonstrations or riots or terrorism, that we're not going to have access to that 30% of our energy resources that we use today. so best predictor of future performance is past performance. we know if the senate does the right thing an passes these acts that we're going to have and will pass out of the house of representatives, gas prices will come down. but unfortunately, the best predictor of future performance is past performance and under this administration, they're going to continue to limit and eliminate our americans' access to the domestic resources we have here in this cupry. mr. carter: the great surge in the cost of natural -- of gasoline, that was the result of two things.

you named one of them. the other one was that a small fire in illinois in a refinery. but the speculators look and say, refining capacity is shut down and we have a limited refining capacity because we haven't built a major refinery in this country in 25 years because of the burdensome rules we've come up with. and the fact that we can't permit them. they look at refining capacity and other issues and say, wait a minute if there's not a shortage now, there's going to be an they run the price up. and then when it opens up, hey, the market gets back to normal again. and every time that happens, the american -- the driving public of america suffers. they're suffering today. and they're suffering on top of the highest unemployment, longest period of high unemployment in modern times, just about. so this is really about

gathering around the -- this is one of those, what we call kitchen table issues. when the family gathers around the kitchen table to figure out how they're going to make the budget work, especially if mom or dad is laid off, one thing they're looking at is the cost of fuel. down where we come from, we want it cool. they look to see how much it's going to cost them to get to and from school to and from work, how they conserve energy, maybe they car pool, they're making these kinds of decisions and yet the government seems to be making these jydwantic decisions to shut off supply and then wonder why we have an energy crisis in this country. it's not rocket science. this is the law of supply and demand. we have the biggest demand. if we can't meet our demand, we have to go to foreign oil. if there's a fight in libya, we may not use many much of the

foreign oil right now but somebody else does and if it goes into another market to get their oil, then that makes our market go up. it's all worldwide market on oil and gas. i don't understand why people think they're gouging you, they're making excessive profits. and i understand the payment on c.e.o.'s and i'm not defending any payment on c.e.o.'s for any industry. it's not just the oil industry that pays big bucks for c.e.o.'s. but if you look at the history of the oil and gas industry, their percentage on investment is lower than most average manufacturing facilities, somewhere between 6% and 8% return on their investment. and you say, what investments? well, i think i said earlier, those offshore drilling rigs that drill in the gulf of mexico and now have all been moved off the coast of africa,

to indonesia and off the coast of brazil. those rigs cost $1 billion and they can cost you operational wise in a 24-hour day almost $1 million to operate. they are expensive. and if you get nothing but dust when you get down to the bottom of that well, you have blown a whole lot of money out the door. and that's just loss. then you drill the next well to try to get it back. it's a gamble. it's -- we've gotten better at looking for it and finding it but it's still a gambler's business when you get down to it. but this is caused by the government, to a great extent. you can't create an environment of uncertainty in any market, i don't care what the market is, if you create the idea of uncertainty, it affects the market. it also affects the psyche of

the people. and that's kind of what i don't think they're getting. so their solution is tax it. if it moves, tax it. well, the problem with that is, do you really think the c.e.o. of exxon is going to pay the taxes if we incree taxes on the oil and gas industry? no. you and i are going to pay those taxes when we fill up our tank. if you go and ask the question, they'll tell you at your local filling station, used to publish it in texas on the pump, how much of a gallon of gasoline was tax. it's a whole bunch. direct tax makes up a large amount of the cost of gasoline. always have. and i come from a time when we used to have 19 cent a gallon gasoline in texas. try that on for size. i could go buy $1's worth of

gas and drive all week. i yield back. mr. thompson: i thank the gentleman from texas. in terms of the profits oil companies make, it is with what most industries, whether a manufacturer or service industry, make around 6% to 8%. but you have to ask yourself, who is benefiting from that? i would find it hard to believe that there's not a lot of -- that many americans benefit from that because their pension programs are investing in the portfolios they may have, their pensions are investing in those types of companies and benefiting from that 6% to 8% margin they're delivering. those who will speak against using oil will say, we don't have enough. we use so much but we only have 2% of the proven reserves. here's the facts. frankly, we proven reserves

when they define that, they look at conventional. they don't consider shale gas or shale oil, they look at conventional reserves. then they don't look -- they really don't look at probable and probable, there's 10 to 20 times is a that much available in terms of probable. then when you get to estimate, there's enough oil out there to really, i think, meet the needs of this country for as long as we need to. i'm not saying forever because i think at some point, there will be a new energy source come along. it may be generations until we get that, may with hydrogen fueled cars, i don't know what it is, we'll have that science in the future. but we have plenty to meet our needs right now. in terms of natural gas, from the reserves in texas and pennsylvania and the outer continental shelf and frankly throughout the west, we have at least 200 years of natural gas. that's just what we know about. and the unknown is, but it's pretty consistent, is technology gets better and

better and better. it's only with the advent about 60 years ago the development of horsontal drilling that we've been able to access -- horsontal drilling that we've been able to access the oil and natural gas. i know scientists are looking at new and better ways to get out most -- more of this resource that god has really blessed us with as a country. so i think we really do need an energy policy in this country and it ought to be one centered around full use and access to domestic energy resources. we ought to be doing the research, too, obviously for new development and energy efficiency is important as well, whether it's transportation or heating or appliances being more energy efficient with it but those three things alone all centered on domestic use of energy resources, that's the kind of energy policy this country needs. >> reclaiming my time, i agree with you 100%.

it's the same thing -- mr. carter: it's the same thing we took over this house three years ago in the dark, because they turned after the lights on us, we talked for about two or three weeks about what we want is all of the above. we are for every energy resource that is available but we want that energy being resourced as available as possible to be competitive in the market. i mean, you know, i don't want to talk about any -- everybody's got their own little bailiwick and corn farmers love ethanol but it's got to compete. sun has to compete, wind has to compete. they invariably call us oil and gas guys anti-wind people. wrong. texas has the largest wind farm in the united states. no state with more of those wind turbines than the state of texas. because out west, that wind blows all the time. it's like a gold mine.

for wind. when you -- what do you think boone pickens is talking about when he talks about wind energy and his idea of putting cars burning natural gas on the road is a good idea. i support it. when we hear now with the discovery of shale gas an the abilities, we just started to tap, it's just a small part of the future. by the way, i would be really interested to find out if some of our colleagues who are so opposed to natural gas, knocked on his door and said, sir, we'd like to talk to you about making a lease with a share of the profits on drilling for natural gas on your property. and i wonder if they'd say, oh, no, i wouldn't take that. those hundreds of thousands of dollars i might make from you developing that resource. no. i don't believe in that stuff. i don't think so. it is -- whenever you produce wealth, wealth enhances a nation.

and your natural resources are part of the wealth of the nation. always have been. my friend, they always will be. i yield back. mr. thompson: i want to come back to the point you talked about in terps of ethanol, wind, solar, it could be anything. any time that you take a new energy to commercial level, commercialize it, but you do it artificially, you do it with subsidies, you use taxpayer dollars to sustain it in the market, that's just wrong. it's not real. if -- if something is ready for primetime, if it's ready to be commercialized it will stand on its on. it will create a market that people want to come and buy it and use it. so in terms of, as we look forward to an energy policy, i think we need to be very careful about what we artificially commercialize. what we subsidize.

natch rat -- natural gas is real, oil is real, both will stand on their own, it doesn't need subsidies to provide energy for folks. it'll do it in a way that's market proven. but there are other markets out there and you've named a couple of them that if we take away the subsidies today, they would collapse. they wouldn't exist. and so frankly i think that's a disservice to the american taxpayers. why are we commercializing energy resources? i do believe in research. that's where our focus should be, as opposed to prematurely commercializing something that doesn't stand on its own, we have -- i have a lot of appreciation for the national energy labs in this country. they're scientist they don't have an agenda, they're just looking for the new energy source and they're very credible in what they do and that's where our emphasis should be, not prematurely commercializing nrblings that are unsustainable, we should be making sure we're investing in

mr. carter: within the last three years, i met two individuals, one of them very recently, who has asontive particular plan to refine garbage at your garbage dump, solid waste, go out there and to a multiple process, produce gasoline and cap capture all the co-2. in texas, we capture it and put it down in wells and re-energize wells to bring more oil to the surface and he can produce. the leftover, after this burning process, creates the gasoline, refines the gasoline out of garbage and refurbish the feels. that's the kind of thinking we

want. that's great. that's a good idea. and because we are talking energy and having energy policy, those good ideas come to the floor. that's how we are going to solve this problem. but not going to solve it by shutting down what we have now in hopes that there is going to be a miraculous overnight discovery that is going to make everything great, like finding cryptonite and everything is going to happen. they complain about the production of energy and want to tax it. by the way, majors, big boys, they don't get subsidies on their stuff. that's for wild counters. most of their production is overseas. and you know, we, in some

extent, by driving bsh difficult having bad energy policy in the united states, we have driven people to the benefit of other people in the world. nobody thought about drilling off the coast of australia or indonesia, which is a very unstable volcanic area over there, until they were kind of pushed out of the american waters and started looking at places like the north sea off the coast of africa, nigeria, indonesia, these are now major production fields. they benefited from our lack of foresight to continue to enhance our native industry. more power to them. that's good for them. but we have it here, too. and i still think there's plenty of oil in alaska, lots of it. and they haven't started looking

for natural gas up there. they probably have as much as natural gas up there as anybody. i learned this from the coast guard, because of the reseeding ice in the north pole, if that's it, whatever it is, there is now a waterway, a northwest passage across the top of the -- north america. you can sail from the atlantic to the pacific. you can also, if that water stays open, you can drill for natural resources there and the unclaimed international water gets claimed by who puts the most activity in that water. and one of the questions is, the russians are pouring in ships and trawlers and other things in that whole area up there, canadians claim so much, but

there is a lot more and why are they after it? it's not for fish, my friend. but oil and gas. really? wow. time goes fast when you are having fun. thank my friend for joining me. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's' policy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona, mr. schweikert, for 30 minutes. mr. schweikert: thank you, mr.

speaker. i actually didn't intend to do this this evening, but i got so frustrated with a number of the things i have been watching both on television and from our brothers and sisters in this body, it became time to actually bring some of the slides we actually do in our town halls back in arizona and i like to refer to it as a combination of truth in the numbers and also disspelling some of the political folklore that is rampant in this town. i'm going to tell you a number of things this evening that will offend all sorts of members and all sorts of those in washington, d.c., fment i'm a freshman and washington, d.c. has not told the truth to the american people. and i don't know if they are fearful that looking the american people in the eyes and saying look, here's what we have done to your future, your

grandkids' future, it's so scary that they don't get re-elected. well, you know, i got elected to come here and do the numbers and some my goal is very, very simple. the numbers are straight up. that the numbers come from 2010 on a lot of the charts. so we know exactly what was actually spent and on a number of charts outside of that, we are going to use the president's numbers. we were watching judge carter walk through some of the economic impacts what happens with drilling and i'm going to touch this on this, well, let's tax big oil. first off, the slide next to me, we put it together to make it simple and visual. imagine a country that borrows 42 pennies out of every dollar we spend. we all know that's not sustainable.

we can't do this. you couldn't do it in your family budget. think of it, over the last couple of years, it's been tough out there. my family and your family, we tightened our belts and did what was necessary. what did the congress do, what did walks d.c. do? they just kept spending. the way they spent, they found people who were willing to buy sovereign debt and kept borrowing. why is that so ter i have filing? -- terrifying? when you start to realize the speed the debt is growing and then you start to understand some of the other drivers in that debt, one of the things that happened january 1 this year, you know, what was the big change? baby boomers. every eight seconds someone turned 65 in this country for

the next 18 years. 10,000 a day for the next 18 years and you see many of us around here saying we need to tell the truth how devastatingly ugly these numbers are and if we step up and deal with it now, we can fix it. but you can't deal with it with a bunch of silly rhetoric. right here is the 2010 and you see this blue, the blue is we'll call it mandatory spending, entitlements, medicare, medicaid, social security, interest on the debt. but look when you step up, step up, what is fugs neal four budget years from now, because we just did the 2012 budget and look at 2016, you look at the spending and growth in entitlements and one of the things not being shared with the american people, when you look at 2010 and 2011 number out here further, we don't take in enough

revenue today to even cover the mandatory spending. think of that, every dime of defense is borrowed. every single dime of discretionary is borrowed and we are $100 billion short of covering the entitlements, the mandatory spending. we borrow a little piece of those dollars that go into the entitlement. and it continues to explode in the future years. and i know there are a lot of slides, but when we get to the ending part, you will find them fun, but we have to walk through an understanding of the pie chart. this is 2010. 2010, the mandatory spending was at 63%, 62% of all the spending in government. defense department, other discretionary. and when i said all the spending

in government, freddie mac, and fannie mae are part of this. they are off the books on this. when you look at this line here, that blue, look at how fast it starts to move up. in 2016 it goes from here, where we are about 63% and now we hit 72%. think of that. we just did, what, the 2012 budget. 2016, four budget cycles from now, the mandatory spending, the entitlements are consumer 72% of our budget. and the amazing thing is in that sikeal, the money that is going -- sikeal, the money that is going through there is going to go down. the mandatory is consuming what we are. you get folks who start to raise their hands at some of the town halls and say, why don't we

raise the marginal tax rates. there is some fascinating math on that and we have 60 years of looking at it. and this is one of my favorite charts. you can go and have a tough last name schweikerthouse.gov. you will see these charts on there. this is when we had very marginal tax rates back in the 1940's, 1950's. over here, very low marginal tax rates and there's this normalizing effect and couple of economists who wrote detailed papers. very high marginal tax rates and very low marginal tax rates, 18.2% taken in of gross domestic product. i don't know, maybe in the math out there, maybe in the logic

out there, the human nature when you tax people a lot, they find other ways to tax their income. but somehow, high marginal tax rates, we basically take in the same percentage of gross domestic product, of g.d.p., 18.2%. when folks look at you and say raise the marginal tax rates, we are going to takes everyone more, it doesn't do it. it doesn't take care of this massive debt that is consuming us as a people. what you have to do is you have to grow that line, which is the size of the economy. you must, must grow this economy. because as you start to look at these numbers, you come to the realizization, yeah, we have a huge spending problem, but we can never cut enough. we have to grow, because it's two sides of this and both of them have to be in motion. we have to grow and we have to

cut the spending and have to deal with the reality, the mandatory spending, the entitlements are eating us alive. let's walk on somewhat i consider -- what i refer to as political folklore. when we hold town halls and i represent arizona on 5th district, scottsdale, tempe, if the hills, why don't we do this. if we go out there and tax big oil, we can balance the budget, right? they mean well. i believe the participants at our town halls mean well because they see members of this body tell them that. and they haven't been told the truth. when you look at the numbers,

here's 2011, hard dollars and you can call them subsidies, depletion allowances, incentives to drill and produce more petroleum products. but the gray is fossil fuels. and we put the $8.72 billion of the subsidies that go into green energy. for the fun of it, let's talk about this part right here, $2.44 billion in 2011. . if you're borrowing $4.7 every single day, how can a member of congress look in the camera, look at you an say, if we would just tax big oil more, that would soft the debt problem. that doesn't even put a drop in the bucket. i've been trying to find a way

to talk about pig numbers. i was blessed in my previous life, i've lived in a world of big numbers. but how do you visualize a trillion? how to you visualize a billion? how do you visualize a million dollars for many people? let's talk about time. if your goth is borrowing $4.7 billion every single day. every single day. those taxes on big oil, let's do taxes on all, let's just remove the depleeks allowances, tax credits, which are types of depreciation that all other businesses get, but let's wipe them all out. let's -- guess what it buys you. it buys you .2 minutes of borrowing a day. how many of you feel like wrouff been told that? once again, we are often around

this place political theater instead of math. that's one of my greatest frustrations of my time here, i wish i saw members carrying arn the financial calculator to look them in the eye and tell them the truth. but the whole fossil fuels subsidies, tax credits, depreciation allowances, would buy you about 2.2 minutes a day. oh, come on. that's just assuming that every dollar came in an you didn't slow the economy down and didn't slow energy drilling down or energy production down, so this is just throw yurg hands up and saying, let's just pretend for a moment that we got rid of those and it becomes pure income. let's go to the next level. because there's always that other perp that raises their hands and says, well, david, i've heard that if we would go out and tax the rich more, you remember that lame duck

congress last december extended what a lot of folks called the bush tax cuts, now we often call them the bush-obama tax cuts because president obama signed them in december. wouldn't that balance the budget? back to the small problem called math. let's pretend for a moment that they hadn't happened and let's pretend it didn't slow down the economy and let's pretend every dime that some folks have predicted came in. which, you know, a lot of this place operates in a fantasy world, why can't we? so we never had the tax extensions that happened in december. what would it buy you? we borrow, once again, $4.7 billion every single day. it would buy you about 28 minutes. think of that. 28 minutes. so now i'm at my town hall, i've had two hands go up, the first one says, david, what if

we taxed big oil, and that would balance the budget. what did we learn on the last slide? that was about 2.2 minutes of borrowing every day. the other hand goes up and says, tax the rich more. why don't we just say the tax extension never happened, so they never got the benefit of that extension of the tax cuts last december. guess what? that buys you 28 minutes. so think about it. we're doing really well here. we're up to 28 minutes plus 2.2 minutes, so now let's see. what if we do this. because there's always the other hand that goes up and says, david, i bet we could balance the budget and wouldn't have this debt and deficit if we did this. we tax big oil and we -- those bush-obama tax extenders that happened last december in the lame duck session, we never had that because those help the

rich, and if we'd never had the wars, if we didn't have afghanistan, if we didn't have iraq and i believe in our number, here, didn't have libya. we could balance e-- balance the budget then, couldn't we? so we literally a couple of hours ago sat down and said, let's add it up and make it on a per hour basis so the american people can understand the crazy spending that's going on around this place and how fast the numbers are eroding on us. so back again, our math. we borrow $4.7 billion every single day. and let's go back to our pretend world. every dime of those oil subsidies and depreciation allowances and tax credits, it doesn't slow down jobs or the economy, an every dime of those tacks were to come in, even though you'd probably slow down the economy and people would work less, but we're living in our fantasy world here.

and because we didn't have the wars, none of that money would be going out the door even though certain portions of that are built into the -- into the defense budget. but every dime equated to iraq, afghanistan and now libya, what would it buy us? well, borrowing $4.7 billion a day. guess what. buys you three hours of borrowing. think about what you heard around here. how many people you've seen walk up in front of a microphone and a camera and look you in the eyes and say, well, if we did these things we wouldn't have this debt. they're not telling you the truth. all those together are only three hours of borrowing. let's see, if i remember correctly, there's, what, 24 hours in the day? i'm looking for some honest discussion about the other 21 hours a day. and you've got to go back to the first boards that i put up and have an honest discussion

about the entitlements. about the mandatory spending. because they are what are exploding on us. they are what are consuming us as a people. if we -- we can do this. we can save the future for our kids and grandkids. we can make sure these programs exist. but we have to do it rationally. and we have to for once do it honestly. fact-based, maybe someone actually holding a calculator because the rhetoric around here, the political folklore around here, when they're willing to look you in the eyes and base their whole world on something that only buys you three hours of borrowing a day, you're not being told the truth. all these slides and we try to add literally two or three or four of them a week. we're engaging in a little project. we're a freshman office but we have some smart young people who are rr good with their

calculators and we're trying very hard to make these gigantic numbers digestible so we can all understand them and have a rational conversation about how to save our country. if you go to is week ert.house.gov, you'll -- if you go to schweikert.house.gov, and every week i promise there'll be more coming and if we start to tell each other the truth about the math, we can tell the truth about how we're going to save the country. mr. speaker, with that i yield back the remainder of my time and i make a motion that the house do be at recess. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman make a motion to adjourn? mr. swikeert: i do. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the house stands

adjourned until 10:00 a.m.

there will be no no increase on the debt limit. >> follow as lawmakers work on economic issues, including government spending, taxes, and the debt ceiling. you can watch, search, clip, and share every of that we have covered through 1987 to today. it is washington your way. >> president obama talks about the u.s. immigration system. the president linked the news about immigration changes to the economy. this is 40 minutes.

[cheers and applause] >> hello, al pass so -- el paso. it is wonder, wonderful to be -- wonderful, wonderful to be back with you in the lone star state. everything is bigger in texas. i love you back. [cheers and applause] even the welcomes are bigger. so in appreciation, i wanted to give a policy speech outside on a hot day. those of you who are still wearing your jacket, feel free to take them off. i hope everyone is wearing sunscreen.

you live here, you do not need it, huh? it is a great honor to be here and i want to express my appreciation to all of you for taking the time to come out today. thank you. i appreciate it. thank you. [cheers and applause] you know, about a week ago, i delivered the commencement address at miami-dade community college which is one of the most diverse schools in the nation. the graduates were proud that their class could claim heritage from 181 countries around the world. 181 countries. many of the students were coming to america with little more than the than the dream of their

parents and the clothing on their back. a handful had discovered only in adolescence or adulthood that they were on documented. but they worked hard and they gave it their all. they aren't those diplomas. at the ceremony, 181 flags, one for every nation that was representative -- represented was marched across the stage and each one was applauded by the graduates and relatives with ties to those countries. so when the haitian flag went by, all the haitian kids, haitian american kids should out and when the guatemalans flight went by, all the kids of kamala -- guatemalan heritage shouted out. and when the ukrainian flag went by, i think one kid shouted out. [laughter] this was down in miami.

if it had been in chicago, there would have been more. but then, the last flight, the american flag, came into view. and everyone in the room erupted in applause. everybody cheered. [applause] so their parents and grandparents had come from every corner of the globe but it was here the day founder opportunity. it was a reminder of something as old as america itself -- e pluribus unum.

we define ourselves as a nation of immigrants, willing to embrace the merkel's ideals and america's precepts. that is why millions of people, ancestors the most of us to operate hardships and great risks to come here, so they could live their lives and prosperity. the asian immigrants who made their way to california's angel island, the germans and across midwest, the waves of the irish and polish and russian and jewish immigrants who leaned against the railing to catch of the . this flow of immigrants has make this country stronger and more prosperous.

[applause] we can point to the genius of of imp, the stories of isaac asimov, and industries that were forged by andrew carnegie. i think about the naturalization held at house for members of our military. nothing could be more inspiring. even though they were not yet citizens, when they joined our these men and women serve. we did one event at the white house, and a young man from papua, new guinea, a marine who had been deployed to the rocks 3 times, had a net, and he said i

might as well. i love this country already. that is all he said. marines are not big on speeches. born mexico and came to did states shortly after 9/11 and joined the navy. she said, i take pride in our the history the right day by day. that is the promise of this anyone can write in our store. it is not where -- it does not matter where you come from, it -- [applause] it does not matter where you from, what you look like, fate you worship. what matters is that he believed the ideals on which we were found it. all of us

created equal, with certain inalienable rights. deserve our freedoms happiness. in embracing america, you can become american. that is what makes this country great and enriches all of us. we are today -- [cheers] we recognize that being a nation laws goes hand in hand with immigrants. this too is our heritage, important. the truth is we have also often -- we have often wrestle with politics of who is and who

not about to come into this country. this debate is not new. times there has been fear and toward especially in hard economic times. because these issues touched what we believe, cut on our convictions about people, about it means to be an american, it elicits strong emotions. that is one reason it has been difficult to reform our broken immigration system. when an issue as this complex raises such strong feelings, it easier for politicians to the problems until the election, and there's always a next election. we have seen a lot of blame and politics and ugly rhetoric around immigration. we have seen good faith efforts

parties. i just noticed about those of who have chairs, if you want down, feel free. there is no rule about having to stand when i -- [cheers] so -- [cheers] seen leaders of both parties who have tried to work issue, but then their efforts felt great to the usual washington games, and all while seen the mounting consequences of decades of inaction. today there are an estimated 11 immigrants the united states. some crossed the border illegally. avoid immigration laws by

overstaying their visas. how they came, the of these folks are just trying to earn a provide for their families. [applause] acknowledge they have broken the rules. they have cut in front of the line. also true is the many illegal immigrants makes a mockery of all those who are trying to emigrate legally. also, because undocumented the shadows vulnerable to the unscrupulous businesses that taxes and pay workers less than the minimum wage and cut with health and safety laws. who follow rules and americans who demand the manager --

wage at a disadvantage. about it. over the past decade, even before the recession hit, middle-class families were when costs up from everything to health care, college tuition, groceries, gasoline, and their incomes did not go up with those prices. with gas prices. strengthen the to so longer a massive economy that of labor depressing wages for everybody else. want incomes for middle-class families to rise again. [applause] i want prosperity in this country to be widely shared. i want everybody to be able to

reach that american dream, and is why immigration reform is an economic imperative. an economic imperative. [applause] and reform will also help to make america more competitive in the global economy. today we provide students from around the world with visas to get engineering and computer degrees at our top universities. [cheers] but then that our laws those to start a business or a industry here in the united states. lenore's on a per to stay

leave. american the jobs they created, everything that us take leadership in the high-tech industry, every was founded by -- and emigrant. -- an immigrant. we do not want the next intel or in china or india. we want those companies and jobs take root here. gates as this. he knows a little of something tech industry. he said the united states will a far more doubled to edge if

excludes those who are able us compete. the right thing to do. it is smart for our economy. it is more for our economy. [applause] it is for this reason that are demanding that washington responsibilities to solve the immigration problem. everybody recognizes the system broken. the question is will we summon the political will to do something about it? that is why we are here at the today, and i want to by an outstanding secretary of the security, janet nepal,, who has been issue

, are commissioner who has been on this issue, and we him. [applause] -- they are doing outstanding work, and in recent years, among the greatest impediments to reform or border security. these were legitimate concerns. true was a lack of resources at the at the all this contributed to a growing of undocumented states, and unravel a bipartisan coalition. -- that hasst refrain, even

have been previously supportive of comprehensive immigration reform. thanks the outstanding work of allan, everybody who working at the border, we concerns. under their leadership we have strengthened border security many believed was possible. wanted more agents at the border. the ground, on the southwest border, history. has 20,000 agents. the border patrol as 20,000 agents. there in 2004. that began under bush, continuous, and

these agents and saw them who looked pretty tough. we put the agents in. fence. [boos] defense is now basically now basically complete. gone further. tripled the number of working at border. deployed unmanned aerial to deploy the skies texas to california. have forged a partnership mexico to fight criminal affected both of our countries. [applause] we are 100% of south-bound rail shipments to seize guns and

after we go after drugs that are coming north. [applause] want carefully to this. gone above and beyond what was requested by the very republicans who said they supported broader reforms as as we got serious about enforcement. all the stuff they asked for we have done. even though we have answered concerns, i have got to say i suspect there are still who are trying the goalposts on us one more time. they said we needed to triple patrol. now they are going to say we border fence. or

moat. understand, that is politics. but the truth is, the measures to put in place are getting results. over the past 2.5 years, we have seen 31% more drugs, 75% more currency, '70s -- 64% more weapons than ever before. [applause] have stepped up patrols, apprehension along the by nearly from two years ago. people are to test the -- cross the border illegally. dangerous, violent dropped by a third.

paso, texas, and other cities among the safest in the nation. [applause] course, we should not accept violence or crime. work to do, this progress is important. not getting reported on. we're also going beyond the border. beyond the border, we're going employers who knowingly exploit people and break the law. [applause] those who are here illegally. tough issue. it is a source of controversy.

we are haphazardly. our limited on how violent convicted of crimes. not just families, not just to scrape together and then come. result, we have increased criminals by 70%. [applause] that necessary, relish the pain that people or just trying to get by. as long as the current law on book, it is not just carted removal, sometimes families that are living, or people with

the best of intentions. sometimes when i talked to advocates, they wish could just bypass congress and change the law myself. that is not how democracy works. what really need to do is to up the fight to pass a genuine comprehensive reform. solution to problem. is what i am committed to doing. [applause] yes, we can. we can do it. that secure the fix the system as ahold said that fewer people enter and the first place. focus riots on both sides

our borders. from drug traffickers to those to commit or terror. focus should be. the question is whether those in congress who previously walked of enforcement back to and finish the work we started. [applause] we have to put politics aside. we can find common ground. washington is lacking behind the country on this. there is a growing coalition of america who do not always see eye to eye, but are coming together on this issue. they see the harmful a broken system and they to act.

they are democrats and . michael bloomberg of new york. , police nation, educators, labor unions tampa -- unions, the fortune 500 ceos. american ingenuity is the of an openness of society. immigrants have made america . the notes that leader was? murdoch's, who owns the fox news. and is an immigrant himself. if you are familiar with rupert -- rupert

you, but he does have an a obama sticker on his car. agrees of the on this. around broken and now we up. we need to come together around that reflects our as a nation of laws and immigrants. everybody take responsibility. what would comprehensive reform look like? the government passed threshold responsibility to and to enforce law. all for folks are doing. what they're doing. [applause] second, businesses have to be accountable if they exploit undocumented workers. [applause] ford, those who are here illegally they have a well. they broke the law, and that

to pay they have to pay a fine, they have to learn english, and they have to and process before they get in line for legalization. not too much to ask. [applause] illegal on reforming our outdated system of legal immigration. [applause] we should make it easier for the brightest to not only start businesses and create jobs here. years, a 25% of start- u.s. were founded by immigrants. to 200,000 jobs here in america. here more of them in this country. we need to provide them a chance. [applause] farms a

workers that they rely on. apac for those workers to our legal status. path for those workers to earn a legal status. reuniting them quickly instead . system tolerates those who break the folks who follow the rules. applicants for approvals, for example, from visiting the united states. even has been and wise men have apart, a parent cannot see their children. i do not think the united states business of families. we can do better than that's

-- we can do better than that. [applause] we should stop punishing innocent young people for the actions of their parents. [applause] we should stop denying them the earn an education or serve in the military parade pass the dream act. [applause] dream back to the and democrats were in control. even though i received a votes in the senate,

was blocked when several republicans to a previously dream act voted no. tremendous disappointment to get close north carolina politics in the way. as i gave that commencement at miami-dade, it broke my heart of those students, young people are at risk the agony of deportation. up in country. they love this country. they know no other place to call home. the idea that we would punish them is cruel. it makes the sense. better nation then that. fore going to keep fighting the dream act. we will keep fighting for reform.

that is where you comment. i will do my part to lead a constructive and civil debate on these issues. we have already had a series of this at the white house in recent weeks. we have leaders here and around country hoping to move this trade this change has to by a you, the american people. you've got to help push for reform and you identify what steps we now, areas where ground among republicans and begin to fix what is broken. i am asking you to add your voice is to this debate. t v.

that how we will get this done. can ensure that welcoming the talent of can contribute to this country and we are living up to that you it and it -- you can make a tear if you tried. -- you can make it here if you try. [applause] that is the idea that give hope to jose hernandez. is he here? he is right over there. -- i want you to about this story. his parents were migrant farm workers and growing up, he was, too. that easily been born other side of the border. with the

seasons. two of his siblings were born in mexico. they traveled a lot. he joined his parents picking strawberries and when they return to mexico each winter. jose did not learn english until he was 12 years old. he was good at math. and he liked math. in every school. it is the same in spanish as it is in english. and tested it hard. day, he is standing in the collecting shubert beans -- sugar beans, and you're on a radio that a man named franklin diaz, was going to be

an astronaut for nasa. be an astronaut, too. he kept on studying. he graduated high school. kept on studying. and the earned an engineering degree. studying and beyond a graduate degree. hard and up at the national laboratory helping to develop a digital medical imaging system. few years later, he found itself more than 100 miles above the earth staring the window of the shuttle discovery. he was remembering the boy in field with that dream that in america, everything is possible. [applause]

think about that. american dream right there. fighting for. boy and with a dream and potential that is waiting to be tapped. for america's future. that is why we will get this done. you and god bless the states of america. [applause] ♪

♪ >> coming up next, the west general in charge of eastern afghanistan talks about military operations along the border with pakistan since the raid on the osama bin laden compounds. the senate foreign relations committee looks at the changing u.s. role in afghanistan president obama as immigration speech in el paso, texas. tomorrow, congressman mike rogers will talk about the raid on the osama bin laden town council last week and the upcoming 10th anniversary of the

september 11 terrorist attacks. he will be at the council on foreign relations. live coverage at 8:00. later, the house armed services committee will begin work on defense programs legislation for 2012. we expect debate on don't ask don't tell, veteran health care, and the joint strike fighter engine. it gets underway at 10:00. the military's senior commander in eastern afghanistan said insurgent activity has not increased in this area since the death of osama bin laden. john campbell spoke to reporters about military operations in that region of the country. this is about 45 minutes.

>> good morning to those here at the pentagon and good evening in afghanistan. i would like to welcome back to the reading room john campbell, the commanding general of regional command east. general campbell -- a symbol his duties in afghanistan in june of last year. he spoke with us in october and he joins us again today from his headquarters. next week, a general campbell transition responsibility for regional command east to the first cavalry division army major general daniel allen. carroll campbell make some opening comments and will take your questions. i will turn it over to you. >> i am at a disadvantage because i cannot see anybody out there. i am not sure who is out there. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you tonight. it is customary to have a written statement to go over all

of your accomplishments over the past year. i did not really want to do that. i will not go through those, i would rather get away -- go right away to your questions. it has been a very exciting year here for regional command east. we have been honored to serve with our afghan partners for the last year. as dave talked about, next week, we will turn over the first division to a very good friend of mine. he is over here now and we're going through that transition process. our legacy is how well we set up the unit that comes in behind us and that is what we're trying to do here. staff officers have been working together over the last year. you are most vulnerable when you transition, but we have mitigated that risk because of the great cooperation between the first cavalry division and

the airborne division, just like we had with the 82nd. the army does these transitions of the party at every level. we have been given them for many years. we have this down pretty well. i feel very comfortable about transferring authority and i could not have picked a finer officer. i want to talk about a realignment of forces parade -- of forces. there was a lot of talk about coming out of the river valley. we did not come out of the valley, we realigned forces. over a 10-month period, we're getting the inputs right. that is moving around afghan forces where they needed to be, where we needed them. we have added additional battalions over the course of the year. we have added additional police over the course of the year. we have a pretty good set now

and we have the right afghan forces and the right coalition forces on the right leadership and the right strategy. we have seen great progress every single day. of ourery proud coalition partners and the afghan partners. we have been realigning some forces of the course of the year. we have over 130 operating basis. we of transferred some of them to the afghans recently. that is a continual process and every commander continues to do throughout his tenure here in throughout his tenure here in afghanistan. we felt pretty good about the set that we will turn over to the first cavalry division and afghan partners. all little bit about the spring campaign season. ther the winter campaign, a number of -- munitions, ied is

well over double what it was last year. we have changed the dynamics of the battlefield by doing that. the insurgents have tried to go back and do their own spring campaign great spring campaign. we of not seen an uptick in regional command eased on a tax. -- attacks. the number of attacks was between 25 to 30 per month break that number has continued to be the same. they also said that they made that pledge about the spring offensive, they would try to reduce civilian casualties. they have done the opposite. on the first of may, they killed seven afghan civilians and injured 34. 90% of the casualties are caused 90% of the casualties are caused by insurgents in the regional

command east. we have our own campaign that has worked hand in hand with their afghan partners. very proud of how they continue to uptick their planning and integration with the coalition forces. we have several operations that are ongoing at this point in time. they're going after the enemy and that has made a difference, the enemy has tried to do. we have not seen. going back to that case where the insurgent casualty's on the first of may, that was done by a 12-year-old boy, is suicide bomber coming out of pakistan. he strapped on some explosives and killed many of the civilians. i again ask a lot to be about the difference -- how big change since the death of osama bin laden? my answer is no. we have not seen an increase. gifford a lot of talk about it, but the coalition forces and afghan street partners are

prepared for that. i felt very good about that. i would like to talk about our cooperation with our afghan security partners. everything we have done has been shoulder to shoulder with the army and the police. we have worked at that heart and i think that we can really see the results of the the past year. we feel very good about where the afghan security forces are and there is still a lot of work to be done, but we're headed off -- then we had a year ago. that is a lot of great work by the coalition partners and the afghans themselves. beverly stepped up. we really felt good about the future -- they have really stepped up. we still really good about the future of afghanistan. i welcome your questions and i thank you for your -- i stand by to answer your questions. >> picking up on your point

about not having seen any uptick in taliban attack slavey, we had a story today quoting a police chief as saying that there was a rather large taliban attack on police. i am wondering at you have any details on that. as you finish up your year and prepare to transition out, what is your view on whether there is room for a drawdown of u.s. troops? >> i appreciate both of those questions. on the attack on a checkpoint, i guess in the report also. i just got off the phone which is located in the province, that they have police and army there. they just got off the phone with that same police chief.

he had reported about 400 insurgents attacking the checkpoint. he is not at that location. we're talking about what did they need. we have never seen 400 insurgents. we asked him to go back and get better information from that checkpoint. there were three when did afghan national police, they believe they killed or wounded about 10 insurgents. we ask them if they needed ammunition and they did not need that at this point in time. he is a long distance away. it is about 20 miles to the north of this particular checkpoint. it is not a district center. we have moved ariel aircraft to that the 70 and we are having some whether it issues right

now -- to that vicinity and we are having some other issues right now. we are trying to get full motion video. the checkpoint is still intact great there still working there. there was some sort of attack, still sketchy on details of. we did not have any coalition forces up in that part, so it is hard to get back and forth to try to get the coverage there. there are hundreds and thousands of isolated valleys. i feel good with our tack and it was not as hectic. in that same area, we had -- when we took over, we had to send in coalition forces. the 82nd did that for us.

we tried to move toward an afghan solution and the afghans had moved that up and they have taken control and there are reports about insurgents there. we have an assessment team of their the other day and i had afghan border police and afghan national police of their. them with aied mission. a lot of this when you get up nuristan, the insurgents have a good campaign and we have to take that with a grain of salt. we want to make sure we're providing support to our afghan partners when they needed but we cannot be everywhere. on the drawdown peace, that is a decision for the president, for general petraeus. as i look around regional command, i am thankful for the forces we have.

we did not get our last search brigade until the end of august. they came in the august timeframe and continue to great -- do great things but we are seeing the effect of having the coalition surge over the last several months. when we took over through the fall, you have some jets in the background. we are getting the input right and we think they have those right and we have to let this counterinsurgency, our operations take effect and it will take some time. we have realigned forces and i have taken forces from some and taken them out of places where they are static, where they are not agile and taken them back to places where i can aerosol them in different locations that will so we can deny sanctuary to insurgents on the battlefield and that we feel good about what we're going to do there. as far as forces coming out, i

will leave that to our headquarters. i have not discussed that with general rodriguez or general petraeus. >> with the death of osama bin laden, there is a growing chorus, some on capitol hill that say his death should allow the u.s. to withdraw large numbers of troops from afghanistan and essentially end the u.s. participation in the war. do you believe that? if so, why and if it is not the case, why not? >> thank you for the question. bin laden is an important man in that organization but one man does not make this war on terrorism. we have not seen a big impact on his -- with his death. there has been a lot of talk

about revenge in the afghan forces and we have not seen that since may 1 since they talked about that. i do not think one person makes the war on terror here. we will find -- they will find someone to replace him. based on the ability to have his charisma to bring in funds and to recruit. there is multiple insurgent groups, haqqani being one of them. afghanistan and the coalition forces are going and trying to neutralize here. i do not think the war is over and i do not think the loss of bin laden will cause us to change our strategy. change our strategy. not in rc east. you have talked to us

before that we should not think about this as one insurgency. it is a syndicate. these groups have different relationships with each other and with al qaeda central either literally or ideologically. is there a chance to divide these groups and bring them to the table for negotiations? >> thank you. good to hear from you. thanks for the question. that is a great question. there is great possibilities. i talked about reintegration being a game changer. we're seeing it in regional command east. the governors are picking this up and do have informal and formal modes of reintegration and we're seeing the in formal wear the people are coming up to the governors and sub-governors and governors of 14 different provinces so we feel good about reintegration. we are continuing to educate through the ministries on what we can do in reintegration and

what we can offer to the folks who want to reintegrate. because of bin laden and the death, there is great potential that people will want to come back in and have that opportunity. they look at and understand and they have seen videos of bin laden working at a tv with pictures of himself of their, kind of alone and desperate. this big leader they thought he was, he is sitting in pakistan and many of the insurgent groups we deal with, the leadership comes in pakistan and they do not share the same hardships. the insurgents will see this and say, why am i doing this? it is great potential for many of the insurgents to say want to reintegrate. with president -- what president karzai said is if they denounce al qaeda and throw down their arms, afghanistan will take them back and they'll understand there has to be a political solution to this fight here.

i think this gives us a great opportunity and president karzai and the afghans will look at it as well. i hope it does. the afghan people deserve this opportunity to live a better life and reintegration will go a long way. >> when we spoke to last time, you were talking about your cooperation with pakistani 11th corps. i am wondering if there was a change. are the pakistanis talking about taking down the haqqani network, at least on the border region? >> thanks for the question. we have been working the border peace very hard since day one since we got here. we have been working relationship with the 11th corps. to pakistan several times that he has taped -- come

over to afghanistan. at the operational level, that corporation is the best we have seen it. the battalion to battalion and brigade to brigade, opening those lines of communication has helped across the 450 plus miles of border that regional command shares with pakistan. it has gone really well. after the bin laden piece, we had tank and brigade commanders trying to contact their counterparts and we did not have good contact. two days ago, they conducted a brigade to brigade border meeting -- that was the best to be had. we continue to see great operate -- cooperation at the tactical level. as we conduct of that operation,

our counterparts were able to tdo good ops. both the afghans and the coalition forces have been doing complementary operations on the afghan side to complement what they're doing. has gotten better over the last 60 days. i have not had a chance to talk since the death of bin laden. i will see him here next week as we bring him here to transition with the first cavalry division as well. we have to work hard. all of you understand we cannot talk about afghanistan unless pakistan is in that equation. we value the relationship but also our counterparts. in the end, they have to continue to work shoulder to shoulder.

>> can you describe the realignment of your forces in regional command days? can you tell us how the insurance have reacted to the realignment in their operation? >> i will use this as an example. all of you know that is the westernmost -- that we had in the river valley. there is a [unintelligible] plus there and a lot of in surgeon operations that they had taken over the cop and they were not doing policing duties. that word got back to general of

della -- abdella. they flew up there and took up a brand new commander because the executive officer was in that the 10 knowbattalion. the morale was high and he installed a new commander. the police that were there were in formation and they were in uniform. all those reports we got that the place was overrun is not true and the morale of the soldiers out there, knowing they had taken over was something to be seen. the month of february, there were 35 attacks on nangalam. there has been three attacks since march. a lot of the attacks, that

catalyze them to get them going. a lot of the insurgent propaganda is many of those places are in those isolated mountain regions have been taken over, that is not the case. >> i want to get back to reintegration. this sort of flows, the volume of integration has not been what the u.s. and the coalition partners had hoped. it is still fairly slow. i am interesting to hear from you why you think that might be the case and also, are there any areas geographically or results- wise were you see some backsliding in rc east in the past year and what is being done to address that?

>> ok. i could not quite understand the first part. i got the second part if there are places i think we've backslid. i have to ask you to repeat the first part. i can talk about security first. in regional command east, 14 different provinces, there are 160 districts. 21 of those 45 are where we have applied most of our resources and we cannot be in 160 of those districts nor are the afghans. in many places, they have a small contingent of police. over the course of the year as far as security, what we're tracking is in 60 of those districts, the security level has gone much better as we assess those and there is a handful where the security level has accepted.

60 have gone up and we thought that is good. many of those we do not make assessments in because we're not there and we do not have a good afghan presence. these are in the mountains west of where we do not have forces and there is not a lot of population. if you go back to the pesh river valley, we're talking about the counterinsurgency. if you take a look at those provinces, in -- there is a million plus in rc east. not a big population and we do not get good assessments when we do not have a population. in the security realm, a little lower in the 35440 districts. it has gone up everywhere we

have applied the resources that we have seen improvement. i did not get the first part of your question. >> the first part was about reintegration of local -- a lower level fighters. what do you think about the fact there has not been more willing down arms and rejoining society or turning around? >> a couple different reasons. the number one reason is that they are tired of fighting. the pressure that the afghan forces and the coalition forces continue to keep on them will force them to reintegrate. they will say i can sit out here in the middle of some valley and try to attack or get reunited with my family and come back to afghanistan. the leaders that are telling me to attack are not here, they are in pakistan.

they are taking a hard look and saying, why am i doing this? as we're able to get messages out there and show them the benefits of camp -- coming back in underneath the government of afghanistan, reuniting with families, they are tired of fighting. we should make -- the pressure that the forces keep on the insurgents is a great deal about making the one to reintegrate. >> i was wondering if you had a sense of why there are not more fighters reintegrating then you already have. how can you -- can you quantify how many have reintegrated? why do you think those who have not are staying back? >> we can get you the exact numbers that we're tracking.

i do not have that here. it is in the neighborhood of 500 plus. we have had about 30 or 40 in the last week as we continue to get the message out through the governors and sub-governors. the benefits of coming back and reuniting with family, having a job, living a normal life not on the run. the coalition -- knowing the coalition will not strike you with a bomb. that is not a good way of life and the people are living in the villages are starting to see a better way of life and better hope and they want to be part of that, so they want to reintegrate. the number probably is larger but again, there is a formal and informal way to do this. a formal reintegration works, it is a bureaucratic process that we are working through. they are implementing that and

making a better. the informal peace, we will not know it is happening. we are depending on the governors and sub-governors to keep this in the loop. many of the governors will tell me, i have a phone call from this insurgent and as leader of this group, he wants to bring in 25 people and they will work in their own time and that is in formal reintegration. those numbers are greater than what you are seeing out there in the press but we have to continue and it will continue to get more and more as they see that the credibility and the capacity of the afghan security forces continues to grow. they will see that life of running and hiding is not the way to go. 99.9999% of the afghan people what the same thing. they want them to have our roof over their head and they want to

know where their next meal is coming from and what their kids to go to school and the future is with the free afghanistan, not with insurgents. >> there was supposed to be a close personal relationship between mullah omar and bin laden. now that has -- now that bin laden has been removed, secretary gates includimplied te might be an impact on the insurgency itself and the way that the attacks will go. >> i heard secretary gates say that as well. i would concur. -- not talked to mu talked to him and if i was him, i would encourage the taliban to

it -- to reintegrate. sometime that will happen and president karzai is reaching out and mullah omar is saying -- seeing what the coalition says, we will hunt you down. you will see that reintegration is the right future and as secretary gates said, it is a potential game changer. potential game changer. >> this -- i was wondering if you could clarify something you said earlier. you said bin laden's death would not end the war. you said the death of one man does not mean the end of this war and you said it could lead to potential in terms of reconciliation.

can you help me understand how much will reconciliation be driven by the death of bin laden? what kind of timeline are looking at? -- are we looking at? >> i do not know. i cannot answer that question. i think we are going to continue to keep the pressure on. the operations that were conducted throughout the offensive operations, of we're keeping pressure on the insurgents and we will continue to protect the population of afghanistan and insurgents are finding out -- will find out this is not the way they want to go forward. the death of bin laden will cause some of them to think twice and there will say why am i still doing this. in the last week or so, we have seen some reintegration in two of my provinces. i cannot tell you if that is

because of the death of bin laden or not. it is hard for me to give you a time on that. that is out of my lane. i have this gut feeling, a lot of people do in afghanistan that this was the number one guy for al qaeda. a lot of people have this symbiotic relationship with al- qaeda. it will think twice. why is he over in pakistan, why is he in pakistan while i am suffering here and the leadership of haqqani is doing the same thing. there are many insurgent groups inside afghanistan and pakistan that are fighting, the security forces fighting the afghan people. i believe we live in the most dangerous times of our life and al qaeda has shown that. since our forces have been here, we have not had another 9/11 and we have to continue to press that fact. >> another question about the

haqqani network. you have said how they represent the toughest elements. can you talk more about how that specific threat has changed and when you get ready to leave, are you going to be satisfied personally with the level in which our troops have been able to degrade that threat over the past year and what metrics have you used to analyze that? >> thank you for the question. haqqani is the most lethal threat to afghanistan at least in regional command east. they have sanctuary in pakistan and they come across the border and killed coalition and innocent women and children. they are well funded. they have the ability to regenerate. we have killed many haqqani. when the mass as the dead last october, we feel like we killed 90 out of 110 or 120.

we continue to kill haqqani. we have taken out a lot of the low and the mid-level leadership. they have this ability to regenerate fighters. haqqani will not reintegrate. my gut feeling tells me that now. we have to continue to keep the pressure on. along the border with the have been trying to do is expand their influence. they have been predominantly in two provinces and trying to come up through nangahar. they are in kabul all we down to the borders. the number of attacks in kabul has gone down and the lethal attacks have gone down and that is a great credit for afghan partners. since june, over 4000 insurgents have been taken off the battlefield in regional command

aes. killed, captured, or detained. many have been haqqani and we have disrupted that haqqani have disrupted that haqqani network and that is in -- with our special operating forces. they continue to go out and go after the haqqani network. we feel very good about the progress we have made and we have to continue to do it. we will need some help from pakistan and they are doing a lot more. 18 months ago, 30,000 people on the border and now they have 140,000 on the border. they continue that fight and that is where we have to continue to work with our counterparts to build that trust and fight this common enemy that is killing innocent women and children in afghanistan and pakistan. >> i was wondering what the current estimates in terms of

foreign fighters are in afghanistan and if you have seen a flood of foreign fighters since bin laden's killing. did you change your posture to catch them as they came back across the border? >> thanks for the question. along the border, we have gone to an increased posture in the april timeframe and when the taliban announced a campaign. we are -- have operations and we stayed on the offensive and we think that is the best way to be defensive is to stay on the offenses against the -- offensive against the insurgency. i will tell you over the course of the year if i was to put a guesstimate, 80% are from

afghanistan and there is a 15% to 20% number. i do not think that has gone up or down. we do continue to get reports that we're able to get detainees and talk to them and find out, they will give us information on foreign fighters. haqqani does bring in foreign fighters many then -- manmore often. i have not seen a big increase with the death of bin laden. >> thank you. uestion is you are there because of 9/11 and that happened because of osama bin laden. now he is gone and i am sure your unit, including president

karzai, he blamed the pakistan days, they were hiding him inside pakistan and the have been misleading the u.s. for the last 10 years and he was there in their backyard. i am sure as far as the taliban and al qaeda is concerned, who are coming across the border into afghanistan, you think there will be a reduction because their commander is gone. has their back been broken by his death? >> i think you asked me, the i think the back is broken because bin laden is dead and we will bin laden is dead and we will see they would will stop coming back and forth across the border. since the death, we have not seen an uptick or search in initiated attacks in regional command fees. i have not seen a big increase across the border.

the border incursions have continued -- although there may be more in numbers just like it has in regional command these. the number of attacks or significant activities have gone up 21% but the effectiveness has come -- gone down 28%. the afghan counterpart get better and we have more forces and we think that is very good. i do not think it is because of his death. that will have an impact for some people not to come across and it is not too early to tell but in the short term, we have not seen a significant increase coming across the border based on bin laden's death. >> a quick follow. what message do you have, what kind of help you need? what can they do now after his death? death?