has evolved over time, citing this war on terrorism since 9/11 on developing the legal standards in which they can use these techniques and how they cannot use them. host: what do you most eager to find from the osama bin laden trove of information? guest: i think there are a lot of things we are looking for. at the top of the list, i think there are two things. one is information about other current plots. we have already heard that notional plots have been found on these computer drives. the second thing is the location of the person who is now believed to be in charge of al- qaeda and other senior leaders. host: matthew levitt with the washington institute for near east policy where he is the director of counterterrorism and intelligence. thank you for joining us this

morning. we are going to now to the house floor where representatives are getting in session for morning speeches. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] pursuant to the order of the house of january 5, 2011, the chair will now recognize members from the list submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties, each party limited to one hour, and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and minority whip limited to five minutes. but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson, for two minutes.

mr. thompson: thank you, madam speaker. yesterday i joined members of the pennsylvania state legislature, gun owners, sportsmen, and president of the n.r.a. as the president -- at the pennsylvania state capitol in support of our second amendment rights. i appreciate their deep belief in freedom and protecting the second amendment that guarantees our citizens the right to own and bare arms. our second amendment is this country's -- bear arms. this second amendment is our original homeland security. where this amendment is freel exercised without government infringement, our citizens live with freedom with the deterrent to haven't crimes. sadly they are under attack. most recently the fast and furious scandal perpetuated by the united states bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives that approved if he loanous gun sails directing thousands to be smuggled into mexico as part of a sting operation. these actions contributed to the death of a u.s. border

agent. and perpetuate the lie that u.s. gun dealers supply the bulk of guns to criminal elements in excould he. as elected representatives, it is our duty to respect and defend the freedoms that our constitution guarantees. those of the bureau alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives that engineered this dangerous strategy that took a life and threatens our freedoms must be held accountable. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from california, ms. woolsey, for five minutes. ms. woolsey: thank you very much, madam speaker. madam speaker, the successful raid on osama bin laden east hide away 10 days ago came with an important and somewhat ironic reminder. this mission was carried out in pakistan where we are not at war, and have no troop presence. meanwhile, next door in afghanistan, we continue to maintain an enormous military footprint of 100,000 or more

troops. we are still there even though osama bin laden hasn't been there since he escaped our grasp at tora bora nearly 10 years ago and most of the al qaeda leadership fled long, long ago. the death of bin laden clearly underscores the folly of our current policy. this is exactly the right moment to rethink our approach to afghanistan and national security more generally, especially with the president's deadline to -- for redeployment just 50 days from now in july. unfortunately, madam speaker, our military leaders don't seem to be rising to the moment. according to yesterday's "wall street journal," officers in afghanistan have drawn up a plan that would withdraw 5,000 troops by july 1, and 5,000 more by the end of this year. madam speaker, that's not even close to an adequate response

to the demands of the moment. it's not the bold move that was suggested when the july 1, 2011 drawdown date was first announced. 10,000 fewer troops by the end of the year doesn't even get us to pre-surge levels. we owe it to the american people to do much, much more. they have sacrificed enough. what do we have to show for the 1 "500-plus people we have lost an the nearly $7 billion a month we continue to throw at this mission? if anything, we have emboldened the terrorists instead of defeating them. if anything, we have undermined our national security interest instead of advancing them. if anything, we weaken america instead of strengthening it. america sees that osama bin laden is dead. that the military occupation of afghanistan isn't accomplishing

its goals. that we have urgent priorities right here at home and they are quite rightly asking why do we still have boots on the ground in afghanistan? we also owe it to the men and women who wear those boots to end this war. our troops have served with honor and valor in afghanistan. a deeply flawed and morally objectionable policy is not their fault, but they are bearing the untold burdens that will not be easily lifted. earlier this week "usa today" reported on new military study showing troops' morale is at an all time low. thanks to the punishing emotional, and psychological strain of multiple deployments and intense combat. the percentage of army soldiers reporting acute stress has nearly tripled since the year 2005. even if the war ended tomorrow,

madam speaker, the anxiety and trauma plaguing so many of our troops won't go away any time soon, if ever. but it's time to let the physical and mental health healing begin. it's time to stop sending our best and our bravest into this grinder. we have asked enough of them. madam speaker,. -- madam speaker, i think of no the better way to support our troops than to bring them home immediately. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the chair will receive a message. the messenger: madam speaker, a message from the senate. the secretary: madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: madam secretary. the secretary: i have been directed by the senate to inform the house that the senate agreed to s.con.res. 16, authorizing the use of emancipation hall in the capitol visitor center for an event to celebrate the birthday of king kamehameha which the concurrence of the house is requested.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia, mr. hurt. mr. hurt:00 thank you -- mr. hurt: thank you, madam speaker. madam speaker, all across virginia's fifth district people are suffering from skyrocketing fuel prices. as i have heard from families and small businesses and farmers who are seeing a vegive impact on their bottom -- negative impact on their bottom lines, we need to take action now if we are going to address this serious problem of skyrocketing fuel prices. instead of supporting policies that will help bring down the cost of gas, the obama administration continues to actively block and delay domestic energy production causing more pain at the pump, increasing our dependence on foreign oil, and destroying jobs. you only have to look at our soaring energy costs to see the consequences of these failed policies. gas prices have doubled under the president's watch and now hovering around $4 per gallon in virginia. as these rising prices continue to directly affect all central

and south side virginians and threaten our economic recovery, i believe we must take action now to address this crisis. last week the house passed a bill that would expand american energy production and create jobs by reopening the oil exploration in the gulf of mexico and off the coast of virginia. that has been delayed or canceled by the obama administration. it is estimated that offshore energy development in virginia which has bipartisan support could lead to the production of more than half a billion barrels of oil and 2.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and create nearly 2,000 jobs for our state. and at a time like this, there is no reason to leave these resources untouched when it will help provide relief to all americans. this week we are continuing our work to maximize american energy production by considering two bills that will end the white house's de facto moratorium on no american offshore energy production in a safe, responsible, and transparent manner. by reversing the administration's anti-energy policies and tapping into these resources to maximize our

domestic energy supply, we will take a significant step towards lowering gas prices, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and creating thousands of jobs for the commonwealth and our nation. i urge the support of h.r. 1229 and h.r. 1231 and hope that the senate and administration will join us in our efforts to move towards achieving true energy independence by approving all three energy bills the house of representatives has considered thus far. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. altmire, for five minutes. mr. altmire: madam speaker, i rise today in support of legislation i introduced to encourage the development of a vital component to the next generation of nuclear reactors that will provide clean, domestic energy solutions for all americans. the department of energy initiated the nuclear power 2010 program in february, 2002, as a joint public-private

program to develop advanced reactor technologies and encourage the private sector to build new nuclear power plants in the united states. my legislation, the nuclear power 2021 act, applies the nuclear power 2010 model to small modular reactors. under the bill, department of energy would be able to enter into public-private partnerships to design and license two small modular reactors by the year 2021. as my colleagues may know, today's traditional larger reactors range from 1,000 to 1,700 megawatts and cost between $5 billion and $10 billion to construct. in contrast, small modular reactors generate 10 to 300 megawatts and cost about $750 million to construct. these small reactors offer several advantages to large reactors in certain situations, including shorter construction times, increased safety controls, and elech

terroristity generation. while large reactors are built on a future generation site, a process that can take up to five years, smaller reactors can be manufactured in modular pieces in factories and transported by rail or truck cutting construction times in half. small reactors can also be completely manufactured and fueled in a factory. they can be sealed and shipped to the site for power generation, and after use, they can be shipped back to the factory for defueling, minimizing the potential spread of nuclear material. additionally, small modular reactors produce a small nuclear reaction which generates less heat, making them easier to shut down in the event of a malfunction. another advantage of small modular reactors is that unlike large reactors they can generate power in any location, while large reactors require millions of gallons of water per day for cooling and us be

located near large water sources, small reactors can be water cooled or air cooled. this technology could open up new parts of the country to nuclear development such as the arid west and location that is cannot support larger capacity generation, such as isolated rural areas, or regions with smaller grids. unfortunately, development and deployment of new nuclear reactor technologies can currently take upwards of two decades. time and resources are limited for the nuclear regulatory commission to develop the institutional capacity to license new reactor designs and traditional public-private partnerships are often insufficient to mitigate the business risk of bringing small modular reactors to market. this is why i believe this legislation is crucial for developing this all american technology that could help us lead the world in electricity, innovation, and generation. i encourage my colleagues to

join me in making america more energy independent, creating good-paying american jobs and working towards the future of clean energy generation by co-spovensoring the nuclear power 2021 act. -- co-sponsoring the nuclear power 2021 act. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. woodall, for five minutes. mr. woodall: thank you, madam speaker. i'm glad to be able to take the floor after the member from pennsylvania, mr. altmire, talking about energy. because it's something that's on everybody's mind today. he's talking about nuclear energy, and he concluded with the remarks, what can we do to find american made energy solutions? what can we do to find american energy independence? what can we do to provide good-paying american jobs? folks, those things are all thought, there is not a product we produce in this country that does not have an energy component to it. we have to access that energy to have access to jobs and that's why i'm so proud that in

the last week, beginning of this week, that's what we are focused on here on the house floor. what request we do to find those domestic energy solutions? there aren't going to be as many folks here, madam speaker, as i look around the gallery, who might have been alive in the 19670's, madam speaker. i think you and i were here then. we remember some of those gas lines. would you believe we bring less american oil to market today than we did in 1970? would you believe it's almost half? . we have been blessed in this country with domestic energy resources the likes of which no other country on the planet can claim. and yet we seem to be doing everything that we can to keep those resources in the ground and instead send precious american dollars overseas. often to folks who don't like us and would like to see our demise. folks, energy independence isn't

just a tag line. it isn't just about $4 prices at the pump. it's about national security. it's about what is our vision for the future of this country? is it a vision of dependency upon our enemies overseas or is it a vision of independence where we're bringing american resources out of the ground with american workers creating american capital? you know, it's not just drill, drill, drill. i'm a big believer, drill here, drill now. but that's not because we're not sensitive to what's happening in a changing energy environment across this planet. would you believe, for example, that in this country we use less energy per capita today, fewer b.t.u.'s today, than we did just five years ago, than we did 10 years ago, than we did 0 years ago, than we did 30 years ago? to say we need energy independence, to say that national security depends on getting our resources out of the ground is not to say that

conservation isn't a part of the model as well. it is. and we're doing it, we're doing it successfully and we should continue to do it. but we have to get our resources out of the ground. would you believe that as a percentage of the energy that we use in this country, that petroleum is in decline? each and every year we use less oil per capita than we used the year before but that doesn't mean that we don't still need to get american oil out of the ground. in fact, we are importing more oil today than we did just 10 years ago, than we did just 20 years ago. we have the resources here, we know of more oil that's in the ground in america today than we have ever known of before. and yet we choose to send our dollars overseas to import that energy instead. three bills we're working on here, madam speaker, and you know them well. h.r. 1229, putting the gulf of mexico back to work act. you can believe, madam speaker,

that in a time of record high gas prices that we have the second largest shallow water drilling operation in the country going out of business for lack of work? lack of work. oil prices headed back towards historic highs and american drillers are going out of business for lack of work. and it's not just the company, madam speaker, it is each and every one of the american men and women who work on those drill rigs who are out of work. because we can't get permits issued out of washington, d.c. putting the gulf of mexico back to work act, h.r. 12 -- act. h.r. 123 1, reversing president obama's offshore moratorium act. folks, we have these resources. we have this national security need, we have men and women who want to go to work with to solve that need and we won't let the permits out of washington, d.c. washington, d.c., has not been the solution here, washington, d.c., has been the problem.

folks, if what you want to say is we're going to pass a bill on this floor that's going to ban automobiles and we just won't use anymore gasoline, fair enough. if what you want to say is we're going to pass a bill that will ban plastic and say we're not going to produce anymore, fair enough. if you're going to pass a bill on this floor that says we're not going to produce anymore fertilizer in this country, who needs it? fair enough. but until you do, and i'd vote no on each and every one of those proposals, but until do you we need american oil and we need to get it out of the ground and we need to get it out of the ground now. madam speaker, i'm just tremendously grateful for the leadership you've shown in bringing these bills to the floor and i thank you for the time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from tennessee, mr. cohen, for five minutes. mr. cohen: thank you, madam speaker. i am representing the tennessee ninth congressional district which is memphis. memify has been in the news quite a bit these past few weeks for a bad reason, a flood.

the greatest flood since 1937 in the mississippi river. and it's been a massive flow of water across lands and into our downtown and other areas, but -- and it's affected a lot of people. i've turebbed -- toured the damage, there are at least 1,500 people whose homes have been lost, they're in settlers, they have lost to egs session -- shelters, they have lost possessions. but the federal government, through fema and the corps of engineers, are doing all they can to protect property and protect people and offer them shelter and food and because this is a disaster area, we'll be helping them get back on their feet once again. it's a tragedy for those people and a tragedy for a lot of other people up and down the river. but the fact is the city of memphis is open and open for business and most of the city of memphis is not affected by the flood. contrary to what you might see on the news, the entire city is not underwater. the business sections, most of

the city are totally dry and people are going to work, flying express planes all over the world to deliver packages, international paper and all the businesses that are there are fully operational. and our memphis grizzlies are still alive and playing tonight in the nba western finals and the people of memphis are filling the forum when they play and bringing the city together in the spirit that memphisans have come together for years. the city of memphis has had problems over the years. yellow fever epidemic in the 1870's almost destroyed the city but it didn't. the city came back and came back even stronger. the fascination of dr. martin luther king on the fourth of april, 1968, was an all of moment in our city's history and one we had to overcome but the city did and on that site, the lorraine motel, has been built a great civil rights moo museum.

like a phoenix from the ashes. telling the story of the civil rights movement and the movement out of slavery and out of jim crow and to an air where an african-american can and has been elected president to these united states. so the city of memphis and the people have an indam nabble spirit, they've come back from problems in the past and they will continue to do so. yesterday the city of memphis received great news when president obama announced that of all the schools that are applied in this nation to be recognized and be honored by his presence as a commencement speaker, that booker t. washington high school, a high schooled in the 1800, a jim crow school, an african-american school, which has con spectacularly well in academics, increased their graduation rate into the 8 percent aisle, bested the state on scores and improvement and shown innovation, was chosen as the

school in the country to have the president come to their graduation. and he will speak at the booker t. washington high school graduation next monday in memphis. it will be his first visit to memphis and the city of memphis has looked forward to his visit. i look forward to his visit and encourage the president to come to memifies a -- memphis. for those students and other students who need to have inspiration and hope, particularly at this time when there is a flood and many people have been dispossessed, it's so important that the president be there and give those students hope and encourage them to continue to make good grades and to lift themselves up. many of the students at booker t. washington came from -- lived in housing projects, homes which were recently demolished to make way for a hope vi project, the six -- for a hope project. those student sauce their homes destroyed but they've worked hard in their school and stayed at booker t. washington with high school and are honored by the president's visit.

they, like everybody else in memphis, cheer for the memphis grizzlies and the grizzlies' cheer towel is one that i bring you today. believe memphis, believe memphis has carried the grizzlies, an eight seeded team, to championship games, the city believes, the city is strong, we urge you to come to memphis, have some ribs, have some music and enjoy or hospitality. thank you, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from california, mrs. chu, for five minutes. ms. chu: thank you, madam chair. i rise today in celebration of the 60th anrers -- anniversary of the 1951 donential -- convention related to the status of refugees. the convention was historic in spelling out a set of basic human rights that should be afforded a refugee. it was initially directed toward european refugees in the aftermath of world war ii, but was expanded in 1967 to include

refugees from all around the world. the u.n. convention defines who a refugee is and outlines assistance that refugees should receive. it stil stipulates that refugees should not be returned to a country where they fear persecution. my district in california is home to a large and diverse refugee population who fled persecution from countries such as vietnam, cambosia and laos. in los angeles county they come from places as far as iran toal salvador. since arriving on our shores, many of the refugees have established themselves as civic leaders, small business owners and hardworking americans. some are working with resettlement agencies to help new refugee populations integrate, settle their families and restart their lives. the open arms with which our nation welcomes refugees from around the world reaffirms america's commitment to human rights and on the 60th anniversaries i look forward to

continuing the u.s. commitment to human rights through strengthening of our refugee resettlement programs. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from california, ms. speier, for five minutes. ms. speier: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to speak again about with race and sexual -- rape and sexual assault in the mill fare -- military. but first i want to recognize the role our military played in bringing osama bin laden to justice. taking down the world's most notorious man, someone responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent americans, is a tremendous accomplishment. our nation is so proud of the service of our members of the military. the news about killing osama bin laden is another remind that are the military service is one with of our nation's highest callingings. this is precisely why we cannot

as a country allow a few bad actors to besmirch the honor of the armed forces and we certainly cannot condone a system that is designed to protect the perpetrators and punish the survivors. just as the military sought justice for the victims of september 11 we must continue to seek justice for those who have served their country only to be raped or sexual assaulted by one of their own. as a reminder, the numbers are staggering. the department of defense has said that over 19,000, 19,000 members of the military were raped or sexually assaulted in 2010. those are the department of defense numbers. and only 13% of them actually report the assault. i made a pledge to share the victims' stories every week until congress and this administration does something more than offer lip service.

i recently set up an email account so survivors could share their stories with me. the address is stopmilitaryrape@mail.house.gov. again, stopmilitaryrape@mail.house.gov. today i want to share one of those emails. a service woman wrote, i endured over a year of harassment while stationed at in california. my class leader was a fleet returnee that referred to women by a number of derogatory names. he and two other men in the class would grope women. they would then publicly grope each other to prove that they were equal opportunity harassers. the class leader also would accuse women of being on the rag or he would ask us if our vagina hurt. what would happen if one of your colleagues asked you if your vagina hurt? and yet this is largely permitted in uniform. it is permitted with a culture of fear that would rival the prison experience or the tyranny of gang-infested neighborhoods.

i reported the behavior and the class leader was relieved of his duties. he was already on a suspended bus for sexual harassment. i then wass to are a sized for reporting bad behavior. this class leader told all the male students at this training center to make sure that whoever went to sea with me should make me pay. another petty officer deployed on a mission a month ahead of me, he told the ship that i was a feminist and a lesbian that got someone who was on a suspended bus into more trouble. while stationed aboard that ship, i was groped and harassed by my work center supervisor. when we went to sea, he would send everyone back to their bar backs -- barracks by saying he and i would finish up, then he would rape me. the ship sailed through the caribbean, we sailed through hurricanes and tropical storms off the coast of florida. i was put on consecutive watches

with this guy and he raped me most of the time we were on watch together. i did get some reprieve because in high seas he would get sea sick. once he got sick all over me while he was raping me. i tried to report this rape and harassment to my chain of command. my senior chief took me out and told me that the chain of command knew that i was a feminist and a democrat and if i said anything more about this, i would just be proving that i wanted to get the rapist in trouble. . i attempted suicide but backed out at the last minute. it still doesn't make sense. it doesn't make sense. i have received countless emails like this and will share them in the weeks ahead. i invite survivors to tell their stories. during a time of such tremendous pride for our military, we should commit ourselves to removing the stain of rape and sexual assault from the great institution once and

for all. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yield back the remainder of her time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. davis, for five minutes. mr. davis: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to recognize the institute for inclusion in the legal profession. lawyers serve and important role in our society and yet the legal profession like many others is in need of serious improvement in the diversity of its membership. there are a number of individuals and organizations who work to change that fact, and thanks to their efforts there has been progress. yet the legal profession which above all should stand for fairness and equality is still a long way from being open and welcoming to all. irrespective of individual characteristics and background. the institute for inclusion in the legal profession, a new group with the promising

approach to diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, was established in chicago, illinois, in september, 2009. the institute for inclusion in the legal profession is addressing the contrast between the increasingly diverse society in which we live and what certainly appears to be an entrenched lack of diversity and inclusion. the institute is working to improve diversity and promote inclusion through comprehensive outreach and innovative programs. for example, the institute asks hard questions and finds the answers to them. working with legal, judicial professional, educational, and governmental institutions the institute provides programs and tools to promoat equity in the legal field. -- promote equity in the legal field. they use a unique approach. it's comprehensive programs include lawyers, judges, and

law students to address all facets, all practice settings, and all types of diversity within the legal profession. beyond working to overcome the barriers facing diverse lawyers, it looks at the pipeline for new legal talent. this aspect is key. by helping diverse students become law students enter the legal profession and eventually become successful lawyers and judges, the profession will become more diverse and inclusive. a few examples of the work of the institute for inclusion in the legal profession include, a pledge to the profession where lawyers across the country are being asked to dedicate a minimum of one day of service to work with young people to educate them about the legal profession and encourage them to join it. professionalism and practice, a program where law students and judges learn from each other o about the profession -- other

about the profession, and in doing so about diversity and inclusion. the business case for diversity, a reality or wishful thinking program, a research project that provides the first hard data examining the impact of the business case for diversity and the state of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession which is an annual report and series of symposia designed to educate the bar about its current state , cutting-edge issues surrounding diversity and inclusion, and the most promising programs, efforts, and initiatives aimed at making entry into and success within the legal profession more accessible to all. the mission and work of the iilp is an important contribution to social justice in the united states. i consider it an honor to recognize the institute for inclusion in the legal profession and invite all members to join me in

recognizing them for the importance of their mission and the great work they are undertaking. i thank you, madam speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from texas, ms. jackson lee, for five minutes. ms. jackson lee: we have had a very challenging week, madam speaker, and i thank you for the time. it is a time of great patriotism and great respect for the institutions of democracy that this country represents. it is a statement that says that we will not be an offender but we will be a key fender -- defender. we'll defend our values, we'll defend our soil, we'll defend

the people of the united states. i serve on the homeland security committee as the dust was rising from the site of 9/11. when i traveled to new york, i walked along sidewalks where there were walls of letters and pictures of loved ones who had not been designated as being lost and people were trying to see if loved ones were in hospitals. i saw the pain. so the capturing and demise of osama bin laden is a finishing of an era and story. we are to commend the president of the united states, the naval seals, the intelligence communities, and the united states military and persons around this nation who are part of this great effort. but we live in a different world now. as the facts are unfolding in pakistan, as evidence as been

-- has been reviewed by the various tapes, we know that terrorism and al qaeda is an active entity around the world. the united states is not the only target. but we are and will continue to be in the eye of the storm. as we have heard representations from terrorists and leaders and wannabes about what they intend to do to retaliate, it is important for us to be responsible with the resources that we have. so for over a year i have introduced h.r. 71, the fans augmentation bill, federal air marshals, i call on the congress to work together to increase the number of air marshals on domestic flights, in long distance flights, and to increase the numbers of air marshals traveling on inbound flights to the united states. what more do we need? over the last couple of days

any series of incidences that have occurred and thanks to the brave passengers now aware since 9/11 and flight attendants for whom i have fought consistently to get more training, unarmed, obviously, and many without training, are now being confronted with individuals who are charged -- charging now, reinforced pilot doors, some going to the exit doors over the last four days. a series of incidents that no one knows whether or not they will stop. we know that some allegations have been that individuals are suffering from mental challenges. and we understand that. we also know that to date no one had a weapon so the transportation security administration is doing its job. but this is happening. that's what air marshals are for, to protect the traveling public, flying more than they

have ever flown. paying higher prices for bags and food. and now we expect them not to be safe and secure. it is time now to augment and to pass h.r. 71 and to increase the numbers of air marshals. now, we have an issue of a deficit and a debt. my question is as someone would say, are we going to be penny-wise and pound-foolish? are we going to not safeguard the american people because there happens to be the mantra on this side of the aisle, republicans, who don't want to spend a dime for anything. well, my friends, we have to invest in the american public. we've got to be able to build infrastructure and at the same time we've got to be responsible spenders. but i will tell you this. i will take spending for national security any day with bringing home the troops from afghanistan because that mission is complete. now we must vest in american people. and i'm angry about this that

we would be so cheap that we would not provide the resources to give us new and additional trained federal air marshals, many of whom come from the united states military, many of these soldiers coming home would make excellent air marshals. many coming from the u.s. marshal service and other law enforcement service. what is more precious than the mother and father and children and relatives that are traveling to visit loved ones or for business and they are coming home to the united states and they are putting them in jeopardy because we do not have the air marshals to protect them against these unknown threats. so my challenge said is, stop being cheap. some being nickel and diming security. stop not understanding that we have the responsibility to go ahead and secure the american public. today i call for more air marshals on the nation's airplanes and i call for it now. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. ms. jackson lee: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from puerto rico, mr. pierre

luisy, for five minutes. mr. pierluisi: the united states stands at a crossroads, responsible leaders recognize that a bipartisan fiscal strategy must be crafted to reduce deficits. a deal would require courts on the part of its proponents because each revenue raiser and spending cut is bound to trigger opposition. unless officials can persuade voters that sacrifice and self-restraint now are essential for stability and strength later, a deal will not happen. even with public buying, leaders must be ready to take action despite the political perils and be prepared to place the national interest above their personal interest in re-election. it will not be easy, but it must be done. for officials in washington who are in search of a combat story, i suggest the case of puerto rico. in january, 2009, the u.s.

territory stood on the brink of disaster. the new government had inherited a deficit of $3.3 billion. as a percentage of revenue this was the largest deficit of any u.s. jurisdiction. the new administration was even forced to take a loan to meet its first payroll. major rating agencies have downgraded puerto rico's credit to near junk status. simply put, the island's economy was about to implode. leaders in san juan faced a stark choice. like their predecessors they could usher puerto rico down this unsustainable path, paralyzed by the fire that tough choices would antagonize voters. or they could play their responsibility to protect puerto rico's future above their desire to preserve their poll numbers. fortunately for puerto rico, the new leadership chose the right course, for two-plus years governor fortuno and the

island's legislature have taken decisive action to impose fiscal discipline and create a leaner, more responsive government. they have cut government spending by nearly 20%. sharply reducing the deficit as a percentage of revenue. indeed, by this metric the island has moved from last in the nation to a fiscal position that is better than 30 states. the rating agencies have rewarded puerto rico's progress with moody's giving the island its highest rating in 35 years. to achieve savings, the government cut expenses and political appointments and was compelled to reduce its payroll. in my experience, rational leaders do not lay off workers because they think this will play to their political advantage. to the contrary few actions are likely to arouse greater public displeasure. after all work does more than put bread on the family table, it gives men and women dignity and sense of purpose. but the government of puerto rico's actions were absolutely

necessary and were taken despite serious political risks. measures were taken to cushion the blow for those workers who were let go and layoffs did not include teachers or first responders. and more importantly, the government's actions prevented an economic disaster which would have resulted in far greater suffering and job loss. it is important to emphasize that these decisions were not partisan. governor fortuno is a republican and i as puerto rico's only representative in congress am a proud democrat. and i supported his policies. to the island legislators who voted to advance this agenda are affiliated with both national parties. unlike in some states, puerto rico's leaders did not political size the funding which served as a lifeline for the island. rather they have worked to put every dollar to good use. so for leaders in washington who say it will be impossible

to achieve bipartisanship in the budget debate, the case of puerto rico should provide a measure of hope. as it nurses its economy back to health, the puerto rico government is also advancing a long-term pro-growth strategy. for example, the government has reduced individual and corporate tax rates and ensured everyone -- that everyone contributes their fair share. boosted sales of housing and commercial properties through tax and other incentives, and worked to address puerto rico's high energy costs and dependence on foreign oil, including through the development of a natural gas pipeline that will create thousands of jobs, lower carbon emissions, and significantly reduce energy bills for individuals and companies on the island. in closing, puerto rico's leadership has proven that it is possible to work across party lines to control spending and create growth. i urge my colleagues in this chamber to work in this same spirit and to setaside partisan

differences to secure the long-term fiscal health of the country we love. i yield back the balance of my time, madam speaker. . the speaker pro tempore: purr superintendent to clause 12-a of -- pursuant to clause 12-a of >> the who is is now at recess. they'll return at noon eastern for legislative business. they'll wrap up work on a bill dealing with offshore drilling permits which members began work on last week. they'll also begin work on a bill calling for expanded oil drilling in the outer continental shelf and set a national goal for oil and gas production. live coverage when the house returns at noon here on c-span. meanwhile, the c.e.o.'s of at&t and t mole are on capitol hill today to face their first congressional hearing on the proposed merger of the two giant wireless companies. they are testifying before the senate antitrust judiciary trust

subcommittee. it's just gotten under way and we'll privilege you live coverage here on c-span. >> i am here because like all americans sprint has a stake in the impact this acquisition would have on an industry that has prospered on competition and innovation. the very elements this transaction threatens. sprint was born out of competition. we operate in an open, competitive environment where innovation thrives and technology -- technological advances expand rapidly. an open, competitive environment benefits my company but also every person who owns a wireless device. the competitive environment has driven tremendous growth that took 100 years to build a billion fixed phone line, been only 20 to add five billion mobile subscribers. at the end of 2010 there were over 302 wireless subscriptions in the united states, representing about 96% of the u.s. population. robust competition is driving prices down and quality up. so much so that as of june 30,

2010, 1/4 of all adults live in wireless only homes. the impact of wireless competition on our economy has been profoundly positive. in 2010 the wireless industry accounted for nearly $160 billion in revenue, approximately $25 billion in capital investment and employed directly or indirectly will 1.6 million americans. if the industry remains competitive, productivity gains over the next 10 years will announce almost $86 billion in additional g.d.p. creating an entrenched integrated duopoly will reverse this progress and stifle the vibrancy of the wireless industry. in the mid 1990's, congress and the f.c.c. opened the duopoly to competition and the firms that became sprint and t mobile entered. and competition then began to make a noticeable interest. at&t's acquisition to turn back the clock on wireless competition. it would as the title of this

hearing suggests, put ma bell back together again. let's examine what the twin bells would control in a duopolistic world. two companies would control over 80% of the customers and 88% of all wireless industry profits. two companies would control most of our nation's fast wireline infrastructure and the critical last mile that sprint and the rest of the industry need to provide affordable rates and quality service. with control of nearly 80% of the market, the twin bells could discourage device manufacturers from partnering with anyone else for the next generation of smart phones. two companies would largely control industry pricing. by controlling about 80% of the market, the twin bells would have significant unchecked leverage to increase prices for voice and data. today sprint and t mobile apply downward pressure to pricing, but with this deal that measure will diminish. the regional providers at&t refers to as competition have less than 5% of the total post

subscribers. but beyond what the bells would control this acquisition does very little to provide the benefits at&t claims. consider, even without this transaction, at&t has the largest licensed spectrum holdings of any wireless carrier in this country. rather than building out spectrum, at&t is wear housing it. verizon which has more subscribers and less spectrum than at&t just weeksing a stated it had sufficient spectrum to meet its needs until 2015. t mobile by contract is using its spectrum heavily in the same high demand areas in which at&t claims to need capacity. at&t doesn't use the spectrum it has and adding t mobile spectrum wouldn't give at&t the relief it claims to need. at&t already has the spectrum, reach, and reefer sosses it needs to serve rural america. adding t mobile extends at&t's

reach to only 1% more of the u.s. population. the wireless industry thrives on competition which in turn drives investment, innovation, consumer choice, job creation, and u.s. global leadership in communications. if at&t is permitted to devour one of the two remaining independent wireless carriers while the rest of the world achieves advances in technology and innovation for the 21st century, the united states could go backwards to last century's massachusetts bell. i respect -- ma bell. i respect them, they are doing their jobs. unfortunately there are only three beneficiaries of the proposed transaction, the shareholders of at&t, verizon, and the sole shareholder of t mobile u.s.a. the fundamental problems cannot be fixed with the conditions. in short this merger is unfeasible. the only remedy that can preserve competition is a vibrant wireless market. and we ask you to just say no to

this takeover. thank you for holding this hearing today. we urge the department of justice and f.c.c. to say no to the irreparable harm to competition, innovation, and u.s. economy that could result from this merger. i thank you for your time and am prepared to answer your questions. >> thank you. now we'll turn to mr. mina. a good morning, mr. chairman, ranking member lee. thank you for inviting me to be here today. i have been in this industry for over 23 years and with a lot of help have literally built our company from the ground up. the u.s. wireless industry is at a pivotal point and policymakers will determine the fate of the industry with their decision on whether to approve at&t's acquisition of t-mobile. over the past several weeks we have carefully reviewed this proposed takeover. we can find nothing good about it. it's bad for consumers, it's bad for jobs, it's bad for competition. if regulators approve this acquisition, all that remains is the end game where the remaining

nonbell carriers patiently wait their turn to be acquired or bled dry by the biggest two carriers. when i began this business in the late 1980's, there was a local duopoly in every market. it meant that consumers had two choices for wireless service. this also meant the carriers virtually had no market incentive to innovate for improve service official, therefore this era is remembered as one of large brick phones and even larger customer bills. in a duopoly the market can quickly reach equilibrium. and if those providers are reasonably happy with their positions, that's how things will stay. but by the end of the late 1990's, as dan referred to earlier, the u.s. wireless industry began to awaken when a new group of competitive carriers entered this market with p.c.s. networks and

launched the competitive era. because competition was important to congress at that time, the f.c.c. auctioned p.c.s. licenses to new entrants who built networks, attracted customers, and just generally disrupted established markets. suddenly local duopolies were forced to respond to competitors with lower prices for service and phones, new coverage areas, better customer service, and more innovative official. in order to acquire and retain customers, cellular south had to get created. we did several things that were groundbreaking at the time such as free nights and weekends, free incoming calls, after that unlimited calling. we didn't do these things before because we didn't have to in the era of local duopolies. in its competitive era it was hard work to stay ahead of competition but those that worked the hardest and were the most innovative were the one that is were rewarded. unfortunately all that started to change in the middle of the

last decade. it was around that time that we began to see humpty-dumpty being pieced together again. through unfettered mergers and acquisitions it was only a matter of time before the former ma bell reconstituted herself into two bell sisters of the wireless industry, at&t and verizon. not surprisingly the concentration of market power has led to less choice for consumers and routine apuce of market power in an effort to prevent market competition. at&t has done just that via exclusive bills on hand sets that chairman cole referred to earlier, and also by withholding rolling agreements and by leveraging its control over device and infrastructure vendors to the new spectrum. this is only possible because regulators were asleep at the wheel for much of the last decade. so now we are at a decision point. as everyone in the industry

analyzes, every aspect of this acquisition, policymakers have this question before them, are we entering the era of the nationwide duopoly? or are we going to provide a landscape which a second competitive era might blossom? there is no third option. either at&t will be allowed to acquire t-mobile paving the way for verizon to acquire sprint. putting a national duopoly in place or will it not? if this acquisition is approved, policymakers must begin preparations to regulate every aspect of the day-to-day business of the uedop polices. in -- duopolieses. in a nutshell that's why this acquisition must be denied and that's why it's in the best interest to chart a new course. fate of this acquisition determines the course of our industry. it's as simple and critical as that. but in closing the very good news is that this takeover can be stopped.

and you can lay the foundation for a new era of wireless competition, anna where jobs are created throughout the land. a truly competitive era, when a wide variety of creative minds are stimulated to deliver affordable broadband wireless networks, high quality, high speed networks, with the ubiquity the people of our nation deserve and demand. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. meena. >> chairman cole, ranking member lee, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. i'd like to set the tone for my remarks with a brief video.

[inaudible] >> that commercial illustrates the situation we have today. a vibrant national market in which four companies feel free to self-consumers high-tech services while making fun of their competitors. however if the merger of at&t and t-mobile comes to pass, the wireless market will be transformed to something quite different. we will go back to the days when this phone was in use. only two companies ruled the cellular phone market resulting in high prices for consumers and little innovation. in 1993, a year after this phone came to market, congress created the wireless market we now enjoy by empowering the f.c.c. to auction spectrum and create more competition. that policy worked. prices dropped. innovation exploded. consumers benefited. over the years industry

consolidation has gradually eroded that competition. but if this deal goes through, that era of competition and innovation will come to an end. consumers know this already. almost 5,000 individuals have written to the f.c.c. in their own wordsle to the combination of the number two and number four wireless carriers. t-mobile customers are irate. a poll, a blue dog for t-mobile customers, shows that 77%, or about 7,300 consumers are opposed to the deal after just a couple of days. after the deal was announced people emailed and called public knowledge unsolicited asking what they can do to stop the transaction from going forward. more than 1,000 people have signed our petition. these are not astroturf campaigns. these are real americans seeking to preserve competition in a lower price competitor that rates far higher than at&t in customer satisfaction. if this merger is approved, two integrated companies will control nearly 80% of the market.

sprint will have 16% and instantly became a takeover target. we should not go back to the future, back to duopoly. worse than duopoly is monoppli which is what would happen to g.s.m. based wireless services. g.s.m. han set manufacturers would be forced to negotiate with one national company, the new at&t and t. application developers would be subject to a limited noncompetitive market. remember that while t mobile was the first carrier to sell devices using the open android operating system, at&t has a history of blocking innovative applications. i cannot stress enough that each of the benefits of this merger can be accomplished without removing a low-cost innovative competitor. if at&t is concerned about special capacity, it can stop operation ating three different types of networks, an he inefficient system which results in 70% to 90% of its spectrum being under used. completely unused is 1/3 of the spectrum in the top 21 markets.

allowing at&t to buy t-mobile and upgrading the 4-g services would reward at&t for failing town vest adequately. . if at&t wants to bring service to rural areas, it is free to do so and it can do so now without any constraint. there are no spectrum shortages in rural america. at&t is planning to spend $39 million on this merger. money that could instead be spent investing this network and bringing better service to more americans. if at&t wants to create jobs, it can do so without buying out a low cost competitor. one would be hard pressed to find a merger that resulted in job growth that one will be no different as thousands of workers in retail store, call centers and sales staff will be let go. this transaction's a pivotal moment in u.s. antitrust law. if that law means anything this classic merger of one company buying out a smaller competitor in the same business must be denied. there are no conditions that can make this deal acceptable.

this merger is unfixable. i urge the members of the subcommittee to oppose this merger after reviewing the facts. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much, ms. sohn. >> good morning. i am larry cohen, president of the communication workers of america, i represent hundreds of thousands of workers in both the network and content sides of this industry. we look forward to this review, both by the congress, the f.c.c., the department of justice, but at the end of these inquiries weble there are three key points. first, that this merger represents an opportunity for this country really to accelerate high speed broadband deployment. second, that the transaction with conditions can positively impact consumers and, third, that absolutely there's a

record here that with the right conditions it lynn crease jobs both directly -- it will increase jobs both directly in the surviving company and in the key economic development that it can bring to rural america. four years ago c.b.a. launched our speed matters campaign to highlight of importance of high speed broadband for our nation's future. high speed internet is esex to job creation, the quality of our lives. distance learn ofing and smart grids have enormous potential, that they will remain beyond the grass of tens of millions of americans unless we are able to accelerate the development of true high speed wired and wireless broadband networks. and i think critically look at the global perspective. the u.s. has fallen behind 25 other countries including romania in the capacity of our broadband networks. the president highlighted this in the state of union but we have no path whatsoever to closing this gap. our view is that this merger with conditions and with the

commitments made by t-mobile and at&t is a critical way to bridge this gap that exists in terms of the u.s. versus the rest of the world, critical for rural america, critical for economic development. as you have heard at&t commits to deploying next generation wireless which is 4-g which is 10 megs downstream. at a particular point, and again these would need to be in the commitments, in the conditions, to 97% of the population within the next five years. this is noteworthy because today only the 20% of u.s. broadband subscribers, we don't have two different industries, it's about data speed and we saw that even today with microsoft's announcement to spend $8.5 billion to buy skype. we like to exart mentalize this industry, that's not the way consumers view it. it can be data over cable, data over wireless, data over wire line, sprint is a major investor in. and again the affects of this merger are specific, especially

significant for rural americans, most of whom are on the wrong side of the digital divide. we need maps, we need years, we need investments we need speeds, those are can all be conditions of this merger. the real question this transaction poses is not whether t-mobile will survive as an independent competitor. they do not -- they cannot be forced to make the investments to 4-g. it is the global standard. and the untold story here really is whether sprint or at&t acquires the company. and with all due respect to my colleague and friend, this is an open and shut case. and at&t will commit and is conditioned of this merger -- and if conditions can be applied on the merger that absolutely provide for when investment will be made, what the speeds will be, what pricing will be within range, etc. that's an opportunity this country cannot afford to miss, we are falling woefully behind in the global economy, partially because of these infrastructure needs.

so at&t has the financial resources to deploy 4-g, sprint does not, sprint has committed to three different incompatible technologies including the clear wire wiremax investment and they're already, you know, beyond their own reach. and this case, as you've heard, at&t and t-mobile have similar and compatible technologies, those g.s.m., sprint does not, they have three other technologies. and finally this merger is good for u.s. workers. our experience in these mergers that form today, at&t mobility is that not in a single case have workers lost their jobs and we believe the conditions can be applied to this merger and the f.c.c. did it in the bell south merger where not only was there no loss of employment, there was renewed investment, renewed commitment to the rural south and the bell south case, it was good fork workers, it was good for those communities -- good for those workers, it was good for those communities.

we think similar conditions need to be in this merge when are it is approved. in the long-term the expansion of at&t's 4-g l.p. network with holds the potential to create thousands of new jobs both in this industry and in the rural communities. thank you. >> thank you. we'll now start a round of questions at seven minutes per senator. one of the major concerns arising out this -- out of this merger is what it will mean for prices that consumers pay for service. you seek to acquire one of your three national cell phone competitors, reducing consumers' choice from four to three. in addition t-mobile has been a price leader in many case undercutting prices offered by your company, verizon and sprint. for example, t-mobile right now offers an unlimited voice, text and data plan for $35 less than the comparable plan of your company. so why is it not logical to assume that the loss of

t-mobile from the national cell phone market will cause competition to erode and prices to increase? >> i will restate just briefly what i said in my opening comments and that is that this is unequivocally one of the most competitive industries in the u.s. today and in terms of wireless industries around the globe, probably the most competitive around the globe and one of the best ways to evaluate that is obviously looking at pricing, to your question. and if you look at just the last 10 years in this industry, there has been a number of consolidations, dance company conscious -- dan's company has participated in some, irrespective of that, over this 10-year time horizon, the industry has come down by 50%. if you take a snapshot of the last four years of mobile broadband, it's all about mobile data now, just in the last four years since we launched the iphone, the pricing for a megabyte of data

on you are network has come down by 90%. what's driving that? it is competition. if you look at the options for the customer today, regardless of what market you're in, 74% of the customers in the united states when they go to shop for wireless, have an option of five or more wireless facility-base withed providers. so this is a vibrant, active market for competition. if t-mobile and at&t combine, i do not see history -- history would suggest that doesn't change the trajectory of pricing in this industry. in fact, we're at a situation now, at&t specifically, where we are capacity constrained. t-mobile i know is as well. we have markets where we are within literally one to two years of failing to have sufficient capacity to continue growing our 3-g networks. there's only one byproduct of that and that is a pricing or rationing by product, putting these two companies together unequivocally creates new capacity and we can go into the details of that but putting the

two companies together, freeing up spectrum, allows us to continue to grow capacity, capacity is the basis for moving prices down in this industry. so my expectation is, putting two companies together creates capacity, prices continue to move down through the competitive environment. >> mr. hessey, in your testimony you said, quote, going forward if this happens it will be difficult for any company to effectively challenge the twin bell duopoly, even if the duopoly reduces quality, raises prices, charges to content sellers or raises prices to customers. so if this happens what's going to -- what i take your comments to mean is you have real concern about your ability to maintain yourself as a national competitor in the market with your 17% of the share versus the 80% that the other two

companies would comprise and that in fact who know what is will happen to your company in terms of its necessity to maintain itself, even perhaps someday selling out to one two of the majors. is this conceivable? >> it is conceivable, yes. >> all right. >> it clearly would make our position more challenging exetively, if you put 80% of the revenues in the hands of two companies, i believe they would with have pricing power. given that purchases as was mentioned earlier nationally and in bulk, it would give them tremendous scale advantages. they would become a gate keeper for new applications and o.s.'s so they would, if will you, build it for one of the both bells and they would always get it first. because of their size and scale in terms of innovation that would make it more difficult. but what this hearing and what hasn't been discussed enough is perhaps outside of the wireless industry and that's the vertical integration of the two and that is the control over

the last mile, that is a huge piece of cost structure in the cost structure of all wireless carriers. i'm the chairman of the c.t.i. and -- ctia and one with of the issues the wireless industry has had is special access. we pay 30% of the cost of putting a new cell site goes back to a local land line carrier in the form of payments for special access and those rates are very, very high. i believe there's a fundamental conflict of interest between, and we see this at the ctia as at&t and verizon are able to, if you will, block wireless industry initiatives to get the ctia as a wireless industry to oppose and get its weight behind reducing special access, because of the, if you will, the verizon and at&t people who are not in the rooms and that has -- as the prices come down, we could make wireless service less costly. as wireless service become withs less costly for consumers, it accelerates cord

cugget of the local land line. so the -- cutting of the local land line. so the two bells do not have an interest in accelerating, if you will, this cord cutting or substitution of wireless for wire line services. so it does make us more of a takeover target over time as the competitive environment gets much more difficult for sprint. >> mr. hesse says we go from four to three and then may go from three to two. >> that's correct. >> all right. obviously that's not something i believe we want to see happen. i'd like to you respond to that and respond to your comment on spectrum scarsity. your chief technology officer this year stated, and i quote, i think there's a belief that's thank there's spectrum short and at t-mobile. if you look at your volume of

spectrum that t-mobile has today, our ability to grow in this wireless data space is much stronger than our competition, so we're in a good spot and we don't have a shortage of spectrum. you said today you do have a shortage of spectrum. >> yeah. i think both things are correct. what mr. ray was referring to is that we have undershot sufficient spectrum to grow our data revenues. what he -- what is not mentioned in the quotes is that we do not have today, for example, enough spectrum to launch -- [inaudible] so we cannot start telephone in any sense because we don't have the spectrum. the other thing, what is also important to realize is that -- and it has historically taken between two and three years to clear spectrum which we have acquired, we need now basically

a spectrum to be able to fulfill the demand of tomorrow. so there from that point of view we see ourselves as being spectrum con stained both -- constrained both in the medium term and the other constraint we have, and i mentioned that in my opening remark, can s capital constraint, to do it on our own in case it would be available. >> if we go from four to three and then three to two, that's pretty serious. and we'll come back to that. mr. lee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd like to start with mr. stephenson if that's ok. mr. stephenson, some of your critics have noted that at&t has more unused spectrum than any other wireless carrier. so one question i have on that point is, could you tell us why you have yet to fully utilize your existing spectrum

holdings? and you're instead speaking to acquire new spectrum through this acquisition and others. >> i would be glad to. as we've discussed and as we said publicly, we are aggressively moving to launch l.t.e. which is the fourth generation of mobile broadband technology. this is the technology that will begin to give us 10, 15 meg type experiences for the consumer. now, in our industry we launched technology, and this is a very fast moving, innovative industry, five years ago we began to move from second generation to third generation technology. to make the move in technology you have to have a clear block of spectrum, nothing in it, to deploy the new technology. we began deploying 3-g technology, as you know, launched the iphone, smart phones, an droid, etc. that business is growing dramatically. 8,000% growth in the last four years. we now need to make the move to fourth generation, l.t.e., for a number of reasons, the speed

benefits but also it's more efficient with spectrum. we have to have clear blocks of spectrum. >> unused spectrum. >> unused spectrum. nothing can be in this spectrum. it has to be clear to make these moves. to do l.t.e., because of the data growth we're experiencing, we need 20 megaherts of what we're call continuous spectrum combined -- combined. we've gone a number of places to do this conversion. we went into the government option. we spent $7 million to buy this spectrum. that's what we're going to put these really high performing networks now. we're building into that spectrum now. we also acquired a company, a communications which had a block in this spectrum, that we were able to pair together with what we bought from the s.e.c., giving us that 20 megahertz. we still have a number of markets where we don't have a footprint of this. so we've been out pursuing and buying spectrum the best we

can. we don't have enough spectrum to deploy this nationwide. but this spectrum is unused today because we're putting, building now, as we speaker, the technology into that spectrum that will begin launching midyear this year. if you were i believe -- >> if you were unable to acquire t-mobile, what would your options be as far as developing your 4-g l.t.e. network? >> it's a long-term solution. most of the rural communities that we're speaking to, we would not have the spectrum depth to do the conversion that we need. so this is one of the big determinants as to whether we can get to loot of the rural communities with our l.t.e. bill bl. they have a very nice footprint. in west virginia would be a good case. we don't have enough spectrum to launch in west virginia. this would allow us to cover a large portion of west virginia. >> is it your position that the nation would be bet wither served by a smaller -- better served by a number of smaller number of providers than a larger number of providers each

with access to smaller spectrum holdings? >> that's a public policy question. what i would tell you today is, there are a number of companies out there that are aggressively deploying fourth generation technology and a lot of them are deploying it quickly because they're doing leap frog approaches. in clear wire, just building all new fourth generation technology, how can they do that? they don't have second generation and third generation occupying their spectrum. metropcs is doing a leap frog technology build. so you have a number of companies like. there's an article, they're going to launch a fourth generation l.t.e. network. so i don't think fewer companies is necessarily better but i do believe if we have a public policy objective of getting to 97%, 98% coverage of mobile broadband with these types of speeds and capabilities, that's an

additional 5 million people beyond what our current plan would allow us to do, we are going to have to think differently and allow companies to make better use and utilization of the spectrum. >> ok. let me ask you a related follow-up question then. there are those who claim that your acquisition of t-mobile, if it occurs, will result in a duopoly. i realize that you may disagree with that assertion but i want to ask the question, do you believe that further market concentration is likely to result in more regulation of your industry? >> i can't judge what happens with the regulation. from my viewpoint this is such a hypercompetitive industry that additional regulation doesn't seem warranted or likely. we have a history in terms of what happens to pricing in this industry. i keep going back with, the options available to the consumer in this industry are dramatic and we keep talking

about going from four to three or three to two. i mean, if you look at the last quarter of results published in this industry, we tend to skip over metropcs. this is a viable large scale competitor. a competitor that's out there saying we have people coming to us all the time with new hand set solutions. they've added over 700,000 subscribers in the last quarter. leaf added 300,000 subscribers. this is anything but a four going to three or three going to two. this is a vibrant, active, competitive environment. >> ok, thank you. mr. hesse, some of your public comments have suggested that sprint might not survive an at&t-t-mobile merger. is that your position? >> my position is that it would make it more difficult for sprint to compete. i have never said that we would not survive but i think in that environment i think the real

question is, if this were approved, my view is if people fundamentally making a decision that this is a duopoly and it puts us in a position to be acquired. >> ok. sprint's currently the third largest provider in this industry. it's recently and pretty substantially increased its subscriber base, scores really well in customer service satisfaction surveys, it offers a wider array of popular products and handsets. was the first to market with the 4-g product and it offers aggressively priced unlimited data plans. so in light of those circumstances, what obstacles stand in the way of sprint continuing to play a role as a robust and very effective competitor in a post merger market? >> i think one thing that i mentioned earlier in terms of continuing to improve, if you will, the disadvantages we have

in areas like special access, my ally is going to be silenced here who i work with in washington to try to, for example, get access rates reduced. i think, though, at a certain time it becomes a bridge too far and you asked the question earlier about regulation and we traditionally have opposed increased regulation by the f.c.c. in the wireless industry because we think the market, if competitive, is the best form of regulation in the market, but recently we supported the s.e.c.'s reregulatory approach to roaming and the reason is because the roaming alternatives, in our case, alte, l, was purchased by verizon. so we're already seeing signs of more regulation in our industry and this is the -- this is the other downside. i'm concerned about how big the pie gets. how robust and vibrant the entire industry is as much as

what our relative share is of that industry. with more regulation and less innovation the pie will stop growing as rapidly and there won't be as much investment so companies would be, you know, financial firms, investors would be less willing and interested in investing in the growth of sprint if the wireless industry become withs more regulated, doesn't grow as fast. >> leading to less competition, is that your snogs >> yes, it is. >> -- is that your position? >> yes, it is. >> thank you to all of you. i come as someone who has been in private practice for 14 years representing a number of different private phone companies and arguing that competition was really good for the market and that it would both the local market and the long distance market, that it would bring prices down which in many cases it has. i come in as a senator that serves on the commerce committee, has put forward a cell phone bill of rights and has heard time and time again from the cell phone companies that that's not necessary

because there's so much competition that we don't have to worry about things like early termination fees being prorated because competition will bring us there. so my first questions are of you, mr. stephenson. i wrote you a letter and i know it was just a few days ago and you're getting the answers together, but are you prepared to submit to offer your customers t-mobile's current pricing plans? >> as we've said before, the t-mobile customers will be offered their own rate plans into the future. that's our history, we've always done that. when you think about the at&t customers, they've had -- >> will they get -- will the at&t customers get t-mobile's current pricing plan? >> so at&t customers, my view is if they wanted the t-mobile pricing plans, they've had those options for a long time now. specifically, though, the way this industry works is today we sell a $400 iphone for $50.

that means we put $350 into a product like that. we ask our customer to sign a contract and you're actively involved, i know you're family with this and generally a two-year contract to establish a business relationship with that customer, to ensure that the $350 investment we make, we have some opportunity of recouping that investment. so our customers, we'll ask them to stay with their contracts and just like we'll honor the t-mobile customers' contracts into the future. >> how about if a t-mobile customer need as new phone? let's say i was a t-mobile customer, i drop my phone into my husband's open coffee cup which has happened and i need a new phone, would i then get to keep my t-mobile rate? >> if you get a comparable phone, our practice is you can stay on those t-mobile rates. >> how about the monthly customers with t-mobile? do they get to keep their rates? >> absolutely. what we'll do is map those rates into our billing systems and allow them to remain on those rate plans. >> can you say here under oath

that this is going to lead to lower prices for consumers and better situation for consumers, this merger? >> i can tell you that history has demonstrated that these mergers have traditionally generated significant cost energy and capacity benefits which have translated into cost savings in the consumers' pocket. prices have consistently come down. >> in your testimony you discuss how at&t believes regulatory officials should look at the proposed merger on a local or regional level. how many others believe the appropriate geographic market is in a national one, i typically think of the wireless market as a national one and part of my thinking is attributable to the marketing of national providers. you look at your own website and it shows that your company likes to sell itself to consumers as a national company . i went to your website and found marketing material claiming that at&t's, quote, national coverage footprint is getting even faster with 4-g,

at&t already delivers the nation's fastest mobile broadband network with and yet there is no -- yet there is another web page claiming that at&t is superior to metropcs and cricket because they don't have national networks. so i guess my first sque, does at&t sell different pricing plans for different regions of the country or does at&t offer the same prices to customers regardless of where they live? >> it's both. there are a number of markets specifically where we compete against metropcs, a classic example where we do unique promotions, in miami would be a classic example where metropcs has more market share than t-mobile does, according to our estimations. >> sell hand sets on a regional basis? do you sell different handsets? >> we tend to standardize our product set and our handset selections across our various geographies. our i can company is set up, we have literally organized this

company to compete on a localized basis. i have folks who run different regions of the u.s. and i have people who run specific cities because i need them responding, i need them promoting, i need them advertising and addressing the market on a local basis. the department of justice as well as the s.e.c. have historically required us to review these transactions based on local market decisions or local markets because that is the way the customers' decision is made. the customer goes into a store in minnesota or wisconsin and makes a decision based on the competitors in the marketplace at that time. so each market is very unique. >> ok, we'll get back to that. mr. humm -- >> on the regional real quick. we're a regional company and we don't have -- we have no customers in regional plans. every customer is interested in national plans. that's the way the market is driven today. >> thank you for clay fu -- clarifying that. mr. huhm, as concentration in the wireless industry has

increased since 2003, capital investment has decreased from $25 billion in 2005 to $8.9 billion over the first half of 2009. in other words, it appears that less competition has led to less investment in new services and equipment. do you expect this trend of declining capital investment to continue and how would competition -- less competition help this if we look at numbers? >> we don't expect a rediction of capital investments especially as the industry is getting ready for the next generation of networks. so, no. >> no what? >> is the answer. we don't expect that it will lead to a reduction in capital investment. >> but would you acknowledge there's been less investment over time as competition has gone down? >> no. as we have stated, we expect that with this transaction, as we are overcoming capacity constraints and as we are

realizing synergies, competition wine crease and with the increase in competition we'd see investments. and directly and indirectly in the industry. >> ms. sohn, you had a different view on the spectrum issue. i have a little bit of time here left. could you discuss your view on the spectrum and this notion that it's been discussed that this merger has to take place because of spectrum issues? >> right. basically at&t has a lot of spectrums that haven't built out. 1/3 of its spectrum in the top 21 markets hasn't even built out yet. secondly, it uses the spectrum very inefficiently. it is now using three different generations of technologies and there are technologies they can use right now and want to get to that 20 megahertz spectrum that mr. stephenson wast said was necessary. that ignores a channel bonding technology that would allow

companies to aggregate noncontiguous spectrum and it ignores other technologies that ignores spectrum efficiency like pico cells, distributed antennas and ignores at&t's ability to recon figure its networks to provide 20 megahertz contiguous with. so i think this spectrum crunch, crisis, exhaust, is a bit overstated. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. senator grassley. >> as i said in my opening comment, my state is rural and there's some parts of my state where receiving consistent telephone service is questionable. and when they do their services and often as fast as someone in a larger city would receive and since announcing the merger, at&t has said it would be able to bring faster network to rural areas, so for mr. stephenson and maybe someone

else would like to comment on this as well but for sure mr. stephenson, how will this merger help rural constituents like mine get faster mobile service and, secondly, rural carriers have to pay fees to the national providers when customers travel outside the rural coverage area. what affect would the merger have on prices consumers in rural areas have to pay? >> i'll take that one. >> either one of you. >> ok. first, at&t has the ideal spectrum today to serve rural areas. they have played a significant holding of 850 which is a lower band spectrum. anything less than one giga herts is considered low band spectrum. they have significant holdings of 700 megahertz. there's nothing in the t-mobile deal that makes building out rural any more attractive in the future than it would be

today. so that speaks to the first part. and as far as the fees are concerned, one of the big withest challenges that we have faced is trying to get a roaming agreement with at&t. especially a data roaming agreement at the 3-g level. even after the s.e.c. mandated data roaming in their order back in april, we've had -- we've not made any progress toward that. april is just last month. but we've been told the roaming person's out of town. it's very important for carriers to be able to provide service that allows their devices to work anywhere that the user goes, anywhere in the country, rural, urban, it's awfully important for the voice and the data to work wherever they go. >> mr. stephenson. >> first in response to the rural roaming, we have a number of 3-g rural roaming bills

around the u.s. with rural providers. the s.e.c. rules have established how that process should work with. so we're open for business on roaming. as it relates to mr. meena, he's on a different technology than at&t operates on. i don't -- i mean, i'd be glad to talk to you after this. but we don't offer -- >> we have a g.s.m. property that we've been -- >> how big is that -- >> for quite a while. we have a g.s.m. property in north alabama. >> you can guys negotiate on your own time? [laughter] >> as it relates to rural -- we're going to build out this 4-g network, the t-mobile acquisition does facilitate places, particularly like iowa. i'll be very specific with it. as i mentioned earlier, there are two blocks of spectrum we're going to build this l.t.e. infrastructure into. one is this 700 megahertz, the other is what we call a.w.s., a higher bandwidth spectrum. that is where t-mobile operates today. that is the elegance of this transaction because with

t-mobile we're going to be able to do a number of things and phillip mentioned a number of them, to free up spectrum. freeing up that spectrum will allow us to bring l.t.e. into that spectrum band in places like iowa. specifically to iowa, senator. we will add 181 cities in iowa to our l.t.e. build so that's rural broadband to 181 new cities in iowa that would not have it otherwise. we're going to focus primarily with our original build on rather concentrated areas, this will allow us to build out highways, get into most of your rural communities. that na number nationwide is 55 million people. the uniqueness of this, and why this is so important, is because, we can't get there because we dobt have adequate spectrum to build out most of these rural communities. our original build that we're focused on now for -- it's about 80% of the u.s. population. that is 14.5% of the land mass

of the united states. to get to 97% that 14.5% of the land mass covered has to go to 55% of the land mass covered. that's where this spectrum is so vital and critical to expanding this footprint and getting to rural america. that's why we think it's so important. >> i think maybe you touched on this next point i want to ask but it's specifically about one part of iowa, suh city, that's western iowa -- sioux city, that's western iowa. the service is limited there more than other areas and t-mobile doesn't even offer service in that region which means that there'd be no real change in the region. what then will the merger do to change the economics of providing service to rural america? at&t has yet to upgrade service in these areas already so are there just maybe something you can't do anything more for s.o.u. city as an example? >> it's going to require some effort but i don't -- i think we can do it and for obvious reasons i look to sioux city before coming in here.

t-mobile in iowa, their spectrum is held largely np a number of partnerships with companies around iowa. i don't know exactly what those look like, we're going to have to get in and sort through those partnerships but we need to get our hands, you know, have access through some medium, whether partnership or otherwise, to that spectrum, to provide service on l.t.e., so sioux city. if not, we have 10 megahertz, you can dake some risks but i've got a lot of homework to do on this to know exactly what question do with that city. >> this will have to be my last question. and for mr. stephenson and mr. hesse, in 2008 the justice department, the s.e.c., approved a merger between verizon wireless and altel hour approval was granted on the condition the combined companys , what are the differences and/or similarities between the present proposed merger and the verizon-altel merger and should

spectrum be divested in the markets where at&t and t-mobile overlap? >> you want to go first? >> first what's different is this consolidates much more power in the hands two of than the previous merger and of course the acquisition target sch larger as well. the other thing this merger shows is that really actually didn't do much for the competitive landscape because the primary beneficiary or buyer of what verizon divested was at&t. >> do you want to add to that? >> yeah. those altel assets that we acquired, obviously it was given extensive review by justice. what we acquired there was 850 spectrum which is where our 3-g network does operate. so that allowed us to put our own network frags in place and a lot of these rural communities that go through wyoming, montana, the dakotas, etc. so it gave us actually a footprint. network and a footprint in those markets.

we have converted those networks to our technology, our 3-g technology and our 3-g spectrum and are aggressively converting the customer bases now. that was 3-g in nature. what we're talking about here will facilitate going to fourth generation network withs and if i could, it's relevant to this, but ms. sohn keeps making the comment about we're utilizing inefficient technology. i mentioned it before but this industry, we launch services and they obsolete very quickly. we launched two second generation service and by 2006 we're putting in 3-g. we cannot just go in and take millions of 2-g customers off the air and require them to move into 3-g, buy new handsets. dan can't afford to do that, we can't afford to do that. if we were to do that i expect i'd be having a hearing in front of you for entirely different reasons but we have to be very elegant in how we transition technologies. they take time to work our customers through the various technological challenges.

>> i'm done, mr. chairman, thank you. >> thank you, senator grassley. >> thank you, chairman, for holding this very important hearing. i'm sure i'm not the only one here who remembers when bell controlled how we communicated with each other. i distinctly remember when i was a kid, every sunday at exactly 9:00 a.m. in minnesota my grandmother would call from new york and talk to my father for precisely three minutes. [laughter] and whom my grandmother was german and my dad at 9:00 a.m. would pick up the phone and go -- [speaking foreign language [snment and after three minutes that operator got on the phone and told her that three minutes was up and they ended the call. and that was the only time they got to talk to her son and her

grandchildren and thankfully the breakup of ma bell forever changed the costs of long distance service and now we live in a world of voice overi.p. and video conferences that would not be possible without high broadband speed. but i fear that if approved the merger would take us one more step or just one step away from the monopoly market that we had under ma bell. it took the department of justice more than 35 years before they eventually broke up ma bell so it's important to keep in mind the stakes of a merger of this size and scope and i hope chairman thap this will be the first of several hearings on this proposed merger. we all know the merger's going to raise or i believe it's going to raise prices for american families, may cost thousands of jobs and i hope we'll hold the second hearing on these consumer impacts once we have more solid economic data that demonstrate what is

this merger will mean for customers five or 10 or 15 years from now. i want to follow up on the senator's comments on the national aspect of this deal. and i want to ask two questions that i want a yes or no answer to and after that i'll promise i'll let you actually respond. when you were seeking to acquire verizon wireless spectrum in 2009, didn't you state that, quote, evidence shows that predominant forces driving competition among wireless carriers operates at the national level? yes or no? ok, you did. >> i'm sorry, i don't recall the comment. >> ok. i said yes or no.

>> it's an i don't know, i'm sorry. >> let's try this one, see if you remember this one. isn't it true that you've seen a significant growth in new customers in large part, i mean, you don't have to remember this one, in large part because you're able to negotiate an exclusive handset deal for the iphone with apple, a large national company, that would not have even considered launching their new phone with a small regional player? would that be correct? >> if you're asking yes on the quote, i don't remember the quote. >> it's not a quote. i'm saying, isn't it true that you've seen a significant growth in new customers in large part because you're able to negotiate an exclusive hand set deal for the iphone with apple, a large national company, that would not have been even considered launching their new phone with a regional, small regional

player? >> i would say no, look at europe. i can't say yes -- >> now you can explain. you don't think that apple gave you an exclusive on this because you are -- and they would have given an ex clues to have a regional player and -- exclusive to a regional player and not one national player? >> it's not as likely. but in europe -- >> not as likely. >> in europe they did spread it around. >> ok. well with, my point here is, one, did you say the thing you forgot, you can't remember whether you side. it you do advertise as a national company talking about how national you are. so my point is that your business is a national business and that is in large part because the wire wls market is

a national market -- the wireless market is a national market where you can receive advantage from a national presence. my question is, how you can argue this deal should be analyzed locally, as you wrote in your written testimony, that this deal should be analyzed locally which goes against the statements that you made before and then you're advertising that -- and then your advertising. >> i understand your question. >> good. >> first of all, this is the way the department of justice has required these transactions to be reviewed. they have established that these buying decisions are made at the local level. our experience is the buying decision is made at the local level. having a national coverage, a national footprint important? i think it's very important. i believe that's why mr. meena advertises his national map off of his website. that is his national coverage map that he advertises.

>> absolutely, we have to. >> [inaudible] >> it look very comparable to that. it looks very comparable. so we -- >> that's not what i've seen in advertising. i've seen your map -- ooh, great map. >> we're in full agreement it's a national market. >> it would look very similar. [inaudible] >> let's go to mr. meena then. i'm still trying to get my head around all the technology surrounding wireless spectrum, back hall agreements, which i understand is using the -- basically mat bell part infrastructure, right? roaming agreements which we had some discussion about and inter operability. i know carriers like at&t and verizon have a tremendous advantage over everyone else in large part because they own and control the infrastructure that was built by ma bell. you can explain how this deal

would give at&t an unbelievable competitive advantage over smaller companies? and have you seen the affects of this over the last 15 years as at&t has steadily gobbled up numerous baby bells in an effort to return to the dominance they once had asthma bell. >> yes, really to -- as ma bell. >> yes. we're here to talk about at&t today, they have used their market power to attain exclusive deals on handsets. there's no doubt. i think you mentioned one earlier. for that particular device it was a four-year period of time. you have the handsets, you have the special access issue that dan talked about a minute ago, that huge advantage they have there. you have the roaming issue which at&t, verizon, all of us, all of us have been there and used roaming agreements to make sure we had a vibrant product for our customers to use for

many, many years, for decades. and when at&t and verizon reached a size where it became -- it wasn't in their favor to offer those readily, then they began to become -- it became very tough to negotiate with them on that. and we do have g.s.m. technology and we have not been able to get a data rolling agreement in place with them. so you have special access, you have the scale over devices, you have roaming issues and also next generation technology , spectrum -- the beach front spectrum that was referred to earlier, 700 megahertz. that has been valcanized by at&t and never ines where there is no interoperability in that spectrum. all spectrum before in our industry there's been inner operability. any p.c.s. device we were working on the network but now with the market concentration

that the at&t's and the verizons of the world have they have can prevent that. so those are just a few of our issues and we are warning -- wanting to see this industry returned to a competitive era once again. >> thank you. mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> i think we can all agree that broadband access has been a very positive thing in terms of our country and the world, our ability to communicate, our ability to do business and it's just mind boggling really from the days that senator franken was talking about,s i guess his grand father -- i guess his grand father, grandmother, and i remember the days when we got all of our days when we got all of our video communication off of channels, we've come light years from there. i remember those telephones and

i for one don't want to ever go back to that model. but i don't think there's any danger of doing that. and just -- i think as we approach this and we recognize this is the beginning of a process that is not really part of what congress does, we legislate prospectively, not retroactively, we've written the law, the laws as it is and now we have the f.c.c. and the department of justice doing their job. and we look for this lengthy process where every side to this argument will be able to present their case and we look forward to reviewing that. but i think for myself, i feel like congress ought to be very humble about our ability to predict the sort of innovation that's going to be created, particularly in your sector of the economy. and in terms of what sort of rules we would apply because we've seen life change so much

and so dramatically just over the last few years in terms of communications and entertainment and the like. i would like to ask each of you perhaps, let me start with mr. stephenson and mr. hesse, to comment on innovation. i know one of the concerns is that somehow innovation would be stifled or retarded by this merger and i wonder if you would give us your views on that. >> thank you, senator. one thing that you cannot say about this industry is that it has lacked for innovation and the innovation in this industry is happening at every layer of service, the infrastructure players, the carriers, like all of us up here on this dais, are seeing innovation go at an incredible pace. i've already mentioned it, from 2-g to 3-g to 4-g in a five-year period of time. each of those are multibillion-dollar investments and that innovation is

happening very, very rapidly. and we're already talking about what comes after 4-g now. you see this innovation playing itself out at the device level. there are 600 options for customers today to buy devices in the marketplace. and to actually think of an iphone being launched in 2007 and today the customer can buy one for $50, that's innovation and when the iphone came out, what happened? you saw google begin to deploy new innovative devices, dan's company is one of the first, you had the first android device. you're seeing that innovation run hard, particularly at the software level. now you're seeing rim and blackberry with new o.s.'s. and don't forget or miss the importance of what you read yesterday, microsoft buying skype. they run a very important wireless operating system that they have developed, combining that with a voiceover i.p. capability now. this is going to be a very exciting and dynamic manifestation here. we're seeing applications hit

the market at -- hundreds of thousands at a pace, being downloaded billions of times. and so when i stop and think about this kind of innovation cycle, by virtue of t-mobile and at&t combining, i suspect mr. jobs will not delay one day the launch of his iphone 5 or six or whatever number comes next. i don't think it will affect his launch by one day of the next ipad. i don't think it will slow google down one iota in terms of developing new capabilities. i don't think the infrastructure players are going to slow down. and dan has done an incredible job bring the first true 4-g network to the united states. i don't see dan slowing down as a result of t-mobile and at&t coming together. this is as dynamic and exciting an industry as one could ever hope to work in. i consider it a privilege, but i don't sigh -- see that changing by virtue of our combination. >> mr. hesse. >> i actually have to give

credit to this innovator over here, t-mobile u.s.a. launched the first android device and they would be removed from the market. we followed them shortly thereafter. i've been in this for a long time. the u.s. led the world in 1-g, first generation, which was analog. that was the first cell phone call, we have u.s. companies and we had that this duopoly and it was important for the u.s. government to respond and create more competition because we with fell behind europe. digital technology, g.s.m., that was european, so we fell behind because of the lack of innovation in the u.s. wireless market, really hasn't innovated very much at all because it was a duopoly. they opened up the u.s. market to more competitors, p.c.s. providers. i disagree with larry in terms of kind of where we stand in the world from a wireless point of view and i get his presentation as chairman of the ctia, the u.s. wireless association, the u.s. is now number one in the world in terms of wireless technology,

we have the most 3-g customers of any country in the world, we're the first with 4-g, we're by far far ahead in 4-g. the companies that randall talked about, google and microsoft and apple, they've developed on our shores for a reason. because this is a very vibrant market. my concern is if we go back to duopoly, we will go back to premid 1990's and the lust fall behind the world again like we once did. we will lose that edge that, you know, we've regained, if you will, over the rest of the world. >> let me ask one -- my time is running out, quickly here, one other topic. i think mr. hunn, you mentioned that t-mobile did not have the capital to do the sort of infrastructure investment which is one of the issues thap motivated your company to engage in this acquisition,

this merger. and you talked about how much money at&t has invested in broadband infrastructure. i remember that when the congress passed the stimulus legislation there was $7.9 billion included in that because of the desire of congress to build out an expansion of broadband for all the reasons we understand and we've talked about here today. my personal preference would be to see the private sector make those investments, not the taxpayer have to make those investments. how does this merger affect either positively or negatively the ability of companies like yours to make that sort of investment? it strikes me this is a problem and i'd like to hear your views. mr. stephenson first. >> i'll go back to the president's comment, establishing a public policy objective of 98% of america covered with with mobile

broadband capability. the elegance of this is this is a private market solution for a major public policy objective. this is all private capital that will be used to build this capability out, there will not be any universal service money, any subsidies, any taxpayer money involved in making this happen. this can become a reality purely with private capital. you think about getting to 97% coverage, that means there's 3% of the u.s. that we still don't have the ability to cover through private market capabilities. you think of universal service fund and the f.c.c.'s private for finding a mechanism for getting broadband to america, focusing on the 3% is a much more manageable objective than the 20%, 15% or even 10% that we're talking about now. so this is just a very elegant potential to address a public policy objective with private capital. >> mr. chairman, with your permission, can i get mr. hesse to respond, please? >> senator, i've made points

earlier where we do not believe this merger facilitates this goal in any way. but even if you believed it were the case, at what cost? is it worth eliminating a very robust, competitive, extremely important industry to the u.s. economy in order to achieve that goal? and i think the answer's no. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. >> we're going to break away from this hearing now as the u.s. house is about to gavel in a reminder fow, you can continue to watch the coverage online. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> members began work on drilling permits last week. they'll also begin work on a bill calling for expanded oil drilling in the outer continental shelf and to set a national goal for oil and gas production, votes throughout the afternoon likely. now live to the house floor here on c-span.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, the reverend wallace shepherd, second baptist church from santa barbara, california. the chaplain: our heavenly father, we bless you, lord, in this season. while our homeland faces difficult decisions and

conflicts across many nations, we bough before you -- bow before you this day, requesting your mercy and your grace. grant this congress your guidance as they work collectively as one. we pray, dear lord, as resolutions are prepared that there will be a united commitment to the development of comprehensive laws. lead this congress and nation in the direction of tranquility that reflects the intent of our forefathers. endow us as a nation to be humble as we transcend the norm without forgetting those that are in need. anchor our hearts with prudence as we consider the development of our youth. protect our troops as they

fight for democracy and freedom throughout the world. steer us on the path of righteousness with temperance, bless our government and bless this nation. in jesus christ name we pray, amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentlewoman from north carolina, mrs. ellmers. mrs. ellmers: will everyone please join me. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the

gentlewoman from california, mrs. capps, is recognized for one minute. mrs. capps: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to honor a valued constituent and a good friend, dr. walla shepherd. dr. shepherd came to the second baptist church of santa barbara as pastor in 2006 and since then pastor shepherd has re-established santa barbara's martin luther king day event as a capstone celebration on the central coast of california. he is an active board member of the endowment for youth programs which supports the education of underprivileged children through tutoring and scholarship. dr. shepherd also helped to found ecofaith, a nonprofit organization that promotes conservation of energy in churches and houses of worship. he has been appointed ea advantagalism, director of the central district of california and also the vice president of

the third sup fellowship for santa barbara. he is at the core a powerful presence and a humble servant in the name of his faith and i am honored to welcome here to -- him here to congress and thank him for his invaluable service to our community and our country. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the chair will entertain up to 15 further requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from north carolina rise? mrs. ellmers: i rise to speak on behalf of my bill. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. mrs. ellmers: thank you. mr. speaker, i rise today in support of h.r. 1425, the creating jobs through small business innovation act. this bipartisan bill is being marked up today in the house small business committee. our bill re-authorizes the sttr program which has a proven track record of creating jobs,

stimulating small business growth, and helping start-ups succeed by providing the impetus to start projects that otherwise would not have gotten off the ground. but most importantly our bill does not cost anything. this program simply requires that the federal agencies slice out a portion of their overall budget for small firms to compete for research and development for new innovative ideas. the fbir program is set to expire on may 31. as chairwoman of the house small business committee on health and technology, i believe it is a vital -- that it is vital that we expedite re-authorization of the sbir program so that the small businesses can continue to compete for the contracts that will springboard ideas, create jobs, and spur economic growth. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from rhode island rise? mr. cicilline: to address the

house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from rhode island is recognized for one minute. mr. cicilline: thank you, mr. speaker. for nearly 20 weeks this chamber has been discussing ways to reduce our nation's deficit, debating the merits of cutting one program or another. most times including important initiatives like job training funds, education, and health related services. the fact of the matter is we have to cut spending. the issue is not whether to he reduce the deficit but how we do it. if we want to get serious about the deficit we stop handing owl billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies which price gouge at the pumps. oil company profits are at a record high and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are using high gas prices as an excuse to keep giving them billions in taxpayer handouts. taxpayer funding for big oil add to the deficit. my constituents gain nothing at the pumps nor do americans across the country. instead we should focus on measures that will bring down the price of gas at the pump. it's time to bring to the house floor the measures which would release oil from the strategic

preserve and legislation to end them from price gouging. this could provide immediate relief to our constituents to the rising price of gasoline that truly threatens our economic recovery and well-being of hardworking middle class families. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from minnesota rise? the gentleman from minnesota is recognized for one minute. mr. ellison: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, we have been here for about five months so far. it's easing up on june. won't be long until summertime. yet, mr. speaker, the republican majority has not brought a single bill to create a single job. i was very pleased to hear the gentlelady from north carolina say that they are marking up a bill on jobs. it would be the first one if it ever gets here. that's a shame because i think when people voted last november, they were thinking, we got to do something about some jobs.

yet the republican majority has dilled away and done everything but work on jobs. you take away health care from people who need it. they have tried to do a whole lot of things, push a social agenda. they have done all these things. they have yet to focus on the one thing that americans need most which is a job. and if you want to reduce the deficit, you got to have people making some money. and that means getting some jobs. people pay taxes, people would love to pay taxes, but they would do it if they had work. but they don't have work because the republican majority has got other things to do. i yield back but remember, jobs are the key and i'm looking forward to republicans to bringing a bill to the floor. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? without objection, the gentleman from california is recognized for one minute. mr. baca: mr. speaker, in 1965 this body voted to create medicare and medicaid, i state

to create medicare and medicaid. to ensure that all seniors, disabled americans would always have access to health coverage. always have access to health coverage. and those they expect the same kind of coverage for themselves and their children. over the years my republican colleagues have tried to weaken the programs and privatize the nets like social security. sadly history is repeating itself. instead of focusing on priorities like creating jobs, lowering the gas price, republicans put forward an agenda that ends, i state ends medicare as we know it. so far this year the republicans have voted and we can't say they haven't, they voted to eliminate guaranteed medicare coverage for seniors, convert medicare to a voucher program, and reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole, and extend tax breaks for big oil companies that ship jobs overseas.

even worse, new data shows the republican budget will kick 44 million low-income americans off medicaid. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. baca: let's work together to preserve medicare and lower the deficit. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon rise? the gentleman from oregon is recognized for one minute. mr. defazio: gas is over four bucks a gallon. it's killing our economic recovery. american families and small businesses. now, goldman sachs, not exactly a friend of the consumer, says that 60 cents to 85 cents per gallon is purely useless speculative activity. and what are the republicans running the high pressure system going to do about that? nothing. they are going to pretend that future possible leasing 10 years from now will do something about prices. why are they passing these

phony bills and not taking on the price gouging and speculation? because that would mean taking on big oil and wall street. and guess what? they are always looking forward to the next campaign. and big oil and wall street have been so generous to the new majority that they don't want to upset them. so they want to pretend they stand with their constituents and consumers, but they are really standing behind big oil and wall street. congratulations, guys. you just stuck it to the american people and the economy. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from california rise? without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. mrs. napolitano: thank you, mr. speaker. may is mental health month, as the co-chair of the mental health caucus i bring to you information, especially on the military, since 2001, to current date, we have had 2,103

military service personnel die by suicide. suicide, my friends. in iraq and afghan war. in the afghan war alone it's over 1,000, more than some of the figures that we listened to recently. one in five service members suffer from major depression or posttraumatic syndrome, or traumatic brain injury. it affects the military and their families, their children. there's lots of divorce because of this. substance abuse that continues as they age. we must, we need to expand mental health services to our military personnel and their families. their blood and their service have earned it. we owe it to them. we have made some strides, but we've got a long way to go. mr. speaker, we need to reduce the stigma, accept it as the illness it is and expand mental health services. i ask my colleagues to join me

and recognize the military members and their families during mental health month. thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from delaware rise? without objection. the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. carney: thank you, mr. speaker. i have the great pleasure today of recognizing a very special delawarian who recently celebrated his 90th birthday. charles p. west is one of a kind who served our state and nation with distinction as a soldier, legislator, businessman, and advocate for the values that are important to his community. charlie was first elected to the delaware house of representatives in 1956, serving one two-year term. he returned to the statehouse in 1978 and served for 24 years before retiring in 2002. charlie took great pride in helping his constituents. as he used to tell me all the time he fought for the little guy. he was a fierce advocate for

those in the backbone of his district. chicken and grain farmers, small business owners e. and sportsmen. charlie and his wife are good friend of mine and helped me better understand what's important to our state. it's my pleasure today to wish charles p. west happy 90th birthday and wish him and his family many more years together. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana rise? mr. pence: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from indiana is recognized for one minute. mr. pence: thank you, mr. speaker. pain at the pump is real. in this the most difficult economy in the last 25 years, my constituents have gas prices on their mind and with due cause. $4.18 a gallon average back in the hoosier state, higher than the national average. gas prices have climbed more

than $1 over the last year. and frankly with the summer travel season upon us and with the rising treacherous waters in the mississippi, threatening our refinery capability, we could see $5 a gallon gasoline in the near future. it's time to give the american people more access to american oil. starting last week and this week, this majority in congress will continue to move legislation that opens up our own domestic energy reserves in the gulf of mexico and offshore to the american people. . part of that answer is by giving the american people more access to our own domestic reserves. i urge my colleagues to join us in supporting measures on the floor this week and last week and lead us toward that star of

energy independence and relieve the pain at the pump once and for all. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from missouri rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. carnahan: thank you, mr. speaker. families and small businesses have been hurting for too long. while the world is changing, washington has made things worse by ignoring american manufacturing as stifling -- that's stifling american ingenuity. but here's what hasn't changed. americans are still the most creative and productive people in the world. we're still great at making things and that's why i support the make it in america agenda. it should be the driver of our economy. the region i represent has a strong base in manufacturing and we need to tap into that strength to bring high-quality, high-paying jobs back home. that's why my office is helping st. louis-based unico after

being unfairly targeted by regulators with the level playing field, companies like unico can compete anywhere in the world. if we invest in infrastructure and manufacturing we can restore making things to a central place in our economy. i ask my colleagues, republicans and democrats alike, to stand with me to make these job-creating investments so we can make it in america again. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana rise? >> i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from louisiana is recognized for one minute. mr. richmond: mr. speaker, i came down here to do a public service announcement. on behalf of all americans, i want the republicans in the majority to know that the election is over. you've won the majority for now so now start governing and stop campaigning. if you can't handle the responsibility of governing, get out of the way and let's move towards progress. this week we're considering two

bills that republicans claim would bring down the price of gas immediately. let's just pretend that's true, although we know it's not. if it's true then why would you bring a bill to the floor that exat the indicts drilling permits which i could agree with, but you add in a provision that strips american people's right to challenge drilling permits that are not environmentally sound. let's look at the next bill. reversing president obama's offshore moratorium act. that isn't the name of a bill. that's the name of a campaign speech. that's the name of political rhetoric. i would say, mr. speaker, that it's now time to have the responsibility of governing, take it seriously. it's the american people saying no to $5 a gallon for gas. mr. speaker, i remind you to tell the american people this. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> perm is and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to recognize and to congratulate the second athletic's team from texas a&m women's equestryan western squad recently took home their third straight title with a 5-3 victory over kansas state over the equstraian championship in waco, texas. including the championship in 2002, the a&m equestrian team has won four championships since 1999. these lady aggies, who hail from numerous parts of the country, had their eyes set on a trophy to add to an already filled trophy case. mr. flores: i'd like to applaud

the coach and her staff for an outstanding job in guiding the agee women's equestrian team. congratulations for a job well done and get 'em. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, we were waiting 17 weeks for the republican majority to bring to the floor a jobs bill. mr. connolly: i voted against the recess two weeks ago but i believe we ought to stay here until we get our job done which is to create jobs for the american people. what's the majority doing? last week they tried restricting a woman's right to choose. then they attacked health insurance protections. this week they're trying to repeal commonsense protections that prevent oil spills. jobs? nowhere to be found. last week democratic whip steny hoyer unveiled make it in america. my build america bonds legislation is part of that

agenda. every dollar invested in build america bonds leveraged $41 in private sector funds or $181 billion to construct and repair schools, build bridges and roads in every state in america. these infrastructure improvements created hundreds of thousands of jobs. that's what we need to focus on. not an ideological agenda. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that the committee on armed services may have until 5:00 p.m. on tuesday to file its report to accompany h.r. 1540. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> mr. speaker. -- mr. reed: mr. speaker, by the direction of the committee on

rules, i call up i call up house resolution 254. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title -- report the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 254. resolved, that at any time after the adoption of this resolution the speaker may, pursuant to clause 2-b of rule 18, declare the house resolved into the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of the bill h.r. 1231, to amend the outer continental shelf lands act to require that each five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program offer leasing in the areas with the most prospective oil and gas resources, to establish a domestic oil and natural gas production goal, and for other purposes. the first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. all points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. general debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on natural resources. after general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five minute rule. the amendment recommended by the committee on natural resources now printed in the bill shall be considered as

adopted in the house and in the committee of the whole. the bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. all points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. no further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution. each further amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the house or in the committee of the whole. all points of order against such further amendments are waived. at the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the committee shall rise and report the bill, as amended, to the house with such further amendments as may have been adopted. the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized for one hour. mr. reed: thank you, mr. speaker. for the purposes of debate only i yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. mcgovern, pending which i yield myself such time as i may consume. during consideration of this resolution all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks . the speaker pro tempore: without objection. and the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. reed: house resolution 257 provides for a structured rule of h.r. 1231. the rule makes in order eight amendments all of which comply with the rules of the house. of the eight, seven of democratic amendments. mr. speaker, today we are debating h.r. 1231, the reversing president obama's offshore moratorium act. this legislation will have

profound impacts on our domestic energy supply, our national security and our economy is right for consideration by this body. it is no secret that americans are feeling the pain at the pump. in my congressional district in western new york, my constituents, my family, my wife and i are routinely forced to pay in excess of $4 per gallon for gasoline for our automobiles. we need to develop policies that will lessen our dependence on foreign fossil fuels, create stability in the financial markets and provide relief to our constituents. in addition, this piece of legislation will create american jobs. we must get our financial and energy priorities in order. we can no longer be held victim to instability in the middle east and across the world. the united states must develop our own energy solutions which will reduce our dependence own foreign fossil fuels. and most importantly, this will

create american jobs. h.r. 1231 is one more example of our conference's commitment to developing our domestic oil and natural gas resources. it is not the philosophy that we need to drill smart, drill where the resources are and produce our own energy. drilling for oil and natural gas can be done safely and responsibly. there have been millions of wells drilled in the united states. there is a strong record of sound environmental practices. total petroleum industry spillage has decreased consistently over the last 40 years. h.r. 1231 does two things. first, the legislation requires that developing a five-year offshore leasing plan for drilling in the outer continental shelf that each five-year plan must include leases for sale in the areas containing the greatest known oil and natural gas reserves. for the 2012-2017 plan being written by the obama administration this would mean

targeted lease sales only in those areas that contain 2.5 billion barrels of oil or 7.5 trillion of cubic feet of natural gas. at least 50% of those areas must be available for leasing in the 2012-2017 plan. second, this legislation requires the implementation of production goals during the five-year plan being written by the obama administration. for this period, the goal would be three million barrels of oil per day and 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas of natural gasper day from american domestic sources of energy. this increase in oil production equates to a tripling of current american offshore production and will reduce significantly foreign imports by nearly 1/3. and most importantly, this will create american jobs and protect our national security interest. i reserve the balance of my time, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from new york reserves his time. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: thank you, mr. speaker. and i thank the gentleman from new york for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized. mr. mcgovern: thank you. mr. speaker, i rise today in strong opposition to this rule and a very strong opposition to the underlying legislation. mr. speaker, here we go again. another week, another day, another bill that helps record profit making big oil but does absolutely nothing to help american families paying $4 at the pump for gasoline. although republicans continue to frame these efforts as a cure for rising gas prices and a way to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, the truth is that oil prices are set on a world market. it's simply not possible for us to drill our way out of these problems. yesterday in the rules committee i offered an amendment as a stand-alone bill again that would eliminate subsidies for big oil. while i do not agree with h.r.

1231, my amendment would have done nothing to prevent this bill from moving forward. instead, my amendment would have allowed for a separate bill to come up under this rule that would end subsidies for big oil corporations that are making money hand over fist while gouging americans at the pump. let me remind my republican colleagues of the facts. two weeks ago exxonmobil announced that in the first three months of this year it had made nearly $10.7 billion in profits. that's $10.7 billion. billion with a b. look, there's nothing wrong with corporations making profits. that's what they're in business to do. what is wrong is for american taxpayers to be subsidizing wildly profitable companies at a time when too many americans are still unemployed and struggling to pay their bills. with their tax dollars funding corporate welfare for big oil and then still paying astronomical prices at the pump, it's a double whammy for

american families. with all the talk of cutting spending and cutting subsidies here in washington i would have thought that the rules committee would have made my amendment in order. mr. speaker, i want to remind my colleagues that energy companies are sitting on thousands of drilling leases in the gulf of mexico and not producing anything. and despite the misleading title of this legislation, no drilling moratorium currently exists. . since the moratorium was lifted, permits have been granted, roughly the same rate even before the b.p. oil spill. mr. speaker, while h.r. 1231 may make for good sound bite, this is not a serious solution to bringing down high gas prices. i urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and to oppose h.r. 1231. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. reed: mr. speaker, at this time i'm pleased to yield as much time as he may consume, the chairman of the rules

committee, mr. dreier of california. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for as much time as he wishes to consume. mr. dreier: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. dreier: mr. speaker, let me begin by thanking my friend, the newest member of the rules committee, the gentleman from corning, new york, for superb job that he's -- the way he's comprorted himself in the management of his rule and great service on the rules committee, literally hit the ground running and has -- this is the third rule he's managed, or third bill he's managed, second rule on the house floor. i congratulate him. mr. speaker, i listened to the comments of my friend from worcester and i will say that this measure that's before us is about several things. number one, job creation and economic growth is something the democrats and republicans alike say that they are concerned about. and that happens to be -- continues to be our priority. creating jobs for the american people who are hurting right now is what this bill is all about.

and at the same time the notion of trying to free ourselves or at least diminish the kind of dependence we have on form oil. i don't believe we ever in this global economy we should be completely free of the flow of energy and other sources, but i do believe that we can take steps that will diminish the level of dependence that we have on sources of energy outside of our country. and that's what this measure is designed to do. i also want to touch on the very important question that was raised by my friend about the issue of subsidization by the american taxpayer of the energy industry. i know that my friend likes to say the rules committee could just take care of this one fell swoop, make his amendment in order. it was very interesting our colleague from boulder said if we are going to be considering an open rule, he would like to allow for a consideration of a measure that would reduce the top corporate rate as we look at the issue ever ending this kind of subsidization.

that is a global approach i believe needs to be looked at by the house ways and means committee, by the energy and commerce committee and i'm supportive. i'm supportive of our doing that. the idea of saying that we would do what my friend has proposed actually under the provision that my friend from boulder said that he supported up in the rules committee, it's a violation of house rules. so the idea here is, we need to do what we can to demippish the level of subsidization. i personally have opposed agricultural subsidization. i'm not a proponent of subsidization of private industry. i do think in the context of having the highest corporate tax rate of any nation in the world now that japan has actually reduced their corporate rate, we need to look at ways in which we can bring that rate down and deal with closing loopholes. and that's something that president obama talked about here in his state of the union message. i think that my friend would

recognize that we have had opportunities to do this. when they were in the majority. we just been in session for a matter of a few months and the idea of saying we haven't had -- addressed it yet on the floor is, i think, doesn't really pass the laugh test because we are right now in the process of looking at overall reform and it will include dealing with the issue of subsidies. so i agree wholeheartedly with the need for us to step up to the plate and take this issue on. i will say that i want to express my appreciation to the distinguished chair of the natural resources committee, our friend mr. hastings. unfortunately due to an illness, he's not able to be here this week, but i spoke with him yesterday and he's doing a lot better and he has every degree of confidence, high level of confidence we are going to be able to effectively address this issue of working to drive energy prices down, to diminish the kind of dependence

we have on foreign sources of energy, and the very, very, very important issue of creating jobs here in the united states of america which continues to be our priority. so i thank my friend for yielding. i encourage my colleagues to support this rule and to support the underlying legislation. and i'm happy to say that we have been able to make most all of the amendments in order that were submitted to us, and as long as they comply with the rules of the house, the cut provision are jermaine. we tried to make those -- germane. we tried to make those of those this order. we had more amendments considered here in the first few months of this congress than we did in the entire last congress. so i think that this work product that we are going to have before us today is further evidence of that. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california yields back his time. the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: i yield myself such time as i may consume. i'd like to ask unanimous consent to insert into the

record "the new york times" editorial entitled the return of drill, baby, drill. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. mcgovern: mr. speaker, let me just make a couple of points that "the new york times" editorial made and that was drilling alone cannot possibly assure energy independence in a country 245 uses -- that uses 1/4 of the world's oil while only 2% of the reserves. the energy information agency recently projected what would happen if the nation tripled production on the outer continental shelf. there would be no price impact at all until 2020 and only 3 cents to 5 cents a gallon in 2030. the bottom line is we need an energy policy that does not rely solely on drilling for oil. and we tried to pass a bill that would do that only to have strong objection from my republican colleagues. i'd also say, because the chairman of the rules committee, i just want to make sure we are clear on one thing because the chairman of the rules committee seemed to intimate bringing up my legislation that would allow

for there to be a vote to cut taxpayer subsidies to oil companies would somehow be against the rules. it's not against the rules. it would totally be within the rules and the rules committee could have made it in order. i think one of the things that i hear when i go back home from my constituents is why are you cutting programs that help elderly people be able to heat their homes in the winter? why are you cutting programs that would invest in alternate energy and at the same time why do you have congress protecting taxpayer subsidies to big oil companies making record profits? people are outraged by that. mr. speaker, at this time i'd like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. pallone. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for three minutes. mr. pallone: thank you, mr. speaker. you know the republicans act as if they are trying to help the consumer with this legislation, but all they are really doing is helping big oil. bigger profits. bigger tax breaks. i mean the first quarter earnings for the oil companies were bigger than ever.

billions of dollars in profits. even b.p., even after the disaster a year ago, was still making huge profits. of course we've got about $4 billion in tax breaks that the republicans continue to give to the oil companies. no more oil is going to be brought to market because of this legislation. as my colleague from massachusetts said, we are talking years before any oil could be brought to market. and at the same time we have the huge environmental risks. the fact of the matter is the b.p. oil spill a year ago showed us the environmental risks that are involved with deepwater drilling. and there was a bipartisan commission that was put forward, democrat and republican, testified before the natural resources committee that i serve on. but no republican effort is being made to implement those recommendations and say ok, we need to do certain things before we can do offshore drilling in these deepwater areas. nothing at all. when you open up these areas under this legislation to new

drilling, you are just inviting another b.p.-type spill because nothing's being done by the republicans to prevent it. now, i would point out there's all kinds of leases out there now, offshore, that the oil companies can drill and they are not doing it. they are stockpiling them. there's more oil production that's been put forward in the last year or so under president obama than ever before. so we are producing oil. no one is saying that you can't drill in the areas that are already leased. and there's more production. all we are saying is why in the world are you risking these areas that now we know after the b.p. spill shouldn't be put into production when you got all kinds of other opportunities out there? i offered an amendment, the chairman of the rules committee says, if we are going to allow a lot of amendments. they didn't allow my amendment. my amendment simply said that the atlantic coast for the next five years under the president's plan is off limits because of what happened with

b.p. and that we should keep that in place. but my amendment was not allowed in order. but the president -- what the president has done and what all of us are saying here is in the aftermath of the b.p. spill there are certain areas that shouldn't be allowed offshore production and the leases shouldn't go out because we learned from the b.p. spill these areas should be off limits because we are concerned about the environmental risk. in my case, the state of new jersey, we are talking about billions and billions of dollars in tourism related to the shore that would put at risk if we had another oil spill. that's where the jobs are. tourism is the number one industry in the state of new jersey. up and down the atlantic coast tourism is a huge business, creates all kinds of jobs. what jobs are going to be created, what minimal jobs will be created by allowing these areas be put out to lease and allow the drilling compared to the risk of the jobs that would be destroyed? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from new york is

recognized. mr. reed: mr. speaker, i'd ask unanimous consent to offer to the record an editorial in the "wall street journal" by former democratic member, harold ford, titled washington vs. energy security, even form president clinton called the obama administration's deepwater drilling policy ridiculous. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. reed: at this time, mr. speaker, i would like to yield three minutes to my good friend from texas, mr. flores. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas, mr. flores, is recognized for three minutes. mr. flores: mr. speaker, i rise today in strong support of the rule and for h.r. 1231, the reversing president obama's offshore moratorium act. when gas prices hit $4 a gallon in the summer of 2008, coning and president bush lifted a decades old ban on drilling, allowing for exploration on both the atlantic and pacific coast. however these plans were postponed or canceled by the obama administration and we are now back in the same situation of high gas prices, squeezing the budgetings of american

families and small business -- budgets of american families and small businesses. the facts are clear. this current administration is blocking american energy production and hurting middle class america. on the other hand, they are also using american tax dollars to help offshore drilling in brazil. since president obama took office, the national average price of gasoline has nearly doubled to $4 in most states. the energy policies of the obama administration have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of barrels of domestic daily oil production, and to make matters worse, according to the u.s. energy information administration, offshore energy production is expected to drop 13% in 2011. it's not too late to change our country's course of action and to begin to undo the damage done by these policies. the energy reserves off our coast and under our public lands belong to the american taxpayer. and should be utilized in an efficient and environmentally safe manner to create jobs, grow our economy, lower energy

price, and enhance our national security. by reducing our dependence on foreign oil. the federal government also has the ability to realize substantial revenues through the leasing of these areas which will help bay down our $14 trillion of national debt. according to the c.b.o. enacting h.r. 1231 will increase receipts to the federal treasury by about $800 million over the next 10 years. this important legislation will require the obama administration to expand access to areas offshore that contain the most oil and natural gas reserves. when we do so, we will improve our energy security and grow american jobs. i want to thank chairman hastings for his efforts in bringing h.r. 1231 along with two other american energy initiative bills to the floor. i also want to offer my special appreciation to chairman hastings for allowing me to propose an amendment to -- to have an amendment added to h.r. 1229 which includes language from a bill i recently introduced and which extends

certain leases affected by the administration's moratorium for a year. i urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas yields back. the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. mcgovern: i am amazed my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to be apologists for big oil. the fact of the matter is that big oil in this country is about making profits for big oil. they don't seem to care very much about the consumer. and i hold this chart up, mr. speaker, just to kind of prove a point that notwithstanding the fact that they are raising prices on consumers, in the first quarter of this year compared to last year, all these oil companies, exxon, conoco, chevron, b.p., made record profits. exxon is up 69%. they made $10.7 billion in

profits in the first quarter. and what is particularly outrageous is they are making all this money and my friends on the other side of the aisle continue to protect the subsidies and tax breaks they get. it's outrageous. they cut money for poor families trying to heat their homes in the winter, and on the other hand they go out of their way to protect big oil from any amendments that we can bring to the floor here to be able to go after these subsidies and tax breaks. my colleague from california, the chairman of the rules committee, says we don't want your sympathy. we want your vote. i brought this amendment to go after the subsidies that the oil companies currently enjoy, taxpayer-funded subsidies, three times in the rules committee. all three times it was voted down. so enough is enough. and in terms of this rule, i want to point out something. you know, there was a rule -- there was an amendment offered by the gentleman from iowa, mr. boswell.

it was germane. it complied with the republicans' new cut-go rules and it simply said this. it required that anyone who gets a lease under this bill will have to give preference to hiring veterans. the men and women who we sent over to afghanistan and iraq, when they come back, you know, we ought to go out of our way to get a job. this amendment was voted down in the rules committee. an amendment to help our veterans. you know, it is unbelievable to me that the republicans voted this amendment down. maybe there's a reason someone could give me on the other side of the aisle as to why this was ruled out of office. it was germane. it complied with the cut-go rules. but the idea that we're not going out of our way to help our veterans i think is unconscionable. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. reed: mr. speaker, at this time i'm pleased to yield five

minutes to the gentleman from ohio, mr. johnson. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized for five minutes. mr. johnson: thank you, mr. speaker. today i rise in strong support of the reversing president obama's offshore moratorium act, which will lift the president's ban on new offshore drilling by requiring the administration to do what my constituents in eerch and southeastern ohio have been calling for congress to do. open up for production the areas that contain the most oil and natural gas resources right here in america. the hardworking people of my district have made it abundantly clear that their number one concern is the rising price of gas at the pumps. over the past week this side of the aisle has begun to show the american people that we are serious about addressing our energy crisis. and we will not succumb to bringing up bogus proposals that make go well in the court of public opinion but may result in higher gas prices. in 2008 our country was also experiencing record high prices

at the pump. any logical commonsense response to those record high prices, that congress and that president took action to end a decade's long drilling ban on offshore by opening up new areas in the atlantic and the pacific ocean for exploration and production. unfortunately this administration has reversed the will of the people and has taken steps to reinstate this moratorium from new lease sales in these offshore areas. but not only has the administration abandoned the plan to go forward with opening up new areas for production, they have also canceled previously scheduled lease sales. we are now again faced with rising gas prices at the pump. and instead of making america more energy secure, we are forced to bring up legislation to do what congress did three years ago. recently the secretary of the interior testified before the natural resources committee. and between his testimony and answers to questions, he made

it painfully obvious that the administration does not have a real national energy strategy. well, today with this legislation we're going to help the secretary and the administration take a big step toward developing a real energy plan for america. this legislation requires the administration and the secretary of the interior to set specific goals on the amount of oil and natural gas production that is estimated from each of the five-year lease plans contained in this legislation. during my 26-plus-year career in the united states air force, we set goals and objectives and we sent out about working hard to not only meet them but exceed them. this legislation sets the production goals at a level that is tripled the level of america's current production and, therefore, reduces foreign imports by 1/3. once this legislation is adopted, we will send a signal to the world oil market that america means business when it

comes to our energy future, and i am fully confident that if we set the bar high, as this legislation does, american drive and ingenuity will rise to the occasion and we'll succeed this goal. if we are going to become energy secure, mr. speaker, we must increase our energy production, not limit it. and we need to commit ourselves to developing our own resources. that is why i strongly support the reversing president obama's offshore moratorium act, and i urge my colleagues to do the same. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio yields back. the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: mr. speaker, i yield myself 10 seconds. it appears based on what i'm hearing here what the republicans are dedicated to is making the oil company -- helping the oil companies make more profits. with that i yield to the ranking member on the resources committee, mr. markey. mr. markey: i thank the gentleman so much. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from massachusetts is rect for five minutes. mr. markey: so here's where we are. the republicans -- this is unbelievable -- are blocking any legislation from passing that is going to have new safety rules for drilling off of the beach of the united states one year after the b.p. spill. they're blocking any new safety legislation to make sure that the united states, which has four times the fatality rate of countries in europe driving offshores, have rules put on the books that those worst of all safety violators, the companies that drill off of our shores, have those new safety rules. number two, the republicans are fighting any attempts to take away the $4 billion in tax breaks, which the american consumer gives to the oil companies each year. even as the oil companies report -- exxonmobil $10 billion. shell, $8 billion. b.p., $7 billion. chevron, $6 billion, etc., for

the last three months that's how much money they made. the republicans think that's not enough money. even as people get tipped upside down and have money shaken out of their pockets at the gas pump, no, not enough money. they need to give the oil company tax breaks. that's the republican perspective. you want to know what else they do? they also slash the renewable energy budget, the clean energy budget by 70%. so you're a kid out there in america, you're in the sixth grade, you're looking at america for the 21th century, here's what the republicans are doing. they're slashing the solar and wind budget by 70%. they are saying to the oil companies, you don't need any more safety off of the beaches to drill. they're saying that your profits are not windfall profits which of course they are not oil industry. but here's what we're going to let you to do. we are going to let you drill off of the beaches of

california for oil, off of the beaches of florida for oil. we're going to let you drill off the beaches, three miles off the coast, by the way, three miles off the beaches of cape cod, of georgia's bank. we are going to turn georgia's bank into exxonmobil bank. you know, we are going to turn not shellfish into a product that we sell but shell oil will be out there. that's the agenda for the republican party. this is almost surreal that they want to take the tax breaks that the oil industry has. i'd like to project it even as they want to cut medicare for grandma and cut wind and energy as the energy sources for the future. it's almost like they think it's 1958, you know, and gasoline is 28 cents a gallon and we're all cruising around, you know, pretending that we're

not part of the rest of the world. so this debate today is kind of a microcosm of what's wrong with republican policies that before, i think, people want themselves to see oil rigs off of their beaches in california and not carolina and massachusetts and maine. i think you owe these people is you have new safety rules that reflect what happened. you have that b.p. commission report implemented, but you guys, you're running ahead as though nothing has happened. and by the way, you want to know what else is really wrong here? we know because of goldman sachs this $20 to $30 a barrel of oil increase over the last 11 weeks comes from spk lators and what you're doing is you -- speculators and what you are doing is try to knee tap the cops on the beat so they're not

looking at these speculators and you are trying to reduce the budget for the speculator cost, the people that will be chasing down these speculators. it's also exxonmobil. it's also shep and b.p. and chevron and conocophillips. by the way, at least you're true to your colors. at least this is what you really believe in and you don't believe in wind and solar so you're cutting that budget by 70% and you want to open up the beaches as well for drilling in the states that don't want oil rigs off their beaches. i mean, my goodness, this is something that at least you should be able to respect. so -- and by the -- and you also disapprove the using of the strategic petroleum reserve as a weapon to tell speculators you could go bankrupt because we're going to use the strategic at the -- petroleum

reserve. i'm glad we're having this debate today because the drill, baby, drill says, yeah, your policy is not all-of-the-above. it's oil above all. everything else gets defunded. the speaker pro tempore: the time has expired. the gentleman from massachusetts reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. reed: thank you, mr. speaker. at this time i'm pleased to yield three minutes to the gentlelady from north carolina, ms. foxx. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from north carolina is recognized for three minutes. ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. and i thank my colleague for yielding time. mr. speaker, americans are demanding relief at the pump and for congress to create an environment that creates jobs. republicans are answering that demand with practical solutions that will have an immediate impact on the price of gasoline, energy security and jobs. liberal democrats are still adhering to the sorted demagoguery that may score political points with their base but that doesn't create a single job, nor does it reduce the course of energy by 1%.

republicans believe that energy security depends on strong domestic energy production. the liberal democrats and president obama have actively blocked and delayed energy production, destroying jobs, raising energy prices and making the u.s. more reliant on unstable foreign countries for energy. this is hurting american families and small businesses who are vital to creating the new private sector jobs we desperately need during this time of high unemployment. the liberal proposals fail to create jobs in america but help create jobs overseas for the citizens of foreign nations. president obama's reckless moratorium on domestic energy production has cost the gulf coast region 12,000 jobs since it was enacted last year. his moratorium now threatens an additional loss of over 20,000 jobs in the gulf and 36,000 jobs nationwide if we do not reverse this dangerous liberal endeavor. republicans believe that energy security will not only create jobs but will also help reduce

the deficit. according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, h.r. 1231 will generate $800 million in revenue over 10 years while reducing foreign oil imports by nearly 1/3. the solution provided by the democrat elites, more taxes, resulting in higher costs that will get passed on to american families. the nonpartisan congressional research service says that democrat tax increases will, quote, make gas and natural gas more expensive for customers, end quote. and even some liberals admit it will cost thousands of jobs. renowned economist, dr. joseph mason, has stated that american proposals for domestic energy production will create 1.2 million american jobs. if the liberal democrats care about our energy security, prices at the pump, job creation and strengthening our domestic energy capabilities, they will join republicans in supporting this rule and the underlying bill. mr. speaker, american families cannot wait any longer for relief at the pump.

american families cannot wait any longer nor jobs. if you stand -- for jobs. if you stand with american families, if you stand with american energy security, and if you stand for job creation in america, i urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. mcgovern: mr. speaker, i yield myself 10 seconds. mr. speaker, the -- my colleague on the rules committee talked about all the people she stands with. i want to know why she didn't stand with the veterans last would help make sure that our veterans returning from iraq and afghanistan would have preference in terms of these so-called new jobs that we're going to be creating. i find it unconscionable that the rules committee did not make in order the boswell amendment. at this time i yield 2 1/2 minutes to the gentlewoman from hawaii, ms. hirono. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from hawaii is recognized for 2 1/2 minutes. ms. hirono: thank you, mr. speaker. yes, indeed, the taxpayers are waiting for relief at the pump,