mr. gordon: i yield two additional minutes to the gentleman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is yielded two additional minutes. mr. baird: if we have an action system where people are making decisions with a known possibility of a blowout and blowout preventers that have a fairly high probability of failure, somebody needs to intervene and say, what the heck is going on here that people can make these decisions when, and i want to underscore this, when the consequences is the loss of human life? 11 souls lost their lives on that rig that day. we talk so much about the cleanup and the environmental catastrophe that's resulted. let us not forget those 11 lives. when people's decisionmaking leads to the loss of human life and leads to an environmental and economic tragedy of this magnitude, we've got to make sure they make those decisions in the right way with the right information and the right communication strategies and as important as this bill is in improving the technology for drilling and drilling safety, essential to that technology

mr. gordon, to suspend the rules and agree to h. concurrent resolution 292, as amended, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will report the title of the concurrent resolution. the clerk: house concurrent resolution 292, concurrent resolution supporting the goals and ideals of national aerospace week, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, as amended. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 413. the nays are zero. 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the concurrent resolution is agreed to and without objection

mr. gordon, and like the yankees made the most of it. the first piece of luck is the land we occupy on the globe. abundantly endowed with natural resources and with a vast territory, we are a continental power like russia or china. but we border on only two other countries, both friendly. strategically we are an island power. harrisburg, pennsylvania, claudia. republican. is america exceptional 1234 caller: absolutely. i'm thankful that i'm born and raised in this country. i have been in europe several times and this is a wonderful country. they are afraid of us. they don't know of us. and they make their own opinions based on liberal points of view. we are an exceptional country. i'm a first-i'm caller and i thank you for taking my call. host: he said our mother country was in medieval england the concept of perform -- personal liberty was born. local control of local matters was the norm there and liberty and self-government came to america. the u.s. more than any other country was created by individual people, not rulers. so power has

mr. speaker. i want to start. keith jones, father of gordon jones, and i spent several hours together in recent weeks traveling back to louisiana. a quote. when michelle tells her boys about their dad, she will not show them the pay stub. she'll tell them how much their father loved them. in cases like these, 11 deaths, please believe me, no amount can ever compensate us for gordon's death. we know that. but this is the only means available to begin to make things right and to make them right for michelle and the two boys. mr. speaker, 11 men died in the explosion among the deepwater horizon oil rig and a 90-year-old law stands right now. the family that lost their loved ones cannot hold those responsible accountable for the harm that has caused them. i met with the families of those workers. while we cannot relieve these families from the unimaginable grief they will go through for the rest of their lives, losing a husband, a father, a brother, a son, we need to get the law current. as the law is now, it is gambling with workers throughout th

i was there the night gordon gunn drew the card. of course, mr.unn owned the cleveland cavaliers at that time. then i was with him the night he drafted lebron james and i did first game that lebron james played. and they traveled to sacramento to play the sacramento kings so the kings and the kavs, i was on the crew that broadcast that first game. so i had a history with maverick and lebron and we got to talking and by the end of the time we were talking i said, in fact, here's a better idea, maverick, why don't we go buy an hour of network television time and you make the announcement-- you meaning lebron james-- of where he's going go on live television. ari heard this come out of my mouth and he turned to maverick and said "that's brilliant, that's great, you ought to do that." so maverick said let's put it together, let's do it. maverick then said i can raise a ton of money, a ton of money for a charity and we can have lebron contribute some funds and it turned out that the boys and girls clubs made multimillion dollars the other night, more t

mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman from ranger in gordon county. almost my district. we have congressional districts and we have the privilege actually of sharing gordon county. the gentleman from ranger, representative graves, has done a great job in a short period of time, mr. speaker, in the house of representatives and he knows of what he speaks. i mean, this is the kind of work that he did in the georgia house of representatives and represented us extremely well at the state level. it's really interesting to see him on the floor of the house of representatives now and to explain to the american people and our colleagues, mr. speaker, what truly is going on here. he and i had the privilege, i guess you could say, of the previous hour, watching our colleagues from the democrat majority, it seems, mr. speaker, that they spent an hour whining about competition from other countries, particularly china. they wanted to focus in on china and say that, you know, all these unfair trade practices and what china's doing in regard to their currency and dumping and all of thes

mr. prime minister, first of all, would you be prepared to talk to your predecessors, tony blair and gordon brown, to get there agreements to release any documents if they are relevant to the paper search that the cabinet secretary will undergo? and, mr. president, can i ask you -- the prime minister says he opposes an inquiry. hillary clinton has demanded an inquiry. where do you stand? >> well, first of all, on the documents, the proper process here is that the cabinet secretary should look back over this decision and the circumstances surrounding it, should identify those documents that should be published. it should be right that ministers in the previous government should be consulted about the publication of those documents. and, of course, we will consult with them over that. but in my view, there is absolutely no harm to be done in giving the fullest possible explanation of the circumstances surrounding this decision. i think the key thing, though, to remember is that in the end it was a decision by the scottish executive. on the issue of an inquiry, as i said, i'm not currently min