Bart Stupak: “if the chairman would remember, he did allow me to offer my amendment in committee, but before we had voted to do a…”

“if the chairman would remember, he did allow me to offer my amendment in committee, but before we had voted to do a permanent ban, it was undermined by the Rogers amendment, which basically says the same thing that it says in the body of the underlying bill, which encourages States to enact a ban. As the gentleman from Texas knows well, because we have several States who deal with Lake Michigan and four of the five Great Lakes are international borders, a ban, if it is going to come, a permanent ban, which we seek, would have to be Federal legislation because of the interstate commerce clause from which our committee gets its jurisdiction. That is why we were very disappointed in that, especially. In fact, in 2001, we did have a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes, and it passed 265-157 with strong bipartisan support. That is why we are disappointed that the Committee on Rules did not make our amendment in order.”