Joe Barton: “I want to compliment my excellent and good friend from Massachusetts for offering this motion to instruct conferees. It…”

“I want to compliment my excellent and good friend from Massachusetts for offering this motion to instruct conferees. It is obvious that some thought has gone into it. I do not believe anybody on our side of the aisle is for deficit financing or deficit spending, and obviously we worked very hard, as the gentleman from Massachusetts would, I think, acknowledge, to create a bipartisan bill, H.R. 4, that we are sending to conference. I think after we have a little debate to flush out what exactly it is this motion to instruct conferees is attempting to do, I am going to recommend that we accept it. I do not see any reason we cannot agree, going to conference, to try to make sure the American people know that we want an energy policy for this country that is based on a balanced approach both on the production side and on the consumption side, and in no way are we trying to create through the guise of an energy policy a bill that would increase the public debt. Having said that, I think we need to make a few points in order so that the Members that are in their offices watching this debate on television and other interested citizens understand that the energy bill that we are sending to conference is an authorization bill. It is not a spending bill. It is not an appropriation bill.”