Joe Barton: “I serve as the authorizing subcommittee chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce that has jurisdiction over the…”

“I serve as the authorizing subcommittee chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce that has jurisdiction over the LIHEAP program. Earlier this year, we were trying to move legislation to help the West Coast with their electricity problem. The gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) offered a LIHEAP amendment authorizing an additional $100 million. The Bush administration later came forward and said they were going to support $150 million. The subcommittee and now the full committee in the supplemental has raised that to $300 million. If we look at the history of the program and look at the situation both in terms of heating requirements in the colder regions of the country and cooling requirements in the warmer regions of the country for the summer, the amount of additional funding in the pending supplemental should be more than adequate, if we consider the rollover money that is carried forward that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) talked about in his statement several minutes ago. Also, if we consider that we are going to have a FEMA increase amendment, we think fairly quickly on the floor offered by three Members, which increases FEMA with an offset to the rest of the bill, I think we can handle that part of the amendment of the gentlewoman from Connecticut.”