Joe Barton

I think the discussion draft is an excellent document, and we can iron out the details through these hearings.

To paraphrase President Reagan, in his first campaign in 1980, he asked the American people: Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?

Mexico is finally freeing up their oil economy, and if they follow through with their constitutional change, you will see a large number of U.S. producers going down to Mexico.

Do we have a ban on the export of movies? I don't think so.

Do we have a ban on the export of coal? No.

If we don't have a market in the United States for the crude oil at our refineries, if you can't export it, you keep it in the ground.

Do we have a ban on the export of corn? No.

What happens to domestic oil production in the near term, in the mid term, in the long term if we keep the ban in place?

In a free market economy like the United States, there are almost no commodities or products that we have a ban on.

Putting a ban on crude oil exports at that time made some sense, to husband that resource as a strategic commodity.

We have a number of Members on this committee that probably weren't alive when we passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975.

Do we have a ban on the export of peaches? Yes or no?

I want to thank the Speaker for granting us this Special Order to honor Congressman Ralph Hall of the Fourth Congressional District and for granting me this time today. Although Congressman Hall has been sidelined by a recent accident, he…

We have had a number of Congressmen come on the House floor and tell anecdotes about Ralph, about how funny he was and how smart he was, and they are all--at least the ones about how smart he was--very true. We have heard the urban myth…

I want to thank the Congressman from Chicago, the Reverend Bobby Rush, for recognizing me. Mr. Speaker, we always in Texas refer to the former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn who served for 48 years as ``Man of the House.'' In fact, there…

Ralph, we love you. We will miss you. You are a great guy. We will see you soon. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman. May I inquire how much time I have remaining, Mr. Speaker? The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 8 minutes remaining.

I thank the gentleman. I now yield to the gentleman from Round Rock, Texas, the distinguished John Carter.

I want to thank you, Congressman. I now want to yield to the gentleman from the Fifth District in Dallas, Texas, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, the Honorable Jeb Hensarling.

I thank the gentleman. I now want to yield to the Honorable Dana Rohrabacher from California's 48th District in Orange County.

I now yield to Randy Weber, the Congressman from the 14th District from Friendswood, Texas.

I would now like to yield to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, the gentlelady from Houston, Texas.

I now yield to the gentleman from the 14th District of Illinois, Congressman Hultgren.

Well, while the Bonnie and Clyde story is more fiction than fact--Ralph would have been pumping gas at the ripe old age of 8 or 9 years old for that to be true--the Ted Williams story is fact and is true.

There is no proof of that. I know the Congressman actually states it as a fact, but I have repeatedly asked him to prove it, and he has absolutely failed. So that is an urban myth of the Fourth Congressional District.