Joe Barton

This is one of the few things that Republicans and Democrats both agree on is a problem

If only we were still a republic.

I was here in 1996. And that act was a philosophical change from where the committee had been...

I have served on this committee since 1986. I have served with three of the four former Chairmen.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the NRC can review a design application in a few months.

I want a general ballpark estimate. Are we talking about a few million, several hundred million, a billion?

Well, my first bill that I introduced in this committee was to repeal the Natural Gas Policy Act of wellhead pricing on natural gas.

What your company is advertising here, except for the geography, is the same thing that my bill does, and my bill is poker only.

About 5 or 6 years ago I started an effort and held a hearing on the BCS, and everybody thought that was crazy.

Poker is a game of skill, and all my bill does is allow free will at the state level if the governor allows it for people who want to play poker online.

I think we ought to have a law that reflects free will in this issue.

The adoption of regulated Internet gaming in the United States means the policymakers can no longer consider regulated Internet gaming as a theoretical.

Let me say that prohibition will just play into the hands of the criminal element just as it did in the 1920s when alcohol was banned.

This misguided approach would only serve to harm the most vulnerable populations that regulation properly protects.

Mr. Barton's bill does not force any state to participate in the federal system, and it allows states to implement their own online gaming regulations.

I would like to start by joining the almighty and thanking Congressman Barton for his leadership on this issue and pragmatic efforts to create a regulated gaming environment.

I think it is a good work product. I think it would work.

H.R. 2666 has been developed in openness and transparency.

I think the time has come to recognize that in the Internet age we need to regulate and set a level playing field for those of us who would like to play poker online.

I want to tell the committee, Mr. Chairman, that God must be for this bill because I got up this morning at 4:00 in Ennis, Texas, outside of Dallas and braved icy roads and 20-degree temperatures to get to DFW airport when my good friends…

Absent a clear mandate from Congress, we risk exposing our constituents to an environment of a race to the bottom.

The status of online gaming is murky, at best.

I am very interested in the state of online gaming in the United States.

I appreciate the fact that all of our witnesses stayed true.

Our ability to produce natural gas with hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling at the prices we can do it that are competitive impacts our ability to affect strategic interests.