Joe Barton

I was proud to vote for him this past November.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today.

I am quite frankly skeptical of this whole concept. I would not have designed the legislation the way it was designed.

I want to commend you and Ms. Eshoo for holding this hearing. This is an example of the committee at its finest.

We want you to be successful. But there are a few of us, at least me, that have some grave doubts about this.

I especially want to commend Congresswoman DeGette. She has been fighting these fights almost as long as I have.

We have had repeated security incidences at the weapons complexes in the national laboratories over the last 20 years.

Yes, where they still have the regulated markets and you can roll in the prices.

I am a big proponent historically of wind power.

I want the record to show that we had a witness say I was exactly right.

Let us be honest. You are not going to build a coal plant with those regulations, and you will build, probably, almost all natural gas.

I have served in Congress and on this committee for over a quarter of a century...

What would be the harm of just rescinding the funding that has not yet in been spent saying game over, save the taxpayers $2.5 billion.

We don't need the program. We don't need it. It is not that it is a bad program.

Now, we could have given everyone of Mike Doyle's constituents $25,000, and I bet they would have been able to go out and find some sort of broadband.

If you spend or are obligated to spend over $7 billion you darn sure better help somebody.

I don't doubt that for a minute. I don't doubt that for second.

But the basic policy decisions on these issues appear to me to be best made at the State.

So not everybody is totally happy, but everybody had input.

The issue before the subcommittee and this panel is really, who is going to set the policy? Who is best able to set the policy?

The current law gives the States great flexibility, great opportunity.

I think the Oil and Gas Commission is perfectly capable of setting policy.

Is it the Federal Government, top-down, or is it the people in the States, bottom-up?

Not everybody is totally happy, but everybody had input.

As I read the Constitution, it starts with three words, 'We, the people,' which means the power comes from God to the people.