mr. chairman , if the chairman would remember , he did allow me to offer my amendment in committee , but before we had voted to do a permanent ban , it was undermined by the rogers amendment , which basically says the same thing that it says in the body of the underlying bill , which encourages states to enact a ban . 
as the gentleman from texas knows well , because we have several states who deal with lake michigan and four of the five great lakes are international borders , a ban , if it is going to come , a permanent ban , which we seek , would have to be federal legislation because of the interstate commerce clause from which our committee gets its jurisdiction . 
that is why we were very disappointed in that , especially . 
in fact , in 2001 , we did have a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the great lakes , and it passed 265-157 with strong bipartisan support . 
that is why we are disappointed that the committee on rules did not make our amendment in order . 
