mr. chairman , the republican leadership in the house has done everything it could possibly do to keep us from voting on this issue . 
they so badly wanted to protect the oil companies and to push the costs onto the local governments to take care of the polluted drinking water . 
we had a vote earlier , as the gentleman from texas ( chairman barton ) indicated , but it was on a procedural vote . 
now we have a vote on the merits . 
and if we do not support the capps amendment , we are keeping this unfunded mandate in the bill and our local governments are going to have to pick up the billions of dollars of costs to clean up the drinking water . 
that is why it is an unfunded mandate . 
and that is why i am speaking for the republican side of the chamber , because the republicans came in under the contract with america and said , we want to do away with unfunded mandates , and we will let them be challenged on the house floor . 
and i congratulate the gentlewoman from california ( mrs. capps ) xz4000620 for bringing this to the house floor under a procedure that the republicans allowed . 
states ' rights , that used to be a republican position . 
but this bill has the view that washington knows best . 
so we do not let states decide things anymore . 
they can not regulate , or participate even , in key energy decisions affecting states and localities such as lng facilities or relicensing of hydroelectric dams . 
washington knows best . 
and in this bill the most egregious example of arrogant centralization of power in washington is this massive unfunded mandate . 
we have heard that congress insisted that mbte be used for reformulated gas . 
that is not true . 
under the clean air act , we required reformulated gasoline , but we left it to the oil companies to decide how to do that , and they were using mbte before the 1990 clean air act was adopted . 
now that we know what they may have known in advance , that mbte can cause problems in our drinking water , they want to shift the costs from the oil companies that have caused the pollution to the local taxpayers . 
i remember when republicans would have objected to this . 
and i hope today they will object to it as well . 
and i guess the republican leadership fears that they might , because that is why they have gone to such enormous lengths to not allow anybody in this chamber to vote on this specific issue . 
every time we asked the committee on rules to allow a motion to strike be in order , they denied it . 
there was a point of order raised , and that way they were able to keep us from voting on it . 
but thanks to newt gingrich and the contract with america , we have this way of bringing the issue on the merits . 
vote for the capps amendment . 
