mr. speaker , i want to put this debate in some perspective . 
it was a year ago this week that the commission that the united states congress created gave their report to us , after spending approximately $ 10 million of the taxpayers ' money to put the report together , a year ago . 
this debate is about how we spend another year before we do anything , and that is wrong . 
what is lacking here is leadership . 
the ocean issue goes back generations . 
it goes back to the last administration . 
president clinton had the first white house conference on the oceans out in california in 1997 . 
that was where all the ideas were created that we needed to upgrade all the oceans . 
president bush signed into law and appointed members of the committee which gave us this report . 
what is happening is that this task force that is before the house today is just a way of delaying , stalling and not getting anything done . 
everybody that is speaking here today loves the oceans . 
everybody is a supporter of it , and there is not a greater supporter than mr. gilchrest . 
but , unfortunately , there is a lack of leadership behind mr. gilchrest . 
where , mr. speaker , is the leadership ? 
there is a bill in his committee , it has been there for almost a year , and they say , we need more time . 
that bill was put together with a coalition of democrats and republicans and sea grant fellows , the staff , the ph.d. 's and mas to come here and work together . 
they are on it a year with members and other staff . 
there has been all the work done , and it has been put in a bill . 
it is a bipartisan bill . 
it has all the cosponsors of the oceans caucus , three democrats and three republicans . 
that bill is h.r. 2139 and the leader of that bill is mr. weldon xz4004272 from the republican party . 
we have not even been able to have a hearing , not even scheduled a hearing . 
that bill could pass , and it is the ocean policy . 
it is the sum total of the parts of those two commissions . 
we do not need to spend more taxpayer money and more time in our house trying to decide what to do ; we just need to do it . 
now , we created a commission after 9/11 , and after the recommendations came back , yes , there was debate on it , but in the same year we adopted it , and we took the recommendations . 
this is not being done . 
mr. gilchrest xz4001490 is not getting the support . 
what they are giving him is a bone and saying , here , go out and use the bureaucracy of the house to have another task force . 
i ask , what date are we going to have a hearing for our bill ? 
if we want to have some leadership on this , can you give us a date when the oceans-21 bill will be heard in your committee ? 
