Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Last year we had this argument. Last year, it was criticism of the fact that I had approved a contract that got rid of the composting and instead that started a pilot project, I believe, in the gentleman from Virginia's district, where we are taking all of this and we are converting it from waste energy in the gentleman's district--one of the exemplary programs in the country. We're not putting this into a landfill; we are actually converting it. In fact, these products are one of the best means of creating energy from waste.

The second thing is, this is a condemnation of an industry that employs about 50,000 Americans around the country that deal with the production of this product. I would say they have come to me and said: Can you at least defend us with the facts, that the FDA has to approve use for sale of these products that come into human contact. If it were carcinogenic, it would not be allowed.

The fact of the matter is, we used common sense. We actually took up a recommendation by the Democrats when the Republicans took over. One of the recommendations that was made in writing was that we eliminate the composting program because it cost too much money, it was unsuccessful, and in fact it caused more energy than it was supposed to save. We did that. I thought you were going to thank us for following your suggestion. We even put it in the gentleman's district--proud employees of the gentleman's constituency are reducing this waste to energy, and yet the gentleman comes before us and says the program that you have in my district, doggone it, we just don't want it. Sometimes people around here can't take yes for an answer.