Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. You have a loan on your home. You have a second mortgage on your home and you want a new line of credit. It is a valid line of credit and it is a 4 percent loan. What does the bank tell you? We want you to pay it off, and the new rate is 7 percent or 6 percent.

People renegotiate these contracts all the time. You just refuse to negotiate them on behalf of the taxpayers. You renegotiate them all of the time on behalf of the oil companies. We do it all of the time.

This is what people do when they want to refinance their homes. The banker says, here are the new rules. You can stick with your loan and be happy as you are; but if you want another $50,000 out of your house, here are the points you have to pay. People understand this.

Why don't you let the marketplace work for once and why don't we run the government like a business, like so many of our constituents stand up and tell us to do. We now have an opportunity. We now have an opportunity, and you are refusing to take the opportunity on behalf of the taxpayers.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

What is it about the marketplace that the Republicans don't understand? You signed a valid lease, although there is some argument about it. But you have a valid lease and now you want to lease the space next door. You leased a couple hundred thousand square feet, and you leased a thousand square feet, and now you want to lease next door. The economy has changed and now the land is available and so the landlord says to you, I think we will do is, we will do a wraparound lease. You want this?

This is done all the time. It is done all the time in the business world. Various assets at various prices are combined, and the landlord thinks about extracting what he can at that time when you come to renegotiate. This happens all the time in the real estate field, all the time in the minerals field.

All we are saying to the government is, these people have such a huge advantage because of the failure of the cap, we don't think they ought to get any additional leases. They can keep those leases without the caps and not lease, or they can negotiate those caps with the government to be like the rest of the oil companies and they can lease. This is a business transaction. It just happens to be a business transaction on behalf of the people of the United States of America who own these lands.

What is it about the marketplace that you think at $70 a barrel you need royalty relief? I think you are confusing this with the idea that the oil companies are somehow royalty and we must bow down to them. At $70 a barrel, the conservative chairman of my committee, the Resources Committee, said nobody deserves royalty relief. The President of the United States says at these prices nobody deserves royalty relief. And here you are on the floor of the House of Representatives arguing for people who get $70 a barrel.

I talked to the CEOs of these companies when this royalty relief came up, and most of them thought it was balderdash. Most of them thought it was about trying to rescue a couple of companies that made some real bad decisions in the gulf shelf when oil was a bad price. Fine, we agreed that under $34 a barrel you can have some royalty relief. Oil today, my friends, maybe you haven't been out of the Chamber here, it is $70 a barrel; and that is why we are asking the marketplace to work on behalf of the taxpayers of the country who are paying $3.50 for gasoline.

The gentleman's amendment should be unanimous in this House on behalf of people who are buying gas and commuting to work and are paying that price every day. Why do they now have to pay it through this tax break through this royalty relief?