[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 6]
[Issue]
[Pages 7489-7671]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
[[Page 7489]]
VOLUME 154--PART 6
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES--Thursday, May 1, 2008
The House met at 10 a.m.
Pastor Gary Strickland, Kingdom Place, Lumberton, North Carolina,
offered the following prayer:
Our dear Heavenly Father, on this National Day of Prayer, we publicly
acknowledge You to be the Lord of the universe, the author of creation,
the arbiter in history, and the savior of man.
We bow before Your providence and celebrate Your goodness to our
Nation. Thank You for blessing America.
Bless this Chamber of decisionmakers, and let each of them seek Your
guidance in every matter affecting our country.
Bless this Chamber of legislators, and let each of them vote always
according to Your eternal standards, which transcend time and personal
preference.
Bless this Chamber of social leaders, and let each of them model for
us Your healing virtues of compassion and mercy, integrity, forgiveness
and service.
We bow before Your power, celebrating Your goodness to us as a
people. Thank You for blessing America.
In the name of Your son, Jesus Christ, we ask and pray for all these
things.
Amen.
____________________
THE JOURNAL
The SPEAKER. The Chair has examined the Journal of the last day's
proceedings and announces to the House her approval thereof.
Pursuant to clause 1, rule I, the Journal stands approved.
____________________
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
The SPEAKER. Will the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher)
come forward and lead the House in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Mrs. TAUSCHER led the Pledge of Allegiance as follows:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of
America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
____________________
MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
A message from the Senate by Ms. Curtis, one of its clerks, announced
that the Senate has passed a bill of the following title in which the
concurrence of the House is requested:
S. 1760. An act to amend the Public Health Service Act with
respect to the Healthy Start Initiative.
The message also announced that pursuant to section 276d-276g of
title 22, United States Code, as amended, the Chair, on behalf of the
Vice President, appoints the following Senators as members of the
Senate Delegation to the Canada-United States Interparliamentary Group
conference during the Second Session of the 110th Congress:
The Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich).
The Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).
____________________
INTRODUCTION OF REV. GARY STRICKLAND
(Mr. McINTYRE asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute.)
Mr. McINTYRE. Madam Speaker, I'm pleased today to introduce the
Reverend Gary Strickland who just delivered the invocation for the U.S.
House as we, as a Nation, begin this National Day of Prayer, a time
when communities across America will be joining in prayer for our
country today.
And what better person to begin this day than a man whose ministry
has carried him across North Carolina, touching people from all walks
of life, from the booming coastal city of Wilmington to rural
communities like Pikeville, Wilson, and Little Washington, North
Carolina, to the All-American cities of Fayetteville and Lumberton.
The former Christian Education Director for the North Carolina
Conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, Gary now
pastors a vibrant, nondenominational, multicultural church named
Kingdom Place that is growing exponentially and has a wide-ranging
ministry that shares God's love and the redeeming power of Jesus
Christ.
Born and reared in Southeastern North Carolina, he is married to my
sister, Karon McIntyre Strickland, who's with us today, and they have
two children, Joel and Amy; two grandsons, Bailey and Bentley; and a
son-in-law, Steve.
Gary is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke
where he served as student body president. He received his master's in
religious education at Duke and his master's of divinity from
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
As my brother-in-law, I'm particularly honored to have had him open
us today on the National Day of Prayer.
____________________
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER
The SPEAKER. The Chair will entertain up to five further 1-minutes on
each side.
____________________
PRESIDENT BUSH IS 0 FOR 2
(Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute.)
Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, in 1993, when professional baseball
owners were deciding how to rehabilitate the reputation of baseball
after the players' strike, they debated whether to enact a wild-card
rule to allow the second place team into the playoffs. Only one owner
at the time voted against this, Texas Rangers general partner, George
Bush.
When the rule passed 27-1, at the time the President said, ``I made
my arguments and went down in flames. History will prove me right.''
Since then, nearly a third of the World Series Champions have been
wild-card teams, including the 2004 World Series Champion Boston Red
Sox. The rule helped save baseball, as history has shown.
And just like his baseball predictions, President Bush sings a very
similar tune about Iraq. He says, as recently as yesterday, ``History
will
[[Page 7490]]
prove whether I'm right, and I think I'll be right.''
Really? Five years today since his speech on ``Mission
Accomplished.'' And let's take stock. More than 4,000 lives have been
lost, tens of thousands of American men and women have been injured,
we've spent over 475 billion taxpayer dollars in Iraq, with the price
tag continually going up.
History will judge whether, once again, George Bush's record and
America's reputation will go down in flames. At this rate, he's 0 for
2.
____________________
CONGRATULATING ISRAEL ON ITS 60TH ANNIVERSARY
(Mr. KNOLLENBERG asked and was given permission to address the House
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Madam Speaker, I rise today in honor of one of this
Nation's strongest allies and friends, Israel.
For 60 years now, Israel has been the pride of her people, and a
beacon for those who believe in the transformational power of
democracy. Our relationship with Israel is built on the bedrock
principle that free people and freedom itself must be defended whenever
and wherever it is threatened.
Israel itself faces constant threats to its freedom as her people
suffer from the most consistent barrage of terrorist attacks the world
over. But that does not stop, does not deter, does not prevent Israel
from thriving and standing strong.
As a representative of one of the country's largest Jewish
communities, I'm proud to rise today in support of Israel, and to
congratulate the great State of Israel on its 60th anniversary. May she
live strong and free for years to come.
____________________
WE NEED TO GET OUT OF IRAQ AND TAKE CARE OF THINGS HERE AT HOME
(Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, my colleagues, yes, we're looking at an
anniversary of Iraq here. But let's talk about things that the American
people can relate to immediately. Cost of eggs going up 35 percent in
the last year, cost of milk going up about 23 percent, bread going up
about 16 percent.
Now we know that Americans going to the gas pump are paying near $4 a
gallon in many areas.
What does this all have to do with Iraq?
Well, we're in Iraq for oil. The oil companies are running our
domestic energy policy. It's having an impact on the price of food.
It's causing a great transfer of wealth upwards away from the working
people and the middle class of this country into the hands of a few
wealthy oil company owners.
We need to get out of Iraq. We need to end the occupation, close the
bases, bring the troops home. We need to set in motion an international
security and peacekeeping force that can stabilize Iraq as our troops
leave.
We need to start taking care of things here at home. Americans are
losing their homes, they're losing their jobs, they're losing their
health care, they're losing their retirement security. It's time we
started to take care of things here at home and get out of Iraq.
____________________
{time} 1015
SAN FRANCISCO ROLLS OUT THE RED CARPET FOR ILLEGALS
(Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, San Francisco city officials are encouraging
illegals to find their home in this California town. The city recently
began an expensive public relations campaign reminding illegals that it
is still a sanctuary city and that local law enforcement will not
cooperate with Federal officials to enforce immigration laws.
This bold announcement comes at a good time. Many other American
cities actually believe in enforcing the law and cooperating with the
Feds to arrest international trespassers. This causes illegals that
live in the shadows of those cities to be perplexed as to what to do.
They certainly don't want to go home because they cannot receive free
social services like health care, welfare, and education.
So to be completely compassionate and caring, San Francisco should
expand its PR campaign to include those hardline, narrow-minded,
nonsanctuary cities and encourage their illegals to go to San
Francisco. The PR campaign should be ``The City by the Bay welcomes
all, including those that violate the law.''
Meanwhile, Congress should prohibit all Federal money from going to
sanctuary cities like San Francisco that laugh at the rule of law and
pander to illegals.
And that's just the way it is.
____________________
HONORING CHRIS LOCKE
(Mr. McNERNEY asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. McNERNEY. Madam Speaker, today it's my pleasure to extend my
congratulations to Chris Locke, a walnut farmer from Lockeford,
California, who recently earned an award from the Environmental
Protection Agency for sustainable farming practices. He tends 580 acres
of walnuts on a plot of land in a town that his great-great grandfather
founded and which bears his family's name, Lockeford.
Chris utilizes pest control practices that reduce the need for
chemical sprays. His methods include pheromone-based treatments as well
as maintaining plants that attract beneficial insects and birds that
control rodents.
Chris' motivation is an admirable example of sustainable farming and
stands as a shining illustration of the increasing commitment of San
Joaquin County farmers and growers to environmentally friendly
agricultural techniques. As a pioneer in the field, Chris has
generously offered to share his techniques with fellow farmers.
It is my honor to recognize Chris and to congratulate him for his
well-deserved award.
____________________
HONORING THE JEANNETTE HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL TEAM
(Mr. TIM MURPHY of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to
address the House for 1 minute.)
Mr. TIM MURPHY of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, on Saturday, March 15,
the Jeannette High School basketball team from my district won the
State's Class AA championship. The Jeannette Jayhawks became the second
high school in all of Pennsylvania history to reach the achievement of
winning both the state basketball and state football championships. Led
by players Terrelle Pryor, Shaw Sunder, and Jordan Hall, and Coach Jim
Nesser, the Jayhawks won a game that will go down as one of the best in
PIAA history and cap a remarkable season in which the team went 25-4.
This is a great accomplishment for a small school district in
southwestern Pennsylvania which has excelled in the classroom. McKee
Elementary was named a Blue Ribbon school, and all the district's
schools received the Keystone Achievement Recognition this year, with
the school district getting the bronze medal.
Congratulations to the entire Jeannette school district and to the
entire Jeannette community.
____________________
HONORING MARINE LANCE CORPORAL JORDAN CHRISTIAN HAERTER
(Mr. BISHOP of New York asked and was given permission to address the
House for 1 minute.)
Mr. BISHOP of New York. Madam Speaker, I rise with profound sadness
to recognize a fallen marine from my district, Lance Corporal Jordan
Christian Haerter who was only 19 years old when he was killed in Iraq
last week.
Lance Corporal Haerter was from the small Peconic Bay community of
Sag
[[Page 7491]]
Harbor, New York, and is the village's first war casualty since World
War II. He is the 30th of our brave troops from Long Island, and the
eighth constituent of mine, who has fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lance Corporal Haerter had been in Iraq for only a month when he died
a hero while defending a checkpoint in Ramadi. He was killed while
firing at the driver of an enemy truck full of explosives that was
running a barrier and about to crash into dozens of his fellow marines.
His noble sacrifice was honored earlier this week when hundreds of Long
Islanders paid their respects outside the Old Whalers Church in Sag
Harbor. They remembered his youth, his love of the Marine Corps, and
his determination to be the best marine he could be. He was always
faithful.
On behalf of New York's First Congressional District, I extend our
heartfelt condolences to his family. Their loss will never be
forgotten, and we will always remember Jordan's noble sacrifice.
____________________
PASS THE ``RIPE'' ACT
(Mr. FLAKE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, recently I introduced a bill to repeal some
of the legislative provisions that have led to an artificial demand for
ethanol. H.R. 5911, the Remove Incentives for Producing Ethanol Act of
2008, or RIPE Act, repeals the renewable fuel standard, repeals tax
credits for ethanol producers, and repeals tariffs and duties on
imported ethanol. These incentives are giving ethanol producers a
guaranteed market for their product.
Domestic corn, already a heavily subsidized commodity, has been the
primary source of biofuel, and the mandate has encouraged farmers to
focus agriculture production away from food production toward fuel
production. The Department of Agriculture has said that the biofuel
mandate has raised fuel prices as much as 20 percent.
In addition, ethanol's role as a supposed savior for our energy woes
has been severely overstated. Ethanol as a fuel yields about 30 percent
less energy per gallon than a gallon of gasoline. This is what happens
when government picks winners and losers in the economy and the
marketplace. Just 4 months ago, we were convinced we had a winner. It's
turned out to be a big loser.
We need to remove the incentive. I urge support of H.R. 5911.
____________________
LET US SALUTE OUR VETERANS
(Mr. CARSON of Indiana asked and was given permission to address the
House for 1 minute.)
Mr. CARSON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I come to the House floor today
to honor our Nation's veterans, particularly the thousands of Hoosiers
who have risked their lives to protect our Nation and secure our
liberty. All Americans owe a great debt to the veterans who have served
and, in some cases, made the ultimate sacrifices for our Nation.
As a Member of Congress, I rely on the spirit of these brave men and
women to guide me as we work in the Chamber to ensure our troops have
the benefits they have earned and deserved when they come home.
This weekend in my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, our
distinguished House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has graciously agreed
to accompany me to meet with a group of our Nation's finest veterans at
the American Legion on Guion Road. This visit will provide Leader Hoyer
and me with the opportunity to personally thank some of our veterans
and learn more about how we can better meet the needs of these true
American heroes.
I am honored to welcome the majority leader back to Indianapolis, and
I look forward to working with him to ensure that we meet the needs of
all of our Nation's veterans.
____________________
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Tauscher). Members are reminded not to
traffic the well while another Member is under recognition.
____________________
REAUTHORIZE COUNTY PAYMENTS
(Mr. WALDEN of Oregon asked and was given permission to address the
House for 1 minute.)
Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Madam Speaker, of all of the counties in the
Second Congressional District, perhaps none has been more profoundly
impacted by Congress' refusal to reauthorize county payments than
Josephine County.
Nearly half of the county workforce has been cut in recent years.
Public safety has been hardest hit. Overnight patrols by the Josephine
County Sheriff's Office are down to one 10-hour shift split among six
deputies who cover 1,640 square miles. That's six deputies patrolling
an area the size of the State of Rhode Island.
Maybe you remember the frantic search after Thanksgiving of 2006 for
the James Kim family in the Federal forests off southern Oregon. The
search-and-rescue funds for that operation came from this very program
that Congress has refused to reauthorize.
Why won't the Democrat leadership bring a vote on H.R. 3058? It's a
bipartisan, 4-year reauthorization bill for county payments. It has
been 3 months since the committees of jurisdiction have sent it to the
full House, and yet no votes have been scheduled.
So I again call on the Democratic leadership to do the right thing.
Keep the commitment to the timbered communities of this country and
pass a reauthorization or attach it to a vehicle that's moving. Restore
faith with rural counties all across America. Keep the Federal
commitment to the people of timbered counties like Josephine.
____________________
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF MOTIONS TO SUSPEND THE RULES
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules,
I call up House Resolution 1167 and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 1167
Resolved, That it shall be in order at any time on the
legislative day of Thursday, May 1, 2008, for the Speaker to
entertain motions that the House suspend the rules relating
to the following measures:
(1) The bill (H.R. 5715) to ensure continued availability
of access to the Federal student loan program for students
and families.
(2) The bill (H.R. 493) to prohibit discrimination on the
basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance
and employment.
(3) A bill to provide for a temporary extension of programs
authorized by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of
2002.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from New York is recognized
for 1 hour.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr.
Hastings). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for
debate only.
I yield myself such time as I may consume and ask unanimous consent
that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and
extend their remarks on House Resolution 1167.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from New York?
There was no objection.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, as the Clerk just described, H. Res.
1167 authorizes the Speaker to entertain motions that the House suspend
the rules at any time on the legislative day of Thursday, May 1, 2008,
on legislation relating to the following three measures:
(1) H.R. 5715, to protect the Federal student loan program.
(2) H.R. 493, Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
(3) a bill to provide for a temporary extension of the farm bill.
The rule is necessary because under clause 1(a) of rule XV, the
Speaker may entertain motions to suspend the rules only on Monday,
Tuesday, or Wednesday of each week. In order for suspensions to be
considered on other days,
[[Page 7492]]
the Rules Committee must authorize consideration of these motions.
This is not an unusual procedure. In fact, in the 109th Congress, my
friends on the other side of the aisle reported a number of rules that
provided for additional suspension days.
This rule limits the suspension of rules to only these three time-
sensitive measures. This will help us move these noncontroversial, yet
important, legislative initiatives that have widespread bipartisan
support.
I urge my colleagues to support this rule.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the
chairwoman of the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter, for yielding me the
customary 30 minutes.
I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, on September 28, 2006, the Republicans were in the
majority and the Democrats were in the minority. I was managing a rule
on the floor similar to what we are considering here today to allow
specific bills to be considered under suspensions under the rule on a
day that suspensions are not permitted under House rules like today.
During debate on that day in September 2006, the then-ranking member
of the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter, stated, ``It isn't just what the
Congress has done with its time that is so disappointing. It is also
what the Congress has not done, all of the challenges it has not
addressed.''
Madam Speaker, the same can be absolutely said today about the
Democrat control of the House of Representatives. Earlier this year,
House Democrats approved a budget that included a tax hike of $683
billion, the largest in American history. Americans cannot afford the
Democrat plans to cut the child tax credit in half, to reinstate the
marriage penalty, and raise taxes on every single taxpayer. Instead of
record-breaking tax increases, this Congress should work to make those
tax cuts permanent.
I'm also dismayed that the Democrat-controlled House of
Representatives has not acted to extend the State and local sales tax
deduction to States that don't have State income tax. That tax expired
on January 1 of this year. The State and local sales tax deduction is
important for those States that don't have a State income tax, such as
my home State of Washington. Extending this deduction is a matter of
fairness that Congress must act to renew as soon as possible.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives have also failed to
act to give our intelligence community the tools they need to protect
our country from new terrorist threats by modernizing the seventies-era
FISA laws. For over 74 days now, America has been hobbled in the vital
work to monitor terrorist communications and detect new plots despite
the fact that the Senate has approved a bipartisan plan and sent it
over to the House. House Democrat leaders have refused to allow the
House to vote on the Senate plan and have refused to go to conference
with the Senate.
Madam Speaker, why, I ask, why is an issue of this magnitude being
placed on the back burner by Democrat leaders, despite repeated
attempts by Republicans to allow the House to vote on this bipartisan
plan?
Madam Speaker, the Democrat-controlled House has also failed to
address perhaps the most pressing issue on the minds of Americans
today, rising gas prices.
{time} 1030
Democrat leaders may not like to hear it, but since they took control
of Congress in January of 2007, the cost of a gallon of gas has gone up
by over 50 percent. In fact, the cost of gas has gone up by more in 16
months than it had gone up in the prior 6 years.
Instead, they have spent hours giving speeches trying to blame the
President and anyone but themselves for the fact that Congress has done
nothing to address rising gas prices. But, Madam Speaker, facts are
stubborn things.
And the facts are that gas prices have gone up over a dollar a gallon
on the Democrat Congress' watch. The facts are that Democrat leaders
promised the American people in 2006 that if they were to control
Congress that they had a ``commonsense plan'' to ``lower the price at
the pump.''
It's been 16 months of this Democrat Congress, and the promise is
nowhere to be seen. This Congress has put forward no plan, has taken no
action, and passed no bills to lower gas prices. They promised relief
at the pump to lower gas prices, and they've done nothing.
Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to insert into the Record an
article by Investor's Business Daily posted April 29, 2008, and it
states, ``This Congress is possibly the most irresponsible in modern
history. This is especially true when it comes to America's
dysfunctional energy policy.''
[From Investor's Business Daily, Apr. 29, 2008]
Congress Vs. You
Energy: President Bush let the Democrat-led Congress have
it with both barrels Tuesday, lambasting lawmakers for
fiddling while the energy crisis burns. It was a well-
deserved takedown of do-nothing lawmakers.
We've said it before, but we'll say it again: This Congress
is possibly the most irresponsible in modern history. This is
especially true when it comes to America's dysfunctional
energy policy.
The media won't call either the House or the Senate on its
failures, for one very obvious reason: They mostly share an
ideology with the Democrats that keeps them from
understanding how free markets and supply and demand really
work. Sad, but true.
So we were happy to hear the president do the job, calling
out Congress for its inaction and ignorance in his wide-
ranging press conference Tuesday.
``Many Americans are understandably anxious about issues
affecting their pocketbook, from gas and food prices to
mortgage and tuition bills,'' Bush said. ``They're looking to
their elected leaders in Congress for action. Unfortunately,
on many of these issues, all they're getting is delay.''
Best of all, Bush didn't let the issue sit with just
generalities. He reeled off a bill of particulars of
congressional energy inaction, including:
Failing to allow drilling in ANWR. We have, as Bush noted,
estimated capacity of a million barrels of oil a day from
this source alone--enough for 27 million gallons of gas and
diesel. But Congress won't touch it, fearful of the clout of
the environmental lobby. As a result, you pay at the pump so
your representative can raise campaign cash.
Refusing to build new refineries. The U.S. hasn't built one
since 1976, yet sanctions at least 15 unique ``boutique''
fuel blends around the nation. So even the slightest problem
at a refinery causes enormous supply problems and price
spikes. Congress has done nothing about this.
Turning its back on nuclear power. It's safe and, with
advances in nuclear reprocessing technology, waste problems
have been minimized. Still, we have just 104 nuclear plants--
the same as a decade ago--producing just 19% of our total
energy. (Many European nations produce 40% or more of their
power with nuclear.) Granted, nuclear power plants are
expensive--about $3 billion each. But they produce energy at
$1.72/kilowatt-hour vs. $2.37 for coal and $6.35 for natural
gas.
Raising taxes on energy producers. This is where a basic
understanding of economics would help: Higher taxes and
needless regulation lead to less production of a commodity.
So by proposing ``windfall'' and other taxes on energy
companies plus tough new rules, Congress makes our energy
situation worse.
These are just a few of Congress' sins of omission--all
while India, China, Eastern Europe and the Middle East add
more than a million barrels of new demand each and every
year. New Energy Department forecasts see world oil demand
growing 40% by 2030, including a 28% increase in the U.S.
Americans who are worried about the direction of their
country, including runaway energy and food prices, should
keep in mind the upcoming election isn't just about choosing
a new president. We'll also pick a new Congress.
The current Congress, led on the House side by a speaker
who promised a ``common sense plan'' to cut energy prices two
years ago, has shown itself to be incompetent and
irresponsible. It doesn't deserve re-election.
Madam Speaker, we all know that we must work together, Democrats,
Republicans, the House, the Senate and the President, to solve
America's pain at the pump. Until this happens, however, we should not
deny good ideas from being considered.
Therefore, I will be urging my colleagues to defeat the previous
question so that I can amend the rule to make in order any bill that
would ``have the effect of lowering the national average price per
gallon of regular unleaded
[[Page 7493]]
gas.'' Let's defeat the previous question and show America that
Congress is serious about addressing the rising cost at the pump.
With that, I reserve my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, since I will be the last speaker on
this side, I will reserve my time until the gentleman has closed.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. At this time, Madam Speaker, I yield
myself the balance of the time.
Madam Speaker, Americans don't want a debate on the problems causing
gas prices to dramatically increase. They want a debate on solutions.
Therefore, as I stated a moment ago, I will be asking my colleagues
to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that Members can offer
solutions that have the effect of lowering the national average price
per gallon of regular unleaded gas.
As I mentioned, 2 years ago, then-minority leader, now-Speaker Pelosi
promised Americans a Democrat plan to lower gas prices at the pump.
They have controlled Congress for 16 months, but we still have not seen
this plan. Meanwhile, the cost of gasoline is setting record highs. The
time is now for the House to debate ideas and solutions for lowering
gas prices, and it is time for the Democrats to reveal their plan that
they promised 2 years ago.
So, Madam Speaker, by defeating the previous question, I will move to
amend the rule to allow any bill to be offered and considered under
suspensions of the rule that would have the effect of lowering the
national average price per gallon of regular unleaded gas.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the
amendment and extraneous material inserted in the Record prior to the
vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Washington?
There was no objection.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to
defeat the previous question so that we can have this debate, so that
we can consider these vitally important issues that America's families,
workers, truckers, small businesses, and our entire economy face with
these rising prices of gasoline.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, while I had not planned to be here at
this point to debate gas prices, I feel compelled to put a few things
on the record.
Everybody knows that ExxonMobil announced first quarter profits
totaling $11 billion, up 17 percent from last year and just shy of
record profits last quarter. BP announced profits increased 63 percent;
Royal Dutch-Shell 25 percent, and this increases the 5-year trend of
record oil profits.
While my colleagues say we have done nothing, the fact is that we've
done a great deal and they've almost consistently voted against it. For
example, we have tried more than once to take away the Federal
subsidies to these oil companies, to the big five, because they are
awash in money, and we see no reason for them to get more from the
taxpayers than they're already getting at the pump. That has been
consistently fought by both the Republican Party and the President. The
President calls for the same policies that he has done all along and
sort of hopes for the best. For the last 7 years, congressional
Republicans and President Bush doled out billions of dollars in
subsidies to the big oil companies, instead of working for an energy
independence plan for America which was rarely discussed even during
their tenure.
We're committed to a new direction. Speaker Pelosi has called on
President Bush to suspend purchases of oil for the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve temporarily. That would go a long way toward helping us with
this. We have done this before, but President Bush says he doesn't
think it would affect the price.
On Friday, the New Direction Congress called on the Federal Trade
Commission to enforce the law and to investigate record gas prices and
possible market manipulation. Under the Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2007, the FTC has the authority, but will not take it,
to exercise the power to protect the consumer from skyrocketing energy
costs. That is the Republican administration.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 also included
landmark provisions to make cars and trucks more efficient and to
promote the use of more affordable American biofuels. The new fuel
standards will reduce our oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels per
day by 2020, and it will save American families $700 to $1,000 per year
at the pump. That is under the Democrats in Congress.
We've also passed legislation in this House to crack down on oil
price gouging, to hold OPEC accountable for oil price fixing, and then,
as I said, to repeal the subsidies for profit-rich Big Oil so we can
invest in a renewable energy future. However, President Bush and the
Republicans block these efforts every step of the way.
Cracking down on oil price gouging was opposed by 140 Republicans in
the House, including all of the Republican leadership except Mr.
McCotter. Holding OPEC accountable was opposed by 67 Republicans,
including most of the Republican leadership, Mr. Boehner, Mr. Blunt,
Mr. Cole, Mr. Dreier, and Ms. Granger. Repealing subsidies to the
profit-rich oil companies and investing in renewable energy and energy
efficiency was opposed by 174 Republicans, almost unanimously,
including all of the Republican leadership. And in every case, the Bush
administration threatened to veto the bills. Unfortunately, Republicans
in the Senate refused to even let them become bills to go to the
President.
We have a good and sufficient record here. We have planned to do
more. We have done more than was done in the last 7 years to try to do
that.
With that, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the
rule.
The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Washington is
as follows:
Amendment to H. Res. 1167 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Washington
At the end of the resolution, add the following new
paragraph:
(4) Any bill which the proponent asserts, if enacted, would
have the effect of lowering the national average price per
gallon of regular unleaded gasoline.
____
The information contained herein was provided by Democratic
Minority on multiple occasions throughout the 109th
Congress.)
The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means
This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous
question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.
A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote
against the Democratic majority agenda and a vote to allow
the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an
alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be
debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the
previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or
control the consideration of the subject before the House
being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous
question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the
subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling
of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the
House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes
the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to
offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the
majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated
the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to
a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to
recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said:
``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to
yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first
recognition.''
Because the vote today may look bad for the Democratic
majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is
simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on
adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive
legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is
not what they have always said. Listen to the definition of
the previous question used in the Floor Procedures Manual
published by the Rules Committee in the 109th Congress, (page
56). Here's how the Rules Committee described the rule using
information form Congressional Quarterly's ``American
Congressional Dictionary'': ``If the previous question is
defeated, control of debate shifts to the leading opposition
member (usually
[[Page 7494]]
the minority Floor Manager) who then manages an hour of
debate and may offer a germane amendment to the pending
business.''
Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives,
the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a
refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a
special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the
resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21,
section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: Upon rejection of the
motion for the previous question on a resolution reported
from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member
leading the opposition to the previous question, who may
offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time
for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does
have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only
available tools for those who oppose the Democratic
majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the
opportunity to offer an alternative plan.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time,
and I move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous
question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
____________________
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 493, GENETIC
INFORMATION NONDISCRIMINATION ACT OF 2008
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules,
I call up House Resolution 1156 and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 1156
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be
in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 493)
to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic
information with respect to health insurance and employment,
with the Senate amendment thereto, and to consider in the
House, without intervention of any point of order except
those arising under clause 10 of rule XXI, a motion offered
by the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor or
his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment.
The Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as
read. The motion shall be debatable for one hour, with 20
minutes equally divided and controlled by the chairman and
ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and
Labor, 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the
chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on
Energy and Commerce, and 20 minutes equally divided and
controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the
Committee on Ways and Means. The previous question shall be
considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without
intervening motion.
Sec. 2. During consideration of the motion to concur
pursuant to this resolution, notwithstanding the operation of
the previous question, the Chair may postpone further
consideration of the motion to such time as may be designated
by the Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from New York is recognized
for 1 hour.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).
All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.
I yield myself as much time as I may consume and ask unanimous
consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise
and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1156.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from New York?
There was no objection.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1156 provides for consideration
of the Senate amendment to H.R. 493, the Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate on
the motion with 20 minutes each controlled by the Committee on
Education and Labor, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and the
Committee on Ways and Means.
Madam Speaker, the story of humanity is defined by extraordinary
achievements that centuries later are looked upon as having impacted
the course of human history. Five years ago, we saw one of these
distinguishing achievements: the mapping out of the human genome, a
discovery that pries open the door of possibility and presents an
opportunity to advance the human race.
This breakthrough in the field of genetics joins the ranks of
momentous discoveries that have changed the face of medicine and
science for centuries to come, like the discovery of the polio vaccine
so many years ago.
Last week, Senator Kennedy on the Senate floor noted that the mapping
of the human genome ``may well affect the 21st century as profoundly as
how the invention of the computer or the splitting of the atom affected
the 20th century.''
However, Madam Speaker, such discoveries and achievements do not
automatically lead to these extraordinary breakthroughs. In order for
us to fully reap the benefits, we must ensure that our social policy
keeps pace with the advancement of our science.
That is precisely why I rise today in support of the Genetic
Information Nondiscrimination Act. It has been 13 years in the making,
and I'm pleased that the House of Representatives is once again
considering the bill today, hopefully for the last time, so we may send
it to the President to sign into law.
While I'm pleased we're taking it up, I'm saddened that so much time
has been lost and that the march toward progress and discovery has been
slowed.
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act is the culmination of a
broad and bipartisan effort to prohibit the improper use of genetic
information in workforce and health insurance decisions.
It prohibits group health plans and health insurers from denying
coverage to healthy individuals or charging higher premiums based
solely on a genetic predisposition to maybe develop a disease in the
future.
Furthermore, it bars employers from using one's genetic information
when making hiring, firing, job placement or job promotion decisions.
Madam Speaker, the bill has been described as the first civil rights
legislation of the 21st century. I think that assessment is correct
because, with the exception of trauma, everything that happens to a
person's body has a genetic component. From the color of our eyes to
our height, to the illnesses and disorders we are susceptible to,
everything happens because of our genes.
No one, not a single living human being, has perfect genes. In fact,
each one of us is estimated to be genetically predisposed to between 5
and 50 serious disorders.
{time} 1045
The good news is that since the sequencing of the human genome was
completed in April, 2003, thanks to Dr. Francis Collins, who I am happy
to say is in the gallery today, researchers have identified genetic
markers for a variety of chronic health conditions and increased the
potential for early treatment and the prevention of numerous genetic-
based diseases. There are already genetic tests for over 1,000
diseases, and hundreds more are under development.
Let me mention just two of them. Just this week we heard from
newspapers that in London and work being done in Pittsburgh, and I
believe it's the University of Pennsylvania, has restored some eyesight
to people who were disposed to a genetic disease that harmed their
vision as children. To be able to restore eyesight is something none of
us had ever dreamed of being able to do. But by injecting genetic
material into the back of the eye behind the retina, they have received
some sight. They believe that once they are able to do this in younger
children and be able to increase the dose that the success rate will be
extremely high, and that, in itself, is such good news.
Also yesterday the New York Times reported that the gene has been
isolated for osteoporosis and for fragile
[[Page 7495]]
bones. I remember when we were fighting for the Office of Women's
Health, the statistic we used for osteoporosis was that we spent
between $20 and $30 billion a year, and this was years ago, 10 or 15,
all that much money to treat osteoporosis. At that point we had no
treatment for it. We just tried to do the best we could. We have over
time achieved some treatments for osteoporosis, but think what would
happen if once we find that gene, we are able to manipulate that gene
or change it and prevent osteoporosis altogether?
The great thing about this science is the limitless possibility to
cure human conditions without long hospital stays, without invasive
surgeries, and there are possibilities there for an entirely new way
for us to provide health care.
Now, consider if these tests we know that can tell a woman if she has
a family history of breast cancer, if she has a genetic predisposition.
For at least the 10 years, I have been told by women who are in that
condition and also by their physicians that they have recommended to
them that until a bill such as the one we are passing today becomes law
in this country, they should not put at risk their health insurance,
many of them who are the sole provider for health insurance for their
families, or their jobs. We believe, the estimates are, that about 22
percent of Americans have already been discriminated against. We have
numerous cases of people who have lost their jobs. So the most
important thing to show what rank discrimination that has been is that
having the gene is only predictive. It does not say that you are doomed
to have it. Indeed, it could be 20 or 30 years away, if at all. To deny
a person health insurance and employment on that kind of proposition is
nothing but discrimination.
We know now that numbers of people are going to go out to get the
tests that they need to be able to plan for the rest of their lives,
constituents that we have all had with Alzheimer's who want to plan for
their future. So in addition to improving health care for millions,
it's going to give the scientists and our medical researchers
invaluable insight on how to combat and even cure diseases in the
future.
I don't think we're going to realize what a wonderful day this is for
us until someone in your family is faced with this and that you can
have a cure for them. It is totally remarkable. I honestly believe
that, being here in Congress for 22 years, which has meant so much to
me and for which I am so grateful to my constituents, that this piece
of legislation and what we have done here is the most important thing
that I shall ever do in my life and certainly in my time as a
legislator.
I'm enormously grateful to everybody who has supported this and all
the people who have worked on it all these many years, never getting
discouraged, always working every 2 years, refiling the bill, getting
all the cosponsors, and fighting for passage. That wonderful day now
has come. I especially want to give my thanks to my colleague Judy
Biggert for all the wonderful work that she has done.
Madam Speaker, to give you an idea of the potential that exists,
consider that genetic tests can tell a woman with a family history of
breast cancer if she has the genetic mutation that causes it long
before the cancer develops.
Armed with this information, this woman can make important health
decisions on when to engage in preventative care and when to seek early
treatment.
And in doing so, we can cut down on hospital stays and invasive
surgeries while allowing medical treatments to be more personalized.
Madam Speaker, in addition to improving health care for millions of
individuals, genetic testing gives our scientists and medical
researchers invaluable insight into how to combat and, perhaps, even
cure these diseases in the future.
However, for the potential of genetic research to be realized, we
need to make genetic testing something that is commonplace, rather than
something that is feared.
Unfortunately, because no one has perfect genes, no one is immune to
genetic discrimination. And the threat of discrimination is holding men
and women back from participating in clinical trials that will lead to
the medical breakthroughs of the 21st Century.
Madam Speaker, their fears are not unfounded. Genetic discrimination
is real and is happening today.
A 2001 survey of employer medical testing practices found that 1.3
percent of companies test employees for sickle cell anemia, 0.4 percent
test for Huntington's Disease, and 20.1 percent ask about family
medical history.
During the 1970s, many African Americans were denied jobs and health
insurance based on their carrier status for sickle cell anemia.
More recently, many have heard about the 2002 Burlington Northern
Santa Fe Corporation case where the company paid a $2.2 million
settlement after it tested its employees for a genetic marker dubiously
associated with carpel tunnel syndrome.
In North Carolina, a woman was fired after a genetic test revealed
her risk for a lung disorder even though she had already begun the
treatments that would keep her healthy.
There was even an instance of an adoption agency refusing to allow a
woman at risk for Huntington's disease to adopt a child.
These abuses have only fed the public fear of genetic discrimination,
leading many Americans to forgo genetic testing even if it may help
avert premature death.
Sixty-six percent of Americans are concerned about how their genetic
information would be stored and who would have access to it.
Seventy-two percent of the American public believes that the
government should establish laws and regulations to protect the privacy
of one's genetic information.
Madam Speaker, genetic discrimination is wrong on two fronts.
First, it is critical to remember that simply carrying a given
genetic mutation does not guarantee that one will develop the disorder.
It merely confers a level of risk upon the carrier.
Given that scientists cannot accurately predict when or whether a
carrier will develop a genetic disorder, it is illogical to allow this
information to be used by health insurers and employers for
discriminatory purposes.
Secondly, and very importantly, if individuals do not participate in
clinical trials, we will never be able to reap the real benefits of
genetic science.
In a 2003 editorial, Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Human
Genome Research Institute, and James Watson made a persuasive argument
in favor of non-discrimination legislation like GINA.
They wrote, and I quote: ``Genetic discrimination has the potential
to affect people's lives in terms of jobs and insurance, but there is
another dimension as well: It can slow the pace of the scientific
discovery that will yield crucial medical advances.'' End quote.
Madam Speaker, as I have mentioned, this legislation began 13 years
ago and has had quite a ride going back and forth between the House and
the Senate.
I would like to take a moment to speak briefly about the evolution of
this bill and the agreements that we have made so that it could end up
here today.
In order for us to move forward, we addressed some of the concerns
about the legislation, specifically about the threat of frivolous
lawsuits.
Several years back, we made sure that if an employer inadvertently
receives a person's genetic information, they could not be sued unless
they used that information to discriminate against the employee.
Within the past few weeks, we were able to work out a clarification
regarding the so-called ``firewall'' issue.
This agreement makes both sides happy and still preserves 40 years of
civil rights law by ensuring that employers are held accountable under
civil rights remedies.
In addition, this bill requires that before an individual can go to
court, the EEOC has to review their claim and determine if it has
merit.
I am very pleased that we were able to work together to ensure the
success of this critical legislation.
And, Madam Speaker, while there have been some opponents to this bill
over the years, there have mostly been allies.
I hold here in my hand 514 letters of support from a wide spectrum of
health, scientific, and medical-related organizations.
Here in Congress, we have over 220 cosponsors, both Democrats and
Republicans.
Just over a year ago, this body passed GINA 420-3, and last week, the
Senate once again passed this bill unanimously by a vote of 95-0.
Even the White House has come out in support of genetic
nondiscrimination legislation.
Before I close, I want to take a moment to thank the lead Republican
cosponsor of this bill, Congresswoman Judy Biggert. Without her and her
staffs hard work, today would simply not have been possible.
I also want to thank Congresswoman Anna Eshoo for her strong advocacy
on behalf of this bill over the years.
[[Page 7496]]
I want to thank Senators Kennedy, Snowe and Enzi for championing this
bill through the Senate.
And I especially want to thank Dr. Francis Collins for his support.
His testimony last year before three House Committees should have
swayed even the firmest nonbelievers that genetics has the potential to
change our health care system as we know it.
I am so proud to have played a role in making this legislation
possible--legislation that not only will stamp out a form of
discrimination, but will allow us to realize the tremendous potential
of genetic research.
By passing this legislation today, we open the door to usher in a
whole new era of health care and change the course of human history.
Millions of Americans have waited far too long for these protections,
but I'm so pleased the wait is almost over.
I urge all my colleagues to support this bill once again.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I do want to thank my friend from New
York, the gentlewoman and chairman of the Committee on Rules, for
yielding me this time to discuss this proposed rule for consideration
of H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
Like my colleague, I too rise in support of this rule which would
allow the House to agree with the Senate compromise and pass H.R. 493,
the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, or GINA.
As the gentlewoman knows, this legislation has a long history. She's
worked on it for a long, long time, as we heard in testimony given to
the Rules Committee yesterday and the accolades that were given the
gentlewoman for her support of this, as well as the gentlewoman from
Illinois (Mrs. Biggert). First introduced in 1995, it has been
cosponsored by 224 of our colleagues in this Congress. The House
overwhelmingly passed this legislation last April, and with the
Senate's recent approval and President Bush's pledged support, I look
forward to seeing this legislation signed into law quickly.
Madam Speaker, genetics are extremely important to determining the
health of every single individual. Each of us carries a handful of
genetic anomalies, some of which might cause us to be affected by
genetic conditions or affect the health of our children. There are
currently 1,200 genetic tests that can diagnose thousands of health
conditions. This number has grown exponentially from just around 100
genetic tests a short decade ago.
Every day scientists are learning more about the genetic causes of
many devastating diseases. Stopping these debilitating illnesses will
require the voluntary participation of hundreds of thousands of
Americans in the clinical research area needed to identify, test, and
approve effective treatments. This information is invaluable to
managing our country's health and bringing down the overall cost of
health care.
Currently, a few States provide protections for genetic information,
but most provide none. This leaves Americans with little to no
certainty about how their genetic rights are protected from State to
State.
Additionally, genetic information is not properly covered under the
current HIPAA regulations. It is necessary for Congress to provide
legal protection for genetic information and clinical trials so
Americans can get tested for health care concerns without fear of
misuse or discrimination. This legislation ensures that all will be
protected.
Currently, the fear of misuse of genetic information is preventing
people from getting these important genetic tests done. The refusal to
utilize effective genetic tests hurts individuals, researchers, and
doctors alike. Lack of testing denies individuals important medical
information that they could otherwise use to be proactively managing
their health with their doctor. The information garnered by these tests
also helps doctors to prescribe treatments and lifestyle changes with
increased success. The same information can be used by researchers to
effectively create targeted drugs and develop treatments.
Fear of discrimination has also caused a large number of people to
opt out of clinical trials. With fewer participants in clinical trials,
we will see slower development of treatments and beneficial drugs. In
addition, clinical trials provide patients in late stages of the
diseases with access to breakthrough treatments that might otherwise be
unavailable.
This House has correctly recognized this issue by protecting those
who obtain genetic tests in addition to those who volunteer to
participate in clinical research for genetic diseases. I would like to
commend my colleagues Sue Myrick, Kenny Hulshof, and Dr. Tom Price for
leading the efforts to protect the importance of these clinical trials.
But none of this would be any good today, Madam Speaker, if the
American public did not overwhelmingly support the Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act. About 93 percent of Americans believe that if
someone has a genetic test, their employer should not have the right to
know the results. Republicans and Democrats want to see their genetic
information protected.
I rise in support of this rule and the underlying bill and look
forward to its passage.
I once again want to thank the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs.
Biggert) and the gentlewoman from New York, the chairman of the Rules
Committee, for their hard work.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Wisconsin, Dr. Kagen.
Mr. KAGEN. Madam Speaker, before I begin my remarks, let me extend my
heartfelt gratitude to Chairwoman Slaughter for her years of struggle
to bring about this day and let everyone know that on this day, May 1
of 2008, we're beginning to apply our constitutional rights to protect
us against discrimination to health care so that one day very soon,
equal protection may mean equal treatment.
I rise today in strong support of the rule for H.R. 493, the Genetic
Information Nondiscrimination Act, and the underlying legislation.
As a physician and a geneticist, I fully understand the critical need
to prohibit discrimination based on an individual's genetic profile.
Specifically, this bipartisan, Republican-supported and Democrat-
supported bill would prohibit employers from using genetic screening
results in hiring, in assigning, and promoting people at work. It would
also bar insurers from making coverage choices or setting premiums
based on results of such genetic testing. By establishing these
protections, H.R. 493 will allow every citizen and their physicians to
benefit and participate in the progress that gene therapies provide for
all of us in early treatment and prevention of countless afflictions,
while maintaining their essential insurance coverage.
And perhaps in the near future, I will be able to rise here on the
House floor and ask that we support legislation to bring an end to all
forms of discrimination in health care. And after all, our
constitutional rights to protect us against discrimination should be
applied to the area of health care throughout the industry, not just to
genetic information, not just to one's skin color or one's skin
chemistry or the content and structure of one's bones, but to
everything in the human condition and every preexisting condition.
Let's begin to put discrimination where it belongs: in the past.
We are moving very quickly out of this information age into a time
when physicians will be able to diagnose and even treat your condition
before you feel it.
In closing, I urge my colleagues to support the rule and vote in
favor of this important and tremendously progressive bill.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 10
minutes to the lead cosponsor from the Republican side, the gentlewoman
from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).
Mrs. BIGGERT. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
And I thank you for being a cosponsor of this legislation and for all
your hard work on it.
Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and the bill that is
made in order. And I just want to say that I'll be talking in general
debate too, but it was so important for me to come down
[[Page 7497]]
here today to speak during the rule also.
When the human genome project was completed in 2003, the House of
Representatives recognized it as one of the most significant scientific
accomplishments of the past 100 years. For the first time, individuals
actually could know their genetic risk of developing diseases such as
cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and the list
goes on. And knowing that, they could take preventative measures to
decrease their risk of getting such a disease. Completion of the human
genome project and genetic testing spawned the personalized medicine
movement, focusing on catching diseases earlier, when they are cheaper
and easier to treat, or, even better, preventing the onset of the
disease in the first place.
But after investing $3.7 billion in taxpayer money to achieve this
breakthrough, Congress walked away and left the job undone. We left
people without any assurance that their genetic information wouldn't be
used against them. So, understandably, so many avoided this great
technology, never realizing the untold health benefits and savings.
This concern even spilled over to NIH, the National Institutes of
Health, where fear of genetic discrimination is currently the most
common reason for not participating in research on potentially
lifesaving genetic testing for breast cancer and colon cancer.
{time} 1100
Fully one-third of those eligible to participate decline to do this
for this reason, undermining the development of new treatments and
cures.
Madam Speaker, today Congress is here to settle some unfinished
business and provide Americans the protection against genetic
discrimination in health insurance and employment that they need to
utilize genetic testing without fear. It's just a great day that we are
here now, and it has been a long, long road to this. When you have got
three committees of jurisdiction on the House side and various
committees on the Senate side, to get all of these committees together
to come up with a bill, to craft a bill that everybody can agree on and
everybody will benefit by it, it's just a great day.
I really came to the floor to speak on the rule at this time, to
acknowledge my good friend and colleague, esteemed colleague and a true
leader on this issue, the chairman of the Rules Committee, Ms.
Slaughter. As my colleagues may know, and you just heard from Mr.
Sessions, Congresswoman Slaughter first introduced a version of this
bill in the 104th Congress. For the newest Members of this body, they
might not know that was the nineties. In 1995, to be exact.
So that Ms. Slaughter introduced this bill at this time, that far
back, is a testament to the foresight of my friend from New York. Just
think, the human genome project really was 2003. So she's had the
background in this scientific area to really have had that foresight
for so long ago. That she introduced it, still amazes me, and the hard
work. There were a lot of things that we worked out as far as the path
through these years. I first joined her I think it was in 2005 when we
introduced the bill again and again and again to reach this day.
So I really applaud her for her dedication to this cause, and her
perseverance. Working with her on this bill has been a real joy, and I
value our partnership and the historic legislation that it has
produced. I look forward to hand delivering this bill to the White
House with her. I think that that will be sooner than later.
Let me just say I want to highlight a few things and reasons for why
we should pass this rule and why we should pass this bill. Besides the
fact that we invested the $3.7 billion in the human genome, the bill is
needed to maintain high quality genetic research and clinical trials at
NIH. I think we have all emphasized that, that that is so important.
They don't have the whole body of people getting into the clinical
trials, which will then I think find the cure for these diseases.
Ninety-three percent of Americans believe that insurers and employers
should not be able to discriminate based on genetic information. This
bill passed the House last year 420-3. It passed the Senate last week
95-0. The bill has received three strong SAPs from the administration.
And last year, President Bush said, ``I really want to make it clear to
the Congress that I hope they pass the legislation that makes genetic
discrimination illegal.'' Newt Gingrich, who has been a strong, strong
supporter of genetic nondiscrimination said, and I quote, ``To not have
this bill is to cripple our ability to save lives.'' This legislation
is supported by over 500 organizations, including BIO and AHIP.
With that, I would urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentlewoman from Florida, a member of the Rules Committee, Ms. Castor.
Ms. CASTOR. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, and I would like to thank
the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, for
her leadership, for her perseverance in moving this critical
legislation. She has been fighting for the Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act for over 13 years. So we will herald her
leadership today on behalf of American families and all hardworking
folks across this country.
I am fortunate to serve on the Committee on Rules under her
leadership. The folks across this country should be very proud that we
have such a dedicated chairwoman leading the committee in the people's
House. I'd also like to salute Congresswoman Judy Biggert for her
participation and perseverance as well in moving this legislation and
fighting for it for so many years.
Madam Speaker, this New Direction Congress already has done a great
deal to strengthen antidiscrimination efforts for our Nation this year,
such as legislation that outlaws inequities in medical coverage for
mental health care. Today, we will end another form of discrimination
in the workplace and by health insurance companies.
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act protects our neighbors
from being denied health coverage or being hired or keeping a job based
upon their God-given personal genetic traits. In my district in Tampa,
Florida, the University of South Florida Regional Genetics Program has
been doing great work in genetics research. Now they can do so much
more. People will be more willing to participate in genetics research.
The testing, the genetic counseling for families with genetic
conditions, now they will not be so afraid and hiding because they fear
they would be discriminated against if someone learned that they might
have an inclination for breast cancer or diabetes or some other
disease.
The scientific research opportunities are endless, and under this
bill people will be protected and employers will not be able to request
or purchase genetic information about employees or their families. Any
information found indirectly may not be used against an employee or
disclosed. Further, this legislation would outlaw health insurance
companies' ability to cancel, deny, or change the terms of individual
plans based upon their genetic background.
This is a civil rights issue and a privacy issue, and this
legislation is an absolute necessity to provide protection for
Americans in the workplace and within their health coverage. The cost
of health care in America is burdensome enough without an added concern
that coverage may be unethically jeopardized based on genetic
information.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the
underlying bill and again salute the leadership of Chairwoman Louise
Slaughter and Congresswoman Judy Biggert.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I would like to notify the gentlewoman
from New York that we do not have any additional speakers at this time,
so we will continue to reserve our time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) and thank him for his help.
Mr. ANDREWS. Madam Speaker, I'd like to thank and congratulate my
[[Page 7498]]
dear friend from New York for a stellar achievement in her stellar work
here in the Congress, and to thank Mrs. Biggert, who has fought with
great vigor and enthusiasm for this bill.
Madam Speaker, here's what Ms. Slaughter and Mrs. Biggert have
achieved. Somewhere this morning, a family is going to get news that a
biopsy came back with bad news, that someone they love has a tumor, and
that family is going to go through the agony of the next couple of
months or even years of wondering if that person they love so much is
going to live or die.
Now the progress we have made in this country, thank God, has let
many more of those people live. But the ultimate progress is to get to
the genetic puzzle that makes that person susceptible to that tumor in
the first place. The way we are going to find the solution to that
puzzle is by gathering data by more and more people being willing to
share their genetic information with the brightest men and women in
this country.
Right now there's a justifiable fear that if you share your genetic
information, someone may misuse it to deny you a job, deny you an
insurance policy, or hurt you in some other way. This bill lifts that
burden, lifts that fear, and will stimulate millions of Americans to
voluntarily, privately and safely participate so they can be part of
finding this puzzle.
What Chairwoman Slaughter has accomplished today, Madam Speaker, is
that some day is coming, and I hope it's soon, when people will get the
right answer all the time to that question, when the cure will be here,
the pain will be gone, and the hope will prevail. There's a lot of
things we do in this chamber that have transitory significance. What
will happen in a few hours will benefit people around the world for
years to come.
This is a singular achievement. I congratulate the chairwoman. And as
a father and a husband, I thank her for what she's done.
Mr. SESSIONS. We will reserve our time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from California, a member of the Energy and Commerce
Committee, as Mr. Andrews is, Ms. Eshoo, who saw me through many a bad
moment on this bill, and to whom I am extremely grateful.
Ms. ESHOO. I want to first begin by saluting our colleague, Louise
Slaughter, and Mrs. Biggert, who has worked so hard on this. This is
really all about the future, except we had to struggle for 13 years in
order to recognize it. But today, we do. And it is a singular
extraordinary achievement, not only on the watch of Chairwoman
Slaughter, but today for the full House to pass this legislation.
We know that in the makeup of our humanity is a genetic profile.
Researchers and scientists have demonstrated what the potential is if
in fact, not only through the human genome project, the sequencing, and
the discovery of all that is hidden in it, what that portends for
humanity. But there's another side of this, and that is a darker side.
The darker side is entitled: Discrimination. That if that information,
our genetic makeup is used by insurers to discriminate against people.
So today what we are doing is eliminating that block, that
discrimination that stands in the way of the fullness of the potential
of our genetic profile and how it can be not only accumulated but used
to the benefit of humanity. That is what this legislation represents.
When we pass it and the President signs it into law, this legislation
will not only end the discrimination and all that is attendant to it,
but that from this day forward the principles of preventive medicine,
the reduction of health care costs, the advancement of research, and
the saving of lives will be the order of the day.
I salute you, my colleague. Well done. You have earned your keep in
the Congress.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, we will reserve our time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I have no further requests for time. Let me ask my
colleague if he is prepared to close.
Mr. SESSIONS. Yes, ma'am, I am.
Madam Speaker, today I will be asking each of my colleagues to vote
``no'' on the previous question to this rule. If the previous question
is defeated, I will amend the rule to make it in order for the House to
consider any amendment that would actually do something to reduce our
high gas prices that we have in this country, to help consumers, and to
require the Speaker of the House to submit her secret plan to lower gas
prices.
Back on April 24, 2006, over 2 years ago, Speaker Pelosi issued the
following statement, which I quote, ``With skyrocketing gas prices, it
is clear that the American people can no longer afford the Republican
rubber stamp Congress and its failure to stand up to Republican big oil
and gas company cronies. Americans this week are paying $2.91 a gallon
on average for regular gasoline, 33 cents higher than last month, and
double the price that it was when President Bush first came into
office.''
{time} 1115
Madam Speaker, most Americans would consider it a blessing if we were
only paying $2.91 today for a gallon of gasoline and the only thing
they really couldn't afford is this head-in-the-sand Democrat Congress
that refuses to consider or to do anything to solve the problem.
In that same press release, Speaker Pelosi went on to claim,
``Democrats have a commonsense plan to bring down skyrocketing gas
prices.''
Well, I am not sure what they are waiting for, because even after
passing the no-energy energy bill through the House a number of times,
the cost of the Pelosi premium price increase continues to rise, with
the average cost of gasoline over $3.62, hitting consumers at the pump
every time they go fill up their cars.
In fact, Madam Speaker, as yesterday's Politico article Gas Prices
Fuel Effort to Jam GOP makes clear, rather than seizing the opportunity
to create opportunities to do something about these high gas prices, to
bring in commonsense, bipartisan, supply-side solutions to the problem
that help consumers, the Democrats are using them as a wedge issue, as
they see it, to score political points, which does nothing to bring
down the high cost of gasoline and only contributes to the Congress'
abysmal low ratings.
Madam Speaker, I would suggest to you that it really might secretly
be this secret plan. This secret plan, even though Speaker Pelosi said
it was to bring down gas prices, I think it is all about raising gas
prices closer to $5 a gallon. Of course, we know what this does. This
causes an American transfer of payments to overseas places, just like
Dubai. It is American consumers that are paying for and building Dubai.
And the reason why is because the Democratic policies have taken off-
limits the opportunity for Americans to be self-independent, because we
can't do our own drilling in this country, where billions of barrels of
oil reside.
By voting ``no'' on this previous question, Members can take a stand;
a stand against the statements that we have heard about trying to
increase gasoline prices, but while only taxing oil companies.
We demand to see this ``private'' and ``secret'' plan to reduce gas
prices that the Democrats have been hiding from the American people
since taking office and control of Congress. I for one would love to
see this plan. But I am afraid that, much like their other campaign
promises to run the most open, honest and ethical Congress in history,
it simply does not exist.
Madam Speaker, American consumers cannot handle the high prices at
the pump. We are demanding to know what this secret plan is to reduce
gasoline prices below the level of 2 years ago. We need help. Americans
all across this country will stand behind those that vote ``no'' to do
something now about the problems, rather than trying to blame it on
somebody else. If it was Congress' problem 2 years ago, it certainly
should be Congress' problem today.
[[Page 7499]]
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the
amendment and extraneous material placed in the Record just prior to
the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. SESSIONS. I encourage a ``no'' vote on the previous question, and
I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I really don't want to do this, because
I don't understand this previous question on a bill of this importance,
but I do need to say, just for the Record, that Speaker Pelosi has
brought to the floor three times bills to lower gas prices; to crack
down on price gouging, on holding OPEC accountable, and repealing the
subsidies for profit-rich Big Oil. Every time, almost unanimously, the
Republicans in this House voted against it. She has called to stop
filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and she has asked for a study
on price gouging.
Give us some help, for heaven's sake, so we can get this done. In the
previous 7 years there was nothing here at all, except more and more
subsidies to Big Oil.
I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.
The material previously referred to by Mr. Sessions is as follows:
Amendment to H. Res. 1156
Offered by Mr. Sessions of Texas
At the end of the resolution, insert the following:
Sec. 3. Notwithstanding any other provision of this
resolution or the operation of the previous question, it
shall be in order to consider any amendment to the Senate
amendment which the proponent asserts, if enacted, would have
the effect of lowering the national average price per gallon
of regular unleaded gasoline. Such amendments shall be
considered as read, shall be debatable for thirty minutes
equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an
opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be
subject to a demand for division of the question in the House
or in the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against
such amendments are waived except those arising under clause
9 of rule XXI.
Sec. 4. Within five legislative days the Speaker shall
introduce a bill, the title of which is as follows: ``A bill
to provide a common sense plan to help bring down
skyrocketing gas prices.'' Such bill shall be referred to the
appropriate committees of jurisdiction pursuant to clause 1
of rule X.
____
(The information contained herein was provided by
Democratic Minority on multiple occasions throughout the
109th Congress.)
The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means
This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous
question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.
A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote
against the Democratic majority agenda and a vote to allow
the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an
alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be
debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the
previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or
control the consideration of the subject before the House
being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous
question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the
subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling
of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the
House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes
the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to
offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the
majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated
the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to
a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to
recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said:
``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to
yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first
recognition.''
Because the vote today may look bad for the Democratic
majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is
simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on
adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive
legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is
not what they have always said. Listen to the definition of
the previous question used in the Floor Procedures Manual
published by the Rules Committee in the 109th Congress, (page
56). Here's how the Rules Committee described the rule using
information from Congressional Quarterly's ``American
Congressional Dictionary'': ``If the previous question is
defeated, control of debate shifts to the leading opposition
member (usually the minority Floor Manager) who then manages
an hour of debate and may offer a germane amendment to the
pending business.''
Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives,
the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a
refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a
special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the
resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21,
section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: Upon rejection of the
motion for the previous question on a resolution reported
from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member
leading the opposition to the previous question, who may
offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time
for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does
have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only
available tools for those who oppose the Democratic
majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the
opportunity to offer an alternative plan.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the
previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
A message in writing from the President of the United States was
communicated to the House by Ms. Wanda Evans, one of his secretaries.
____________________
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous
consent that Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their
remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 493.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
____________________
GENETIC INFORMATION NONDISCRIMINATION ACT OF 2008
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House
Resolution 1156, I call up the bill (H.R. 493) to prohibit
discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to
health insurance and employment, with a Senate amendment thereto, and
ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the Senate
amendment.
The text of the Senate amendment is as follows:
Senate amendment:
Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Genetic
Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008''.
(b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents of this Act
is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Findings.
TITLE I--GENETIC NONDISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH INSURANCE
Sec. 101. Amendments to Employee Retirement Income Security Act of
1974.
Sec. 102. Amendments to the Public Health Service Act.
Sec. 103. Amendments to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
Sec. 104. Amendments to title XVIII of the Social Security Act relating
to medigap.
Sec. 105. Privacy and confidentiality.
Sec. 106. Assuring coordination.
TITLE II--PROHIBITING EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF GENETIC
INFORMATION
Sec. 201. Definitions.
Sec. 202. Employer practices.
Sec. 203. Employment agency practices.
Sec. 204. Labor organization practices.
Sec. 205. Training programs.
Sec. 206. Confidentiality of genetic information.
Sec. 207. Remedies and enforcement.
Sec. 208. Disparate impact.
Sec. 209. Construction.
Sec. 210. Medical information that is not genetic information.
Sec. 211. Regulations.
Sec. 212. Authorization of appropriations.
Sec. 213. Effective date.
TITLE III--MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
Sec. 301. Severability.
Sec. 302. Child labor protections.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Deciphering the sequence of the human genome and other
advances in genetics open major
[[Page 7500]]
new opportunities for medical progress. New knowledge about
the genetic basis of illness will allow for earlier detection
of illnesses, often before symptoms have begun. Genetic
testing can allow individuals to take steps to reduce the
likelihood that they will contract a particular disorder. New
knowledge about genetics may allow for the development of
better therapies that are more effective against disease or
have fewer side effects than current treatments. These
advances give rise to the potential misuse of genetic
information to discriminate in health insurance and
employment.
(2) The early science of genetics became the basis of State
laws that provided for the sterilization of persons having
presumed genetic ``defects'' such as mental retardation,
mental disease, epilepsy, blindness, and hearing loss, among
other conditions. The first sterilization law was enacted in
the State of Indiana in 1907. By 1981, a majority of States
adopted sterilization laws to ``correct'' apparent genetic
traits or tendencies. Many of these State laws have since
been repealed, and many have been modified to include
essential constitutional requirements of due process and
equal protection. However, the current explosion in the
science of genetics, and the history of sterilization laws by
the States based on early genetic science, compels
Congressional action in this area.
(3) Although genes are facially neutral markers, many
genetic conditions and disorders are associated with
particular racial and ethnic groups and gender. Because some
genetic traits are most prevalent in particular groups,
members of a particular group may be stigmatized or
discriminated against as a result of that genetic
information. This form of discrimination was evident in the
1970s, which saw the advent of programs to screen and
identify carriers of sickle cell anemia, a disease which
afflicts African-Americans. Once again, State legislatures
began to enact discriminatory laws in the area, and in the
early 1970s began mandating genetic screening of all African
Americans for sickle cell anemia, leading to discrimination
and unnecessary fear. To alleviate some of this stigma,
Congress in 1972 passed the National Sickle Cell Anemia
Control Act, which withholds Federal funding from States
unless sickle cell testing is voluntary.
(4) Congress has been informed of examples of genetic
discrimination in the workplace. These include the use of
pre-employment genetic screening at Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory, which led to a court decision in favor of the
employees in that case Norman-Bloodsaw v. Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory (135 F.3d 1260, 1269 (9th Cir. 1998)). Congress
clearly has a compelling public interest in relieving the
fear of discrimination and in prohibiting its actual practice
in employment and health insurance.
(5) Federal law addressing genetic discrimination in health
insurance and employment is incomplete in both the scope and
depth of its protections. Moreover, while many States have
enacted some type of genetic non-discrimination law, these
laws vary widely with respect to their approach, application,
and level of protection. Congress has collected substantial
evidence that the American public and the medical community
find the existing patchwork of State and Federal laws to be
confusing and inadequate to protect them from discrimination.
Therefore Federal legislation establishing a national and
uniform basic standard is necessary to fully protect the
public from discrimination and allay their concerns about the
potential for discrimination, thereby allowing individuals to
take advantage of genetic testing, technologies, research,
and new therapies.
TITLE I--GENETIC NONDISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH INSURANCE
SEC. 101. AMENDMENTS TO EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY
ACT OF 1974.
(a) No Discrimination in Group Premiums Based on Genetic
Information.--Section 702(b) of the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1182(b)) is amended--
(1) in paragraph (2)(A), by inserting before the semicolon
the following: ``except as provided in paragraph (3)''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
``(3) No group-based discrimination on basis of genetic
information.--
``(A) In general.--For purposes of this section, a group
health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group
health insurance coverage in connection with a group health
plan, may not adjust premium or contribution amounts for the
group covered under such plan on the basis of genetic
information.
``(B) Rule of construction.--Nothing in subparagraph (A) or
in paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (d) shall be
construed to limit the ability of a health insurance issuer
offering health insurance coverage in connection with a group
health plan to increase the premium for an employer based on
the manifestation of a disease or disorder of an individual
who is enrolled in the plan. In such case, the manifestation
of a disease or disorder in one individual cannot also be
used as genetic information about other group members and to
further increase the premium for the employer.''.
(b) Limitations on Genetic Testing; Prohibition on
Collection of Genetic Information; Application to All
Plans.--Section 702 of the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1182) is amended by adding at
the end the following:
``(c) Genetic Testing.--
``(1) Limitation on requesting or requiring genetic
testing.--A group health plan, and a health insurance issuer
offering health insurance coverage in connection with a group
health plan, shall not request or require an individual or a
family member of such individual to undergo a genetic test.
``(2) Rule of construction.--Paragraph (1) shall not be
construed to limit the authority of a health care
professional who is providing health care services to an
individual to request that such individual undergo a genetic
test.
``(3) Rule of construction regarding payment.--
``(A) In general.--Nothing in paragraph (1) shall be
construed to preclude a group health plan, or a health
insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, from obtaining and using
the results of a genetic test in making a determination
regarding payment (as such term is defined for the purposes
of applying the regulations promulgated by the Secretary of
Health and Human Services under part C of title XI of the
Social Security Act and section 264 of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as may be revised
from time to time) consistent with subsection (a).
``(B) Limitation.--For purposes of subparagraph (A), a
group health plan, or a health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in connection with a group health
plan, may request only the minimum amount of information
necessary to accomplish the intended purpose.
``(4) Research exception.--Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a
group health plan, or a health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in connection with a group health
plan, may request, but not require, that a participant or
beneficiary undergo a genetic test if each of the following
conditions is met:
``(A) The request is made, in writing, pursuant to research
that complies with part 46 of title 45, Code of Federal
Regulations, or equivalent Federal regulations, and any
applicable State or local law or regulations for the
protection of human subjects in research.
``(B) The plan or issuer clearly indicates to each
participant or beneficiary, or in the case of a minor child,
to the legal guardian of such beneficiary, to whom the
request is made that--
``(i) compliance with the request is voluntary; and
``(ii) non-compliance will have no effect on enrollment
status or premium or contribution amounts.
``(C) No genetic information collected or acquired under
this paragraph shall be used for underwriting purposes.
``(D) The plan or issuer notifies the Secretary in writing
that the plan or issuer is conducting activities pursuant to
the exception provided for under this paragraph, including a
description of the activities conducted.
``(E) The plan or issuer complies with such other
conditions as the Secretary may by regulation require for
activities conducted under this paragraph.
``(d) Prohibition on Collection of Genetic Information.--
``(1) In general.--A group health plan, and a health
insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, shall not request,
require, or purchase genetic information for underwriting
purposes (as defined in section 733).
``(2) Prohibition on collection of genetic information
prior to enrollment.--A group health plan, and a health
insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, shall not request,
require, or purchase genetic information with respect to any
individual prior to such individual's enrollment under the
plan or coverage in connection with such enrollment.
``(3) Incidental collection.--If a group health plan, or a
health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, obtains genetic
information incidental to the requesting, requiring, or
purchasing of other information concerning any individual,
such request, requirement, or purchase shall not be
considered a violation of paragraph (2) if such request,
requirement, or purchase is not in violation of paragraph
(1).
``(e) Application to All Plans.--The provisions of
subsections (a)(1)(F), (b)(3), (c), and (d), and subsection
(b)(1) and section 701 with respect to genetic information,
shall apply to group health plans and health insurance
issuers without regard to section 732(a).''.
(c) Application to Genetic Information of a Fetus or
Embryo.--Such section is further amended by adding at the end
the following:
``(f) Genetic Information of a Fetus or Embryo.--Any
reference in this part to genetic information concerning an
individual or family member of an individual shall--
``(1) with respect to such an individual or family member
of an individual who is a pregnant woman, include genetic
information of any fetus carried by such pregnant woman; and
``(2) with respect to an individual or family member
utilizing an assisted reproductive technology, include
genetic information of any embryo legally held by the
individual or family member.''.
(d) Definitions.--Section 733(d) of the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1191b(d)) is amended
by adding at the end the following:
``(5) Family member.--The term `family member' means, with
respect to an individual--
``(A) a dependent (as such term is used for purposes of
section 701(f)(2)) of such individual, and
[[Page 7501]]
``(B) any other individual who is a first-degree, second-
degree, third-degree, or fourth-degree relative of such
individual or of an individual described in subparagraph (A).
``(6) Genetic information.--
``(A) In general.--The term `genetic information' means,
with respect to any individual, information about--
``(i) such individual's genetic tests,
``(ii) the genetic tests of family members of such
individual, and
``(iii) the manifestation of a disease or disorder in
family members of such individual.
``(B) Inclusion of genetic services and participation in
genetic research.--Such term includes, with respect to any
individual, any request for, or receipt of, genetic services,
or participation in clinical research which includes genetic
services, by such individual or any family member of such
individual.
``(C) Exclusions.--The term `genetic information' shall not
include information about the sex or age of any individual.
``(7) Genetic test.--
``(A) In general.--The term `genetic test' means an
analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or
metabolites, that detects genotypes, mutations, or
chromosomal changes.
``(B) Exceptions.--The term `genetic test' does not mean--
``(i) an analysis of proteins or metabolites that does not
detect genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes; or
``(ii) an analysis of proteins or metabolites that is
directly related to a manifested disease, disorder, or
pathological condition that could reasonably be detected by a
health care professional with appropriate training and
expertise in the field of medicine involved.
``(8) Genetic services.--The term `genetic services'
means--
``(A) a genetic test;
``(B) genetic counseling (including obtaining,
interpreting, or assessing genetic information); or
``(C) genetic education.
``(9) Underwriting purposes.--The term `underwriting
purposes' means, with respect to any group health plan, or
health insurance coverage offered in connection with a group
health plan--
``(A) rules for, or determination of, eligibility
(including enrollment and continued eligibility) for benefits
under the plan or coverage;
``(B) the computation of premium or contribution amounts
under the plan or coverage;
``(C) the application of any pre-existing condition
exclusion under the plan or coverage; and
``(D) other activities related to the creation, renewal, or
replacement of a contract of health insurance or health
benefits.''.
(e) ERISA Enforcement.--Section 502 of the Employee
Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1132) is
amended--
(1) in subsection (a)(6), by striking ``(7), or (8)'' and
inserting ``(7), (8), or (9)'';
(2) in subsection (b)(3), by striking ``The Secretary'' and
inserting ``Except as provided in subsections (c)(9) and
(a)(6) (with respect to collecting civil penalties under
subsection (c)(9)), the Secretary''; and
(3) in subsection (c), by redesignating paragraph (9) as
paragraph (10), and by inserting after paragraph (8) the
following new paragraph:
``(9) Secretarial enforcement authority relating to use of
genetic information.--
``(A) General rule.--The Secretary may impose a penalty
against any plan sponsor of a group health plan, or any
health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with the plan, for any failure by such sponsor or
issuer to meet the requirements of subsection (a)(1)(F),
(b)(3), (c), or (d) of section 702 or section 701 or
702(b)(1) with respect to genetic information, in connection
with the plan.
``(B) Amount.--
``(i) In general.--The amount of the penalty imposed by
subparagraph (A) shall be $100 for each day in the
noncompliance period with respect to each participant or
beneficiary to whom such failure relates.
``(ii) Noncompliance period.--For purposes of this
paragraph, the term `noncompliance period' means, with
respect to any failure, the period--
``(I) beginning on the date such failure first occurs; and
``(II) ending on the date the failure is corrected.
``(C) Minimum penalties where failure discovered.--
Notwithstanding clauses (i) and (ii) of subparagraph (D):
``(i) In general.--In the case of 1 or more failures with
respect to a participant or beneficiary--
``(I) which are not corrected before the date on which the
plan receives a notice from the Secretary of such violation;
and
``(II) which occurred or continued during the period
involved;
the amount of penalty imposed by subparagraph (A) by reason
of such failures with respect to such participant or
beneficiary shall not be less than $2,500.
``(ii) Higher minimum penalty where violations are more
than de minimis.--To the extent violations for which any
person is liable under this paragraph for any year are more
than de minimis, clause (i) shall be applied by substituting
`$15,000' for `$2,500' with respect to such person.
``(D) Limitations.--
``(i) Penalty not to apply where failure not discovered
exercising reasonable diligence.--No penalty shall be imposed
by subparagraph (A) on any failure during any period for
which it is established to the satisfaction of the Secretary
that the person otherwise liable for such penalty did not
know, and exercising reasonable diligence would not have
known, that such failure existed.
``(ii) Penalty not to apply to failures corrected within
certain periods.--No penalty shall be imposed by subparagraph
(A) on any failure if--
``(I) such failure was due to reasonable cause and not to
willful neglect; and
``(II) such failure is corrected during the 30-day period
beginning on the first date the person otherwise liable for
such penalty knew, or exercising reasonable diligence would
have known, that such failure existed.
``(iii) Overall limitation for unintentional failures.--In
the case of failures which are due to reasonable cause and
not to willful neglect, the penalty imposed by subparagraph
(A) for failures shall not exceed the amount equal to the
lesser of--
``(I) 10 percent of the aggregate amount paid or incurred
by the plan sponsor (or predecessor plan sponsor) during the
preceding taxable year for group health plans; or
``(II) $500,000.
``(E) Waiver by secretary.--In the case of a failure which
is due to reasonable cause and not to willful neglect, the
Secretary may waive part or all of the penalty imposed by
subparagraph (A) to the extent that the payment of such
penalty would be excessive relative to the failure involved.
``(F) Definitions.--Terms used in this paragraph which are
defined in section 733 shall have the meanings provided such
terms in such section.''.
(f) Regulations and Effective Date.--
(1) Regulations.--The Secretary of Labor shall issue final
regulations not later than 12 months after the date of
enactment of this Act to carry out the amendments made by
this section.
(2) Effective date.--The amendments made by this section
shall apply with respect to group health plans for plan years
beginning after the date that is 1 year after the date of
enactment of this Act.
SEC. 102. AMENDMENTS TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE ACT.
(a) Amendments Relating to the Group Market.--
(1) No discrimination in group premiums based on genetic
information.--Section 2702(b) of the Public Health Service
Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-1(b)) is amended--
(A) in paragraph (2)(A), by inserting before the semicolon
the following: ``except as provided in paragraph (3)''; and
(B) by adding at the end the following:
``(3) No group-based discrimination on basis of genetic
information.--
``(A) In general.--For purposes of this section, a group
health plan, and health insurance issuer offering group
health insurance coverage in connection with a group health
plan, may not adjust premium or contribution amounts for the
group covered under such plan on the basis of genetic
information.
``(B) Rule of construction.--Nothing in subparagraph (A) or
in paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (d) shall be
construed to limit the ability of a health insurance issuer
offering health insurance coverage in connection with a group
health plan to increase the premium for an employer based on
the manifestation of a disease or disorder of an individual
who is enrolled in the plan. In such case, the manifestation
of a disease or disorder in one individual cannot also be
used as genetic information about other group members and to
further increase the premium for the employer.''.
(2) Limitations on genetic testing; prohibition on
collection of genetic information; application to all
plans.--Section 2702 of the Public Health Service Act (42
U.S.C. 300gg-1) is amended by adding at the end the
following:
``(c) Genetic Testing.--
``(1) Limitation on requesting or requiring genetic
testing.--A group health plan, and a health insurance issuer
offering health insurance coverage in connection with a group
health plan, shall not request or require an individual or a
family member of such individual to undergo a genetic test.
``(2) Rule of construction.--Paragraph (1) shall not be
construed to limit the authority of a health care
professional who is providing health care services to an
individual to request that such individual undergo a genetic
test.
``(3) Rule of construction regarding payment.--
``(A) In general.--Nothing in paragraph (1) shall be
construed to preclude a group health plan, or a health
insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, from obtaining and using
the results of a genetic test in making a determination
regarding payment (as such term is defined for the purposes
of applying the regulations promulgated by the Secretary
under part C of title XI of the Social Security Act and
section 264 of the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996, as may be revised from time to
time) consistent with subsection (a).
``(B) Limitation.--For purposes of subparagraph (A), a
group health plan, or a health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in connection with a group health
plan, may request only the minimum amount of information
necessary to accomplish the intended purpose.
``(4) Research exception.--Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a
group health plan, or a health
[[Page 7502]]
insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, may request, but not
require, that a participant or beneficiary undergo a genetic
test if each of the following conditions is met:
``(A) The request is made pursuant to research that
complies with part 46 of title 45, Code of Federal
Regulations, or equivalent Federal regulations, and any
applicable State or local law or regulations for the
protection of human subjects in research.
``(B) The plan or issuer clearly indicates to each
participant or beneficiary, or in the case of a minor child,
to the legal guardian of such beneficiary, to whom the
request is made that--
``(i) compliance with the request is voluntary; and
``(ii) non-compliance will have no effect on enrollment
status or premium or contribution amounts.
``(C) No genetic information collected or acquired under
this paragraph shall be used for underwriting purposes.
``(D) The plan or issuer notifies the Secretary in writing
that the plan or issuer is conducting activities pursuant to
the exception provided for under this paragraph, including a
description of the activities conducted.
``(E) The plan or issuer complies with such other
conditions as the Secretary may by regulation require for
activities conducted under this paragraph.
``(d) Prohibition on Collection of Genetic Information.--
``(1) In general.--A group health plan, and a health
insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, shall not request,
require, or purchase genetic information for underwriting
purposes (as defined in section 2791).
``(2) Prohibition on collection of genetic information
prior to enrollment.--A group health plan, and a health
insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, shall not request,
require, or purchase genetic information with respect to any
individual prior to such individual's enrollment under the
plan or coverage in connection with such enrollment.
``(3) Incidental collection.--If a group health plan, or a
health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
connection with a group health plan, obtains genetic
information incidental to the requesting, requiring, or
purchasing of other information concerning any individual,
such request, requirement, or purchase shall not be
considered a violation of paragraph (2) if such request,
requirement, or purchase is not in violation of paragraph
(1).
``(e) Application to All Plans.--The provisions of
subsections (a)(1)(F), (b)(3), (c) , and (d) and subsection
(b)(1) and section 2701 with respect to genetic information,
shall apply to group health plans and health insurance
issuers without regard to section 2721(a).''.
(3) Application to genetic information of a fetus or
embryo.--Such section is further amended by adding at the end
the following:
``(f) Genetic Information of a Fetus or Embryo.--Any
reference in this part to genetic information concerning an
individual or family member of an individual shall--
``(1) with respect to such an individual or family member
of an individual who is a pregnant woman, include genetic
information of any fetus carried by such pregnant woman; and
``(2) with respect to an individual or family member
utilizing an assisted reproductive technology, include
genetic information of any embryo legally held by the
individual or family member.''.
(4) Definitions.--Section 2791(d) of the Public Health
Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-91(d)) is amended by adding at
the end the following:
``(15) Family member.--The term `family member' means, with
respect to any individual--
``(A) a dependent (as such term is used for purposes of
section 2701(f)(2)) of such individual; and
``(B) any other individual who is a first-degree, second-
degree, third-degree, or fourth-degree relative of such
individual or of an individual described in subparagraph (A).
``(16) Genetic information.--
``(A) In general.--The term `genetic information' means,
with respect to any individual, information about--
``(i) such individual's genetic tests,
``(ii) the genetic tests of family members of such
individual, and
``(iii) the manifestation of a disease or disorder in
family members of such individual.
``(B) Inclusion of genetic services and participation in
genetic research.--Such term includes, with respect to any
individual, any request for, or receipt of, genetic services,
or participation in clinical research which includes genetic
services, by such individual or any family member of such
individual.
``(C) Exclusions.--The term `genetic information' shall not
include information about the sex or age of any individual.
``(17) Genetic test.--
``(A) In general.--The term `genetic test' means an
analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or
metabolites, that detects genotypes, mutations, or
chromosomal changes.
``(B) Exceptions.--The term `genetic test' does not mean--
``(i) an analysis of proteins or metabolites that does not
detect genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes; or
``(ii) an analysis of proteins or metabolites that is
directly related to a manifested disease, disorder, or
pathological condition that could reasonably be detected by a
health care professional with appropriate training and
expertise in the field of medicine involved.
``(18) Genetic services.--The term `genetic services'
means--
``(A) a genetic test;
``(B) genetic counseling (including obtaining,
interpreting, or assessing genetic information); or
``(C) genetic education.
``(19) Underwriting purposes.--The term `underwriting
purposes' means, with respect to any group health plan, or
health insurance coverage offered in connection with a group
health plan--
``(A) rules for, or determination of, eligibility
(including enrollment and continued eligibility) for benefits
under the plan or coverage;
``(B) the computation of premium or contribution amounts
under the plan or coverage;
``(C) the application of any pre-existing condition
exclusion under the plan or coverage; and
``(D) other activities related to the creation, renewal, or
replacement of a contract of health insurance or health
benefits.''.
(5) Remedies and enforcement.--Section 2722(b) of the
Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-22(b)) is amended
by adding at the end the following:
``(3) Enforcement authority relating to genetic
discrimination.--
``(A) General rule.--In the cases described in paragraph
(1), notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (2)(C), the
succeeding subparagraphs of this paragraph shall apply with
respect to an action under this subsection by the Secretary
with respect to any failure of a health insurance issuer in
connection with a group health plan, to meet the requirements
of subsection (a)(1)(F), (b)(3), (c), or (d) of section 2702
or section 2701 or 2702(b)(1) with respect to genetic
information in connection with the plan.
``(B) Amount.--
``(i) In general.--The amount of the penalty imposed under
this paragraph shall be $100 for each day in the
noncompliance period with respect to each participant or
beneficiary to whom such failure relates.
``(ii) Noncompliance period.--For purposes of this
paragraph, the term `noncompliance period' means, with
respect to any failure, the period--
``(I) beginning on the date such failure first occurs; and
``(II) ending on the date the failure is corrected.
``(C) Minimum penalties where failure discovered.--
Notwithstanding clauses (i) and (ii) of subparagraph (D):
``(i) In general.--In the case of 1 or more failures with
respect to an individual--
``(I) which are not corrected before the date on which the
plan receives a notice from the Secretary of such violation;
and
``(II) which occurred or continued during the period
involved;
the amount of penalty imposed by subparagraph (A) by reason
of such failures with respect to such individual shall not be
less than $2,500.
``(ii) Higher minimum penalty where violations are more
than de minimis.--To the extent violations for which any
person is liable under this paragraph for any year are more
than de minimis, clause (i) shall be applied by substituting
`$15,000' for `$2,500' with respect to such person.
``(D) Limitations.--
``(i) Penalty not to apply where failure not discovered
exercising reasonable diligence.--No penalty shall be imposed
by subparagraph (A) on any failure during any period for
which it is established to the satisfaction of the Secretary
that the person otherwise liable for such penalty did not
know, and exercising reasonable diligence would not have
known, that such failure existed.
``(ii) Penalty not to apply to failures corrected within
certain periods.--No penalty shall be imposed by subparagraph
(A) on any failure if--
``(I) such failure was due to reasonable cause and not to
willful neglect; and
``(II) such failure is corrected during the 30-day period
beginning on the first date the person otherwise liable for
such penalty knew, or exercising reasonable diligence would
have known, that such failure existed.
``(iii) Overall limitation for unintentional failures.--In
the case of failures which are due to reasonable cause and
not to willful neglect, the penalty imposed by subparagraph
(A) for failures shall not exceed the amount equal to the
lesser of--
``(I) 10 percent of the aggregate amount paid or incurred
by the employer (or predecessor employer) during the
preceding taxable year for group health plans; or
``(II) $500,000.
``(E) Waiver by secretary.--In the case of a failure which
is due to reasonable cause and not to willful neglect, the
Secretary may waive part or all of the penalty imposed by
subparagraph (A) to the extent that the payment of such
penalty would be excessive relative to the failure
involved.''.
(b) Amendment Relating to the Individual Market.--
(1) In general.--The first subpart 3 of part B of title
XXVII of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-51 et
seq.) (relating to other requirements) is amended--
(A) by redesignating such subpart as subpart 2; and
(B) by adding at the end the following:
``SEC. 2753. PROHIBITION OF HEALTH DISCRIMINATION ON THE
BASIS OF GENETIC INFORMATION.
``(a) Prohibition on Genetic Information as a Condition of
Eligibility.--
[[Page 7503]]
``(1) In general.--A health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in the individual market may not
establish rules for the eligibility (including continued
eligibility) of any individual to enroll in individual health
insurance coverage based on genetic information.
``(2) Rule of construction.--Nothing in paragraph (1) or in
paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (e) shall be construed
to preclude a health insurance issuer from establishing rules
for eligibility for an individual to enroll in individual
health insurance coverage based on the manifestation of a
disease or disorder in that individual, or in a family member
of such individual where such family member is covered under
the policy that covers such individual.
``(b) Prohibition on Genetic Information in Setting Premium
Rates.--
``(1) In general.--A health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in the individual market shall not
adjust premium or contribution amounts for an individual on
the basis of genetic information concerning the individual or
a family member of the individual.
``(2) Rule of construction.--Nothing in paragraph (1) or in
paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (e) shall be construed
to preclude a health insurance issuer from adjusting premium
or contribution amounts for an individual on the basis of a
manifestation of a disease or disorder in that individual, or
in a family member of such individual where such family
member is covered under the policy that covers such
individual. In such case, the manifestation of a disease or
disorder in one individual cannot also be used as genetic
information about other individuals covered under the policy
issued to such individual and to further increase premiums or
contribution amounts.
``(c) Prohibition on Genetic Information as Preexisting
Condition.--
``(1) In general.--A health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in the individual market may not,
on the basis of genetic information, impose any preexisting
condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A))
with respect to such coverage.
``(2) Rule of construction.--Nothing in paragraph (1) or in
paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (e) shall be construed
to preclude a health insurance issuer from imposing any
preexisting condition exclusion for an individual with
respect to health insurance coverage on the basis of a
manifestation of a disease or disorder in that individual.
``(d) Genetic Testing.--
``(1) Limitation on requesting or requiring genetic
testing.--A health insurance issuer offering health insurance
coverage in the individual market shall not request or
require an individual or a family member of such individual
to undergo a genetic test.
``(2) Rule of construction.--Paragraph (1) shall not be
construed to limit the authority of a health care
professional who is providing health care services to an
individual to request that such individual undergo a genetic
test.
``(3) Rule of construction regarding payment.--
``(A) In general.--Nothing in paragraph (1) shall be
construed to preclude a health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in the individual market from
obtaining and using the results of a genetic test in making a
determination regarding payment (as such term is defined for
the purposes of applying the regulations promulgated by the
Secretary under part C of title XI of the Social Security Act
and section 264 of the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996, as may be revised from time to
time) consistent with subsection (a) and (c).
``(B) Limitation.--For purposes of subparagraph (A), a
health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
the individual market may request only the minimum amount of
information necessary to accomplish the intended purpose.
``(4) Research exception.--Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a
health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in
the individual market may request, but not require, that an
individual or a family member of such individual undergo a
genetic test if each of the following conditions is met:
``(A) The request is made pursuant to research that
complies with part 46 of title 45, Code of Federal
Regulations, or equivalent Federal regulations, and any
applicable State or local law or regulations for the
protection of human subjects in research.
``(B) The issuer clearly indicates to each individual, or
in the case of a minor child, to the legal guardian of such
child, to whom the request is made that--
``(i) compliance with the request is voluntary; and
``(ii) non-compliance will have no effect on enrollment
status or premium or contribution amounts.
``(C) No genetic information collected or acquired under
this paragraph shall be used for underwriting purposes.
``(D) The issuer notifies the Secretary in writing that the
issuer is conducting activities pursuant to the exception
provided for under this paragraph, including a description of
the activities conducted.
``(E) The issuer complies with such other conditions as the
Secretary may by regulation require for activities conducted
under this paragraph.
``(e) Prohibition on Collection of Genetic Information.--
``(1) In general.--A health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in the individual market shall not
request, require, or purchase genetic information for
underwriting purposes (as defined in section 2791).
``(2) Prohibition on collection of genetic information
prior to enrollment.--A health insurance issuer offering
health insurance coverage in the individual market shall not
request, require, or purchase genetic information with
respect to any individual prior to such individual's
enrollment under the plan in connection with such enrollment.
``(3) Incidental collection.--If a health insurance issuer
offering health insurance coverage in the individual market
obtains genetic information incidental to the requesting,
requiring, or purchasing of other information concerning any
individual, such request, requirement, or purchase shall not
be considered a violation of paragraph (2) if such request,
requirement, or purchase is not in violation of paragraph
(1).
``(f) Genetic Information of a Fetus or Embryo.--Any
reference in this part to genetic information concerning an
individual or family member of an individual shall--
``(1) with respect to such an individual or family member
of an individual who is a pregnant woman, include genetic
information of any fetus carried by such pregnant woman; and
``(2) with respect to an individual or family member
utilizing an assisted reproductive technology, include
genetic information of any embryo legally held by the
individual or family member.''.
(2) Remedies and enforcement.--Section 2761(b) of the
Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-61(b)) is amended
to read as follows:
``(b) Secretarial Enforcement Authority.--The Secretary
shall have the same authority in relation to enforcement of
the provisions of this part with respect to issuers of health
insurance coverage in the individual market in a State as the
Secretary has under section 2722(b)(2), and section
2722(b)(3) with respect to violations of genetic
nondiscrimination provisions, in relation to the enforcement
of the provisions of part A with respect to issuers of health
insurance coverage in the small group market in the State.''.
(c) Elimination of Option of Non-Federal Governmental Plans
To Be Excepted From Requirements Concerning Genetic
Information.--Section 2721(b)(2) of the Public Health Service
Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-21(b)(2)) is amended--
(1) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``If the plan
sponsor'' and inserting ``Except as provided in subparagraph
(D), if the plan sponsor''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
``(D) Election not applicable to requirements concerning
genetic information.--The election described in subparagraph
(A) shall not be available with respect to the provisions of
subsections (a)(1)(F), (b)(3), (c), and (d) of section 2702
and the provisions of sections 2701 and 2702(b) to the extent
that such provisions apply to genetic information.''.
(d) Regulations and Effective Date.--
(1) Regulations.--Not later than 12 months after the date
of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Health and Human
Services shall issue final regulations to carry out the
amendments made by this section.
(2) Effective date.--The amendments made by this section
shall apply--
(A) with respect to group health plans, and health
insurance coverage offered in connection with group health
plans, for plan years beginning after the date that is 1 year
after the date of enactment of this Act; and
(B) with respect to health insurance coverage offered,
sold, issued, renewed, in effect, or operated in the
individual market after the date that is 1 year after the
date of enactment of this Act.
SEC. 103. AMENDMENTS TO THE INTERNAL REVENUE CODE OF 1986.
(a) No Discrimination in Group Premiums Based on Genetic
Information.--Subsection (b) of section 9802 of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 is amended--
(1) in paragraph (2)(A), by inserting before the semicolon
the following: ``except as provided in paragraph (3)''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
``(3) No group-based discrimination on basis of genetic
information.--
``(A) In general.--For purposes of this section, a group
health plan may not adjust premium or contribution amounts
for the group covered under such plan on the basis of genetic
information.
``(B) Rule of construction.--Nothing in subparagraph (A) or
in paragraphs (1) and (2) of subsection (d) shall be
construed to limit the ability of a group health plan to
increase the premium for an employer based on the
manifestation of a disease or disorder of an individual who
is enrolled in the plan. In such case, the manifestation of a
disease or disorder in one individual cannot also be used as
genetic information about other group members and to further
increase the premium for the employer.''.
(b) Limitations on Genetic Testing; Prohibition on
Collection of Genetic Information; Application to All
Plans.--Section 9802 of such Code is amended by redesignating
subsection (c) as subsection (f) and by inserting after
subsection (b) the following new subsections:
``(c) Genetic Testing.--
``(1) Limitation on requesting or requiring genetic
testing.--A group health plan may not request or require an
individual or a family member of such individual to undergo a
genetic test.
[[Page 7504]]
``(2) Rule of construction.--Paragraph (1) shall not be
construed to limit the authority of a health care
professional who is providing health care services to an
individual to request that such individual undergo a genetic
test.
``(3) Rule of construction regarding payment.--
``(A) In general.--Nothing in paragraph (1) shall be
construed to preclude a group health plan from obtaining and
using the results of a genetic test in making a determination
regarding payment (as such term is defined for the purposes
of applying the regulations promulgated by the Secretary of
Health and Human Services under part C of title XI of the
Social Security Act and section 264 of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as may be revised
from time to time) consistent with subsection (a).
``(B) Limitation.--For purposes of subparagraph (A), a
group health plan may request only the minimum amount of
information necessary to accomplish the intended purpose.
``(4) Research exception.--Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a
group health plan may request, but not require, that a
participant or beneficiary undergo a genetic test if each of
the following conditions is met:
``(A) The request is made pursuant to research that
complies with part 46 of title 45, Code of Federal
Regulations, or equivalent Federal regulations, and any
applicable State or local law or regulations for the
protection of human subjects in research.
``(B) The plan clearly indicates to each participant or
beneficiary, or in the case of a minor child, to the legal
guardian of such beneficiary, to whom the request is made
that--
``(i) compliance with the request is voluntary; and
``(ii) non-compliance will have no effect on enrollment
status or premium or contribution amounts.
``(C) No genetic information collected or acquired under
this paragraph shall be used for underwriting purposes.
``(D) The plan notifies the Secretary in writing that the
plan is conducting activities pursuant to the exception
provided for under this paragraph, including a description of
the activities conducted.
``(E) The plan complies with such other conditions as the
Secretary may by regulation require for activities conducted
under this paragraph.
``(d) Prohibition on Collection of Genetic Information.--
``(1) In general.--A group health plan shall not request,
require, or purchase genetic information for underwriting
purposes (as defined in section 9832).
``(2) Prohibition on collection of genetic information
prior to enrollment.--A group health plan shall not request,
require, or purchase genetic information with respect to any
individual prior to such individual's enrollment under the
plan or in connection with such enrollment.
``(3) Incidental collection.--If a group health plan
obtains genetic information incidental to the requesting,
requiring, or purchasing of other information concerning any
individual, such request, requirement, or purchase shall not
be considered a violation of paragraph (2) if such request,
requirement, or purchase is not in violation of paragraph
(1).
``(e) Application to All Plans.--The provisions of
subsections (a)(1)(F), (b)(3), (c), and (d) and subsection
(b)(1) and section 9801 with respect to genetic information,
shall apply to group health plans without regard to section
9831(a)(2).''.
(c) Application to Genetic Information of a Fetus or
Embryo.--Such section is further amended by adding at the end
the following:
``(f) Genetic Information of a Fetus or Embryo.--Any
reference in this chapter to genetic information concerning
an individual or family member of an individual shall--
``(1) with respect to such an individual or family member
of an individual who is a pregnant woman, include genetic
information of any fetus carried by such pregnant woman; and
``(2) with respect to an individual or family member
utilizing an assisted reproductive technology, include
genetic information of any embryo legally held by the
individual or family member.''.
(d) Definitions.--Subsection (d) of section 9832 of such
Code is amended by adding at the end the following:
``(6) Family member.--The term `family member' means, with
respect to any individual--
``(A) a dependent (as such term is used for purposes of
section 9801(f)(2)) of such individual, and
``(B) any other individual who is a first-degree, second-
degree, third-degree, or fourth-degree relative of such
individual or of an individual described in subparagraph (A).
``(7) Genetic information.--
``(A) In general.--The term `genetic information' means,
with respect to any individual, information about--
``(i) such individual's genetic tests,
``(ii) the genetic tests of family members of such
individual, and
``(iii) the manifestation of a disease or disorder in
family members of such individual.
``(B) Inclusion of genetic services and participation in
genetic research.--Such term includes, with respect to any
individual, any request for, or receipt of, genetic services,
or participation in clinical research which includes genetic
services, by such individual or any family member of such
individual.
``(C) Exclusions.--The term `genetic information' shall not
include information about the sex or age of any individual.
``(8) Genetic test.--
``(A) In general.--The term `genetic test' means an
analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or
metabolites, that detects genotypes, mutations, or
chromosomal changes.
``(B) Exceptions.--The term `genetic test' does not mean--
``(i) an analysis of proteins or metabolites that does not
detect genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes, or
``(ii) an analysis of proteins or metabolites that is
directly related to a manifested disease, disorder, or
pathological condition that could reasonably be detected by a
health care professional with appropriate training and
expertise in the field of medicine involved.
``(9) Genetic services.--The term `genetic services'
means--
``(A) a genetic test;
``(B) genetic counseling (including obtaining,
interpreting, or assessing genetic information); or
``(C) genetic education.
``(10) Underwriting purposes.--The term `underwriting
purposes' means, with respect to any group health plan, or
health insurance coverage offered in connection with a group
health plan--
``(A) rules for, or determination of, eligibility
(including enrollment and continued eligibility) for benefits
under the plan or coverage;
``(B) the computation of premium or contribution amounts
under the plan or coverage;
``(C) the application of any pre-existing condition
exclusion under the plan or coverage; and
``(D) other activities related to the creation, renewal, or
replacement of a contract of health insurance or health
benefits.''.
(e) Enforcement.--
(1) In general.--Subchapter C of chapter 100 of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to general
provisions) is amended by adding at the end the following new
section:
``SEC. 9834. ENFORCEMENT.
``For the imposition of tax on any failure of a group
health plan to meet the requirements of this chapter, see
section 4980D.''.
(2) Conforming amendment.--The table of sections for
subchapter C of chapter 100 of such Code is amended by adding
at the end the following new item:
``Sec. 9834. Enforcement.''.
(f) Regulations and Effective Date.--
(1) Regulations.--The Secretary of the Treasury shall issue
final regulations or other guidance not later than 12 months
after the date of the enactment of this Act to carry out the
amendments made by this section.
(2) Effective date.--The amendments made by this section
shall apply with respect to group health plans for plan years
beginning after the date that is 1 year after the date of the
enactment of this Act.
SEC. 104. AMENDMENTS TO TITLE XVIII OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY
ACT RELATING TO MEDIGAP.
(a) Nondiscrimination.--Section 1882(s)(2) of the Social
Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395ss(s)(2)) is amended by adding at
the end the following:
``(E) An issuer of a medicare supplemental policy shall not
deny or condition the issuance or effectiveness of the policy
(including the imposition of any exclusion of benefits under
the policy based on a pre-existing condition) and shall not
discriminate in the pricing of the policy (including the
adjustment of premium rates) of an individual on the basis of
the genetic information with respect to such individual.
``(F) Rule of construction.--Nothing in subparagraph (E) or
in subparagraphs (A) or (B) of subsection (x)(2) shall be
construed to limit the ability of an issuer of a medicare
supplemental policy from, to the extent otherwise permitted
under this title--
``(i) denying or conditioning the issuance or effectiveness
of the policy or increasing the premium for an employer based
on the manifestation of a disease or disorder of an
individual who is covered under the policy; or
``(ii) increasing the premium for any policy issued to an
individual based on the manifestation of a disease or
disorder of an individual who is covered under the policy (in
such case, the manifestation of a disease or disorder in one
individual cannot also be used as genetic information about
other group members and to further increase the premium for
the employer).''.
(b) Limitations on Genetic Testing and Genetic
Information.--
(1) In general.--Section 1882 of the Social Security Act
(42 U.S.C. 1395ss) is amended by adding at the end the
following:
``(x) Limitations on Genetic Testing and Information.--
``(1) Genetic testing.--
``(A) Limitation on requesting or requiring genetic
testing.--An issuer of a medicare supplemental policy shall
not request or require an individual or a family member of
such individual to undergo a genetic test.
``(B) Rule of construction.--Subparagraph (A) shall not be
construed to limit the authority of a health care
professional who is providing health care services to an
individual to request that such individual undergo a genetic
test.
``(C) Rule of construction regarding payment.--
``(i) In general.--Nothing in subparagraph (A) shall be
construed to preclude an issuer of a medicare supplemental
policy from obtaining and using the results of a genetic test
in making a determination regarding payment (as such term is
defined for the purposes of applying the regulations
promulgated by the Secretary under part C of title XI and
section 264 of the Health
[[Page 7505]]
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as may
be revised from time to time) consistent with subsection
(s)(2)(E).
``(ii) Limitation.--For purposes of clause (i), an issuer
of a medicare supplemental policy may request only the
minimum amount of information necessary to accomplish the
intended purpose.
``(D) Research exception.--Notwithstanding subparagraph
(A), an issuer of a medicare supplemental policy may request,
but not require, that an individual or a family member of
such individual undergo a genetic test if each of the
following conditions is met:
``(i) The request is made pursuant to research that
complies with part 46 of title 45, Code of Federal
Regulations, or equivalent Federal regulations, and any
applicable State or local law or regulations for the
protection of human subjects in research.
``(ii) The issuer clearly indicates to each individual, or
in the case of a minor child, to the legal guardian of such
child, to whom the request is made that--
``(I) compliance with the request is voluntary; and
``(II) non-compliance will have no effect on enrollment
status or premium or contribution amounts.
``(iii) No genetic information collected or acquired under
this subparagraph shall be used for underwriting,
determination of eligibility to enroll or maintain enrollment
status, premium rating, or the creation, renewal, or
replacement of a plan, contract, or coverage for health
insurance or health benefits.
``(iv) The issuer notifies the Secretary in writing that
the issuer is conducting activities pursuant to the exception
provided for under this subparagraph, including a description
of the activities conducted.
``(v) The issuer complies with such other conditions as the
Secretary may by regulation require for activities conducted
under this subparagraph.
``(2) Prohibition on collection of genetic information.--
``(A) In general.--An issuer of a medicare supplemental
policy shall not request, require, or purchase genetic
information for underwriting purposes (as defined in
paragraph (3)).
``(B) Prohibition on collection of genetic information
prior to enrollment.--An issuer of a medicare supplemental
policy shall not request, require, or purchase genetic
information with respect to any individual prior to such
individual's enrollment under the policy in connection with
such enrollment.
``(C) Incidental collection.--If an issuer of a medicare
supplemental policy obtains genetic information incidental to
the requesting, requiring, or purchasing of other information
concerning any individual, such request, requirement, or
purchase shall not be considered a violation of subparagraph
(B) if such request, requirement, or purchase is not in
violation of subparagraph (A).
``(3) Definitions.--In this subsection:
``(A) Family member.--The term `family member' means with
respect to an individual, any other individual who is a
first-degree, second-degree, third-degree, or fourth-degree
relative of such individual.
``(B) Genetic information.--
``(i) In general.--The term `genetic information' means,
with respect to any individual, information about--
``(I) such individual's genetic tests,
``(II) the genetic tests of family members of such
individual, and
``(III) subject to clause (iv), the manifestation of a
disease or disorder in family members of such individual.
``(ii) Inclusion of genetic services and participation in
genetic research.--Such term includes, with respect to any
individual, any request for, or receipt of, genetic services,
or participation in clinical research which includes genetic
services, by such individual or any family member of such
individual.
``(iii) Exclusions.--The term `genetic information' shall
not include information about the sex or age of any
individual.
``(C) Genetic test.--
``(i) In general.--The term `genetic test' means an
analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or
metabolites, that detects genotypes, mutations, or
chromosomal changes.
``(ii) Exceptions.--The term `genetic test' does not mean--
``(I) an analysis of proteins or metabolites that does not
detect genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes; or
``(II) an analysis of proteins or metabolites that is
directly related to a manifested disease, disorder, or
pathological condition that could reasonably be detected by a
health care professional with appropriate training and
expertise in the field of medicine involved.
``(D) Genetic services.--The term `genetic services'
means--
``(i) a genetic test;
``(ii) genetic counseling (including obtaining,
interpreting, or assessing genetic information); or
``(iii) genetic education.
``(E) Underwriting purposes.--The term `underwriting
purposes' means, with respect to a medicare supplemental
policy--
``(i) rules for, or determination of, eligibility
(including enrollment and continued eligibility) for benefits
under the policy;
``(ii) the computation of premium or contribution amounts
under the policy;
``(iii) the application of any pre-existing condition
exclusion under the policy; and
``(iv) other activities related to the creation, renewal,
or replacement of a contract of health insurance or health
benefits.
``(F) Issuer of a medicare supplemental policy.--The term
`issuer of a medicare supplemental policy' includes a third-
party administrator or other person acting for or on behalf
of such issuer.''.
(2) Application to genetic information of a fetus or
embryo.--Section 1882(x) of such Act, as added by paragraph
(1), is further amended by adding at the end the following:
``(4) Genetic information of a fetus or embryo.--Any
reference in this section to genetic information concerning
an individual or family member of an individual shall--
``(A) with respect to such an individual or family member
of an individual who is a pregnant woman, include genetic
information of any fetus carried by such pregnant woman; and
``(B) with respect to an individual or family member
utilizing an assisted reproductive technology, include
genetic information of any embryo legally held by the
individual or family member.''.
(3) Conforming amendment.--Section 1882(o) of the Social
Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395ss(o)) is amended by adding at
the end the following:
``(4) The issuer of the medicare supplemental policy
complies with subsection (s)(2)(E) and subsection (x).''.
(c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section
shall apply with respect to an issuer of a medicare
supplemental policy for policy years beginning on or after
the date that is 1 year after the date of enactment of this
Act.
(d) Transition Provisions.--
(1) In general.--If the Secretary of Health and Human
Services identifies a State as requiring a change to its
statutes or regulations to conform its regulatory program to
the changes made by this section, the State regulatory
program shall not be considered to be out of compliance with
the requirements of section 1882 of the Social Security Act
due solely to failure to make such change until the date
specified in paragraph (4).
(2) NAIC standards.--If, not later than June 30, 2008, the
National Association of Insurance Commissioners (in this
subsection referred to as the ``NAIC'') modifies its NAIC
Model Regulation relating to section 1882 of the Social
Security Act (referred to in such section as the 1991 NAIC
Model Regulation, as subsequently modified) to conform to the
amendments made by this section, such revised regulation
incorporating the modifications shall be considered to be the
applicable NAIC model regulation (including the revised NAIC
model regulation and the 1991 NAIC Model Regulation) for the
purposes of such section.
(3) Secretary standards.--If the NAIC does not make the
modifications described in paragraph (2) within the period
specified in such paragraph, the Secretary of Health and
Human Services shall, not later than October 1, 2008, make
the modifications described in such paragraph and such
revised regulation incorporating the modifications shall be
considered to be the appropriate regulation for the purposes
of such section.
(4) Date specified.--
(A) In general.--Subject to subparagraph (B), the date
specified in this paragraph for a State is the earlier of--
(i) the date the State changes its statutes or regulations
to conform its regulatory program to the changes made by this
section, or
(ii) October 1, 2008.
(B) Additional legislative action required.--In the case of
a State which the Secretary identifies as--
(i) requiring State legislation (other than legislation
appropriating funds) to conform its regulatory program to the
changes made in this section, but
(ii) having a legislature which is not scheduled to meet in
2008 in a legislative session in which such legislation may
be considered, the date specified in this paragraph is the
first day of the first calendar quarter beginning after the
close of the first legislative session of the State
legislature that begins on or after July 1, 2008. For
purposes of the previous sentence, in the case of a State
that has a 2-year legislative session, each year of such
session shall be deemed to be a separate regular session of
the State legislature.
SEC. 105. PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY.
(a) In General.--Part C of title XI of the Social Security
Act is amended by adding at the end the following new
section:
``application of hipaa regulations to genetic information
``Sec. 1180. (a) In General.--The Secretary shall revise
the HIPAA privacy regulation (as defined in subsection (b))
so it is consistent with the following:
``(1) Genetic information shall be treated as health
information described in section 1171(4)(B).
``(2) The use or disclosure by a covered entity that is a
group health plan, health insurance issuer that issues health
insurance coverage, or issuer of a medicare supplemental
policy of protected health information that is genetic
information about an individual for underwriting purposes
under the group health plan, health insurance coverage, or
medicare supplemental policy shall not be a permitted use or
disclosure.
``(b) Definitions.--For purposes of this section:
``(1) Genetic information; genetic test; family member.--
The terms `genetic information', `genetic test', and `family
member' have the meanings given such terms in section 2791 of
the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300gg-
[[Page 7506]]
91), as amended by the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination
Act of 2007.
``(2) Group health plan; health insurance coverage;
medicare supplemental policy.--The terms `group health plan'
and `health insurance coverage' have the meanings given such
terms under section 2791 of the Public Health Service Act (42
U.S.C. 300gg-91), and the term `medicare supplemental policy'
has the meaning given such term in section 1882(g).
``(3) HIPAA privacy regulation.--The term `HIPAA privacy
regulation' means the regulations promulgated by the
Secretary under this part and section 264 of the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (42
U.S.C. 1320d-2 note).
``(4) Underwriting purposes.--The term `underwriting
purposes' means, with respect to a group health plan, health
insurance coverage, or a medicare supplemental policy--
``(A) rules for, or determination of, eligibility
(including enrollment and continued eligibility) for, or
determination of, benefits under the plan, coverage, or
policy;
``(B) the computation of premium or contribution amounts
under the plan, coverage, or policy;
``(C) the application of any pre-existing condition
exclusion under the plan, coverage, or policy; and
``(D) other activities related to the creation, renewal, or
replacement of a contract of health insurance or health
benefits.
``(c) Procedure.--The revisions under subsection (a) shall
be made by notice in the Federal Register published not later
than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this section
and shall be effective upon publication, without opportunity
for any prior public comment, but may be revised, consistent
with this section, after opportunity for public comment.
``(d) Enforcement.--In addition to any other sanctions or
remedies that may be available under law, a covered entity
that is a group health plan, health insurance issuer, or
issuer of a medicare supplemental policy and that violates
the HIPAA privacy regulation (as revised under subsection (a)
or otherwise) with respect to the use or disclosure of
genetic information shall be subject to the penalties
described in sections 1176 and 1177 in the same manner and to
the same extent that such penalties apply to violations of
this part.''.
(b) Regulations; Effective Date.--
(1) Regulations.--Not later than 12 months after the date
of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Health and
Human Services shall issue final regulations to carry out the
revision required by section 1180(a) of the Social Security
Act, as added by subsection (a). The Secretary has the sole
authority to promulgate such regulations, but shall
promulgate such regulations in consultation with the
Secretaries of Labor and the Treasury.
(2) Effective date.--The amendment made by subsection (a)
shall take effect on the date that is 1 year after the date
of the enactment of this Act.
SEC. 106. ASSURING COORDINATION.
Except as provided in section 105(b)(1), the Secretary of
Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Labor, and the
Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure, through the execution
of an interagency memorandum of understanding among such
Secretaries, that--
(1) regulations, rulings, and interpretations issued by
such Secretaries relating to the same matter over which two
or more such Secretaries have responsibility under this title
(and the amendments made by this title) are administered so
as to have the same effect at all times; and
(2) coordination of policies relating to enforcing the same
requirements through such Secretaries in order to have a
coordinated enforcement strategy that avoids duplication of
enforcement efforts and assigns priorities in enforcement.
TITLE II--PROHIBITING EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF GENETIC
INFORMATION
SEC. 201. DEFINITIONS.
In this title:
(1) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission as created by section 705
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e-4).
(2) Employee; employer; employment agency; labor
organization; member.--
(A) In general.--The term ``employee'' means--
(i) an employee (including an applicant), as defined in
section 701(f) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.
2000e(f));
(ii) a State employee (including an applicant) described in
section 304(a) of the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991
(42 U.S.C. 2000e-16c(a));
(iii) a covered employee (including an applicant), as
defined in section 101 of the Congressional Accountability
Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1301);
(iv) a covered employee (including an applicant), as
defined in section 411(c) of title 3, United States Code; or
(v) an employee or applicant to which section 717(a) of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e-16(a)) applies.
(B) Employer.--The term ``employer'' means--
(i) an employer (as defined in section 701(b) of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e(b)));
(ii) an entity employing a State employee described in
section 304(a) of the Government Employee Rights Act of 1991;
(iii) an employing office, as defined in section 101 of the
Congressional Accountability Act of 1995;
(iv) an employing office, as defined in section 411(c) of
title 3, United States Code; or
(v) an entity to which section 717(a) of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 applies.
(C) Employment agency; labor organization.--The terms
``employment agency'' and ``labor organization'' have the
meanings given the terms in section 701 of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e).
(D) Member.--The term ``member'', with respect to a labor
organization, includes an applicant for membership in a labor
organization.
(3) Family member.--The term ``family member'' means, with
respect to an individual--
(A) a dependent (as such term is used for purposes of
section 701(f)(2) of the Employee Retirement Income Security
Act of 1974) of such individual, and
(B) any other individual who is a first-degree, second-
degree, third-degree, or fourth-degree relative of such
individual or of an individual described in subparagraph (A).
(4) Genetic information.--
(A) In general.--The term ``genetic information'' means,
with respect to any individual, information about--
(i) such individual's genetic tests,
(ii) the genetic tests of family members of such
individual, and
(iii) the manifestation of a disease or disorder in family
members of such individual.
(B) Inclusion of genetic services and participation in
genetic research.--Such term includes, with respect to any
individual, any request for, or receipt of, genetic services,
or participation in clinical research which includes genetic
services, by such individual or any family member of such
individual.
(C) Exclusions.--The term ``genetic information'' shall not
include information about the sex or age of any individual.
(5) Genetic monitoring.--The term ``genetic monitoring''
means the periodic examination of employees to evaluate
acquired modifications to their genetic material, such as
chromosomal damage or evidence of increased occurrence of
mutations, that may have developed in the course of
employment due to exposure to toxic substances in the
workplace, in order to identify, evaluate, and respond to the
effects of or control adverse environmental exposures in the
workplace.
(6) Genetic services.--The term ``genetic services''
means--
(A) a genetic test;
(B) genetic counseling (including obtaining, interpreting,
or assessing genetic information); or
(C) genetic education.
(7) Genetic test.--
(A) In general.--The term ``genetic test'' means an
analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or
metabolites, that detects genotypes, mutations, or
chromosomal changes.
(B) Exceptions.--The term ``genetic test'' does not mean an
analysis of proteins or metabolites that does not detect
genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes.
SEC. 202. EMPLOYER PRACTICES.
(a) Discrimination Based on Genetic Information.--It shall
be an unlawful employment practice for an employer--
(1) to fail or refuse to hire, or to discharge, any
employee, or otherwise to discriminate against any employee
with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions, or
privileges of employment of the employee, because of genetic
information with respect to the employee; or
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify the employees of the
employer in any way that would deprive or tend to deprive any
employee of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely
affect the status of the employee as an employee, because of
genetic information with respect to the employee.
(b) Acquisition of Genetic Information.--It shall be an
unlawful employment practice for an employer to request,
require, or purchase genetic information with respect to an
employee or a family member of the employee except--
(1) where an employer inadvertently requests or requires
family medical history of the employee or family member of
the employee;
(2) where--
(A) health or genetic services are offered by the employer,
including such services offered as part of a wellness
program;
(B) the employee provides prior, knowing, voluntary, and
written authorization;
(C) only the employee (or family member if the family
member is receiving genetic services) and the licensed health
care professional or board certified genetic counselor
involved in providing such services receive individually
identifiable information concerning the results of such
services; and
(D) any individually identifiable genetic information
provided under subparagraph (C) in connection with the
services provided under subparagraph (A) is only available
for purposes of such services and shall not be disclosed to
the employer except in aggregate terms that do not disclose
the identity of specific employees;
(3) where an employer requests or requires family medical
history from the employee to comply with the certification
provisions of section 103 of the Family and Medical Leave Act
of 1993 (29 U.S.C. 2613) or such requirements under State
family and medical leave laws;
(4) where an employer purchases documents that are
commercially and publicly available (including newspapers,
magazines, periodicals, and books, but not including medical
databases or court records) that include family medical
history;
(5) where the information involved is to be used for
genetic monitoring of the biological effects of toxic
substances in the workplace, but only if--
[[Page 7507]]
(A) the employer provides written notice of the genetic
monitoring to the employee;
(B)(i) the employee provides prior, knowing, voluntary, and
written authorization; or
(ii) the genetic monitoring is required by Federal or State
law;
(C) the employee is informed of individual monitoring
results;
(D) the monitoring is in compliance with--
(i) any Federal genetic monitoring regulations, including
any such regulations that may be promulgated by the Secretary
of Labor pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.), the Federal Mine Safety and
Health Act of 1977 (30 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), or the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.); or
(ii) State genetic monitoring regulations, in the case of a
State that is implementing genetic monitoring regulations
under the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.); and
(E) the employer, excluding any licensed health care
professional or board certified genetic counselor that is
involved in the genetic monitoring program, receives the
results of the monitoring only in aggregate terms that do not
disclose the identity of specific employees; or
(6) where the employer conducts DNA analysis for law
enforcement purposes as a forensic laboratory, and such
analysis is included in the Combined DNA Index System
pursuant to section 210304 of the Violent Crime Control and
Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (42 U.S.C. 14132), and requests
or requires genetic information of such employer's employees,
but only to the extent that such genetic information is used
for analysis of DNA identification markers for quality
control to detect sample contamination.
(c) Preservation of Protections.--In the case of
information to which any of paragraphs (1) through (6) of
subsection (b) applies, such information may not be used in
violation of paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (a) or
treated or disclosed in a manner that violates section 206.
SEC. 203. EMPLOYMENT AGENCY PRACTICES.
(a) Discrimination Based on Genetic Information.--It shall
be an unlawful employment practice for an employment agency--
(1) to fail or refuse to refer for employment, or otherwise
to discriminate against, any individual because of genetic
information with respect to the individual;
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify individuals or fail or
refuse to refer for employment any individual in any way that
would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment
opportunities, or otherwise adversely affect the status of
the individual as an employee, because of genetic information
with respect to the individual; or
(3) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to
discriminate against an individual in violation of this
title.
(b) Acquisition of Genetic Information.--It shall be an
unlawful employment practice for an employment agency to
request, require, or purchase genetic information with
respect to an individual or a family member of the individual
except--
(1) where an employment agency inadvertently requests or
requires family medical history of the individual or family
member of the individual;
(2) where--
(A) health or genetic services are offered by the
employment agency, including such services offered as part of
a wellness program;
(B) the individual provides prior, knowing, voluntary, and
written authorization;
(C) only the individual (or family member if the family
member is receiving genetic services) and the licensed health
care professional or board certified genetic counselor
involved in providing such services receive individually
identifiable information concerning the results of such
services; and
(D) any individually identifiable genetic information
provided under subparagraph (C) in connection with the
services provided under subparagraph (A) is only available
for purposes of such services and shall not be disclosed to
the employment agency except in aggregate terms that do not
disclose the identity of specific individuals;
(3) where an employment agency requests or requires family
medical history from the individual to comply with the
certification provisions of section 103 of the Family and
Medical Leave Act of 1993 (29 U.S.C. 2613) or such
requirements under State family and medical leave laws;
(4) where an employment agency purchases documents that are
commercially and publicly available (including newspapers,
magazines, periodicals, and books, but not including medical
databases or court records) that include family medical
history; or
(5) where the information involved is to be used for
genetic monitoring of the biological effects of toxic
substances in the workplace, but only if--
(A) the employment agency provides written notice of the
genetic monitoring to the individual;
(B)(i) the individual provides prior, knowing, voluntary,
and written authorization; or
(ii) the genetic monitoring is required by Federal or State
law;
(C) the individual is informed of individual monitoring
results;
(D) the monitoring is in compliance with--
(i) any Federal genetic monitoring regulations, including
any such regulations that may be promulgated by the Secretary
of Labor pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.), the Federal Mine Safety and
Health Act of 1977 (30 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), or the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.); or
(ii) State genetic monitoring regulations, in the case of a
State that is implementing genetic monitoring regulations
under the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.); and
(E) the employment agency, excluding any licensed health
care professional or board certified genetic counselor that
is involved in the genetic monitoring program, receives the
results of the monitoring only in aggregate terms that do not
disclose the identity of specific individuals.
(c) Preservation of Protections.--In the case of
information to which any of paragraphs (1) through (5) of
subsection (b) applies, such information may not be used in
violation of paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of subsection (a) or
treated or disclosed in a manner that violates section 206.
SEC. 204. LABOR ORGANIZATION PRACTICES.
(a) Discrimination Based on Genetic Information.--It shall
be an unlawful employment practice for a labor organization--
(1) to exclude or to expel from the membership of the
organization, or otherwise to discriminate against, any
member because of genetic information with respect to the
member;
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify the members of the
organization, or fail or refuse to refer for employment any
member, in any way that would deprive or tend to deprive any
member of employment opportunities, or otherwise adversely
affect the status of the member as an employee, because of
genetic information with respect to the member; or
(3) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to
discriminate against a member in violation of this title.
(b) Acquisition of Genetic Information.--It shall be an
unlawful employment practice for a labor organization to
request, require, or purchase genetic information with
respect to a member or a family member of the member except--
(1) where a labor organization inadvertently requests or
requires family medical history of the member or family
member of the member;
(2) where--
(A) health or genetic services are offered by the labor
organization, including such services offered as part of a
wellness program;
(B) the member provides prior, knowing, voluntary, and
written authorization;
(C) only the member (or family member if the family member
is receiving genetic services) and the licensed health care
professional or board certified genetic counselor involved in
providing such services receive individually identifiable
information concerning the results of such services; and
(D) any individually identifiable genetic information
provided under subparagraph (C) in connection with the
services provided under subparagraph (A) is only available
for purposes of such services and shall not be disclosed to
the labor organization except in aggregate terms that do not
disclose the identity of specific members;
(3) where a labor organization requests or requires family
medical history from the members to comply with the
certification provisions of section 103 of the Family and
Medical Leave Act of 1993 (29 U.S.C. 2613) or such
requirements under State family and medical leave laws;
(4) where a labor organization purchases documents that are
commercially and publicly available (including newspapers,
magazines, periodicals, and books, but not including medical
databases or court records) that include family medical
history; or
(5) where the information involved is to be used for
genetic monitoring of the biological effects of toxic
substances in the workplace, but only if--
(A) the labor organization provides written notice of the
genetic monitoring to the member;
(B)(i) the member provides prior, knowing, voluntary, and
written authorization; or
(ii) the genetic monitoring is required by Federal or State
law;
(C) the member is informed of individual monitoring
results;
(D) the monitoring is in compliance with--
(i) any Federal genetic monitoring regulations, including
any such regulations that may be promulgated by the Secretary
of Labor pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.), the Federal Mine Safety and
Health Act of 1977 (30 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), or the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.); or
(ii) State genetic monitoring regulations, in the case of a
State that is implementing genetic monitoring regulations
under the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.); and
(E) the labor organization, excluding any licensed health
care professional or board certified genetic counselor that
is involved in the genetic monitoring program, receives the
results of the monitoring only in aggregate terms that do not
disclose the identity of specific members.
(c) Preservation of Protections.--In the case of
information to which any of paragraphs (1) through (5) of
subsection (b) applies, such information may not be used in
violation of paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of subsection (a) or
treated or disclosed in a manner that violates section 206.
SEC. 205. TRAINING PROGRAMS.
(a) Discrimination Based on Genetic Information.--It shall
be an unlawful employment
[[Page 7508]]
practice for any employer, labor organization, or joint
labor-management committee controlling apprenticeship or
other training or retraining, including on-the-job training
programs--
(1) to discriminate against any individual because of
genetic information with respect to the individual in
admission to, or employment in, any program established to
provide apprenticeship or other training or retraining;
(2) to limit, segregate, or classify the applicants for or
participants in such apprenticeship or other training or
retraining, or fail or refuse to refer for employment any
individual, in any way that would deprive or tend to deprive
any individual of employment opportunities, or otherwise
adversely affect the status of the individual as an employee,
because of genetic information with respect to the
individual; or
(3) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to
discriminate against an applicant for or a participant in
such apprenticeship or other training or retraining in
violation of this title.
(b) Acquisition of Genetic Information.--It shall be an
unlawful employment practice for an employer, labor
organization, or joint labor-management committee described
in subsection (a) to request, require, or purchase genetic
information with respect to an individual or a family member
of the individual except--
(1) where the employer, labor organization, or joint labor-
management committee inadvertently requests or requires
family medical history of the individual or family member of
the individual;
(2) where--
(A) health or genetic services are offered by the employer,
labor organization, or joint labor-management committee,
including such services offered as part of a wellness
program;
(B) the individual provides prior, knowing, voluntary, and
written authorization;
(C) only the individual (or family member if the family
member is receiving genetic services) and the licensed health
care professional or board certified genetic counselor
involved in providing such services receive individually
identifiable information concerning the results of such
services; and
(D) any individually identifiable genetic information
provided under subparagraph (C) in connection with the
services provided under subparagraph (A) is only available
for purposes of such services and shall not be disclosed to
the employer, labor organization, or joint labor-management
committee except in aggregate terms that do not disclose the
identity of specific individuals;
(3) where the employer, labor organization, or joint labor-
management committee requests or requires family medical
history from the individual to comply with the certification
provisions of section 103 of the Family and Medical Leave Act
of 1993 (29 U.S.C. 2613) or such requirements under State
family and medical leave laws;
(4) where the employer, labor organization, or joint labor-
management committee purchases documents that are
commercially and publicly available (including newspapers,
magazines, periodicals, and books, but not including medical
databases or court records) that include family medical
history;
(5) where the information involved is to be used for
genetic monitoring of the biological effects of toxic
substances in the workplace, but only if--
(A) the employer, labor organization, or joint labor-
management committee provides written notice of the genetic
monitoring to the individual;
(B)(i) the individual provides prior, knowing, voluntary,
and written authorization; or
(ii) the genetic monitoring is required by Federal or State
law;
(C) the individual is informed of individual monitoring
results;
(D) the monitoring is in compliance with--
(i) any Federal genetic monitoring regulations, including
any such regulations that may be promulgated by the Secretary
of Labor pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.), the Federal Mine Safety and
Health Act of 1977 (30 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), or the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.); or
(ii) State genetic monitoring regulations, in the case of a
State that is implementing genetic monitoring regulations
under the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970 (29 U.S.C. 651 et seq.); and
(E) the employer, labor organization, or joint labor-
management committee, excluding any licensed health care
professional or board certified genetic counselor that is
involved in the genetic monitoring program, receives the
results of the monitoring only in aggregate terms that do not
disclose the identity of specific individuals; or
(6) where the employer conducts DNA analysis for law
enforcement purposes as a forensic laboratory, and such
analysis is included in the Combined DNA Index System
pursuant to section 210304 of the Violent Crime Control and
Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (42 U.S.C. 14132), and requests
or requires genetic information of such employer's
apprentices or trainees, but only to the extent that such
genetic information is used for analysis of DNA
identification markers for quality control to detect sample
contamination.
(c) Preservation of Protections.--In the case of
information to which any of paragraphs (1) through (6) of
subsection (b) applies, such information may not be used in
violation of paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of subsection (a) or
treated or disclosed in a manner that violates section 206.
SEC. 206. CONFIDENTIALITY OF GENETIC INFORMATION.
(a) Treatment of Information as Part of Confidential
Medical Record.--If an employer, employment agency, labor
organization, or joint labor-management committee possesses
genetic information about an employee or member, such
information shall be maintained on separate forms and in
separate medical files and be treated as a confidential
medical record of the employee or member. An employer,
employment agency, labor organization, or joint labor-
management committee shall be considered to be in compliance
with the maintenance of information requirements of this
subsection with respect to genetic information subject to
this subsection that is maintained with and treated as a
confidential medical record under section 102(d)(3)(B) of the
Americans With Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. 12112(d)(3)(B)).
(b) Limitation on Disclosure.--An employer, employment
agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management
committee shall not disclose genetic information concerning
an employee or member except--
(1) to the employee or member of a labor organization (or
family member if the family member is receiving the genetic
services) at the written request of the employee or member of
such organization;
(2) to an occupational or other health researcher if the
research is conducted in compliance with the regulations and
protections provided for under part 46 of title 45, Code of
Federal Regulations;
(3) in response to an order of a court, except that--
(A) the employer, employment agency, labor organization, or
joint labor-management committee may disclose only the
genetic information expressly authorized by such order; and
(B) if the court order was secured without the knowledge of
the employee or member to whom the information refers, the
employer, employment agency, labor organization, or joint
labor-management committee shall inform the employee or
member of the court order and any genetic information that
was disclosed pursuant to such order;
(4) to government officials who are investigating
compliance with this title if the information is relevant to
the investigation;
(5) to the extent that such disclosure is made in
connection with the employee's compliance with the
certification provisions of section 103 of the Family and
Medical Leave Act of 1993 (29 U.S.C. 2613) or such
requirements under State family and medical leave laws; or
(6) to a Federal, State, or local public health agency only
with regard to information that is described in section
201(4)(A)(iii) and that concerns a contagious disease that
presents an imminent hazard of death or life-threatening
illness, and that the employee whose family member or family
members is or are the subject of a disclosure under this
paragraph is notified of such disclosure.
(c) Relationship to HIPAA Regulations.--With respect to the
regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Health and Human
Services under part C of title XI of the Social Security Act
(42 U.S.C. 1320d et seq.) and section 264 of the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (42
U.S.C. 1320d-2 note), this title does not prohibit a covered
entity under such regulations from any use or disclosure of
health information that is authorized for the covered entity
under such regulations. The previous sentence does not affect
the authority of such Secretary to modify such regulations.
SEC. 207. REMEDIES AND ENFORCEMENT.
(a) Employees Covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964.--
(1) In general.--The powers, procedures, and remedies
provided in sections 705, 706, 707, 709, 710, and 711 of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e-4 et seq.) to the
Commission, the Attorney General, or any person, alleging a
violation of title VII of that Act (42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq.)
shall be the powers, procedures, and remedies this title
provides to the Commission, the Attorney General, or any
person, respectively, alleging an unlawful employment
practice in violation of this title against an employee
described in section 201(2)(A)(i), except as provided in
paragraphs (2) and (3).
(2) Costs and fees.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in subsections (b) and (c) of section 722 of the
Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1988), shall
be powers, remedies, and procedures this title provides to
the Commission, the Attorney General, or any person, alleging
such a practice.
(3) Damages.--The powers, remedies, and procedures provided
in section 1977A of the Revised Statutes of the United States
(42 U.S.C. 1981a), including the limitations contained in
subsection (b)(3) of such section 1977A, shall be powers,
remedies, and procedures this title provides to the
Commission, the Attorney General, or any person, alleging
such a practice (not an employment practice specifically
excluded from coverage under section 1977A(a)(1) of the
Revised Statutes of the United States).
(b) Employees Covered by Government Employee Rights Act of
1991.--
(1) In general.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in sections 302 and 304 of the Government Employee
Rights Act of 1991 (42 U.S.C. 2000e-16b, 2000e-16c) to the
Commission, or any person, alleging a violation of section
302(a)(1) of that Act (42 U.S.C. 2000e-16b(a)(1)) shall be
the powers, remedies, and procedures this title provides to
the Commission, or any person, respectively, alleging an
unlawful employment practice in violation of this title
against an
[[Page 7509]]
employee described in section 201(2)(A)(ii), except as
provided in paragraphs (2) and (3).
(2) Costs and fees.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in subsections (b) and (c) of section 722 of the
Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1988), shall
be powers, remedies, and procedures this title provides to
the Commission, or any person, alleging such a practice.
(3) Damages.--The powers, remedies, and procedures provided
in section 1977A of the Revised Statutes of the United States
(42 U.S.C. 1981a), including the limitations contained in
subsection (b)(3) of such section 1977A, shall be powers,
remedies, and procedures this title provides to the
Commission, or any person, alleging such a practice (not an
employment practice specifically excluded from coverage under
section 1977A(a)(1) of the Revised Statutes of the United
States).
(c) Employees Covered by Congressional Accountability Act
of 1995.--
(1) In general.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (2
U.S.C. 1301 et seq.) to the Board (as defined in section 101
of that Act (2 U.S.C. 1301)), or any person, alleging a
violation of section 201(a)(1) of that Act (42 U.S.C.
1311(a)(1)) shall be the powers, remedies, and procedures
this title provides to that Board, or any person, alleging an
unlawful employment practice in violation of this title
against an employee described in section 201(2)(A)(iii),
except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3).
(2) Costs and fees.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in subsections (b) and (c) of section 722 of the
Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1988), shall
be powers, remedies, and procedures this title provides to
that Board, or any person, alleging such a practice.
(3) Damages.--The powers, remedies, and procedures provided
in section 1977A of the Revised Statutes of the United States
(42 U.S.C. 1981a), including the limitations contained in
subsection (b)(3) of such section 1977A, shall be powers,
remedies, and procedures this title provides to that Board,
or any person, alleging such a practice (not an employment
practice specifically excluded from coverage under section
1977A(a)(1) of the Revised Statutes of the United States).
(4) Other applicable provisions.--With respect to a claim
alleging a practice described in paragraph (1), title III of
the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1381
et seq.) shall apply in the same manner as such title applies
with respect to a claim alleging a violation of section
201(a)(1) of such Act (2 U.S.C. 1311(a)(1)).
(d) Employees Covered by Chapter 5 of Title 3, United
States Code.--
(1) In general.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in chapter 5 of title 3, United States Code, to the
President, the Commission, the Merit Systems Protection
Board, or any person, alleging a violation of section
411(a)(1) of that title, shall be the powers, remedies, and
procedures this title provides to the President, the
Commission, such Board, or any person, respectively, alleging
an unlawful employment practice in violation of this title
against an employee described in section 201(2)(A)(iv),
except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3).
(2) Costs and fees.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in subsections (b) and (c) of section 722 of the
Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1988), shall
be powers, remedies, and procedures this title provides to
the President, the Commission, such Board, or any person,
alleging such a practice.
(3) Damages.--The powers, remedies, and procedures provided
in section 1977A of the Revised Statutes of the United States
(42 U.S.C. 1981a), including the limitations contained in
subsection (b)(3) of such section 1977A, shall be powers,
remedies, and procedures this title provides to the
President, the Commission, such Board, or any person,
alleging such a practice (not an employment practice
specifically excluded from coverage under section 1977A(a)(1)
of the Revised Statutes of the United States).
(e) Employees Covered by Section 717 of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964.--
(1) In general.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in section 717 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42
U.S.C. 2000e-16) to the Commission, the Attorney General, the
Librarian of Congress, or any person, alleging a violation of
that section shall be the powers, remedies, and procedures
this title provides to the Commission, the Attorney General,
the Librarian of Congress, or any person, respectively,
alleging an unlawful employment practice in violation of this
title against an employee or applicant described in section
201(2)(A)(v), except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3).
(2) Costs and fees.--The powers, remedies, and procedures
provided in subsections (b) and (c) of section 722 of the
Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1988), shall
be powers, remedies, and procedures this title provides to
the Commission, the Attorney General, the Librarian of
Congress, or any person, alleging such a practice.
(3) Damages.--The powers, remedies, and procedures provided
in section 1977A of the Revised Statutes of the United States
(42 U.S.C. 1981a), including the limitations contained in
subsection (b)(3) of such section 1977A, shall be powers,
remedies, and procedures this title provides to the
Commission, the Attorney General, the Librarian of Congress,
or any person, alleging such a practice (not an employment
practice specifically excluded from coverage under section
1977A(a)(1) of the Revised Statutes of the United States).
(f) Prohibition Against Retaliation.--No person shall
discriminate against any individual because such individual
has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by this title
or because such individual made a charge, testified,
assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation,
proceeding, or hearing under this title. The remedies and
procedures otherwise provided for under this section shall be
available to aggrieved individuals with respect to violations
of this subsection.
(g) Definition.--In this section, the term ``Commission''
means the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
SEC. 208. DISPARATE IMPACT.
(a) General Rule.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
this Act, ``disparate impact'', as that term is used in
section 703(k) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.
2000e-2(k)), on the basis of genetic information does not
establish a cause of action under this Act.
(b) Commission.--On the date that is 6 years after the date
of enactment of this Act, there shall be established a
commission, to be known as the Genetic Nondiscrimination
Study Commission (referred to in this section as the
``Commission'') to review the developing science of genetics
and to make recommendations to Congress regarding whether to
provide a disparate impact cause of action under this Act.
(c) Membership.--
(1) In general.--The Commission shall be composed of 8
members, of which--
(A) 1 member shall be appointed by the Majority Leader of
the Senate;
(B) 1 member shall be appointed by the Minority Leader of
the Senate;
(C) 1 member shall be appointed by the Chairman of the
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the
Senate;
(D) 1 member shall be appointed by the ranking minority
member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions of the Senate;
(E) 1 member shall be appointed by the Speaker of the House
of Representatives;
(F) 1 member shall be appointed by the Minority Leader of
the House of Representatives;
(G) 1 member shall be appointed by the Chairman of the
Committee on Education and Labor of the House of
Representatives; and
(H) 1 member shall be appointed by the ranking minority
member of the Committee on Education and Labor of the House
of Representatives.
(2) Compensation and expenses.--The members of the
Commission shall not receive compensation for the performance
of services for the Commission, but shall be allowed travel
expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, at rates
authorized for employees of agencies under subchapter I of
chapter 57 of title 5, United States Code, while away from
their homes or regular places of business in the performance
of services for the Commission.
(d) Administrative Provisions.--
(1) Location.--The Commission shall be located in a
facility maintained by the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission.
(2) Detail of government employees.--Any Federal Government
employee may be detailed to the Commission without
reimbursement, and such detail shall be without interruption
or loss of civil service status or privilege.
(3) Information from federal agencies.--The Commission may
secure directly from any Federal department or agency such
information as the Commission considers necessary to carry
out the provisions of this section. Upon request of the
Commission, the head of such department or agency shall
furnish such information to the Commission.
(4) Hearings.--The Commission may hold such hearings, sit
and act at such times and places, take such testimony, and
receive such evidence as the Commission considers advisable
to carry out the objectives of this section, except that, to
the extent possible, the Commission shall use existing data
and research.
(5) Postal services.--The Commission may use the United
States mails in the same manner and under the same conditions
as other departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
(e) Report.--Not later than 1 year after all of the members
are appointed to the Commission under subsection (c)(1), the
Commission shall submit to Congress a report that summarizes
the findings of the Commission and makes such recommendations
for legislation as are consistent with this Act.
(f) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized
to be appropriated to the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission such sums as may be necessary to carry out this
section.
SEC. 209. CONSTRUCTION.
(a) In General.--Nothing in this title shall be construed
to--
(1) limit the rights or protections of an individual under
any other Federal or State statute that provides equal or
greater protection to an individual than the rights or
protections provided for under this title, including the
protections of an individual under the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.) (including
coverage afforded to individuals under section 102 of such
Act (42 U.S.C. 12112)), or under the Rehabilitation Act of
1973 (29 U.S.C. 701 et seq.);
(2)(A) limit the rights or protections of an individual to
bring an action under this title against an employer,
employment agency, labor organization, or joint labor-
management committee for a violation of this title; or
[[Page 7510]]
(B) provide for enforcement of, or penalties for violation
of, any requirement or prohibition applicable to any
employer, employment agency, labor organization, or joint
labor-management committee subject to enforcement for a
violation under--
(i) the amendments made by title I of this Act;
(ii)(I) subsection (a) of section 701 of the Employee
Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 as such section
applies with respect to genetic information pursuant to
subsection (b)(1)(B) of such section;
(II) section 702(a)(1)(F) of such Act; or
(III) section 702(b)(1) of such Act as such section applies
with respect to genetic information as a health status-
related factor;
(iii)(I) subsection (a) of section 2701 of the Public
Health Service Act as such section applies with respect to
genetic information pursuant to subsection (b)(1)(B) of such
section;
(II) section 2702(a)(1)(F) of such Act; or
(III) section 2702(b)(1) of such Act as such section
applies with respect to genetic information as a health
status-related factor; or
(iv)(I) subsection (a) of section 9801 of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 as such section applies with respect to
genetic information pursuant to subsection (b)(1)(B) of such
section;
(II) section 9802(a)(1)(F) of such Act; or
(III) section 9802(b)(1) of such Act as such section
applies with respect to genetic information as a health
status-related factor;
(3) apply to the Armed Forces Repository of Specimen
Samples for the Identification of Remains;
(4) limit or expand the protections, rights, or obligations
of employees or employers under applicable workers'
compensation laws;
(5) limit the authority of a Federal department or agency
to conduct or sponsor occupational or other health research
that is conducted in compliance with the regulations
contained in part 46 of title 45, Code of Federal Regulations
(or any corresponding or similar regulation or rule);
(6) limit the statutory or regulatory authority of the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the Mine
Safety and Health Administration to promulgate or enforce
workplace safety and health laws and regulations; or
(7) require any specific benefit for an employee or member
or a family member of an employee or member under any group
health plan or health insurance issuer offering group health
insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan.
(b) Genetic Information of a Fetus or Embryo.--Any
reference in this title to genetic information concerning an
individual or family member of an individual shall--
(1) with respect to such an individual or family member of
an individual who is a pregnant woman, include genetic
information of any fetus carried by such pregnant woman; and
(2) with respect to an individual or family member
utilizing an assisted reproductive technology, include
genetic information of any embryo legally held by the
individual or family member.
(c) Relation to Authorities Under Title I.--With respect to
a group health plan, or a health insurance issuer offering
group health insurance coverage in connection with a group
health plan, this title does not prohibit any activity of
such plan or issuer that is authorized for the plan or issuer
under any provision of law referred to in clauses (i) through
(iv) of subsection (a)(2)(B).
SEC. 210. MEDICAL INFORMATION THAT IS NOT GENETIC
INFORMATION.
An employer, employment agency, labor organization, or
joint labor-management committee shall not be considered to
be in violation of this title based on the use, acquisition,
or disclosure of medical information that is not genetic
information about a manifested disease, disorder, or
pathological condition of an employee or member, including a
manifested disease, disorder, or pathological condition that
has or may have a genetic basis.
SEC. 211. REGULATIONS.
Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this
title, the Commission shall issue final regulations to carry
out this title.
SEC. 212. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
There are authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be
necessary to carry out this title (except for section 208).
SEC. 213. EFFECTIVE DATE.
This title takes effect on the date that is 18 months after
the date of enactment of this Act.
TITLE III--MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
SEC. 301. SEVERABILITY.
If any provision of this Act, an amendment made by this
Act, or the application of such provision or amendment to any
person or circumstance is held to be unconstitutional, the
remainder of this Act, the amendments made by this Act, and
the application of such provisions to any person or
circumstance shall not be affected thereby.
SEC. 302. CHILD LABOR PROTECTIONS.
(a) In General.--Section 16(e) of the Fair Labor Standards
Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 216(e)) is amended to read as follows:
``(e)(1)(A) Any person who violates the provisions of
sections 12 or 13(c), relating to child labor, or any
regulation issued pursuant to such sections, shall be subject
to a civil penalty not to exceed--
``(i) $11,000 for each employee who was the subject of such
a violation; or
``(ii) $50,000 with regard to each such violation that
causes the death or serious injury of any employee under the
age of 18 years, which penalty may be doubled where the
violation is a repeated or willful violation.
``(B) For purposes of subparagraph (A), the term `serious
injury' means--
``(i) permanent loss or substantial impairment of one of
the senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, tactile sensation);
``(ii) permanent loss or substantial impairment of the
function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty,
including the loss of all or part of an arm, leg, foot, hand
or other body part; or
``(iii) permanent paralysis or substantial impairment that
causes loss of movement or mobility of an arm, leg, foot,
hand or other body part.
``(2) Any person who repeatedly or willfully violates
section 6 or 7, relating to wages, shall be subject to a
civil penalty not to exceed $1,100 for each such violation.
``(3) In determining the amount of any penalty under this
subsection, the appropriateness of such penalty to the size
of the business of the person charged and the gravity of the
violation shall be considered. The amount of any penalty
under this subsection, when finally determined, may be--
``(A) deducted from any sums owing by the United States to
the person charged;
``(B) recovered in a civil action brought by the Secretary
in any court of competent jurisdiction, in which litigation
the Secretary shall be represented by the Solicitor of Labor;
or
``(C) ordered by the court, in an action brought for a
violation of section 15(a)(4) or a repeated or willful
violation of section 15(a)(2), to be paid to the Secretary.
``(4) Any administrative determination by the Secretary of
the amount of any penalty under this subsection shall be
final, unless within 15 days after receipt of notice thereof
by certified mail the person charged with the violation takes
exception to the determination that the violations for which
the penalty is imposed occurred, in which event final
determination of the penalty shall be made in an
administrative proceeding after opportunity for hearing in
accordance with section 554 of title 5, United States Code,
and regulations to be promulgated by the Secretary.
``(5) Except for civil penalties collected for violations
of section 12, sums collected as penalties pursuant to this
section shall be applied toward reimbursement of the costs of
determining the violations and assessing and collecting such
penalties, in accordance with the provision of section 2 of
the Act entitled `An Act to authorize the Department of Labor
to make special statistical studies upon payment of the cost
thereof and for other purposes' (29 U.S.C. 9a). Civil
penalties collected for violations of section 12 shall be
deposited in the general fund of the Treasury.''.
(b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section
shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act.
Motion Offered by Mr. George Miller of California
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I have a motion at
the desk.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the motion.
The text of the motion is as follows:
Motion offered by Mr. George Miller of California:
Mr. George Miller of California moves that the House concur
in the Senate amendment to H.R. 493.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 1156, the
motion shall be debatable for 1 hour, with 20 minutes equally divided
and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the
Committee on Education and Labor, 20 minutes equally divided and
controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee
on Energy and Commerce, and 20 minutes equally divided and controlled
by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways
and Means.
The gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the gentleman from
California (Mr. McKeon), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the gentleman from California (Mr.
Stark), and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) each will control 10
minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. George
Miller).
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous
consent to yield my 10 minutes to the Chair of the Commerce Committee,
Mr. Dingell.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. DINGELL. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
Madam Speaker, today we consider H.R. 493, the Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act. I first wish to congratulate Representative
Slaughter for her leadership on this bill on which she has worked for
better than 13 years. It has been a privilege to join
[[Page 7511]]
her in that work, and I am delighted that it has brought us to today's
vote.
Recent advances in research have made it possible to identify the
genetic basis for human diseases. These breakthroughs, magnificent as
they are, have opened the door to early detection and treatment of
diseases and prevention strategies geared to a person's genetic makeup.
At the same time, this information can also be used to unfairly
discriminate against or stigmatize individuals when it comes to
insurance and employment.
To protect individuals from insurance discrimination, H.R. 493 would
prohibit health insurers, both in group and individual markets, from
canceling, denying, refusing to renew or changing the terms or premiums
of coverage based solely on genetic predispositions towards specific
diseases.
Additionally, in order to protect individuals from employment
discrimination, this bill would make it unlawful for employers or other
hiring entities to use an individual's genetic information regarding
hiring, firing, promotion or other terms and conditions of employment.
The legislation requires that genetic information be treated as a part
of the individual's confidential medical record and that employers
maintain separate forms or files for any genetic information that they
may obtain.
The House of Representatives passed this legislation a year ago with
a strong bipartisan vote of 420-3. Unfortunately, the measure has been
held up in the Senate, as usual. With these concerns now resolved, we
are close to providing Americans the ability to undergo genetic testing
that may indicate early treatment and prevention of diseases such as
cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's, without fear of losing
their health insurance or affecting adversely the conditions of their
employment.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. DINGELL. I yield myself 1 additional minute.
The bill currently before us includes clarifying language intended to
ease the concerns of some of my colleagues and is identical to the
version passed by the Senate last week. These changes include a
firewall between title I and II of the bill. The modifications clarify
that employers are not liable for health insurance violations under
civil rights laws unless the employer has separately violated a
provision of title II governing employers.
The changes also make it clear that while individuals are protected
from discrimination based on genetic predisposition, the authority of
insurance companies to base coverage and pricing on the actual presence
of a disease is not affected.
These changes broaden the base of support for the bill and allow us
to bring it to the House floor with the expectation that it will be
signed into law by the President.
I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their hard work
on this bill and for coming together to make this legislation a
reality.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield back the remainder of
my time to my distinguished friend from California, the Honorable
George Miller, chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and that
he be permitted to yield that time in accordance with his whims.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
Mr. McKEON. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, and
yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, while it is not a perfect bill, I do believe it
contains a number of important improvements over prior versions of this
legislation, including that which I supported a little over a year ago
on the House floor. More importantly, it marks a commitment by this
Congress to ensure that the laws of the United States protect American
workers and health care consumers from discrimination on the basis of
their genetic makeup. Because that goal is so critical, I will vote for
this bill today, and urge my colleagues to do likewise.
Before I turn to the substance of my remarks, I would like to commend
my colleague and fellow Member on the Committee on Education and Labor,
Representative Judy Biggert, for her years of work and dedication on
this important issue. She has been persistent and effective on so many
issues that have come before this committee and this Congress and she
should be commended for adding this important bill to her list of
legislative accomplishments. I also want to commend the gentlewoman
from New York, the distinguished Chair of the Rules Committee, Ms.
Slaughter, who has been Mrs. Biggert's partner in this effort.
As I noted during our committee's consideration of this bill last
year, I believe the title of the legislation before us, the Genetic
Information Nondiscrimination Act, embodies a proposition that all
Members of our committee and indeed our Congress would endorse. Simply
put, no employee should face discrimination on the basis of his or her
genetic makeup or on any other characteristic other than his or her
ability to do the job. Similarly, no employee should risk his or her
health insurance status simply because of the possibility that they
might some day develop an illness.
This bill was drafted with those fundamental principles in mind, and
I believe that through the legislative process, we have taken steps
toward ensuring that the bill we send the President today ensures that
those principles are fulfilled, while minimizing the potential for
unintended consequences.
I would take this opportunity to point out a number of improvements
in the bill that I think merit attention.
{time} 1130
Foremost, I am pleased that the bill we will send today to the White
House for President Bush to sign embodies the same logic as a past
executive order issued by President Clinton to ensure that this
legislation would not inadvertently serve as a broad new Federal
mandate requiring all insurance plans and employers to cover all
treatments related to genetic-related conditions. That is exactly the
type of unintended consequences we were seeking to avoid, and I am
pleased we were able to work this out.
Second, I would highlight a provision in the legislation that ensures
that employers who are currently subject to a number of confidentiality
and recordkeeping requirements under law are not burdened by yet
another redundant set of paperwork requirements. The bill before us
today provides that, with respect to genetic information, if an
employer maintains employee records and treats them as it does
confidential medical records under the Americans With Disabilities Act,
it is in compliance with this new genetics law.
Third, I applaud a significant improvement in the bill; namely, its
extension of genetic nondiscrimination protection to all Americans.
One of the issues raised during our committee's consideration of the
bill was concern that the bill's protections did not adequately extend
to cover children in utero or at early stages of development, or in
connection with in vitro fertilization and other technologies. I am
very pleased that the final bill before us addresses this issue to the
satisfaction of all Members on both sides of the aisle who worked in
good faith to ensure the broadest protections possible.
The Senate amendment we consider today contains a number of other
improvements over prior versions, including important provisions
relating to those who participate in genetic clinical testing,
providing for use of genetic information in matters of public health
safety, and ensuring the most focused scheme of remedies possible.
These changes represent issues we were able to work through over the
past year and which demonstrate how the legislative process is meant to
work. We were presented with well-intentioned legislation, heard
meaningful testimony on it and its potential impact on employers and
employees alike, raised and debated legitimate concerns, and worked
through to bridge the gap between where we began and where we stand
today.
I thank the staff from both sides of the aisle and in both chambers
for making this a reality.
[[Page 7512]]
Before concluding my remarks, I would be remiss if I did not note for
the record that I am still concerned that this bill is in some respects
potentially overbroad. While we all agree with the goal of
nondiscrimination I discussed earlier, the facts remain that we are
poised today to adopt a sweeping new expansion to Federal Civil Rights
scheme, the most expansive change since the adoption of the Americans
With Disabilities Act of 1990.
As we send this bill to the President to sign into law, I would urge
my colleagues to join me in remaining vigilant in the months to come in
monitoring the administration of this new law to ensure that it
addresses the problems it is intended to correct, and does not simply
become yet another bureaucratic burden on employers or a lottery ticket
for plaintiffs' lawyers.
In that same light, as courts and administrative agencies interpret
and enforce these laws, I would urge them to heed the intent of
Congress; namely, that this bill's most egregious penalties must be
reserved for the most egregious violations of the law. If experience
under this new law shows that this is not the case, I trust my
colleagues will join me in supporting swift action to correct any
mistakes we have made.
With that, I will conclude my comments. As I noted at the outset of
my remarks, our actions today will ensure that the law of the United
States protects American workers and health care consumers from
discrimination on the basis of their genetic makeup, a goal I think is
shared by every Member of this House. I urge my colleagues to support
this legislation.
I yield the balance of my time to the gentlelady from Illinois (Mrs.
Biggert) and ask unanimous consent that she be allowed to control the
remainder of the time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from California, the subcommittee Chair of Ways and Means, Mr. Stark.
Mr. STARK. Madam Speaker, I would add my congratulations and praise
to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) and the gentlewoman
from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) for the work that they have done to bring
this bill finally to the floor for passage. It is a bill that has
languished for over a decade. It is good to see that times have
changed. We moved expeditiously last year through three committees and
on to the floor, and it will leave this chamber today and head to the
White House for the President's signature. It is a small but long
overdue step toward approving our health care system and preventing
employment discrimination, and ensures that our laws governing
patients' rights are as current as the latest medical technology.
Simply stated, the legislation provides peace of mind, and encourages
people to take advantage of the miracles of modern medicine without
fear of reprisal or consequences at work or in health care or in
qualifying for insurance.
GINA, as it is known, prohibits insurers and employees from using the
genetic information to discriminate. Thus, a woman who has decided to
find out whether she carries the breast cancer gene need not worry
about losing her job or health insurance merely because she sought the
test. Enactment of this law is critical to protect patients and is
needed to encourage people to use robust genetic research and to
encourage more research. Additional research will help us determine
when we men will get colon cancer or prostate cancer, and not be afraid
to go and receive those tests for fear of being discriminated against.
This legislation enjoys broad bipartisan support of more than 500
groups representing patients, employees, physicians, providers, and
others who value the protection that this legislation provides. I urge
strong support for this bill.
I ask unanimous consent that I be able to yield the balance of our
time for the Ways and Means Committee to the gentleman from California
(Mr. George Miller), and that he control the balance of our time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. UPTON. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation, and want
to commend all those that were instrumental in getting its passage to
the floor, particularly my good friend, Judy Biggert from Illinois.
We have made some wonderful advances in health care research over the
number of years. I can remember helping to lead the charge with my
colleague, Mr. Waxman, on a bipartisan bill to double the money for the
National Institutes of Health back in the nineties, and we had a
similar effort in the Senate between John McCain, the Republican leader
there of that same issue, and Paul Wellstone, a dear colleague who is
no longer with us. But, together we passed that bipartisan legislation.
And with those advances, of course we have to look at other things that
are pertinent, too, and that is why this Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act is so important.
I remember traveling to the University of Michigan and meeting with
one of the researchers there that in fact had received an NIH grant;
and he just weeks before, because of that grant, had identified the
breast cancer gene that strikes one in eight women across America. He
was excited. And it wouldn't have happened without that NIH money; but
with that discovery, it is clear that we have to in fact protect that
genetic information from being discriminated against by who knows who.
And I would say that, thanks to my colleagues, Mr. Deal, the ranking
member on the Health Subcommittee who is in a hearing right now, and
Joe Barton, the ranking member, that we have all made advances and
worked closely with Chairman Dingell to mitigate what we believed were
some significant problems with the legislation as it was introduced.
Among other items, we wanted to make sure that any use of information
by certain entities regulated under the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act not also be regulated by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission under title II of the bill. Such dual regulation
of the use of information would have been highly disruptive and
certainly inappropriate.
We also made numerous clarifications to make sure that the new
regulatory scheme did not disrupt reasonable and needed activities by
health plans to improve health care, coordinate benefits, process
benefits, or educate beneficiaries. It is important for the Congress to
be mindful that we are not writing on a blank slate each and every time
that we launch one of these new regulatory and liability schemes. And I
certainly join many here that are satisfied that these important
improvements made by the Committee on Energy and Commerce are preserved
in the bill. I want to commend the bipartisan and bicameral discussions
that led to this compromise, and I would urge that we all support it
when a roll call vote comes.
At this point, I would yield the balance of our time that our
committee controls to my friend from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentlewoman from
Illinois will control the time.
There was no objection.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman
from Pennsylvania, Ms. Allyson Schwartz.
Ms. SCHWARTZ. Today, Americans buy health coverage believing they are
doing the right thing and expecting that they have secured access for
needed health services for themselves and their family. But,
unfortunately, this is simply not always true. Individuals, regardless
of their age or circumstances, are denied health coverage every day due
to the evidence or existence of preexisting conditions. This could be
anything from asthma to heart disease, and it could affect anyone from
our Nation's children to our grandparents to each of us.
[[Page 7513]]
For more than 10 years, the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act has provided protection for some individuals and
families to ensure this information is not used to deny health coverage
by either an employer or an insurer; but gaps still remain.
With the evolution of biomedical research, our Nation's scientists
have discovered opportunities to use genetic information to prevent,
diagnose, and more effectively treat some of the most devastating
diseases of our lifetime. I am honored to represent some of these most
brilliant researchers and scientists in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
In addition to the great medical potential they are exploring,
genetic information also has the potential to reduce health care costs
with better prevention and disease management. We must ensure that
these new revelations do not come with a price: Discrimination by
employers, insurers, schools, or others based on genetic information of
those who are not even sick but are simply identified as being
predisposed to a specific disease. If we do not reassure our fellow
Americans that they are safe in taking full advantage of the
opportunities provided by exploring the genetic information, then these
advances in biomedical research could well be for naught.
For this reason, I applaud my colleague, Representative Slaughter,
for introducing the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act and for
being its champion for so many years. I am proud to support its passage
today. It is important for all Americans and their access to health
coverage.
Mr. CAMP of Michigan. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
As many of my colleagues have stated, passing this bill is an
important step forward in protecting the health of every American. We
should be proud of our efforts to work on a bipartisan basis to craft
this legislation, and I want to recognize the efforts of the
gentlewoman from Illinois, Congresswoman Biggert. This bill should be a
model for our efforts to reform health care.
We all agree that individuals should not be discriminated against on
the basis of their genetic information. Employers and insurers should
not be allowed to use genetic markers to deny employment or health
coverage simply because they possess a particular gene. But genetic
information can also be used to help patients. Health plans have an
ability to interact with both patients and providers to highlight
recommended tests and courses of action.
For example, a person that has a gene for a certain type of cancer
would be recommended to receive more frequent cancer screenings.
Knowing this, the health insurer would know to approve coverage for
these additional screenings because they would be at a higher risk of
developing that type of cancer.
We all preach about transforming medicine to provide more
preventative care. Now, we are finally at a point where medical
technology can be effectively used to deliver the preventative care
that we envision.
I am certain that the use of genetic information is just the tip of
the iceberg. As medicine develops, so must our laws and regulations;
yet, we must be careful not to stifle these promising medical advances.
I am confident that we can both protect patient privacy and improve the
delivery of health care as this legislation does.
With that, I yield the remaining time from my committee to the
gentlewoman from Illinois to control.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentlewoman from
Illinois will control the time.
There was no objection.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman
from New Hampshire (Ms. Shea-Porter), a member of the committee.
Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 493,
the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
As a member of the Education and Labor Committee, I knew that we had
served the American people well when the committee passed this bill and
then the House passed it almost unanimously in April 2007. Now, a year
later, we are on the verge of sending this important legislation to the
President with overwhelming bipartisan support in both Chambers.
{time} 1145
Science and medicine have made great strides in recent years,
especially with regard to genetic mapping and research. The potential
for finding the answers we desperately seek for so many diseases and
afflictions is greatly increased by the research being done. However,
in order for these efforts to be successful, the public must be assured
that these new discoveries will help and not hurt them.
Science will soon be able to tell us about many more diseases that
individuals are genetically predisposed to develop. That information
should be used only for the public good. It must not be used by
companies to pick and choose who gets insurance or who gets
discriminated against. They should not be allowed to charge higher
insurance premiums because of somebody's individual genetic makeup.
This critical piece of legislation will protect individuals from
discrimination. This is an important step that Congress is taking
today, and I am very happy that we are doing this in a unified spirit.
I commend Congresswomen Slaughter and Biggert for their efforts here.
And I would also like to thank Chairman Miller and my colleagues on the
Education and Labor Committee for their work on this and so many other
important issues. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''
Mrs. BIGGERT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 493, the
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which will prohibit health
insurers and employers from discriminating on the basis of genetic
information.
As many of my colleagues are aware, this legislation has been around
for quite some time. I have been working on for it more than 7 years,
and Congresswoman Slaughter has been working on it for more than 12
years. It's been a long road, and there have been many times I thought
this day would never come; but it is here.
Over this period of time, I have heard stories from my constituents
and other individuals across the country about how genetic information
was affecting their lives. Quite simply, they are stories of how our
laws have failed to keep pace with medical science.
A breast cancer survivor in Chicago told me that even though her
doctor recommended she undergo a genetic test to see if she had a 60
percent chance of developing ovarian cancer, which was quite common in
the type of breast cancer that they had, she refused the test. She said
I can't, I will lose my job.
It isn't that she didn't want to know; quite the opposite. She
desperately wanted to know, but she feared if she had an adverse result
from the test, she would lose her job. She is not alone; studies show
that 85 percent of Americans fear employers will use genetic
information to discriminate.
And then there is the woman from Missouri whose sister had suffered
from cancer was cautioned by her doctor that undergoing genetic testing
would cause her to lose her health insurance. She too chose not to
undergo a genetic test. She is not alone; studies show that 84 percent
of Americans express concern that health insurance companies would deny
coverage based on genetic information.
And then there is the man with a family history of PKD, decided to
take a genetic test but chose to use an alias and pay cash rather than
bill his insurance just to keep the test out of his medical file. And
he also is not alone; 26 percent of genetic counselors themselves admit
that they would use an alias and 68 percent said they would pay for the
test out of their pocket to protect themselves from discrimination.
The dean of a prominent university in Massachusetts told me that the
fear of genetic discrimination was hindering clinical trials, slowing
the development of life-saving techniques. At
[[Page 7514]]
NIH, fear of genetic discrimination is the most common reason people
cite for not participating in clinical trials on breast and colon
cancers.
Madam Speaker, I have heard these stories over and over again from
individuals wanting to know their genetic risk of developing diseases
as far ranging as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson's,
Alzheimer's, Tay-Sachs, and PKD.
The sad fact is that these individuals are avoiding genetic tests
that would empower them with the information that could save their
lives.
So I want to let all people know that when the House passes GINA
today, we will be just one step away, and that would be the signing by
the President, from realizing the medical benefits of genetic testing.
One step away from ensuring that people will be able to take a genetic
test without risking their jobs and health insurance. One step away
from ensuring that patients can stop using aliases and paying out of
pocket to keep their genetic tests secret. One step away from ensuring
that individuals will be able to participate in genetic clinical trials
without fear of discrimination.
And the last step is the President's signature, and I am happy to say
that he is expected to sign this bill.
Madam Speaker, it is clear to me that by passing GINA and freeing
people from fear of genetic discrimination, we can unlock the
tremendous life-saving and cost-saving potential of genetic research.
More Americans will participate in genetic clinical trials, and more
Americans will use these technologies to improve their health.
And with these improvements comes the prospect of dramatically
reducing the chronic care costs that cripple our health care system. We
now have more than 500 different health advocacy and business
organizations supporting this bill. Recent surveys shows that 93
percent of Americans believe that employers and insurers should not be
able to use genetic information to discriminate.
With numbers like these, it should be no surprise that the House
passed this bill last April 420-3, and the Senate passed it last week
95-0, and the President is expected to sign this measure into law.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), a subcommittee Chair in
the Committee on Education and Labor.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, we have been waiting for this day for
over a decade. Finally we are here, and we are about to pass H.R. 493,
the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act that we called GINA which
was first introduced by Representative Slaughter in 1995 and which was
approved by the Senate last week.
It has been a long road, but the main sponsors of the legislation,
Representative Slaughter and Representative Biggert have persevered,
and I congratulate them both.
I am proud to be an original cosponsor of GINA which will prohibit
employers from using genetic information to discriminate against
workers, and will also prohibit health insurers from using such
information to raise premiums or to deny coverage.
We know that many States, including my home State of California,
prohibits employers and health insurers from discriminating on the
basis of genetic information, and that is good, but these laws vary
widely.
So it is important for the Federal Government, as it has with title
VII and the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, to step forward to
establish a national policy, making it clear that discriminating
against workers and others based on genetic information is
unacceptable.
Madam Speaker, this bill also contains the provisions of H.R. 2637,
the Child Labor Protection Act of 2007. It was a bill I introduced last
year that passed the House in June of 2007.
The provisions in H.R. 2637 will increase civil penalties from
$11,000 to $50,000 for violations that cause the death or serious
injury of a child worker, as if there is any penalty high enough to
make up for a child.
The legislation, though, provides that a penalty can be doubled when
the violation causing death or injury is repeated or willful. The child
labor bill was a narrowly drafted bipartisan effort. It is a good
foundation for future action on child labor laws.
So I am delighted that part of GINA includes my legislation,
legislation that can be used to offset the costs of GINA.
We are living, Madam Speaker, in an exciting age. We have just begun
to tap the potential of genetic testing. This bill adds the protection
that is needed so this research can go forward and be used wisely.
Mrs. BIGGERT. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
Mr. ANDREWS. I thank the chairman for yielding, and I rise in strong
support of this legislation. I would like to thank all of those
involved in bringing us to this point, Ms. Slaughter, Mrs. Biggert, and
I especially want to mention Mark Zuckerman, Brian Kennedy, Michelle
Varnhagen, and Carlos Fenwick from our staff who worked so hard on
making this a reality. Thank you very much for your good work.
This is about as basic as it gets. It is a fundamental principle in
this country that when you walk in and apply for a job, you shouldn't
be judged on the color of your skin, your gender, your sexual
orientation, your ethnicity, your age, or your religion. To that today
we are adding the notion of your genetic background.
I think most Americans would understand as a matter of simple common
sense that if your grandmother had breast cancer, it should be
irrelevant as to whether you get a job or not. If your grandfather was
diabetic, it should be irrelevant as to whether you get health
insurance or not, and under what terms.
This simple, powerful, commonsense idea that is embodied in this
legislation will become embodied in the law very shortly because of the
good work that is being done here.
Beyond the basic fairness, the basic principle that we should be
judged by our abilities and not by our characteristics, is the point
that we discussed earlier during the rule debate. Many Americans
justifiably fear that if they share their genetic information with
researchers, that information may wind up hurting them. It may wind up
depriving them of a job, depriving them of health insurance, or raising
their health insurance premiums.
The very significant protections that are in this bill, soon to
become law, will provide a level of assurance for Americans that when
we participate in genetic research, as I have by donating my DNA sample
to the Coriell Institute in Camden, New Jersey, that we will be
protected against misuse of that information.
This unlocks an exhilarating potential for finding the cure for all
kinds of diseases and afflictions that have hurt so many people for so
long. So I believe this is a singular achievement. It is an honor to be
a part of it, and I know that generations of Americans will benefit not
only from the simple fairness that this law will impose in the
workplace, but for the great potential that this law will unlock for
the investors and inventors and researchers of this country.
No American should ever be denied a job or health insurance or a
promotion because of their genetic characteristics. Because of our
actions today, this will become the law.
I thank the chairman for his leadership. I thank Mrs. Biggert for her
leadership and Chairwoman Slaughter as well, and urge a ``yes'' vote in
favor of this legislation.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Engel), a member of the Energy and Commerce
Committee.
Mr. ENGEL. Madam Speaker, as a member of the Energy and Commerce
Committee and a member of the Health Subcommittee, I thank my friend,
the distinguished chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, for
allowing me time under his leadership.
[[Page 7515]]
I am a proud cosponsor of this bill. I am pleased to see it moving
forward after more than a decade of advocacy.
While researchers' ability to identify genetic markers for diseases
has given hope and promise to millions of people regarding how to make
more informed choices about their personal behavior, the promise of
this breakthrough is hindered, as many of my colleagues have said, by
well-founded fears of how information may be abused in the employment
and insurance industries.
While many states, including my own home State of New York, have laws
which prohibit discrimination in health insurance, and by employers
based on genetic testing and information, it is clear that the laws are
not fully comprehensive and that Federal action is necessary, certainly
to make it more uniform across all 50 States.
{time} 1200
Fear should not be a deterrent to knowledge. Disregarding available
tests for fear of discrimination prevents citizens from making smarter,
personalized choices about their own well-being. We know too much to
subscribe to one-size-fits-all medicine. And once again, it should be
our physicians, not our insurance companies, who influence our health
care decisions.
This is a wonderful bill, very much overdue for enactment, years and
years and years in the process. It's supported by hundreds of patient
advocate groups, and will make a true impact on the health care of our
Nation.
I urge all my colleagues to support the bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. BIGGERT. I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance
of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman
from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez), a member of the Education
Committee.
Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong
support of the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, and thank my
colleague, Congresswoman Slaughter, for her tireless work term after
term to support this bill and ensure that it would eventually become
law.
Over the past several years, genetic discoveries have progressed at a
remarkable rate. Today, doctors and scientists have the ability to
detect genes linked to common conditions like colon cancer and heart
disease. Individuals who learn about their genetic risk factors can
make lifestyle changes and begin treatments that prevent these
conditions altogether.
But too many Americans don't take advantage of these amazing
breakthroughs for a very practical reason. They fear that the
information will be used to deny them health insurance or even a job.
While the best way to allay those fears would be to enact universal
health care coverage for all, this bill is a fantastic first step.
By prohibiting discrimination on the basis of our genes, this bill
will improve the chances that average Americans can benefit from
cutting edge genetic science. It will promote better health care by
helping Americans feel secure enough to learn about their genetic risk
factors.
As the daughter of a father who suffers from Alzheimer's and a mother
who suffers from arthritis, I personally understand the need to make
genetic testing a positive step in understanding one's genetic
predispositions and making health care choices. Genetic testing should
not be a hindrance to getting or keeping one's job or health care
benefits.
While this bill will accomplish many great things, I want to point
out just two very important ones. Number 1, it will arm people with
necessary and relevant information about their own health. And Number
2, it will ensure that people won't be penalized for seeking and using
this valuable information.
I urge all my colleagues to support the Genetic Information Non-
Discrimination Act.
Mrs. BIGGERT. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sestak), a member of the Education and Labor
Committee.
Mr. SESTAK. Mr. Speaker, the completion of the human genome project 5
years ago made it possible to identify specific genes that trigger
diseases later in life. However, out of at fear of losing their jobs or
their health insurance, studies have shown that many Americans forego
the potential health benefits of genetic testing.
While involved in a course at the University of Pennsylvania on
genetic discrimination, the position paper Dr. Ruth Cowan's students
presented to me reemphasized that this concern of genetic
discrimination risks stifling further scientific advances in genetic
based research.
No genetic nondiscrimination laws in health care, such as in my State
of Pennsylvania, may mean foregoing cures based upon genetic research.
With a young daughter who underwent treatment for a malignant brain
tumor recently, I understand why, as scientific technology advances,
discrimination cannot grow with it, or we harm not only the quality of
life, but life itself.
With State laws varying in how to maintain the privacy of genetic
information, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act will set a
national standard and take the first step toward advancing the
scientific and health benefits of genetic research and protecting the
genetic privacy of Americans.
I urge all my colleagues to support this bill.
Mrs. BIGGERT. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, today we are celebrating, or we will shortly with a vote
on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, known as GINA. And
today we celebrate it with a great sense of unanimity and agreement
about this legislation. But that clearly was not always true over more
than the past decade.
This legislation has been controversial to some. It has had a
shifting body of opponents to it over those many years. There are many
who tried to ascribe attributes to this legislation that either wasn't
intended to address or didn't exist at all. But the opposition was
formidable.
But when we celebrate the passage of this legislation today, we must
also celebrate the spirit of two women in the House of Representatives
that persevered through all of the political debate, as hot it was from
time to time, through all of the controversy, through much of the
ignorance and misinformation about the legislation, but who, throughout
that entire decade, understood the promise of this legislation, both to
those who would not be discriminated against in the future, but also
the promise in terms of medical research and information that would
become available to promote, not only cures and treatment, but greater
scientific understanding of the genome and our make-ups and its impact
on our health.
And those two women were Congresswoman Louise Slaughter from New
York, and our colleague who is with us in the Chamber today, Judy
Biggert from Illinois.
It's one thing to stand here and say we all agree today. But that
wasn't the case, and that was what they kept pushing against year after
year to get the Congress to understand the importance of this
legislation. We come to that understanding rather late, when you
consider that many of the States have taken the steps, many Nations
have taken this step, but it's terribly important that we do it so
people will be assured that no worker will be discriminated against
because of his or her genetic information.
As I mentioned, 41 States have already led the way in passing laws to
prohibit discrimination to individual health insurance markets. 34
States have passed laws to prohibit employers from discriminating in
the workplace. And the Federal Government has banned discrimination
against Federal Government employees. Every American deserves this
protection.
[[Page 7516]]
In the last two decades we've seen incredible scientific advances in
the diagnosis and the treatment of once untreatable, undetectable
conditions. Scientists now have the incredible ability to identify
genetic markers for disease that could and may never occur. Genetic
testing can also help prevent diseases by identifying them early.
Despite this amazing potential of genetic testing, advancements have
been stifled out of fear of what some may do with the results of those
tests. Many Americans forego testing because of that fear, the fear of
losing their jobs, the fear of losing their health insurance.
We pit that against the knowledge, the discovery and the treatment
that would have been possible to those individuals, but the fear
prevented them from coming forward. And this is not an isolated fear.
A 2006 research study showed that 85 percent of the respondents
believe that without protections, employers would use genetic
information to discriminate. 64 percent believe that insurers would use
the information to deny critical coverage.
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act is clear. Title I of
the bill prohibits group health plans and insurers from collecting or
requesting genetic information with narrow exceptions. It also protects
the privacy of this personal information.
Title II of the bill prohibits employers from collecting or using
their employees' genetic information. It also prohibits employers from
discriminating against employees in hiring, firing and other terms of
conditions of employment based upon the genetic information.
This final bill makes it clear that, even though employers may not be
held accountable for violations committed by health plans under title
I, employers remain fully liable for any violations of title II,
including violations involving health benefits.
It is well settled in this country's employment discrimination laws,
such as title VII, the Age Discrimination Employment Act and the
Americans with Disabilities Act, that it is unlawful for employers to
discriminate against employees in their health benefits.
We intend for the courts to continue to interpret employer
obligations under GINA similarly to all other civil rights laws. GINA
will protect workers like David Escher, a former worker at the
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, who discovered his employer was
trying to prove his injury was caused by a genetic disorder rather than
work-related injury. This is precisely the type of discrimination and
misuse of genetic information that we seek to prohibit in this bill.
The protections provided by GINA are long overdue, and
Representatives Slaughter and Biggert have fought, over this last
decade, for these important changes, these important provisions in the
law. And I want to thank them for all of their hard work.
I also want to take a moment to thank the members of my staff,
Michelle Varnhagen, Mark Zuckerman, Brian Kennedy, Jody Calemine and
Michael Gaffin for all of their efforts.
From Congressman Andrews' staff, Carlos Fenwick.
Congresswoman Slaughter's staff, Michelle Adams, Cindy Pelligrini.
From Congresswoman Biggert's staff, Brian Petersen, Jaime Vickery.
And from Congressman McKeon's staff, Ed Gilroy and Jim Paretti.
From Congressman Dingell's staff, Pete Goodloe, Jeanne Ireland,
Jessica McNiece, Gregg Rothchild, and John Ford.
From Congressman Frank Pallone's staff, Bobby Clark.
From Congressman Rangel's and Stark's staff, Cybele Bjorklund and Deb
Mizeur for all of their assistance.
And in the Senate, from Senator Kennedy's staff, Dave Bowen, Portia
Wu and Lauren McFerren.
And from Senator Snowe's staff, Bill Pewen.
And from Senator Enzi's staff, Ilyse Schuman and Keith Flannagan. And
legislative counsel, Ed Grossman, Larry Johnson and Henry Christrup,
for all of their assistance and all of the effort that they put in to
making the changes and the distinctions between the actions in the
House and the Senate, and all of the controversy that this brought with
them.
With that, I'd like to reserve the balance of my time so that Ms.
Biggert may make her closing remarks. And again, I want to thank her so
much. Her membership on our committee makes us very proud. And her
political toughness to see this through to the end, along with Louise
Slaughter, is a wonderful story that we celebrate also with the passage
of this legislation.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. BIGGERT. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your kind words. And
it's been a long road, but we're here, and with your help.
Just let me say that there's three benefits that are so important for
this bill. Number one is that people will get a genetic test. And if it
shows that they have a propensity for having some disease, they can
then take preventive measures and take measures that are going to
improve the quality of their life. And it's personalized medicine.
People have got to take command of their medical lives.
Second of all, because people will take preventive measures, this is
going to reduce the cost of health care. It's going to reduce the cost
to businesses because their employees will be taking these preventive
measures, and it's going to reduce the cost to health care providers
because people, again, will be taking these measures.
And as I said before, through the clinical trials, it will increase
the ability to find cures for so many diseases if people get into
these.
So with that, I would really like to take a moment to thank
Representative Slaughter, Chairman Slaughter of the Rules Committee one
more time, Greg Walden of Oregon who has been a major sponsor of this
bill, Congressman Andrews of New Jersey, who has been so helpful, and
Mrs. Eshoo from California, who has been so involved. And then Senator
Snowe, Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi for all their hard work on this
issue. It's truly been a pleasure to work with all of them.
I would also like to thank Mr. McKeon and Mr. Miller again, the
chairman and ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee, for
all their support. And then the other chairmen, Congressman Dingell and
Congressman Barton of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Mr. Upton
of Michigan for coming down and working on this today. And then
Chairman Rangel and ranking member McCrery of the Ways and Means
Committee, and then Representative Camp for being the spokesman for
them. I applaud them for all their efforts.
I would also like to thank former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been
so supportive of this legislation. And I would be remiss if I didn't
mention Sharon Terry and the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, as well as
all of our other organizational supporters, for all their persistence
and their expertise on this issue.
And Dr. Francis Collins of NIH for his testimony before all three
committees in the House.
{time} 1215
Finally, I have to thank the staff, all of the staff, who worked so
tirelessly for years now behind the scenes on our behalf and put in
long, long hours on this legislation. And in particular, my thanks go
to Michelle Varnhagen and Jim Paretti from the Education and Labor
Committee staff, and then Michelle Adams from Ms. Slaughter's staff,
and Brian Peterson of my staff.
There's so many reasons why everybody should vote for this, and
certainly having passed the House by 420-3 last April and the Senate
95-0, you say, This is a no-brainer; why didn't this happen a long time
ago? And what's been alluded to is to get three committees in the House
of Representatives to work on all of the issues, and they are so
technical in how they relate to each other and how it relates to
privacy and the other HIPAA and ADA and all of the things that had to
be brought in here, I think everyone works so hard just to have a
wonderful result. And it's no surprise that we're here, but it just
took a long time.
[[Page 7517]]
With that, I would urge all my colleagues to vote for this measure.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I also would be remiss
if I did not thank Dr. Francis Collins for all of his work and
assistance and guidance to the Congress on this matter and for
everything else he does in such a wonderful fashion.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
I would like to thank Congresswoman Louise Slaughter for her
outstanding leadership on this issue. For 13 years, she has worked to
pass this bill to protect Americans from genetic discrimination. She's
both the powerful chair of the Rules Committee, and a microbiologist,
so she knows what she is talking about.
The sequencing of the human genetic code is one of the great
scientific accomplishments in the history of the world. It has the
potential to treat and prevent disease. It is evidence of science's
almost-biblical power to heal.
But with this scientific breakthrough comes a responsibility to
protect Americans from the misuse of their genetic information. Today,
the Congress will begin to fulfill that responsibility by passing this
legislation.
This legislation prevents health insurers from adverse coverage or
pricing decisions based on a person's genetic predisposition toward a
disease. It ensures an employer cannot make adverse employment
decisions based on what is in a person's genetic code. It also makes it
illegal for an insurer or employer to request or demand a gene test.
Because of this legislation, Americans will be free to undergo
genetic testing for diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes,
and Alzheimer's, without fearing for their job or health insurance.
There is life-saving information in those tests. And for scientists,
there is information that allows for huge breakthroughs.
This legislation is supported by the vast majority of the American
people, 93 percent of whom do not want employers to have access to
their genetic information.
This is such good policy that this legislation is supported by more
than 500 organizations, including a broad coalition of civil rights and
religious organizations. Health advocacy groups ranging from the
American Academy of Pediatrics to the March of Dimes to the Susan G.
Komen Breast Cancer Foundation have endorsed it.
In the Congress, it has broad bipartisan support. It also has the
support of the President.
Let us not wait another day to pass this legislation so it can move
to the President's desk for his signature and become law.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R.
493, the Genetic Non-Discrimination Act. This bill is the product of 10
years of hard work by my colleague Ms. Slaughter and I applaud her for
her efforts to pass this bill.
The sequencing of the human genome was an amazing scientific
advancement, and has contributed to the rise of genetic testing to
inform patients of their proclivity for disease.
Thanks to genetic testing, individuals with a risk of an illness can
take precautionary steps ahead of time to ward off disease, which will
contribute to lower health care costs over time.
However, it is critical that we protect individuals from any
discrimination that could result from the information these tests
reveal.
The results should not be used by health insurers to deny anyone
coverage or increase their premiums because of a pre-disposition to a
certain disease.
And the results should not be used by employers to discriminate
against employees based on their predisposition to disease.
The passage of this bill will encourage individuals to seek genetic
testing if they so desire without fear of losing their health insurance
and give them the ability to seek early medical treatment.
One segment of the health care marketplace was excluded from the
bill's protections--the long-term care insurance market. This bill was
never intended to regulate the long-term care insurance market, and I
understand that current statute treats long-term care insurance
differently.
However, individuals that determine that they are at high-risk for
developing Alzheimer's disease will undoubtedly begin planning for
their long-term care and probably purchase long-term care insurance.
Despite all of the good intentions in this legislation, the bill
would allow long-term care insurance underwriters to refuse to cover or
charge individuals predisposed to such disease higher premiums for a
disease they have yet to develop and may never develop.
As we move forward, Congress should ensure that future legislation
extends the patient protections inherent in this bill to consumers who
want to plan for their future and purchase long-term care.
With that, I am pleased to support this important legislation and
send this bill to the President.
Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 493, the
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which extends crucial
Federal protections against discrimination based on an individual's
genetic information.
The new millennium has seen unprecedented scientific advances in
genetic research that have brought a renewed hope of solving today's
most difficult medical puzzles. Since the human genome was fully mapped
in 2003, many in the scientific and medical communities have viewed
genetic medicine as the next step toward finding better diagnoses,
treatments and possible cures for a wide spectrum of diseases. These
advances have also raised legitimate ethical concerns about the
potential misuse of genetic information in workforce and insurance
related decisions. Although current law already addresses certain
aspects of this issue, the importance of protecting individuals from
discrimination and safeguarding the right to privacy cannot be
overstated.
This bill will guarantee more comprehensive protections from
discrimination in health insurance and employment on the basis of
genetic information. Specifically, it will prohibit group health plans
and health insurers from denying coverage to a healthy individual or
charging that person higher premiums based solely on a genetic
predisposition to develop a disease in the future. Furthermore, it bars
employers, employment agencies, labor organizations or training
programs from using an individual's genetic information when making
hiring, firing, job placement or promotion decisions.
Genetics is a field of study that offers tremendous promise for
medical advancement, but we must give thoughtful consideration to the
implications of these emerging discoveries on society. No individual
should fear discrimination based on genetic technologies. H.R. 493 will
allay concerns about the potential for discrimination, encourage
individuals to participate in genetic research, and take advantage of
genetic testing, new technologies, and new therapies. I thank
Congresswoman Slaughter for her leadership on this issue and urge my
colleagues to support its passage.
Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 493, the Genetic
Information Nondiscrimination Act, GINA.
After 13 years--this bill will finally make its way to the
President's desk, to help protect families from genetic discrimination.
Congratulations to the Congresswoman from New York, Ms. Slaughter,
for her work in drafting this bill and guiding it through the
cumbersome referral to three committees.
Together, with Chairman Dingell, Ms. DeGette and Mr. Smith, we were
able to include an important provision to protect families from unfair
treatment on the basis of the genetic material of their fetuses or
children in the process of adoption.
Without this bill, families may face genetic information
discrimination from testing of embryos and fetuses, as well as children
who are in the process of adoption.
As genetic testing becomes increasingly common, these provisions will
ensure that genetic material gathered through pre-implementation
genetic diagnoses, amniocentesis, or other future techniques is not
used to limit families' access to health care.
Again, I thank Ms. Slaughter for her commitment to reflect these
changes throughout the bill in order to avoid any further confusion as
to whether or not families can be discriminated against on the basis of
the genetic material of their unborn child or child under consideration
for adoption.
I was proud to work with many Members to include this provision.
I encourage my colleagues to vote for this important legislation.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 493,
the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. I would like to thank my
good friends and colleagues, Representative Louise Slaughter and
Representative Judy Biggert, for their tireless advocacy to bring this
bill to the House floor today and then on to the White House for
President Bush's signature.
There is nothing more personal and more deserving of protection than
the genetic make-up of each and every individual in our Nation.
Advances in science and technology during the past decade have allowed
us to map the human genome and opened the doors to treatment and
diagnostic capabilities that we are only now beginning to realize. With
this power comes great responsibility to protect individuals who learn
that they may be more
[[Page 7518]]
susceptible to diseases such as breast cancer or mental illness.
Just as our Nation does not allow discrimination based on race or
disability, we must not allow discrimination based on our own genetic
identity. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act will prevent
health insurers and employers from improperly using our genetic
information to make coverage or employment decisions. I urge my
colleagues to support this protection of our most basic human right by
voting for H.R. 493.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Senate
amendment to H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
This bipartisan legislation is long overdue. Recent scientific
breakthroughs in sequencing the human genetic code have already
transformed the battle against a broad range of medical conditions.
Scientists have now identified genetic markers for a variety of chronic
health conditions which will increase the potential for early treatment
and prevention. However, as much as these advances will improve health
care delivery in this country, it has increased the potential for
employers and insurers to discriminate based on an individual's genetic
makeup. Such a threat deters the public and science from taking full
advantage of the life-saving and cost-saving potential of genetic
research.
That why we need to pass this much-needed bill. Discriminating
against someone because of their DNA is simply unacceptable. Mr.
Speaker, I urge colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation so
that Americans do not have to live in fear of losing their job or
health insurance because of their genetic predisposition towards
certain medical conditions.
Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Senate
amendment to H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
The identification of genetic markers for disease is one of the most
remarkable scientific accomplishments we have made. And this ability to
identify risks for certain conditions holds so much promise for our
ability to identify and practice greater preventive health care in this
country. I can never emphasize enough just how important preventive
health care is to our well-being.
However, as with almost all great scientific advancements, we have
also opened the door to a whole slew of unintended consequences. And I
fear that preventive health care is put at risk when patients decline
genetic testing for fear of insurance or employment discrimination.
This bill before us will put aside those fears by offering protection
from employment discrimination and closes the loopholes that deter
individuals from pursuing information that can save their lives and the
lives of others. After all, the biomedical research community is in
dire need of greater clinical trial participation. But many patients
are wary because they worry that participation in a clinical trial will
reveal a genetic predisposition that employers or insurers can use as a
basis for discrimination.
H.R. 493 will provide individuals the security of knowing that they
can take advantage of genetic testing and participate in research
without the fear that their employment or insurance status be put at
risk.
I commend my colleagues Louise Slaughter, Judy Biggert and Anna Eshoo
for their tireless work on this bill over the last 13 years. I urge all
of my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 493.
Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, Congress today is making an important first
step toward protecting Americans from discrimination based on their
genetic information. I support this bill and the premise that a
predisposition to disease should never be a factor in access to
employment or insurance coverage.
However, this is only a first step. I am compelled to remind this
House, and all Americans, that this bill does not guarantee genetic
information will not be abused by employers or insurers. The passage of
this legislation should not give consumers a false sense of security.
Until access to health care is available regardless of current or
future health conditions, the potential for genetic discrimination will
remain. And until we completely limit access to employee health
records, there will be the potential for discrimination by employers.
Mr. Speaker, passage of the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination
Act today is a strong step toward protecting sensitive genetic
information, but no journey is completed in just one step. I look
forward to addressing the underlying problems not fixed by this bill so
we can truly protect Americans' privacy and guard against
discrimination based on preexisting health conditions.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
The scientific advancement that has been made in sequencing the human
genome is groundbreaking. We have only just begun to understand how we
can harness the vast amount of information that is included in our
genetic code to benefit human health and longevity. The ability to
predict disease will greatly increase our opportunities for early
treatment and prevention efforts and this can have a real impact on
people's lives.
So I am proud to support the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination
Act. This bill will provide strong protections to prevent employers and
insurers from denying health coverage or job opportunities on the basis
of predictive genetic information. Providing this protection will
ensure that Americans are not unfairly penalized, either by health
insurers or by employers, for something that is a part of their genetic
makeup. In addition, these protections will encourage individuals to
participate in genetic research, which will lead to new technologies
and new therapies.
This important nondiscrimination protection is necessitated by the
advancements in science, like the mapping of the human genome. And
Congress is responsible for making sure that our laws keep up with
these scientific advancements, so that we can fully realize the value
of these discoveries.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act,
and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting in favor of it.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of
H.R. 493, ``The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)''. I
would like to thank my colleague Congresswoman Louise McIntosh
Slaughter, from NewYork, for introducing this important legislation. I
would also like to thank my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce, Ways
and Means, Education and Labor committees for their leadership in this
highly contentious and complex health issue.
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) would restrict
health insurers' Title I, and employer's Title II, acquisition and use
of genetic information in several ways. It is also supported by
consumer groups, the medical profession, researchers, the medical
products industry and pharmaceutical companies.
Since the first bills were introduced in the 103d Congress, many of
the arguments and positions supporting and opposing genetic
nondiscrimination legislation have remained largely unchanged. The
simple fact is without protection, people are apprehensive about
seeking potentially beneficial genetic services or participating in
much needed clinical research.
Alex Haley, the gifted author of Roots, stated on the front page of
his book that ``In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know
our heritage--to know who we are and where we have come from. Without
this enriching knowledge there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our
attainment in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness and the most
disquieting loneliness.''
When author Alex Haley revealed his Roots in the late 1970s,
everyone in the Nation, it seemed, wondered about their own great-
great-great-grandparents. As a result, the genealogical quest fever
spread, particularly among African Americans.
It took Haley more than a decade to trace back several generations,
but as most Black people realize, not many of similar heritage will be
able to unearth their lineage even that soon. That's because few, if
any, reliable records of the centuries-long Atlantic slave trade remain
to help in the search. That's what became all too apparent to
rheumatologist Dr. Paul Plotz in 1992, when ``a chance occurrence''
pointed his research on a rare muscle disorder to West Africa and ``the
greatest undocumented migration of modern times.''
As Haley pointed out, people have an inherent interest in knowing
their heritage. Our investment in modern science, specifically the
Human Genome Project, is poised not only to reveal medical truths about
ourselves and our potential for health, but also to help us make that
connection to our past.
While some of my colleagues are focused that GINA will provide
further incentives and additional opportunities for litigation against
employers, they seem to forget the very real concern of individual
protections. In an age where electronic databases are easily tampered
with and private information is passed around like a bad cold, we must
focus on the rights of individuals and their families when dealing with
such a complex and contentious issue.
At a time when we want people to seek out preventative care and gain
greater health literacy, we want to ensure them that they are safe and
big brother is not selling their detailed information to the highest
bidder.
Researchers at Penn State University have stated that from a medical
viewpoint, African genetic diversity is important in understanding
[[Page 7519]]
genetic diseases of African Americans and for finding treatment methods
for contagious diseases that originated in Africa. These researchers
have said that if they could identify the genetic changes that provided
this protection, then they might be able to find treatment methods for
the diseases.
These revolutionary discoveries are due to a diverse group of people
feeling secure enough with their doctors, nurses, and health insurance
companies that they participate in genetic testing and research
studies.
We exclaim that we want better health care, greater incidence of
prevention, better understanding of current diseases, and most
importantly more cures to the illnesses of Americans. This is what
genetic testing and research can do. If we allow employers and health
insurance companies manipulate the data to further restrict Americans'
access to quality care, then we should not support this bill.
However, if we are for access to quality health care, if we are for
greater understanding of infectious diseases and mutations, if we are
for privacy protections in medical records and payment systems . . .
then we must give our full support to this bill.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your leadership in the area of health
care access. This is yet one more area that allows us to support an
individual's right to care without fear of retribution by increased
health insurance payments or even worse, denial of care altogether.
Vote in support of Access, Understanding, and Privacy.
Ms. McCOLLUM of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong
support of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, H.R. 493.
I am a cosponsor of this important legislation, which bans genetic
discrimination in the workplace and in health insurance on the basis of
predictive genetic information. It prohibits insurance companies from
denying coverage or increasing premiums because of genetic factors.
Also, under this bill, employers cannot consider genetic factors in the
process of hiring, firing, or promoting workers.
H.R. 493 is similar to Minnesota law, which I voted for when I was a
member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Minnesota law sets
basic privacy protections for the collection of genetic information by
Government agencies and private entities. Unfortunately, not all States
offer protection against genetic discrimination. This leaves most
Americans unsure of how their private information will be protected.
National legislation needs to be implemented now, before genetic
discrimination becomes more widespread as genetic testing comes into
greater use.
Discrimination based on a person's genetic information, just like
that based on race or disability, should not be tolerated. Genetic
discrimination has the potential to affect every person in the United
States. Despite advances in modern medical technology, it is impossible
to predict with certainty whether a given individual will actually
develop a disease. Patients recognize that few laws exist to prevent
health insurers or employers from using their predictive genetic
information to deny them coverage or jobs. As a result, fear of such
discrimination could cause individuals to refuse potentially life-
saving testing or participate in genetic research.
Federal employees are already protected from genetic discrimination
by an executive order signed by President Clinton. It is time to extend
this protection to the rest of our country.
H.R. 493 will give Americans the security they need to take care of
their health needs without worrying that they will face discrimination.
This bill has been pending for over 13 years now. Under Republican
control there were no hearings on this important topic. Within one year
of Democrats taking control of the House this bill was passed, and is
now on its way to the President's desk.
This bill is the right thing to do to protect access to health care
and against genetic discrimination in the workplace. I urge my
colleagues to join me in supporting this bill.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pastor). All time for debate has
expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 1156, the previous question is ordered.
The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from
California (Mr. George Miller).
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the
yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, this 15-
minute vote on the motion to concur will be followed by 5-minute votes
on ordering the previous question on House Resolution 1167; adopting
House Resolution 1165, if ordered; and suspending the rules and
adopting House Concurrent Resolution 308.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 414,
nays 1, not voting 16, as follows:
[Roll No. 234]
YEAS--414
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Bachmann
Bachus
Baird
Baldwin
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boustany
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Braley (IA)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown, Corrine
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson
Carter
Castle
Castor
Chabot
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Coble
Cohen
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cuellar
Culberson
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Lincoln
Davis, Tom
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doolittle
Doyle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Edwards
Ehlers
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
English (PA)
Eshoo
Etheridge
Everett
Fallin
Farr
Fattah
Feeney
Ferguson
Filner
Flake
Fortenberry
Foster
Foxx
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Giffords
Gilchrest
Gillibrand
Gingrey
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Gordon
Granger
Graves
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hall (TX)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hobson
Hodes
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Inslee
Issa
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Keller
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Klein (FL)
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
Lamborn
Lampson
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Lynch
Mack
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Marchant
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (CA)
McCarthy (NY)
McCaul (TX)
McCollum (MN)
McCotter
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHenry
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Mica
Michaud
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murphy, Tim
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Neugebauer
Nunes
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Pearce
Pence
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (GA)
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reyes
Reynolds
Richardson
Rodriguez
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Salazar
Sali
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schmidt
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Sestak
Shadegg
Shays
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuler
Shuster
Simpson
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Souder
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Stupak
Sullivan
Sutton
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Terry
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
[[Page 7520]]
Tiberi
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Walz (MN)
Wamp
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Weldon (FL)
Weller
Westmoreland
Wexler
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (OH)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Yarmuth
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--1
Paul
NOT VOTING--16
Barrow
Blackburn
Burgess
Cubin
Deal (GA)
Doggett
Forbes
Fossella
Gohmert
Honda
Israel
Jones (OH)
LaHood
Payne
Rush
Wilson (NM)
{time} 1240
Ms. FOXX and Mr. BURTON of Indiana changed their vote from ``nay'' to
``yea.''
So the motion was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF MOTIONS TO SUSPEND THE RULES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The unfinished business is the vote on
ordering the previous question on House Resolution 1167, on which the
yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous
question.
This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 226,
nays 190, not voting 15, as follows:
[Roll No. 235]
YEAS--226
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Barrow
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson
Castor
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Cramer
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Lincoln
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doyle
Edwards
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Foster
Frank (MA)
Giffords
Gillibrand
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hodes
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
Klein (FL)
Kucinich
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Richardson
Rodriguez
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shuler
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Sutton
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz (MN)
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Wexler
Wilson (OH)
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth
NAYS--190
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Crenshaw
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Fallin
Feeney
Ferguson
Flake
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gilchrest
Gingrey
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kuhl (NY)
Lamborn
Lampson
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Nunes
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Sali
Saxton
Schmidt
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Tancredo
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Weller
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--15
Barton (TX)
Blackburn
Cubin
Deal (GA)
Doggett
Forbes
Fossella
Gohmert
Honda
Israel
LaHood
Payne
Rush
Wilson (NM)
Wynn
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes
remaining in this vote.
{time} 1248
Mr. MARCHANT changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas
and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 228,
nays 189, not voting 14, as follows:
[Roll No. 236]
YEAS--228
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Barrow
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson
Castor
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Cramer
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis, Lincoln
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doyle
Edwards
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Foster
Frank (MA)
Giffords
Gillibrand
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hodes
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
[[Page 7521]]
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
Klein (FL)
Kucinich
Lampson
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murphy, Tim
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Richardson
Rodriguez
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sestak
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shuler
Sires
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Sutton
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz (MN)
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Wexler
Wilson (OH)
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth
NAYS--189
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachmann
Bachus
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Crenshaw
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Fallin
Feeney
Ferguson
Flake
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gilchrest
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Keller
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kuhl (NY)
Lamborn
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mitchell
Moran (KS)
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Nunes
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Sali
Saxton
Schmidt
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Tancredo
Terry
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Upton
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Weller
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--14
Bilbray
Blackburn
Cubin
Deal (GA)
Doggett
Forbes
Fossella
Honda
Israel
LaHood
Payne
Rush
Wilson (NM)
Wynn
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes
remaining in this vote.
{time} 1257
Mr. GOHMERT changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was placed on the table.
____________________
AUTHORIZING THE USE OF THE CAPITOL GROUNDS FOR THE NATIONAL PEACE
OFFICERS' MEMORIAL SERVICE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The unfinished business is the vote on the
motion to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H.
Con. Res. 308, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Carney) that the House suspend the
rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 308.
This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 412,
nays 0, not voting 19, as follows:
[Roll No. 237]
YEAS--412
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Bachmann
Bachus
Baird
Baldwin
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boustany
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Braley (IA)
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown, Corrine
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson
Carter
Castle
Castor
Chabot
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Coble
Cohen
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cuellar
Culberson
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Lincoln
Davis, Tom
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doolittle
Doyle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Edwards
Ehlers
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
English (PA)
Eshoo
Etheridge
Everett
Fallin
Farr
Fattah
Feeney
Ferguson
Filner
Flake
Fortenberry
Foster
Foxx
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Giffords
Gilchrest
Gillibrand
Gingrey
Gohmert
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Gordon
Granger
Graves
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hall (TX)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hobson
Hodes
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hoyer
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Inslee
Issa
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E.B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Jordan
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Keller
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Klein (FL)
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
Lamborn
Lampson
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Lynch
Mack
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Marchant
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (CA)
McCarthy (NY)
McCaul (TX)
McCollum (MN)
McCotter
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHenry
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Mica
Michaud
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murphy, Tim
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Neugebauer
Nunes
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (GA)
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reyes
Reynolds
Richardson
Rodriguez
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Salazar
Sali
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schmidt
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Sestak
Shadegg
Shays
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuler
Shuster
Simpson
Sires
Skelton
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
[[Page 7522]]
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Souder
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Stupak
Sullivan
Sutton
Tancredo
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Terry
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Walz (MN)
Wamp
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Weldon (FL)
Weller
Westmoreland
Wexler
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (OH)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--19
Blackburn
Burgess
Cubin
Deal (GA)
Doggett
Ellison
Forbes
Fossella
Herger
Honda
Hulshof
Israel
LaHood
Pallone
Payne
Rush
Slaughter
Wilson (NM)
Wynn
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). Two minutes remain in this
vote.
{time} 1304
So the concurrent resolution was agreed to.
The vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Stated for:
Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 237, I was unavoidably
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''
____________________
REMOVAL OF NAME OF MEMBER AS COSPONSOR OF H. RES. 992
Ms. FALLIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as
a cosponsor of House Resolution 992.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from Oklahoma?
There was no objection.
____________________
CORRECTING ENROLLMENT OF H.R. 493
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the
rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 340) to make
technical corrections in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 493.
The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
The text of the concurrent resolution is as follows:
H. Con. Res. 340
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 493 (to
prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information
with respect to health insurance and employment) the Clerk of
the House of Representatives shall make the following
technical corrections:
(1) In section 104(d)--
(A) in paragraph (2), strike ``June 30, 2008'' and insert
``October 31, 2008'';
(B) in paragraph (3), strike ``October 1, 2008'' and insert
``July 1, 2009''; and
(C) in paragraph (4)--
(i) in subparagraph (A)(ii), strike ``October 1, 2008'' and
insert ``July 1, 2009''; and
(ii) in subparagraph (B)(ii)--
(I) strike ``in 2008'' and insert ``in 2009''; and
(II) strike ``July 1, 2008'' and insert ``July 1, 2009''.
(2) In section 202(b)(6), strike ``law enforcement'' and
all that follows through ``and requests'' and insert ``law
enforcement purposes as a forensic laboratory or for purposes
of human remains identification, and requests''.
(3) In section 205(b)(6), strike ``law enforcement'' and
all that follows through ``and requests'' and insert ``law
enforcement purposes as a forensic laboratory or for purposes
of human remains identification, and requests''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from California (Mr.
McKeon) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. George
Miller).
General Leave
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I request 5 legislative
days during which Members may insert extraneous material on House
Concurrent Resolution 340 into the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
This concurrent resolution makes two technical corrections to the
GINA legislation just passed. First, with respect to the Department of
Defense Labs, in our current bill, section 202(b)(6) and section
205(b)(6) of H.R. 493 provides an exclusion for an employer to conduct
DNA analysis for law enforcement purposes as a forensic laboratory,
which submits analyses to the Combined DNA Index System, known as
CODIS, if the employer only uses that analysis of DNA identification
markers for quality control to detect sample contamination.
However, we recently learned that the Armed Forces DNA Identification
Laboratory, AFDIL, of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, which
identifies soldiers' remains, would not be included in this exclusion
because it does not submit DNA to the CODIS system.
It was not our intent to prevent the Armed Forces, AFDIL, from using
DNA analysis for human remains identification. This technical change
would allow them to continue their mission.
With respect to NAIC, the other change is a very minor one. Section
104 of the bill, dealing with Medigap, requires the National
Association of Insurance Commissioners to modify their regulations to
conform to GINA. The deadline for NAIC to make these modifications is
June 30, 2008. If NAIC does not make these modifications by this
timeframe, HHS would be required to make the modifications by October
1, 2008.
When this bill moved through the House last April, these deadlines
were not a problem. However, with today being May 1, NAIC will not be
able to meet the June deadline. Thus, the other change to this bill
pushes back the NAIC and HHS deadlines until October 30, 2008, and July
1, 2009.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 340.
This resolution makes technical corrections to the Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act, commonly known as GINA, the act that we just
passed. Specifically, this resolution will clarify the use of genetic
information at forensic laboratories used by law enforcement agencies.
This technical correction ensures the Department of Defense will be
able to use genetic information to identify the remains of American
servicemen and women.
The recent DNA identification of Staff Sergeant Matt Maupin, missing
since his capture in Iraq in 2004, offers us a painful reminder of why
genetic information may be needed to identify the heroic men and women
who give their lives in service to this Nation.
This is a simple, yet necessary change to a bill that enjoys the
support of a vast majority of this body. Adoption of this resolution
will allow this legislation to move forward.
The GINA bill marks a commitment by this Congress to ensure that the
law protects American workers and health care consumers from
discrimination on the basis of their genetic makeup. Because that goal
is so critical, I support this resolution today, and urge my colleagues
to do likewise.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the
balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) that the House suspend
the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 340.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the concurrent resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
ENSURING CONTINUED ACCESS TO STUDENT LOANS ACT OF 2008
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the
rules and concur in the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 5715) to
ensure
[[Page 7523]]
continued availability of access to the Federal student loan program
for students and families.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the Senate amendments is as follows:
Senate amendments:
(1) On page 2, line 5, strike ``AND GRADUATE''
(2) On page 7, line 11, strike ``issued'' and insert:
``first disbursed''.
(3) On page 9, line 12, strike ``issued'' and insert:
``first disbursed''.
(4) On page 9, line 24 through page 10 line 11 strike and
insert:
``(B)(i) Extenuating circumstances.--An eligible lender may
determine that extenuating circumstances exist under the
regulations promulgated pursuant to paragraph (1)(A) if,
during the period beginning January 1, 2007, and ending
December 31, 2009, an applicant for a loan under this
section--
``(I) is or has been delinquent for 180 days or fewer on
mortgage loan payments or on medical bill payments during
such period; and
``(II) is not and has not been more than 89 days delinquent
on the repayment of any other debt during such period.
``(ii) Definition of mortgage loan.--In this subparagraph,
the term `mortgage loan' means an extension of credit to a
borrower that is secured by the primary residence of the
borrower.
``(iii) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subparagraph
shall be construed to limit an eligible lender's authority
under the regulations promulgated pursuant to paragraph
(1)(A) to determine that extenuating circumstances exist.''.
(5) On page 10, after line 24 insert:
(1) in paragraph (1), by inserting after the second
sentence the following: ``No loan under section 428, 428B, or
428H that is made pursuant to this subsection shall be made
with interest rates, origination or default fees, or other
terms and conditions that are more favorable to the borrower
than the maximum interest rates, origination or default fees,
or other terms and conditions applicable to that type of loan
under this part.'';
(6) On page 12, line 14, strike ``lenders willing to make
loans'' and insert: ``eligible lenders willing to make loans
under this part''.
(7) On page 13, after line 2 insert:
``(6) Expiration of authority.--The Secretary's authority
under paragraph (4) to designate institutions of higher
education for participation in the program under this
subsection shall expire on June 30, 2009.
``(7) Expiration of designation.--The eligibility of an
institution of higher education, or borrowers from such
institution, to participate in the program under this
subsection pursuant to a designation of the institution by
the Secretary under paragraph (4) shall expire on June 30,
2009. After such date, borrowers from an institution
designated under paragraph (4) shall be eligible to
participate in the program under this subsection as such
program existed on the day before the date of enactment of
the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008.
``(8) Prohibition on inducements and marketing.--Each
guaranty agency or eligible lender that serves as a lender-
of-last-resort under this subsection--
``(A) shall be subject to the prohibitions on inducements
contained in subsection (b)(3) and the requirements of
section 435(d)(5); and
``(B) shall not advertise, market, or otherwise promote
loans under this subsection, except that nothing in this
paragraph shall prohibit a guaranty agency from fulfilling
its responsibilities under paragraph (2)(C).
``(9) Dissemination and reporting.--
``(A) In general.--The Secretary shall--
``(i) broadly disseminate information regarding the
availability of loans made under this subsection;
``(ii) during the period beginning July 1, 2008 and ending
June 30, 2010, provide to the Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions of the Senate and the Committee on
Education and Labor of the House of Representatives and make
available to the public--
``(I) copies of any new or revised plans or agreements made
by guaranty agencies or the Department related to the
authorities under this subsection;
``(II) quarterly reports on--
``(aa) the number and amounts of loans originated or
approved pursuant to this subsection by each guaranty agency
and eligible lender; and
``(bb) any related payments by the Department, a guaranty
agency, or an eligible lender; and
``(III) a budget estimate of the costs to the Federal
Government (including subsidy and administrative costs) for
each 100 dollars loaned, of loans made pursuant to this
subsection between the date of enactment of the Ensuring
Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008 and June 30,
2009, disaggregated by type of loan, compared to such costs
to the Federal Government during such time period of
comparable loans under this part and part D, disaggregated by
part and by type of loan; and
``(iii) beginning July 1, 2010, provide to the Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Senate and the
Committee on Education and Labor of the House of
Representatives and make available to the public--
``(I) copies of any new or revised plans or agreements made
by guaranty agencies or the Department related to the
authorities under this subsection; and
``(II) annual reports on--
``(aa) the number and amounts of loans originated or
approved pursuant to this subsection by each guaranty agency
and eligible lender; and
``(bb) any related payments by the Department, a guaranty
agency, or an eligible lender.
``(B) Separate reporting.--The information required to be
reported under subparagraph (A)(ii)(II) shall be reported
separately for loans originated or approved pursuant to
paragraph (4), or payments related to such loans, for the
time period in which the Secretary is authorized to make
designations under paragraph (4).''.
(8) On page 13, line 12, strike ``agency's'' and insert:
``agencies''.
(9) On page 14, line 3, strike ``adding at the end'' and
insert: ``inserting before the matter following paragraph
(5)''.
(10) On page 15, line 19, strike ``loans originated'' and
insert: ``loans first disbursed''.
(11) On page 15, line 21, after ``October 1, 2003,''
insert: ``and before July 1, 2009,''.
(12) On page 16, line 1, after ``Federal Government''
insert: ``(including the cost of servicing the loans
purchased)''.
(13) On page 16, strike lines 5 through 23, and insert the
following:
``(2) Federal register notice.--The Secretary, the
Secretary of the Treasury, and the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, shall jointly publish a notice in the
Federal Register prior to any purchase of loans under this
section that--
``(A) establishes the terms and conditions governing the
purchases authorized by paragraph (1);
``(B) includes an outline of the methodology and factors
that the Secretary, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget, will jointly
consider in evaluating the price at which to purchase loans
made under section 428, 428B, or 428H; and
``(C) describes how the use of such methodology and
consideration of such factors used to determine purchase
price will ensure that loan purchases do not result in any
net cost to the Federal Government (including the cost of
servicing the loans purchased).''.
(14) On page 20, after line 9 insert the following:
SEC. 10. ACADEMIC COMPETITIVENESS GRANTS.
(a) Amendments.--Section 401A of the Higher Education Act
of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1070a-1) is amended--
(1) by striking subsection (a) and inserting the following:
``(a) Academic Competitiveness Grant Program Authorized.--
The Secretary shall award grants, in the amounts specified in
subsection (d)(1), to eligible students to assist the
eligible students in paying their college education
expenses.'';
(2) in subsection (b)--
(A) by striking ``academic year'' each place it appears and
inserting ``year''; and
(B) in paragraph (2), by striking ``third or fourth'' and
inserting ``third, fourth, or fifth'';
(3) in subsection (c)--
(A) in the matter preceding paragraph (1)--
(i) by striking ``full-time'';
(ii) by striking ``academic'' and inserting ``award''; and
(iii) by striking ``is made'' and inserting ``is made for a
grant under this section'';
(B) by striking paragraphs (1) and (2) and inserting the
following:
``(1) is eligible for a Federal Pell Grant;
``(2) is enrolled or accepted for enrollment in an
institution of higher education on not less than a half-time
basis; and''; and
(C) in paragraph (3)--
(i) by striking ``academic'' each place the term appears;
(ii) in subparagraph (A)--
(I) by striking the matter preceding clause (i) and
inserting the following:
``(A) the first year of a program of undergraduate
education at a two- or four-year degree-granting institution
of higher education (including a program of not less than one
year for which the institution awards a certificate)--'';
(II) by striking clause (i) and inserting the following:
``(i) has successfully completed, after January 1, 2006, a
rigorous secondary school program of study that prepares
students for college and is recognized as such by the State
official designated for such recognition, or with respect to
any private or home school, the school official designated
for such recognition for such school, consistent with State
law, which recognized program shall be reported to the
Secretary; and''; and
(III) in clause (ii), by inserting ``, except as part of a
secondary school program of study'' before the semicolon;
(iii) in subparagraph (B)--
(I) in the matter preceding clause (i), by striking ``year
of'' and all that follows through ``higher education'' and
inserting ``year of a program of undergraduate education at a
two- or four-year degree-granting institution of higher
education (including a program of not less than two years for
which the institution awards a certificate)''; and
(II) in clause (ii), by striking ``or'' after the semicolon
at the end;
(iv) in subparagraph (C)--
(I) in the matter preceding subclause (I) of clause (i), by
inserting ``certified by the institution to be'' after
``is'';
(II) by striking clause (i)(II) and inserting the
following:
[[Page 7524]]
``(II) a critical foreign language; and''; and
(III) in clause (ii), by striking the period at the end and
inserting a semicolon; and
(v) by adding at the end the following:
``(D) the third or fourth year of a program of
undergraduate education at an institution of higher education
(as defined in section 101(a)), is attending an institution
that demonstrates, to the satisfaction of the Secretary, that
the institution--
``(i) offers a single liberal arts curriculum leading to a
baccalaureate degree, under which students are not permitted
by the institution to declare a major in a particular subject
area, and the student--
``(I)(aa) studies, in such years, a subject described in
subparagraph (C)(i) that is at least equal to the
requirements for an academic major at an institution of
higher education that offers a baccalaureate degree in such
subject, as certified by an appropriate official from the
institution; and
``(bb) has obtained a cumulative grade point average of at
least 3.0 (or the equivalent as determined under regulations
prescribed by the Secretary) in the relevant coursework; or
``(II) is required, as part of the student's degree
program, to undertake a rigorous course of study in
mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics, which consists
of at least--
``(aa) 4 years of study in mathematics; and
``(bb) 3 years of study in the sciences, with a laboratory
component in each of those years; and
``(ii) offered such curriculum prior to February 8, 2006;
or
``(E) the fifth year of a program of undergraduate
education that requires 5 full years of coursework, as
certified by the appropriate official of the degree-granting
institution of higher education, for which a baccalaureate
degree is awarded by a degree-granting institution of higher
education--
``(i) is certified by the institution of higher education
to be pursuing a major in--
``(I) the physical, life, or computer sciences,
mathematics, technology, or engineering (as determined by the
Secretary pursuant to regulations); or
``(II) a critical foreign language; and
``(ii) has obtained a cumulative grade point average of at
least 3.0 (or the equivalent, as determined under regulations
prescribed by the Secretary) in the coursework required for
the major described in clause (i).'';
(4) in subsection (d)--
(A) in paragraph (1)--
(i) in subparagraph (A)--
(I) by striking ``The'' and inserting ``In general.--The'';
(II) in clause (ii), by striking ``or'' after the semicolon
at the end;
(III) in clause (iii), by striking ``subsection
(c)(3)(C).'' and inserting ``subparagraph (C) or (D) of
subsection (c)(3), for each of the two years described in
such subparagraphs; or''; and
(IV) by adding at the end the following:
``(iv) $4,000 for an eligible student under subsection
(c)(3)(E).''; and
(ii) in subparagraph (B)--
(I) by striking ``Notwithstanding'' and inserting
``Limitation; ratable reduction.--Notwithstanding'';
(II) by redesignating clauses (i), (ii), and (iii), as
clauses (ii), (iii), and (iv), respectively; and
(III) by inserting before clause (ii), as redesignated
under subclause (II), the following:
``(i) in any case in which a student attends an institution
of higher education on less than a full-time basis, the
amount of the grant that such student may receive shall be
reduced in the same manner as a Federal Pell Grant is reduced
under section 401(b)(2)(B);'';
(B) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the following:
``(2) Limitations.--
``(A) No grants for previous credit.--The Secretary may not
award a grant under this section to any student for any year
of a program of undergraduate education for which the student
received credit before the date of enactment of the Higher
Education Reconciliation Act of 2005.
``(B) Number of grants.--The Secretary may not award more
than one grant to a student described in subsection (c)(3)
for each year of study described in such subsection.''; and
(C) by adding at the end the following: and
``(3) Calculation of grant payments.--An institution of
higher education shall make payments of a grant awarded under
this section in the same manner, using the same payment
periods, as such institution makes payments for Federal Pell
Grants under section 401.'';
(5) by striking subsection (e)(2) and inserting the
following:
``(2) Availability of funds.--Funds made available under
paragraph (1) for a fiscal year shall remain available for
the succeeding fiscal year.'';
(6) in subsection (f)--
(A) by striking ``at least one'' and inserting ``not less
than one''; and
(B) by striking ``subsection (c)(3)(A) and (B)'' and
inserting ``subparagraphs (A) and (B) of subsection (c)(3)'';
and
(7) in subsection (g), by striking ``academic'' and
inserting ``award''.
(b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by subsection (a)
shall take effect on January 1, 2009.
SEC. 11. INAPPLICABILITY OF MASTER CALENDAR AND NEGOTIATED
RULEMAKING REQUIREMENTS.
Sections 482 and 492 of the Higher Education Act of 1965
(20 U.S.C. 1089, 1098a) shall not apply to amendments made by
sections 2 through 9 of this Act, or to any regulations
promulgated under such amendments.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from California (Mr.
McKeon) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. George
Miller).
General Leave
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I request 5 legislative
days in which Members may insert extraneous material on H.R. 5715 into
the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5715, the Ensuring
Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008, as amended by the
Senate. Earlier this month the House acted swiftly to pass this
bipartisan legislation to ensure that students and families will be
able to continue to access Federal loans they need to pay for college,
regardless of what happens in the Nation's credit markets.
Over the past few weeks, the President has also voiced his support
for this legislation. I am glad that the President has recognized the
importance of this legislation, and am very pleased that with today's
vote, we will have an opportunity to send to him this bill for his
signature.
The bill we are considering today now includes some of the amendments
added by the Senate to strengthen the purpose of the legislation. I
want to thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi for all of their support
for this legislation and all of their efforts to get it through the
Senate on a timely basis.
Because today's vote is timely, the sooner we get this legislation to
the President's desk, the sooner it can be implemented by the
Department of Education. This week, many incoming freshmen will be
reviewing their financial aid packages and making decisions on where
they plan to attend college this fall. For many of these students,
their families are already worried about paying bills in today's
economy. They shouldn't also have to worry about whether Federal aid
they depend on to pay for college will actually be there this fall when
they need it.
Over the past few months, we have been closely monitoring what has
been happening in the financial markets, and we have heard from
stakeholders across the political and economic spectrum: The Department
of Education, college financial aid officers, lenders, financial
analysts, and students. Not surprising, we have heard varying
predictions. Some believe that the lenders will continue to face
trouble accessing capital for loans, and others believe that the
markets will ease up.
Fortunately so far, the credit crunch has not prevented any student
parent from getting the Federal loans for which they are eligible. But
we believe that it is only prudent to prepare for the possibility that
the ongoing stress in the Nation's financial markets could jeopardize
access to student loans.
In addition to the provisions already passed overwhelmingly by the
House earlier this month, the legislation before us today includes
additional measures approved by the Senate amendments. This amended
legislation assures that loans made through the lender-of-last-resort
program are made with similar terms and conditions as other FFELP
loans.
It makes the Secretary's authority to designate entire institutions
as a lender-of-last-resort program temporary. It ensures that guaranty
agencies and lenders operating under the lender-of-last-resort program
are subject to the same rules regarding inducements and conflicts of
interest that other FFELP lenders are subject to.
{time} 1315
It safeguards the lender-of-last-resort program from abuses by
requiring guaranty agencies and lenders acting as lenders of last
resort to report on loans made through the program. It
[[Page 7525]]
protects taxpayers by requiring reporting on the cost of the lender-of-
last-resort program as compared to the current loan program. Finally,
the amended legislation reduces low-income students' reliance on
Federal student loans by directing all loans generated by this
legislation into the Academic Competitiveness and SMART grants.
I believe that these additions will enhance this bill by providing
further protection for parent borrowers, boosting aid to low-income
students, increasing accountability in the lender-of-last-resort
program.
Now more than ever, families deserve every assurance that we are
doing all that we can to make sure that they will continue to be able
to finance their children's education. I am confident that our efforts,
coupled with proper planning in the Department of Education, will help
ensure that students are able to get the financial assistance they need
to attend college this fall.
I would like to thank Mr. McKeon, our committee's senior Republican,
Mr. Hinojosa, the subcommittee Chair, Mr. Keller, the senior Republican
on the subcommittee, and all of their staff and all my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle for their commitment to acting promptly on
behalf of America's students and families. Again, thank you to Senator
Kennedy and Senator Enzi for their support.
I urge my colleagues to join us in swiftly passing this legislation.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5715, and yield
myself such time as I may consume.
I am pleased to be here just 2 weeks after the House voted
overwhelmingly in support of this effort to restore confidence in our
student loan program. Today we will give final approval to this measure
and send it to the President for his signature. It is not often that
Congress acts so nimbly to respond to a current market challenge, and I
welcome this show of bipartisan cooperation. I hope it is a sign of
things to come.
When we debated this bill on the floor 2 weeks ago, I noted that
while it is a good start, it is not a complete solution. That continues
to be true today. I am particularly interested in exploring a more
market-oriented solution to what is obviously a market-based problem. I
am hopeful that the administration will pursue steps such as an
intervention by the Federal Financing Bank, along with the other
proposals that have been offered to restore balance. Still, the steps
taken under this bill are important preliminary measures, and I look
forward to their swift enactment.
The original bill passed by the House focused on restoring stability
to an uncertain market and offering reassurances to students and their
families. We did that by establishing the U.S. Department of Education
as a temporary backstop to purchase loans and inject modest amounts of
liquidity into the market in order to ensure lenders can make new loans
in the coming school year. We also offered new loan availability and
flexibility, and we called on the Federal financial authorities to
exercise their authority to stabilize the market.
I appreciate that the other Chamber chose to move quickly on our
bill, rather than taking up a competing bill that would have slowed
down this important assistance to students and families. However, some
important improvements were made as this bill moved through the other
body, and I want to highlight those here today.
In early 2005 and early 2006, Congress approved a budget
reconciliation measure that created two new grant programs to help low-
income students pursuing a college education. Those two new programs
are the Academic Competitiveness Grant and the SMART Grant. These grant
programs are meant to promote student academic achievement,
particularly in fields that are vital to our continued competitiveness
in a changing world.
During the committee deliberations on a comprehensive renewal of the
Higher Education Act, Representative Rob Bishop took a leadership role
in clarifying the role of States and not the Federal Government in
establishing rigorous high school curricula. The purpose of the
Academic Competitiveness Grant was to encourage students to pursue
challenging course work to prepare for college, but it was never
intended to usurp State and local responsibility for establishing
curricula. I am pleased we were able to incorporate his proposed
changes into the bill that is moving today.
Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, but I would be remiss if I did not
highlight what I believe to be the root causes of the current
difficulties in our financial markets. Last year, Federal support for
the loan program was slashed, forcing loan providers to scale back on
benefits and reevaluate their future participation in the program. This
year, disruption in the capital markets have reduced liquidity and
shaken investor and consumer confidence.
I appreciate the steps taken in this bill to begin to stabilize a
program that has been badly shaken. I am especially pleased that this
bill contains no net cost to the American taxpayer and that it does not
force colleges and universities to embrace the government-run Direct
Loan Program that the vast majority have already rejected. I will
remain vigilant in protecting against any efforts to capitalize on the
current situation by imposing a big government monopoly on student
loans. In fact, it is because I did not support a big government
intervention that I favor the bill before us. The fact is that if we
fail to act now, we may be forced to take on much greater government
role in the future.
We made a commitment more than four decades ago that there are
national benefits to an affordable, accessible, higher education
system. What we are doing today is restating that commitment and
sending a signal to students and families that we continue to believe
in this program that has opened the door of higher education to so many
millions of aspiring young Americans.
Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill that deserves our support. I want to
thank Chairman Miller, along with the chairman and ranking member of
the subcommittee, Representatives Hinojosa and Keller, for their
leadership on this issue. I would also like to recognize the staff for
their hard work as well. I urge all my colleagues to join me in support
of this measure.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), the chairman of the
subcommittee.
Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5715, the
Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act. I especially want to
thank Chairman George Miller and ranking member Buck McKeon and all the
others who have worked with us to be able to resolve the challenge of
access and affordability to higher education to all those who wish to
go to that level of education.
This is urgent legislation, and I thank the leadership in both the
House and the Senate for ensuring its swift passage. We are all united
in our commitment to provide every assurance to students and families
that there will be no disruption in the Federal student loan programs,
regardless of what is happening in the financial markets in our
country.
As of today, no student has been unable to find a lender for a
Federal student loan. However, we are not going to wait until students
and families are denied loans before putting safeguards in place. Today
is the day that many incoming freshman students must decide which
college they will attend in the fall. Financial aid is a critical
consideration for that decision process. We can leave no doubt in the
minds of students, families or campuses about the availability of that
aid. That is why we must send this legislation to the President for his
signature without delay.
Mr. Speaker, this legislation will provide much-needed liquidity to
the student loan marketplace by authorizing the Secretary of Education
on a temporary basis to purchase student loans so that lenders have the
funds to make new loans. The legislation clarifies the lender-of-last-
resort option so
[[Page 7526]]
that, if called upon, guaranty agencies will be able to fulfill their
role as lender of last resort as required under the Higher Education
Act.
The legislation will reduce the reliance on private loans to fill the
gap between Federal student aid and the cost of college by increasing
the amount a student can borrow in the unsubsidized loan program.
This contingency plan for the student loan marketplace will come at
no cost to the taxpayers. In fact, any savings that may be generated
will be directed to the Academic Competitiveness and SMART grants that
are available to needy students who complete a rigorous program of
study in high school and those students who are pursuing majors in
high-need fields, such as science, engineering, technology and foreign
languages.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield the gentleman 30 more
seconds.
Mr. HINOJOSA. Finally, with H.R. 5715 we are signaling that we will
bring all of our tools to the task of guaranteeing access to student
loans. This legislation also calls upon Treasury and our Federal
financial institutions to do their share to ensure that there is
sufficient capital in the Federal student loan marketplace.
I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this critical stopgap
legislation.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the ranking member of the
Subcommittee on Higher Education.
Mr. KELLER of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I rise today in support of the Ensuring Continued Access to Student
Loans Act. As the ranking member on the Higher Education Subcommittee
and founder and chairman of the Pell Grant Caucus, I am honored to be a
cosponsor of this important legislation.
How did we get here? The troubles that began in the subprime mortgage
market have had a ripple effect on our economy, impacting all types of
consumer credit. Unfortunately, that includes student loans. As a
result of these disruptions in the financial markets, students and
families all across the country are worrying about how they will pay
for college this fall. Through no fault of their own, middle class
families are worrying that their children may have a difficult time
getting the financing they need for college. At least when it comes to
Federal loans, there are steps we can take now to prevent that from
happening. That is why I support this bill before us.
This bill will increase loan limits by $2,000 to undergraduate
students, it will give students more flexibility in their loan payment
options, and it includes provisions that will help generate more low-
interest loans. Additionally, the savings achieved in this bill will
provide more aid to full- and part-time eligible students through
national SMART grants.
This is how SMART grants work. If you are eligible for a traditional
Pell Grant and you major in math, science or foreign languages that are
critical and you have a B average, you will be able to get an
additional $4,000 above and beyond the maximum award of $4,800. This
bill expands that to allow full- and part-time students to partake.
That means we will be helping a total of approximately 100,000 students
who are majoring in math and science and critical languages, and also
helping ourselves, because we desperately need more math and science
majors.
I have a chart here regarding our strong support for Pell grants on a
bipartisan basis to put this bill in perspective. Since I came to
Congress in 2000, I have noted that we have increased Pell Grant
funding by 149 percent, from $7.6 billion to $18.9 billion.
{time} 1330
We have increased the maximum award from $3,300 to $4,800, an
increase of 45 percent. Now, with this new expanded legislation for
more part-time students to get these SMART Grants, those particular
students in math and science will get, as I said earlier, $8,800 in
eligible grants.
And, finally, and particularly significantly, we have made it
possible for an additional 1.9 million students to go to college, an
increase of 49 percent from 3.9 million students getting Pell Grants in
2000 to 5.8 million today.
Making sure that college is affordable has been a bipartisan priority
of this Congress. This bill will help ensure access to college for many
worthy students and provide much needed stability to the student loan
market at a time when it is most important to our college students.
I want to thank Chairman George Miller, Chairman Hinojosa, and
Ranking Member McKeon for their speedy and bipartisan work on this
bill. I want to thank my colleagues in the Senate for turning this
legislation around so quickly and adding some key provisions dealing
with the SMART Grants. I also want to thank the White House for
indicating its strong support of this legislation and their willingness
to sign it upon arrival.
For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 5715,
and let's make college more affordable for all young people.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I recognize the gentleman from
Connecticut, a member of the committee, for 2 minutes.
Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, what a difference 6 weeks makes. On March
14, under Mr. Miller's leadership, the Education and Labor Committee
held a hearing on the question of student loan availability. And at
that time, Secretary Spellings from the Department of Education came in
and said that the administration was merely ``monitoring the
situation,'' and expressed some diffidence and confusion about whether
or not in fact the Federal Government really had a role to play in
terms of being lender of last resort.
During the last 6 weeks, what we have seen is the collapse of Bear
Stearns, we have seen lenders withdrawing from the student loan market,
and a clear signal that the subprime mortgage crisis is in fact
extending to the student loan market. In Connecticut, the Connecticut
Commissioner of Higher Education Mike Meotti and the Director of
Financial Aid at University of Connecticut, who I met with, confirmed
the fact that they were seeing some withdrawal from the market and a
need to step up their activity in terms of giving students more help as
they enter a very challenging year, again, because of what is happening
in the financial markets.
This legislation, which now the administration has come around in
support of, will in fact strengthen the Direct Student Loan program and
will confirm that the Federal Government will in fact be a lender of
last resort so that it will make sure that, in August and September,
students and families will not be running into difficulty and will in
fact be able to go to college in the fall.
The Federal Government acted swiftly to help Bear Stearns, an
investment bank which frankly morally and ethically didn't deserve the
help. Millions of students, however, do. And this legislation, which
will clearly confirm that the Federal Government has a role to play
going into the summer months as students reach out to get financial
assistance, that in fact the doors of colleges and universities will
remain open.
I applaud Mr. Miller for his leadership going back to last March 14
and ensuring that passage of this bill will occur on a bipartisan
basis.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire).
Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill that
I joined with Chairman Miller in introducing to ensure the current
credit crunch does not prevent students from attending college.
Recent decisions to suspend the issuing of student loans by the
Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency and other lenders
around the country clearly demonstrate the need for this legislation.
This bill is a model for bipartisan cooperation. Problems in the
credit market began affecting the student loan
[[Page 7527]]
market only 2 months ago, and since that time Congress has quickly
moved to identify the problem, craft a responsible solution to that
problem, and quickly move that solution through the legislative
process. And, today, we are sending this bill to the President for his
signature.
Congress can be proud of taking this proactive step to prevent a
crisis and I am proud of what we did today, and encourage my colleagues
to support this bill.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Bishop), a member of the committee.
Mr. BISHOP of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for
yielding, and I thank the chairman and the ranking member of the full
committee and also of the subcommittee for working together so quickly
and so cooperatively to bring this legislation to the floor. It is very
badly needed, and the passage of it will allow us to expand upon the
gains that this Congress has made in the dual goals of access and
affordability. And let me just quickly reflect on those.
We have significantly reduced student loan interest rates. We have
significantly increased the Pell Grant maximum. We have overridden the
administration's recommendation to eliminate the SCOG program. We have
overridden the administration's recommendation to eliminate the Perkins
Loan program. We have done all of this on a bipartisan basis, and we
have done all of this with a focus on keeping student need and student
interests uppermost in our mind.
There are several very positive features of this bill. Let me talk
just about three of them. The first is seeing to it that we maintain
liquidity in the student loan market, a situation that is forced upon
us by factors that have nothing to do with the Student Loan program.
The second is the increase in loan limits on an annual basis. The most
important element of this is that it will reduce student reliance on
private lending, and that certainly is a goal of ours, to see to it
that students have access to government regulated loans as opposed to
private loans. And, lastly, the easing of the repayment requirements
for the parent loan will be enormously helpful to needy families and
the students of those families.
So I again want to commend leadership on both sides of the aisle and
both sides of the Capitol for working so quickly on this. I want to
commend the Education Department and the administration for their
willingness to be supportive, and I urge speedy passage.
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Mr. Miller and Mr. McKeon
for skillfully navigating this legislation to the floor, and I strongly
support it.
Our country's economy has been severely affected by a lack of
liquidity crisis. In plain language, people who need to borrow money to
do good things who are creditworthy are having a very difficult time
borrowing that money.
The early tremors are present in the education field that young men
and women who need money to go to school are beginning to have trouble
borrowing that money; and we are, frankly, concerned that an earthquake
may follow those tremors.
Rather than wait for that disaster to occur, Chairman Miller and Mr.
McKeon are taking preventive, action along with the Secretary of
Education, to try to prevent such a calamity from occurring.
This legislation is commendable on any number of grounds. First, it
strengthens the lender of last resort program so that guarantee
agencies around the country will be equipped to quickly move capital to
students and schools who find it difficult or impossible to get that
capital from the banking institutions. Second, it increases the limits
that students can borrow money that is guaranteed under the Federal
guaranteed loan programs.
This is especially important, because so many of our students need
what are called gap loans. This is the person who has an aid package of
$28,000, but who needs 31,000 to go to school. In the past, the way
families and students have dealt with this problem is to find a private
lender to make a loan to fill that gap. There is increasing evidence
that achieving that loan is increasingly difficult. By raising the loan
limits in a fiscally responsible way, this bill alleviates that
problem.
And, finally, by encouraging the growth of technological progress in
the education sector, this bill ramps up the infrastructure that will
be necessary to move loans to more students around the country as the
time has come.
There is a lot of cynicism, Mr. Speaker, in this country about
government, and some of it is quite justified. But I would hope that
the cynics would watch the process that has occurred here where two
leaders, one Democrat, one Republican, have come together, listened to
the Secretary of Education, carefully analyzed the problem, and worked
together to produce a piece of legislation that I believe will solve
that problem. I commend them for their leadership.
I am proud to support this legislation, and I would urge Republicans
and Democrats to vote ``yes.''
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the words of others
that have spoken here today, and thank Chairman Miller, thank Mr.
Hinojosa again, Mr. Keller, and especially Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Renzi on
the other side for working very closely and deciding to take up our
bill, because this could have been delayed. They moved expeditiously,
and now we will be able to get this to the President's desk. And,
hopefully, the concerns that I have felt for several months now will
never come to bear; that we will go through this year, and students
will be able to get their loans and we will do this without any
hiccups. But, if not, this will be a big help as we move forward.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I associate myself with the remarks
of the gentleman.
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 5715, and voted for it when
it was first considered on the House floor. Although I have some
reservations, I believe it is a reasonable compromise that will provide
the student loan market added flexibility and stability going forward.
Had I been present, however, I would have voted ``aye.''
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) that the House suspend
the rules and concur in the Senate amendments to the bill, H.R. 5715.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the
yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
____________________
FURTHER MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
A further message from the Senate by Ms. Curtis, one of its clerks,
announced that the Senate has passed a bill of the following title in
which the concurrence of the House is requested:
S. 2954. An act to amend Public Law 110-196 to provide for
a temporary extension of programs authorized by the Farm
Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 beyond May 2, 2008.
____________________
TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF FARM PROGRAMS
Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
Senate bill (S. 2954) to amend Public Law 110-196 to provide for a
temporary extension of programs authorized by the Farm Security and
Rural Investment Act of 2002 beyond May 2, 2008.
The Clerk read the title of the Senate bill.
[[Page 7528]]
The text of the Senate bill is as follows:
S. 2954
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. ADDITIONAL TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF AGRICULTURAL
PROGRAMS AND SUSPENSION OF PERMANENT PRICE
SUPPORT AUTHORITIES.
Effective April 25, 2008, section 1 of Public Law 110-196
(122 Stat. 653) (as amended by Public Law 110-200 (122 Stat.
695) and Public Law 110-205 (122 Stat. 713)) is amended--
(1) in subsection (a), by striking ``May 2, 2008'' and
inserting ``May 16, 2008''; and
(2) in subsection (d), by striking ``May 2, 2008'' and
inserting ``May 16, 2008''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden) and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this 2-week extension
of the current farm bill. The conferees have been working hard,
particularly Chairman Peterson and Ranking Member Goodlatte, and the
chairman and ranking member in the other body. And we can see the light
at the end of the tunnel, but we still need some additional time to dot
all the I's and cross all the T's, as we try to prepare the American
people for a sound farm policy over the next several years. I think
that we are going to present a farm bill to this body and to the
American people that will do just that. I think this will gain
overwhelming support in both bodies and will be signed by the President
of the United States.
In the commodity title, we will not only sustain our safety net, but
we will see significant reform. In the conservation title, where I have
the privilege of chairing the subcommittee, along with Mr. Lucas who is
the ranking member, we will see significantly more investment of about
$4 billion into our conservation programs. And, in nutrition, which has
been so important to our leadership, we will see an additional $10
billion in investment in nutrition programs.
And, finally on the energy title; we hear so much talk about our need
to be less dependent upon foreign energy, we need to step up to the
plate and do something. We should have done it years ago. But we cannot
let this farm bill go without having a significant investment in
energy. And we are proud of the work that we have been able to do on
the energy title, particularly in the area of cellulosic ethanol. We
think that we are going to have a program that is going to allow us to
begin to wean ourselves off the dependency upon foreign energy.
So, Mr. Speaker, I believe that the conferees are working hard, they
are making significant progress, but we need a little bit more time to
accomplish our product.
I urge support.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.
I rise in support of the temporary farm bill extension that will
extend some of the provisions of the 2002 farm bill so that the
conferees can attempt to finalize this bill. I share my colleague's
perspective over there. I think progress has been made, and we need to
bring this to a conclusion.
With that, I urge my colleagues to support this farm bill extension
so that that work can be accomplished.
{time} 1345
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden) that the House suspend the
rules and pass the Senate bill, S. 2954.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the Senate bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on
S. 2954.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
There was no objection.
____________________
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, proceedings
will resume on questions previously postponed.
Votes will be taken in the following order:
Motion to instruct on H.R. 2419, by the yeas and nays; motion to
suspend the rules relating to H.R. 5715, by the yeas and nays.
The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. The
second electronic vote will be conducted as a 5-minute vote.
____________________
MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2419, FOOD AND ENERGY SECURITY ACT
OF 2007
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The unfinished business is the vote on the
motion to instruct on H.R. 2419 offered by the gentleman from Arizona
(Mr. Flake) on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk will redesignate the motion.
The Clerk redesignated the motion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 157,
nays 259, not voting 15, as follows:
[Roll No. 238]
YEAS--157
Allen
Bachus
Baird
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bean
Berkley
Berman
Biggert
Bilbray
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blumenauer
Boehner
Bono Mack
Boucher
Broun (GA)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Calvert
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Castle
Castor
Chabot
Chandler
Conyers
Cooper
Crenshaw
Cubin
Culberson
Davis (CA)
Davis, David
Davis, Tom
DeFazio
Dent
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Ellison
English (PA)
Eshoo
Feeney
Ferguson
Filner
Flake
Fortenberry
Foxx
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Giffords
Gilchrest
Gingrey
Goode
Hall (TX)
Harman
Heller
Hensarling
Hobson
Hodes
Hoekstra
Holt
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Johnson, Sam
Jordan
Keller
Kind
Kirk
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Lamborn
Lampson
Langevin
Latta
Lewis (CA)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren, Zoe
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Markey
Matheson
McDermott
McGovern
McKeon
Mica
Michaud
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Mitchell
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Pallone
Pascrell
Paul
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Ramstad
Reichert
Rogers (KY)
Rohrabacher
Roskam
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Saxton
Schiff
Schmidt
Schwartz
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Sestak
Shadegg
Shays
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (WA)
Speier
Stark
Stearns
Tancredo
Terry
Tiberi
Tierney
Van Hollen
Wamp
Waters
Welch (VT)
Westmoreland
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Woolsey
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--259
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Bachmann
Baldwin
Barrow
Becerra
Berry
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Blunt
Bonner
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boustany
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Braley (IA)
Brown, Corrine
Buchanan
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Buyer
Camp (MI)
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson
Carter
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Coble
Cohen
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Cramer
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (KY)
Davis, Lincoln
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doolittle
Doyle
Drake
Edwards
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
Etheridge
Everett
Fallin
Farr
Fattah
Foster
Gillibrand
Gohmert
Gonzalez
Goodlatte
Gordon
Granger
Graves
Green, Al
Green, Gene
[[Page 7529]]
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall (NY)
Hare
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Herger
Herseth Sandlin
Higgins
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Holden
Hooley
Hoyer
Hulshof
Inslee
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Klein (FL)
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Loebsack
Lowey
Lucas
Lynch
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Marchant
Marshall
Matsui
McCarthy (CA)
McCarthy (NY)
McCaul (TX)
McCollum (MN)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McIntyre
McMorris Rodgers
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Neugebauer
Nunes
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pastor
Pearce
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Poe
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Putnam
Rahall
Rangel
Regula
Rehberg
Renzi
Reyes
Reynolds
Richardson
Rodriguez
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (MI)
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Salazar
Sali
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Shimkus
Shuler
Shuster
Simpson
Sires
Skelton
Smith (TX)
Snyder
Solis
Souder
Space
Spratt
Stupak
Sullivan
Sutton
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Towns
Tsongas
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Walz (MN)
Wasserman Schultz
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Weller
Wexler
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (OH)
Wu
Wynn
Yarmuth
NOT VOTING--15
Blackburn
Deal (GA)
Doggett
Forbes
Fossella
Honda
Israel
LaHood
Lewis (KY)
Payne
Rush
Sanchez, Loretta
Slaughter
Weldon (FL)
Wilson (NM)
{time} 1410
Messrs. CAMP of Michigan, BONNER, SOUDER, COSTA, OBERSTAR and JONES
of North Carolina, Ms. HOOLEY and Mrs. MYRICK changed their vote from
``yea'' to ``nay.''
Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California, Mrs. DAVIS of California, Ms. WOOLSEY,
Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California, Ms. GIFFORDS and Messrs. SHAYS,
BERMAN, FRANKS of Arizona, LATTA, MORAN of Virginia, CONYERS and
LAMPSON changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the motion to instruct was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________
ENSURING CONTINUED ACCESS TO STUDENT LOANS ACT OF 2008
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Serrano). The unfinished business is the
vote on the motion to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate
amendments to the bill, H.R. 5715, on which the yeas and nays were
ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) that the House suspend
the rules and concur in the Senate amendments to the bill, H.R. 5715.
This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 388,
nays 21, not voting 22, as follows:
[Roll No. 239]
YEAS--388
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Allen
Altmire
Andrews
Arcuri
Baca
Bachmann
Bachus
Baird
Baldwin
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bean
Becerra
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehner
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boozman
Boren
Boswell
Boustany
Boyd (FL)
Boyda (KS)
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown (SC)
Brown, Corrine
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carney
Carson
Carter
Castle
Castor
Chabot
Chandler
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Coble
Cohen
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Cramer
Crenshaw
Crowley
Cubin
Cuellar
Culberson
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Lincoln
Davis, Tom
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dicks
Dingell
Donnelly
Doolittle
Doyle
Drake
Dreier
Edwards
Ehlers
Ellison
Ellsworth
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
English (PA)
Eshoo
Etheridge
Everett
Fallin
Farr
Fattah
Feeney
Ferguson
Filner
Fortenberry
Foster
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Gerlach
Giffords
Gilchrest
Gillibrand
Gohmert
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Gordon
Granger
Graves
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Hall (NY)
Hall (TX)
Hare
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Herger
Herseth Sandlin
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hirono
Hobson
Hodes
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Inglis (SC)
Inslee
Issa
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kagen
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Keller
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
King (NY)
Kirk
Klein (FL)
Kline (MN)
Knollenberg
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
Lampson
Langevin
Larson (CT)
LaTourette
Latta
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Lynch
Mack
Mahoney (FL)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Marchant
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (CA)
McCarthy (NY)
McCaul (TX)
McCollum (MN)
McCotter
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHenry
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McMorris Rodgers
McNerney
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Mica
Michaud
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mitchell
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Murphy (CT)
Murphy, Patrick
Murphy, Tim
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Neugebauer
Nunes
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Pearce
Pence
Perlmutter
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reyes
Reynolds
Richardson
Rodriguez
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Ruppersberger
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Salazar
Sali
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sarbanes
Saxton
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schmidt
Schwartz
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Sestak
Shadegg
Shays
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuler
Shuster
Simpson
Sires
Skelton
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Space
Speier
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Stupak
Sullivan
Sutton
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor
Terry
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walberg
Walden (OR)
Walsh (NY)
Walz (MN)
Wamp
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Weller
Wexler
Whitfield (KY)
Wilson (OH)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman (VA)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Yarmuth
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--21
Brady (TX)
Broun (GA)
Campbell (CA)
Duncan
Flake
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Garrett (NJ)
Gingrey
Hensarling
Johnson, Sam
Jordan
King (IA)
Kingston
Lamborn
Miller (FL)
Paul
Poe
Price (GA)
Tancredo
Westmoreland
NOT VOTING--22
Blackburn
Boucher
Deal (GA)
Doggett
Forbes
Fossella
Gutierrez
Higgins
Honda
Israel
LaHood
Larsen (WA)
Latham
Lee
Lewis (KY)
Payne
Rush
Sanchez, Loretta
Slaughter
Souder
Weldon (FL)
Wilson (NM)
{time} 1417
Mr. GINGREY changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and
the Senate amendments were concurred in.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
[[Page 7530]]
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Stated for:
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 239, I was detained in
Senate on district business. Had I been present, I would have voted
``yea.''
Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I missed rollcall vote No. 239 on
approving the Senate amendments to H.R. 5715, the Ensuring Continued
Access to Student Loans Act of 2008. Had I been present, I would have
voted ``yea.''
Mr. SOUDER. Had I been present on rollcall 239, I would have voted
``aye.''
Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 239, I inadvertently missed
the vote today on H.R. 5715 due to an unforeseeable conflict. Had I
been present, I would have voted ``yea.''
____________________
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
(Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader, to
give us some information about the schedule for next week.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican whip for yielding.
On Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2
p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On
Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour and 12 p.m.
for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will
meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, no votes are
expected, and I underline ``expected,'' in the House.
We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The
final list of suspension bills will be announced, as is our practice,
by the close of business tomorrow. We will consider legislation to
address the housing crisis, including bills reported out of the
Financial Services Committee regarding the Federal Housing
Administration and H.R. 5818, the Neighborhood Stabilization Act of
2008. We also hope to consider the farm bill conference report.
Mr. BLUNT. On the housing question, you mentioned one bill. Is there
a chance there will be two bills coming out of Financial Services that
may be incorporated there in some way?
Mr. HOYER. That is possible that they would be considered separately.
I have not conferred with Mr. Frank, the chairman, so I can't
definitively say that. I'm not absolutely sure, but the answer to your
question is it's possible.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that.
The gentleman also mentioned we had a possibility, or at least your
hope that we would consider the farm bill conference report. I know
there are some other conference reports out there, the budget, higher
education, consumer product safety. We've got 11 working days left
before we take the District Work Period at Memorial Day.
I wonder if the gentleman has the sense of the likelihood that any
specific one of those might also be available during that period of
time.
Mr. HOYER. If I had my druthers and I could make it happen, all of
them would be within the context of that 11 days to which you refer.
The chairman of the Budget Committee is on the floor. I know he's been
working very, very hard, and I believe that we are close on the budget
conference. I think that may well be a possibility.
There may well be other conference reports available as well. I
cannot tell you now specifically that there are bills that I am
absolutely assured will be ready for that time frame, but I do believe
that there will be significant pieces ready.
The DOD authorization bill will, of course, be considered on the week
of the 18th, I believe. That's the week of the 18th. The supplemental
is obviously on our radar screen, and we hope to pass the supplemental
before we leave as well. I was hoping for next week. That still is a
possibility, but I'm not assured that they will be in place, ``they''
being Mr. Obey in our discussions. I'm not sure what his plans will be,
whether he can move it ahead that quickly.
The budget conference, of course the farm bill conference, the
supplemental, and the DOD authorization are major pieces of legislation
I want to see passed before we leave.
Mr. BLUNT. I have a couple of questions about that.
First of all, on the one you didn't mention, the higher education
conference, I think the higher education, the current bill, expired
last evening. Will we extend that? Would that be the gentleman's
intention that we extend the current bill next week as well as the
other work that's been listed?
Mr. HOYER. That is an option as well as in the best of all possible
worlds, the conference would be completed and we could pass the bill
itself. If that does not happen, we will contemplate an extension.
Mr. BLUNT. On the supplemental, you mentioned Mr. Obey. Is there now
a possibility that the supplemental might be marked up in conference? I
know during the 5 weeks now that we've talked about this, you had
announced a hope that we would have the supplemental on the floor
either in the last week in April or you every time have said, ``No
later than the first week in May.'' So we're not there yet but we get
there next week.
You now would not anticipate that on the floor, is one question. The
other is, where are we on the question whether the committee will mark
that supplemental up or it will come to the floor in some other way.
Mr. HOYER. I think that's, candidly, still up in the air. I know
that's of concern to you. I understand that concern, but I will tell
you again, I think it's still up in the air.
Mr. Obey has been discussing with the Senate how they think we can
best move forward as expeditiously as possible and so that we can try
to achieve the end.
As you know, there is substantial discussion about what is in the
supplemental. The President, as you know, has indicated that and Mr.
Nussel has indicated that if anything above the dollars asked
essentially for Iraq and Afghanistan are included for investment here
in this country on various different items, perhaps dealing with
unemployment insurance, perhaps dealing with energy credits so that we
can ensure the expansion of alternative enterprises for alternative
fuels, those are all being discussed to see whether they are
possibilities in terms of passage and, hopefully, signature by the
President.
We think that there are a number of items that are critically
important to pass now that we think this bill is appropriate for but we
don't have agreement on at this point in time. But Mr. Obey is working
today and hopefully tomorrow, and we have a number of meetings today to
see if we can move that forward.
So I regret I do not have a more definitive answer for you, but that
is the candid answer.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for the candidness of that answer.
I also remember and remind him that last week on the topic of the
expanded GI benefits, the supplemental, under the rules we've been
working with, would be considered, at least the wartime part of that,
an emergency spending and not under the PAYGO rules. The GI benefits
that have been talked about both here and on the other side of the
building, I think last week you suggested that those were related to
the Iraq-Afghanistan expenditures in a way that you thought that the
majority might waive PAYGO and include those in the supplemental.
I'm wondering if any of those other items that you discussed, like
unemployment insurance, might also meet that criteria where if they
were in the supplemental, they wouldn't have to comply with the PAYGO
provisions of the current rules of the House.
I would yield.
{time} 1430
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
As it relates to the first item, the GI Bill, there is a
comprehensive GI Bill, as you know, sponsored by Mr. Webb. Also Ms.
Herseth over here and others have legislation which tries to respond to
the critical need that our veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq
now have because they have substantially less generous benefits and,
therefore, less opportunity to reintegrate
[[Page 7531]]
themselves into the community and stabilize themselves and their
families. We believe that is a cost of the war.
I don't believe that under the current suggestion, and I'm not
suggesting that it's in or out at this point in time, I'm not
suggesting there is anything in or out in terms of proposal, but it is
my belief that that would not require a waiver of the PAYGO given the
context in which it may be considered. What I mean by that, and not to
be too esoteric, is that we may respond to the need this coming year as
opposed to a longer term.
Mr. BLUNT. Again, would that apply if we look at it as an economic
provision to the bill to the unemployment insurance and other things as
well?
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUNT. I would.
Mr. HOYER. As you know, we came together and we agreed on the passage
of a stimulus package. We passed a stimulus package because we thought
our economy was either about to go in recession or was in recession--
not at the time when we passed it, but that seems to be the case now--
and the stimulus package was designed to either keep us out or to bring
us out of a recession and to try to help our people who are at risk. As
you know, we did that on an emergency basis. The reason we did that on
an emergency basis, we felt, in terms of stimulating the economy, you
didn't want to stimulate and depress at the same time. So the answer to
your question, for instance, on unemployment insurance, that may well
fall in the same category from our perspective.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that.
I would suggest if that was the criteria, that on the expired
research and development credits or the expired deductibility of sales
tax from income tax in those States that had that deductibility for a
few years ending on December 31, or even on the alternative minimum tax
protection for people who don't pay that tax now, it seems to me they
would meet that same criteria of having negative economic impact as we
let those research and development credits expire or as we no longer
allow people in Florida and Texas and other States to deduct their
sales tax before they pay their income tax or if we let the AMT patch
extend to a number of people. I don't know if there is a way to handle
those issues under that same umbrella of economic impact or not, but I
would yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his observations. I think he and
I have a difference on the perception of some of the items that he
mentioned as being analogous to some of the other items that we have
discussed.
On the AMT, for instance, there is a disagreement on that alternative
minimum tax. The alternative minimum tax was not intended, I don't
think by any of us, to impact the people that it is now impacting. I
believe strongly that we ought to fix the AMT, not just for this coming
year, but permanently, and we ought to pay for that. And the reason I
think that we ought to do that is, A, it clearly falls within the ambit
of PAYGO, and secondly, because I think that our generation incurred
this liability and we ought to pay for that liability.
But some of the things that we have already mentioned I think are
more analogous, not to tax extenders, giving additional tax relief or
fixing the AMT, but are, as the UI is, unemployment insurance, directed
to an emergency that confronts us as a result of a substantial downturn
in the economy, which is analogous, I think, to the stimulus package,
which is why we didn't consider that to be a PAYGO issue and were
prepared not to address it in a PAYGO way.
Mr. BLUNT. I hear that answer and I respect it, but I also believe
that when we've let these tax policies expire, they have some of the
same economic consequences. I suppose that can be debated when we get
to that point in the debate. But sort of selective waiving of PAYGO, I
hope we have developed some principles here that can maybe apply to
some other things as well. I think we've discussed that and I
appreciate the fact that we've had a difference on this for some time.
I mentioned a couple of States that are particularly impacted by the
credit situation that we face right now on the sales tax deductibility.
That's just another burden on taxpayers that may be dealing with
another problem that's part of the overall economic challenge we face
right now. And just like the stimulus package waived PAYGO to try to
help solve this problem, I'd suggest that there may be items beyond
unemployment insurance that equally are related and may be even more
contributory to the problem than unemployment insurance.
I would yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
You mentioned the States. One of the things that we're very concerned
about is the very substantial fiscal adverse impact to the States that
will be caused by the change in the Medicaid regulations proposed by
the administration. That is one of the items under consideration
because that change, as I understand it from Mr. Waxman--as a matter of
fact, we just talked about it--will have a very great adverse financial
impact on the States. I'm sure you received a letter similar to the one
that I received from both Democratic and Republican Governors asking us
to address that.
So there clearly are some items which have impact on the States. Very
frankly the discussion is, how many of those do we try to address, if
any, in the supplemental? How many do we address in the stimulus
package? Or how many do we address in separate legislation?
One of the positive aspects of the stimulus package, as you will
recall because you and I were in the room, was that Secretary Paulson,
on behalf of the administration, the Speaker, you and I and Mr. Boehner
sat down together and talked about how we can get from where we were to
where we wanted to get, and we came to agreement. We have been unable
to do that, as you know, on some of these things that we think are of
serious concern, and the Medicaid regulations are an example of that.
Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. And I do recall those discussions.
Also, the tax policies that encourage purchases that create jobs are
in place. And as all of us on the floor here know, the initial checks
that go out as part of the stimulus package are going out in the next
few days over the next couple of months. And that, hopefully, will be
helpful.
On the supplemental, anything that we can do, that I can do, that our
side can do to encourage going through the committee in the regular
process, we would like to do that. In the last 20 years, under both
Democrats and Republicans, there have been 36 supplementals. All but
seven of them went through the committee. And those seven did not go
through the committee based on a bipartisan decision that Katrina or 9/
11 or some other event had occurred where Members on both sides of the
aisle essentially said we know what needs to be done here, we're in
agreement with it, let's take a bill to the floor. In the other 29
instances where there was not bipartisan agreement, every supplemental
went through the committee.
In the 12 years that we were in the majority, there were 20
supplementals. None of them had a closed rule, all of them except the
ones I mentioned by bipartisan agreement went through the committee,
and 10 of them had an absolutely open rule where we brought the
supplemental to the floor and the rule essentially said bring on every
amendment that you want to and we'll debate it until the amendments are
exhausted. That's a time-honored process not just under the Democrat
majority, but under the Republican majority. I'd like to again
encourage that we do whatever we can do to further that discussion that
you suggested may be going on now that would have the committee option
as one of the options.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his observation. He has made it
before. I will say that other Members, for whom I have a great deal of
respect, on your side of the aisle have discussed this with me. I think
your point is well taken, and that is under discussion.
[[Page 7532]]
Mr. BLUNT. I have one other question that wasn't on a list and not on
an immediate schedule, but one of our Members from Oregon (Mr. Walden)
had asked me if I would bring up with you the topic of H.R. 3058. It's
a bill sponsored by Mr. DeFazio from Oregon on public lands,
communities transition. It was introduced last July, voted out of
Resources in December. The Agriculture Committee has now discharged the
bill. This involves schools in western lands, very important to our
western Members on both sides.
Mr. Walden has asked me to ask you, first of all, is there any
information about when that might be scheduled? And secondly, to make
the request that that bill be scheduled.
I would yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I don't have information now about the status of that bill, where it
is. Obviously it's a bipartisan bill, Mr. DeFazio and Mr. Walden and
others. It is a bill that, very frankly, has been brought up in the
context of whether it might be included in some other pieces of
legislation, so that it obviously has bipartisan support. I will look
at it and discuss it with Mr. DeFazio and let you know where we are on
it.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for the time.
I do know the gentleman mentioned this week that in the 11 days left
before this next work period at home, we might have a flurry of
activity. And I would suggest, you've seen lots of interest on our
side, that hopefully part of that flurry of activity could be an energy
bill. I think now we're in the 18th or 19th straight day of highest
gasoline prices ever. Tomorrow may be the 19th or 20th straight day of
that. That would be one of the things that we would certainly like to
see Members of the House address before we leave here for the Memorial
Day break.
I would yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Without going into the polemics of the politics that we exchange on
this of what legislation we have passed through here, which was, we
think, directed at trying to address the short-term problems, dealing
with OPEC, dealing with manipulation of prices, dealing with price
gouging, which many, if not all of you, on your side voted against.
Suffice it to say I think all of us are concerned about the high prices
of gasoline. Suffice it to say that all of us, if we're honest, know
that in the short term it's going to be very difficult to impact on
that. Thirdly, that the solution longer term is obviously moving
towards alternative sources of energy and renewable sources of energy.
We passed a major piece of legislation last year. Happily we passed
it in somewhat of a bipartisan fashion, not totally, I don't mean
everybody unanimously voted for it. But the President did sign it. The
President said it was a step forward. For the first time in a very long
period of time it said our automobiles need to be more efficient. For
the first time in a very long time it required the use of alternative
fuels. So that we addressed initially, and there's much more that needs
to be done, longer term solutions.
Short-term solutions are tough. There is discussion about the SPR.
There are discussions about taxes, gasoline taxes, as you know. There
are other discussions. If you have ideas, we would be glad to have them
in terms of what can be done in the short term.
Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman.
I think we've brought some ideas in the last couple of weeks to the
floor on bills that didn't necessarily relate to this and we will
probably have more that we will be talking about.
I yield back.
____________________
ADJOURNMENT TO MONDAY, MAY 5, 2008
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House
adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for
morning-hour debate.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Maryland?
There was no objection.
____________________
{time} 1445
ON THE RETIREMENT OF MARK O'SULLIVAN
(Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. HOYER. Ladies and gentlemen of the House, many of you have heard
me, and Mr. Dreier as well, over the years speak to how extraordinarily
advantaged we are in the House of Representatives, and the American
people are, by the quality and commitment of the staff that serves this
institution.
It doesn't serve Republicans or Democrats, but it serves the purposes
of assuring that this institution runs in a way that gets the business
of the American people done in a way that's productive and positive for
them and for our country.
Regretfully, I am going to observe the retirement of one of those
people. Happily, I can extol his virtues. I've known him for a very
long period of time. I've seen his work, conscientious, able, and a
very positive impact on this institution.
Mark O'Sullivan, who is sitting just to my left on the second-level
rostrum, has been with us 31 years in the House, and he commutes from
Baltimore every day. I don't know whose district he is in, maybe Mr.
Cummings' or Mr. Ruppersberger's. I'm not sure whose district he is in,
but I'm sure they are happy that he is living there, although he's
totally bipartisan, I'm sure.
He has done an outstanding job. I have always found him to be in even
humor, even in the toughest of times. Even in the times when the body
sometimes gets more loud and uproarious than at other times, he
maintains an even demeanor. And, as I say, the competency and the
talent and the commitment and the character he has brought to his job
has advantaged our country and the House of Representatives.
Mark, we thank you. Congratulations to you. We wish you the very
best, and we look forward to seeing you back here in the near future
and repeating it.
____________________
MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2419, FOOD AND ENERGY SECURITY ACT
OF 2007
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct
conferees.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin moves that the managers on the part
of the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on
the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2419 be instructed,
within the scope of the conference, to use the most recent
baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget
Office when evaluating the costs of the provisions of the
report.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask
unanimous consent that the text of the motion be considered as read.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Wisconsin?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) and a Member opposed each will be recognized for
30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, it's not my intention to consume
the full amount of time, as we had discussed earlier.
At the beginning of this Congress, the Speaker of the House said the
following: ``After years of deficit spending, this new Congress will
commit itself to a higher standard: pay-as-you-go, no new deficit
spending.''
Well, the majority did follow through on half of their promise. One
of the first things they did when they took control of this place was
put in a new pay-as-you-go rule.
But things haven't quite worked out as well on the deficit. This
year's deficit is projected to double as spending is projected to rise
by over $200 billion. But at least they did put in the rule.
[[Page 7533]]
And one of the things that makes this rule interesting, that requires
this rule, is that the House must use the most recent CBO baseline when
determining whether a bill complies with PAYGO. Let me read this rule
word for word to be clear:
``The effect of a measure on the deficit or surplus shall be
determined on the basis of estimates by the Committee on Budget
relative to the most recent baseline supplied by the Congressional
Budget Office.''
It sounds pretty straightforward, Mr. Speaker. You've got to use the
current baseline when you apply PAYGO, no questions asked.
But despite this, everyone I have talked to about this issue,
everything I've heard, everything I've read in the newspapers had told
me that the farm bill isn't going to use the updated 2008 baseline but
instead is going to use the 2007 baseline, an outdated baseline from
over a year ago. Now, I hope that this is not the case. I hope that
this does not happen. But it sounds like that's the direction they are
headed. And that is what this motion is all about.
This motion is very simple. All it would do is require that the House
will follow its own rules and use the current CBO baseline when
determining whether or not the farm bill complies with PAYGO.
Why should we care? Why does this seemingly technical issue make a
difference?
First of all, economic conditions have changed in the past year.
Agricultural profits are way up. Food prices are soaring. And it's
simply not accurate to use an estimate that's over a year old.
Second, there's a strong possibility that using the old baseline
could hide billions and billions of dollars in new spending. We don't
have all the details yet, and we don't know exactly how CBO is going to
score it, but based on what we've heard, based on rising food prices
and other factors, we think it's quite likely that this bill is going
to appear to cost billions of dollars less under the old baseline than
it really does under the current one.
Now, isn't that convenient? I'm sure that a lot of taxpayers would
love to have this type of choice. I'm sure that when they were filling
out their taxes a few weeks ago, a lot of people thought it would
surely be nice to have the option of paying taxes on either last year's
income or this year's income. They could just pick the year where they
made less money and save a couple bucks.
But the taxpayers don't have that choice. They are required to play
by the rules. They have got to pay taxes on their current income
whether they like it or not. And if the majority follows the rules, it
doesn't have this choice either. They must use the 2008 baseline, or
they will be in clear violation of their PAYGO rules.
Now, the majority has dodged PAYGO before. The farm bill they passed
last year had over $5 billion in timing shifts and other gimmicks in
it, and I wouldn't be surprised if you saw some of those in the
conference report again this year. But if they use an old baseline,
this would take it to a whole new level, Mr. Speaker. This would be the
first time the majority actually used baseline shopping to violate the
PAYGO requirement.
You see things like this, and it's no wonder people think Washington
is broken. These types of games are exactly what make people cynical
about Congress. And I agree. This just isn't the way the House should
operate. The American people deserve better than having the House play
games with its own rules and then go home and claim they have entered a
new era of fiscal discipline.
You know, some people might find it odd for me to be down here
talking about PAYGO, and I will be the first to admit that I have been
critical of this rule and don't think it's the best way to proceed with
respect to fiscal discipline. But let's put those concerns aside for a
minute. Budgetary rules are only as good as the integrity of the
numbers that you use to enforce them. So let's enforce those rules with
updated CBO estimates. Let's have a strong bipartisan vote for this
motion and say that these games have got to end. Let's not manipulate
the rules and pick and choose whichever baseline is more convenient.
With that I urge my colleagues to support this motion.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).
Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this motion.
My friend has outlined very clearly exactly where we are. And I will
tell you from the perspective of the House Rules Committee, while we
have not been enthusiastic supporters of this PAYGO procedure, I will
say that while my friend used the tax analogy, as I listened to the
exchange between the distinguished Republican whip and the majority
leader, I couldn't help but think about the gasoline price issue. It
would be tantamount to one of our constituents or any of us being able
to go up to a gas pump and say, ``You know what? I'd like to pay the
price of gasoline as it was 6 months ago as opposed to where it is
today.'' This is not the way this should be done.
I urge my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, to come
together in support of this motion.
I rise in support of this motion. We don't actually know what's in
the Farm Bill Conference Report, because the Conference Report has yet
to be finalized, which is precisely why we are here seeking to instruct
the conferees on the part of the House. But if press reports are
accurate, the Conference Report could be in violation of clause 10 of
Rule XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives, known as the
PAYGO rule. Now, I am not a supporter of the PAYGO rule. Ostensibly it
is intended to impose fiscal discipline--a worthy goal that I share.
But in reality it does nothing more than mandate tax increases. If the
Democratic Leadership were to recognize this reality and propose a rule
change to eliminate PAYGO, I'd support it. So far, they have not yet
recognized the error of their ways, and PAYGO is a rule of the House.
At issue here is the number that is used as the baseline for
determining deficit neutrality. The rules of the House are unambiguous.
The most current baseline estimate must be used. Clause 10 of Rule XXI
provides: ``the effect of a measure on the deficit or surplus shall be
determined on the basis of estimates made by the Committee on the
Budget relative to the most recent baseline supplied by the
Congressional Budget Office.''
This does, after all, make perfect sense. If out-of-date and
irrelevant numbers can be used, the rule would be a complete farce,
even to those who support it in principle. In the case of the Farm
Bill, the most up-to-date estimate was released on March 3, 2008. And
yet it has been rumored that the Farm Bill's authors may choose to use
the fiscal year 2007 numbers.
This would be akin to pulling up to the gas station and rather than
having to pay the current 2008 price of $3.62 per gallon, you tell the
gas station attendant that that price doesn't apply to you, and you get
to pay the 2007 price of $2.97.
If Democrats insist on following this path, their bill will be in
violation of PAYGO. And if the Rules Committee chooses to waive PAYGO,
I suspect they would have trouble garnering enough support to pass such
a rule within their own caucus. While the Democratic Leadership has
proven they have no qualms about breaking House rules, or circumventing
them altogether, a number of their Members are committed to the current
incarnation of PAYGO. The Democratic Leadership knows that failure to
comply with this rule is a non-starter for a large bloc of their
caucus.
So if their solution was to simply cook the books, pretend their bill
was PAYGO compliant, and hope no one noticed, then I'm sorry to say, we
noticed. To all of my colleagues who support PAYGO, and to all of my
colleagues who oppose PAYGO but also oppose budget gimmickry and
backroom deals to thwart the rules of the House, I urge you to join me
in supporting this motion. Let's send the Farm Bill conferees a strong
message that a budgetary shell game will not get them their 218 votes.
And let's send a message to the Democratic Leadership that they can't
piously claim to follow the rules, while perpetrating an end-run around
them.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the motion to instruct.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from North Dakota is
recognized for 30 minutes.
[[Page 7534]]
Mr. POMEROY. I thank the Speaker.
We agree that under normal circumstances a farm bill considered at
this time ought to be scored on the March, 2008, baseline. But let me
emphatically emphasize there has been nothing normal about the
development of this farm bill.
We're moving into our 17th month of intensive work on this farm bill.
I'm telling you we have encountered every barrier you can possibly
imagine, and we are almost done. We have almost got this to conference
committee and to the floor. As the majority leader indicated, we are
hopeful it will be on the floor next week.
During the period of time we have been working on this bill, the
House passed this farm bill July 27, 2007, and it took nearly 5 months
in addition before the Senate passed its bill, December 14, 2007. If
they would have gotten their bill done earlier, we probably could have
concluded this. This wouldn't even have come up. We would have had the
farm bill out of here by now. The Senate-passed bill, however, is 1,876
pages long; the House bill, 160 pages long. That alone will tell you we
had an awful lot of work to reconcile these two bills.
The Senate uses a different rule relative to determining baseline, a
rule used by the House in the construction of the 1996 farm bill as
well as the 2002 farm bill. This principle is pretty simple: If you
have done most of the work on the legislation under the old baseline,
you can conclude the work. It would undo everything to suddenly have
the new scoring requirement. And if the Senate didn't go along, you
would have the crazy situation of trying to do one baseline for the
House, another baseline for the Senate, trying to meld those in
conference committee, and you will never get this thing done.
So the gentleman's motion to instruct has an intellectual basis for
it, but the reality of this farm bill is we have worked now 17 months
building the bill, most of that time under the 2007 farm bill. When we
passed the bill in the House, we had no idea what the 2008 baseline
would be; so it's not like we were forum shopping or trying to pick the
most lenient number. It was just the only way we could proceed. And if
we would at this point in time do a baseline shift, I'm telling you
this project, so close to home, gets put back to square one.
I have asked my friend and colleague Chairman John Spratt to join me
in this discussion because, obviously, when it comes to budget matters,
he has broad respect across both sides of the aisle and I believe he
can advance a more detailed discussion on some of the rules at issue as
we respond in opposition to the motion.
Mr. SPRATT. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. POMEROY. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. SPRATT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, more than a year ago, in meetings with Chairman Peterson
and the Ag Committee staff, the Budget Committee made it clear that the
new farm bill had to stay within the CBO baseline for the current farm
bill. Policies could be added or altered, but the aggregate cost could
not exceed CBO's current baseline. We based that position on the so-
called ``pay-as-you-go'' rule. Pay-as-you-go requires that any new
legislation, in the form of mandatory spending, be fully offset, that
it not exceed the current baseline.
In this instance, with the new farm bill, which about to come from
conference, it appears that the farm bill will be complied with the
fiscal year 2007 baseline but perhaps not fully complied with the
fiscal year 2008 baseline. I have not seen the numbers yet.
CBO produces many baselines, and for a time the House PAYGO rule was
ambiguous about the proper time for switching to a newer, updated
baseline. Over time the House Budget Committee, in consultation with
the Parliamentarian, came to an agreement to use longstanding scoring
principles. These principles or guidelines allowed the Budget Committee
discretion so that we could choose the appropriate baseline. This
principle evolved over many years as a rule of practicality. It was
founded on the rationale that we should not change the rules in the
middle of the game or the middle of the legislative process or, in this
case, in the middle of a complex conference. This rule was applied in
1996 to the farm bill passed then and again in 2002 to the farm bill
which was passed then. Once again, the underlying idea is to avoid
changing the rules in the middle of a contested process that is complex
and protracted enough already.
The House PAYGO rule, the rule which we adopted in January of 2007,
does set a limit to it. It does say that the latest baseline can and
should be used until such time as the Budget Committee reports a budget
resolution. The Senate has a different rule. The Senate PAYGO rule also
sets a limit. It proposes that the last baseline be used until a
conference report on the budget is adopted.
{time} 1500
So there is a significant disagreement in the position between the
two rules in the two bodies. As part of the resolution of all the
differences in the conference, this too has to be resolved.
Much of the farm bill about to come before us was hammered out in
2007. The bill passed the House and passed the Senate and the conferees
on all sides believed that the final package would emerge certainly no
later than March of this year. The Budget Committee determined and
informed the conferees that any farm bill would have to be scored
against the FY07 baseline up until the Budget Committee reported a
budget resolution for fiscal year 2009.
The budget resolution was passed on March 7. Our committee staff
informed the conferees that the baseline for measuring compliance with
PAYGO would now be the fiscal year 08 baseline. In rendering that
advice, we didn't resolve or really consider the pertinent problem. As
I said earlier, the rules require that the conferees use the March 07
baseline until the Senate adopts the conference report on the budget
for fiscal year 2009. This makes sense because then you will have
something done definitively by concurrent budget resolution passed in
both Houses. And the purpose of a conference is to resolve
disagreements between the two Houses.
Here, we have such a disagreement, as I said earlier. Either we use
the FY07 baseline or we use the FY08 baseline. We can't use base
because there is a significant difference between the two. It seems
fair and reasonable to me to use the FY07 baseline since so much of
this conference agreement was written with the FY07 baseline as the
yardstick, and to revert to FY08 would require more protracted
negotiations and maybe no conference report at all.
I have to say to you I could argue you this either way. But I believe
on balance that this is a good application, a proper allocation of the
baseline rule, and certainly the rule of practicality in this instance.
Mr. POMEROY. Reclaiming the time----
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. If the gentleman is willing to yield back his
time, I will just have a 1-minute speaker and then I will close--fast.
Mr. POMEROY. I would just like to point out one quick thing. This is
what PAYGO accomplishes. In 2002, pay-as-you-go budget discipline was
allowed to expire. The farm bill, when it was passed, added to the
baseline $73.5 billion. I believe the gentleman from Wisconsin voted
for that farm bill. I did.
Now we have an important restoration of pay-as-you-go discipline, and
under the 2007 baseline we have accounted for every dollar of spending
in this farm bill. No deficit added, no deepening of the deficit, as
figured on the 2007 baseline, compared to a very, very different
situation in the 2002 farm bill.
So the gentleman's motion involves, in my view, pointing out that
this might not technically jibe with the House rule. I believe that we
have learned a lesson from the gentleman's motion. We ought to have our
rule like the old rule where the baseline on a discretionary call by
the Budget Chair can continue to be the baseline under which you
drafted the legislation, because otherwise all of this work could be
lost. We need to get this bill done.
[[Page 7535]]
And we are this close to getting it done.
So with respect to my friend, Mr. Ryan, I would urge that we reject
the motion. I will let this statement serve as the close. Let the Ag
Committee finish its work; let's pass the farm bill. Let's reject this
motion to instruct.
I yield back.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
Mr. KIND. I thank my friend for yielding.
He and I and others have tried to introduce the concept of more
reform in this next farm bill. But I didn't intend to speak on this
motion; I just want to point out a little bit of irony in what this
motion would do.
It's my understanding that by using the 2008 numbers, it would result
in a lower baseline for the commodity subsidy programs by about $11
billion, which I don't have a problem with because we have introduced a
10-point option plan to find over $10 billion of reasonable savings
under these commodity programs already. So it's consistent with that.
But it would also call for an increase of the baseline under the
conservation title of close to $2 billion and under the nutrition title
of close to $35 billion because of increased food costs and eligibility
under these nutrition programs. If the nutrition groups knew what the
practical effect of this motion to instruct would be, they will be
doing cartwheels all over this town for the next week.
I just wanted to point out the irony of today's baseline versus last
year's baseline.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I am curious, does the gentleman want time
from me or time from them?
Four quick points. The war supplemental, been working on it for a
year. That is going to be done under the new baseline. Number two, CBO
can score this on time. They have already told us they are going to
give us simultaneous scores under the 2008 baseline.
Number three, you have had plenty of time to do this. The CBO
baseline has been out for 2 months. But number four, and lastly, this
isn't an option, this isn't a choice. You don't have discretion. It's
the rules. This is your PAYGO rules.
So the question is: Are you going to violate your rules or not?
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion to instruct.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct
offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and
nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
____________________
MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2419, FOOD AND ENERGY SECURITY ACT
OF 2007
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to instruct at the desk.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Kind moves that the managers on the part of the House
at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses
on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2419 (an Act to
provide for the continuation of agricultural programs through
fiscal year 2012) be instructed to--
(1) insist on the amendment contained in section 2401(d) of
the House bill (relating to funding for the environmental
quality incentive program);
(2) insist on the amendments contained in section 2104 of
the House bill (relating to the grassland reserve program)
and reject the amendment contained in section 2401(2) of the
Senate amendment (relating to funding for the grassland
reserve program);
(3) insist on the amendments contained in section 2102 of
the House bill (relating to the wetland reserve program); and
(4) insist on the amendments contained in section 2608 of
the Senate bill (relating to crop insurance ineligibility
relating to crop production on native sod).
Mr. KIND (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent
that the motion be considered as read.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Wisconsin?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) and a Member opposed will be recognized for 30
minutes each.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. KIND. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this is a very simple motion. I understand we are in the
waning, perhaps minutes of conclusion of the farm bill. But,
nevertheless, I think it's important that we get the policies right. We
do need a farm bill. We need it as soon as possible. It's planting
season back home. Our farmers need some predictability. They need to
know what rules they are being to be operating under, one way or
another. But we need a good farm bill, not a bad farm bill; one that
tries to get the policy right, not the wrong way.
I still believe there's more room for reform under the commodity
programs in light of record high commodity prices. It's tough to
justify to the average taxpayer that what is still being considered
under the current farm bill is close to $25 billion of direct payments
to go out over the next 5 years, bearing no relationship to price or
production. It's not a safety net. These are entitlement funding,
automatic payments that go to large producers, primarily merely due to
their existence and not because of market.
But there's another important feature of this farm bill and that is
the conservation title. This farm bill offers this Nation the greatest
public investment in private land ownership in regards to anything else
we do around here. For a very long time, we have had important land and
water conservation programs set up on a voluntary and incentive basis
to help our producers be good stewards of the land; good manure
management practices so they are not running off and polluting our
rivers and streams and lakes and tributaries, making sure we have got
buffer strips in place, making sure we have got the ability to absorb
more CO2 from the atmosphere so we don't lose ground on the
global warming battle that we are confronting.
This is something that also benefits the American farmer, family
farmers in every region. But it also benefits the community at large
through enhanced water quality programs, through habitat protection,
and wildlife, which is also vital to our own local and regional
economies. Yet what is being considered right now in the conference is
a dramatic reduction in the level of funding that came out of the
House.
The House had an historic passage of conservation funding last year,
calling for another over $5 billion in these conservation programs.
This, I think, in part, is to address the backlog of demand because
today, under current funding, close to two out of every three farmers
applying for conversation funding assistance are turned because of the
inadequacy of funds. So the demand is there.
But what makes these programs especially attractive is their so-
called ``green box payments.'' They are nonmarket, nontrade-distorting,
still a way to help our family farmers manage their own land, but in a
way that doesn't distort the marketplace. What's being considered now
is a dramatic reduction in the level of funding that came out of the
House originally.
Our motion to instruct today would merely ask the conferees to try to
get back to that House level of funding rather than going even below
where the Senate took it. The Senate was proposing a $4.2 billion
increase. We were over $5 billion. It's my understanding, and I haven't
been privy to the ongoing negotiations, but they are talking about just
a $4 billion increase under conservation, substantially below where the
House went.
More specifically, this motion would instruct conferees to maintain
the
[[Page 7536]]
House funding for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program. That is
the main program that helps with manure management projects throughout
the Nation, especially beneficial to large animal feedlots that have to
control that and prevent the spillage into the environment.
It would also maintain the allotment for the Grassland Reserve
Program. There is more pressure being put on these highly sensitive and
highly erodible lands because of the increase in commodity prices. It
would also maintain House funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program.
That, of course, is a great filter that exists throughout our
communities to enhance quality water supplies but also crucial to water
fowl populations in North America.
It would also accept the Senate Sod Saver Provision so that the
Federal Government doesn't incentivize the conversion of sensitive
virgin prairie land back into crop production. Again, given the
pressure that exists with these historically high commodity prices,
it's a real concern that more of this virgin prairie land that has been
vital for conservation efforts, especially in the Great Plains, are
going to be brought back into production with the consequent adverse
environmental and conservation effects that would result.
So that is merely what this motion to instruct would do; get back to
what the House passed last year under conservation, give the farmers
throughout the country the tools they need to be good stewards of the
land, and do it in a nonmarket, nontrade-distorting fashion, especially
in the tremendous increase in commodity prices today and the pressure
that producers are under to bring the land that has been conserved for
many years back into production and resulting with a lot more sediment
and nutrient runoffs that will be a consequence of that action.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized
for 30 minutes.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to now yield half of that time
to my colleague, Chairman Holden.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden) will be recognized for 15 minutes.
There was no objection.
Mr. HOLDEN. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Speaker, I say to my friend from Wisconsin and my friend from
Oregon that we appreciate their support for the funding for
conservation at the House level. I have got to say honestly, though, we
wish we would have had your support last July. I also say to my
friends, and I mean my friends, that we wish that we could work the
will of the House and pass legislation here and send it over to the
other body and have them rubber stamp it and send it down to the
President and have him sign it, as we have done our work here. But in
reality, that is not the way we can operate.
I say to my friend from Wisconsin, who served on the Agriculture
Committee, and you know this, to my friend, we do not have partisan
disagreements on this committee. My friend from Oklahoma will agree
with that. We have regional differences. We have to balance those
regional differences and try to figure out a way that those of us on
the committee who care strongly about the commodity title are satisfied
with the safety net but also realize that there has to be a reform. And
those of us who care strongly about the conservation title realize that
we need to have increased investment in conservation. You can pair that
with energy and nutrition, everything else, but we are here to talk
about conservation this afternoon.
I'd say to my friend, sure, we would like to have more money. My
father used to always say to me that everybody wants to go to heaven
but nobody wants to die. We have to put this together and we have to
realize what is possible.
When we debated and discussed this bill in the House of
Representatives, we had $13.6 billion in addition to baseline. When we
are negotiating in the conference committee, we have $10 billion. So
you can see the difference. So everyone had to give and take.
Again, I think when the conferees have done their work, we are going
to see significant reform in the commodity title and you're going to
see reform in the conservation title. The chairman asked me to make one
thing perfectly clear in this motion to instruct. We have consistently
said reform would apply to all titles, and we would spread scarce
dollars out to more producers.
The conference agreement will do that, and we will fully fund
conservation. We believe we have an obligation to do that. But we have
limited resources. So we are going to do the best we can, hopefully
tonight and tomorrow, to have a fully invested, robust title for
conversation.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 1515
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. I do appreciate the hard work
that our friends from Pennsylvania and Oklahoma have done and the
strong support they have shown throughout the years under these
important conservation programs under the conservation title, and now
that we are getting into closure of this farm bill, I hope that voice
of advocacy will rise again in defense of these programs, especially in
light of the pressure that exists to bring this land back into
production.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my friend and colleague from Oregon
(Mr. Blumenauer).
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. I appreciate
his continued leadership and advocacy in this bill.
I would remind my good friend from Pennsylvania that earlier in this
debate, Mr. Kind and I, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Flake, we advanced proposals
that would have provided more than enough money to fully fund the
conservation, would have provided more than enough money to deal for
the areas of agriculture that are dramatically underserved.
This does a terrific job for the large corporate enterprises, for the
richest of farmers. Lowering the limits to $900,000 may in the minds of
some be a draconian reform. But when we know that the average farmer
makes twice what the average homeowner makes, the average citizen
makes, and I was actually campaigning in Pennsylvania for a campaign in
the presidential effort here a couple weeks back, and I was in some
very rural parts of Pennsylvania engaged in the discussion there, and I
found that Pennsylvania is much like Oregon. We are short-changed
dramatically in the farm bill.
Earlier we had my good friend from North Dakota, a State that
produces less agricultural value than the State of Oregon and gets one-
sixth the subsidy. Pennsylvania is a massive farming effort. Twenty-
seven percent of the land area is devoted to farms. But Pennsylvania
farmers get one-half of their share of the subsidy nationally, 62
percent of the applications for conservation are not paid for, and the
average farmer in Pennsylvania, 83 percent make less than $100,000 a
year. So these are small farmers. They are hard pressed. They want
conservation, and they don't have the money for the application. It is
just like in my State.
I would suggest that we look hard, because I agree with my friend
from Pennsylvania and my friend from Oklahoma. This is not necessarily
partisan. There are areas that agriculture policy divides, not
necessarily partisan, but sometimes it is urban and rural. Sometimes it
is east, west, south, midwest. It is more likely the type of
agriculture that is practiced, because the vast majority of farmers in
this country would have been well served by the reforms that we
advocated from here, limiting the payments to $250,000, for instance,
like have been advocated by the Bush administration and by many people
here.
But we don't even have to get to that point. My friend Mr. Kind's
motion to recommit should bring us together, because farmers all across
the country, in
[[Page 7537]]
States large and small, east and west, are for environmental
protection. This is the most important environmental bill that the
110th Congress will address. We should not miss this golden
opportunity.
It is frustrating to me that the conferees are talking about cutting
what we approved at $5.7 to as low as $4 billion. And who knows what it
might end up? There are lots of missing pieces. We need to go on record
here strongly supporting maintaining at least a $5 billion level.
I will tell you, farmers in my State regularly identify conservation
programs as their top need. They have to comply with all sorts of
difficult environmental regulations, and we need to ensure that they
get the payments they deserve for environmental protection that they
provide.
It is the farm community, the ranchers, that are the source of the
cheapest, most cost-effective water quality and water quantity
improvement. This money supports programs that protect our most
sensitive and ecologically important lands. It keeps pollution out of
the lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands. It represents the largest
Federal investment in private land, and it should be an investment that
our farmers and ranchers can count upon year after year.
It is not just the clean water. It is maintaining abundant wildlife
populations. It is storing carbon. Agriculture is one of the largest
sources of greenhouse gas emissions, the largest internationally. With
the increased pressure on lands from biofuel mandates and high food
prices, these programs matter more now than ever before.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. KIND. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you.
Too often I have watched in the farm legislation that I have seen
work through here that conservation ends up being the piggy bank for
the farm bill. This is an area that is shortchanged to deal with more
powerful political interests.
Well, if the American public knew what was at stake, there would be
no more powerful interest than protecting the environment. Two-thirds
of the farmers who apply are turned down. This is not right. Increased
conservation programs help balance out some of the inequities in the
farm program and provide benefits to everybody.
I urge you to support family farmers, the environment and sportsmen,
and support a good farm bill by supporting Mr. Kind's motion to
instruct.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I do rise in opposition to this motion. I think my good
and dear friends are well intended. I think they believe that they are
sincerely trying to do something positive.
But I would say to you, this process that we are working through is a
complicated, challenging process. Ultimately, the final goal of any
farm bill is to take the limited resources that we have and use them in
a way to achieve the maximum benefit for our fellow Americans, whether
that is enhancing the quality of the environment through the
conservation programs, or making sure that the world's safest and yet
most affordable food supply continues to be available to everyone.
Let's think for a moment about what farm bills represent. The first
comprehensive Federal farm bill was not passed until 1933 in the depths
of the great economic depression, and, in my region of the country, the
great droughts of the 1930s. It was an effort to prevent rural America
from disintegrating. It was an effort to make sure that food and fiber
remained available to all American consumers at a price that they could
afford. We have worked through many policy concepts. We have had many
different ways of addressing those needs since 1933.
With time, the focus of the farm bill has shifted. In the 1960s it
went from being a farmer's farm bill, as the coffee shop folks back
home might think of, to being a major player in meeting the nutritional
needs of this program. President Kennedy's pilot program on ultimately
what became food stamps adopted by President Johnson and this Congress
in the 1960s became a major element. But it was an element of the farm
bill. In the 1980s, the focus added conservation to that, CRP, EQIP,
all of the things that enable farmers, ranchers and property owners to
maximize the positive environmental impacts on their property.
The farm bill evolved. Where are we right now? We have a bill that is
the result of one of the most challenging set of circumstances in
decades. We were given the baseline last year to write a farm bill, and
for those of you who might not remember what the baseline is, that is
simply saying you have the money you had 5 years ago, and not a penny
more. And, oh, by the way, inflation has chewed a good bit of that up.
Go try and write a bill. Then we were told, shift $4 billion of that
from wherever in the bill you want, wherever you can, to the food stamp
program, the social nutrition program, the feeding programs.
Okay. We worked for months. But as things have gone along, the
process has changed. Now, instead of $4 billion, then it was $6
billion, then it was $8 billion. Now I understand we are at $10.6
billion in new social nutrition spending.
I don't disagree with that. But when you are not given any new money
to start with, when you are placed under a $10 billion mandate, it
makes it hard to do all of the things that need to be done with the few
precious resources you have.
Now we have worked in the most creative way to come up with
additional revenue, to reallocate resources to meet that $10 billion
mandate from senior leadership in the majority. And along the way we
have come up with $4 billion extra for conservation, half of that money
going to EQIP, the basic cost share program that everyone has an
opportunity to apply for to try and justify the benefits that will be
generated from it to have the resources to meet those needs.
My friends, I know my colleagues are well-intended. I sincerely
believe that. But a farm bill, first and foremost, should be about
making sure that every American has access to the safest, highest
quality, yes, most affordable food and fiber in the world. Then we can
target all of these other programs. Then we can meet all these other
needs.
Let's don't lose sight of why we have farm bills. Let's not lose
sight of who they help, and that is every American that eats, and a
good part of the world that depends on us for their food suppliers
also.
The budget times are tough. The circumstances are difficult. It has
been a long and arduous conference. We have yet to produce a final
report, which we will all then be able to debate and discuss. But don't
direct us in a way that makes the process more complicated when it
comes to meeting all of those needs. Don't tie our hands in a fashion
that will lead, I am afraid, to a net reduction in the ultimate benefit
of those taxpayer dollars, so hard for the taxpayers to come by, that
need to be spent so carefully to maximize their return.
Let us pursue the agenda of meeting our needs.
Witht that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve what time I might have left.
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the comments of my good friend
from Oklahoma and the hard work that he has done. But these are two
individuals who serve on the Agriculture Committee. In fact, my friend
from Pennsylvania is the Chair of the subcommittee in charge of this
conservation title. My friend from Oklahoma is the ranking member of
the subcommittee in charge of the conservation title.
All we are asking them and the conferees from the House to do is to
protect their programs and to protect their funding level, that which
was contained in the House-passed version of the farm bill last year.
That is a simple request, and it received good support in the House
when it left last year.
But there is an additional wrinkle that was just introduced, to my
knowledge, within the last 24 hours, and that
[[Page 7538]]
is the consideration to start capping payments under the conservation
title. I think that would result in bad policy. I think it is going to
result in a lot of unintended consequences, because these conservation
practices aren't marketable, unlike the subsidies going to commodity
crop producers, where they grow something and they can sell it in the
marketplace.
To get a farmer to have a good manure management system in place or
to have buffer strips and that, they can't take that outside then and
sell it to the private marketplace. So these incentives are important
to partner with the individual landowner to get them to do the right
thing on their own land. And they want to do the right thing on their
own land.
That is why two out of every three of them are being denied funding
right now, because of the inadequacy of funds. The demand is exceeding
the supply. We are saying let's try to catch up to that demand right
now, which brings huge societal benefits at the same time, to enhance
quality water supply throughout our country. And I still believe that
is going to be one of the major challenges we face, not only in this
country, but throughout the world in this century. How are we going to
maintain a quality water supply? And if we can't partner to the level
they expect in farm country, it is going to make that challenge all the
more difficult.
So I would hope the conferees in their discussion and last minute
deliberations of where they are going to find a nickel or dime in order
to pay for things don't go down that road of trying to cap these
conservation payments, like many of us have been proposing under the
commodity title.
{time} 1530
I think we can pay for what we are requesting in this motion through
some more commonsense reasonable reforms under the title I commodity
program, starting at another look at these so-called direct payments.
They are slated to go for another $25 billion over the next 5 years
alone. In fact, unfortunately Mr. Flake's motion to instruct failed a
little bit earlier, but all he was asking is, let's just keeping those
direct payments at the current funding level, a maximum of $40,000
instead of increasing it at a time of high commodity prices. Not an
unreasonable request.
But what is being considered now going from $40,000 up to $50,000 for
these direct payments and having dual entities on the same farm to
qualify for it.
I also believe it is reasonable to take another look, as the
President and the administration is asking, for us to have a stricter
means test under the commodity programs. Let's face it, a $950,000
adjusted gross income cutoff is in the stratosphere for most
individuals in this country. We are talking adjusted gross now, not
just gross income. This is after you back out your expenses and all the
costs of operating that farm. That is close to $1 million of profit we
are talking about that an individual would receive, and still receive
these commodity subsidy payments under what is being proposed in the
conference.
So I think there is plenty of savings that can still be had without
cutting the legs off of our producers while maintaining an important
safety net in case things do turn bad in farm country. And Lord knows
we have seen that cycle come and go in the past. But let's do it in a
more fiscally responsible manner and maximize the scarce resources that
we have for the benefit of the community at large, and that includes
funding under the conservation title.
A few groups have already weighed in on this motion to instruct and
have expressed their support, from the Environmental Defense Fund,
National Wildlife Federation, the World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of
Wildlife, Environmental Working Group, American Rivers, those who have
been actively engaged in participating and trying to shape this next
farm bill. We still have an opportunity because the conference has not
closed, no report has been filed yet. There is going to be some last-
minute negotiations. But ultimately, at the end of the day, if my
colleagues are serious about having a farm bill concluded and
implemented into law, the President has to be comfortable in doing it,
and clearly he is not there yet, the administration is not there. And
they are pressing the conference to do more in reforming these
commodity programs.
We can choose to ignore that, but at the end of the day the President
has got to sign something into law, or we have to try to override a
veto, which I think is going to be very, very difficult. So I think
there is still a way of working with the administration, trying to
produce a product that they feel comfortable with, that the President
feels comfortable with. And one of the ways to do it is more reform
under commodity, and have a strong conservation title at the end of the
day. The President has consistently expressed his support for a strong
conservation title. I don't think they would object to the requests
that we are making here in this motion to instruct.
And let's remind ourselves, this is another way of providing help and
assistance to those who are working the land in our country. This isn't
separate from the help in other areas that we try to provide to family
farmers; it is in addition to it, it is a supplement. And it is
something that benefits every farmer in every region, and including all
people throughout the country, instead of the concentrated payments
that we see under the current title I commodity program.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
For my colleagues' information, I have no further speakers. I believe
I have the right to close. I am prepared to do that if they are ready
to close, too.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is correct.
Mr. HOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
My friend from Oregon has left the Chamber, but I appreciate him
looking out after the farmers in Pennsylvania. But I would just like to
remind him that Pennsylvania leads the country in farmland
preservation, and we have doubled the investment for farmland
preservation in this conference report as we are working it through.
I also would like to remind my friend that not only have we preserved
the dairy safety net, and dairy being the number one agriculture
industry in Pennsylvania, that is very important; we have a new program
that we are working on in the conference to have a feed cost adjustment
as the cost of feed goes up, and that will be a great benefit to the
farmers in Pennsylvania and in Wisconsin for that as the cost of feed
goes up.
Also, we have for specialty crops, the first time, a $1.3 billion
investment that will help farmers all across the country, but they will
help them in Pennsylvania as well. So I appreciate my friend trying to
help me out.
And I would just say to my friend from Wisconsin again, and repeating
ourselves, that we are restrained. We were working with $13.6 billion;
we now are working with $10 billion. The commodity title has been cut
by tens of billions of dollars from the last farm bill. There is
significant reform that we are going to accomplish. And the gentleman
knows, because he served on the committee, that we have regional
differences, and it is difficult to get consensus because of the
geographical makeup of the committee.
So we are going to get there and we are going to fund conservation,
but I would like to make one last point to the gentleman's comments
about capping on conservation programs. We have noticed and discovered
recently that there have been significant abuses in the conservation
title, where wealthy people have purchased farms with no intention of
farming and have become eligible to the tune of millions of dollars for
conservation programs. That was not the intent, I don't believe, in any
farm bill I ever voted for or the gentleman from Wisconsin voted for or
the gentleman from Oklahoma. We never intended that. So the way to get
around that is to have caps on that. And not only will you stop the
abuses
[[Page 7539]]
if you put caps on it from millionaires taking advantage of it, you
will have more dollars to spread around to more people who are on those
waiting lists right now.
My friend, we all wish we could do more. The gentleman from Oklahoma
chaired the subcommittee when we began having hearings on it. With the
last election, I became the chairman and he is now the ranking member.
We are working very closely together. But we have limited resources. We
are going to do the best we can, but we need a bill that we can get out
of committee, get passed on this floor, passed in the Senate, and sent
down to the President. And we are working very hard on that. I believe
we are going to get a product that will get the majority of support
significantly in this body.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, might I inquire how much time, if any, I have
left.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma has 9\1/2\
minutes remaining.
Mr. LUCAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.
I would simply note, one of the challenges of any farm bill,
certainly every farm bill since the 1960s, has been the payment
limitation issue. Every farm bill we tighten the definition, every farm
bill we attempt to reflect the will of this body. We will do that again
this time.
The question about payment limitations on the conservation programs,
that is an inevitable outcome, simply the fact that there will never,
ever be enough money to do everything we all want to do. And in a year
and a bill when we put 10 billion additional dollars in the nutritional
program, no doubt justified, but that was a decision made on high, that
makes funding for all these other programs even more challenging. $4
billion in additional conservation spending is an impressive
accomplishment in the circumstances we work, but those payment
limitations are a necessary thing, just as in conservation as in every
other part of the bill to make sure that everyone has a fair and
equitable chance at those resources.
When you apply for an EQIP program, you have to demonstrate the
benefits of that program. And the more beneficial your efforts are, the
greater your chances are, the farther up the list you are to be funded.
It is a competitive kind of a process. And that is good. But those
payment limitations will make sure that more people have an opportunity
to step into the process to utilize those funds. We are dealing with
the money that has been given to us. We are working under the
circumstances that have been laid out, and we are doing the best we
can.
I urge my colleagues to reject the motion to instruct.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.
Just to wrap up my remarks, let me just reiterate. I truly do
appreciate the hard work my colleagues here today on the Agriculture
Committee have been doing to try to craft a farm bill that can get
accomplished yet this year. It is one of the most difficult things that
Members are asked to do in any Congress, is to piece together the
parochial and the different interests that span this great country to
find an acceptable farm bill that can get signed into law. But we still
have a little ways to go.
And I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, as far as the feed factor
with dairy production, there is no question that fixed costs are going
up right now in agricultural production driven by a variety of factors,
not the least of which is the energy debacle that we find ourselves in
right now.
But I think once we start going down to that feed route, we are going
to get a lot of other groups now chiming in saying: What about us? What
about us? How come dairy is being taken care of? What about poultry?
What about beef? What about the others that are experiencing the same
type of cost increases? And then you are really talking about blowing
the lid off of some of these other programs.
But all that I and others who are in support of this motion to
instruct are asking is for the members of the committee to defend their
work, defend the programs that passed the House last year, defend the
funding level that came out of the House last year because of the vital
importance that these programs have, not only to the individual land
producers, but to the resources that are so precious to all of us in
this country.
Now we see disturbing trends; because of the high commodity prices,
great pressure to bring more highly erodible sensitive land back into
production. And there will be adverse consequences from that, unless we
can maintain a viable incentive based system with these conservation
programs to deal with that additional pressure that producers are
facing throughout the Nation.
I think there is a better way of dealing with the abuses that my
friend from Pennsylvania highlighted under the conservation program.
Certainly we can do more oversight and get more information with
regards to whether individuals are milking the system. No one is in
support of that. We want to clamp down on it. But let's work with USDA
and NRCS and those agencies in charge of implementing it, rather than
calling for a blanket payment limitation cap with crucial conservation
funding. Because, again, I am afraid that without these incentives in
place, I don't care how wealthy you are, there won't be much incentive
for you to engage in these type of programs, which just doesn't benefit
the landowner but the community and the watershed area and the wildlife
at large. So we need to be careful what road we are going to go down.
And, hopefully, this isn't just a response to some of us who have
been asking for meaningful payment limitations and means testing under
the commodity program just to get back at those who have been very
supportive of conservation funding.
I think there are reasonable means tests we can apply to the
commodity title. The fact that LDP and countercyclical payments aren't
going up today I think is a good thing. That means farm income is up
and commodity prices are up.
Back home in Wisconsin, in the agriculture district that I represent,
farmers for years have come up to me and said: You know, I'm not a big
fan of these subsidy programs, but I just wish the market would give us
a decent price so we wouldn't have to rely on them. Well, that day has
come. Now today I have got producers in corn and soybean coming up to
me and saying: Ron, why are we still receiving these direct subsidy
payments when we are getting such a good price in the marketplace? And
they are right. Farmers know how these programs are working.
I think we can be a little bolder and more courageous in the reforms
that some of us have been advocating, find those savings, so we can
deal with conservation, nutrition, world development, speciality crops,
and having a good energy title to this farm bill, too. This can happen,
and it can happen in a way that the President feels comfortable in
signing. And that will truly be a good bipartisan day then in the
United States Congress. I encourage my friends to support this motion
to instruct the conferees.
Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Kind motion
to instruct conferees and the need for increased conservation funding
in the farm bill.
Our farmers are eager to share in the cost of protecting our
environment, but currently two out of three farmers are turned away by
the USDA due to insufficient funding when they apply to participate in
conservation programs. As a result, we continue to lose thousands of
acres of valuable farmland, grasslands, wetlands, and private forest
lands. We also fall further behind schedule in our efforts to clean up
rivers, lakes and streams.
We cannot and should not ask farmers to choose between their bottom
line and smart, sensible preservation of the land they protect. The
House-passed version of the farm bill contained a landmark increase of
$5.7 billion in authorized conservation funding. This money supports
programs that protect our most sensitive and ecologically important
lands, keeps soil and nutrient pollution out of our rivers, lakes and
streams, and safeguards wetlands.
[[Page 7540]]
Since the conference committee is weighing various priorities as they
try to bring the farm bill process to a close, it is important they
know that Members of this House feel that conservation should be at the
top of the priority list and that we maintain what the House has
already passed.
I strongly encourage my colleagues to support this motion and to
support the inclusion of the necessary conservation funding in this
farm bill.
Mr. KIND. I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion to instruct.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct
offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
____________________
APPOINTMENT OF HON. STENY HOYER AND HON. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN TO ACT AS
SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE TO SIGN ENROLLED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
THROUGH MAY 5, 2008
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cuellar) laid before the House the
following communication from the Speaker:
Washington, DC,
May 1, 2008.
I hereby appoint the Honorable Steny H. Hoyer and the
Honorable Chris Van Hollen to act as Speaker pro tempore to
sign enrolled bills and joint resolutions through May 5,
2008.
Nancy Pelosi,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the appointment is
approved.
There was no objection.
____________________
BLOCKING PROPERTY AND PROHIBITING CERTAIN TRANSACTIONS RELATED TO
BURMA--MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (H. DOC. NO.
110-107)
The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House the following message
from the President of the United States; which was read and, together
with the accompanying papers, without objection, referred to the
Committee on Foreign Affairs and ordered to be printed:
To the Congress of the United States:
Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50
U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an
Executive Order (the ``order'') that takes additional steps with
respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13047 of
May 20, 1997, and expanded in Executive Order 13448 of October 18,
2007.
In 1997, the United States put in place a prohibition on new
investment in Burma in response to the Government of Burma's large
scale repression of the democratic opposition in that country. On July
28, 2003, those sanctions were expanded by steps taken in Executive
Order 13310, which contained prohibitions implementing sections 3 and 4
of the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-61)
(the ``Act'') and supplemented that Act with additional restrictions.
On October 18, 2007, I determined that the Government of Burma's
continued repression of the democratic opposition in Burma, manifested
at the time in the violent response to peaceful demonstrations, the
commission of human rights abuses related to political repression, and
engagement in public corruption, including by diverting or misusing
Burmese public assets or by misusing public authority, warranted an
expansion of the then-existing sanctions. Executive Order 13448, issued
on that date, incorporated existing designation criteria set forth in
Executive Order 13310, blocked the property and interests in property
of persons listed in the Annex to that Executive Order, and provided
additional criteria for designations of certain other persons.
The order supplements the existing designation criteria set forth in
Executive Order 13310, as incorporated in and expanded by Executive
Order 13448. The order blocks the property and interests in property in
the United States of persons listed in the Annex to the order and
provides additional criteria for designations of persons determined by
the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Secretary of
State, to be owned or controlled by, directly or indirectly, the
Government of Burma or an official or officials of the Government of
Burma; to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial,
material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in
support of, the Government of Burma, the State Peace and Development
Council of Burma, the Union Solidarity and Development Association of
Burma, any successor entity to any of the foregoing, any senior
official of any of the foregoing, or any person whose property and
interests in property are blocked pursuant to Executive Order 13310,
Executive Order 13448, or the order; or to be owned or controlled by,
or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or
indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are
blocked pursuant to Executive Order 13310, Executive Order 13448, or
the order.
The order leaves in place the existing prohibitions on new
investment, the exportation or reexportation to Burma of financial
services, and the importation of any article that is a product of
Burma, which were put into effect in Executive Order 13047 and
Executive Order 13310.
The order authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, after
consultation with the Secretary of State, to take such actions,
including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all
powers granted to the President by IEEPA and section 4 of the Burmese
Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 as may be necessary to carry out the
purposes of the order.
I am enclosing a copy of the Executive Order I have issued.
George W. Bush.
The White House, April 30, 2008.
____________________
{time} 1545
SPECIAL ORDERS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, and under a previous order of the House, the
following Members will be recognized for 5 minutes each.
____________________
U.S. MILITARY READINESS HANGS BY A THREAD
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, in matters of national security,
experienced leaders never forget that the unexpected is always just
around the corner and that danger is never far away. The Roman orator
Cicero immortalized these ideas in his story about the Sword of
Damocles.
Damocles, a citizen of the ancient Greek city of Syracuse, wanted to
be king for a day. The king agreed to this request, and Damocles
feasted and reveled with wine and fine meals. Only after his
merrymaking did Damocles discover that a razor-sharp sword, suspended
by a single thread, hung over his head all day. Damocles was
immediately cured of his desire to rule.
When I consider the challenges confronting the U.S. national security
today, I see not one but two swords of Damocles dangling above us. The
first danger concerns the strain current operations place on U.S.
military readiness, and the second concerns the deterioration of
security and stability in Afghanistan.
Military readiness ratings measure how prepared U.S. forces are to
perform their assigned combat missions. Unfortunately, but not
surprisingly, more than 6 years of war have resulted in serious
readiness shortfalls, with our Army and Marine Corps ground forces
[[Page 7541]]
experiencing the most acute problems. In spite of efforts to fill the
gaps in equipment, training and personnel, readiness deficiencies
serious enough to cause alarm last year have only continued to expand.
Today, two-thirds of the Army's combat brigades in the United States
are not ready for duty. Units in the U.S. are suffering from shortages
of personnel, and units are preparing for deployment without having all
of their assigned personnel or equipment during training. To fill
shortfalls in Army personnel, the Navy and Air Force are supplying over
20,000 troops to conduct ground force tasks such as convoy security and
logistics support.
While U.S. military forces are getting by, painfully, and performing
today's missions despite readiness shortfalls, we are simply not
prepared for the emergence of a new conflict. Experience tells me that
we cannot assume another crisis won't come our way. In my 31 years in
Congress, the U.S. has been involved in 12 significant military
conflicts, none of which were predicted beforehand. Because we can't
know with complete certainty what dangers lurk around the corner or
when they might strike, we need the insurance policy military readiness
provides for America's security.
Our current readiness situation demands a massive investment in time,
effort and money to restore our full capability. Of course, devoting
the resources required to solve our readiness problems will force us to
make painful tradeoffs with some elements of modernization, which is
tomorrow's readiness. But with current readiness levels, this is a
predicament our Nation cannot avoid. It is simply a cost we must bear.
The second danger I worry about is the deterioration of security and
stability in Afghanistan. For too long, the war in Iraq has
overshadowed the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan. While the
military effort there is actually a qualified success, the political
effort at this point is not, and the benefits of economic progress are
far too uneven. Too many Afghan citizens do not yet see tangible
improvements in their daily lives. The effort in Afghanistan is not
really reconstruction, but the creation of a stable, secure, and
unified nation which has never existed.
The recent decision to send an additional 3,200 marines to
Afghanistan is a necessary and positive step in the right direction,
but that alone will not be sufficient. This undertaking is gargantuan
and requires a far more significant effort than the United States or
our allies have been willing to commit. History will judge us very
harshly if our focus and effort in Afghanistan is insufficient to the
task. A failure of the mission there would not only damage our
security, it would also seriously damage NATO.
So how do we deal with these twin challenges? To start, we must focus
our Nation's strategic priorities to find the right balance between the
near-term needs and the long-term health of our military. We must
address the imbalance in our deployment and use of troops overseas,
because our readiness problems cannot be resolved as long as we
continue to deploy in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq. A responsible
redeployment of a large percentage of that force is a strategic
necessity.
In addition, we must do first things first by focusing on
Afghanistan, just as in World War II we focused more of our resources
on Germany and the war in Europe until that war was won. Finally, we
must substantially increase the use of our soft power, our diplomatic,
economic development, and strategic communications efforts in
Afghanistan and around the world.
We can and should receive much more help from our allies. Together,
the U.S. and the international community must make the war in
Afghanistan a top priority and provide the leadership, strategy, and
resources necessary to ensure that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are
destroyed for good and that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe
harbor for terrorists.
To his great credit, Secretary of Defense Gates has been arguing for
several of these solutions. The truth is, though, that the U.S. has as
much or more to lose in Afghanistan as any other nation, and the same
would be true of whatever new conflicts emerge. Until our country is
prepared to lead and act decisively, these problems will fester, and
the threads holding up those twin swords will stretch ever thinner.
____________________
TRAGIC ANNIVERSARY OF ``MISSION ACCOMPLISHED''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, today marks a tragic anniversary. Five
years ago President Bush delivered his infamous ``Mission
Accomplished'' speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Across this country, Americans are holding rallies and vigils to mark
this occasion. And members of the International Longshoremen and
Warehouse Unions are giving up a day's pay and they are marching in the
streets to show their opposition to the failed policies of the Bush
administration and of the cost of those policies.
We all remember that the President put on a green flight suit and
white helmet and arrived in the copilot seat of a Navy Viking jet. Then
he stood at a podium beneath a big ``Mission Accomplished'' banner and
he spoke.
He said the search for weapons of mass destruction had already begun,
and he declared that ``major combat operations in Iraq have ended.''
Obviously, the American people didn't get the real facts that day,
Mr. Speaker. So here's what should have been said. He should have said:
``My fellow Americans, our soldiers have performed with great skill and
courage. But, frankly, the administration doesn't have a clue what to
do next.''
It didn't have a plan for the occupation. It didn't have an exit
strategy. And the people who actually understand the history and
culture of Iraq were warning us that there were going to be
insurgencies and civil war. He should have said: ``Major combat
operations have not ended--they have just begun.''
Today I joined with my Out-of-Iraq Caucus colleagues, Maxine Waters
and Barbara Lee, to send a Dear Colleague Letter that describes the
terrible human cost of the bungling in Iraq. It shows that over 96
percent of all American deaths in Iraq and over 98 percent of all
casualties have taken place since the ``Mission Accomplished'' speech.
But you don't have to look, Mr. Speaker, at the cumulative
devastation of the past 5 years to know that the occupation is a
disaster. Just look at what happened in April, April of 2008, last
month: Fifty American soldiers died, the highest number in 7 months.
Thousands of innocent civilians were killed or injured in the bloody
battle at Sadr City which continues to rage. The Pentagon was forced to
extend the ``stop-loss'' policy because our military is stretched to
its limits.
And as the administration acknowledged that al Qaeda is growing
stronger in its safe havens in Pakistan, the drumbeat for war against
Iran grew louder.
Here at home, the occupation continues to be a factor in driving gas
prices higher. The Iraq recession continues in full swing. And every
week, billions of dollars continue to be spent on military operations
in Iraq that are desperately needed for domestic programs right here.
Sheer incompetence has surely been one reason for this. But the most
important reason for our failure in Iraq is the fatally flawed national
security policy. It has been a policy marked by arrogance, by the
belief that America can go it alone and has the right to strike
anywhere and anytime it pleases. And by the idea that military power
alone can assure our security.
I hope we will use this ``Mission Accomplished'' anniversary date in
a positive way so we can learn the lessons of the past 5 years and
dedicate ourselves to a new foreign policy that will serve us much
better. This new policy must be based on diplomacy; international
cooperation; the rule of law; rejection of the doctrine of preemption
and the use of torture; and, a commitment to helping other nations of
the world to build a better life for their citizens.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, on this ``Mission Accomplished'' day, we must
ask
[[Page 7542]]
ourselves: What is America's mission? The American people believe that
our mission is to stand up for the values of democracy, for human
rights, and for peace. Those are the values that the dock workers are
standing up for today. Those are the values that have been ignored and
predictably resulted in disastrous results.
____________________
{time} 1600
SUNSET MEMORIAL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I stand once again before this
House with yet another Sunset Memorial.
It is May 1, 2008, in the land of the free and the home of the brave,
and before the sun set today in America, almost 4,000 more defenseless
unborn children were killed by abortion on demand. That's just today,
Mr. Speaker. That's more than the number of innocent lives lost on
September 11 in this country, only it happens every day.
It has now been exactly 12,883 days since the tragedy called Roe v.
Wade was first handed down. Since then, the very foundation of this
Nation has been stained by the blood of almost 50 million of its own
children. Some of them, Mr. Speaker, died and screamed as they did so,
but because it was amniotic fluid passing over the vocal cords instead
of air, no one could hear them.
And all of them had at least four things in common. First, they were
each just little babies who had done nothing wrong to anyone, and each
one of them died a nameless and lonely death. And each one of their
mothers, whether she realizes it or not, will never be quite the same.
And all the gifts that these children might have brought to humanity
are now lost forever. Yet even in the glare of such tragedy, this
generation still clings to a blind, invincible ignorance while history
repeats itself and our own silent genocide mercilessly annihilates the
most helpless of all victims, those yet unborn.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps it's time for those of us in this Chamber to
remind ourselves of why we are really all here. Thomas Jefferson said,
``The care of human life and its happiness and not its destruction is
the chief and only object of good government.'' The phrase in the 14th
amendment capsulizes our entire Constitution, it says, ``No State shall
deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of
law.'' Mr. Speaker, protecting the lives of our innocent citizens and
their constitutional rights is why we are all here.
The bedrock foundation of this Republic is the clarion declaration of
the self-evident truth that all human beings are created equal and
endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. Every conflict and battle our Nation has
ever faced can be traced to our commitment to this core, self-evident
truth.
It has made us the beacon of hope for the entire world. Mr. Speaker,
it is who we are.
And yet today another day has passed, and we in this body have failed
again to honor that foundational commitment. We have failed our sworn
oath and our God-given responsibility as we broke faith with nearly
4,000 more innocent American babies who died today without the
protection we should have given them.
Mr. Speaker, let me conclude in the hope that perhaps someone new who
heard this Sunset Memorial tonight will finally embrace the truth that
abortion really does kill little babies; that it hurts mothers in ways
that we can never express; and that 12,883 days spent killing nearly 50
million unborn children in America is enough; and that the America that
rejected human slavery and marched into Europe to arrest the Nazi
Holocaust is still courageous and compassionate enough to find a better
way for mothers and their unborn babies than abortion on demand.
So tonight, Mr. Speaker, may we each remind ourselves that our own
days in this sunshine of life are also numbered and that all too soon
each one of us will walk from these Chambers for the very last time.
And if it should be that this Congress is allowed to convene on yet
another day to come, may that be the day when we finally hear the cries
of innocent unborn children. May that be the day when we find the
humanity, the courage, and the will to embrace together our human and
our constitutional duty to protect these, the least of our tiny, little
American brothers and sisters from this murderous scourge upon our
Nation called abortion on demand.
It is May 1, 2008, 12,883 days since Roe versus Wade first stained
the foundation of this Nation with the blood of its own children, this
in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
____________________
OUR WORSENING HEALTH CARE CRISIS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, we are in the midst of the ``Cover the
Uninsured Week,'' and I rise to remind the Chamber of the worsening
health care crisis that we face as a Nation, and propose a solution to
one of the biggest challenges of the 21st Century facing us.
Lack of health insurance often denies necessary medical care. Forty
seven million Americans are uninsured. This problem is not limited to
the poor or the unemployed. Researchers have estimated that about four-
fifths of the uninsured are either employed or members of a family with
an employed adult.
As well, there are an additional 50 million Americans who are
underinsured; that is, they have coverage that would not protect them
from catastrophic medical expenses. Simply put, an increasing number of
Americans lack adequate health insurance because they and their
employers simply cannot afford it.
Despite the challenges of the war in Iraq and the slumping economy,
we all agree that the uninsured need to be covered. Even the health
insurance companies have their own plan for covering the uninsured. I'm
glad that we're on the same page, after all these years.
The real question we face is, how do we go about covering the
uninsured? And how do we ensure that every American has access to
quality medical care when they need it?
I strongly believe in a single-payer national health insurance, an
approach that has been too often marginalized in debates on this issue,
even though it has been successfully employed in almost every
industrial nation except our own.
Mr. Speaker, it's time for Congress to consider single-payer, not
only as a viable option to cover the uninsured, but as the preferred
solution to fix our broken health care system. And make no mistake
about it, it is in very bad shape.
According to a January 2007 article in the Journal of Health Affairs,
France, Japan and Australia rated best, and the United States worst in
new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable
conditions, in 19 leading industrialized nations.
The article revealed that if the United States health care system
performed as well as those top three countries, there'd be 101,000
fewer deaths in the United States each year.
Equally disturbing, the Institute of Medicine reports that 20,000
Americans die each year as a direct result of having no health
insurance. How can we, in the Congress, who receive fairly decent
health care, tell 47 million uninsured Americans that they cannot have
access to health care?
With the knowledge that 20,000 Americans die each year without health
insurance, how can we, in Congress, who do have health insurance, not
place universal health care as a front burner issue in this chamber?
This is a moral challenge that we all must pick up. And
incrementalism will not work. Expanding a broken system or fixing parts
of it will not work. We must approach the health care solution the same
way a physician approaches the treatment of disease. Doctors do not
employ treatments only because they are easy or feasible. They choose
evidence-based solutions based upon peer-reviewed research in order to
employ the most state-of-the-art care available. And so I propose we
take the same approach to crafting a universal health care plan.
So today, I ask the following question: What further disaster must
befall us before we face the crisis of the uninsured and the
underinsured?
How many more people must die due to the inability to receive care in
the world's healthiest Nation before we, in
[[Page 7543]]
Congress, take action and create a truly universal health care system?
For those who believe that we are not ready to have a universal
health care system, and must delay the formation of a comprehensive,
national health insurance program, I ask you to consider the following
evidence that demonstrates why we can ill afford delaying action on a
universal health care system.
Health care horror stories are cases in which the result is so tragic
that it shocks the conscience. We hear about them almost every day, in
the newspapers, magazines, the Internet, television, radio, personal
encounters with our friends and neighbors.
In the movie ``Sicko'' we, as a Nation, saw firsthand how even those
with health insurance suffer under the current, for profit, employer-
based private health insurance system.
In my office, I receive scores of health care horror stories each
month, and have binders in my office of health care tragedies that we
have collected over the last 8 years. In fact, when Michael Moore was
doing research for ``Sicko'' he received 25,000 health care horror
stories himself, after he made an appeal for those horror stories on
his website.
I'd like to read a health care horror story sent to us by Adrienne
Campbell from Michigan, a story, that, unfortunately, millions of
Americans who are underinsured or uninsured can relate to. Here's her
story.
My sister, who is 22 years old right now, was diagnosed with cervical
cancer, the same cancer I had at the same age. She graduated from
college back in December, so she is off my dad's insurance.
Jobs are hard to find here in Michigan, so she's working two part-
time jobs, and neither of them provide insurance for part-time workers.
She has to go through what I did, but instead of actually being able
to get medical treatment right away, then having to pay for it, she has
to put off until she and the hospital can work out a payment plan. They
told her the soonest they might be able to perform the surgery will be
in April.
We've been calling around seeking other options. She's at Stage 4. I
was at Stage 2, when I went through my ordeal, so she's in much worse
condition than I was; which worries me.
This is unacceptable. It's like I am living my horror all over again,
only this is my sister. This is why we have to fight. We have to shake
things up this election year.
There's nothing you can do for my sister at this point, except keep
her in your prayers, and I hope that she can get surgery soon. But, for
those women who may get cervical cancer down the road, let's fight for
universal health care so they don't have to go through the money
worries.
I love my sister, Victoria, or as my daughter calls her, Aunt Gickie,
because she can't say Vickie.
Please, just keep her in your prayers and thoughts. Thanks for
letting me vent. I love her too much to see this happen to her.
Mr. Speaker, we do not have a health care system in this country.
What exists is a fragmented, nonsystem of health care. It's a wasteful
and inefficient patchwork of different plans and schemes that allow too
many people to fall between the cracks.
The complexity of this nonsystem is what makes it unsustainable.
Private health insurers are in the business to make a profit. Make no
mistake about it. In fact, the real problem is that insurance companies
are not as much in the business to provide care as they are in the
business to deny care. They keep profits up by avoiding high risk
patients, limiting the coverage of those they do insure, and passing
costs back to patients through copayments and deductibles.
They deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, including such
costly diseases as athletes foot and yeast infections.
They employ an army of adjusters who go through mountains of
paperwork, all mostly working to figure out a way to deny a claim. We
have the story of insurance company whistleblower, Dr. Linda Pino, who
tells us she was paid a bonus on how many claims that she could deny,
and threatened with demotion if she authorized payment on more claims
than her peers.
These practices are harmful. They're expensive. All those adjusters
and paperwork cost a lot of money. Add to that insurance costs the
insurance company's spending on advertising, huge executive salaries,
and profits for shareholders, and the result is an average overhead of
15 cents on the dollar. Compare that with Medicare's overhead which is
between 2 and 3 cents.
The complexity of this nonsystem not only leads to gaps in coverage
and navigating nightmares, but it's underscored by the duplicity and
waste created by the multitude of health insurance companies.
Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased now to recognize the gentleman from Ohio,
who's been on this plan for--several Congresses ago he was and is the
original co-founder and original signer with me to this bill. He's
worked relentlessly in the Congress and across the country in making it
clear that we're working on a system that some day is going to bring so
much joy and benefit to the millions of Americans in this country. He's
a fearless, dedicated, articulate leader, and I would now yield to my
colleague, Dennis Kucinich.
{time} 1615
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to
work with Mr. Conyers on this important bill. Years ago, when we were
having those meetings where the legislation was being crafted, we both
knew what an important moment it would be for the people of the United
States to be able to have a health care system they could call their
own. So I want to take this opportunity, as I begin my remarks, to
salute the work of you, Chairman Conyers, and all that you have done
and your dedication in working to make sure that the American people
have a national health care system, a not-for-profit system. That's
been your dedication. It has been an honor to work alongside of you in
this endeavor.
As we speak today about covering the uninsured, we speak to the
American people who are worried about whether loved ones are going to
be able to get the care that they need. There is nothing that is more
troubling to a family than to have a family member who is ill and yet
cannot get the medical care that would be necessary to bring them back
to health. There are 50 million Americans who are uninsured. This means
that when they see others able to get the care they need, they
recognize in their own families that they cannot sustain the health of
loved ones or themselves.
Why is it that people are uninsured? Well, there are many reasons,
but the principal reason is they simply cannot afford health insurance.
You know and I know, Mr. Chairman, that there are so many families
that are called upon to spend $1,000 or more a month for health
insurance. The price of gasoline going up to more than $4 a gallon, the
cost of bread going up, milk, eggs, meat, all basic staples of an
American diet, costs going up, up, up. People are finding that the
costs of health insurance is becoming prohibitive. And so they simply
can't afford it. So they remain uninsured, thereby leaving their entire
family health open to a challenge.
How many of us would be able to survive financially being uninsured?
Very few, because what happens is that if you're uninsured and you have
health care bills, you're going to have to pay those bills. And you
know that the greatest cause of bankruptcy in the United States relates
to people not being able to pay their hospital or their doctor bills.
That's a fact of life. There is no other issue which touches the
American family and touches all of us so uniquely as this issue of
health insurance. People can't afford it.
This is a tragic problem, and it's getting worse. About 22,000 people
die every year because they're not insured; this, according to the
updated Institute of Medicine Statistic. But we cannot talk about the
uninsured without talking about the underinsured as well.
There are another 50 million Americans who are underinsured. Now
think
[[Page 7544]]
about it. 50 million uninsured, 50 million underinsured. 100 million
Americans. One out of every three Americans is touched by this dilemma,
and that means virtually every American family is either uninsured or
underinsured. If you're underinsured, premiums are expensive, you may
not be able to pay the premium to get the coverage you need, Co-pays
and deductibles go higher and higher and higher. The American family is
owned by the health insurance companies.
What kind of a country are we becoming where the people of this
country can't get the care they need because almost $1 out of every $3
is taken off the top by the for-profit insurance companies for
advertising, marketing, the cost of paperwork, corporate profits, stock
options, executive salaries, all of those necessary things that Mr.
Conyers has talked about in the past. $700 billion a year goes for
expenses that are totally unrelated to the cost of health care. $700
billion a year. Meanwhile, you have 50 million uninsured and another 50
million underinsured. The insurance companies own us. We don't own our
own health care system.
And the insurance industry is the reason for the underinsurance
problem and all that goes with it. Half of all bankruptcies are tied to
medical bills. And of those medical bankruptcies, listen to this,
three-quarters of those had insurance before they got sick. So even
with insurance, people are going bankrupt because they can't handle the
co-pays and the deductibles.
Of all of the medical bankruptcies in the United States, three of
every four people had some kind of insurance before they got sick. They
fell victim to insurance companies whose only way to make money is to
deny care. How do these insurance companies make so much money? They
make money by not providing health care. They make money telling
people, We're not going to pay that claim. You're not going to be
covered. The more people they can exclude, the more money they will
make. It is a racket. Health care is a racket. Health insurance,
rather, is a racket.
It is time we took America in a new direction, which is what the
Conyers' bill, that I am proud to be a co-author of, is all about. H.R.
676 is to provide for a universal, single payer, not-for-profit health
care system. It finally puts health care back in the hands of the
doctors and the patients. It eliminates the insurance companies as
middle persons, middlemen, who are able to skim almost $1 out of $3 off
the top while 50 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 are
underinsured.
We need to make a clear distinction between ``health care'' and
``health insurance.'' The two are very different. Doctors and nurses
are not the same as health insurance CEOs. Doctors and nurses provide
care. Insurance companies' CEOs, they deny it. There's a difference
between health care and health insurance. If you have insurance, it
doesn't mean you have health care. There are increasingly creative and
complex ways to deny health care: co-pays, deductibles, premiums,
limits on daily coverage, caps on annual amount spent, failing to cover
certain medical conditions, failing to cover certain accidents, failing
to cover certain drugs, failing to cover certain total spending
amounts, like the privatized Medicare Part D donut hole, failing to
cover hospital stays, or minimizing the coverage.
What has this hunt for profitability in health insurance cost us?
Well, it's cost us a lot of money. It's driving up health care costs
beyond the reach of most Americans. Listen to this statistic: between
1970 and 1998, the number of doctors and other clinical personnel
increased by 2.5-fold. During the same time, the number of health
administrators increased more than 24-fold. There's an explosion of the
number of people in the health care system who do not provide care.
They instead are told to deny care.
It boils down to this: The insurance industry is the problem. It is
not the solution. The only way to truly cover everyone is to guarantee
access, not to force working men and women to subsidize the insurance
industry whose very presence forces people to pay out of pocket to keep
the industry alive. We need health care run by doctors and their
patients, not insurance companies. Health care is a basic human right.
So Mr. Conyers, I just want to express to you my appreciation for the
work that you have done to bring this issue before the American people.
To have had the opportunity over many of the last few Congresses to
work with you on this has really been an honor.
And when we remember when we go back home, you to Detroit and me to
Cleveland, and we see people who need care, our hearts break when we
realize that they can't get it because insurance has just ended up
being a big business and they don't care about people anymore. It's all
about making money. All about profit.
So Mr. Conyers and I know that H.R. 676 stands alone in an
increasingly crowded field of ideas that are going to provide health
care for people. And this proposal addresses the accessibility problem.
Employer-based insurance requires people to continue to work in order
to keep their insurance even if it worsens their health. Now, I know
Mr. Conyers worked with the UAW for years and years before coming into
Congress. What happens if you lose your job? People end up, after their
COBRA benefits are gone, they lose their health insurance. Our proposal
says if you lose your job, you're still insured. If you don't have
money, you're still insured. If you have a pre-existing condition,
you're still insured. This covers dental care, vision care, mental
health, long-term care, prescription drugs. It's all covered.
Mr. Conyers, thank you. Thank you for your dedication to the American
people. Thank you for your willingness to lead the way, and I'm just so
grateful that I have the opportunity to work with you.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, may I say to my colleague that I am so
flattered that he remembers the days when we started out with just a
few Members. We're up somewhere about 90 now and growing every week,
every month. More and more people are joining us. And in addition,
there are growing numbers of medical professionals, doctors,
researchers, health care experts, who are all recognizing how important
what you have said is in terms of how we move out of the situation that
we're in.
Your description of the pain and suffering of so many of our citizens
because of the lack of health care leads to situations so horrible that
they truly shock the conscious.
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, you
mentioned, Mr. Conyers, that many doctors support this. When I first
ran for Congress in 1972, doctors generally opposed this idea. But
there is a new survey that just came out published in the Annals of
Internal Medicine that states that of the physicians that were
contacted in this survey, thousands of them, 59 percent of the
physicians now support a national health care plan, which is why I
believe when you have the physicians supporting it, the patients
support it, all we need is to keep adding to the numbers in the House
of Representatives; and with Mr. Conyers' leadership, we're on our way
to creating a national health care system.
Once again, I want to thank the gentleman for the opportunity to
share some time with you here. And again, the people of the United
States owe you a debt of gratitude for your relentlessness and your
dedication on this, and I intend to keep working at your side as we
move forward to create a universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health
care system. H.R. 676, the Conyers bill, is the way to go.
Thank you.
Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Congressman Kucinich.
And as our numbers grow in the Congress, you know that the American
people have already indicated in policy after policy that they want a
universal health care plan. Many are willing to even pay more to get
it, but they don't have to. And this is a labor of love which I am so
proud that nearly 100 of our colleagues are now working with us.
[[Page 7545]]
And I yield again to the gentleman.
Mr. KUCINICH. As the Chairman is always able to do, you bring up
another point that I think would be helpful to amplify, and that is
that people will say, Well, how are you going to pay for this? Well,
guess what? We're already paying for a universal standard of care;
we're just not getting it. $2.3 trillion a year goes for health care in
the United States. $2.3 trillion.
And when you consider the fact that the for-profit insurance
companies take almost $1 out of every $3 or almost $700 billion a year,
you take that $700 billion--am I right, Mr. Chairman--you put that
money into care and you suddenly have enough money to cover all
Americans, the underinsured and the uninsured are covered. So how we
pay for it is using the money that's already in the system, and that's
how much profit is in health care insurance or health insurance these
days.
{time} 1630
Mr. Speaker, once again, thank you for bringing out that point about
the fact that it is able to be covered without any current change in
our system, although we have a funding formula that you've helped to
develop that will guarantee that all Americans will be covered far into
the future.
So again, Mr. Chairman, I'm grateful the people of Detroit are
fortunate to have you representing them in the United States Congress.
Mr. CONYERS. In addition, we are creating a system of preventive
health care. We are creating a system in which people, when they
initially get sick, can go to a doctor instead of being forced to go to
emergency rooms where they get temporary treatment, and then they're
back at home or on the streets again. We will make the country
healthier. And national health care is an ambition that is very much
related to national security. So I'm pleased that all of these things
can occur with the consideration of House Resolution 676.
In the last 10 years, the cost of health care to businesses has
increased 140 percent. We need an efficient universal health care
system that protects American businesses from skyrocketing health care
costs so that, as a Nation, we can remain competitive in the global
marketplace.
The rising cost of health care in this country has played a
significant role in the current economic climate, specifically with
regard to the outsourcing of labor to foreign countries. Between 2000
and 2007, United States health premiums have risen 98 percent, while
wages have only increased by 23 percent. The average family health
insurance plan now costs more than the earnings of a full-time minimum
wage worker.
Our fractured non-system of health care is crippling our economy. But
don't take my word for it, just ask the United Automobile Workers and
the AFL-CIO, or even the automobile makers themselves. Health care has
become such a central issue for General Motors that Economists magazine
only partly in jest called the company a pension hedge fund wand health
insurance business that happens to make cars.
Ford and General Motors pay nearly $1,500 in health care costs for
each vehicle they produce, while BMW pays $450 in Germany, and Honda
only $150 per vehicle in Japan.
A General Motors executive told former Senator Tom Daschle, a
proponent of universal health care, that the high cost of health care
is the single largest impediment to creating more jobs in the United
States. An IBM executive, Senior Vice President for Human Resources Mr.
J. Randall McDonald, recently predicted that 5 years from now this
problem will have to be cured or the competitiveness of the United
States will be drastically impacted.
Small business employees are one of the fastest growing segments of
the uninsured and now comprise about one-fifth of the total uninsured
population. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius told the New York Times,
``Affordable coverage for small business owners and self-employed
individuals is probably the biggest challenge that we have in Kansas
and most states.''
Incredibly, one-fifth of working age Americans, both insured and
uninsured, have medical debt that they are paying off over time. More
than two-fifths of these people owe $2,000 or more. Medical bills are
the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, accounting for
half of the personal bankruptcies. If unpaid medical bills are the
leading cause of bankruptcy in this country, then how can we in good
conscience delay any longer in Congress to create a truly universal
health care system?
High deductibles in private health insurance plans are another
barrier to consistent care. Eleven million people with health insurance
have per-person deductibles of $1,000 or more. One recent study found
that 44 percent of adults with deductibles of $1,000 or more did not
fill a prescription, declined to see a specialist, skipped a
recommended test or treatment, or didn't see a doctor when they had a
serious medical problem.
There are additional sums spent by hospitals and doctor's offices to
deal with each insurance company's rules, regulations, and forms to
fill out. After a number of our satellite industries take a cut, we're
looking at up to 50 cents on the dollar being spent on administration,
marketing and profits. All this is money we could be spending on health
care.
Drug prices in this country are about 60 percent higher than prices
in Canada or Britain, and this is not because Big Pharma is doing so
much research and development. In fact, data from the pharmaceutical
companies' own annual reports show that they spend almost three times
as much working on marketing and administrative costs as they do on
research and development.
It is not because American companies are carrying the burden of doing
research and development for the rest of the world. Drug companies in
the European Union put out about the same number of new products each
year that American companies do. And our drug industry's research and
development gets huge taxpayer subsidies from government-supported
research done by the National Institutes of Health and American
universities. In fact, only a very small percentage of the new drugs
produced in America are in fact innovative developments. Most are
varieties of old drugs developed simply to extend patent protections so
that they can keep on charging those high, excessive prices.
The reason drugs cost more in America than anywhere else boils down
to a single factor: Profit. The drug companies have the highest profit
margins of all American corporations. Their profits as a percent of
sales run about 19 percent, compared to a median of about 5 percent for
Fortune 500 companies.
Mr. Speaker, the American people are concerned about the direction in
which our economy is heading. As we spiral headlong toward a recession,
if we're not already in one, both large corporations and small
businesses have to make difficult decisions to keep their business
afloat. For most Americans, the loss of employment means the loss of
health insurance.
The bottom line: If we can streamline the operations of the health
care system by decreasing wasteful overhead and appropriately
allocating funds, we can not only ensure the coverage of everybody in
the United States, but we can provide for true health care. And that is
an important point; coverage does not equal care.
My plan, H.R. 676, is simple. And its simplicity is the very thing
that will allow it to succeed where others will fail. Many of the plans
generally add an individual mandate and even more insurance options.
Others suggest financial mechanisms like tax credits or savings
accounts. These other plans will not guarantee coverage that is
universal, affordable or comprehensive. They fail to do anything to
decrease administrative costs or complexity, in fact, they add to it.
They can't control costs, and so ultimately they will be unsustainable.
Now, I began from the premise that health care is a basic human
right, not a privilege, a basic human right. This is the consensus
opinion of the international community, as enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and other documents.
[[Page 7546]]
I also believe that government has a fundamental role to play in
guaranteeing this right to each and all of its citizens. This is the
view of the other industrialized nations, all of which have single
payer health care systems that cover all their people, cost far less
than ours and, sadly, get more and better results in terms of health
outcomes.
I believe that health care must not be a market commodity. The market
dictates that one's ability to consume a particular product is
constrained by one's ability to pay for it. This approach may be
feasible when one is talking about buying hamburgers or tennis shoes,
but it is unacceptable when it comes to health care. Our access to
health services should be determined by only one thing, what our doctor
thinks we need. Profit should not be a factor.
Let me clarify: I do not advocate socialized or government-run health
care, such as the National Health Service in Great Britain. I propose a
plan that is publicly financed, but privately delivered, like those in
Germany or France or Taiwan.
The role of the government in the H.R. 676 proposal is limited to
collecting revenues and disbursing payments to providers. Doctors,
hospitals and clinics will continue to be run privately. I believe they
will be required to operate as not-for-profit organizations.
In a single payer system, we could do just that. We will do just
that. Revenues would flow into the system through an automatic payroll
tax, very little paperwork required. Doctors would bill the government
electronically and they would be reimbursed electronically, cutting out
the middle man, and the savings would be tremendous.
Studies by the Congressional Budget Office, the Government
Accountability Office and consultancies such as the Lewin Group
consistently find that the savings under a single payer plan would be
more than enough to cover all of the uninsured. So, in fact, it's
possible to cover all Americans under a comprehensive health plan
without spending any more money than we do now. We would just be more
efficient with it.
The two other major drivers of health inflation are the increasing
use of expensive prescription drugs and the proliferation of new and
expensive medical technologies. A single payer system would address
both these costs.
By leveraging the buying power of the Federal Government, we can
negotiate huge discounts both for drugs and for other major drivers of
health inflation such as medical technology. We can bring down the cost
of medical technology by allocating it more efficiently. As it is, we
have no organizing structure to manage the distribution of health care
resources. The result is that we have a glut of medical imaging
machines, specialists, and other medical services which are seen as
generating the most potential profit for their owners; hospital A has
one MRI machine, hospital B then feels it must have two MRI machines,
and so on. To end up with MRI machines all over town standing vacant
while we continue to spend enormous sums on acquiring more is unwise
and impractical and should be ended.
Under a single payer system, we can distribute resources more
efficiently so that we are buying MRI machines based on the need for
them, not based on how much profit they can generate for a particular
hospital.
{time} 1645
A regional board could determine, with the input of doctors and other
providers, what number of machines would be appropriate for the
population based on demographics and other factors.
Allow an explanation of how a single-payer system under H.R. 676
would work. Existing public health care spending, including government
spending for Medicare and Medicaid, would continue, but it would flow
into a single trust fund. We would add a payroll tax of about 3.3
percent each to workers and employers. In addition to the 1.45 percent
Medicare tax, the total health care tax would be 4.75 percent. This is
cheaper than what the private health insurance companies charge; so
families and businesses will be spending less than what they are
spending now if they have insurance.
We also get revenue from other sources like one quarter of 1 percent
tax on certain stock and bond transactions. All these revenue sources
add up to more than enough to cover current spending. But just in case
there are additional expenses in a particular year, we also authorize
an annual appropriation.
Revenue flows from the Federal trust fund into the accounts of the
currently existing Medicare regions. Reimbursement is then negotiated
with doctors and other providers at the regional level, with current
levels being the starting point. Doctors are paid on a fee-for-service
basis, while hospitals and other large institutions are paid with
monthly lump sums known as global budgets based on current
expenditures. Global budgets are cost-control mechanisms that are very
effective in other single-payer systems.
Every American would receive a national health insurance card at
birth or would be able to apply for one at the post office or other
government facility. The application form is limited to 2 pages.
Everyone living in the United States would be eligible. All medical
necessary services would be covered, including inpatient and outpatient
care, mental health care, dental care, and prescription drugs. Patients
can go to the doctor or health care provider of their choice.
Private insurance companies are prohibited from duplicating the
coverage provided under the plan. They may still offer coverage for
nonmedically necessary services, such as cosmetic surgery. They are not
prohibited from being hired by the government to do billing services,
but overhead costs would be strictly regulated.
This plan relies on the existing Medicare infrastructure for
administration. There is no ``new government bureaucracy.'' In fact,
there will be far less bureaucracy in health care after the role of the
insurance companies has been limited.
Just to let you know, there are nationally recognized health
economists and physicians who believe that if we spent more efficiently
the money we are already currently spending on health care, then we
would cover every American with quality and affordable health insurance
right now through a privately delivered, public financed, single-payer
system.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your cooperation.
Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Cover the Uninsured
Week, to highlight the deplorable fact that over 47 million Americans--
including 9 million children, lack health insurance in our country.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly believe that health care is a basic human
right. Yet far too many people have no access to even the most basic
health services. Contrary to popular belief, 8 out of 10 Americans who
lack health insurance come from working families who just can't afford
the high cost. Minority communities also disproportionately suffer from
a lack of health coverage. More than one-third of the Hispanic
population in our country and more than one-quarter of Native Americans
live without health insurance. Nearly 22 percent of African Americans
and 20 percent of Asian Americans also lack health insurance. These
statistics are just plain shameful.
What's worse is that because these individuals lack health coverage
they are more likely to wait to seek treatment until they are really
sick, which in turn further drives up health care costs and creates a
vicious cycle of un-insurance.
Mr. Speaker, the sad truth is that over the last 8 years of this
administration, the number of uninsured Americans has been steadily
rising. Instead of supporting proposals to expand access to health
care, however, this administration has continually supported policies
that have driven more people into poverty, placing affordable health
care even further out of reach.
Perhaps the clearest example is this President's veto of the SCHIP
bill and his refusal to provide health coverage to 10 million children.
That is just unconscionable.
As the only industrialized nation in the world that does not
guarantee health care for all our people, I believe we must move toward
a system of universal health coverage. That is why
[[Page 7547]]
I have introduced H.R. 3000, the Josephine Butler United States Health
Service Act, to make the United States Health Service its own
independent executive branch and establish an Office of the Inspector
General for Health Services.
My bill would require the Health Service to ensure that everyone has
the right and the ability to access the highest quality health care
available regardless of cost. Mr. Speaker, providing universal health
care is the right thing to do and it is consistent with our values as a
nation and the goals of Cover the Uninsured Week.
Mr. WEXLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to acknowledge ``Cover the Uninsured
Week.'' We must recognize the tragic reality that 47 million Americans,
including 9 million children, are uninsured in America. In my home
State of Florida, the figures are even more striking, with 20 percent
of Floridians lacking health insurance. Millions of hard-working
Americans with full-time jobs lack affordable health care options.
For example, a woman in my district, Florianne, has worked as a
housekeeper for a local hospital for 3 years and is uninsured. She
cannot afford to pay for health insurance for her children despite
having a full-time job. In 2004, when Florianne worked directly for the
hospital, she received health benefits. Today, the hospital
subcontracts its housekeeping operations, causing her to lose her
health insurance. With rent, food, gas, and utilities eating up her
$692 biweekly paycheck, there is not a dollar to spare for her son's
glasses or basic checkups, let alone a $768 monthly premium.
I wish Florianne's predicament was unique. All across Palm Beach
County, the State of Florida and throughout the United States, children
like Florianne's miss doctor's appointments, forego needed
prescriptions, and are denied adequate health care. Their parents work
hard but still cannot afford health care for their families. This is
totally unacceptable in the wealthiest nation on Earth.
In Congress, I have sponsored legislation to fund insurance for
millions of children across the country, introduced legislation to make
Medicare more affordable for seniors, and voted to increase funding for
community health centers willing to treat uninsured individuals. I am
also a sponsor of the U.S. National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676),
which would reform our health care system and provide health insurance
for every man, woman, and child. Unfortunately, many of these proposals
have been shot down by the Bush administration.
``Cover the Uninsured Week'' reminds us all that America desperately
needs leadership in the White House and in Congress to work together to
achieve the affordable health care that all Americans deserve.
____________________
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
____________________
PEAK OIL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I came early to our office
yesterday morning, and I opened the door and took the newspapers inside
and put them out on the reading table. And as I took them out, seven of
them, four newspapers and three of the kind of inside-the-beltway
papers, I noted the lead story above the fold. In the Sun there were
two stories: ``Demand Eats Supply, swiftly rising food prices are
undoing progress in fighting hunger globally''; and another above the
fold headline: ``Energy Bill Aid Payouts on Rise.'' Then I picked up
the Washington Times and noticed an above the fold headline, ``Bush
Lays Gas Blame on Congress.'' And then I picked up the Washington Post,
a major headline above the fold: ``Syphoning Off Corn to Fuel Our
Cars.'' And then the Wall Street Journal, the biggest headline above
the fold, with a graphic and picture above it: ``Grain Companies'
Profit Soar As Global Food Crisis Mounts.''
And then I took the three inside-the-beltway newspapers to put them
on the reading table, and I looked at the headlines there, on the front
page: ``Gas Prices Fuel Effort to Jam GOP.'' ``Alexander Eyes Energy
Agenda.'' The first of those was Politico; the second was Roll Call.
And the third, The Hill: ``Politics at the Pump.''
So, Mr. Speaker, the seven papers that our office gets, every one of
them yesterday had as their leading story above the fold something
about energy prices and food prices, which, of course, are related.
Also appearing today, and I wanted to make sure that we didn't miss
this New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, a very well-known author
and commentator, which describes America's energy problems as the
``predictable consequences of an energy strategy that would be
exacerbated by the most popular proposed changes to maximize demand,
minimize supply, and buy the rest from the people who hate us most.''
In a little bit, I will read some other excerpts from this very
interesting op ed piece by Thomas Friedman.
I have here a little book which came across my desk, signed by one of
the authors to Representative Roscoe Bartlett: ``You are a political
voice in the dark. Please continue trying to shed light on this
critical issue.'' And the critical issue he's talking about is
explained in the title of his book, ``A Very Unpleasant Truth . . .
Peak Oil Production and Its Global Consequences.'' And I turned to the
little page that talked about who the authors are, about the authors:
W.D. Lyle, Jr. holds a Ph.D. in engineering from Purdue University. L.
Scott Allen holds a Ph.D. in physics from SMU. Both are retired
scientists from the Exploration and Producing Technical Center of a
large international oil company. They have been awarded over 40 patents
and coauthored or authored more than 50 technical papers with
contributions appearing in a variety of journals such as Science,
Geophysics, Nuclear Science and Engineering, and the Journal of
Petroleum Technology. Both authors, it says, live in the Dallas area.
So those are obviously well-respected authorities in their fields.
And I turned to chapter 6: ``What About Alternative Energy Sources
and What Should We Do Now?'' And it begins by saying, ``What must we do
now to prepare for and respond to the inevitable and impending energy
crisis?''
And, Mr. Speaker, the seven papers that I just referred to and the
headlines on all of them about energy and food would indicate that
maybe, just maybe, we're on the cusp of this crisis.
And then he says, ``The first and most important thing that needs to
be done is to educate and convince the public that a problem even
exists.''
Long before I got this book, more than 3 years before I got this
book, I thought also that that was the most important thing that needed
to be done. And so, Mr. Speaker, I think this is the 43rd time I have
come to the floor to spend an hour talking about the challenge. Really
it was to explain to the American people the challenge that we face, to
educate and convince the public that a problem even exists. Well, I
think these seven headlines indicate that at least the editors of those
papers thought that a problem existed because they were all talking
about the high price of energy and its consequences on food prices.
But education is not the only thing that I have been doing. I have
been personally involved in at least four activities, which I think
will help to advance America on the path that we need to be treading.
I'm sponsoring, in conjunction with the SMART Organization, a Smart
Green Showcase on July 18 of this year in Frederick, Maryland, that
will offer smart energy solutions for homeowners and small business
owners. There is a lot of information out there. There's a lot of new
technology that just isn't widely known. Practical ways you can use
less energy, save money, and help our country transition to domestic,
cleaner, and renewable energy sources. The conference will provide
educational and networking opportunities for homeowners and
representatives of large and small businesses, academic and nonprofit
organizations.
This Smart Green Showcase has its own Web site, and I would encourage
[[Page 7548]]
you to go to that Web site, www.smartgreenconference.com, for a fuller
explanation of what will be shown at this Smart Green Showcase.
In the next few days, I will submit a bill that is a companion bill
to a Senate bill, S. 2821, that was introduced in the Senate on the 3rd
day of last month by Senator Maria Cantwell and Senator John Ensign,
and almost half of the Senators have already signed onto this bill.
{time} 1700
I have a brief summary of the bill, and because what it does is so
important to where I think we need to be going, I am going to take just
a moment to read this brief summary. This Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act
of 2008 amends the Internal Revenue Code to extend certain tax
incentives for energy production and conservation. It extends through
2009 the tax credit for production of electricity from renewable
sources. For example, biomass, geothermal energy, landfill gas, and
trash combustion.
It includes marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy as a resource
eligible for such credit. It allows sales of electricity produced from
renewable resources to regulated public utilities. This one is really
very important to encourage everybody, even every homeowner, to produce
electricity. If they are not using it, sell it back to the power
company.
It extends the Energy Investment Tax Credit for solar energy through
2016 for fuel cell and microturbine property through 2017. It repeals
the dollar per kilowatt limitation for fuel cell property under the
Energy Investment Tax Credit. It allows public electric utilities to
qualify for such credit.
It extends through 2009 the tax credit for residential energy-
efficient property expenditures. It repeals the 2000 limitation on the
tax credit for solar electric property. It allows an offset against the
alternative minimum tax of tax credit amounts. It extends through 2009
the tax credit for investment in clean, renewable energy bonds,
increases the national limitation amount for such bonds.
It extends through 2009 deferral provisions relating to the
recognition of gain by certain electric utilities, and extends to 2009
the tax credit for nonbusiness energy property. It includes residential
biomass fuel stoves, that is pellet stoves, as eligible energy property
for purposes of such credit.
It extends through 2010 the tax credit for energy-efficient new
homes. It extends through 2009 the tax deduction for energy-efficient
commercial buildings, and increases the allowable amount of such
deductions. Finally, it extends the tax credit for energy-efficient
appliances, to include appliances produced in 2008, 2009, and 2010, and
it revises and updates energy efficiency standards for such appliances
in accordance with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
As shown on the first chart here, I also have a Self-Powered Farm
Energy Bill, H.R. 80. This is really a very significant approach to
addressing our energy problems because we are going to have to turn
more and more to our farmers for energy and products that are produced
by energy, that in the future will have to be produced with less
energy. This bill would support Federal research, development,
demonstration, and commercial application activities to enable the
development of self-powered farms that are net producers of both food
and energy. They should be capable of independence from offsite sources
of energy. A farm standing all alone.
Mr. Speaker, if our farms can't be energy independent, we really,
really have a huge challenge for the future. I think this is very
doable, and this bill will offer awards, rewards to those who do that.
Offsite sources of energy, fuel and raw materials for fuel. A community
resource for food and energy or raw materials for fuel would minimize
or eliminate ongoing operating expenditures to offsite entities for
fossil fuel-derived energy, employ sustainable farming practices for
long-term soil fertility. We mustn't forget that what we do to make our
farms energy independent and to get energy from our farms, that we must
be really concerned about sustainability. It would be easy for a few
years to mine the soil, that is take out of the soil more than you're
putting back. But if it is not sustainable, it will not be useful for
the long term.
Employ sustainable farming practices for long-term soil fertility and
produces at least two times as much energy, including fuel or raw
materials, or fuel, as it consumes both onsite and in the transfer of
farm products to market.
The next chart shows an additional bill, H.R. 670, that I have
introduced, American Energy for America's Future, the bipartisan DRIVE
Act, Dependence Reduction through Innovation in Vehicles and Energy
Act. What this does is to encourage transition from depending so much
on liquid fuels from oil for transportation and move to electricity for
transportation.
And the reason for this, Mr. Speaker, is pretty obvious, if you stop
to think about it. We use two kinds of energy largely in our lives
today; electricity for many, many things, but not much for
transportation. Most of our transportation comes from fossil fuels,
from oil, and some gas. You see city buses advertising that they are
running on clean natural gas.
We have lots of opportunities to produce more electricity. We can do
more solar. France produces 75, 80 percent of their electricity from
solar. We have enormous opportunities to grow wind and solar. They are
now growing at something like 30 percent a year. That is incredible
growth rate. But they started very small. So even with that big growth
rate, they are still producing a very minimal amount of energy to the
grand mix of energy.
We can get a lot more energy in those parts of our country where
you're close enough to the molten core of the Earth to get true
geothermal energy. You go to Iceland, I have been there, and I did not
see a single chimney in Iceland. They may have one. I didn't see it.
They get essentially all of their energy there from geothermal energy.
That is tapping the molten core of the Earth, which will heat water,
and you can do lots and lots of things with it, and hot water.
Then, of course we have lots of opportunities for microhydro, without
the kind of impact on the environment that our macro hydro has had with
these huge dams and we try to compensate with fish ladders and so
forth, compensate for the damage we have done to the environment with
fish ladders and so forth so the fish who are spawning can get around
to them. So we have lots of opportunities for producing electricity.
Our options for producing more liquid fuels are far more limited. So
this is a very important bill. We are going to be talking for the rest
of our few moments together today about these opportunities for
producing more liquid fuels. You will see that they really are limited.
We really do have a challenge there.
So to the extent that we can move transportation dependency from oil
to electricity, we will have done a great deal to minimize our
dependence on oil and free ourselves from dependence on oil, as the
President appropriately said in his State of the Union Message, from
people who don't even like us.
I wanted to just spend a couple of moments reading some additional
comments from Thomas Friedman's article. I don't read this because I
necessarily agree with everything he says, but I read it because I
think that it's very important, as this little book said, that the
American people understand the seriousness of the challenge that faces
us.
So let me read a few more excerpts from his article that appeared
today in the New York Times. The title of his little op-ed piece is
called: Dumb as We Wanna Be. ``Here's what's scary: Our problem is so
much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going
to use tax policy to shape energy strategy, then you want to raise
taxes on the things that you want to discourage, gasoline consumption
and gas-guzzling cars, and you want to lower taxes on the things you
want to encourage, new renewable energy technologies. We are doing, he
says, ``just the opposite.''
[[Page 7549]]
``The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of
what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes
as the true American energy policy today.'' Then I quote again,
``Maximize demand, minimize supply, and buy the rest from the people
who hate us the most.''
Then additional excerpts from the article go on to say, ``This is not
an energy policy. This is money laundering. We borrow money from China
and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it
goes through our gas tanks. No, no, no. We'll just get the money by
taxing Big Oil. Even if you could do that,'' he says, ``what a terrible
way to spend precious tax dollars.
``For almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and
how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar
energy and the production of tax credit to encourage investment in wind
energy. The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for
by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said
he would veto that. Neither side would back down. Stalemate.''
You know, as I said, I read this not because I necessarily agree with
everything he says, but I read it because it is a very important voice
that is saying what I have been trying to say for more than 3 years
now, Hey, we face a problem. We have really got to do something about
that problem.
The next chart, this is a little cartoon which I think tells the
story that many people don't believe. Just why is gas so expensive,
over $3.50 a gallon now? Just why is gas so expensive? The cartoon says
it with just two words, a tiny little supply and a huge big demand.
Now there are many people who believe that gas is very expensive at
the pump because the major oil companies are gouging us. Many people
think that gas is high at the pump because the oil from which we refine
it is very expensive because the Arab world is holding back and not
producing as much oil as they could produce, or somehow gouging us.
The reality is that neither one of these commonly believed reasons
for our high gas prices are probably true. There may be a little
gouging here and there by stations and so forth. The price of oil is
not determined by our big oil companies, ExxonMobil and Shell and Royal
Dutch. The price of oil is determined, as this cartoon indicates, by
how much there is and how much we would like to use.
The Arabs don't determine the price of oil. They can affect the price
of oil. If they could produce more oil, they could drive down the price
of oil by increasing the supply so it would be more consistent with the
demand, and that would reduce the price of oil. There is increasing
evidence that they could not do this. That is they could not increase
their supply.
Russia, a couple of weeks ago, announced that they had peaked in oil
production. That they could no longer increase their production. Just
last week, Saudi Arabia indicated that they had reached a maximum oil
production. They have the granddaddy of all oil fields, the Ghawar, a
huge field, producing 5 million barrels a day. They want to bring
online a new field. I read a lot about the technicality of that field.
It's very interesting, what they have done. This is the field that has
a lot of potential oil in it. Khurais, I think. It's hard for me to
pronounce words with k-h.
{time} 1715
They have hired Halliburton to drill a large number of wells, and
what they plan to do, what they hope to do, is to flood that field
where the oil will not flow. If you drill down in that field, you will
not get any oil, although there is a great deal there, and they hope to
make this oil flow by pumping water in at the periphery of the field
under considerable pressure.
But this is a very delicate operation, because if they pump at too
high a pressure and too large a volume and the water overflows the oil,
it could seal off the little interstices through which the oil would
flow and it might kill the field, so there would be no oil from the
field. But hopefully they won't do this. They are very good at this
technology. And if they are able to develop this field, they will get,
they hope, 1.2 million barrels a day. This, they hope, will make up for
the oil that they are not getting as the present fields they are
pumping tail off. They have reached a maximum production of oil.
The next chart is a chart whose history begins in 1956 with a talk
which I think will go down as the most famous speech given in the last
century by M. King Hubbert to a group of oil engineers and business
people at San Antonio, Texas, in 1956, 52 years ago, on the 8th day of
March. This was 1956. Here we are, 1956 right here.
He told them that in 1970, this point here. This part of this chart
was not available. All they had was this, rapidly increasing oil
production. We were the largest producer of oil in the world, the
largest consumer of oil in the world, and I think the largest exporter
of oil in the world. He said in 14 years, in 1970, the United States
will reach its maximum oil production. Shell Oil Company asked him,
please don't give that talk. You will make us look silly and make you
look silly. He gave the talk, and for a long while was an object of
derision. Then, right on schedule, in 1970 we reached our maximum oil
production.
Now, they didn't know that in 1970. You only know you have reached a
maximum when you look back and see, gee, we were pumping more oil then
than we are now. But this was clearly, clearly known by 1980, because
you can see by 1980 here we are well down the other side of Hubbert's
Peak.
There are a couple of things in this chart that he did not include in
his analysis. He couldn't have known that we were going to get so much
natural gas liquids, and he looked at only the lower 48. He didn't look
at Alaska, and he didn't look at the Gulf of Mexico, where we have
found huge amounts of oil.
I have been to Alaska, to Dead Horse, to Prudhoe Bay, and I have seen
the very beginning of that 4-foot pipeline through which for a number
of years now about one-fourth, about one-fourth of our total domestic
production has been flowing.
Well, you can see that even when you add the oil which he did not
include in his analysis, the oil that we got from the find in Alaska
and from the Gulf of Mexico, that that was just a blip on the slide
down the other side of Hubbert's Peak.
Now, we have done a number of things to try and reverse this, because
we are not at all comfortable in this country having only 2 percent of
the world's oil and using 25 percent of the world's oil. We have very
good scientists and engineers, and we have used a lot of enhanced oil
recovery. We have used discovery techniques, 3-D, seismic and computer
modeling to go out and find more oil, and we have drilled more oil
wells than all the rest of the world put together.
In spite of better discovery, of aggressive pumping of these fields
with this enhanced oil recovery, in spite of drilling more oil wells
than all the rest of the world put together, and in spite of finding
oil in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, we today are producing about half
as much oil as we produced in 1970.
I spent a few moments looking at this chart. I think it is very
important to understand what M. King Hubbert predicted and what
happened and the reality that no matter what we have done, we have not
been able to reverse what he said would happen, and that was in 1970 we
would reach our maximum oil production, and that after that, no matter
what we did, oil production would fall off.
The next chart, if I can have the next chart, the next chart is a
quote from one of four different reports that our government has paid
for and not totally ignored, but largely ignored. They all say the same
thing, by the way. This is from the first of those four reports done by
SAIC, a very large, prestigious international engineering science
organization. Dr. Robert Hirsch was the principal author of that, so it
is frequently called the Hirsch Report. He says here on page 64,
``World oil peaking is going to happen.''
[[Page 7550]]
Now, the same person that predicted that we would peak in 1970, in
1979 predicted that the world would be peaking about now. I have asked
myself a question so many times and asked the question to others, if M.
King Hubbert was so right about the United States and if he predicted
that the world would be peaking about now, wouldn't it have been
appropriate to have a plan B, a plan B which recognized that that might
happen, and, gee, you better have some contingency plans preparing for
it? When I say ``we,'' I mean the world. That is not what we have done.
There is no indication, as evidenced by the behavior of any company
or any country, that any of these entities have been doing anything to
address the huge challenge that we would have if in fact the world
followed the course that the United States so predictably followed,
that the world would peak about now. ``World oil peaking is going to
happen,'' this report said. ``World production of conventional oil will
reach a maximum and decline thereafter. That maximum is called the
peak. Oil peaking presents a unique challenge,'' this report says.
``The world has never faced a problem like this. There is no precedent
in history to guide us,'' is what this report says. There is no lesson
from the past that you can use to guide you as to what you need to be
doing to get you through this challenge.
The next chart, this is a chart of data which is compiled by the two
leading entities in the world that track the production and consumption
of oil. Now, we store a little, very little, in our strategic reserves
in this country and some other countries, but, by and large, all the
oil we produce is consumed.
``Peak Oil: Are We There Yet?'' These two agencies are the IEA, the
International Energy Agency, a part of the UN, and the EIA, the Energy
Information Administration, a part of our own Department of Energy.
The IEA, the international one, says that for the last 18 months or
so we have reached a plateau in oil production. As a matter of fact,
just at the end of the line they have drawn through there up and down,
because it is not a constant thing, up today and down tomorrow and so
forth, it is actually tipping over just slightly. The EIA, the green
line, shows that from their data we have been constant and actually a
little lower now, but relatively constant in oil production for the
last 3 years.
Now, if in fact the world's production of oil has been flat in the
last 3 years, and these are the two best recognized entities in the
world for tracking this, if in fact it has been flat for the last 3
years and demand has continued to go up, what would naturally happen to
oil prices?
Well, oil prices were, what, when they started, $50-some dollars a
barrel. Now, they are off the chart now, about $110 today. It has
dropped off a little from the $120 of last week. I think that dropoff,
Mr. Speaker, is because $120 oil is just plain too costly for a lot of
the world and they haven't been able to use it. They just make do with
less. So we have some higher reserves than we thought, and the
speculators now are speculating that the price of oil will come down
for the moment because of these reserves. Of course, $110 oil, the
price is off the chart here.
M. King Hubbert predicted in 1979 that the world would be peaking
about now. All four of these studies, the first one I mentioned, the
SAIC study, the second one, the Corps of Engineers study, the third
one, the Government Accountability study, and the fourth one, one done
by the National Petroleum Council, and all four of those say
essentially the same thing: Peaking of oil is inevitable, absolutely
inevitable; that it is either present or imminent, with potentially
devastating consequences.
Now, I say again, if M. King Hubbert was right about the United
States, and we spent quite some little while looking at that chart, and
in spite of everything that we have done, better oil discovery,
aggressive pumping of the oil, enhanced oil recovery, and although we
drill more wells than the rest of the world put together, M. King
Hubbert 's prediction is still true. Today we are producing about half
the oil we produced in 1970. He predicted that the world would be
peaking in oil production about now. These four studies all said that
peaking of oil is inevitable. They didn't know when it would occur.
These data from the EIA and the IEA would lead you to believe, unless
this is just a little plateau and it will take off again, and the next
chart we will look at, if we can have the next chart now, the next
chart will tell us how likely it is that this is just a little plateau
and then it is going to take off again.
If you had only one chart to look at, only one chart to use for
informing yourself and talking about this subject, this would be the
chart. This chart shows in the bars here going back as far as 1930 the
discoveries of oil, and, boy, it was up and down. We found some big
fields in some of these years, so we got some huge spikes. But notice
the general trend of this. Since about 1970 it has been down, down,
down, down, and that is in spite of evermore aggressive and better
techniques for finding the oil.
Now, if this peak is just a plateau and is going to take off again,
then you need to believe that one of two things is going to happen:
Either we are going to find very quickly better ways of teasing out
from the reserves we are now pumping more oil, or we are going to find
more reserves of oil, more big reserves of oil.
{time} 1730
The solid black line here indicates the oil that we have used. And
the world was in a very happy position up until about 1980. Every year
until 1980, we found more oil, sometimes a lot more oil, than we used
that year. If you integrate under this curve, you will get the total
volume of oil that we have used. So this area represents the volume of
oil that we have used.
Now, ever since about 1980, of course, we have been finding less oil
than we use, so now this area here has been filled in by reserves back
here. They are still there. We know they are underground. We know we
can pump them.
Now, how much more will we find in the future? Most of the experts
believe that we have probably found, of conventional oil--we will talk
in a few minutes about unconventional oil. Most experts believe that
for conventional oil we have probably found 90 percent, 95 percent of
all the oil we will find in the future. Those who made this chart
suggest that future discoveries will follow a descending curve, ever
less and less, as we go further and further into the future, because
once you found some oil, then additional oil is more and more difficult
to find. Now, this clearly won't be that smooth, it will be up and
down, but they are suggesting it will follow a curve much like that.
Now, what will the future look like? What the future will look like
will depend upon your perception of several things: How much more oil
you think we will find; it will depend upon how aggressive you think we
can be in pumping oil. But one thing is certain: You cannot pump oil
you have not found.
Now, the way this chart is drawn, it doesn't go clear out until the
end, of course; it goes out another 150 years. Every year, and this has
been the experience in the United States, less and less oil, harder and
harder to get. And now, with the world situation, not true in our
country because nobody else made up the deficit for the oil we didn't
pump; and so for a long while, even when our oil production was
dropping off, oil was still $10 a barrel because other countries could
produce it quickly and easily, and they did, so that made up for our
shortfall. But that is not going to happen in the future because, as
indicated by a prior chart, as indicated by all four of these studies,
paid for by your government, delivered to your government, oil is going
to peak.
And if the United States is a microcosm of the world, you would
reasonably judge that, no matter how aggressive we become, and we have
been really aggressive in our country, like drilling more oil wells
than all the rest of the world put together, you still are not going to
reverse that decline.
[[Page 7551]]
So what the future looks like, and you see the oil that you are using
here above the amount of oil that you found is going to have to be
filled in by reserves from here. You can use your eye and transfer
these reserves there and see reasonably what that curve will look like.
The next chart presents a little schematic. Now, I will point out
what is quite obvious: That this peak can be made very sharp if I
compress the abscissa and expand that ordinate, that will become a very
sharp curve. Here, I have spread it out so it is a very gradual curve.
This is a 2 percent growth curve. That is about the rate at which the
world has been increasing its use of oil. By the way, 2 percent growth
doubles in 35 years; it is four times bigger in 70 years; it is eight
times bigger in 105 years; it is 16 times bigger in 140 years.
This led Albert Einstein to answer a question asked by someone after
we had discovered nuclear energy: What will be the next big energy
force in the universe? And his response was: The most powerful force in
the universe is the power of compound interest. And, of course,
compound interest is compound growth.
This chart shows a 35-year growth period, the yellow. I think we are
about here, and peaking is either present or imminent. And most people
are looking at avoiding any problems in the future by filling the gap.
If this is what you have available and this is what you would like to
use, this yellow area represents the gap.
There are a lot of things out there that we can exploit to get some
liquid fuels from. In their totality, most of the experts that are
really seriously looking at this, in their totality, most people
believe that it will be extremely difficult to produce as much liquid
fuel as we now are using, let alone filling the gap. I will say that
that will not bring us to any calamitous end. We have enormous
opportunities for conservation and efficiency.
The other morning as I came into work, I noticed in one of the lanes
in front of me a big SUV with one person in it. In the lane right next
to them was a Prius with two people in it. Now, the Prius, I have one,
we get about 48 miles per gallon. That is at least three times that
SUV. Isn't it? So the Prius gets three times the miles per gallon of
the SUV; and there were two people in it; so that means that miles per
gallon per person was six times better in the Prius with two people in
it than it was in the SUV with one person in it. And the Prius is a
very comfortable vehicle, and riding with someone else makes the trip
to work more enjoyable. So, we have lots and lots of opportunities to
increase our efficiency.
The next chart is an interesting one, because there are a lot of
people who believe that somehow we are going to find a huge amount of
more oil out there. In a few moments we are going to talk about some of
these potentials. And there may be a lot out there. But what I am
saying is that we really need to have a plan B, because there is
nothing that we have done in our country which has avoided the
inevitable slide down the other side of Hubbert's Peak that M. King
Hubbert predicted in 1956.
This is a chart again from Robert Hirsch, and he gets this from EIA,
Energy Information Administration, and they are predicting here in this
chart that we will find as much more oil as all the reserves we now
know to be able to be pumped.
Most experts believe that the ultimate amount of oil, the total
amount that we will pump in the world from the beginning to the end of
the age of oil will be about 2 trillion barrels. Here it is 2.2. They
are suggesting here that we will find another nearly 1 trillion,
because this curve is based on what they call the main or expected
value of 3 trillion barrels. Now, that means that they think we are
going to find just about as much more oil as all the oil which we now
have in reserves which can be pumped.
Now, even if that curve occurs--and this is because of that
exponential growth. Even if this occurs, the peak is pushed out from
here to 2016. The dotted line, by the way, and I don't know if it is
even doable. The dotted line shows what would happen if you would have
an aggressive, enhanced recovery and pump it more quickly. It pushes
the peak out a little bit, and then you fall off a cliff after that.
This black curve, by the way, you will recognize from the big black
curve on the oil chart, remember, with all the bars going up. This is
the recession in the 1970s. If it weren't for that--the old saying, it
is an ill wind that brings no good. And that ill wind of those Arab oil
price spike hikes and the worldwide recession that followed that, that
is this dip here, we actually were using less energy for a while, we
really looked at our efficiency. And your air conditioner now is
probably three times as efficient as it was then. Your freezer, the
same thing. If we had not done that, look at this curve, look where it
would be, off the chart.
There was a stunning statistic during the Carter years, and that was
that every decade we used as much oil as had been used in all of
previous history. That is really different now. This slope you can see
is very much less than this slope. So this was kind of a blessing in
disguise, because it woke us up, and we now have a much lesser
challenge than we would have had if we not had those oil price spikes
and that little recession in the 1970s and this call to arms that
resulted in a lot of equipment that is now a whole lot more efficient.
The next chart is a fairly recent statement by Shell Oil Company CEO
van der Veer. By the year 2100, he says, the world's energy system will
be radically different from today's. The world's current predicament
limits our maneuvering room. We are experiencing a step change in the
growth rate of energy demand. And Shell estimates that, after 2015,
supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with
demand. It may be a little sooner than that, as indicated by these
curves from the IEA and the EIA. As a result, he says, society has no
choice but to add other energy sources.
The next chart is one that kind of puts this in perspective. This
looks at the industrial age.
By the way, there is a fascinating speech that was given. If M. King
Hubbert's speech was the most important speech of the last century, I
think the most insightful speech of the last century would be the
speech given by the father of our nuclear submarine, Hyman Rickover,
given 51 years ago the 14th day of this month to a group of physicians
in St. Paul, Minnesota. If you do a Google search for ``Rickover'' and
``energy speech,'' it will pop up.
He noted then that we were about 100 years into the age of oil,
which--and he uses just beautiful expressions, which he referred to as
the golden age. And truly it has been a golden age. And he had no idea
how long the age of oil will last; now we have a much better idea. But
he made a very important statement. He said that, how long the age of
oil lasted was important in only one regard: That the longer it lasted,
the more time that we have to plan for an orderly transition to
nonfossil fuels.
About 17 months ago, I was privileged to lead a codel of nine Members
of Congress to China to talk about energy. Interestingly, they began
their discussion of energy by talking about post-oil. Wow, I thought,
these people think in terms of generations and centuries.
We are a great country, and a part of our affluence and our greatness
is that we have a near-term focus, essential for our business, but I
think it would be nice if we had a little longer term view, too. It is
hard for our businesses to see beyond the next quarterly report; hard
for elected officials to see beyond the next election. But they were
talking about post-oil, and what they would be doing and what the world
should be doing now and would be doing in a post-oil world.
Well, Hyman Rickover talked about 8,000 years of recorded history,
and he said that the age of oil would be but a blip in the history of
man. I only have here about 400 years of that 8,000 years; but if you
went back to the rest of the 8,000 years, it would be flat because we
use very little energy. Here is the industrial revolution beginning
with wood; and then we have coal; and, boy, did it take off when we
found gas and oil.
[[Page 7552]]
This is the same curve that you have seen before, by the way. This is
the dip in the 1970s in the lesser slope now. Here, we have compressed
abscissa and expanded the ordinate, so now we have a very sharp curb
compared to the very gradual one we have been looking in the past.
If I superimposed on this a graph of population growth, it would
explode from roughly \1/2\ billion here, following this up almost
exactly to the nearly 7 billion people we have in the world today.
This reality, as the next chart shows us, introduces us to a very
challenging geopolitical reality. We have 2 percent of the world's
reserves; we use 25 percent of the world's oil; we import almost \2/3\
of what we use. We pump four times faster than the rest of the world.
We produce, from our 2 percent, 8 percent of the world's oil
production. So, we are pumping and our more wells than all the rest of
the world put together are working. We are pumping down our reserves
faster. We represent a bit less than 5 percent of the world's
population, one person in 22, and we use \1/4\ of the world's energy.
The next chart speaks a little more to this geopolitical challenge
that we face. If you look at the top ten owners of oil, that is the bar
on the right here, it is mostly countries that own it: Saudi Aramco,
National Iranian Oil, Iraqi National Oil, and so forth.
{time} 1745
And Luke Oil which is kind of private in Russia has only 2 percent.
These are the top ten.
If you now look at the top ten producers of oil, they are really big
guys: ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch, BP. They produce only 22 percent of the
oil. Most of the oil is produced by countries rather than companies.
The next chart speaks further to this geopolitical challenge that we
face. This shows what China is doing around the world. The dollar signs
indicate where we own some oil. You don't see very many of them here.
This symbol indicates where China owns oil, a lot of it in Russia.
Notice they have bought up oil all over the world.
The next chart speaks again to this geopolitical challenge that we
have. This is what the world would look like if the size of the country
was relative to the amount of oil they have. Very interesting. Saudi
Arabia dominates the landscape. They should, they have 22 percent, more
than a fifth of all of the oil in the world. Iraq, Kuwait, and you have
to get a magnifying glass to see the United Arab Emirates on a map.
Russia, not a giant compared to the others, but they are an aggressive
pumper of oil. I think they are now the number two producer of oil in
the world.
Venezuela, it dwarfs our part of the world. Bigger than everybody
else in this part of the world, but notice we get most of our oil from
Canada. Our third largest producer of oil is Mexico. Together they have
about as much oil as we have. Canada doesn't have very many people, and
they are too poor in Mexico to use the oil and so they can export the
oil. But this speaks again to the geopolitical challenge that we face.
The last chart, I just wanted to look at the sources from which we
are going to get liquid fuels. I have argued that because we face this
huge challenge in the future, and because it is going to be very
difficult to produce as rapidly as we would like to, the liquid fuels
to replace what won't be there as we slide down the other side of the
world, Hubbert's peak, that it would be nice to have in reserve a
little bit of the oil we know that is out there which is why I have not
been enthusiastic about drilling in ANWR or offshore or on our public
lands.
Maybe it is because I have 10 kids and 16 grandkids and two great-
grandkids. And I came to Congress because I was afraid that my kids and
grandkids weren't going to live in the same kind of country that I grew
up in. I thought we had too much government, it taxed too much, it
regulated too much, and it spent way too much. I would just like for my
kids and my grandkids and great-grandkids to have the same opportunity
I have had, and energy is so important in our world. So I have been
resistant to immediately drilling in ANWR and offshore and on our
public lands because it is like money in the bank that is yielding huge
interest rates. I don't think you ought to rush to the bank and pull it
out and spend it. It will be even more valuable later.
We will get a little of this and a little of that. There is no magic
bullet out there. I am sure everybody is familiar with what happened
with corn ethanol. We are using so much corn for ethanol, it has raised
the price of food around the world. Farmers have diverted land from
wheat and soybeans to corn. Rice harvests are down. Costco, I
understand, will sell you only one bag of rice now.
Mr. Speaker, let me close by saying I am kind of exhilarated by this.
There is no exhilaration like meeting and overcoming a big challenge,
and I think America is up to this. With leadership, I think we can once
again become an exporting country. We have the technology and the know-
how. We are the most innovative, creative society in the world. I think
when America understands this challenge, they will be up to the
challenge, and America will lead the world in moving from fossil fuels
to renewables.
I think I will be here a week from today, and what I want to do at
that time is spend most of the time talking about realistic
expectations from all of these alternative sources of liquid fuels.
____________________
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for
60 minutes.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to once
again start our 30-Something hour. We will be joined later by
Congressman Meek from Florida to talk about the issues of the day and
how what has been happening here in Congress affects what is going on
to young people, but not limited to just young people in the 30-
something bracket, but also to young people in college, young people in
their 20s, young people trying to figure out how they are going to make
their way in the American economy in the 21st century.
As we know, Mr. Speaker, we have been given many challenges over the
past few years here in Congress dealing with many of the issues that
face Americans.
Since Speaker Pelosi took over a short time ago, we have been
committed, since this Congress was taken over by the Democratic Party,
we have been committed to push initiatives that are consistent with the
values that we hold dear in the United States of America. We hear a lot
of rhetoric about values in this country, but if the policy initiatives
that come out of this beautiful building in Washington, DC do not
reflect our values, then we are in the wrong business.
And I am proud to say that since we have taken over here, we have
shifted course from policies that many Americans believe have taken us
in the wrong direction. And many of us still believe, even those of us
here think we have made a shift in policy, but it has been difficult
with the President to try to get a complete pivot out of the months and
months and months and years and years and years of bad policy.
So I think it is important before we talk a little bit about what we
have done is to go back and think about what we are trying to come out
of, some of the challenges that this country faces. I think it is
important to recognize politically that from 2000 until 2006, the
Republican Party controlled the House, controlled the Senate, and
controlled the White House. They had an opportunity to implement their
policy--the neoconservative foreign policy, the conservative domestic
policy, the conservative energy policy, the conservative higher-ed
policy in America, the conservative ``compassionate conservative''
agenda on poverty and inequality--has all been implemented.
So when we talk about what will it look like if the conservative
agenda is implemented, I think that is a false analysis of what will it
look like. I think we know. I think what we are
[[Page 7553]]
living with here today is the implementation of the conservative
Republican agenda. They controlled the House, they controlled the
Senate and the White House. The Bush tax policy, the Bush energy
policy, all of these things that I have already mentioned have been
implemented.
And if you want to know what it looks like, all you really need to do
is go to the gas tank. You need to get your health care bill and see
what your premium and the costs look like. You need to pull out the
stub of your child's tuition. All of these things are the end result of
the Republican domestic agenda being implemented here in the United
States of America. You may not like it. I know a lot of Republicans,
Mr. Speaker, who don't like it, but that is where we are.
And if you look at the financial situation that this country has been
put in, the straightjacket that we have been put in that a lot of the
changes that the Democratic Congress wants to make that we are at this
point unable to make because of the financial position that we have
been put in as a country and as a Nation, the fact of the matter is
this: President Bush, Mr. Speaker, and the Republican Congresses that
were under his watch borrowed more money from foreign interests than
every President and Congress before President Bush combined.
Now think about that. In just those few years, President Bush and the
Republican Congress borrowed more money from foreign interests than
every President and Congress before them combined. The Republican-
controlled Congress and President Bush raised the debt limit five times
and borrowed $3 trillion primarily from Japan, China, and OPEC
countries.
Now you want to talk about a scam going on and a shell game, we have
a situation where we are borrowing money from oil-producing countries
to basically give us money to go out and buy their oil, or to borrow
money from oil-producing countries and from China so we can fund a war
at $12 billion a month and put it on the credit card. Now that seems to
me the definition of insanity, Mr. Speaker. Three trillion dollars, and
this is as simple as your house payment or your car payment. You borrow
money and you have to pay interest on it.
So countries like China will get the interest that the United States
is paying on the money that we have borrowed, and the Chinese will take
that money and they will sink it into developing and industrializing
their own economy. And they are putting up nuclear plants so they have
nuclear energy. And they are building roads, bridges and industrial
parks. And they are funding their military and their navy. That is what
they are doing with money that the United States is borrowing from
them. And we take the money and we get ourselves into this war in Iraq
at $12 billion a month, that is soon approaching a trillion dollars for
the cost of the war, and some economists are saying at the end of the
war, the grand total will be $3 trillion.
Now from Youngstown, Ohio, and Niles, Ohio, and Akron, Ohio, the
folks that I represent are not really comfortable with the United
States taking their tax dollars and paying interest on money they are
borrowing from the Chinese so that the Chinese can build manufacturing
facilities and manipulate their currency and ship the products back to
the United States and put American workers out of work.
{time} 1800
Now, there's something ironic about what's happening there. And
there's really something sick, Mr. Speaker, about what's happening
here. And when you look at the polls and you hear people say that 70
percent of Americans think that we're going in the wrong direction, the
President has an approval rating of 28 percent, and the other 72
percent do not approve of the job that he is doing, you have to ask
yourself, what is wrong? What is wrong? What is going on to have this
dramatic breach in the American body politic?
And so, when Speaker Pelosi, and when we ran our elections in 2006 to
come and take over Congress in 2007, it became imperative for us to try
to pivot and shift this thing in another direction. So one of the
issues is make sure that we pay for programs that we have here in the
United States. No deficit spending.
Now, we've had problems, especially with the war, because we're
committed over there. And it's been very difficult. We've tried to get
out.
The President has vetoed every attempt we've ever tried to make. But
we're trying to establish public policy in the United States of America
that represent our values.
And if you look at what we have pushed coming out of this body, I
think most Americans would agree, these are some pretty basic steps
that we want to take. First thing we did when we got in is raise the
minimum wage. For the first time since 1997, the American worker got a
pay raise. It wasn't much. It should be a lot more. But we did what we
could. And we said, this is a priority for us. 10 years without an
increase in the minimum wage, but health care and energy and all of
these other costs are going up for folks. Let's try to lift some people
up, reward work. And we did that.
We have switched and tried to repeal the oil subsidies, corporate
welfare, many of us know it as corporate welfare. Everyone hates
welfare if we're giving it to poor people. They should go to work. They
should work. This is America. We should not give welfare. That's the
rhetoric that you hear.
But behind the scenes, our friends on the other side and President
Bush are very happy to give the oil companies 14 or $15 billion in oil
subsidies, in energy subsidies.
Now, can you imagine, and today when you go to the gas pump and you
pay $3.50, $3.75, $4 for a gallon of gas. You think you're frosted just
filling up the tank. Think about the fact that President Bush said that
he will veto any bill that comes out of this House that repeals the $15
billion that's going in corporate welfare to the oil companies.
Now, can you imagine, in this day and age, where Exxon's profits are
through the roof, that the President of the United States says he will
veto a bill that strips the corporate welfare out?
They're making tremendous profits. And what we have tried to do on
the Democratic side, and Speaker Pelosi has tried to do, is to take
that 14 or $15 billion away from the oil companies, away from the
energy companies, and invest that money into alternative energy
research; into wind, into biomass, into solar.
Now, we all know that these alternative energy forms, there's not one
silver bullet. There's not one project or product that's going to come
out and save us all and be a panacea for the entire United States of
America and the world. We know that.
But Americans invent things. Americans make things better. Americans
take a challenge and a problem and they fix it, and they solve it. They
put the best and the brightest people that we have in this country, and
they set a goal.
I'm not going to go do the research. President Bush certainly isn't
going to go do the research. We've got a couple of rocket scientists
that belong in this body that have been elected by their constituents
here that may be able to actually do some of the research. But, for the
most part, our job here is to set the public policy and provide the
resources and the leadership for the country. And that's what we're
trying to do is to say, invest into the Department of Energy, partner
with energy companies.
We know you're not going to get rid of oil overnight. Many of us
believe nuclear has a major role in what's going to happen here. But
the bottom line is, let's make an investment into the United States,
into the people, into the human resources that we have here to figure
out what we're going to do, and then get the private sector and private
enterprise to partner with us to get this thing kicked off.
It is crucial for us to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, crucial
because we can extract ourselves from a lot of these political
situations that we find ourselves in. In a lot of the global politics
that we see and read, if you
[[Page 7554]]
read between the lines and you think for yourself, you will see that
there is some kind of energy component behind this, behind the politics
that are going on, the geopolitics that are going on. And if we can
become dependent on the Midwest instead of the Mideast, I think this
country will remove itself from a lot of the problems that we have had,
and we could help move this country forward. And that's what we are
committed to doing here in the United States.
And just today, or yesterday, out of the Education Committee, George
Miller, who's the Chair of the committee, they passed an authorization,
I think, of $6 billion, if I remember correctly, to help schools, new
schools. There'll be a formula to make sure that the school is green.
So now, you're providing some leadership for the companies that will
provide the products for a school or a building to become green.
There'll be a little bit of a stimulation.
And I want to tell one quick story that I found interesting. We have
a gentleman here in Congress, his name is Jim Oberstar, and he's the
Chair of the Transportation Committee. He's been here since the late
1970s.
And I may miss a few of the facts here, but the point can be made
that in the late 1970s, when he was a Member of Congress, and President
Carter was in, he was trying to--the solar panel, there was some money
put into the Department of Energy to research and develop alternative
energy sources. And something popped out of that, it was called the
solar panel.
And Mr. Oberstar had a piece of legislation that said we need to
retrofit all Federal office buildings in the United States with solar
panels. And by the Federal Government coming in and buying the solar
panels, it will stimulate the solar panel market because the Federal
Government is such a big consumer, and just like buying pens and
everything else, and it will drive the cost down of the solar panels.
So that was in 1977, 1978.
In 1980, when President Reagan came in, he completely eliminated that
part of the Department of Energy that was providing that research and,
basically, nothing happened. And he has now went from a rank and file
member; Mr. Oberstar is now the Chair of the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee. So he now has this bill that he reintroduced,
told his staff to go back and get his notes from 30 years ago about
what he wanted to do with solar panels.
Now, can you imagine how far behind the 8-ball we are? When you look
at production of solar panels, it used to be an industry that the
United States excelled in and that we had a great share of the solar
panel market in the early 1990s. But now, we have been surpassed
because we have not made the investments.
And I'm not here, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Meek, to say that government
somehow has all the answers. But we do have a role to play in
stimulating the economy, Mr. Meek. And when we do that, we will allow
the private sector to come in.
So we need to do what we need to do with alternative energy research.
We need to do what we need to do with high speed rail. We need to do
what we need to do with broadband access. These are the things that
government has a role in, infrastructure, education, health care. These
are the things that we need to invest in. And that's what we've been
trying to do in the area of health care.
One of the things that, I mean, you can't really find a better
example or illustration of a difference in values from Speaker Pelosi
and President Bush on this one issue. It's the issue of state, the
State Children's Health Insurance Program. When we came in, one of
Speaker Pelosi's priorities was to provide leadership and resources for
the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
This is a program that would provide health care, Mr. Meek, for 10
million children of modest income, didn't quite qualify for Medicaid,
middle class kids, middle class families struggling to provide health
care. This was to fill that gap. Bipartisan support here in the House,
and in the Senate, tremendous support.
So it passed the House, passed the Senate, President Bush vetoed it.
Now, can you imagine where your priorities are when you're willing to
spend $12 billion a month in Iraq, and you won't sign a children's
health care bill to provide health care for middle class citizens at
$35 billion over 5 years?
But you'll spend 12 billion a month in Iraq and not even ask a
question as to where the money's going. There's billions of dollars
that are lost in Iraq, nobody knows where they are, Mr. Speaker. Nobody
knows where that money is.
And we struggle to find $35 billion to provide health care for modest
income families. That investment that, at the end of the day, will
probably save us billions of dollars because these kids won't go right
to the emergency room. They'll have some preventative care. That will
save us money in the long run. And the President vetoed it. And he
vetoed it.
And in the Senate, 80 Senators overrode the veto. But in the House,
we could not override the veto because a handful of Republicans on the
other side were committed to support the President in his position.
Now, can you imagine that? In the wealthiest country in the world,
the dominant super power, we can't scrape up $35 billion over 5 years
to provide health care for middle class kids?
And the President thinks he's taken a stand on this issue and saying
he's fiscally responsible, after running up $3 trillion in debt,
borrowing it from Japan and China and OPEC countries?
When you're deciding on where your philosophies are, what your values
are, this is the issue. This is the defining issue. Health care for
kids, $12 billion a month in Iraq. Tax cuts for people who make
billions of dollars a year, health care for kids?
This is clear. And our job, as representatives of the people, Mr.
Meek, and I'll kick it to you here in a second, is to make sure that we
bring some equity into this system.
And I will say this. The investments that we have made, or tried to
make on SCHIP, the minimum wage, alternative energy, the fact that we
did pass, and the President did sign a $1,000 increase in Pell Grants
over 5 years, for students, and we cut the student loan interest rate
in half, from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. So if you are going out
trying to borrow for your kids, your interest rate is cut in half.
Those are the priorities that we push every day here on this House
floor. Those are the priorities that are going to lead to an expansion
of our economy.
We only have 300 million people in this country, Mr. Meek. There's
1.2 or 1.3 billion in China, 1.2 or 1.3 billion in India. We only have
300 million. And the philosophy of our party is to make sure that we
invest into those 300 million people, to make sure they're educated and
they're healthy. And I feel like if we make sure our kids are educated
and healthy, that most everything else will take care of itself.
{time} 1815
That's where we are. That's the agenda we're pushing.
Mr. Meek, I appreciate the fact that you're taking time away from
your busy schedule and family to come down here, and I would like to
yield to my very good friend from Florida.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, Mr. Ryan, I want to thank you for sharing
not only thoughts about the Members, but also reminding them of the
work that has been done and work that needs to be done here on this
house floor.
I can tell you, Mr. Ryan, that it's very frustrating at times to hear
and see some of the finger pointing that goes on not only here under
the Capitol dome, but here in Washington, D.C. The work that this 110th
Congress has done overshadows the work of the 109th Congress as it
relates to accomplishing things on behalf of the American people. And I
am very concerned about the fact that Members seem to get a little
amnesia on how we got to where we are now.
Last week, I had a chart on the floor here. I don't know what
happened to it. I'm not accusing anybody of anything. But I was driving
the point home of the colleagues on the other side about gas
[[Page 7555]]
prices and writing the Speaker a letter saying, What are you going to
do? You promised a year ago that you would do something about it. What
are you going to do? What are the Democrats going to do? The Republican
leadership wrote, We stand firm to be with you as it relates to doing
something about energy prices or gas prices.
And it's interesting because these are the individuals who,
especially on the Republican side, were a part of supporting and
standing up the 2001 plan and the meeting that took place in the White
House with Mr. Cheney and a number of energy companies, which I think
was one of the most profitable meetings for the oil industry because
they have just hand-over-fist made money since that meeting. And even
today I think it was projected or it was announced that it's another
record-breaking quarter for oil companies while Americans pay through
the nose and small businesses pay through the nose for fuel.
I couldn't help but be on I-75 in Florida on my way back to Miami
from St. Petersburg about 3 weeks ago and stopped at a Pilot gas
station. And I was driving my uncle's truck, and the guy asked for my
ID and credit card and all of those things. And I said, Goodness. I had
to give my ID. I was paying with cash. I said, This is interesting. I
am paying with cash and I have to show you my ID.
He said, Well, sir, we have had an uptick in truckers in filling up
and pulling out without paying. I said, Wow. That's interesting. I mean
with all of the tags and identifying markers identifying the company or
the private-owned companies. And he said, I can tell you something--of
course, he saw me and didn't think that I was anything like a
congressman or anything--but he said, Times are hard out there. I mean,
these guys, they can't afford to fill up their truck and make a profit
and be able to support their family. Not justifying it, but he said,
The higher gas goes, the more protection that soon we're going to have
to have someone out there getting tags or doing some sort of check to
make sure that they actually put in the amount that they paid for.
Saying all of that, that's the reason why, during the self-service
days: Pay first, then pump.
I'm saying all of that to make the point that times are hard out
there. We know. Bread is $3 a loaf. We know this. The fact that rice,
even if you go to Costco now you can't buy a 50-pound bag of rice. I
mean, it's like being rationed, in a way. And just the price of food
all over the world has really exploded.
Saying all of that, Mr. Ryan, I think that when we start looking at
our work here in Congress, now more than ever, Members, we have to hold
first the American people and their will, we have to hold that as our
number one priority.
Now, let me just mention just a few things, Mr. Ryan, because I'm not
going to try to get excited on this issue today because if I do, I may
miss something. And I don't want to miss anything because the points
have to be made.
And I think it's important, Mr. Ryan, as we look at this, and
Members, Mr. Speaker, that when we look at the work that has been done
in this Congress this week, sending four key bills to the President for
his signature, and we really don't have a lot of time to wait and see
if he's going to do something because when you look at it, you have to
look at the highway bill, the bill that allows competition for
important highway and transit projects outlined in the 2005 highway
bill which will help promote 40,000 new good-paying American jobs in
transportation and construction. I think it's important that people
understand that this bill will help stimulate the economy versus slow
it down. It's important that the President signs this.
When you look at the other pieces of legislation that have passed,
these are bills that are key bills, ensuring continuing access to
student loans, the Student Loan Act. This is a critical bill that
provides students and families with continued uninterrupted access to
Federal guaranteed student loans. We're talking about not only this
generation but the next generation and working families being able to
afford higher education.
Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 2008. It comes down to many of our men
and women that are in uniform over in Iraq and Afghanistan with
explosions that take place and the fact that many of them are affected
by the blasts that take place with these IEDs. They will join some 5.3
million Americans that are affected here at home by the same thing. And
the Congress has passed this to provide the kind of funding that's
needed so they can get the treatment that they deserve. We look forward
to the President signing it.
But as we look at issues such as energy and fuel, I think it's
important that we talk about some of the things, Mr. Ryan and Mr.
Speaker, and I know you mentioned something about this whole gas thing
because this is hitting home for many of us.
The Speaker, last week, called on the President to suspend the
purchase of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve temporarily. When
you look at this issue, you have to look at it from the standpoint of
bringing gas down. What the Speaker has asked for would actually bring
the gas prices down to 5 to 24 cents a gallon. This is a critical first
step, Mr. Speaker, towards bringing gas prices down so the American
people can hopefully afford to put gas in their tanks and small
businesses.
I met with some independent franchise owners of KFC and Taco Bell
establishments, and they were talking about the cost of food and
ingredients. One gentleman told us about the fact that his sales are
down because American people cannot afford to go into, what you may
call these restaurants where you can get a meal under $10, they can't
afford to do it as often as they have done it before. Hopefully, the
checks and the stimulus package will be able to assist. Not only we're
not talking about going out and buying a meal but to be able to provide
for their families will help stimulate this economy to help drive down
the cost of food and the costs that many small businesses need to
survive.
Now, I think it's also important, Members, that we look at it from
another standpoint, a standpoint of what farmers are having to look at.
We had a hearing here on Capitol Hill today that talked about food
versus fuel, and the price of food costs, how are we going to bring a
balance between biofuels and how we're going to feed the American
people in the world through our crops that are here. And that's going
to be an interesting discussion, especially as we start looking at
shifting from the Middle East and investing in Middle Eastern countries
as it relates to energy versus the midwest. And we talked about that,
Mr. Ryan and I talked about that a lot the previous two Congresses.
But when we started looking at legislation and ideas that will give
American people relief now, I think it's important that we look at the
letter that the Speaker sent regarding the Strategic Oil Reserve that
will bring the price of gas down 5 to 24 cents.
I think it's also important to look at measures that we have passed
here in Congress and that many of our friends on the other side of the
aisle seem to be standing up in the middle, which we call the ``policy
door,'' not allowing us to be able to send good pieces of legislation
to the President without the President knowing that he has enough
Republicans on this floor to withstand an override.
Now, there were four bills, and I'm going to turn it back over to
you, Mr. Ryan, which was an OPEC bill that we passed that was dealing
with--well, a NOPEC bill was dealing with not allowing OPEC oil
companies to be able to price gouge Americans, and it allowed the
Justice Department to carry out even more enforcement efforts against
these, what we call, cartels.
Price gouging, also renewable energy and the Energy Security Act, a
number of our Republican colleagues on the other side, as you can see
this piece of paper here, voted ``no.'' And I think it's important,
especially amongst the leadership, it's important that we no longer
have that kind of activity going
[[Page 7556]]
on when the American people are looking for some relief and looking for
some enforcement.
Something is not right. Something is not clean in the milk. Something
doesn't smell right when it comes down to why gas continues to go up
and up and up.
And it's amazing. There's an uproar about gas, and then it will go
down for a minute, then it will be back up some 20 to 15 cents a gallon
on top of what it used to cost.
So I think, Mr. Speaker and Members, we need to pay very close
attention to what is happening on this energy issue but also pay
attention to what is getting done. And we're doing a lot here. We've
seen a lot.
We've sent a lot of good legislation to the President. We hope the
President will sign the legislation versus vetoing to make a point that
is pointless when it comes down to the forward progress of the American
people.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. When you look at what the Speaker has been asking
the President to do now for weeks, possibly months, to suspend filling
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we have this reserve in the United
States that a certain amount of barrels of oil go in a day. And this is
to make sure that in case of a crisis, we have oil for national defense
purposes and so forth. This is oil that's going in every day.
The Speaker, based on the history and what the experts and the
economists are telling us, is that if you divert that oil that's going
in to the petroleum reserve and you allow that oil to be purchased on
the market, that it will drive down the cost of oil.
{time} 1830
And this will lead to a savings at the pump of about 25 cents per
gallon because there will be an increase in the supply of oil in the
market and it will drive the cost down.
Now, we're not sitting here saying that this is the magic wand we're
going to waive and everything's going to be fine. But what we are
saying is, when you implement this and you take some of the pressure
off, you can save almost $6 a barrel and 25 cents at the pump. So if
you are a truck driver, Mr. Meek, 25 cents, when you're putting 20 or
30 gallons in, adds up when you're spending your life driving. And
throwing the kids in the back of the mini van or filling up the truck
and going back and forth, this is a significant savings. And the
Speaker has been pressing the President to make this move and put this
oil back into the market, Mr. Meek, but hasn't had any success at all.
I yield to my friend.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Ryan, I agree with everything you just said,
outside of throwing the kids in the back of the mini van; us parents,
we don't do that.
But let me just say real quickly that we look at common sense and we
look at the needs of the American people. They want to know what's
happening. Every time they look at that gas price board that's in front
of the gas station they're thinking about, who's running the
government? They're thinking about, who's overseeing this? Who's in a
magic room somewhere pushing up these gas prices? And I think it's
important that we understand that it's bigger than a debate, that this
is really dealing with folks having to park their car. This is dealing
with folks who are going through some real hard times. And we have to
make sure that we stand up for them.
Now, the President may wait a little while and say, well, I'm not
going to do what the Speaker asked to do, suspending filling the
Strategic Reserve, I'm not going to do it. Maybe he may do it now, I
don't know. The first quarter report has come out on the oil revenues.
Maybe that may happen, I don't know. I'm not saying that that's the
motivation, I'm just saying that the American people need some relief
and they need it now. And hopefully they will be able to get it sooner
than later because we're having folks, from rising food costs, rising
energy costs, finding themselves in a situation where they can't even
afford to drive to work or to get their children to school.
Also, Mr. Ryan, as I spoke before about our friends on the other side
of the aisle, our Republican leadership, we definitely want them to
work with us as it relates to driving these energy costs down and then
going after the individuals that may have something to do with jacking
up the price on the American people. Last week, I talked about the fact
that a gallon of gas in Iraq costs, I believe it was between $1.30 and
$1.55. Here in the United States, it costs a lot more. And we all know
what those costs are, people are reminded every day when they have to
go to the pump. I have constituents that are putting something on it
every day. When I say ``putting something on it,'' they can't afford to
fill their whole tank up. They're putting in $5, $6, whatever the case
may be, and just getting less than a gallon and a half of gas because
that's all they can afford. And especially for those individuals that
have stepped over their budget, taking the credit card out, filling it
up with a credit card. That soon adds up because it's not within their
budget to pay the $24 or the $50 they have to pay on these credit
cards.
But I go back to say that fuel in Iraq is a lot cheaper than it is
here in the United States. And the U.S. military is spending in the
neighborhood of $3 and change in filling a gallon of gas in the same
country. So when we start looking out how we're helping Iraq and how
Iraq is assisting and appreciating our help, we also have to look at
the difference and the disparity in the cost of gas between what our
troops and civilian personnel have to pay for a gallon of gas there and
what everyday Iraqis pay.
So when we look at it from the big picture, Mr. Ryan, we have to look
at it from the executive branch level. And I think it's important that
the President looks at all of this and takes it all into consideration.
But we do need some action.
We talk about a commonsense approach--I said it earlier, I'll say it
again--on the No Oil Producing and Exploiting Cartels Act, I think it's
important that we see the passage of H.R. 2264 that has passed this
House. And the Republican leadership has voted against. When you look
at the Energy Price Gouging Act, you have to look at it for what it's
worth. And this legislation will reduce the burden of rising gas prices
on American families by providing immediate relief to consumers by
giving the Federal Trade Commission authority to investigate and punish
those who artificially inflate gas prices. I mean, I want that, I want
it bad to be honest with you, because I think it's important that if we
have these commissions and we have those enforcement agencies, give
them what they need.
Right now, as far as I'm concerned, the Federal Trade Commission is
like a police officer in a high-crime area without a weapon. And I can
tell you, there will be no real enforcement there if they don't have
the tools that they need to be able to enforce the law when it comes
down to it.
Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Act of 2008, H.R. 5351, very
important piece of legislation. The bill has ended unnecessary
subsidies to oil companies in which we're investing in clean and
renewable energy. And I think it's important that Americans understand,
and also, Mr. Ryan, that every Member of Congress understand, that none
of the legislation that I've mentioned thus far would have seen the
light of day if it wasn't for the 110th Congress and it wasn't for
Democrats allowing it to come to the floor.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Absolutely. And I think you've made some great
points, Mr. Meek.
I just would like to say that, if you listen to some of our friends
on the other side talk about gas prices, here is a party, Mr. Speaker,
and an administration for 6 years--and the President and the Vice
President being oil men--not doing a thing on energy, dependence on
foreign oil, so on and so forth, to somehow accuse the Democrats of not
addressing the issue, and completely oblivious to the fact that we're
the ones passing legislation to crack down on price gouging, Mr. Meek.
We're the ones that are passing legislation to hold OPEC accountable
for price fixing. It's the Democratic Party
[[Page 7557]]
that's repealing the subsidies to Big Oil so that we can take that
money and invest it into alternative energy sources. It's Speaker
Pelosi that's calling on the President to take the barrels of oil that
are going into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and put those in the
market to drive down gas by a quarter, that's something easy we can do.
But it is the President and the Republican Congress, Mr. Speaker, that
have consistently vetoed these bills or put the kibosh on them in the
Senate, blocking lower prices every step of the way.
And if you look at what we have done here, pushed by the Speaker, to
have fuel efficiency standards being raised for cars and trucks, we
will reduce oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels per day in 2020.
This is forward-looking. This is something that will save consumers
between $700 and $1,000 at the pump in 2020. Now, we know that's not
addressing the issues today. We're talking about the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. We're talking about cracking down on OPEC. We're
talking about cracking down on price gouging that may be going on in
the United States and our local communities. These are the short-term
issues. And each one has been opposed by the Republicans and has been
opposed by the President of the United States.
So when you ask the folks at home, Mr. Speaker, what the Congress has
done, the answers are here. And if anybody wants to know what they are,
they can go to the Speaker's Web site. Trying to stop price gouging at
the pump, price manipulation from OPEC, divert the oil that's going
into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that's what we're trying to do
here. Repeal the subsidies for Big Oil and put that money and invest it
in alternative research. Mr. Speaker, these are the policies of the
Democratic Congress. And each one of those has been opposed by the
Republican Party and opposed by the President of the United States,
period, dot, Mr. Meek; period, dot.
So let there be no mistake, when common sense tells you we have a
couple of oil barons running the executive branch, Mr. Speaker, and the
Democrats are trying to push these initiatives to provide some relief
for the common good and the common folks that we represent and it's
opposed by the Republicans and opposed by this administration, it's
important for us to set this record straight, Mr. Meek.
So as we begin to wrap up here, Mr. Meek, I would like to yield to
you.
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, Mr. Ryan, I look forward to next week. I
look forward to the hearings that will take place under the Dome.
Again, democracy will reign. We will be able to continue to move in
this new direction that the American people want us to move in.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. What's wrong with that?
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Nothing wrong with that at all.
And I also believe, Mr. Ryan, that through the hard work of not only
the staff here that provide us with not only the information that we
use to fight on behalf of the American people, but also when we go back
to our districts, what we hear from our constituents, we give them
voice, we are them. We are representatives of the various parts of the
country that we're from, and it's important that we bring that level of
frustration here.
Speaking of small business men and women, they own a pick-up truck or
an SUV, we hear from them, Congressman, it cost me $105 to fill my
truck up. And they're still trying to sell their products for the same
price, just a little bit more. Everything is going up, up, up, and
they're getting priced out. And I think it's important, even from my
neck of the woods in Florida, where you have bagel shops, some of them
have gone so high up on bagels because of the cost and folks can't
afford them.
So when you look at it, this is a major, major issue and every
American is being touched by it, especially for those middle class
families and for those individuals that are what we call our working
poor. And so, Mr. Ryan, every day we come to the floor I think it's
important we give light to that.
I also want to give the numbers on Iraq, as I always do. As of today,
May 1, in Iraq, the total deaths are 4,064. The total number wounded in
action and returned to duty, 16,567. And total number wounded in action
not returning to duty is 13,344. Mr. Ryan, you know, every time I come
to the floor I like to read that into the Record so that Members will
understand our responsibility of trying to bring the super majority of
our men and women home.
One last point, Mr. Ryan. I think that when we look at this issue
called public service, and I'm speaking to all of the Members, we have
to look at it from the standpoint that we're only here for a short
period of time. Less than 11,000 Americans have actually had an
opportunity to serve in this U.S. Congress. And every day Members
should take the responsibility to treat it as though it is their last
day to serve and not put something off for another day or another week
or another month, because there are people out there that are counting
on us and depending on us, as it relates to bringing about health care
to their children, bringing down these fuel costs and energy costs, and
also making sure that we're able to stimulate this economy in the right
way.
So with that, I would yield back to Mr. Ryan.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, I appreciate that. And you brought up those
who are serving here. And I think it's worth noting that the veterans
measure, another initiative that the Democrats have tried to push for a
new G.I. Bill, for free college for our vets, opposed by Defense
Secretary Gates, opposed by the administration. This is an opportunity
for us to thank those men and women who are serving our country to say,
when you get out, you're going to have free college tuition anywhere in
the country. And I think that's a small gesture.
{time} 1845
And once again, I think the President and our friends on the other
side are out of step with what the American people think we should be
doing. It's one thing to wave the flag, and it's another thing to put
your money where your mouth is.
So, Mr. Meek, I want to thank you for the opportunity to join you
here on this beautiful Thursday evening in Washington, D.C., and I look
forward to coming down here with you next week and continuing to make
the case for the programs that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer
and Mr. Clyburn and Rahm Emanuel and John Larson are pushing in our
caucus. These are the issues that we care about and we're going to
continue to push.
____________________
SPECIAL ORDERS GRANTED
By unanimous consent, permission to address the House, following the
legislative program and any special orders heretofore entered, was
granted to:
(The following Members (at the request of Ms. Woolsey) to revise and
extend their remarks and include extraneous material:)
Mr. Skelton, for 5 minutes, today.
Ms. Woolsey, for 5 minutes, today.
Mr. DeFazio, for 5 minutes, today.
Mr. Schiff, for 5 minutes, today.
____________________
SENATE BILL REFERRED
A bill of the Senate of the following title was taken from the
Speaker's table and, under the rule, referred as follows:
S. 1760. An act to amend the Public Health Service Act with
respect to the Healthy Start Initiative; to the Committee on
Energy and Commerce.
____________________
SENATE ENROLLED BILL SIGNED
The Speaker announced her signature to an enrolled bill of the Senate
of the following title:
S. 2954. To amend Public Law 110-196 to provide for a
temporary extension of programs authorized by the Farm
Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 beyond May 2, 2008.
____________________
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now
adjourn.
The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 46 minutes
[[Page 7558]]
p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, May
5, 2008, at 12:30 p.m., for morning-hour debate.
____________________
EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS, ETC.
Under clause 8 of rule XII, executive communications were taken from
the Speaker's table and referred as follows:
6360. A letter from the Chairman, Council of the District
of Columbia, transmitting a copy of D.C. ACT 17-359,
``Electronic Mail Public Record Clarification Amendment Act
of 2008,'' pursuant to D.C. Code section 1-233(c)(1); to the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
6361. A letter from the Chairman, Council of the District
of Columbia, transmitting a copy of D.C. ACT 17-359,
``Electronic Mail Public Record Clarification Amendment Act
of 2008,'' pursuant to D.C. Code section 1-233(c)(1); to the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
6362. A letter from the Chairman, Council of the District
of Columbia, transmitting a copy of D.C. ACT 17-360,
``Compliance Unit Establishment Act of 2008,'' pursuant to
D.C. Code section 1-233(c)(1); to the Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform.
6363. A letter from the General Counsel, Federal Retirement
Thrift Investment Board, transmitting the Board's final rule
-- Participants' Choices of TSP Funds -- received April 25,
2008, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); to the Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform.
6364. A letter from the Director, Office of Personnel
Management, transmitting the Office's final rule -- HUMAN
RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN AGENCIES (RIN: 3206-AJ92) received
April 25, 2008, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); to the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
6365. A letter from the Assistant Secretary ---- Fish,
Wildlife & Parks, Department of the Interior, transmitting
the Department's final rule -- Public Access, Use, and
Recreation Regulations for the Upper Mississippi River
National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (RIN: 1018-AV43) received
April 25, 2008, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); to the
Committee on Natural Resources.
6366. A letter from the Director Office of Sustainable
Fisheries, NMFS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, transmitting the Administration's final rule
-- Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska;
Pacific Cod by American Fisheries Act Catcher Processors
Using Trawl Gear in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands
Management Area [Docket No. 071106673-8011-02] (RIN: 0648-
XG86) received April 29, 2008, pursuant to 5 U.S.C.
801(a)(1)(A); to the Committee on Natural Resources.
6367. A letter from the Acting Director Office of
Sustainable Fisheries, NMFS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, transmitting the Administration's final rule
-- Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Atka
Mackerel by Vessels in the Amendment 80 Limited Access
Fishery in the Western Aleutian District of the Bering Sea
and Aleutian Islands Management Area [Docket No. 071106673-
8011-02] (RIN: 0648-XH07) received April 30, 2008, pursuant
to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A); to the Committee on Natural
Resources.
6368. A letter from the Acting Director Office of
Sustainable Fisheries, NMFS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, transmitting the Administration's final rule
-- Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska;
Reallocation of Pacific Cod in the Bering Sea and Aleutian
Islands Management Area [Docket No. 071106673-8011-02] (RIN:
0648-XH13) received April 29, 2008, pursuant to 5 U.S.C.
801(a)(1)(A); to the Committee on Natural Resources.
6369. A letter from the Acting Director Office of
Sustainable Fisheries, NMFS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, transmitting the Administration's final rule
-- Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska;
Pacific Ocean Perch for Vessels in the Bering Sea and
Aleutian Islands Trawl Limited Access Fishery in the Eastern
Aleutian District of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands
Management Area [Docket No. 071106673-8011-02] (RIN: 0648-
XG59) received April 7, 2008, pursuant to 5 U.S.C.
801(a)(1)(A); to the Committee on Natural Resources.
6370. A letter from the Acting Assistant Administrator for
Fisheries, NMFS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, transmitting the Administration's final rule
-- Endangered and Threatened Wildlife; Sea Turtle
Conservation [Docket No. 071030628-8482-02] (RIN: 0648-AV84)
received April 25, 2008, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A);
to the Committee on Natural Resources.
____________________
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES ON PUBLIC BILLS AND RESOLUTIONS
Under clause 2 of rule XIII, reports of committees were delivered to
the Clerk for printing and reference to the proper calendar, as
follows:
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts: Committee on Financial
Services. H.R. 5579. A bill to remove an impediment to
troubled debt restructuring on the part of holders of
residential mortgage loans, and for other purposes; with an
amendment (Rept. 110-615). Referred to the Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts: Committee on Financial
Services. H.R. 5818. A bill to authorize the Secretary of
Housing and Urban Development to make loans to States to
acquire foreclosed housing and to make grants to States for
related costs; with an amendment (Rept. 110-616). Referred to
the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union.
____________________
TIME LIMITATION OF REFERRED BILL
Pursuant to clause 2 of rule XII the following action was taken by
the Speaker:
[Omitted from the Record of April 30, 2008]
H.R. 135. Referral to the Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure extended for a period ending not later than
May 22, 2008.
[Submitted May 1, 2008]
H.R. 948. Referral to the Committee on Ways and Means
extended for a period ending not later than June 6, 2008.
____________________
PUBLIC BILLS AND RESOLUTIONS
Under clause 2 of rule XII, public bills and resolutions were
introduced and severally referred, as follows:
By Mr. TOWNS (for himself, Mr. King of New York, Mr.
Frank of Massachusetts, Ms. Waters, and Ms.
Velazquez):
H.R. 5937. A bill to facilitate the preservation of certain
affordable housing dwelling units; to the Committee on
Financial Services.
By Mr. CONYERS (for himself, Mr. Smith of Texas, Mr.
Scott of Virginia, and Mr. Gohmert):
H.R. 5938. A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to
provide secret service protection to former Vice Presidents,
and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
By Mr. CARSON:
H.R. 5939. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to
extend the time limitation for the use of entitlement to
educational assistance under the Montgomery GI Bill for
certain persons actively pursuing a qualifying educational
degree or certificate; to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a
period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each
case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the
jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
By Mr. GORDON (for himself, Mr. Hall of Texas, Mr.
Baird, Mr. Ehlers, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson of
Texas, Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. Udall of Colorado, Mr.
Smith of Texas, Mr. Wu, Mr. Bartlett of Maryland, Mr.
Miller of North Carolina, Mr. Lucas, Mr. Lipinski,
Mrs. Biggert, Ms. Giffords, Mr. Akin, Ms. Hooley, Mr.
Neugebauer, Mr. Rothman, Mr. Inglis of South
Carolina, Mr. Wilson of Ohio, Mr. McCaul of Texas,
Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, Mr. Gingrey, and
Mr. Bilbray):
H.R. 5940. A bill to authorize activities for support of
nanotechnology research and development, and for other
purposes; to the Committee on Science and Technology.
By Mr. FOSTER:
H.R. 5941. A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to
authorize taxpayers to designate a portion of their income
tax payments to a National Military Family Relief Fund to be
used by the Secretary of Defense to assist the families of
members of the Armed Forces who are serving in, or have
served in, Iraq or Afghanistan; to the Committee on Ways and
Means, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services,
for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in
each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
By Mr. TOWNS (for himself, Mr. Burgess, Mr. Waxman, and
Mrs. Blackburn):
H.R. 5942. A bill to ensure the continued and future
availability of lifesaving trauma health care in the United
States and to prevent further trauma center closures and
downgrades by assisting trauma centers with uncompensated
care costs, core mission services, emergency needs, and
information technology; to the Committee on Energy and
Commerce.
By Mr. BURGESS:
H.R. 5943. A bill to authorize the Secretary of Energy to
establish monetary prizes for achievements in designing and
proposing nuclear energy used fuel alternatives; to the
Committee on Science and Technology.
By Mr. PUTNAM (for himself, Mr. Wilson of South
Carolina, Mrs. Drake, Mr. Kline of Minnesota, and Mr.
English of Pennsylvania):
H.R. 5944. A bill to amend titles 10 and 38, United States
Code, to improve educational assistance for members of the
Armed Forces and veterans in order to enhance recruitment and
retention for the Armed Forces,
[[Page 7559]]
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Armed Services,
and in addition to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, for a
period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each
case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the
jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
By Mrs. CAPITO:
H.R. 5945. A bill to direct the Secretary of the Interior
to conduct a special resource study to determine the
suitability and feasibility of including the Washington
Family Legacy Lands of Jefferson County, West Virginia, as
part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park or designating
the lands as a separate unit of the National Park System, and
for other purposes; to the Committee on Natural Resources.
By Mr. ELLISON (for himself, Ms. McCollum of Minnesota,
Mr. Walz of Minnesota, Mr. Oberstar, Mr. Cummings,
Mr. Filner, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Watt, Ms. Watson, Ms.
Woolsey, Mr. McDermott, Mr. Meek of Florida, Mr.
Price of North Carolina, Ms. Baldwin, and Mr. Kagen):
H.R. 5946. A bill to amend the Help America Vote Act of
2002 to require States to provide for election day
registration; to the Committee on House Administration.
By Mr. KING of New York (for himself, Mrs. McCarthy of
New York, Mr. Fossella, Mr. Reynolds, and Mr. Kuhl of
New York):
H.R. 5947. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to
establish a returning soldiers' bill of rights; to the
Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
By Mr. LAMPSON:
H.R. 5948. A bill to amend section 274 of the Immigration
and Nationality Act to increase penalties for unlawfully
bringing in and harboring aliens with prior felony
convictions under Federal law; to the Committee on the
Judiciary.
By Mr. LaTOURETTE (for himself and Mrs. Miller of
Michigan):
H.R. 5949. A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act to address certain discharges incidental to the
normal operation of a recreational vessel; to the Committee
on Transportation and Infrastructure.
By Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California:
H.R. 5950. A bill to require the Secretary of Homeland
Security to establish procedures for the timely and effective
delivery of medical and mental health care to all immigration
detainees in custody, and for other purposes; to the
Committee on the Judiciary.
By Ms. MATSUI:
H.R. 5951. A bill to implement a safe and complete streets
program; to the Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure.
By Ms. SCHWARTZ:
H.R. 5952. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to authorize tax credit bonds for capital improvements
for police and fire departments; to the Committee on Ways and
Means, and in addition to the Committee on Education and
Labor, for a period to be subsequently determined by the
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as
fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
By Mr. SMITH of Washington (for himself, Mr. Dicks, Mr.
McDermott, Mr. Inslee, Mr. Baird, and Mr. Larsen of
Washington):
H.R. 5953. A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social
Security Act to improve the provision of items and services
provided to Medicare beneficiaries residing in rural areas;
to the Committee on Ways and Means, and in addition to the
Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to be
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for
consideration of such provisions as fall within the
jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
By Mr. THOMPSON of California (for himself and Mr.
Rehberg):
H.R. 5954. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to
provide veterans for presumptions of service connection for
purposes of benefits under laws administered by Secretary of
Veterans Affairs for diseases associated with service in the
Armed Forces and exposure to biological, chemical, or other
toxic agents as part of Project 112, and for other purposes;
to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and in addition to the
Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of
such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the
committee concerned.
By Mr. WALBERG (for himself, Mr. Franks of Arizona, Mr.
Feeney, Mr. Kline of Minnesota, Mr. Tiahrt, Mr.
Chabot, and Mr. Bartlett of Maryland):
H.R. 5955. A bill to provide for comprehensive health
reform; to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in
addition to the Committees on Education and Labor, the
Judiciary, and Ways and Means, for a period to be
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for
consideration of such provisions as fall within the
jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
By Mr. WEINER:
H.R. 5956. A bill to improve the protections afforded under
Federal law to consumers from contaminated seafood by
directing the Secretary of Commerce to establish a program,
in coordination with other appropriate Federal agencies, to
strengthen activities for ensuring that seafood sold or
offered for sale to the public in or affecting interstate
commerce is fit for human consumption; to the Committee on
Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on
Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined by
the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee
concerned.
By Mr. BUTTERFIELD:
H. Con. Res. 339. Concurrent resolution expressing the
sense of Congress regarding the necessity to improve public
awareness in the United States among older individuals and
their families and caregivers about the impending Digital
Television Transition through the establishment of a Federal
interagency taskforce between the Federal Communications
Commission, the Administration on Aging, the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration, and the
outside advice of appropriate members of the aging network
and industry groups; to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
By Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California:
H. Con. Res. 340. Concurrent resolution to make technical
corrections in the enrollment of the bill H. R. 493;
considered and agreed to.
By Mr. BOUSTANY:
H. Res. 1168. A resolution congratulating charter schools
and their students, parents, teachers, and administrators
across the United States for their ongoing contributions to
education, and for other purposes; to the Committee on
Education and Labor.
By Mr. LEWIS of Georgia (for himself, Mr. Towns, Mr.
Meek of Florida, Mrs. Maloney of New York, Mr.
Hinchey, Ms. Lee, Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas, Mr.
Ellison, Mr. Honda, Mrs. Christensen, Mr. Rangel, Ms.
Sutton, Mr. Payne, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Jackson of
Illinois, Mr. Conyers, Ms. Bordallo, Mr. Kucinich,
Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Michaud, Ms. Kilpatrick, Mr.
Butterfield, Mr. Davis of Alabama, Mr. Wynn, Mr.
Hastings of Florida, Mr. Fattah, Ms. Watson, Mr.
Grijalva, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Mr. Miller of North
Carolina, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Frank of Massachusetts,
Mr. Gutierrez, Mr. Rush, Mr. Baca, Mr. Clyburn, Ms.
Zoe Lofgren of California, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Watt,
and Mr. Johnson of Georgia):
H. Res. 1169. A resolution expressing the sense of the
House of Representatives that the United States should become
an international human rights leader by ratifying and
implementing certain core international conventions; to the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the
Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of
such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the
committee concerned.
By Mr. EHLERS:
H. Res. 1170. A resolution commending Indiana Secretary of
State Todd Rokita for his leadership and dedication to
protecting the integrity of the election process and
increasing voter confidence in all of our elections; to the
Committee on House Administration.
By Mr. KING of Iowa (for himself and Ms. Herseth
Sandlin):
H. Res. 1171. A resolution congratulating the on-premises
sign industry for its contributions to the success of small
businesses on the occasion of its 62nd Annual International
Sign Expo; to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
By Mrs. McCARTHY of New York (for herself, Mr. Hastings
of Florida, Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas, Mr. King of New
York, Mr. Hinchey, Ms. Sutton, Mr. Israel, Mr. Bishop
of New York, and Mr. Michaud):
H. Res. 1172. A resolution recognizing and honoring the
Firefighter Cancer Support Network; to the Committee on
Energy and Commerce.
____________________
MEMORIALS
Under clause 3 of rule XII, memorials were presented and referred as
follows:
260. The SPEAKER presented a memorial of the House of
Representatives of the State of Rhode Island, relative to
House Resolution No. 8049 urging the Congress of the United
States to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the
prisoner of war-missing in action issue; to the Committee on
Armed Services.
261. Also, a memorial of the Senate of the State of New
Jersey, relative to Senate Resolution No. 24 memorializing
the Congress of the United States to enact legislation
requiring annual publication of a list disclosing companies
planning or currently in the practice of outsourcing U.S.
jobs to other countries; to the Committee on Education and
Labor.
262. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
Idaho, relative to House Joint Memorial No. 7 urging the
Congress of the United States to take action to help stop
children and employees from accessing Internet pornography
and to request that legislation be enacted to facilitate a
technology-
[[Page 7560]]
based solution that allows parents and employers to subscribe
to Internet access services that exclude adult content; to
the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
263. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
Idaho, relative to House Joint Memorial No. 6 urging the
Congress of the United States and the Department of Health
and Human Services to allow resident advocate groups in Idaho
and industry representatives to negotiate on how to improve
the survey process in skilled nursing facilities in Idaho; to
the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
264. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
Louisiana, relative to House Concurrent Resolution No. 38
memorializing the Congress of the United States to take such
actions as are necessary to call a convention for the purpose
of proposing an amendment to the United States Constitution
to include the Posse Comitatus Act as a consitutional
prohibition; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
265. Also, a memorial of the Senate of the State of
Michigan, relative to Senate Resolution No. 165 memorializing
the Congress of the United States to reverse cuts to the
Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program; to
the Committee on the Judiciary.
266. Also, a memorial of the Senate of the State of Rhode
Island, relative to Senate Resolution No. 2899 urging the
Congress of the United States to appoint an independent
counsel to investigate the prisoner of war-missing in action
issue; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
267. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
Louisiana, relative to House Concurrent Resolution No. 39
memorializing the Congress of the United States and
Louisiana's congressional delegation to take such action as
are necessary to provide the state of Louisiana with one-
hundred-year flood protection; to the Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure.
268. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
Louisiana, relative to House Concurrent Resolution No. 22
memorializing the Congress of the United States and
Louisiana's congressional delegation to take such actions as
are necessary to ensure that sufficient funds are
appropriated to provide a one hundred percent federal share
of the costs necessary to construct one-hundred-year flood
protection for southeast Louisiana; to the Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure.
269. Also, a memorial of the Senate of the State of New
Jersey, relative to Senate Resolution No. 13 requesting the
Government of the United States establish a funding program
to defray the safety equipment and engineering costs incurred
by local communities to establish ``quiet zones'' along light
rail lines operating on railroad freight tracks; to the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
270. Also, a memorial of the House of Representatives of
the State of Illinois, relative to House Resolution No. 1009
urging the Congress of the United States and the Department
of Energy to make any changes necessary to reverse the
decision that resulted in the dismantling and abandonment of
FutureGen; to the Committee on Science and Technology.
271. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
Louisiana, relative to House Concurrent Resolution No. 23
urging the Congress of the United States ensure adequate
funding for veterans' health care and to express gratitude to
veterans for sacrifices made while serving in the United
States Armed Forces; to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
272. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
Louisiana, relative to Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 11
memorializing the Congress of the United States and the
Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service to take action
to provide that refundable credits received by Louisiana
homeowners to offset Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance
Assessments on their homeowner's insurance premiums because
of the unprecedented damage and destruction of homes in the
recent hurricanes shall not be considered as income for
federal tax purposes; to the Committee on Ways and Means.
273. Also, a memorial of the Senate of the State of Hawaii,
relative to Senate Resolution No. 25 urging the Congress of
the United States to support the Korea-United States Free
Trade Agreement; to the Committee on Ways and Means.
274. Also, a memorial of the House of Representatives of
the State of Alaska, relative to House Resolution No. 7
urging the Congress of the United States to support, work to
pass, and vote for the immediate and permanent repeal of the
federal estate tax; to the Committee on Ways and Means.
275. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
Mississippi, relative to Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 556
urging the President of the United States and the Congress of
the United States to support passage of the Secure Rural
Schools and Community Self-Determination Act; jointly to the
Committees on Agriculture and Natural Resources.
276. Also, a memorial of the Legislature of the State of
New York, relative to a Legislative Resolution urging the New
York State Congressional delegation oppose S. 40/H.R. 3200;
jointly to the Committees on Financial Services and the
Judiciary.
277. Also, a memorial of the House of Representatives of
the State of Mississippi, relative to House Resolution No. 66
urging the Federal Government to withdraw water from the Gulf
of Mexico for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; jointly to the
Committees on Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources.
278. Also, a memorial of the House of Representatives of
the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, relative to a Resolution
expressing the most forceful and firmest repudiation of the
House of Representatives of Puerto Rico to the highly
discriminatory expressions of Congresswoman Virginia
``Ginny'' Brown-Waite from the 5th District of Florida
regarding the inclusion of the U.S. Citizens residing in
Puerto Rico in the bill for economic stimulus that is
presently being considered by the United States Congress;
jointly to the Committees on Ways and Means and Financial
Services.
279. Also, a memorial of the House of Representatives of
the State of Michigan, relative to House Resolution No. 306
memorializing the Congress of the United States to pass and
the President of the United States to sign the Foreclosure
Prevention Act of 2008; jointly to the Committees on Ways and
Means, Financial Services, and the Judiciary.
____________________
ADDITIONAL SPONSORS
Under clause 7 of rule XII, sponsors were added to public bills and
resolutions as follows:
H.R. 139: Mr. Platts.
H.R. 154: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 405: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 506: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 583: Mr. Murtha.
H.R. 686: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 724: Mr. Broun of Georgia.
H.R. 748: Mr. McGovern, Mr. Carson, Mr. Jefferson, Mr.
Pascrell, Mrs. Capito, and Mr. Berman.
H.R. 895: Mr. Knollenberg.
H.R. 948: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 971: Mr. Souder.
H.R. 1000: Mr. Skelton, Mr. Stupak, Mr. Cramer, Mr.
Marshall, Mr. McNulty, and Mr. Hoyer.
H.R. 1014: Mr. Carson and Mr. Lewis of Georgia.
H.R. 1023: Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Miller of North Carolina, Mr.
Ross, Mr. Ellsworth, and Mr. Johnson of Illinois.
H.R. 1032: Mr. Gutierrez.
H.R. 1063: Mr. Whitfield of Kentucky and Mr. Everett.
H.R. 1072: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1076: Mr. Ellsworth.
H.R. 1078: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1103: Mr. Andrews.
H.R. 1108: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1172: Mr. Wolf.
H.R. 1185: Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. Cantor, and Mr. Lewis
of Georgia.
H.R. 1192: Mr. Carson and Mr. Klein of Florida.
H.R. 1232: Mr. Shays.
H.R. 1238: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1282: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1343: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1346: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1419: Mr. Ellsworth and Ms. Baldwin.
H.R. 1422: Ms. Giffords.
H.R. 1428: Mr. Allen.
H.R. 1431: Mr. Rangel, Mr. Terry, Mr. Carson, and Mrs.
Myrick.
H.R. 1439: Mr. Kagen.
H.R. 1440: Mr. Carney.
H.R. 1475: Mr. Udall of Colorado and Mr. Bishop of New
York.
H.R. 1501: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1532: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1552: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1553: Mr. Petri and Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1560: Mr. Yarmuth and Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1576: Ms. Baldwin and Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1584: Mrs. Myrick.
H.R. 1586: Mr. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania.
H.R. 1589: Mr. Shays, Mr. Altmire, Mr. Poe, and Mr.
Bartlett of Maryland.
H.R. 1610: Mr. Lampson, Mr. Kagen, Mr. Rodriguez, and Ms.
Fallin.
H.R. 1621: Mr. Carney, Mr. Porter, Mr. Olver, Mr. Carson,
Ms. Clarke, Mr. Sestak, Mr. Tiahrt, and Ms. Velazquez.
H.R. 1629: Mr. Boustany.
H.R. 1643: Mr. Miller of North Carolina.
H.R. 1647: Mr. Carson, Mr. Jackson of Illinois, Mr. Lucas,
Mr. Boustany, and Mrs. Miller of Michigan.
H.R. 1655: Mr. Carson and Ms. Sutton.
H.R. 1671: Mr. Carson and Mr. English of Pennsylvania.
H.R. 1688: Mr. Nadler.
H.R. 1742: Ms. Baldwin.
H.R. 1783: Mr. Kind and Mr. Nadler.
H.R. 1871: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 1881: Mr. Carson, Mr. Hinchey, and Ms. Kaptur.
H.R. 1953: Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Michaud, Mr. Boucher, Ms.
Richardson, and Mr. Grijalva.
H.R. 1968: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 2012: Mr. Sali.
H.R. 2020: Mr. Putnam.
[[Page 7561]]
H.R. 2032: Mr. Nadler and Mr. Payne.
H.R. 2116: Mr. Ross Mr. Ellsworth, Mr. Altmire, and Mrs.
Myrick.
H.R. 2131: Mr. Shays.
H.R. 2138: Mr. Doolittle.
H.R. 2188: Ms. Linda T. Sanchez of California and Mr.
Wilson of Ohio.
H.R. 2210: Mr. Carson and Ms. Berkley.
H.R. 2236: Mr. Cohen and Ms. Kaptur.
H.R. 2268: Mr. Keller, Ms. Bordallo, Mr. Hall of Texas, Mr.
Walsh of New York, Mr. Lampson, Mr. Hare, Ms. Sutton, Mr.
Burton of Indiana, Mr. Akin, Ms. Berkley, Mr. Johnson of
Illinois, Mr. Wittman of Virginia, Mr. Castle, Mr. Cohen, Mr.
Wilson of Ohio, Mr. Goodlatte, Mrs. Bono Mack, Mr. Manzullo,
Mr. Price of North Carolina, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Roskam, Mr.
Radanovich, Mr. Bonner, Mr. Ehlers, Mr. Shays, Mr. Wilson of
South Carolina, and Mr. Hoekstra.
H.R. 2332: Mr. Smith of Texas, Mr. Broun of Georgia, Mr.
Shuster, and Mr. Rogers of Michigan.
H.R. 2395: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 2448: Mrs. Gillibrand.
H.R. 2495: Mr. Capuano.
H.R. 2512: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 2550: Mr. Keller, Mr. Boozman, Ms. Kaptur, Mr.
Butterfield, and Mr. Campbell of California.
H.R. 2552: Mr. McNulty.
H.R. 2723: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 2734: Mr. Buyer.
H.R. 2762: Mr. Carson and Mr. Faleomavaega.
H.R. 2802: Mr. Cleaver and Ms. Harman.
H.R. 2818: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 2821: Mrs. Boyda of Kansas.
H.R. 2892: Mr. Price of North Carolina.
H.R. 2922: Mr. Carney.
H.R. 2928: Ms. Clarke and Mr. Emanuel.
H.R. 2955: Mr. Emanuel.
H.R. 3001: Mr. Space.
H.R. 3014: Mr. Capuano, Ms. Woolsey, Mr. Carson, and Mr.
Sestak.
H.R. 3063: Mr. Bishop of New York, Mr. Kuhl of New York,
and Mr. Rangel.
H.R. 3089: Mr. Tiberi, Mr. Platts, Mr. Goodlatte, Mr.
McHenry, Mr. Smith of Nebraska, Mr. Culberson, Mr. Lamborn,
Mr. Buyer, Mr. Conaway, and Mr. Shuster.
H.R. 3094: Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.
H.R. 3164: Mr. Cole of Oklahoma.
H.R. 3175: Mrs. McCarthy of New York and Mr. Udall of
Colorado.
H.R. 3186: Mr. Space, Mr. Price of North Carolina, Mr.
Pickering, and Mr. Butterfield.
H.R. 3191: Ms. McCollum of Minnesota.
H.R. 3202: Mr. Jefferson.
H.R. 3232: Mr. David Davis of Tennessee, Mr. Skelton, and
Mr. Carson.
H.R. 3257: Mr. Peterson of Minnesota and Mr. Lampson.
H.R. 3267: Mr. Ortiz and Mr. Capuano.
H.R. 3282: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 3326: Ms. Velazquez.
H.R. 3334: Ms. Baldwin.
H.R. 3363: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 3396: Ms. Herseth Sandlin.
H.R. 3453: Mr. King of New York and Ms. Zoe Lofgren of
California.
H.R. 3471: Ms. McCollum of Minnesota.
H.R. 3544: Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas and Mr.
Miller of North Carolina.
H.R. 3670: Mr. Campbell of California.
H.R. 3700: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 3817: Mr. Kind.
H.R. 3819: Ms. Berkley.
H.R. 3904: Mr. Price of North Carolina.
H.R. 4008: Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida.
H.R. 4026: Ms. Linda T. Sanchez of California and Mr.
Cummings.
H.R. 4044: Ms. McCollum of Minnesota.
H.R. 4102: Mrs. Maloney of New York.
H.R. 4109: Mr. Pastor.
H.R. 4133: Mrs. Myrick.
H.R. 4138: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 4141: Mr. Feeney, Mr. King of Iowa, and Mr. Poe.
H.R. 4204: Mr. Udall of Colorado, Mr. Perlmutter, and Ms.
Baldwin.
H.R. 4218: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 4237: Mr. Al Green of Texas.
H.R. 4464: Mr. Broun of Georgia, Mr. Pickering, and Mr.
Davis of Kentucky.
H.R. 4544: Mr. Buyer.
H.R. 4652: Mr. Watt, Ms. McCollum of Minnesota, and Ms.
Sutton.
H.R. 4688: Ms. Hooley.
H.R. 4775: Mrs. Davis of California and Ms. Eshoo.
H.R. 4987: Mr. Wittman of Virginia.
H.R. 5032: Mr. Inglis of South Carolina, Mr. Miller of
Florida, and Mr. Daniel E. Lungren of California.
H.R. 5143: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 5148: Mr. Kline of Minnesota.
H.R. 5157: Mr. Carson.
H.R. 5161: Mr. Kagen.
H.R. 5174: Mr. Snyder.
H.R. 5223: Mr. Udall of Colorado, Ms. McCollum of
Minnesota, and Ms. Baldwin.
H.R. 5244: Mr. Levin.
H.R. 5265: Mr. Walsh of New York, Mr. Gonzalez, Mr.
McCotter, and Mr. Hulshof.
H.R. 5268: Mrs. Davis of California, Mr. Farr, Mrs.
Napolitano, Mr. Berman, Mr. Carson, Mr. Van Hollen, and Mr.
Ryan of Ohio.
H.R. 5353: Ms. Eshoo, Ms. Harman, Mr. Walz of Minnesota,
Mr. George Miller of California, Mr. Frank of Massachusetts,
Mr. Ellison, Mr. Sestak, Ms. Zoe Lofgren of California, Mr.
Inslee, and Ms. Schakowsky.
H.R. 5426: Mr. Carson and Mr. Latta.
H.R. 5435: Mr. Reyes.
H.R. 5441: Mr. Hinchey.
H.R. 5515: Mr. Mitchell.
H.R. 5534: Mr. Moore of Kansas and Mr. Lipinski.
H.R. 5541: Mr. Honda, Mrs. Cubin, and Mr. Ruppersberger.
H.R. 5573: Ms. Berkley and Mr. Young of Florida.
H.R. 5580: Ms. Matsui.
H.R. 5627: Mr. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania.
H.R. 5662: Mr. Ortiz, Mr. Rothman, Mr. Gene Green of Texas,
Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Abercrombie, Mr. Baca, Mr. Langevin, Mr.
Hinchey, Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas, Mr. Gonzalez, Mr. Holt,
Mr. Pastor, Mr. Doggett, Mr. Sires, Mrs. Napolitano, Mr.
Honda, Mr. McIntyre, Mr. Ruppersberger, Mrs. Davis of
California, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Bilbray, and Mr. Klein of
Florida.
H.R. 5669: Mr. Yarmuth, Mr. Fortenberry, Mr. Regula, Mr.
McCrery, and Mr. Capuano.
H.R. 5673: Mr. Young of Florida, Mr. Wittman of Virginia,
Mr. Rogers of Kentucky, and Mr. Calvert.
H.R. 5674: Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas and Mr. Hastings of
Florida.
H.R. 5684: Mr. Buyer.
H.R. 5686: Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Payne.
H.R. 5695: Mr. Gary G. Miller of California.
H.R. 5700: Mr. Ryan of Ohio.
H.R. 5740: Mr. Gallegly, Mr. Hoekstra, Mr. Scott of
Georgia, and Mr. Upton.
H.R. 5748: Mr. Ramstad and Mr. Rahall.
H.R. 5755: Mr. Weiner.
H.R. 5759: Mr. Lucas.
H.R. 5761: Mr. Pitts.
H.R. 5775: Mrs. Myrick.
H.R. 5784: Mr. Marchant, Mrs. Myrick, and Mr. King of New
York.
H.R. 5793: Mr. Stearns, Mr. Ferguson, and Mrs. Blackburn.
H.R. 5794: Mr. Camp of Michigan.
H.R. 5797: Mr. Walberg.
H.R. 5802: Mr. Carson, Mr. Stark, Mr. McGovern, Ms.
Jackson-Lee of Texas, Mr. Lewis of Georgia, Mr. Conyers, and
Mr. Al Green of Texas.
H.R. 5805: Mr. Wittman of Virginia.
H.R. 5806: Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Carson, and Mr. Etheridge.
H.R. 5818: Mr. Meek of Florida, Mr. Cohen, Ms. Lee, and Ms.
McCollum of Minnesota.
H.R. 5824: Mr. Loebsack, Mr. Braley of Iowa, Mr.
Abercrombie, Mr. Hinchey, Mr. Hare, and Mr. Skelton.
H.R. 5830: Mr. Baca and Mr. Sherman.
H.R. 5833: Mr. Blumenauer.
H.R. 5837: Mr. Pitts and Mr. Cooper.
H.R. 5842: Mr. DeFazio.
H.R. 5847: Mr. Kingston, Mr. Gingrey, Mr. Wolf, and Mr.
Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida.
H.R. 5854: Mr. McDermott and Mr. Goode.
H.R. 5857: Mrs. Bono Mack.
H.R. 5868: Ms. Foxx.
H.R. 5881: Ms. McCollum of Minnesota and Ms. Schakowsky.
H.R. 5886: Mr. Wittman of Virginia and Mr. Mario Diaz-
Balart of Florida.
H.R. 5892: Mrs. Boyda of Kansas.
H.R. 5895: Mrs. Maloney of New York and Mr. Carson.
H.R. 5898: Ms. Corrine Brown of Florida, Ms. Ginny Brown-
Waite of Florida, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Carney, Ms. Castor, Mr.
Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida, Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of
Florida, Mr. Mica, Mr. Miller of Florida, Mr. Reichert, Mr.
Weldon of Florida, Mr. Wilson of South Carolina, and Mr.
Young of Florida.
H.R. 5906: Mr. Kuhl of New York.
H.R. 5907: Mr. Platts, Mr. Alexander, and Mr. English of
Pennsylvania.
H.R. 5911: Ms. Foxx.
H.R. 5913: Mr. Watt, Ms. Sutton, and Mr. Johnson of
Georgia.
H.R. 5914: Mr. Ortiz, Mr. Sestak, Mr. Hinojosa, and Ms.
Lee.
H.R. 5925: Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas.
H. Con. Res. 284: Mr. Taylor, Mr. Hayes, and Mrs. Musgrave.
H. Con. Res. 285: Ms. Schwartz, Mr. Doyle, Mr. Lewis of
Kentucky, Mr. Skelton, Mr. Whitfield of Kentucky, Mr.
Matheson, and Mr. English of Pennsylvania.
H. Con. Res. 303: Mr. Fortenberry.
H. Con. Res. 305: Mr. Platts.
H. Con. Res. 328: Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and Mr. Andrews.
H. Con. Res. 331: Mr. Abercrombie, Mr. Ackerman, Mr.
Altmire, Mr. Arcuri, Mr. Baca, Ms. Bean, Mr. Bishop of New
York, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Braley of Iowa, Mr. Chandler, Ms.
Clarke, Mr. Clyburn, Mr. Coble, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Conyers, Mr.
Cooper, Mrs. Cubin, Mr. DeFazio, Ms. DeGette, Ms. DeLauro,
Mr. Dingell, Mr. Ellison, Mr. Ellsworth, Mr. Engel, Mr.
Faleomavaega, Mrs. Gillibrand, Mr. Hall of New York, Mr.
Hare, Ms. Harman, Mr. Hastings of Florida, Ms. Hirono, Mr.
Jackson of Illinois, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Johnson of Georgia,
Mr. Kagen, Ms. Kaptur, Ms. Lee, Mr. Lewis of Georgia, Mr.
Loebsack, Mr. Lynch, Mr. McNerney, Mr. Mahoney of Florida,
Mr. Moore of Kansas, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Mr. Murphy of
Connecticut, Mr. Nadler, Mrs. Napolitano, Mr. Ortiz, Mr.
Perlmutter, Mr. Rothman, Ms. Roybal-Allard, Ms. Loretta
Sanchez of California, Mrs. Schmidt, Mr. Shuler, Ms.
Schwartz, Mr. Scott of Georgia, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Sires, Mrs.
Tauscher, Mr. Thompson of California, Ms. Tsongas, Ms.
Watson,
[[Page 7562]]
Mr. Watt, Mr. Weiner, Mr. Wexler, and Ms. Woolsey.
H. Con. Res. 334: Mrs. Myrick, Mr. Boozman, Mr. Boyd of
Florida, and Mr. Buchanan.
H. Con. Res. 336: Mr. Space, Mr. Towns, Mr. Hinchey, Mr.
Meek of Florida, Mr. Holden, Ms. Shea-Porter, Ms. Sutton, Mr.
Hall of New York, Mr. Lewis of Georgia, Mr. Doyle, Mr. Cohen,
Mr. Walz of Minnesota, Ms. McCollum of Minnesota, Mr.
McDermott, Mr. Poe, Ms. Kaptur, Mr. Allen, Ms. Bordallo, Mr.
Brady of Pennsylvania, Mr. Hare, Ms. Berkley, Mr. Payne, Mr.
Hinojosa, and Mr. Calvert.
H. Con. Res. 337: Mr. Tierney and Ms. Schakowsky.
H. Con. Res. 338: Mr. Cleaver, Mr. Brady of Pennsylvania,
and Mr. Cohen.
H. Res. 339: Mr. Walberg.
H. Res. 374: Mr. Towns and Mr. Grijalva.
H. Res. 389: Mr. Gene Green of Texas.
H. Res. 620: Mr. Gene Green of Texas.
H. Res. 679: Mr. Gene Green of Texas.
H. Res. 937: Mr. Courtney.
H. Res. 1002: Mrs. Capps, Mr. Price of North Carolina, and
Ms. Herseth Sandlin.
H. Res. 1011: Mr. Goodlatte.
H. Res. 1012: Mr. Braley of Iowa.
H. Res. 1017: Mr. Towns.
H. Res. 1022: Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Lewis of
Georgia, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Bishop of Georgia, Mr. Hastings
of Florida, Mrs. Jones of Ohio, Mr. Scott of Georgia, Ms.
Kilpatrick, Mr. Payne, Mr. Braley of Iowa, and Mr. Johnson of
Georgia.
H. Res. 1056: Mr. Kirk.
H. Res. 1067: Mr. Cummings.
H. Res. 1081: Mr. Israel.
H. Res. 1085: Mr. Meeks of New York, Mr. Fattah, Mr. Davis
of Illinois, Ms. Speier, Ms. Clarke, Ms. Lee, Ms. Watson, Mr.
Thompson of Mississippi, Mr. Wynn, Mr. Scott of Virginia, Mr.
Bishop of Georgia, Mr. Terry, Mrs. Lowey, Mr. Hastings of
Florida, Mr. Nadler, Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas, Ms.
Richardson, Mr. McHugh, Mr. Filner, Ms. Hirono, Mr. Johnson
of Georgia, Mr. Scott of Georgia, Mr. Ellison, Mr.
Butterfield, and Ms. Waters.
H. Res. 1106: Mr. Mack, Mrs. Bono Mack, Mr. LaTourette, Mr.
Blunt, Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia, Mr. Tiberi, Mr. Hayes, Mr.
Weldon of Florida, Mr. Young of Florida, Mr. Souder, Mr.
Moran of Kansas, Mr. McHenry, Mr. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania,
Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, Mr. Saxton, Mr. Calvert,
Mrs. Musgrave, Mr. Lewis of California, Mr. McCotter, Mr.
Young of Alaska, Mr. Forbes, Mr. Cantor, Ms. Castor, Mr.
Hinojosa, Mr. Lewis of Kentucky, Mr. Porter, Mr. Roskam, Mr.
Carter, Mrs. Wilson of New Mexico, Mr. Coble, Mr. Turner,
Mrs. Miller of Michigan, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, Mr. Wolf, Mr.
Altmire, Mr. Platts, Mr. Bachus, Mr. King of New York, Mr.
Buchanan, Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida, and Mr.
Gilchrest.
H. Res. 1122: Mrs. Myrick.
H. Res. 1124: Ms. Solis, Mrs. Capps, Mr. Engel, Mr. Allen,
Mr. Waxman, Ms. Woolsey, Mr. Butterfield, and Mr. Doyle.
H. Res. 1132: Mr. Visclosky.
H. Res. 1133: Ms. Clarke and Mr. Loebsack.
H. Res. 1143: Mrs. Gillibrand.
H. Res. 1146: Mr. Kuhl of New York.
H. Res. 1147: Mrs. Schmidt, Mr. Roskam, Mr. Boustany, Mrs.
Myrick, Mr. Cooper, Mrs. Davis of California, Mr. Reichert,
Mr. Bachus, Mr. LaTourette, Mr. Jones of North Carolina, Mr.
Saxton, Mr. Feeney, Mr. Shays, Mr. McCarthy of California,
Mr. Gerlach, Mr. Shimkus, Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Turner, Mr.
Pearce, Mr. Thornberry, Mr. Hall of Texas, Mr. Culberson, Mr.
Platts, Mr. McHenry, Mr. Barrett of South Carolina, and Mr.
Coble.
H. Res. 1153: Ms. Watson, Mrs. Maloney of New York, Mrs.
McCarthy of New York, Mr. McNulty, Mr. Hinojosa, Mr. Conyers,
Mrs. Napolitano, Mr. Yarmuth, Mr. Kagen, Mr. Hoyer, Mr.
DeFazio, Mr. Crowley, Mr. Towns, Ms. Lee, Mr. Cardoza, Mr.
Sires, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Frank of Massachusetts, Mr. Braley of
Iowa, Ms. Kaptur, Mr. Holt, Mr. Murtha, Mr. Michaud, Mr.
Farr, Mr. Courtney, Mr. Hare, Mr. Hinchey, Mr. Welch of
Vermont, Mr. Thompson of California, Mr. Price of North
Carolina, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Pastor, Mr. Mitchell, Ms. Corrine
Brown of Florida, Mr. Space, Ms. Baldwin, Ms. Tsongas, Mr.
Waxman, Mr. Ruppersberger, Mr. Rahall, Mr. Carney, Ms.
Sutton, Mr. Sarbanes, and Ms. Schakowsky.
H. Res. 1155: Mr. Boozman, Mr. Snyder, and Mr. Berry.
H. Res. 1166: Mr. McGovern and Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas.
____________________
DELETIONS OF SPONSORS FROM PUBLIC BILLS AND RESOLUTIONS
Under clause 7 of rule XII, sponsors were deleted from public bills
and resolutions as follows:
H. Res. 992: Ms. Fallin.
____________________
DISCHARGE PETITIONS--ADDITIONS OR DELETIONS
The following Members added their names to the following discharge
petitions:
Petition 7, by Mr. BOUSTANY on H.R. 5440: Jeff Flake,
Marsha Blackburn, Rodney Alexander, John Campbell, Jerry
Weller, Mike Rogers, John J. Duncan, Jr., Ginny Brown-Waite,
Ray LaHood, Tim Murphy, Tom Feeney, Robert B. Aderhold, Kenny
C. Hulshof, and Connie Mack.
Petition 5, by Mrs. DRAKE on H.R. 4088: Bill Sali.
[[Page 7563]]
SENATE--Thursday, May 1, 2008
The Senate met at 9:30 a.m. and was called to order by the Honorable
Amy Klobuchar, a Senator from the State of Minnesota.
______
prayer
The Chaplain, Dr. Barry C. Black, offered the following prayer:
Let us pray.
Creator of the Universe, help us to find meaning in our work. Train
us to see Your purposes behind our task, motivating us to focus on
pleasing You.
Empower our Senators. Give them the will and strength they need.
Provide them with patience so they will neither despair nor grow weary
in well doing. Give them confidence that in following You, Eternal
Lord, they are certain of ultimate triumph. Let Your peace guard their
hearts and Your wisdom direct their steps.
We pray in Your great Name. Amen.
____________________
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
The Honorable Amy Klobuchar led the Pledge of Allegiance, as follows:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of
America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
____________________
APPOINTMENT OF ACTING PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will please read a communication to
the Senate from the President pro tempore (Mr. Byrd).
The legislative clerk read the following letter:
U.S. Senate,
President pro tempore,
Washington, DC, May 1, 2008.
To the Senate:
Under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby appoint the Honorable
Amy Klobuchar, a Senator from the State of Minnesota, to
perform the duties of the Chair.
Robert C. Byrd,
President pro tempore.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR thereupon assumed the chair as Acting President pro
tempore.
____________________
RECOGNITION OF THE MAJORITY LEADER
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
____________________
SCHEDULE
Mr. REID. Madam President, following my remarks and those of Senator
McConnell, if he decides to make such remarks, there will be a period
of morning business for up to 1 hour, with Senators to be allowed to
speak for up to 10 minutes each during that time. The Republicans will
control the first 30 minutes and the majority will control the final 30
minutes. Following morning business, the Senate will resume
consideration of H.R. 2881, the Federal Aviation Administration
Reauthorization.
____________________
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF ``MISSION ACCOMPLISHED''
Mr. REID. Madam President, 5 years ago on the deck of an aircraft
carrier returning from the Middle East, America and the world witnessed
perhaps the greatest act of hubris our country has ever seen in
wartime. Resplendent in a flight suit, landing theatrically in a
fighter jet, President Bush declared: ``In the battle for Iraq, United
States and our allies have prevailed.'' Above him was a banner, printed
by the White House, with the idea coming from Karl Rove. That banner
proclaimed ``Mission Accomplished.''
With families fleeing from Iraq by the tens of thousands to live as
refugees, now approaching 2\1/2\ million--mission accomplished? With no
government in place, with towns destroyed, with infrastructure in
shambles--mission accomplished?
When President Bush put on his flight suit, 139 American troops had
lost their lives. Today, the toll has reached 4,058 or 4,059. In April,
with the highest death count in 7 months, 51 Americans were killed.
When President Bush landed on the runway of the USS Abraham Lincoln,
548 Americans had been wounded. Today that count is far more than
30,000, many of those grave injuries.
When President Bush announced that ``major combat operations have
ended,'' the American taxpayers had spent about $79 billion in Iraq.
Today, $526 billion and counting, we are spending $5,000 every second,
7 days a week, every week of the month, every month of the year. Those
costs are going up, not down, with experts such as Nobel Prize-winning
economist Joseph Stiglitz predicting $3 trillion will be the cost of
the war, with every penny of it borrowed--from Japan, from China, from
Saudi Arabia, even from Mexico.
In May, 2003, many of our allies had already begun to stand apart
from us on the war. Today, our moral authority in the world has been
gravely damaged. Not one American looks back on the 5 years since that
aircraft stunt with any sense of satisfaction. Our country looks back
with grief, sadness, yet with a fierce and unwavering commitment to
finally change the mission and responsibly end the war in Iraq and
bring our troops home.
That day aboard the USS Lincoln, our President told us the war would
not be endless. He said: ``Americans, following a battle, want nothing
more than to return home.'' He told the brave men and women aboard that
carrier that home was their direction that day; that:
After service in the Afghan and Iraq theaters of the war,
after 100,000 miles on the longest carrier deployment in U.S.
history, you are homeward bound.
Madam President, let me again read that quote:
After service in the Afghan and Iraq theaters of the war,
after 100,000 miles on the longest carrier deployment in U.S.
history, you are homeward bound.
To the men and women aboard the Lincoln that day, that speech must
seem a distant memory. Could they have imagined that day that many of
them, and their brothers and sisters in arms, would now be in their
third, fourth, and fifth tours of duty? The ``Mission Accomplished''
speech will rightly be remembered with great anguish by all.
Look at this. This chart, sadly, is a little behind but it makes the
picture. I indicated that wounded troops are more than 30,000 now.
Troops in Iraq on that day were 5,000 more then, with the troops, some
of them, coming home.
Cost of the war to the taxpayers--you can see that.
What do you American people think about the war in Iraq, was it worth
fighting? You can see the numbers.
The estimated number of Iraqi civilians killed--Johns Hopkins
University did a study. Their study says over 200,000 Iraqis have been
killed. The number of Iraqis who have fled their homes is almost 5
million. The number of Iraqi security forces--we have trained them, we
paid for them--is almost half a million.
Iraqi prison population.
Number of daily attacks by insurgents and militias in Iraq: to date
it is about 55.
The number of multiple-fatality bombings in Iraq in May of 2003:
zero. Now look at that.
Suicide attacks: almost 1000.
The price of oil: in May of 2003, it was $26.03 a barrel. Yesterday
we had a little drop in the oil price. It is down from more than $120 a
barrel the last few days to only $115 a barrel.
The price of gas then was $1.50. If you are lucky, you can find it
someplace in
[[Page 7564]]
the United States for $3.62. That is the average.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld will be written in the
pages of history as the men who rushed a peaceful, deliberate nation
headfirst into war without the slightest notion of what it meant to run
or to end it. Five years later, the cost of their hubris is
staggering--in lives lost and damaged, dollars spent, moral authority
squandered.
Let's think back to the men and women aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln
that day 5 years ago; the excitement they must have felt by a
Presidential visit; the encouragement of his words; the satisfaction of
heading home to their families after a job well done.
They did their jobs, but the Commander in Chief didn't do his--as he
has not done his job here at home, with record gas prices, record oil
prices, and an economy spiraling into recession. I met with a number of
homebuilders yesterday in room S-219. Have we reached the bottom in the
housing market? They said: No, we are not close yet. About 50 million
Americans are uninsured for health costs.
On this fifth anniversary, a sorry moment in our country's history,
we pause to honor the troops aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and all our
troops, their brothers and sisters in arms who fought and sacrificed
and continue to fight in Iraq. They deserve not the false hope of a
slogan engineered by Karl Rove, the President's chief slogan maker, but
the real hope of a responsible end to a war that has raged far too
long.
____________________
RESERVATION OF LEADER TIME
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
leadership time is reserved.
____________________
MORNING BUSINESS
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will proceed to a period of morning business for up to 1 hour,
with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, with the
Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the
final half.
The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
____________________
ENERGY PRICES
Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, here we go again. We all know the Senate
has limited time left this year to debate important legislation. It is
becoming more and more clear the Democratic leadership is staunchly
opposed to doing anything that would alleviate the seemingly endless
upward pressure on energy prices. Given their unyielding desire to
increase taxes on much of the energy industry, I can only assume the
Democrats in Congress believe that steadily increasing energy prices
simply provide political fodder upon which they can capitalize.
Democrats in both Chambers appear beholden to the environmental agenda,
a radical agenda that wholly disregards America's economy.
Oblivious to prices at the pump and indifferent to from whom we
import our oil, far-left environmentalists and their cohorts in
Congress are failing in their duty to the American public. The Congress
has stymied efforts to produce trillions of cubic feet of natural gas,
trillions of barrels of oil, and prevented the construction of new
refineries, nuclear powerplants, and hydroelectric facilities through
public policies that limit energy supply. We cannot afford to take any
option off the table.
The security concerns of America and our businesses and consumers
still demand energy. In oil alone, we consume over 20 million barrels a
day. Since we only produce just over 8 million barrels per day, the gap
must be made up by purchasing oil from hostile or undemocratic nations,
such as Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria to meet our energy needs.
We spend over half a trillion dollars each year importing foreign oil,
and it is far past time to rectify this unhealthy dependency.
The global price for petroleum reaches new highs every day and
petroleum-related imports have caused our trade deficit to increase by
billions of dollars.
According to a study by the Congressional Research Service, in 2005
and 2006 alone, our trade deficit rose by $120 billion. As oil prices
continue to rise and domestic energy production is further obstructed,
America's trade balance will only fall deeper into the red.
As a Senator from energy rich Colorado, I am on the front lines of
the battle to increase our domestic energy production. The Democrats
continue to delay efforts to tap into a natural gas reserve below the
Naval Oil Shale Reserve, often referred to as the Roan Plateau, that
contains approximately 8.9 trillion cubic feet. We need this clean
source of energy now.
Moreover, below the vast lands of Colorado and Wyoming lies roughly
1.5 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil. This amount dwarfs
the reserves of Saudi Arabia and other petro-rich nations, and new
technologies continually emerging would allow us to responsibly extract
this oil to help meet our demands. The benefits to Colorado and the
American economy would be tremendous.
Additionally, national environmentalist groups have succeeded in
pressuring Members of Congress to mandate a lock-down of what could be
an immense treasure chest of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge.
In subverting the widespread local support of Alaskans and in
prohibiting the potential extraction of 5 to 15 billion barrels of oil,
environmentalists stubbornly resist even moving forward with
comprehensive testing that could result in the environmentally
responsible development of parts of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge.
The U.S. Geological Survey announced this month that 3 to 4 billion
barrels of technically recoverable oil exists under North Dakota and
Montana's Bakken Formation. This is 25 times more than was estimated to
exist in 1995. These numbers are staggering, and there are other
examples where our aversion to responsible development defies common
sense.
Of course, we must continue our dedicated efforts to explore
alternative sources of energy to meet our demands, but it is possible
to develop sections of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, extract
natural gas from the Rocky Mountain west and harvest resources offshore
in economically feasible ways and also protect our natural wonders.
We should not take increased production of any domestic oil off the
table. The longer we completely deny access to domestic supplies, the
more we exacerbate our current energy shortages.
We cannot solve the problem of soaring gas prices facing America
today with one solution, but we certainly should not allow the
relentless push of environmentalists' narrow agenda to make this crisis
even worse. What will the average gallon of gas in America have to cost
for the Democratic leadership in Congress to step to the plate with a
comprehensive solution for our consumers?
We should seek to develop our renewable resources along with oil,
gas, clean coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric energy in a manner that
prevents foreign interests from taking over energy for their own
purposes.
It is time for congressional leaders to be a part of the solution and
not the problem. It is time to put every idea on the table. It is time
for common sense.
In the State of Colorado, we have a plethora of energy sources. We
obviously rely on renewable energy because we have lots of sun and
wind, we have hydroelectric, we have uranium to produce nuclear power.
None of these or our rich resources in petroleum and coal that exist
throughout the country should be taken off the table.
For us to subject ourselves to a harsh extreme environmental agenda
does not make sense. This country should continue to work to develop
all of those resources. Obviously, the future of this country is on the
renewable side, but we have to deal with today's problems, today's
price at the gas pump, and therefore we need to produce domestic
resources in addition to supporting the renewable technologies we are
currently developing.
[[Page 7565]]
If we do that, we will most successfully address the high cost at the
gas pump today. Congress should be working with industry to make sure
we have more plentiful supplies of gas and petroleum products in
addition to developing other sources of renewable energy.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee is
recognized.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Would you please let me know when 5 minutes has
expired?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair will do that.
____________________
TVA APPOINTMENTS
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, Tennesseans like our sports teams,
whether it is the Lady Vols, or the Memphis Tigers, or Bruce Pearl's
team from Knoxville. But John Calipari or Pat Summitt or Bruce Pearl
wouldn't think of sending any of our teams into a big game with two
players locked up somewhere--two players missing.
That is exactly what my friend, the Democratic leader, has done for
8.7 million Americans who live in the seven-State region of the
Tennessee Valley Authority. Our big game, like most Americans, is gas
prices, electric prices, climate change, clean air, national security.
Every Senator is on the floor talking about that; some blaming, some
with solutions. I am going to Oak Ridge on May 9 to propose a new
Manhattan Project to deal with clean energy independence.
But our secret weapon in the TVA region is the Tennessee Valley
Authority. That is how we get our clean air so we're in compliance with
clean air laws and new jobs can come in. It is how we deal with climate
change. They have coal-fired powerplants. It is how we deal with large
amounts of electricity at a low cost. That has to do with jobs and it
has to do with gas prices as well.
Nissan, Toyota, and General Motors all are about to sell us plug-in
hybrids that could, by some estimates, reduce the amount of gasoline we
use by up to 40 percent. That would deal with gas prices. But who will
supply electricity for the plug-in hybrids? The Tennessee Valley
Authority. So what happens? The Democratic leader locks up two of our
best players and won't let them play in the biggest game we've got. If
he did that to two of our Memphis basketball players, or UT Lady Vols,
or two of Bruce Pearl's players, there would be a revolt in Tennessee,
and I hope there is a revolt about this.
Here is what has happened: In 2004, after several years of debate, we
created a new board for the Nation's largest public utility--the
Tennessee Valley Authority. The President appointed nine members. They
were unanimously approved. Two had short terms; they served with
distinction and the President nominated them for reappointment. The
Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously, under Chairman
Boxer, brought them to the floor. They are ready for approval, ready to
go to work. But the Democratic Leader has sent me a letter that
basically says he will not allow them to be confirmed because they are
Republicans. That astounds me. I ask unanimous consent to put that
letter in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, April 14, 2008.
Hon. Lamar Alexander,
Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Alexander: I am writing to you to advise you
of my concerns regarding appointments to the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA).
As you know, the TVA was reconfigured in P.L. 108-477, the
Omnibus Appropriations bill enacted December 8, 2004. The
inclusion of that substantive legislation in this
appropriations vehicle expanded TVA membership to 9 members
from 3 members. This omnibus legislative rider gave
appointive authority entirely to the President with no
bipartisan representation.
I expressed my concerns regarding this situation over a
year ago when the first slate of 6 TVA nominees was sent to
the Senate. I asked the President to consider using one of
the remaining positions for a Democratic candidate. Despite
that request, the President nominated 3 additional
Republicans for the TVA. Before the Easter recess, we
confirmed one of those remaining 3 TVA nominees.
Given the inadequacy of bipartisan representation on the
TVA and our recent approval of 7 Republican nominations to
the TVA, I do not support proceeding with further TVA
confirmations at this time.
Sincerely,
Harry Reid,
Majority Leader.
Mr. ALEXANDER. The Democratic leader's decision to block these
nominees because of their party affiliation overturns 75 years of
Federal law and custom. Since 1933, Federal law has never made politics
one of the considerations for TVA appointments.
Most Presidents have appointed members of their own party, sometimes
political independents--such as Bishop William Graves, one of the two
nominees for reappointment who is being locked up.
Bishop Graves is not even a Republican. He is the most experienced
member of the TVA board, coming from the largest customer, Memphis
Light, Gas and Water, and he is the presiding bishop of one of the
largest religious denominations in America.
I have sent a letter to the majority leader. I ask unanimous consent
it be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, April 30, 2008.
Hon. Harry Reid,
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Reid: Your decision to block Senate
confirmation of the President's renomination of Bishop
William Graves of Memphis and Susan Williams of Knoxville to
the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors astounds
me. If you succeed, you would overturn seventy-five years of
federal law and custom.
Your actions insult the Mid-South's largest city, Memphis.
Until Bishop Graves' appointment in 2006, a Memphian had
never served on the TVA board.
Your actions are an affront to more than one and a half
million African Americans in the seven--state TVA region.
Until the appointment of Bishop Graves the presiding Bishop
of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church--an African
American had never served on the TVA board.
Your actions are the kind of disheartening playpen partisan
politics that disappoint the American people and are causing
them to cry out for change in the way Washington does its
business.
Since the founding of TVA in 1933, federal law has never
required presidents to appoint TVA directors from one
political party or another.
Almost always, presidents have appointed members of their
own political party. As is the case with Bishop Graves,
members have often been political independents.
TVA is the nation's largest public utility, with more than
$9.2 billion in annual revenues and 8.7 million customers. In
2004, after several years of debate, Congress created a new
TVA board and a modern governance structure.
Bishop Graves and Susan Williams were original members of
the new board, nominated by the President and confirmed by
the Senate. They have served with distinction. The President
has now renominated them. The Senate Committee on Environment
and Public Works has again unanimously recommended them.
Tennessee Valley residents face no greater challenges today
than dealing with energy costs, clean air and climate change.
The Tennessee Valley Authority needs a full membership on its
board to solve those problems.
I respectfully request that you lift your roadblock, stop
trying to change seventy-five years of law and custom, and
allow these two outstanding nominees to go back to work on
the TVA board helping to provide the large amounts of clean,
low cost, reliable electricity Tennessee Valley residents
need to keep good jobs and clean air.
Sincerely.
Lamar Alexander,
United States Senator.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I have said to the majority leader: This is an insult
to Memphis. Bishop Graves is the first Memphian ever to serve on the
TVA board in its history. It is an affront to the more than 1.5 million
African Americans in our region. Bishop Graves is the first African
American ever to be on the TVA board.
At a time when there is a stream of Democratic Senators coming to the
floor trying to find somebody to blame for high gas prices, why is the
majority leader locking up two of the most valuable players on our team
whose job it
[[Page 7566]]
is to deal with high gas prices, high electric prices, climate change,
clean air, and national security?
I respectfully suggest that the majority leader, for whom I have the
greatest respect, lift this roadblock--stop trying to change 75 years
of law and custom. Unlock our two players and let them out and let them
into the game against high gas prices and let them go to work.
This is disheartening playpen partisan politics--it disappoints the
American people and causes them to cry out for changing the way that we
do business in Washington.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee is
recognized.
Mr. CORKER. Madam President, it is always an honor to be in the
presence of the senior Senator from Tennessee who does such an
outstanding job in this body of promoting bipartisanship.
I know the Presiding Officer has played a big role in that. I thank
you for that. I want to say I came here as did the Senator to solve big
problems for our country in a bipartisan way.
I just left a meeting that I think exemplifies that to the highest
level, where Ron Wyden and Bob Bennett are cosponsoring a great piece
of legislation in a bipartisan way, to solve the tremendous health care
crisis our country is dealing with today.
I am proud to be part of that and to join them in a bipartisan way to
solve this major problem. I know many of us are doing the same thing to
focus on the energy issues that are before us as a country. That is
what I came here to the Senate to do. I know that is exactly the
reason, Madam President, you came to the Senate.
That is why today I rise with tremendous frustration over the actions
of our majority leader. I have enjoyed working with our majority
leader, and he certainly has done a good job in many instances. But,
today, strictly on a politically motivated basis, in a letter to the
senior Senator he stated he is not going to confirm TVA appointees
because they are not Democrats.
We went through a tremendous amount of effort, or this body did prior
to me being here, to make sure the TVA board was a professional board,
that people there were able to make decisions in the best interests of
that body and all the many people who are served by the TVA facility.
These two nominees are outstanding human beings. They have served
their State, their cities, and our country with great distinction.
Bishop Graves is someone who recently was heralded here in Washington
because of his tremendous leadership in making sure that the racial
divides that have been a part of our country were swept away.
Susan Williams has done the same, has been a leader in many other
ways, in business, and both of them have helped shepherd TVA through
some of the finest years TVA has had.
Both of these are reappointments. In other words, they have already
served as part of the TVA board, which recently has been expanded
geographically to bring in other States, which is a very good thing
from the standpoint of board representation.
Both of these members were approved unanimously by EPW, again a
bipartisan effort, which I might say also is controlled by the
Democratic Party. So I have to tell you while it is frustrating to me
to see this body become a proxy in some cases for the Presidential
races, I hate to see some of the things we deal with as a result, and
that diminishes this body.
I will tell you that our leader taking this position is a tremendous
disservice to this body; diminishes this body. I hope the leader will
come to his senses, will realize that not only is he doing something
that is of tremendous harm to TVA, it damages this body for the
majority leader to act in such a politically motivated way.
I hope very soon these nominees will be reappointed. I hope TVA can
get about its business in serving the people of Tennessee and other
surrounding States in a proper way. I hope the majority leader again
will do the right thing, will cause these nominees to come to the
floor. I am sure they will be unanimously confirmed.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MARTINEZ. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
____________________
ENERGY POLICY
Mr. MARTINEZ. Madam President, we are facing a real problem as
Americans increasingly go to the gas pump to fill the need of energy
for their vehicles and they find that the prices at the pump are ever
higher, more onerous, and it makes the family budget more difficult to
manage. This is a problem for working families, to the typical American
family trying to drive children to school, participate in carpools and
other activities. It hits everyone at a time when other economic
problems are surrounding the American family. We have a problem, and we
have to act. Failure to act is not an option. At this point in time, we
cannot offer immediate solutions, but we have to recognize where we
are. We have to recognize what has not happened.
I recall many days sitting where the Presiding Officer sits today,
when our party was in the majority. Democrats would come to the floor
and talk about how, if they were in power, because they were not in
cahoots with the big oil companies, then things would be better, they
would find a way to make things better. There was a bold announcement
made by then-House minority leader Nancy Pelosi on April 24, 2006:
Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down
skyrocketing gas prices.
That is when prices were tipping at $3 a gallon. They were $2-
something a gallon. I wish today we were back to those moments in time.
A commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices? I ask,
where is the plan? What happened to that plan? Democrats came into
power to lead both Houses of Congress on January 4, 2007. The
distinguished Senator from Minnesota proudly took her oath; many others
came into office. At that point in time, the price of gas was $2.33 a
gallon. Today, it is $3.62 a gallon. Is this what the commonsense plan
to bring down prices was supposed to bring us? Is this why someone had
a plan that was going to help America? Has it helped us? Have we gone
up or down? The fact is, today prices are $3.62.
What we should do is have some plain talk. The fact is, it didn't
matter who was in control of Congress because the laws of economics go
well above the laws of politics. This is about supply and demand. The
fact is, there is not a commonsense plan. The fact is, there is no
plan, that America's energy policy continues to flounder for several
reasons. We have to act, and we have to act as responsible leaders.
One of the things that is inevitable is that as long as supply and
demand stay where they are today, with demand ever increasing and
supply topping out, we will continue to have increasing prices. I
submit that part of what has to occur is increased production. We have
to find ways that we can, within our own borders, produce more energy.
I have been supportive of drilling in 2000 acres of the vast
wilderness of Alaska in a way that would be safe. If it had been done
back when President Clinton vetoed it, today a million barrels a day
would be flowing into the stream of production and would help with this
supply problem we have today.
There may be other safe ways. A year or so ago, we made a deal. The
deal was that we would drill safely in areas well away from the Florida
coast in the Gulf of Mexico--8 million acres for new drilling that are
also available and will produce oil and gas.
These are helpful steps, but they are not enough. We have to
conserve. We have to find ways to encourage Americans to conserve at
the pump, to save by carpooling, to save by finding a way of buying
more energy-efficient vehicles.
[[Page 7567]]
We as a government should be helping American consumers through our
tax system to find a way they can purchase vehicles that are more
energy efficient. We know that a hybrid vehicle will get 35 to 38 miles
to the gallon. We know that a standard vehicle of similar size would be
lucky if it gets 17 or 18 miles to the gallon.
At the end of the day, it is a combination of strategies. The bottom
line is, we have to have a multifaceted strategy. We have to work
together, not suggesting that there is one party that has a secret plan
that, in fact, doesn't exist. We have to find a commonsense way to work
together, Democrats and Republicans, to increase production modestly
and safely, to encourage conservation and new technologies, and to
continue to boldly move forward toward a Manhattan-type project that is
going to put all of the resources and energies of this country toward
energy independence and energy security so we can discontinue this
horrendous practice of wealth transfer that is taking place today
between our country--the billions and billions of dollars we are
transferring to some of the worst enemies of our country, people such
as Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad.
The day is coming when we have to find a way to pull together toward
a common goal of having a sensible, balanced energy policy, increase
production safely, conserve more, and new technology. All working
together, we can do this. America can meet this challenge.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Ohio is
recognized.
Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I can't quite believe what I just heard.
Because Democrats in 2006 said we need a different energy policy than
the White House, a President and Vice President who both come out of
the oil industry, both top energy executives, where much of the funding
for the President's party comes from the oil industry, and in 2006, the
Democrats said the Congress betrayed the American people because they
let the oil industry write the energy bill, now my friend from Florida
is saying it is the Democrats' fault that gas prices are through the
roof.
One of the best friends of the President was the CEO of Enron, a
major funder to the President, close friend of the President who had a
personal nickname, and Enron had gamed the system through speculating
and speculating. It cost consumers, especially on the west coast,
hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars as people raked off
profits from their speculating. We are seeing the same kinds of things.
I don't know if they are the President's friends doing it anymore, but
I know there are people who have gamed the system. That is the reason,
with no major international incident in the last 2 years, no major
outage of a refinery or fire of a refinery or pipeline disruption, that
prices have spiked so much.
It is clear that a Justice Department working for the President of
the United States, that is not beholden to the oil industry, might
actually take some action on price fixing and recommend an excess
profits tax--all the kinds of things we could be doing in this body and
that the executive could do. But in this body, we have seen
filibusters.
Every time we try to do something on oil prices, every time we try to
do something on long-term alternative energy, the Republicans
filibuster. They have filibustered more than 60 times. It is
approaching 70. I am not sure of the number; it is hard to keep up.
They have filibustered more times already in this congressional session
than they did in any 2-year session in history by a lot, and they are
continuing to do it.
We would love to sit down with my friend on the other side of the
aisle and work on real energy legislation and wean this body and wean
the White House from their addiction to oil company campaign dollars,
and help wean the American people from our addiction to foreign oil. We
would love to work on that.
I introduced legislation yesterday that will help to jump-start the
green energy industry in this country. It is clear we need to do a lot
of that. But the American public is tired of finger pointing. It is
time this Congress did more on energy, and that the Republicans,
instead of filibustering--there are 51 Democrats in this body; we need
60 votes to do anything because of the filibuster--instead of the
Republicans holding together and blocking things, instead of
filibustering, let us work together on energy issues and not have the
oil companies dictate to this body, as they did for year after year
after year.
When I was in the House of Representatives, the oil companies
dictated to the House of Representatives leadership, and everybody in
those days in the majority party--which was the Republicans then--went
along with their leaders on writing an energy bill that had $18 billion
of subsidies and giveaways and tax breaks to the oil industry. Yet they
are the most profitable industry in America year after year after year.
Something gives there. It is time for something very different. I
want to work together. The finger pointing should end. Let's sit down
and do this right, but don't block us to do things that will help
stabilize gas prices now and help to bring them down over the short and
medium term and long term to come up with a real energy policy so we
are not relying on--as my friend Senator Martinez said--not relying on
Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and countries that are not so friendly to
us.
____________________
SMALL BUSINESS EMPOWERMENT ACT
Mr. BROWN. Madam President, earlier this week, I spoke on the Senate
floor about Cover the Uninsured Week and a bill I was introducing that
would increase access to health coverage for small businesses and self-
employed individuals--a group we all too often forget about around
here. Today I am formally introducing the Small Business Empowerment
Act. I wish to discuss this bill in a bit more depth.
First, why is it necessary?
It is necessary because 82 percent--82 percent--of the uninsured work
for a living. They have jobs. The overwhelming majority work in small
companies--companies with 2 people, 5 people, 20 people--or they are
self-employed.
In Ohio, my State--whether you are in Steubenville or Lima, whether
you are in Kent or Chillicothe--99 percent of firms with more than 50
workers sponsor health insurance. So if you are at a relatively
midsized or larger company, you have 50 or more workers, 99 percent of
those firms offer some kind of fairly decent insurance for their
employees. That is for companies above 50 employees.
For companies under 50 employees, only 44 percent of those firms do.
Many of them are self-employed. Many of them only have 5 or 10 or 15
employees. Small employers who do offer coverage--and most of them
absolutely try to--I have talked to small businesspeople from
Springfield to Zanesville, from Bellaire to Delphos, and I hear
repeatedly from small businesses they want to insure their employees,
but it is getting harder and harder and harder. According to the well-
respected RAND Corporation--a nonpartisan group that dispassionately
analyzes these kinds of things--small businesses saw the economic
burden of health insurance rise by 30 percent between 2000 and 2005.
And it is getting worse.
The situation is even worse for the self-employed, who must contend
with staggeringly high premiums for individual coverage--they don't get
any group-rate break--if they can find an insurer even willing to cover
them.
In these small pools, if you have 3 employees or 8 employees or you
are self-employed, and there is anybody in this small pool of 1 or 20
who has some major preexisting condition, you probably cannot get
insurance at all.
In the meantime, health insurers have been living large, their
profits increasing by more than a third over the last 5 years--not much
different from the oil industry, where the public recoils from
staggeringly high gas prices, and the oil industry is making record
high profits. The public--particularly small business--is recoiling
from higher health insurance premiums and higher copays and
[[Page 7568]]
deductibles. Yet health insurance companies are doing better and
better.
Middle-class families are shouldering the burden of skyrocketing gas
prices and ballooning food prices, even as the equity in their homes
erodes and the cost of putting their children through college explodes.
It would be ideal if they could afford to pay a king's ransom for
health insurance. They cannot. And they should not have to.
With those realities staring us in the face, inaction from this body
is the same as indifference.
My legislation attacks the issue of health coverage access from
several different directions.
To ensure widespread access, the bill would establish a national
insurance pool modeled after the successful Federal Employees Health
Benefits program. The FEHB, Federal Employees Health Benefits program,
which enables enrollees to choose from a variety of health plans, with
rates and benefits negotiated by the Federal Office of Personnel
Management, has served Members of Congress and hundreds of thousands of
Federal employees well for many years now.
So understand, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of Federal employees--whether they work in the Celebrezze
Building in Cleveland, whether they work in the Office of Management
and Budget in Washington, whether they work in Bethesda for the
National Institutes of Health, whether they work at Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base; any of these Federal jobs--Federal employees are in a
huge pool that negotiates price. So it obviously works in a way that
keeps rates in check.
Under my bill, an independent contractor would manage a program that
looks like FEHB, with a few modifications to accommodate the market
segment it would serve. A few of those modifications are designed to
hold down costs.
The bill would establish a reinsurance program to pay claims that
fall between $5,000 and $75,000. That is where small business gets hit
the hardest. When 1 or 2 or 3 employees, in a company of 50 or 40 or 30
or 100, get hit with a huge bill of hundreds of thousands of dollars,
it affects the entire pool, and it affects everyone's premium and, in
many cases, it makes insurance for the small business employer simply
out of reach.
This bill establishes a reinsurance program to pay claims that fall
between $5,000 and $75,000. This approach minimizes premium spikes and
it makes coverage affordable for companies regardless of the age and
the health of their employees.
The bill establishes what is called a loss-ratio standard for
insurers. This means that insurers would be required to spend most of
their premium income on claims, and hold down their administrative
costs. We know what happens with small employers: the administrative
costs the insurance companies take are typically huge and have a major
impact on the per-employee cost of health insurance.
The bill would identify and apply strategies to ensure that providers
employ ``best practices'' in health care, which means they are
providing the right care at the right time in the right amount.
Finally, the bill would target price gouging by drug manufacturers
and manufacturers of other medical products, including medical devices.
Price gouging occurs in U.S. health care when a company exploits
American consumers by charging them dramatically higher prices than
consumers in other wealthy nations.
Why are we paying so much more for prescription drugs in this country
than the Canadians pay, when the Canadians often are buying drugs
manufactured in the United States? It is the same drug, same brand
name, same packaging, same dosage. Yet they are paying in Canada
sometimes half as much.
In fact, for years, I used to take--when I was in the House of
Representatives--busloads of constituents to Canada, about 2, 2\1/2\
hours away from Lorain, OH, where I lived, to buy prescription drugs at
a pharmacy in Ontario. The same drug, same dosage--everything was the
same, except for the price.
Other modifications in the bill are designed to ensure that health
coverage is nondiscriminatory. Think about it this way: If your next-
door neighbor develops a mental illness such as clinical depression,
and you develop a medical illness such as heart disease, why should
your next-door neighbor be denied health benefits that you get because
that is a mental illness versus a physical illness? We both have paid
premiums. Your next-door neighbor and you have both paid premiums to
cover your health care costs. You both need health care. Why is one
condition--the condition of heart disease--more worthy of coverage than
the condition of clinical depression?
My bill charges a group representing providers, businesses,
consumers, economists, and health policy experts with rethinking health
care coverage to eliminate arbitrary differences in the coverage of
equally disruptive, disabling, or dangerous health conditions.
The bottom line is this: We have an opportunity to expand access to
health coverage in a way that achieves fundamental goals.
One, we reach populations who cannot find a home in the current
insurance system because they are small businesses, typically, or self
employed.
We stand up for American consumers who are paying absolutely
ridiculous prices in many cases for essential health care.
We demand spending discipline on the part of insurers. They have
chosen to play a pivotal role in the health of our Nation. They can
live with reasonable limits on their administrative costs, as their
profits go up and their executive salaries are in the stratosphere.
We can clean up duplication and random variation in the delivery of
health care services.
We can end arbitrary coverage rules that turn health protection into
a health care crapshoot.
For the sake of small employers, for the sake of their employees, for
the sake of self-employed entrepreneurs--whom we need so desperately in
this country to compete globally--and for the sake of every American
who did not request, did not sign up for a particular health problem,
and should not be penalized for having it, I hope Members on both sides
of the aisle will support my legislation.
Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
____________________
``MISSION ACCOMPLISHED'' ANNIVERSARY
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, 5 years ago today, President Bush stood on
the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a banner that said
``Mission Accomplished'' and he told the Nation that major combat
operations ended in Iraq. Those were his words. Now, listening to the
radio reports today, I hear that the President's Press Secretary, Dana
Perino, said we all--all of America--misunderstood. He didn't really
mean the mission in Iraq was accomplished; he was just talking about
the fact that the particular aircraft carrier on which he landed, that
they had done their mission and that was accomplished.
I don't even know how to react to that. It is beneath the dignity of
a White House Press Secretary to reach in that fashion. I will tell you
why. I read the speech the President made in its entirety, and I don't
see one thing that talks about a mission accomplished by the USS
Abraham Lincoln, the carrier--not one word, not one thing.
I thought to myself: What would that be like? I thought: Maybe it is
as if the Presiding Officer or I were giving a speech on health care,
and behind us we had a big banner and the speech was televised and it
said: Health care for all. Health care for all. We gave a
[[Page 7569]]
speech, and then a few days later someone who saw the speech said:
Senator, I am really annoyed about your speech. You said health care
for all. I already have my health care. I don't like your system. Leave
me out of it.
And I responded in this way: I didn't mean anyone outside this room.
I only meant the people I was speaking to in the room--even though I
had a sign that said: Health Care For All.
So please, please, let's not make matters worse by distorting the
truth any more than it has already been distorted from day one of this
national nightmare.
What else did the President say on that aircraft carrier that day 5
years ago today? He said: Other nations in history have fought in
foreign lands and remain to occupy and exploit. Americans following a
battle--
Listen:
Americans following a battle want nothing more than to
return home. Americans following a battle want nothing more
than to return home.
He said:
That is your direction tonight.
Five years ago, the President said we won the battle; it is time to
go home. Where are we 5 years later? I just heard 48 deaths last month,
which is the highest in 6 months. Since that day 5 years ago, 3,922
troops have died in Iraq, including 796 either from or based in
California, and almost 30,000 have been wounded. We have spent more
than a half billion dollars, and there is no end in sight.
When the President made his declaration, the price of oil was $26 per
barrel. It now stands at $113 per barrel. Remember, the oil was
supposed to pay for the war. Remember. Don't forget, the oil was
supposed to pay for the war. That is what the administration told us.
The words, ``Mission Accomplished,'' no matter how somebody tries to
torture it, have come to symbolize the dishonesty and the incompetence
that took our Nation into an ill-advised war of choice--a war with a
price in terms of lives and treasure and our Nation's standing in the
world only grows higher and higher and higher with each passing day. We
cannot afford it.
We recognize the words, ``Mission Accomplished,'' as part of a sad
and familiar pattern, another verse in the same song from the people
who warned us the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud. Remember when
Secretary Rice said the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud, even as
they knew it wasn't true. They assured us we would be greeted as
liberators. They swore we would be turning the corner and that the
insurgency was in its last throes.
Then they said, when we asked why isn't this war over: Well, we need
to train enough Iraqis, and when they stand up, we will stand down. We
have spent so much training the Iraqis--I want to make sure I am right
on this--$20 billion we have spent training over 400,000 Iraqis.
I asked General Petraeus: How many al-Qaida are there?
He said: Very few left, a few thousand maybe--not even.
I asked General Petraeus: How many insurgents are there?
He said: In the thousands.
We have trained over 400,000 Iraqi soldiers, but our troops are still
dying instead of playing a support role as they should.
I wish to talk about the money that we, the taxpayers, are spending.
We are spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. That is $2.5 billion a
week. That is $357 million a day. Now, remember, this is all borrowed
money and the cost of this is going right to the debt that our
grandchildren and their children will have on their backs. The
President's policy is being paid for on a credit card, and we are
sticking future generations with the bill. That is irresponsible and
immoral.
We don't have a plan to get out of Iraq 5 years after ``Mission
Accomplished.'' Everybody says this war cannot be won through military
means; it has to be won through political means. Yet we sit back, and
the Government in Iraq makes very little progress, and they know,
because of this President and this administration, they don't have a
price to pay for not being effective. They don't pay a price for that,
for not solving this politically. They don't pay any price because we
are going to be there, and the blood and treasure of this country is on
the line.
The President says: Iran and al-Qaida are our biggest enemies. The
President of Iraq holds hands with Ahmadinejad of Iran. They kiss each
other on the cheek. We spend this money, we lose these lives, our
President says Iran is our biggest enemy alongside al-Qaida, and we
just keep on sending the money to a government that embraces Iran.
Now, I don't care how you figure this out, it doesn't add up to me.
For less than the cost of 3 months in Iraq, we could enroll every
eligible child in the Nation in the Head Start Program for a year. For
3 months in Iraq, that is what we could do for our children, and we
know the waiting list is long.
For 2 weeks in Iraq we could provide health insurance for 6 million
uninsured children for a whole year. The list goes on.
For 7 days in Iraq we could enroll 2.5 million kids in afterschool
programs. For 6 weeks in Iraq we could ensure full interoperability of
all of our communications systems. We are not protected in America
because we don't give our emergency workers the interoperability they
need. For the cost of 6 weeks in Iraq we could do that. Oh, no.
For 3 weeks in Iraq we could extend the renewable energy production
tax credit for 4 years and see jobs from solar and wind and geothermal
energy. We could extend 13 additional weeks of unemployment insurance
in this recession for 1 month in Iraq. The list goes on.
We have given so much on this 5-year anniversary. It is time for a
change in this country. We need to tell the Iraqis we will stand behind
them, but we are not going to stand in front of them, and we are not
going to continue to pay these enormous costs. Our country cannot
afford it.
I thank you, and I yield the floor.
____________________
CONCLUSION OF MORNING BUSINESS
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Morning business is closed.
____________________
FAA REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2007
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of H.R. 2881, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 2881) to amend title 49, United States Code,
to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal year 2008 through 2011, to improve
aviation safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for
the national aviation system, and for other purposes.
Pending:
Rockefeller amendment No. 4627, in the nature of a
substitute.
Reid amendment No. 4628 (to amendment No. 4627), to change
the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 4629 (to amendment No. 4628), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 4630 (to the language proposed to be
stricken by amendment No. 4627), to change the enactment
date.
Reid amendment No. 4631 (to amendment No. 4630), of a
perfecting nature.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the work done on this piece of legislation
to bring it to the floor is a good piece of work. Democrats and
Republicans worked together to move toward solving one of America's
major problems, and that is dealing with our aviation system. Chairman
Rockefeller, Senator Inouye, Senator Baucus, Senator Stevens, Senator
Grassley, Senator Hutchison, and their staffs understood that ensuring
the safety and efficiency of America's air traffic is too important to
fall victim to politics, slow walking, or obstruction. It even appeared
for a while that this bill was on the path to a relatively smooth and
easy final passage.
But now our Republican colleagues have signaled that they plan to let
this bipartisan legislation fall victim to more obstruction. We could
have moved to the bill yesterday, but the Republicans wouldn't let us
do that. They forced us to spend more valuable
[[Page 7570]]
legislative time not legislating, not trying to strengthen our country
for the American people but simply overcoming procedural roadblocks
that have been thrown at us time after time.
As we have said on a number of occasions, but certainly it is worth
saying again, Republicans broke the 2-year filibuster record in the
history of this Senate in just 10 months. We are now up to 68
filibusters. That is not normal filibustering, it is filibustering on
steroids.
Democrats want to change our country for the better. We want to
change the status quo. We have an economy spiraling into recession. Gas
and oil prices are at a record high. We have the war in Iraq that 70
percent of the American people want to end. The problems we have faced
and now face can't be solved easily.
But it would not be solved at all if Republicans refuse to let us
legislate. The distinguished minority leader raised questions about
offering amendments to the aviation modernization bill. As I said
several times yesterday, we welcome their amendments. We want them to
offer amendments. We understand there is a Bunning amendment dealing
with turning coal into aviation fuel. I don't know much about that, but
it is something that appears to be germane and relevant to the bill. We
should start to debate that amendment. But it appears no matter what I
suggest, it is obvious the Republicans don't like this bill and are not
going to let us pass it.
It is my understanding that today they are concerned about at least
two provisions in the bill. One deals with strengthening the passenger
rail system we have in America and also doing something about the
depleted highway trust fund, which is leaving States with no money to
do road repairs, construction, and modernization. If that is the case,
it seems to me the logical thing to do is to offer an amendment to take
those provisions out of the bill.
Long ago, when I was an assemblyman in the Nevada State Legislature,
it didn't take long to understand that if you don't like something,
just move to take it out. If you can muster the votes, that works. If
your amendment doesn't pass, at least everybody knows you have tried.
Here the Republicans don't even try. They want to just kill things by
doing nothing.
I told my Republican counterpart that Democrats are making every
effort we can to allow amendments to be offered. We welcome relevant
amendments on both sides of the aisle. That is how the legislative
process is supposed to work. I even offered to the Republican leader
that we can sit down and let him help me be the gatekeeper of what
amendments should be offered. That is fair.
Do I want to avoid amendments that have nothing to do with aviation?
I don't even care much about that. I want to move this bill forward.
The Republicans' obstruction and claims of unfair dealings are not
reflective of the facts or reality. I made it clear that the amendment
process will be fair, open, and take place in the light of day. This
legislation is far too important to fall victim to the gamesmanship we
are now seeing. Air travel is about getting from point A to point B,
such as going from Las Vegas to San Francisco or from San Francisco to
Chicago. That is what it is about--connecting to family and friends,
getting goods to businesses, and connecting Americans to the global
community.
The Federal Aviation Administration is facing challenges like they
have never faced before. A record 770 million passengers flew on U.S.
commercial airlines in 2007--nearly double the number who flew just 20
years ago.
If these trends continue, the FAA told us we will have 1 billion
passengers in just 12 years.
Las Vegas-McCarran International Airport--the fifth busiest in
America--now hosts 4 million passengers every month. At this rate,
McCarran will reach maximum capacity in the next 3 to 5 years.
Every American who flies understands what this new congestion means:
longer lines, more delays, and a more stressful, less efficient trip.
If growth in air travel in Nevada and throughout America is managed
correctly, it represents a tremendous opportunity for airlines,
tourism, and our economy. But the risks we face if we don't bring our
aviation infrastructure up to speed are clear: Americans could be put
at greater risk, our economy could suffer, and air travel could grind
to a halt.
This Aviation Investment Modernization Act will help ensure that we
manage this growing challenge. It will help passengers take off sooner,
land safer, help commerce flow with fewer interruptions, and help
carriers lower their fuel costs--which will save us all money.
The Aviation Investment Act will make air travel safer by upgrading
aging airport infrastructure, enhancing oversight of airlines and the
Federal Aviation Administration, and improving runway safety. There was
an article within the past week that most airline accidents--the close
calls--are on runways, not in the air.
Right now, the GPS in your car is more sophisticated than the system
that guides your flight in an airplane. That is why this bill
modernizes an obsolete air traffic control system with modern
technology. That is why this bill requires airlines to give passengers
better information about arrivals and delays. That is why the bill
incorporates elements of the passenger bill of rights to protect
consumers and deal with the most egregious flight delays and
cancellations. That is why this bill does things that make air travel
safer.
As Americans take to the skies in record numbers, they deserve to
know the Government is doing everything possible to keep them safe.
This legislation will give the American people that confidence. It will
also make flying not only safer but less stressful, more efficient, and
more enjoyable.
We must not let a crumbling infrastructure grind our economy to a
halt. That is what it is doing.
I urge my colleagues, once again, to put politics aside, put
obstruction aside, and work with us to pass the Aviation Investment
Modernization Act.
Mr. President, if somebody wants to offer an amendment to this bill,
they can come down and do that. They can play all the political games
they want, saying: Senator Reid filled the tree. This is something that
is way inside the beltway, Mr. President. On this vehicle now before
the Senate, people can offer amendments. All they have to do is come
and give us an idea of what the amendment is. I have been in the Senate
a long time, and it is no new theory that you would like to know what
the amendment is. We always give our amendments to the minority and say
here is what it is going to be. They should see it firsthand. This does
not prohibit them from doing that.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Motion to Commit with Amendment No. 4636
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to commit the bill to the Finance
Committee with the instruction to report back forthwith, with the
following amendment, which I send to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Nevada (Mr. Reid) moves to commit the bill
to the Committee on Finance, with instructions, with the
following amendment:
The provision of this act shall become effective 2 days
after enactment.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Amendment No. 4637
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
[[Page 7571]]
In the amendment, strike ``2'' and insert ``1''
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Spending Record
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to respond to some attacks relative
to my integrity which were run today in a New York newspaper--I think
it was the Daily News--which I presume were energized and orchestrated
by the staff of the leadership--the Senate office of the senior Senator
from New York. The editorial could not have had the fact pattern that
it had, had it not been fed that information from the senior Senator's
staff. So I think it is appropriate to respond to it.
It implies, obviously, that I am inconsistent in my views on how I
approach spending in this Congress. I think that will come as a
surprise to most people in this Congress because I doubt anyone in this
Congress--I am sure there are a few--does not think my record in trying
to control spending and having some resistance to spending which I feel
is inappropriate is fairly strong.
As chairman of the Budget Committee, I tried to discipline spending.
I tried to make our Government more affordable for our children. I
tried not to pass on to our children debts which they should not have
to bear so our children can have the opportunity to live as fulfilling
a life and have as high quality a life as we have had.
There is in this bill a proposal to spend $1.6 billion on an air
train to Kennedy Airport. That is not an aircraft issue. It is clearly
an add-on. This proposal is, ironically, paid for using the Tax Code in
a very ingenious way. It gives a credit to the State of New York, or
the city, for taxes which they don't pay over a period of time, which
is fairly extensive. I think it will run into the period 2020. That
credit totals about $1.6 billion, $1.7 billion. It is, under any
scenario--I did not use this term when I spoke about it first, but I
will use it now--it is under any scenario an earmark, and not a very
good earmark, to say the least.
The representation is that my opposition to this is an attack on the
efforts of this country to address the very serious and legitimate and
appropriate concerns of the city of New York that resulted from 9/11.
After 9/11, the people of New Hampshire and the people of this Nation
were committed and remain committed to making sure the city of New York
is made whole, to the extent it can be. Obviously, it could never be
after such a horrific event. We in our State were happy to take our tax
dollars and put them toward the city to try to address those problems,
and I voted for that. And we in our State were happy to support efforts
to rebuild and continue to be happy to support efforts to rebuild
Ground Zero because that is a place which has taken on sacred meaning
to our Nation. But we are not interested, in New Hampshire--and I
suspect most American citizens are not interested--in using dollars
which were supposed to be used for 9/11 to help out some other, maybe a
legitimate need--but I don't know whether it is--in the city of New
York, and that is building a train. I call it the train to nowhere. It
is a bit of an exaggeration, but since I was trying to put it in the
context of an earmark that was of a questionable purpose, that seemed
like a reasonable term to use. That has become sort of like the term
``Xerox'' when you talk about an earmark about which you have serious
questions. But building this air train to Kennedy Airport--by the way,
I understand there is some significant disagreement within the city
about whether it should even be built, but certainly it should not be
on this bill as an attempt to basically get around an authorizing
process or a process which would air whether this earmark is
appropriate.
It should also not use a brand new exercise in tax policy, which is
totally inappropriate, of basically using the tax laws in a way that
creates an earmark by saying that you get a credit for a tax you don't
even have to pay. That is very bad precedent--horrific precedent, quite
honestly.
This earmark should see the light of day, and I don't think it can be
defended on the grounds of 9/11. In fact, I think that really does
serious damage to the historic and very human perspective of 9/11. To
try to defend building an air train to Kennedy Airport and stand behind
9/11 as your reasoning, and then claim, in a way that is most
inappropriate, in my opinion, if somebody opposes that proposal, they
are attacking the memory and the purpose and the sacredness of the 9/11
event and the Ground Zero reconstruction, is just, even by New York
standards of exaggerated politics, carrying it a step too far--more
than a step too far, in my opinion. But that is what was done here.
An earmark was created for something which has only marginal
relationship to even downtown Manhattan--I guess you have to get there
from Manhattan, so I guess it has a relationship--certainly no nexus
with Ground Zero from the standpoint of an air tram construction to
Kennedy Airport. Using the tax laws in an abusive way to generate this
earmark and then claiming, when anybody raises the question of the
legitimacy of it, that they are somehow acting in a way that is
inconsistent with the commitment to the rebuilding of New York after 9/
11 and they are degrading the name of the 9/11 event is beyond the
pale.
But that seems to be the goal, the style, and the approach of at
least the people who fed the information to the paper--which I presume
was the staff of the senior Senator from New York. Maybe it was not his
staff. I would like him to come down here and deny it if it wasn't. I
would like him to come to the floor and deny it if he didn't basically
give this information and set the tone of this position because, very
clearly, in my opinion, he has.
Let's return to the fact pattern as it exists. I will stop using the
term ``train to nowhere'' because I can understand how that might
irritate. I will accept that term was probably inappropriately applied.
I will call it an earmark, a very questionable earmark for a lot of
money which does not flow from the original commitment, in my opinion,
to the rebuilding of New York--which the citizenry of America made and
which we were happy to stand behind.
In fact, ironically, the plans for this train, this elevated train,
were begun in 1998, and the actual commitments that this train would go
forward, as I understand it, were discussed as early as 1988. The claim
this is tied into Ground Zero is to extend credibility quite a bit, in
my opinion. To hide behind that and use it in such a personal way which
basically questions another Member's integrity is obviously
inappropriate.
I think the Senator may have the votes to support his proposal to
raid the Tax Code for $1.6 billion. Maybe he has the votes to do that.
But it should not be on this bill. It is not an airplane issue. I can
tell you right now, if I have anything to say about it, this bill is
not going to move forward as long as it is on this bill.
It had not been my intention to engage at this level, but, as, you
know, people from New Hampshire know how to play politics. We know how
to deal in this Chamber as well as people from New York. We may be from
the country, but we know how to engage. It appears engagement has been
called upon, so let us go forward and see who is right, see who has the
equities on their side, and determine whether the American people
believe building a train which was designed in 1988, was committed to,
I believe, in 1998, about which there is considerable discussion
whether it should even be going forward, which is an elevated train to
an airport in, I believe, Queens, is an appropriate use of $1.7 or $1.6
billion of their hard-earned income. Let's see what happens on that
issue.
I yield the floor.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
[[Page 7572]]
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I remember those days in West
Virginia when all the major airlines operating large jet aircraft
served all of West Virginia's airports--jets, actual jets coming into
West Virginia. Airline deregulation was a terrible mistake. It changed
the very nature of air travel in this country for all. For millions of
Americans in large urban areas, it ushered in an era of affordable air
traffic. A trip to New York and Los Angeles went down. In fact, at a
number of points, it became much cheaper to go to Los Angeles from New
York than to go from West Virginia to Washington. But for West Virginia
communities, it meant a loss of service and convenience and often
higher prices. It seemed to me that the big jets disappeared from West
Virginia within days of deregulation. I remember those nice American,
United, and Eastern jets sitting out there on the tarmac, people piling
on. Deregulation--boom, they were gone.
For 30 years, small and rural communities have had to cope with very
limited and unreliable service. The Presiding Officer knows exactly
what I am talking about. Over the last several years, these problems
have been exacerbated by the weakened financial condition of the U.S.
airlines, which is what this whole effort to get a bill going is about.
After September 11, dozens of communities saw a dramatic decrease in
the level of air service. It was measurable, noticeable, and
depressing. Many lost service altogether. As the industry recovered
from the dramatic downturn in the air traffic that tragic day sparked,
small communities did not see the benefits of that resurgence because
once they dropped something, it was easier to keep it dropped rather
than to help.
Small community air service is facing an unprecedented crisis. If we
fail to act to address this problem, dozens of small communities across
our Nation will face a future without air service. Consider that for a
moment--small communities, viable industries, institutions, people who
count. Americans are born equal, but then some don't have air service.
That is what we have now. Without access to reliable air service, we
throw into question their economic future.
I do not come to the Senate to represent the diminution of
possibilities for West Virginia's economic future. I have spoken about
the weakened financial condition of our major airlines. But we must
also recognize that small regional carriers that provide the air
service to rural States such as West Virginia and Montana and parts of
Ohio, I am quite certain, also provide the vast majority of air service
to midsize communities across the country, and they are teetering on
the brink of collapse because of high fuel prices.
As Senator Baucus knows all too well, small airlines across the West
have folded, leaving at least 17 communities with no air service at
all. Seventeen communities would sort of make up the entire State of
West Virginia. That is a terrible blow. So few regional airlines are
willing to initiate service to small, isolated communities that, when
one withdraws service, it is very hard to find replacement air service.
In most cases, it is impossible. Hundreds of small and rural
communities across our country are facing drastically reduced air
service because of this financial turmoil in the industry. Even in the
best of times, these communities face a difficult time maintaining and
developing new air service options. Today, their challenge is
preventing the complete loss of air service. That is effort No. 1: Hold
on to whatever you might have. No matter if it is one flight a day,
hold on to it. Fight for it.
I strongly believe the Federal Government must continue to assist our
most vulnerable communities stay connected to the Nation's aviation
network, a network paid for by all Americans.
The reduction or elimination of air service has been devastating in
terms of its effect on the economic well-being of many of our
communities across the country. Having adequate air service is not only
a matter of convenience, it is a matter of economic survival. Without
access to reliable air service, businesses will not locate their
operations in these areas of the country, no matter how attractive the
quality of life or the quality of the workforce. We have, for example,
extremely low housing prices, low property taxes, and an
extraordinarily highly productive workforce, with an average in
manufacturing of 1 percent annual turnover. That is almost unheard of.
Airports are economic engines that attract critical new development
opportunities and the people who can make those things happen or
continue to grow.
West Virginia is a very good place to do business. Toyota and a
number of other large industries, chemical and otherwise, have found
that out. I can proudly state that countless large U.S. and
international companies have facilities in my State. I can even point
out that 20 Japanese companies have industries in the State of West
Virginia, three in Wayne County, which the Presiding Officer is
familiar with. From West Virginia, a business traveler can get to seven
airline hubs and from these seven cities can get to any point on the
globe. One-stop service to Tokyo, London, Dubai is critical if my State
is going to compete in the global economy. West Virginia has been able
to attract firms from around the world because corporate executives
know they can visit their operations with ease. That is why we have air
service. Rural and smalltown America must continue to be adequately
linked to the Nation's air transportation network if its people and
businesses are to compete with larger urban areas and around the world.
When Congress deregulated the airline industry, we promised small and
rural communities we would make sure they would remain connected to the
aviation system. We have failed in our commitment to those promises.
The Essential Air Service Program, which Congress established when we
deregulated the airline industry, is not a huge program, but it
provides money to attract airlines into smaller communities and is
incredibly valuable.
But, on the other hand, the essential air service has never met the
true needs and expectations of rural air service or the necessary
requirements of rural air service.
In West Virginia, the essential air service has often been plagued by
high fares and limited, sporadic service. For 10 years, I have worked
to strengthen small community air service. I do that because I
represent a rural State with hard-working people who have an enormous
desire to succeed and to work and are deprived of what many other
Americans take for granted. That is not fair in Internet connection;
you cannot have a rural and urban divide. It is just as true in airline
service; you cannot have urban doing well, rurals being left out
because we are all Americans, all created by God to be equal.
So I have worked to strengthen small community air service. In the
Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century, which Congress
enacted into law in the distant past of the year 2000, we began to
address the need to improve air service in small and rural communities.
I, along with many of my colleagues, supported the creation of
something called the Small Community Air Service Development Pilot
Program, a competitive grant program to provide communities with the
resources they needed to attract new air service to their town. We try
everything we can. We try absolutely everything we can. Over 100
communities now have used these grants to secure and retain new air
service options. That is good.
I wish to highlight two success stories which happened in my State.
Charleston received money under the program I have described and has
used it successfully--Charleston is our capital--they have used it very
successfully to attract a new service connection for our chemical
industry to Houston. Why is that important? Well, our
[[Page 7573]]
chemical companies do a lot of the training of their people in Houston
and then they come back and they work in our chemical companies. Air
service to Houston gave West Virginians an important gateway, in
addition, therefore, to the markets of Latin America.
Over the past 2 years, Tri-State Airport in Huntington has been
reborn because of the money it received under this Small Community Air
Service Development Grant Program. Prior to attracting a low-cost
charter operator, the airport had seen a steep decline in the number of
passengers using the airport. With fewer passengers, airlines cut back
flights. Fewer flights meant fewer passengers. It was a death spiral.
Once the community was able to secure a grant, matched with almost as
many local dollars, airport officials were able to attract a new
carrier that served the critical markets local residents wanted. For
the first time in 20 years, large jets roared off the runways in West
Virginia, in Huntington. The airport will have 100,000 passengers pass
through its gates for the first time in decades.
Now, that is not very impressive if you are from New York or Los
Angeles, but in West Virginia it shakes the world, and it gives people
new hope. I was there when all this happened, and you could see a new
sense of vigor and determination in the population. Air service
attracts community ambition.
Improving air service must be a collective effort. Communities are
most successful in creating new air service options when everyone--
including the Federal and the State governments, airports, airlines,
businesses, and citizens--works together to attract, promote, and use
the service.
One of the things we learned the hard way in West Virginia was you
cannot treat an airport similar to something which is out there which
people will automatically go to. We used to have a lot of our people
from Charleston driving all the way to Cincinnati and actually not
understanding that the cost of traveling to Cincinnati and the fuel and
the overnight and all the rest of it actually did not give them that
much of a financial break, but they looked at the cost of the airline
and off they went. So 16 percent of Charleston's traffic disappeared.
I am now proud to say West Virginia communities have been able to use
this important program to rethink their air service needs, to think
about marketing airports. You market airports like you market anything
else. People have to be aware of it. You have to attract people to it.
It is not something which is there. It is something which has to sell
itself. LaGuardia does not have to do that. Newark does not have to do
that. In West Virginia, we have to do that, and we are doing that.
The FAA bill that is before us extends the authorization for these
important programs for 4 more years.
Four West Virginia commercial airports rely solely upon the Essential
Air Service program for any service at all. We are extending that and
enlarging the amount. No community wants to be dependent on essential
air service. It is not a badge of honor. But it is a fact of survival.
But for many, it is their only option to maintain air service.
But as I mentioned earlier, the program has not met the needs of many
communities. In 2003, as part of the last FAA reauthorization bill, I
created a number of new voluntary pilot programs for essential air
service communities. I modeled these initiatives after the Small
Community Air Service Pilot Program by focusing on incentives rather
than punitive approaches.
Under this new plan, a community could receive funds to develop its
own marketing plans rather than rely on the airline for one. It could
use funds to increase service levels, opt to use different types of
aircraft or investigate the use of alternative transportation service.
In other words, it said: What is our problem? What are we going to do
about it? We cannot wait on other people. We have to make these
decisions ourselves. We are doing that in West Virginia.
This year, we have added a number of provisions to strengthen the
Essential Air Service program. We have increased the authorization
level for the program by $58 million to $175 million a year. We have
included provisions to help carriers that provide the essential air
service so they can meet the cost of high fuel. It is essential. We
have increased the flexibility of the program even further so
communities can work with the Department of Transportation and air
carriers to find air service that works for them.
Small and rural communities are the very first to bear the brunt of
bad economic times. It has always been so. It shall always be so. The
Presiding Officer knows exactly what I am talking about. We are always,
in West Virginia, at the end of the food chain on everything. We
understand that. We do not like it, but that is our current destiny,
and so that is why we have to fight harder and try to be more
imaginative.
The general economic downturn and the dire straits of the aviation
industry have placed exceptional burdens on air service to our most
isolated communities. The Federal Government must provide additional
resources for small communities to help themselves attract air service.
If you have to do the work yourself, you do it. You just do it. The
Federal Government must make sure our most vulnerable towns and cities
are linked to the rest of the Nation. It is an easy statement to make,
but it is a huge statement. We have an obligation in this country to
make sure all of our communities and our people are linked to the broad
air service opportunities, hubs and spokes. It has to happen.
My legislation builds on existing programs and strengthens them. We
must continue to provide our constituents the tools and resources
necessary to attract air service, and we are doing that.
So, in closing, I should say a subsidy alone does not solve the
problems of small community air service. If our constituents do not use
that service, or the airlines take it away--airlines cannot operate
unprofitable flights or flights that are marginally profitable, for
which they could do better elsewhere. They make a little bit of money
or they do not make a little bit of money, and they are gone because
their situation is so dire.
I do not know what the future of the U.S. airline industry will look
like in 6 months, but our Nation needs a strong airline industry. Our
communities need to be connected to the aviation system.
That is why we are going through this most extraordinary exercise of
no amendments to be voted on, a good deal of time to sit and talk, a
great deal of frustration. But we are trying to pass something called
the Federal aviation bill that will provide service to our people. If
there is anything in the national interest, it is that. I will not go
so far as to say it is more important than the interstate highway
system, in terms of economic development and also reaching out to the
world, which all our States need now to do on a two-way basis.
So we fight. We continue to fight.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, while the distinguished Senator from
West Virginia is on the floor, I wish to, first of all, commend him for
his efforts on behalf of aviation in the United States. I associate
myself with his remarks about rural and underserved areas. I associate
myself with all the remarks he made in support of our aviation system.
I am one of those people who are frustrated with our inability to
deal right now with amendments. I understand a substitute was offered
last night and the tree was filled so there are no germane amendments
that were--the amendments that were filed yesterday are no longer
germane; am I correct?
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I say to my good friend, the
Senator from Georgia, things have changed a bit this morning and
decisions are being made on that side of the aisle that will determine
whether we can move forward. I am hopeful about that process.
Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, in the hopeful event we can move
forward, I wish to, for a minute, with the distinguished Senator, make
him aware of an amendment I submitted yesterday but
[[Page 7574]]
is not pending. It cannot be pending right now. I agree with the
Senator entirely on the importance to the American economy of U.S.
aviation. In the bill they put out, there is one element that was not
addressed that I think should be.
On December 31 of this year, the United States providing terrorism
insurance to the airlines sunsets. If it is, there will be no access to
terrorism insurance by U.S. domestic carriers because the only private
insurers that will offer terrorism insurance offer it with an advanced
cancellation provision, which basically means if we went to a code
level orange or a code level red, the insurance company in advance of a
terrorist attack could actually cancel the insurance. So the aviation
industry would be without insurance.
Our competition in Europe does not have that problem. They still have
private insurance available for coverage of aviation terrorism. I
submitted an amendment yesterday that would extend the date of December
31 of this year--which is the expiration date--to make it December 31,
2011, so airlines can continue to pay the U.S. Government for insurance
against terrorism.
If my understandings are correct, those premiums totaled $160 million
in the last year and are a revenue source to the United States of
America, as it should be. We should not be providing it without cost.
So I would hope, when the meetings that are going on are concluded,
and if we can get back to the base bill and if amendments again become
relevant, that the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, the
Senator from Alaska, and the others who have worked so hard on this
legislation will look favorably on an extension of terrorism insurance
availability to domestic U.S. carriers.
With that, Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I say also to my very dear friend
from Georgia with whom I have a long and wonderful background because
of his strong reaction to our plight in West Virginia with the coal
miners--he doesn't have coal in his State but he came into our State
and adopted it as his own and we adopted him.
I also wish to tell him that what he is suggesting is something I
very much support.
Amendment No. 4642 to Amendment No. 4637
Madam President, I believe there is an amendment at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Rockefeller] proposes
an amendment numbered 4642 to amendment No. 4637.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
In the amendment, strike ``1'' and insert ``3.''
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for up to 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Healthy Americans Act
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, there is now an historic coalition here
in the Senate, a group of 14 Senators. Seven Democrats and 7
Republicans are sponsoring a health bill guaranteeing all Americans
quality, affordable health care coverage. There has never been such a
coalition in the history of the Senate.
Today our group got some historic news. The Government's go-to
officials for budgeting and taxes have thrown decades of conventional
wisdom into the trash can. They have informed our group that all
Americans can have quality, affordable health care coverage without
breaking the bank.
Briefly, here is what the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint
Committee on Taxation have found. They found that our legislation, the
Healthy Americans Act, can be up and running in 2012. They found the
legislation would become budget neutral in 2014. That means our
legislation is self-financing in the first year that universal health
care coverage would be fully implemented in our country. In the years
after 2014, because the legislation holds down health cost increases,
it starts to generate budget surpluses for the Federal Government.
This analysis is fresh, independent evidence that health care can be
fixed without massive tax increases or boatloads of additional
Government spending. It is a chance, in my view, for Congress and our
country to look at the issue of health care reform with fresh eyes,
because what the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on
Taxation have analyzed doesn't involve a set of lofty principles or
some of the oratory from the campaign trail, but it is actual
legislation.
Because this report is a historic document, I ask unanimous consent
that the letter dated today from the Congressional Budget Office and
the Joint Committee on Taxation be printed in the Record. The report is
available on the CBO Web site www.cbo.gov.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
May 1, 2008.
Hon. Ron Wyden,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Robert F. Bennett,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators: At your request, the staffs of our two
organizations have collaborated on a preliminary analysis of
a modified proposal for comprehensive health insurance based
on S. 334, the ``Healthy Americans Act,'' which you
introduced last year. That modified proposal includes various
clarifications and changes that you have indicated you would
like to examine as part of the consideration of that bill.
Attachment A summarizes our understanding of your modified
proposal.
The staffs of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the
Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have worked closely
together for the past several months to analyze your modified
proposal; this collaboration reflects both the novelty of the
undertaking and the intimate connection between the revenue
and expenditure components of this proposal. We have
summarized our conclusions in this joint letter; its purpose
is to give you preliminary guidance regarding an approximate
range of revenue and cost results that might be expected from
your modified proposal. This joint letter does not constitute
and should not be interpreted as a formal estimate of your
proposal's budgetary impact, which--for the purposes of
scoring under the Congressional Budget Act--would ultimately
be provided by CBO and would incorporate revenue estimates
prepared by the JCT staff.
The basic thrust of your modified proposal is to require
individuals to purchase private health insurance and to
establish state-run purchasing pools and a system of Federal
premium collections and subsidies to facilitate those
purchases. The system's premium collection and subsidy
mechanisms would be based largely on income tax filings, and
the required benefits would initially be based on the Blue
Cross/Blue Shield standard plan offered to Federal workers in
2011 and then allowed to grow at the rate of growth of the
economy. Although employers would have the option of
continuing to offer coverage to their workers, nearly all
individuals who were not enrolled in Medicare would obtain
their basic health insurance coverage through this new
system. Most enrollees in Medicaid and all enrollees in the
State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would have
their primary insurance coverage shifted to the new system.
Your proposal also would replace the current tax exclusion
for employer-based health insurance premiums with a fixed
income tax deduction for health insurance. (In addition,
employers that had provided health insurance would be
expected to ``cash out'' their workers--that is, to increase
workers' wages by the average contribution that the employers
would have made for their health plan.) The proposal also
would require new tax payments from employers to the Federal
government and further would seek to recapture the savings to
state governments from reduced expenditures on Medicaid and
SCHIP.
There are several important distinctions between the
proposal we analyzed and S. 334 as it was introduced. For
example, our analysis was limited to the operation of the new
health insurance purchasing system and did not take into
account most of S. 334's provisions regarding the Medicare
program or other provisions that would not directly affect
the new system. More fundamentally,
[[Page 7575]]
the modified proposal would tie the premiums collected
through the tax system--as well as the premium subsidies for
lower-income households--to the cost of the least expensive
health plan available in an area that provided required
benefits, not to the average premium amount, as under S. 334.
Furthermore, the value of the new tax deduction would not
vary with the premium of the insurance policy that was
actually purchased, and the schedule of employers' payment
rates would range from 3 percent to 26 percent (rather than 2
percent to 25 percent) of the average premium. Attachment B
describes in more detail the main differences between your
modified proposal and S. 334.
The preliminary analysis reflected in this letter is
subject to three important limitations. First, the staffs of
both JCT and CBO are in the process of enhancing our
capabilities to estimate the effects of comprehensive health
care proposals. Improvements in our methodologies or more
careful analysis of your modified proposal's provisions--
particularly as you translate those concepts into formal
legislative language--could change our assessment of its
consequences.
Second, any formal budget estimate will reflect the
macroeconomic assumptions and the baseline projections of
current-law tax and spending policies in effect at the time
it is issued. That baseline could differ materially from
today's baseline.
Third, we focused our analysis on a single future year in
which the proposed system would be fully implemented. For
that purpose, we settled on 2014, the sixth year of the
current 2009-2018 budget window. Under an assumption that the
proposal is enacted in 2008, that timeline for full
implementation seems to us to be achievable but could be
optimistic, as we expect that it would probably take until
2012 for the new system to begin operation, and several years
after that for various phase-ins and behavioral adjustments
to take place. The new system would involve temporary net
budgetary costs in its initial years; we have not analyzed
the magnitude of those early-year transition costs.
Overall, our preliminary analysis indicates that the
proposal would be roughly budget- neutral in 2014. That is,
our analysis suggests that your proposal would be essentially
self-financing in the first year that it was fully
implemented. That net result reflects large gross changes in
Federal revenues and outlays that would roughly offset each
other.
More specifically, under your proposal, most health
insurance premiums that are now paid privately would flow
through the Federal budget. As a result, total Federal
outlays for health insurance premiums in 2014 would be on the
order of $1.3 trillion to $1.4 trillion. Those costs would be
approximately offset by revenues and savings from several
sources: premium payments collected from individuals through
their tax returns; revenue raised by replacing the current
tax exclusion for health insurance with an income tax
deduction; new tax payments by employers to the Federal
government; Federal savings on Medicaid and SCHIP; and state
maintenance-of-effort payments of their savings from Medicaid
and SCHIP. Attachment C provides more information about the
approximate magnitudes of those components.
For the years after 2014, we anticipate that the fiscal
impact would improve gradually, so that the proposal would
tend to become more than self-financing and thereby would
reduce future budget deficits or increase future surpluses.
That improvement would reflect two features of the proposal.
First, the amount of the new health insurance deduction would
grow at the rate of general price inflation and thus would
increase more slowly than the value of the current tax
exclusion.
Second, the minimum value of covered benefits that all
participating health plans had to provide would initially be
set at the level of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield standard
option offered to Federal workers in 2011 (we assume that the
system's inaugural year would be 2012); but under your
proposal that average value would from that point forward be
indexed to growth in gross domestic product per capita rather
than growth in health care costs. Because Federal premium
subsidies would be based on the cost of providing that level
of coverage, the cost of those subsidies would grow more
slowly over time.
We hope this analysis is useful to you. Not surprisingly, a
number of uncertainties arise in attempting to predict the
effects of such large-scale changes to the current health
insurance system. Although we have provided a range of
results that reflect our current expectations about likely
outcomes, actual experience--and the results of a formal cost
estimate--could differ substantially in either direction. If
you have any questions about this analysis, please do not
hesitate to contact us; the staff contacts are Pam Moomau and
Nikole Flax for JCT and Philip Ellis for CBO.
Sincerely,
Peter R. Orszag,
Director, Congressional Budget Office.
Edward D. Kleinbard,
Chief of Staff, Joint Committee on Taxation.
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I wish to touch on a few points with
respect to this report. Obviously, the key to fixing health care is to
contain costs. Our bipartisan legislation does that by making sure all
Americans have more clout in the marketplace. We achieve that by making
sure that everyone goes into a big pool, because if they are off by
themselves, they don't have a lot of ability to get the best deal for
their health care dollar. But if they belong to a bigger group, they
have a lot better chance of containing costs. We cut the administrative
costs of health care. We use a State and regional pooling approach that
has been found to cut administrative costs. We get patients out of
unnecessary hospital emergency room visits because more would get seen
on an outpatient basis. We make progressive changes in tax law and we
empower consumers, because for the first time, if they have employer-
based health coverage, they could actually find out what is being spent
on their health care. Right now, basically all they know is they are
not seeing their wages go up because health care costs are eating up
all of the employers' resources. We think making sure that the worker
knows what is being spent on health care provides them a new set of
opportunities to get more for their health care dollar.
My view is that today's health care system is largely driven by
employers and insurance companies. Clearly, there is a significant role
to play for them. But what we do in our legislation is provide a bigger
role for individuals and especially their health care providers--the
thousands of doctors and nurses and physician assistants. We make sure
that everybody under our legislation could have a health care home. So
instead of being lost in an incredibly complicated health care system,
there would be one person who would coordinate each individual's care.
A big part of what we are doing in this bill is to modernize the
employer-employee relationship in the health care field. What we are
doing in 2008 in health care as it relates to employers and employees
isn't much different than what was done in 1948. The Chair can remember
all of the efforts of President Truman to make changes in American
health care. So we modernize that relationship. We continue to let
employers who choose to offer coverage, but we give the workers more
choices with respect to their health care and we give the employers
much needed cost relief, which is especially essential at a time when
they are competing in tough global markets.
I want to mention all of my colleagues who are sponsoring this
legislation with me. Senator Bennett of Utah, a member of the
Republican leadership, is the principal cosponsor. Senator Bennett's
knowledge of economics, in my view, has few equals and I could not have
a better partner for this whole effort. We have seven Democrats and
seven Republicans who are on the effort. I am particularly pleased that
so many from the Senate Finance Committee, where Senator Baucus and
Senator Grassley have worked in a bipartisan tradition for years, are
part of our effort. From the Senate Finance Committee we have Senator
Grassley and Senator Crapo and Senator Stabenow cosponsoring the
legislation, all of them making a great contribution in this area.
As we go forward in the days ahead, Senator Stabenow's expertise and
interest, particularly in health information technology, is going to be
instrumental. For example, Dr. Orszag, the director of the
Congressional Budget Office, who brings great professionalism to this
effort to look at health care, this morning when he briefed eight of us
in the Senate on the legislation, mentioned the fact that the evidence
suggests as much as 30 percent of the health care dollar is spent in a
fashion that produces very little value. So what Senator Stabenow is
trying to do with health information technology, electronic medical
records, and other innovative approaches is to wring more value out of
every health care dollar. Her contribution is so very important.
Senator Grassley and I have worked together on many health care
issues.
[[Page 7576]]
Of course, the partnership we have on the Finance Committee between
Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley is a very rare and a very
beneficial alliance here in the Senate, and I so appreciate Senator
Grassley's involvement.
Senator Crapo is my partner in the West who has a great interest and
long-standing involvement in rural health care, and we are very pleased
that he is an additional voice on the Senate Finance Committee for the
legislation.
I would also like to credit the other Senators who are involved. We
are very pleased that Senator Landrieu, who is helping to reinvent
health care in her State as a result of destruction caused by Hurricane
Katrina and all of the challenges they face, has been particularly
interested in and creative in thinking about opening up new
opportunities for entrepreneurship in her State and elsewhere. Senator
Landrieu correctly points out that if you modernize the employer-
employee relationship in health care, that is going to mean we are
going to have more entrepreneurs. It is going to be good for business.
It is going to be good for our economy. We are going to be able to grow
our economic base in the country. Senator Landrieu argues very
eloquently, in my view, that if you provide some cost relief for the
employers who got into the business of driving health care by accident
in the 1940s, you are going to be able to create jobs and strengthen
our economy.
Senator Nelson, a former insurance commissioner, is one of our
cosponsors. He has great expertise in insurance regulation. In fact, he
pointed out this morning some of the tools that are going to be
necessary to prevent price gouging in health insurance and is making a
great contribution there.
Senator Lieberman has a long-standing interest in this and is a
cosponsor. Of course, his involvement is particularly critical because
his State is a center of health insurance and technology and there are
a variety of major economic concerns involved.
We are very glad to have Senator Gregg, who is the ranking member on
the Budget Committee and a driving force on keeping down health costs
to make health care more affordable and available to all. We're also
pleased to have the support of Senator Inouye, who as chairman of the
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, has shown his leadership in health
care research for our soldiers and sailors with benefits for all
Americans. We also appreciate the support of Senator Corker, who has
been a leading advocate for reforming the tax code to make health
insurance more available and affordable. And we're grateful for support
from Senator Coleman, who has the world renowned Mayo Clinic in his
state and himself has been a leader in the area of health technology.
And we are especially pleased to have the support of two former
governors, Senator Carper and Senator Alexander. The Healthy Americans
Act gives a major role to the states in reforming our health system and
it's critical to have the support of Senators with the knowledge of
state government and executive leadership experience they have
supporting our legislation. It is a group unlike any other we have seen
in the history of the Senate. Fourteen Senators--seven Democrats, seven
Republicans--actually cosponsoring together a piece of legislation that
will guarantee all Americans affordable, good quality coverage.
This legislation ensures that all of our people have choices such as
we have here in the Congress. We have choices among a number of very
good private sector packages. It ensures that coverage for the first
time will be portable. You can take your coverage from job to job to
job, which is something that millions of Americans desperately want.
It is our future. The fact is that today, by the time you are 35
years old, you are likely to change your job 7 times. Yet the system
almost locks you into your present position. You cannot move. You
cannot go to another opportunity. I think to have a portable health
system where you can take your coverage from job to job to job and not
worry about losing your coverage if you want to take a promotion or
start your own business is particularly important.
The best part about it is that the Joint Committee on Taxation and
the Congressional Budget Office have said this can be done in a
revenue-neutral way.
We have had a number of Senators involved who have longstanding
credentials in terms of being tougher on budgets and concerned about
fiscal discipline. Now, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the
Congressional Budget Office have said that, contrary to popular wisdom
that universal coverage is going to break the bank and require tax
hikes and new spending, it can be done in a budget-neutral kind of
fashion.
Finally, I want to add since I think I really didn't do him justice
earlier--Senator Inouye has been a wonderful addition to our group. He
and his staff have had a great interest in looking at a number of
health reform issues, particularly ones that make better use of our
workforce, focused on prevention and quality. We are thrilled to have
him as well.
Madam President, I note that one of our colleagues has come to the
floor. I will wrap up simply by saying that I think the entire Senate
should be very grateful for the outstanding work done by the Joint
Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office, led by Peter
Orszag and Edward Kleinbard. Those two organizations have never
issued--in the history of their organizations--an analysis like the one
they made available today. Never in the history of the organizations
has there been such an analysis.
I submit that if there had been an analysis like this done the last
time the Congress debated universal coverage back in 1993 and 1994, if
there had been a report like this one from the Congressional Budget
Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, they could have moved
forward on a bipartisan basis to actually pass legislation, see it
signed into law, and end the disgrace that a country such as ours,
which is good and strong and talented, hasn't been able to fix American
health care.
This time, I think we are up to it. Senator Bennett and I have kept
apprised the leadership in the Senate on both sides of the aisle. It is
our determination to work with colleagues of both political parties. We
intend to work with the Presidential candidates. I have talked with
Senators Clinton and Obama many times about the Healthy Americans Act.
I talked to Senator Graham last night about the Congressional Budget
Office briefing. We know of his involvement with Senator McCain. If you
are going to deal with a big, important issue, it has to be bipartisan.
Today, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on
Taxation have made a significant contribution to our effort to move
forward and actually enact universal health coverage that works for all
Americans. We are indebted to their organizations.
I am particularly grateful to colleagues who have joined as
cosponsors in this effort. Senator Bennett and I will continue to work
with colleagues like Senator Baucus, Senator Kennedy and others over
the next 6 or 7 months so that this can be ready to go for the next
President of the United States.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, what is the current state of the floor?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is considering H.R. 2881.
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed
to speak as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Craig pertaining to the introduction of S. 2953
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, the statement by the Senator
from Idaho with regard to the need for drilling has been articulated by
a very respected columnist, Robert J. Samuelson, who recently wrote his
[[Page 7577]]
column, published in the Washington Post, that in essence said we ought
to put oil rigs off the protected shores of Florida and in the
preserved wilds of Alaska.
Once again, we are going to hear statements such as that of the
Senator from Idaho and read statements in the written press by Mr.
Samuelson as gas prices are hitting record highs. We are going to see
the renewed push by the Bush administration and by the oil industry to
drill in areas that are protected, such as the Gulf of Mexico off
Florida, as articulated by the Senator from Idaho, as well as the area
known as ANWR, which is in the preserved wilderness of Alaska. Drilling
right away in environmentally protected areas was the centerpiece of
Mr. Samuelson's solution to the rising gas prices.
There is not one of us in this Chamber who does not want to do
something about those gas prices. What Mr. Samuelson said in his column
was that to oppose drilling in those protected areas--as indicated also
by the Senator who has just spoken--to oppose drilling in those
protected areas, he said, is sheer stupidity. And he said further it is
a ``prejudice against oil companies.''
That is the same thing the oil companies say every time there is a
spike in prices. They have their long-term remedy that would expose
these wilderness areas, and Florida's beach and tourism-driven economy,
our areas of an environmentally sensitive nature, as well as the
military interests I asked the Senator from Idaho to acknowledge, and
they would put all that at risk. It is these same oil companies that
are now, because of the high price of gasoline, going to make another
end run--very possibly next week--and try to bust the ban, the
longstanding ban on coastal drilling. Of course, they are going to cite
what they do every time the oil prices spike high. They are going to
cite the high gasoline prices.
I am basing my predictions of what is going to happen in the next
couple of weeks, I am basing this assertion on the oil industry's track
record and on the comments made Tuesday by the President, renewing his
call for drilling. I am basing it on the suggestions we see in this
newspaper column.
In advance of this likely new assault, this Senator wants to make
clear oil that is still deep in the ground has no direct link--none--to
today's pump prices. Any oil in the ground will not be in the
marketplace for another 10 years. More important, no matter what
anybody says or what anybody writes, the United States only has 3
percent of the world's oil reserves while the United States consumes 25
percent of the world's oil production. In other words, it is, to use
Samuelson's term, ``sheer stupidity'' to think the United States can
somehow drill its way out of the energy crisis.
We are a nation that is hooked on oil. Drilling along the Florida
shore or in wildlife preserves will not break the habit. By the way,
one of the main reasons oil prices have gone up so sharply in recent
years is the volatility of major producer nations, such as Iraq and
Iran--not even to mention Venezuela and Nigeria. History reflects
similar spikes, circa 1973, when we had an OPEC oil embargo related to
a war in the Middle East; then again in 1979 with the Iranian
revolution; again in 1990 with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the first
gulf war; and again, since 2003, with the war in Iraq, concomitant with
increasing Asian demand.
The common denominator in all these spikes is they are fueled by the
subsequent increase in oil speculation. The common denominator is
trouble in the Middle East and especially in Iraq and Iran. More
drilling along protected U.S. coasts, in bays and harbors and in the
pristine wilderness of Alaska, will not stabilize Iraq and it will not
guarantee Saudi Arabia's long-term friendship. Nor will it end the
unregulated speculation that has driven the price of oil to more than
$118 a barrel when the price should have been no more than $55 a
barrel, based on present supply and demand, according to an industry
leader's testimony before Congress. That means the law of supply and
demand has been broken and we are paying at least $63 per barrel over
and above what supply and demand would produce--a price of $55. We are
paying that extra $63 per barrel to enrich investment bankers,
speculators, and oil companies.
As Mr. Samuelson says in his column: ``What to do?''
The U.S. failed in the 1970s to enact a real energy program to get us
off oil. The result is it is Brazil that runs on ethanol today--not the
United States. Germany leads the world in solar power, not the United
States. In the meantime, oil companies are awash in record profits,
more than $155 billion in profits alone last year, at the same time not
spending enough on refineries or alternative energy, while guess who is
getting it in the neck: the consumers at the pump.
Then, even worse, it took the United States more than 30 years to
raise mileage standards on cars and trucks to a paltry 35 miles per
gallon, something that will not even be in effect until the year 2020.
And is it not interesting that most of Europe and the cars U.S.-based
manufacturers sell there already average 43 miles per gallon, and in
Japan the cars are approaching 50-miles-a-gallon.
In other words, we are wasting, flat out wasting billions and
billions of gallons of oil. So, again, what are we to do? Well, about
half of the oil we consume goes into transportation, and it should not
take a rocket scientist to realize that is where we ought to focus. So,
first, if we start to enact serious conservation measures, and things
such as a 40-miles-per-gallon mandate for the fleet average of our
personal vehicles, and if we provided greater tax breaks for hybrid
cars, and ultimately hydrogen-powered and electric-powered cars, then
we are going to start making a difference.
Second, the Government, our Government, led by our next President, is
going to have to enact and subsidize a national energy program to
transform us from our energy dependence on oil, especially foreign oil,
to alternative and synthetic fuels to power much of the transportation
sector.
Members of the Senate, it has been done before. Remember in the
1960s, President Kennedy led us to conquer the bounds of Earth, to go
to the Moon and return, and all of that occurred within a decade. So we
have got to act with the same urgency. And while we are at it, we are
going to have to make ethanol, ethanol that we will make from things we
do not eat so we do not reduce our food supply.
While we are at that, we are also going to have to pay attention to
how we power not only our cars and our trucks, but our homes and our
industry. We are going to need to develop solar, wind, thermal energy,
and hydroelectric. And who knows the advances of technology in
harnessing renewable energy sources. We are going to have to look for
electricity that is from safer nuclear power.
Now, this is what our Presidential candidates ought to be hearing and
ultimately before this election they ought to be making a pledge to the
American people that they are going to do this. In the 10 years going
forward that it would take to bring in new oil rigs fully to market, in
that 10 years, if we are good stewards of what we have, we will have
conserved more oil than we ever get out of the ground, and we will be
mostly free from foreign oil by enacting this energy plan.
Our future will not be realized by looking backward to the short-term
polluting and dirty energy solutions of the last century, solutions
they still offer for the future, solutions by people who do not want to
change their ways, such as oil companies.
So should we start drilling right now in very environmentally
sensitive areas? To use Mr. Samuelson's words in his column, ``That is
sheer stupidity.''
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
[[Page 7578]]
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the provision
related to the New York liberty zone that appears in the FAA
reauthorization bill. A few of my friends on the other side of the
aisle have called this provision an earmark. They have called it a fund
to create a train to Kennedy Airport, even though that is not even
mentioned in the legislation.
I wish to fill in on the facts. First, after the devastating attacks
of 9/11 which scarred my city and our country, Congress and the
President generously agreed to provide $20 billion in assistance toward
the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. It was a promise the President made
to me and Senator Clinton the day after the attacks. It is a promise
that, to his everlasting credit, the President has kept and has never
wavered from. The President understood, I think all of my colleagues
understand, what happened in New York. But we still live with the
scars. That downtown has not recovered. There are fewer square feet of
office space today than there were then in downtown. And the families
who lost loved ones still grieve every day, as does just about every
New Yorker.
There has always been talk about wearing flags. I put this flag on my
lapel on 9/12/2001. I have worn it every day since and, God willing, I
will wear it every day for the remainder of my life in remembrance of
what has happened.
Now, of the $20 billion, the money was divided for various purposes.
Some, of course, was to help the families who have lost loved ones.
Some was for the cleaning up of the World Trade Center site. It was a
massive undertaking--to visit the rubble a day later, to smell death
and the burnt flesh in the air, and then to realize that people, not
only from New York but from around the whole country came to help us
help heal those wounds.
Some of the money was put aside specifically so that downtown would
recover; incentives to bring business back and money for
transportation, because the entire subway nexus had been destroyed. At
that point in time, people worried that people would desert downtown
and never come back.
New Yorkers, through efforts and valiance, have struggled, and so
that is how the $20 billion came about. Was any part of the $20 billion
an earmark? Is there any reason to equate it with a bridge to nowhere?
Please. Please, my colleagues, I do appreciate that my friend from New
Hampshire--I do consider him my friend--has retracted that specific
statement. But to call the $20 billion, or a significant part of it, an
earmark is unfair labeling, to be kind. Or the tax preferences for the
gulf opportunity zone after Katrina, were they earmarks? They were a
benefit, a large benefit, designated for a specific region. When we
help a disaster area, is that an earmark? No. And all the hallmarks of
earmarks done for only one member, slipped in in secrecy, none of that
applies here.
In fact, this exact proposal is in the President's budget this year
in the light of day for all to study because the President himself, as
I said, has kept his word. Has it been done secretly? Obviously, no.
This provision has been around for a while.
As I will show in a few minutes, many of my colleagues who oppose it
now have voted for it in other legislation. Why has New York had to
wait so long for this provision? It is because it has passed the House
a couple of times, it has passed the Senate once, but the bills that
passed never hooked up and never made it to the President's desk.
Are we going to tell those who argue that this is an earmark that any
aid to any region, no matter how publicly talked about, no matter how
desperate the need, is an earmark? With all due respect to my
colleagues, it is not fair. It is not right. It is not up to the level
of this body or this discourse. It is using a word that has a bad
connotation and inappropriately labeling something that has been part
of America's nobleness since 9/11.
Let me give you a little bit of history here. After the $20 billion
in aid was passed, some of the provisions were not fully realized,
others were, and exceeded the amounts of money. So the New York
delegation had talked with the President and with OMB leaders about how
to make sure those dollars were most wisely spent, and in some places,
the amounts of money changed.
A consensus emerged as we went through this that the best way to
support private enterprise, or one of the best ways to support private
enterprise and rebuild lower Manhattan, was to improve transportation
in and around the liberty zone.
As a result, the city and State proposed supporting improvements in
transportation infrastructure in or connected with the liberty zone. If
you look at the Treasury blue book, my colleagues, it is on pages 47 to
49. This is not something that was slipped in by any Member of the
Senate, not by me or anyone else. It was the President who proposed it
in this budget, as he has proposed it in previous budgets.
It is not something that was slipped into the bill in the middle of
the night. And to equate it with wasteful porkbarrel projects is an in
insult to the families of those who survive, to every New Yorker, and I
believe to every American.
When New York was struck, we all rallied together. We have sort of
kept that tone since, when it comes to helping areas that need help. So
this is not about funding porkbarrel projects. This is about keeping
our promises and our faith.
Second, my colleague insists that this is a train to Kennedy Airport.
I refer him to the language in the FAA bill. There is no reference to a
train to Kennedy Airport. There is no reference to an air rail. As I
said, it sounded good, but I appreciate the fact that the Senator from
New Hampshire has pulled back from calling it a train to nowhere. I
personally called him 2 days ago and read the language of the bill to
him. It does not mention a rail project. There has been talk in
Manhattan, among the mayor and Governor and the city leaders who would
be in charge of spending this money, that that is a possibility. But
there are many other possibilities as well.
The one thing the legislation states is about improving and
rebuilding transportation in the liberty zone. That is all. There is no
specific project mentioned in the language. There is no particular
project or projects I am supporting. To say otherwise is untrue. It
would be totally within the law to use this for some subway
improvements or other types of spending. That will be what the city
will decide, in consultation with the Governor and the appropriate
legislative bodies.
As for the mechanism of funding which allows the city and State to
keep part of the Federal income taxes withheld from city and State
workers, we have tried various ways of designing this aid, and this is
what the administration came up with, with our agreement and consent.
If any of my colleagues would like to suggest another way for
fulfilling the promise they would support, I am happy to listen. But I
remind them that this is a solution supported by the administration. In
fact, the Bush administration has supported the $2 billion trade-in for
the liberty zone in four consecutive budget proposals. The details of
how to do it, again, of how to spend the money, will be left up to the
city and State. This is not new money, I remind my colleagues. It is
the last part of a solemn promise made by President Bush and supported
by this Congress in 2001.
The current version of the language passed the full House in the most
recent energy bill. It was part of a Senate energy bill that received
59 votes last year and 58 votes earlier this year. It was also part of
the FAA reform package that passed out of committee by broad bipartisan
vote. This is not something that was snuck into the bill as it reached
the floor of the House. It was passed and debated in the Finance
Committee. In fact, two of my colleagues who have raised questions
about this--my friends from New Hampshire and South Carolina have both
voted for legislation in favor of enacting the liberty zone provision,
when it has been previously considered as part of other legislation.
So now to object to this, to the whole FAA bill because it has this
provision in it, is a change of view. There was no objection to other
legislation that had it on that basis.
[[Page 7579]]
The junior Senator from South Carolina voted yes on final passage of
two bills in the 109th Congress--S. 2020, and H.R. 4297--that both
contained the liberty zone provision. Unfortunately, the provision was
not in the final versions of these bills, and the remaining funds for
Ground Zero were not allocated. By advocating against this current
position, it is clearly a change. There was no specific vote on this
rail link, but there were votes on larger packages that contained it,
just as this FAA package is a larger package that contains it. The
senior Senator from New Hampshire has voted in favor of the liberty
zone tax provisions at least three times: First, in favor of the
original bill, H.R. 3090; again, in favor of two separate bills--S.
2020 and H.R. 4297--to complete the funding in the 109th Congress.
So it is hard to understand, since this is not an earmark. This is
not a specific project. This is supported by the President. It fulfills
a promise that, frankly, this Nation made to New York, the last part of
it. It is hard to understand why the views have changed. We have been
working 4 years to finally complete this promise. Each time objections
are raised. If someone doesn't like it on this bill, then make a
commitment on what bill we can finally get it done because I am going
to try to get this on any piece of legislation that moves in the Senate
until the promise to the people of my city and, frankly, the people of
America is finally fulfilled.
I say this to the 98 other Senators not from New York: If 9/11 had
happened in your State, you would be down here on the floor of the
Senate making the same fight we are making. You would not allow
anything to get in the way of a promise that had been made to a city or
State, particularly when the arguments made don't really apply--not an
earmark, not a train to nowhere, and not something that was done in the
dark of night.
I want to note again that the Bush administration has been
supportive. I have many disagreements with the White House on a host of
issues, but they have been helpful and true to their word on this
issue. President Bush himself has. I have thanked him for it
repeatedly. The President believes it is important to keep his promise.
This body should feel the same way. That is why he put his proposal in
four consecutive budgets. That is why when the administration issued
its statement of administrative policy on this bill, they did not note
any objection to this provision.
I know there can be objections. That is part of what we do around
here. But I haven't seen a good argument against this other than you
don't believe New York City should get the money that was promised to
it. This is about keeping a promise. I am going to make sure, to the
best of my ability in this body, that this promise is kept. My
constituents demand it. Fairness demands it. If this were about your
State, you would demand it too.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an amendment that
I hope to offer on the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation
Administration. It is an important amendment, and I want to discuss it
so that my colleagues understand what this amendment is about.
This is a picture of an airplane that was provided to my office by a
U.S. safety inspector. A pilot for a Chinese carrier requested
permission and landed in Frankfurt, Germany, for an unscheduled
refueling stop. They were running low on fuel. This is what the U.S.
safety inspector provided us. This is what German workers found--
seatbelts wrapped around fan blades.
There is a seatbelt. There is a seatbelt, as you can see, and the
structure behind. They did this to minimize turbulence because there
had been an engine that had failed. The inspection found that a total
of three engines had to be replaced before the plane was going to be
allowed to take off again.
What does this have to do with the amendment? In the latest audit,
the Department of Transportation inspector general found that 67
percent of the heavy maintenance--not talking about kicking the tires
or changing the oil--of U.S. commercial aircraft is now being performed
by foreign repair stations. In a series of reports, the inspector
general has identified many gaps in FAA oversight for these foreign
repair stations.
What this amendment does is seek to apply the same standards of
safety and security to all of these foreign repair stations that U.S.
carriers are using. That is a pretty reasonable proposition. If you
have a commercial carrier that is serviced in the United States at an
FAA certified facility, it is likely an FAA inspector is onsite, a
constant presence. There are requirements of drug and alcohol checks.
There is perimeter security. There are standards that must be met in
terms of these repair stations. How does it make sense that we don't
demand those same standards for American carriers that are using
foreign repair stations? Most Americans would be surprised to find out
that we don't. That is what this amendment is going to fix.
I thank Senator Specter for cosponsoring this amendment. I want to
spend a little bit of time talking about what the amendment contains,
but I want to make sure that not only is the problem just whether the
work being done is not up to the standards we would expect in some of
these foreign repair stations, I want to talk about security issues.
My mom is going to be 80 this summer. She has had two knee
replacements. She can't go through an airport without being wanded,
many times her suitcase being opened. We all know that we have to check
our shampoo. We have to not carry water bottles through security
anymore. I think the American flying public understands and has
accepted these incredibly intrusive measures because they want safety.
They want security. They want to make sure that when they fly, they are
safe. So they have said: OK, I am going to take a bunch of time at the
airport. I will stand in lines. I will have a wand. I will have people
patting my body. I am going to do all this because I want safety and
security.
In 2003, an inspector general report found that there was an al-Qaida
member working at a foreign repair station in Singapore. The report
discovered easy access to facilities by outsiders and found the FAA was
leaving employee background checks and drug and alcohol testing up to
individual airlines.
We note that in December 2001 a senior aircraft technician
at a foreign repair station was found to be a member of the
terrorist organization Al Qaeda. . . .The aircraft technician
photographed U.S. aircraft as potential targets for a
terrorist attack.
Really, is it fair that we all are worrying about whether we have 1
ounce too much of shampoo when we have not taken the basic steps to
make sure al-Qaida is not under the hood? I think most Americans would
be shocked to see this inconsistency in our sense of urgency and
caution when it comes to the safety of the flying public.
What does this amendment do? It is pretty simple. First, it requires
identification and oversight of foreign repair facilities that are
noncertified. The FAA must submit a plan to Congress within 6 months of
enactment to identify and expand its oversight of all noncertified
facilities used by U.S. air carriers. Keep in mind, these U.S. air
carriers are not just outsourcing the labor to foreign repair stations
that are FAA certified in foreign nations. They are also outsourcing
the work to noncertified FAA facilities.
I keep asking the FAA in hearings: Why do we have certification? I
will say: Do you think certification is important?
The FAA officials will say: Yes, we think it is important.
I say: Then why do we have it, if we don't require everybody to have
it? What is the point? Why are we letting carriers use noncertified
facilities if the certification is important to our safety and
security? It doesn't make sense.
This amendment would, in fact, require that those carriers use
certified facilities if they are, in fact, going to use foreign repair
stations. It will require the FAA to do two inspections a
[[Page 7580]]
year. I do not think that is a heavy lift: two inspections a year of
their facilities, wherever they may be.
It will require drug and alcohol testing of employees performing
maintenance at foreign repair stations. It has been interesting to me
because we have had some push-backs from some places about this because
of some countries that want us not to require this because they
currently have work of U.S. carriers and they do not want America to
require FAA oversight to this degree. One of the things they protest
most--some of these nations--is the drug and alcohol testing. Well,
with all due respect, I really do not think Americans are excited about
the idea that we would waive drug and alcohol testing for people who
are working on airplanes. I think that is a basic. It certainly would
be a basic in this country. I think it is certainly something the
American people would expect.
It will also enforce the TSA requirements that foreign repair
stations comply with security standards issued by the Transportation
Security Administration.
It will update foreign repair station fee schedules to ensure
taxpayers are not subsidizing the outsourcing of this work.
Here is the part that gets me a little bit cranky about this whole
situation. It is one thing for companies to want to outsource labor to
other countries because it is cheaper. Now, other than the need to fix
our Tax Code, we do not encourage the outsourcing of jobs. It is not as
if we can require corporations in our country to keep all their jobs in
the United States. That is a tough thing for us to do in an open
democracy, in a free market economy. I will tell you what we can do,
though. We can sure make absolutely certain these companies are not
doing it with the help of taxpayer dollars.
Right now, as to the certified repair facilities that are in foreign
countries, the U.S. taxpayers are underwriting the bill for those
inspections and that certification. In other words, the companies can
outsource the labor to a country where it is less expensive, and
taxpayers are footing part of the bill for the safety and security of
those facilities.
Now, if you are going to go for a less expensive labor cost, it seems
to me that you, at a minimum, ought to add to that savings the cost of
the inspections by the U.S. Government. Why should the taxpayers foot
the bill for FAA inspectors to fly over to Singapore to inspect a
facility? That does not seem fair. So this makes sure the people who
are using the foreign repair stations are absorbing the costs of
inspecting and keeping those foreign repair stations up to our
standards. Obviously, it requires the regular inspector general
oversight of the implementation of this provision.
This is very reasonable. The House has similar language in its bill.
I think this makes sense. I think it is something, frankly, the
American public would be surprised to understand, that we have this
huge gap in our safety and security oversight for the flying public.
I look forward to an opportunity for the Members to have a vote on
this amendment. I think we all want trade. We all want to make sure we
can export American products. We do not want trade agreements that put
us at a disadvantage or, frankly, we want to make sure we still have
access to other markets. But we cannot outsource safety. We just
cannot. This administration is willing to do that. This administration
is willing to say: We are going to let these other countries worry
about whether their facilities are safe. I do not think this is one
area where the American people want this function of our Government
outsourced. I think they want us to be on top of it. I think they want
to make sure it is being done right. I think they want to make sure it
is being done fairly. I think they want to make sure they are not
paying the bill to outsource this work.
At the end of the day, I think they have been cheerful, as Americans
always are about what is asked of them, but I do not blame them for
being a little worried that there has not been more sense of urgency
about the safety and security of this situation in light of all of the
money we have spent in the name of national security and, importantly,
homeland security.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments
today to discuss what is a catastrophe all across our Nation--and it
certainly is in West Virginia--because of the price of gasoline and
other transportation fuels.
My State is not wealthy. I think it is either the third or fourth
poorest State in our country, and I do not say that with shame, I say
that with pride because it was, in a sense, one of the reasons I was a
VISTA volunteer. I went there as a VISTA volunteer because I saw a
place where I could at least try to help. The people are the best ever.
When people have to struggle to make it, day-in and day-out, they are
pretty solid people.
As I am sure it is the case for all of my colleagues, for the past
few weeks and months I have been hearing from my constituents
constantly about rising gasoline prices and the resulting rise in the
prices for goods and services throughout our economy.
West Virginians are hurting. West Virginians will always find a way
to persevere--always--but right now many are struggling to juggle
expenses, making enormous sacrifices to feed and clothe their families,
while trying to pay the cost of going to work. We have plants in West
Virginia which people drive hours and hours every day to get to. Work
is not easily found, so where it is, people have to drive. We are 96
percent mountains, 4 percent flat. We have a lot of roads. People
pretty much have canceled the occasional splurge for a movie. We have a
baseball team in West Virginia. That has pretty much been pushed off.
In other words, if it is a nonemergency purchase, they bypass it. It
takes away from their happiness, their stability as a family, but they
have no choice. Belts have been tightened just about as far as belts
can be tightened.
Yet, this week, we hear that oil company profits are again nearing or
exceeding record highs and that these companies have no plan and these
companies have no desire to increase domestic refining capacity--one of
the very few things we know would actually help bring down prices.
The Energy Information Administration and private sector energy
experts tell us to expect gasoline and diesel fuel prices to continue
to rise for the foreseeable future. I do not know what that means. I do
not think West Virginians care very much what that means. It just means
a long time. And a week, a month, is a long time. This is well beyond
the usual cyclical annual price fluctuation. And the so-called summer
driving season is not even here yet. But other than a brief dip in
January, the price West Virginians have been paying at the pump has
been climbing steadily since before Christmas--not as noticeable at
first, now catastrophic.
The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in West Virginia
has risen from just over $2.70 a gallon in August 2007 to a price on
the last day of April 2008 of $3.71. I do not have new wage data for
workers in my State. I wish I did. But I am willing to stand on the
floor of the Senate and assert that nobody's salary has risen to match
that 37-percent increase.
The idea of $4-a-gallon gasoline--which 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago would
have sounded crazy--really now is a matter not so much of ``if,'' but
``when.'' The timeframe I just mentioned is relevant, of course,
because we are a country that has been at war in Iraq for more than 5
years--spending money, letting people do corruption at all levels. I am
always suspicious of oil companies. When our brave American forces set
out to impose regime change on that country based upon the false--or at
[[Page 7581]]
least unforgivably imprecise; I prefer the word ``false''--
intelligence, West Virginians were paying, on average, $1.63 for
regular gasoline. That was not that long ago. It had been as low as
$1.26 in the months leading up to the invasion.
It should come as no surprise to anyone within the sound of my voice,
but in that time oil industry profits have risen steadily: almost $60
billion in profits in 2003, just over $80 billion in profits in 2004,
approximately $110 billion in profits in 2005, just under $120 billion
in 2006, and just over $120 billion so far in 2007. ExxonMobil, Shell,
and ChevronTexaco have each had increasingly larger profits each of the
last 5 years. BP and ConocoPhillips have done nearly as well. In all,
the five largest integrated multinational oil companies have reaped
almost $560 billion in profits since President Bush and Vice President
Cheney came into town. I don't particularly want to do it that way,
because I blame the companies more than I blame them, but there is lots
of blame to go around.
Anyone who looks at the numbers can make this about politics, of
course. It is easy to do. But this is, in essence, for me, a former
Vista volunteer in my 44th year in West Virginia, all about people. It
is simply all about people and families who have been struggling
anyway. The average salary for the average working family of four in
West Virginia is $31,000. That is not a lot of money, before you get to
all of this, and then it is even less.
Today, if you are lucky enough to live or work near Sam's Club in
Vienna, WV, which is on the Ohio River, and you can afford to become a
member there, you can get a gallon of gasoline for $3.49. It is hard
for anyone I know in West Virginia to think of that as cheap, but it is
the lowest price reported in the entire State. Frankly, based on the
data I have seen, it is so much lower than the rest of the State that
you almost have to consider it an anomaly.
If you are running low in Spencer, WV, a rural community, however,
you need to be prepared to pay $3.82 at the Exxon station on Main
Street. It is $3.79 in South Charleston. Residents of Huntington are
paying $3.75. In Berkeley Springs, not far from Washington, it is
$3.69. No West Virginia county--none--is reporting an average price per
gallon of regular gasoline that is below $3.61. Only three of my
States' 55 counties are reporting average gasoline prices lower than
$3.67.
Individual price quotes at individual stations are ominous enough,
but the real stark numbers, the real telling calculation, is how much
more West Virginians are paying for gasoline than they were in years
past, and that is not even getting into the meteoric rises in food
prices and the other costs essential to daily living. Even those in
West Virginia who travel by air, which is the subject of the bill we
are meant to be on, those prices have gone up.
Since 2001, West Virginia households are paying almost $2,500 per
year more for gasoline. If it is a household with children, that makes
it $3,000. I take my colleagues back to the average salary for the
average family of four, working family of four in West Virginia:
$31,000. When you add on health care, food, rent, and all the rest,
everything else, it is an enormous matter. If it is a household with
teenagers, it is just below $3,600 more. Families, businesses, and
farmers in West Virginia will spend $153 million more on gasoline in
April 2008 than they spent in January 2001.
If prices remain at current levels, $1.83 billion more will be spent
on gasoline in West Virginia this year than was spent in 2001. West
Virginia consumers, farmers, and businesses are on a track to pay $2.96
billion for gasoline this year.
So West Virginians are asking two questions: How did we get here; but
to them, much more importantly, what can be done to fix this.
Nobody in Government, academia, or the private industry can give us a
single definitive equation for what makes the price of oil go up and
down. We don't know why, but we can't. Generally, increased demand from
China, India, and much of the developing world has set the stage
obviously for prices that we have to take into consideration.
Much of our oil comes from an unregulated and unresponsive cartel
called OPEC. We also know that since the tragic terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001, the world price for petroleum has been affected by
a global struggle against stateless thugs.
The instability brought about by the invasion in Iraq has done
nothing but raise the pump price. I don't know a single benefit to our
Nation that has been accomplished there. But smaller factors have also
had huge consequences. Instability in Nigeria and the outrageous
behavior in Venezuela have contributed in similarly negative ways. The
recent strike by refinery and pipeline workers in Scotland, unbeknownst
to many of our citizens, will not help. Likewise for the very serious
refinery explosion in Utah this week.
Economists cannot pinpoint how much speculation in the commodities
market is adding to the price of oil, but a congressional study in 2005
suggested it was in the $20 to $25 per barrel range. A more recent
study announced by Public Citizen said it is now closer to $30 a
barrel. It doesn't matter. Every cent of that is being seen at the gas
pumps in West Virginia and around the country, and it hurts, and trying
to give a worldwide economic explanation for it doesn't solve anybody's
problems or anybody's pain.
We know, too, that the price is manipulated up and down the supply
chain. Nobody will ever convince me that there is not a large amount of
corruption and manipulation, deliberate, cozy and easy, that goes on
around boardrooms in oil companies. From the huge oil companies that
find the oil, through more markets and middlemen than we can keep up
with, every player has the ability to force the price up for their own
bottom line. There is manipulation beyond the reach of my people in
West Virginia or the Presiding Officer's people in the State of
Colorado. We are at their mercy. We pay the price, we are at the
mercy--at the mercy of oil. Federal investigators cannot usually
pinpoint collusion, but those acting independently to manipulate prices
cost the people of West Virginia all the same. There are a lot of
things Federal regulators never manage to find.
In the long term, the things we need to do sound basic--and this is
the final part of my remarks and the important part, other than the
overriding theme of anger--such as increasing supply and reducing
consumption, but achieving these goals has proved to be very difficult.
I have long supported efforts to improve automobile fuel efficiency,
and so have most other people--not all. We made a small and long
overdue change last year, and I believe we will do more. I think CAFE
standards are going to go up and up, as they should; cars will get
smaller and smaller, as they should. That will not be good for my legs,
but it will be good for my people. But even when Detroit catches up
with the rest of the world's automakers on fuel efficiency--I repeat,
catches up--we do need to add to our supply now.
That is why in 2006, I supported Senator Domenici's legislation to
increase oil and gas exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. When
these new fields are fully on line, they will add 1.26 billion barrels
of oil to our domestic supply. Now, I say that, but I also have to say
in all honesty that I voted against virtually every other attempt to do
drilling offshore and in ANWR, for example. ANWR to me has always been
a shibboleth. People say: Well, we can get lots of supply there, just
as many people or more say it is technically feasible or maybe it is
economically feasible, but it is not both. In the meantime, the tundra
continues to melt.
That is why I have also consistently supported holding off on
additional deposits in our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is more than
97 percent full as it is, and there is no economic rationale for
filling it to the brim with $120 per barrel of oil. That product should
be making its way into the market some place.
I joined my colleagues earlier this year to ask the President to
suspend
[[Page 7582]]
deliveries into the petroleum reserve until the price of oil drops
below $75 a barrel. Since the President persists in refusing to stop
taking oil off the market, I will support legislation to force him to
do it.
I also support, as I have in the past on several occasions, the
imposition of a windfall profits tax on integrated multinational oil
companies. People say this won't have any effect. I would like to try
that out to show that they are wrong and to send a message. The oil
companies are making so much money maybe they won't even notice it. But
I doubt that, because there are now 300 million Americans who are very
angry about what very few of them are doing. As I have said, these
companies are making huge, perhaps unconscionable--not perhaps--totally
unconscionable profits off the hard-working people in my State and off
the wages of struggling Americans everywhere. If they refuse to
reinvest in additional refining capacity, which has been their habit,
the least we can do is use some of those profits to shore up the
highway trust fund for the road infrastructure and transportation
projects that we need for the 21st century, and perhaps even for
something called aviation. Those projects would create jobs.
I will also reintroduce legislation this week that I first introduced
in 2001. It is called the Low Income Gasoline Assistance Program, or
LIGAP. This will provide some relief to Americans hardest hit by any
rise in prices; to wit, the working poor, which describes a lot of my
State. For many West Virginia seniors who have no means of getting to
work, the grocery store, or to a doctor's appointment other than their
cars or trucks, if they have them, LIGAP assistance for gasoline
purchases will enable them to weather this crisis with a little more
peace of mind. I say ``if they have them'' because many people in
communities I have worked in throughout West Virginia don't have
automobiles, so when they have to go somewhere, usually a pretty long
distance, they have to hitch a ride. Even though our people are
innately good and generous, because they depend on others as others
depend on them, they will usually charge a fee for that ride. In any
event, whether they can even take that ride will depend on whether they
can afford the gasoline price to get there.
So LIGAP eligibility would be linked to and modeled after LIHEAP, the
very successful and efficient home heating and cooling assistance
program. Funds would be distributed to States as additions to
allocations under the existing community development block grant
program.
It makes sense. For everyone who qualifies, LIGAP would give stipends
of between $100 and $165 a month. Hopefully, this may mean not having
to scrimp on their children's food or cut back on prescription drugs
and other family needs.
Families are the basis of our country. People are the basis of
everything we do. It is just that there are some sectors of our economy
that choose to avoid that because they don't have to depend upon those
people because those people have no choice but to buy their products.
It is time for Congress and the administration to come together and
stop bickering--it would be a majestic accomplishment--and stop
fighting over turf, as we are doing on the aviation bill. While we
engage in parliamentary tactics that most Americans don't give a hoot
about--in fact, they hate us for doing it--West Virginians and citizens
in every State are suffering, while oil companies are laughing all the
way to their many banks. This must stop. I ask my colleagues to work
with me to make this stop.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we import more than 12.5 million barrels
a day of petroleum--over 60 percent of our petroleum energy needs. As a
matter of fact, I think it is higher than that now, in the last 2 or 3
days. This is why our economy and the value of the dollar has weakened
and our energy costs have skyrocketed. With oil at $117 a barrel--and
it is more than that today--the United States spends nearly $1.5
billion each day on foreign oil. That is $533 billion each year that
was not invested in our own economy.
Instead, that money is being sent--along with jobs--to other
countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela. For every
million barrels of oil we import, 20,000 American jobs are lost.
Our country needs a real economic stimulus now. That stimulus will
come when we stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars each year to
import oil and, instead, invest that money in our own economy by
increasing domestic production of our energy resources.
The area known as ANWR is a million and a half acres that was
reserved for oil and gas development on the Arctic slope in 1980; it is
the largest untapped oilfield in North America. We believe that is the
largest trap for oil in North America. Oil companies estimate they will
spend between $45 billion and $60 billion to develop this area.
Combined with the construction of the Alaska natural gas pipeline,
which is expected to start soon, it will cost about $40 billion. These
resources would deliver a massive influx of jobs and capital investment
in the United States. Our economy would be stabilized, and the dollar
would be strengthened.
ANWR and the Alaska gas pipeline are only the beginning. This
infrastructure would help lead to further development of Alaska's Outer
Continental Shelf. We have more than two thirds of that Outer
Continental Shelf. It has been expanded another 100 miles north of
Alaska, as we discovered a further extension of the shelf. The Chukchi
Sea holds an estimated 16 billion barrels of oil, and there is an
estimated 7 billion barrels in the Beaufort Sea off our State. Bringing
these resources on line would add even more jobs and capital to our
economy.
Full development of ANWR would result in at least 60,000 jobs.
Opening ANWR alone would require the construction of a fleet of 19 new
tankers to transport the oil to the Lower 48. Those would be American-
built tankers. Under the law, they must be--under the Jones Act. This
alone would create at least 2,000 direct jobs in the U.S. shipbuilding
industry and approximately 3,000 additional jobs in other sectors of
our economy. The energy industry estimates the Alaska gas pipeline
alone will create 400,000 new jobs nationwide.
Senator Schumer made an interesting statement the other day. He
suggested that opening ANWR would reduce gas prices by only pennies. He
took a shot at the President, saying he takes out the old saw of ANWR,
that ANWR would not produce a drop of oil in 10 years, and it is
estimated that if we drilled in ANWR, in 20 years, it would reduce the
price one penny.
I am afraid that shows how little the Senator from New York
understands the oil industry. He ignores the long-term economic
stimulus domestic production will bring through investment in our own
country--raising household incomes and individual buying power, rather
than sending money overseas. Senator Schumer would ask other nations,
such as Saudi Arabia, to increase their production as a solution to our
energy crisis.
I agree that increased production would help solve our problem but
that production should occur in our own country. I think the Senator
should realize what is happening in terms of the oil industry, and the
key driver now to the cost of gasoline is not the supply and demand, it
is the value of the dollar and the value of oil per se. The value of
oil now is represented by paper on the New York Stock Exchange, which
has replaced gold. People are speculating in oil. That is also what is
causing the price of gasoline to go up at the pump. Senator Schumer
should visit NYMEX and ask them to do something about that and stop the
speculation in oil. I think it should be unlawful to speculate in
anything related to energy in this country. I think soon we will do
that.
This production has to come from our own country. The position of the
Senator from New York would send more money in tax and royalty revenues
outside our economy. I don't
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know how that will strengthen our dollar or lower prices at the pump at
all. It is not a question of supply and demand, it is a question of a
long-term commitment to restore our capability to produce oil and gas
in this country.
Had President Clinton not vetoed the ANWR bill before, we would be
producing at least 2 million barrels a day more out of Alaska right
now. I don't like to be chided by the Senator from New York about why
we don't have more production in this country. He is suggesting we ask
the foreign producers to produce more oil and send it to us. That will
send more money out of the country and take more of our jobs. I don't
understand that.
In 1995, when we approved the amendment allowing development of the
Arctic Plain, President Clinton vetoed that legislation, and we are
paying for the consequences of that today. Had he not vetoed the
legislation, the Trans Alaska Pipeline--which currently operates at
less than 50 percent of capacity--as a matter of fact, it is even worse
than that, about 38 percent of capacity. We are sending out about
700,000 barrels a day instead of 2.5 million barrels a day. We could
easily have that pipeline--we call it a barrel--full and offset imports
and keep our trade deficit down and keep jobs and money in our economy.
In the long run--not short run--increased production does affect the
price at the pump. We would continue to increase domestic production of
oil and that, in effect, would give us competition against the price
set by foreign producers, and we would be able to reduce the price at
the pump in the long run.
Between the Outer Continental Shelf, ANWR, the National Petroleum
Reserve in Alaska--which is now ready to be leased--and the resources
remaining in Prudhoe Bay, we believe we would have at least 45 billion
barrels of oil left to produce. That is an estimate. When they
estimated how much oil was in Prudhoe Bay, they estimated 1 billion
barrels. We produced 18 billion. I remind the Senate of that. So we
have produced more than that, and it is still producing. At full
capacity, we ought to be able to deliver at least 2.5 million barrels
to the daily market. We have oil from outside the Arctic, by the way.
We can reduce the impact of sending more and more money out of the
country and affect the American economy as we spend that money here at
home. That money would generate tax and royalty revenues, fund research
into alternative energy sources, create jobs, help strengthen the
dollar, and lower our energy prices in the long run.
The weak dollar is what is causing speculation in oil futures and
increasing the price of oil and gas at the pump. We need investment in
our own country, which develops our own resources, instead of relying
on those from other countries. By increasing domestic production, we
would meet our own Nation's needs, strengthen the economy, and begin
creating jobs and generating revenue, which would be reinvested back
into our economy. That is the way to a strong economy, a stable dollar,
lower energy prices, and to reduce the demand on foreign oil and the
cost of gasoline at the pump. We have to stop sending our money abroad
and sending jobs abroad to pay for energy resources, when we can use
the money at home to develop the vast resources we have.
Alaska is the storehouse of energy for the future. It should not be
cast aside as it has been. I hope we will find a way to vote on ANWR
this year.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is the pending business
is on the FAA reauthorization bill; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I hope no one is out of breath this week
as a result of working on this bill. We had one vote on Monday at 5:30
p.m. and have not voted since. With legislation this important to this
country, why are we not able to move ahead and cast votes and finish
this legislation?
This is about FAA reauthorization which includes the issue of
modernization of our air traffic control system, which is very
important. We read in the newspapers these days about the additional
inspections that are required of airlines. We read about airlines going
bankrupt because of fuel costs. We read that the FAA system for air
traffic control is archaic. We are told that the GPS system in your car
is more sophisticated than the system by which we move airplanes around
this country in the air traffic control system. We hear the problems
with the air traffic controllers, the contract problems they have had
with the FAA, the shortage of air traffic controllers, the number who
will retire in the near future, and the need for training of additional
controllers. We read about all these things in the news. We read about
systems that still use vacuum tubes in the air traffic control system
because it is that old.
The question for this Congress is, can we pass legislation that
reauthorizes the FAA functions and then provides the funding to
modernize this system of ours?
We have a lot of people who visit this Capital city, and most of them
fly in by airplane. This country moves back and forth quickly from
coast to coast using, in most cases, commercial air transportation.
They don't think very much of it, frankly. You can fly from one coast
to the other in 5 or 6 hours. It is not unusual to leave one part of
this country and end up in another part before lunch. It is a wonderful
thing to have this system of commercial air travel. The fact is, this
system will not survive for a number of reasons under the current
circumstances.
As I indicated the other day, I believe there are four airlines that
have declared bankruptcy in recent weeks. We also understand, in
addition, what high fuel costs are doing to the airlines, and we are
talking now about the airlines in this legislation before us. But I
could talk about the trucking industry, or I could talk about families
and farmers. I can talk about what the high fuel prices are doing to
all of this country. There is no heavier user of fuel than an airline.
What is happening is the fuel prices are undermining the opportunity
for many of these airlines both to continue operating, in some cases,
and, in other cases, to continue operating serving smaller areas or
less populated areas of the country. So fuel prices are a serious
problem.
The other issue is the modernization of the air traffic control
system, the system by which we provide for the safety of the American
people. There is going to be a catastrophe one of these days, and then
everybody is going to stand around thumbing their suspenders,
scratching their heads, and saying: Why didn't we do something about
it?
We have a bill on the floor of the Senate right now to try to address
this situation, to try to modernize this system, and we have been at
parade rest since Monday because we are not allowed to move forward.
Everything is blocked. Everything is plugged up. This is unbelievable.
This is important. Some people around here treat the serious things
far too lightly and then treat the light things too seriously and never
understand the difference. Why is it on a Thursday that legislation as
important as this, that should have been passed in previous years,
cannot even get amendments up and cannot get votes off because we have
people who have decided they are just going to block everything?
I told a group in North Dakota a while back about Mark Twain. Mark
Twain once was asked if he would engage in a debate. He said: Oh, sure,
as long as I can take the negative side.
We haven't even told you the subject of the debate.
He said: It doesn't matter, the negative side is going to require no
preparation.
The negative side never requires preparation. Those who are out here
[[Page 7584]]
saying, no, you can't, they want to block it. That requires no
preparation. What requires preparation is to advance public policy that
is in the interest of this country. Does anybody really think
modernizing our air traffic control system is somehow a back-burner
issue? We see what is happening in the skies in this country. They are
absolutely clogged. In fact, because of fuel prices and other reasons,
we have airlines now switching to smaller planes, these little regional
jets skirting around the sky, hauling as many people but just takes
more planes to do it. So that puts an unbelievable strain on the air
traffic system.
The question is, Are we going to modernize it? Are we going to do
what is necessary? Are we going to provide the funding? Are we going to
finally get off this delaying nonsense that is going on and allow
legislation to move forward that is essential for the safety of the air
traveling public?
I hope the answer at some point soon is yes. This includes items such
as the Airport Improvement Program, what is called the AIP, investing
in infrastructure in this country. That is very important. Land at some
of these airports and take a look at the infrastructure and ask
yourself whether we need this investment.
It is interesting, if you travel around the world. If you go to
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and then get in a car and drive to Juticalpa.
Take a look at the roads and ask yourself whether infrastructure
matters. Land in some of the airports in some of these remote areas and
take a look at what you are landing on and the infrastructure needs of
that airport. Then ask yourself whether infrastructure is important.
We have always prided ourselves in this country on the investment in
infrastructure. When you come to America, you see infrastructure that
is maintained. We have always prided ourselves on that until recently,
and now somehow infrastructure doesn't matter. It takes a back seat.
In my little subcommittee on appropriations that I chair, the
President says: Let's cut water funding by $1 billion from last year's
levels for the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. These
agencies fund much of the nation's water projects and were cut by $1
billion, even as we have 950 water projects in this country which we
are paying for in Iraq. Think of that. Let's cut water projects in this
country and investment in the future of this country by $1 billion, the
President says. However, let's have 950 water projects that the
American taxpayers will pay for in Iraq.
I think it is time to start taking care of a few things at home. One
of them is the legislation on the floor of the Senate right now, and
that is the FAA Reauthorization Act and the investment and the
modernization of the air traffic control system. If we do not pay
attention to that, we are going to run into very serious problems. I
might also say, tragic problems because there is going to be some sort
of spectacular tragedy, and then we are all going to sit around and say
that somebody should have done something.
We are trying to do something. The fact is, we cannot even get a vote
on an amendment on the floor of the Senate. It is unbelievable. As I
said in the Mark Twain example, the easiest thing in the world is to
oppose. It takes no talent, it takes no time to prepare, just oppose,
oppose everything.
My hope is in the next couple of hours, perhaps there will be some
here who wish to move ahead. I know Senator Reid has been on the floor
offering unanimous consent requests. He has talked with the minority to
see if there are conditions under which we might be able to move
forward and get something done on some legislation. I understand it
takes a while to get things done. I understand we should be
deliberative. I understand there should be enough research so we don't
have unintended consequences to what we do. Nobody has ever accused
this body of speeding, ever, But this is ridiculous. This makes a
glacier look fast.
My hope is that those of us who are elected to come here, who try to
make some improvements in this country, who do what is necessary for
the health and safety of the people of this country will soon
understand that the FAA reauthorization bill is not just some other
piece of legislation, that it is an optional piece of legislation. The
modernization of the air traffic control system is not some option that
we ought to consider like any other bill. This is urgent and necessary
and timely, and we ought to do it now.
Energy
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about energy. Several
colleagues have spoken about energy prices, and I related energy prices
to the airline industry a few moments ago. I mentioned several
bankruptcies that have occurred recently, intensive heavy users of
energy in the airline industry, and what it might mean. This country
needs a commercial airline industry that works. Without it, there will
be devastating consequences to our economy. The question is, What do we
do here?
My colleague from Alaska made a point with which I agree. He talked
about the speculation in these markets with respect to energy. I wish
to talk about that issue. I have some charts.
This is a chart that shows the speculator activity in the oil futures
market from January 1996 to April 2008. This is the activity by
speculators in the futures markets. These are not people who want to
buy oil or hold oil. They have no tanks in which to put oil. They are
not interested in oil. They want to buy what they will never get from
people who never had it. This is what speculating is about.
Here is the increase in speculation in the commodities market for
oil. It is an unbelievable ramp-up, an orgy of speculation, having
nothing to do with the fundamentals of oil supply and demand. There is
no justification for the current price of oil if we simply look at
supply and demand. Supply is up a bit; demand is down a bit. There is
no justification with the current fundamentals of supply and demand
that would seriously justify the current price of oil.
So then what has changed? What is different? Why is this price $115
or $120 a barrel for oil, acting like a yo-yo at the upper end? A
couple issues have changed, especially this. We have hedge funds that
are now neck deep in the commodities markets speculating on oil. We
have investment banks that are speculating on oil. For the first time
in history, I believe, investment banks are actually buying oil storage
capacity to buy oil and take oil off the market to sell it later when
it is more expensive. This is speculation, raw speculation. I suppose
everybody is making money. The brokers are making money, the investment
banks, the hedge funds--they are all wallowing to the bank full of
cash, driving up the price of oil beyond what the fundamentals would
suggest the price should be.
We know those people who are winning, but who are the losers? Well,
our country. This is something that is providing great damage to our
country's economy. Families drive up to the gas pumps, and it hurts to
fill the tanks. Farmers, heavy users of energy and fertilizer that
comes from energy, are losers. It is an unbelievable burden on family
farmers. Airlines, they just cannot fly through this storm. They go
belly up. The list goes on and on.
If this is what is happening with the ramp-up of speculation and it
is causing an increase in prices, here is what has happened to oil
prices. No one needs a chart to know this, but oil prices doubled in
just over one year. Speculation goes up, up, way up, and oil prices
have doubled in one year.
Let me cite some folks who have talked about this issue. Stephen
Simon, senior vice president of ExxonMobil, April 1, a month ago:
``The price of oil should be about $50-$55 per barrel.'' This from an
executive in the oil company. I do not think his company is complaining
about where the price is. He is just being candid. According to him,
the price of oil ought to be about $50 or $55 per barrel, assuming
current fundamentals.
Clarence Cazalot, CEO, Marathon Oil, October 30, 2007:
$100 oil isn't justified by the physical demand in the
market.
Experts, including the former head of ExxonMobil, say
financial speculation in the
[[Page 7585]]
energy market has grown so much over the last 30 years that
it now adds 20 to 30 percent or more to the price of a barrel
of oil.
Think of that.
Speculation in the energy markets has grown so much over the last 30
years that it now adds 20 to 30 percent or more to the price of a
barrel of oil.
I understand the need for a marketplace futures market. It is
required for hedging. It is required for liquidity. I understand it is
necessary, and I understand we want one that works so there needs to be
a futures market, but I also understand that when the futures market
becomes something much more than just something that provides for
hedging and liquidity. When it becomes an object of intense
speculation, then there is a requirement for some intervention. No one
quite knows what that intervention should be, but everyone ought to
know that it is unhealthy when you have an unbelievable amount of
speculation.
There are books written about bubbles in speculation. We have been
through recent speculations. The tech bubble that occurred almost a
decade ago. The bubble in housing prices is occurring. We have seen and
understand about bubbles. This is a bubble of speculation.
Go back 500 years and read about tulip mania. If you have not read
about it, I encourage to you do it. Yes, tulip mania. There was a time
you could buy a tulip bulb for $25,000. With the hindsight of 400 or
500 years, we can understand how unbelievably absurd it was, but it was
a bubble, a financial speculative binge that was almost indescribable.
What is happening in this marketplace now--and most experts will
agree--is we have this unbelievable amount of speculation in the
futures market that does not justify the current price. The American
people and American industry deserve to have a government, in those
cases, that steps in and says: There is something wrong here, and we
are going to find a way to set it right. This is one of the areas.
This man--in fact, I talked to this man last evening--Mr. Fadel
Gheit, the top energy analyst for Oppenheimer Company. He has been
there 30 years, he has testified before the Congress, and he is a very
interesting fellow.
There is absolutely no shortage of oil . . . I'm absolutely
convinced that oil prices should not be a dime above $55 a
barrel. . . . Oil speculators include the largest financial
institutions in the world.
He said further:
I call it the world's largest gambling hall . . . it's open
24/7 . . . unfortunately it's totally unregulated . . . this
is like a highway with no cops and no speed limit and
everybody's going 120 miles an hour.
That is pretty well said, it seems to me. It describes this bubble of
speculation that does damage to our economy and needs to be addressed
by this Government. It is not the case that everybody hurts as a result
of this.
This is a Wall Street Journal article of February 28, 2008. This is
Andrew Hall. I wouldn't know Andrew Hall from a cord of wood. I just
see his picture here. Over the past 5 years, Mr. Hall's compensation
has totaled well over a quarter of a billion dollars.
What does Mr. Hall do? He makes money by speculating in the
commodities market, according to this article. He is not alone. I
pulled this because it is an article about him and he has made a lot of
money. He has made a lot of money as someone who speculates in these
commodity markets.
Is speculation something that is good for these markets? Absolutely
not. When you have a speculative binge that drives these prices way out
of sight, well above that which would be justified, it can be
devastating to the country's economy.
That describes what is happening with respect to speculation. To
address the issue of energy, it requires a lot of things. We must do
this. If we do not address the issue of speculation, we are not going
to solve the problem. We are just not.
But there are other things to do. For example, this administration is
putting close to 70,000 barrels of oil a day, every single day,
underground. It is being put in something called the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a pretty good
idea because it saves some oil for a rainy day. But just not for any
rainy day, for an emergency, strategic emergency, something
unanticipated, so we developed it for this purpose. That makes sense to
me. But should we take oil when it costs $115 or $120 a barrel and
stick it underground, 70,000 barrels? Of course not. That is absolutely
nuts. Why would you take the highest priced oil in history, take it out
of the supply, stick it underground and by doing so increase the price
of oil and increase the price of gasoline?
A man named Dr. Philip Verleger testified before the Congress. He is
an economist and energy expert. He said that, by taking a
disproportionate amount of oil, a subset of oil called sweet light
crude, out of the supply chain, it has increased the price of oil by 10
percent. You know, with more than $100 a barrel oil, that is at least
$10 a barrel for light sweet crude. It is the most Byzantine thing one
can imagine.
I have a piece of legislation to stop it. There are now 67 U.S.
Senators who have declared themselves to be in support of my approach.
There is also a very similar bill that was introduced just the other
day by some in the minority, and John McCain running for President out
in the country said he supports it. So I have 51 who have signed a
letter saying they support suspending the SPR fill for 2008. On top of
that, some Republican Senators numbering 15, led by Senator Hutchison,
also sent a letter to the President. That takes it to 66. John McCain
is out there saying he doesn't believe we should do it, so there are at
least 67. That makes it a veto-proof margin. So I say let's do it. End
the speculation, and there are ways to do that. Second, stop putting
oil underground. That ought to be important.
In addition to all of that, let me just say the other menu of issues
is not really very complicated either. Should we produce more? My
colleague from Alaska says you have to produce more. I don't disagree
with that. I was one of four Senators here in the Senate who introduced
legislation, now law, that opens up Lease Sale 181 of the Gulf of
Mexico. It opens up an opportunity to substantially increase our
production of both oil and natural gas in a new region of the Gulf of
Mexico. Frankly, if you look at the offshore capability of the Gulf of
Mexico and compare it to the offshore options off the West Coast, East
Coast or in Alaska, by far the most significant reserves that are
achievable by us are in the Gulf of Mexico. We have not even tapped the
potential of the Eastern Gulf either.
I and three others initiated the legislation that opened up a portion
of the Gulf of Mexico, Lease Sale 181. But there is a lot more to do
because it got too narrow. Ought we go back there and produce? You bet
we should. There is more production to be had.
In addition to that, conservation is unbelievably important and so is
efficiency. Production, conservation, efficiency, and then renewable
energy.
Again, we have new technology that allows us to take energy from the
wind. I come from a state that has the most wind potential in America.
My state has a distinction of being No. 50 in trees, so we are last in
America in trees, and we are first in wind. I am not sure where the
merits are there, but all of us who live there lean to the northwest
because it blows almost every day. We are the Saudi Arabia of wind, as
the Department of Energy suggests, and with the new modern wind
turbines, we will continue to take energy from the wind and produce
electricity.
We have a great experiment going on in which we produce electricity
from wind energy and use that electricity in the process of
electrolysis, separating hydrogen from water and storing hydrogen for
vehicle fuel. It all makes a lot of sense and helps contribute to our
energy future.
There are a lot of things we can and should do. This is not some
mysterious illness for which we do not know the cure. This is not some
strange disease for which we have no cure. We understand what is
happening here, and with a little common sense, perhaps a deep
reservoir of common sense, we could begin to fix it. At the very least,
we
[[Page 7586]]
ought to begin to take immediate action to stop putting oil
underground, and stop it now. It is time to take some action to stop
the unbelievable orgy of speculation in the futures market, and do that
soon. Those are the first two steps, and they will reduce the price of
gasoline. There is much more to do beyond that, but those are the first
two sensible steps we ought to accomplish now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from
Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am here today to speak on climate
change. Before I do that, I commend my colleague, Senator Dorgan, for
all of his good work on this oil and gas issue. We have been working
together on a number of things he talked about and I do believe that,
while I will talk today about the long-term solutions to our energy
crisis and the way this can work hand in hand with climate change if we
show the kind of leadership we need to show, there are also short-term
issues. That means, as he said, cutting down on the speculation,
putting things in place, closing down the Enron loophole. In terms of
enforcement, to have the Justice Department get some meat on the bone--
as a former prosecutor, I know how important that is--and pushing those
OPEC nations with which we have business dealings. If we are going to
have business dealings with them, then they should not be cutting down
or artificially keeping low the production of oil.
Climate Change
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I think there are a number of things we
can do in the short term, but I am here today to talk about the long-
term energy future and climate future for this country.
In 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt invited delegates from
the Allied Powers to a remote New Hampshire resort called Bretton Woods
to discuss the future of the global economy. Although the world was
locked in a terrible war, these leaders had fresh memories of the Great
Depression, a worldwide panic that had left the world's major economies
in tatters. They wanted their countries to emerge from World War II on
a more stable financial footing.
Over the course of 3 weeks, they created the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund to battle world poverty and to avert
currency crises of the sort that had led to the worldwide economic
meltdown in the 1920s. It worked. Both the World Bank and the IMF have
had their share of controversies in the last decade, but they succeeded
in stabilizing the world's financial systems so that in the ensuing six
decades there has never been a global financial disaster comparable to
the Great Depression.
I draw on this chapter of history because today the world faces
another grave international threat that demands imagination and
leadership. This time, the threat is environmental. I am speaking, of
course, of global climate change.
The heating of the Earth is a threat every bit as grave as the
financial catastrophe that threw the developed world into chaos 80
years ago. The science is clear. Global temperatures are up 1 degree in
the last century. That doesn't sound like much, 1 degree in the last
century. To put it in perspective, they have risen only 5 degrees since
the height of the ice age. The Environmental Protection Agency of this
country predicts that temperatures could rise another 3 to 7 degrees in
the next 100 years. The consequences are frightening: rising ocean
levels, which we are already seeing, increased drought, wildfires, and
destructive weather patterns.
The Presiding Officer knows from being in the Midwest that our
constituents aren't as focused on rising ocean levels. But I can tell
you, in Minnesota they are focused on the fact that last year Lake
Superior was at the lowest level in 80 years. Why would the oceans be
high and Lake Superior be low? That is because Lake Superior, as you
know, is a lake, and when the ice that forms on that lake melts
quicker, the water evaporates and the water level goes down. Why do we
care about that? You think, are you going to swim in that cold lake? A
lot of Minnesotans, probably not, but it matters because our barges
cannot get through and it has had a severe economic impact for barge
traffic and the economy in the Duluth area.
You can see the rising impacts of global warming and what we are
seeing across the country: increasing wildfire risk--remember the fires
we had this year in California? We had some in northern Minnesota as
well--decreasing water availability. That is in 2007. You go up to the
2020s, increased mortality from heat waves, floods, and droughts; in
the 2050s, millions more people face flooding. You go up, if we do not
do anything, to some profound and very serious consequences.
Two weeks ago, President Bush gave a speech in the Rose Garden to
announce a new initiative on global warming. To be perfectly blunt, I
really didn't see anything new in the President's announcement and no
initiative that had not been discussed before. The President has
proposed that we wait until the year 2025 before we even stop the
increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases.
He did not call for a cut in emissions that was immediate. He did not
call for concrete steps to meet the goals. He said it would be unwise
to do it at this time.
I believe Americans are leaders not followers. When the world faces a
crisis, they do not wait for someone else to go first. Our country has
always stepped in and taken leadership. When we see a problem in our
own backyard--and my people in Minnesota see shrinking wetlands and
endangered wildlife, they have seen what has been going on with our ski
resorts and ice fishing--they do something about it.
Our friends across the seas in Europe have recognized the challenge.
They have introduced a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions covering 27
countries. It is a plan covering more than 12,000 industrial sites in
27 countries. And they did it using a concept known as cap and trade.
This was actually started in our country. That is how we reduced acid
rain. The European Union did not do everything right. They will be the
first to admit that. Their emissions targets were too high. They issued
too many carbon permits. But they are getting it back into equilibrium.
I believe we are going to learn from what they did, and we will do
better when we do it in this country. But the point is, many of these
European countries rose to the challenge and took leadership.
Here at home, our country's private investors and business leaders
already recognize this challenge. Nationally, venture capital
investments in green and clean technologies have increased
dramatically. In 2006, venture capital investment in green technologies
in the United States reached $2.9 billion, up 78 percent from a year
earlier.
Not only is clean technology the fastest growing venture capital
sector, it is now the third largest category of venture capital
investment. So when we talk about some of the things Senator Dorgan and
I have been talking about with energy, and we mentioned wind, we
invented a lot of that wind technology in our country. But now we have
fallen behind in wind production to other countries that have
government policies in place that pushed that investment.
From what I can see, wind is going to bring jobs across our country.
So is solar. So is biofuels. All of these things that cut our
dependency on foreign oil and invest in the next generation of new
technologies, that money is starting to filter into that area. But I
think we can do better in our country.
CEOs from major corporations such as DuPont, Duke Energy, and General
Electric see the opportunities, and they are making investments of
their own. More than 200 major U.S. corporations such as American
Electric Power and DuPont have started buying carbon offsets that are
now traded on the new Chicago Climate Exchange. You can see the global
investments I talked about in renewable technologies that have been
increased in wind, in solar, and other kinds of renewable technologies.
A company subsidizes a project that reduces greenhouse gas pollution,
[[Page 7587]]
building a wind turbine, for example, then recoups its investments by
selling that offset to another company on the Chicago Exchange. The
Chicago Exchange is new, but it reports that it kept 10 million tons of
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere over the last 4 years.
Meanwhile our Nation's Governors and mayors have also stepped up to
the challenge. Governors in five Western States, including California
and Arizona, have announced they will work together to reduce
greenhouse gasses by setting regional targets for lower emissions and
establishing a regional cap-and-trade system for buying and selling
greenhouse gas credits.
California alone plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent
by the year 2020. The Western Greenhouse Gas Initiative builds on other
regional initiatives, especially the landmark New England Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative, with seven Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic
States that have also agreed to a regional cap-and-trade system set to
take effect next year. You can see all of the States that have been
involved.
In my home State of Minnesota, we have one of the most aggressive
renewable electric portfolio standards in the country; a 25-percent
reduction. We did this on a bipartisan basis. We did it with the
support of ExelEnergy, our biggest electricity company. We did it the
way we do things in Minnesota, with a focus on results and getting
things done--Leadership.
There is also the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement. More
than 400 mayors representing over 59 million Americans have pledged to
meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas reduction goals in their
own communities. Among the signatories to this agreement are cities in
my home State of Minnesota: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, and
Duluth.
I admire these States and communities that have signed onto this
agreement for their initiatives and what they are doing. They should be
an inspiration for this Congress for national action. There is a famous
phrase, ``the laboratories of democracy.'' That is what Justice
Brandeis said in one of his most famous opinions when he described the
special role of States in the Federal system.
He said:
It is one of the happy incidents of the Federal system that
a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve
as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic
experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
But Brandeis did not mean this would serve as an excuse for inaction
by the Federal Government. We have States all over this country,
Governors, legislatures that have been brave, that have been courageous
in taking action on climate change. But never, when Justice Brandeis
talked about the one courageous State going above the norm, doing
something different, did he mean there should be inaction by the
Federal Government. Good ideas and successful innovations are supposed
to emerge from the laboratory and serve as a model for national policy
in action. That is now our responsibility in Congress.
In about 1 month we will have the chance to take up that
responsibility. We will have the opportunity to vote in the Chamber on
landmark climate change legislation, the Lieberman-Warner bill. I thank
my colleagues, Senator Warner and Senator Lieberman, for their hard
work on this bill. I thank our chairwoman, Senator Boxer for her
leadership as it moves forward. At this very moment we are listening to
Members make changes to the bill, doing everything we can to make the
bill as strong as possible.
The truth is, we can no longer delay. I have been to Greenland and
have seen those humongous icebergs melting in the ocean, and I have
seen the effect of this in my own State.
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates if we start today and cut
emissions by just 4 percent a year, we could achieve an 80-percent
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But if we wait just 10
years, we would have to double that annual rate of reduction.
This is forward-looking, bipartisan legislation. It is comprehensive,
and it is carefully tailored. It is our opportunity to show the
leadership for which Americans have always been known.
I pledged last week I was going come to the Senate floor and give a
speech about this legislation on different aspects of why it is so
important to move forward and to show leadership on climate change.
Today, I think it is obvious that as we face these long-term
consequences of doing nothing with our energy policy, when it comes to
electricity or oil, this is our chance. This climate change legislation
will play a major role in developing the new technologies we need.
Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I will yield.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Minnesota talked about
the importance of renewable energy, which I certainly agree with her.
Is it the case with renewable energy that we have done a pretty
pathetic job as a country to incentivize renewable energy?
In 1916, we put in place tax incentives to produce oil and gas. They
have been in place permanently for almost a century now, tax incentives
to produce oil and gas. By contrast, with wind and solar and renewable
energy, we put them in place in 1992 short term incentives. We have
extended them short term five times and have let them expire three
times. It has been a pathetic response to renewables.
The current tax incentives expire at the end of this year, and I have
introduced legislation to extend the production tax credit for 10
years. I believe our country ought to say to the world and to
investors: Here is where America is headed for a decade. Count on it.
Believe in it. Renewables, solar, wind, and so on need a clear signal
for investment. You can count on these investments because this is
where America is going.
Is it not the case, I would ask the Senator from Minnesota, that we
have not nearly done the job in incentivizing renewables and
establishing a national policy. Does she agree?
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Senator Dorgan, that is completely accurate. When you
look at what we have done with oil companies, with the giveaways that
we had for years and years and years, this Senate was one vote short of
blocking a filibuster. We tried to change that, tried to take some of
those oil giveaways and put them in the hands--we see record profits
from the oil companies--put them in the hands of some of these
renewables producers.
We were one vote short, but we have another opportunity. That is what
the Senator from North Dakota is talking about, extending the tax
credits for wind energy, solar, geothermal, and other kinds of
renewables.
We did it in the last bill we passed through this Senate. We were
able to, with some of the economic work we did with the mortgage
crisis, extend that tax credit for 1 year. But we would like to do it
for longer. Senator Dorgan has a bill for 10 years. I have a bipartisan
bill with Senators Snowe and Cantwell expanding it for 5 years. The
problem is, it has been a game of red light, green light. It goes on
again, off again. It is hard to follow that investment, to follow in
the way that we would like and the way that happens in other countries
because they never know. You can show, 8 months before these tax
credits go off, that the investment decreases.
This is no way to run a national energy policy. It is no way to run a
national environmental policy. And that is why today I spoke about the
leadership and the potential for leadership in this country.
We once put a man on the Moon. With that came not just winning the
race against Russia, with it came all kinds of technology: the CAT
scan, the space sticks that my family would take on camping trips in
the 1970s. With that came technology. That is what we are trying to do
with this bill.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Montana.
Drugbusters' Summit
Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I would like to thank the Senator from
[[Page 7588]]
Minnesota and the Senator from North Dakota for their comments on
renewable energy and climate change. That is definitely an issue I hope
we take up sooner rather than later, and hopefully we will have some
commonsense solutions to the problem so we can move this country
forward both in the area of reducing our effects on climate but also
economically because it is a tremendous opportunity with the right
piece of legislation.
I rise today to urge the inclusion of the JAG/Byrne grant funding in
the emergency supplemental that we will consider in the coming weeks. A
week ago, I organized a summit of drugbuster law enforcement in my home
State of Montana. I asked all of the leaders of Montana's drug task
forces to come together to talk about Federal funding. It is a
critically important issue.
Many of them drove hundreds of miles across the State in a spring
blizzard to take part in this summit. The drug task forces are made up
of dedicated law enforcement officers from every part of Montana:
sheriffs' deputies, narcotics officers, local and State police, and
undercover agents. They work together across jurisdictions to bust drug
smugglers, as well as those who grow or manufacture instate.
Our State of Montana has 56 counties. There are, of course, a lot of
different regions that deal with the task forces, that deal with
catching the drug manufacturers and smugglers. It is critically
important that these folks work together.
There is cause for concern because the President proposes slashing
$350 million from the drug task forces nationwide. If that happens,
Montana will lose a staggering 70 percent of its national drug fighting
money for the upcoming year, and the task forces would probably have to
lay off 27 agents, leaving only 22 agents to battle drugs statewide. In
a State the size of Montana that is impossible.
We should not let that happen. We should find a way to fund these
drug task forces in this supplemental, this spending bill that we are
going to be considering in a few weeks. If we do not, these cuts will
cripple the progress that we have made up to now in the war on drugs in
rural States such as the State of Montana.
These drug task forces are success stories. The officers who are on
the front lines keep drugs, the drug smugglers, and the drug dealers
off our streets. They make our communities safer; they reduce crime,
and they make a place like Montana a whole lot safer to live and raise
a family. These drug busters work together to get the job done.
Because drugs are not limited by borders, these tasks forces rely on
Federal funding to facilitate the cooperation across the many
jurisdictions of Montana, and it works.
Last weekend, folks picking up some trash in Havre, MT, stumbled
across a dumped meth lab. They called the police, and within minutes
the task force agents were there on the scene to help clean it up and
keep the community safe.
A week ago Monday I heard about a drug operation busted in a remote
part of southeastern Montana; so remote, in fact, the task force needed
the help of the National Guard helicopter to find it. Officers found 3
pounds of methamphetamine.
Last summer, the Northwest Montana Drug Task Force investigated a
case that took them across State lines to Salt Lake City, UT. In the
end, they seized 2 pounds of cocaine. They took 20 illegal weapons off
the streets, and they say they couldn't have done it without their
ability to work across jurisdictional lines and work together. For
example, one task force busted a meth lab in a home. Through
surveillance, they knew children were present. They took the
precautions not to put the children in any more danger. When the bust
was made, one child inside tested positive for meth because he was
living in a house where they were cooking meth. Even his toys were
covered with meth resin. This case set the standard for the way
officers deal with and protect children in harm's way. In only 1 year,
Montana'a drug task forces rescued 84 children from homes where they
were being exposed to drugs and drug dealers.
To me, restoring this funding is a no-brainer. As one of the officers
put it: We will end up spending much more money in the future if we
have to play catchup.
During the summit last week in Montana, officers told me again and
again that without Federal funding our small communities will be
devastated. Our children will be exposed to more drugs and, therefore,
more crime, and families will be torn apart.
I hope we can all work together to restore this funding. Montana and
the Nation cannot afford to do otherwise. Americans deserve better.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for 15 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Energy Prices
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I wish to take a few minutes to
discuss what has become a very tortured topic for the entire country;
that is, the prices for oil and gasoline and diesel.
I would like to respond, first, to the President's misstatements
about Congress's role in this situation. These are misstatements he
made on Tuesday at his press conference. Then I would like to talk
about what I believe are some of the real causes of the energy
situation and what constructive steps we can take to address those
causes.
First, with regard to the President's statements, on Tuesday he
suggested the Congress is to blame for the current price situation
Americans are seeing when they go to fill up at the gas pump. He cited
three reasons to conclude that.
First of all, he was blaming Congress for preventing oil companies
from exploring for oil and gas in the United States. Second, he was
blaming Congress for blocking efforts to build more refineries in the
United States. Third, he was blaming Congress for blocking increases in
the U.S. nuclear electricity production capacity.
Frankly, I think the President's comments are disappointing in
several regards. First, of course, they are very partisan. But second,
the charges the President made are simply not borne out by the facts.
On exploration and production of natural gas in this country,
Congress has taken significant steps on a bipartisan basis to enhance
oil and gas production. Through enacting the Gulf of Mexico Energy
Security Act of 2006, Congress made available 4.74 trillion cubic feet
of natural gas and 1.26 billion barrels of oil off the Florida
Panhandle.
Ironically, Congress was required to pass that law because of steps
that were taken early in the Bush administration. In her first year in
office, in 2001, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton cut the size of
the scheduled Outer Continental Shelf lease sale in the area by 75
percent. So with the stroke of a pen, the Secretary of the Interior, in
2001, put off limits over 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and over
1 billion barrels of oil from an area that had been proposed for
leasing by the Clinton administration, I would say, with the
concurrence of our former colleague, Lawton Chiles, who was then the
Governor of Florida.
So while, undoubtedly, a politically popular stance for the Bush
administration in Florida when this action was taken by Secretary
Norton, this was hardly an action that was intended to enhance oil and
gas production in the country.
In fact, large areas of the Outer Continental Shelf are currently off
limits to oil and gas development and production not just because of
congressional moratoria but because of Presidential withdrawals that
were first put in place, in 1990, by the first President
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Bush. This current President Bush could exercise real leadership in
this area, if he wished to, by eliminating these Presidential
withdrawals that were first put in place by his father.
We are talking about a significant area. There are some 574 million
acres of the OCS, or Outer Continental Shelf, that are unavailable for
leasing, and virtually all that is covered by Presidential withdrawals,
which could be eliminated by this President with the stroke of a pen.
The Arctic Refuge is another issue raised by the President. He failed
to mention drilling in the Refuge will do nothing to address the high
price of gas people are faced with today. I think everyone who has
looked at the issue recognizes that not a single drop of oil would come
to the lower continental United States from the Arctic Refuge for at
least 10 years.
The Energy Information Administration has estimated that production
from the Arctic Refuge would, at its peak, reduce our reliance on
imports by about 4 percent, from 68 percent to 64 percent. That is the
estimate the Energy Information Administration has given, which, of
course, is part of our own Department of Energy.
Other areas of Federal lands that are much more appropriate for
development can and should be drilled. In fact, of the 45.5 million
acres of Federal onshore lands currently under lease by industry, there
are over 31 million acres of those lands that are not currently being
produced. Likewise, there are 33 million acres of Federal Outer
Continental Shelf that are under lease; that is, the Government has
done what it should do to make these areas available, but they are not
being produced.
The processing of drilling permits on Federal lands has surged over
the past several years. It has more than doubled between 2001 and 2006.
At the same time, the administration reported that in five key basins
in the Rocky Mountain States, 85 percent of oil resources and 88
percent of natural gas resources are currently available for leasing
and for development.
Congress has also funded important research and development programs
to enhance the best of production. It is simply inaccurate finger
pointing to say that Congress is impeding oil and gas development in
this country.
On refinery capacity, which is the second point the President made in
his press conference, refining capacity has increased by about a
million barrels per day during President Bush's tenure, from 16.6
million barrels per day in 2001 to 17.5 million barrels per day in 2007
through capacity expansion and existing refineries. There have been no
efforts from Congress to try to slow down that expansion. Refiners have
been asked whether they would like to build new refineries as opposed
to expanding capacity at existing refineries, and those refiners have
told us in hearings before our Energy Committee that they would rather
expand capacity at existing refineries. We have never heard support
from anyone inside the oil industry regarding the President's curious
plan to build refineries on former U.S. military bases. As far as I
know, no Member of Congress objects to that; it is just that the
companies that are in the business of constructing refineries have not
decided that it makes good sense for them from an economic point of
view.
The economics of refining are not very good at the moment, as
gasoline prices are not yet fully reflecting the jump in crude oil
prices. U.S. refining capacity is at about 85 percent utilization at
the current time, as many refiners are losing money on every gallon of
gasoline they produce. Clearly, constraining refinery capacity is not
our current problem.
The third issue the President attacked the Congress about was nuclear
energy production. Here again, Congress is not standing in the way of
increasing nuclear production capacity. In fact, Congress over the past
3 years has put in place one of the most favorable sets of incentives
for nuclear power development anywhere in the world.
For example, if a nuclear plant is proposed for licensing and is
delayed because of a lack of action by Federal regulators, the
proponents of the plant can get Federal payments to compensate for that
delay. Now, that was part of the 2005 legislation we passed. No wind
power developer can get that kind of a subsidy. No solar power
developer can get that kind of a subsidy. We also provided tax
incentives for the construction of new nuclear powerplants. So if the
Congress passes global warming legislation--I know the administration
and the President are opposed to that, but if we do, according to the
Energy Information Administration, the most significant impact of that
global warming legislation would be to provide a powerful new incentive
to promote more nuclear power development in this country.
So let me move on from the discussion of the President's charges to a
short discussion of what I consider the real causes of current oil
prices. I think to understand what is going on here, it is critical to
put these oil prices in the broader economic context. The current
increase in oil prices is, to a large degree, a symptom of our ailing
economy. Oil prices and the value of the U.S. dollar have been very
strongly linked over the last year. As the value of the dollar
declines, oil prices go up.
We have heard recent testimony before our Energy Committee that
confirms that investors are seeking protection from inflationary risks
associated with the weak dollar and from credit and wider financial
markets in which they have lost confidence. As one witness put it, oil
has become the new gold, and that is why speculators and others are
investing in oil. Higher oil prices in turn weaken our economy, so we
are caught in a downward spiral in which a weak economy is resulting in
high oil prices, and high oil prices are, in turn, further weakening
the economy.
So the question is how do we stop this downward spiral. This is a
large task. It requires, first and foremost, a return to rational
fiscal policy that will restore balance and investor confidence in our
markets. That includes an honest accounting of the costs of the war in
Iraq, a figure that we now know is going to be in the trillions of
dollars. Spending has also been accompanied by the administration's tax
policies which have been extremely damaging to the country's long-term
fiscal health. Every American family that sits around the kitchen table
and tries to balance a budget recognizes the simple fact that spending
more than you earn or more than the revenue you can bring in results
in, after a period, your creditors eventually coming calling. That is
what is happening to the dollar today. Apparently, the stewards of the
U.S. economy and this administration have failed to absorb that simple
reality.
Let me talk a little about policies to reduce oil prices in the short
term. There are modest but important measures we can enact to increase
our oil supply and reduce our demand. On the supply side, we need to
immediately stop removing oil from the market to fill the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. It simply makes no sense to be putting $120 per
barrel oil underground. According to the most recent Energy Information
Administration forecast, oil demand in the United States is expected to
decline by 90,000 barrels per day in 2008. This is the kind of signal
we need to send to the market in order to see some relief from current
prices. However, we are taking 70,000 barrels per day off the market to
add to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve which we all recognize is about
97 percent full right now. We are basically wiping out any positive
effects from the decrease in demand. This is a policy completely
wrongheaded and should be stopped immediately. I compliment all three
of the candidates for President for embracing this recommendation that
we eliminate the filling or we suspend the filling of the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. I wish the administration would support that simple
measure.
On the demand side, we need to decide whether we are ready to get
serious about educating consumers to take more responsibility to reduce
consumption. We know that 5 miles per hour slower that a person drives
will increase our fuel efficiency for that individual by about 7.5
percent. We also
[[Page 7590]]
know that energy-efficient, properly inflated tires increase fuel
efficiency by about 4 percent. Regular car maintenance can increase
fuel efficiency by about 2 percent. So Americans individually could use
about 10 to 15 percent less gasoline by adopting these commonsense
measures. But to see we do that, we will need publicity out there to
educate folks on the simple steps they can take to reduce consumption.
In the medium term, we need to ensure there is a cop on the beat on the
oil markets.
There are two key steps we should take to improve Government
oversight of the oil markets. First, the Secretary of Energy needs to
have a role in overseeing oil markets. It troubles me that the people
at the New York Mercantile Exchange on which oil is traded and the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission which regulates that exchange seem
to be the only people who think that speculators are not influencing
oil prices.
Here is a quote from the Wall Street Journal on March 21 of 2006. It
says:
Hedge funds are taking ever-larger bets in a futures market
that is smaller than the stock or bond markets, and the funds
are using borrowed money to maximize their bets, magnifying
the impact on energy market prices.
So clearly, the Secretary of Energy and the 500-plus employees he has
there in his Energy Information Administration who work every day to
analyze energy data, forecast energy supply and demand, and prices
should at a minimum provide insight and advice to market regulators at
the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Perhaps this could help the
Commodities Futures Trading Commission come to understand the role of
speculators in that market.
Second, we need to shed light on the so-called dark markets. Markets
that trade U.S. oil or are located in the United States should be
subject to U.S. regulation. It is unacceptable that an exchange that is
based in Atlanta, GA and trades U.S. crude oil that is delivered in
Oklahoma is regulated in the United Kingdom, not subject to the laws
and regulations that we in Congress put in place to govern the U.S.
futures market. It is also unacceptable that over-the-counter markets
are regulated neither here in the United States nor in the United
Kingdom. There is simply no regulatory body that can see these over-
the-counter transactions.
Let me also say a few words about policies that will not reduce
gasoline prices. First, there is a proposal to suspend the tax on gas
and diesel. While I can appreciate the temporary public relations
success that might accompany this tax suspension, it would come at the
expense of fiscal common sense and sound energy policy. I agree that
high gasoline and diesel prices are hurting consumers, but additional
deficit spending will only help accelerate the downward trajectory of
our economy as a whole. This is simply the latest in a long line of
proposals that seek to score political points during an election year
at the expense of good energy policy.
There are three main objections to the proposal. First, it would
increase deficit spending by nearly $10 billion while saving motorists
about $25 per person. If you do the math, you find that even if all of
the savings are passed on to the consumer, which is a very unlikely
outcome, the savings per person is negligible.
If you assume that the average motorist drives 12,000 miles per year
and gets 22 miles per gallon, you can calculate that the amount the
average person would save in a 3-month period is $25.50. So adopting
the fuel efficiency measures I have discussed earlier, including
shaving a few miles per hour off the top highway speed, would be much
more effective in reducing the cost of gasoline to the average
consumer.
Madam President, how much time remains?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. I believe the Senator has used his
15 minutes.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an
additional 5 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Madam President, the second argument I wanted to raise
related to this proposed suspension of the gas tax is the idea that it
would be reinstated in September when prices might well be as high or
higher than they are today would be very difficult and very unlikely to
occur, frankly. We are talking about reinstating the gas tax in
September. I think that is the proposal the Senator from Arizona has
made: Let's suspend the gas tax now, or at Memorial Day, and let's
reinstate it on Labor Day. Well, the problem with that is Labor Day is
about 2 months before the election. It would not be politically
feasible to have a single-day price increase on September 1st of 18.4
cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel. I don't think
anybody--any politician in his or her right mind--would vote to impose
that kind of a tax increase at that time. Prices could easily be as
high or higher on September 1 as they are today. It is simply not
possible to me that Congress will then choose to increase the price
that consumers pay at the pump.
The third argument is that this tax suspension would stimulate demand
for motor fuels without increasing supply. In fact, we would see
something in the nature of a price increase. The best explanation of
this was done by Paul Krugman, a respected economist who writes for the
New York Times and teaches at Princeton, in an article he did on April
29. He said in that article, I think the conclusion was, the McCain gas
tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies disguised as a gift to
consumers.
The obvious point he was making is that under the basic rules of
economics, the fact that Congress would suspend the gas tax would do
nothing to ensure that consumers benefited from the suspension of the
gas tax. The whole notion that you are going to see the price of gas at
the pump drop 18 cents because Congress says the tax is all of a sudden
suspended is not realistic.
In conclusion, we as a country and we as a Congress need to get
serious about energy policy. It is an election year. While there is
always a tendency to take rhetorical stands in the runup to an
election, the American people understand that. I think they discount
what they hear from Washington as the election date begins to arrive.
That is one reason they don't always hold Congress in the highest
esteem. Proposals that are mostly feel-good propositions do not fool
voters for long--if they fool them at all.
That said, there are a number of concrete steps we can take that will
help. We should freeze the filling of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve--
suspend that for the time being. We should take some effective actions
to bring the oil markets under better control with U.S. laws and
regulations. Let's be sure consumers know what they themselves can do
to reduce their own demand. I hope that with oil at $110 to $120 per
barrel, which it has been for several weeks and which it may well be
for several more weeks or months ahead--or even a longer period--I hope
we will give this topic the serious attention it deserves.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, today, marks more than 2 years--by my
count, 738 days--since Speaker Pelosi said:
Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down
skyrocketing gas prices.
That was on April 24, 2006--738 days ago. I think it is important to
look at what has happened to the price of gas and to see whether her
prediction was correct.
Lo and behold, we find the average price of a gallon of gasoline in
America at $3.62, up $2.33 from the time when Speaker Pelosi became
Speaker in January of 2007. Again, that is a rise from $2.33 a gallon
to $3.62 a gallon.
[[Page 7591]]
I will tell you we have been asking and waiting, and the American
people have been waiting and watching, to see what Congress is going to
do to help relieve some of this pain at the pump. The American people
want us to work together to try to find commonsense solutions to help
them with this increasing pain they are feeling in the family budget.
Do you know that taking the difference between $2.33 a gallon and
$3.62 a gallon represents roughly a $1,400 increase in the cost for
gasoline for the average American family? Of course, I don't have to
tell anybody here, or anybody listening, that this is necessary for
driving the kids to school, driving to work; it is necessary also to
provide fuel for the airplanes Americans fly in. This is an American
problem, and I suggest we need to come up with an American solution.
The problem has been that about 60 percent of our energy needs in
this country are now satisfied by imported oil and gas from other parts
of the world. That is a national security challenge because, of course,
to the extent which others supply our energy needs, it means they can
turn off the spigot; or if hostilities were to occur that would, let's
say, for example, block the Strait of Hormuz, there could be an
economic body blow to the United States as a result of the restriction
on our energy supply.
We need to recognize there are certain things that are irrefutable
or, I should say, maybe unchangeable by Congress. We can pass a lot of
laws and repeal laws, but we cannot change the law of supply and
demand. Try as we might, Congress has neglected that for these many
years. While we have done some good things on conservation, passing
fuel efficiency standards recently, and we have also supported
renewable fuels, which are an important part of the energy supply, you
cannot put wind energy in your tank to drive your kids to school.
We need to recognize that with a fixed supply of oil, which is 70
percent of the price of gasoline, we are competing globally with
countries such as China and India, rising economies where people want a
better quality of life, and they realize one key to that is affordable
energy. America has not had that exclusively, but we have had it pretty
much to ourselves, and others want what we have, which is a good
quality of life and standard of living. That comes with affordable
energy.
So what are we going to do about satisfying the laws of supply and
demand? Of course, we know Congress is the primary culprit when it
comes to obstructing access to American natural resources. I remember
that when I was growing up, we would talk about different countries in
school and about how some were blessed with abundant natural resources
and how that was a good thing because the citizens of that country
could use those natural resources to enhance their quality of life--in
this case, provide for affordable energy. But we have simply, by our
inaction--and I would say to the extent it applies--actually acted
affirmatively to place our natural resources out of bounds in a way
that has exacerbated and not solved the problem.
I know how popular it is these days to say it is all big oil's fault.
The blame game. Then we have people saying we need another
investigation. Well, the blame game and investigations are important,
and investigations and oversight is for Congress, but that is not
producing a single drop of additional energy. We need to do that and we
need to act today.
A moment ago, a group of Senators announced an omnibus energy bill
that would satisfy America's need for more American solutions to our
energy supply. My hope is that by taking advantage, for example, of the
million-barrel-a-day capacity Alaska could supply, by taking advantage
of the Outer Continental Shelf, such as we have in the Gulf of Mexico,
with the vast oil deposits there, and by taking advantage of our
abundant natural resources in the form of oil shale in the West, we
could relieve our dependence upon imported oil in this country to the
tune of some 3 million barrels a day.
I know there are environmental and safety concerns with developing
our oil and gas resources right here at home. But I invite the people
who are concerned about that and who do not believe we can do so to
come to Fort Worth and see the Barnett shale, which is an abundant,
plentiful source of natural gas being developed right in the city of
Fort Worth. As a matter of fact, if you fly into DFW Airport, you will
see drilling rigs on the airport property. The tract of land in Alaska
that is going to be explored and used for producing this million-
barrel-a-day-plus oil that is located in the Arctic is going to be on a
postage stamp-size piece of property.
I see the distinguished ranking member of the Energy Committee. I was
saying the city of Fort Worth is producing the Barnett shale and
actually drilling gas at DFW Airport and that you can see the rigs
there.
I suggest that if we can produce those natural resources in Texas and
in Fort Worth on the DFW Airport property, American energy producers
can do it in Alaska. People are concerned, as they should be--and I
wish they would act on those concerns and not just complain about it--
about $120-a-barrel oil. It has been projected that if we were to take
advantage of the natural resources God has blessed us with in the
Arctic, we could produce oil there that costs roughly $55 a barrel. So
$120 a barrel or $55 a barrel? You pick.
If we are talking about developing oil resources from the Outer
Continental Shelf, even beyond the horizon, as we did in lease sale 181
in the Gulf of Mexico--it is 300 miles off the coast of Texas. You
cannot even see it. Yet we have a way of producing those abundant
resources. If Congress will simply quit the blame game, the finger-
pointing and wake up to the fact that the American people are feeling
pain not only at the pump but in their family budgets--they are looking
for Congress to get out of the way and let the American people produce
the natural resources we have been blessed with, in a way that will
satisfy the laws of supply and demand, by producing as much as 3
million barrels of additional oil, which will then have a dramatic
impact at the pump and help American families meet their energy needs
at a reasonable price.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Mexico is
recognized.
Mr. DOMENICI. I didn't hear the Senator from Texas say he was
finished.
(The remarks of Mr. Domenici pertaining to the introduction of S.
2958 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. CORNYN. Yes, I yield the floor.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the floor
time now be given to Senator Kennedy, who has been patiently waiting,
for which I am grateful.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts is
recognized.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts is
recognized.
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank my friend and colleague from
New Mexico. We will not have a chance today to talk about mental health
parity. But whenever I see him speak on the floor I am further inspired
to make sure we are going to get that legislation passed in this
Congress. I thank him for all of his good work in that undertaking. We
are strongly committed to ensuring that this very important health
policy issue is going to be addressed in the Congress.
I see my friend from Illinois. I know he was seeking the floor. I ask
unanimous consent that he be recognized after I finish.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Unemployment Insurance Extension
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, tomorrow we are going to have the
report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics about the unemployment figures
in this country. Those unemployment figures may be statistics to some,
but they are lost hopes and dreams to millions of our fellow citizens.
They are a
[[Page 7592]]
key indicator of the state of our economy. I think most of us who have
had the opportunity to travel our States and listen to working families
understand the extraordinary pressures these families are under, the
incredible anxiety that goes to the heart and soul of these families.
They really wonder if somehow they are guilty in some way for not being
able to deal with the economic challenges they are facing, whether it
is the increased cost of gas at the pump, or whether it is the
increasing cost of tuition, the increasing cost of health care, or the
challenges they are facing with their mortgages.
This afternoon I want to speak for a few minutes about the issue of
unemployment and how that has impacted so many of our fellow citizens
and what the implications are for so many of our fellow citizens. Even
though we do not have the figures, I think we can reliably suggest
there is going to be a further increase in the number of unemployed
Americans when we get the figures tomorrow morning. These are the
figures so far this year: we see 76,000 jobs lost in January; in
February, 76,000; some 80,000 in March--232,000 jobs were lost over the
period of these 3 months. There were 50,000 construction jobs lost.
That sends a message in and of itself.
If we look at this chart, we see the total number of unemployed.
These are the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. In March of 2008 we
have 7.8 million unemployed and only 3.9 million jobs. That's two
workers for every job. Here we have individuals, Americans, who have
worked hard, played by the rules, and, through no fault of their own,
because of the failure of fiscal and monetary policy, they have lost
their jobs. Yet when we look back at the total number of job openings,
they are limited. These Americans are getting squeezed. How are they
going to be able to find jobs when the jobs are not available even if
they have the skills? We are going to come back to that in just a
moment.
These families are hurting. That is why it is so important that we
have an increase in the unemployment compensation program that is now
in surplus of about $35 billion. That fund has actually been paid into
by American workers. They have paid into the fund $35 billion, and the
reason they paid in was for circumstances such as this, a fiscal and
monetary economic policy which has failed them. They are entitled to
receive the unemployment compensation. Yet we have an administration
which has consistently opposed extending unemployment benefits. I am
going to come to that in just a moment too.
Here are recent veterans who having served, are having a hard time
finding work. The total workforce, 5.1 percent unemployed; for these
veterans serving after 2001, we can see their unemployment is 6.1
percent. And the young male veterans, serving after September 2001, are
at 11.2 percent. These are all veterans, but this is young men--11.2
percent. These young Americans were the ones who had the burden of
conflict and now they are facing the burden, at home, of an economy
that will not serve them and serve their interests. Where is the burden
falling? It is falling on our young veterans, and it is falling
particularly hard.
This chart indicates where the burden of this economy is falling. We
are finding out it is increasingly falling on adult women, who are
seeing a sharper rise in unemployment rates than men. There is a 21-
percent increase for women, and 15 percent for men, between March of
2007 and March of 2008. Do we understand how it is squeezing women?
Women are more likely to have subprime mortgages than men, despite
having slightly better credit scores. Women are having their homes
foreclosed at a more rapid rate than men, their unemployment rates are
going up, and their savings are lower. They are the ones who are taking
the brunt of this recession along with young veterans.
Here we find women's earnings are falling faster than men's. Men's
median income in 2007 fell one-half of 1 percent for men, women's fell
3 percent. We see increasing numbers of women are unemployed, and the
wages of women who have jobs are being adversely impacted to a much
higher and more significant degree.
We see what has happened generally with regard to the economy. The
stock market lost $2.7 trillion in value since May of 2007. This crisis
has wiped out $2.7 trillion in home values. The dollar has lost one-
third of its value, and the Federal debt has nearly doubled since this
President took office. Again, we are looking at home values, which is
the wealth for so many middle-income and working families--$2.7
trillion effectively has been wiped out during this last year.
All these figures show middle-income families, working families, are
taking the heavy brunt of the recession we are facing. We should ask
ourselves what are we doing about this. If we look at what we have done
at other times, we have granted extended unemployment benefits. Look at
the last recessions we have had, from January 1980 to July 1980, and
then July 1981 to November 1982, the average number of weeks of
unemployment was 16 weeks. And we extended unemployment compensation.
The next recession we had was July 1990 to March of 1991. The average
weeks of unemployment was 13.9 weeks, but we had an extension of
unemployment compensation.
In March 2001 to November 2001, 15 weeks was the average number of
weeks of unemployment, and we had an extension of the unemployment
compensation.
Here, look at this: 16.2 weeks is the average number of weeks workers
are unemployed today--16.2 weeks--and this administration refuses to
say the $35 billion that is in the unemployment compensation fund that
you have worked for and contributed into that fund, should be available
to you when we have adverse economic conditions. These are just the
kind of conditions that they are there for. This administration refuses
to do anything about it. It is a striking difference for working
families who are trying to make it and provide for their families.
Very briefly, this chart demonstrates that during a recession, among
the limited economic stimulus measures, unemployment compensation is
among the most promising investments--every dollar we invest in
unemployment compensation has the effect of $1.64; for infrastructure
it is $1.59 for every dollar invested; and it is $1.73 in food stamps.
This is from Moody's chief economist. There is much less impact,
obviously, for the Bush extended tax cuts.
We should look at what is happening in food stamps--we do not
frequently think about the numbers of our fellow American citizens who
are dependent on food stamps, but we should pause now. We certainly
should if we have been back home and listened to those who have been
running the food banks in our States and we find out the condition of
those food banks. 28 million Americans are projected to receive food
stamps in fiscal year 2009--28 million Americans are going to be
eligible for food stamps in 2009. Look at the indicators. This is
another indicator about what is happening in the economy, the kind of
pressures that middle-income and working families have.
We could also ask, Why aren't we trying to provide training for these
workers who are struggling to find a job? If we improve their skills,
they will be able to find a job--is that right? No, it is wrong. What
we are finding is Americans cannot access job training programs. This
administration has been cutting back virtually every year on job
training programs.
Look at this. In Massachusetts alone, for every available slot in a
job training program there are 21 workers on a waiting list. Do we
understand? There are 21 workers on a waiting list. These are American
men and women who want to work, have worked, want to provide for their
families, and they cannot even get the training in order to be able to
fill the jobs. We have 83,000 jobs in my State that are not being
filled today, but we have cut back. This administration has cut back on
the training programs. This is the kind of misstep this administration
has taken time in and time out.
I just remind the Senate about action that we took just yesterday
with regard to students and the student loan
[[Page 7593]]
program. One urgent step that we must take to ensure that the slumping
economy does not prevent young people from going to college is to
provide some help and assistance, and we did yesterday.
Right now, in May, students and their parents are applying for
financial aid and the loans they need to attend college in the fall.
This is happening just as some banks have said they are no longer
offering student loans. We cannot allow the slumping economy to limit
the horizons of a new generation of Americans. Students and parents
need to know we will do everything we can to guarantee that every
single student who needs a loan to go to college in the fall will get
one, even in these troubled economic times. We will increase the amount
of grant aid available to relieve the debt burden on needy students.
Yesterday the Senate passed legislation to do just that. The House of
Representatives also passed the legislation just a few hours ago, and
President Bush has indicated that he will sign it into law. This is
what the emergency legislation does: For students, if private loans
through the banks dry up, they can get lower cost government-guaranteed
loans to take their place. So no matter what happens in the private
loan market, the government loans will be there, and they will be there
for them.
This guarantee comes in two ways. First, the bill expands the amount
of Federal loans available for a student for 4 years of college from
$23,000 to $31,000, an $8,000 increase. Second, it ensures that
students will have easy access to Federal loans.
If banks are not willing to make these loans to students, State-
based, nonprofit agencies, called the guaranty agencies, will take
their place.
So for every student, there will always be someone to provide the
loans, either through the private sector or through the Government.
Also, for thousands of low-income students, we increased the grant
aid by up to $1,300 a year for underclassmen and $4,000 a year for
upperclassmen. That is not a lot, but it is a part of an ongoing
commitment to help low-income college students avoid the crushing
burdens of debt that inevitably distort their choices for the future.
The bill also helps parents by providing them with better options and
better access to the low-cost Federal PLUS loans alternative. This
provides help to parents. It allows the parents to delay the repayment
on the loans until their child has graduated from college. It makes it
easier for parents who have been hit by the mortgage crisis to obtain
these low-cost loans; help for the students, help as well for families.
Finally, the bill helps stabilize the overall student loan market by
authorizing the Secretary of Education to purchase outstanding federal
loans, allowing private lenders to replenish their capital so they can
make new loans to students and parents.
For the 6 million students and over 700,000 parents currently relying
on low cost federally subsidized loans, these steps mean they will
continue to have ready access to these funds, even as the credit
markets discourage lender participation in the Federal program. In
other words, students and parents will now have multiple avenues to
obtain low-cost Federal loans.
Fortunately, Congress has taken prompt action to prevent college
students from becoming the next victims of our failing economy, and I
commend President Bush for urging us to do so. I am grateful to Senator
Enzi, Congressman Miller, Congressman McKeon for their partnership on
this legislation, and for the support and assistance of the Secretary
of Education.
I hope we can replicate this bipartisan effort in tackling other
urgent economic issues. There is much work to be done to ensure that
Main Street is insulated from the problems of Wall Street. It is clear
that the Nation faces a serious ongoing economic challenge. We know
what we have to do to put our economy and our country back on track. To
do that we need to seize the moment and act immediately to help the
millions of Americans who need our help the most.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois is
recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I see the Senator from Michigan on the
floor. I know she is here to address the same topic as the Senator from
Massachusetts, and she has a 5 o'clock conference committee on an
important bill pending before the Senate. I ask unanimous consent that
she be allowed to speak in my place and that I follow her.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
Ms. STABENOW. I thank our distinguished assistant majority leader for
allowing me to do this. It is very important. I thank my colleague and
friend, the champion from Massachusetts, for all of his efforts as they
relate to the efforts to make sure college loans are available. Also I
want to speak to the fact that we are working together to extend
unemployment insurance benefits, and I greatly appreciate his
leadership.
I want to specifically today speak to that piece of the effort we are
working on together. Because since my colleagues across the aisle
blocked extending critical unemployment benefits from the part of our
first stimulus package, frankly, the situation has only gotten worse
for families in Michigan and all across the country.
National unemployment is on the rise, with our Nation losing 80,000
jobs in March. It is stunning to me when we look at what is happening
across the country. I have to say, these are not new kinds of numbers
for us in Michigan. We have been seeing these kinds of numbers now for
a number of years but we see nationally, in this last January, 76,000
jobs were lost; in February, 76,000 jobs were lost; in March, the
highest number, 80,000 jobs were lost; 232,000 jobs cut in the past 3
months.
I remember coming to the floor and having colleagues say: Well,
overall unemployment is not high. We do not have a problem. It is below
5 percent. Well, now it has crept up above 5 percent, and we are being
told by Goldman Sachs and the Bureau of Labor Statistics that by
January, this coming January, the national unemployment rate will be
6.5 percent.
We in Michigan would actually consider that a decrease, because ours
is at 7.2 percent. But nationally when we look at that kind of steep
increase in those people who are out of work, we need to be paying
attention to this. Families, middle-class families, who have worked
hard all their lives are finding themselves in a situation, due to no
fault of their own, where they are looking for work, trying to keep
their family together and, in fact, are looking for us to do what we
have always done in times such as these, which is to extend
unemployment benefits across the country for families, and particularly
for those States that are hardest hit.
We have 10,000 people right now in Michigan every month who are
losing unemployment benefits. That for us relates to the fact that we
are one of the highest States in mortgage foreclosures, why people
cannot afford to pay for their mortgage. So the ripple effect
throughout the economy is staggering when we look at the fact that on
top of what is happening to people who are losing their jobs and cannot
afford their mortgage, their gas, when we look at what is happening
with gas prices.
We in the majority have been coming to this floor and have been doing
everything we can in putting forward proposals to deal with the high
gas prices. We have not been able to get support from colleagues to
truly address this, what needs to be addressed, and even putting food
on people's tables and health insurance.
Everything is going up in the wrong direction, including the fact
that people are now losing their unemployment benefits. We have been
suffering in Michigan through several years of high unemployment, as I
mentioned. We have 7.2 percent unemployment right now. In the first
half of this year, over
[[Page 7594]]
72,000 people exhausted their unemployment benefits. But we are not
alone. This is not only a Michigan problem anymore. Alaska, California,
Rhode Island, Mississippi, Nevada, Missouri, Oregon, South Carolina,
Kentucky, Ohio, all have unemployment rates at or above 5.7 percent.
Across the country, millions of Americans are losing what are insurance
benefits. We are not talking about public assistance, we are talking
about an insurance system that they paid into, that employees come into
for these circumstances.
We have not seen the President's willingness, up to this point, to
support extending unemployment benefits and, subsequently, my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle. This makes absolutely no
sense. Frankly, from an economic standpoint, it makes no sense.
Moody's economy.com chief economist Mark Zandi estimates for every $1
spent on unemployment benefits, the economy is stimulated by $1.4. We
knew that when we passed the original stimulus package. Rather than a
rebate, many of us were arguing that the best way, the fastest way to
stimulate the economy was to give dollars directly to people out of
work, struggling to make their payments, who on average make 40 percent
of their wage from this unemployment insurance system. The people would
have to turn right around and go to the grocery store, buy clothes for
their children, spend the dollars they receive in unemployment benefits
in order to be able to keep going. What we have heard over and over
again from colleagues on the other side of the aisle is: We should
wait; we should wait; it is not that bad; it is not bad enough. I do
not know how many times we have heard the President say, up until
recently, ``Well, the underlying fundamentals of the economy are good''
or ``Things really are not as bad as people think.''
Well, they are. They are. The American people know that when they are
being hit on all sides with rising costs and lower wages. So I am here
today to urge my colleagues to come together to understand what
American families are going through, and to support, strongly support,
an extension of unemployment compensation.
Let me say in conclusion that this unfortunately is a pattern we have
seen over and over again when it comes to blocking those programs that
are critically important for American families. Over and over again we
see colleagues filibustering issues, stopping us from moving forward on
what makes a real difference in people's lives.
It is not only extending unemployment insurance for families and
workers in Michigan and across the country, but it is part of a pattern
of blocking and obstructing what is important to families in this very
difficult economy. Last year my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle blocked an energy tax bill that would have increased the
production of renewable fuels and helped bring more advanced technology
vehicles to the marketplace to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and
begin to address what is happening on the gas price side of things.
But, unfortunately again, these efforts were blocked time and time
again when we brought forward proposals that relate to energy and
pricing and accountability for the industry. Moving tax breaks from oil
companies to alternative fuels or to consumers, we have been blocked. I
have to say also in conclusion today that once again, a critical issue
to this safety of the American public has been blocked, and that is the
question of whether we are going to modernize air service in this
country; whether we are going to truly have a passenger's bill of
rights; whether we are going to update a system that is clearly
overloaded, clearly in crisis. We have been trying all week to bring to
the floor critical changes to upgrade the American airline system, and
once again these efforts have been blocked and blocked and blocked. We
have a whole range of needs in this country that are urgent for the
safety of those of us who are flying with our families and are counting
on the fact that everything that is being done to make sure that system
is the best in the country and it is safe.
We see that families are struggling with gas prices. We see in my
home State again 10,000 people a month losing unemployment insurance
who are trying to figure out how to make ends meet while we see
blocking after blocking, filibuster after filibuster, here in the
Senate stopping us from moving forward on important legislation.
I urge my colleagues to listen to the folks at home and what they are
going through, and to join us to extend unemployment insurance, to
address what are outrageous gas prices, and also make sure we are being
serious and responsible about important issues such as airline safety.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator from Illinois is
recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. My thanks to my colleagues from Massachusetts and
Michigan for bringing to our attention the struggle this economy
presents to many families across the United States.
You would almost find it hard to imagine that this Senate could meet
with such regularity and not address these issues directly. But this
administration and its economic policies have not focused on working
families. They have focused on tax breaks for those in the highest
income categories in America. That is something they do without
embarrassment. They suggest that if the wealthy people in America have
extra money to spend, it will be good for everyone else. That is a hard
message to deliver and even harder to believe.
Elizabeth Warren is a professor of law at Harvard Law School in
Cambridge, MA, and has become a good friend and adviser to many of us.
She recently made a presentation to a number of Senators and showed an
analysis which she had done relating to the middle of the middle class.
Professor Warren took a look at real middle-income families and
basically asked the question: What has happened to them during the last
7 years?
Her findings are troubling. From 2000 to 2007, she writes, the
American family lost ground. Measured in real dollars, incomes declined
while basic expenses skyrocketed. By the time today's family makes a
few basic purchases--housing, health insurance, food, gasoline, and
phone--it has about $5,700 less than it had been in 2000.
Now, this is a family that is making in the range of $40,000 to
$45,000. So a decline in buying power of $5,700 over the last 7 years
causes real hardship. By every measure, incomes are down for the same
hypothetical family for this same period of time; down for fully
employed males, fully employed females, down for households.
Adjusted for inflation, median household income has declined across
America by $1,175. Prosperity has not arrived to the working class, the
working families of America. In fact, the opposite has been true.
Of course, the biggest thing we face going home is the increasing
cost of gasoline. The increase in the cost of gasoline has more than
doubled since President Bush became President. In that same period, the
profits of the oil companies have more than quadrupled. It is no
coincidence. They are making more money as families, rich and
especially poor, reach deeper into their pockets to pay for gasoline.
Families have reduced driving. They have to spend an average of $2,000
more a year for gasoline than they did back in the year 2000, when
President Bush was elected. Our friends on the Republican side of the
aisle like to talk about cutting people's taxes, sending out rebate
checks. Of course, those are all well and good. But it turns out the
expense which has been passed along to working families for the cost of
gasoline since President Bush became President is more than $2,000 a
year. There is a tax. It is a tax families have to pay if they have to
drive to work or if they want to take their family on vacation.
Increases in mortgage costs took another big bite out of middle-
income families, almost $1,700 each year. Health insurance, food,
telephone, appliances, another $750 a year knocked out of the family
budget. The increases mean the average family is spending
[[Page 7595]]
$4,564 more for basic expenses now than they did in 2000. How about
families with kids? Childcare costs under this President have gone up
by $1,321 a year, more than $100 a month; afterschool care, $511 a
year. All parents, regardless of the age of children, see the rising
cost of college. Under this Presidency, the net cost of college,
including scholarships and grants, has increased by more than $1,000.
Is it any surprise, when Members of the Senate and the House go home
over the weekends and run into these families, they want to talk about
the latest outrage, which happens to be the price of gasoline?
My understanding is ExxonMobil made its report of quarterly earnings
public today. It was a little bit off for them. Their earnings only
increased 17 percent, hardly keeping pace with the recordbreaking
percentage increases of the past. But trust me, there will be no tag
days for those CEOs and members of the executive board and management
of the biggest oil companies in America. They are doing quite well. The
question is whether this Congress can do well by American families who
pay the price for those profits. That is a challenge we will face.
President Bush is going to send us a supplemental appropriations
bill. It is because of the emergency in Iraq. He is going to ask for
$108 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. He is not going to ask for the
emergency in America, and there is one. He will not be asking for
increasing unemployment compensation for families out of work, watching
unemployment rates rise by the day. He will not be asking for tax
breaks for those struggling families I have described. He focuses on
the Middle East.
I am from Illinois. I focus on the Middle West. I try to look at the
whole Nation, but I start with my obligation at home. When I look out
the window in the morning, I see America. When this administration
looks out the window in the morning, it sees Iraq. So when it comes to
emergency spending, drop everything, highest priorities, it is not
about America. This administration focuses on the Middle East.
I think that is unfortunate. We need to understand a strong America
begins at home. It begins with a strong economy, strong families,
strong churches, strong temples, strong neighborhoods, strong cities,
strong communities that build a great nation. They are suffering at
this moment.
During the course of this week, there has been precious little done
on the floor of the Senate. Senator after Senator has come to talk
about their concerns about energy costs. That is good. We should raise
awareness of this particular issue. But we need to do more than give a
speech, come up with a quick gimmick or a quick idea. We have to focus
on changing some fundamentals, and it ought to start with the Tax Code
and programs that help working families.
Mr. President, I have a friend in Illinois whose name is Harold
Ramis. Harold Ramis and I share a birth date and a lot of friends.
Harold Ramis has done quite well for himself. He ia a writer, a
producer of movies. Harold got started writing ``Animal House,'' went
on to write ``Caddyshack'' and a few others. But one of his most famous
movies, which he released over 15 years ago, was a movie called
``Groundhog Day.'' I bet every American has seen it. It is hard to
believe it has been more than 15 years since it was released. In that
movie another Chicagoan, Bill Murray, wakes up every morning in
Punxsutawney, PA, and looks over at the clock radio as Sonny and Cher
are singing ``I Got You, Babe,'' and relives the same day over and over
again, until finally it stops at the end. A fascinating movie, it has
been analyzed by so many people. What is the message of the movie? I am
not sure. I sure enjoy it and continue to watch it. I drive my wife
crazy when she says: How many times have you seen that movie? But I
like it a lot.
I am reminded of that movie when I think about what is going on in
the Senate. It is almost like ``Groundhog Day'' around here because
every day that you get up in the Senate and every week, it is the same
music playing. It is the same script playing. The script that is
playing is the strategy on the other side of the aisle, on the
Republican side of the aisle. Their strategy is very simple. It
involves the use of a filibuster.
A filibuster is a uniquely Senatorial institution that says,
historically, any Senator can stand up at any time and stop anything--a
nomination, a bill, anything. It gives us a lot of power. But
unfortunately, that power can be misused. ``Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington,'' Jimmy Stewart on that famous set, the brandnew Senator
who stood up and filibustered until he dropped right next to his desk,
we all remember that image. It doesn't quite happen that way anymore. I
have not seen anybody fall to the floor in the middle of a filibuster,
but it does eat up a lot of time, and it slows things down.
In the history of the Senate, there is a record book. The record book
says that in the history of this great body, in a 2-year period, the
maximum number of filibusters is 57; 57 times in 2 years there was an
effort to stop the debate, stop a nomination, and a filibuster was
initiated.
For those who follow the history of the Senate, they are watching a
historic session. Because in the last year and 4 months, the
Republicans in the Senate have broken the record. They have gone beyond
57 filibusters. At this point, they are now up to 68 Republican
filibusters and still counting. On 68 different occasions, they have
initiated a filibuster to stop us from taking up legislation.
You say to yourself: Maybe that had to be done. Not until you look at
the legislation involved. Two weeks ago, we had something called a
technical corrections bill. This is a bill that notices there were
spelling errors and grammar errors in a highway bill that passed
several years ago. They change it with technical corrections. It
usually is a bill which passes with no debate, no comment, and not even
a record vote. It just goes through when we have to clean up some
problems we had in previous legislation.
In this new era of Republican filibusters, they decided to filibuster
the technical corrections bill. If there was ever an embarrassing
moment in the history of the Senate, it is the notion that we would
filibuster a bill that corrects grammatical and spelling errors, but
they did it. They held the Senate in session for a full week while we
waited to complete the technical corrections bill. Then came the
veterans' health benefits bill. Veterans' health benefits? Is this an
issue anyone contests, that we would not provide all the benefits
promised and all we can afford to the men and women who have served our
country so valiantly and continue to? We brought this bill to the floor
figuring this was an easy one, a bipartisan bill. It would pass. It was
the subject of a Republican filibuster that held that bill on the floor
for a full week.
Time and again, we came to the floor and said to the Republicans: Let
us call up this bill. If you have an amendment, if there is something
you want to change, then let's do it. No. Day after weary day this
``Groundhog Day'' script played out. We got up every morning. We didn't
hear Sonny and Cher. We heard the Republican minority leader singing
the same song every morning: We are going to try to get around to
looking at this bill. Days passed.
If the Senate was paid for piecework as opposed to a general annual
salary, we would be hurting at this point. We don't do much around
here, and that is unfortunate. By the end of the week, after they had
burned another week off the calendar, a week where we didn't consider
the problems with our Nation's energy policy, where we didn't do a
thing about gasoline prices but were stuck in a Republican filibuster,
we had one vote on one amendment and passed the bill virtually
unanimously when it was all over.
There was no controversy.
The object from the Republican side: Slow everything down. Stop it if
you can.
So this week comes another bill. This bill is 288 pages. This is the
reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration. Unfortunately,
it is now subject to a Republican filibuster. A motion for cloture is
about to be filed.
[[Page 7596]]
This week in the Senate, for those who want to keep up with the ongoing
and developing saga of our ``Groundhog Day'' script, Republicans are
blocking safer, more efficient air travel. We have spent the entire
week here and had one vote. I know it is not a secret. It is in the
Congressional Record. But it is embarrassing. We tried time and again
to get Senate Republicans to give us an amendment, call it up for a
vote. Let's get moving on this bill. No, let's wait until next week.
Is there anything else we could have been considering in the Senate
this week? We should have passed this in a hurry. First, it is a
bipartisan bill. Is it necessary or important? For those of us who live
on airplanes, you bet it is. Twenty-five million more passengers flew
on U.S. commercial air carriers last year than the previous year.
Almost 800 million passengers flew on U.S. commercial carriers in 2007,
double the number of 1985. The FAA predicts the aviation system will
transport more than 1 billion airline passengers annually by 2020.
There is a problem though. As modern as the airplanes may be, as new as
some of the airports may be, we are running our air traffic system on
radar that was established during World War II. This technology is not
equipped to handle the volume increase in air travel we anticipate. We
are already seeing it in airports across the country. Passengers are
feeling it in my home State in the great airport at O'Hare, where I
spend a large portion of my waking hours.
U.S. News and World Report placed O'Hare recently at the top of the
airport misery index. In defense of that great airport, we are in the
process of modernizing it and things will get better. But it is fat.
The magazine cited that almost 30 percent of flights in and out of
O'Hare are delayed. One of the main reasons is the incapacity of our
air traffic control system to deal with this increase in volume. We
need to move to a more modern, satellite-based air traffic control
system. This technology, known as NextGen, will give pilots and air
traffic controllers the ability to accurately pinpoint aircraft in the
sky to avoid any problems, to monitor traffic, to move things more
smoothly and efficiently.
The second reason for the increase in delays comes from the lack of
capacity in our airports. O'Hare Airport was designed in the 1950s and
built in that era. It doesn't handle, as it should most efficiently,
the aircraft of today. We have a big expansion under way. But the bill
that has been held up all week in the Senate, a bill that was brought
to us on a bipartisan basis by Senator Jay Rockefeller of West
Virginia, who has worked his heart out to pass this bill, and Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who helped in crafting this bill, will
provide funding for programs to give airports the money they need to
expand and handle the growth in air traffic.
Lastly, the FAA bill also provides important provisions giving
passengers rights when they are stuck in airplanes on the tarmac. Has
it ever happened to you--stuck out there for an hour, if you are lucky?
It used to be a lot longer. There are some horror stories that have
come out of this. I will not go into the details other than to tell you
we try to provide in this bill basic protections for airline
passengers. We never want an airline to hurry into a circumstance that
might compromise safety, but we do believe they should inform their
passengers about what is going on and be mindful of the need for basic
human comforts that passengers need when they are stuck on the runway
for hour after weary hour. That is in this bill. You will not get a
chance, if you look at the Congressional Record of this week, to hear
any debate about it. We did not get to it. We were stuck in a
filibuster--stuck for I think it will be the 69th filibuster of this
senatorial session.
I believed when I came here that this was the world's greatest
deliberative body. Maybe it is self-promotion for us to continue to say
that because we have precious few amendments, very little debate, and
we really lack the kind of legislative activity that has, I guess, been
the hallmark of the Senate for as long as it has existed. We have
ground to a halt because we are facing the slowdown strategy from the
other side of the aisle.
When you think about how many important issues we need to work on for
this country, for the families of this country, important decisions we
need to make, it is sad that the Senate rules allow this to continue.
Well, we will return next Tuesday, after a long weekend. After having
one vote this week, we need a rest. I hope you understand. We will come
back Tuesday in the hopes we can start up this bill again. Maybe in the
second week this bipartisan bill just might draw an amendment from the
other side of the aisle, just might draw some debate on the floor, and
just might get passed, so we can move on to the next issue, which I
believe will be energy policy. And I can just guarantee you, it is
likely to face another filibuster from the Republican side of the
aisle.
The GOP is the, I guess, nickname for the Republican Party. It stands
for the ``Grand Old Party.'' When you watch the progress, or at least
the strategy of the Republicans in the Senate, you come to believe that
GOP stands for ``Graveyard Of Progress.'' That is what they see the
Senate. That is unfortunate.
There is a lot of work we need to do. The American people sent us
here to do it on a bipartisan basis. I hope we can get it done.
I yield the floor.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, the custom is to alternate to each side.
Senator DeMint is here. After he has concluded his remarks, I ask
unanimous consent to be recognized.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, I need to start by expressing my disappointment at the
misleading and distorted information that was just presented on the
floor. Actually, I was amazed at what was just said.
The Commerce Committee had come up with an aviation modernization
bill with strong bipartisan support. But, like many other bills we have
faced with our Democratic colleagues in the majority, some of my
Democratic colleagues chose to add special provisions for some interest
groups and very wasteful and questionable earmarks, tax earmarks, using
unprecedented methods to fund things through changing our Tax Code,
things that there is a lot of consternation about: changing a pension
plan.
The reason this bill has been held up is the majority decided to add
things to it that had nothing to do with aviation. We want this bill to
come through, and it has strong support.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, no, I will not. I have been down here
several times today, and I will continue my remarks. But I will be glad
to have the Senator say anything after I complete my remarks.
The Senator mentioned the technical corrections bill for
transportation. He said this was just typos. This bill added hundreds
of millions of dollars of new earmarks to our transportation budget. It
was not a technical correction bill. It was an opportunity for the
majority and some others to add things that did not need to be a part
of this bill. The Senator even knows, on bills such as consumer product
safety where special provisions were added for manufacturers in that
bill, we had to slow the bill down in order to get those things taken
out.
So there is a reason the majority has not been able to move any
significant legislation. It is because they tend to clutter it up with
wasteful special interest earmarks that need to be taken out.
Hopefully, we can come to an agreement to take out these unnecessary
and unprecedented tax provisions in our aviation modernization bill so
we can get this thing done.
Health Care
Mr. President, I did not come down to talk about aviation
modernization, as I hope the majority will clean this
[[Page 7597]]
bill up so we can get it through. But I want to talk a little bit about
health care.
Health care is a priority for the Nation. Americans deserve access to
affordable health insurance. Yet we are wasting time here and not doing
anything to help with the health care crisis in this country today.
Fortunately, one of our colleagues, John McCain, has come out this
week strongly for a health care plan that would help every American to
be insured. He talks about guaranteed access to health insurance--plans
people can own and can afford and keep, plans they choose for
themselves and that are not chosen by the Government. This is the
direction we need to move.
Unfortunately, my Democratic colleagues--at least many of them--do
not want everyone to be insured with personal health insurance
policies. They would much rather the Government take over the whole
health insurance industry and decide for us what type of health plans
we are going to have. The evidence of this is abundant.
There are a number of efforts Republicans have made to try to improve
access to private health insurance. One is to allow people in this
country to buy health insurance from anywhere in the country. Right
now, they are restricted to buying it in the State where they live. So
a few insurance companies have a monopoly on the business. We have had
a Health Care Choice Act that would give Americans a chance to shop
anywhere in the country. Yet the Democrats have blocked this bill.
Only a couple weeks ago, we had an amendment to the budget bill that
would allow individuals to deduct the cost of health insurance, just as
businesses do. But I believe every Democrat in the Senate voted against
that, to give some kind of fair tax treatment to individuals who are
buying health care. They blocked it. Yet they complain about
individuals being uninsured. They do everything they can to keep
individuals from owning health insurance.
Now the Democrats are trying to destroy health savings accounts. It
started in the House with a bill that will change the way health
savings accounts are set up. The fastest growing way for the uninsured
to get insurance is new types of health plans that have health savings
accounts and insurance, where people can buy most of their health care
with their own dollars or in dollars their employers put in this health
savings account that is tax free. It gives them a lot more choices and
flexibility, and it takes out, importantly, the cost of third-party
administration.
Health savings accounts are a way to restructure health insurance
plans so that every time you go to the doctor or the hospital, there is
not a third-party insurance company filing claims or dealing with
billing and running up the cost of administration. We know today there
are more administrative people in a doctor's office or a hospital than
there are health care providers. The reason for that is, every time we
use the health care system, there is a third party involved, whether it
is private health insurance or Medicaid or Medicare, and there are a
lot of administrative costs.
Health savings accounts not only give people more flexibility, but
they begin to take the cost of administration out of health care. It
allows an individual to make their own decisions with their doctors or
with their pharmacists as to their health care, and they do not need
approval from some health insurance company or from some Government
bureaucrat whether they are going to spend this money. Certainly, the
way health savings account dollars are spent is restricted to real
health care, and that is the way it is working.
But, unfortunately, a company that provides this service of
substantiating the way health care dollars are spent has come to
Washington and convinced Democrats that we need a third party to
determine whether a health savings account spending event can be
substantiated. This is definitely a special interest provision that the
Democrats have bought into. But what it does is it adds the
administrative costs back to health savings accounts and takes away the
flexibility we are giving to individuals.
Keep in mind, people who are uninsured and people who did not have
insurance before and a number of people who are switching from
traditional plans--and we have gone from 1 million people covered by
health savings account-type plans to over 6 million in the last few
years. It is the fastest growing type of health care plan because that
is the kind of plan people want.
Let me just read some statistics. The reason for all this is the
Democrats have inserted, on the House side, in the bill they call the
Taxpayer Assistance and Simplification Act, provisions that would put
an administrative burden on health savings accounts. They are trying to
kill health savings accounts so we will all end up with Government
health care.
I already mentioned that we have gone from 1 million people covered
by health savings account plans in 2005 to over 6 million today.
Thirty-one percent of the people who have these health savings account
plans plus insurance were previously uninsured. Eighty-four percent of
health savings account policies in the group and individual market
provide first-dollar coverage for preventative care. So this claim that
health savings accounts keep people from seeking preventative care is
totally bogus because the plans are designed that when someone seeks
preventative care, diagnostic care, the insurance pays for it and it
does not come out of the health savings account.
Health savings accounts give people better access to the type of
health care they want. We found that it even helps with chronic-disease
management. If people have access to $1,000 or $2,000 more per year to
use the way they need to for their own health, then they can manage
their diabetes or congestive heart failure or other types of illnesses
that are often restricted by traditional health insurance.
I want to encourage my colleagues--my colleagues who really believe
Americans should have the freedom to own their own health insurance and
not have to go to the Government for their health care--to help us
preserve and promote and expand health savings accounts for those who
want them.
I want to make it clear, health savings accounts are health
insurance. They are just health insurance plans that have savings and
insurance with them, so that most of health care can be accessed with
dollars of patients doing direct business with their physician, with
their pharmacist, with the hospital. It will save millions--even
billions--as a nation in administrative costs. Already, Americans have
well over $3 billion saved in health savings accounts for future health
care needs.
This is an idea we need to expand across the country, not to destroy.
I would ask particularly my Democratic colleagues on the Senate side
not to take up this provision that the House included that will hurt
and probably destroy the whole idea of health savings accounts.
Mr. President, I thank the Senator for allowing me to speak, and I
yield back the time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, we are here today in the midst of another
filibuster in which the FAA reauthorization bill is before us, but we
have to wait for a cloture vote and we have to wait many, many days
past, I think, what was appropriate. But it does give us an opportunity
to talk about the issue that is of most concern to Americans at this
moment; that is, the economy.
We have an economy that is heading, unfortunately, toward recession.
Some economists have already declared it here. Over the last few
months, I have spoken about the situation and particularly, I say to
the Presiding Officer, in our home State of Rhode Island where, as we
go about, we are stopped constantly by our constituents, our neighbors,
our friends who, quite rightly, complain about the current economic
situation.
The Senator from Illinois was very accurate and very insightful when
he
[[Page 7598]]
noted that the incomes of most Americans have not risen over the last
decade or more and that these individuals--and we are not talking about
low-income Americans, entry-level workers; we are talking about going
way up close to $100,000 or more--they have seen no real income growth.
But what they have seen is accelerating prices.
Now, for several years, they thought they would be buttressed against
these accelerating prices and slow income growth by the value of their
homes. But, as we know now, we are seeing a huge recession in the real
estate market. The values of homes are beginning to fall. They
certainly are not rising as they were. The foreclosure situation is
deepening everywhere. Again, in Rhode Island, there were traditionally
a few notices each week in the paper. Now it seems there is a whole
section devoted to foreclosures in the Providence Journal. It is
evidence of the worsening of the economic situation.
Now, the pressure of flat wages, flat incomes, housing values
falling--these accelerating prices are becoming very difficult to
endure by Americans everywhere.
According to a review, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center,
fewer Americans now than at any time in the past half century believe
they are moving forward in life.
One of the great aspects of my youth in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s
is not only did families deal with moving forward, they also were of an
unshakeable belief that their children would have a much better life
than they enjoyed. That belief is being shaken today, seriously. Many
parents--again, we are not talking about low-income workers; we are
talking about a range of Americans--believe that unless we take
positive and effective action, we are going to be in a situation where
the next generation of Americans will have it even more difficult than
we do today. That is why it is very difficult to bear these filibusters
because ultimately, this is not about parliamentary maneuvering. It is
about whether we can provide the leadership and the policies to reverse
course in America today and provide for that better future for our sons
and daughters tomorrow.
Seventy-nine percent of Americans today believe it is more difficult
to maintain their middle-class standard of living. In fact, one of the
great hallmarks of this country in the last century was the creation
and the expansion of the middle class. Again, there are many people who
are sensing that the middle class is not expanding any longer, but that
it is shrinking. It is shrinking on the load of increasing prices, flat
incomes, and decelerating housing values. That is not just the sum of
statistics and analysis and reports; that is what people are talking
about everywhere in this country.
In Rhode Island, for example, with respect to prices, the average
price of gasoline is soaring to record levels. Regular unleaded is
currently at more than $3.60 per gallon. Diesel is getting close to
$4.50 per gallon. For our trucking industry, for all of the businesses
that depend on moving their goods around, for the service people who
have to get to their service calls, when prices go up--gasoline and
diesel--that is an additional business cost. It is an additional tax on
them because of, I think, the failed policies of this administration,
and it is a tax that is taking a big bite out of their well-being and
the welfare of their families.
One thing we can do, and I think we should do--we could do it
immediately--is we can refrain, at least temporarily, from filling the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That seems to be a very simpleminded
approach to lessening, at least in a small way, demand for oil at a
time that oil is surging to around $119 per barrel. I think it also
will send a signal that we are at least doing something to relieve the
pressure on working families, and that can be done with the signature
by the President and ordered by the President, and it should be.
At the same time families across this country and businesses across
this country are seeing extraordinary price increases, oil companies
are seeing extraordinary profits. I think we have to take action, and
that action, once again, stalled on the Senate floor several months ago
to eliminate some of the tax breaks that oil companies are receiving. I
thought that at $119 a barrel, there would be sufficient incentives to
go drill, but apparently the oil companies need tax incentives as well.
I thought the market would be working in this case, but apparently it
works in strange ways for these oil companies.
I think we also have to think about a windfall profits tax. We have
huge expenditures. The President, as the Senator from Illinois pointed
out, is sending up a supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq for
billions of dollars. All of that is expended, and yet we can't tax some
of the extraordinary profits of companies that are doing very well and
don't seem to be reinvesting it robustly in drilling or searching for
alternative sources.
I think we also have to protect consumers from price gouging at the
pump, and something else--and that is speculation in the world oil
markets. There are experts who suggest that more than 25 percent of the
cost of crude oil may be the result not of supply and demand but of
market speculation. We need to give the principal regulator for the
energy-commodities markets, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission,
the tools they need to review these transactions and to ferret out
unscrupulous conduct in speculation.
That is why I support the Close the Enron Loophole Act that has been
introduced by Senator Levin. It has been included in the Senate-passed
farm bill, and I continue to advocate that provision should be adopted
very quickly because without it, I don't think we can effectively
provide regulation to a market that is exacting, in some estimates, a
25-percent premium, not because of supply and demand but because there
are financial forces at work speculating in these commodities, and that
speculation will go on until we authorize the appropriate regulatory
authority to begin to supervise, regulate, and review those
transactions.
The price of food is also, in many cases, spinning out of control for
so many working Americans. Since March 2007, the price of eggs has
jumped 35 percent, a gallon of milk is up 23 percent, a loaf of white
bread has gone up 16 percent, and a pound of ground chuck is up 8
percent. Overall, food prices in 2008 are expected to rise 4 to 5
percent, about double the increase of recent years.
Again, this is not just an economic statistic. Talk to the bakers--
and the Presiding Officer knows these families, such as the Calise
family and other families in Rhode Island who have been baking Italian
bread for 70 or 100 years--they have never seen the increase in wheat
prices they have seen over the last several months. It is affecting
their ability to make ends meet for their businesses. When you have
accelerating energy prices, oil prices, gasoline prices, accelerating
commodity prices such as wheat, a business such as that, a family-owned
bakery, it is very difficult. It is extremely difficult for those
families who are struggling to get by to get, frankly, to the
supermarket, fill up their basket, and not walk out very much
impoverished by the experience.
That is why I have requested the Senate Agriculture Committee to hold
a hearing on the food versus fuel balance in U.S. agriculture policy.
We have been encouraging ethanol production. That would bar us using
some of our commodities, our agricultural commodities, but I believe we
have to begin to focus on the tradeoff between energy production and
food production.
I have also sent a letter to the Agriculture Secretary expressing
concern with the cost of wheat, as I indicated, based upon comments I
received from our bakers in Rhode Island, and requested that the
Secretary work with the Environmental Protection Agency and the
Department of Energy to look at the need to develop a mechanism to
balance this tradeoff between food production and fuel production, and
requesting information about how the Department of Agriculture is
managing the wheat stockpile--which is something that will influence
the price of
[[Page 7599]]
wheat--as well as requesting information on how it is monitoring new
speculative investment in commodities and its impact on prices. All of
this has to be done.
What is becoming also more difficult to bear on top of everything we
have talked about--flat income, rising prices, declining home values--
is the fact that now we are seeing unemployment begin to accelerate. In
Rhode Island, we are unfortunately experiencing a 6.1-percent
unemployment rate--higher than the rest of New England. It is causing
real problems, and it is something we have to address. I think we have
to begin to recognize that as we lose jobs, we have to think seriously
about employing people again.
As I mentioned, Rhode Island has a 6.1 percent unemployment rate
right now. It is close to the highest unemployment rate in the United
States, only behind Michigan, Alaska, and California. It is the highest
unemployment rate in Rhode Island since August of 1995, more than 12
years ago. There are 35,100 people in Rhode Island who are unemployed,
and this is a trend that has been going up, unfortunately, not down.
We have also seen a shift in employment recently from February to
March of 2008. In just a single month, 3,100 less people were without
jobs in Rhode Island, a decrease in 3,100 jobs. For a State with a
population of just 1 million, that is a significant factor. It adds not
only to the decline in the unemployment, but the velocity of that
decline. Things seem to be trending much quicker downward than
rebounding.
Now, it is no wonder that the Labor Department announced today that
the number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose to
380,000 nationwide. That is the highest level in 4 years. Today's
announcement concluded that Rhode Island had one of the largest
increases in initial claims numbering 1,779. The direction is
unfortunate, and it is the wrong direction. Approximately half of those
unemployed workers were eligible to collect unemployment insurance
benefits, and of this number, nearly 19 percent face long-term
unemployment.
The number of Rhode Islanders in 2008 who continue to collect
unemployment benefits has also increased--14.1 percent above the number
of the same period last year. As a result of this situation of
deteriorating employment and longer term unemployment, a significant
number of Rhode Islanders are exhausting their benefits. They are
receiving their final payment. That has occurred for more than 1,900
people, and that percentage is increasing also.
All of these numbers suggest something very obvious: more and more
people need unemployment insurance. More and more people are on
unemployment longer. The economy is not responding to their needs. This
economy is not generating jobs, it is shredding jobs. That ultimately
leads to the fact that the benefits run out if we do not extend
unemployment insurance benefits.
Now, I think that is something we have to do. I think we have an
obligation in this economy--which is getting worse, not better--to go
ahead and provide extended unemployment benefits. By the way, these
benefits are one of the best stimulus programs we have because the
proportion of the money that is expended that gets reinvested quickly--
respent in the economy--is significantly higher than other programs.
I was pleased the Senate passed and the President signed into law the
Economic Stimulus Act in February. I voted for this package. It will
provide tax rebate checks. They are on their way out to many families
across the country. But given the historically high unemployment in
Rhode Island and in other parts of the country, I believe we need to do
much more. This is a national problem. It needs attention. That is why
I believe we have to extend unemployment benefits. In those States that
are hit hard by this economic crisis, individuals should be eligible
for benefits for an additional 13 weeks and another 13 weeks of
emergency benefits in States where the unemployment rate is
exceptionally high.
I pressed, as so many did, for inclusion of these extended
unemployment insurance benefits last February, and I commend my
colleagues who have fought also for this benefit, including Senators
Kennedy and Durbin and Stabenow.
As I indicated, many economists have also pointed to the extent of
unemployment benefits as not only something that helps the individual,
but it provides further stimulus for our economy. An extension of these
benefits provides a very high rate of return on the money expended,
generating approximately $1.64 in gross domestic product per dollar
invested in this program. This is especially helpful when we are
looking for ways to get the economy moving again.
We get news each day of declining economic statistics. The last
notice of our gross domestic product for the last quarter was a very
unimpressive .6 percent. We need urgent action to move the economy. We
need urgent action to help families who are struggling. They have
worked. They have worked hard, and they are running out of their
benefits. We can't run out on them.
That is why we need an economic stimulus package that will not only
recognize obligations overseas, but we will recognize obligations at
home. I hope we will enact a very robust extension of unemployment
benefits for all Americans.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
Ethanol
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I appreciate hearing my colleague from
Rhode Island. I am standing here thinking: Thank goodness we have
ethanol. Without ethanol--we are supplying 8 percent of our fuel
needs--it would drive up gasoline prices another 15 percent. I am
certainly pleased we have that.
We had a hearing in the Joint Economic Committee today on the price
of corn and its impact on food prices. It is interesting from the
standpoint that economists are putting it in front of us that a 40-
percent increase in corn prices would only lead to a 1.3-percent
increase in the price of food, and that is because corn goes into a
whole bunch of different substances. Thankfully, with the corn-based
ethanol we have, we are holding gasoline prices down approximately 15
percent.
A Merrill Lynch analyst estimated oil and gasoline prices would be 15
percent higher, or $4.14 a gallon at today's prices, if biofuel
producers weren't increasing their output. That is significant in this
marketplace. Thankfully, we have that.
I also note that on wheat prices something is significant in Kansas.
We have had a fall of $4 a bushel in the price of wheat since January,
from $12 a bushel to $8 a bushel. Plus, in a loaf of bread, you
probably have 10 cents' worth of wheat. I hope they would say the farm
is not the problem in the system.
Our oil prices are high and we need to hold them down. Part of the
answer to that is domestic production--more oil and gas production in
the United States but also biofuels. That is not the reason I came to
the floor to speak. It was a good use of time to be able to put that in
the Record, though, because we are going to debate, apparently, the
role of biofuels in the economy and around the world. I wanted to note
it has a positive impact.
Mr. President, I will speak on the FAA reauthorization bill. I thank
the chairman and ranking member of the relevant committees for bringing
to the floor a balanced FAA reauthorization bill. It takes into account
the needs of the air traffic control system and pays for them and
distributes that in a fair manner.
I am not pleased we are not able to move the bill forward. I wish it
wasn't loaded up with extraneous provisions but, rather, that it would
stay with the FAA.
I am particularly happy to see the bill contains no user fees for the
general aviation industry. It would have placed an inordinate burden on
what has been and continues to be a thriving American industry, a true
domestic manufacturing success story. I might note to people here and
those watching, we are recruiting for jobs. We need
[[Page 7600]]
people in this industry. We have a number of manufacturing jobs in my
State. I have traveled around and they are saying we need more people
coming in to work. Some in Hays, KS, were telling me they need a
thousand people for jobs they have.
The aircraft industry is recruiting individuals and, hopefully, we
can keep that moving forward with a good FAA reauthorization bill. I
think it helps the industry further if you don't put a tax on the
industry; it will hurt it. This is a domestic industry, and we need to
take care of it.
Importantly, however, this bill provides for the needed upgrade of
our Nation's air traffic control system, which has been outdated for
many years and the technology is outpaced by many countries around the
world. That should not be the case.
Aviation and manufacturing are very important to my State. We have
five major aviation companies located there, including Cessna, Hawker
Beechcraft, Bombardier Learjet, Spirit AeroSystems, and Boeing
Integrated Defense Systems.
The aviation industry has a huge ripple effect. Every manufacturing
job created adds 2.9 other jobs. It is a vibrant industry that, for the
first time this past year, exported more of its product than it sold
domestically. This is the first time we have been able to do that.
However, I wish to note some disturbing trends on things I think we
need to attack so we don't lose this domestic industry. This is one
that a lot of people in the world are trying to get a big piece of.
Honda is coming into the aviation manufacturing sector, and others are
coming into it. It has high-paying manufacturing jobs of a key product
used around the world.
In 1985, the United States produced 80 percent of the world's new
aircraft. This past year, that number was down to 60 percent--from 80
to 60 percent. There is increasing competition, and I hope we can
address this trend as we move forward. To that end, I intend to offer
an amendment to the bill that would create a blue-ribbon commission of
experts in aviation manufacturing to study the current trends in the
industry and recommend ways in which we, as a Government, can respond
to those trends and ensure the vibrancy of this important commercial
sector.
Parenthetically, one of the things we should not be doing is
exporting our aviation defense jobs--such as sending the major tanker
contract to Europe and to Airbus, rather than having it done in the
United States. This is a major battle that will engulf this Congress--
whether that $40 billion contract, that the base plane should be an
Airbus plane, made primarily in Europe, or if the base plane should be
a plane primarily made in the United States. It is a key part of the
long-term trends of this industry, and we are already losing a lot of
that, even as the industry continues to do well and is exporting well.
We are not maintaining the market share we have had internationally
because the Europeans, through government subsidies, are buying into
this, and other countries are following as well.
I think as we look for what can help support our overall exports in
our economy, aircraft sales can continue to be that. Presently, they
provide a $56 billion trade surplus for our country. We sold $76
billion in airplanes and parts to foreign buyers. I think we need to
watch and I think we need to be very aggressive to protect and see that
this industry grows. One of the needed things is the FAA
reauthorization program. We need a modern air traffic control system,
and we need to have a fee structure that doesn't penalize general
aviation.
There is one final note. One of my colleagues from Missouri is
talking about bringing up an amendment that I think would have some
positive impact on a repair and maintenance program but would have in
it some features--if it continues in the way I have seen it--that could
harm our aviation industry domestically. If that amendment comes up, we
are going to look very critically at it, with the possibility of
putting forward second-degree amendments to make sure we don't
unintentionally harm the domestic U.S. aviation industry.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Military Housing
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, there is a colossal waste of
taxpayers' money that is occurring at Patrick Air Force Base in the
State of Florida near my home of Melbourne, FL. Happily, the Senate
Armed Services Committee has addressed the issue to try to expose the
spotlight on the problem to get the U.S. Air Force to come clean as to
what has happened in this huge fiasco of waste of taxpayers' money.
It is born out of the privatization of housing for military families.
Throughout the country, there has been some success at other military
bases, but on a particular contractor, a contractor who got the
contract to build housing for the Air Force on four Air Force bases,
including Patrick Air Force Base and three others in other places such
as Georgia and Arkansas, the contractor went belly up and now, in order
to try to keep some semblance of housing being built, what is happening
is the Air Force now wants to use all of the land that is supposed to
be for housing at Patrick Air Force Base as the equity to build the
houses on the other bases in three other States.
You will be surprised when I tell you how bad this is. There were 300
acres on the barrier island south of Patrick Air Force Base. This is in
the town of Satellite Beach in Florida. It is near Cape Canaveral and
the Cape Canaveral Air Force station. The 300 acres were basically
given by the Air Force to a joint venture, a corporation, that included
this developer that ultimately went bust. The deal was so bad that the
Air Force agrees, of the 300 acres, they are going to outright give 100
acres to the developer. The developer goes off and sells it for
something like $13 million or $15 million and pockets the cash. On the
remaining 200 acres the developer is supposed to build 550 new homes
for airmen and their families and commensurately tear down the old
dilapidated housing that had been there for several decades.
The developer only builds 163 houses and then stops, and all these
other old dwellings are there, of which the developer has the authority
to rent on the market, and since they are run down, almost slum-like
conditions, you can imagine the kind of tenants you are now getting
living next to Air Force families.
The Air Force's idea of rescuing this is to say we are going to take
that remaining 200 acres, we are going to give it to a new developer,
and that equity is going to help that developer build additional
houses, but not at Patrick, no, in these three other States.
So Patrick Air Force Base and our Air Force families who thought they
were going to get 550 new homes now only have 163 homes sitting next to
slum dwellings, and the Air Force is going to give away the rest of
this 200 acres?
Well, something smells awfully fishy. Fortunately, this has come to
this Senator's attention. I am happy to say I had to strain and grunt a
little bit to get my point of view across to the Senate Armed Services
Committee yesterday in a markup, but when the test came on a recorded
vote, it was 22 to 0 in favor of the amendment that would require the
Air Force to do a cost-benefit study before they can transfer the
property. That is the policy set forth in the Defense authorization
bill.
I want to say a word to the U.S. Air Force: No, technically, you
don't have to pay attention because legally you can go on and transfer
that property now because our Defense authorization bill is not law. It
has only been passed out of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But it
is going to be law once it gets through the House and the Senate and
goes to the President for signature.
[[Page 7601]]
I strongly suggest to the U.S. Air Force, and I am memorializing
these comments in a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force, Secretary
Wynne: Withhold, forbear on any transfer of the title to a new
developer utilizing that very valuable asset of barrier island,
oceanfront land until you do the cost-benefit analysis so we can bring
this out into the full light of day and we will know how we can best
protect the taxpayers' investment.
We want to serve the U.S. airmen and their families, we want to serve
the U.S. taxpayers and their families, and the best way to do that is
get this story out in the open with this cost-benefit analysis.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Florida). The distinguished
Senator from Vermont is recognized.
Energy
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, in the last several weeks in a number of
venues, I have met with hundreds, in fact thousands, of Vermonters, and
to nobody's great surprise, the issue that is uppermost on their minds
is the very high price of gas and the price of oil. I know that is true
in all 50 States in this country and in thousands of communities. It is
especially true in rural States because in rural States, especially
cold-weather States, it is not uncommon for people to travel 50 miles
to their jobs and then 50 miles back. If you drive 100 miles to work,
the mileage runs up.
I should mention, I know it probably didn't snow in Florida, but it
did snow in Vermont. We had a small amount of snow. That simply
indicates that people know when it gets cold in Vermont it gets very
cold. We have a lot of elderly people right now wondering how they are
going to heat their homes next winter. We have a combination of working
people in a rural State--this is true all over rural America--paying
outrageously high prices in order to get to work and, in colder weather
States, people very worried about whether they can stay warm next
winter.
The arithmetic is not really hard to figure out. If you put 25,000
miles on your car going to work every year and you are paying a buck
more than you used to and you get 25 miles per gallon on your car, that
is a thousand dollars. If you make $30,000 a year and you get a 3-
percent raise, that is 900 bucks. So all of your raise, all of your
cost-of-living increase on your job is now in your gas tank. That is
happening to millions of American workers. Then these same workers are
paying more for health care, are paying more for food, more for
education, which, added together, is why the middle class in America is
collapsing.
For many years, as good-paying jobs have gone to China, as our people
are struggling to make ends meet, people have been worried about how
they are going to survive economically. On top of that, we now have the
foreclosure crisis and we have the escalating cost of gas and oil in
this country, which then leads some 80 percent of the people in this
country to believe this country is going in the wrong direction, and
one wonders, really, what the other 20 percent are thinking. Clearly,
for the middle class in this country, we are facing a very serious
problem.
I did an interesting thing a few weeks ago in Vermont. We were having
some town meetings on the economy. We brought a professor from Harvard
Law School, one of the best writers in America on the economy. Her name
is Elizabeth Warren.
In preparation for that meeting, we sent out an e-mail to people in
my State and said: Tell me what is going on in terms of the collapse of
the middle class and how that impacts your life. Frankly, we expected a
few dozen people to reply. As of today, we have received over 700
responses. This is doubly surprising because in Vermont people are
quite reticent, not wanting to talk about personal aspects of their
lives--700 people. I recommend you and Members of the Senate read some
of these responses. They are up on our Web site. The tales people are
telling are heartbreaking, they are poignant, they come from the heart,
and there are hundreds of them.
Let me just read a few segments of some of the letters we have
received and how they touch on gas prices and the general collapse of
the middle class in our country.
We are hard-working people. We want to pay our bills. We
want to keep what we worked so hard for. The constantly
increasing cost of gas, oil, groceries are drowning us. I
hear the same thing from most of our friends on a daily
basis--hanging on by a thread, robbing Peter to pay Paul. It
is such a stressful way to live. There are days when I get so
discouraged I just want to call the banks and say just take
it all. I don't have it in me to fight for it anymore.
This is a family in the State of Vermont.
Here is another one. This comes from an elderly couple in Vermont:
My wife and I are both 77, retired and living on a very
limited income. We live in the country, and driving the 60-
plus miles round trip for shopping and health care has become
a financial hardship.
Traveling 60 miles for shopping and health care has become a
financial hardship.
Even though we drive a car that gets 35 miles to the
gallon, a tankful of gas eats up an awfully large amount of
our disposable income.
That is true all over America. You have older people who
get in their car, they go out to buy groceries, they go to
the doctor, and suddenly they are finding that just getting
into their car and going where they have gone their whole
lives is now a very expensive proposition, in this case
eating up a large part of their disposable income.
Another family writes:
I live in the Northeast Kingdom, which is a very rural area
in the northern part of Vermont near the Canadian border, and
I have to drive a 30-mile round trip to work in Morrisville
and even farther to Stowe, where most of the jobs are now.
With the gas prices high and most employers paying $8.50 to
maybe $10 per hour, you spend much of your paycheck traveling
to and from work.
In other words, in the real world, there are millions of people in
rural Vermont and all over this country and in Florida who are making
$8.50, $9, $10 an hour, and if you are paying $3.50 a gallon to get to
work and you have to travel any kind of distance, what do you have
left? Not a lot.
The average price for a gallon of gas recently hit a recordbreaking
$3.62 a gallon, which is more than double what it was when President
Bush first took office. The price of diesel fuel is now averaging over
$4.17 a gallon, which is more than $1.36 higher than it was just a year
ago. The price of oil is now $110 a barrel. I think these prices say it
all. They tell every Member or should tell every Member of Congress
what the American people understand, which is that we have a national
emergency on our hands. If we do not act boldly and rapidly to lower
gas and oil prices, the economic situation for millions of working
families will only deteriorate even further.
What we are talking about is not just the worker who can't afford to
fill up his gas tank, it is the entire economy. It is small businesses,
it is farmers, it is truckers. The trucking industry is convoluting
right now with these high prices. It is the increased cost of
groceries, it is tourism. People come to Vermont and people go to
Florida to enjoy vacations. They are not going to be able to drive
there with these prices. In fact, what we are looking at is a major
economic crisis impacting every segment of our economy.
Sadly, as in so many other areas regarding the needs of ordinary
Americans, when it comes to gas prices the Bush-Cheney administration
is just not there. This is an administration where, in area after area,
you can count on them to stand up with the large multinational
corporations. You can count on them protecting the wealthiest people in
the country. Now, when the middle class is in crisis, when people
cannot afford the rapidly rising costs of gas and oil, they are nowhere
to be found.
What is particularly interesting, of course, as most people know, is
both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have backgrounds in the
oil industry. That is what they did before they assumed the Presidency
and Vice Presidency.
Ironically--and this would really be almost funny if it weren't so
sad--when President Bush ran for office in the year 2000, he touted his
experience in oil as one of the reasons he should be
[[Page 7602]]
elected President. He knew the oil industry. He would make the energy
situation better based on his experience.
Here is a direct quote from what candidate Bush said in the year
2000, in his first campaign, regarding how he would improve our
relations with some of the OPEC countries. This is what he said:
I will use the capital that my administration will earn
with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis and convince them to open the
spigot.
That is what candidate George Bush said in the year 2000.
Then he said, also in that campaign:
The President of the United States must jawbone OPEC
Members to lower the price.
End of quote from candidate George Bush in the year 2000. That was 8
years ago. When then-candidate Bush made those comments, the price of
oil was $30 a barrel. Today, after 7\1/2\ years of the Bush-Cheney
administration, the price of oil is now $110 a barrel.
It seems to me that it is imperative that among many other things,
many other actions Congress must take, one of them is to do what
President Bush talked about in 2000 but never did, and that is we must
demand that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait produce the kind of oil they can.
We must also move forward as a Congress to address the reality that
OPEC is a cartel. That is their reason for existence. A cartel is
formed in collusion in order, in this case, to prevent production of
oil, control the production of oil in order to artificially keep prices
high.
This Congress must demand two things: that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
and other OPEC members increase their production so we can lower
prices, and second, we must be aggressive in telling the World Trade
Organization that OPEC is a cartel; it must be disbanded.
Back to President Bush.
In 2004, when Saudi Arabia led the fight within OPEC to cut
production and raise prices, the Miami Herald reported that President
Bush ``refused to lean on the oil cartel'' and ``refused to even
personally lobby OPEC leaders to change their minds.''
It is true that last January President Bush did visit Saudi Arabia to
ask OPEC nations to increase production, but guess what. The Associated
Press reported that President Bush's request was ``ignored.''
In 2000, as a candidate, he told us he was going to open the spigot,
he was going to get them to produce more oil, but that, of course, has
not happened.
Last March, after meeting with Saudi Arabia's oil minister, the Wall
Street Journal reported that ``Vice President Dick Cheney suggested
there is little more Saudi Arabia can do to increase oil production and
relieve price pressures in global markets.'' But Stephen Brown, the
energy economist at the Federal Reserve, has disputed this. He has said
that ``Saudi Arabia is restraining its production, probably by about
1.8 million barrels a day. And OPEC is probably holding back 2.3
million barrels a day altogether.'' In other words, despite all of the
rhetoric from President Bush, all of his experience in the oil
industry, the reality is that Saudi Arabia is not producing the kind of
oil it should be producing and we are hurting as a result of that.
Many of us are tired of waiting for the Bush administration to act.
Congress must act. There are a number of things we must do in order to
lower the price of gas and oil in this country. One of them is to
demand that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other OPEC countries start
producing the quantity of oil we know they can produce.
That is one thing we can do, but it is certainly not enough. The
national oil emergency we currently face in our country and in many
other countries demands both short-term and long-term solutions.
Long term, I think many people in the Senate and the vast majority of
the American people understand that we must break our dependency on
fossil fuel. We must move to energy efficiency. We must move to such
sustainable energies as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and others.
In my view, the potential is absolutely staggering in terms of the
amount of energy we can produce through sustainable energy and the
amount of energy we can save through energy efficiency.
Not only that, obviously we need to significantly improve public
transportation. Our railroads today lag far behind Europe and Japan. In
doing that, building a broad mass-transportation system, we can break
our dependency on the automobile.
In terms of automobiles, people are just now beginning--and we must
help them--to move to electric cars, move to hybrid plug-in cars. There
is just enormous potential out there. Clearly, that is the long-term
solution of where we have to go.
But I sometimes hear my friends coming here and they talk about a
long-term solution and yet they forget about what is going on in
America today for a family making $30,000 or $40,000 a year, and maybe
they have two cars because they have two workers, and those people are
going broke today.
So I do not think it is an either/or. I think we have got to be
aggressive right now in moving toward energy efficiency and sustainable
energy, but we have also got to be aggressive today in lowering the
price of gas and oil. It is not an either/or. We move forward in
parallel tracks.
One of the steps we have to take is to put pressure on OPEC nations
to increase the production of oil. I think also we have got to break up
OPEC, and let the free market work in that area. But that is only one
of the things we have got to do.
Second, I believe it is absolutely imperative that we impose a
windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industry. The American people
do not understand, nor do I understand, why they are paying record-
breaking prices at the gas pump, while ExxonMobil has made more in
profits than any corporation in the history of the world for the past 2
consecutive years.
I know ExxonMobil and their propaganda machine will no doubt explain
it. But the average person does not believe it and the average person
should not believe it. ExxonMobil and the other major oil companies are
ripping off the American people. That is clear. We need a windfall
profits tax to address that.
Last year alone, ExxonMobil made $40 billion in profits, and rewarded
its CEO Rex Tillerson with a $21 million compensation package. That is
nothing. He is getting shortchanged, because the guy who went before
him, when he retired--his name was Lee Raymond--got a $400 million
retirement package. So my suggestion to Mr. Tillerson is: Go back to
your board. You are getting ripped off 21 million bucks. How are you
going to make it on that?
Here you have a company charging record-breaking prices, having given
its former CEO a few years ago $400 million in a retirement package.
But ExxonMobil is not alone. Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP
have also been making out like bandits. In fact, the five largest oil
companies in this country have made over $600 billion in profits since
George W. Bush has been President. Not bad, $600 billion in profits in
7.5 years. And people in Vermont and Florida cannot afford to fill
their gas tanks.
Last year alone, the major oil companies in the United States made
over $155 billion in profits and, not surprisingly, those profits
continue to soar. Today, ExxonMobil reported a 17-percent increase in
profits, totaling $10.9 billion, $10.9 billion for one quarter.
Earlier this week, however, BP, British Petroleum, announced a 63-
percent increase in their profits. Shell's first quarter profits jumped
by 25 percent to over $9 billion; one quarter, 3 months.
ConocoPhillips' profits increased by over 16 percent in the first
quarter to over $4 billion.
It is hard to come up with the words to describe it, because I know,
and I am sure you know, Mr. President, the problems middle-class people
are facing today and what these high oil and gas prices are meaning to
families, and at the same time this is going on, these major oil
companies are enjoying obscene levels of profit. With their profits,
among many other things, they are very lavish in the kind of benefits
and salaries they provide their CEOs. Last year, Occidental Petroleum,
one of the ``smaller'' companies, gave its CEO
[[Page 7603]]
$34.2 million in total compensation. The CEO of Anadarko Petroleum
received $26 million. Chevron's CEO made $15 million, as did
ConocoPhillips' CEO. He made $15.1 million in compensation.
Let me be clear. I believe oil companies should be allowed to make a
reasonable profit and CEOs of big oil companies should enjoy decent
compensation. That is a tough job and they should earn a good salary.
But they should not be allowed to rip off the American people at the
gas pump, especially at this moment in our history when the middle
class is stressed out and in many ways collapsing.
The time has come to impose a windfall oil tax on those companies so
they cannot continue to gouge the ordinary people of our country.
Unfortunately, however, imposing a windfall profits tax on big oil will
not be easy. I think we all know the reason, and that is, since 1998
the oil and gas industry has spent over $616 million on lobbyists.
And dare I say that right now on the floors of the Senate, and on the
floors of the House, you have very well paid lobbyists, former
congressional leaders, big-time law firms, floating all over this place
right now trying to convince Members of the House and the Senate to
leave big oil alone. Not only have they spent, since 1998, $616 million
on lobbying; since 1990 they have spent over $213 million in campaign
contributions. That is the way the world goes--lobby, campaign
contributions from powerful multinational corporations.
What is the end result? Their profits are soaring and ordinary
Americans are hurting. The time has come, it seems to me, for the
Senate to stand with working families all over this country, to have
the courage to stand up to this very powerful industry and say ``yes''
to a windfall profits tax and ``no'' to the continued urges of the oil
and gas industry to pat them on the back and do nothing.
While it is true that oil companies and their executives are making
money hand over fist, it is also true they are not the only culprits in
this situation. We must begin focusing on the very powerful speculators
and hedge fund managers who have also been making obscene sums of money
by speculating on futures and driving an unregulated market up and up
and up.
There are some people who estimate, in fact, that half of the
increase in oil costs is attributable to the cost of production but to
the speculation that takes place.
In my view, Congress must act to rein in greedy speculators by
closing what has been referred to as the Enron loophole and increasing
oversight over the energy futures industry.
The Enron loophole was created in 2000 as part of the Commodity
Futures Modernization Act. At the behest of Enron lobbyists, a
provision in this bill was inserted in the dark of night and with no
congressional hearings. Specifically, the Enron loophole exempts
electronic energy trading from Federal commodities laws. Virtually
overnight, the loophole freed over-the-counter energy trading from
Federal oversight requirements, opening the door to excessive
speculation and energy price manipulation. Since the Enron loophole has
been in effect, crude oil prices jumped from $33 a barrel in 2000,
after adjusting for inflation, to over $110 a barrel today.
Last January, a veteran oil analyst at Oppenheimer estimated there is
as much as a $57 a barrel ``speculative premium'' on the price of oil.
In other words, he estimates that about half of the price of a barrel
of oil is due not to the production and distribution of that product
but simply to speculation.
The CEO of Marathon Oil said late last year that $100 oil is not
justified by the physical demand in the market. In other words, those
guys see that the price of oil is being driven up by speculation.
Closing the Enron loophole would subject electronic energy markets to
proper regulatory oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
to prevent price manipulation and excessive speculation.
I thank Senators Levin and Feinstein. I know Senator Dorgan and
others have been involved in producing legislation and ideas to close
this loophole. We must move forward and pass that type of legislation
as soon as possible.
In addition--and this is an issue where there appears to be a degree
of bipartisan support--some of our Republican friends also agree the
Bush administration must stop the flow of oil into the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve, and in my view, my view, immediately release oil
from this Federal stockpile to reduce gas prices.
This action has been taken in the past. It is not a new idea. Goldman
Sachs has estimated that continuing to fill the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve has increased gas prices at the pump by as much as 25 cents a
gallon, and that clearly is unacceptable.
Releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the past, under
both Democratic and Republican administrations has, in fact, lowered
the price of gas and crude oil. For example, when President Clinton
ordered the release of 30 million barrels from the SPR in 2000, the
price of gas fell by 14 cents a gallon in 2 weeks.
When President George H.W. Bush, the first President Bush, released
13 million barrels of crude oil from the SPR in 1991, crude oil prices
dropped by over $10 per barrel.
Let me conclude by saying that the issue we are dealing with today,
in my view, is not only the high price of gas and oil. As serious as
that is, and as much impact as that is having on our economy, the
deeper issue here is the degree to which people in our country, the
hard-working citizens of our country, will or will not continue to have
faith that their Government represents them.
It is no secret that President Bush will likely go down in history as
perhaps the least popular President and, in my view, one of the worst
Presidents we have ever had. But it is also true that the ratings of
this Congress are extraordinarily low; they are even lower than where
President Bush is.
I think the reason for that is people are suffering terrible problems
right now. In almost every area you can think of, this country is going
in the wrong direction. The middle class is hurting. We talked about
oil prices, food prices, the loss of good-paying jobs, the health care
system, Social Security falling apart, people are paying 25, 30 percent
interest rates on credit cards. People are in trouble. In a Democratic
society, when people are in trouble, they look to the people whom they
elected, to their Government, to protect their interests. They are
looking to Washington right now. They are looking here. They are
hurting, and they are asking whether the Congress of the United States
has the courage to stand up to the very powerful financial interests
which have so much influence over what goes on here.
So I hope very much we have the courage to once again earn the
confidence of the American people, that we understand the pain they are
feeling, and that we act properly, that we lower gas prices, that we
lower oil prices.
We can do this with bold action, and we can move this country to a
new energy policy dealing with energy efficiency and sustainable
energy. I think the American people want us to do that. I think that
is, in fact, what we should do.
I yield the floor, and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is really difficult for me to comprehend
the reasoning of my friends on the other side of the aisle. All week we
have done nothing. One of the most important bills that has been
brought before this body this year, the Federal Aviation Administration
reauthorization, as we speak there are thousands of airplanes going all
across the United States. The equipment that allows those airplanes to
take off and land is antiquated and way out of line for making air
travel in
[[Page 7604]]
America as safe as it should be. This legislation is very important and
would be good for America, good for passengers.
We have in this legislation the passengers bill of rights, money to
replace antiquated equipment. But the Republicans have stopped us from
legislating. We have tried virtually everything.
I wanted to have an orderly process, which I think is not
unreasonable. So last night I said: We have filled the different trees
to allow amendments, but if you want to offer one, come on. No.
I said: Well, give us a list of the amendments you want to offer. No.
They said: Bunning has an amendment. Let us see it. That went on all
day yesterday. Finally, they told us today the subject matter of that
particular amendment. When I learned about the subject matter, I said
fine. It is something about coal being changed so they can use the fuel
for flying airplanes. No.
I said: I will tell you what we will do. We will take down the tree.
You can offer anything you want. No.
We heard what they didn't like were provisions that would allow rail
service in this country to be updated and modernized. They didn't want
that. There was some language in the bill that would do something to
help make highway safety paramount. Don't want that. Offer an amendment
to take it out. No.
Finally, I came to the conclusion that their objection was to a
provision contained in the President's budget. I couldn't make up a
story that is more ridiculous than the one I am relating, which is the
truth. There is a provision in this bill that gives the State of New
York the final amount of $20 billion that was promised them after 9/11
by President Bush. That amount of money is in his budget for this year,
which he gave us. I talked to the distinguished Republican leader and
said: Offer an amendment to take it out. This is in the President's
budget. We still oppose it, is what I was told.
So it is obvious. The Republicans don't want to do anything to
improve, to modernize the Federal Aviation Administration. I hope
people who are within the sound of my voice think about that when they
are flying across the country.
We are not going to be able to do it this year, more than likely.
There will be room made in the schedule by the Republicans to take up
$170-odd billion for funding the war in Iraq from now until a year from
this June. With glad hands, they will all come to the Senate floor and
spend more money in Iraq. I guess they don't want to pull the plug on
spending $5,000 every second. Maybe they are trying to up the ante. I
will have more to say about this tomorrow, but it is really a
disappointment.
This is not a victory for the Republicans to maintain the status quo,
is it? Of course not. Would it be a big victory for the Democrats to
pass the Federal aviation reauthorization? No. It would be something
good for the American people. I hope the American public sees this for
what it is. We Democrats are in the majority. It is a slim majority. It
is 51 to 49. The Republicans obviously are upset over the fact that we
are in the majority. They want the record to show that this Congress
accomplished nothing.
In spite of the obstacles and their obstruction, we have still
accomplished quite a few things. We are proud of what we have
accomplished, considering all the hoops we had to go through to get
where we did.
I never give up hope. I hope there will be a new day in Washington
starting next week. One way we can have a new day: We give all the
blame to the Republicans in the Senate. They certainly are the ones who
are on the firing lines. But do you know how much it would mean if the
man down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would call the Republican leader
and say our country needs this FAA reauthorization? We need it. The
President could call down here and break this logjam, as he could have
done on all the other legislation they have stopped. How in the world
do these people go to bed at night not worrying about the air traffic
system falling apart, because it is going to. It is in desperate shape.
Out in this parking lot there are new automobiles that have GPS
systems in them. That is better equipment than the FAA has moving all
the airplanes around the country.
Cloture Motions
I send a cloture motion to the desk to the substitute amendment No.
4627.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on the substitute
amendment No. 4627 to H.R. 2881, the FAA reauthorization.
Harry Reid, John D. Rockefeller IV, Barbara Boxer, Kent
Conrad, Patrick J. Leahy, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Mark L.
Pryor, Sherrod Brown, Patty Murray, Ken Salazar, Max
Baucus, Thomas R. Carper, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon
Whitehouse, E. Benjamin Nelson, Richard Durbin, Blanche
L. Lincoln, Daniel K. Inouye.
Mr. REID. I now send to the desk a cloture motion on the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on H.R. 2881, the FAA
reauthorization.
Harry Reid, John D. Rockefeller IV, Barbara Boxer, Kent
Conrad, Patrick J. Leahy, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Mark L.
Pryor, Sherrod Brown, Patty Murray, Ken Salazar, Max
Baucus, Thomas R. Carper, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon
Whitehouse, Blanche L. Lincoln, E. Benjamin Nelson,
Richard Durbin, Daniel K. Inouye.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture
vote on the substitute amendment No. 4627 occur at 2:30 p.m., Tuesday,
May 6; further, that the mandatory quorums for both motions be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are not.
____________________
MORNING BUSINESS
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to
speak for up to 10 minutes each.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
REMEMBERING JOHNNY H. KILLIAN
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am saddened to learn that Mr. Johnny H.
Killian has passed away. Mr. Killian was a highly regarded, highly
admired, and highly utilized specialist in American public law at the
Congressional Research Service. For more than four decades, he advised
Members of Congress and our staffs on constitutional issues.
He had an encyclopedic knowledge of constitutional principles that
was based on his astute mind, his many years of unbiased research, and
his keen analytical skills. With his prodigious memory, he could
provide guidance and cite, in detail, case law pertaining to nearly all
of the key constitutional issues that came before the Senate. My staff
and I depended on him for assistance and advice on a number of issues,
including the line-item veto, the War Powers Act, eminent domain,
prayer in schools, federal funding for education, and privacy
protections under the fourth amendment.
I always appreciated the level of dedication and pride Mr. Killian
took
[[Page 7605]]
in his work. He was never too busy to answer the phone or return a
call. He worked tirelessly to make certain that lawmakers and their
staffs stayed always attuned to the original intent of the Framers.
When presented with a question or a request, he responded quickly and
with an amazing grasp of specifics, and with thorough information, even
when presented with an unusual inquiry late in the evening, on a
weekend, or even during a holiday or when he was ill at home.
All of this professionalism was enhanced by the fact that Mr. Killian
was such a pleasant person with whom to work. He was soft-spoken,
courteous, and a dedicated public servant. He was a man of incredible
patience and kindness, with a warm sense of humor.
Mr. Killian will be truly missed by his Senate family, but his legacy
as an academic, and a researcher, blessed with an extraordinary legal
mind will be with us for a long time. Senators will remember him for a
lifelong, commitment to the Constitution.
Mr. President, I extend my most heartfelt condolences to his family
and many friends.
____________________
ROTUNDA COMMEMORATION
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, today as this Congress commemorated our
National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance for 2008 in the
Rotunda of the Capitol of our Nation, Joshua B. Bolten, the Chief of
Staff of President Bush, delivered the keynote address.
I note that Josh Bolten noted he will travel with President Bush
later this month to Israel to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the
founding of Israel, which he pointed out occurred just 3 years after
the Holocaust.
I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Bolten's remarks be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[Remarks by Joshua B. Bolten, May 1, 2008]
Days of Remembrance
(United States Capitol Rotunda)
I am deeply honored to be at this podium today, to speak
about anniversaries and the moral obligation of memory.
Many who have stood here before me have spoken from their
own memory, telling their most personal of stories--the years
of suffering, the loss of loved ones, survival and the
anguish of haunting memories. I have no such stories to tell.
My Jewish grandparents left Europe before the Holocaust,
bestowing on my parents the gift of being born in this land
of freedom.
But I do stand here as the proud son of a brave young
American soldier, decorated for the valor that led to his
capture by Nazi forces. Imprisoned in a German POW camp for
two years, he refused to hide the dog tag that bore the
letter H (for Hebrew). Twenty-five years later, working at
the White House near the end of a distinguished career of
national service, my father shepherded the work of the
President's Commission on the Holocaust and helped bring to
fruition the first of these National Days of Remembrance
ceremonies, and ultimately the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
itself.
We gather at this 29th Days of Remembrance ceremony in a
year and season of grim anniversaries. It has been almost
exactly 75 years since the Nazis organized a massive
nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses that inflamed anti-
Semitism throughout Germany. 70 years since Kristallnacht,
the night of brutality that, as Fred Zeidman eloquently
described, exposed to the world Nazi intentions toward the
Jews. 65 years since the Warsaw uprising, as Joel Geiderman
reminded us, the best known of many episodes of heroic
resistance.
Passover, which ended just a few days ago, commemorates the
liberation of Jews from slavery in Egypt thousands of years
ago. So 65, 70, even 75 years in our history is not so long a
time. But it is almost a lifetime. Had Mordecai Anielewicz,
the young commander of the Warsaw uprising, survived, he
would be almost 90 today.
With the passage of time, the Rescuers, the Liberators, and
the Survivors--like those whom we're blessed to have with us
today--are naturally dwindling in numbers. Earlier this year,
we lost the beloved Congressman Tom Lantos (so well
remembered just now by Ambassador Meridor), whose experiences
as a Survivor gave extra gravity to his powerful calls to
conscience.
We are transitioning from living memory to historical
memory, and that places a great burden of responsibility on
the rest of us. As the witnesses to the witnesses, we carry
the moral obligation of memory.
And what is that obligation? Surely it is more than fixing
blame--for just as the generation of Survivors, Rescuers and
Liberators dwindles, so must the Perpetrators, Collaborators
and Bystanders. But why must we remember in such painful
detail?
In his introduction to the presidential commission report
that my father helped shepherd, Elie Wiesel gave an eloquent
answer: First, Wiesel wrote, ``we cannot grant the killers a
posthumous victory. Not only did they humiliate and
assassinate their victims, they wanted also to destroy their
memory. They killed them twice, reducing them to ashes and
then denying their deed.''
A Nazi guard once told Simon Wiesenthal that, in time, no
one would believe his account of what he saw. Many in this
room have devoted a lifetime to proving that prediction
wrong. Yet there are still those who challenge the facts
surrounding the Holocaust, or even brazenly deny its reality.
Whatever form it takes--from cartoons in a newspaper owned by
the Syrian government, to statements by leaders of Hamas, to
an international conference hosted by the President of Iran--
we must stand against every attempt at denial. We have an
obligation to condemn these lies for what they are--and
remind people of the truth.
Wiesel's second explanation for the moral obligation of
memory is that ``we cannot deny the victims the fulfillment
of their last wish . . . to bear witness.'' This wish is
captured in Emanuel Ringelblum's ``Oneg Shabbat'' project,
which Sara Bloomfield just described. When we read the
victims' stories in those long-buried milk cans, we relive
their suffering. We honor their defiance. And we fulfill
their request never to be forgotten.
Third, and most important, Wiesel wrote, ``we must remember
. . . for the sake of our own humanity,'' because
``indifference to the victims would result, inevitably, in
indifference to ourselves.''
We saw this indifference on shameful display at the Evian
Conference, which also marks its 70th anniversary this year.
At that conference, powerful nations gathered in the heart of
Europe to consider the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany. Yet
they mustered only excuses for inaction, refusing to make the
changes in refugee laws that could have rescued millions of
Jews with a simple stamp on a paper. Five years later, with
the full horror of the Holocaust primed to unfold, nations
again gathered in Bermuda. This time, they produced a mere
joint statement--along with a bureaucratic report that
arrived long after the killing machines of Auschwitz and
Treblinka were operating at full force.
Tragically, the international community has repeated this
indifference in the decades since the Holocaust. In Rwanda
and elsewhere, the innocent have paid the price.
Our generation has an opportunity--and a moral obligation--
to be different. When we say, ``Never again,'' we must mean
it. Not in our moment of history and responsibility. We must
call evil by its name, and confront it with purpose and
courage. We in government service especially must challenge
those who have become enamored with process that substitutes
for action and who shrink from the hard choices.
This commitment is being tested in Darfur. President Bush
is the only world leader to call the killing there
``genocide.'' He has ordered sanctions on those responsible
for violence. And he has pledged to provide training and
equipment to help African troops deploy to Darfur. Yet
America remains too lonely in this effort. In the past three
years, the United Nations Human Rights Council has passed
more than six times as many resolutions against Israel as it
has against Sudan. And despite repeated urging, the UN
peacekeeping force has yet to deploy. It is not too late to
set this right.
In answering Wiesel's three calls--to deny the killers a
posthumous victory . . . to fulfill the last wishes of the
victims . . . and to affirm our own humanity--we uphold the
moral obligation of memory. And in our responsibility as
witnesses to the witnesses, we are blessed to have remarkable
assets.
First, of course, are the Survivors themselves, who
comprehend evil with a clarity that comes only from direct
experience. As they share their stories, they do more than
deepen our knowledge of history--they advance the cause of
justice.
We are also blessed with the efforts of individuals like
Father Patrick Debois. Going door to door, Father Debois has
collected the testimony of more than 700 witnesses and
bystanders to the Nazi terror in Ukraine. He has identified
the burial sites of countless victims shot execution-style in
what has been called the ``holocaust of bullets.'' Thanks to
this good priest's work, names and stories are replacing the
cold anonymity of mass graves. And witnesses who have held
these memories in their hearts for 60 years are finding
healing. Father Debois, we are honored by your presence
today.
For generations to come, a lasting source of learning and
memory will be the museums. In the past year, I have had the
privilege to visit three with the President--Yad Vashem in
Israel, the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in Rwanda, and
the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum here in Washington. These
museums commemorate loss in distinct ways. Yet they all
recognize that genocide is possible only by the denial of
individuality. And they recognize that the best way to
restore humanity is to retell the victims' stories, one by
one.
[[Page 7606]]
At Yad Vashem, exhibits commemorate not only the victims
lost--but also the lives lived. They show loving homes and
cherished possessions--reminders of the richness of humanity
stolen away.
At the Kigali Center, a communal grave holds nearly a
quarter million victims, and that number continues to grow as
Rwandan authorities gather remains from the 1994 genocide.
God only knows--literally, only God knows--the identities of
those who rest on the site. Yet inside the museum, exhibits
display vivid Polaroid photographs of individual victims,
most of them children. Beneath the photos are descriptions of
simple things like a favorite sport or food--personal details
that capture the uniqueness of each unfinished life.
At the U.S. Holocaust Museum, each visitor receives the
identity card of a victim--the tragedy of the Holocaust on a
personal scale. Already, 27 million visitors there have
pursued their obligation of memory. Now and always, the
witnesses will far outnumber the victims.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Holocaust
Museum. Later this month, I will travel with President Bush
to commemorate another proud anniversary--the 60th
anniversary of the founding of Israel. The birth of Israel
just three years after the Holocaust reminds us that the last
word need not be death and destruction. When Air Force One
touches down at Ben-Gurion airport, we will see the American
and Israeli flags waving side-by-side. And we will hear two
national anthems: the Star Spangled Banner, and ``Hatikvah''
. . . ``The Hope.''
Hope is at the center of Israel's existence. It is at the
center of the Jewish faith. And it is at the center of our
task during these Days of Remembrance. The Holocaust shows
that evil is real--but hope, goodness, and courage are
eternal. When we carry this truth in our hearts, we uphold
the moral obligation of memory. And we summon the strength to
meet our solemn pledge: Never again. Not in our moment of
history and responsibility.
____________________
IN RECOGNITION OF FRANKLIN D. BARCA
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to express my thanks to
Franklin D. Barca, a loyal member of my staff who has chosen to retire
after being a public servant to our country for more than four decades.
A graduate of Braintree High School in Braintree, MA, and Northeastern
University, Frank served a full career as a civilian within the
Department of Defense at locations such as the U.S. Army Natick Soldier
Systems Center, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the Pentagon. To my
good fortune, Frank was assigned to my office as a detailee in 1997 and
later agreed to join my staff as my military legislative assistant, a
position he has dutifully held ever since.
Serving as my adviser on national security issues, Frank's greatest
legacy will be his work as the clerk of the caucus created to save the
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard during the 2005 round of base realignment and
closure. His tireless work ethic, attention to detail, and leadership
were instrumental in our efforts to show the Department of Defense that
Portsmouth truly is the gold standard of the Navy. During his work on
BRAC, Frank was affectionately given the nickname of ``The General.''
Walking through the Capitol with Frank you understand his love and
respect for history. Whether it's showing someone Lincoln's catafalque
for the first time or telling stories of the District during the Civil
War, Frank seems to have a bit of trivia for every corner of this
building. In the words of another man whom the states of New Hampshire
and Massachusetts lay claim, Daniel Webster, ``The dignity of history
consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting
human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form.
The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this
truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form.'' I will certainly
miss Frank's advice, straightforwardness, and willingness to go the
extra mile to help me serve the people of New Hampshire.
I hope that Frank Barca will enjoy his retirement. It is an
achievement that he certainly has earned. I know that Frank will get
pleasure from being able to spend more time with his wife Elaine, his
daughters, and his four grandchildren Katie, Meredith, Michael, and
Sarah.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO PAUL BRUHN
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, one of the people who has done the most to
protect so much in Vermont is Paul Bruhn. We Vermonters know that Paul,
as the executive director of the Preservation Trust, has done an
enormous service by leading conservation efforts to save the very best
of our State.
I ask unanimous consent that the full article by Virginia Lindauer
Simmon, from the April edition of Business People Vermont, be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Business People Vermont, Apr. 2008]
Past Perfect: Guiding the Conservation of One of the Country's 11 Most
Endangered Places
(By Virginia Lindauer Simmon)
Paul Bruhn hasn't strayed far from his roots. What he has
done is continue to tweak them, to the benefit of us all.
Bruhn is executive director of the Preservation Trust of
Vermont, which he helped to found in 1980. The list of
properties the organization has helped since then--more than
1,500--reads like a compendium of places that make Vermont .
. . well, Vermont.
The organization's story is much broader than preserving
historic structures. The work involves, for example, a
partnership with Mad River Glen to reconstruct and
rehabilitate the single lift chair, an icon of skiing in
Vermont; helping people in Starksboro establish a village
store--so crucial to community life in small towns and
villages; acquiring a geologic site in Isle LaMotte;
encouraging large-scale retailers such as Wal-Mart to
consider building smaller-scale stores in Vermont's
downtowns; underwriting publications that speak to the
Vermont way of life; aiding community-supported agriculture
or a group in Hardwick that, says Bruhn, with contagious
enthusiasm, ``figured out that if you're going to have a good
community and downtown revitalization project, you need a
great small restaurant and pub that serves the entire
community.''
Bruhn's passion for his work makes perfect sense,
especially when it comes to downtowns. He grew up in
Burlington, where his family owned Bruhn Office Equipment on
Church Street--in the same building where Bruhn's office is
today. ``I used to hang out this same window when I was a
little kid watching parades,'' he says.
After graduating from Burlington High School in 1965, Bruhn
studied at Fairleigh Dickinson and the University of Vermont.
``I left without graduating, and just before they were
probably going to throw me out,'' he says with a grin.
At the time, he was working for the Suburban List community
newspaper and its founders, Proctor and Ruth Page. ``I
started out selling advertising at $25 a week,'' he says,
chuckling. ``I was a reporter and took care of the paper when
they were on vacation. They really gave me my start in
life.''
That start included backing him when he launched Chittenden
Magazine, a monthly publication he poured his life into from
1969 to '73, including mortgaging his house for living
expenses. ``Proc and Ruth backed it for four years, and it
was arguably an artistic success and not a real financial
success.'' He laughs heartily. ``That was my real `college'
education.''
When the magazine folded, Bruhn found work with his friend
Patrick Leahy, the state's attorney for Chittenden County, as
a consumer fraud investigator. A year later, he was tapped to
run Leahy's campaign for the U.S. Senate.
``That, obviously, was an amazing experience. I went down
to Washington and served as his chief of staff for four
years. I was 27, and fortunately lots of people took me under
their wing and helped me through the intricacies of the
operation of the Senate.''
Bruhn planned on staying two years, but lasted four, during
which his interest in historic preservation grew.
Returning to Vermont in 1978, he went into consulting,
first helping to organize the restoration of the Round Church
in Richmond. In Washington, he had worked with Leahy on
obtaining federal funding for the development of the Church
Street Marketplace. Back home, he helped put together the
campaign for the required local 10 percent match.
When a group he had encountered during the Round Church
project--the Vermont Council of the Society for the
Preservation of New England Antiquities--decided to start a
statewide preservation organization, Bruhn was hired to run
it, ``because I was available and inexpensive,'' he says with
typical humility.
The Vermont Division for Historic Preservation had provided
a good infrastructure for preservation work in the state,
having worked since the early 1970s on the state survey of
historic places. More than 30,000 buildings and numerous
historic districts are on the state register in Vermont, and
10,000 of those are also on the national register.
Grant-making has been a piece of the organization's work
since the early days, starting with small seed grants of $250
to $500.
[[Page 7607]]
Funding comes from various sources. In the late 1980s, the
organization started the Fund for Vermont's Third Century to
encourage people to celebrate the bicentennial in ways that
would last. It ran for four years leading up to and through
Vermont's bicentennial in 1991.
In 1994, a special partnership was developed with the
Freeman Foundation. ``It would be impossible to overstate how
important it's been,'' Bruhn says. ``We're the nudge, the
supporter, the enabler--and are lucky to have partnerships
like this.'' Funding from the Freeman Foundation has provided
grants to more than 300 projects and played a key role in
over $115 million worth of rehabilitation work, he says.
Bruhn's lively, creative mind, good sense of humor, and
ability to inspire affinity have served him well in his
chosen career. James Maxwell, a Brattleboro attorney and a
member of the board of the Brattleboro Arts Initiative, has
seen this first-hand. He was president of the board in 2000-
2001, when the BAI became involved in buying the Latchis
hotel and theater complex.
``Paul is a man of wide comprehension as to the needs of
downtowns in Vermont, and I would venture to say in the
country as a whole,'' says Maxwell. ``Not only is his
knowledge comprehensive, but he is a feeling human being,
someone who resonates with groups that he works with and is
of incredible assistance, not only in the nuts and bolts of
how you go putting together a deal, but also how you move
things along.
``He is a congregator. Without getting up on the pulpit and
giving a sermon, he is able to congregate people in a
situation.''
This talent and Bruhn's understanding of the benefit of
being willing to change with the times have helped keep the
organization strong.
He inspired change 10 years ago, when the organization
entered a nationwide competition sponsored by the National
Trust for Historic Preservation and the Mellon Foundation,
seeking ideas on how to improve the delivery of services and
the effectiveness of the historic preservation movement
nationally.
Vermont was one of two states whose submissions were
chosen, says Bruhn. ``We were selected for developing a
program for providing field services, so instead of providing
support to local organizations via telephone calls and some
visiting in the field, we would hire two part-time people who
would spend the vast majority of their time in the field
working with local organizations helping them move their
projects along.''
The Preservation Trust of Vermont received a significant
grant ``It was $170,000, and that was 10 years ago,'' says
Bruhn--which provided full funding the first year, 70 percent
the second year, and 30 percent the final year.
The program so impressed the National Trust, it recently
dedicated a $5 million grant it received to helping other
statewide organizations establish their own field service
programs.
Another big change came, says Bruhn, when Robert Hoehl, the
co-founder of IDX, and his wife, Cindy, purchased the former
Camp Marycrest from the Sisters of Mercy, then donated it to
the Preservation Trust in 1997. ``We had not owned property
prior to that--hadn't dreamed of owning property--but this
was an amazing opportunity.''
The organization gratefully accepted and formed a
partnership with caterer and former restaurateur and
innkeeper Beverly Watson, who leases the property. ``We use
it largely for weddings on weekends during the summer. During
the week, it's used for retreats and training.''
A big turning point was in 1993, when Vermont was named an
endangered state by the National Trust. This brought the
issue of sprawl to the fore. ``We became a much more visible
organization,'' he says, and work very closely with citizen
groups and partners like the Vermont Natural Resources
Council and Smart Growth Vermont on the issue of sprawl and
the negative impact that big-box retailing can have on our
downtowns and village centers and how they change downtowns.
In 2004, the National Trust again named Vermont one of the 11
most endangered places in the nation.
Bruhn was the only staff person early on, and even today,
the staff is small, with the equivalent of four full-time
employees.
The other full-timers are Elise Seraus, the office manager/
administrative assistant, and Ann Cousins, who splits her
hours between field services and fund raising. Bill Polk, the
financial officer, works one day a week. Eric Gilbertson, who
was deputy director of the Vermont Division for Historic
Preservation and recently retired after almost 30 years,
works half time in field services. Meg Campbell, also half
time, manages the facade easement program, does field
services in Bennington County, manages the Web site, and
produces the electronic newsletter.
Because he's been with the organization for so many years,
Bruhn says, ``there are people who say, `Well, the
Preservation Trust, it's just Paul Bruhn.' It's not even
close to that.''
``I've always had a very strong, very involved board of
directors who provide a lot of the direction for the
organization.'' The directors, he says, genuinely like each
other, are very proud of the organization, ``but that doesn't
stop them from having good disagreements and good debate.''
The secret to keeping a board active and involved, he says,
is to have two-day board meetings four times a year. ``In
February, in the middle of a snowstorm, we went on a two-day
tour around the northern part of the state.'' He counts off
eight towns (and multiple projects within them). ``We talked
all the while on the bus, a great discussion about what's
happening in Vermont, how the community's doing, and this
work--the support we try to give to local organizations.
On the importance of the organization's downtown work,
Bruhn is adamant. ``I love downtown Burlington. I grew up
here, helped secure funding for the Marketplace when I was
working for Sen. Leahy; but downtown Burlington has become
one that focuses on entertainment, high-end retail and
tourism. We get that there are a lot of people in Vermont who
need to be able to shop at a place like Wal-Mart, but
wouldn't it be terrific if Wal-Mart would be interested and
willing to build a smaller-scale store in downtown
Burlington? It would insure that downtown Burlington would
serve the entire community.''
Bruhn pauses and takes a breath. ``We're not in favor of
pickling Vermont,'' he says. ``On the other hand, we've got
to find ways to grow that reinforce what's important about
our place. It's essential that we are good stewards of our
place.''
____________________
TRIBUTE TO CON HOGAN
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Marcelle and I have a good friend in
Vermont named Cornelius Hogan, although everyone knows him as Con
Hogan.
In our State, we have been fortunate to have people, of both
political parties, who have given a great deal of themselves to serve
the people of Vermont, and Con is an excellent example of that.
Recently, the newspaper the Times Argus published an excellent
profile of him. I called Con and Jeanette to say how much I enjoyed it.
I would like to share the piece with my fellow Senators, and ask
unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
A Life Well Served; Plainfield's Con Hogan Remininsces About Time in
Government, Business
(By Susan Allen)
Plainfield.--Every Thursday a 4 p.m., the late Gov. Richard
Snelling would invite some of his cabinet members to his
office and put a bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon and glasses on
his desk.
``You could talk about anything you wanted,'' recalled Con
Hogan last week, seated at the kitchen table in his
Plainfield home, with an expansive view that includes the ski
slopes of Sugarbush and Mad River Glen.
That was a new one for me. I thought I'd heard most of the
behind-the-scenes stories from past--and present--
administrations. I've been in the Vermont press that long,
and collect interesting and odd-ball recollections like some
people collect stamps. I'm fascinated by the people who
devote their lives to serving the state.
But Hogan's reminiscences during our conversation proved
how many good stories I've missed.
Hogan is retired from his extensive tenure in state
government and we started talking about how busy he is during
his so-called retirement (more on that later), but quickly
began trading accounts of political personalities. Most of
his tales were gathered during his professional journey from
serving as a guard in a prison in Annandale, N.J., to heading
Vermont's massive Human Services Agency under Snelling and
former Gov. Howard Dean.
That journey included two significant side trips: An 11-
year stint in the private sector helping International Coins
and Currency slog its way out of bankruptcy in the 1980s, and
an ``ill-thought,'' unsuccessful run for governor as an
independent against incumbent Jim Douglas and Democrat
Douglas Racine in 2002.
``That was a period of temporary insanity,'' he said of the
gubernatorial race, which almost certainly burned some
bridges with the GOP hierarchy. ``I don't regret it, but I
don't consider it a high point.''
Hogan received a degree in psychology from Rutgers, married
wife Jeanette in 1965, and took a job as a prison guard in
Annandale, rising quickly through the ranks to eventually
serve as a division head with the New Jersey Department of
Corrections, focusing on the budget.
``I loved it,'' he recalled of those 7 years. ``The people
who work in that line are under such professional pressure
that you become fast friends, the closest friends.''
Hogan and his wife regularly visited a good friend in
Vermont who lived on an apple farm in Bennington, and in 1972
at age 28, he applied for the job of corrections commissioner
in this State. He chuckles at his own audacity, and the
outcome.
[[Page 7608]]
Then-Secretary of Administration Richard Mallary (who went
on to serve in the U.S. House for Vermont) wrote Hogan a two-
page, handwritten letter thanking him for his interest,
letting him know the job was already filled, but urging him
to contact the new commissioner to talk about becoming his
deputy.
Hogan is amazed at the thought of Mallary writing such a
long, personal note. But back in 1972, he did apply for
deputy commissioner post and got the job.
Those were tumultuous years in corrections, he said. Then-
Gov. Thomas Salmon, trying to control a huge state deficit,
issued a 10 percent cut in all budgets, to be executed in 60
days--a staggering assignment, Hogan knew.
And the Windsor prison, which had opened in 1808 during the
U.S. presidential administration of Thomas Jefferson, was
closed in the early 1970s, leaving the State without a
maximum security prison for a number of years.
With Snelling's first election in 1976, Hogan moved into
the post of commissioner of Social and Rehabilitative
Services, again during a difficult time. The Weeks School for
juvenile offenders closed, forcing the State to redistribute
the 400 youth to smaller group facilities around the State.
Hogan recalled that all but 15 were placed at one point.
Those 15, he said, were sent to stay with a Vermont couple
who--without the State's knowledge--packed them all into a
Winnebago and headed off to see the country.
``The dad called me from New Orleans,'' Hogan said. ``I
said, `What are you doing in New Orleans?' ''
Four of the young Vermonters had run off, and the state
scrambled to fix the mess. Fortunately the story ended well
for everyone and never (until now) became public, Hogan said
with a grin.
After his 11-year foray with ICC in the 1980s, Hogan once
again received a call from Snelling, who was considering a
run for governor and wanted Hogan to head his transition team
if elected. Snelling was elected and appointed Hogan his
secretary of Human Services in 1991.
``During the transition, I was working from 6 a.m. to
midnight, staying in the office--sometimes I slept over,'' he
said. During a meeting one day, Hogan was called out because
Jeanette was outside with fresh clothes for her husband. ``I
need to explain to my wife why I'm spending more time with
you than her,'' Hogan told Snelling, who didn't like meetings
interrupted.
``He lit up. `Let's go meet your wife,' '' Hogan recalled.
Jeanette had just been to the dentist and had a front tooth
removed, flashing a smile that showed a gaping hole. Hogan
said Snelling never missed a beat and made a ``big show'' of
graciousness to his wife.
Hogan recalled Snelling's impatience with long
presentations. So, as Human Services Secretary, Hogan created
a game where he took a deck of cards, and on each wrote a
one-line synopsis of a proposed program, the cost, and the
supporters and opponents. Fifty-two suggestions.
Snelling loved it; he'd flip through the cards quickly and
make two piles: Yes and No. And Hogan knew how to proceed.
``He was at the top of his game,'' said Hogan of Snelling
during that second trip to the governor's office. His
recollections of his former boss are nostalgic and reflect
his respect and deep admiration for the late governor.
Snelling died in office on Aug. 13, 1991. During his brief
second tenure as governor, he worked with Democratic House
Speaker Ralph Wright to craft a plan to retire an enormous
state deficit, another point of pride for Hogan.
The day after Snelling's death, new Gov. Howard Dean called
Hogan into his office for a briefing on the Human Services
Agency.
``I was in no shape to go,'' Hogan recalled. Not only was
he mourning Snelling's passing, he didn't know Dean or what
to expect from the former lieutenant governor.
Hogan arrived with a list of 50 issues to discuss, and
spent an hour running through them all. ``Dean didn't say a
word, he just listened. He was either getting it . . . or not
getting it and he did,'' Hogan recalled.
The two worked well together for 8 years until Hogan left
the administration in November 1999. ``There's a half-life to
that kind of job,'' he said of Human Services secretary.
After making progress on many social issues, ``I had begun to
see some of the same problems again.''
Then came the ill-fated gubernatorial run.
Followed by retirement--or Hogan's version of retirement:
He travels the world working with countries that include
Australia, Israel, Chile, Norway, Northern Ireland, Scotland,
and in May, Holland, to improve their government structure
and programs for children.
He has also become involved in informal lobbying efforts
for universal health care (the number of uninsured Vermonters
has climbed from 42,000 in 2001 to 69,000 today, he noted; he
predicts the increase will continue without serious action).
He considers high health care costs a ``serious economic
threat'' to the State.
He serves on the board of Vermont College in Montpelier,
which is seeking certification and funding. Hogan also
continues to play the banjo with his band, Cold Country
Bluegrass (Jeanette plays the string bass).
And he helps Jeannette around the family horse farm, which
she started but is now run by their daughter, Ruth.
That's Con Hogan's idea of retirement.
His son lives next door with Hogan's two grandchildren, and
Ruth lives around the corner. And in the end, that is his
life's ambition achieved.
``Having my family close enough to enjoy their successes,
and watch the kids grow up,'' he said. ``Nothing comes close.
This to me is what it's all about.''
____________________
TRIBUTE TO REEVE LINDBERGH
Mr. President, Marcelle and I have many wonderful friends in Vermont.
Some were born in Vermont, and others have come to enjoy our very
special State. In the latter capacity is our friend Reeve Lindbergh,
who lives with her husband, Nat Tripp, in Vermont.
Like her parents, Reeve is a terrific author, and a conversation with
Reeve is a conversation worth having. You always learn something from
it, but, more importantly, you always leave with a greater sense of
what is essential in life. I am extremely proud of her.
Kevin O'Connor recently wrote a profile of Reeve, which I would like
to share with my fellow senators. This profile does a good deal to
capture her essence, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Rutland Herald, Mar. 30, 2008]
Onward and Upward: Daughter of Legends, Reeve Lindbergh Looks ``Forward
From Here''
(By Kevin O'Connor)
Vermonter Reeve Lindbergh wrote her first memoir about
growing up with her father, aviator Charles Lindbergh, and
her second memoir about the final months of her mother,
author Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Recently turning 60, she began
a third memoir--this one about aging. She aimed to leap
fearlessly into the future right from its title: ``Forward
From Here: Leaving Middle Age--and Other Unexpected
Adventures.''
That's when she found herself pulled every which way by the
past.
First she thought about all the unlisted phone numbers
still ringing in her memory--one of many safeguards
instituted by her parents after the 1932 kidnapping of her
late brother, Charles Jr.
``When you are taught to memorize your home phone number
and never to reveal it except to close relatives and maybe
the family doctor, you don't forget that number.''
Then she thought about the day in 2001 when, after the
death of her mother, she drove from her Northeast Kingdom
home to a storage building in Stamford, Conn. There she
opened box after box to find her parents' 1929 wedding gifts
in their original wrappings. Pausing for lunch at a nearby
diner, she glanced at a television to discover, 30 miles
south, the smoldering remains of New York City's World Trade
Center.
It was Sept. 11.
Finally she thought about what her publisher bills as her
book's ``shocking surprise.'' Lindbergh long described
herself as the youngest of five children. Then in 2003 she
learned her late father--the first person to fly solo and
nonstop from New York to Paris--later crisscrossed the
Atlantic out of a too-literal interest in foreign affairs.
``In one essay that is sure to attract much attention, the
author writes about her reaction to learning that her father
had three families in Europe, a fact that remained a secret
for 50 years,'' publicity promises. ``This is the first time
any member of the Lindbergh family has discussed in detail
their reaction to the controversial and surprising
revelation.''
Lindbergh, angry at her father upon learning the news, now
can laugh at such hype. New book in hand, she not only has
made peace with all her discordant memories but also arranged
them into a mosaic of ``sly, gentle humor'' and ``quiet
resolve'' (says Publishers Weekly) that's reassuringly human.
The modest yet gregarious 5-foot-3 daughter of the 6-foot-3
flyer is drawing the attention of Vanity Fair and the New
York Times. But the 40-year Vermonter would be just as happy
sticking out mud season at home with her husband, her monthly
End-of-the-Road Writers Group (named less for its
participants than its location) and her menagerie of dogs,
chickens and sheep.
``I'm not so interested in being confessional, but in what
certain experiences are like,'' she says in an interview.
``When you're pretty honest and not too fancy, it seems to
help people.''
Hippie flatlander
Lindbergh has long had a thirst for life. Tiny and anemic
at birth, she required a pint transfusion of her father's
blood. She still remembers her thoughts upon receiving the
[[Page 7609]]
newly invented polio vaccine as a 1950s schoolchild: ``I'd
hope that death would be wiped out by the time I grew up.''
Alas, mortality remains uncured. So what does aging mean to
a 60-year-old woman, wife and mother? Lindbergh put her left
hand to yellow-lined paper to pen a series of essays.
Reflecting on the present, she found herself rewinding to the
past.
Growing up in a Connecticut suburb where ``tea hour'' led
to ``sherry hour,'' Lindbergh nevertheless found her family
didn't drink up fame. Her father--a Midwest farm boy who
focused on the moment rather than on memories--never talked
about his historic 1927 flight. Her mother therefore had to
offer reassurance when they watched Jimmy Stewart re-create
his grueling 33\1/2\-hour crossing on the movie screen at
Radio City Music Hall.
``Does he make it?'' his little daughter asked.
Her father didn't fly to escape the earth, she knows today.
As a conservationist, he just wanted a bird's-eye view. With
a similar love of the land, she moved to the Green Mountains
upon graduating from Radcliffe College in 1968, taking a
teaching job in the southern Vermont town of Readsboro before
retreating north in 1971 to the countryside outside St.
Johnsbury.
``The optimists among us thought they were harbingers of a
quieter, cleaner, saner way of life on the planet, returning
to past customs in order to create a better future,'' she
writes. ``Some native Vermonters, especially older ones who
had spent their early years on farms without electricity or
indoor plumbing and had been chopping, stacking and burning
firewood all their lives, smiled good-naturedly and shook
their heads.''
Others just labeled her and her like ``hippie
flatlanders.'' Reeve wed a man named Richard, then befriended
fellow transplants Nat and Patty. Soon came children,
midlife, divorce and a new couple: Reeve and Nat (Tripp,
himself an accomplished author). Today the last of the
offspring have flown the coop, leaving Lindbergh with a
teeming henhouse, sheep barn and sofa for two dogs.
``Why not?'' she says of the canine couch. ``Nobody else
was using it.''
Entering the life stage her mother called ``the youth of
old age,'' she also faces countless questions.
Sixties Generation
The first: Can a couple of ``hippie homesteaders'' who
harvest 600 bales of hay a year get a hot tub?
Her brain said no. But her achy right shoulder and her
husband's bad knee screamed yes.
What about her view of wrinkles?
``When I say I don't mind looking at my face in the mirror
anymore, part of the reason may be that I can't see it,'' she
writes. ``Maybe I care less now than I did then about how I
look to other people, or maybe I know from long experience
that most people ignore our imperfections because they are
concentrating upon theirs.''
And drugs?
``As I and the other members of this much-publicized
`Sixties Generation' go through our own sixties--and
seventies and eighties and (we secretly hope) beyond--the
least we can do for ourselves is live up to our own mythology
and take lots of drugs.''
(``Legal drugs,'' she clarifies.)
Lindbergh, seeking to comment on both the salvation and
side effects brought by modern-day pharmaceuticals, devotes a
full chapter to listing everything in her medicine cabinet,
from the anticonvulsants required after falling off a horse
to the antidepressants prescribed during the year her mother
was dying.
``I realize there are people who are embarrassed about the
medications they take,'' she says in an interview, ``but it
was in no way difficult for me to write about that.''
Neither does she shy away from the topic of death--not that
she has made peace with it. Take the three fuzzy chicks on
her property that wandered from their mother and perished.
``Even after 30-odd years of country living, with all the
dead chicks, dead lambs, dead dogs and dead horses, the
hamsters, the rabbits, the lizards and the turtles (not to
mention, dear God, the people!), I still get upset about
it.''
Lindbergh writes about the burial of her father, who died
of cancer in 1974 at age 72, and the cremation of her mother,
who died in 2001 at age 94. The resulting ashes led to a
question: ``Where do you put them?''
Family members scattered them in favorite places around the
world--but only after their matriarch, a gardener, first
considered a flower bed.
``She said it would be so good for the lilies of the
valley,'' Reeve Lindbergh reports matter-of-factly.
A private matter
Lindbergh has spent much of this new century wrestling with
the old one.
In 2004, she traveled to the Florida island of Captiva
where her mother wrote the 1955 book ``Gift from the Sea.''
In that collection of essays, Anne Morrow Lindbergh found
meaning in shells--from the channeled whelk that represents
``the ideal of a simplified life'' to the moon shell that
reminded her of solitude.
A half-century later, Reeve Lindbergh discovered many of
the same shells--as well as discarded plastic cups, drinking
straws and cigarette butts. She tucked away the treasures and
threw away the trash. But she can't pitch other remnants of
her past so easily.
The kidnapping and death of her parents' first child, 20-
month-old Charles Jr., topped world news in 1932. Decades
later, people still write to say they're her long-lost
brother. That's why she was skeptical when, five years ago,
the European press claimed her father had affairs with three
German women who gave birth to five boys and two girls.
The headlines proved explosive: ``Lindbergh fathered
children by three mistresses.'' Adding fuel, the stories
reminded readers that some people had labeled the American
hero as a Nazi sympathizer when he opposed the United States'
entry into World War II.
Reeve Lindbergh replied with a public statement still
pinned to her bulletin board: ``The Lindbergh family is
treating this situation as a private matter, and has taken
steps to open personal channels of communication, with
sensitivity to all concerned.'' (Today she translates that to
mean: ``We don't know any more than you do, but we're trying
to figure this out while causing as little pain as
possible.'')
DNA tests proved the reports to be true. In her book,
Lindbergh recalls her initial feelings of anger and
bitterness.
``How do I fold this story into my memories of my father?''
she writes. ``I certainly could have done without his endless
lectures on the Population Explosion, with all those graphs
and charts on `exponential growth curves' (that's a direct
quote). How could he have done this with a straight face, let
alone a clear conscience? A man who fathered 13--I think, I
still have to stop and count us!''
Calmer now, she has visited her European siblings and
hosted them in Vermont. Meeting one half brother halfway
around the world, she shook her head just like he did, all
the while silently sharing the same thought: ``This is
absolutely normal and completely insane, too.''
Lindbergh devotes her book's last chapter to her
conflicting emotions about her father's secret. (Kirkus
Reviews hails it as ``a moving account.'') She didn't plan to
write about it so publicly. Then she found reason.
``I've noticed how many things there are that people are
afraid to talk about,'' she says in an interview. ``If you
leave something in the realm of scandal and sensation, it
becomes very unreal. I just wanted to write about it and then
let it be. I've found, in spite of all the craziness, that my
new relatives are just great.''
Lucky . . .'
Life, she has discovered, eventually puts everything in
perspective.
Lindbergh wrote one chapter about clutter in her mind. Ten
days later, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It led to
surgery--and something equally unexpected.
``I soon discovered that the effect the two words `brain
tumor' have on people is remarkable: `I'm sorry, I can't help
you/be there/send a contribution just now. I have a brain
tumor.' Stunned silence, then instant retreat. With these
results it's hard to resist taking advantage of the
circumstances.''
Even so, Lindbergh gladly agreed to serve as grand marshal
of the annual Lyndonville (village population 1,236) Stars
and Stripes Festival parade.
She isn't the first in her family to face a medical crisis.
Her older sister, Thetford writer Anne Spencer Lindbergh,
died of cancer 15 years ago at age 53.
``I worry less and less, not more and more, about getting
old myself,'' Reeve Lindbergh says. ``I don't mind if I do. I
wish she could, too.''
Lindbergh faces a busy spring. She'll serve as narrator
next weekend for the Bella Voce Women's Chorus of Vermont
premiere of Braintree composer Gwyneth Walker's new work
``Lessons from the Sea,'' inspired by Anne Morrow Lindbergh's
``Gift from the Sea.''
She'll then appear at more than a dozen New England
bookstores as the national media rolls out profiles and
reviews. She finds such travel can be exhilarating and
exhausting--As a result, she'll no longer attend so many far-
flung celebrations of her father and instead stay closer to
home to read the unpublished writings of her mother.
``With a family like mine, you have to be careful not to
let history take over too much of your life,'' she says. ``I
think I could let other people represent my parents at
ceremonies. My mother's work has always struck a spark,
especially with women. I would love to see some of that
unpublished material out in the world.''
Leaving middle age, Lindbergh hears the clock ticking. She
remembers two framed needlepoint phrases in her grandmother
Morrow's home. One said, ``It is later than you think!'' The
other said: ``There is still time.''
``I don't know what further changes I will enjoy or endure
as I age, but I do know the answer to the question I asked
myself at 30, and 40, and 50: `How did I get to be this old?'
I was lucky.''
____________________
ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS
______
TRIBUTE TO BILL KENNEDY
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to commend Bill
Kennedy of
[[Page 7610]]
Inverness, MS, for his distinguished service and exemplary
contributions to the Mississippi Delta as president of the Delta
Council.
Delta Council, an economic development organization in the
Mississippi Delta, represents the business, professional, and
agricultural leadership of the region. Bill has commendably fulfilled
the role of president during a time when Mississippi agriculture and
the economy of the State of Mississippi have faced significant
challenges.
As president of the Delta Council, Bill was called upon to commit
time and resources to the ever-pressing issues of Mississippi River
flooding due to the delta's geographic location at the bottom of a
watershed funnel encompassing most of the United States.
Bill Kennedy has set the standard by which other agricultural leaders
of the Mississippi Delta are measured. As past president of the MS
Ginners Association, past president of the Southern Cotton Ginners
Association, and president of Duncan Gin, one of the oldest and most
successful agricultural enterprises in the Mississippi Delta, Bill has
proven to be an effective advocate on behalf of delta agriculture.
Because of his unique understanding of the U.S. cotton industry, his
counsel is frequently sought when issues of national, statewide, or
regional concern arise.
Additionally, the role which Bill Kennedy has played in wildlife
conservation through his leadership as former president of Delta
Wildlife is inestimable. Bill is a true sportsman and conservationist
who has devoted thousands of hours to making the Mississippi Delta a
better place for all those who live and do business in the region.
I congratulate Bill Kennedy, and thank his wife Lanny, his son
Larkin, and daughter in law, Jenny Ruth, for the year which they have
shared with the delta while Bill has served as president of Delta
Council.
____________________
RECOGNIZING BRYAN McDONALD
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to recognize the
service of one of my constituents, Mr. Bryan McDonald. Bryan has served
the State of Mississippi and Governor Haley Barbour as director of the
Governor's Office of Recovery and Renewal. In his final week as
director, I thank him for his outstanding contribution to Mississippi's
progress in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Prior to his appointment, Bryan worked with the Mississippi Emergency
Management Agency as director of accounting Oversight, where he helped
provide assistance to governmental and nonprofit applicants under the
Stafford Act. Bryan's extensive management experience as a CPA and
auditor suited the State perfectly in our recovery efforts.
Bryan established a team and a process which ensured FEMA public
assistance dollars were accounted for and complied with Federal
regulations. The system expedited reimbursements to State and local
governments and resulted in over 99 percent of projects being obligated
by FEMA. Considering the unprecedented magnitude of this disaster, this
was truly a monumental task and one that had never before been
undertaken.
As director of the Office of Recovery and Renewal, Bryan again put
the right people and processes in place to manage the Federal
assistance entrusted to the State of Mississippi. Thousands of
homeowners have received direct financial assistance through the
homeowners assistance grant program; programs and policies have been
implemented which will result in the development of low income housing
units in excess of what was available before the storm, and Katrina
affected cities and counties have received the much needed Federal
resources to rebuild and revitalize their communities.
Bryan has worked to ensure that every Federal taxpayer dollar
entrusted to Mississippi has been and continues to be spent efficiently
and appropriately. The State of Mississippi and this country owe Bryan
a debt of gratitude for taking a leave of absence from his private
sector career to serve our great State. As we know, public service can
be a strain on our families both financially and emotionally. I want to
thank Bryan's wife Michelle and his two children, Matt and Laura Beth,
for their sacrifice and support while allowing Bryan to serve our
State.
Bryan has reflected great credit on the State of Mississippi and I
appreciate his service.
____________________
70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OMAHA STAR
Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, today I wish to honor
the Omaha Star, the largest and oldest African-American newspaper in my
home State of Nebraska. The Star is celebrating its 70th Anniversary
this year.
The Omaha Star is currently distributed in 48 States, as the paper
has become legendary for its civil rights work. Since its beginning,
the Star has been a champion in the struggle for equal rights.
The Omaha Star was founded in 1938 by the late Mildred Brown, a
remarkable person in her own right, who was also the aunt of the
current publisher and editor, Dr. Marguerita L. Washington. Mrs.
Brown's foresight and pioneering spirit in establishing the Star
required not only a dedicated amount of time and effort, but also
courage and vigilance. Her efforts paid off, as the paper continues to
educate and advocate; and Mrs. Brown was posthumously inducted into the
Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame this past year.
In addition, the building housing the Omaha Star was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in January. Mrs. Brown allowed the
Star to provide a home for the De Porres Club, an active civil rights
organization within the North Omaha community. The Star also kept its
readership apprised of the civil rights movement's successes and
failures across the country by researching the issues and urging
involvement.
The Omaha Star's mission states that it is ``dedicated to the service
of the people that no good cause shall lack a champion and that evil
shall not go unopposed.'' My fellow Nebraskans and I take great pride
in knowing that the Star has faithfully abided by this mission
throughout its 70 years of existence, and we will continue to follow
the Omaha Star on its spirited journey to provide a voice for civil
rights and equality for all.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO LTC JOHN LUCAS
Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, today, I wish to acknowledge the
love and support LTC John Lucas's family has shown him during his 24
years of service in the U.S. Air Force. LTC John Lucas, an Arkansas
native, will retire from the Air Force on August 1, 2008. Lieutenant
Colonel Lucas attended the University of Arkansas, making me
particularly proud because that is my alma mater, and his oldest son,
John Lucas, is carrying on the tradition as a freshman at the
university as well.
Lieutenant Colonel Lucas's wife, Coleen, wrote to me on the occasion
of his retirement and asked that I write a note of thanks to their
family and her husband in an effort to recognize their sacrifice and
support over the last 24 year. She writes:
While John served his country, his family and mine were
both loving and supportive through times of crisis, war and
peace. We had times of struggle but both of our families
helped me and our children so that my husband could serve our
country. Over the past 24 years, we have moved eight times,
lived in 11 homes, uprooted the children from schools, moved
them away from friends, and endured deployments. Through it
all the one constant was family.
Our men and women in uniform have a tremendous responsibility to
protect our Nation's freedoms and it is family support that helps them
accomplish their mission. Sacrifice, selflessness and perseverance
define the special role of a military family such as the Lucas family.
Today, I thank John C. Lucas and his family for their service to our
Nation. Our country is blessed to have you John, Coleen, Kevin, Bryan
and Andrea Lucas.
[[Page 7611]]
____________________
RECOGNIZING DAVID STEVENS
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today, I wish to recognize David
Stevens, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard
work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over
the past several months.
David is a graduate of O'Gorman High School in Sioux Falls, SD, and
the University of South Dakota. In the fall he will attend the Sanford
School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota. He is a hard
worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his internship
experience.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to David
for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in
the years to come.
____________________
RECOGNIZING RENEE LATTERELL
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today, I wish to recognize Renee
Latterell, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard
work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over
the past several months.
Renee is a graduate of Central High School in Aberdeen, SD, and of
North Dakota State University, where she majored in Spanish and
international studies. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to
getting the most out of her internship experience.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Renee
for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in
the years to come.
____________________
RECOGNIZING SAM GRIFFIN
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize Sam
Griffin, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard
work he has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over
the past several months.
Sam is a graduate of Jefferson Senior High School in Alexandria, MN.
Currently he is attending American University, where he is majoring in
Political Science. He is a hard worker who has been dedicated to
getting the most out of his internship experience.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Sam for
all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in the
years to come.
____________________
RECOGNIZING JONATHAN ABDNOR
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I recognize Jonathan Abdnor,
an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work he has
done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota over the past
several months.
Jonathan is a graduate of Prospect High School in Mount Prospect, IL.
Currently he is attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, where he is majoring in news editorial journalism. He is a
hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of his
internship experience.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Jonathan
for all of the fine work he has done and wish him continued success in
the years to come.
____________________
MESSAGES FROM THE PRESIDENT
Messages from the President of the United States were communicated to
the Senate by Mrs. Neiman, one of his secretaries.
____________________
EXECUTIVE MESSAGES REFERRED
As in executive session the Presiding Officer laid before the Senate
messages from the President of the United States submitting sundry
nominations which were referred to the appropriate committees.
(The nominations received today are printed at the end of the Senate
proceedings.)
____________________
REPORT RELATIVE TO THE ISSUANCE OF AN EXECUTIVE ORDER THAT TAKES
ADDITIONAL STEPS WITH RESPECT TO THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY THAT WAS
ORIGINALLY DECLARED IN EXECUTIVE ORDER 13047 OF MAY 20, 1997--PM 45
The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate the following message
from the President of the United States, together with an accompanying
report; which was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and
Urban Affairs:
To the Congress of the United States:
Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50
U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an
Executive Order (the ``order'') that takes additional steps with
respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13047 of
May 20, 1997, and expanded in Executive Order 13448 of October 18,
2007.
In 1997, the United States put in place a prohibition on new
investment in Burma in response to the Government of Burma's large
scale repression of the democratic opposition in that country. On July
28, 2003, those sanctions were expanded by steps taken in Executive
Order 13310, which contained prohibitions implementing sections 3 and 4
of the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-61)
(the "Act") and supplemented that Act with additional restrictions. On
October 18, 2007, I determined that the Government of Burma's continued
repression of the democratic opposition in Burma, manifested at the
time in the violent response to peaceful demonstrations, the commission
of human rights abuses related to political repression, and engagement
in public corruption, including by diverting or misusing Burmese public
assets or by misusing public authority, warranted an expansion of the
then-existing sanctions. Executive Order 13448, issued on that date,
incorporated existing designation criteria set forth in Executive Order
13310, blocked the property and interests in property of persons listed
in the Annex to that Executive Order, and provided additional criteria
for designations of certain other persons.
The order supplements the existing designation criteria set forth in
Executive Order 13310, as incorporated in and expanded by Executive
Order 13448. The order blocks the property and interest in property in
the United States of persons listed in the Annex to the order and
provides additional criteria for designations of persons determined by
the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Secretary of
State, to be owned or controlled by, directly or indirectly, the
Government of Burma or an official or officials of the Government of
Burma; to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial,
material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in
support of, the Government of Burma, the State Peace and Development
Council of Burma, the Union Solidarity and Development Association of
Burma, any successor entity to any of the foregoing, any senior
official of any of the foregoing, or any person whose property and
interests in property are blocked pursuant to Executive Order 13310,
Executive Order 13448, or the order; or to be owned or controlled by,
or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or
indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are
blocked pursuant to Executive Order 13310, Executive Order 13448, or
the order.
The order leaves in place the existing prohibitions on new
investment, the exportation or reexportation to Burma of financial
services, and the importation of any article that is a product of
Burma, which were put into effect in Executive Order 13047 and
Executive Order 13310.
The order authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, after
consultation with the Secretary of State, to take such actions,
including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all
powers granted to the President by IEEPA and section 4 of the Burmese
Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 as may be necessary to carry out the
purposes of the order.
I am enclosing a copy of the Executive Order I have issued.
George W. Bush.
The White House, April 30, 2008.
[[Page 7612]]
____________________
MESSAGES FROM THE HOUSE
______
ENROLLED BILLS SIGNED
At 9:32 a.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered
by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the Speaker has
signed the following enrolled bills:
S. 2457. An act to provide for extensions of leases of
certain land by Mashantucket Pequot (Western) Tribe.
S. 2739. An act to authorize certain programs and
activities in the Department of the Interior, the Forest
Service, and the Department of Energy, to implement further
the Act approving the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the
United States of America, to amend the Compact of Free
Association Amendments Act of 2003, and for other purposes.
The enrolled bills were subsequently signed by the President pro
tempore (Mr. Byrd).
____
At 1:35 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered
by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House
agrees to the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 493) to
prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with
respect to health insurance and employment.
The message further announces that the House has agreed to the
following concurrent resolution, in which it requests the concurrence
of the Senate:
H. Con. Res. 340. Concurrent resolution to make technical
corrections in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 493.
____
At 2:06 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered
by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House has
passed the following bill, without amendment:
S. 2954. An act to amend Public Law 110-196 to provide for
a temporary extension of programs authorized by the Farm
Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 beyond May 2, 2008.
____
At 2:45 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered
by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House
agrees to the amendments of the Senate to the bill (H.R. 5715) to
ensure continued availability of access to the Federal student loan
program for students and families.
____________________
ENROLLED BILL SIGNED
At 4:08 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered
by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the Speaker has
signed the following enrolled bill:
S. 2954. An act to amend Public Law 110-196 to provide for
a temporary extension of programs authorized by the Farm
Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 beyond May 2, 2008.
The enrolled bill was subsequently signed by the President pro
tempore (Mr. Byrd).
____
At 6:25 p.m., a message from the House of Representatives, delivered
by Mrs. Cole, one of its reading clerks, announced that the House has
passed the following bills, in which it requests the concurrence of the
Senate:
H.R. 1777. An act to amend the Improving America's Schools
Act of 1994 to make permanent the favorable treatment of
need-based educational aid under the antitrust laws.
H.R. 5522. An act to require the Secretary of Labor to
issue interim and final occupational safety and health
standards regarding worker exposure to combustible dust, and
for other purposes.
H.R. 5919. An act to make technical corrections regarding
the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007.
The message also announced that the House has agreed to the following
concurrent resolution, in which it requests the concurrence of the
Senate:
H. Con. Res. 330. Concurrent resolution supporting the
goals and ideals of National Sexual Assault Awareness and
Prevention Month.
____________________
MEASURES REFERRED
The following bills were read the first and the second times by
unanimous consent, and referred as indicated:
H.R. 1777. An act to amend the Improving America's Schools
Act of 1994 to make permanent the favorable treatment of
need-based educational aid under the antitrust laws; to the
Committee on the Judiciary.
H.R. 5522. An act to require the Secretary of Labor to
issue interim and final occupational safety and health
standards regarding worker exposure to combustible dust, and
for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions.
____________________
MEASURES PLACED ON THE CALENDAR
The following concurrent resolution was read, and placed on the
calendar:
H. Con. Res. 330. Concurrent resolution supporting the
goals and ideals of National Sexual Assault Awareness and
Prevention Month.
____________________
ENROLLED BILLS PRESENTED
The Secretary of the Senate reported that on May 1, 2008, she had
presented to the President of the United States the following enrolled
bills:
S. 2457. An act to provide for extensions of leases of
certain land by Mashantucket Pequot (Western) Tribe.
S. 2739. An act to authorize certain programs and
activities in the Department of the Interior, the Forest
Service, and the Department of Energy, to implement further
the Act approving the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the
United States of America, to amend the Compact of Free
Association Amendments Act of 2003, and for other purposes.
S. 2954. An act to amend Public Law 110-196 to provide for
a temporary extension of programs authorized by the Farm
Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 beyond May 2, 2008.
____________________
EXECUTIVE AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS
The following communications were laid before the Senate, together
with accompanying papers, reports, and documents, and were referred as
indicated:
EC-6014. A communication from the Administrator, Food and
Nutrition Service, Department of Agriculture, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and
Children: Miscellaneous Vendor-Related Provisions'' (RIN0584-
AD36) receive on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
EC-6015. A communication from the Director, Regulatory
Review Group, Department of Agriculture, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Tobacco
Transition Payment Program; Release of Records'' (RIN0560-
AH79) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
EC-6016. A communication from the Secretary of the Army,
transmitting, pursuant to law, a letter detailing his
determination that the Average Procurement Unit Cost metric
for the Javelin Advanced Anti-Tank Missile has exceeded the
significant cost growth threshold; to the Committee on Armed
Services.
EC-6017. A communication from the Under Secretary of
Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics),
transmitting, pursuant to law, a report relative to the
Department's competitive sourcing efforts during fiscal year
2007; to the Committee on Armed Services.
EC-6018. A communication from the Director, Defense
Procurement, Acquisition Policy, and Strategic Sourcing,
Department of Defense, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a rule entitled ``Extension of Authority to Carry
Out Certain Prototype Projects'' (DFARS Case 2008-D008)
received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Armed
Services.
EC-6019. A communication from the Director, Defense
Procurement, Acquisition Policy, and Strategic Sourcing,
Department of Defense, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a rule entitled ``Deletion of Obsolete Restriction
on Acquisition of Vessel Propellers'' (DFARS Case 2007-D027)
received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Armed
Services.
EC-6020. A communication from the Director, Defense
Procurement, Acquisition Policy, and Strategic Sourcing,
Department of Defense, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a rule entitled ``Earned Value Management Systems''
(DFARS Case 2005-D006) received on April 29, 2008; to the
Committee on Armed Services.
EC-6021. A communication from the Assistant Secretary of
Defense (Reserve Affairs), transmitting, pursuant to law, the
2007 annual report relative to the STARBASE Program; to the
Committee on Armed Services.
EC-6022. A communication from the Under Secretary of
Defense (Personnel and Readiness), transmitting a report on
the approved retirement of General Dan K. McNeill, United
States Army, and his advancement to the grade of general on
the retired list; to the Committee on Armed Services.
EC-6023. A communication from the Under Secretary of
Defense (Personnel and Readiness), transmitting a report on
the approved retirement of General Burwell B. Bell III,
United States Army, and his advancement to the grade of
general on the retired list; to the Committee on Armed
Services.
[[Page 7613]]
EC-6024. A communication from the Secretary of the
Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, a six-month periodic
report on the national emergency with respect to Syria that
was declared in Executive Order 13338 of May 11, 2004; to the
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
EC-6025. A communication from the Principal Deputy
Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs,
Department of State, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report
relative to the Department's activities during calendar year
2007; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs.
EC-6026. A communication from the Chief Counsel, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Final Flood Elevation Determinations'' (73 FR 19161)
received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Banking,
Housing, and Urban Affairs.
EC-6027. A communication from the Attorney, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Changes in Flood Elevation Determinations'' (44 CFR Part
65) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Banking,
Housing, and Urban Affairs.
EC-6028. A communication from the Attorney, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Proposed Flood Elevation Determinations'' (Docket No. FEMA-
B-7771) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
EC-6029. A communication from the Attorney, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Final Flood Elevation Determinations'' (44 CFR Part 67)
received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Banking,
Housing, and Urban Affairs.
EC-6030. A communication from the Attorney, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Changes in Flood Elevation Determinations'' (Docket No.
FEMA-B-7772) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
EC-6031. A communication from the Attorney, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Proposed Flood Elevation Determinations'' (Docket No. FEMA-
B-7773) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
EC-6032. A communication from the Chairman, Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the Board's Annual Report for calendar year
2007; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs.
EC-6033. A communication from the Acting Administrator for
Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, Department of
Commerce, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule
entitled ``Endangered and Threatened Wildlife; Sea Turtle
Conservation'' (RIN0648-R84) received on April 29, 2008; to
the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
EC-6034. A communication from the Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine
Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Final Rule
to Approve the Georges Bank Cod Hook Sector's 2008 Operations
Plan; Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan''
(RIN068-AW16) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
EC-6035. A communication from the Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine
Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``Fisheries in
the Western Pacific; Bottomfish and Seamount Groundfish
Fisheries; Management Measures in the Main Hawaiian Islands''
(RIN068-AU22) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
EC-6036. A communication from the Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine
Fisheries Service, Department of Commerce, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled ``2008
Specifications and Management Measures for Atlantic Mackerel,
Squid, Butterfish Fisheries'' (RIN068-AV40) received on April
29, 2008; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation.
EC-6037. A communication from the Secretary of
Transportation, transmitting, pursuant to law, an annual
progress report entitled, ``Report to Congress on the Fiscal
Year 2007 Competitive Sourcing Efforts''; to the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
EC-6038. A communication from the Attorney Advisor, Office
of the Secretary, Department of Transportation, transmitting,
pursuant to law, the report of a nomination for the position
of Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International
Affairs, received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
EC-6039. A communication from the Director, Office of
Congressional Affairs, Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Interlocutory Review of Rulings on Requests by Potential
Parties for Access to Sensitive Unclassified Non-Safeguards
Information and Safeguards Information'' (RIN3150-AI08)
received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Environment
and Public Works.
EC-6040. A communication from the Chief of the Publications
and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department
of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of
a rule entitled ``Tier I Issue--Section 965 Foreign Earnings
Repatriation Directive No. 2'' (LMSB-4-0408-021) received on
April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Finance.
EC-6041. A communication from the Chief of the Publications
and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department
of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of
a rule entitled ``Examination of Dividends Received Deduction
on Separate Accounts of Life Insurance Companies Directive''
(LMSB-04-0308-010) received on April 29, 2008; to the
Committee on Finance.
EC-6042. A communication from the Chief of the Publications
and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department
of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of
a rule entitled ``Tier II Issue--Interchange and Merchant
Discount Fees Directive No. 1'' (LMSB-04-0208-002) received
on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Finance.
EC-6043. A communication from the Chief of the Publications
and Regulations Branch, Internal Revenue Service, Department
of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of
a rule entitled ``Special Rules to Reduce Section 1446
Withholding'' ((RIN1545-BD80)(TD 9394)) received on April 29,
2008; to the Committee on Finance.
EC-6044. A communication from the Secretary of Health and
Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report
entitled, ``Finalizing Medicare Regulations under Section 902
of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and
Modernization Act of 2003 for Calendar Year 2007''; to the
Committee on Finance.
EC-6045. A communication from the Assistant Secretary,
Office of Legislative Affairs, Department of State,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Amendment to the International Arms Traffic in Arms
Regulations: North Atlantic Treaty Organization'' (22 CFR
Part 123) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on
Foreign Relations.
EC-6046. A communication from the Secretary of Education,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the Department's 2007 Buy
American Act Report; to the Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions.
EC-6047. A communication from the Assistant Secretary of
Education (Special Education and Rehabilitative Services),
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation
Research--Disability and Rehabilitation Research Projects and
Centers Program--Disability Rehabilitation Research Projects
for a Center on Post-Secondary Education for Students with
Intellectual Disabilities--Notice of Final Priority and
Definitions'' (4000-01-U) received on April 29, 2008; to the
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
EC-6048. A communication from the Assistant Secretary,
Employee Benefits Security Administration, Department of
Labor, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule
entitled ``Default Investment Alternatives Under Participant
Directed Individual Account Plans'' (RIN1210-AB10) received
on April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions.
EC-6049. A communication from the Deputy Director, Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corporation, transmitting, pursuant to law,
the report of a rule entitled ``Benefits Payable in
Terminated Single-Employer Plans; Allocation of Assets in
Single-Employer Plans; Interest Assumptions for Valuing and
Paying Benefits'' (29 CFR Parts 4022 and 4044) received on
April 29, 2008; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions.
EC-6050. A communication from the Secretary of Health and
Human Services, transmitting, pursuant to law, a report
relative to postmarket surveillance of medical devices used
in pediatric populations; to the Committee on Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
EC-6051. A communication from the District of Columbia
Auditor, transmitting a report entitled, ``Audit of Child and
Family Services Agency's Contracting and Quality Assurance
Procedures''; to the Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs.
EC-6052. A communication from the Principal Deputy
Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legislative Affairs,
Department of Justice, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
Annual Report of the Office of Justice Programs for fiscal
year 2006; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
EC-6053. A communication from the Federal Register Liaison
Officer, Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, Department
of the Treasury, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of
a rule entitled ``Establishment of the Swan Creek
Viticultural Area'' (RIN1513-AB20) received on April 29,
2008; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
[[Page 7614]]
EC-6054. A communication from the White House Liaison,
Department of Justice, transmitting, pursuant to law, the
report of a vacancy in the position of U.S. Attorney for the
District of Connecticut, received on April 29, 2008; to the
Committee on the Judiciary.
EC-6055. A communication from the Deputy Assistant
Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of
Justice, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule
entitled ``Schedules of Controlled Substances: Exempt
Anabolic Steroid Products'' (RIN1117-AA98) received on April
29, 2008; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
EC-6056. A communication from the Deputy General Counsel,
Office of Size Standards, Small Business Administration,
transmitting, pursuant to law, the report of a rule entitled
``Small Business Size Standards; Adoption of 2007 North
American Industry Classification System for Size Standards''
(RIN3245-AF66) received on April 29, 2008; to the Committee
on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
EC-6057. A communication from the Director of Regulations
Management, Veterans Benefits Administration, Department of
Veterans Affairs, transmitting, pursuant to law, the report
of a rule entitled ``Notice and Assistance Requirements and
Technical Correction'' (RIN2900-AM17) received on April 29,
2008; to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
____________________
INTRODUCTION OF BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
The following bills and joint resolutions were introduced, read the
first and second times by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated:
By Mr. BAUCUS (for himself, Mr. Tester, and Mr. Lugar):
S. 2951. A bill to require reports on the progress of the
Secretary of Veterans Affairs in addressing causes for
variances in compensation payments for veterans for service-
connected disabilities; to the Committee on Veterans'
Affairs.
By Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself and Mr. Lautenberg):
S. 2952. A bill to improve food safety through mandatory
meat, meat product, poultry, and poultry product recall
authority, to require the Secretary of Agriculture to improve
communication about recalls with schools participating in the
school lunch and breakfast programs, and for other purposes;
to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
By Mr. CRAIG (for himself, Mr. Warner, and Mr. Inhofe):
S. 2953. A bill to provide for the development and
inventory of certain outer Continental Shelf resources, to
suspend petroleum acquisition for the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources.
By Mr. HARKIN:
S. 2954. A bill to amend Public Law 110-196 to provide for
a temporary extension of progress authorized by the Farm
Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 beyond May 2, 2008;
considered and passed.
By Mr. WHITEHOUSE (for himself and Mr. Specter):
S. 2955. A bill to authorize funds to the Local Initiatives
Support Corporation to carry out its Community Safety
Initiative; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
By Mr. LEVIN (for himself, Mr. Coleman, and Mr. Obama):
S. 2956. A bill to ensure that persons who form
corporations in the United States disclose the beneficial
owners of those corporations, in order to prevent wrongdoers
from exploiting United States corporations for criminal gain,
to assist law enforcement in detecting, preventing, and
punishing terrorism, money laundering, and other misconduct
involving United States corporations, and for other purposes;
to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs.
By Mr. LIEBERMAN:
S. 2957. A bill to modernize credit union net worth
standards, advance credit union efforts to promote economic
growth, and modify credit union regularity standards and
reduce burdens, and for other purposes; to the Committee on
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
By Mr. DOMENICI (for himself, Mr. Bunning, Mr.
Sessions, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Bond, Mr. Inhofe, Ms.
Murkowski, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Wicker, Mr.
Chambliss, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Enzi, Mr.
Isakson, Mr. Thune, Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Allard, and
Mr. McConnell):
S. 2958. A bill to promote the energy security of the
United States, and for other purposes; to the Committee on
Energy and Natural Resources.
By Mr. FEINGOLD (for himself, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr.
Tester, and Mr. Harkin):
S. 2959. A bill to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002
to require States to provide for election day registration;
to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
By Mr. DODD:
S. 2960. A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002,
to establish the Office for Bombing Prevention, to enhance
the role of State and local bomb squads, public safety dive
teams, explosive detection canine teams, and special weapons
and tactics teams in national improvised explosive device
prevention policy, to establish a grant program to provide
for training, equipment, and staffing of State and local
improvised explosive device prevention, and for other
purposes; to the Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs.
By Mr. AKAKA:
S. 2961. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to
enhance the refinancing of home loans by veterans; to the
Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
By Mrs. MURRAY (for herself and Ms. Cantwell):
S. 2962. A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security
Act to improve the provision of items and services provided
to Medicare beneficiaries residing in States with more cost-
effective health care delivery systems; to the Committee on
Finance.
By Mr. BOND (for himself, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Stevens, Mr.
Obama, Mr. Domenici, Mrs. Dole, and Ms. Murkowski):
S. 2963. A bill to improve and enhance the mental health
care benefits available to members of the Armed Forces and
veterans, to enhance counseling and other benefits available
to survivors of members of the Armed Forces and veterans, and
for other purposes; to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
By Mr. LAUTENBERG (for himself, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Levin,
Mr. Casey, and Mr. Sanders):
S. 2964. A bill to require the United States Trade
Representative to pursue a complaint of anticompetitive
practices against certain oil exporting countries; to the
Committee on Finance.
By Mrs. BOXER (for herself and Mr. Lieberman):
S. 2965. A bill to require a report on the inclusion of
severe and acute Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among the
conditions covered by traumatic injury protection coverage
under Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance; to the Committee
on Veterans' Affairs.
By Mrs. DOLE:
S. 2966. A bill to require the Secretary of the Army to
implement the First Sergeants Barracks Initiative (FSBI)
throughout the Army in order to improve the quality of life
and living environments for single soldiers; to the Committee
on Armed Services.
By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Mr. Bennett, and Mr.
Reid):
S. 2967. A bill to provide for certain Federal employee
benefits to be continued for certain employees of the Senate
Restaurants after operations of the Senate Restaurants are
contracted to be performed by a private business concern, and
for other purposes; to the Committee on Rules and
Administration.
By Mr. ROCKEFELLER:
S. 2968. A bill to provide emergency assistance for
families receiving assistance under part A of title IV of the
Social Security Act and low-income working families; to the
Committee on Finance.
By Mr. AKAKA:
S. 2969. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to
enhance the capacity of the Department of Veterans Affairs to
recruit and retain nurses and other critical health-care
professionals, and for other purposes; to the Committee on
Veterans' Affairs.
____________________
SUBMISSION OF CONCURRENT AND SENATE RESOLUTIONS
The following concurrent resolutions and Senate resolutions were
read, and referred (or acted upon), as indicated:
By Mr. HATCH (for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Cochran,
and Mr. Sanders):
S. Res. 544. A resolution designating May 5 through 9,
2008, as National Substitute Teacher Recognition Week;
considered and agreed to.
By Mr. PRYOR (for himself and Mrs. Lincoln):
S. Res. 545. A resolution honoring the recipients of the El
Dorado Promise scholarship; considered and agreed to.
By Mr. THUNE (for himself and Mr. Wyden):
S. Res. 546. A resolution designating May 2008 as
``National Physical Fitness and Sports Month'' and the week
of May 1 through May 7, as ``National Physical Education and
Sports Week"; considered and agreed to.
By Mr. DURBIN (for himself, Mr. Isakson, Mr. Kennedy,
and Mr. Obama):
S. Res. 547. A resolution designating the week of May 4
through May 10, 2008, as ``North American Occupational Safety
and Health Week'' and May 7, 2008, as ``Occupational Safety
and Health Professionals Day"; considered and agreed to.
By Mr. DODD (for himself, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Kennedy, Ms.
Murkowski, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. McCain, Mrs. Clinton,
Ms. Snowe, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Obama, Mr.
Smith, Mr. Brown, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr.
Feingold, Mr. Bayh, Mr. Casey, Mr. Menendez, and Mr.
Lieberman):
S. Res. 548. A resolution recognizing the accomplishments
of the members and alumni of AmeriCorps and the contributions
of
[[Page 7615]]
AmeriCorps to the lives of the people of the United States;
to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
____________________
ADDITIONAL COSPONSORS
S. 717
At the request of Mr. Akaka, the name of the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) was added as a cosponsor of S. 717, a bill to
repeal title II of the REAL ID Act of 2005, to restore section 7212 of
the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which
provides States additional regulatory flexibility and funding
authorization to more rapidly produce tamper- and counterfeit-resistant
driver's licenses, and to protect privacy and civil liberties by
providing interested stakeholders on a negotiated rulemaking with
guidance to achieve improved 21st century licenses to improve national
security.
S. 796
At the request of Mr. Bunning, the name of the Senator from Illinois
(Mr. Obama) was added as a cosponsor of S. 796, a bill to amend title
VII of the Tariff Act of 1930 to provide that exchange-rate
misalignment by any foreign nation is a countervailable export subsidy,
to amend the Exchange Rates and International Economic Policy
Coordination Act of 1988 to clarify the definition of manipulation with
respect to currency, and for other purposes.
S. 803
At the request of Mr. Rockefeller, the name of the Senator from Rhode
Island (Mr. Reed) was added as a cosponsor of S. 803, a bill to repeal
a provision enacted to end Federal matching of State spending of child
support incentive payments.
S. 1003
At the request of Ms. Stabenow, the name of the Senator from Colorado
(Mr. Salazar) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1003, a bill to amend
title XVIII of the Social Security Act to improve access to emergency
medical services and the quality and efficiency of care furnished in
emergency departments of hospitals and critical access hospitals by
establishing a bipartisan commission to examine factors that affect the
effective delivery of such services, by providing for additional
payments for certain physician services furnished in such emergency
departments, and by establishing a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services Working Group, and for other purposes.
S. 1070
At the request of Mr. Hatch, the name of the Senator from Washington
(Mrs. Murray) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1070, a bill to amend the
Social Security Act to enhance the social security of the Nation by
ensuring adequate public-private infrastructure and to resolve to
prevent, detect, treat, intervene in, and prosecute elder abuse,
neglect, and exploitation, and for other purposes.
S. 1415
At the request of Mr. Harkin, the name of the Senator from
Connecticut (Mr. Dodd) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1415, a bill to
amend the Public Health Service Act and the Social Security Act to
improve screening and treatment of cancers, provide for survivorship
services, and for other purposes.
S. 1661
At the request of Mr. Dorgan, the name of the Senator from Florida
(Mr. Nelson) was added as a cosponsor of S. 1661, a bill to communicate
United States travel policies and improve marketing and other
activities designed to increase travel in the United States from
abroad.
S. 2059
At the request of Mrs. Clinton, the names of the Senator from
Wisconsin (Mr. Feingold) and the Senator from Washington (Ms. Cantwell)
were added as cosponsors of S. 2059, a bill to amend the Family and
Medical Leave Act of 1993 to clarify the eligibility requirements with
respect to airline flight crews.
S. 2067
At the request of Mr. Martinez, the name of the Senator from Oklahoma
(Mr. Coburn) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2067, a bill to amend the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act relating to recreational vessels.
S. 2279
At the request of Mr. Biden, the name of the Senator from Maine (Ms.
Snowe) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2279, a bill to combat
international violence against women and girls.
S. 2314
At the request of Mr. Salazar, the name of the Senator from Arkansas
(Mrs. Lincoln) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2314, a bill to amend the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make geothermal heat pump systems
eligible for the energy credit and the residential energy efficient
property credit, and for other purposes.
S. 2372
At the request of Mr. Smith, the names of the Senator from Florida
(Mr. Martinez) and the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign) were added as
cosponsors of S. 2372, a bill to amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule
of the United States to modify the tariffs on certain footwear.
S. 2408
At the request of Mr. Kerry, the names of the Senator from Tennessee
(Mr. Corker) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin) were added as
cosponsors of S. 2408, a bill to amend title XVIII of the Social
Security Act to require physician utilization of the Medicare
electronic prescription drug program.
S. 2533
At the request of Mr. Kennedy, the name of the Senator from New
Jersey (Mr. Menendez) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2533, a bill to
enact a safe, fair, and responsible state secrets privilege Act.
S. 2561
At the request of Mr. Reid, the name of the Senator from Maine (Ms.
Snowe) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2561, a bill to require the
Secretary of the Interior to conduct a theme study to identify sites
and resources to commemorate and interpret the Cold War.
S. 2585
At the request of Mr. Harkin, the name of the Senator from Missouri
(Mrs. McCaskill) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2585, a bill to provide
for the enhancement of the suicide prevention programs of the
Department of Defense, and for other purposes.
S. 2598
At the request of Mr. Dorgan, the name of the Senator from Iowa (Mr.
Harkin) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2598, a bill to increase the
supply and lower the cost of petroleum by temporarily suspending the
acquisition of petroleum for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
S. 2618
At the request of Ms. Klobuchar, the name of the Senator from
Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2618, a bill to
amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for research with
respect to various forms of muscular dystrophy, including Becker,
congenital, distal, Duchenne, Emery-Dreifuss Facioscapulohumeral, limb-
girdle, myotonic, and oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophies.
S. 2672
At the request of Mr. Conrad, the name of the Senator from Washington
(Mrs. Murray) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2672, a bill to provide
incentives to physicians to practice in rural and medically underserved
communities.
S. 2702
At the request of Mr. Salazar, the name of the Senator from Oregon
(Mr. Wyden) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2702, a bill to amend title
XVIII of the Social Security Act to improve access to, and increase
utilization of, bone mass measurement benefits under the Medicare part
B Program.
S. 2723
At the request of Mr. Brown, the name of the Senator from New York
(Mr. Schumer) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2723, a bill to expand the
dental workforce and improve dental access, prevention, and data
reporting, and for other purposes.
S. 2772
At the request of Mr. Lieberman, the name of the Senator from Indiana
(Mr. Bayh) was added as a cosponsor of S.
[[Page 7616]]
2772, a bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to provide for the
investigation of suicides committed by members of the Armed Forces, and
for other purposes.
S. 2778
At the request of Mr. Lieberman, the name of the Senator from Indiana
(Mr. Bayh) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2778, a bill to amend title
37, United States Code, to expand certain bonus and special pay
authorities for members of the Armed Forces in order to enhance the
recruitment and retention of psychologists, social workers, mental
health nurses, and other mental health professionals in the Armed
Forces, and for other purposes.
S. 2782
At the request of Mr. Schumer, the name of the Senator from West
Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2782, a bill
to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a temporary
windfall profit on crude oil and transfer the proceeds of the tax to
the Highway Trust Fund, and for other purposes.
S. 2818
At the request of Mr. Enzi, the names of the Senator from Mississippi
(Mr. Wicker), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison) and the Senator
from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) were added as cosponsors of S. 2818, a
bill to amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and
the Public Health Service Act to provide for enhanced health insurance
marketplace pooling and relating market rating.
S. 2863
At the request of Mr. Vitter, the names of the Senator from Minnesota
(Mr. Coleman) and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) were added
as cosponsors of S. 2863, a bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to provide a Federal income tax credit for certain stem cell
research expenditures.
S. 2874
At the request of Mrs. Feinstein, the name of the Senator from Idaho
(Mr. Crapo) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2874, a bill to amend titles
5, 10, 37, and 38, United States Code, to ensure the fair treatment of
a member of the Armed Forces who is discharged from the Armed Forces,
at the request of the member, pursuant to the Department of Defense
policy permitting the early discharge of a member who is the only
surviving child in a family in which the father or mother, or one or
more siblings, served in the Armed Forces and, because of hazards
incident to such service, was killed, died as a result of wounds,
accident, or disease, is in a captured or missing in action status, or
is permanently disabled, and for other purposes.
S. 2880
At the request of Mr. Gregg, the name of the Senator from New
Hampshire (Mr. Sununu) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2880, a bill to
provide that funds made available for reconstruction assistance for
Iraq may be made available only to the extent that the Government of
Iraq matches such assistance on a dollar-for-dollar basis, and for
other purposes.
S. 2931
At the request of Ms. Stabenow, the name of the Senator from Colorado
(Mr. Salazar) was added as a cosponsor of S. 2931, a bill to amend
title XVIII of the Social Security Act to exempt complex rehabilitation
products and assistive technology products from the Medicare
competitive acquisition program.
S. 2938
At the request of Mr. Thune, his name was added as a cosponsor of S.
2938, a bill to amend titles 10 and 38, United States Code, to improve
educational assistance for members of the Armed Forces and veterans in
order to enhance recruitment and retention for the Armed Forces, and
for other purposes.
S. 2942
At the request of Mr. Cardin, the names of the Senator from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry)
and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) were added as
cosponsors of S. 2942, a bill to authorize funding for the National
Advocacy Center.
S.J. RES. 28
At the request of Mr. Dorgan, the names of the Senator from Illinois
(Mr. Durbin) and the Senator from Michigan (Mr. Levin) were added as
cosponsors of S.J. Res. 28, a joint resolution disapproving the rule
submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to
broadcast media ownership.
S. RES. 483
At the request of Mr. Brownback, the name of the Senator from West
Virginia (Mr. Byrd) was added as a cosponsor of S. Res. 483, a
resolution recognizing the first weekend of May 2008 as ``Ten
Commandments Weekend''.
S. RES. 543
At the request of Mr. Thune, the names of the Senator from Utah (Mr.
Hatch) and the Senator from Maine (Ms. Collins) were added as
cosponsors of S. Res. 543, a resolution designating the week beginning
May 11, 2008, as ``National Nursing Home Week''.
AMENDMENT NO. 4580
At the request of Mr. Wyden, the names of the Senator from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter) and the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Smith) were
added as cosponsors of amendment No. 4580 intended to be proposed to
H.R. 2881, a bill to amend title 49, United States Code, to authorize
appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for fiscal years
2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and capacity, to provide
stable funding for the national aviation system, and for other
purposes.
AMENDMENT NO. 4586
At the request of Mr. Menendez, the name of the Senator from New York
(Mr. Schumer) was added as a cosponsor of amendment No. 4586 intended
to be proposed to H.R. 2881, a bill to amend title 49, United States
Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation
safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the national
aviation system, and for other purposes.
AMENDMENT NO. 4589
At the request of Mr. Dorgan, the names of the Senator from Florida
(Mr. Nelson) and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter) were added
as cosponsors of amendment No. 4589 intended to be proposed to H.R.
2881, a bill to amend title 49, United States Code, to authorize
appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for fiscal years
2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and capacity, to provide
stable funding for the national aviation system, and for other
purposes.
AMENDMENT NO. 4615
At the request of Mr. Dodd, the name of the Senator from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Specter) was added as a cosponsor of amendment No. 4615 intended
to be proposed to H.R. 2881, a bill to amend title 49, United States
Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation
safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the national
aviation system, and for other purposes.
AMENDMENT NO. 4616
At the request of Mr. Ensign, the name of the Senator from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter) was added as a cosponsor of amendment No.
4616 intended to be proposed to H.R. 2881, a bill to amend title 49,
United States Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal
Aviation Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve
aviation safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the
national aviation system, and for other purposes.
AMENDMENT NO. 4618
At the request of Mr. Schumer, the name of the Senator from New
Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg) was added as a cosponsor of amendment No. 4618
intended to be proposed to H.R. 2881, a bill to amend title 49, United
States Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation
safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the national
aviation system, and for other purposes.
[[Page 7617]]
AMENDMENT NO. 4621
At the request of Mr. Isakson, the names of the Senator from Colorado
(Mr. Salazar) and the Senator from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski) were added
as cosponsors of amendment No. 4621 intended to be proposed to H.R.
2881, a bill to amend title 49, United States Code, to authorize
appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for fiscal years
2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and capacity, to provide
stable funding for the national aviation system, and for other
purposes.
____________________
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. CRAIG (for himself, Mr. Warner, and Mr. Inhofe):
S. 2953. A bill to provide for the development and inventory of
certain outer Continental Shelf resources, to suspend petroleum
acquisition for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and for other
purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, during consideration of the reauthorization
of the FAA, a great deal of conversation has gone on on this floor
about energy and the cost of energy. It is appropriate that we talk
about it at a time when our airlines are struggling and we are
attempting to reauthorize FAA. Part of the reason our airlines are
struggling is the unprecedented aviation fuel prices. It is only one of
the many reasons they are having difficulty today, but clearly the
doubling of their costs are putting at risk their corporate structure
and their ability to serve an American public.
But it is not just the airlines that are at risk. Every American
consumer and every business is finding the tremendous increase in the
cost of energy a significant problem. For example, just a few minutes
ago, my BlackBerry buzzed. My wife Suzanne is out in Boise, ID. I got
an e-mail about the temperature, which is 31 degrees in Boise this
morning. At the bottom of the e-mail, she said regular gas just hit
$3.53 a gallon. That is a lot of money. Now, that is not as much as
others are paying across our Nation, but when an Idahoan fills their
tank and they go from community to community, oftentimes they drive
hundreds of miles--not just a few miles but literally hundreds of
miles. Idaho is a great big Western State. Our distance is oftentimes a
significant part of our commerce and our ability to conduct economic
activity, and fuel prices have always been significant and important.
Idaho is also a large agricultural State. The cost of the production
of foods today has gone up dramatically because of the cost of diesel,
if you will, the cost of fertilizer, and all of those components that
go into the production of food and the transporting of the food.
Part of the reason food is going up on the retail shelf of the
supermarket today is the cost of getting it there, let alone the cost
of producing and refining it. Many truckers are saying that just to
fill up their truck now can be as much as $1,000. They are not able to
change their freight rates to adjust as quickly to the high cost of
energy, and they simply have to--this is the term--``eat it.'' Well,
they cannot afford to eat it. Oftentimes, those trucks are simply
turning off their motors and sitting idle.
So the impact of energy costs on our economy can be dramatic. I came
to the floor yesterday to talk about it and to say that, in large part,
the American consumer, in their frustration, is saying: Whom do we
blame? I don't think they have to look any further than the U.S.
Congress and the failure of this Congress--the House and Senate--over
the last 20 years to do the things that were necessary to continue
production, to ensure refinery capacity, to ensure exploration and the
development of reserves, while we were doing all of the other things in
conservation, in CAFE standards, assuring that we had a new form of
transportation energy. But, no, we have failed to do the right things,
and as a result of that, the American consumer is, in fact, paying a
great deal for our failure.
What do we do to change that? Instead of just wringing our hands,
there are all kinds of ideas out there about changing it.
Some would suggest that you just tax the big oil companies; if you
just tax those big oil companies and put that money somewhere else,
that will solve the problem. There is an old adage in economics that is
quite simple: You usually get less of that which you tax. In other
words, the higher you tax something, the less you are going to get from
it. Do you want to, by taxation, nationalize America's independent oil
companies? Is that a way to get production and more oil and gas at the
pump? Remember, there are not any gas lines out there today. There
aren't the kinds of lines we saw in the 1970s during the last energy
crisis. There is supply. It is the cost of supply that we are
frustrated about and the impact that cost is having on our economy.
Here is one of the problems we have. I talked about a Congress that
failed, a public policy that failed, a policy that failed to continue
to produce as demand went dramatically up--not just in this country but
around the world.
The blue line on this chart is the supply line. As you can see, in
the 1990s it peaked and it began to drop. That is, of course, U.S.
production versus U.S. consumption. In other words, as a nation we
began to produce less and less crude oil into our refineries.
Today, we are near 60 percent dependent upon other sources of energy,
from outside our country, to come into our refineries and to go out of
the gas pump to the consumer. In fact, you can see that the red line--
demand--has gone up dramatically as our economy continued to grow over
the years, as more people were driving cars, and as more cars consumed
more gas.
The only way you are going to keep price down is when the supply line
and the demand line are somewhat in concert, somewhat tracking each
other. That simply stopped in the 1950s, as we began to grow
increasingly dependent upon foreign nations.
We passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, but it wasn't really
directed at transportation fuels. Last year, we added to that and we
began to address transportation fuels. We brought ethanol into the
market by subsidizing that and allowing our farmers, and those who take
corn from them, to produce ethanol to become increasingly effective in
the market. That is working to some degree. In fact, it is estimated
today that 20 cents would be put on the price of gas at the pump if it
wasn't for national and rural ethanol production. Now, it has caused
other problems. Some would argue that it has caused problems in the
food chain, and it probably has. I think the marketplace will work that
out. So there are things we have been doing.
But I think, most importantly, it is the things we have not done. It
is the failure of our country to recognize the increased dependency we
were developing from other countries around the world. I think that has
become one of our greater frustrations. While you have some on the
campaign trail today talking about taxing the big oil companies, the
big oil companies don't own the oil. It is the cartels. It is the
nations. It is not oil companies, it is oil countries that we have to
worry about today.
I didn't coin the phrase, but I use the phrase quite often, ``petro-
nationalism.'' If I am a country and I am small but I am sitting on a
pool of oil, I become rich overnight. The reason I become rich
overnight is because Americans will come and buy my oil. If I want to
form a cartel and I want to control the supply of that oil, then they
will pay even more for it because Americans quit producing for
themselves.
Here is a statistic that I find fascinating, and some have said that
if we don't stop this in the near future, we will spend our Nation into
poverty as we spend all of this money on oil. We are now spending well
over $1 billion a day outside our country to buy oil. That is a
phenomenal figure. Our neighbors to the north, we send them $280
million a day; to Saudi Arabia, we send $190 million a day; to
Venezuela and Dictator Chavez, we send $160 million; to Nigeria, we
send $140 million; to Algeria, we send $70 million. Do
[[Page 7618]]
Venezuela and Nigeria and Algeria have our best interests in mind? I
don't believe so. They have their own interests in mind. We are
literally making them wealthy because we are buying their oil.
Many of us talk about energy independence, and last year when we
passed that legislation I was talking about, the Energy Independence
and Security Act of 2007, we did some very good things in it. As I
said, we looked at increasing production by conservation, by CAFE
standards, and by renewable fuels standards. We said to the automobile
industry: You have to design cars that burn less, and in doing that, we
will improve our overall position on dependency by dropping it
significantly by 2030. But it takes a long time to redesign a car, make
it efficient, produce it, and then sell it into the market.
Those are the realities of a problem where you cannot just fix this
tomorrow. We cannot just change the price of gas at the pump tomorrow
because we cannot fix the underlying problems instantly. But as I said
earlier, if Congress is at fault, the problem in this, then Congress
ought to be doing more about it. And it is not just wringing your hands
and wanting to tax. It is doing things that get us back into production
while we learn to conserve, while we have cleaner automobiles, while we
look at alternative fuel sources, while we get more hybrid cars and
electric plug-in cars in the market. That is all coming, but that is 10
years, 15 years, and 20 years out.
What do we do in the interim? I believe there is something we can do,
and we ought to do. In America today and in our territorial waters we
are sitting still on a lot of oil, a dramatic amount of oil. Some would
argue under old U.S. Geological Survey analysis that we are sitting on
at least 100 billion barrels of oil. If we are sitting on it, why
aren't we using it? Once again, the politics of Congress and the
politics of States enter into the debate.
A couple of years ago, I began to talk about an issue I called the no
zone. What was I talking about at the time? I was talking about that
area of the United States and Outer Continental Shelf of waters that we
knew had large volumes of oil. But California said no. We said no in
Alaska. We have said no off the east coast. We have said no around
Florida. Because we have said no, the American consumer today is paying
the highest price for gasoline ever. That is a fact. It is a simple
reality. Our dependency on foreign nations grew. As I just expressed,
over 60 percent of our oil is coming from outside the continental
United States when we know there is a significant amount of oil outside
the continent.
When I introduced this chart a couple of years ago and I began to
talk about the no zone and there were a few folks wringing their hands,
we went to work. We went to work and we looked at oil sales in the gulf
and the development in the Outer Continental Shelf in the deep waters
of the Gulf of Mexico.
Thanks to our effort, we did something. The American consumer needs
to know we went into lease sale 181 off the coast of Florida. We looked
at and found a tremendous amount of capability there and we began to
develop it and we are developing it today. We have allowed other lease
sales to occur. That is tremendously important. We are beginning to tap
some of that oil supply that we know is out there and about which we
ought to be doing more. That is what I think is important, and that is
on what I think we ought to be focused.
To sit and wring our hands and tell the American people there is
nothing we can do, and all we are going to do is go out and tax and
tax, which will not produce--we ought to be talking about production.
The legislation I have introduced today talks about production. It
talks about production in a positive way.
I mentioned a few moments ago the action we took last year in lease
sale 181. We were successful in bringing Florida along in their
cooperation and understanding, which was phenomenally important.
We know there are millions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic
feet of gas out there. What is most significant about oil development
in this region is that the infrastructure is in place. What do I mean?
Refineries, pipelines, capacity. We don't have to wait 5, 6, and 7
years just to build the infrastructure. It is there, and the oil is
under it. That is why we did lease sale 181. But there is a lot more we
can and should do. That is why the legislation I have introduced today
does just that. It doesn't start drilling, but it says a couple of
things that are quite simple.
As we have heard others talk about the fact we are putting money into
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at this time, we are buying oil off the
market and putting it underground in the salt domes in the South for a
time of necessity, I suggest we stop doing that for the time being, and
I suggest we take that money we are using for those purposes and we
modernize our inventory of our known reserves, our unknown reserves,
and our capacity because the true SPR--SPR means Strategic Petroleum
Reserve--the greatest reserve in the world is to know what we have,
where it is, and how we can access it. That is one of the most
important things we can do for the consumers of America today.
I know it frustrated some of my Floridian friends when I talked about
our inability because of policy to allow our companies to go in to the
northern area off Cuba and drill because Cuba was allowing other
countries to come in and develop. Just 90 miles--45 miles until you hit
the zone--90 miles off our coast on the extreme of the Florida Keys
there are foreign nations drilling oil today. India is there, and India
has now discovered oil. China is there, and China has now discovered
oil. We are not there today because our policy is 45 years old and
still says: No, no, Americans cannot get involved with Cuba, even
though we believe Cuba has phenomenal potential oil reserves. Shame on
us.
America, listen up: It is Government policy today in large part that
has caused you the pain at the pump, and it is very important that
Government act today to reduce that pain.
The legislation I am offering would create an inventory that would do
just that. It would allow us to know what our reserves are.
We have moratoriums off the coast of Florida, and yet we know there
are huge oil reserves out there. Why are we not doing something about
it? Well, it is local politics. It is national politics. It is green
politics. It is politics. That is why we have the price of oil we have
today, nothing more and nothing less but politics, and our economy is
growing more fragile by the moment because of it.
Is it demagogic to say that? I don't think so. I don't think so at
all. I pulled out the sign, the no zone. The no is a result of
politics, whether it is the politics of the State of Florida or the
politics of the State of California or whether it is the national
politics of this Senate that will not allow for us to drill for the
reserves in what is known as ANWR, the Alaskan national wildlife area,
where we know there is phenomenal abundance.
It was all done, all of this no, this political no was all done in
the name of the environment. There was some reason at the time these
old ideas were put in place. We had the oil spills off the coast of
Santa Barbara, and as a result of that, Americans were concerned. So
California said no more drilling there, and then we followed up.
A few years ago, we had a great national tragedy in the gulf area of
our country. That tragedy was called Katrina. She came rolling up and
through the gulf. We know what she did in New Orleans. She did
something else nobody wants to talk about today. She knocked offline
hundreds of oil wells that were producing out in the gulf--knocked them
off. She even set some of the drilling rigs adrift. But not a drop of
oil was spilled. Why? Because modern technology today and American
know-how and a concern for protecting our environment has produced one
of the cleanest deepwater oil drilling industries in the world. We are
producing in this area of the gulf off the coast of Texas, off the
coast of Louisiana, off the coast of Mississippi, and with 181, we just
brought into or soon
[[Page 7619]]
will be bringing into production off the coast of Alabama. Why not off
the coast of Florida? Why not off the coast of California? Why not off
the coast of the Carolinas, Virginia, and on up where we believe there
is significant gas and oil reserves?
It is old politics of the past that is caught in the ghosts of Santa
Barbara of decades ago. Yet our technology today will take us there,
but our politics will not take us there. That is why I have introduced
the legislation I have. The least we can do is inventory with modern
technology to know where our oil is.
I notice the president of Shell said in a press release the other
day: If Americans sent a message to the world that we were going to
start drilling our own reserves and bringing them into production, the
price of gas at the pump would drop dramatically, 25 or 30 cents a
gallon or more. That is significant stuff, both short term and long
term, to the economy of this country.
I say to my colleagues, I say to our country, and I say to our
consumers: Is it a time to act? You bet it is a time to act. While some
suggest we tax the big boys out of existence, we do not produce
anything by doing that, while we can create all kinds of other
structures. Do we produce more, do we build refinery capacity, and do
we assure the American public while we are transitioning into hybrid
cars and electric cars and hydrogen cars and all of those kinds of
activities that we support and are doing research and development on
today that they will still have an abundant supply of energy? That is
our job. That is the job we failed in doing over the last good number
of years, and that is the job we ought to stop and start over and do it
right and reward the States that are the boundary States to the
production of the Outer Continental Shelf.
We have huge oil reserves in this country, and yet we are letting the
rest of the world have our wealth. Why not keep our wealth in this
country by the development of these reserves?
The first step is the legislation I have introduced today. Let's at
least in the next few years do the inventory, the modern, sophisticated
seismographic inventory that USGS can do to let us know how much is out
there because what we know today is simply old stuff. Those efforts
were done years ago. Already out at the edge of this green line in the
deepest waters in the gulf under the newest drilling technologies, we
are finding phenomenal oil that just a few years ago we did not even
know we could get to. We are getting to it. We are producing it. It is
clean, and it is environmentally sound. We ought to be doing that
everywhere else.
I have joined my colleague from Louisiana who just came to the floor,
who introduced legislation that says when oil gets to $125 a barrel, we
ought to give the States the option to allow the development of the
Outer Continental Shelf off their State. You darn bet we ought to, and
those States ought to be rewarded for it.
There is so much this country can continue to do instead of standing
still and wringing our hands and trying to blame somebody else for our
failure over the last 20 years to continue to allow this great country
to produce for its consumers.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for 10 seconds?
Mr. CRAIG. I will be happy to yield to the senior Senator from
Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I commend him for this initiative, but I
hope he says ``oil and gas'' because off the east coast there is an
abundance of gas, as shown by the previous studies. As he says, they
have to be brought up to date. Do let us invoke gas because along the
beaches--and I, as the Senator knows, twice tried to get legislation
through, and a collection of Senators--and I say this in a lighthearted
way; I call them the beach boys--will not permit this for fear that
pollution could emanate from the drilling process onto their beaches.
I suggest let's start with gas. There would not be any potential for
the erosion of beaches as a consequence of an accidental spill. I do
hope the Senator puts in the word ``gas.''
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator from Virginia.
He is absolutely right. When I think oil, I think gas because,
obviously, in lease sale 181 and in other areas where there is gas,
there is oftentimes oil, and oftentimes where there is gas, there is no
oil. We believe that to be the case off the coast of Virginia.
The Senator from Virginia has been a leader, without doubt, in that
very kind of effort to allow at least the seismographic effort, the
exploration that would determine for us the kinds of reserves we have
and may have for the future.
I thank the Senator from Virginia for his leadership in this area.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Idaho. I also
emphasize that the technology to do it safely and not be the victim of
a disruption by Mother Nature is there.
Mr. CRAIG. Without question it is there today, and we know that. We
are the leaders of clean drilling in deep water for the world, no
question.
Mr. WARNER. I thank the Senator. I wish him well. He has my support.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, will the Senator further yield?
Mr. CRAIG. I will be happy to yield to the Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Would the Senator mind putting up his map with
the State of Florida on it?
Mr. CRAIG. I am more than happy to.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Would the Senator recognize that the area in
yellow there on the west coast of Florida that he indicates for future
drilling--would he recognize almost that entire area is the largest
testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world? The
military is on record at all levels, of all generals and admirals, that
drilling should not be done in that area to compromise our training and
testing mission for the U.S. military.
Mr. CRAIG. I do recognize that. I do appreciate what our military has
said.
I also understand a few years ago we took offline a naval training
area in Vieques. Why? It was no longer a popular thing to do.
If there is oil under this area--and we believe there is--and it is a
training area, why couldn't we train here? Or why couldn't we train
over here? The reality is, what is at this time more valuable?
It is very easy to say don't do it. Or is it possible to say can we
do both? There are a good many experts and professionals in the field
who said that. We can have a military training area, and guess what we
also can do. We can pull the oil out from under. How do you do it?
Quite simply. You put a location, a location and you slant drill
thousands of feet and you do not have to pepper the area with all kinds
of drilling rigs.
Today's technology is amazing. It is politically comfortable, I
appreciate that, and I understand the State's politics and I do not
deny that--but this is not the oil of the State of Florida. This is the
oil of the citizens of our country. It is the politics of Florida today
that deny us the oil, not the politics of America. So it is a simple
question: Should we inventory it? Should we know what it is? And should
we, under modern technology, reward the State of Florida for the
potential benefit?
It is ironic we did not move at all to stop drilling 45 miles off the
Florida coast. We could even take a 45-mile zone here, or more,
consistent with what is going on in Florida today and still protect
this.
But the Senator is right. It is a military area. Guess what. I am
kind of a modern guy. I believe in technology taking us where we can go
and having the best of both worlds. But right now the American consumer
has the worst of the world we have created for them--a scarcity of a
supply that is driving costs and impacting our economy in a significant
way.
I suggest the legislation I have introduced, while it will not impact
the State of Florida, will give us a base and an understanding and
knowledge of what we have as a reserve. We are spending millions of
dollars a day to buy oil and put it in the ground when, in fact, we
ought to spend a few million dollars and find out about all the oil we
already have.
______
By Mr. LEVIN (for himself, Mr. Coleman, and Mr. Obama):
[[Page 7620]]
S. 2956. A bill to ensure that persons who form corporations in the
United States disclose the beneficial owners of those corporations, in
order to prevent wrongdoers from exploiting United States corporations
for criminal gain, to assist law enforcement in detecting, preventing,
and punishing terrorism, money laundering, and other misconduct
involving United States corporations, and for other purposes; to the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am introducing today, with my colleagues
Senator Coleman and Senator Obama, the Incorporation Transparency and
Law Enforcement Assistance Act. This bill tackles a longstanding
homeland security problem involving inadequate State incorporation
practices that leave this country unnecessarily vulnerable to
terrorists, criminals, and other wrongdoers, hinder law enforcement,
and damage the international stature of the U.S.
The problem is straightforward. Each year, the States allow persons
to form nearly 2 million corporations and limited liability companies
in this country without knowing--or even asking--who the beneficial
owners are behind those corporations. Right now, a person forming a
U.S. corporation or limited liability company, LLC, provides less
information to the State than is required to open a bank account or
obtain a driver's license. Instead, States routinely permit persons to
form corporations and LLCs under State laws without disclosing the
names of any of the people who will control or benefit from them.
It is a fact that criminals are exploiting this weakness in our State
incorporation practices. They are forming new U.S. corporations and
LLCs, and using these entities to commit crimes ranging from terrorism
to drug trafficking, money laundering, tax evasion, financial fraud,
and corruption. Law enforcement authorities investigating these crimes
have complained loudly for years about the lack of beneficial ownership
information.
Last year, for example, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sent a
letter to the States stating: ``the lack of transparency with respect
to the individuals who control privately held for-profit legal entities
created in the U.S. continues to represent a substantial vulnerability
in the U.S. anti-money laundering/counter terrorist financing, AML/CFT,
regime. . . . [T]he use of U.S. companies to mask the identity of
criminals presents an ongoing and substantial problem . . . for U.S.
and global law enforcement authorities.''
Last month, Secretary Michael Chertoff, head of the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security, wrote the following: ``In countless
investigations, where the criminal targets utilize shell corporations,
the lack of law enforcement's ability to gain access to true beneficial
ownership information slows, confuses or impedes the efforts by
investigators to follow criminal proceeds. This is the case in
financial fraud, terrorist financing and money laundering
investigations. . . . It is imperative that States maintain beneficial
ownership information while the company is active and to have a set
time frame for preserving those records. . . . Shell companies can be
sold and resold to several beneficial owners in the course of a year or
less. . . . By maintaining records not only of the initial beneficial
ownership but of the subsequent beneficial owners, States will provide
law enforcement the tools necessary to clearly identify the individuals
who utilized the company at any given period of time.''
These types of complaints by U.S. law enforcement, their pleas for
assistance, and their warnings about the dangers of anonymous U.S.
corporations operating here and abroad are catalogued in a stack of
reports and hearing testimony from the Department of Justice, the
Department of Homeland Security, the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network of the Department of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue
Service, and others.
To add insult to injury, our law enforcement officials have too often
had to stand silent when asked by their counterparts in other countries
for information about who owns a U.S. corporation committing crimes in
their jurisdictions. The reality is that the United States is as bad as
any offshore jurisdiction when it comes to responding to those
requests--we can't answer them because we don't have the information.
In 2006, the leading international anti-money laundering body in the
world, the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering--known as
FATF--issued a report criticizing the U.S. for its failure to comply
with a FATF standard requiring countries to obtain beneficial ownership
information for the corporations formed under their laws. This standard
is one of 40 FATF standards that this country has publicly committed
itself to implementing as part of its efforts to promote strong anti-
money laundering laws around the world.
FATF gave the U.S. 2 years, until July 2008, to make progress toward
coming into compliance with the FATF standard on beneficial ownership
information. That deadline is right around the comer, but we have yet
to make any real progress. That is another reason why we are
introducing this bill today. Enacting the bill would bring the U.S.
into compliance with the FATF standard by requiring the States to
obtain beneficial ownership information for the corporations formed
under their laws. It would ensure that the U.S. met its international
commitment to comply with FATF anti-money laundering standards.
The bill being introduced today is the product of years of work by
the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on which I,
Senator Coleman, and Senator Obama serve together. As long ago as 2000,
the Government Accountability Office, GAO, at my request, conducted an
investigation and released a report entitled, Suspicious Banking
Activities: Possible Money Laundering by U.S. Corporations Formed for
Russian Entities. This report revealed that one person was able to set
up more than 2,000 Delaware shell corporations and, without disclosing
the identity of the beneficial owners, open U.S. bank accounts for
those corporations, which then collectively moved about $1.4 billion
through the accounts. It is one of the earliest Government reports to
give some sense of the law enforcement problems caused by U.S.
corporations with unknown owners. It sounded the alarm sounded 8 years
ago, but to little effect.
In April 2006, in response to a Levin-Coleman request, GAO released a
report entitled, Company Formations: Minimal Ownership Information Is
Collected and Available, which reviewed the corporate formation laws in
all 50 States. GAO disclosed that the vast majority of the States don't
collect any information at all on the beneficial owners of the
corporations and LLCs formed under their laws. The report also found
that many States have established automated procedures that allow a
person to form a new corporation or LLC within the State within 24
hours of filing an online application without any prior review of that
application by a State official. In exchange for a substantial fee, two
States will even form a corporation or LLC within one hour of a
request. After examining these State incorporation practices, the GAO
report described the problems that the lack of beneficial ownership
information has caused for a range of law enforcement investigations.
In November 2006, our Subcommittee held a hearing further exploring
this issue. At that hearing, representatives of the U.S. Department of
Justice, DOJ, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of
Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, FinCEN, testified that
the failure of States to collect adequate information on the beneficial
owners of the legal entities they form has impeded Federal efforts to
investigate and prosecute criminal acts such as terrorism, money
laundering, securities fraud, and tax evasion. At the hearing, DOJ
testified: ``We had allegations of corrupt foreign officials using
these [U.S.] shell accounts to launder money, but were unable--due to
lack of identifying information in the corporate records--to fully
investigate this area.'' The IRS
[[Page 7621]]
testified: ``Within our own borders, the laws of some states regarding
the formation of legal entities have significant transparency gaps
which may even rival the secrecy afforded in the most attractive tax
havens.'' FinCEN identified 768 incidents of suspicious international
wire transfer activity involving U.S. shell companies.
In addition, last year, when listing the ``Dirty Dozen'' tax scams
for 2007, the IRS highlighted shell companies with unknown owners as
number four on the list, as follows:
``4. Disguised Corporate Ownership: Domestic shell
corporations and other entities are being formed and operated
in certain states for the purpose of disguising the ownership
of the business or financial activity. Once formed, these
anonymous entities can be, and are being, used to facilitate
underreporting of income, non-filing of tax returns, listed
transactions, money laundering, financial crimes and possibly
terrorist financing. The IRS is working with state
authorities to identify these entities and to bring their
owners into compliance.''
That is not all. Dozens of Internet websites advertising corporate
formation services highlight the fact that some of our States allow
corporations to be formed under their laws without asking for the
identity of the beneficial owners. These websites explicitly point to
anonymous ownership as a reason to incorporate within the U.S., and
often list certain States alongside notorious offshore jurisdictions as
preferred locations for the formation of new corporations, essentially
providing an open invitation for wrongdoers to form entities within the
U.S.
One website, for example, set up by an international incorporation
firm, advocates setting up companies in Delaware by saying:
``DELAWARE--An Offshore Tax Haven for Non US Residents.'' It cites as
one of Delaware's advantages that: ``Owners' names are not disclosed to
the state.'' Another website, from a U.K. firm called ``formacompany-
offshore.com,'' lists the advantages to incorporating in Nevada. Those
advantages include: ``No I.R.S. Information Sharing Agreement'' and
``Stockholders are not on Public Record allowing complete anonymity.''
Despite this type of advertising, years of law enforcement
complaints, and mounting evidence of abuse, many of our States are
reluctant to admit there is a problem with establishing U.S.
corporations and LLCs with unknown owners. Too many of our States are
eager to explain how quick and easy it is to set up corporations within
their borders, without acknowledging that those same quick and easy
procedures enable wrongdoers to utilize U.S. corporations in a variety
of crimes and tax dodges both here and abroad.
Since 2006, the Subcommittee has worked with the States to encourage
them to recognize the homeland security problem they've created and to
come up with their own solution. After the Subcommittee's hearing on
this issue, for example, the National Association of Secretaries of
State, NASS, convened a 2007 task force to examine State incorporation
practices. At the request of NASS and several States, I delayed
introducing legislation while they worked on a proposal to require the
collection of beneficial ownership information. My Subcommittee staff
participated in multiple conferences, telephone calls, and meetings;
suggested key principles; and provided comments to the Task Force.
In July 2007, the NASS task force issued a proposal. Rather than cure
the problem, however, the proposal was full of deficiencies, leading
the Treasury Department to state in a letter that the NASS proposal
``falls short'' and ``does not fully address the problem of legal
entities masking the identity of criminals.''
Among other shortcomings, the NASS proposal does not require States
to obtain the names of the natural individuals who would be the
beneficial owners of a U.S. corporation or LLC. Instead, it would allow
States to obtain a list of a company's ``owners of record'' who can be,
and often are, offshore corporations or trusts. The NASS proposal also
doesn't require the States themselves to maintain the beneficial
ownership information, or to supply it to law enforcement upon receipt
of a subpoena or summons. The proposal also fails to require the
beneficial ownership information to be updated over time. These and
other flaws in the proposal have been identified by the Treasury
Department, the Department of Justice, myself, and others, but NASS has
given no indication that the flaws will be corrected.
It is deeply disappointing that the States, despite the passage of
more than one year, have been unable to devise an effective proposal.
Part of the difficulty is that the States have a wide range of
practices, differ on the extent to which they rely on incorporation
fees as a major source of revenue, and differ on the extent to which
they attract non-U.S. persons as incorporators. In addition, the States
are competing against each other to attract persons who want to set up
U.S. corporations, and that competition creates pressure for each
individual State to favor procedures that allow quick and easy
incorporations. It is a classic case of competition causing a race to
the bottom, making it difficult for any one State to do the right thing
and request the names of the beneficial owners.
That is why we are introducing Federal legislation today. Federal
legislation is needed to level the playing field among the States, set
minimum standards for obtaining beneficial ownership information, put
an end to the practice of States forming millions of legal entities
each year without knowing who is behind them, and bring the U.S. into
compliance with its international commitments.
The bill's provisions would require the States to obtain a list of
the beneficial owners of each corporation or LLC formed under their
laws, to maintain this information for 5 years after the corporation is
terminated, and to provide the information to law enforcement upon
receipt of a subpoena or summons. If enacted, this bill would ensure,
for the first time, that law enforcement seeking beneficial ownership
information from a State about one of its corporations or LLCs would
not be turned away empty-handed.
The bill would also require corporations and LLCs to update their
beneficial ownership information in an annual filing with the State of
incorporation. If a State did not require an annual filing, the
information would have to be updated each time the beneficial ownership
changed.
In the special case of U.S. corporations formed by non-U.S. persons,
the bill would go farther. Following the lead of the Patriot Act which
imposed additional due diligence requirements on certain financial
accounts opened by non-U.S. persons, our bill would require additional
due diligence for corporations beneficially owned by non-U.S. persons.
This added due diligence would have to be performed--not by the
States--but by the persons seeking to establish the corporations. These
incorporators would have to file with the State a written certification
from a corporate formation agent residing within the State attesting to
the fact that the agent had verified the identity of the non-U.S.
beneficial owners of the corporation by obtaining their names,
addresses, and passport photographs. The formation agent would be
required to retain this information for a specified period of time and
produce it upon request.
The bill would not require the States to verify the ownership
information provided to them by a formation agent, corporation, LLC, or
other person filing an incorporation application. Instead, the bill
would establish Federal civil and criminal penalties for anyone who
knowingly provided a State with false beneficial ownership information
or intentionally failed to provide the State with the information
requested.
The bill would also exempt certain corporations from the disclosure
obligation. For example, it would exempt all publicly-traded
corporations and the entities they form, since these corporations are
already overseen by the Security and Exchange Commission SEC. It would
also allow the States, with the written concurrence of the Homeland
Security Secretary and the U.S. Attorney General, to identify certain
corporations, either individually or as a class, that would not have to
[[Page 7622]]
list their beneficial owners, if requiring such ownership information
would not serve the public interest or assist law enforcement in their
investigations. These exemptions are expected to be narrowly drafted
and rarely granted, but are intended to provide the States and Federal
law enforcement added flexibility to fine-tune the disclosure
obligation and focus it where it is most needed to stop crime, tax
evasion, and other wrongdoing.
Another area of flexibility in the bill involves privacy issues. The
bill deliberately does not take a position on the issue of whether the
States should make the beneficial ownership information they receive
available to the public. Instead, the bill leaves it entirely up to the
States to decide whether and under what circumstances to make
beneficial ownership information available to the public. The bill
explicitly permits the States to place restrictions on providing
beneficial ownership information to persons other than government
officials. The bill focuses instead only on ensuring that law
enforcement and Congress, when equipped with a subpoena or summons, are
given ready access to the beneficial ownership information collected by
the States.
To ensure that the States have the funds needed to meet the new
beneficial ownership information requirements, the bill makes it clear
that States can use their DHS State grant funds for this purpose. Every
State is guaranteed a minimum amount of DHS grant funds every year and
may receive funds substantially above that minimum. Every State will be
able to use all or a portion of these funds to modify their
incorporation practices to meet the requirements in the Act. The bill
also authorizes DHS to use appropriated funds to carry out its
responsibilities under the Act. These provisions will ensure that the
States have the funds needed for the modest compliance costs involved
with amending their incorporation forms to request the names of
beneficial owners.
It is common for bills establishing Federal standards to seek to
ensure State action by making some Federal funding dependent upon a
State's meeting the specified standards. This bill, however, states
explicitly that nothing in the bill authorizes DHS to withhold funds
from a State for failing to modify its incorporation practices to meet
the beneficial ownership information requirements in the Act. Instead,
the bill simply calls for a GAO report in 2012 to identify which
States, if any, have failed to strengthen their incorporation practices
as required by the Act. After getting this status report, a future
Congress can decide what steps to take, including whether to reduce any
DHS funding going to the noncompliant States.
Finally, the bill would require the U.S. Department of the Treasury
to issue a rule requiring formation agents to establish anti-money
laundering programs to ensure they are not forming U.S. corporations or
LLCs for criminals or other wrongdoers. GAO would also be asked to
conduct a study of existing State formation procedures for partnerships
and trusts.
We have worked hard to craft a bill that would address, in a fair and
reasonable way, the homeland security problem created by States
allowing the formation of millions of U.S. corporations and LLCs with
unknown owners. What the bill comes down to is a simple requirement
that States change their incorporation applications to add a question
requesting the names and addresses of the prospective beneficial
owners. That is not too much to ask to protect this country and the
international community from U.S. corporations engaged in wrongdoing
and to help law enforcement track down the wrongdoers.
For those who say that, if the United States tightens its
incorporation rules, new companies will be formed elsewhere, it is
appropriate to ask exactly where they will go? Every country in the
European Union is already required to get beneficial information for
the corporations formed under their laws. Most offshore jurisdictions
already request this information as well, including the Bahamas, Cayman
Islands, Jersey, and the Island of Man. Our States should be asking for
the same ownership information, but they don't, and there is no
indication that they will any time in the near future, unless required
to do so.
I wish Federal legislation weren't necessary. I wish the States could
solve this homeland security problem on their own, but ongoing
competitive pressures make it unlikely that the States will reach
agreement. We have waited more than a year already with no real
progress to show for it, despite repeated pleas from law enforcement.
Federal legislation is necessary to reduce the vulnerability of the
United States to wrongdoing by U.S. corporations with unknown owners,
to protect interstate and international commerce from criminals
misusing U.S. corporations, to strengthen the ability of law
enforcement to investigate suspect U.S. corporations, to level the
playing field among the States, and to bring the U.S. into compliance
with its international anti-money laundering obligations.
There is also an issue of consistency. For years, I have been
fighting offshore corporate secrecy laws and practices that enable
wrongdoers to secretly control offshore corporations involved in money
laundering, tax evasion, and other misconduct. I have pointed out on
more than one occasion that corporations were not created to hide
ownership, but to shield owners from personal liability for corporate
acts. Unfortunately, today, the corporate form has too often been
corrupted into serving those wishing to conceal their identities and
commit crimes or dodge taxes without alerting authorities. It is past
time to stop this misuse of the corporate form. But if we want to stop
inappropriate corporate secrecy offshore, we need to stop it here at
home as well.
For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation
and put an end to incorporation practices that promote corporate
secrecy and render the United States and other countries vulnerable to
abuse by U.S. corporations with unknown owners.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and
a bill summary be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows.
S. 2956
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Incorporation Transparency
and Law Enforcement Assistance Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Nearly 2,000,000 corporations and limited liability
companies are being formed under the laws of the States each
year.
(2) Very few States obtain meaningful information about the
beneficial owners of the corporations and limited liability
companies formed under their laws.
(3) A person forming a corporation or limited liability
company within the United States typically provides less
information to the State of incorporation than is needed to
obtain a bank account or driver's license and typically does
not name a single beneficial owner.
(4) Criminals have exploited the weaknesses in State
formation procedures to conceal their identities when forming
corporations or limited liability companies in the United
States, and have then used the newly created entities to
commit crimes affecting interstate and international commerce
such as terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, tax
evasion, securities fraud, financial fraud, and acts of
foreign corruption.
(5) Law enforcement efforts to investigate corporations and
limited liability companies suspected of committing crimes
have been impeded by the lack of available beneficial
ownership information, as documented in reports and testimony
by officials from the Department of Justice, the Department
of Homeland Security, the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network of the Department of the Treasury, the Internal
Revenue Service, and the Government Accountability Office,
and others.
(6) In July 2006, a leading international anti-money
laundering organization, the Financial Action Task Force on
Money Laundering (in this section referred to as the
``FATF''), of which the United States is a member, issued a
report that criticizes the United States for failing to
comply with a FATF standard on the need to collect beneficial
ownership information and urged the United States to correct
this deficiency by July 2008.
(7) In response to the FATF report, the United States has
repeatedly urged the
[[Page 7623]]
States to strengthen their incorporation practices by
obtaining beneficial ownership information for the
corporations and limited liability companies formed under the
laws of such States.
(8) Many States have established automated procedures that
allow a person to form a new corporation or limited liability
company within the State within 24 hours of filing an online
application, without any prior review of the application by a
State official. In exchange for a substantial fee, 2 States
will form a corporation within 1 hour of a request.
(9) Dozens of Internet websites highlight the anonymity of
beneficial owners allowed under the incorporation practices
of some States, point to those practices as a reason to
incorporate in those States, and list those States together
with offshore jurisdictions as preferred locations for the
formation of new corporations, essentially providing an open
invitation to criminals and other wrongdoers to form entities
within the United States.
(10) In contrast to practices in the United States, all
countries in the European Union are required to identify the
beneficial owners of the corporations they form.
(11) To reduce the vulnerability of the United States to
wrongdoing by United States corporations and limited
liability companies with unknown owners, to protect
interstate and international commerce from criminals misusing
United States corporations and limited liability companies,
to strengthen law enforcement investigations of suspect
corporations and limited liability companies, to set minimum
standards for and level the playing field among State
incorporation practices, and to bring the United States into
compliance with its international anti-money laundering
obligations, Federal legislation is needed to require the
States to obtain beneficial ownership information for the
corporations and limited liability companies formed under the
laws of such States.
SEC. 3. TRANSPARENT INCORPORATION PRACTICES.
(a) Transparent Incorporation Practices.--
(1) In general.--Subtitle A of title XX of the Homeland
Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 601 et seq.) is amended by
adding at the end the following:
``SEC. 2009. TRANSPARENT INCORPORATION PRACTICES.
``(a) Incorporation Systems.--
``(1) In general.--To protect the security of the United
States, each State that receives funding from the Department
under section 2004 shall, not later than the beginning of
fiscal year 2011, use an incorporation system that meets the
following requirements:
``(A) Each applicant to form a corporation or limited
liability company under the laws of the State is required to
provide to the State during the formation process a list of
the beneficial owners of the corporation or limited liability
company that--
``(i) identifies each beneficial owner by name and current
address; and
``(ii) if any beneficial owner exercises control over the
corporation or limited liability company through another
legal entity, such as a corporation, partnership, or trust,
identifies each such legal entity and each such beneficial
owner who will use that entity to exercise control over the
corporation or limited liability company.
``(B) Each corporation or limited liability company formed
under the laws of the State is required by the State to
update the list of the beneficial owners of the corporation
or limited liability company by providing the information
described in subparagraph (A)--
``(i) in an annual filing with the State; or
``(ii) if no annual filing is required under the law of
that State, each time a change is made in the beneficial
ownership of the corporation or limited liability company.
``(C) Beneficial ownership information relating to each
corporation or limited liability company formed under the
laws of the State is required to be maintained by the State
until the end of the 5-year period beginning on the date that
the corporation or limited liability company terminates under
the laws of the State.
``(D) Beneficial ownership information relating to each
corporation or limited liability company formed under the
laws of the State shall be provided by the State upon receipt
of--
``(i) a civil or criminal subpoena or summons from a State
agency, Federal agency, or congressional committee or
subcommittee requesting such information; or
``(ii) a written request made by a Federal agency on behalf
of another country under an international treaty, agreement,
or convention, or section 1782 of title 28, United States
Code.
``(2) Non-united states beneficial owners.--To further
protect the security of the United States, each State that
accepts funding from the Department under section 2004 shall,
not later than the beginning of fiscal year 2011, require
that, if any beneficial owner of a corporation or limited
liability company formed under the laws of the State is not a
United States citizen or a lawful permanent resident of the
United States, each application described in paragraph (1)(A)
and each update described in paragraph (1)(B) shall include a
written certification by a formation agent residing in the
State that the formation agent--
``(A) has verified the name, address, and identity of each
beneficial owner that is not a United States citizen or a
lawful permanent resident of the United States;
``(B) has obtained for each beneficial owner that is not a
United States citizen or a lawful permanent resident of the
United States a copy of the page of the government-issued
passport on which a photograph of the beneficial owner
appears;
``(C) will provide proof of the verification described in
subparagraph (A) and the photograph described in subparagraph
(B) upon request; and
``(D) will retain information and documents relating to the
verification described in subparagraph (A) and the photograph
described in subparagraph (B) until the end of the 5-year
period beginning on the date that the corporation or limited
liability company terminates, under the laws of the State.
``(b) Penalties for False Beneficial Ownership
Information.--In addition to any civil or criminal penalty
that may be imposed by a State, any person who affects
interstate or foreign commerce by knowingly providing, or
attempting to provide, false beneficial ownership information
to a State, by intentionally failing to provide beneficial
ownership information to a State upon request, or by
intentionally failing to provide updated beneficial ownership
information to a State--
``(1) shall be liable to the United States for a civil
penalty of not more than $10,000; and
``(2) may be fined under title 18, United States Code,
imprisoned for not more than 3 years, or both.
``(c) Funding Authorization.--To carry out this section--
``(1) a State may use all or a portion of the funds made
available to the State under section 2004; and
``(2) the Administrator may use funds appropriated to carry
out this title, including unobligated or reprogrammed funds,
to enable a State to obtain and manage beneficial ownership
information for the corporations and limited liability
companies formed under the laws of the State, including by
funding measures to assess, plan, develop, test, or implement
relevant policies, procedures, or system modifications.
``(d) State Compliance Report.--Nothing in this section
authorizes the Administrator to withhold from a State any
funding otherwise available to the State under section 2004
because of a failure by that State to comply with this
section. Not later than June 1, 2012, the Comptroller General
of the United States shall submit to the Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate and
the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of
Representatives a report identifying which States are in
compliance with this section and, for any State not in
compliance, what measures must be taken by that State to
achieve compliance with this section.
``(e) Definitions.--In this section:
``(1) Beneficial owner.--The term `beneficial owner' means
an individual who has a level of control over, or entitlement
to, the funds or assets of a corporation or limited liability
company that, as a practical matter, enables the individual,
directly or indirectly, to control, manage, or direct the
corporation or limited liability company.
``(2) Corporation; limited liability company.--The terms
`corporation' and `limited liability company'--
``(A) have the meanings given such terms under the laws of
the applicable State;
``(B) do not include any business concern that is an issuer
of a class of securities registered under section 12 of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 781) or that is
required to file reports under section 15(d) of that Act (15
U.S.C. 78o(d)), or any corporation or limited liability
company formed by such a business concern;
``(C) do not include any business concern formed by a
State, a political subdivision of a State, under an
interstate compact between 2 or more States, by a department
or agency of the United States, or under the laws of the
United States; and
``(D) do not include any individual business concern or
class of business concerns which a State, after obtaining the
written concurrence of the Administrator and the Attorney
General of the United States, has determined in writing
should be exempt from the requirements of subsection (a),
because requiring beneficial ownership information from the
business concern would not serve the public interest and
would not assist law enforcement efforts to detect, prevent,
or punish terrorism, money laundering, tax evasion, or other
misconduct.
``(3) Formation agent.--The term `formation agent' means a
person who, for compensation, acts on behalf of another
person to assist in the formation of a corporation or limited
liability company under the laws of a State.''.
(2) Table of contents.--The table of contents in section 1
of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 101 et seq.)
is amended by inserting after the item relating to section
2008 the following:
``Sec. 2009. Transparent incorporation practices.''.
[[Page 7624]]
(b) Effect on State Law.--
(1) In general.--This Act and the amendments made by this
Act do not supersede, alter, or affect any statute,
regulation, order, or interpretation in effect in any State,
except where a State has elected to receive funding from the
Department of Homeland Security under section 2004 of the
Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 605), and then only
to the extent that such State statute, regulation, order, or
interpretation is inconsistent with this Act or an amendment
made by this Act.
(2) Not inconsistent.--A State statute, regulation, order,
or interpretation is not inconsistent with this Act or an
amendment made by this Act if such statute, regulation,
order, or interpretation--
(A) requires additional information, more frequently
updated information, or additional measures to verify
information related to a corporation, limited liability
company, or beneficial owner, than is specified under this
Act or an amendment made by this Act; or
(B) imposes additional limits on public access to the
beneficial ownership information obtained by the State than
is specified under this Act or an amendment made by this Act.
SEC. 4. ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING OBLIGATIONS OF FORMATION
AGENTS.
(a) Anti-Money Laundering Obligations of Formation
Agents.--Section 5312(a)(2) of title 31, United States Code,
is amended--
(1) in subparagraph (Y), by striking ``or'' at the end;
(2) by redesignating subparagraph (Z) as subparagraph (AA);
and
(3) by inserting after subparagraph (Y) the following:
``(Z) any person involved in forming a corporation, limited
liability company, partnership, trust, or other legal entity;
or''.
(b) Deadline for Anti-Money Laundering Rule for Formation
Agents.--
(1) Proposed rule.--Not later than 90 days after the date
of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury, in
consultation with the Attorney General of the United States,
the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Commissioner of
the Internal Revenue Service, shall publish a proposed rule
in the Federal Register requiring persons described in
section 5312(a)(2)(Z) of title 31, United States Code, as
amended by this section, to establish anti-money laundering
programs under subsection (h) of section 5318 of that title.
(2) Final rule.--Not later than 270 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall
publish the rule described in this subsection in final form
in the Federal Register.
SEC. 5. STUDY AND REPORT BY GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE.
Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this
Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall
conduct a study and submit to the Committee on Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the
Committee on Homeland Security of the House of
Representatives a report--
(1) identifying each State that has procedures that enable
persons to form or register under the laws of the State
partnerships, trusts, or other legal entities, and the nature
of those procedures;
(2) identifying each State that requires persons seeking to
form or register partnerships, trusts, or other legal
entities under the laws of the State to provide information
about the beneficial owners (as that term is defined in
section 2009 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, as added
by this Act) or beneficiaries of such entities, and the
nature of the required information;
(3) evaluating whether the lack of available beneficial
ownership information for partnerships, trusts, or other
legal entities--
(A) raises concerns about the involvement of such entities
in terrorism, money laundering, tax evasion, securities
fraud, or other misconduct; and
(B) has impeded investigations into entities suspected of
such misconduct; and
(4) evaluating whether the failure of the United States to
require beneficial ownership information for partnerships and
trusts formed or registered in the United States has elicited
international criticism and what steps, if any, the United
States has taken or is planning to take in response.
____
Summary of Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance
Act, May 1, 2008
To protect the United States from U.S. corporations being
misused to commit terrorism, money laundering, tax evasion,
or other misconduct, the Incorporation Transparency and Law
Enforcement Assistance Act would:
Beneficial Ownership Information. Require the States to
obtain a list of the beneficial owners of each corporation or
limited liability company (LLC) formed under their laws,
ensure this information is updated annually, and provide the
information to civil or criminal law enforcement upon receipt
of a subpoena or summons.
Non-U.S. Beneficial Owners. Require corporations and LLCs
with non-U.S. beneficial owners to provide a certification
from an in-State formation agent that the agent has verified
the identity of those owners.
Penalties for False Information. Establish civil and
criminal penalties under federal law for persons who
knowingly provide false beneficial ownership information or
intentionally fail to provide required beneficial ownership
information to a State.
Exemptions. Provide exemptions for certain corporations,
including publicly traded corporations and the corporations
and LLCs they form, since the Securities and Exchange
Commission already oversees them; and corporations which a
State has determined, with concurrence from the Homeland
Security and Justice Departments, should be exempt because
requiring beneficial ownership information from them would
not serve the public interest or assist law enforcement.
Funding. Authorize States to use an existing DHS grant
program, and authorize DHS to use already appropriated funds,
to meet the requirements of this Act.
State Compliance Report. Clarify that nothing in the Act
authorizes DHS to withhold funds from a State for failing to
comply with the beneficial ownership requirements. Require a
GAO report by 2012 identifying which States are not in
compliance so that a future Congress can determine at that
time what steps to take.
Transition Period. Give the States until October 2011 to
require beneficial ownership information for the corporations
and LLCs formed under their laws.
Anti-Money Laundering Rule. Require the Treasury Secretary
to issue a rule requiring formation agents to establish anti-
money laundering programs to ensure they are not forming U.S.
corporations or other entities for criminals or other suspect
persons.
GAO Study. Require GAO to complete a study of State
beneficial ownership information requirements for in-state
partnerships and trusts.
______
By Mr. LIEBERMAN:
S. 2957. A bill to modernize credit union net worth standards,
advance credit union efforts to promote economic growth, and modify
credit union regularity standards and reduce burdens, and for other
purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President today more than ever, credit unions are
a critical component of our nation's financial landscape. At a time
when most financial institutions are retreating from the credit
markets, credit unions are among the few lenders in the financial
industry demonstrating resiliency and strength. For example, while many
mortgage lenders are struggling to stay afloat, the delinquency rate on
mortgages issued by credit unions is less than one percent, and credit
unions are still lending. Nonetheless, certain outdated regulatory
rules impede the ability of credit unions to effectively carry out
their role as savings and lending institutions for local communities
and small businesses. Because I believe that credit unions are a
stabilizing force in the domestic economy and play an important role in
providing financial services to local community and underserved groups,
I am introducing the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act of 2008,
CURIA.
The health of credit unions in today's turbulent economy is
attributable to a business model that differs significantly from that
of other financial institutions. Similar to banks and thrifts, credit
unions act as intermediaries in the market for consumer finance. Credit
unions, however, are governed by certain rules that take into account
their position as cooperative lenders. Notably, credit unions operate
as tax-exempt, nonprofit institutions. All credit union earnings are
retained as capital or returned to members in the form of higher
interest rates on savings accounts, lower interest rates on loans, and
other financial benefits. Second, credit unions are member-owned with
each member entitled to one vote in selecting board members and other
decisions. Third, credit unions do not issue capital stock. Rather,
credit unions create capital by retaining earnings. Fourth, credit
unions rely on volunteer, generally unpaid boards of directors elected
from the membership. Lastly, credit unions are limited to accepting
members identified in a credit union's articulated field of
membership--usually reflecting occupational, associational, or
geographical links or affinity.
In short, through a cooperative ownership structure, credit unions
offer access to financial services to millions of Americans. As a
result of strong ties to their communities, credit unions help meet
local needs, and in the process, encourage economic growth, job
creation, savings, and opportunities for
[[Page 7625]]
small business owners. At the end of 2007, over 88 million individuals
were members of state or federally charted credit unions in the United
States, including close to a million individuals in the State of
Connecticut.
The legislation I am introducing will help modernize the Federal
Credit Union Act, bringing antiquated rules into the era of twenty-
first century consumer finance. CURIA would remove several instances of
statutory micromanagement that place unreasonable constraints on the
ability of credit unions and their boards to function efficiently and
in the best interests of their members. The first title would update
current capital requirements by implementing recommendations from the
National Credit Union Administration, NCUA, the Federal regulatory body
that oversees credit unions. For purposes of setting capital
requirements, CURIA would implement a rigorous, two-part net worth test
that would more closely track an institution's actual asset risk. The
second title would promote community development and local economic
growth by providing for modest expansion in credit union business
lending. The title also includes provisions that would permit credit
unions to extend services to areas with high unemployment and low
incomes. The third title would provide credit unions with relief from
outdated regulatory burdens by authorizing the NCUA to increase maximum
loan terms and raise interest rate ceilings in response to sustained
increases in prevailing market interest rate levels. The title would
further allow greater credit union investment in credit union service
organizations, allow limited investments in securities, and update
credit union governance rules.
Vigorous competition among financial service providers, new
technology, and globalization have resulted in a financial marketplace
where the products and actors are evolving at a much more rapid rate
than the statutes and regulations that govern them. While recent events
demonstrate that we must be prudent in our approach to financial
regulation, we must not allow our rules to unjustifiably constrain
those actors, such as credit unions, that contribute to financial
stability, community development, and long-term growth. The Credit
Union Regulatory Improvements Act is an important step toward
modernizing and calibrating our financial regulatory rules, I encourage
my colleagues to support it.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent a section-by-section analysis
be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record as follows:
The Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act of 2008
Section-by-Section Analysis
Section 1. Short title
Section 1 would establish the short title of the bill as
the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act of 2008.
Title I: Capital Reform
Section 101. Amendments to net worth categories
The Federal Credit Union Act presently specifies the amount
of capital credit unions must hold in order to protect their
safety and soundness and the solvency of the National Credit
Union Share Insurance Fund (``Insurance Fund''). Many
experts, however, have noted that this capital allocation
system is inefficient and does not appropriately account for
risk. Section 101 incorporates recent recommendations of the
National Credit Union Administration, NCUA, to provide a two-
tier capital and Prompt Corrective Action, PCA, system for
federally insured credit unions involving complementary
leverage and risk-based minimum capital requirements. Under
the proposed system, a well capitalized credit union must
maintain a leverage net worth ratio of 5.25% and a minimum
risk-based ratio of 10%. When a credit union's capital
deposit to the Insurance Fund (equal to 1% of insured
deposits) is added, a credit union's total net worth would
equal or exceed the capital requirements for FDIC-insured
banks and thrifts.
Section 102. Amendments relating to risk-based net worth
categories
Currently, only federally insured credit unions that are
considered ``complex'' must meet a risk-based net worth
requirement under the Federal Credit Union Act. Section 102
would instead require all federally insured credit unions to
meet a risk-based net worth requirement, and it directs the
Board to take into account comparable risk standards for
FDIC-insured institutions when designing the risk-based
requirements appropriate to credit unions.
Section 103. Treatment based on other criteria
Section 103 would permit the NCUA Board to delegate to
regional directors the authority to lower by one level a
credit union's net worth category for reasons related to
interest-rate risk not captured in the risk-based ratios,
with any regional action subject to Board review.
Section 104. Definitions relating to net worth
Net worth, for purposes of prompt corrective action, is
currently defined as a credit union's retained earnings
balance under generally accepted accounting principles.
Section 104 would make three important revisions to this
definition. First, it clarifies that credit union net worth
ratios must be calculated without a credit union's capital
deposit with the Insurance Fund. Second, it provides a new
definition for ``risk-based net worth ratio'' as the ratio of
the net worth of the credit union to the risk assets of the
credit union. Third, it would permit the NCUA to impose
additional limitations on the secondary capital accounts used
to determine net worth for low-income community credit unions
where necessary to address safety and soundness concerns.
Section 105. Amendments relating to net worth restoration Plans
Section 105 would provide the NCUA Board with authority to
waive temporarily the requirement to implement a net worth
restoration plan for a credit union that becomes
undercapitalized due to disruption of its operations by a
natural disaster or a terrorist act. It would further permit
the Board to require any credit union that is no longer well
capitalized to implement a net worth restoration plan if it
determines the loss of capital is due to safety and soundness
concerns and those concerns remain unresolved by the credit
union.
This section would also modify the required actions of the
Board in the case of critically undercapitalized credit
unions in several ways. First, it would authorize the Board
to issue an order to a critically undercapitalized credit
union. Second, the timing of the period before appointment of
a liquidating agent could be shortened. Third, the section
would clarify the coordination requirement with state
officials in the case of state-chartered credit unions.
Title II: Economic Growth
Section 201. Limits on member business loans
Section 201 would increase the current arbitrary asset
limit on credit union member business loans from the lesser
of 1.75 times actual net worth or 1.75 percent times net
worth for a well-capitalized credit union (12.25% of total
assets) to a flat limit of 20% of the total assets of a
credit union. This update would facilitate added member
business lending without jeopardizing safety and soundness at
participating credit unions, as the 20% cap would still be
equal to or stricter than business lending caps imposed on
other depository institutions.
Section 202. Definition of member business loans
Section 202 would give NCUA the authority to exclude loans
of $100,000 or less as de minimis, rather than the current
$50,000 exclusion, from calculation of the 20% cap on member
business loans. This change would thus facilitate the ability
of credit unions to make additional loans and encourage them
to make very small business loans. It also builds upon the
findings in a 2001 study by the Treasury Department that
found that ``. . . credit union member business loans share
many characteristics of consumer loans'' and that ``. . .
these loans are generally smaller and fully collateralized,
and borrower risk profiles are more easily determined.''
Section 203. Restrictions on member business loans
Section 203 would modify language in the Federal Credit
Union Act that currently prohibits a credit union from making
any new member business loans if its net worth falls below 6
percent. This change would permit the NCUA to determine if
such a policy is appropriate and to oversee all member
business loans granted by an undercapitalized institution.
Section 204. Member business loan exclusion for loans to non-
profit religious organizations
To facilitate the ability of credit unions to support the
community development activities of non-profit religious
institutions, Section 204 would exclude loans or loan
participations by credit unions to non-profit religious
organizations from the member business loan limits contained
in the Federal Credit Union Act.
Section 205. Credit unions authorized to lease space in
buildings in underserved areas
In order to enhance the ability of federal credit unions to
assist underserved communities with their economic
revitalization efforts, Section 205 would allow a credit
union to lease space in a building or on property on which it
maintains a physical presence in an underserved area to other
parties on a more
[[Page 7626]]
permanent basis. It would also permit a federal credit union
to acquire, construct, or refurbish a building in an
underserved community, then lease out excess space in that
building.
Section 206. Amendments relating to credit union service to
underserved areas
Section 206 would revise a provision of the 1998 Credit
Union Membership Access Act that has been incorrectly
interpreted as permitting only federal credit unions with
multiple common bond charters to expand services to
individuals and groups living or working in areas of high
unemployment and below median incomes that typically are
underserved by other depository institutions. The change
would reestablish prior NCUA policy of permitting all federal
credit unions, regardless of charter type, to expand services
to eligible communities that the Treasury Department
determines meet income, unemployment and other distress
criteria.
Section 207. Underserved areas defined
Section 207 would expand the criteria for determining
whether a community or rural area qualifies as an underserved
area. The definition of a qualified underserved area includes
not only areas currently eligible as ``investment areas''
under the Treasury Department's Community Development
Financial Institutions (CDFI) program, but also census tracts
qualifying as ``low income areas'' under the New Markets Tax
Credit targeting formula adopted by Congress in 2000.
Title III: Regulatory Modernization
Section 301. Investments in securities by federal credit
unions
The Federal Credit Union Act presently limits the
investment authority of federal credit unions to loans,
government securities, deposits in other financial
institutions, and certain other limited investments. Section
301 would provide additional investment authority to allow
credit unions to purchase for the credit union's own account
certain investment grade securities. The total amount of the
investment securities of any one obligor or maker could not
exceed 10% of the credit union's net worth and total
investments could not exceed 10% of total assets.
Section 302. Authority of NCUA to establish longer maturities
for certain credit union loans
The Federal Credit Union Act was amended in 2006 to allow
the NCUA Board to increase the 12-year maturity limit on non-
real estate secured loans to 15 years. Section 302 would
further provide the Board with additional flexibility to
issue regulations providing for loan terms exceeding 15 years
for specific types of loans.
Section 303. Increase in 1 percent investment and loan limits
in credit union service organizations
The Federal Credit Union Act authorizes federal credit
unions to invest in organizations providing services to
credit unions and credit union members. Currently, an
individual federal credit union may invest in aggregate no
more than one percent of its unimpaired capital and surplus
in these organizations, commonly known as credit union
service organizations or CUSOs. Credit unions also are
limited in the amount they may loan to all CUSOs to one
percent of unimpaired capital and surplus. Section 303 would
double the amount a credit union may invest in all CUSOs, and
the aggregate amount it may lend to CUSOs, to two percent of
credit union unimpaired capital and surplus.
Section 304. Voluntary mergers involving multiple common bond
credit unions
NCUA has identified ambiguous language in the 1998 Credit
Union Membership Access Act as creating uncertainty for
certain voluntary credit union mergers by requiring that
groups of more than 3,000 members be required to start a new
credit union rather than be incorporated as a new group
within a multiple common-bond credit union. Section 304 would
clarify that this numerical limitation would not apply to bar
groups of more than 3,000 members that are transferred
between two existing credit unions as part of a voluntary
merger.
Section 305. Conversions involving certain credit unions to a
community charter
In cases when a single or multiple common-bond federal
credit union converts to a community credit union charter,
there may be groups within the credit union's existing
membership that are located outside the new community
charter's geographic boundaries, but which desire to remain
part of the credit union and can be adequately served by the
credit union. Section 305 would require NCUA to establish the
criteria whereby it may determine that a member group or
other portion of a credit union's existing membership,
located outside of the community, can be satisfactorily
served and remain within the credit union's field of
membership.
Section 306. Credit union governance
Section 306 would provide federal credit union boards the
flexibility to expel a member, based on just cause, who is
disruptive to the operations of the credit union, including
harassing personnel and creating safety concerns, without the
need for a two-thirds vote of the membership present at a
special meeting as required by current law. The section would
also permit federal credit unions to limit the length of
service of their boards of directors to ensure broader
representation from the membership.
Section 307. Providing the National Credit Union
Administration with greater flexibility in responding to
market conditions
Currently, the NCUA Board may raise the usury interest rate
ceiling on loans by federal credit unions whenever it
determines that money market rates have increased over the
preceding six-month period and prevailing interest rates
threaten the safety and soundness of individual credit
unions. Section 307 would give the Board greater flexibility
to make such determinations based either on sustained
increases in money market interest rates or prevailing market
interest rate levels.
Section 308. Credit union conversion voting requirements
Section 308 includes several changes to current law
pertaining to credit union conversions to mutual thrift
institutions. It would increase the minimum member
participation requirement in any vote to approve a conversion
to 30% of the credit union's membership. It would require the
board of directors of a credit union considering conversion
to hold a general membership meeting one month prior to
sending out any notices about a conversion vote that contain
a voting ballot. It would also prohibit use of raffles,
contest, or any other promotions to encourage member voting
in a conversion vote.
Section 309. Exemption from pre-merger notification
requirement of the Clayton Act
Section 309 would give all federally insured credit unions
the same exemption that banks and thrift institutions already
have from pre-merger notification requirements and fees for
purposes of antitrust review by the Federal Trade Commission
under the Clayton Act.
______
By Mr. DOMENICI (for himself, Mr. Bunning, Mr. Sessions, Mrs.
Hutchison, Mr. Bond, Mr. Inhofe, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Barrasso,
Mr. Bennett, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Chambliss, Mr. Stevens, Mr.
Cornyn, Mr. Enzi, Mr. Isakson, Mr. Thune, Mr. Voinovich, Mr.
Allard, and Mr. McConnell).
S. 2958. A bill to promote the energy security of the United States,
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I have a few remarks about the energy
situation I would like to share with the Senate. Two months ago, I came
to the floor to deliver a series of speeches on the State of our
Nation's energy security. I said then, unequivocally, that our Nation's
economic strength had been put in great peril by our growing dependence
on foreign oil.
I have been a member of the Energy Committee for 30 years and have
served as chairman of that committee, as well as the Budget Committee,
for a long period during that time. I have seen my share of serious
debate on energy and the economy, and I recognize how vital these
issues are to our Nation's well-being.
Unfortunately, in these times of high gas prices and an approaching
election, I have also seen my share of not-so-serious debate. The
American people deserve better than false promises of short-term fixes,
driving season gimmicks, and empty threats to the Middle East.
I said in February--and I say it again today--the American people
deserve serious, thoughtful, long-term solutions to our ever-growing
energy crisis. If there are short-term solutions, or short-term aids,
we ought to share those, too, and get on with adopting them.
Investigating, taxing, and threatening our American oil and gas
companies will do nothing to reduce the stranglehold foreign oil
dependence has put on our economic strength, national security, and
foreign policy agenda.
To blame either side of the aisle for the trouble this Nation is in
misses the point. The American people did not send us here to cast
blame on one side or the other, and they certainly didn't send us here
to put bandaids on serious illnesses that threaten our Nation.
My first year in the Senate was during a Republican administration,
when a President set out an aggressive agenda to reduce our Nation's
oil imports.
[[Page 7627]]
At that time, we were importing 6 million barrels of oil a day, which
represented 35 percent of our total oil consumption.
Fast forward 36 years to today. The aggressive agenda through several
administrations and Congresses under the control of both parties has
failed time and again. Today, we are more than 60 percent dependent on
foreign oil which comes from some of the most hostile regimes in the
world. Over time, our consumption has grown at a moderate rate, but our
imports have more than doubled to 13.4 million barrels per day. The
result is a rising cost of energy, a rising threat of disruption in our
energy supply, and a rising anger among our already burdened
constituents.
As I said today, the average price of gasoline is $3.62 a gallon, an
alltime high for the 17th straight day. Crude oil closed above $113 per
barrel last night. The average approval rating of Congress has
plummeted to 22 percent, and yet we continue to point fingers back and
forth.
In the past few years, Congress has achieved significant success in
addressing long-term energy security. We passed a 2005 bill that will
bring us a nuclear renaissance, a 2006 bill that will bring us greater
domestic oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, and a 2007 bill
that will bring us increased fuel efficiency. That is a dramatic change
in the CAFE standards. These were not little things, and they were hard
to do. They were done without finger-pointing and with bipartisan
support.
To face this new challenge, however, we must do even more. Debate
about energy, oil, and the environment has reached a fever pitch. The
challenge of our time will be how we meet a rising demand for energy
from the literally billions of new consumers who wish to share in the
benefits of a global economy. I think we all know what that means. That
means India, China, and other countries are adding to the demand part
of the supply-and-demand cycles in mammoth ways. Already, China is
moving ahead as one of the largest importers of oil and users of oil in
the whole world. Just 10 years ago, or 12, they were hardly on the map.
For our Nation's future energy security and the world's, we will need
to ensure our supply of energy is reliable, affordable, and abundant.
Today, I introduced the Domestic Energy Production Act of 2008. I ask
unanimous consent that title be changed to the American Energy
Production Act of 2008.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. I ask that the clerk so change the bill, if they can.
If not, the Senator from New Mexico asks for the right to change it.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, the policies set forth in this bill
will begin to move us in the right direction. I urge my colleagues to
support its passage and to look at it seriously.
First, the bill allows for States on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts
to petition the Federal Government to opt out of the broad moratorium
that for two decades has locked up America's assets and forced us to
turn toward unstable foreign nations to power our lives. I believe it
is time that we ask the Atlantic and Pacific coastal States to take a
real look at whether we could drill distances from their shores without
doing any harm and adding substantially to the American supply for all
our citizens, not just the coastal citizens. I believe the time is
ripe. I believe right-headed people will consider that might be a
reality. If we were to do it, we were told just that contains literally
millions of barrels of crude oil and billions of cubic feet of natural
gas for the American energy future.
First, this bill allows these Atlantic and Pacific coasts to petition
their Government to opt out, as I said, and these are large quantities
of assets that are American. Together, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
contain oil reserves, and here are the numbers, what we know without
doing a detailed reconnaissance. There are reserves of up to 14 billion
barrels and natural gas reserves totaling 55 trillion cubic feet. Those
are big enough for the American people to demand that everyone who
represents States in this Senate look at this, whether they are coastal
State Senators or not. America needs an honest evaluation because with
these States, if there was no damage--and I believe we can drill
without any damage today--we might move in a direction, an honest
direction, of reducing dramatically what we must import overseas.
Opening them to leasing would literally bring billions of dollars to
the Federal Treasury and billions of dollars to the coastal States
because they would share in it 37 percent, as we did with the coastal
States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas when we, 2 years ago, did
the same thing for Gulf States and opened those areas for drilling.
Those States abutting were positively impressed and helped by it
because they wanted development and they also wanted to share in the
royalties. The new way we build platforms and drill is a far cry from
20 years ago when coastal States were so worried. Actually, we can do
it with little or no footprint, little or no seepage or damage, there
is no question about it.
Next, the bill opens 2,000 acres of the 19 million acres of the
Arctic plain, or ANWR, for oil and gas leasing. In 1995, President
Clinton vetoed an ANWR bill, and the price of oil was $19 a barrel. As
a result, 1 million barrels of oil continue to sit beneath our ground
each day instead of in our gas tanks. I believe the ultimate find, if
we are permitted to drill, would be much more than the million barrels,
without a question. The footprint is so small, the new directional
drilling is so accurate that I believe it deserves an opportunity for
the Senate to look again and think again and for the American people to
look again and think again with us on what should be done. The price of
oil is now $113 a barrel. When we last voted, the price was somewhere
above $50 but certainly nothing like this.
Yesterday, I heard a colleague on the other side of the aisle urge
OPEC nations to release 500,000 barrels of oil to the global market.
Today, in introducing this bill, I respond to my colleagues to release
more than 1 million barrels to that supply, from our own lands, by
supporting my bill. We don't know how much more we will get if the
coastal States join in and begin lifting the moratorium. We may be able
to send a message that more than the 500,000 barrels my colleague on
the other side sought and far more than the 1 million we would get from
Alaska would be released into the American market.
This bill provides for a consolidated permitting process to ease
constraints on building refineries in this country. While we improved
the capacity over years, we consistently hear the criticism that no new
refinery has been built in our country for over 30 years. Our Nation
cannot afford to go 30 more years without building additional
refineries.
The bill also provides a small measure of relief by suspending
delivery to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I ask my colleagues to
consider their views on certain issues. I remind them that this issue I
have reconsidered on my own. I believe it is appropriate in this
pricing environment that we stop filling the SPR for up to 6 months,
thus providing 70,000 additional barrels of light sweet crude per day.
That might have an effect. Although it will be minor, it might be
recognizable on the price of oil. I think it is time to do that.
I told the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water
Development, with whom I serve and was the principal sponsor of this,
that I would join him in this when he was ready to move on the Senate
floor.
By its very nature, this is just a fraction of the oil that will be
gained through OCS production. OCS is what I am talking about in the
bill I introduced today, and ANWR, oil shale production, and coal-to-
liquid production are in this bill. In today's environment, any small
amount helps the people of this country.
In the area of alternative resources, this bill requires studies on
ethanol to
[[Page 7628]]
help ensure that smart decisions are made as we move toward cellulosic
and other advanced biofuels. This bill provides incentives for the
advancement of breakthrough energy technologies, such as battery-
powered vehicles. That is important. It is obvious to everyone that we
have not moved ahead as rapidly as we should in battery development,
and we ought to push hard with our greatest scientists because a change
in the right direction there would be a dramatic change in the right
direction for automobiles that would be electric-motored and that would
be good for our country.
Our Nation is often called the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we should
use that domestic resource to help reduce our dependence on foreign
oil. This bill creates a mandate for up to 3 billion gallons of clean
coal-derived fuels over the next decade and 6 billion gallons over the
next 14 years. This will provide diesel and jet fuel to help power our
economy and create jobs throughout our coal-producing States.
Additionally, this provision requires that the mandated fuels have
life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions no greater than conventional
gasoline.
This is a win-win for our economy and our environment. I don't know
why it is so violently opposed by some in America. I think they just
don't want us to use our own if it means we are going to use it in
automobiles, diesel trucks, or the like. I don't understand. If we
don't do it, we will be using foreign oil unless and until we find a
total new substitute, which will be years from now.
This bill also allows for the long-term procurement of synthetic
fuels by the Department of Defense and repeals section 526 of last
year's Energy bill. That provision ties greenhouse gas emission
requirements to the types of fuels our Air Force can purchase. The
practical translation is that in a time of war, this policy would
direct our military to purchase oil from the sands of the Middle East
rather than the oil sands of Canada.
While this bill takes many steps to strengthen our Nation's energy
security, it also repeals several provisions in last year's
appropriations bills that threaten to damage our Nation's energy
security. At this point, most everyone knows what they are. I will
merely mention one of those that is big, and that is a mandate that was
imposed on oil shale development in America.
Somebody in conference--I think we know which one but need not say
since it is not certain--put a rider on that bill that said the final
regulations for shale development have a moratorium imposed. That comes
at a time when Shell Oil and others are exploring the great potential
of shale converted to oil. I don't see why we should do this. I believe
we should take that off and let them proceed. They will be bound by the
laws of our land, and obviously, with the high price of crude oil, it
is clear to me that they are going to find a way to make oil shale
equal to conventional oil and thus usable by Americans as American-
produced oil. We should let that happen as rapidly as possible and not
deter it. I know some will not agree, but I would think that debate,
carried to the American people, would be voted overwhelmingly in favor
of letting it happen. That is why we put it in this bill.
Finally, this bill repeals a $4,000 fee for drilling permits. These
costs, slipped into a large Omnibus measure without notice or debate,
hit the smallest oil and gas companies in our States. Making it more
difficult to produce domestic energy for domestic use will only serve
to further increase the prices we pay at the pump.
As I complete my final year in the Senate, I look back on the many
accomplishments this body has achieved for the American people. This
great work has often been done when Members reached across the aisle
after thoughtful deliberation, serious debate, and reasoned judgment. I
hope, as the Congress makes a serious effort to tackle the energy
challenges of our time, that we will address these challenges in the
same spirit.
As I said a few months ago on this floor that America faces a serious
energy crisis with vital implications for our national security,
economic strength, and foreign policy. The American people deserve a
serious debate, for our present challenge will require thoughtfulness,
vision, and judgment--not just today, but when the cameras are off, the
elections are far away, and gas prices subside.
______
By Mr. FEINGOLD (for himself, Ms.Klobuchar, Mr. Tester, and Mr.
Harkin):
S. 2959. A bill to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require
States to provide for election day registration; to the Committee on
Rules and Administration.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I will introduce, along with
Senators Klobuchar, Tester, and Harkin, the Election Day Registration
Act of 2008, which would significantly increase voter participation by
allowing all eligible citizens to register to vote in Federal elections
on Election Day.
In many ways, the machinery of our democracy needs significant
repair. We live in an age of low turnout and high cynicism. The
American people have lost faith in our election system, in part because
they are not confident that their votes will be counted or that the
ballot box is accessible to each and every voter regardless of ability,
race, or means.
What we see instead are long lines at polling places; faulty voting
machines; under-trained, under-paid, over-worked poll workers; partisan
election administrators; suspect vote tallies; caging lists;
intimidation at the polling place; misleading flyers; illegal voter-
file purges; and now, the Supreme Court approving discriminatory voter
ID laws. If people cannot trust their elections, why should they trust
their elected officials?
Two years ago, Professor Dan Tokaji, a leading election law expert,
called for a ``moneyball approach to election reform.'' Named after
Michael Lewis's book about the Oakland A's data-driven hiring system,
Tokaji's approach is quintessentially progressive, as that term was
understood at the turn of the century. ``I mean to suggest a research-
driven inquiry,'' Tokaji wrote, ``in place of the anecdotal approach
that has too often dominated election reform conversations. While
anecdotes and intuition have their place, they're no substitute for
hard data and rigorous analysis.''
This bill embodies the moneyball approach to election reform. In
stark contrast to many so-called election reform proposals, this bill
addresses a real problem--low voter turnout--it targets a major cause
of the problem--archaic registration laws--and it offers a proven
solution--Election Day registration.
The bill is very simple: it amends the Help America Vote Act to
require every State to allow eligible citizens to register and vote in
a Federal election on the day of the election. Voters may register
using any form that satisfies the requirements of the National Voter
Registration Act, including the Federal mail-in voter registration form
and any state's standard registration form. North Dakota, which does
not have voter registration, is exempted from the bill's requirements.
The bill itself is simple, but it addresses a significant problem:
the low voter turnout that has plagued this country for the last 40
years. We live in a participatory democracy, where our Government
derives its power from the consent of the governed, a consent embodied
in the people's exercise of their fundamental right to vote. It is self
evident that a participatory democracy depends on participation.
This may be a government of the people, but the people are not
voting. Since 1968, American political participation has hovered around
50 percent for Presidential elections and 40 percent for congressional
elections. Even in 2004, a record-breaking year, turnout was only 55
percent of the voting age population. The U.S. may be the only
established democracy where the fact that a little under half of the
electorate stayed home is considered cause for celebration.
In fact, our predecessors in the Senate would be surprised to find us
celebrating such low turnout: a 1974 report
[[Page 7629]]
by the Senate Committee on the Post Office and Civil Service bemoaned
the ``shocking'' drop in turnout in the 1972 election. And what was the
number that so troubled the Committee--55 percent.
The report went on: ``[i]t is the Committee's conviction that our
disquieting record of voter participation is in large part due to the
hodgepodge of registration barriers put in the way of the voter. Such
obstacles have little, if anything, to recommend them. At best, current
registration laws in the various states are outmoded and simply
inappropriate for a highly mobile population. At worst, registration
laws can be construed as a deliberate effort to disenfranchise voters
who desperately need entry into the decision-making processes of our
country.''
What a shame, that the Committee's findings are still valid. Our
archaic registration laws have been reformed, but they are still
archaic. We have passed a number of important bills designed to combat
low turnout, but turnout is still low. America is even more mobile than
it was in 1974, and yet our registration laws are still out of touch
with the reality that more than 40 million Americans move every year.
Worst of all, our registration laws still fall especially hard on the
young, the old, and the poor.
We have long known that complicated voter registration requirements
constitute one of the major barriers to voting. In fact, many States
adopted voter registration in order to prevent certain segments of the
population from voting. Alexander Keyssar, the preeminent scholar on
the history of the right to vote in this country, writes that although
``[r]egistration laws emerged in the nineteenth century as a means of
keeping track of voters and preventing fraud; they also served--and
were intended to serve--as a means of keeping African-American,
working-class, immigrant, and poor voters from the polls.''
It is time for a fundamental change. A large body of research tells
us that unnecessarily burdensome voter registration requirements are
the single largest factor in preventing people from voting. Simply put,
voter registration restrictions should not keep eligible Americans from
exercising their right to vote. The solution to this problem is
Election Day registration.
Decades of empirical research confirm Election Day registration's
positive impact on turnout. As one academic paper states, ``the
evidence on whether EDR augments the electorate is remarkably clear and
consistent. Studies finding positive and significant turnout impacts
are too numerous to list.'' Studies indicate that Election Day
registration alone increases turnout by roughly 5 to 10 percentage
points.
In general, States with Election Day registration boast voter turnout
that is 10-12 percentage points higher than States that require voters
to register before Election Day. Turnout in Minnesota and Wisconsin,
which implemented Election Day registration over 35 years ago, has been
especially high: in 2004, for example, 78 percent of eligible
Minnesotans and 75 percent of eligible Wisconsinites went to the polls.
The last time national voter turnout was above 70 percent, it was 1896,
there were only 45 States, and the gold standard was the dominant
campaign issue.
Critics might worry about the possibility of fraud, but Election Day
registration actually makes the registration process more secure.
Voters registering on Election Day do so in the presence of an
elections official who verifies the voter's residency and identity on
the spot. Mark Ritchie, Minnesota's Secretary of State, points out that
Election Day registration ``is much more secure because you have the
person right in front of you--not a postcard in the mail. That is a no-
brainer. We have 33 years of experience with this.''
In contrast to most election reforms, the cost of Election Day
registration is negligible. A recent survey of 26 local elections
officials in six EDR States found that ``officials agreed that
incidental expense of administering EDR is minimal.'' In fact, Election
Day registration may actually result in a net savings because it
significantly reduces the use of provisional ballots. Provisional
ballots, which are required by the Help America Vote Act, are expensive
to administer. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that
provisional ballots cost State and local governments about $25 million
a year.
In some states the number of provisional ballots cast is surprisingly
large. For example, in 2004, more than 4 percent of California's
registered voters cast provisional ballots--that's 644,642 provisional
ballots. In Ohio, 157,714 provisional ballots were cast, about 2
percent of all registered voters.
In contrast, in 2004 only 0.03 percent of voters in EDR States cast a
provisional ballot. In Wisconsin, only 374 provisional ballots were
cast. In Maine, only 95 provisional ballots were cast. In fact, only
952 provisional ballots were cast in all the EDR States combined in
2004. To be sure, this bill is no cure-all: it does not address long
lines, deceptive flyers, and faulty voting machines. Other bills, good
bills, address those issues.
The bottom line is this: the Election Day Registration Act would
substantially increase civic participation, improve the integrity of
the electoral process, reduce election administration costs, and
reaffirm that voting is a fundamental right. It has been proven
effective by more than 30 years of successful implementation in
Minnesota and Wisconsin and decades of empirical research. Election Day
registration is good for voters, good for taxpayers, and good for
democracy.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 2959
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Election Day Registration
Act''.
SEC. 2. ELECTION DAY REGISTRATION.
(a) In General.--Title III of the Help America Vote Act of
2002 (42 U.S.C. 15481 et seq.) is amended--
(1) by redesignating sections 304 and 305 as sections 305
and 306, respectively; and
(2) by inserting after section 303 the following new
section:
``SEC. 304. ELECTION DAY REGISTRATION.
``(a) In General.--
``(1) Registration.--Notwithstanding section 8(a)(1)(D) of
the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C.
1973gg-6), each State shall permit any eligible individual on
the day of a Federal election--
``(A) to register to vote in such election at the polling
place using a form that meets the requirements under section
9(b) of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993; and
``(B) to cast a vote in such election.
``(2) Exception.--The requirements under paragraph (1)
shall not apply to a State in which, under a State law in
effect continuously on and after the date of the enactment of
this section, there is no voter registration requirement for
individuals in the State with respect to elections for
Federal office.
``(b) Eligible Individual.--For purposes of this section,
the term `eligible individual' means any individual who is
otherwise qualified to vote in a Federal election in such
State.
``(c) Effective Date.--Each State shall be required to
comply with the requirements of subsection (a) for the
regularly scheduled general election for Federal office
occurring in November 2008 and for any subsequent election
for Federal office.''.
(b) Conforming Amendments.--
(1) Section 401 of such Act (42 U.S.C. 15511) is amended by
striking ``and 303'' and inserting ``303, and 304''.
(2) The table of contents of such Act is amended--
(A) by redesignating the items relating to sections 304 and
305 as relating to sections 305 and 306, respectively; and
(B) by inserting after the item relating to section 303 the
following new item:
``Sec. 304. Election day registration.''.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak
about a fundamental right in this country: the right to vote. Although
it is one of the greatest rights we have built this government on, we
have states across the country that still limit that right by not
allowing people to vote if they have not met an arbitrary registration
deadline. A deadline that is sometimes set months in advance of
Election Day. Since 1973, Minnesota has allowed citizens in the state
to register to vote on the same day as the election, and, not
[[Page 7630]]
coincidentally, year after year, my state has the highest voter turnout
in the country.
As the Presidential election is fast approaching, we need to ensure
that people across the country have the ability to vote when November
4th, 2008, rolls around. This is why, Mr. President, I am happy that
this afternoon, Senator Feingold and I introduced legislation that
enables voters in every state to register on Election Day for Federal
elections. My colleague's home state of Wisconsin, like Minnesota, has
put a high price on voter registration, and has allowed Election Day
Registration for over 30 years with great success. I am also pleased
that we are joined on this bill by Senator Harkin from Iowa and Senator
Tester from Montana. Both Iowa and Montana recently enacted same-day
voter registration laws--significantly improving voter turnout
throughout the state.
This legislation comes at a critical time--it is on the heels of a
Supreme Court decision that tightens the ability of Indiana citizens to
vote by requiring valid photo identification at the polling booth. And
just this last week, several election registration volunteers in
Florida stopped their registration work for fear that they would be
fined upwards of $1000 if they made a mistake.
In Minnesota, some credit the election of Jesse Ventura as Governor
in 1998 to our same-day registration voting policy. Voters who had
never voted before showed up at the polls and voted in unprecedented
numbers. I can't say that I ever imagined that we would have a Governor
wear a pink boa at his inaugural celebration, but the ability for the
citizens of Minnesota to cast their ballot and enact change is the kind
of democracy this country is founded upon.
In the past decade, as states around the country are experimenting
with new and innovative ways to combat voter fraud, Election Day
Registration has actually helped eliminate voter fraud at the polls.
I've worked a great deal with the Secretary of State in Minnesota, Mark
Ritchie, and he has found that registering at the polls, instead of by
mail with a postcard, decreases the chance for fraud. When citizens are
registering right in front of the election official, on the day of the
election, chances of fraud are decreased. It's a pretty simple concept,
but a fundamental one. As Secretary of State Ritchie has said, it's ``a
no-brainer.''
The myriad of voter registration laws across the country are mind-
boggling. In Nevada, you must register by 9 p.m., on the fifth Saturday
before the election. A handful of states require registration 25 days
before the election, another handful require 29 days. Some have to be
postmarked by that date, and others have to be received by the
deadline. A few set the cutoff at 20 days, a few at 10 days, and in
Vermont, you have until 5 p.m., the Wednesday before the election. If
you're in Utah, you must register 30 days before the election by mail,
but if you miss that, you can register in person on the 18th or 15th
day before the election. Where we have one, national, election day of
November 4th this year, it is hard to imagine voters, because of the
State they reside, could miss their chance to vote.
There are 8 States that allow citizens to register at the polls:
Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and now Iowa and
Montana have joined the list. Historically, these first six States have
seen voter turnout that is 8 to 15 percent higher than the national
average. In the 2004 Presidential election, only 64 percent of the
eligible population voted; but in Minnesota, 79 percent of the
population turned out to vote. As Senator Feingold mentioned, the last
time we had turnout that high on a national level was 1896, and we only
had 45 states. No matter what side of the aisle, we are seeing an
unprecedented interest in the upcoming Presidential election, and we
need to give the citizens the ability to register on Election Day.
This is a simple, yet fundamental bill. It amends legislation we
passed in 2002, the Help America Vote Act, to allow voters to register
and cast their ballot on the same day in a Federal election. Where
Americans across the country are facing skyrocketing gas prices, health
costs that many cannot afford, and an economy that is approaching
recession, we need to ensure that every citizen has the right to wake
up on Election Day and decide they will cast their ballot for
President.
Mr. TESTER. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues,
Senators Feingold, Harkin and Klobuchar in introducing a bill that
would significantly increase voter participation. The Election Day
Registration Act of 2008, EDR, would allow all eligible citizens to
register to vote in federal elections on Election Day.
Studies have shown a strong increase in voter turnout in those States
who have EDR. In 2004, 73.8 percent of all eligible voters in EDR
states voted, compared with 60.2 percent of eligible voters in states
without EDR--a difference of 13.6 percentage points. The top four
States for turnout in 2004 had EDR--Minnesota 78 percent, Wisconsin 75
percent, Maine 73 percent, and New Hampshire 71 percent. The fifth
highest state was Oregon--the universal vote-by-mail state. Even more
compelling, the turnout is higher even when controlling for
competitiveness--in terms of voter participation, ``safe'' states with
EDR significantly outperformed ``safe'' states without EDR. Voter
participation in those ``Battleground'' States with EDR was
significantly higher than in those ``battleground'' states without EDR.
High voter participation is a fundamental part of a healthy
democracy. This year we have seen record numbers of voters
participating in the presidential primaries. The implementation of EDR
for federal elections would build upon this momentum. Montana is
expecting record turnout for our presidential primary on June 3rd.
EDR permits eligible citizens to register and vote on Election Day.
There are currently 9 states that have some form of EDR: Minnesota,
Maine, Wisconsin, Idaho, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Iowa, North Carolina
and of course my home state of Montana. Iowa adopted EDR in March 2007
and North Carolina has implemented Same Day Registration at early
voting sites. While the version in North Carolina isn't complete EDR,
it is a strong move for increased access to the democratic process.
There is nationwide interest in EDR. Last year, 21 States had bills
before their legislature to implement, or begin feasibility studies in
support of, EDR.
In my home state of Montana we have had Election Day Registration.
Montana adopted EDR in 2005 while I was president of the Montana state
senate. Montana's version is a little different from EDR in Wisconsin
and Minnesota--in Montana, the voter registers, election day, at the
county courthouse rather than at the polling place. Whether it is at
the polling place or the courthouse, the important fundamentals of
access are maintained.
With EDR, the use of and reliance upon provisional ballots would be
minimized. Provisional ballots are useful and valuable tools, however
with EDR, the costly validation process that takes place after election
day could be avoided, as eligibility considerations could be made on
election day and the voter would then use a standard ballot. EDR
streamlines the administrative process and makes sure that votes are
counted.
Enactment of EDR would be a major step in the right direction towards
inclusive and fully participatory elections. It's clear that people are
more likely to vote when they know their votes will be counted. EDR has
proven track record of increasing participation, and those concerns
raised have been largely disproven or are easily addressed. In the end
EDR allows more Americans to do that which is most fundamental to the
democracy we love and the freedom we, as Americans, stand for--vote.
My cosponsors and I think this Election Day Registration Act of 2008
is necessary to strengthen our democracy. We welcome our fellow
senators to support this important legislation.
______
By Mr. DODD:
[[Page 7631]]
S. 2960. A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002, to
establish the Office for Bombing Prevention, to enhance the role of
State and local bomb squads, public safety dive teams, explosive
detection canine teams, and special weapons and tactics teams in
national improvised explosive device prevention policy, to establish a
grant program to provide for training, equipment, and staffing of State
and local improvised explosive device prevention, and for other
purposes; to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, today I am introducing the National
Improvised Explosive Device, IED, Preparedness and Prevention Act of
2008. This bill will ensure that the brave men and women who are called
on to respond to bomb threats around the country have the necessary
tools, training, and personnel to keep our communities safe.
Furthermore, this bill gives our State and local responders
unprecedented access to the federal policy making committees directing
the national agencies that keep our homeland secure.
Regrettably, over the years, our people have suffered attacks from
home-made bombs, not only on distant battlefields of Iraq and
Afghanistan, but here in America. From the 1983 truck bombing of the
Beirut Barracks to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in
Oklahoma City to the recent Times Square Military Recruiting Office
bombing in New York City, we have seen the devastating effects such
attacks wield.
These bombs, which have become known in the lexicon of the Pentagon
as ``Improvised Explosive Devices'' or IEDs, are the number one cause
of death and injury to our troops overseas. Whether it is in lives
lost, economic damage, or the simple loss of feeling safe in our
communities, IEDs pose a threat to American security.
We must therefore ensure that our state and local bomb squads, SWAT
Teams, K-9 units, and public safety dive teams are sufficiently
prepared to meet this challenge, as they most certainly will be the
first on the scene to respond to the next IED scare. These courageous
public servants put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe.
The least we can do is to make certain that they have the resources
they need and a seat at the table in critical IED policy making
discussions. That is why I have introduced this legislation and have
worked hard to address these very real needs.
Beginning in April 2006, I worked with Senator Robert Byrd to attach
a provision to a Homeland Security Appropriations bill requiring DHS to
produce a national strategy for IED preparedness.
After numerous delays, and a letter to Homeland Security Secretary
Chertoff from Senator Byrd and me, the National Security Council
finally approved the document in late 2007.
Unfortunately, the strategy did not include adequate detail on how
state and local input would contribute to the federal government's IED
prevention and preparedness. It also failed to create an IED-specific
grant program to ensure that State and local governments can carry out
their responsibilities under the strategy.
My bill will address the threat of IEDs by:
First, statutorily establishing the Office for Bombing Prevention OBP
within FEMA's Grant Programs Directorate.
Second, tbe bill establishes a Senior Advisory Committee, SAC, for
IED Prevention and Response as a subcommittee under the Homeland
Security Advisory Council.
Third, the bill requires State, Local, and Practicing Professional
input in Advisory Committee Selection, giving voice to our First
Responders who understand first-hand the needs of our communities.
Fourth, the legislation establishes a risk-based IED Prevention and
Response Grant Program within the Homeland Security Department's Grant
Program Directorate to specifically provide funds for equipment,
training, and personnel in areas where DHS has identified shortfalls.
Last, my bill requires the Coast Guard to assess the preparedness of
our Nation's Public Safety Dive Teams, PSDT, in the completion of Area
Maritime Transportation Security and Facility Plans.
Mr. President, we can no longer afford to sit on our hands while many
of our IED First Responders have to scrape by with antiquated equipment
and training.
We have an opportunity to be proactive, to prepare for the
unthinkable events that befell the people of London and Madrid, just a
few short years ago.
Our Nation needs demonstrated capability in this vital area, and we
in Congress need to lead. I urge my colleagues to join me in this
endeavor.
______
By Mr. AKAKA:
S. 2961. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to enhance the
refinancing of home loans by veterans; to the Committee on Veterans'
Affairs.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, today I introduce a bill that will offer
veterans more options for refinancing their mortgages. My legislation
would raise the guarantee on VA refinance loans and decrease equity
requirements for refinancing to a VA loan. These provisions would allow
more qualified veterans to refinance their home loans under the VA
program.
At present, the maximum VA loan guaranty limit for all loans in
excess of $144,000, except regular refinance loans, is equal to 25
percent of the Freddie Mac conforming loan limit for a single family
home. Presently this is $104,250. This means lenders making loans up to
$417,000 will receive at least a 25 percent guaranty, which is
typically required to place the loan on the secondary market.
However, current law limits to $36,000 the guaranty that can be used
for a regular refinance loan. This restriction means a refinance over
$144,000 will result in a lender not receiving 25 percent backing from
VA and probably not making the loan at all. This situation essentially
precludes a veteran from being able to refinance his or her existing
FHA or conventional loan into a VA guaranteed loan if the loan is
greater than $144,000.
To assist veterans in overcoming this obstacle in refinancing, this
legislation would increase the maximum guaranty limit for refinance
loans to the same level as conventional loans--25 percent limit for a
single family home. Importantly, this increase would make the maximum
VA home loan guaranty equal across the board.
This bill will also increase the percentage of an existing loan that
VA will refinance from the current maximum of 90 percent to 95 percent,
thus allowing more veterans to use their VA benefit to refinance their
mortgages. Many veterans do not have ten percent equity and thus are
precluded from refinancing to a VA home loan. Given the anticipated
number of non-VA adjustable mortgages that are approaching the reset
time when payments are likely to increase, it seems prudent to
facilitate veterans refinancing to VA loans.
In light of today's housing and home loan crises, these further
refinancing options will help some veterans to bridge financial gaps
and allow them to stay in their homes and escape possible foreclosures.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 2961
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. ENHANCEMENT OF REFINANCING OF HOME LOANS BY
VETERANS.
(a) Inclusion of Refinancing Loans Among Loans Subject to
Guaranty Maximum.--Section 3703(a)(1)(A)(i)(IV) of title 38,
United States Code, is amended by inserting ``(5),'' after
``(3),''.
(b) Increase in Maximum Percentage of Loan-to-Value of
Refinancing Loans Subject to Guaranty.--Section 3710(b)(8) of
such title is amended by striking ``90 percent'' and
inserting ``95 percent''.
______
By Mr. BOND (for himself, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Obama, Mr.
Domenici, Mrs. Dole, and Ms. Murkowski):
[[Page 7632]]
S. 2963. A bill to improve and enhance the mental health care
benefits available to members of the Armed Forces and veterans, to
enhance counseling and other benefits available to survivors of members
of the Armed Forces and veterans, and for other purposes; to the
Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, there is an issue that has been festering in
our military ranks for quite some time that we must address now.
America's warriors voluntarily leave the comfort of their homes and
families to serve the greater good under very difficult conditions.
They are fighting an incredibly complex battle on an asymmetric
battlefield, against an enemy that is not bound by rules of war or
human decency. They are courageously protecting our freedoms--each and
every day--against those who seek to do us harm. As the father of a
two-tour Iraq War Veteran, this issue is very close to my heart, and
should be at the forefront of the Senate's day-to-day business.
Many of our military service members bear the physical scars of war.
Thanks to advances in modern medicine and the efforts of brilliant
medical personnel in the field, many of our war-wounded are able to
return to a relatively normal life. Our practice of compensating
disabled veterans financially helps our heroes reintegrate and assume
again civilian status.
A growing concern revolves around those soldiers, sailors, airmen and
Marines who return home with invisible injuries, the psychological
wounds of war that have had a huge impact on a large percentage of our
military forces.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injuries, TBI,
are not quickly diagnosed because we cannot see them. But we know they
exist, and they often manifest years later and wreak all sorts of havoc
on our military, on our military families, and on our society.
The recently-released Rand Study and American Psychiatric Association
studies acknowledge the issue and paint a bleak social and financial
future. The question is: What are we doing to help these men and women?
The answer now is: Not enough. There are simply not enough resources
available to our combat veterans to deal adequately with the problem.
Today we are proposing legislation that will address this crisis. Our
proposal will address both short- and long-term solutions for those
suffering from PTSD and TBI. We will increase our troops' access to
qualified behavioral-health specialists and increase the number of
those specialists annually in an effort to treat our men and women and
help them cope with their ailments.
My staff has worked closely with the VA on these proposals and our
legislation has the support of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans'
Association and Veterans for Common Sense.
First, our bill improves veterans' access to care by expanding the
use of our Vet Centers. Currently, our Active, Guard, and Reserve
military personnel do not have access to the VA's Vet Centers,
community-based counseling centers which are successfully providing
mental health care to veterans.
An estimated 30 percent of troops return from combat suffering from
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury, or other mental
health problems. But there are grossly insufficient numbers of military
behavioral health specialists to provide the care our troops need.
Recent testimony from all military Surgeons General highlighted the
shortage of mental health professionals service-wide.
This legislation will give our troops the same access to Vet Centers
our veterans receive for mental health care, which not only opens the
door to additional resources but also lightens the load on our
currently over-tasked specialists. Additionally, the legislation will
reduce the stigma associated with behavior disorders by allowing troops
to seek treatment outside of conventional military channels.
We also propose to enhance the recruitment and training of Military
Behavioral Health Specialists through a scholarship program that
targets former service members or service members preparing to separate
from the military.
This legislation, overseen by the Veterans Health Administration,
will provide incentives for retiring or separating military personnel
and veterans to pursue an education in the behavioral health field.
Over time, that will alleviate the shortage of behavioral health
specialists who serve our troops and veterans.
The estimated cost to recruit an additional 80 to 90 behavioral
health specialists a year is $1.5--$2 million annually. This program
would pay for itself if it were to save just one veteran from
developing 100 percent service-connected PTSD.
We also propose extending the survivor benefits for Service Members
who commit suicide and have a medical history of PTSD or TBI.
We know that mental-health issues often manifest long after the
service member has left active duty. As a result, Congress has extended
free health care to five years for recently-discharged veterans with
any condition that may be related to their combat service.
Unfortunately, survivor benefits have not kept up with this logic.
Current coverage for veterans who commit suicide does not take into
account the time it takes for PTSD and TBI to manifest.
This legislation guarantees benefits for any Service Member who
commits suicide within two years of separation or retirement from the
military, provided they have a documented medical history of a combat-
related mental-health condition, including PTSD or TBI.
The Service Member's survivor will be entitled to the same Social
Security, Survivor Benefit Plan, Veteran's Affairs Benefits, and active
duty burial benefits that they would have received had the Service
Member died on their last day of active duty.
Our legislation also creates a grant program for non-profit
organizations to provide support services to the families of our
deceased Active, Guard, and Reserve Military personnel and Veterans.
The psychological impact associated with the loss of a loved one in a
combat zone is tremendous. Unfortunately, there are not adequate
numbers of military Casualty Assistance Officers to serve surviving
families. While norofit organizations have professional staff that
provide long-term and peer-based emotional support, Department of
Defense Casualty Assistance Officers are only temporarily detailed to
these duties and often are unfamiliar with the regulations or the
emotional needs of surviving families.
This legislation establishes a competitive federal grant program for
nonprofit support organizations to provide vital support services to
the surviving families of deceased military personnel.
Next, our legislation will ensure the fair treatment and care of all
of our military personnel, including those whose discharges may have
been caused by combat-related mental-health condition, including Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder or Traumatic Brain Injury.
Many of those who are forced to leave the military because of
performance issues such as substance abuse or anger problems have
underlying mental health conditions such as TBI or PTSD that are not
being properly diagnosed.
In many cases the military has inappropriately discharged these
veterans, and they subsequently lose access to VA care and other
benefits.
No veteran that has served this nation in combat should be denied the
benefits they earned on the battlefield. This provision allows the VA
to screen the veteran's discharge, and, if the veteran is found to have
been improperly diagnosed, to take action to correct the problem
accordingly.
Specifically, this legislation would reinstate the provision repealed
from the law in 1996 giving the Vet Centers the authority to help the
new generation of war veterans to resolve any problems presented with
the character of their discharges.
Finally, our legislation will better prepare our troops for combat
through the creation of a pilot program at Ft.
[[Page 7633]]
Leonard Wood, Missouri and Ft. Carson, Colorado. We will provide
comprehensive training to educate U.S. military personnel on Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder--how to prevent it, how to recognize it when
it occurs, and what to do about it when it happens. We hope to build
resiliency, enhance performance, and mitigate stress among the troops.
The rise in PTSD cases demands a new approach to preparing U.S.
military personnel and their families for the stresses associated with
combat.
The pilot program is designed to enhance the individual's
neurophysiological understanding of stress and trauma resolution and to
equip them with performance-enhancing skills drawn from both the
military special-operations community and the elite sports world.
The program will train and support an Army Brigade Combat Team and
their families at all stages of a soldier's tour: pre-deployment, mid-
deployment and post-deployment.
Addressing PTSD head on through self-awareness training will teach
military personnel to cope better with combat-related issues and reduce
the need and cost for long-term treatment.
The long-term effects of untreated mental illness are severe: drug
and alcohol abuse, job and marital problems, even suicide.
We can prevent much of this unfortunate legacy by prompt and
effective treatment when our troops come home.
We are all the beneficiaries of the sacrifices of others. Our
responsibility is to continue to improve the ways in which we support
our troops and their families.
They do not take our freedom for granted; we should not take their
sacrifices for granted.
I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support these
proposals.
______
By Mr. AKAKA:
S. 2969. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to enhance the
capacity of the Department of Veterans Affairs to recruit and retain
nurses and other critical health-care professionals, and for other
purposes; to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to
address personnel issues in the Department of Veterans Affairs. This
legislation, proposed Veterans' Medical Personnel Recruitment and
Retention Act of 2008, would help ensure that VA has the workforce
necessary to serve America's veterans most effectively.
Health care providers are the backbone of the VA system. Yet today,
the Department faces a shortage of these professionals. Around the
country, too many facilities are understaffed, at the cost of services
for veterans. A recent report by the Partnership for Public Service
gave the Veterans Health Administration poor marks for pay and
benefits, and for family support. VHA also rated poorly among younger
employees. To be the health care employer of choice, VA must be able to
offer competitive salaries, work schedules, and benefits.
As Chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I held a hearing
on April 9, 2008, that focused on personnel issues within the VA health
care system. We heard detailed testimony from VA administrators and
health care providers. Their testimony outlined the challenges VA
faces, and suggested possible solutions.
This legislation would benefit a wide range of positions within VA.
Here are some of the challenges VA faces, and the solutions I propose.
Local labor markets for health care providers vary widely, and VA
must be better prepared to compete in every market. Locality pay
surveys are a crucial tool in this effort. However, a recent GAO report
on nurse anesthetists revealed a locality pay system that is
inconsistent and often dysfunctional. The bill I am introducing would
make implementation of locality pay surveys more effective by requiring
additional training on proper implementation, and improving
transparency to allow for better oversight.
This legislation would also encourage retention of experienced
professionals by removing salary offsets for retired employees who
choose to return to work at VA. In the coming years, a significant
portion of the VA workforce will reach the age of retirement.
Eliminating the salary offset by the amount of an employee's retirement
annuity would encourage these experienced professionals to return to
VA.
Education benefits are often among the chief advantages of employment
at VA, and I believe these benefits can be used for an even greater
effect. VA has extensive programs to encourage further education within
their workforce, and to provide financial assistance for employees with
educational debt. This legislation would increase yearly benefit limits
on the Education Debt Reduction Program--EDRP--and would broaden the
goals of that program to include retention as well as recruitment. In
so doing, the EDRP would be made available to both long-time VA
employees and new hires. It would also reauthorize the Health
Professionals Scholarship Program, and would broaden eligibility to a
wider range of health professions.
Further, to make VA more attractive to clinical researchers, this
legislation would provide VA with authorities similar to the Loan
Repayment Program of the National Health Service Corps. VA would be
authorized to use funds from medical services appropriations to help
researchers in need of financial assistance to payoff their education
loans. This program would compliment EDRP, which is not available to
researchers.
In recent years, VA has been challenged to retain top administrators,
especially those who have spent their careers at VA. Their expert
knowledge is indispensable to the effective management of the VA health
care system. However, given the high rates of compensation available
outside of VA, retention of these professionals is often difficult.
This legislation would provide VA with the authority to pay national
administrators additional compensation so as to better compete with the
private sector. It would also give VA the authority to increase, under
limited circumstances, compensation for pharmacists, doctors, and
dentists, in order for VA to be more competitive in local labor
markets.
VA faces many challenges in recruiting and retaining nurses. I have
worked with VA administrators and nurses to develop solutions to these
challenges. This legislation would give VA more tools to attract and
keep these employees.
Alternative work schedules are now commonly available in other health
care systems. At VA, part-time and alternative work schedules are
under-utilized, and as a result, VA loses prospective hires and damages
employee morale. This legislation would clarify alternative work
schedule and weekend duty rules. By making these schedules easier to
implement, it is my hope that VA will expand their use.
This bill would also make it easier for VA to hire and retain part-
time nurses by limiting probationary periods and expanding eligibility
for overtime pay. For nurses who transition from full-time to part-
time, this legislation would eliminate the probationary period they are
now required to serve. This provision would be extremely helpful in
encouraging experienced nurses to extend their careers at VA beyond the
customary age of retirement.
In many locations, VA cannot compete with other health care systems
for many nursing positions, particularly certified registered nurse
anesthetists--CRNAs--and licensed practical and vocational nurses. A
recent GAO report on CRNAs in VA noted that VA spends thousands of
dollars on contract nurses to cover staffing gaps. The use of contract
nurses, while appropriate in some situations, is not a permanent
solution to the long-term staffing shortfall. The bill I am introducing
would raise or eliminate pay caps currently placed on these difficult-
to-fill positions. These provisions are derived directly from testimony
the Committee heard from VA nurses and administrators at the April 9,
2008, hearing.
This legislation would also clarify rules about emergency duty for
VA nurses. The use of emergency mandatory overtime has been an issue in
[[Page 7634]]
many VA facilities, and in other health care systems. I believe this
legislation provides a reasonable solution. By standardizing the
definition of ``emergency,'' it would facilitate more consistent and
equitable use of emergency mandatory overtime.
I believe that this legislation will give VA the tools it needs to
recruit and retain the best health care professionals in the Nation. I
also anticipate that it will improve employee morale, as well as
improving transparency and oversight. As we have heard many times, VA
faces a looming retirement crisis. The solutions proposed in this
legislation seek to address these challenges.
I urge my colleagues to support the proposed Veterans' Medical
Personnel Recruitment and Retention Act of 2008.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 2969
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Veterans' Medical Personnel
Recruitment and Retention Act of 2008''.
SEC. 2. ENHANCEMENT OF AUTHORITIES FOR RETENTION OF MEDICAL
PROFESSIONALS.
(a) Secretarial Authority to Extend Title 38 Status to
Additional Positions.--
(1) In general.--Paragraph (3) of section 7401 of title 38,
United States Code, is amended by striking ``and blind
rehabilitation outpatient specialists.'' and inserting the
following: ``blind rehabilitation outpatient specialists, and
such other classes of health care occupations as the
Secretary considers necessary for the recruitment and
retention needs of the Department subject to the following
requirements:
``(A) Not later than 45 days before the Secretary appoints
any personnel for a class of health care occupations that is
not specifically listed in this paragraph, the Secretary
shall submit to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs of the
Senate, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs of the House of
Representatives, and the Office of Management and Budget
notice of such appointment.
``(B) Before submitting notice under subparagraph (A), the
Secretary shall solicit comments from any labor organization
representing employees in such class and include such
comments in such notice.''.
(2) Appointment of nurse assistants.--Such paragraph is
further amended by inserting ``nurse assistants,'' after
``licensed practical or vocational nurses,''.
(b) Probationary Periods for Nurses.--Section 7403(b) of
such title is amended--
(1) in paragraph (1), by striking ``Appointments'' and
inserting ``Except as otherwise provided in this subsection,
appointments'';
(2) by redesignating paragraph (2) as paragraph (4); and
(3) by inserting after paragraph (1) the following new
paragraphs:
``(2) An appointment of a nurse under this chapter, whether
on a full-time basis or a part-time basis, shall be for a
probationary period ending upon the completion by the person
so appointed of 4,180 hours of work pursuant to such
appointment.
``(3) An appointment described in subsection (a) on a part-
time basis of a person who has previously served on a full-
time basis for the probationary period for the position
concerned shall be without a probationary period.''.
(c) Prohibition on Temporary Part-Time Nurse Appointments
in Excess of 4,180 Hours.--Section 7405(f)(2) of such title
is amended by inserting after ``year'' the following: ``,
except that a part-time appointment of a nurse shall not
exceed 4,180 hours''.
(d) Waiver of Offset From Pay for Certain Reemployed
Annuitants.--
(1) In general.--Section 7405 of such title is amended by
adding at the end the following:
``(g)(1) The Secretary may waive the application of
sections 8344 and 8468 of title 5 (relating to annuities and
pay on reemployment) or any other similar provision of law
under a Government retirement system on a case-by-case basis
for an annuitant reemployed on a temporary basis under the
authority of subsection (a) in a position described under
paragraph (1) of that subsection.
``(2) An annuitant to whom a waiver under paragraph (1) is
in effect shall not be considered an employee for purposes of
any Government retirement system.
``(3) An annuitant to whom a waiver under paragraph (1) is
in effect shall be subject to the provisions of chapter 71 of
title 5 (including all labor authority and labor
representative collective bargaining agreements) applicable
to the position to which appointed.
``(4) In this subsection:
``(A) The term `annuitant' means an annuitant under a
Government retirement system.
``(B) The term `employee' has the meaning under section
2105 of title 5.
``(C) The term `Government retirement system' means a
retirement system established by law for employees of the
Government of the United States.''.
(2) Effective date.--The amendment made by paragraph (1)
shall take effect on the date that is six months after the
date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to pay
periods beginning on or after such effective date.
(e) Minimum Rate of Basic Pay for Appointees to the Office
of the Under Secretary for Health Set to Lowest Rate of Basic
Pay Payable for a Senior Executive Service Position.--
(1) In general.--Section 7404(a) of such title is amended--
(A) by striking ``The annual'' and inserting ``(1) The
annual'';
(B) by striking ``The pay'' and inserting the following:
``(2) The pay'';
(C) by striking ``under the preceding sentence'' and
inserting ``under paragraph (1)''; and
(D) by adding at the end the following:
``(3) The minimum rate of basic pay for a position to which
an Executive order applies under paragraph (1) and is not
described by paragraph (2) may not be less than the lowest
rate of basic pay payable for a Senior Executive Service
position under section 5382 of title 5.''.
(2) Effective date.--The amendments made by paragraph (1)
shall take effect on the first day of the first pay period
beginning after the day that is 180 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act.
(f) Comparability Pay Program for Appointees to the Office
of the Under Secretary for Health.--Section 7410 of such
title is amended--
(1) by striking ``The Secretary may'' and inserting ``(a)
In General.--The Secretary may''; and
(2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
``(b) Comparability Pay for Appointees to the Office of the
Under Secretary for Health.--(1) The Secretary may authorize
the Under Secretary for Health to provide comparability pay
of not more than $100,000 per year to individuals of the
Veterans Health Administration appointed under section 7306
of this title who are not physicians or dentists to achieve
annual pay levels for such individuals that are comparable
with annual pay levels of individuals with similar positions
in the private sector.
``(2) Comparability pay under paragraph (1) for an
individual is in addition to all other pay, awards, and
performance bonuses paid to such individual under this title.
``(3) Except as provided in paragraph (4), comparability
pay under paragraph (1) for an individual shall be considered
basic pay for all purposes, including retirement benefits
under chapters 83 and 84 of title 5, and other benefits.
``(4) Comparability pay under paragraph (1) for an
individual shall not be considered basic pay for purposes of
adverse actions under subchapter V of this chapter.
``(5) Comparability pay under paragraph (1) may not be
awarded to an individual in an amount that would result in an
aggregate amount of pay (including bonuses and awards)
received by such individual in a year under this title that
is greater than the annual pay of the President.''.
(g) Special Incentive Pay for Department Pharmacist
Executives.--Section 7410 of such title, as amended by
subsection (f), is further amended by adding at the end the
following new subsection:
``(c) Special Incentive Pay for Department Pharmacist
Executives.--(1) In order to recruit and retain highly
qualified Department pharmacist executives, the Secretary may
authorize the Under Secretary for Health to pay special
incentive pay of not more than $40,000 per year to an
individual of the Veterans Health Administration who is a
pharmacist executive.
``(2) In determining whether and how much special pay to
provide to such individual, the Under Secretary shall
consider the following:
``(A) The grade and step of the position of the individual.
``(B) The scope and complexity of the position of the
individual.
``(C) The personal qualifications of the individual.
``(D) The characteristics of the labor market concerned.
``(E) Such other factors as the Secretary considers
appropriate.
``(3) Special incentive pay under paragraph (1) for an
individual is in addition to all other pay (including basic
pay) and allowances to which the individual is entitled.
``(4) Except as provided in paragraph (5), special
incentive pay under paragraph (1) for an individual shall be
considered basic pay for all purposes, including retirement
benefits under chapters 83 and 84 of title 5, and other
benefits.
``(5) Special incentive pay under paragraph (1) for an
individual shall not be considered basic pay for purposes of
adverse actions under subchapter V of this chapter.
``(6) Special incentive pay under paragraph (1) may not be
awarded to an individual in an
[[Page 7635]]
amount that would result in an aggregate amount of pay
(including bonuses and awards) received by such individual in
a year under this title that is greater than the annual pay
of the President.''.
(h) Pay for Physicians and Dentists.--
(1) Non-foreign cost of living adjustment allowance.--
Section 7431(b) of such title is amended by adding at the end
the following:
``(5) The non-foreign cost of living adjustment allowance
authorized under section 5941 of title 5 for physicians and
dentists whose pay is set under this section shall be
determined as a percentage of base pay only.''.
(2) Market pay determinations for physicians and dentists
in administrative or executive leadership positions.--Section
7431(c)(4)(B)(i) of such title is amended by adding at the
end the following: ``The Secretary may exempt physicians and
dentists occupying administrative or executive leadership
positions from the requirements of the previous sentence.''.
(3) Exception to prohibition on reduction of market pay.--
Section 7431(c)(7) of such title is amended by striking
``concerned.'' and inserting ``concerned, unless there is a
change in board certification or reduction of privileges.''.
(i) Adjustment of Pay Cap for Nurses.--Section 7451(c)(2)
of such title is amended by striking ``title 5'' and
inserting ``title 5 or the level of GS-15 as prescribed under
section 5332 of such title, whichever is greater''.
(j) Exemption for Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists
From Limitation on Authorized Competitive Pay.--Section
7451(c)(2) of such title is further amended by adding at the
end the following new sentence: ``The maximum rate of basic
pay for a grade for the position of certified registered
nurse anesthetist pursuant to an adjustment under subsection
(d) may exceed the maximum rate otherwise provided in the
preceding sentence.''.
(k) Locality Pay Scale Computations.--
(1) Education, training, and support for facility directors
in wage surveys.--Section 7451(d)(3) of such title is amended
by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
``(F) The Under Secretary for Health shall provide
appropriate education, training, and support to directors of
Department health-care facilities in the conduct and use of
surveys under this paragraph.''.
(2) Information on methodology used in wage surveys.--
Section 7451(e)(4) of such title is amended--
(A) by redesignating subparagraph (D) as subparagraph (E);
and
(B) by inserting after subparagraph (C) the following new
subparagraph (D):
``(D) In any case in which the director conducts such a
wage survey during the period covered by the report and makes
adjustment in rates of basic pay applicable to one or more
covered positions at the facility, information on the
methodology used in making such adjustment or adjustments.''.
(3) Disclosure of information to persons in covered
positions.--Section 7451(e) of such title is further amended
by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
``(6)(A) Upon the request of an individual described in
subparagraph (B) for a report provided under paragraph (4)
with respect to a Department health-care facility, the Under
Secretary for Health or the director of such facility shall
provide to the individual the most current report for such
facility provided under such paragraph.
``(B) An individual described in this subparagraph is--
``(i) an individual in a covered position at a Department
health-care facility; or
``(ii) a representative of the labor organization
representing that individual who is designated by that
individual to make the request.''.
(l) Increased Limitation on Special Pay for Nurse
Executives.--Section 7452(g)(2) of such title is amended by
striking ``$25,000'' and inserting ``$100,000''.
(m) Eligibility of Part-Time Nurses for Additional Nurse
Pay.--
(1) In general.--Section 7453 of such title is amended--
(A) in subsection (a), by striking ``a nurse'' and
inserting ``a full-time nurse or part-time nurse'';
(B) in subsection (b)--
(i) in the first sentence--
(I) by striking ``on a tour of duty'';
(II) by striking ``on such tour''; and
(III) by striking ``of such tour'' and inserting ``of such
service''; and
(ii) in the second sentence, by striking ``of such tour''
and inserting ``of such service'';
(C) in subsection (c)--
(i) by striking ``on a tour of duty''; and
(ii) by striking ``on such tour''; and
(D) in subsection (e)--
(i) in paragraph (1), by striking ``eight hours in a day''
and inserting ``eight consecutive hours''; and
(ii) in paragraph (5)(A), by striking ``tour of duty'' and
inserting ``period of service''.
(2) Exclusion of application of additional nurse pay
provisions to certain additional employees.--Section
7454(b)(3) of such title is amended to read as follows:
``(3) Employees appointed under section 7408 of this title
performing service on a tour of duty, any part of which is
within the period commencing at midnight Friday and ending at
midnight Sunday, shall receive additional pay in addition to
the rate of basic pay provided such employees for each hour
of service on such tour at a rate equal to 25 percent of such
employee's hourly rate of basic pay.''.
(n) Exemption of Additional Nurse Positions From Limitation
on Increase in Rates of Basic Pay.--Section 7455(c)(1) of
such title is amended by inserting after ``nurse
anesthetists,'' the following: ``licensed practical nurses,
licensed vocational nurses, and nursing positions otherwise
covered by title 5,''.
SEC. 3. LIMITATIONS ON OVERTIME DUTY, WEEKEND DUTY, AND
ALTERNATIVE WORK SCHEDULES FOR NURSES.
(a) Overtime Duty.--
(1) In general.--Subchapter IV of chapter 74 of title 38,
United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the
following new section:
``Sec. 7459. Nurses: special rules for overtime duty
``(a) Limitation.--Except as provided in subsection (c),
the Secretary may not require a nurse to work more than 40
hours (or 24 hours if such nurse is covered under section
7456) in an administrative work week or more than eight
consecutive hours (or 12 hours if such nurse is covered under
section 7456 or 7456A).
``(b) Voluntary Overtime.--(1) A nurse may on a voluntary
basis elect to work hours otherwise prohibited by subsection
(a).
``(2) The refusal of a nurse to work hours prohibited by
subsection (a) shall not be grounds to discriminate (within
the meaning of section 704(a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
(42 U.S.C. 2000e-3(a))) against the nurse, dismissal or
discharge of the nurse, or any other adverse personnel action
against the nurse.
``(c) Overtime Under Emergency Circumstances.--(1) Subject
to paragraph (2), the Secretary may require a nurse to work
hours otherwise prohibited by subsection (a) if--
``(A) the work is a consequence of an emergency that could
not have been reasonably anticipated;
``(B) the emergency is non-recurring and is not caused by
or aggravated by the inattention of the Secretary or lack of
reasonable contingency planning by the Secretary;
``(C) the Secretary has exhausted all good faith,
reasonable attempts to obtain voluntary workers;
``(D) the nurse has critical skills and expertise that are
required for the work; and
``(E) the work involves work for which the standard of care
for a patient assignment requires continuity of care through
completion of a case, treatment, or procedure.
``(2) A nurse may not be required to work hours under this
subsection after the requirement for a direct role by the
nurse in responding to medical needs resulting from the
emergency ends.
``(d) Nurse Defined.--In this section, the term `nurse'
includes the following;
``(1) A registered nurse.
``(2) A licensed practical or vocational nurse.
``(3) A nurse assistant appointed under this chapter or
title 5.
``(4) Any other nurse position designated by the Secretary
for purposes of this section.''.
(2) Clerical amendment.--The table of sections at the
beginning of chapter 74 of such title is amended by inserting
after the item relating to section 7458 the following new
item:
``7459. Nurses: special rules for overtime duty.''.
(b) Weekend Duty.--Section 7456 of such title is amended--
(1) in subsection (a) by striking ``regularly scheduled 12-
hour tour of duty'' and inserting ``scheduled 12-hour periods
of service'';
(2) in subsection (b)--
(A) in paragraph (2), by striking ``service performed as
part of a regularly scheduled 12-hour tour of duty'' and
inserting ``any service performed''; and
(B) in paragraph (3)--
(i) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``regularly scheduled
two 12-hour tours of duty'' and inserting ``scheduled 12-hour
period of service'';
(ii) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``regularly scheduled
two 12-hour tour of duty'' and inserting ``scheduled 12-hour
period of service''; and
(iii) in subparagraph (C), by striking ``regularly
scheduled two 12-hour tours of duty'' and inserting
``scheduled two 12-hour periods of service'';
(3) by striking subsection (c); and
(4) by redesignating subsection (d) as (c).
(c) Alternate Work Schedules.--
(1) In general.--Section 7456A(b)(1)(A) of such title is
amended by striking ``three regularly scheduled'' and all
that follows through the period at the end and inserting
``six regularly scheduled 12-hour periods of service within a
pay period shall be considered for all purposes to have
worked a full 80-hour pay period.''.
(2) Conforming amendments.--Section 7456A(b) of such title
is amended--
(A) in the subsection heading, by striking ``36/40'' and
inserting ``72/80'';
[[Page 7636]]
(B) in paragraph (2)--
(i) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``40-hour basic work
week'' and inserting ``80-hour pay period'';
(ii) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``regularly scheduled
36-hour tour of duty within the work week'' and inserting
``scheduled 72-hour period of service within the bi-weekly
pay period'';
(iii) in subparagraph (C)--
(I) in clause (i), by striking ``regularly scheduled 36-
hour tour of duty within an administrative work week'' and
inserting ``scheduled 72-hour period of service within an
administrative pay period'';
(II) in clause (ii), by striking ``regularly scheduled 12-
hour tour of duty'' and inserting ``scheduled 12-hour period
of service''; and
(III) in clause (iii), by striking ``regularly scheduled
36-hour tour of duty work week'' and inserting ``scheduled
72-hour period of service pay period''; and
(iv) in subparagraph (D), by striking ``regularly scheduled
12-hour tour of duty'' and inserting ``scheduled 12-hour
period of service''; and
(C) in paragraph (3), by striking ``regularly scheduled 12-
hour tour of duty'' and inserting ``scheduled 12-hour period
of service''.
SEC. 4. IMPROVEMENTS TO CERTAIN EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE
PROGRAMS.
(a) Reinstatement of Health Professionals Educational
Assistance Scholarship Program.--
(1) In general.--Section 7618 of title 38, United States
Code, is amended by striking ``December 31, 1998'' and
inserting ``December 31, 2013''.
(2) Expansion of eligibility requirements.--Paragraph (2)
of section 7612(b) of such title is amended by striking
``(under section'' and all that follows through the period at
the end and inserting the following: ``as an appointee under
paragraph (1) or (3) of section 7401 of this title.''.
(b) Improvements to Education Debt Reduction Program.--
(1) Inclusion of employee retention as purpose of
program.--Section 7681(a)(2) of such title is amended by
inserting ``and retention'' after ``recruitment'' the first
time it appears.
(2) Eligibility.--Section 7682 of such title is amended--
(A) in subsection (a)(1), by striking ``a recently
appointed'' and inserting ``an''; and
(B) by striking subsection (c).
(3) Maximum amounts of assistance.--Section 7683(d)(1) of
such title is amended--
(A) by striking ``$44,000'' and inserting ``$60,000''; and
(B) by striking ``$10,000'' and inserting ``$12,000''.
(c) Loan Repayment Program for Clinical Researchers From
Disadvantaged Backgrounds.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary of Veterans Affairs may, in
consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services,
utilize the authorities available in section 487E of the
Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 288-5) for the repayment
of the principal and interest of educational loans of
appropriately qualified health professionals who are from
disadvantaged backgrounds in order to secure clinical
research by such professionals for the Veterans Health
Administration.
(2) Limitations.--The exercise by the Secretary of Veterans
Affairs of the authorities referred to in paragraph (1) shall
be subject to the conditions and limitations specified in
paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 487E(a) of the Public
Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 288-5(2) and (3)).
(3) Funding.--Amounts for the repayment of principal and
interest of educational loans under this subsection shall be
derived from amounts available to the Secretary of Veterans
for the Veterans Health Administration for Medical Services.
____________________
SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS
______
SENATE RESOLUTION 544--DESIGNATING MAY 5 THROUGH 9, 2008, AS NATIONAL
SUBSTITUTE TEACHER RECOGNITION WEEK
Mr. HATCH (for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Cochran, and Mr. Sanders)
submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to:
S. Res. 544
Whereas, on average, as much as 1 full year of a child's
elementary and secondary education is taught by substitute
teachers;
Whereas, on any given day in the United States, more than
270,000 classes are taught by substitute teachers;
Whereas formal training of substitute teachers has been
shown to improve the quality of education, lower school
district liability, reduce the number of student and faculty
complaints, and increase retention rates of substitute
teachers;
Whereas a strong, effective system of education for all
children and youth is essential to our Nation's continued
strength and prosperity;
Whereas much of a child's growth and progress can be
attributed to the efforts of dedicated teachers and
substitute teachers who are entrusted with the child's
educational development;
Whereas substitute teachers play a vital role in
maintaining continuity of instruction and a positive learning
environment in the absence of a permanent classroom teacher;
and
Whereas substitute teachers should be recognized for their
dedication and commitment: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates May 5 through 9, 2008, as the 7th annual
National Substitute Teacher Recognition Week;
(2) recognizes the important and vital role substitute
teachers play in a child's education; and
(3) encourages educational institutions to observe the week
with appropriate events and activities.
____________________
SENATE RESOLUTION 545--HONORING THE RECIPIENTS OF THE EL DORADO PROMISE
SCHOLARSHIP
Mr. PRYOR (for himself and Mrs. Lincoln) submitted the following
resolution; which was considered and agreed to:
S. Res. 545
Whereas the 2000 United States Census determined that El
Dorado, Arkansas, had a significantly lower percentage of
residents with degrees from institutions of higher education
and a significantly higher percentage of families who fell
below the poverty line than the national average;
Whereas it is increasingly important for students to obtain
a college education in order to keep up with the demands of
the modern workforce and global economy;
Whereas the El Dorado Promise scholarship is a tuition
scholarship, created and funded by Murphy Oil Corporation,
which enables all eligible high school graduates of the El
Dorado Public School District in El Dorado, Arkansas, to
attend any accredited 2- or 4-year, public or private,
college or university;
Whereas school enrollment in the El Dorado Public School
District has significantly increased since the El Dorado
Promise scholarship program was established, despite a 15-
year trend of decreasing enrollment;
Whereas the El Dorado Promise scholarship program increased
the number of El Dorado High School students who chose to
attend college after graduation by 20 percent; and
Whereas, on April 30, 2008, El Dorado High School students
who receive El Dorado Promise and other academic scholarships
sign academic letters of intent for the colleges they will be
attending upon graduation: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) congratulates the recipients of the El Dorado Promise
scholarship for choosing to further their education;
(2) recognizes April 30, 2008, as the second Academic
Signing Day for graduating El Dorado High School students
receiving El Dorado Promise and other academic scholarships;
(3) acknowledges that the El Dorado Promise scholarship
program is important for the revitalization of southern
Arkansas; and
(4) recognizes Murphy Oil Corporation for its efforts to
ensure that children from southern Arkansas, who might
otherwise struggle in financing a college education, are able
to attend college.
____________________
SENATE RESOLUTION 546--DESIGNATING MAY 2008 AS ``NATIONAL PHYSICAL
FITNESS AND SPORTS MONTH'' AND THE WEEK OF MAY 1 THROUGH MAY 7, AS
``NATIONAL PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORTS WEEK''
Mr. THUNE (for himself and Mr. Wyden) submitted the following
resolution; which was considered and agreed to:
S. Res. 546
Whereas regular physical activity helps increase endurance,
strengthen bones and muscles, control weight, and reduce
anxiety and stress, and may improve blood pressure and
cholesterol levels;
Whereas about \2/3\ of young people in the ninth through
12th grades do not engage in recommended levels of physical
activity, and daily participation in high school physical
education classes has declined over the last 7 years;
Whereas 39 percent of adults report they are not physically
active, and only 3 in 10 adults engage in the recommended
amount of physical activity;
Whereas, in 2004, more than 9,000,000 children and
adolescents in the United States between the ages of 6 and 19
were considered overweight;
Whereas obesity and inactivity are 2 major risk factors for
developing type 2 diabetes, a disease that affects millions
of people in the United States;
Whereas many chronic diseases may be prevented by living a
healthy lifestyle that includes regular physical activity and
a balanced diet;
[[Page 7637]]
Whereas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the American Heart Association, and the American
College of Sports Medicine, minimum physical activity for
adults consists of moderate activity for 30 minutes 5 days a
week or vigorous activity for 20 minutes 3 days a week;
Whereas, according to a 1996 report by the Surgeon General,
positive experiences with physical activity at a young age
help to lay the foundation for being active throughout life;
Whereas the President's Council on Physical Fitness and
Sports promotes regular physical activity to achieve and
maintain good health and to prevent chronic disease and
offers motivational tools through the President's Challenge
program for people of all ages to track physical activity;
and
Whereas the month of May has been recognized since 1983 as
National Physical Fitness and Sports Month to encourage
physical fitness and activity and to promote health in
children and adults of all ages: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates--
(A) May 2008 as ``National Physical Fitness and Sports
Month''; and
(B) the week of May 1 through May 7, 2008, as ``National
Physical Education and Sports Week''; and
(2) encourages the people of the United States to observe
the month and the week with appropriate ceremonies and
activities.
____________________
SENATE RESOLUTION 547--DESIGNATING THE WEEK OF MAY 4 THROUGH MAY 10,
2008 AS ``NORTH AMERICAN OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH WEEK'' AND MAY
7, 2008, AS ``OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH PROFESSIONALS DAY''
Mr. DURBIN (for himself, Mr. Isakson, Mr. Kennedy, and Mr. Obama)
submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to:
S. Res. 547
Whereas every year more than 5,700 people die from job-
related injuries and 4,400,000 more incur occupational
injuries and illnesses in the United States;
Whereas transportation crashes continue to be the number 1
cause of on-the-job deaths, and overall in 2005 there were
6,159,000 transportation accidents resulting in 43,433
deaths, 2,700,000 injuries, and an estimated $230,600,000,000
in tangible costs;
Whereas businesses spend $170,000,000,000 a year on costs
associated with occupational injuries and illnesses;
Whereas it is imperative that employers, employees, and the
general public are aware of the importance of preventing
illness and injury in the workplace-wherever that workplace
may be, such as on the road, in the air, the classroom, the
store, the plant, or the office;
Whereas each year the families, friends, and co-workers of
victims of on-the-job accidents suffer intangible losses and
grief, especially when proper safety measures could have
prevented worker injury or death;
Whereas everyday millions of people go to and return home
from work safely due, in part, to the efforts of occupational
safety, health, and environmental practitioners who work day
in and day out identifying hazards and implementing safety
and health advances across industries and workplaces, aimed
at eliminating workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses;
Whereas our society has long recognized that a safe and
healthy workplace positively impacts employee morale, health,
and productivity;
Whereas the purpose of the North American Occupational
Safety and Health Week (NAOSH) is to raise awareness among
employees, employers, and the general public of the benefits
of investing in occupational safety and health;
Whereas the more than 32,000 members of the American
Society of Safety Engineers, along with the more than 150,000
combined members of the American Association of Occupational
Health Nurses, the American Heart Association, and the
National Association of Homebuilders, will be mobilizing to
encourage safe practices, and increase the quality of life
for employees and employers;
Whereas the theme of NAOSH Week 2008 is ``safety is good
business'', highlighting that businesses operate more
efficiently and are more respected when they use effective
safety and health management systems; and
Whereas, on May 7, 2008, occupational safety and health
professionals will be recognized during the 3rd annual
Occupational Safety and Health Professionals Day for the work
they do to keep people safe at work: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates the week of May 4 through 10, 2008, as
``North American Occupational Safety and Health Week'';
(2) designates May 7, 2008, as ``Occupational Safety and
Health Professionals Day'';
(3) commends occupational safety, health, and environmental
practitioners for their ongoing commitment to protecting
people, property, and the environment;
(4) commends those businesses that encourage a strong
safety culture and incorporate occupational safety and health
into their business strategies;
(5) encourages all industries, organizations, community
leaders, employers, and employees to join with the American
Society of Safety Engineers to support activities aimed at
increasing awareness of the importance of preventing illness,
injury, and death in the workplace, during the week of May 4
through May 10, 2008, and throughout the year; and
(6) urges all people of the United States to continue to
act responsibly and to be safe at work so that the millions
of people who go to work return home safely every day to
their families and friends.
____________________
SENATE RESOLUTION 548--RECOGNIZING THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE MEMBERS
AND ALUMNI OF AMERICORPS AND THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF AMERICORPS TO THE
LIVES OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES
Mr. DODD (for himself, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Murkowski, Ms.
Mikulski, Mr. McCain, Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Snowe, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Wicker,
Mr. Obama, Mr. Smith, Mr. Brown, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr.
Feingold, Mr. Bayh, Mr. Casey, Mr. Menendez, and Mr. Lieberman)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions:
S. Res. 548
Whereas, since the inception of the AmeriCorps national
service program in 1994, AmeriCorps has proven to be highly
effective at promoting the ethic of service and volunteering
and engaging people in the United States in meeting a wide
range of local needs;
Whereas, since 1994, more than $5,000,000,000 in AmeriCorps
funds have been invested in nonprofit, community,
educational, and faith-based groups, and those funds have led
to the contribution of hundreds of millions of dollars of
additional funds and in-kind donations from other sources;
Whereas, since 1994, approximately 542,000 people have
taken the AmeriCorps pledge to ``get things done for
America'' by becoming AmeriCorps members;
Whereas, each year, AmeriCorps provides opportunities for
75,000 people across the United States to give back in an
intensive way to their districts, their States, and the
Nation;
Whereas AmeriCorps members have served a total of more than
705,000,000 hours nationwide, helping to improve the lives of
the Nation's most vulnerable citizens, protect the
environment, contribute to public safety, respond to
disasters, and strengthen the educational system of the
United States;
Whereas, in 2007, AmeriCorps members recruited and
supervised more than 1,700,000 community volunteers,
demonstrating the value of AmeriCorps as a powerful force for
encouraging people to become involved in volunteering;
Whereas, in 2007, AmeriCorps members served 4,100 nonprofit
organizations, schools, and faith-based and community
organizations;
Whereas AmeriCorps members nationwide, in return for their
service, have earned nearly $1,430,000,000 to use to further
their own educational advancement at the Nation's colleges
and universities;
Whereas, after AmeriCorps members complete their terms of
service, those members remain engaged in their communities as
volunteers, teachers, and nonprofit professionals in
exceptionally high levels; and
Whereas ``AmeriCorps Week'' is observed the week beginning
May 11, 2008, and is an opportune time for the people of the
United States to salute current and former AmeriCorps members
for their powerful impact on the lives of people in the
United States, to thank AmeriCorps's community partners for
making the program possible, and to encourage more people in
the United States to become involved in service and
volunteering: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) encourages the people of the United States to join in a
national effort to salute AmeriCorps members and alumni and
raise awareness about the importance of national and
community service;
(2) acknowledges the significant accomplishments of the
members, alumni, and community partners of AmeriCorps;
(3) recognizes the important contributions of AmeriCorps
members and alumni to the lives of the people of the United
States; and
(4) encourages people of all ages to consider opportunities
to serve in AmeriCorps.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today along with Senator Cochran and
others to celebrate the achievements of the members and alumni of
AmeriCorps and to recognize the week of May 11, 2008, as ``AmeriCorps
Week.''
[[Page 7638]]
These young men and women have dedicated their time and efforts toward
improving the lives of all Americans by protecting the environment,
strengthening education, responding to disasters, and supporting public
health and safety.
Since 1994, AmeriCorps has encouraged citizens to volunteer, serve,
and address the unmet needs of our Nation. About 542,000 people have
become AmeriCorps members and have pledged ``to get things done for
America.'' These citizens have provided more than 705,000,000 hours of
service, hard work, and dedication to improve our communities. In
addition, since its inception, more than $5 billion of AmeriCorps funds
have been invested back into our communities and have helped leverage
hundreds of millions of dollars of additional funds and in-kind
donations from external sources.
Last year, 75,000 AmeriCorps members were able to give back to this
Nation, and those members recruited more than 1,700,000 community
volunteers to join them in their mission. Their volunteers served in
over 4,000 nonprofit organizations, schools, and faith-based and
community organizations across the country.
In return for service, AmeriCorps members have earned more than $1.4
billion to go toward furthering their education, and after completing
their service, many alumni remain engaged in their communities as
volunteers, teachers, and nonprofit professionals.
In my home State of Connecticut, since AmeriCorps was created, more
than 7,000 AmeriCorps members have served about 9.5 million hours and
earned over $20 million toward their education. From my own experience
as a Peace Corps member, I know it takes a tremendous amount of
perseverance, commitment, and passion to serve, but I also know the
emotional reward achieved in dedicating your time to help others.
Emerson wrote, ``It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life
that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping
himself.'' It is my hope that all Americans take the opportunity to
develop a deeper sense of community, a renewed sense of national
purpose, and a shared experience of sacrifice to serve our country.
During this ``AmeriCorps Week,'' we must take the time to recognize,
salute, and thank those Americans who have answered the call to serve
by joining AmeriCorps; we must acknowledge the tremendous
accomplishments and important contributions of the AmeriCorps members,
alumni, and community partners; and, we must raise awareness about the
importance of national and community service. Our collective
imaginations, ideas, energy, and resolve are needed to solve our
Nation's problems and rekindle our American community. I encourage
citizens of all ages to consider serving in AmeriCorps and contributing
their skills and talents to bettering this Nation.
____________________
AMENDMENTS SUBMITTED AND PROPOSED
SA 4635. Mr. KYL submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49,
United States Code, to authorize appropriations for the
Federal Aviation Administration for fiscal years 2008 through
2011, to improve aviation safety and capacity, to provide
stable funding for the national aviation system, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4636. Mr. REID proposed an amendment to the bill H.R.
2881, supra.
SA 4637. Mr. REID proposed an amendment to amendment SA
4636 proposed by Mr. Reid to the bill H.R. 2881, supra.
SA 4638. Ms. CANTWELL submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by her to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4639. Mr. LAUTENBERG submitted an amendment intended to
be proposed to amendment SA 4627 proposed by Mr. Rockefeller
to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was ordered to lie on the
table.
SA 4640. Mr. LAUTENBERG submitted an amendment intended to
be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4641. Mr. BINGAMAN (for himself, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Baucus,
Mr. Cochran, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Casey, Mrs. Clinton, Ms.
Collins, Mr. Conrad, Mr. Enzi, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Harkin, Mr.
Leahy, Mr. Levin, Mr. Nelson, of Nebraska, Mr. Salazar, Mr.
Schumer, Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Specter,
and Mr. Brownback) submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4642. Mr. ROCKEFELLER proposed an amendment to amendment
SA 4637 proposed by Mr. Reid to the amendment SA 4636
proposed by Mr. Reid to the bill H.R. 2881, supra.
SA 4643. Mrs. FEINSTEIN submitted an amendment intended to
be proposed by her to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4644. Mr. VOINOVICH submitted an amendment intended to
be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4645. Mr. ENSIGN submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4646. Mr. BROWNBACK submitted an amendment intended to
be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4647. Mr. BROWNBACK submitted an amendment intended to
be proposed to amendment SA 4590 submitted by Mrs. McCaskill
(for herself, Mr. Specter, Mr. Obama, and Mrs. Clinton) and
intended to be proposed to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which
was ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4648. Mr. VITTER (for himself, Mr. Craig, Mr. Specter,
Mr. Thune, and Mr. Inhofe) submitted an amendment intended to
be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4649. Mr. SCHUMER (for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mr.
Lautenberg, Mr. Menendez, Mrs. Murray, Ms. Cantwell, Ms.
Stabenow, and Mr. Smith) submitted an amendment intended to
be proposed to amendment SA 4582 submitted by Mr. Schumer
(for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Menendez,
Mrs. Murray, and Ms. Cantwell) and intended to be proposed to
the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was ordered to lie on the
table.
SA 4650. Mr. COBURN submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra; which was
ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4651. Mr. NELSON, of Florida submitted an amendment
intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra;
which was ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4652. Mr. NELSON, of Florida submitted an amendment
intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, supra;
which was ordered to lie on the table.
SA 4653. Ms. CANTWELL (for Mr. Reid) proposed an amendment
to the resolution S. Res. 494, expressing the sense of the
Senate on the need for Iraq's neighbors and other
international partners to fulfill their pledges to provide
reconstruction assistance to Iraq.
____________________
TEXT OF AMENDMENTS
SA 4635. Mr. KYL submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to
authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for
fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and
capacity, to provide stable funding for the national aviation system,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
On page 131, between lines 12 and 13, insert the following:
SEC. 520. STUDY OF EFFECT OF PROPOSED STRUCTURES NEAR
AIRPORTS ON ONE ENGINE INOPERATIVE PROCEDURES.
(a) In General.--The Administrator of the Federal Aviation
Administration shall conduct a study on the effect of
buildings and other structures that are proposed to be built
near airports on emergency procedures relating to aircraft
that have one engine inoperative to determine if such
buildings and structures are likely to--
(1) obstruct the flight of aircraft operating under one
engine inoperative procedures; or
(2) result in delays in the movement of passengers through
airports.
(b) Report.--
(1) In general.--If the Administrator determines that
buildings and other structures proposed to be built near
airports are likely to cause an obstruction described in
subsection (a)(1) or result in delays described in subsection
(a)(2), the Administrator shall, not later than 180 days
after the date of the enactment of this Act, submit to
Congress a report on the results of the study required under
subsection (a).
(2) Contents.--The report submitted under paragraph (1)
shall include--
(A) an assessment of the extent of any obstructions
described in subsection (a)(1) and any delays described in
subsection (a)(2);
(B) recommendations for addressing such obstructions and
delays; and
(C) recommendations regarding whether the obstacle
evaluation process for proposed development near airports
should be revised to take into account the effect of
development on emergency procedures relating to aircraft that
have one engine inoperative.
______
SA 4636. Mr. REID proposed an amendment to the bill H.R. 2881, to
[[Page 7639]]
amend title 49, United States Code, to authorize appropriations for the
Federal Aviation Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to
improve aviation safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the
national aviation system, and for other purposes; as follows:
The provision of this act shall become effective 2 days
after enactment.
______
SA 4637. Mr. REID proposed an amendment to amendment SA 4636 proposed
by Mr. REID to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States
Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation
safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the national
aviation system, and for other purposes; as follows:
In the amendment, strike ``2'' and insert ``1''.
______
SA 4638. Ms. CANTWELL submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
by her to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to
authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for
fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and
capacity, to provide stable funding for the national aviation system,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
Beginning on page 68, strike line 23 and all that follows
through page 69, line 2, and insert the following:
``(5)(A) There is established the position of Senior Vice
President for the Next Generation Air Transportation System
in the Air Traffic Organization of the Federal Aviation
Administration, who shall be appointed by the Administrator
of the Federal Aviation Administration and report to the
Chief Operating Officer of the Federal Aviation
Administration.
``(B) The Senior Vice President for the Next Generation Air
Transportation System shall--
``(i) be the head of the Office; and
``(ii) be a voting member of the Federal Aviation
Administration's Joint Resources Council and the Air Traffic
Organization's Executive Council.'';
______
SA 4639. Mr. LAUTENBERG submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed to amendment SA 4627 proposed by Mr. Rockefeller to the bill
H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to authorize
appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for fiscal years
2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and capacity, to provide
stable funding for the national aviation system, and for other
purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
On page 32, line 22, strike ``and''.
On page 32, line 25, strike the period and insert ``;
and''.
On page 32, after line 25, insert the following:
(4) by adding at the end thereof the following:
``(3) A contract involving labor for carrying out an
airport development project under a grant agreement under
this subchapter must require that a preference be given to
the use of small business concerns (as defined in section 3
of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 1632)) owned and
controlled by disabled veterans.''.
______
SA 4640. Mr. LAUTENBERG submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States
Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation
safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the national
aviation system, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on
the table; as follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. ___. STUDY BY ADMINISTRATOR OF AVIATION SECTOR
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
(a) In General.--The Administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency shall enter into an agreement with the
National Academy of Sciences under which the Academy shall
conduct a study on greenhouse gas emissions associated with
the aviation industry, including--
(1) a determination of appropriate data necessary to make
determinations of emission inventories, considering fuel use,
airport operations, ground equipment, and all other sources
of emissions in the aviation industry;
(2) an estimate of projected industry emissions for the
following 5-year, 20-year, and 50-year periods;
(3) based on existing literature, research and surveys to
determine the existing best practices for emission reduction
in the aviation sector;
(4) recommendations on areas of focus for additional
research for technologies and operations with the highest
potential to reduce emissions; and
(5) recommendations of actions that the Federal Government
could take to encourage or require additional emissions
reductions.
(b) Consultation.--In developing the parameters of the
study under this section, the Administrator shall conduct the
study under this section in consultation with--
(1) the Secretary of Transportation, acting through the
Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration; and
(2) other appropriate Federal agencies and departments.
______
SA 4641. Mr. BINGAMAN (for himself, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Baucus, Mr.
Cochran, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Casey, Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Collins, Mr. Conrad,
Mr. Enzi, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Levin, Mr. Nelson of
Nebraska, Mr. Salazar, Mr. Schumer, Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Wicker, Mr.
Johnson, Mr. Specter, and Mr. Brownback) submitted an amendment
intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title
49, United States Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal
Aviation Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve
aviation safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the
national aviation system, and for other purposes; which was ordered to
lie on the table; as follows:
On page 111, between lines 14 and 15, insert the following:
SEC. 417. REPEAL OF ESSENTIAL AIR SERVICE LOCAL PARTICIPATION
PROGRAM.
(a) In General.--Subchapter II of chapter 417 of title 49,
United States Code, is amended by striking section 41747.
(b) Applicability .--Title 49, United States Code, shall be
applied as if section 41747 of such title had not been
enacted.
(c) Clerical Amendment.--The chapter analysis for chapter
417 of title 49, United States Code, is amended by striking
the item relating to section 41747.
______
SA 4642. Mr. ROCKEFELLER proposed an amendment to amendment SA 4637
proposed by Mr. Reid to the amendment SA 4636 proposed by Mr. Reid to
the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to authorize
appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for fiscal years
2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and capacity, to provide
stable funding for the national aviation system, and for other
purposes; as follows:
In the amendment, strike ``1'' and insert ``3.''
______
SA 4643. Mrs. FEINSTEIN submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by her to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States
Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation
safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the national
aviation system, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on
the table; as follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. PROHIBITIONS AGAINST VOICE COMMUNICATIONS USING
MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES ON SCHEDULED
FLIGHTS.
(a) In General.--Subchapter I of chapter 417, as amended by
section 714 of this Act, is further amended by adding at the
end the following:
``Sec. 41725. Prohibitions against voice communications using
mobile communications devices on scheduled flights
``(a) Interstate and Intrastate Air Transportation.--
``(1) In general.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), an
individual may not engage in voice communications using a
mobile communications device in an aircraft during a flight
in scheduled passenger interstate air transportation or
scheduled passenger intrastate air transportation.
``(2) Flight crew and flight attendants.--The prohibition
described in paragraph (1) shall not apply to a member of the
flight crew or flight attendants on an aircraft.
``(b) Foreign Air Transportation.--
``(1) In general.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), the
Secretary of Transportation shall require all air carriers
and foreign air carriers to adopt the prohibition described
in subsection (a) with respect to the operation of an
aircraft in scheduled passenger foreign air transportation.
``(2) Alternate prohibition.--If a foreign government
objects to the application of paragraph (1) on the basis that
such paragraph provides for an extraterritorial application
of the laws of the United States, the
[[Page 7640]]
Secretary shall waive the application of paragraph (1) to a
foreign air carrier licensed by that foreign government at
such time as an alternative prohibition on voice
communications using a mobile communications device during
flight is negotiated by the Secretary with such foreign
government through bilateral negotiations.
``(c) Definitions.--In this section:
``(1) Flight.--The term `flight' means the period beginning
when an aircraft takes off and ending when an aircraft lands.
``(2) Voice communications using a mobile communications
device.--The term `voice communications using a mobile
communications device'--
``(A) includes voice communications using--
``(i) a commercial mobile radio service or other wireless
communications device;
``(ii) a broadband wireless device or other wireless device
that transmits data packets using the Internet Protocol or
comparable technical standard; or
``(iii) a device having voice override capability; and
``(B) does not include voice communications using a phone
installed on an aircraft.
``(d) Safety Regulations.--This section may not be
construed to affect the authority of the Secretary to impose
limitations on voice communications using a mobile
communications device for safety reasons.
``(e) Regulations.--The Secretary shall prescribe such
regulations as are necessary to carry out this section.''.
(b) Clerical Amendment.--The analysis for subchapter I of
chapter 417, as amended by section 714, is further amended by
adding at the end the following:
``Sec. 41725. Prohibitions against voice communications using mobile
communications devices on scheduled flights.''.
______
SA 4644. Mr. VOINOVICH submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
by him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to
authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for
fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and
capacity, to provide stable funding for the national aviation system,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. LOST NATION AIRPORT, OHIO.
(a) Approval of Sale.--The Secretary of Transportation may
approve the sale of Lost Nation Airport from the City of
Willoughby, Ohio to Lake County, Ohio, if Lake County--
(1) meets all applicable requirements for sponsorship of
the airport;
(2) agrees to assume the obligations and assurances of the
grant agreements relating to the airport executed by the City
of Willoughby under chapter 471 of title 49, United States
Code; and
(3) agrees to operate and maintain the airport in
accordance with such obligations and assurances.
(b) Grants.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary may use funds made available
under section 48103 of title 49, United States Code, to award
a grant to Lake County, Ohio to assist in the purchase of the
Lost Nation Airport under subsection (a).
(2) Federal share.--The Federal share of the grant under
this subsection shall be equal to the lesser of--
(A) 90 percent of the purchase price for the Lost Nation
Airport; and
(B) $1,220,000.
(3) Approval.--The Secretary may not award a grant under
this subsection unless the Secretary receives written
assurances required under section 47107 of title 49, United
States Code, with respect to such grant and the Lost Nation
Airport.
(c) Treatment of Sale Proceeds.--To the extent necessary to
allow the City of Willoughby to use the proceeds from the
sale approved under subsection (a) for any purpose authorized
by the City of Willoughby, the Secretary may waive--
(1) the provisions of sections 47107 and 47133 of title 49,
United States Code;
(2) any obligations to which the City of Willoughby is
subject as a result of a grant received from the Federal
Aviation Administration; and
(3) any regulation or policy of the Federal Aviation
Administration.
______
SA 4645. Mr. ENSIGN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to
authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for
fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and
capacity, to provide stable funding for the national aviation system,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
On page 99, line 12 strike everything after ``5
operations.'' through line 19.
______
SA 4646. Mr. BROWNBACK submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
by him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to
authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for
fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and
capacity, to provide stable funding for the national aviation system,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. COMMISSION ON THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES
COMMERCIAL AND GENERAL AVIATION INDUSTRY.
(a) Establishment.--There is established a commission to be
known as the ``Commission on the Future of the United States
Commercial and General Aviation Industry''.
(b) Membership.--
(1) Appointment.--The Commission shall be comprised of 12
members, appointed not later than October 1, 2008, of whom--
(A) up to 6 shall be appointed by the President;
(B) 2 shall be appointed by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives;
(C) 2 shall be appointed by the majority leader of the
Senate;
(D) 1 shall be appointed by the minority leader of the
Senate; and
(E) 1 shall be appointed by the minority leader of the
House of Representatives.
(2) Qualifications.--The members of the Commission shall be
appointed primarily from among persons with extensive private
sector experience in commercial aviation manufacturing and
persons with extensive private sector experience in general
aviation manufacturing, and from among persons with extensive
experience in economics, international trade, immigration
policy, or labor policy as it relates to the Industry.
(3) Period of appointment; vacancies.--Members shall be
appointed for the life of the Commission. Any vacancy in the
Commission shall not affect its powers, but shall be filled
in the same manner as the original appointment.
(4) Chairman.--The President shall designate 1 member of
the Commission to serve as the Chairman of the Commission.
(5) Meetings.--The Commission shall meet at the call of the
Chairman. A majority of the members shall constitute a
quorum, but fewer members may hold hearings.
(c) Duties.--
(1) In general.--The Commission shall--
(A) study the issues associated with the future of the
Industry in the global economy, particularly with respect to
the Industry's international competitiveness; and
(B) assess the future importance of the Industry for the
economic growth and export potential of the United States.
(2) Topics of study.--In order to fulfill its
responsibilities, the Commission shall study--
(A) current-, short-, and long-term trends in the global
commercial aviation industry, including an assessment of--
(i) the effect of existing and recent foreign-based
entrants into the commercial aviation market on the Industry;
and
(ii) ways in which foreign governments provide incentives
or engage in unfair trade practices to the detriment of the
Industry;
(B) current-, short-, and long-term trends in the general
aviation industry, including an assessment of--
(i) the effect on the Industry of existing and recent
foreign-based entrants into the general aviation market;
(ii) the effect of general aviation on the economy of the
United States;
(iii) the effect of general aviation on domestic job
creation; and
(iv) ways in which general aviation contributes to the
global economic competitiveness and balance of trade of the
United States;
(C) the effect on the Industry of increasing costs for
fossil fuel resources and the applicability of alternative
fuels to replace fossil fuels;
(D) the Federal budget process, including an assessment
of--
(i) the adequacy of projected budgets of Federal
departments and agencies for aerospace research and
development;
(ii) the adequacy of the level of communication and
coordination between Federal departments and agencies as
regards aerospace research and development; and
(iii) the adequacy of current levels of communication and
consultation between Federal departments and agencies and
industry stakeholders when developing aviation budgets and
industry analysis;
(E) the tax laws, regulatory policies, and acquisition
process of the Federal Government, including an assessment of
their effect on maintaining a growing manufacturing base for
all sectors of the Industry;
(F) laws governing international trade and exports,
including an assessment of the adequacy of United States and
multilateral trade laws and policies for maintaining the
international competitiveness of the Industry;
(G) laws governing the immigration of skilled aerospace
workers, including an assessment of the impact of current
immigration laws on the short-term viability of the aerospace
technology workforce; and
(H) the adequacy of--
[[Page 7641]]
(i) Federal, State, and local programs for the support of
science and engineering education, including current programs
for supporting aerospace science and engineering efforts at
institutions of higher learning; and
(ii) programs for the support of workforce development at
institutions of higher learning or State and local centers
for technical training.
(d) Report.--
(1) Submission.--Not later than September 30, 2009, the
Commission shall submit a report describing its activities to
the President and Congress.
(2) Contents.--The report submitted under paragraph (1)
shall include--
(A) the Commission's findings and conclusions;
(B) the Commission's recommendations for actions by Federal
departments and agencies and State and local governments to
support the maintenance of a robust commercial and general
aviation industry in the United States, including any
recommendations for legislative or regulatory changes to
support the implementation of the Commission's findings; and
(C) a discussion of the appropriate means for implementing
the Commission's recommendations.
(e) Powers of the Commission.--
(1) Administrative requirements.--The Director of the
Office of Management and Budget shall provide the Commission
with sufficient funding to procure such administrative
services, facilities, staff, and other support services as
may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this section.
(2) Hearings.--The Commission may hold such hearings, sit
and act at such times and places, take such testimony, and
receive such evidence as the Commission considers advisable
to carry out the purposes of this section.
(3) Information from federal agencies.--The Commission may
request directly from any Federal department or agency any
information that the Commission considers necessary to carry
out the provisions of this section. The head of a department
or agency receiving a request for information under this
paragraph shall furnish such information to the Commission in
accordance with applicable law.
(4) Postal services.--The Commission may use the United
States mails in the same manner and under the same conditions
as other Federal departments and agencies.
(f) Commission Personnel Matters.--
(1) Compensation of members.--Members of the Commission
shall serve without additional compensation for their service
on the Commission, except that each member who is not an
officer or employee of the Federal Government may be allowed
travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence,
as authorized by law for persons serving intermittently in
Government service under subchapter I of chapter 57 of title
5, United States Code, while away from their homes and places
of business in the performance of services for the
Commission.
(2) Staff.--The chairman of the Commission may appoint
staff of the Commission, request the detail of Federal
employees, and accept temporary and intermittent services in
accordance with section 3161 of title 5, United States Code.
(g) Termination.--The Commission shall terminate 30 days
after the date of the submission of its report under
subsection (d).
(h) Definitions.--
(1) In this section:
(A) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the
Commission on the Future of the United States Commercial and
General Aviation Industry.
(B) Industry.--The term ``Industry'' means the commercial
and general aviation industry in the United States.
______
SA 4647. Mr. BROWNBACK submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
to amendment SA 4590 submitted by Mrs. McCaskill (for herself, Mr.
Specter, Mr. Obama, and Mrs. Clinton) and intended to be proposed to
the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to authorize
appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for fiscal years
2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and capacity, to provide
stable funding for the national aviation system, and for other
purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
Beginning on page 4 of the matter proposed to be inserted,
strike line 1 and all that follows through page 9, line 2,
and insert the following:
``(b) Requirements for Maintenance Personnel Providing
Covered Maintenance Work.--Not later than 3 years after the
date of the enactment of this section, the Administrator
shall prescribe regulations requiring all covered maintenance
work on United States commercial aircraft of a part 121 air
carrier to be performed by maintenance personnel employed
by--
``(1) a part 145 repair station;
``(2) a part 121 air carrier;
``(3) a person that provides contract maintenance personnel
to a part 145 repair station or a part 121 air carrier, if
such personnel--
``(A) meet the requirements of such repair station or air
carrier, as the case may be;
``(B) work under the direct supervision and control of such
repair station or air carrier, as the case may be; and
``(C) carry out their work in accordance with the quality
control manuals of such repair station or the maintenance
manual of such air carrier, as the case may be; or
``(4) a holder of a production certificate under part 21 of
title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, if such personnel are
subcontracted by a part 145 repair station.
``(c) Certification of Inspection of Foreign Repair
Stations.--
``(1) In general.--Not later than 2 years after the date of
the enactment of this section, annually thereafter, and
except as provided in paragraph (2), the Administrator shall
certify to Congress that--
``(A) each foreign repair station certified by the
Administrator that performs maintenance work on an aircraft
or a component of an aircraft for a part 121 air carrier has
been inspected not fewer than 2 times in the preceding
calendar year by an aviation safety inspector of the Federal
Aviation Administration; and
``(B) not fewer than 1 of the inspections required by
paragraph (1) for each certified foreign repair station was
carried out at such repair station without any advance notice
to such foreign repair station.
``(2) Exception.--The requirements of paragraph (1) shall
not apply with respect to foreign repair stations located in
countries with which the United States has entered into a bi-
lateral maintenance agreement.
``(d) Drug and Alcohol Testing of Foreign Repair Station
Personnel.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the
enactment of this section, the Administrator shall amend the
certification requirements under part 145 of title 14, Code
of Federal Regulations, to require alcohol and controlled
substance testing in accordance with section 45102 of this
title for any individual employed by a foreign repair station
who performs a safety-sensitive function on a United States
commercial aircraft of a part 121 air carrier.''.
(2) Temporary program of identification and oversight of
noncertified repair facilities.--
(A) Develop plan.--Not later than 180 days after the date
of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall develop
a plan--
(i) to require each part 121 air carrier to identify and
submit to the Administrator a complete list of all
noncertified maintenance providers that perform covered
maintenance work on United States commercial aircraft
operated by such part 121 air carriers to provide air
transportation;
(ii) to validate lists described in clause (i) that are
submitted by a part 121 air carrier to the Administrator by
sampling the records of part 121 air carriers, such as
maintenance activity reports and general vendor listings; and
(iii) to carry out surveillance and oversight by field
inspectors of the Federal Aviation Administration of all
noncertificated maintenance providers that perform covered
maintenance work on United States commercial aircraft for
part 121 air carriers.
(B) Report on plan for program.--Not later than 180 days
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the
Administrator shall submit to Congress a report that contains
the plan required by subparagraph (A).
(C) Implementation of planned program.--Not later than 1
year after the date of the enactment of this Act and until
regulations are prescribed under section 44730(b) of title
49, United States Code, as added by paragraph (1), the
Administrator shall carry out the plan required by
subparagraph (A).
(D) Annual report on implementation.--Not later than 180
days after the commencement of the plan under subparagraph
(C) and each year thereafter until the regulations described
in such subparagraph are prescribed, the Administrator shall
submit to Congress a report on the implementation of the plan
carried out under such subparagraph.
(3) Clerical amendment.--The analysis for chapter 447 of
title 49, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end
the following:
``44730. Repairs stations.''.
(c) Repair Station Security Requirements.--Section 44924 is
amended by striking subsections (a) through (g) and inserting
the following:
``(a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date
of the enactment of this section, the Administrator shall
require each part 145 repair station, as a condition of
certification or recertification under part 145 of title 14,
Code of Federal Regulations, to implement security
requirements--
``(1) to ensure that the facilities of such repair station
are safe and secure; and
``(2) that include the requirements described in subsection
(b).
``(b) Security Requirements.--The security requirements
described in this subsection are requirements of a part 145
repair station to implement the following:
``(1) Methods for controlling access to secure areas.
``(2) Methods to insure that an individual is immediately
denied entry to secured areas when that person's access
authority for that area is withdrawn.
``(3) Methods to ensure that visitors are escorted while on
facility premises.
[[Page 7642]]
``(4) A program to subject each individual applicant for
employment with the repair station to employment history
verification.
``(5) A program to ensure the security of protected
materials.
``(c) Compliance of Repair Stations With Security
Requirements.--
``(1) Prohibition on certification of repair stations that
do not comply with security requirements.--The Administrator
may not certify or recertify a repair station under part 145
of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (or any successor
regulation), unless--
``(A) such repair station is in compliance with the
security requirements required by subsection (a); and
``(B) such repair station certifies to the Under Secretary
for Border and Transportation Security annually that such
repair station is in compliance with such security
requirements.
``(2) Notification to air carriers of noncompliance by
repair stations.--If the Under Secretary for Border and
Transportation Security of the Department of Homeland
Security is aware that a part 145 repair station is not in
compliance with a security requirement required by subsection
(a) or that a security issue or vulnerability has been
identified with respect to such repair station, the Under
Secretary shall provide notice to each part 121 air carrier
of such noncompliance or security issue or vulnerability.
``(d) Definitions.--In this section:
``(1) Part 121 air carrier.--The term `part 121 air
carrier' means an air carrier that holds a certificate under
part 121 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (or any
successor regulation).
``(2) Part 145 repair station.--The term `part 145 repair
station' means a foreign or domestic repair station that
holds a certificate under part 145 of title 14, Code of
Federal Regulations (or any successor regulation).''.
______
SA 4648. Mr. VITTER (for himself, Mr. Craig, Mr. Specter, Mr. Thune,
and Mr. Inhofe) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him
to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to
authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for
fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and
capacity, to provide stable funding for the national aviation system,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
At the end of title VII, add the following:
SEC. 7___. OIL AND NATURAL GAS LEASING IN NEW PRODUCING
AREAS.
(a) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Eligible producing state.--The term ``eligible
producing State'' means--
(A) a new producing State; and
(B) any other producing State that has, within the offshore
administrative boundaries beyond the submerged land of a
State, areas available for oil leasing, natural gas leasing,
or both.
(2) New producing area.--The term ``new producing area''
means an area that is--
(A) within the offshore administrative boundaries beyond
the submerged land of a State; and
(B) not available for oil or natural gas leasing as of the
date of enactment of this Act.
(3) New producing state.--The term ``new producing State''
means a State with respect to which a petition has been
approved by the Secretary under subsection (b).
(4) Qualified revenues.--The term ``qualified revenues''
means all rentals, royalties, bonus bids, and other sums due
and payable to the United States from leases entered into on
or after the date of enactment of this Act for new producing
areas.
(5) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary
of the Interior.
(b) Petition for Leasing New Producing Areas.--
(1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
law, during any period in which the West Texas Intermediate
daily price of crude oil (in dollars per barrel) exceeds 190
percent of the annual price of crude oil (in dollars per
barrel) for calendar year 2006, the Governor of a State, with
the concurrence of the State legislature, may submit to the
Secretary a petition requesting that the Secretary make a new
producing area of the State eligible for oil leasing, gas
leasing, or both, as determined by the State, in accordance
with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1331 et
seq.) and the Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. 181 et seq.).
(2) Natural gas leasing only.--The Governor of a State,
with the concurrence of the State legislature, may, in a
petition submitted under paragraph (1), make a request to
allow natural gas leasing only.
(3) Action by secretary.--As soon as practicable after the
date on which the Secretary receives a petition under
paragraph (1), the Secretary shall approve or disapprove the
petition.
(c) Disposition of Qualified Outer Continental Shelf
Revenues From Eligible Producing States.--Notwithstanding
section 9 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C.
1338), for each applicable fiscal year, the Secretary of the
Treasury shall deposit--
(1) 50 percent of qualified revenues in the general fund of
the Treasury; and
(2) 50 percent of qualified revenues in a special account
in the Treasury, from which the Secretary shall disburse--
(A) 37.5 percent to eligible producing States for new
producing areas, to be allocated in accordance with
subsection (d)(1); and
(B) 12.5 percent to provide financial assistance to States
in accordance with section 6 of the Land and Water
Conservation Fund Act of 1965 (16 U.S.C. 460l-8).
(d) Allocation to Eligible Producing States.--
(1) In general.--The amount made available under subsection
(c)(2)(A) shall be allocated to eligible producing States in
amounts (based on a formula established by the Secretary by
regulation) that are inversely proportional to the respective
distances between the point on the coastline of each eligible
producing State that is closest to the geographic center of
the applicable leased tract and the geographic center of the
leased tract, as determined by the Secretary.
(2) Use.--Amounts allocated to an eligible producing State
under subparagraph (A) shall be used to address the impacts
of any oil and natural gas exploration and production
activities under this section.
(e) Effect.--Nothing in this section affects--
(1) the amount of funds otherwise dedicated to the land and
water conservation fund established under section 2 of the
Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965 (16 U.S.C. 460l-
5); or
(2) any authority that permits energy production under any
other provision of law.
______
SA 4649. Mr. SCHUMER (for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr.
Menendez, Mrs. Murray, Ms. Cantwell, Ms. Stabenow, and Mr. Smith)
submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to amendment SA 4582
submitted by Mr. Schumer (for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Lautenberg,
Mr. Menendez, Mrs. Murray, and Ms. Cantwell) and intended to be
proposed to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code,
to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for
fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and
capacity, to provide stable funding for the national aviation system,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
On page 2, strike lines 5 through 7, and insert the
following: ``cargo (other than bulk cargo)--''.
On page 3, line 3, strike the end quotation marks and
second period and insert the following:
``(4) Bulk cargo.--For purposes of this subsection, the
term `bulk cargo' shall have the meaning given such term by
section 53101(1) of title 46, United States Code (as in
effect on the date of the enactment of this subsection).''.
______
SA 4650. Mr. COBURN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States Code, to
authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation Administration for
fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation safety and
capacity, to provide stable funding for the national aviation system,
and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. SAFE AND ON TIME AIR TRAVEL.
(a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the ``Safe
and On Time Travel Act.''
(b) Prioritizing Aviation Projects.--Any congressionally
directed spending item (as that term is defined in rule XLIV
of the Standing Rules of the Senate, as added by section 521
of the House Leadership in Government Act of 2007 (Public Law
110-81)), designated for administration by the Federal
Aviation Administration shall be subject to the
Administration's review and selection process. After the
Administration completes its review, the Secretary of the
Department of Transportation shall determine if the merits of
each such congressionally directed spending item outweighs
the merits of any backlogged projects and has resulted in
flight delays or poses a risk to airline safety. If the
Secretary determines that the congressionally directed
spending item does not outweigh the backlogged project, the
Secretary shall have the authority to reprogram funding
provided for any such congressionally directed spending item
for an identified backlogged project.
(c) Report.--The Secretary shall submit a report to
Congress and make available annually on the Department's
website the findings of the Federal Aviation Administration
reviews of congressionally directed spending items. The
report shall identify the following:
(1) A cost estimate and location of each backlogged project
that may be affecting flight delays or pose a risk to airline
safety.
[[Page 7643]]
(2) A cost estimate and location of each congressionally
directed spending item designated for administration by the
Federal Aviation Administration.
(3) The result of each of the Administration's reviews and
selection processes with respect to the merits of each
congressionally directed spending item.
(4) A listing of any congressionally directed spending item
with respect to which funding was reprogrammed to reduce
flight delays or improve airline safety.
(5) A detailed description of how the reprogramming of
funding for any congressionally directed spending item was
spent to reduce flight delays or improve airline safety.
______
SA 4651. Mr. NELSON of Florida submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States
Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation
safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the national
aviation system, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on
the table; as follows:
On page 66, between lines 2 and 3, insert the following:
(f) Realignment of Terminal Radar Approach Control at Palm
Beach International Airport.--
(1) Prohibition.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
this section, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation
Administration may not carry out, or plan for, the
consolidation, deconsolidation, colocation, execution of
interfacility reorganization, or facility elimination of the
terminal radar approach control (TRACON) at Palm Beach
International Airport.
(2) Replacement of terminal radar approach control at palm
beach international airport.--The Administrator shall ensure
that any air traffic control tower or facility placed into
operation at Palm Beach International Airport after September
30, 2007, to replace an air traffic control tower or facility
placed into operation before September 30, 2007, includes an
operating terminal radar approach control.
______
SA 4652. Mr. NELSON of Florida submitted an amendment intended to be
proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2881, to amend title 49, United States
Code, to authorize appropriations for the Federal Aviation
Administration for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, to improve aviation
safety and capacity, to provide stable funding for the national
aviation system, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on
the table; as follows:
Beginning on page 65, strike line 24 and all that follows
through page 66, line 2, and insert the following:
(4) Until the Board's recommendations are completed, the
Administrator may not--
(A) consolidate any additional approach control facilities
into--
(i) the Southern California TRACON; or
(ii) the Memphis TRACON; or
(B) de-consolidate, relocate, colocate, reorganize,
combine, de-combine, split, or otherwise realign--
(i) the Miami International Airport TRACON and Tower;
(ii) the Orlando International Airport TRACON and Tower; or
(iii) the Palm Beach International Airport TRACON and
Tower.
______
SA 4653. Ms. CANTWELL (for Mr. Reid) proposed an amendment to the
resolution S. Res. 494, expressing the sense of the Senate on the need
for Iraq's neighbors and other international partners to fulfill their
pledges to provide reconstruction assistance to Iraq; as follows:
On page 3, beginning on line 9, strike ``to merge
reconstruction assistance funds provided by the United States
with funds'' and insert ``to coordinate United States
reconstruction assistance funds, in whatever form they are
provided, with funds''.
____________________
NOTICE OF HEARING
committee on indian affairs
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the
Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, May 1, at 9:30 a.m.
in room 562 of the Dirksen Senate Office building to conduct a hearing
entitled ``Indian Energy Development--Regaining Self-Determination Over
Reservation Resources.''
Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs
Committee at 224-2251.
____________________
AUTHORITY FOR COMMITTEES TO MEET
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet
during the session of the Senate on May 1, 2008, at 2 p.m. to conduct a
Committee hearing entitled ``The More You Know, the Better Buyer You
Become: Financial Literacy for Today's Homebuyers.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
committee on commerce, science, and transportation
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to
hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Thursday, May 1,
2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
committee on energy and natural resources
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during
the session of the Senate in order to conduct a hearing on Thursday,
May 1, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office
Building.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
committee on energy and natural resources
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during
the session of the Senate in order to conduct a hearing on Thursday,
May 1, 2008, at 2:15 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office
Building.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
committee on foreign relations
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session
of the Senate on Thursday, May 1, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a
nomination hearing.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to
meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled
``Keeping America's Children Safe: Preventing Childhood Injury'' on
Thursday, May 1, 2008. The hearing will commence at 10 a.m. in room 430
of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Committee on Indian Affairs
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, May 1,
at 9:30 a.m. in room 562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to
conduct a hearing entitled Indian Energy Development--Regaining Self-
Determination Over Reservation Resources.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Committee on the Judiciary
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the
session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing on Judicial nominations on
Thursday, May 1, 2008, at 2:15 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen
Senate Office Building.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Select Committee on Intelligence
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the
session of the Senate on May 1, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed
hearing.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
[[Page 7644]]
____________________
TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF THE FARM SECURITY AND RURAL INVESTMENT ACT OF
2002
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, a procedural matter. I ask unanimous
consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2954,
introduced earlier today by Senator Harkin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
The bill clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2954) to amend Public Law 110-196 to provide for
a temporary extension of programs authorized by the Farm
Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 beyond May 2, 2008.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask if there is objection to
proceeding?
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will
not object, I came to the floor last night to speak to a time extension
for our colleagues on the farm bill.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. This would follow both you and Senator Nelson.
Mr. CRAIG. I am speaking to the unanimous consent request and the
extension, and I think it is appropriate at this time. It appears our
colleagues have labored hard and long. We believe we have a compromise
for the farm bill. This gives them adequate time to refine it and bring
it to floor as a conference report for final consideration.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I am informed we have to get this bill to the House
right away.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three
times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with,
no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill
be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The bill (S. 2954) was read the third time and passed, as follows:
S. 2954
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. ADDITIONAL TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF AGRICULTURAL
PROGRAMS AND SUSPENSION OF PERMANENT PRICE
SUPPORT AUTHORITIES.
Effective April 25, 2008, section 1 of Public Law 110-196
(122 Stat. 653) (as amended by Public Law 110-200 (122 Stat.
695) and Public Law 110-205 (122 Stat. 713)) is amended--
(1) in subsection (a), by striking ``May 2, 2008'' and
inserting ``May 16, 2008''; and
(2) in subsection (d), by striking ``May 2, 2008'' and
inserting ``May 16, 2008''.
____________________
RATIFYING A LAND CONVEYANCE
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
immediately proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3522, which was
received from the House.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 3522) to ratify a conveyance of a portion of
the Jicarilla Apache Reservation to Rio Arriba County, State
of New Mexico, pursuant to the settlement of litigation
between the Jicarilla Apache Nation and Rio Arriba County,
State of New Mexico, to authorize issuance of a patent for
said lands, and to change the exterior boundary of the
Jicarilla Apache Reservation accordingly, and for other
purposes.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be
read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the
table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related
to the bill be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The bill (H.R. 3522) was read the third time and passed.
____________________
MAKING TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS IN THE ENROLLMENT OF H.R. 493
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 340, received
from the House and at the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the concurrent
resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 340) to make
technical corrections in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 493.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
concurrent resolution.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid
upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 340) was agreed to.
____________________
NATIONAL CHILD CARE WORTHY WAGE DAY
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP
Committee be discharged from further consideration of H. Con. Res. 112
and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the concurrent resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 112) supporting the
goals and ideas of a National Child Care Worthy Wage Day.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
concurrent resolution.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the
motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening
action or debate, and any statements related to the measure be printed
in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 112) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
____________________
REGARDING NEED FOR IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION ASSISTANCE
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 709, S. Res.
494.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 494) expressing the sense of the
Senate on the need for Iraq's neighbors and other
international partners to fulfill their pledges to provide
reconstruction assistance to Iraq.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution, which had been reported from the Committee on Foreign
Relations, without amendment, and with an amendment to the preamble, as
follows:
(Omit the part struck through and insert the part printed in italic.)
S. Res. 494
Whereas a sustained flow of international economic
reconstruction assistance to the Government of Iraq and
provincial and regional authorities in Iraq is essential to
the restoration of basic services in Iraq, job creation, and
the future stabilization of that country;
Whereas reconstruction assistance should be administered in
a transparent, accountable, and equitable manner in order to
help alleviate sectarian grievances and facilitate national
political reconciliation;
Whereas the United States has already spent approximately
[$29,000,000,000 on reconstruction assistance and Congress
has authorized the expenditure of an additional
$16,500,000,000] $18,500,000,000 on reconstruction assistance
and Congress has authorized the expenditure of
$24,000,000,000 for reconstruction assistance;
Whereas, on December 18, 2007, the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) reported that, as of October
2007, international donors had pledged a total of
approximately $16,400,000,000 in support of Iraq's
reconstruction since 2003, of which roughly $13,600,000,000
was pledged at an October 2003 donor conference in Madrid,
Spain;
Whereas the GAO reported that international donors have
provided only approximately $7,000,000,000 for reconstruction
assistance, or less than half of the original pledged amount;
Whereas the conclusion reached by the Iraq Study Group
(ISG) in December 2006 that ``[i]nternational support for
Iraqi reconstruction has been tepid'' remains true and
reinforces the ISG's subsequent recommendation that ``[a]n
essential part of reconstruction efforts in Iraq should be
greater
[[Page 7645]]
involvement by and with international partners, who should do
more than just contribute money. . . . [t]hey should also
actively participate in the design and construction of
projects'';
Whereas Iraq's regional neighbors, in particular, carry a
special imperative to bolster reconstruction assistance
efforts to Iraq, given the vital importance of a peaceful and
secure Iraq to their security interests and overall regional
stability; and
Whereas those countries have prospered in recent years due
to the rising price of their oil exports and enjoy expanded
government revenue from which funds could be allocated for
reconstruction assistance to Iraq: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) Iraq's neighbors and other key international partners
should fully carry through on previous pledges of
reconstruction assistance to the Government of Iraq, working
to mitigate and circumvent, where necessary, potential
obstacles to the effective implementation of those pledges;
and
(2) the United States should consider a recommendation
proposed by the Iraq Study Group to merge reconstruction
assistance funds provided by the United States with funds
from international donors and Iraqi participants to help
ensure that assistance projects in Iraq are carried out in
the most rapid and efficient manner possible.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I further ask that the amendment which
is at the desk be agreed to; the resolution, as amended, be agreed to;
the amendment to the preamble be agreed to; the preamble, as amended,
be agreed to; the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no
intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to this
matter be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment (No. 4653) was agreed to, as follows:
On page 3, beginning on line 9, strike ``to merge
reconstruction assistance funds provided by the United States
with funds'' and insert ``to coordinate United States
reconstruction assistance funds, in whatever form they are
provided, with funds''.
The resolution (S. Res. 494), as amended, was agreed to.
The amendment to the preamble was agreed to.
The preamble, as amended, was agreed to.
The resolution, as amended, with its preamble, as amended, reads as
follows:
S. Res. 494
Whereas a sustained flow of international economic
reconstruction assistance to the Government of Iraq and
provincial and regional authorities in Iraq is essential to
the restoration of basic services in Iraq, job creation, and
the future stabilization of that country;
Whereas reconstruction assistance should be administered in
a transparent, accountable, and equitable manner in order to
help alleviate sectarian grievances and facilitate national
political reconciliation;
Whereas the United States has already spent approximately
$18,500,000,000 on reconstruction assistance and Congress has
authorized the expenditure of $24,000,000,000 for
reconstruction assistance;
Whereas, on December 18, 2007, the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) reported that, as of October
2007, international donors had pledged a total of
approximately $16,400,000,000 in support of Iraq's
reconstruction since 2003, of which roughly $13,600,000,000
was pledged at an October 2003 donor conference in Madrid,
Spain;
Whereas the GAO reported that international donors have
provided only approximately $7,000,000,000 for reconstruction
assistance, or less than half of the original pledged amount;
Whereas the conclusion reached by the Iraq Study Group
(ISG) in December 2006 that ``[i]nternational support for
Iraqi reconstruction has been tepid'' remains true and
reinforces the ISG's subsequent recommendation that ``[a]n
essential part of reconstruction efforts in Iraq should be
greater involvement by and with international partners, who
should do more than just contribute money. . . . [t]hey
should also actively participate in the design and
construction of projects'';
Whereas Iraq's regional neighbors, in particular, carry a
special imperative to bolster reconstruction assistance
efforts to Iraq, given the vital importance of a peaceful and
secure Iraq to their security interests and overall regional
stability; and
Whereas those countries have prospered in recent years due
to the rising price of their oil exports and enjoy expanded
government revenue from which funds could be allocated for
reconstruction assistance to Iraq: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) Iraq's neighbors and other key international partners
should fully carry through on previous pledges of
reconstruction assistance to the Government of Iraq, working
to mitigate and circumvent, where necessary, potential
obstacles to the effective implementation of those pledges;
and
(2) the United States should consider a recommendation
proposed by the Iraq Study Group to coordinate United States
reconstruction assistance funds, in whatever form they are
provided, with funds from international donors and Iraqi
participants to help ensure that assistance projects in Iraq
are carried out in the most rapid and efficient manner
possible.
____________________
NATIONAL DRUG COURT MONTH
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res.
534 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 534) designating the month of May
2008 as ``National Drug Court Month.''
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
resolution and the preamble be agreed to en bloc, the motions to
reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, and any statements relating
thereto be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 534) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 534
Whereas drug courts provide focus and leadership for
community-wide partnerships, bringing together public safety
and public health professionals in the fight against drug
abuse and criminality;
Whereas 60 percent to 80 percent of drug offenders
sentenced to prison and over 40 percent sentenced to
probation recidivate, and whereas fewer than 17 percent of
drug court graduates recidivate;
Whereas the results of more than 100 program evaluations
and at least 3 experimental studies have yielded evidence
that drug courts greatly improve substance abuse treatment
outcomes, substantially reduce crime, and produce significant
societal benefits;
Whereas drug courts transform over 120,000 addicts each
year in the adult, juvenile, and family court systems into
drug-free, productive citizens;
Whereas judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, substance
abuse treatment and rehabilitation professionals, law
enforcement and community supervision personnel, researchers
and educators, national and community leaders, and others
dedicated to drug courts and similar types of treatment
programs are healing families and communities across the
country; and
Whereas the drug court movement has grown from the 12
original drug courts in 1994 to over 2,000 operational drug
courts as of December 2007: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates the month of May 2008 as ``National Drug
Court Month'';
(2) encourages the people of the United States and
interested groups to observe the month with appropriate
ceremonies and activities;
(3) encourages leaders across the United States to increase
the use of drug courts by instituting sustainable drug courts
and other treatment-based alternatives to prison in all 3,143
counties in the United States, which serve the vast majority
of the highest-need citizens in the justice system; and
(4) supports the goal of robustly funding the Drug Court
Discretionary Grant Program and other treatment-based
alternatives to prison in order to expand these critical
criminal justice programs.
____________________
NATIONAL SUBSTITUTE TEACHER RECOGNITION WEEK
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 544 which was submitted
earlier today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 544) designating May 5 through 9,
2008, as National Substitute Teacher Recognition Week.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
[[Page 7646]]
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of the 7th
Annual ``National Substitute Teacher Recognition Week,'' which is
celebrated in conjunction with Teacher Appreciation Week. This is a
national effort to recognize the approximately 270,000 men and women
that fill in for absent permanent teachers every day in the United
States.
According to research performed by the Substitute Teaching
Institute--STI--at Utah State University, as much as 1 full year of a
child's elementary and secondary education is taught by substitute
teachers. More often than not, these are talented individuals who are
willing to take on the challenge of providing quality education when
permanent teachers are out of the classroom. I believe it is only
appropriate that we do something to recognize the efforts of these
members of our communities who fill a void in the education of our
children and play a vital role in maintaining continuity of instruction
and a positive learning environment for students throughout our
country.
I would also like to recognize and commend the work and dedication of
the Substitute Teaching Institute. Established in 1995, STI provides
substitute teachers with training materials to improve the quality of
their contribution to classroom activities. Over the last 12 years, STI
has evolved and grown to become one of our Nation's leaders in the
effort to improve substitute teaching, providing training materials and
services along with recruitment and retention assistance to school
districts and substitute teachers around the world. Having expanded its
work over the years, the STI continually works to revolutionize the
role of substitute teachers into opportunities for educational
excellence.
I am joined by Senators Clinton and Cochran in submitting a
resolution designating May 5-9, 2008 as National Substitute Teacher
Recognition Week, and I urge all my colleagues to lend their support.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to
reconsider be laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 544) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 544
Whereas, on average, as much as 1 full year of a child's
elementary and secondary education is taught by substitute
teachers;
Whereas, on any given day in the United States, more than
270,000 classes are taught by substitute teachers;
Whereas formal training of substitute teachers has been
shown to improve the quality of education, lower school
district liability, reduce the number of student and faculty
complaints, and increase retention rates of substitute
teachers;
Whereas a strong, effective system of education for all
children and youth is essential to our Nation's continued
strength and prosperity;
Whereas much of a child's growth and progress can be
attributed to the efforts of dedicated teachers and
substitute teachers who are entrusted with the child's
educational development;
Whereas substitute teachers play a vital role in
maintaining continuity of instruction and a positive learning
environment in the absence of a permanent classroom teacher;
and
Whereas substitute teachers should be recognized for their
dedication and commitment: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates May 5 through 9, 2008, as the 7th annual
National Substitute Teacher Recognition Week;
(2) recognizes the important and vital role substitute
teachers play in a child's education; and
(3) encourages educational institutions to observe the week
with appropriate events and activities.
____________________
HONORING THE RECIPIENTS OF THE EL DORADO PROMISE SCHOLARSHIP
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 545, which was
submitted earlier today by Senator Pryor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 545) honoring the recipients of the
El Dorado Promise Scholarship.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to
reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or
debate, and that any statements related thereto be printed in the
Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 545) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 545
Whereas the 2000 United States Census determined that El
Dorado, Arkansas, had a significantly lower percentage of
residents with degrees from institutions of higher education
and a significantly higher percentage of families who fell
below the poverty line than the national average;
Whereas it is increasingly important for students to obtain
a college education in order to keep up with the demands of
the modern workforce and global economy;
Whereas the El Dorado Promise scholarship is a tuition
scholarship, created and funded by Murphy Oil Corporation,
which enables all eligible high school graduates of the El
Dorado Public School District in El Dorado, Arkansas, to
attend any accredited 2- or 4-year, public or private,
college or university;
Whereas school enrollment in the El Dorado Public School
District has significantly increased since the El Dorado
Promise scholarship program was established, despite a 15-
year trend of decreasing enrollment;
Whereas the El Dorado Promise scholarship program increased
the number of El Dorado High School students who chose to
attend college after graduation by 20 percent; and
Whereas, on April 30, 2008, El Dorado High School students
who receive El Dorado Promise and other academic scholarships
sign academic letters of intent for the colleges they will be
attending upon graduation: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) congratulates the recipients of the El Dorado Promise
scholarship for choosing to further their education;
(2) recognizes April 30, 2008, as the second Academic
Signing Day for graduating El Dorado High School students
receiving El Dorado Promise and other academic scholarships;
(3) acknowledges that the El Dorado Promise scholarship
program is important for the revitalization of southern
Arkansas; and
(4) recognizes Murphy Oil Corporation for its efforts to
ensure that children from southern Arkansas, who might
otherwise struggle in financing a college education, are able
to attend college.
____________________
NATIONAL PHYSICAL FITNESS AND SPORTS MONTH AND NATIONAL PHYSICAL
EDUCATION AND SPORTS WEEK
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 546, which was submitted
earlier today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 546) designating May 2008 as
``National Physical Fitness and Sports Month,'' and the week
of May 1 through May 7, 2008, as ``National Physical
Education and Sports Week.''
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I am pleased to submit a resolution today
with my colleague, Senator Wyden OR, designating the month of May as
``National Physical Fitness and Sports Month'' and the first week of
May as ``National Physical Education and Sports Week.''
Developing healthy habits is important for all of us, as children,
young adults, and as we grow older. Current and past Presidents have
recognized the month of May, the beginning of spring, as ``Physical
Fitness and Sports Month'' for over 20 years. Around South Dakota and
across the country, local YMCAs, afterschool programs, and other
organizations take time during the month of May to recognize the need
to get fit, stay active, and look at
[[Page 7647]]
new ways to promote physical activity. This year, I am pleased we are
able to recognize the importance of physical fitness through the
Senate.
As we talk more about health care reform and the uninsured, it is
important to remember that each of us has a responsibility concerning
our own care and to educate our children on the importance of staying
healthy. Too often I hear from constituencies, such as school groups
and health care providers, that childhood obesity and diabetes are on
the rise--and it is not just affecting our health, but also our
pocketbooks.
According to my State and the Centers for Disease Control, more than
50,000 South Dakotans have diabetes and projections show that number
will continue to increase. Diabetes of course can cause severe
complications and takes a tremendous toll on our society. The disease
is associated with significant personal and social costs due to
impaired health and quality of life.
Heart disease is another significant and often related illness to
diabetes that effects millions of Americans and costs Medicare and
Medicaid, and therefore taxpayers, millions each year. In South Dakota,
approximately 1,743 deaths--24.8 percent of all deaths--in 2006 were
caused by cardiovascular diseases, including stroke.
Now much of the burden of heart disease is due to smoking--and that
is another problem we will continue to tackle through education at the
state and local levels. But it is also helpful to know that both heart
disease and type 2 diabetes are largely preventable. Also, obesity and
inactivity are two of the major risk factors associated with these
diseases---which means a healthy diet and regular physical activity at
all ages can go a long way toward improving our quality of life and
reducing our health care bills.
For adults, it is recommended that minimum physical activity consist
of moderate activity for 30 minutes, 5 days a week, or more vigorous
activity for 20 minutes, 3 days a week. My daughters and I happen to
have a passion for running, which is particularly popular this time of
year in South Dakota.
The month of May is also a time to recognize the importance of sports
to our State and to our schools. Getting involved in your local school
team--high school or college--or in other local teams is a great way to
stay motivated and focused through school and to develop healthy habits
that will last for many years. It is also a tremendously important part
of community life in South Dakota.
I am proud that this resolution has been endorsed by YMCA of the USA,
AAHPERD--American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation &
Dance--the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association,
and the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to
reconsider be laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 546) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 546
Whereas regular physical activity helps increase endurance,
strengthen bones and muscles, control weight, and reduce
anxiety and stress, and may improve blood pressure and
cholesterol levels;
Whereas about \2/3\ of young people in the ninth through
12th grades do not engage in recommended levels of physical
activity, and daily participation in high school physical
education classes has declined over the last 7 years;
Whereas 39 percent of adults report they are not physically
active, and only 3 in 10 adults engage in the recommended
amount of physical activity;
Whereas, in 2004, more than 9,000,000 children and
adolescents in the United States between the ages of 6 and 19
were considered overweight;
Whereas obesity and inactivity are 2 major risk factors for
developing type 2 diabetes, a disease that affects millions
of people in the United States;
Whereas many chronic diseases may be prevented by living a
healthy lifestyle that includes regular physical activity and
a balanced diet;
Whereas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the American Heart Association, and the American
College of Sports Medicine, minimum physical activity for
adults consists of moderate activity for 30 minutes 5 days a
week or vigorous activity for 20 minutes 3 days a week;
Whereas, according to a 1996 report by the Surgeon General,
positive experiences with physical activity at a young age
help to lay the foundation for being active throughout life;
Whereas the President's Council on Physical Fitness and
Sports promotes regular physical activity to achieve and
maintain good health and to prevent chronic disease and
offers motivational tools through the President's Challenge
program for people of all ages to track physical activity;
and
Whereas the month of May has been recognized since 1983 as
National Physical Fitness and Sports Month to encourage
physical fitness and activity and to promote health in
children and adults of all ages: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates--
(A) May 2008 as ``National Physical Fitness and Sports
Month''; and
(B) the week of May 1 through May 7, 2008, as ``National
Physical Education and Sports Week''; and
(2) encourages the people of the United States to observe
the month and the week with appropriate ceremonies and
activities.
____________________
NORTH AMERICAN OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH WEEK AND OCCUPATIONAL
SAFETY AND HEALTH PROFESSIONALS DAY
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
now proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 547, submitted
earlier today by Senator Durbin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 547) designating the week of May 4
through May 10, 2008, as ``North American Occupational Safety
and Health Week'' and May 7, 2008, as ``Occupational Safety
and Health Professionals Day.''
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to
reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or
debate, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the
Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 547) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:
S. Res. 547
Whereas every year more than 5,700 people die from job-
related injuries and 4,400,000 more incur occupational
injuries and illnesses in the United States;
Whereas transportation crashes continue to be the number 1
cause of on-the-job deaths, and overall in 2005 there were
6,159,000 transportation accidents resulting in 43,433
deaths, 2,700,000 injuries, and an estimated $230,600,000,000
in tangible costs;
Whereas businesses spend $170,000,000,000 a year on costs
associated with occupational injuries and illnesses;
Whereas it is imperative that employers, employees, and the
general public are aware of the importance of preventing
illness and injury in the workplace-wherever that workplace
may be, such as on the road, in the air, the classroom, the
store, the plant, or the office;
Whereas each year the families, friends, and co-workers of
victims of on-the-job accidents suffer intangible losses and
grief, especially when proper safety measures could have
prevented worker injury or death;
Whereas everyday millions of people go to and return home
from work safely due, in part, to the efforts of occupational
safety, health, and environmental practitioners who work day
in and day out identifying hazards and implementing safety
and health advances across industries and workplaces, aimed
at eliminating workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses;
Whereas our society has long recognized that a safe and
healthy workplace positively impacts employee morale, health,
and productivity;
Whereas the purpose of the North American Occupational
Safety and Health Week (NAOSH) is to raise awareness among
employees, employers, and the general public of the benefits
of investing in occupational safety and health;
[[Page 7648]]
Whereas the more than 32,000 members of the American
Society of Safety Engineers, along with the more than 150,000
combined members of the American Association of Occupational
Health Nurses, the American Heart Association, and the
National Association of Homebuilders, will be mobilizing to
encourage safe practices, and increase the quality of life
for employees and employers;
Whereas the theme of NAOSH Week 2008 is ``safety is good
business'', highlighting that businesses operate more
efficiently and are more respected when they use effective
safety and health management systems; and
Whereas, on May 7, 2008, occupational safety and health
professionals will be recognized during the 3rd annual
Occupational Safety and Health Professionals Day for the work
they do to keep people safe at work: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) designates the week of May 4 through 10, 2008, as
``North American Occupational Safety and Health Week'';
(2) designates May 7, 2008, as ``Occupational Safety and
Health Professionals Day'';
(3) commends occupational safety, health, and environmental
practitioners for their ongoing commitment to protecting
people, property, and the environment;
(4) commends those businesses that encourage a strong
safety culture and incorporate occupational safety and health
into their business strategies;
(5) encourages all industries, organizations, community
leaders, employers, and employees to join with the American
Society of Safety Engineers to support activities aimed at
increasing awareness of the importance of preventing illness,
injury, and death in the workplace, during the week of May 4
through May 10, 2008, and throughout the year; and
(6) urges all people of the United States to continue to
act responsibly and to be safe at work so that the millions
of people who go to work return home safely every day to
their families and friends.
____________________
ENERGY
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, there are many items we were taking care
of, but I think the Senate, including the Presiding Officer, in the
last several days has spent a lot of time talking about the high prices
of gasoline and how the consumers are being impacted by it.
I come to the floor tonight to continue that discussion and to say to
the American people and the people of Washington State whom I represent
that we are going to be aggressive and vigilant about looking into the
oil market and why gas prices have risen over 100 percent in a year
when there has been no disruption of supply, when there has been no
shortage, when most oil companies testified that oil should be at $60 a
barrel, why we are at these high gas prices.
Many of my colleagues have been out on the floor speaking. I keep
pointing to the fact that the price of oil has been at over $118 a
barrel. I don't know what they closed at today. Many consumers have
been paying anywhere from $3.56 a gallon to $4.22 a gallon for diesel.
Oil futures--I keep emphasizing this--oil futures are part of what
drives the day-to-day price of oil. When oil futures are so high, that
helps set the price in the day-to-day, what is called the spot market.
We know oil futures now will be over $100 a barrel for several years.
We know this is a very big indicator of the challenge we face in
keeping gasoline prices low.
Many of my colleagues have been out here talking about ANWR, how we
should drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and we will solve our
problems. I do not support drilling in the wildlife refuge because I
think it is a very special place because it is a wildlife refuge. More
importantly, in this case, it is not going to solve our energy crisis.
Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge will, at the height of its
production 10 or 20 years from now, if it actually occurs, will reduce
gas prices by about a penny a gallon. We are talking about a few
dollars of savings over a year's period of time. We are not talking
about a solution.
The United States has 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We are
not going to drill our way out of this problem. So we need to act.
Many of my colleagues have said it is about the fact that there is
not enough gas supply; we don't have enough inventory. And we hear from
oil analysts who give testimony or write articles in the paper that
``gasoline inventories are higher than the historical average at this
time of year . . . so there is really no need to worry about the supply
being too tight.'' This is an oil analyst who said this in March. Here
is somebody analyzing the market who says it is not about the supply
being too tight.
We had some people say it is all about refineries, if we just went
ahead with refineries producing more and there are all these
environmental regulations and they cannot produce more oil. According
to CEOs of oil companies, that is not the issue because the CEO of
Shell testified that--this is before a Senate committee--``We are not
aware of any environmental regulations that have prevented us from
expanding refinery capacity or siting a new refinery.'' That is not
what the problem is either.
We know it is not any existing regulations because here is another
CEO of an oil company who said: At this time, we are not aware any
projects have been directly prevented as a result of any specific
Federal or State regulation.
I have gone over some of these charts, and I am going over them again
tonight because I think it is important for us to get to the bottom of
what is going on. We owe it to our consumers, to our constituents to
make sure that strong Federal statutes are in place that prohibit
market manipulation and that they are enforced and that if markets are
out of control--and by that I mean there is no justification for the
price--we have somebody in the Federal Government, a Federal agency
that is going to police that market and hold people accountable for the
manipulation of supply and price.
During the summer season, we actually think consumption in the United
States is projected to decline. So this notion somehow that the summer
driving season is upon us and all of a sudden the price should go up
because more people are going to be driving taking vacations and it is
going to have an impact and that is why the price should go up is just
not correct. This is a statement by the Energy Information Agency that
it declined over last year by three-tenths of a percent and is expected
to decline by four-tenths of a percent for the summer. It is not really
about the fact that all of a sudden just because it is summer we should
pay higher gas prices.
I have shown this chart about supply and demand because it shows in
the orange color what demand have been and what supply has been, the
yellow line. What is interesting is that supply and demand has been
fairly consistent over time; that is, we see some anomalies there, but
pretty much supply and demand are being met. So someone cannot say we
had in 2007 or 2008 a big gap and that is why today prices are 100
times what they were, over 100 percent from where they were a year ago.
You cannot say that because supply and demand are basically constant.
That leaves us to say, What is the problem? What is going on and what
is causing this problem? When I think about this issue about what
America needs to do to make sure oil markets are policed, to make sure
oil markets are functioning, to make sure oil, a commodity that is so
important to us in the United States as it relates to our economy, is
really properly policed by proper Federal agencies, I look at where
this is.
I have said a couple times on the floor now it seems to me that
hamburger in America has more regulation as it relates to the futures
market than oil does. I am sure some will say: What is the Senator from
Washington talking about? What I am talking about is basically this
chart which is that cattle futures, which are traded on several
platforms, basically do not have any exemptions. They have to comply
with all the rules and regulations of the futures market. That means
they have to register, people have to know who is buying and selling on
that market. They have daily reporting requirements. That means there
has to be transparency. And there are speculative limits. Those
speculative limits in the market for something such as cattle futures
basically say if price gets out of control, then they stop the market.
They stop the market; they don't let it just careen out of control.
[[Page 7649]]
Yet we look at oil--besides the NYMEX, oil has been traded on these
mini-platforms, and you ask: Does it have to meet any of these same
requirements as beef? No. Look over here and they are exempt. There is
no check mark here. They are exempt. They are an exempt commodity. Why?
Because in 2000, they were given an exemption called the Enron loophole
that basically said those trades don't have to comply with the same
daily reporting requirements of the futures market. They don't have
registration, so we don't know who is impacting that market. We don't
know who is doing it. They certainly don't have daily reporting
requirements, so there is no transparency, and they don't have any kind
of limitation on the speculation. Basically, we have a totally
different regime of how futures are treated.
As I said, the important point is that the oil futures price impacts
the day-to-day price of oil as well. So it is very important that we
have a futures market that functions, that is not manipulated, that has
a certain amount of transparency to it, that there are reporting
requirements so that if something is amiss in the marketplace, it can
be investigated.
Let me be clear. I don't think any oil company or hedge fund or any
other organization wants a disruptive market that does not function
properly on market fundamentals. That is not good for anybody. So
everybody should think that somehow hamburger cannot be more important
to America than oil as it relates to our economy, and yet we have given
all of these exemptions to oil and said we don't need to know this. We
don't need to know this information. It is apparent at these prices
that market fundamentals are not working. Supply and demand is not
working.
We as a body basically said we want a prohibition on manipulation of
oil. We made it illegal for any person to directly or indirectly use
``any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance'' in connection
with the wholesale purchase of crude oil or petroleum distillates. And
we said any violators of that law could be fined up to $1 million a
day. We did that in December. I think that $1 million per day is a
pretty stiff fine to deter people from manipulating the market.
We also said anybody who knowingly provides false or misleading
information about the wholesale of crude oil or gasoline prices to a
Federal department or agency can also be fined up to $1 million per
day.
We believe when we look at the Enron case and we look at some of the
information that has been provided in these other markets where there
has been manipulation, that providing false information was exactly the
way we caught and understood exactly how people were manipulating the
market.
That is the legislation that Senator Reid and the Democrats pushed
and got bipartisan support for in the Senate and we passed in December
of last year.
What we have been waiting for is the FTC to act. We have been waiting
for the administration to enforce that law. We have been waiting for
them to enforce that law by writing the rules and regulations that will
police the oil market and catch the manipulators of oil prices in this
country.
The good news is the FTC is acting. The FTC, within the last half an
hour, 40 minutes, has issued their rule. I have it here. This is the
new rule.
It has to go through a public comment period. It has to have the
input, I am sure it will be from hundreds of people who will want to
say this is how I think this rule should work. I certainly encourage
consumers and consumer organizations and my colleagues in the Senate to
all respond to this rule because it will be critical that we hear from
people.
I think the Chairman of the FTC, Chairman Kovacic, has done a good
job saying in a press release just issued:
We understand consumer prices are being hurt by high gas
prices and that the Commission remains vigilant in using this
authority to prevent unlawful behavior that affects gas
prices.
I congratulate the FTC in issuing this rule. But I want people to
understand that this rule in its final implementation is what is going
to say to those individuals who are manipulating markets--we don't know
yet about oil markets. We certainly know we have found manipulation of
electricity markets, we have found manipulation of natural gas markets,
we have found manipulation of propane, and we are going to use this law
and this new rule to police the oil markets and stop any kind of
activity that is spiking the price of gasoline and ruining our economy.
I can't say how important it is that we move forward on this rule. I
can't tell you how critical it is because without the proper tools,
without the proper policing and a market careening out of control--we
had an oil analyst who basically said--I don't know if we have that
chart--but he basically said Government has to act because there is too
much speculative power running around in the market without the
oversight, and Government needs to act. If it does not act, prices are
going to keep going up.
I wish to give an example because the Amaranth case was a natural gas
case where a hedge fund basically manipulated the market and sold a
bunch of product into the market, physically a whole month of supply,
to crash the price and then basically end up capitalizing on the fact
they had so much control of the market.
Back to a chart that we have on beef and cattle futures, it is the
issue that when you look at those markets, one of the reasons you
police markets and you look at speculative limits and you have exchange
registration is because you want to make sure that not one big player
has so much market share it ends up using that in a manipulative way,
which is what Amaranth did.
After Amaranth basically collapsed and the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission went after them for the manipulation of these prices, the
price of natural gas fell 38 percent. After they got out of the market,
the natural gas price fell 38 percent.
I am not saying this is going to happen, but imagine if that same
thing happened in the oil markets. What would happen if we found out
there was a big player such as Amaranth that was helping drive up the
price and you actually could see a reduction of 38 percent from where
we are today at nearly $118--$110 a barrel. Oil would be about $75 a
barrel. Instead of paying $3.60 a gallon, we would be paying more like
$2.40 or $2.50 a gallon. That is what would happen.
It is critical we police these markets and we use this new rule and
that consumers respond and that we do our job in the Congress in making
sure Federal regulators are on top of what is an out-of-control oil
market that is not based on supply and demand, that is based on some
other market activity that cannot be explained. Where there is smoke I
think there is fire. We certainly see a lot of smoke in the oil markets
that I hope will lead the FTC to investigate vigorously, with this new
rule, the potential manipulation and stop these practices to help save
our economy and save consumers who are getting gouged at the pump.
We are going to continue next week by reminding our colleagues of
what we need to do. We need to protect consumers by closing the Enron
loophole. As I said, beef futures have all these requirements but oil
doesn't. We need to require the oversight of all oil futures markets.
This was No. 3 on our list, get the FTC to act with new rules. The FTC
did it tonight, issued their rule. I have not even read it in full. I
am going to do that as soon as I leave the floor. I am going to see how
good the rule is in basically enforcing the power we gave them in the
December 2007 Energy bill.
We need to get the DOJ in the act because I think the FTC, while they
have the new authority, should be with the CFTC, they should work with
the SEC. They did a great job on the Enron task force in compiling
across multiple agencies the case against the manipulation of the
electricity markets. They should do the same for the oil markets.
Then, as I said before, I think making sure the President has
emergency authority on price gouging, such as 28 States do, is also an
important tool, and I am sure we will be talking more about that in the
future.
[[Page 7650]]
Bursting the energy price bubble is what we need to do. We need to
burst the energy price bubble that we cannot explain. We do not know
why it is there. It is not supply and demand. It is something else
going on, and we need to get to the bottom of it. After Amaranth,
pricing dropped to the lowest level in 2\1/2\ years after their getting
out of the market, after their manipulation, after a hedge fund came in
and tried to manipulate the natural gas market. When we saw the lowest
rate for natural gas in 2\1/2\ years after we got that manipulator out
of the market, it tells us we have to be vigorous in this battle. We
have to be aggressive in protecting our consumers, and that is what the
Senate is going to continue to do.
I know the Presiding Officer is on board in that effort. I know many
of my colleagues are too. I know Senator Reid is as well.
I encourage my colleagues to weigh in on this issue of the FTC rule
and policing of the oil markets. I hope we have hearings in the
Commerce Committee to do that and that we show the American public the
Senate is serious about protecting consumers from the high price spikes
in oil that cannot be described as simply market supply and demand.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
ORDERS FOR FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2008
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the
Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m.
tomorrow, Friday, May 2; that following the prayer and the pledge, the
Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed
expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later
in the day, and that there then be a period of morning business, with
Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each. I
further ask that the filing deadline for first-degree amendments be
3:30 p.m. on Monday.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________
PROGRAM
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, today we were unable to reach an
agreement on the FAA reauthorization bill. As a result, Senator Reid
filed cloture on the substitute amendment and the bill. The cloture
vote on this substitute will occur at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday. There will
be no votes tomorrow and, as previously announced, there will be no
votes on Monday.
____________________
ADJOURNMENT UNTIL 9:30 A.M. TOMORROW
Ms. CANTWELL. If there is no further business to come before the
Senate, I ask unanimous consent the Senate stand adjourned under the
previous order.
There being no objection, the Senate, at 7:33 p.m., adjourned until
Friday, May 2, 2008, at 9:30 a.m.
____________________
NOMINATIONS
Executive nominations received by the Senate:
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
SEAN JOSEPH STACKLEY, OF VIRGINIA, TO BE AN ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, VICE DELORES M. ETTER, RESIGNED.
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
STEVEN C. PRESTON, OF ILLINOIS, TO BE SECRETARY OF HOUSING
AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, VICE ALPHONSO R. JACKSON, RESIGNED.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
LILIANA AYALDE, OF MARYLAND, A CAREER MEMBER OF THE SENIOR
FOREIGN SERVICE, CLASS OF MINISTER-COUNSELOR, TO BE
AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA TO THE REPUBLIC OF PARAGUAY.
TATIANA C. GFOELLER-VOLKOFF, OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, A
CAREER MEMBER OF THE SENIOR FOREIGN SERVICE, CLASS OF
COUNSELOR, TO BE AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC.
[[Page 7651]]
EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS
____________________
PAYING TRIBUTE TO GENE SEGERBLOM
______
HON. JON C. PORTER
of nevada
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. PORTER. Madam Speaker, it is my distinct pleasure to rise today
to honor Gene Segerblom by entering her name in the Congressional
Record, the official record of the proceedings and debates of the
United States Congress since 1873. I rise today to honor Gene
Segerblom, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday on March 15th,
2008.
Gene was born in 1918 in Elko County, Nevada. Gene's grandparents had
migrated to Nevada as pioneers. She graduated from high school in
Winnemucca, and later graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno.
She moved to Southern Nevada in 1940 to teach at Boulder City High
School. A year later, she resigned from her position at the high school
and married Cliff Segerblom, a known judge and talented artist.
Upon the return from their honeymoon, the newlyweds moved to the
Republic of Panama, where Cliff was offered a job to be the
photographer on the third set of canal locks. They lived there for 6
years, and returned to Boulder City in 1947 where Gene focused on
raising her children Robin, Richard, and Tic. After 21 years, she
returned to teaching government classes at Boulder City High School.
She later embarked on her political career as a city council woman for
Boulder City. She worked tirelessly with the Las Vegas Chamber of
Commerce as well as the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce to promote
Nevada and Boulder City.
In 1991, Gene ran for the Nevada State Assembly and won. She served
four terms in the State Assembly and had been the first representative
to serve Boulder City in 22 years. Throughout her term, Gene focused on
the preservation and restoration of many historical sites, and focused
on the development of parks and museums. Gene has dedicated much of her
efforts to support the community of Boulder City. She serves on
numerous committees including the Boulder City Museum and Historical
Association where she serves as the Founding Director and Vice
President, the Boulder City Community Club, and the Nevada State
Council of Senior Citizens President. Gene was also a champion of the
Boulder City Hotel.
Madam Speaker, I am proud to honor Gene Segerblom on this noteworthy
occasion for her exemplary life and important contributions to her
community. I applaud the way in which she has served Boulder City and
congratulate her on this milestone. I wish her a happy birthday and the
best of luck in her future endeavors.
____________________
REMARKS ON THE ILWU MAY DAY PROTEST OF THE IRAQ WAR
______
HON. JACKIE SPEIER
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Ms. SPEIER. Madam Speaker, today many of the 40,000 members of the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union--the ILWU--are expressing
their outrage at the Administration's war policies and their effect on
working families by staging a walkout at ports and other facilities
along the West Coast.
I stand in solidarity with these workers whom, like the truckers who
mobilized in Washington earlier this week and many other working and
middle-class Americans, have simply had enough of the diet of mistruths
and deceptions that our President continues to feed the American
public.
Madam Speaker, Americans are saying enough is enough. We spend
billions every week in Iraq while the government there banks its oil
profits and refuses to pitch in to help fund the necessary projects
required to get the Iraqi people back on their feet.
Madam Speaker, my tenure in this house is short, but my interest in
the institution has been a life-long pursuit. May I say that you have
done more to bring peace to our nation and get our troops back home to
their families than any other war-time Speaker in our history. I am
proud to stand by you and the ILWU as we all do our part to bring an
end to this war.
It is time to bring our men and women home to their families and
communities. It is time for all Americans, like the Longshore and
Warehouse workers, to stand up and tell the President ``Enough is
enough. End this war before your term is over. Eight tragic years for
our country is bad enough, don't saddle future generations with a
prolonged commitment in a country we never should have gone into in the
first place.''
____________________
CELEBRATING THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF MEMORIAL BAPTIST CHURCH BAYTOWN,
TEXAS
______
HON. TED POE
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that I congratulate
the members of Memorial Baptist Church in Baytown, Texas as they
celebrate their 90th anniversary. This is a remarkable milestone for
this community church that modestly began in 1918.
During the 1900s, it was common that church services took place in
private homes. In 1918, the Alcorn Family invited John W. Anderson to
preach at their home in Goose Creek. Later that year, John W. Anderson
became the first pastor of First Baptist Church, Goose Creek known
today as Memorial Baptist Church.
Blessed with outstanding leadership and unshakable faith, the
congregation continues to be a treasure to the city of Baytown.
Memorial Baptist Church is a good example of the positive role that
churches play in our communities. Through their ministry and outreach
efforts, lead by current pastor Brad Hoffman, they are making a
difference in the lives of people.
Today, more than ever, our Nation needs the spiritual nourishment and
support that our local churches can provide. It is for this reason that
I congratulate the members of Memorial Baptist Church for their
dedication and faith as they celebrate 90 years of serving our
community.
____________________
PERSONAL EXPLANATION
______
HON. ROBERT E. ANDREWS
of new jersey
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. ANDREWS. Madam Speaker, I was not present on April 29, 2008. Had
I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on the following rollcall
votes: rollcall 224, rollcall 225, and rollcall 226.
____________________
COMMENDING COLE VALLEY CHRISTIAN SCHOOL SCIENCE BOWL TEAM
______
HON. BILL SALI
of idaho
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. SALI. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize an elite group of
students from Cole Valley Christian School in Meridian, Idaho.
Christopher Barker, Maxwell Greenlee, Timothy Segert, Adam Tucker and
Phillip Grafft will represent Idaho in the 18th annual U.S. Department
of Energy National Science Bowl competition in Washington, DC.
The National Science Bowl is an academic challenge involving more
than 12,000 high school students across the country. From January
through March, regional elimination tournaments were held across the
country and the group of four seniors and one junior from Cole Valley
Christian prevailed. The 67 winning teams have won the opportunity to
compete at the national finals in Washington, DC, May 1-6, 2008.
The mission of the National Science Bowl is to encourage students to
excel in science and math, and to pursue careers in those fields. I
[[Page 7652]]
am proud to congratulate Christopher, Maxwell, Timothy, Adam and
Phillip who represent the best of our next generation of scientists,
engineers and educators.
The competition is in a fast-paced question and answer format. The
students prepared during their lunch break under the guidance of Coach
Lola Lynch. Ms. Lynch is described by the students simply as
``awesome.'' I thank her for all the dedication, support, and
encouragement she has lent to the students. Though Ms. Lynch is unable
to attend the competition in DC, the students will be diligently
coached by Tim Berggren.
When asked if they will win, the students said they hope so. But even
more, they hope to represent God and Idaho as best as possible.
Christopher, Maxwell, Timothy, Adam, Phillip, Coach Lynch and Coach
Berggren: I wish you the best of luck at the Science Bowl.
Congratulations on your efforts thus far, you are fine representatives
of Idaho.
____________________
HONORING JUDITH A. HORN FOR HER WORK WITH THE KINGS PARTNERSHIP FOR
CHILDREN
______
HON. JIM COSTA
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. COSTA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Mrs. Judith A.
Horn, Director of the ``Hand in Hand'' Family Resource Center for her
work with the Home Garden and Lakeside communities. Today, thanks to
her efforts, these communities not only have many educational programs
but a resonating voice in local politics that addresses their needs.
I have had the pleasure of working with Judy Horn on a variety of
projects throughout her time with the Family Resource Center. As the
founding director of the center, Judy laid a strong foundation for the
organization, focusing on activism, youth advocacy and crime
prevention. Her unique ability to work well with a wide variety of
individuals has aided the center immeasurably.
The success of the Kings Partnership for Children, which Judy founded
in 1991, is evidenced by the presence of a permanent health clinic, a
pre-school, an after-school program, a summer program, and a computer
lab for youth in the area. These are direct results of the dedication,
commitment, and invaluable drive Judy has always exhibited.
It goes without saying that Judy Horn personifies a woman of great
principle and integrity. She is a role model for us all, especially our
Valley's upcoming generation of activist youth. It is with great pride
that I congratulate Judy for all her work with the ``Hand in Hand''
Family Resource Center and the Kings Partnership for Children, and
thank her for all that she does on behalf of Kings County residents.
____________________
IN RECOGNITION OF MR. ANTHONY FLOWERS
______
HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE
of delaware
in the house of representatives
Thursday May 1, 2008
Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise
today to recognize Mr. Anthony Flowers, who was nominated to be the
2008 Delaware Boys & Girls Club Youth of the Year.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Reader's Digest have
nationally sponsored the Youth of the Year program since 1947. The goal
of Youth of the Year has been to recognize outstanding members of the
Boys & Girls Club and their contributions to their Club, community,
school, and family. More than 32,000 youth are served by the Boys &
Girls Clubs of Delaware.
Twelve students were nominated for the honor of Youth of the Year
through an intensive local and state level selection process, including
the nominees' personal contribution to home and family, community,
school and their Boys & Girls Club. The nominees had to prepare two
essays explaining why post-high school education is important and what
the Club means to them. Additionally, students had to prepare a 3-5
minute speech and have an interview session with a panel of judges. The
candidates attended the Youth of the Year Summit, where they received
professional guidance regarding public speaking, writing, and
interviewing skills.
After winning the Local Youth of the Year award, Anthony moved onto
the state level competition, where he refined his essay and prepared
for the next round of interviews. Anthony was an extremely qualified
candidate for the Youth of the Year 2008. Anthony is a Boy Scout and a
Keystone Club Member at the Clarence Fraim Boys & Girls Club. Among the
candidates for the state Youth of the Year, Anthony won the Highest GPA
Award for his 3.63 GPA at Hodgson Vocational Technical High School.
Once again, I would like to commend Anthony Flowers for being
nominated as the Boys & Girls Club of Delaware's Youth of the Year.
____________________
HONORING SFC RONNIE THOMPSON, JR.
______
HON. RON LEWIS
of kentucky
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to
Sergeant First Class Ronnie Thompson, Jr., a remarkable soldier and
citizen from Rineyville, Kentucky. SFC Thompson's recovery from a grave
injury sustained while serving in Iraq has made him a source of
inspiration among his fellow soldiers and throughout the extended Fort
Knox community.
SFC Thompson joined the United States Army in 1991 and was assigned
to the First Infantry Division. During his early tenure, he completed a
deployment to Bosnia and two additional deployments to Kosovo. He was
subsequently deployed to Iraq where he served as a Scout Platoon
Sergeant with the Air Assault Quick Reaction Force.
On December 11, 2004, SFC Thompson was severely wounded by an
improvised explosive device while participating in Coalition efforts in
Iraq. He was air evacuated back to the United States and placed in
emergency care at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC. In
the months and years that have followed, SFC Thompson has defied
doctor's expectations, emerging from a coma and enduring countless
hours of grueling physical therapy.
In his long convalescence, SFC Thompson continues to demonstrate the
unique courage and keen sense of duty that made him such an exemplary
soldier. In addition to the daily rigors of rehabilitation therapy, he
has found time to serve his fellow soldiers as a volunteer at the Fort
Knox Veteran Service Office. On the battlefield and off, SFC Thompson
has answered the call of his country in a profound way, making deep
personal sacrifices to serve others and preserve our freedom and way of
life.
It is my great privilege to recognize Sergeant First Class Ronnie
Thompson, Jr. today on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives
for his service to our country, support of our soldiers, and lifelong
example of leadership and service. His unique achievements make him an
outstanding American worthy of our honor and respect.
____________________
INJECTING THE IMPROVEMENT OF EDUCATION INTO THE POLITICAL DIALOGUE
______
HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, in the interest of our national security,
competitive standing in the world, and criminal justice system--I rise
today to rouse dialogue on an issue that implicates all three:
education. Recent numbers report that as few as 1 out of every 2
youngsters are not earning high school diplomas in our Nation's biggest
cities. For those of us from districts where the need is great, these
numbers are far from new, let alone startling. But even as they
inspired alarm in the wake of the report's release, they have failed to
ignite a national conversation on an issue that demands action, not
just today, but yesterday. That alarm has already, regrettably, been
snuffed out. We remain, still, oddly hush-hush and complacent.
Many will make an argument of the heart, that to fail to equip these
kids with the skills and knowledge they need to eschew poverty and
criminality demonstrates an abominable lack of compassion. This is
true. But allow me to also make an argument of the mind. These children
cannot afford failure--and neither can we. As a nation, we drastically
shrink our talent pool and our ability to compete on the global stage
when we trade bodies in our college classrooms for bodies on the
streets, in
[[Page 7653]]
jails, even underground. We give way to the rise in influence of China
and India and saddle the next generation with a workforce unfit for
competition, perennially unemployed and underemployed. That is an
explicit and direct threat to our national security.
A New York Times editorial--written by Bob Herbert, published on
April 22, and titled ``Clueless in America''--makes the case for an
America that rises to this challenge, that takes note of our lack of
progress, and moves with purpose and innovation towards correcting it.
Clueless in America
We don't hear a great deal about education in the
presidential campaign. It's much too serious a topic to
compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of
whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball.
The nation's future may depend on how well we educate the
current and future generations, but (like the renovation of
the nation's infrastructure, or a serious search for better
sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems
to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges
facing the U.S.
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds.
That's more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble
for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a
college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class
quality of life--and for the country as a whole in a world
that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it's
widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education
advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not
identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of
Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer
than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and
1900.
``We have one of the highest dropout rates in the
industrialized world,'' said Allan Golston, the president of
U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a
discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as
``actually pretty scary, alarming.''
Roughly a third of all American high school students drop
out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next
stage of life--either productive work or some form of post-
secondary education.
When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate
from high school are incapable of mastering college-level
work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.
Mr. Golston noted that the performance of American
students, when compared with their peers in other countries,
tends to grow increasingly dismal as they move through the
higher grades:
``In math and science, for example, our fourth graders are
among the top students globally. By roughly eighth grade,
they're in the middle of the pack. And by the 12th grade,
U.S. students are scoring generally near the bottom of all
industrialized countries.''
Many students get a first-rate education in the public
schools, but they represent too small a fraction of the
whole.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal
critique of the nation's high schools a few years ago,
describing them as ``obsolete'' and saying, ``When I compare
our high schools with what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I
am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.''
Said Mr. Gates: ``By obsolete, I don't just mean that they
are broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be
made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our
high schools--even when they're working as designed--cannot
teach all our students what they need to know today.''
The Educational Testing Service, in a report titled
``America's Perfect Storm,'' cited three powerful forces that
are affecting the quality of life for millions of Americans
and already shaping the nation's future. They are:
1. The wide disparity in the literacy and math skills of
both the school-age and adult populations. These skills,
which play such a tremendous role in the lives of individuals
and families, vary widely across racial, ethnic and
socioeconomic groups.
2. The ``seismic changes'' in the U.S. economy that have
resulted from globalization, technological advances, shifts
in the relationship of labor and capital, and other
developments.
3. Sweeping demographic changes. By 2030, the U.S.
population is expected to reach 360 million. That population
will be older and substantially more diverse, with
immigration having a big impact on both the population as a
whole and the work force.
These and so many other issues of crucial national
importance require an educated populace if they are to be
dealt with effectively. At the moment we are not even coming
close to equipping the population with the intellectual tools
that are needed.
While we're effectively standing in place, other nations
are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational
achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the
implications of that.
But, then, some of us are pretty dopey. In the Common Core
survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the
U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that
Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the
Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry
Truman.
We've got work to do.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO MRS. MINERVA ``MINNIE'' RAMIREZ
______
HON. HENRY CUELLAR
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Mrs. Minerva
``Minnie'' Ramirez for her induction as a laureate in the 2008 Laredo
Business Hall of Fame, and for her incredible dedication to her friends
and colleagues in the business community of Laredo, Texas.
Minerva Ramirez was born on September 20, 1931, to a hardworking
ranch family. She started her first job at the age of 12 sweeping
floors at the local schoolhouse, and she began her knack for floral
arrangements by making flower arrangements with tin cans and tissue
paper in the shape of carnations which were sold for the cemetery.
Minerva graduated from high school in 1948 in Hebbronville, Texas, and
attended Texas A&I Kingsville. She worked her way through 2 years of
college by teaching students at La Alejandrena Elementary School in
Zapata County. Minerva was transferred to San Ygnacio, where she met
her husband, Robert, and married in 1955. They moved to Laredo, and had
three children: Carmen, Minita, and Robert Jr. Minerva taught and
served as assistant principal at Ochoa Elementary for 17 years and
became principal of Zachry Elementary School in 1981.
She started a flower shop, Carmin's, from the carport of her home in
1965, and the business grew so successful that Minerva retired from her
teaching profession in 1986. One of her career highlights was being
picked as the florist for the visitation of Pope John Paul II in San
Antonio, Texas, in 1988 at the San Fernando Cathedral. Minerva has
admirably served the community of Laredo, Texas, through her work as an
educator to the youth of Laredo, and her contributions to the business
community. For her dedication and hard work as a business entrepreneur,
Minerva will be honored by the Junior Achievement League through her
induction into the 2008 Business Hall of Fame.
Madam Speaker, I am honored to have had this time to recognize the
dedication of Mrs. Minerva Ramirez, and I thank you for this time.
____________________
COMMENDING THE EFFORTS OF THE VILLAGE OF BETHALTO, ILLINOIS FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
______
HON. JERRY F. COSTELLO
of illinois
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. COSTELLO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to
join me in commending the efforts of the Village of Bethalto for their
service to the community and the environment by developing green spaces
and parks around its community.
Recently, the Village of Bethalto christened the Culp Lake Park on
the northwest portion of the community. This newly opened public space
is an inspiration to other cities hoping to brighten their communities
and provide their citizens with opportunities to enjoy the outdoors.
In the early 1960's, the Village of Bethalto developed a 17-acre
lagoon site that, after years of disregard, became connected with the
Alton Sewer Treatment Plant in 1972. While village officials sought to
transform the lagoon for many years, it was not until Mayor Steve
Bryant began the final push that ultimately led to the gorgeous green
space there today.
In 1997, Mayor Bryant and village officials established a park plan
that envisioned not just a green space, but a versatile area with
recreational facilities, picnic pavilions, and beautiful landscaping.
With urban sprawl on the rise, Mayor Bryant and village officials
decided it was time to turn this blighted area of the village into a
family friendly environment.
In order to keep costs at a minimum, village officials acquired grant
funding from Madison County and the State of Illinois that led to the
clean-up and filling in of the lagoon, the formation of a 4 acre
fishing lake, and the ultimate creation of the park.
Not only was this effort championed by the Village Board, residents
of the village took it upon themselves to contribute. The Bethalto
[[Page 7654]]
Boys and Girls club, for example, donated and planted trees at the
park.
Thanks to this type of effort, the Metro-East, located across the
Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri, boasts the largest
percentage of green spaces among the top 10 metropolitan areas in the
State of Illinois.
Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in commending the
efforts of Mayor Steve Bryant and the village officials from Bethalto,
Illinois for their dedication to environmental conservation.
____________________
RECOGNIZING ATTORNEY JOHN TUCKER
______
HON. TED POE
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, today I come to recognize the many
achievements of the man known as ``the wizard of trial law,'' John G.
Tucker, who passed away at the age of 100 in January 2008. With his
signature bow tie and flat top hair cut, Tucker was a fixture of the
legal profession in Southeast Texas for over 75 years.
Tucker's father was an Army officer serving in Cuba as part of a
peacekeeping force where officers were allowed to have their families
live with them. His wife was 8 months pregnant when they found out that
if born on Cuban soil, their son could never run for President of the
United States. Knowing her son was destined for greatness, Tucker's
mother set sail for New York City and eventually landed in Kansas City,
Kansas, where John was born.
Though he never ascended to the highest office in the United States,
Tucker was rather successful in all of his endeavors. He attended
college in Pennsylvania and went on to graduate from Harvard Law
School. John moved to Southeast Texas in the middle of the Great
Depression of the 1930s, determined to take advantage of the boom
created by the oil refineries. He joined the law firm created by
William Orgain in 1933. The name was changed to Orgain, Bell, and
Tucker in 1945 and continues to set the bar for legal excellence to
this very day.
John Tucker tried over 90 cases in state and federal court and has
argued cases before the Texas Supreme Court. He was deemed a Southeast
Texas Legend by the Beaumont Foundation of America scholarship board in
February 2007, becoming only the second person at the time to earn such
honor.
On behalf of the Second Congressional District of Texas, I want to
honor John G. Tucker for his lifetime of accomplishments. Through his
diligent efforts and dedication he has made Southeast Texas a better
place to live for generations to come.
____________________
HONORING MR. MICHAEL J. QUINN
______
HON. ROBERT E. ANDREWS
of new jersey
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. ANDREWS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Michael J. Quinn,
senior news writer for CBS News Philadelphia, who retired on April 24,
2008. Mr. Quinn began working in TV news in 1961 at Channel 10, a CBS
affiliate. During his tenure with Channel 10, Mr. Quinn served as a
news writer, newscast producer, reporter and news anchor. In 1984, Mr.
Quinn began working at CBS 3 Eyewitness News, serving as a senior news
writer and as a producer for the ``Newsmakers'' program.
Mr. Quinn has covered many major events over the past decades,
including numerous presidential elections. In 1988, he was the
associate producer for coverage of the presidential caucuses in Iowa.
Mr. Quinn was the producer of the 2000 Republican National Convention
CBS coverage in Philadelphia. Mr. Quinn also was the producer of the
inauguration coverage of President George W. Bush in both 2001 and
2005.
Madam Speaker, Mr. Quinn spent his long career providing the people
of Philadelphia with compelling news coverage. Mr. Quinn's hard work
and dedication to his chosen field has touched the lives of millions of
Americans. I commend Mr. Quinn for his commitment to broadcast
journalism and wish him the best for his retirement.
____________________
FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ``CHRONICLE OF CURRENT EVENTS''
______
HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS
of florida
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, this week marks the 40th
anniversary of the initial publication of the ``Chronicle of Current
Events,'' the ``underground newspaper of record,'' if you will, of the
Soviet human rights movement in the years before the collapse of the
Soviet Union.
The ``Chronicle'' was a samizdat, or ``self-published,'' journal
created to break through the government's monopoly on the flow of
information and report to its readers the truth about human rights in
the ``workers' paradise.'' Described recently by the Russian human
rights organization ``Memorial'' as the ``fullest and most precise
compilation of historical information about dissident activity and
political persecutions in the USSR between 1968 and 1982,'' it was
distributed via underground channels to readers in the Soviet Union and
to foreign journalists and diplomats. In short time, the ``Chronicle''
gained a reputation for veracity and straight-forward reporting, and
when copies reached the West, the contents were broadcast back to the
Soviet Union by international radio stations such as Radio Liberty,
BBC, Deutschewelle and others.
Meanwhile, the KGB expended a huge amount of effort and time to
expose and apprehend the editors, contributors, and distributors of
these two dozen or so typewritten sheets of onionskin paper.
Possession, and especially distribution, of the ``Chronicle'' could
result in lengthy labor camp sentences and internal exile. As might be
expected, the list of persons involved in producing the ``Chronicle''
is a ``Who's Who'' of former Soviet dissidents and political prisoners.
Despite the hardships and dangers involved, these brave individuals
managed to compile and distribute over 60 issues of the publication.
Besides supplying otherwise unavailable information on human rights
issues, the ``Chronicle'' inspired the establishment of similar
publications devoted to specific themes and geographic regions. These
would include the fate of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, the abuse
of psychiatry for political purposes, and the fate of national
minorities, such as the Crimean Tatars, under the Soviet system.
Madam Speaker, I would also mention that through the tireless efforts
of Mr. Edward Kline, Professor Peter Reddaway, and exiled Soviet
dissidents Valery Chalidze and Pavel Litvinov, an English version of
the ``Chronicle'' became available in the West, allowing many non-
specialists to become familiar with the deplorable human rights
situation in the Soviet Union.
Eventually, with former KGB head Yuri Andropov in command in the
Kremlin, the authorities managed to imprison, exile, or neutralize so
many contributors to the ``Chronicle'' that it ceased publication in
1982. However, the folly of insulating the Soviet system from the free
flow of information that was encircling the globe while trying to
maintain a decent economy, let alone super-power status, was becoming
by this time obvious to the more perceptive apparatchiks in the
Kremlin's corridors of power. Three years later, Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev
was selected to lead the Communist Party, and 6 years later the hammer
and sickle banner of Soviet communism was replaced by the tri-color of
the Russian Federation.
Today, Russia and the nations that comprised the Soviet Union are now
independent and sovereign states. However, the free flow of information
and media pluralism, though in immeasurably better condition than
during the Soviet period, is still problematic. As Freedom House points
out in its recently issued annual survey of press freedom throughout
the world, Russia is among several nations of the former Soviet bloc
that have suffered setbacks in the area of press freedom. There seems
to be a rush by the government to characterize, with little serious
justification, as ``extremist'' certain books and articles, opposition
journalists and newspapers have been harassed, and new legislation
recently introduced in the Duma would make it easier for the government
to close down media outlets for allegedly publishing libel and slander.
Madam Speaker, let us hope that President-elect Medvedev recognizes
that if Russia is to prosper in the global community, the free flow of
information must be a vital component of the nation's commercial,
social, and political infrastructure, and that if Russian citizens wish
to view underground publications such as the ``Chronicle of Current
Events,'' they might better find them freely available in museums and
libraries.
[[Page 7655]]
____________________
RECOGNIZING PRUDENTIAL SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY AWARDS WINNERS
______
HON. BILL SALI
of idaho
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. SALI. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize three admirable
teens from Idaho. Danielle Manning, 15, of Meridian, and Taylor
Leavitt, 14 of Melba were recently named the top two youth volunteers
in Idaho for 2008 in the 13th annual Prudential Spirit of Community
Awards.
The Prudential awards are the country's largest program that
recognizes the power of youth volunteerism. Additionally, Katie
Williams of Eagle was named a finalist in the program.
Danielle saw a need in her community to help teen mothers. She
collected more than 700 packages of diapers and raised almost $1,300 to
stock Marian Pritchett High School in Boise, a public school for teen
mothers, with diapers.
Taylor saw a need in his community too. The 8th grader worked on
several volunteer projects such as rounding up Boy Scouts to mow the
lawn, pick up garbage and clean out the garage of a grieving family.
They also spent time with local senior citizens and helped folks moving
into the community.
Katie worked with a group of high school girls to collect more than
$70,000, books and school uniforms for a school in the slums of
Nairobi, Kenya. Katie will receive an engraved bronze medallion as a
finalist.
These three students deserve our appreciation and gratitude. They
represent the greatness that our youth have to offer, demonstrating the
power each one of us has to contribute to our communities and help our
neighbors. And I note they did so without the aid or intervention of a
government agency or federal program.
Thank you Danielle, Taylor and Katie for your willingness to dedicate
your time to worthy causes. Your work serves as an example for all of
us.
____________________
A TRIBUTE TO THE LIFE OF ANNA M. SANDERS
______
HON. JIM COSTA
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. COSTA. Madam Speaker, I rise today along with my colleague from
California, Congressman Dennis Cardoza to pay tribute to the life of
Anna M. Sanders of Merced, California, who recently passed away at 88
years of age. Mrs. Sanders was an exceptional lady filled with passion,
love and a voracious appetite for knowledge. She leaves behind a loving
family including three sons, three grandsons, two granddaughters, and
one great granddaughter.
A longtime Democrat, Anna spent nearly 40 years of her life as a
teacher with the Atwater Elementary School District. As a zealous
educator, she took great pride in the successes of her students. Over
the years she was able to encourage and motivate countless young minds.
Anna spent her life in California's Central Valley, where she got
both her bachelors and masters degrees. She also tenderly raised her
three sons in the area, while maintaining a household which was often
described as painstakingly organized.
Anna was the type of woman who took great care in everything she did.
Her zest for life included an interest in greeting cards, crossword
puzzles, and current politics. It is then to no one's surprise that one
of her sons is a teacher, and the other two are actively involved in
local and state politics.
A woman described as kindhearted and courageous, Anna worked to
advance the causes of groups who were marginalized, oppressed and
underserved by volunteering her time with many worthwhile
organizations. Anna will be remembered for her formidable spirit and
splendid character.
It goes without saying that Mrs. Anna Sanders was a positive
influence in the area. Her commitment to family and community will
forever live in the lives of the people she so graciously touched. I am
honored and humbled to join her family in celebrating the life of this
amazing woman who will never be forgotten.
____________________
IN RECOGNITION OF MR. CHARLES ROBINSON-SNEAD
______
HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE
of delaware
in the house of representatives
Thursday May 1, 2008
Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise
today to recognize Mr. Charles Robinson-Snead, who was nominated to be
the 2008 Delaware Boys & Girls Club Youth of the Year.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Reader's Digest have
nationally sponsored the Youth of the Year program since 1947. The goal
of Youth of the Year has been to recognize outstanding members of the
Boys & Girls Club and their contributions to their Club, community,
school, and family. More than 32,000 youth are served by the Boys &
Girls Clubs of Delaware.
Twelve students were nominated for the honor of Youth of the Year
through an intensive local and State level selection process, including
the nominees' personal contribution to home and family, community,
school and their Boys & Girls Club. The nominees had to prepare two
essays explaining why post-high school education is important and what
the Club means to them. Additionally, students had to prepare a 3-5-
minute speech and have an interview session with a panel of judges. The
candidates attended the Youth of the Year Summit, where they received
professional guidance regarding public speaking, writing, and
interviewing skills.
After winning the Local Youth of the Year Award, Charles moved on to
the State level competition, where he refined his essay and prepared
for the next round of interviews. Charles was a highly qualified
candidate for the Youth of the Year 2008. At Laurel Boys & Girls Club
Charles serves as a tutor and mentor for other club members.
Once again, I would like to commend Charles Robinson-Snead for being
nominated as the Boys & Girls Club of Delaware's Youth of the Year.
____________________
HONORING BONNIE COX
______
HON. RON LEWIS
of kentucky
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to
Bonnie Cox, a remarkable employee and public servant at the Department
of Disability Determinations in Frankfort, Kentucky. Bonnie is retiring
this month, ending her three decade career in Kentucky State
government.
Bonnie began her career at the DDS in the operations support branch
and advanced through numerous positions to her current executive
secretary position in the Commissioner's office. She has spent the last
25 years with the Department of Disability Determinations.
Bonnie has been an invaluable participant in many events outside the
realm of her daily job duties. She has been the chairperson for the
agency's Kentucky Employees Charitable Campaign and has worked
tirelessly in this capacity. Having been touched by the generosity of
KECC in her own personal life, Bonnie was the perfect advocate for KECC
at the agency and brought a newfound inspiration into the DDS regarding
this worthy organization.
In addition to her compassion, dedication, and good works for KECC,
Bonnie also organizes appointments for the Red Cross blood drive, is
instrumental in preparing information for the PRIDE, People Responsibly
Influencing Decisional Excellence awards, and organizes retirement
receptions and other noteworthy meetings within the DDS. She has
received numerous awards and commendations for her dedication and
commitment to these endeavors.
Bonnie has touched countless lives through her contacts with
congressional inquiry claims. Her caring attitude and compassionate
spirit have made her one of the strongest advocates for Kentucky's
disabled citizens.
State government will lose a ``voice'' for the disabled and a friend
to all when Bonnie retires. On behalf of the countless men and women
who have benefited from her dedicated service, I would like to express
my profound appreciation to Bonnie Cox and wish her a very happy and
healthy retirement.
____________________
THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO PROVIDE COUNTER-NARCOTICS ASSISTANCE TO
CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES TO ERADICATE ILLEGAL DRUG ACTIVITY
______
HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to support H. Res. 865 which
urges the United
[[Page 7656]]
States Government to consider fully and carefully the recommendations
in the UNODC and World Bank Report entitled ``Crime, Violence, and
Development: Trends, Costs, and Policy Options in the Caribbean.''
Although using Caribbean nations as major transit points for illegal
drugs is not a new problem, it does shed light on a longstanding
issue--the U.S. policy on providing assistance to the Caribbean nations
in combating illegal drug activity. A major contributing factor to
illegal drug activity remains the lack of resources Caribbean nations
possess to combat this growing and menacing problem.
This problem will not resolve itself. Some steps the United States
should take to assist the member states of CARICOM and the Dominican
Republic include, but are not limited to: coordinating policy
development and implementation, providing counter-narcotics assistance,
and a continuance of policy initiatives that are working, such as the
bilateral cooperation between the United States and the Government of
Jamaica. Under this initiative, the U.S. provides training and material
support to sections of Jamaican law enforcement agencies to strengthen
their counter-narcotics capabilities. This is an excellent example that
should be modeled throughout the Caribbean.
It is imperative for the United States to work with CARICOM member
states and the Dominican Republic to establish effective programs to
mitigate and ultimately, eradicate illegal drug activity. This will
take a coordinated and aggressive collaboration by CARICOM member
states, the Dominican Republic and the United States to have an impact
on drugs being transported through the Caribbean and into the U.S. Even
though this is a very daunting problem, working together and fully and
carefully considering the recommendations in the UNODC and World Bank
report is certainly a major step in the right direction.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO MR. FERNANDO ``CHITO'' SALINAS
______
HON. HENRY CUELLAR
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Mr. Fernando
``Chito'' Salinas for his induction as a laureate in the 2008 Laredo
Business Hall of Fame, and for his incredible dedication to the city of
Laredo, Texas.
Fernando Salinas is a 1942 graduate of Martin High School, and
attended Tulane University in New Orleans after transferring from Texas
A&M University in College Station, Texas. After attending Tulane,
Fernando returned back to work at his family's department store, Los
Dos Laredos, in downtown Laredo. Five years later, he worked as a
salesman at the famed Joe Brand store, and used his knowledge of men's
retail to launch his own new department store, Don Antonio's in 1952.
The business flourished during the 1960s, attracting a steady clientele
from both sides of the United States-Mexico border.
After his retirement from the retail business in 2005, Fernando
established a charitable trust that has donated $1.35 million for
causes that enrich education, the arts and human services, and pledged
nearly $95,000 in scholarships for college-bound students. The
scholarships are given to hard-working students at Laredo Community
College and Texas A&M International University. Fernando has admirably
served the community of Laredo, Texas, through his philanthropic work
at his charitable trust. He has also contributed to the youth of Laredo
through his Junior League Achievement sponsorship of Christen Middle
School. For his dedication and hard work in making the Laredo business
community stronger and better, Fernando will be honored by the Junior
Achievement League through his induction into the 2008 Business Hall of
Fame.
Madam Speaker, I am honored to have had this time to recognize the
bravery and dedication of Mr. Fernando Salinas, and I thank you for
this time.
____________________
RECOGNIZING THE HONORABLE KENNETH GRAY, RETIRED U.S. CONGRESSMAN FROM
ILLINOIS
______
HON. JERRY F. COSTELLO
of illinois
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. COSTELLO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to
join me in recognizing the distinguished career of the Honorable
Kenneth Gray and to express appreciation for his years of service to
his country and to the residents of southern Illinois.
A native son of West Frankfort, IL, Ken is a man of varied interests
and talents. He was both a licensed pilot and auctioneer. From 1942 to
1954, he owned Gray Motors in West Frankfort and also operated an air
service in Benton from 1948 to 1954.
In World War II, Ken answered his country's call to service at the
age of 18, which took him to North Africa and Italy as well as combat
missions over southern France and central Europe. Ken's decorations for
his service in World War II included 3 bronze stars.
Upon returning home from the war, Ken became involved in assisting
his fellow veterans and it was through these endeavors that he was
encouraged to run for the U.S. Congress. Ken won election from the 25th
Congressional District of Illinois in 1954 as a freshman member of the
84th Congress and he continued to serve for a total of 10 successive
terms. Because of health concerns, Ken did not run for re-election in
1974 but ran again, and won, in 1984 and served another two terms,
representing his beloved southern Illinois in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
As a U.S. Congressman, Ken was a tireless advocate for the needs of
the people of southern Illinois and built a reputation as a member who
worked well with his colleagues to get the job done. On a personal
note, I have always been grateful to Ken for what he did for me when I
was first elected to Congress. I was elected in a special election in
August 1988 to complete the term of Mel Price, who passed away that
year. Ken resigned his position on the Transportation Committee, which
made a seat available for me and gave me seniority over other members
who were first elected in 1988 to start the 101st Congress.
Since retiring from Congress in 1988, Ken has continued to work hard
for the needs of the people of southern Illinois. He has served on
several boards and projects, most notably as a board member of the Rend
Lake Conservancy District. He has also worked on a number of
initiatives to improve rural health care, especially in Franklin
County, IL. Ken is frequently a speaker at local political and
charitable events which benefit a number of organizations, such as the
Poshard Foundation for Abused Children.
Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in an expression of
appreciation to the Honorable Kenneth Gray for his years of service to
this body and to the people of southern Illinois and to wish him and
his family the very best in the future.
____________________
WOMEN IN THE PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRY--LISA VANDER LAAN
______
HON. TED POE
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, today I am proud to pay tribute to Lisa
Vander Laan, Plant Manager of ExxonMobil's Chemical Polyethylene Plant,
in Beaumont, Texas.
Mrs. Vander Laan earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering
from Louisiana State University, graduating summa cum laude and
receiving the University Medal. She joined Exxon Corporation in 1989 as
a process engineer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and spent her first
decade in various manufacturing assignments in engineering and
supervision before becoming intermediates technical manager.
Vander Laan spent the next 7 years at the corporation's Houston
headquarters for chemicals in marketing and business planning, as
global basic chemicals financial manager, americas low density
polyethylene product manager; and ExxonMobil Chemicals global
manufacturing planning manager. In February 2007, she took over at the
polyethylene plant in Beaumont as plant manager.
Mrs. Vander Laan is seeing more women in leadership roles in the
petrochemical industry. When she started in engineering, there were
very few female supervisors and managers. She now believes there are
significantly more women in the petrochemical industry jobs like
chemical engineering. She says ExxonMobil encourages girls to get into
math and science, and has an ``Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day'' in
the spring.
Chemical Engineering seems to run in the family. Vander Laan's father
is a chemical engineer as well as an older and younger sister, in
addition, ``all the girls married ExxonMobil guys''. She is married to
Jeffrey Dale Vander Laan and has two children, Cecilia and Abigail. She
doesn't know if her daughters will show interest in chemical
engineering like she and her sisters, who love math.
Mrs. Vander Laan is on the board of the Beaumont Area United Way and
a member of the Southeast Texas Plant Manager's Forum, for which she
serves as chairman of the environmental committee.
[[Page 7657]]
Madam Speaker, Lisa Vander Laan is a success story in the male
dominated petrochemical industry, and I am proud to celebrate her
accomplishments.
____________________
COMMEMORATING WORLD MALARIA DAY AND THE WORK OF JHPIEGO
______
HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize World Malaria
Day.
Every 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria. More than 1 million
people die of malaria every year, mostly infants, young children and
pregnant women and most of them in Africa. Approximately 40 percent of
the world's population, mostly those living in the world's poorest
countries, is at risk of malaria. Every year, more than 500 million
people become severely ill with malaria. Since the 1970s, significant
investments have demonstrated that malaria control is working, and
given hope for preventing the 1 million deaths caused by malaria each
year. With the advent of new tactics, elimination and, ultimately,
eradication of malaria may be possible. Because malaria is a massive
global scourge and a medically complex disease, the pathway to
eradication is a long one. Achieving eradication will depend on
carefully coordinated, balanced efforts to build upon malaria control
and elimination programs. Building a pathway to eradication will take
time, but it is possible if all stakeholders collaborate today to
prevent malaria deaths in Africa and elsewhere. Now is the time to
begin charting the course.
Organizations like Jhpiego, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University,
reach across borders to fight a disease that has no borders. Jhpiego is
working to combat the devastating effects of malaria by bringing
innovative approaches and putting research to practice to improve the
health of women and families throughout the world. For example, in
Nigeria, it is preparing community volunteers in remote areas to extend
malaria services to pregnant women who are not in contact with a formal
healthcare system. The volunteers are trained to educate pregnant women
on the steps necessary to prevent malaria. Additionally, the workers
also distribute preventative medicine and insecticide-treated bednets.
Once rolled out to full scale, this community based intervention will
help break down some of the barriers to high-quality healthcare for the
world's most vulnerable populations.
Jhpiego is a leader in developing innovations that break down the
barriers and build more sustainable local health care systems globally.
Jhpiego works in 12 African countries to support program implementation
for malaria in pregnancy (MIP) prevention and case management.
____________________
TRIBUTE OF MR. AND MRS. SHASHI AND PRIYA VASWANI
______
HON. HENRY CUELLAR
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. CUELLAR. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Mr. and Mrs. Shashi
and Priya Vaswani for their induction in the 2008 Laredo Business Hall
of Fame, and for their incredible dedication to the youth in the City
of Laredo, Texas.
Shashi came to Laredo from Canada with his family in 1981 as a high
school sophomore, and married his wife, Priya, in 1987. They lived and
worked in the Carribean and the Rio Grande Valley before moving back to
Laredo in the early 1990s. Shashi and Priya opened About Time, a video
arcade, in the 1990s. In 2004, they were able to open a La Quinta Inn
and Suites, which allowed them to use a part of their profits to
fulfill their dream of establishing the Laredo Heat soccer franchise.
The Heat Youth association now has 28 teams playing in Laredo, and this
interest in soccer as a physical activity would not have happened if
not for the Vaswanis.
Shashi and Priya plan to fund improvements to Texas A&M International
University's two soccer fields with the goal of making the fields the
home base for future Laredo Heat games. They strongly believe in the
value of physical activity as a complement to the full education of the
youth in Laredo. They have learned the value of hard work and sacrifice
and have stressed their belief in the importance of a college degree to
young soccer players. This couple has admirably served the community of
Laredo, Texas, through their business entrepreneurship and their work
with the youth in Laredo. For their dedication and hard work in making
Laredo a better place for children in exercising their physical
talents, they will be honored by the Junior Achievement League through
their induction into the 2008 Business Hall of Fame.
Madam Speaker, I am honored to have had this time to recognize the
dedication of Mr. and Mrs. Shashi and Priya Vaswani to the City of
Laredo.
____________________
CONGRATULATING BEDINGTON RURITAN CLUB'S 50TH ANNIVERSARY
______
HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO
of west virginia
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mrs. CAPITO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a civic
organization in my district which will celebrate its 50th anniversary
on May 6, 2008.
The Bedington Ruritan Club located in Berkeley County, WV, started on
April 16, 1958 under the guidance of the nearby Marlowe Ruritan Club.
For half a century now, the Bedington Ruritan Club has served the
citizens of the Bedington area community. The club takes on many civic
projects including picking up litter on nearby roadways, sponsoring an
essay contest and contributing to Bedington Elementary and Potomack
Intermediate Schools, maintaining the ``Light Ceremony'' in Scrabble,
and holding fundraisers for various community projects.
The Bedington Ruritan Club building is located on Route 11 North and
once a month on Saturday's you can find the Ruritan members serving
some of the best BBQ chicken in Berkeley County!
Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the members of the
Bedington Ruritan Club for 50 years of civic engagement and service. It
is an honor to represent such a dedicated citizenry in West Virginia's
eastern panhandle.
____________________
RECOGNITION OF WEST VIRGINIA'S ARMY NATIONAL GUARD AS BEST IN THE
NATION
______
HON. NICK J. RAHALL II
of west virginia
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. RAHALL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize West Virginia's
Army National Guard for earning a Special Category ``First Place''
award in the prestigious Army Communities of Excellence (ACOE)
competition.
West Virginia scored highest among 28 states and territories that
entered this year's contest. The award recognizes performance
excellence in business process improvement, individual and corporate
innovation, and dedication to providing support to soldiers and
families.
Our heroic men and women in uniform are never far from my thoughts.
They are our Nation's consistent example of valor and courage. West
Virginia's Army National Guard performance illustrates those qualities
in the ACOE competition, during which they were recognized for having a
strong strategic planning process, communication that flowed well
throughout all levels of the organization, and a customer-driven focus
that sought to create value and promote personal learning and social
responsibility.
This award reflects the hard work and dedication of the men and women
not only of the West Virginia Army National Guard, but also of every
family member and friend that stands behind them. It is important to
remember that our brave men and women have given so much and have
expected so little in return. I am proud to take this moment to
recognize the excellence of the West Virginia Army National Guard in
all that they do to keep us safe from harm.
Our Armed Forces have paid the debt for the freedom we enjoy today,
and I will continue, as I have in the past, to do everything I can to
honor their sacrifices and service. Our veterans, just as our soldiers
today, remain foremost in the thoughts and minds of Southern West
Virginians, and I will continue to devote my all to those who wear or
have worn America's uniform.
[[Page 7658]]
____________________
HONORING THE LIFE OF ARMY SPECIALIST JACOB J. FAIRBANKS
______
HON. BETTY McCOLLUM
of minnesotta
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Ms. McCOLLUM of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, I rise to remember and
honor the life and courage of U.S. Army Specialist Jacob J. Fairbanks.
This 22-year-old native of St. Paul, Minnesota, died in Baghdad on
April 9, 2008.
Specialist Fairbanks joined the Army in 2004 after graduating from
Johnson High School, where he was a member of the Junior ROTC. His
second deployment to Iraq began last October for a tour of duty as a
field artilleryman. He was assigned to B Battery, 1st Battalion, 320th
Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne
Division, Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Fairbanks served his nation and his fellow soldiers with honor and
courage. His commitment to this noble service earned him the Army
Commendation Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense
Service Medal, the Iraqi Campaign Medal, the Army Service Ribbon and
the Overseas Service Ribbon. He was a proud member of the Leech Lake
Band of Ojibwe and will be remembered as an outgoing man, dedicated to
his family.
Madam Speaker, please join me in paying tribute to Specialist
Fairbanks. He is a Minnesotan and American hero. His desire to serve
his nation is an inspiration to his community. Specialist Fairbanks'
wife Dwan, daughter Kayla, stepchildren Alexander, Katelin, and David,
his mother Janette, father Steve, stepfather Jeff, his many friends,
and his comrades in Iraq have my deepest sympathies for their profound
loss.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO ELKINS HIGH SCHOOL
______
HON. NICK LAMPSON
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. LAMPSON. Madam Speaker, on May 3-5, 2008, more than 1,200
students from across the country will visit Washington, D.C. to take
part in the national finals of We the People: The Citizen and the
Constitution, the most extensive educational program in the country
developed to educate young people about the U.S. Constitution and Bill
of Rights. Administered by the Center for Civic Education, the We the
People program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education by act of
Congress.
I am proud to announce that a class from Elkins High School will
represent the State of Texas at this prestigious national event. These
outstanding students, through their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution,
won their statewide competition and earned the chance to come to our
Nation's capital and compete at the national level.
While in Washington, the students will participate in a three-day
academic competition that simulates a congressional hearing in which
they ``testify'' before a panel of judges. Students demonstrate their
knowledge and understanding of constitutional principles as they
evaluate, take, and defend positions on relevant historical and
contemporary issues. It is important to note that independent studies
of the We the People program indicate that alumni of this nationally
acclaimed program display a greater political tolerance and commitment
to the principles and values of the Constitution and Bill of Rights
than do students using traditional textbooks and approaches.
I am pleased to support such an outstanding program that continues to
produce an enlightened and responsible citizenry. Madam Speaker, the
names of these outstanding students from Elkins High School are:
Krystal Castillo, Andrea Cavazos, Deborah Choate, Andrew Cockroft, Lucy
Eiler, Jimmy Guerrero, Josh Hanks, Lara Hogue, Nick Johnson, Tiffany
Kell, Curtis Kelso, D.J. Kinneman, Matt Macko, Colton Mendez, Jonny
Murthy, Sola Oyewuwo, Tej Pandya, Bryan Philpott, Justina Rodriguez,
Deepa Sabu, Nick Shipman, Pia Siaotong, Ivette Soto, Achal Upadhyaya,
Courtney Williams, Angela Wu, and Arif Yusuf.
I also wish to commend the teacher of the class, Marilyn Ellington,
who is responsible for preparing these young constitutional experts for
the national finals. Assisting Mrs. Ellington is her colleague Jan
Arrington and former students Emily Lee, Kelsey Smith, and Masha Sharf.
Also worthy of special recognition is Jan Miller, the State
coordinator, who is among those responsible for implementing the We the
People program in my State. I congratulate these students on their
exceptional achievement at the We the People national finals.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CITY OF SOUTHFIELD
______
HON. SANDER M. LEVIN
of michigan
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the City of
Southfield, Michigan, on the 50th anniversary of its incorporation as a
city.
Southfield's city leaders have coined the phrase ``center of it all''
to describe this diverse community situated in the center of metro-
Detroit that has grown to the 13th largest city in the State of
Michigan.
The residents of Southfield are what has always made this community
strong and independent. For example, 17 days after the area was
designated as ``Ossewa Township'' on July 12, 1830, citizens petitioned
the State to change the name to Southfield. And in the 1950s, a group
of Southfield Township residents formed the ``Save Our Southfield''
committee and lent their own money to the group's treasury. This group
promoted the incorporation of Southfield and financed the filing for
incorporation. Southfield became a city on April 28, 1958.
Southfield has grown from a rural farming community to a premier
business and residential address in Michigan. This modern city of
beautiful homes and golden skyscrapers has become home to nearly 80,000
residents. Their 26 million square feet of office space brings the
city's daytime population to more than 175,000, making Southfield one
of the leading business centers in Michigan and the Midwest Region.
Southfield is home to leading manufacturers and other diverse
businesses, strong educational institutions, innovative health care
institutions, strong community organizations, and a vibrant faith
community. It also retrains a feeling of warmth and closeness within
its neighborhoods.
I am pleased to have lived in Southfield during a time of
transformation of city leadership and institutions which are an
increasing representative of the diversity of this wonderful community.
I have also been pleased to represent the residents of Southfield since
I came to Congress.
As Mayor Brenda Lawrence and other elected officials join the
citizens of this exceptional city to celebrate their golden jubilee, I
ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating its residents on its
50th year. Let this be the opportunity to pay tribute to the history of
Southfield and re-commit ourselves to a prosperous and progressive
future.
____________________
HONORING THE SERVICE AND SACRIFICE OF STAFF SERGEANT KEITH MATTHEW
MAUPIN
______
HON. BRAD ELLSWORTH
of indiana
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. ELLSWORTH. Madam Speaker, it is with great sadness and deep
respect that I rise today to honor the life of Staff Sergeant Keith
Matthew (Matt) Maupin.
Matt Maupin's story has gripped the hearts of thousands of Americans
across the country since the 20-year-old Army reservist was captured in
Iraq in 2004. Together, we have hoped and prayed for four long years
that he would be returned home safely to his family. Sadly, those
prayers went unanswered.
Matt Maupin was laid to rest in Cincinnati on Sunday, having given
the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. But the most
significant thing about Matt Maupin isn't how he died, it's how he
lived.
Matt is a beloved son to Keith and Carolyn and brother to Micah,
Stephen, and Lee Ann. A native son of Batavia, Ohio, he understood
there is no higher calling than service to others and bravely stepped
forward to serve his country in the Army reserve. Matt Maupin is a true
American hero.
On behalf of the people of the 8th District of Indiana, I want to
extend my deepest condolences to his family and friends who love and
miss him today. May God bless Matt, his family, and all of those who
continue to sacrifice so much for our country.
[[Page 7659]]
____________________
HONORING MAURICE PRITCHETT
______
HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE
of delaware
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise
today to recognize Mr. Maurice Pritchett, who recently retired after
more than forty years in the Delaware public education system.
Maurice's service to Delawareans will be honored at a community
celebration this Sunday, May 4.
Maurice's ties to the Wilmington public school system stretch back to
his childhood. Though he now resides in Newark, Delaware with his wife
Juanita, Maurice was born and raised on the East Side of Wilmington,
where he attended public schools in the city.
At Howard High School, he proved to be an outstanding basketball
player and was offered a full scholarship to attend Delaware State
University, majoring in elementary education and continuing to excel in
basketball, leading the Hornets as team captain during his junior year.
Maurice also holds a master's degree from Villanova University.
Following graduation, he taught fifth grade in Cecil County, Maryland
and in Wilmington before moving on to his position as community school
coordinator of Wilmington's Bancroft Academy, a school that he himself
attended. Over the next thirty-two years, Maurice served as vice-
principal and then principal of Bancroft Academy. He later served as
director of family and community engagement for the Christina School
District.
Maurice's leadership at Bancroft, including the initiation of
multicultural programs and a clothes closet, earned him the 1994-95
Delaware State National Distinguished Principal Award. His many other
honors include the Christina Cultural Arts Center's lifetime
achievement award, the Dr. Al O. Plant Lifetime Achievement Award and
being named as one of the ``100 African American Men of Distinction in
Delaware'' by the Afro-American Historical Society.
Remembering the difficult times that he faced while growing up
inspires Maurice to continuously contribute to the community. He is a
long-time volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club of Newark. In
addition, as a member of the Delaware State Basketball Hall of Fame and
Delaware Afro-American Sports Hall of Fame, Maurice co-sponsored a
youth basketball league that provided extracurricular activity to
inner-city Wilmington elementary school students.
Following his retirement in January of this year, Maurice established
the Maurice Pritchett Education Foundation in partnership with the
Delaware Community Foundation to benefit underprivileged children in
New Castle County. While his public works are certainly well-known,
those who gather for the celebration honoring his achievements will
bring with them countless personal stories of Maurice's compassion,
including one person for whose family Maurice bought groceries when
they were financially unable. His kindness and dedication have touched
the lives of many.
I acknowledge and thank my good friend Maurice Pritchett for his
numerous contributions to education and the overall well-being of
children and families in the State of Delaware. I am confident that as
he enjoys his retirement with his family, he will remain an active and
influential member of our community.
____________________
RECOGNIZING THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE BLACK ACHIEVERS PROGRAM
______
HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss the editorial,
``Black Achievers in Industry'' which appeared in this week's edition
of the New York Carib News.
The editorial praised the Harlem YMCA's 38th National Salute to Black
Achievers in Industry (BAI) Awards dinner. The Black Achievers in
Industry Awards dinner serves as the organization's premier fundraiser
to raise the money necessary to fund countless youth programs. The
Black Achievers in Industry Awards serves a vital purpose in the
community, as the cooperative has partnered with more than 100
corporations to provide much needed scholarships to New York City high
school seniors and college students. The Black Achievers Program
recognizes the importance of education and its ability to give children
a future filled with possibilities.
It is my sincere hope that other corporations across the Nation will
join the Black Achievers Program in providing disadvantaged students
from lower- and middle-income families with the financial means
required to attend a college or university.
____________________
HONORING SUE SAWYER
______
HON. TIM MAHONEY
of florida
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. MAHONEY of Florida. Madam Speaker, today I stand before you to
talk about a mother, a soldier's mother. This week, Sue Sawyer made the
ultimate sacrifice for our United States of America. She lost her son
to war.
Sue's son, Marcus Mathes was killed in a mortar attack as he stood on
duty, next to his truck, just north of Baghdad. Two fellow crew members
were killed with him. Their death was instantaneous.
Marcus Mathes had just turned 25.
On behalf of the entire Congress of the United States, I want to
thank Sue Sawyer. By raising your son to value the ideals of the United
States of America, you have helped to improve the security of our
country and our future.
Sue Sawyer has given an extraordinary gift to our country, for which
we should be profoundly grateful. She has reason to be proud of her
son's accomplishments and duty. Today, we must remember the
accomplishments of the mother who selflessly raised Marcus and
influenced him to give.
Representing our country in combat was a gift to all of us from
Marcus Mathes and Sue Sawyer.
Thank you, Sue. God bless you.
____________________
IN TRIBUTE OF YOM HASHOAH, HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
______
HON. KENDRICK B. MEEK
of florida
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to join my
colleagues and my constituents in solemn recognition of Yom Hashoah, or
Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day; a special day where we
mourn the millions of Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis.
This day has special significance for Jews, the main target of Nazi
atrocities. I represent many constituents who are Holocaust survivors
and many more that lost friends, relatives and loved ones. We mourn
their loss; honor their memory; and unite in opposition to acts of
bigotry and intolerance.
We in South Florida are united in outrage that two synagogues in our
community have been vandalized in recent weeks. These offensive, hate-
inspired acts have no place in our society that values tolerance and
diversity. We stand united with the congregants, friends and supporters
of The Chabad Shul in Miami Beach and the Chabad of Parkland in North
Bonnard. These houses of worship and centers of learning will rise
again with a renewed sense of spirit and purpose of mission.
I once again honor South Florida's Holocaust Documentation and
Education Center, its founders and museum curators for their fine work
in educating and reminding the public about the Holocaust and
remembering and honoring its victims. The Center is located in my
Congressional District at 2031 Harrison Street in Hollywood, Florida.
To the residents of South Florida, the students enrolled in area
schools, and to the millions of visitors to the region, I encourage you
to visit the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center to study,
understand and contemplate the consequences of man's inhumanity to man
which occurred in Europe prior to and during World War II.
May the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust
be blessed for all eternity.
____________________
INTRODUCTION OF THE U.S. RECOMMITMENT TO INTERNATIONAL HUMAN AND CIVIL
RIGHTS RESOLUTION
______
HON. JOHN LEWIS
of georgia
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the
attached resolution that calls for the United States to ratify and
implement certain fundamental international conventions.
Today, May 1st is the 201st anniversary of the abolition of the
transatlantic slave trade. On this day, we must rededicate ourselves to
[[Page 7660]]
the human and civil rights movement to provide freedom and equality to
all people.
This resolution is very simple; it is very clear; it is very basic.
Our country was founded on the principles of civil and human rights.
Many, many people--men, women, and even children--have sacrificed their
lives for the freedoms we enjoy today. Countless others work tirelessly
to protect these rights. On this historic day, it is important to
reiterate our commitment to combat slavery, torture, racism,
discrimination, and xenophobia in all forms.
It takes more than words; this effort needs action. Sixty years ago,
the United Nations used our Bill of Rights as a reference in drafting
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, led the United States delegation
and the United Nations (U.N.) in helping to draft the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
Since that time, we've seen so many changes--a global movement
towards civil and human rights. In our own country, people have
sacrificed everything for key civil rights legislation like the passage
of the Voting Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, and the Americans with
Disabilities Act.
But Madam Speaker, somehow along the way, we've pulled away from a
global movement that requires constant work, constant attention, and
constant action. The U.S. must catch up with so many of our global
partners.
How can we combat genocide in Darfur, if we ourselves have not
ratified the U.N. Conventions that address the rights of women,
children, and forced disappearance? How can we ask for our global
trading partners to respect international labor standards, when we
ourselves have not ratified ILO standards on the right to organize and
bargain collectively, or forced child labor, or age discrimination? It
is important to not only speak as global leader, but act as a global
leader on key human and civil rights issues.
On this little piece of real estate that we call Earth, we all have
our duty to make this world a little cleaner, a little better, and a
little safer. This resolution, Madam Speaker, is about common sense,
and I hope all of my colleagues will join me as cosponsors.
____________________
PAUL SOREFF AND AILA
______
HON. DAVID G. REICHERT
of washington
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. REICHERT. Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate Paul Soreff on
receiving the ``Most Significant Work or Work Having the Greatest
Impact'' award from the Washington State Chapter of American
Immigration Lawyers Association, AILA.
Prospective citizens have to jump through many hoops during their
journey to becoming a citizen. I am often contacted by hard-working men
and women who want nothing more than to be an American. Their courage,
tenacity and new found patriotism is inspiring, much like the help Paul
provides so many of them.
As the driving force behind AILA's Citizenship Day, Paul's dedication
in helping legal permanent residents apply for naturalization is a
wonderful, patriotic thing to do. The work Paul invested in Washington
State's newest citizens is now being emulated nationwide. The
participation level at Citizenship Day is outstanding and it is no
doubt a reflection of Paul's leadership and selfless nature. He also
serves as a professor of law at Seattle University and his students are
very fortunate to have such an advocate as a teacher.
While navigating the immigration system is not easy, the guidance and
service Paul provides alleviates stress and anxiety for many. His
selfless work is an example for not only immigration attorneys and
professors but also for each of us.
____________________
RECOGNIZING CAROLYN KULIG
______
HON. KENNY MARCHANT
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. MARCHANT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Carolyn Kulig
on achieving the Girl Scout Gold Award. Receiving the Gold Award is a
testament to Miss Kulig's leadership, citizenship, and service to her
community.
For her Gold Award project, Carolyn Kulig decorated the library at
the Easter Seals facility in Carrollton, Texas. Miss Kulig painted book
shelves in lively colors and added color to the walls. She also
collected books and videos through donations that will be given to low-
income families that have children being treated at the facility. Her
efforts will liven the spirit of all that use the library at Easter
Seals.
The Girl Scouts of America promotes a positive influence for young
women of today. I am honored to represent Carolyn Kulig in earning the
highest award bestowed in Girl Scouts. I commend her commitment and
dedication for the betterment of her life, her community, and her
country.
____________________
CRYSTAL BELL AWARD RECIPIENTS
______
HON. PETER J. VISCLOSKY
of indiana
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. VISCLOSKY. Madam Speaker, it is my distinct honor to commend
seven exceptional teachers from Northwest Indiana who have been
recognized as outstanding educators by their peers for the 2007-2008
school year. These individuals are: Sheri L. Doffin, Tracy Kohler,
Kathleen R. Krum, Karen A. Semancik, Nancy J. Smith, Thomas R. Sufana,
and Vicki Weber. For their outstanding efforts, these honorees will be
presented with the Crystal Bell Award at a reception sponsored by the
Indiana State Teachers Association. This prestigious event will take
place at the Andorra Restaurant and Banquets in Schererville, Indiana,
on Wednesday, May 7, 2008.
Sheri Doffin, a first grade teacher at Lake Village Elementary
School, has been in the teaching profession for an astonishing 31
years, 30 of which have been with the North Newton School Corporation.
Throughout her tenure, Sheri has always made a point of bringing
innovative ideas to her classroom to make sure her students remain
interested and actively involved in their studies. Involved in many
committees and programs at Lake Village, including the PTO and PL221
team, which is geared toward the improvement of the school, Sheri's
dedication is matched only by her constant concern for her students.
Tracy Kohler, from the Crown Point School Corporation, has been a
role model and a true inspiration to her students since arriving in
Northwest Indiana in 2004. Currently an eighth grade honors algebra and
pre-algebra teacher at Colonel John Wheeler Middle School, Tracy is
well known for her creativity in the classroom, regularly bringing
real-life situations into her lessons. Also recognized for her skills
with teaching struggling learners, Tracy was selected to teach a pilot
program aimed at improving math scores on the ISTEP exam. Tracy has
also shown her unwavering commitment to her students through her
service as the sponsor of the Academic Bowl Team and as a volunteer at
athletic and after-school events.
Kathleen Krum, this year's recipient from the Hanover Community
School Corporation, has been a teacher for an astounding 38 years. A
fourth and fifth grade teacher at Hanover, Kathy has received many
awards and honors throughout her lifetime of service. Involved in
numerous extracurricular activities and special programs with her
fourth graders, Kathy has always taught with the goal of making
learning fun. With this goal in mind, one of Kathy's greatest sources
of pride was the construction of an outdoor learning lab at Lincoln
Elementary School, which has helped many young students gain first-hand
experience with nature.
Karen Semancik, this year's recipient from the Lake Central School
Corporation, has had an outstanding teaching career, which has spanned
29 years. Karen is currently a fifth grade social studies teacher at
Clark Middle School, where she is widely known for the unique and
interesting activities she brings to her classroom. One example of such
an activity is that she provided her students with the opportunity to
contact the International Space Station. Additionally, Karen's peers
and students have always been impressed with her patience and her
ability to adapt her lessons to the individual needs of her students.
This year's recipient of the Crystal Bell Award from the School Town
of Munster is Nancy Smith. Nancy, of Wilbur Wright Middle School, has
been a seventh grade language arts teacher in Munster for the past 35
years. The passion Nancy has for teaching and for her students goes far
beyond the classroom. Through her efforts on the Broad Based Planning
Committee, the language arts gifted and talented program has made great
strides, allowing these exceptional students the opportunity to enhance
their student careers. Furthermore, Nancy has been a true role model to
teachers new to the classroom, allowing them to learn from her vast
experience and to share her passion for educating young people.
This year's recipient of the Crystal Bell Award from the Tri-Creek
School Corporation
[[Page 7661]]
is Thomas R. Sufana. Tom has been nurturing young minds for an
astonishing 32 years and currently serves as the art teacher at Lowell
Senior High School. In addition, Tom has served as the Assistant Drama
Director for the past 14 years. Throughout his illustrious career, Tom
has not only received recognition as a great teacher, but his work has
been seen in many public events, both locally and nationally. Because
of his love for art, Tom is responsible for bringing many beautiful
pieces to Northwest Indiana, many of which are proudly displayed in the
halls of Lowell High School today.
Vicki Weber, this year's recipient from the School Town of Highland,
is known for her ability to challenge her students in a way few other
teachers can. Vicki, currently a third grade teacher at Warren
Elementary School, also serves in many other capacities, including:
Spellbowl coach, intramural volleyball coach, mentor, mentor faculty
facilitator, and as a member of the building school improvement plan
steering committee. A testament to Vicki's ability to connect with her
students, she has coached two Spellbowl teams that have advanced to
higher level competitions.
Madam Speaker, I ask you and my distinguished colleagues to join me
in commending these outstanding educators on their receipt of the 2008
Crystal Bell Award. Their years of hard work have played a major role
in shaping the minds and futures of Northwest Indiana's young people,
and each recipient is truly an inspiration to us all.
____________________
SAFE AND COMPLETE STREETS ACT
______
HON. DORIS O. MATSUI
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Ms. MATSUI. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Safe and
Complete Streets Act of 2008.
This needed legislation is based on the principle that our Nation's
transportation system should be safe and accessible to all people.
Motorists, bicyclists, transit users, pedestrians, the disabled, and
the elderly all use our country's transportation network each and every
day. The Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2008 will ensure that the
needs of all of these users are accommodated during the transportation
planning process.
Complete streets are an essential part of well-designed communities
that are livable for children, families, the elderly, and people of all
ages and abilities. By providing our constituents with sidewalks on
which to walk, well-lighted transit stations in which to wait for the
bus or light rail, clear lanes in which to drive, and bike lanes in
which to ride, we can encourage them to utilize alternative modes of
transportation. This can make our transportation system most effective
and useful.
Madam Speaker, our constituents are struggling to deal with the
skyrocketing cost of gas. As their pocketbooks are hit increasingly
hard at the pump, many Americans are turning to alternative methods of
transportation. In my hometown of Sacramento, where gasoline is nearly
four dollars per gallon, my local newspaper recently reported on the
growing number of my constituents who are riding their bicycles to work
because of the prohibitive price of filling a car up with fuel.
For these reasons, Americans around the country are eager for
transportation alternatives. The Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2008
is a strong step toward a future where travelers are presented with a
range of transportation options. By requiring States and metropolitan
planning organizations to accommodate the needs of all users of the
transportation system in their planning processes, this legislation
will broaden access to the streets that tie our communities--and our
Nation--together.
Incorporating these kinds of complete streets principles will help us
move away from the kinds of transportation planning that causes seniors
to avoid walking to the store because of the lack of sidewalks. It will
help usher in a day when commuters feel safe riding to work on their
bicycles because the streets now accommodate bikes. It will ease the
fears of parents across our country who hesitate to allow their
children to walk to school because of the danger posed by so many cars
driving near sidewalks. It will reduce the risk posed to disabled
Americans who are forced to deal with a transportation system short on
painted crosswalks and audible walking signals. And it will encourage
people to take public transit because they will no longer have to wait
for the bus at a stop that is nothing more than a pole in the ground.
Complete streets also have a number of non-transportation-related
benefits. In a country where nearly one-third of adults are obese and
the number of overweight children has tripled since 1980, giving people
options to walk or take public transit can play a major role in
reducing these disturbing trends. In terms of fighting global warming,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends as a key
climate change mitigation strategy the shifting of travel modes from
driving to walking, taking transit, and bicycling. There is ample room
for complete streets to help bring about this needed paradigm shift in
the way we travel--65 percent of trips in the United States under one
mile are now made by automobile. In one Colorado city, local efforts to
take transit, use bicycles, and carpool have helped reduce carbon
dioxide by half a million pounds. If one city can achieve such success
in reducing emissions by changing transportation patterns, the possible
emissions reductions through implementing a nationwide complete streets
policy are staggering.
Madam Speaker, we live in a time when local governments are strapped
for cash. In such a fiscal climate, we should make investments today
that will pay out over the long term, and that will help us avoid the
need to make costly adjustments to our current transportation system
down the line. Incorporating complete streets principles today will
help communities save precious dollars in the future by eliminating the
need for costly retrofits.
I know this to be true because of the experience of my own
congressional district, where the City of Sacramento is preparing to
spend $12 million to update a bridge that was built in the 1930s
without adequate sidewalks. Another example of the power of complete
streets to save money is from Illinois. There, the legislature passed a
complete streets law last year after the state was forced to spend
nearly a million dollars adding a foot and bike path to a bridge where
several pedestrians and bicyclists were hit and killed by motorists.
But the bottom line, Madam Speaker, is that the Safe and Complete
Streets Act of 2008 is good policy because of what it can help us do
for our communities, not for the costs it can help us avoid.
Encouraging people to use all the various modes of transportation
available to them will strengthen public health, reduce congestion,
improve air quality, and increase the interconnectedness of our
communities. It will help create a national transportation network that
works for all Americans regardless of their age, income, or preferred
mode of getting around town.
The time has come for this Congress to start thinking about what we
want the legacy of American transportation to be. I know I speak for
many of my colleagues when I say that we want this to be one where all
users of our streets feel safe and accommodated. The Safe and Complete
Streets Act of 2008 is a first step toward creating this kind of
practical, efficient, and inclusive transportation system, and I am
proud to introduce it here today.
____________________
HONORING DEBORAH MURDOCK
______
HON. DARLENE HOOLEY
of oregon
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Ms. HOOLEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a long-time
education advocate and friend, Deborah Murdock. As Special Assistant to
the President at Portland State University, Debbie helped make PSU the
top-tier university in Oregon that it currently is. We lost our friend
Debbie on August 14, 2007, far too soon. I honor her today because on
Sunday, May 4, 2008, Portland State University will dedicate the Debbie
Murdock Memorial Clock Tower on their campus.
My first day in Washington, DC, as a new Member of Congress, Debbie
was a friendly face who knew more about working in Congress than I did.
Her experience with Congressman Les AuCoin was a great benefit for both
of us. She knew what I needed to do to successfully represent my
constituents and specifically a certain university in the state's urban
hub.
Debbie came to work for PSU in 1993 and almost immediately set goals
for the university that may have seemed overly-optimistic and
unattainable. She wanted to help the university provide the programs,
research and student experience that the other Oregon institutions of
higher learning were offering.
During her tenure, Debbie played a significant role in the building
and establishment of the Native American Center, the Urban Center, the
engineering building and others. She also was involved in the downtown
revitalization and ``greening'' of the campus.
But Debbie's list of accomplishments doesn't end with facilities and
structures.
[[Page 7662]]
Debbie managed to affect almost every person she came into contact with
by encouraging their professional or academic development and personal
growth. She wanted everyone to be the best they could be and felt like
she could help make that happen by being a friend, a mentor or a
resource.
I am delighted that Portland State University is naming the new clock
tower in honor of Debbie. The tower will be a part of PSU's vitality,
energy and life for years to come, as will Debbie Murdock's memory.
____________________
EXPRESSING APPRECIATION FOR H. MARTIN LANCASTER'S SERVICE AND
FRIENDSHIP
______
HON. DAVID E. PRICE
of north carolina
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I rise today in
recognition of the dedicated service of our former colleague, Martin
Lancaster, to North Carolina and the Nation.
Martin retires today as President of the North Carolina Community
College System, which he has led since 1997. The system enrolls more
than 800,000 students in 58 comprehensive community colleges across the
State. Internationally recognized for the scope and quality of its
programs, the system is one of the largest in the county and North
Carolina's primary provider of workforce preparation and adult
education.
Martin has worked to increase State and private funding for
facilities, equipment, faculty salaries, and instruction and to
strengthen the system's essential role in workforce and economic
development. He led community college participation in the successful
State Higher Education Bond Referendum of 2000, which included $600
million for community college construction, repair and renovation. He
has worked successfully with successive presidents of the University of
North Carolina system to ensure a seamless transition for students
between community colleges and 4-year state institutions.
In his years as president, Martin and I have collaborated on a number
of projects. We've worked hard on the Partnership Fellows Program to
help address the serious teacher shortage by providing scholarships for
individuals transitioning from associate degree programs in education
to bachelor-degree granting institutions. He's helped ensure that
future Federal scholarships for prospective teachers will be available
to community college students.
We also continue to promote funding from the National Science
Foundation for the Advanced Technological Education, ATE, program to
underwrite innovation and excellence in curriculum development,
teaching methods, and public-private partnerships. The North Carolina
system and individual campuses compete very successfully for this
support.
Most recently, we have secured Department of Education funding for an
innovative partnership among the North Carolina Symphony, the community
college system, and local public school systems. Soloists and small
ensembles from the Symphony will visit far-flung communities and, based
in their community colleges, offer performances and classes for
aspiring young musicians.
Prior to his work with the North Carolina Community College System,
Martin served as assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works from
January 1996 until June 1997. Before that, he served as special advisor
to President Bill Clinton on chemical weapons. Many Members of this
body will remember his 8 years of distinguished service, representing
his home town of Goldsboro and the rest of the Third Congressional
District.
With the experience of being on active duty in the Navy during the
Vietnam war and continuing to serve as an active Reservist until his
retirement as a Navy Captain in November 1993, Martin was an effective
member of the Armed Services Committee. During his tenure, he fought to
obtain benefits increases for disabled veterans and sponsored Agent
Orange compensation measures. He also took a special interest in
procurement and other small business issues as a member of the Small
Business Committee.
Our friendship stretches across decades, including our years in the
House, which we began together in the Class of 1986. Martin's
commitment and leadership in his law practice, the North Carolina
General Assembly, the U.S. Congress, on many boards and commissions,
and especially in our community colleges, have improved the quality of
life for people of all ages. We have known each other long enough to
watch our grandchildren's generation benefit from his talent and
dedication.
It is with the greatest respect and my deepest appreciation that I
rise today to honor Martin Lancaster and thank him for his many
invaluable contributions to our State and Nation. On behalf of all who
have also been fortunate to work with him, I wish him, his wife Alice,
and their two daughters, Mary Martin and Ashley Elizabeth and their
growing families, the best in all of their future endeavors.
____________________
IN HONOR OF BRIAN PERRY
______
HON. CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING
of mississippi
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. PICKERING. Madam Speaker, today I would like to honor a member of
my staff, Brian Perry, as he leaves to join Mississippians for Economic
Progress as executive director. Brian has served as my communications
director for the past 5 years and has done an outstanding job handling
the press inquiries my office has received from the national, State,
and local level. He has served in a composed, calm, and patient manner;
which is to be admired in a position so demanding.
Brian grew up in the Nashville, Tennessee area and then moved to
Mississippi where he attended Northwest Rankin High School. Once in
Mississippi, he settled there and graduated from Belhaven College in
1997 with a bachelor of arts in philosophy and then obtained a masters
in communication from Mississippi College. Before starting in my
office, Brian was a reporter for the Madison County Journal, creator
and editor of the Magnolia Report, and campaign director for Judge
Keith Starrett's successful run for election. His personal experience
as a journalist helped make him a very effective communications
director for me.
In addition to serving as my communications director, Brian also
focused on education, human rights, and religious freedom issues. In
2006, Brian moved back to Mississippi to work in my district office in
Pearl. We have missed having Brian in the DC office.
Since moving back to Mississippi, Brian has been extremely involved
in neighborhood and community activities. He is a loyal alumnus of
Belhaven, living just one block from the school. Canoeing, fishing, and
camping are among his favorite outdoor activities. He also enjoys
listening to bluegrass, grilling with friends, and attending the
Neshoba County Fair. Over the past 2 years, the district office has
come to really know Brian and will remember him as an ardent 1st
amendment defender, Christian advocate, political junkie, and the
world's fastest eater. But most significantly, he will be remembered as
a dedicated and conscientious member of my staff, a good listener, and
a loyal friend to his fellow coworkers.
As a tribute to Brian for his exemplary work, I would like to share
some words from people he has worked closely with throughout his
career.
``Brian Perry's five year tenure in Congressman Pickering's
office is noteworthy, as his record of public service is
marked by a strong commitment to excellence and
professionalism. Personally, I am grateful for Brian's
willingness to serve as the spokesman for my 2007 re-election
campaign; his vision, maturity, and experience were nothing
short of exceptional. I commend Brian for his outstanding
career and look forward to his continued contributions to
government and politics. ``--Governor Haley Barbour
``Brian Perry has served Congressman Pickering and the
Third District with distinction. He is a man of unwavering
conviction and his integrity is above reproach. That's why it
is my distinct privilege to count Brian among my closest and
most trusted friends, a relationship that has developed as I
have worked with him professionally. He's always been willing
and able to meet the request of our newspapers--and then
some. He has always proven to be of the strongest character
when dealing with members of the press.''--James E. Prince
III, president, Prince Newspapers
``Brian Perry has been one of my closest and most trusted
friends for well over a decade. We both met as activists in
the Mississippi Republican Party. He has served as a loyal
member of Congressman Chip Pickering's staff where he
facilitated and communicated the various initiatives
Congressman Pickering spearheaded in the interest of
Mississippi's Third Congressional District. While serving as
Republican Chairman of the Third District, and now as MRP
Executive Director, Brian has proven himself over and over
again to be a man of character whose integrity and
professionalism are above reproach. Brian's mark of service
to the Republican Party, Congressman Pickering, and
Mississippi and even the nation will be long lasting.''--Brad
White, executive director, Mississippi Republican Party
``Brian Perry worked very hard ensuring that the needs of
rural areas were addressed
[[Page 7663]]
along with the many other demands placed on Congress. He took
a personal interest in the progress of Noxubee County and
assisted us whenever possible. Brian's attention to detail
and pride in his work was evident whether at his desk in the
Cannon Building or during a much-deserved weekend break to
fish the Shenandoah River. Brian Perry's presence on the Hill
will be greatly missed by many Mississippians.''--Brian
Wilson, executive director, Noxubee Economic and Community
Development Alliance
``It has truly been a pleasure to get to know Brian Perry
during his tenure with Chip. He and I have developed a
special friendship. I appreciate his intellect and character.
He is an excellent writer and conscientious in his work. His
public service has made a difference to our nation, our great
state, and to Chip and our family. I will always be
grateful.''--Judge Charles W. Pickering, Sr.
Madam Speaker, Brian has provided wise counsel, effective
communication and a passion for service to Mississippi. He served with
poise throughout the aftermath of Katrina and in congressional and
confirmation battles. I treasure his faith, reason and friendship. He
has my deep respect and appreciation for all the contributions he has
made and the work he has done. I wish him the very best and know he has
a bright future communicating and fighting for good causes.
____________________
CONGRATULATING ISRAEL ON ITS 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF INDEPENDENCE
______
HON. JOHN M. McHUGH
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. McHUGH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and commend
the State of Israel on the 60th anniversary of its independence. On May
14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. Within 11 minutes, the
United States became the first nation to give de facto recognition to
the State of Israel. America's friendship with Israel continues to this
day. Having visited Israel several times, I know well that Israelis and
Americans share the common values of peace, freedom and democracy.
The modem state of Israel is a safe haven for Jews from all corners
of the world. Since its founding, Israel has been a home to Holocaust
survivors and their descendants, as well as Jews fleeing oppression.
While strides have been made to combat global anti-Semitism, I am
disappointed that recent reports indicate a rise in anti-Semitism
worldwide.
A strong and secure Israel is vital to America's national interest.
Israelis know all too well the terror of indiscriminate homicide
attacks by radical terrorists. The enemies of Israel have also targeted
their attacks against Americans. The terrorist group Hamas is
responsible for the deaths of at least 26 Americans, including
teenagers and young children. In 1983 Hezbollah bombed the U.S. embassy
in Beirut. Hezbollah was also involved in the bombing of the United
States Marine barracks, in an attack that claimed the lives of 241
American servicemen. These groups operate with support and funding from
Iran, a country whose president has called for Israel to be ``wiped off
the map.'' Hamas continues to launch rockets into Israel, terrorizing
innocent civilians living near the Gaza border. However, Israelis have
shown tremendous courage in the face of these hostilities. Despite the
constant threat of annihilation, Israelis have made the desert bloom.
They have created a flourishing culture and society. Israel has also
developed a thriving economy and is the world's leader in the
development of many cutting edge industries. Israeli technology has
even been used to help keep our troops safe in battle in the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Madam Speaker, I join my colleagues in congratulating the State of
Israel on its 60th anniversary, and express my sincere hope that the
next 60 years come with peace and security for our close friend and
ally.
____________________
CALLING ON CONGRESS TO REPEAL THE GOVERNMENT PENSION OFFSET AND
WINDFALL ELIMINATION PROVISION
______
HON. WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT
of massachusetts
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak about an extremely
important issue facing many retirees in Massachusetts. Throughout my
career in the Congress, I have heard from thousands of my constituents
who have been penalized by the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and
Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).
Both of these laws currently require that a modified formula be used
to calculate the amount of Social Security benefits a retired or
disabled worker and/or the worker's family will receive if the worker
also receives a pension from local, State or Federal employment not
covered by Social Security. This has resulted in some unintended and
unfair consequences.
Millions of public service workers in 15 States are allowed to opt
out of the Social Security system and my home State of Massachusetts is
one of them. Most of these workers are teachers, town and State
employees, nurses, police officers and firefighters who are not
required or allowed to pay into the Social Security program. Therefore,
they do not collect Social Security benefits upon retirement.
However, the GPO and WEP also prevent public servants from receiving
Social Security benefits that they earned through other, non-public
service employment. Under these provisions, a widow or widower is
denied a spousal benefit because their husband or wife was a public
service employee. This is unfair and unacceptable.
Every year those who unselfishly give of themselves by serving others
in their communities, find their retirement savings slashed by the GPO
and WEP, simply because they left the private sector to serve the
public. In Massachusetts alone, nearly 18,700 retirees are affected by
the GPO, with more than a third of them being widows or widowers. As
many as 32,000 individuals are affected by the WEP. These provisions
are unfairly penalizing the men and women who contribute the vital
services that sustain and improve our communities.
With the retirement population continuing to grow, this issue is of
increasing importance to millions of Americans and is not going to go
away. I have been contacted by thousands, representing every segment of
our community, and I am continually saddened and angered by the stories
that I hear. Those who are affected by the GPO and WEP are hardworking
Americans that do not deserve to be denied the benefits of a Social
Security system that they have already contributed to.
A widow relayed the story of how she and her husband planned their
retirement believing that each would be able to take care of their
bills should one of them pass. She was stunned to find out when she
became widowed that she would not be allowed to collect her husband's
full survivor benefits because she collects a small pension from her
job as an elementary school teacher in Marshfield. Sadly, she was
forced to sell the home where she had raised her family because she
could no longer afford it.
A single mother of three on Cape Cod with two full-time jobs as a
nurse and teacher wrote me of her dilemma. She has made many sacrifices
to independently support her children. She consistently paid into her
teacher's retirement fund and Social Security for decades hoping to be
able to eventually retire without worry in her later years. She
recently found out she will not be allowed to collect both of the full
retirement benefits she earned and was counting on.
I have heard from a 63-year-old widow who works for the City of
Quincy. She would like to retire before her 70th birthday but cannot
afford to do so. Because of her participation in the City retirement
program, her Social Security benefits will be immediately and
drastically reduced.
A municipal retiree in Plymouth wrote me about his concerns with the
rising price of gas and medical expenses. He supports a repeal of the
GPO and WEP so that he may supplement his already meager retirement
income with his Social Security benefits.
I have heard from police officers and firefighters from all over my
district who put their lives on the line each and every day. These
brave men and women will not be allowed to collect their full Social
Security benefits upon retirement.
These stories are very real, and are just a small sample of the
thousands of letters that I have received on this issue.
This is not just about senior citizens who worked all their lives
believing they were responsibly planning ahead for retirement. This is
not just about retirees finding themselves unable to make ends meet,
concerned that they may not be able to afford to heat their homes this
winter or buy the medications they need.
It's about retired and widowed public servants, who are denied access
to their deceased spouse's Social Security benefits because they chose
public service as a career.
It's about penalizing honest, hard-working people who dedicated their
careers to public service. At a time when our Nation is searching for
talented and dedicated teachers, nurses and other public servants--this
penalty
[[Page 7664]]
discourages the best and the brightest from serving in our community.
Madam Speaker, the time is long overdue for Congress to resolve this
issue.
I want to urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 82, the
Social Security Fairness Act which would repeal both the GPO and WEP.
In addition, I'd like to urge you to support H.R. 2772, the Public
Servant Retirement Protection Act, which would eliminate the WEP and
establish a more equitable formula for calculating Social Security
benefits.
Support for these two pieces of legislation has grown significantly
each year and it is imperative that they see long-awaited debate in
committee and on the floor of Congress.
____________________
RECOGNIZING THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF CONGRESSWOMAN MAXINE WATERS TO SOUTH
AFRICA
______
HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Congresswoman
Maxine Waters on receiving the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo
Silver Award.
Since 1980, Congresswoman Waters has worked tirelessly to improve the
situation of the South African people. During the long reign of the
apartheid regime, Representative Waters organized marches, participated
in rallies and welcomed countless antiapartheid leaders to the United
States. Spearheading the national divestment movement, Congresswoman
Waters persuaded countless American corporations to withhold investing
money in South Africa until apartheid ceased to exist. When South
Africa held its first free elections 1994, Representative Waters was
asked to be a member of the official U.S. delegation that attended the
inauguration of the country's first black president, Nelson Mandela.
Clearly, Congresswoman Maxine Waters played a vital role in ending
apartheid.
In my opinion, there is no one more deserving of one of South
Africa's most prestigious awards. Congresswoman Maxine Waters devoted
her career to ensuring that all people no matter their origin, race or
culture, have the chance to experience freedom.
____________________
IN HONOR OF GABRIELLE THOMPSON OF BUFFALO, MINNESOTA: RECIPIENT OF THE
PRUDENTIAL SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY AWARD
______
HON. MICHELE BACHMANN
of minnesota
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mrs. BACHMANN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend seventh grader
Gabrielle Thompson of Buffalo Community Middle School for her
extraordinary commitment to her community and her compassion for young
cancer patients. This week, Gabrielle will be one of only 102 state
honorees from across the Nation honored with the Prudential Spirit of
Community Award.
Gabrielle has turned a difficult personal story into a story of
healing and hope for children facing a life with cancer. When she was
only 4 years old, doctors removed a malignant tumor from Gabrielle's
abdomen. Now, with that successful surgery not long behind her,
Gabrielle has committed to helping others who find themselves in
similar situations.
In addition to raising $5,000 for cancer research selling luminaries
and to drawing public attention to Buffalo's Relay for Life, Gabrielle
has written a book to help children cope with cancer, ``The ABCs of
Childhood Cancer.'' Her book relates to children as only a young one
can and relates to cancer patients as only one who has walked in their
shoes can. But, in so many ways, her book demonstrates a young lady of
startling maturity, grace, and poise.
The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards were started in 1995 as a
partnership between Prudential Financial and the National Association
of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). It is the Nation's largest
youth recognition program based solely on volunteerism. Two high school
and middle school students from each state and the District of Columbia
are honored each year, with an additional 234 distinguished finalists
also receiving recognition for their public service.
This year, in addition to Gabrielle, Shanna Decker, a senior at
Plainview-Elgin-Millville High School, will represent the great state
of Minnesota as recipients of the award for 2008. Shanna has also had a
personal experience with cancer as a young child and has also turned
her difficult life lesson into a powerful example of hope and courage
for other young people in this situation, spending more than 300 hours
a year visiting young cancer patients in the hospital.
An additional six outstanding Minnesota teens will be honored as
Distinguished Finalists: Daniel Chahla of St. Paul, Carly Fischbeck of
Inver Grove Heights, Joshua Hiben of Bloomington, Carissa Loehr of
Eagan, Laura Maciosek of Minneapolis, and Aisha Moghul of Fridley. It
is a true privilege to join Prudential, the NASSP, and their
communities in honoring these outstanding examples of compassion and
service. With all the regrettable news stories about the wayward path
of today's youth, these young men and women renew our faith and refresh
our hope.
____________________
HONORING THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF MR. THOMAS J. COOPER, SR.
______
HON. JIM GERLACH
of pennsylvania
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. GERLACH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a
dedicated community volunteer from Chester County, Pennsylvania, who
recently passed away, but whose service is still lauded and remembered.
Each year, the Downingtown Area Chamber of Commerce recognizes an
individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the community.
This year, the Citizen of the Year Award will be presented posthumously
to Thomas J. Cooper, Sr.
Mr. Cooper made substantial contributions to several community
organizations throughout our region. He was very active with the Boy
Scouts of America, serving as a Cubmaster and Den Leader for Hopewell
Pack 8 for a number of years. He also served as the Scoutmaster for
Hopewell Troop 8, as well as a Vigil Member of the Order of the Arrow.
Tom was also very active with the Downingtown High School Band
Parents organization, making numerous trips hauling the band
instruments to local venues and even Florida for band appearances. He
also worked the concession stand at the Downingtown High School stadium
for numerous athletic events and band competitions, all part of his
committed efforts to support our local youth.
No task was too big or too small for Tom. As long as he knew it would
benefit area youth, he was there to help.
All of Tom's work and accomplishments will be acknowledged this
weekend at the Downingtown Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner on
May 2, 2008, at Whitford Country Club. His wife, Winifred, will accept
the Citizen of the Year Award on his behalf and area leaders and
residents will pay tribute to the life and work of a selfless man.
Madam Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me today in praising the
work of Thomas J. Cooper, Sr., and all those who give of themselves to
help others. The Citizen of the Year Award is an acknowledgment of the
full and vibrant life that Tom led, and whose work is still remembered
and paving the future for tomorrow's generation.
____________________
RECOGNIZING THE HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS ORGANIZATION AND PULTE HOMES
______
HON. THOMAS G. TANCREDO
of colorado
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a program
that has provided an invaluable service to our nation's wounded
veterans. The Homes For Our Troops organization is a non-partisan, non-
profit 501(c)(3) group that provides specially built homes to veterans
who have received debilitating injuries while fighting for our
continued freedom in the ongoing military conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan. These homes are provided at no cost to the family
receiving assistance. John Gonsalves founded this wonderful
organization with the aim of providing a service for our soldiers which
was much needed and even more appreciated. He has dedicated his time to
this noble endeavor and his organization has proven to be of the
highest standard of excellence. Homes For Our Troops has been awarded
the Independent Charities Seal of Excellence. This award, bestowed upon
members of the Local Independent Charities of America and the
Independent Charities of America is recognition of the highest level
for charity work. Fewer than 5 percent of all eligible charities are
honored with this award.
[[Page 7665]]
Providing these homes for our injured service men and women is a team
effort. Recently, ground was broken on a home for Army Staff Sergeant
Matthew Keil and his wife Tracy, of Parker Colorado. Numerous
organizations have teamed up with Homes For Our Troops and provided
their expertise, materials and time to make this home a reality. Pulte
Homes, under the guidance of Mike Meneguzzi has designed the Keil's
future home. Their organization has graciously donated over $31,000 to
the building effort and one of their employees, Bret Hribar, will be
operating as the general contractor. Pulte has further demonstrated
their dedication to worthy projects such as this by providing their
employees 2 paid days of leave annually to participate in charitable
projects.
With the help of other local businesses, Homes For Our Troops and
Pulte Homes have performed a great service for a great American hero.
Their continued dedication to the welfare of our returning veterans is
a great example of patriotism which we should all strive to achieve.
____________________
CONGRATULATING MRS. DAWN O'CONNOR RECIPIENT OF THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL
AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE TEACHING
______
HON. MICHAEL M. HONDA
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. HONDA. Madam Speaker, as a former teacher, school principal, and
school board member I am proud to rise today to congratulate Mrs. Dawn
O'Connor for receiving the 2008 Presidential Award for Excellence in
Science Teaching. Since 1983, the Presidential Awards for Excellence in
Mathematics and Science Teaching have honored outstanding kindergarten
through 12th grade mathematics or science teachers for their
contributions in the classroom and to their profession. On behalf of
the people of California's 15th District, I am honored to recognize one
of our own as a recipient of the Presidential Award, the highest
recognition that a teacher can receive--Mrs. O'Connor teaches Seventh
Grade Biology at Ascencion Solorsano Middle School in the Gilroy
Unified School District.
Ascencion Solorsano's students are fortunate to have Mrs. O'Connor
serve as chair of the Science Department, coach of the Cross Country
team, and advisor of the school's MESA program. After graduating from
California State University, Humboldt with a B.S. in Biology Mrs.
O'Connor completed her multiple subjects credential program at my alma
mater, San Jose State University.
Mrs. O'Connor received the 2007 Horace Lucich Award for Outstanding
Teachers by the Synopsys science fair and the California State Science
Fair Teacher of the Year Award. She was a Summer Institute Fellow at
Stanford University's Center for Probing the Nanoparticle and also
participated in the Summer Leadership Institute hosted by the National
Science Education Leadership Association.
During Mrs. O'Connor's tenure year at Ascencion Solorsano she has
helped to expand a traditional science fair into a five-month inquiry-
based project involving 98% of the students in the activities of a
practicing scientist--problem identification, hypotheses generation,
experimental design, experimentation, writing and presenting
conclusions. Her inclusion of cross-curricular skills is indeed
commendable. Through her encouragement students have performed
exceptionally in the Silicon Valley science fair competition and gone
on to attain awards at the State level competitions. According to Mrs.
O'Connor ``It is also my goal to produce a population of capable
problem solvers,'' a goal I share, one that is crucial to ensuring our
Nation's competiveness in the 21st century global economy.
Mrs. O'Connor represents the spirit of innovation that is the core of
my District, the Silicon Valley and the State of California, and she is
dedicated to inspiring and engaging students in science through
inquiry. I congratulate her and her colleagues and students for this
distinguished achievement.
____________________
STATEMENT IN RECOGNITION OF EDIE FRASER
______
HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the work of
one of the leaders of diversity, entrepreneurship, women in business
and mentoring, Edie Fraser, who was honored on April 24 with the Lou
Campanelli Award for volunteerism and leadership.
The award, presented by SCORE ``Counselors to America's Small
Business,'' honors Edie Fraser for her volunteerism, philanthropic
contributions and dedication to entrepreneurship and SCORE.
The Lou Campanelli Award annually recognizes outstanding individual
volunteerism, leadership, vision and philanthropy in support of small
business, entrepreneurship and SCORE. Edie received the award at
SCORE's Afternoon of Vision 2008 in Washington, D.C., on April 24.
SCORE CEO Ken Yancey and Lou Campanelli presented Edie with the award.
Edie Fraser has won more than 35 major diversity awards. SCORE is in
her blood as her dad, Les Fraser, was a SCORE volunteer and leader for
33 years in Atlanta. Edie has worked with SCORE over the years, now
serving on the SCORE Board of Directors.
She was named in 2007 as one of the Top 50 Pioneers in Diversity by
Profiles in Diversity Journal and top 46 of America's Top Diversity
Advocates by DiversityBusiness.com, along with Oprah Winfrey,
Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and many other senior
diversity leaders. Her other awards include: The Enterprising Women
Hall of Fame; the eWomen Network International Femtor Award for
Lifetime Achievement; the Count-Me-In Leader Entrepreneurial Award; and
the Euro-American Women's Council Artemis Award, presented by Athens
and the sacred island of Delos. She also received the First Global
ATHENA Award in Athens, Greece.
As an advocate for small business and entrepreneurship Edie says,
``SCORE is a cornerstone of what is the best of this country. Small
business is the most significant part of our economy across this
nation.'' Fraser believes, ``SCORE is the premiere source of free
counseling and advice, and a source of loan information for America's
aspiring entrepreneurs.''
Edie's extensive background in support of diversity and women spans
four decades, and she is the founder of Diversity Best Practices and
Business Women's Network. She is a counselor and champion focusing on
business results. She is an advocate for diverse leadership executive
talent. Edie has worked to support more than 200 corporate
organizations, and she has worked with more than 100 CEOs in support of
diversity practices. Talent recruitment and retention are her number
one issue.
``To say thanks to SCORE is easy. We know SCORE to be perhaps the
most important program that the government has created with millions of
donated hours of counseling in communities across America,'' says Edie
Fraser.
On a personal note, Edie has been a dynamic and energetic force for
women in business and diversity nationwide. A resident of Washington,
D.C., Edie is active in many worthy causes. She currently serves on the
Board of Directors of SCORE and Advisory Board of the U.S. Center for
Citizen Diplomacy. She received the Big Brothers Public Service Award
and was the recipient of the Big Brothers Most Outstanding Service
Award for outstanding service to youth. Edie received the United States
Peace Corps award and Peace Corps Princess with others from State
Department and AID. Her commitment to mentoring and community service
is an inspiration to all of us striving for equality and the
opportunity to achieve the American dream.
____________________
THE DAILY 45: A SUBURBAN YOUTH SNAPS
______
HON. BOBBY L. RUSH
of illinois
in the house of representatives
Thursday May 1, 2008
Mr. RUSH. Madam Speaker, the Department of Justice tells us that,
everyday, 45 people, on average, are fatally shot in the United States.
And while needless gun-related deaths continue to take place at a
savage pace on Chicago's streets, including my district, we're not the
only community in crisis.
The 45 people who die somewhere in America come in all shapes, sizes,
colors and zip codes. In February of this year, in suburban
Cockeysville, Maryland, 16-year-old Nicholas Browning confessed to
taking his father's 9 mm Smith and Wesson and walking through his home
and taking the lives of both his parents and his two younger brothers.
According to his attorney, young Nicholas, an avid Sunday school
student, apparently snapped for reasons unknown. One can only imagine
what might have been if whatever demons he was confronting did not lead
him to grab a gun.
Americans of conscience must come together to stop the senseless
death of ``The
[[Page 7666]]
Daily 45.'' When will Americans say ``enough is enough, stop the
killing!''
____________________
HONORING DR. LASLEY FOR 45 YEARS OF SERVICE AT BUFFALO RIDGE BAPTIST
CHURCH
______
HON. DAVID DAVIS
of tennessee
in the house of representatives
Thursday May 1, 2008
Mr. DAVID DAVIS of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor
Dr. Lasley for his 45 years of service at Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church.
Tennessee has been called the ``Volunteer'' state by the great efforts
of our citizens during The War of 1812. Since The War of 1812 people
like Dr. Lasley continue to show pride, dedication and service through
volunteer efforts.
Dr. Lasley's wife Ellen, daughter Laurie, and sons Torrey and Calvin
all embody the same giving and service oriented characteristics their
father has bestowed upon them.
Since Dr. Lasley began his tenure in 1963, he grew the church from an
average of 135 people per Sunday to over 766 per Sunday today. This is
a true accomplishment and highlights his devotion to Buffalo Ridge
Baptist Church and the parishioners who call that church home. What's
even more is that Dr. Lasley helped spur a new donations program that
has grown to receive about 1.7 million in total offerings in the year
of 2007.
Dr. Lasley and Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church have continually shown
their dedication to the community by leading its followers in five
building construction programs. He has also emphasized missions and has
even built a mission program that supports over 100 missionaries and
mission agencies throughout the world.
Dr. Lasley's strong commitment to God is evident in the numerous
hours devoted to studying His Word, preaching it, and encouraging
others to become involved. Dr. Lasley has been a strong advocate for
faith and has encouraged his church to live the same way leading by
example.
Since Dr. Lasley took over Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church in 1963, he
has been a true friend, asset, and noble man to Tennessee's First
District. I ask that my colleagues join me today honoring Dr. Lasley
for his great devotion, dedication, and service to Buffalo Ridge
Baptist Church and Tennessee's First District.
____________________
HONORING MR. HERB RUBEN
______
HON. CAROLYN McCARTHY
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate Herb
Ruben, who is being honored by Peninsula Counseling Center at its 95th
anniversary celebration on May 13, 2008. Herb Ruben has served with
extraordinary devotion and dedication for the past 50 years as
executive director of Peninsula Counseling Center, the largest non-
profit community mental health center in Nassau County, New York.
Mr. Ruben has received many awards and has served in many capacities,
always striving to strengthen and enhance the lives of individuals of
all ages, to strengthen family life and to contribute to the social-
psychological well-being of the community. He has served as past
president of the Council of Family Service Agencies in New York State.
He is the recipient of the Joseph M. Sokol Memorial Award from the Five
Towns Community Chest; the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award
from the New York Public Health Association, Long Island Region; and
the Henry Brill Professional Award from the Nassau County Department of
Mental Health for ``outstanding achievements and leadership with the
Mental Health community of Nassau County.'' In addition, he was
presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the New York State
Office of Mental Health.
Mr. Ruben has been a columnist with the South Shore Record where his
articles ``Within the Family'' have appeared in the paper for more than
30 years.
Again, I wish to congratulate Herb Ruben and thank him for the
leadership and direction he has brought to Peninsula Counseling Center,
as its executive director. For 50 years, he has helped to make it the
outstanding organization that it is.
____________________
TRIBUTE TO DAVID PLOTINSKY
______
HON. SILVESTRE REYES
of texas
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. REYES. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Mr. David
Plotinsky who recently left the House of Representatives to take a
position with the Department of Justice.
Mr. Plotinsky served in the Office of the General Counsel for 10
years, first as a law clerk while he was a student at Georgetown Law
School and, since 2000, as an Assistant Counsel.
Mr. Plotinsky provided frequent and invaluable legal advice and
representation to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Our staff came to rely on his expertise and guidance in connection with
many of their investigative and oversight activities, as well as in the
Committee's interactions with the other branches of the federal
government.
Over the years, Mr. Plotinsky played a significant role in
safeguarding the legal and institutional interests of the House of
Representatives, and he served the House with great distinction. I know
that he will serve the Department of Justice with that same level of
distinction.
On behalf of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I
thank him for his many years of devoted service, and extend to him our
very best wishes for his continued success.
____________________
HONORING SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS CONNOR DANTZLER AND CHRISTOPHER
ANDERSON
______
HON. ROSCOE G. BARTLETT
of maryland
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate
and honor two young students from my district who have achieved
national recognition for exemplary volunteer community service by the
2008 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, an annual honor
conferred on the most impressive student volunteers in each state and
the District of Columbia.
Connor Dantzler of Damascus has just been named one of the top
honorees in Maryland. An eighth-grader at John T. Baker Middle School,
Connor is being recognized for his ``Health through Humor'' program. He
has distributed over 5,000 joke books to patients, their families and
caregivers at hospitals and care centers throughout Maryland. In
addition to delivering books to participating hospitals and health care
centers, Connor spends time with patients and their loved ones. ``I've
shared a smile and positive moment with a lot of people,'' said Connor.
``I hope that these efforts have made a difference to those who really
needed something to laugh about.'' I am sure they did.
Christopher Anderson, a sophomore at Westminster High was named a
finalist and will receive a bronze medal. I heartily applaud
Christopher for his initiative in seeking to make his community a
better place to live by renovating an outdoor break area for the
Association for Retarded Citizens of Carroll County to make it
accessible to disabled residents. Inspired by his uncle who has Down
syndrome, he recruited more than 40 volunteers and raised $3,000 for
the project. Christopher and his volunteers removed old rock, built
special picnic tables, replaced wooden sidewalks and planted trees and
shrubs in order to make the area handicapped-accessible. It will
continue to have a positive impact on the lives of others for years to
come.
Young volunteers like Connor and Christopher are inspiring examples
to all of us, and are among our brightest hopes for a better tomorrow.
The dedication and commitment by Connor Dantzler to sick hospital
patients and Christopher Anderson to disabled individuals should fill
all of us with pride that America's community spirit is strong. On
behalf of the residents of Maryland's Sixth District I am honored to
publicly thank and congratulate Connor and Christopher for their
volunteer efforts. You give us hope and confidence that America's
future will be led by a new generation of inspiring and compassionate
leaders.
[[Page 7667]]
____________________
TAIWAN'S LEADERSHIP ON GLOBAL ISSUES
______
HON. DANA ROHRABACHER
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, in the 6\1/2\ years since terrorists
attacked the American homeland, our government has undertaken a series
of steps to prepare for, deter, and ultimately stop future attacks from
occurring. In advancing these objectives, it has been essential to
partner with like-minded nations to ensure security and freedom for all
our citizens. In this regard, I would like to take the opportunity to
express the appreciation of many in the Congress to President Chen
Shui-bian of Taiwan as he prepares to leave office later this month.
During President Chen's time in office, Taiwan has demonstrated time
and again its commitment to global security and cooperation. Such
actions have been forthcoming despite the preoccupation of an
existential threat facing it from across the Taiwan Strait.
After 9/11, Taiwan immediately opened its airspace to U.S. military
aircraft transiting Pacific routes to Afghanistan. It subsequently
partnered with our government and others in the Container Security
Initiative, which seeks to prevent illicit cargo from reaching rogue
entities around the world. Furthermore, Taiwan has committed over $100
million to recovery efforts in Afghanistan, making it one of the most
significant contributors to coalition efforts there.
Recognizing that global security can be advanced in a variety of
ways, Taiwan has been a leader in addressing public health issues
internationally. Struck by SARS in 2003, Taiwan acted swiftly to share
information with other nations that helped limit its spread. Soon
thereafter, Taiwan's experience in tackling avian flu was again made
available to the international community in order to deter that
contagion's deadly proliferation.
Beyond these multilateral efforts, Taiwan has also developed one of
the most extensive bilateral development assistance programs in the
world. For instance, it has established 36 long-term technical missions
in 30 partner countries, focusing on capacity building, agriculture,
fisheries, horticulture, livestock, handicrafts, medicine,
transportation, industry, mining, electricity generation, printing,
vocational training, trade and investment. Taiwan allocates
approximately 100,000 tons of rice annually as humanitarian foreign
aid. After the South Asia tsunami occurred in December 2004, the
Taiwanese government provided $50 million in initial relief assistance,
and cooperated with international non-governmental organizations in
additional relief efforts. It also provided more than 355 tons of
relief materials to tsunami-affected countries.
These and other measures undertaken by Taiwan over the past several
years are to be commended. Under the leadership of President Chen, his
government has served as a model for others seeking to play a
constructive role in the international community. I encourage continued
leadership by Taiwan as a new president prepares to assume office, and
can assure him of America's enduring partnership in these efforts.
____________________
THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF THE POPE'S VISIT TO THE U.S.
______
HON. RICHARD E. NEAL
of massachusetts
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to enter
into the Congressional Record today an article that was written by a
constituent of mine, Thomas J. Carty, PhD, Associate Professor of
History and American Studies at Springfield College in Springfield, MA.
His article is entitled, The Risks and Rewards of the Pope's Visit to
the U.S., and it outlines the history of the interaction of politics
and religion as it related to papal visits in the past. I thought it
was a pertinent piece in light of Pope Benedict's recent visit to
Washington, DC and New York City.
The Risks and Rewards of the Pope's Visit to the U.S.
(By Thomas J. Carty)
Pope Benedict XVI's meeting this week with a U.S. president
during an election year demonstrates how Americans
increasingly tolerate the confluence of religion and
politics. While George Bush does not face the prospect of
election this year, his meeting with Pope Benedict may affect
the presidential campaign. Bush's policies have both
delighted and disappointed the Pope. The president's
opposition to legalized abortion and embryonic stem-cell
research earned him praise by John Paul II, but this pope
also critiqued Bush and his father for resorting excessively
to war in Panama, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq. For Bush, this
meeting offers an opportunity to burnish his legacy as a
defender of traditional values.
Bush can maximize benefit from this meeting by studying the
successes and failures of Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and
Bill Clinton. Johnson's 1965 decision to greet Pope Paul VI
strained traditional diplomatic protocol because no pope had
previously set foot in the United States. Prior to the pope's
landing in New York in order to deliver a speech at the
United Nations, therefore, Johnson arranged elaborate plans
to avoid appearing biased in favor of the Catholic Church.
The president agreed to wait in New York's Waldorf-Astoria
hotel for Pope Paul VI to visit Johnson's suite so that the
president could deny having initiated the unofficial summit.
Johnson certainly hoped such appeals to the pope might have
helped his standing among Catholics in an eventual run for
reelection. Yet the pope's public criticisms of U.S. bombing
in Southeast Asia contributed to Johnson's later decision to
withdraw from the 1968 presidential campaign.
By contrast, Pope John Paul II boosted Ronald Reagan's
political popularity among Catholics and conservative non-
Catholics in the 1980s. Although the U.S. Catholic bishops
opposed the construction of nuclear weapons and criticized
Reagan's movement to expand U.S. armaments, John Paul and
Reagan shared an uncompromising anticommunism. Meeting with
the pope allowed the president to deflect attention from the
American Catholic hierarchy's opposition to his arms buildup.
When Reagan appointed an official, full-time ambassador to
the Vatican in 1984, the president had established a direct
diplomatic line of communication with the pope, and subverted
the American bishops. Reagan showed none of Johnson's
protocol concerns when deciding to stay an extra night in
Alaska to coordinate an informal meeting with the pope, whose
plane arrived the next day, in May 1984, a year in which a
majority of Catholics voted to help him win reelection.
In the most analogous case with George Bush's position this
year, Bill Clinton met with John Paul II in 1999 as a second
term president unable to run again for reelection. Absent the
Cold War, Clinton aggressively pursued common cause with Pope
John Paul II in other areas. Due to Clinton's unapologetic
support of legalized abortion and artificial contraception,
the policies of this president clashed with the pope's
absolute opposition to late-term, or ``partial birth''
abortions. Yet Clinton sought closer connections between U.S.
and Vatican economic assistance programs while the Republican
congress planned to curtail funding for foreign aid. The
Catholic Church also endorsed Clinton's ambitions to provide
government assistance to the poor and immigrants. These
efforts may have helped Clinton obtain the meeting and photo
opportunity with John Paul II at the same time as two Papal
Knights in Congress (House Judiciary Committee Chairperson
Henry J. Hyde and his legal counsel David P. Shippers)
prepared the case for the president's eventual impeachment.
Since George W. Bush cannot legally compete in the 2008
presidential election, Pope Benedict may have more to gain or
lose than the president in this year's papal-presidential
meeting. Some reports indicate that the pope will court
controversy by highlighting abortion in this presidential
election year visit to the United States. If so, many
Americans will charge the pope with a partisan appeal which
threatens America's recent tolerance for Catholicism and
church-state cooperation. If Benedict addresses respect for
immigrants and the poor, as well as the unborn, however, he
can avoid the appearance of favoring one political party
platform over another.
____________________
HONORING GERALD WALKER
______
HON. GEORGE RADANOVICH
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. RADANOVICH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Gerald
Walker upon his retirement from Clovis Unified School District as the
Director of Construction and Engineering. Mr. Walker will be honored at
a reception on May 3, 2008.
Gerald Walker graduated from Clovis High School in 1953. Shortly
after graduation he began to work for the School District. He has
served 23 years with the Clovis Unified School District; 16 of those
years as a member of the governing board and the past 17 years as the
Director of Construction and Engineering. The District was able to
complete over a billion dollars of construction related projects and is
recognized as a leader in the area of school facilities in California.
Under the direction of Mr. Walker, Clovis Unified has successfully
completed over 200 projects, including 16 new elementary schools, 3 new
intermediate schools,
[[Page 7668]]
3 new high schools, and countless modernization and improvement
projects. For these accomplishments, Mr. Walker was recognized by the
Builder's Exchange in 2007 for ``Outstanding Industry Achievement'' and
by Darden Architects for ``Excellence in Building''. In addition, Mr.
Walker has been a member of the District's Career Technical Education
Advisory Committee.
Clovis schools have received many honors over the years, including
being named numerous times as a California Distinguished School, a
National Blue Ribbon School and National Drug Free Schools Program. Mr.
Walker's dedication to providing exemplary school facilities and
grounds has assisted Clovis Unified in attaining these achievements.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend and congratulate Gerald Walker
upon his retirement from Clovis Unified School District. I invite my
colleagues to join me in wishing Mr. Walker many years of continued
success.
____________________
PERSONAL EXPLANATION
______
HON. TOM COLE
of oklahoma
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Madam Speaker, on Wednesday, April 30, 2008, I
missed the first vote in a series of two votes. I missed rollcall votes
Nos. 230, 231, 232, and 233.
Had I been present and voting, I would have voted as follows:
Rollcall vote No. 230: ``aye'' (on agreeing to the Miller, George
amendment to H.R. 5522); rollcall vote No. 231: ``aye'' (on agreeing to
the Wilson (SC) amendment to H.R. 5522); rollcall vote No. 232: ``aye''
(on motion to recommit H.R. 5522 with instructions); rollcall vote No.
233: ``no'' (on final passage of H.R. 5522).
____________________
SPOKANE TEACHER RECEIVES PRESIDENTIAL AWARD
_____
HON. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS
of washington
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mrs. McMORRIS RODGERS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate
Linda Hutchinson, the Mathematics Department Head at Shadle Park High
School in Spokane, Wash., on her outstanding performance as a
mathematics teacher. In recognition of her exceptional contribution to
the academic wellbeing of her students, Mrs. Hutchinson has been
awarded the ``Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics
and Science.''
The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science
Teaching, PAEMST, is the highest recognition that a kindergarten
through 12th-grade mathematics or science teacher may receive for
outstanding teaching in the United States. Mrs. Hutchinson is one of
just 108 teachers to receive this honor each year.
Mrs. Hutchinson was evaluated on five dimensions of outstanding
teaching. She proved she demonstrated her mastery of mathematics
content, and that her teaching methods increase student achievement. In
addition, by winning the award, she has demonstrated that she evaluates
and improves not only her students' achievement, but how she teaches
the material. Finally, Mrs. Hutchinson is committed to improving her
personal mastery of the content she teaches. She is also committed to
mentoring and supporting other teachers at her school.
Providing quality education is a key to increasing America's
competitiveness and creating a skilled, 21st century workforce. Today,
over half of China's undergraduate degrees are in math, science,
technology and engineering. Yet, only 16 percent of American
undergraduates pursue these fields. To meet the demands of an
increasingly advanced, global market we must better train and equip our
nation's workforce and Mrs. Hutchinson is doing just that. Shadle Park
High School is fortunate to have such an inspiring and committed
teacher.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend Linda Hutchinson for her
outstanding work as mathematics teacher. What an honor it is to receive
this recognition from the President. I invite my colleagues to join
with me in congratulating Mrs. Hutchinson on this great achievement.
____________________
PERSONAL EXPLANATION
_____
HON. JEFF MILLER
of florida
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Madam Speaker, I would like to offer a
personal explanation of the reason I missed rollcall Vote No. 146 on
March 14, 2008. I was meeting off Capitol Hill with over 100 World War
II veterans from my district who flew up on the Emerald Coast Honor
Flight.
If present, I would have voted: Rollcall vote No. 227, Previous
Question on the Rule for H.R. 5522--Worker Protection Against
Combustible Dust Explosion and Fire Act, ``nay''; Rollcall vote No.
228, Rule for H.R. 5522--Worker Protection Against Combustible Dust
Explosion and Fire Act, ``nay.''
____________________
CORSON BUILDING RIBBON CUTTING CEREMONY--FITTING TRIBUTE TO TONY AND
CHRISTOPHER SOUZA
_____
HON. BARNEY FRANK
of massachusetts
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, on May 16 there will be a
very important event in New Bedford, Massachusetts: the ribbon cutting
for the newly renovated Corson Building, which will be dedicated on
that date as a key component of the New Bedford Whaling National
Historical Park Visitors Center.
I look forward to being joined at the ceremony by my colleague
Senator Edward Kennedy and many other people who have played an active
role in both the initial establishment of the National Park and in the
preservation and restoration of the Corson Building, an important
historical structure which was nearly destroyed by fire in 1997.
Through a combination of Federal, State and local government financing,
along with non-profit funds and efforts, the building, now attached to
the existing Visitors Center, will serve as a major educational
facility with valuable public meeting space that will be available for
both National Park programs and community meetings.
Among those who will be recognized at the celebration on May 16 for
their efforts in making the Corson project a reality, there is one
individual whose contributions over the years were crucial and deserve
special mention. I speak of New Bedford native Tony Souza, who was the
long-time Executive Director of the Waterfront Historic Area League,
WHALE, the city's leading historic preservation organization.
While Tony and his wife Elsie (who did great work as the Deputy
District Director of my Congressional office) moved a couple of years
ago to Florida to pursue other opportunities, it is his vision for both
the National Park and the Corson Building that we will to a large
extent be honoring at the ribbon cutting event. A little known aspect
of Tony's efforts to restore the Corson Building and convert it into an
educational facility is that he took much of his inspiration for that
work from his late son, Christopher Souza, who had been a member of
Senator Kennedy's staff.
Chris, who shared his parents' commitment to both improving New
Bedford and preserving its wonderful historical legacy, sadly passed
away at the age of 26 in 1994. This was of course a tragic loss for his
family, but it was also a loss to the broader community because we were
deprived of the talents of a young man who had chosen to dedicate
himself to public service. Despite his grief over his son's passing,
Tony gave some thought to steps he might take to honor Chris as an
individual and also as someone who exemplified the next generation of
young leaders. This consideration led ultimately to the idea of
establishing the Corson Building, once it was rebuilt, as a facility
with a primary focus on education, so that it could, among other
purposes, play a key role in helping tell the young people of New
Bedford the remarkable history of their city.
Like many complicated projects involving older structures and various
levels of government--not to mention both the vagaries of the
Congressional appropriations process and the National Park Service's
property management regulations--getting the Corson Building to where
it is today involved a slow series of steps with numerous detours.
Along the way, it was necessary to stabilize the building after the
fire; develop the necessary design for the renovation; and begin to
assemble the requisite funds, all of which took time. Tony was
consistently the driving force behind the efforts to overcome the
obstacles that emerged, and I know that his desire to see the project
completed was to a large extent a reflection of his love for his son.
Indeed, he only decided to seek new challenges outside Massachusetts
when it was clear that his vision for the project was well on its way
toward completion.
[[Page 7669]]
So, the Corson Building ribbon cutting ceremony will be both a
physical and a much more personal homecoming for Tony and Elsie. I join
with Senator Kennedy, and the elected officials, National Park Service
representatives and area preservation activists and residents who will
also be attending the event, in paying tribute to Tony Souza's vital
contributions to this important accomplishment, and to his son
Christopher, who was such an important inspiration for his father's
work on the project.
____________________
IN HONOR OF CEIL CIRILLO
______
HON. SAM FARR
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. FARR. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor an invaluable member
of the Santa Cruz community. After two decades of service, Ceil Cirillo
has announced her retirement from her post as director of
Redevelopment/Economic Development for the City of Santa Cruz. Ceil
began her work in the Santa Cruz community after numerous buildings and
homes had been destroyed in the Loma Pierta earthquake of 1989. As a
part of her work as a director, Ceil acquired the challenge of
reconstructing a devastated historic downtown Santa Cruz. Her success
is evident today by the vibrant destination for shopping and dining
that Pacific Avenue is today. Yet this endeavor was only the beginning
of her accomplishments and contributions that continue to benefit the
Santa Cruz commnunity.
To rebuild the commerce affected by the quake, Ceil oversaw local
building expansion. Under her direction, the agency created a new
department for the redevelopment of downtown, as well as a business
outreach program to ensure commercial success both downtown and
citywide.
Ceil's humanitarian efforts made a great impact on Santa Cruz
citizens who needed help the most. One of these accomplishments was
overseeing the construction of low-rent units; providing housing for
families with limited incomes. She also facilitated the installment of
emergency housing units, 26 of which are in their planning stages or
already under construction. These projects, along with others, have
resulted in 407,000 square feet of newly available housing; placing
roofs over the heads of those who would otherwise have no place to call
home.
In her reconstruction aid, Ceil has not let her artistic side go but
rather channeled her passion for the arts in her efforts. She is keen
on preserving and cultivating the rich culture of the community, and
instituted the Tannery Arts Center and Pacific Avenue Multi-Modal
Station, which today serve as outlets for local artists. In addition,
in the unique spirit of Santa Cruz, she instated commercial facade
projects, murals, landscaping and similar projects all over the city.
These public artworks give significant aesthetic appeal to a city that
had once been reduced to shambles.
Prior to coming to Santa Cruz, Ceil was the Director of Redevelopment
for the City of Signal Hill, California, and in addition to some
private sector employment, was a Special Assistant to the City Manager
in Pasadena, California. She has received numerous awards in
recognition of her works in the Santa Cruz community and has served on
the Board of Directors of several local charities.
Madam Speaker, the City of Santa Cruz will miss Ceil's vision and
leadership, but there is no doubt that she has left the City in a
better place from when she first arrived. I wish Ceil the best in
retirement and look forward to her continued involvement in the Santa
Cruz community.
____________________
WAMU 88.5'S RAY DAVIS CELEBRATES 60 YEARS ON THE AIR
______
HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON
of the district of columbia
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, Ray Davis, host of The Ray Davis Show on
WAMU's Bluegrass Country, celebrates 60 years in broadcasting on May 2.
Ray Davis joined WAMU 88.5 in 1985 to host Saturday Bluegrass, and
shared hosting duties for the weekday afternoon program, Bluegrass
Country, until 2001. He currently hosts 3 live hours of traditional
bluegrass music on The Ray Davis Show at 3 p.m., weekdays, and 10 a.m.,
Sundays, on WAMU's Bluegrass Country, heard in Washington, DC, in HD
Radio at 88.5, Channel 2, and online at bluegrasscountry.org.
Davis provides area bluegrass fans and online listeners worldwide
with a daily dose of the traditional American art form, from prison
songs and ``plum pitiful'' tunes to the great train rides--and train
wrecks--of bluegrass music, all delivered with Davis' encyclopedic
knowledge of the artists and the music. More than a DJ, Ray Davis is
both a musicologist and an archivist who takes listeners on a stroll
down bluegrass music's memory lane. His specialties, the plum pitiful
tunes, are tearjerkers that explore universal themes of death,
betrayal, and jealousy.
``Ray Davis is a legend in music broadcasting. He has helped define
bluegrass music on-air since its earliest days as a discrete genre, and
has placed a lasting imprint on it with his dedication to playing,
promoting, and recording its musicians,'' said Caryn G. Mathes, WAMU
88.5's General Manager. ``His booming, resonant voice is synonymous
with the sound of bluegrass at WAMU, and his willingness to explore
broadcasting on multiple new media platforms as radio evolves has been
an inspiration to me.''
Davis began his radio career at the age of 15, when he left his
boyhood home in Wango, MD, for a job at WDOV-AM in Dover, DE. He had
jobs at other small town stations around the country, as well as a
stint south of the border at XERF, the Mexican mail-order station that
made Wolfman Jack famous, where he learned to be a radio pitchman.
Davis returned to the east coast and spent 38 years hosting a popular
bluegrass program from Johnny's Used Cars for WBMD in Baltimore, MD. In
1962, he began recording some of the Nation's finest bluegrass
musicians and selling these recordings under his own label, Wango.
Davis hosts bluegrass festivals and concerts around the country,
including the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival, and the Arcadia Music
Festival. He also produces 15 hours of bluegrass music each week for
WAMU's Bluegrass Country. When he's not acting as program host or
concert emcee, chances are Davis is holed up in his basement studio
producing CDs from hundreds of bluegrass tapes he's recorded over the
years. Since the 1960s, Davis has been enlisting friends like Carter
and Ralph Stanley, Don Reno, Bill Harrell, the Warrior River Boys, the
Gillis Brothers, Owen Saunders, and a host of others to make his so-
called ``basement tapes.'' The basement tapes include previously
unreleased jam sessions with many of these legendary bluegrass artists.
American University's radio station since 1961, WAMU 88.5 is the
leading public radio station for NPR news and information in the
greater Washington, DC, area with more than 650,000 listeners in the
region. WAMU 88.5 is ``your NPR news station in the Nation's capital.''
____________________
HONORING OUR COMMITMENT TO FILIPINO WORLD WAR II VETERANS
______
HON. JACKIE SPEIER
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Ms. SPEIER. Madam Speaker, I stand before you this evening to discuss
the plight of some 20,000 brave men who defended our country during
World War II but have been neglected in their old age. I refer to the
Filipino nationals who fought with American soldiers as part of the
Recognized Guerilla Forces.
Madam Speaker, the sacrifice and suffering of these brave warriors
has been well-documented. Without their support, some say, American
forces likely would have been outmanned and outgunned at many of the
decisive battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II. But
because of an unfair designation set into law, our government treats
one class of Filipino veteran differently than another.
In the days and months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
more than 250,000 Filipino nationals swore allegiance to the United
States of America with the same oath each of us took when we became
Members of this body. They fought side-by-side with our fathers and
grandfathers and suffered casualties at a far higher rate than native-
born American forces. In return, the Filipino soldiers were promised
the same benefits and support as their American counterparts. In fact,
in October of 1945, Gen. Omar Bradley, then Administrator of the
Veterans Administration, reaffirmed that they would be treated like any
other veterans.
But The Rescission Acts of 1946 changed that. As happens all too
often in the halls of power, short-sighted political expediency won out
over fairness and common decency. Faced with massive war debts,
Congress excluded a class of veteran that had no voice and no vote.
Since then, piecemeal attempts have been made to rectify the inequities
of The Rescission Acts, but time is clearly working against us.
[[Page 7670]]
Today, the few Filipino veterans who are still living are in their
eighties. Their number is estimated to be at or around 20,000, with
7,000 living in the United States. Many of those veterans reside in my
district, which boasts the largest number of Filipino Americans in the
nation.
Madam Speaker, I am not asking for special consideration. I am not
seeking an earmark or a windfall or a handout. I am simply asking that
we, as a nation, honor the promise we made to the brave souls who put
their very lives on the line for the sake of America and all it stands
for. Let us show our gratitude to the few remaining Filipino World War
II veterans and restore the benefits due them and promised to them when
they, like all of us here, raised their right hands and swore: I do
solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United
States of America.
____________________
PAYING TRIBUTE TO DR. REBECCA MILLS
______
HON. JON C. PORTER
of nevada
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. PORTER. Madam Speaker, it is my distinct pleasure to rise today
to honor Dr. Rebecca Mills, Ed.D by entering her name in the
Congressional Record, the official record of the proceedings and
debates of the United States Congress since 1873. Today I pay tribute
to Dr. Rebecca Mills for her service to the students at the University
of Nevada, Las Vegas, and would like to commend her for her dedication
and commitment to higher education.
Receiving her doctorate in secondary education, Rebecca attended the
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. After receiving her doctorate
degree, she joined the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1987 as an
assistant professor in the Department of Instructional and Curricular
Studies. She would later become associate professor and then a full
professor within the College of Education.
In 1998, she was appointed to the position of Senior Advisor to the
President of the University, serving for two years before being named
the Interim Vice President for Student Life in April 2001, where she
served until her retirement in 2008. In this role, Rebecca worked with
over 400 individuals to provide services and programs that support out-
of-classroom learning for UNLV's more than 27,000 students.
Rebecca has published and presented nationally on such topics as
organizational change, middle level education, teacher beliefs, and
teacher development. She has also been featured in the National Forum
of Teacher Education Journal and the National Forum of Applied
Educational Research Journal. She is a recipient of several teaching
awards including the Carnegie Foundation's Nevada Professor of the
Year. She is active in the National Association of the Student
Personnel Administrators (NASOA) serving Region V as the Public Policy
Coordinator. She also belongs to the Association of College Personnel
Administrators (ACPA) and has presented at several conferences.
Madam Speaker, I am proud to honor Rebecca Mills, Ed.D for her
accomplishments at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and applaud her
for her contributions and dedication to the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas. I wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors.
____________________
HONORING TAIWAN'S OUTGOING PRESIDENT CHEN SHUI-BIAN AND VICE-PRESIDENT
ANNETTE LU
______
HON. THOMAS G. TANCREDO
of colorado
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Taiwan's
outgoing President Chen Shui-Bian and Vice-President Annette Lu.
Chen Shui-Bian and Annette Lu became Taiwan's second elected
President and Vice-President in the year 2000. Perhaps more
importantly, however, their election signified the first peaceful
transfer of power from the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang--
which had imposed martial law and ruled Taiwan for over a half-century.
In many ways, President Chen and Vice-President Lu's rise to the
highest offices in the country is, itself, the story of Taiwan.
President Chen and Vice-President Lu's paths crossed for the first
time among difficult circumstances. Ms. Lu was facing sedition charges
for her work on the staff of Formosa Magazine, which had been critical
of the Kuomintang dictatorship. Chen Shui-Bian, a young lawyer at the
time, was a member of her defense team.
Ms. Lu was ultimately convicted and spent more than five years in
prison, but the sentence failed to break her will or extinguish her
passion for bringing democracy to Taiwan.
Mr. Chen lost the case, but he was won over by his clients' ideals.
The defendants and their lawyers subsequently became the core of the
democratic opposition in Taiwan. And Mr. Chen too, would spend time in
jail for his political beliefs.
But the democratic movement they helped to spark would ultimately
triumph. Martial law was lifted in 1987, and by 1996 then-President Lee
Teng-Hui had initiated democratic reforms that allowed for the direct
election of Taiwan's President and Vice-President.
After the lifting of martial law in Taiwan, Mr. Chen became a member
of the Taipei municipal council, and after the birth of multi-party
politics and the formation of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP),
he became the capital city's first popularly elected Mayor in 1994. And
in 2000, his election as President of Taiwan marked the first peaceful,
democratic transfer of power in the history of either Taiwan or China.
After her release from prison, Ms. Lu was elected to Taiwan's
legislature and later, Magistrate of Taoyuan County--the equivalent of
a Governor here in the United States. In 2000, she was elected as Vice-
President on the DPP ticket with President Chen.
In the span of two decades, Mr. Chen and Ms. Lu had gone from
political prisoners to political leaders. Ms. Lu's response to a TIME
Magazine reporter's question shortly before she and Mr. Chen were
inaugurated in 2000 perhaps summed up this amazing transformation best:
The reporter asked, ``Fifteen years ago you were sitting in a jail
cell as a political prisoner. When you take the oath of office, what
thoughts will be going through your head?''
She responded, ``What I'm proud of is that the same party, the KMT,
that suppressed me 20 years ago will be transferring power to me,
peacefully.'' -
President Chen and Vice-President Lu spearheaded efforts to amend
Taiwan's antiquated constitution to modernize Taiwan's fledgling
democracy. They also conducted Taiwan's first ever citizens
referendum--a milestone for democracy not just in Taiwan, but in all of
Asia. Taiwan's voters rewarded the two for their diligence and
commitment by re-electing them in 2004.
Under their leadership, Taiwan has deepened its democratic roots, and
has become an even brighter beacon of democracy than when they first
took office eight years ago. I hope that very soon, Madam Speaker, the
people on the Chinese mainland will see that light, and emulate in that
country what the Taiwanese have accomplished in their own.
Later this month, Mr. Ma Ying Jeou and Mr. Vincent Siew will be sworn
in as Taiwan's new President and Vice President--signifying yet another
peaceful transfer of power from one party to another in Taiwan.
So Madam Speaker, I rise to once again congratulate the people of
Taiwan, and to recognize President Chen and Vice-President Lu for their
contributions to democracy and human rights. I wish them both the best
of luck as they leave office.
____________________
HONORING ALESIA HAMILTON
______
HON. SAM GRAVES
of missouri
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. GRAVES. Madam Speaker, I proudly pause to recognize, Ms. Alesia
Hamilton, an exemplary individual and first grade teacher at Edison
Elementary in St. Joseph, Missouri.
In 2004, Ms. Hamilton, in accordance with her character of compassion
and service, invited Mr. Alferd Williams, 70, into her class of 25
students in order that he may finally learn to read. Her generous
nature and commitment to the task of working with Mr. Williams
demonstrates her willingness to go above and beyond what is required as
a public school teacher.
In accordance with my Resolution to recognize the roles and
contributions of America's teachers through National Teacher
Appreciation Week, I would like to take a moment to individually
recognize Ms. Hamilton as an educator selflessly committed to the
development of our nation's students.
Madam Speaker, I proudly ask you to join me in commending Alesia
Hamilton for her service to America's students and for her efforts put
forth in working with Mr. Williams. It is an honor to serve both of
these individuals in the United States Congress.
[[Page 7671]]
____________________
IN HONOR OF POLISH CONSTITUTION DAY
______
HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH
of ohio
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, I rise today in honor of the Polish
American Congress, Ohio Division, as they celebrate Polish Constitution
Day--a day where the Polish Community shares their rich culture with
the Greater Cleveland Community.
The first written European constitution, the Governmental Statute of
Poland, was instated on May 3, 1971. Poland's Constitution was the
result of nearly five centuries of struggle and perseverance by the
people of Poland to diminish the power of the King and to create facets
and institutions of government vital to the foundation of a
constitutional government. Formed in 1949, the Polish American Congress
is a national umbrella organization representing over ten million
Americans of Polish descent and origin, and serves as a unifying force
for both Polish Americans and Polish citizens living in America.
Cleveland's Polish American community is deeply rooted and prides
itself on their commitment to the values of family, faith, democracy,
hard work and fulfillment of the American dream.
The Polish American Congress strives to make Americans of Polish
heritage more successful and involved U.S. citizens by encouraging them
to assume the responsibilities of leadership. Since its foundation over
sixty years ago, the group has created programs to successfully
integrate people of Polish decent in the U.S. and enrich Cleveland's
social fabric. These programs include the Displaced Persons Program,
which allowed almost 150,000 Polish immigrants to enter the U.S. after
World War Two. The group also won American veterans benefits for Polish
Veterans of both World War One and World War Two.
The Polish American Congress has played a crucial role in the Polish
Community, and in its many years of support and service has been an
invaluable contribution to the City of Cleveland and this nation. This
year, the Greater Cleveland Community can celebrate Poland's rich
history and culture by joining Cleveland's Polish community in
attending events such as the Polonia Ball, the Grand Parade and the
Photographic Exhibition.
Madam Speaker and colleagues, please join me in honor and celebration
of the leaders and members of the Polish American Congress, as they
celebrate Polish Constitution Day and as they continue to promote and
share their heritage, history and culture with the Greater Cleveland
community.
____________________
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY
______
HON. SCOTT GARRETT
of new jersey
in the house of representatives
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, today, I join with citizens
around the world to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. On this day, we
honor the European Jews who retained their human dignity in the midst
of extreme suffering, and in many cases, offered passive resistance.
Some Jews opposed the Third Reich through participation in
underground forces. In Warsaw, many banded together to fight the Nazis
in the ghettos. Others used what meager means they had to preserve
their culture. The U.S. Holocaust Museum, located just a few blocks
from here, displays artwork and poetry created by Jews imprisoned in
concentration camps--evidences of the prisoners' courage and
resilience.
The genocide remains one of the darkest stains on the history of
humanity and a testament to the strength of the Jewish people. As both
a Member of Congress and a private citizen possessing a strong faith, I
vow to always remember and respect those who suffered such a tragic
fate.