Waiving points of order against the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 2754) making appropriations for energy and water development for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 444, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2754) making appropriations for energy and water development for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bill that has a conference agreement of $27.3 billion. This is a good bill. We worked very hard on it, and we have had a very tough conference; and I hope everybody will vote for the bill.

At this time I would like to make a few remarks concerning the committee staff on both sides. We worked together very diligently to prepare this bill and this conference report. I guess this is my second time to conference the bill, but my first time to be involved in the writing of the bill, which is a rather unusual circumstance.

During that period of time, and for the last number of years, our clerk has had different people being the chairman. And I do not know whether it is because I became the chairman that he is leaving or not. He has had a different chairman about the last five times, and so I said I was going to stay awhile, and then suddenly I heard he was going to retire. So I hope it is not because of the conference we have had that he is leaving, because he has done a great job. He has been 15 years here in this committee. He likes apparently the challenge of breaking in a new chairman, but I am not sure that he likes the continuation of that. But he will have to speak afterwards about that.

I really want to thank him because he has been a great help to me and a great help to the staff as we have worked on this bill. He was dubbed ``Silent Bob'' in one of the reports that was out, I think it was in one of what we call local political rags here around Washington. While most people might say he is silent, I can tell you when he is in the room and Silent Bob speaks, we all listen. He has done a great job for this committee. He has been a great resource to me and to the committee over these years.

So I want to thank him, and I hope he can go out and work on his golf game because he tells me his game is about as bad as mine, and that is really bad. So now he will have plenty of time to learn how to play golf better and also to probably earn a lot more money, as he can come back and lobby us about a lot of issues because he is a real authority, especially on the water part of this bill.

So, again, thanks to you, Bob, for being the clerk for all these years and for leading us during this period of time.

Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record a document detailing the specifics of this appropriation bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present to the House today the conference report on H.R. 2754, the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2004.

We had a challenging conference with the Senate this year, but we were able to resolve our differences and reach a fair compromise. Most importantly, I believe we did the right thing for the Nation in this conference report in a number of important areas, from rebuilding our water infrastructure, to dealing with the disposal of spent nuclear fuel, to advancing the frontiers of our scientific knowledge.

The total amount of funding included in the conference agreement is $27.3 billion. This represents an increase of $1.1 billion over the current fiscal year and approximately $380 million over the budget request.

Title I of this conference report provides funding for the Civil Works program of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and for the Corps' Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. The conference agreement provides the Corps with $4.6 billion, slightly below the current year but nearly $400 million over the inadequate budget request. The Administration does not seem to comprehend that underfunding the Corps of Engineers ultimately costs the country more in the long run, as projects that are strung out over multiple years always cost more than they would if constructed on an efficient schedule. I have already initiated a dialog with the Administration in an attempt to convince them of the need to increase funding to support the Civil Works program of the Corps of Engineers in future fiscal years.

In fiscal year 2004, we opted to focus our available resources on completing ongoing projects, and therefore limited the number of new starts in this conference agreement.

Funding for Title II of the bill, which includes the Central Utah Project Completion Account and the programs of the Bureau of Reclamation, is $986.5 million, $14 million above the amount appropriated last year and $64 million above the budget request. The Committee did not provide the $15 million requested by the Administration for the CALFED Bay-Delta program. The authorization for this program expired in fiscal year 2000 and it has not been reauthorized.

Total funding for Title III, the Department of Energy is $22 billion, $1.2 billion above fiscal year 2003 and $120 million below the budget request.

In many ways, I am most proud of our accomplishments in this part of the conference agreement. My top priority in the Energy and Water bill this year was to provide sufficient funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, and I believe we succeeded. This conference agreement provides a total of $580 million for Yucca Mountain, only $11 million below the request but an increase of $123 million compared to the current fiscal year. This project has been significantly underfunded in prior years, and we are finally starting to reverse that trend.

Mr. Speaker, it is essential that we keep the Department of Energy on schedule to submit the repository license application late next year and to begin repository operations in 2010. The Yucca Mountain repository is essential for both energy security and homeland security. We have provided the necessary funding in this conference agreement, and I have the commitment of the Secretary of Energy to move forward aggressively on the repository program during this coming fiscal year.

Another priority of mine, and of many other Members in this chamber, is the subject of advanced scientific computing. By a number of key measures of computing power, the United States is now in second place behind Japan. For the sake of our scientific leadership, of our national security, and for economic competitiveness, we cannot afford to stay in second place for very long. We have provided an additional $30 million for the Department of Energy to procure additional state- of-the-art computers in the near term and to begin an interagency effort to develop next-generation computer architectures.

Another area where there is significant Member interest in this conference agreement is the portion of DOE's budget that deals with several new nuclear weapons initiatives proposed by the Administration. I strongly believe that we need to take a hard look at our existing Cold War nuclear arsenal before we start down the path of designing new weapons and new weapons infrastructure. As President Bush said when he announced reductions to the nuclear stockpile on November 13, 2001, ``The United States and Russia have overcome the legacy of the Cold War.'' At that time, he pledged that the United States would reduce our stockpile to 1,700 to 2,200 operationally deployed warheads over the next ten years. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for the Department to Defense, and the Department of energy, to deliver a revised nuclear stockpile plan that reflects the President's commitment of two years ago. It is time for DOD and DOE to take a hard look at our nuclear weapon stockpile and on the infrastructure we are maintaining to support that stockpile.

Mr. Speaker, the funding provided in this conference agreement maintains our strong support for DOE's nonproliferation programs in Russia and other countries. This agreement also makes a key change in DOE's contracting culture, as we require the competition of five laboratory contracts that we awarded without competition back in the 1940s and have never been competed since. Most Members are shocked to learn we have contracts that have never been competed in the past half century. We are fixing that situation.

Funding for Title IV, Independent Agencies, is $229.3 million, an increase of $22.6 million from last year and $81.4 million above the budget request. We have funded the Appalachian Regional Commission at $66 million, $33 million above the request, in recognition of the strong interest in this chamber and in the Senate in the work of the

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), a member of the Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).

(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with the chairman at all. As a matter of fact, the chairman, I, and the ranking member tried when we passed this bill in the House to not put any authorizing language in this bill that was not approved by the chairman when it left here. In our discussions with the other body, they have a different procedure. We had certain things that we had to take the way the procedures works.

I would suggest that we do need to pass a water bill, and I think my ranking member agrees with me on that. We want to work with the gentleman from Alaska in every way we can. There are two large things that were approved over here that I think substantially hurt that, but they were requests from the Senate which I think the gentleman is aware of which we passed by the committee.

But again just generally I want to say, not only generally but specifically, I totally agree with the fact that we should pass a water bill as expeditiously as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), my partner in this. This is the first time we have done this bill together. He and his staff have been absolutely marvelous to work with. We have tried to expose to each other all of our problems. If we would have had more money, we could have helped more people. That is our goal, with the very delicate infrastructure that we have in this country; but we just did not have enough money to do that.

In closing, I would like once again to say that I appreciate the clerkship of Bob Schmidt and all of the staff, but especially Bob. In the time I have worked with him, he has been an invaluable resource. We are going to miss him a lot.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the conference report.

The previous question was ordered.

Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 8 minutes.

Madam Speaker, to the uninitiated, people might think that this is a motion that deals with the agriculture appropriations bill. But, in fact, what is happening today is that conferees are being appointed, ostensibly, to deal with the agriculture appropriations bill but, in fact, the agriculture appropriation will then become the vehicle into which all other appropriation bills that have not yet passed the Congress will be dumped, producing one of those glorious omnibus appropriation bills that the Congress deals with at the end of the session when it has not been able to get its work done. So Members can expect to see this conference come back containing not only the material that is appropriate to the agriculture bill, but if the majority has its way, they can expect that the conference report will also contain the State, Justice, and Commerce appropriation, the Labor, Health, and Human Services appropriation, perhaps the VA-HUD appropriation, the D.C. appropriation, and perhaps several others. On this side of the aisle, we do not believe that those bills should be considered together. We believe that each of them should stand on their own merits.

We have another complicating factor, because this legislation will be used by the majority to try and pave the way for passage of its ill- conceived and misbegotten Medicare, so-called Medicare Reform Act. Now, that bill started as an effort to provide a prescription drug benefit for our senior citizens under Medicare. Instead, what is being produced on that score is a very weak, badly-shredded, partial benefit that does not even begin until years down the road, and the enticement of that prescription drug bill or that prescription drug coverage, I should say, is

being used as an effort to blackmail Congress into essentially vitiating Medicare as we know it today. There are not many people on this side of the aisle who think that that is a good idea either.

Now, one of the provisions in the Medicare conference report that will shortly be before this body is a provision which tries to create the impression that senior citizens will be allowed to reimport drugs from Canada as part of the passage of that bill. But, in fact, the FDA has made quite clear that that provision will not work. So what we are going to be faced with is a ``let's pretend'' game. The Congress will pretend in the Medicare bill that it is about to pass that there is a meaningful ability for seniors to reimport drugs at a lower cost from Canada when, in fact, because that provision requires the approval of the very agencies that are opposed to it, no such reimportation will ever take place.

So this Congress, in essence, intends on the Medicare reform bill to practice consumer fraud on the House Floor. This bill is part of that scheme, because this bill presently contains a requirement, in the form of the Northup amendment, that drug reimportation, meaningful drug reimportation be allowed to take place. But the intention of the conferees, at least on the majority side, is to deep-six that provision in conference so that the bill will come back stripped of that, and they will pretend that they have taken care of the need in the Medicare bill but, in fact, the Medicare bill will not have taken care of it at all. It sounds complicated; it is meant to be. Because that is the way that the public is deceived into thinking that there will be real action on reimportation of drugs from Canada when, in fact, the majority has no intention whatsoever of allowing that to occur.

So, therefore, I am offering this motion which says, in effect, that on this bill, if we are going to have a drug reimportation proposal, and I have some questions about the advisability of some of those proposals, but what this motion says is that if we are going to have a drug reimportation provision, it at least ought to be a real one, and that is what we believe the Northup amendment is, in contrast to the phony ``let's pretend'' proposition which will shortly be coming at us in the so-called Medicare reform bill.

So our position is very simple: this language gives people who want to have drugs reimported from Canada, lower-cost prescription drugs, this gives people who want to see that happen an opportunity to vote to require it. This is an effort to keep a real drug reimportation provision before the Congress rather than simply allowing the institution to engage in this widespread charade that somehow there is a meaningful reimportation provision in the Medicare bill which is about to come at us.

A lot of things will happen in this House over the last week, in the closing week of the session, or what is expected to be the closing week of the session. A lot of things will happen which will not bring credit to this House. What I would hope is that we could avoid having a broad- scale consumer fraud effort take place on this House floor and, in my view, without the Northup amendment, any pretense that there is a drug reimportation provision that is being made available to seniors will be just that, a blatant effort to defraud the public. I would hope that the membership of this House would recognize that, and I would hope that the members of the general public who have been waiting for years for a meaningful provision on drugs would remember it as well.

So for those of my colleagues who are interested in having reimportation actually occur, this motion is in support of the only real proposition that will be before the Congress between now and adjournment, and we will see whether Members, in fact, put their votes where their mouths are. Any Member who votes for the Medicare reform bill and claims that they have provided a drug reimportation plan that will provide lower-cost drugs from Canada will be committing consumer fraud, and I want to say that beforehand so that Members are put on notice as to what that provision really is. If my colleagues want to be real, vote for this motion. If they do not, do not. It is as simple as that.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, how much time is remaining on both sides?

And who has the right to close?

Madam Speaker, I yield 8 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, how much time is remaining?

Could I ask the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla), is it his intention not to yield any time?

Madam Speaker, is it the intention of the gentleman not to yield any time?

Madam Speaker, we have the right to close, so I am wondering when the gentleman is intending to use his time.

Madam Speaker, is the gentleman going to be supporting or accepting the motion?

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kleczka).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

(Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this motion is an effort to prevent this Congress from giving to the drug companies two early Christmas presents.

Let me put it this way: this Congress is about to tell the drug companies that they will have carte blanche to do whatever they want on drug costs. And this Congress will accomplish that in two ways. The first step is by obliterating the efforts that we have tried to make to allow the Federal Government to negotiate with drug companies for a lower price for drugs by providing a drug benefit that goes to everyone under Medicare. The Medicare legislation, which this House will be asked to vote on this week, that Medicare legislation, at the instruction of the Republican leadership, has eliminated all possibility for the Federal Government to negotiate lower drug prices. That is gift number one to the drug companies.

That means the only remaining way that seniors can get some help on drug prices is by reimporting them from Canada. And the Medicare legislation which will shortly be before us will state that or will pretend that there is a Canadian drug reimport benefit but, in fact, has a benefit which the FDA itself says will not work. That means the only way left for Members to try to provide some degree of price protection for prescription drugs for seniors is to vote for this motion and to insist that this conference committee come back with the provision that was adopted in the original House legislation. That is why this motion is before us today. I would urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman Hobson and Ranking Member Visclosky for their hard work in producing an Energy and Water Appropriations bill that funds a number of important programs This legislation includes significant increases over the President's request for Basic Energy Research and for Energy Supply programs.

Sadly, this bill also marks a watershed in U.S. nuclear policy that will have dire consequences for us and for our children. Indeed, by funding research on adapting nuclear weapons for new uses against hard and deeply buried targets and funding work on new low yield nukes, Congress has given its stamp of approval to a persistent effort by this administration to put the United States back in the business of making nuclear weapons.

The funding of these two initiatives has been the culmination of the work of nuclear hawks in the administration who had produced a Nuclear Posture Review in December of 2001 that places a strong emphasis on the use of nuclear weapons for both offensive and defensive purposes and a misguided National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction in December 2002 that outlines new scenarios when the United States would consider using nuclear weapons.

The development not only marks a new chapter in American national security policy that directly invites a nuclear arms race with any power that wishes to compete, but also a shameful moment for Congress when elected officials have been too willing to embrace a new weapons program without challenging what have been very lightweight justifications.

Mr. Speaker, nuclear weapons will remain a crucial part of America's arsenal for the foreseeable future. They provide a hedge against potentially hostile nuclear powers and underpin security commitments to our allies. But today, the United States is addressing the threat of weapons of mass destruction from Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and a growing list of counties.

The Director of the CIA, George Tenet, warned last February that the ``desire for nuclear weapons is on the upsurge ``among small countries'' and that ``we have entered a new world of proliferation.''

Even Russia, our former Cold War rival whom we fought in a conflict that almost brought the world to the brink of annihilation, on noting the administration's current intent to pursue a new generation of nuclear weapons, has responded by making plans to strengthen its nuclear deterrent by modernizing delivery vehicles and keeping a number of heavy ballistic missiles previously slated for dismantlement.

Instead of working to build an equitable global regime that actively devalues nuclear weapons and creates incentives for their elimination, the administration would rather develop new battlefield nuclear capabilities, leading us into a world where nuclear weapons are seen as legitimate alternatives for all nations and the taboo on their use is severely eroded.

The administration's intent to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons of any size makes a mockery of the President's claim that the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) he signed with Russian President Putin marked the true end of the Cold War.

Indeed, if you combine the repeal of the ban on development of low yield nuclear weapons contained in the Defense Authorization Bill with the funding of these same weapons in this bill and the flexibility in the SORT which allows both Russia and the United States too keep all their weapons rather than dismantle them, we actually have the makings of a nuclear arms buildup in this country for the first time since the end of the Cold War.

While this bill cuts funds in half for the Robust Earth Penetrator and ties $4 million of the $6 million requested for advanced concepts to an important reporting requirement, there is no such thing as opening Pandora's box part way.

With this bill, the United States has crossed a major threshold and entered a new nuclear era.

By approving the administration's request for plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons, Congress has failed the American people by adopting policies that potentially make the United States less secure.

The justifications the administration offered for its nuclear agenda--the need to maintain the knowledge of our nuclear designers and the need to strengthen our nulcear deterrent by developing more usable nuclear weapons--were paper thin.

The first justification deserves little comment. The argument that Congress needs to create a jobs program for scientists to help hone their skills doesn't hold water.

Second, the proposition that nuclear weapons can somehow be engineered to be smarter and cause less collateral damage is simply false.

Nuclear weapons will never surgically destroy hardened targets.

They offer no guarantee of destroying chemical and biological agents without releasing them into the atmosphere.

Detonated in an urban area, even a 1-kiloton nuclear bomb with a yield much lower than the nuclear warheads under consideration for an RNEP would kill tens of thousands of civilians and hinder friendly troops.

Our warfighters do not have a military requirement for new nuclear weapons, and we have not exhausted research on conventional alternatives.

I am deeply concerned that by preaching the rhetoric of disarmament and nonproliferation, and on the other hand, developing a new generation of weapons of mass destruction, we are making the world a more dangerous place. Perhaps the most alarming thing this Congress has done is to trivialize nuclear weapons and their destructive power.

The prohibition on low yield weapons not only was necessary, it reinforced the notion that nuclear weapons should always be considered the most destructive weapons known to man.

By lifting the ban on research and funding their development in this bill, it is much easier to believe that they are just like any other usable weapons system, rather than a horrific weapon of last resort.

The American people are poorly served when the executive branch does not engage them on policies that may have catastrophic consequences for them in the future and when their elected officials are reluctant to ask the hard questions or thoroughly review the administration's national security propositions.

I am going to vote for this bill because it contains a number of important provisions for our economy.

It will be up to this Congress and subsequent Congresses however, to ensure that the administration's quest for new and more usable nuclear capabilities does not take us closer to the day when we decide to use them again.

We did not heed the protests of the current mayor of the city of Hiroshima who wrote the President on the anniversary of the bombing of his city this summer that ``this clear indication that the United States intends to develop small nuclear weapons raises the horrifying specter that nuclear weapons will actually be used'' and represents a ``frontal attack on the process of nuclear disarmament.''

If today we are unwilling to listen to those who have the only experience of the consequences of nuclear war, I hope that in the very near future we can at least start giving proper attention to this development in future hearings and debates.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and, more importantly, I thank him for offering this motion that will be our only opportunity to provide a statement by the Members of Congress as to the real issue of importation, since that opportunity will now be denied us in the prescription drug bill that we are anticipating coming to this floor.

As many of our constituents know, millions of Americans have waited for the opportunity to be able to take advantage of the lower prices of pharmaceuticals that are available in Canada and in other countries, but specifically with respect to Canada, as we tried to address in the bill. We now see that that door is going to be slammed shut. The reimportation is going to be granted on one hand, but the certification by the Secretary of Health and Human Services will effectively close, as it has in the past, the opportunity for American citizens who are ill, who need these drugs, who are financially troubled and financially incapable of paying for some of these drugs; as a result of that, they take the prescription that their doctor has given them, they reduce the amount of pills they take per day, they reduce the dosage that they take in trying to get through the month in order to pay for, in many instances, lifesaving drugs that they need by order of their physician. Many of our constituents, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, have now taken to forming buying clubs, of taking trips by bus, riding long hours on buses, to go to Mexico, to go to Canada to buy these drugs in Canadian pharmacies where the prices are much, much lower than what they are having to pay through their health care plan if they have one or, if they do not have one at all, what they would pay on the market.

It has been suggested that this is forced upon Americans because this is the only way that they can recapture the research and development dollars that continue to flow these pharmaceutical drugs to the marketplace. Some of that is true. But the question millions of American citizens are asking is why is it that only the American ill, the American sick, the American infirm are the ones who have to pay for this? They say, well, the other countries have price controls, the other countries negotiate. We asked for the authority to have the Secretary of Health and Human Services negotiate the prices of drugs for Medicare recipients as we do in the Veterans Administration, as Wal-Mart does, as Costco does, as all big purchasers do with pharmaceuticals, and we were denied that opportunity in the House.

So the only outlet, the only outlet for these citizens where their financial situation does not meet their medical situation is to go to Canada, and now that opportunity is being slammed in terms of this reimportation provision within the Medicare prescription drug benefit that will be coming to the floor.

As a result of that, without the negotiation power of the Secretary of Health and Human Services on the cost of drugs, without the reimportation provision, America's senior citizens, and I must say all American families, are put at the mercy of the pharmaceutical industry that will now have no incentive to lower the cost of drugs.

The prescription drug bill coming to the floor does some wonderful things for hospitals, wonderful things for doctors, some wonderful things for the

pharmaceutical companies, but it does nothing for the people who have to consume those pharmaceuticals. It makes no effort at trying to control the price of those pharmaceuticals, the cost of those to individuals.

And when we say that, we are saying simply have us negotiate as a large purchaser. That is what the business world does. People come to us and ask why do we not run the government more like a business. We try to run it like a business, and the businesses shut us down.

So now the question of reimportation will be shifted from a vote in this Congress to provide for reimportation, in the new bill it will now all go to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. And the entire political and financial clout of the pharmaceutical industry will be focused on the Secretary of Health and Human Services to never certify for the reimportation of pharmaceuticals to the United States, thereby depriving millions of Americans the opportunity to lower the cost of the drugs that are necessary to them on a monthly basis as prescribed by their doctors.

We are going to decide that those senior citizens, those people who are desperately in need of these pharmaceuticals are going to be the sole individuals that are somehow going to pay for the research and development of these drugs if, in fact, that argument is even accurate.

The fact of the matter is, the reason the prices are really high in the United States, as opposed to the other countries, is the power of the pharmaceutical industry to do just as they have done in the Medicare prescription drug bill and that is to take out all of the provisions that would have given a break to the sick and the elderly in this country, that would have given them an opportunity to lower the cost of the drugs that they have to buy every week and every month. That is why the prices are so high in the United States. It is not about research and development. It is about lobbying, it is about political contributions, it is about the force of this industry on this Congress and the House and the Senate and the Republican leadership to strip this bill of those provisions that were put in on a bipartisan basis, on a bipartisan basis in the House, on a bipartisan basis in the Senate, to strip them and remove them to the administration which has opposed these provisions from the very beginning.

So the fate of our senior citizens, the fate of the elderly in this country, the fate of the ill, the sick in this country, is now placed back into hands of the pharmaceutical companies, exactly where it was when we began this process. So the pharmaceutical companies, as this bill comes to the floor, get a great big victory and the consumers and the sick people in this country get nothing. They get a continuation of exorbitant costs of pharmaceuticals that are absolutely essential to their well-being and sustaining their health, maybe, in fact, in sustaining their life.

So this motion by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is the most important vote in terms of our ability to express the desire to have reimportation as part of our medical policy in this country and also to tell the conferees that they are bringing to us an imperfect product, and they should to back to the conference committee and make sure that America's elderly and America's sick are protected and have the opportunity to take advantage of the reimportation of those pharmaceuticals that they need.

We should recognize that the bill as reported by the conferees is not a bill that protects the senior citizens of this country, it is not a bill that provides for those who are ill in this country; it protects the pharmaceutical companies and they should have to go back to conference.

Mr. Speaker, this Member supports the FY2004 Energy and Water Development appropriations conference report and urges his colleagues to vote for it. This Member would like to commend the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson), the Chairman of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, and the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, for their exceptional work in bringing this conference report to the Floor.

This Member recognizes that extremely tight budgetary constraints made the job of the subcommittee much more difficult this year. Therefore, the subcommittee is to be commended for its diligence in creating such a fiscally responsible measure. In light of these budgetary pressures, this Member would like to express his appreciation to the subcommittee and formally recognize that the Energy and Water Development appropriations conference report for fiscal year 2004 includes funding for several water projects that are of great importance to Nebraska.

This Member greatly appreciates the $18 million funding level provided for the four-State Missouri River Mitigation Project. The funding is needed to restore fish and wildlife habitat lost due to the Federally sponsored channelization and stabilization projects of the Pick-Sloan era. The islands, wetlands, and flat floodplains needed to support the wildlife and waterfowl that once lived along the river are gone. An estimated 475,000 acres of habitat in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas have been lost. Today's fishery resources are estimated to be only one-fifth of those which existed in pre-development days.

In 1986, the Congress authorized over $50 million to fund the Missouri River Mitigation Project to restore fish and wildlife habitat lost due to the construction of structures to implement the Pick-Sloan plan.

Also, this measure provides additional funding for flood-related projects of tremendous importance to residents of Nebraska's First Congressional District. Mr. Speaker, flooding in 1993 temporarily closed Interstate 80 and seriously threatened the Lincoln municipal water system, which is located along the Platte River near Ashland, Nebraska. Therefore, this Member is extremely pleased that this conference report continues funding in the amount of $191,000 for the Lower Platte River and Tributaries Flood Control Study. This study should help formulate and develop feasible solutions which will alleviate future flood problems along the Lower Platte River and tributaries.

This Member recognizes that this bill includes $546,000 for the Sand Creek Watershed project in Saunders County, NE, and $318,000 for the Western Sarpy-Clear Creek project. This funding is to be used for pre- construction engineering and design work. This Member is also very pleased that the conference report includes construction funds for several Nebraska projects including $500,000 for Sand Creek, $500,000 for Western Sarpy-Clear Creek, $1.5 million for Antelope Creek,

and $1 million for Missouri National Recreational River.

Funding for the Sand Creek project is particularly urgent. There is a cooperative effort in Nebraska between the State highway agency and water development agencies which makes this project more cost-effective and feasible. Specifically, the dam for this small reservoir is to be a structure that the Nebraska Department of Roads would construct instead of a bridge as part of the new State expressway in the immediate vicinity of Wahoo, NE. Immediate funding would help ensure that this coordinated effort could continue.

This Member appreciates the report language which directs ``the Secretary of the Army to work closely with the local sponsor on the Sand Creek Environmental Restoration project, accepting advance funds offered by the sponsor, and agreeing to credits and reimbursements, as appropriate, for work done by the sponsor, including work performed in connection with the design and construction of seven upstream detention storage structures.''

The Western-Sarpy-Clear Creek Flood Reduction Project is designed to provide protection to the City of Lincoln's water supply, Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 6, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad/Amtrak line, telecommunication lines and other public facilities. The project completes and strengthens a levee system, most of which is already in place, to channel water and ice downstream away from the confluence of the Elkhorn and Platte Rivers, which is where major flood problems begin.

The purpose of the Antelope Creek project is to implement solutions to multi-faceted problems involving the flood control and drainage problems in Antelope Creek as well as existing transportation and safety problems all within the context of broad land-use issues. This Member continues to have a strong interest in the project since he was responsible for stimulating the City of Lincoln, the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to work jointly and cooperatively with the Army Corps of Engineers to identify an effective flood control system for downtown Lincoln. The Antelope Creek Flood Control Project is a large project and will have a number of phases of right-of-way acquisition and construction.

This Member appreciates the $500,000 included in the conference report for research in Nebraska on improved soybean oil for biodiesel fuel. Biodielsel use is growing rapidly, and an improved oil from soybeans developed for Nebraska growers can open new markets for soybean growers, while contributing to a cleaner environment and reducing our Nation's dependence on non-renewable energy sources. Replacing petroleum-based diesel fuel with biodiesel produced from soybean and other vegetable oils can help make the Nation more self- sufficient in energy and reduce air pollution, including emission of ``greenhouse gases'' contributing to global warming. Biodiesel holds significant potential for expanding markets for soybean growers and processors.

Finally, this Member also is pleased that the conference report includes $1 million in funds from the Drought Emergency Assistance Program for emergency assistance in Nebraska.

Again Mr. Speaker, this Member commends the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson), the Chairman of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, and the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), the ranking member of the subcommittee, for their support of projects which are important to Nebraska and the First Congressional District, as well as to the people living in the Missouri River Basin.