Tribal Labor Relations Restoration Act of 2005

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, let me say that I agree with the gentleman. It is a great program. I am very familiar with it. Unfortunately, it is in no man's land. The way the OMB budget came up, the President's budget, it put it in Labor, which is this bill. But there is no authorization, which means it is still in the Transportation Treasury, and there is no money either place. But I hope we can resolve this because it is just what it says, it builds youth. And we have had real success in my district with it, and I think it is something we would want to retain as a national program.

Well, I certainly hope so. And we will make every effort to find some way to fit it. It just happens that I am on both of the committees and will work with the Treasury, or Transportation Treasury. It is a worthwhile program. It ought to be funded and kept in place. I think the authorizers need to deal with it, too, to change the authorization to make it appropriate for Labor.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Amendment No. 24 Offered by Mr. Nadler

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This, like many programs, is a great idea, a great help, with over 100 grants last year, but we do have a really tight budget. I know when we get to conference with the other body, that this probably will be one that has support, but it all depends on what is available in funding. I am sympathetic to it, but I cannot guarantee anything. I think we would have to consider it.

It has a trade-off, that is the problem at this juncture in your amendment, and that is it would cause the layoff of many employees.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am responding to the question from the gentleman from New York, and that is, yes, we will certainly take this under consideration in the conference.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do not think the gentleman is a big fan of AmeriCorps, and the attempt really here is to reduce AmeriCorps more than to enhance the other program, because we have already added $100 million in new money in the teacher innovation program. It is a great program, and I am a great believer that teachers are the key to a good education, so I do not quarrel with the idea. I wish we had more money to do that.

But, on the other hand, AmeriCorps is a very important program, because it is made up of volunteers, a lot of times young people. They get a little stipend to help with their education, but they do not get paid. You have volunteers who are working in a community, on education, public safety, probably doing mentoring for students, which is extremely important.

I think that perhaps the goal that the gentleman is trying to achieve is desirable, but the target the gentleman has, which is AmeriCorps, would be a mistake given the fact that AmeriCorps has a very important role to play.

I like volunteers. The President is a big booster of volunteers. He has a goal of getting 75,000 AmeriCorps members as volunteers, and this would in part stifle the President's goal of getting these people.

So I would hope the gentleman would withdraw his amendment, or at least not go to a vote on it, because I think the innovative program is good, but AmeriCorps is good, and in limited budgets we need to keep that program going.

I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would just point out that the AmeriCorps members that would be reduced and perhaps eliminated serve 2 million children and youth in education-related programs, as I mentioned earlier, as mentors. They tutor children of prisoners and they train over 600,000 community volunteers. So it has a very powerful ripple effect throughout the community to have these AmeriCorps, most like young people, volunteers, seeking other people and training them to engage in service as mentors and so on.

Here you have two good programs, but, on balance, we have to at this juncture and with the limited resources we have, go with the AmeriCorps as opposed to adding more, in addition to the $100 million we already put in the program, for innovative education programs.

Mr. Chairman, I urge Members to oppose this amendment if it were to come to a vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume just to close this out.

Mr. Chairman, I think, again, these are both good programs. We had to make choices. In balancing the equities between the two, inasmuch as we put the $100 million in the innovative program and that is yet to be developed as to how it will be accomplished. But, we know with AmeriCorps that they work in the communities, do a lot of great work in getting people involved in mentoring and all kinds of other activities, and on balance I think we have to make a choice here. So, I would urge Members to stay with the numbers that are in the bill, to stay with what we put in for AmeriCorps and not approve this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. We are very aware of the gentleman's concerns. We have added a modest amount for the cancer institute. I have had many discussions with the director, Dr. von Eschenbach; and what we are trying to do, and he is doing, the gentleman would be interested in, he is trying to coordinate the various research centers.

There are many good institutions throughout the United States doing cancer research; and because of the importance and the cost, we want to avoid duplication among these various institutions. So I think this program of trying to coordinate to ensure that they are not reinventing the wheel at each one of these places, because it is expensive, hopefully out of that effort there will be a more coordinated effort to target a cure for cancer because this would certainly be a great breakthrough.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his interest.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the bill through page 98, line 18, be considered as read, printed in the Record and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. Chairman, we are not going to object, because I understand the correctness of this. I just would point out this has been carried in this particular bill since 1997 without being objected to. But, technically, the gentleman is correct; and, therefore, we concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

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

I would just point out to the Members that this is a very delicately balanced arrangement and I think the risk to all of this is that if we were to adopt this amendment, the benefits that now are available to retirees under PBGC could even be lost, plus a lot of jobs could be lost. And we are inserting ourselves or would be inserting ourselves into something that has been worked out among all the parties in a way that is in the best interest of both active employees and retirees, and this is not the appropriate forum to deal with this subject.

We have legislation moving through the Committee on Education and the Workforce dealing with pensions, and this would set a precedent, I think, for our body, the U.S. House, to interject itself in something that should be handled by the parties, and I think what they are trying to do is to work it out in a way that is in the best interest of both the active employees and retirees.

For this reason we object to the amendment, and this is not the proper forum to bring this kind of an amendment or to make a decision with the consequences that this would have.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time.

I say this to my colleagues who are watching us on C-SPAN: I think the debate illustrates the complexity of this issue. This is not the proper forum to adjudicate the problem of United or any other airline's pension plan or the problems that confront PBGC. I would hope that the Committee on Education and the Workforce that is dealing with the pension problems would address situations similar to this.

This amendment has far-reaching consequences. That is illustrated by the fact that we heard a number of extraneous matters injected into this, including the Schiavo case. I would urge Members to vote against this because it is simply not the right forum to try to deal with a very difficult problem, and it will not be the last problem. Other airlines are going to be faced with this; and I think the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is right, we need to take a look at this in the long term, but this is not the place to do it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman for bringing this program to the attention of the House.

One of my goals as chairman of the subcommittee is to help ensure that all children can read by the end of the third grade. I might add at this point that I think one of the reasons for the excessive amount of dropouts in high school is because there is a lack of ability to read. It is a disgrace in the United States that 32 percent on average nationwide do not finish high school.

Providing books for children to read in their own homes is obviously an integral part of this effort. That is what the Reading is Fundamental program does. Although the program does not receive a separate line item in our report, we have assumed funding for it within the totals already provided and will work with the other body in conference to ensure that it receives sufficient resources.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit funds in this bill from being used to operate the Medicaid Commission. I think we want to know what the facts are, because it is pretty much a consensus of opinion in this country that Medicaid and Medicare are going to be even greater costs than Social Security down the road. Therefore, this commission is tasked with producing recommendations to have a $10 billion saving in Medicaid.

We all say we want to keep the Federal budget under control. Well, one of the things you do is get information, and that is what this commission is all about. I do not think we want to doom it to failure before it even begins its work.

I would point out that our authorizing committees are struggling to develop reconciliation savings that include Medicaid, and they need the input of the commission. What we need to do is to look at it and see where we can save money, and I think it would be a poor management decision to preclude their ability, the ability of Health and Human Services and Secretary Leavitt, to address a very serious problem that affects all Americans significantly.

Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment if it comes to a vote.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just reiterate that I think it is vitally important that we have a commission to look at the whole Medicaid program, because it is getting extremely expensive. And we want to have the best possible information and ideas as the Congress prospectively tries to address the burgeoning costs of Medicaid, and, of course, as a corollary to that Medicare.

They are tasked with producing recommendations to achieve $10 billion in Medicaid savings. And I cannot believe the body would not want to at least have a commission to look at the problem that is obviously looming on the horizon.

Mr. Chairman, therefore, I would urge my colleagues to vote against this if it were to come to a vote. We are going to be confronted with some very difficult choices in the future, as we found out on the Social Security issue.

And I think the Medicaid-Medicare issue will be even more challenging in the years ahead. And so now is the time to get as much information, as many ideas as we possibly can, to address a very difficult problem.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller) for a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to engage in a colloquy with the gentlemen from Florida (Mr. Keller) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), both of the Education and the Workforce Committee. I, too, agree that Pell grants are a fundamental part of our efforts to ensure low- and middle-income students have the opportunity to pursue postsecondary education.

As the gentlemen have pointed out, Republicans have a proud history of providing funding for the Pell grant program. I am particularly pleased that in this bill, we will erase the $4.3 billion shortfall that had existed within the program, and put the program on a solid financial footing.

We are also increasing the Pell grant maximum award to $4,100, the highest level in the history of the program, and it is very evident from the chart there. And I would point out that if you take a look at that chart, where we became the majority party in 1994, and you can see the rapid ascendency of the Pell grant program.

As the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller) is aware, increasing the Pell grant maximum award, even incrementally, is costly. Each $100 we add is estimated to cost $420 million. As the number of low-income students pursuing college continues to increase, the demand for Pell grants will grow as well.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to have worked closely with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller) to provide the resources necessary to help low- and middle-income students gain access to college through Pell grants.

As for the conference negotiations, obviously I cannot guarantee any particular outcome. However, I will make a good-faith effort to increase the maximum Pell grant award, provided resources are available to do so.

I thank the gentleman for engaging in this colloquy, and I look forward to working with him in the future to continue to support this important program.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, maintaining my reservation of a point of order, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Reserving my point of order, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman makes the point that this is legislation; and, therefore, Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriations bill. Therefore, it violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states in pertinent part: ``An amendment to a general appropriations bill shall not be in order if it changes existing law.''

We have a point of order pending, Mr. Chairman.

No, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding the gentleman is going to withdraw this amendment; is that correct?

Mr. Chairman, in light of that, I do not oppose it.

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

This would prohibit CMS from spending any funds related to using Social Security numbers on a Medicare identification card. It would really interfere with the operation of the current system. This is a long-time use of Social Security numbers. It is an outgrowth of the claims process. I think it is important from the standpoint of avoiding fraud. The cost of converting the system for 43 million Medicare beneficiaries would be substantial, both in beneficiary education, system reprogramming and related costs. While CMS may well convert to some type of an electronic identification system over time, and I think that will happen, in the meantime to try to make a change at this point would be wrong.

This amendment would limit their ability to effectively deal with it. And, of course, they have got the new drug benefit to implement. I think it is just the wrong time to start tampering with a system that has been in place for a long time.

I would urge Members to vote against that if this amendment comes to a vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

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

I understand what the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is saying, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) will be a conferee, and it is something we probably need to discuss there. But in the meantime, there are 43 million people who are on Medicare. We add 200,000 every month, and I would like to get more information from CMS as to just what impact this would have in terms of cost and their ability to manage the system.

The key to this is that we want the system managed as effectively as possible, and all of us as Members hear from time to time from people who are not getting their Medicare claims taken care of or they are having problems with Medicare. So some system of keeping track of these and to identify them, we can imagine with 43 million people, it is not easy.

So I would hope the gentleman would withdraw his amendment and I would work with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) in conference to see if there is some way we can refine this language, and I would like to discuss it with the Medicare people, with CMS, to see what the impact would be or whether a workable system that would ensure privacy could be put in place.

For that reason I would oppose the amendment if there is a vote on it.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time.

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

I just want to discuss it. I do not think anyone has asked to claim time in opposition at this juncture.

As the Members know, the bill already has a provision restricting health programs from paying for impotence drugs for sex offenders. This amendment simply takes the provision a step further by prohibiting the payment for all beneficiaries.

The authorizing committee has been discussing it with the Member, and apparently there has been no resolution. So perhaps this is one that Members ought to make a judgment on. I think the issue is fairly clear as it has been framed by the sponsor. And if he were to ask for a vote, that would be an appropriate thing to do at this juncture.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, let me thank the gentleman from Ohio for striking the last word so you could raise this.

Let me simply say to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), I fully agree with him about the value of the program. The President's budget wanted to transfer it to this bill. The subcommittee did not pick up the money in this bill. In my view, it should have. But I would say that because it has not, there will be another opportunity next week to try to deal with this when the Teasury-Transportation bill comes to the floor.

It would be disgraceful if the Congress allowed this program to fall through the cracks because neither committee included the funding for it and if Congress simply played Alfonse and Gaston on us between the two subcommittees.

Mr. Chairman, I would not describe it as breaking the agreement. If the gentleman would be kind enough to let me explain what I think has happened here. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) both missed their opportunity to offer their amendments in regular order because the reading went fast and neither of them was on the floor. We had a unanimous consent agreement which was about to be propounded by the gentleman from Ohio.

When the gentleman from Illinois and the gentleman from New York discovered that they had missed their opportunity, the gentleman from Illinois asked for an opportunity to go back. At that point, I suggested that the unanimous consent agreement be rewritten to include your amendment and the gentleman's from New York. The committee majority preferred, and I can understand why, because it was time consuming, the committee preferred to simply rely on our ability to get unanimous consent to go back to consider yours and the gentleman from New York's amendment.

However, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) was not part of the arrangement. And since your amendment takes money out of a program in

his State, he felt required to object. So I do not think that anyone is ``breaking an agreement.''

This is what happens, number one, when Members are not on the floor when they need to be. Secondly, it is what happens when we do not include matters like that in the UC agreement. We were relying on an assumption that proved to be erroneous, and I am certain the gentleman from Ohio feels as badly about it as I do. But in my view, no one on the floor is breaking his word. This is just an unfortunate set of circumstances, and a Member has the right to protect his own State's interest if the opportunity presents itself.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, if I could have the attention of the gentleman from Ohio, I simply rise neither to speak for nor against this amendment, but simply to make an observation about it.

The situation that the gentleman from Ohio finds himself in on this issue is a very difficult one, because he is trying to balance between two legitimate claims on the Federal Treasury. We have seen, as was observed in the Washington Post article this morning, a parade of Members come down to the floor yesterday and today trying to wiggle out from the consequences of the budget resolution which was imposed on the entire House by the passage of that resolution.

Now, I do not like to be in that position. I have a little less sympathy for the gentleman from Ohio than I do for myself on this issue, because he voted for the budget resolution and I did not. But that being said, there is no right position on an amendment like this.

This issue simply demonstrates that when the money that you provide for education is inadequate, when it is inadequate to the needs of the Nation, then we are going to be eating each other's favorite programs, then you are going to have all kinds of interest groups in this country chewing on each other and each trying to get out from under at the expense of everybody else.

So I can actually understand why the gentleman opposes this amendment, because he needs some flexibility in conference to deal with some of the legitimate concerns that Members have. I love the program the gentleman from Georgia is trying to add money to. I had a son in the gifted and talented program. He was a National Merit scholar. Yet I would have a great deal of difficulty voting to add money for that program at the expense of programs that went to help less gifted and less advantaged children in this society.

So the amendment is half right and half wrong, and I hope, therefore, that the Members on the majority side and the minority side will understand why the gentleman from Ohio is so reluctantly against this amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for correcting me, I misheard. I happen to think that that is a tremendous program too. But the problem is all of these amendments, taken together, will limit the chairman's ability to provide any flexibility at all in conference to fix these problems. So I urge the gentleman to think about it. He might be surprised at which programs are going to be bitten if the gentleman does not have the flexibility that he needs.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment. We have heard a number of Members on the majority side of the aisle say we should not overturn a court decision.

Where were you on the Schiavo case when you brought the Congress back in order to stick your nose into the very painful end-of-life decisions that were made by a family in agony? You did not hesitate to try to overturn a court decision then. Get straight, fellows, come on.

This amendment is absolutely necessary if we are going to stop the dumping of pension obligations on the taxpayers of the United States. The taxpayers have enough trouble now getting their representatives to do real things to fix Social Security and now they are going to dump the responsibility for private pensions on the taxpayer as well. That is goofy and it is gutless. It is stupid. It is negligent. Outside of that, it is a terrific idea.

What I would say is this, and I hope the House remembers this when the Treasury bill is on the floor next week because I got added to that bill a requirement that the General Accounting Office do a study to determine whether or not we need to re-regulate the airlines and treat them as a necessary public utility providing service to every community in this country in order to save our pension system for airline employees. If we do not do that, if we do not do that, we can bet there will not be a single airline that has a private pension system by the end of the decade. There will be a race to the bottom in terms of costs, and the first people who are going to get run over in that race are going to be the workers who thought they had a private pension system.

This Congress needs to start talking about matters that affect the people back home rather than continuing to focus on matters that deal with the welfare of people inside the system and inside the Beltway in Washington. It is about time Congress quit paying attention to little details that have nothing to do with people's lives and start focusing on big problems like preservation of their private pensions. This is the only way that we can fire a shot across the do-nothing leadership of this Congress' bow and get some movement on this crucial pension issue.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, without this amendment, Uncle Sam is being Uncle Sucker.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, not because I am necessarily opposed, but because I might be if I understood this correctly. This is not something that we have had a lot of notice to discuss, and I must confess considerable disquiet at the idea that we should overturn a report of the Department of Education Inspector General with respect to the use of taxpayers' money.

As I understand it, the IG, and what I understand is on the basis of a 2-minute briefing, what I understand is that the Inspector General ruled that a number of these schools were, in fact, private and not public and also questioned the way that at least two of the schools had spent taxpayers' money.

Will the gentleman enlighten me with respect to the latter concern?

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Reclaiming my time, let me simply say, I would be willing to let this amendment go by and have it temporarily accepted by the House, provided that there is an understanding that the committee reserves the right to change its mind during the conference process if we learn that the public interest requires us to oppose it.

I do not want acceptance to be interpreted as the committee's willingness without examining this further to allow this to continue until the authorization bill is passed. That might be a good idea, but I think we ought to keep that as an open possibility rather than make it as a commitment.

Mr. Chairman, in that case, I somewhat dubiously will withdraw any objection to this amendment for the moment and hope that we can clarify it further as we go to conference.

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

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I would also say that I note in the letter in the final audit report that there is a sentence which says: Additionally, two of the charter schools that we audited did not expend Title I funds entirely in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

I do not know what the facts are with respect to that sentence, but I would simply say that I would not, in any way, want the acceptance of this amendment to be an indication that the Congress is carte blanche accepting the fact that funds ought to continue for those two schools, because it seems to me we have an obligation to make certain that, even if we are trying to deal with the temporary problem, we do not want an improper expenditure of taxpayers' money.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is misdirected, misguided, and stupid. If you are out in the woods with a rifle and you are hunting and you shoot at something, it would be nice if you are shooting at the right target.

This amendment does not do anything about illegal immigration. This amendment simply shoots the victim of illegal immigration by damaging the local hospitals. If we have illegal immigrants in this country, it is because of a failure of the Federal Government to effectively enforce its immigration laws. That is the problem.

The problem with the gentleman's amendment is that because he does not like the fact that the Federal Government has been ineffective with respect to immigration, he wants to take it out on the local hospitals. The local hospitals when someone shows up on their door, they have an obligation under the law to treat that patient. If the Federal Government does not pay for the treatment of that patient, then local taxpayers and local hospitals get stuck with the bill.

I have a similar situation in my district. I have a huge percentage of Hmong who have come to this country since the end of the Vietnam War. They came because of a decision of the Federal Government. Yet after they come to my district, after a very few months of Federal support, the financial cost for maintaining them, for educating them and for dealing with their medical needs winds up being assumed by the local government. That is not fair. Local governments do not make the foreign policy decisions that determine who our refugees are, and local governments do not have anything to do with what policies the Federal Government follows with respect to immigration.

I would suggest to the gentleman if you do not like Federal immigration policy, shoot the right messenger. This one shoots the wrong messenger. This amendment deserves to be roundly defeated, unless you believe that somebody should pay for somebody else's mistakes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez).

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I simply want to say that I rise in support of the gentleman's amendment. I would fully grant that I think there is a problem with the timetable associated with the amendment because of its immediacy, but the fact is that under the rules of the House, the gentleman had no choice but to draw the amendment that way in order for it to be eligible to be offered as an amendment.

The committee, if it so chooses, can easily fix this problem in conference. It can easily delay the effective date of the gentleman's amendment, and I think that is what we ought to do. I think the Social Security Administration, I think the Federal Government, I think the Pentagon, I think our banks and other financial institutions, have been incredibly reckless in protecting the privacy of American citizens. And we are increasingly going to see this as a huge problem, and we are also going to see identity theft mount exponentially.

I congratulate the gentleman for trying to do something about it. That is more than one can say for most of this Congress. And if there are technical problems, this committee, if it is worth its salt, can easily have them fixed before the bill is reported back in conference.

I urge support for the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I think the gentlewoman from Connecticut has indicated correctly that there are a number of technical problems with this amendment; yet I think I know that if there is a roll call, it will be passed overwhelmingly.

So what I would suggest in the interest of time, unless we want to stay here until midnight, is to simply accept a number of these amendments which we know have significant technical flaws, but which can be corrected in conference. Otherwise, we are going to have a lot of meaningless debates, and they will simply consume a lot of time, and we will wind up in the same place.

So what I would simply urge is that the committee accept the amendment, recognizing that it needs to be fixed substantially in conference, and deal with some of the very practical problems just laid out by the gentlewoman.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I join the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) to offer an amendment which will be the first time that will allow Congress, and perhaps the last time, to save the hard-earned retirement benefits of 120,000 workers and retirees at United Airlines.

Unfortunately, United Airlines has become a poster child for what is wrong with the private pension in this country. United filed for bankruptcy over 2 years ago and forced one wage concession after another from its workers, and then it unilaterally decided

that it would stop making the legally required pension contributions to its plans. It dragged on the negotiations with its employees and then, in the middle of the night, got up from those negotiations and dumped those retirement plans into the PBGC, causing those employees to lose somewhere from 30 to 60 percent of their retirement nest egg, of their retirement assets, of their future standard of living. That is what these people lost because United decided it would no longer negotiate to try to find a solution to this problem.

We see Delta Airlines that has frozen its pension plan, has asked to stretch out its payments so that it can protect the assets of its employees. United chose another idea: It would simply dump these liabilities onto the taxpayers of the United States of America. What United was not telling anybody was the truth. They were not telling them about their funding of their pension plans, about their liabilities of their pension plans. They simply decided they would terminate these plans in the PBGC.

So this is our chance. This is our chance to try to save the retirement nest eggs of the flight attendants, of the ramp workers, of the pilots, of all of the people that have given so much to have this airline continue to fly. We held an E-hearing. Over 2,000 people participated and told us what the real impact of these cuts would be on their families, on their children, on spouses with illnesses, on their parents. People who had worked 30, 35, 40 years for this company now find out that they have been terminated with no chance to go back.

This amendment says United Airlines has got to go back to the bargaining table and work out a provision to take care of this.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

(Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Just 18 days before United dumped its pension plans into the PBGC, the PBGC wrote and said that it would be in the best interest of the participants and the pension plan insurance program would be best served by the continuance of the flight attendants pension plan. United got up in the middle of the night, unilaterally threw this in.

What we are trying to tell United is go to the marketplace, go look for private solutions to this debt, get this debt covered, people do it all the time. Companies do it all the time, countries do it all the time, before they come to the taxpayer.

The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) is right. We may very well be looking at the opening night act of a new savings and loan scandal because we let these people come in, because they unilaterally decided termination was their first choice, going to the taxpayer was their first choice. It should be their last choice.

This amendment simply says go back to the bargaining table and exhaust all of their remedies before they come to the taxpayer.

Vote for the Miller-Schakowsky-Crowley amendment and take care of people who play by the rules.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

I would just like to make the point this does not turn over any court decisions. United has yet to file a business plan with the creditors committee. The fact of the matter is this is the only opportunity we are going to have to have them go back and negotiate and try to use private systems to solve this problem before they come to the taxpayers.

So this does not tamper with any court decisions or with the ability of United to go forward.

Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Chairman, I believe, under the traditions of the House, the Chair is the Speaker of the Whole House, and the Chair has an obligation to call the vote in the manner in which the vote was arrived at under the voice vote. It is not a question of whether the ayes or the noes will prevail on a recorded vote. The question is what happened on the floor at that particular time. In this instance, the yeas prevailed, and the Chair said the noes prevailed.

A number of years ago, we had very heated debates on this floor from the Republican side, from Mr. Walker, because they felt that they were insulted, especially when cameras came into this Chamber, that the Chair would call votes against their interests when they clearly prevailed on the voice. The Chair was admonished by the Speaker of the House, and we went back to what was the traditionally fair point of view.

So I would ask the Chair in the future, and future Chairs, to recognize that the Chair is calling the event that takes place in front of the Chair on the floor, not what the Chair perceives to be, and may be correctly so, the outcome of the vote later on in the day when the recorded vote is taken.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote on the Chair's ruling.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote on my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

We have had a number of debates already on this issue, on the issue of how much money is in this bill and whether it is enough money to fund all of the worthy programs that are out there. I suggest to my colleagues there is a place we can easily go and get at least $1 billion out of this bill and use it for the other programs that have been so eloquently advocated on this floor.

My amendment is simple and straightforward. It essentially prevents the implementation of section 1011 of the prescription drug bill passed by the Congress last year. As my colleagues may recall, this is the controversial provision of the law that provided $1 billion to cover the health care costs of illegal aliens.

It is also important to note that many of these States that are incurring these heavy costs and hospitals inside these States that are incurring these costs for treating illegal aliens, some of these States and some of these localities have helped create their own problems. In many cases, they have taken steps to make themselves magnets for illegal immigration. These health care costs are now burdened by permitting them to obtain driver's license, enroll in institutions, and luckily we stopped the driver's license part, enroll in institutions of higher education at in-State rates, and obtain public services through the use of consular ID cards. So a lot of the burden, as I say, they have brought upon themselves.

But nonetheless, we have gone the next step, then, and we have written regulations. We promulgated regulations and rules designed to implement section 1011, and they certainly fall short of establishing any meaningful accountability for the money, and more importantly, they do not require information sharing with homeland security.

As a matter of fact, on the final page of the payment determination form, it says patients should be aware that the Department of Homeland Security will not access or use information related to medical care to initiate enforcement of United States immigration laws unrelated to an ongoing terrorism or criminal investigation.

There is another part of these regulations that, frankly, I do not recall us debating it when the original amendment was proposed to the Medicare and prescription drug bill. That is one that now allows for not only people who are here illegally to be given services under this act, but people who are here with the 72-hour border crossing card.

In 2002, as I recall, as I have been told, there were already 5 million of these border crossing cards that had been issued. Five million people, mostly, in fact I think entirely, Mexican nationals, are now also eligible for reimbursement under this act, under this section, if they come across the border and choose to access the hospitals in those border States. Again, I do not recall that was part of the original debate, but that is part of the regulations that have been promulgated.

It is a sad irony that many of the Americans who are being asked to cough up to this $1 billion to fund health care costs for illegal aliens and for nationals of another country do not oftentimes have enough money to buy health insurance themselves.

This is a bad giveaway for taxpayers. It sends the wrong message to illegal aliens and Americans alike. It comes at far too high a price. It was wrong when it was passed. It is wrong today.

I hope my colleagues will support the amendment and help save the American taxpayers $1 billion.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in the EMTALA Act that requires States and localities to actually pass laws and regulations creating sanctuary States, creating sanctuary cities, becoming magnets for illegal aliens themselves. There is nothing that requires them to do that; yet they do that. Then they come here and say, We are having a problem. It is undeniably true that the problem exists. It is undeniably true that they are being overwhelmed by illegal immigration. It is also undeniably true that much of this is the fault of the Federal Government. I do not deny that for a moment. Nor do I deny that there may be some responsibility here for us to help pay for it.

But what I am saying is you pass a law like this and then you pass regulations that make it completely and totally irrelevant in a way to determine. They say, We don't want to ask. We cannot ask. We will not even ask you if you are here illegally. By the way, even if you aren't here illegally, if you are one of the 5 million people who live in Mexico, Mexican nationals who have a border crossing card, we'll treat you also.

Does that not encourage even more people to come to the United States and obtain these services, putting even more of a burden on these hospitals? Of course it does. These regulations are the problem. They are a significant problem that only exacerbates the underlying problem of massive costs being incurred by these hospitals in these States.

My hope is that if in fact we have to put money into a program like this, we do so only after we have passed meaningful and purposeful regulations, regulations that at least make these hospitals accountable.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I rise in strong opposition to this amendment, although I appreciate the concern of the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner).

First of all, we all know how important Medicare is to our seniors. Two hundred thousand new beneficiaries sign up every month, and anything that would disrupt their entry up into the system would be a terrible hardship to impose on our seniors. This amendment would actually interfere with the operation of the current system before a new system could be put in place, causing serious disruption in the Medicare program in the enrollment process for new beneficiaries.

That much said, CMS does share the gentleman's concern and is in the process of examining this issue. That

project is currently in the information-gathering phase, focusing on identifying all of the systems and entities and understanding the nature of the transactions that rely on a beneficiary identifier. There are many parties involved, with a variety of information claims processing and data exchange systems, and once they get this base research done, they can move forward on reforming the use of the Social Security system. I would tell the Members that in the new drug plan they do not use the Social Security identifier.

So I would urge the gentleman to maintain his interest in this subject to work with the committee as we oversee CMS's gathering of this material and evaluation of this problem; and the fact that they have managed to develop the drug plan without using a Social Security identifier indicates to us that they will take the time and invest the resources to change the base underlying system. But any radical change to that system will deny current beneficiaries coming into the system, month by month, their benefits.

Mr. Chairman, I do rise in strong opposition to this amendment. I certainly support denying impotence drugs to sex offenders, but to arbitrarily eliminate any class of drugs from a formulary, first of all, sets a terrible precedent and has the same potential for mischief as State mandates on health plans have demonstrated is possible. So the precedent being set here is one I object to.

But much more important, these drugs are often medically necessary. ED drugs help men who have lost sexual function caused by prostate cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, nerve damage, or cardiac conditions. It is important that these drugs are available when they are medically appropriate and there is no evidence of abuse for medically appropriate situations. They are not sold over the counter, they are prescription, must be prescribed by a physician, and they are so important in the cases where they are medically needed, that it would be, in my mind, a gross disservice to our seniors to automatically deny them access under our prescription drug program to these drugs.

First of all, where does this approval end? We do not say to seniors, we will not prescribe cholesterol medications for you or drugs for high blood pressure until you have changed your diet and exercised. Yet diet and exercise could eliminate the need for taxpayer-funded drugs in many categories, but we do not require that.

Secondly, we are very interested in, and increasingly interested in, early identification and prevention of serious illness, and sexual dysfunction is often an early sign of other very serious conditions. Those diseases may go untreated and undetected if there is no need to go to the doctor to talk about impotence, to evaluate the causes of impotence and, therefore, be entitled to the prescription. So it interferes with early diagnosis and prevention in certain diseases.

It is also extremely important to consider this issue in the context of mental health and the costs of mental health in our elderly population. Certainly, in a long-term marriage, a healthy sexual relationship is important to the strength of that relationship and important to the mental health of the people involved. Would we rather pay for depression treatment, or would we rather have that couple eligible for the kind of medications that the gentleman wishes to ban from the Medicare program?

So if we take a holistic approach to health and remember that mental health is important to reducing the cost of physical disease and that early identification and prevention of serious health problems is extremely important to lowering the long-term costs of Medicare and giving the program sustainability that is crucial to the well-being of our seniors, then my colleagues will vote against this amendment, even though I appreciate that, superficially and politically, voting for it would be a desirable vote.

I would urge my colleagues to oppose the availability of these drugs for sex offenders. I would urge my colleagues to oppose eliminating them from the Medicare formulas, because they are often medically appropriate and they are important to the long-term health and well- being and early identification of disease in our seniors.